Give up rooboottt again
March 4, 2011 9:38 PM   Subscribe

It might be weird that, in this year of all years, Gamasultra's favorite indie game of 2010 would be a flash game. That is kinda beyond the point, thou, as Give Up Robot 2 is really kinda perfect. (via RPS, previously)
posted by The Devil Tesla (29 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
Good list. I was hoping Hero Core would take it all, though. Man that game was great.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 9:52 PM on March 4, 2011 [1 favorite]


I hate to be this guy. I hate it.

But, seriously? It IS weird. Not a terribly original game mechanic; the levels are alright but not mind blowing. The worst part is that the physics were not tweaked, so the game play isn't even all that great.

I died a whole bunch of times because I didn't tap lightly enough and the grappling hook has an awkward angle. It was frustrating. It was alright as far as flash games go, but if we're comparing it against the other games on that list, it doesn't even have a very appealing aesthetic.

I know we can't always be blessed every year with a Braid, a World of Goo or a Machinarium but was Minecraft just too obvious or mainstream a choice?
posted by pmv at 10:21 PM on March 4, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yeah, I'm not too thrilled with it either. It's not consistent in its behavior, at least not in a way that I find intuitively obvious. And it's definitely in the 'cheerful sadism' school of gaming.

Cute, I suppose, but overall I'm pretty meh on it. If I still had the fast reflexes of my youth, I might like it better.
posted by Malor at 10:29 PM on March 4, 2011


Hooray for Matt Thorson! Although Give Up Robot 2 is far from his best game. That honor belongs to Moneyseize (previously).
posted by TypographicalError at 10:39 PM on March 4, 2011


A bit rigged, if not predictable, but even so I'm glad it shines further light onto indie gaming even if they're funded by megacorp entertainment companies. Anyway, can anyone recommend great Mac indie games?
posted by Arthur Phillips Jones Jr at 10:50 PM on March 4, 2011


The music makes me feel 20 years younger. Has anybody done a tracker in flash yet? that would be awesome.
posted by 3mendo at 11:11 PM on March 4, 2011


I know we can't always be blessed every year with a Braid, a World of Goo or a Machinarium but was Minecraft just too obvious or mainstream a choice?

If you go by when it stops development and is "launched", Minecraft's not there yet - it's still in beta. If you go by when it first became publicly playable, that was 2009. Either way, not really eligible for a "Best of 2010" list.
posted by kafziel at 11:19 PM on March 4, 2011


It might be weird that, in this year of all years, Gamasultra's favorite indie game of 2010 would be a flash game.

What's special about this year that makes a flash game an unlikely winner?
posted by meadowlark lime at 11:46 PM on March 4, 2011


What's special about this year that makes a flash game an unlikely winner?

I suspect because of this picture and the whole ruckus about the future of flash behind it.
posted by DreamerFi at 12:02 AM on March 5, 2011 [1 favorite]


I see. I hope it's not a thread derail, but WHY did Apple decide not to support Flash on its iDevices? That seems arbitrary.
posted by meadowlark lime at 12:15 AM on March 5, 2011


I'll memail you some parts of the discussion, it would be too big a derail here.
posted by DreamerFi at 12:22 AM on March 5, 2011


I really need to pick up Super Meat Boy.
posted by 2bucksplus at 1:06 AM on March 5, 2011


IANAGD, but I don't think people should equate "Steve Jobs' march against Flash and general developer trend towards HTML5" with "end of Flash being used for everything". There are already some decent JavaScript/Canvas game libraries out there by the looks of things, but it's taking time for developers to get up to speed with them - and for them to be able to get the speed and effects they (and gamers) want. (Check out Impact - it's lovely, but it's a bit syrupy slow on my laptop when things go nuts). Flash is going to be the main platform for non-download indie games (vs downloads/apps) for a good while yet, iPad or no iPad.

And, yeah, count me among the surprised that they chose Give Up Robot 2.
posted by sleepcrime at 2:04 AM on March 5, 2011


I knew I saw that 10 ten list before: previously.
posted by Ortho at 2:16 AM on March 5, 2011


If you go by when it stops development and is "launched", Minecraft's not there yet - it's still in beta. If you go by when it first became publicly playable, that was 2009. Either way, not really eligible for a "Best of 2010" list.

Except that it's actually on the list, at #8. Which makes the whole thing odder.
posted by penduluum at 3:38 AM on March 5, 2011


I liked it. Games are supposed to be hard, where it takes more than a couple of hours to win.
posted by gjc at 4:05 AM on March 5, 2011


I hope it's not a thread derail, but WHY did Apple decide not to support Flash on its iDevices? That seems arbitrary.

From wiki:

As of January 18, 2011, the App Store had over 9.9 billion downloads, which was announced via the company's "10 Billion App Countdown".
posted by nathancaswell at 4:54 AM on March 5, 2011


I liked it. Games are supposed to be hard, where it takes more than a couple of hours to win.

