Browser Game Pick: Canabalt (Adam Atomic)
Canabalt is a simple one-button action game where you are in control of a well-dressed man who can't stop running, leaping from the top of one building to another as the city is being attacked by giant robots and futuristic-looking ships.
You can control the height of your jumps by holding down the button for a longer or shorter period. Running into obstacles will slow you down, and they could be dangerous to crash into if you need all the speed you can get to clear a long gap between buildings.
Canabalt was created by Adam Saltsman for Experimental Gameplay Project's August theme, 'Bare Minimum'. Music was written by Daniel Baranowsky. (source, screenshots, 3x mega version for 1080p and high resolution displays)
Comments
Nice graphics and simple gameplay...
Posted by: Nikica | August 31, 2009 5:17 PM
I liked that it unpretentious. Great soundtrack and fast paced action, just like the best games from the old days. My congratulations to the designer.
Posted by: dieubussy | August 31, 2009 5:37 PM
Nice design, nice format! Very simple and smooth!
Posted by: Chris | August 31, 2009 5:46 PM
Lovely.
Posted by: cactus | August 31, 2009 6:03 PM
Great game, lovely style.
Wish it showed how fast you were going when you a wall though ;)
Posted by: Baltirow | August 31, 2009 6:10 PM
unpretentious? ha, thats a pretty strange statement. Anyways, this game is awesome. Congrats adam and danny B. The mood was great and the music was awesome. I only wished I could learn more about this world that im running through. I really loved the widescreen feel as well.
Posted by: Caliber9 | August 31, 2009 6:13 PM
You guys just amaze me... You've done it again. Simple concept that keeps you on your toes + beautiful visual style + good sounds and music = yes.
Keep up the great work!
Posted by: KniteBlargh | August 31, 2009 7:16 PM
Very cool.
Posted by: mrpeach32 | August 31, 2009 7:50 PM
3120!
Posted by: Bennett | August 31, 2009 8:17 PM
No, 4328!
Posted by: Bennett | August 31, 2009 8:24 PM
Awesome game!!
Posted by: gillaxian | August 31, 2009 8:35 PM
Nice, reminds me of Atomic Runner. Too bad it can't be VSynced for max smoothness, though (can a flash do that?). Maybe motion blur would improve this, though.
Posted by: Anonymous | August 31, 2009 8:42 PM
Btw, white & dressed like that, I guess it's Michael Jackson. But then why doesn't he moonrun?
Posted by: Anonymous | August 31, 2009 9:00 PM
My only complaint is that the sound for jumping through a window seems too... calm. I want violent shattering. Other than that it's all awesome. Gonna play this again tomorrow.
Posted by: Blueberry_pie | August 31, 2009 9:18 PM
Only 2630 on 2nd try. Its hard if you get really fast you have to think do I jump on or over that building? : )
Posted by: Bleagle | August 31, 2009 9:56 PM
This is great guys. The rare random events show sooo much <3
Posted by: Farbs | August 31, 2009 11:00 PM
4824.
Awesome atmosphere, and the gameplay's super-addictive.
I kind of wish the levels weren't procedurally generated, though, as once you get going fast enough you end up just jumping blind, hoping the next building doesn't happen to be a window. I think it'd be more fun if you could actually memorize the layout.
...Still an amazing game, though.
Posted by: Thew | August 31, 2009 11:06 PM
Great game. I'll just paste the comments I made on Retro Remakes instead of writing the same again.
=======================
1715 is my score so far but I'm sure I can do much better. This is REALLY addictive.
I love how the level is randomized for each game so you never know what happens.
So simple, yet so effective. Thumbs up!
PS. Damn, I thought I could download the SWF file, and I could, it just won't allow to be run locally. That's a shame because I'm a bit of a slob with my bookmarks, so instead of coming back to this game once in a while because of a local copy, I'll forget about it and never even think about it again after a day or two. Too bad.
Posted by: Sokurah | August 31, 2009 11:15 PM
@Thew - you should try to deliberately hit a crate once in a while.
