By John Walker on July 18th, 2011 at 2:36 pm.
In January this year (yes, I actually checked before posting about something) Alec brought us news of Fotonica – a first-person free running game that was played via Unity in a browser. Some things have changed since then, and the game is now downloadable for Mac or Windows, playable in full screen, along with a ‘pay what you want’ offer if you’d like to give the developers, Santa Ragione, some actual real money.
You don’t have to pay what you want, either. You can just torrent either version for free, the .torrent file available directly from the site. And if you do pay, they ask that you make your payment over the £1.50/$2 mark, otherwise it’ll all get eaten up in Paypal fees.
It’s a remarkable game, and unlike anything else I’ve played. Definitely worth checking out. And then perhaps throwing money toward Santa Ragione. Here’s a trailer:
18/07/2011 at 14:39 Binman88 says:
Reminds me of the VR bits in that SNES Lawnmower Man game.
18/07/2011 at 14:42 franches says:
yeaaa
18/07/2011 at 15:01 Jubaal says:
It made me think of Cholo. Must be the wireframe graphics!
18/07/2011 at 15:45 The Sentinel says:
I was totally going to disagree with you there until I realised you were talking about the original. I’ve only ever seen the remake:
http://cholo.ovine.net/terminal/cholo-download.php
God bless Firebird. They published some awesome 3D games. Sigh.
18/07/2011 at 15:09 Anarki says:
They put the Mac link first before PC. Unforgivable.
18/07/2011 at 23:16 Tams80 says:
They should not worry. The punishment shall be shift and painless.
18/07/2011 at 15:09 The Sombrero Kid says:
This is definitely my kind of thing.
18/07/2011 at 15:12 stahlwerk says:
Looks neat, but can you talk to the geometry?
18/07/2011 at 15:13 brulleks says:
No, but you can tell it to the hand.
18/07/2011 at 16:00 Raiyan 1.0 says:
Has bullying Wulf turned into an RPS meme?
18/07/2011 at 16:29 stahlwerk says:
What? No! I’m sorry, I didn’t intend to get into a meme-mixup, it seems the old “but can we talk to the monsters?”-meme was contaminated by the “Wulf likes talking to inanimate objects, like Stop signs”-micro-meme, like the retro(spective)virus it is.
18/07/2011 at 16:53 Raiyan 1.0 says:
Ah, well, sorry, not very well-versed in memes…
18/07/2011 at 15:14 Khann says:
I’d rather pay nothing and not download it.
Hope this helps.
18/07/2011 at 15:25 Bhazor says:
Speaking of Mirror’s Edge.
EA announced a sequel to Mirror’s Edge using the BF3 engine.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2011/06/08/ea-2011-mirrors-edge-2-to-be-powered-by-frostbite-2/
So yay!
18/07/2011 at 15:45 Pantsman says:
It’s not cancelled after all!? My joy can only be expressed in the form of dance. Just a moment.
There.
18/07/2011 at 16:06 RagingLion says:
That is also music to my soul.
18/07/2011 at 16:32 stahlwerk says:
YES
18/07/2011 at 17:46 Xercies says:
YES! And then EH not more multiplayer, sometimes games are awesome being just singleplayer.
18/07/2011 at 19:43 something says:
Don’t go crazy just yet. That wasn’t an announcement of a sequel, it was some positive sounding responses to some hopeful questioning on the subject. If they’ve actually started work on such a thing, they’re keeping super schtum about it.
18/07/2011 at 15:30 poop says:
this game looks slick as hell but the gameplay itself looks like first person canabalt :/
18/07/2011 at 15:41 TillEulenspiegel says:
Canabalt without the random generation. Works quite well.
18/07/2011 at 15:45 Strangineer says:
This music is really really nice. Is it the from the game?
18/07/2011 at 15:52 Strangineer says:
Hm I want this soundtrack!
18/07/2011 at 15:46 Pantsman says:
Is it really free running if you only run in a straight line?