Surely they're supposed to be easy enough allow everyone to make enough progress to get hooked on the game so that when they reach the challenging bits, they're sufficiently addicted to care about getting to the next stage?

When you can't get past the first page or two, you're just gonna say, 'Fuck it. this sucks.'
posted by PeterMcDermott at 5:38 AM on March 5, 2011 [2 favorites]


I see. I hope it's not a thread derail, but WHY did Apple decide not to support Flash on its iDevices? That seems arbitrary.

Two reasons.

1) Flash makes you throw away every advantage of the device. Java and other VM technologies are the same. You code to Flash, which runs on the flash VM. So, that fancy H.264 decoder hardware? Never used, unless Adobe makes the Flash VM aware of it. The interface libraries that drive the look-and-feel of a system? Flash doesn't use them. And so forth

2) Flash is a miscoded power hungry piece of shite on the Mac platform. It isn't efficient in Windows by any means, but flash on the Mac means saturating a processor. Apple had offered repeatedly to help code the Flash VM so that it would run efficiently, but Adobe said "it ran, we're not wasting any more time on you."

The first is a very solid reason not to use flash. The second pissed Jobs off, and gave him the leverage to tell Flash to FOAD.

And, of course, once, again, Apple has made a fatal mistake and gone out of business again, because what idiot would buy an app when they could run a Flash app on the net for free?*

*Even I've made the Dvorak mistake. Mea maxima culpa.
posted by eriko at 7:52 AM on March 5, 2011 [3 favorites]


Surely they're supposed to be easy enough allow everyone to make enough progress to get hooked on the game so that when they reach the challenging bits, they're sufficiently addicted to care about getting to the next stage?

When you can't get past the first page or two, you're just gonna say, 'Fuck it. this sucks.'


I'd agree that this makes the game bad if the difficulty curve was kind crazy, but it really is smooth. It starts out hard and just gets harder. Trust me, it's likable if you are good enough at it :p
posted by The Devil Tesla at 7:57 AM on March 5, 2011 [1 favorite]


I wouild have liked the Robot 2 to have a pause function as it's music is loud and I was frustrated enough to have to step away for a bit. But no way I'm redoing all those levels - fun as it is when it works, I am Really Bad at games that require more than one button.

...yes, I know this proves I am not the intended demographic.
posted by maryr at 8:49 AM on March 5, 2011


That robot game is hard as shit.
posted by Ad hominem at 9:23 AM on March 5, 2011


I wouild have liked the Robot 2 to have a pause function as it's music is loud and I was frustrated enough to have to step away for a bit.

Maybe only Chrome acts like this, but if you click away from the Flash embed then does pause.
posted by tybeet at 11:10 AM on March 5, 2011


Ahhh, I never considered that Flash directly conflicts with the App Store's monopoly on games and similar devices for the iPhone. Follow the money.

Meanwhile, I really do like Give Up Robot 2. I'm in World 2 where it is really starting to get hard already. Not I Wanna Be The Guy hard, but hard.
posted by meadowlark lime at 11:28 AM on March 5, 2011


Err. Well apparently that method doesn't pause the music. But there IS a Continue feature so you can close the window or tab and return later at the same place.
posted by tybeet at 11:28 AM on March 5, 2011


The game is a lot less frustrating if you don't try to get every possible coin.

Then again, I haven't beaten it, so I don't know if there's anything gated behind getting coins.
posted by kafziel at 11:51 AM on March 5, 2011


Then again, I haven't beaten it, so I don't know if there's anything gated behind getting coins.

There isn't anything, coins only count for points. They had better, because there are bonus thingies where you obviously can't get them all :p.

I never considered that Flash directly conflicts with the App Store's monopoly on games and similar devices for the iPhone.

I've heard this argument, but yea, it is far from the only thing that is keeping Flash off of iOS devices. I've seen flash running on similar Android phones and, while for some pages it works fine, others it is crashy and slow. It's kinda pointless to add something to a device that will make it crash so often.

Adobe made a big error by trying to port the whole of flash over to phones. I think that, due to pressure from developers and users, if mobile flash really did work Apple would add it.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 1:30 PM on March 5, 2011


Okay, I finally beat it. I died 873 times. That's right. And the vast majority of those deaths were on the very last boss, which is the most sadistically evil and frustrating video game boss I've ever encountered. Worlds 1 and 2 were a lot of fun. World 3 was frustrating but still doable and enjoyable. The final boss was hard but reasonable. The reincarnation of the final boss made me want to cry and swear off video games forever.
posted by aesacus at 1:24 PM on March 10, 2011


Did it myself on normal mode - 556 deaths, 756 coins, 68:18.37 - final score 8,367,796. Enjoyed the game quite a bit - highly recommended
posted by rodmandirect at 11:34 AM on March 26, 2011


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