Posted by: Bennett | August 31, 2009 11:18 PM
over about 6000, great game but you got to hit crates every now and then to slow yourself down or else it become impossible.
Posted by: Z | September 1, 2009 12:11 AM
This game is amazing. Everything about it is so well done, and when you get to be pretty fast there's such a rush.
Posted by: Loki | September 1, 2009 12:28 AM
The birds made me happy for the next hour.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2009 1:29 AM
Hey guys, if you have a big monitor (or TV) I made a MEGA build:
http://adamatomic.com/canabalt/mega/
Enjoy!
Posted by: Adam Atomic | September 1, 2009 3:08 AM
You're my hero for doing that Adam. Looks awesome, and finally a flash game, and a damn good flash game, that takes up almost the whole width of my monitor.
Posted by: keeblur | September 1, 2009 3:35 AM
Mr. Saltsman brings the funtimes in flixel format.
Posted by: capy_nathan | September 1, 2009 3:58 AM
...love. The word missing from the end of my comment was love.
Posted by: Farbs | September 1, 2009 4:06 AM
superb game is all i can say. greetings from germany.
Posted by: becks | September 1, 2009 4:39 AM
yo dis game is not as great as everyone says it is
(it's better)
Posted by: Anonymous | September 1, 2009 5:51 AM
Michael Jackson, awesome
Posted by: Yuri | September 1, 2009 6:33 AM
this game is pretty awesome. but i die on those glass walls that are level with or slightly lower than the height from which you jumped EVERY TIME. kind of lame the challenge has to end with that.
Posted by: Anonymous | September 1, 2009 8:47 AM
Great game. But I want some kind of the end, except death of the hero. ^_^ My highscore 5029 is for now.
Posted by: drugon | September 1, 2009 11:04 AM
Tim, I think you meant to type 1920x1200 at the end of your description. 1920x1280 isn't a valid display resolution as far as I'm aware :)
Posted by: Blueberry_pie | September 1, 2009 11:05 AM
Great game, nice work Adam.
Posted by: Firesword | September 1, 2009 11:49 AM
wow, the atmosphere in this game is amazing. I managed to get 7152.
Posted by: Aquanoctis | September 1, 2009 12:23 PM
5632 :D
But I swear I'm getting RSI from this game...
Almost as addictive as gravity hook :P
Posted by: Jesse Gibbs | September 1, 2009 12:32 PM
It's strange to see how a high-score based challenge still encourages people to keep playing videogames. It seems like the old competitive spirit from the arcade days is still intact, afterall.
Three cheers for Adam.
Posted by: Bruno de Figueiredo (dieubussy) | September 1, 2009 4:14 PM
In the video a flying saucer appears at around 5000, I wonder if there's more background stuff that appears as you keep going
Posted by: Anonymous | September 1, 2009 7:44 PM
I think my time is pretty good...
http://www.somesingawful.com/grawl/screenshots/upload/Canabalt2.jpg
Posted by: Grawl | September 1, 2009 8:56 PM
I take that back.
I think my time is pretty much awesome.
http://www.somesingawful.com/grawl/screenshots/upload/canabalt4.jpg
Posted by: Grawl | September 1, 2009 10:47 PM
6323. Awesome game.
Posted by: TheGunheart | September 2, 2009 9:34 PM
11472 ^^ no kidding
Posted by: becks | September 3, 2009 4:23 AM
There's really no point playing the game once you've figured out how to smash it home.
17376m, could have gone longer, but started getting bored.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v151/Demruth/CanabaltHighScoreScreens.jpg
Posted by: Demruth | September 5, 2009 11:56 AM
argh the frustration, I had passed the 5000 already, when a building crumbled and I died (I suppose I wasn't running fast enough), but as I kept jumping it restarted the game and I couldn't see my score, which apparently isn't logged as local hi-score if you restart(?)
Posted by: Anonymous | September 8, 2009 12:34 PM
Weird how much gameplay you can get with only one button.
Also, 21282m :P
Posted by: Friskus | September 9, 2009 5:44 PM