Black turtleneck optional
April 5, 2012 12:13 PM   Subscribe

In most racing games you control the car. In this one you are the road (Gameplay Video).

You Are the Road was created for MolyJam, a game jam event inspired by the satirical Molydeux twitter feed, which is currently down, but you can read a little more about the event here and here. Full game list is here.
posted by codacorolla (44 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is a rad idea. Rad, I say!

(But they misspelled perturbed as peterbed.)
posted by lumpenprole at 12:18 PM on April 5, 2012


Friends 'Til The End: "You play as a small boy with a remote control helicoptor that is alive and your friend, then you discover a nuclear missle inside it"
posted by oulipian at 12:20 PM on April 5, 2012 [7 favorites]


This is how those flying games where up is down always feel to me. The only way I can make them mentally work at all is to pretend I'm controlling the sky.
posted by roll truck roll at 12:25 PM on April 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


I like how the green car taking air at :55 is feeling "relaxed".
posted by ceribus peribus at 12:29 PM on April 5, 2012


Yo 50! Big-ass ramp that car!
posted by kmz at 12:30 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


That was surprisingly awesome. :D I actually got kind of sad seeing the red car going from a "bold," "happy" lead to a "perturbed" and "anxious" jostling with the pack, only to be thrown by a sudden sharp bend and becoming "depressed" and "alone" as its left behind, eventually falling off the road and blowing up.
posted by Drexen at 12:30 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


(that was in my own playthrough, not the video)
posted by Drexen at 12:33 PM on April 5, 2012


Fun for a while. But then I lost sight of the cars. Am I doing it wrong?
posted by Splunge at 12:35 PM on April 5, 2012


Best part in my playthrough was when yellow started soaring to the lead, then off the front edge of the screen as I pulled the road into a sharp turn. On the side of my screen, I see a yellow HAPPY, followed by a boom, and then nothing.
posted by specialagentwebb at 12:37 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


There's something very postmodern and dystopian about the series of emotions flashing across the screen in large bold letters...
posted by schmod at 12:43 PM on April 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


Oh, man. Excellent.
posted by R. Mutt at 12:48 PM on April 5, 2012


So you're supposed to kill all the cars, right? This is the natural disposition of all roads
posted by Doleful Creature at 12:50 PM on April 5, 2012 [8 favorites]


Can I compile this Unity webplayer from source? If not, I'll probably pass, thanks. I'm using way too much closed source software already.
posted by jeffburdges at 12:58 PM on April 5, 2012


I'd love to see this as a co-op game, with the driver shouting at the road to produce a big jump in order to collect a floating pick-up, or to throw a hairpin to help lose pursuers.
posted by lucidium at 12:59 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


FYI, Unity is the same plugin used by NASA's Eyes On The Solar System. I bit the bullet and installed it.
posted by intermod at 1:06 PM on April 5, 2012


For those of you who need to maintain your nice warm fuzzy feeling, just tell yourself Hey! It's not Flash! over and over again
posted by tehloki at 1:14 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


Can I compile this Unity webplayer from source

It may be consumer games are not for you.
posted by Nelson at 1:14 PM on April 5, 2012 [18 favorites]


Heh, what a fun concept.
posted by kprincehouse at 1:19 PM on April 5, 2012


Hah, I got a lot of mileage ahem out of losing all but two cars, and watching them battle it out as a fairly sensible road. The car in front going through "relaxed", "complacent" and "smug" as the car in the distance went from "confused" and "depressed" to "tenacious" and "determined", eventually reaching "strong" as it came up behind the leader and "startled" it.
posted by lucidium at 1:20 PM on April 5, 2012 [3 favorites]


Requiring the Unity plugin makes the Linux penguin sad.
posted by koeselitz at 1:29 PM on April 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


So, just to be a bit contentious, what is it that you Unity-complainers have that will do embedded 3D like this without a plugin? And what are all these other plugins that have got you all plug-inned out? Flash, Java, and... ?
posted by Drexen at 1:44 PM on April 5, 2012


This is cool. What would be cooler was if the cars "learned" to not be crappy drivers, or you could play multiplayer, with actual human-controlled cars running down a human-controlled road.
posted by maxwelton at 1:51 PM on April 5, 2012 [4 favorites]


Can I compile this Unity webplayer from source? If not, I'll probably pass, thanks. I'm using way too much closed source software already.

