This is another experiment with one-button controls. In designing and tuning this game, I found myself trying to strike a balance between “fun” and “thought-provoking”. In the end, it came down to a single variable I could adjust, and I went with a middle ground between game-as-game and game-as-artistic-statement. Hopefully it still works as both; as always, I’d love to hear your opinion in the comments. If there’s enough of a consensus one way or the other I may end up adjusting the aforementioned variable just to mess with you guys. 
This game is dedicated to the people who bother to read these posts. (Yes, you!) Go play Icarace!
Game 20: Icarace,
Omake.
I like it a lot! =D It’s pretty damn cute.
It took me a few tries to actually get how to play it, but that wasn’t tedious at all because of how short the game is. That reward the player gets when he finally gets it was a really nice and unexpected touch. =)
The Kobold version is amazing.
Agreed, it’s very cute. Once I “got it” my best score has been 820, but I can probably do better. The difference in blue in the sky might need to be a little bit more clear, cuz I almost didn’t notice it all.
Very fun, I always enjoy one button games.
My best on kobold edition was 13
Well, so far I’ve gotten 1173 (slightly lower on the kobold version). I think I liked it better when I thought 700 was impressive. There needs to be more benefit to upward movement, or at least a score based on distance and time; right now there’s no reason to go higher than the ground that I can see. Sure it fits with the mythos, but it’s less than ideal for a game.
Agreed with Nathan; I didn’t notice the color difference until he pointed it out.
WHY DO YOU HATE CHECKPOINTS? WHAT DID CHECKPOINTS EVER DO TO YOU?!
I think my monitor may be calibrated oddly – I toned down the shadows in playtesting because they seemed too strong to me. I can change them back.
Oddball: your upward impulse from flapping is lower the higher on the screen you are, so you can effectively go faster. Once you find out there’s scoring for time, improving your time rather than distance becomes the main challenge.
I don’t hate checkpoints, they just don’t fit with this particular game concept. Am I supposed to have spare wings or chunks of paraffin or something?
And it’s what I consider a “short-form” game; I go with fast restarts over checkpointed progress for such games.
CHANGELOG:
* Improved cloud shadow contrast
Took me a while to ‘get’ the game, and exactly as long to understand the name of it. Fun, but at this point I’m just flapping steadily right next to the water, in a sort of weird rhythm-game where you simply count each beat, and if you miss a single beat you lose. (Not that it syncs to the music or anything, but you get what I mean.)
That’ll get you the max distance, the real challenge is how low you can get your time-to-land.
For the record, my personal best is 77.
If you added a bit at the end where distance/time=score, that would help to clarify the purpose. As it is, the first instinct is to make the first number as big as possible.
That 77; is that time-to-land, or distance?
Time. Something else I didn’t make clear is that the timer stops once you’re over land, so you can keep going for distance without ruining your time score for that run.
Well, I guess I might as well post a top score.
853 distance in 27 seconds.
There isn’t some trick to landing that I’m missing, is there? One that doesn’t involve burning my wings off and bellyflopping?
If you make it as far as the land, you’ve landed successfully as far as the game’s concerned. And how the heck did you manage that time/distance, autofire or something to just go as absurdly fast as possible? I’m genuinely baffled. Also impressed, but baffled.
I smash the space bar as quickly as possible, then manage to barely level out over the water, wait for the speed to level out, then repeat two times. You should just barely clear land before the wings melt off, and fall heroically to your death.
Now 940 in 25.