A Gaming Diary
Posts tagged canabalt
Canabalt (iPhone)
Oct 5th
This may be a very simple game.
It may only consist of one button press.
Games may only last anywhere from about five seconds to about two minutes.
It may not have any colour.
It may cost £1.79.
But if you let any of those put you off, you’re a big old wronghead.
Because, you see, it’s brilliant. It’s everything an action game should be, distilled down. It’s Mirror’s Edge pared down to the bone. It’s lean, taut and endlessly exciting and involving. It plays wonderfully without sound, but when you do turn the volume up the sound effects and music do a great job in enhancing the experience.
It is, as I said, brilliant.
And so am I as, as this score proves.
Shame about the Twitter bug that stopped me from changing accounts, but I’ve had an email from the developers saying they’ll be fixing it. Until then, I just won’t annoy people by tweeting my scores. Even the really good ones.
Canabalt (iPhone)
Oct 2nd
This one’s been stirring up some controversy today.
Not about the quality of the game – pretty much everyone agrees that it’s excellent – but about the price.
It’s £1.79.
Out of context, that doesn’t sound like much. It’s about the price of half a pint of beer for an exceptional game.
However, there are two important bits of context.
Firstly, you can play the game for free on the web HERE.
Secondly, it feels very much like the sort of game that would sit with Mr.AahH!, Run and Skybound at the 59p price point. You can get all three of those excellent games for the price of Canabalt on its own.
A lot of people, therefore, aren’t buying it, either because they think it’s simply not worth the cost, or because they believe the developer will be forced to slash the price before long.
So why did I buy it, then?
Simply because it’s an excellent game. It looks gorgeous, it sounds brilliant and it’s fast, addictive and exciting. I’ve played the web game a lot and now I can carry it around with me and play it wherever I am. And that’s worth £1.79 of my iTunes credit balance.
