By Jim Rossignol on January 12th, 2010 at 5:31 pm.
It’s not easy being a swan, as this webgame, Endless Migration, is quick to point out. If it’s not the swooping jumbo jets that get you, it’s the Zeppellins. This is a kind of reverse shoot ‘em up, where you must gather a migrating flock and stay alive as storms, aircraft and other hazards batter your numbers. On my first run my flock survived a mere 23.4 seconds. Hmm.
45.3 seconds first go.
Best before I got bored 63.3 seconds, 67,317 points.
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I read the “how to play” instructions and got an achievement for that.
Which is exactly the sort of thing that makes me not want to play that game, Grinch that I am.
Edit: also, 74.6 on my first try.
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Er my first go was about 5 seconds. But i got the hang of it next time, pretty lovely game, one of those games that just has a nice “atmosphere”, even tho the actual mechanics arent particularly special. I like how you can get really far and almost die, left with only one bird left, but you still have the chance to build up your flock again.
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66.6 on my first try :P. Thirth time got 97.5, then my eyes started to hurt.
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That picture made me lol
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83.6 before a Jumbo wing topped the whole flock.
Quick quibble- the thing that kills more birds than anything else is…umm, windfarms.
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methinks it’s cats.
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It’s no Miami Shark…
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Heh, it’s like a mix of Nibbles/snake and a top down shoot-em-up. I like it!
Not much lasting appeal though.
EDIT: actually, a surprisingly long staying power through the achievment/upgrade system.
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Ooh lovely, 100%ed it. I know people moan about achievements and unlocks, but you can max out the whole thing in about 45 minutes, which is just perfect – takes it from silly little flash game you play for two minutes then forget about to something you stick with slightly longer. But there’s no stupid achievements that will take hours and hours to play. Like anyone would want to play a tiny flash game for 6 hours straight. Perfectly implemented. Have to admit, would probably have played Canabalt more if it had an achievement/upgrade mechanism…
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Yup, got everything in it as well. Nice little distraction this.
Record:
289.5 seconds
2044296 points
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Damn, I thought I was doing well.
Highscore: 939001 pts, 138.6 sec.
Scratch that, new best: 1071581, 223.9
I grabbed all the upgrades after 17 plays and I’ve got 24/29 achievements.
Fun little game. The achievements in it added to the gameplay in the same way as the loot-carrot in Diablo or Torchlight does.
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Played it at some point before christmas I think.
Really neat game, if a bit manic once you get beyond a minute or so.
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Huh, never knew helicopters hated birds so much.
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The bloody cessna’s are the real problem. Golden Goose seems to summon more of them than real birds. Still fun distraction
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Played this a week or so ago. Only thing is it’s one of them games where it gets to a point you’d have to try really hard to get a crap score once you’ve got some decent upgrades.
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23.5 on first go, but not entirely sure what cause wipeout.
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Not a bad little game. I managed to complete it within around 20 minutes, and being somewhat anal decided to get my 5 mil career points and 25 games on my final run. I did :D
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This is the winner for STRIDE game on Kongregate, that guy won 10k I think.
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That was pretty okay! Ended up getting mostly killed by Zeps, though, especially at first. They move so slowly you can hardly see them! Like the cows of the sky.
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Swans? Geese surely!
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That game has truly captured the sound of death
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Thing I hate about these kind of flash games (as in almost anything that uses the mouse) is it can’t lock your mouse to the window, so your mouse moves off and the game just stops taking input from it. You can’t fullscreen, or resize the window.
It’s bloody frustrating.
And why after 7 goes (156.2 secs), I’m done with it trying to move my mouse within a relatively small box (22inch 1080p) on my screen gets old fast.
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Got the Sky Captain (AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW) achievement.
I’m good.
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The few annoyances I have underline the fact that I liked it up to a point. Once you go beyond a certain point in time it just stops being fun. At that point it becomes too much mindless scramming, geese-running and such. It’d be nicer if enemies crash when they run into you or when they run into other enemies. Or if you add elevation (low, mid and high).
Also, trying to get the bourgeoisie achievement is waaaay too annoying. You only have a chance in the first 30 seconds or so. I get the feeling it could’ve been far less frustrating than it is.
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Third try, 129.5 seconds and I disagree zepplins arent the killer its not noticing a stealth bomber.
Poor,Poor geese.
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You just got the worst pop up ever showing up on this page.
It forces itself onto the page, has a hidden close button, and talks. Just felt the need to mention.
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@Bret
The RPS guys don’t have direct control over their advertising, but if you provide a screen shot and the links for the ad and the target they can try to get the more obnoxious ones pulled.
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Those Chegg ads need to go.
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Ah, thanks.
If I see the thing again, I’ll get the URL and do that.
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Firefox ftw? I almost never get popups anymore.
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@jackbnimble
No, I’ve seen the ones they’re talking about in Firefox. They’re not real “pop ups” in the sense of opening a new window, they’re those obnoxious “overlay half the page” things that FF doesn’t seem to block by default. Adblock will get rid of them, of course, but I try not to run that on RPS because the site needs the ad revenue.
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And it makes noises constantly and it’s popping up every damned page.
I thought this kind of thing was (very) slowly passing into extinction.
And now, tisn’t. It’s like having your face slammed into a bowl of boiling suet. Over and over.
Grabbed a picture, but thinking of what an RPS link, even in the comments, does to bandwidth, I’m wary.
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@Bret
Drop it in the forums, there’s a thread for the purpose:
http://rockpapershotgun.com/rpsforum/topic.php?id=60
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The worst are the airliners that come up from behind. Those wiped me out twice, then I panicked and veered my last goose right into another plane. 47s :(
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Very nearly survived for 3 minutes, keep on geting about 10 seconds away. Golden Goose is a massive points scorer, especially once you start getting 20000, and keep it going for 30 seconds or more. I thought it was just a bonus it added on at the end, but it adds it each time you pick one up. Then I got the million achievement.
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Hey this is a pretty nice fun game :)
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175.4 seconds
Never again.
…
Maybe just one more try?
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That was after upgrades btw.
I will be sky captain one day!
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Your post has inspired me to try one more time too. Just after I closed the page. All I need is sky captain. Need.
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Woohoo! 185.2 seconds on that try.
I died about 5 times from 170-180… flying over water =)
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First game: 16.1, xxx
Second game: 71.1, 148836
Quit
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I was happy with myself after getting all of the achievements, minus Consolation Prize and Bourgeoisie. But after trying Bourgeoisie for about 10 minutes, I decided that getting Bona-fide Millionaire, and reading the description as Hellish and “woah, that’s hard to do.” I felt better about myself.
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