18/07/2011 at 15:55 Binman88 says:
It is free running if you don’t pay for it.
18/07/2011 at 16:10 Ricc says:
It’s more than a straight line. Each level consists of multiple layers, that you can choose to traverse however you want.
It’s a one-button game, but manages to be replayable without randomly generating levels. For example, as far as I can tell, you can’t pick up all the point-bonuses in a single run.
Just as last time, going into Super Saiyan mode is great in this game. :)
19/07/2011 at 20:49 PodX140 says:
Excuse the preface, but I just Haaave to :P
As the current holder of two world records in the game (done, I promise! :P), I have to say this game is unbelieveably true to free-running. Not only is there tremendous practise involved in managing tricky jumps without smashing into things, or knee-capping yourself (Making the jump, but reducing your speed heavily. Very hard to notice you did this unless you keep a very close eye on either your speed or the bottom of the screen for blurriness). And then there is a huge aspect of route planning, and exploration. It took me a week a minimum before I found the route I wanted to take, let alone executing it properly (and then adding on another 1000 points by just better timed jumps, more time on the ground, all sorts of little things). It really is a blast, and I enjoyed it just as much as mirrors edge, if not even more (Heresy, I know).
18/07/2011 at 15:57 Donjonson says:
Yes- you’re free to run anywhere as long as it’s straight forward and you can have any kind of graphics you want, as long as it’s wireframe.
18/07/2011 at 16:50 Dawlight says:
I would pay a fine number of money for a hybrid of this and Trackmania. Imagine the speed of trackmania, but with the feeling of free running.
18/07/2011 at 20:22 Dhatz says:
maybe you go suggest that to author
18/07/2011 at 18:36 Synesthesia says:
nice art direction!! reminds me of my cousins playing atari with that awkward one button controller rolling a wireframe tank.
18/07/2011 at 18:56 Carra says:
So if I pay $1 do they have to pay $1 to paypal?
18/07/2011 at 19:39 Cim says:
This game is absolutely spectacular with Nvidia 3D Vision glasses. If you have 3D glasses you have to try it!
19/07/2011 at 20:40 Dominic White says:
If I win the lottery and can afford a genuinely beefy PC with a 120hz monitor, 3D vision is something I’m looking forward to. Anything with fast movement would be enhanced significantly with a bit of depth perception.
18/07/2011 at 21:03 jameskond says:
Sure, I’ll torrent that! (to help them with their bandwidth ofc)
19/07/2011 at 05:30 PodX140 says:
I wonder, is the “demo” version that is on Kongregate (that used to be the full game) compatible with the scores from the full version? Because if so, I still own the world record score for Cairoli Pure-Energico. A feat that took quite the time to master, but damn was it pleasing to do.
So, is that score legitimate with this new full screen version?
19/07/2011 at 20:38 Vile Vile Vilde says:
How to say this nicely.
No.
19/07/2011 at 20:41 PodX140 says:
It’s OK, I just got the top rank back in this version too :D
I think I found the one game that I can actually manage to hold online scores in, everything else topples me in seconds.
19/07/2011 at 20:45 Vile Vile Vilde says:
How glorious for you.
While you’re Mr. Master, wouldja mind telling me, old squire, what the ‘?????’ mode is.
I can’t seem to find out.
20/07/2011 at 04:51 PodX140 says:
I did come across as an ass, didn’t I :/ I meant this is pretty much the only game that I can play competively, everything else kills me.
Well, I have no clue as to what the ????? mode is, currently I’ve only played the one map, trying to perfect it’s score to the ones place, otherwise my muscle memory goes haywire. Though, I did peek in endless and it seems to have been changed slightly, no more several tiers of platforms it seems.
20/07/2011 at 07:09 Vile Vile Vilde says:
No, not really – it’s better than me, I can’t hold any decent score in any Online game like that (except Peggle, kinda, but Peggle is Peggle.)
And alright. It’s just annoying because it looks like a gamemode, but I can’t click it. Curses.