Geartaker
Tonypa is one of my favorite casual game designers due to his ability to take simple ideas and turn them into addictive little game play experiences. He then delivers these marvelous games in simple packages, offering them up for the world to play free on his website.
The latest of his creations, just released this week, is Geartaker, an arcade action game of skill in which the player jumps from wheel to wheel by clicking the mouse precisely. He borrows the gameplay from another of his games, High Wheels, but strips it down to just jumping, plain and simple.
Jumps are performed with a quick click of the mouse button. Once clicked, the little player-character makes a straight-line jump until it hits another wheel, or misses and hits the edge of the play field thus ending the game.
Scoring points is the main objective in Geartaker, with long jumps being worth more than short hops. While trying to attain a high score, you will likely find yourself trying to maximize your points by taking the longest routes possible. It is then when you realize just how addictive this game really is.
The sound implementation for the game is quite unique with what sounds like a cross between midi-tones and a vocoder used as both soundtrack and sound effect. In-game events trigger different sounds that play, and it all winds up sounding somewhat rhythmic and musical, if but just a tad repetitive. (I'm nit-picking here.)
Overall, the game is simple and charming with addictive gameplay as usual from Tonypa.
Well this game is odd. Reminds alot of the game wheels of salvation just on a harder level. Since there you can time the jumps. It has good sound but i think hes better at shmups
it is better than wheel of salvation becuase your character is a STICKMEN !
I can't find the game, the most recent game I see is trilinks >.>
;_;
I emptied my cache and now it works o.O
so nevermind :D
fun little game
The link will not work for me at all. :(
I think he's been Jigged.
It's a Jay Is Games slashdotting :)
waaaaaah... it keeps on timing out for me.
Broken link?
OR he took the game down... or his site is down... yeah that's it. His site went bye bye.
Sorry folks. It was working early this morning when I was playing and reviewing the game. Hopefully the site will be back soon. =(
Very sorry about site being down, my webhost says they had hardware failure in server. Nothing I can do currently, lets hope it will be fixed soon.
Sorry to hear about the site, tonypa. Been playing your games for a while and I'm thoroughly looking forward to this new one. Keep up the awesome work!
I got to play it early this morning and it is awesome. Very addictive. I can't wait for it to get back online.
It seems to be working now. I played it, and it's quite an addictive game. Good job once again, Tonypa!
Awesome just as predicted!
I was going to post a complaint about there not being a sound-off-button, but there is one on the main menu :P
Nice idea for a game, not amazing.
First it was Tony's server, then later this afternoon Media Temple has an "incident" out in California that caused JIG to be down for a couple of hours.
It was so hot out there that one of their generators caught fire(!)
My apologies for anyone unable to play this friday afternoon. =(
This is quite probably one of my favorite games ever. It's similar to High Wheels, which I enjoy playing very much, but without the arcs that make my head hurt when I try to figure out where to put the thing. Just enough strategy to keep me interested, but not so much that I hate the game because I'm terrible.
The gist of my long, unwieldy post: I love this game. I love Tonypa for making it. If Tonypa ever gets lonely, I am available. =D
Er, you know what? Let's forget I said that.
Simple and hard, the best kind of game.
Very addictive game. Simple idea but a lot of fun. Good Job Mr Tonypa !
I really love the music too.
Yes finally, tonypa, love the new game :)
what a great game. i especially love the way the sound is done. good job tonypa.
Nobody uses sound as beautifully as Tonypa.
One of those addictingly frustrating, or frustratingly addictive, charmers. Just scraping into the top 10 was motivation enough to keeping slugging it out for a better score. 9894! :D
not quite addictive enough for me to forgive the one-life deal :\
dig the reactive music, however.
I'll agree that the one life deal slightly outweighed the characteristic addictiveness of Tony's games.
It's a Tonypa game though, which means it's awesome regardless.
He's definitely one of my favorite all-time authors (excluding the "one-hit wonders"), up there with the guys from Teagames and EyeMaze.
Lemme try this again. Typekey login timed out I guess.
Cool game. Nifty concept, but the soundtrack bugs the crap out of me. He's used the the arpeggiated accompaniment from the 1971 song "Popcorn" by Hot Butter except not in its entirety, so I start whistling the melody from Popcorn along with the game soundtrack, but then it repeats and I get sad. :(
Check it out:
Hot Butter - Popcorn
Nifty (and addicting) game though.
LOL! I remember that song, Dan! =D
Thanks for the memories.
A very nice game, but difficult... I keep going for the high score shots and missing them :p
My best is about 2400 on stage 4 or 5, I think.
Frustrating, but I'll likely come back to it.
Big thanks for everyone for the nice comments :)
The game has 15 different stage layouts, after finishing them all it starts all over again from stage 1 layout, but with faster rotation.
Disco Dan, you can find exact version of the song here
http://www.binaerpilot.info/
go to downloads and find there popcorn.
Another great site about the song with all different versions:
http://www.popcorn-song.com/
This game is obviously similar to Wheels of Salvation because they are both made by me. Well, Miniclip had very talented artist working on my High Wheels game so their version of course looks much better. But I think the gameplay in GearTaker is different, they feel similar mostly because not many games use rotating pieces. Well, I know one that has been pretty much copied from High Wheels (or probably MiniClip version):
http://www.kadokado.com/game/30/free_play?c=5c9362
I dont know who made that one since its french, but it looks good and has some improvements.
So can we give tonypa some kind of award yet?
I like the zany music.
I fixed some bugs, for example game was detecting jump clicks before stage was created, hanging on restart etc. Also shortened the time it takes to show ending screen.
This is so much fun! I play and I laugh! Music's so irritating that it makes me mad! I like this!
To me, this game is more about presentation than content. I love the stark graphics and the Casio-style soundtrack, but giving the player just one life makes for a frustrating play experience. At least it's quick.
Music is awesome
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