FATHOM

Posted by Brandon "BMcC" McCartin Mon, 18 May 2009 21:53:00 GMT

Play FATHOM here, online, for free (whoa)


FATHOM, the latest collaboration of Adam “Atomic” Saltsman and Danny “B” Baranowsky, is your standard 2D action-platformer… or is it? The game throws some fun surprises your way, which I don’t want to spoil here, and is definite food for thought. I give it 33 thumbs up!

Like their hit Gravity Hook, FATHOM uses Adam’s Flixel framework for Flash-based 2D games to great effect. (The entire game took about 10 days to make.) Which is cool, because Flixel should see a public release “in a few weeks.” (!) There’s also a bunch of procedural trickery going on in the background which the player may not notice, but I think is worth mentioning in case Adam wants to talk about it more in the forum thread.

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Gravity Hook

Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 15 Sep 2008 14:09:00 GMT

Gravity Hook

Gravity Hook is a new Flash game from Adam (Atomic) Saltsman and Danny Baranowsky. It’s based on a game prototype by Niklas “Arne” Jansson where you climb higher and higher by grappling onto mines and swinging yourself up. The catch is that the mines arm themselves when you’re hooked onto them!

Like Thrustburst, Gravity Hook rewards risky behavior – releasing yourself from a mine when you’re right next to it results in a significantly larger boost. It feels good to catch the wind with a series of dangerous jumps. So good, in fact, that I’d like to see a visual or aural reward when I nail one… perhaps a little spark or a different sound effect?

Another thing I like about the game is how quickly you can retry after dying – your highest score is submitted only when you exit to the title screen. It may seem like a small thing, but for a score-based reflex game like Gravity Hook, every second between death and the next attempt can seem like a freaking eternity. For me, anyway.

Now if only I didn’t suck so hard at it…

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