By Alec Meer on March 20th, 2012 at 9:36 am.
One is the grandaddy of the now ubiquitous auto-running genre, the other a divisive interactive poem about love and death. Together, Canabalt and Passage make Passagebalt: an auto-runner about love and death. The longer you run for, the older you get. Somewhere along the line, your true love waits. Can you protect them? Will you die alone or loved? What is love, anyway? Oh, shut up and press jump.
It’s an ingeniously natural fit, particularly in how the jumps become longer and harder as your wee pixel-chap becomes older, while the sudden horror of your following, AI-controlled partner failing to make a leap and plunging to their unseen death does offer a comedic pratfall touch that the resolutely po-faced Passage lacks.
Brillig stuff – play Sergio Cornaga’s free mash-up in your browser here, or download it from here.
Via FreeIndieGam.es, which I suspect I’m going to be saying at the bottom of a lot of posts from now on.
20/03/2012 at 09:39 c-Row says:
Somebody should release a game called “Shut Up And Press Jump”.
20/03/2012 at 09:52 The Hammer says:
Shall we start a sub-thread coining other possible game mash-ups, RPS?
Far Crysis!
Oh wait…
Grand Theft Amnesia!
20/03/2012 at 09:54 Gnarf says:
Marvel vs. Capcom vs. Passage?
More properer: Star Wario Galaxy
20/03/2012 at 10:03 The Hammer says:
Burnout: Passage.
20/03/2012 at 12:06 Bhazor says:
The vindaloo revenge
20/03/2012 at 10:04 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
Space Plants versus Zombies (SPLAZ)
20/03/2012 at 12:47 InternetBatman says:
I would play that. I would play that a lot.
20/03/2012 at 10:23 stahlwerk says:
Dance Dance Revolimbo
20/03/2012 at 13:32 phlebas says:
Was Graveyard Graveyard Revolution not enough for you?
20/03/2012 at 21:02 Xocrates says:
That’s brilliant
20/03/2012 at 10:44 SiHy_ says:
Thief 2: The Magicka Age
20/03/2012 at 11:06 MadTinkerer says:
VVVVVVessel, anyone?
20/03/2012 at 11:52 c-Row says:
Bioshank
20/03/2012 at 11:57 maktacular says:
Max Reset (or Hard Payne)
20/03/2012 at 12:09 Gnarf says:
And like, http://www.oldmanmurray.com/news/154.html
Also, I like the idea of doing like spin-off-mashups. Like taking Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball and mixing it with Super Smash Bros. So it’d have Dead or Alive characters, just like the volleyball game, but instead of volleyball it’d be about fighting, just like the Mario-things game.
20/03/2012 at 12:12 CMaster says:
So you’d be back to Dead or Alive then?
20/03/2012 at 12:35 Gnarf says:
Right, uh. How about this then? The characters you know and love from Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, only this game will be an FPS like XCOM!
20/03/2012 at 12:44 Lambchops says:
The Binding of E.Y.Esac
20/03/2012 at 14:15 Hodge says:
Quake III: Esther
20/03/2012 at 15:53 d32 says:
Deus Ex Machinarium
20/03/2012 at 19:09 geerad says:
Cannonbalt Fodder
20/03/2012 at 09:55 andytizer says:
You have to spelunky the braid.
20/03/2012 at 10:01 Tusque D'Ivoire says:
I’m trying to wrap my head around all the metaphorics hidden away in the game. But then, what to the windows mean? Do not aim too high? Life’s a bitch? What?!
20/03/2012 at 13:11 Gonefornow says:
Life is a succession of boring periods of time with exiting intervals in betwixt every 2-3 years.
You might bump into love, but if you aren’t very skillful at managing your life it’ll fade away in the turmoil of said extreme moments.
You’ll start balding in the early age of 30.
You’ll die at the age of 67 no matter what you do or accidentally even earlier.
Life needs more randomization.
And apparently the background music doesn’t replay.
20/03/2012 at 10:27 Spacewalk says:
I’m more of a fan of Andrew W.K.’s Passage myself.
20/03/2012 at 10:46 SiHy_ says:
4 o’ clock in the afternoon? I’d say that time fits quite well.
20/03/2012 at 10:50 Tunips says:
“When I use a word,” Alec said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”
20/03/2012 at 13:14 Berzee says:
This is THE BEST THING
I haven’t even played it yet and already I know this.
20/03/2012 at 17:05 cbirdsong says:
I enjoy how, like Passage, taking the wife makes the game more difficult. I also enjoy how, like Canabalt, discovering this difficulty leads to someone falling to their death.
20/03/2012 at 23:04 brulleks says:
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! A Reckless Disregard for Gravity Bone.
and
Gears of Cars.
20/03/2012 at 23:28 Alextended says:
Canabalt is most certainly not the grandaddy of that type of game…
20/03/2012 at 23:45 FRITZY says:
Most interesting, I think is that this is not a Flash game running in your browser… it’s and (HTML5 and friends).
21/03/2012 at 03:49 olpolpolpolp says:
http://lnk.co/ILTHN
this stuff is very cool
21/03/2012 at 08:25 Melf_Himself says:
“This account’s public links are generating too much traffic and have been temporarily disabled!”