There's always one in every thread.
posted by empath at 2:10 PM on April 5, 2012 [7 favorites]


Does anyone know if there's a version of Unity for BeOS (specifically the NetPositive browser)?
posted by griphus at 2:30 PM on April 5, 2012 [15 favorites]


And what are all these other plugins that have got you all plug-inned out? Flash, Java, and... ?

... and with all the trouble the two of them give my computer, I need another one like I need a hole in my head.
posted by Grimgrin at 2:36 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


There's a Unity to flash3d export option coming soon, so people hesitant to download unity3d will be able to join in on the fun.
posted by hellojed at 2:47 PM on April 5, 2012


An interesting ... twist.
posted by swift at 2:50 PM on April 5, 2012


All my cars died :(
posted by TwelveTwo at 2:51 PM on April 5, 2012


Cars? Where we're going, we won't need ... cars.
posted by gauche at 3:03 PM on April 5, 2012


Just watching the video made me sad, like watching puppies fall off a cliff.
I was all "Aww, the cars have feelings!", and then I was all, "Don't blow them up! Can't you see they have feelings?"
posted by Mister Moofoo at 3:11 PM on April 5, 2012


Drexen: “So, just to be a bit contentious, what is it that you Unity-complainers have that will do embedded 3D like this without a plugin? And what are all these other plugins that have got you all plug-inned out? Flash, Java, and... ?”

Unity does not work on Linux at all. That's my point. So it's not so much that I'm hesitant to download a plugin. It's that I can't.
posted by koeselitz at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2012 [1 favorite]


It was the product of a two day game jam. That means they didn't particularly worry about being cross platform, and instead worked with tools they knew and that worked. It's nice that the game works in the browser for many people, but hey, that's the breaks.

Whining about it sounds a little petty, no?
posted by aspo at 3:25 PM on April 5, 2012


Well, I mostly whine because I want somebody to implement Unity for Linux and other platforms. But I only meant to make the passing comment. No offense to the people who made the game, which I'm sure is pretty great (and which sounds awesome for a game jam game) nor to people here who like it. The subject can drop.
posted by koeselitz at 3:29 PM on April 5, 2012


Unity does not work on Linux at all. That's my point. So it's not so much that I'm hesitant to download a plugin. It's that I can't.

I will never understand why someone would install linux on their pc if they're remotely concerned with being able to play games on it.
posted by empath at 3:31 PM on April 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


I don't feel comfortable installing it as well on my Windows machine. If it's a browser plugin why am I downloading an exe file?
posted by I-baLL at 3:32 PM on April 5, 2012


Since most of the games are pretty simple (they'd have to be, done in only 48 hours), you can get most of the experience from the gameplay videos. I highly recommend just clicking on some of the submissions at random and watching. Some entries I particularly enjoyed: Parlance, Coo, Unbearable: OHTLTSWALTB.
posted by Sibrax at 3:40 PM on April 5, 2012 [2 favorites]


A lot of these are one joke... but it's one very good joke.
posted by JHarris at 4:57 PM on April 5, 2012


I helped organize the NYC location for MolyJam. What a great weekend. I'm glad everyone is enjoying the games so much!
posted by GameDesignerBen at 4:10 AM on April 6, 2012


I joined in at the NYC location and made this one (Windows only; playthrough video here).

My favorite from any location might be Pause Ahead.

And GameDesignerBen's team's was probably NYC's most charming.
posted by nobody at 5:04 AM on April 6, 2012


Every time I try to run a Unity-based anything, I get a "Cannot update Unity plugin" error. So, I download and manually install the latest Mac plugin, but I continue to get the error.

This doesn't give me a friendly attitude toward the thing.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:24 AM on April 6, 2012


The Molydeux twitter feed is back up. It's a pretty funny satire of Molyneux's grandiose pondering.
posted by codacorolla at 6:52 AM on April 6, 2012


I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Tiny cars on fire falling off the shoulder into the gray. I watched High beams glitter in the distance, emotions fading from Strong to Ashamed. All those moments will be lost in time... like tears in rain... Time to die.
posted by Debaser626 at 10:36 AM on April 6, 2012 [3 favorites]


This was completely delightful.
posted by nev at 8:04 AM on April 7, 2012


Pastebin of Molydeux Idea Compilation

See also: These automatic arms., a game by MeFi's own nobody [via projects]. Here's a clip of gameplay, in a playlist with other clips of Molyjam games.
posted by filthy light thief at 3:40 PM on April 19, 2012


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