For those of you who follow my Twitter feed, you may have noticed several posts that led you to believe I’d taken up running as a pass time. In reality I’ve been spending my time a playing Canabalt. Written in just five days, sporting glorious 8-bit black-and-white graphics, and thoroughly addictive–Canabalt is possibly the best one-button game you’ll play anywhere. The secret of the game success is a combination of a sense of speed and pure gameplay.
The idea behind the game is simple; you control a small humanoid who is running for his life. Your surrogate must leap from rooftop to rooftop in a (never ending?) attempt to escape the inevitable destruction of his world. The player is given just one control the ability to make your character leap a variety of heights, depending on how long you hold the button/tap the screen. As you go various obstacles get in your way: crates, cranes, bombs, and windows challenge your jumping abilities. As your character runs his speed increases making for a thrilling adrenaline rush–unless a judicious collision with a crate/cardboard box is employed.
Canabalt is available as an iPhone app or playable from various flash-based webpages. Possibly the best part of Canabalt — aside from the addictive gameplay — is that most games last anywhere from a few seconds to, at most, a couple minutes. Give it a try you won’t be disappointed.
PS: my best score so far is 7186 m. In the comments how you’re doing.
PPS: thanks (I think) to BKirz for turning me on to the game via his Twitter feed.