The Rotation Changes When You Let Go

June 23, 2023 12:51 PM

Hold Space to Fly Straight An addictive, one-button game.

You probably have better things to do than to play this game. Why are you playing it? Minutes of your life gone, mashing the space bar like a hamster. There are no graphics to speak of, just crash after crash after crash. You didn't let go of the space bar, did you? You could get really good at this game if you played it enough, if you really tried, but at what cost? You could donate money to the developer, but that would only encourage them. This is the year 2023. And this is your flying car. Spiraling out of control, flying into walls. All you want to do is to reach that goal. But then there is another goal, and another.

A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.

posted by swift (15 comments total)

I am so bad at this, I feel like I'm driving drunk.
posted by box at 1:15 PM on June 23, 2023 [3 favorites]

I like this. I mean, I'm terrible at it, but it reminds me of a one-key one-liner game for the BBC, Asterisk Tracker
posted by scruss at 2:14 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

Amazing! A one button QWOP-like!
posted by aubilenon at 2:21 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

the trick is to hit the space bar rapidly to wiggle in a more or less straight line.
posted by roue at 2:28 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

... while keeping count of how many times you've mashed it so you know which way you'll turn when you stop and need to turn.
posted by Quasirandom at 2:44 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, this is frustrating, it took me several minutes to even make my brain start to get used to how it works. But it's clever.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:14 PM on June 23, 2023

So how does the thing decide which was to turn?
posted by doctornemo at 4:30 PM on June 23, 2023

After one minute of playing this game:

"I really hate this game."

After thirty minutes of playing this game:

"I really hate this game."
posted by AlSweigart at 4:32 PM on June 23, 2023 [9 favorites]

doctornemo: "So how does the thing decide which was to turn?"

It alternates. It rotates counterclockwise -- you hit space -- it rotates clockwise -- you hit space -- it rotates counterclockwise.
posted by Bugbread at 6:30 PM on June 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

think serpentine
posted by mhum at 10:55 PM on June 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

I beat it pretty quickly, I only had to do a couple attempts on some of the levels... My secret? I didn't know you could hold down space to fly straight, despite it literally being the name of the game. I just kept tapping space to change directions and fell into a groove quickly.
posted by waxpancake at 10:22 AM on June 24, 2023 [2 favorites]

Yeah this is infinitely easier if you ignore the directions and just... wiggle.
posted by egypturnash at 4:09 PM on June 24, 2023 [3 favorites]

Yeah took me forever to ignore the directions and just tap. Once I started to do that, the levels flew by.
posted by rouftop at 7:22 PM on June 24, 2023

As a former sperm, I don't know how I ever pulled this off.
posted by goHermGO at 11:46 AM on June 25, 2023 [3 favorites]

This feels like the anti-version of a game called "One More Line."
posted by xigxag at 6:39 PM on June 25, 2023