They say that if at first you don't succeed, then skydiving probably isn't for you. And we all laugh at these morbid jokes, because a lot of us have never actually gone skydiving before. But if you ask any professional skydiver, they'll tell you all about the true horror of skydiving… colored walls, floating in midair.
Air Drop is a mouse-avoider game from Finefin, the creator of Dotville. As most skydivers know, your goal is to get from Point A (umpteen thousand feet up) to Point B (the ground) relatively unscathed. However, due to either global warming, old refrigerators leaking chlorofluorocarbons, or the rising cost of airplane flights, a series of walls and tunnels has formed in midair, and running into them would likely be painful.
As you navigate the walls by guiding your skydiver with the mouse and collect coins for extra points, you'll notice that you have the ability to control the speed at which you fall. If you move your cursor towards the top, your descent will slow down, while moving your cursor back toward the bottom will speed you up. You'll get more points for a faster fall, and be less likely to get caught up at the top of the screen waiting for a wall to move for you. (Oh, I forgot to mention… some walls move. We'll just blame that on the wind.) Use strategy to zoom ahead where you can, quick maneuvering to navigate around the walls, and avoid getting hurt to rack up a high score!
Analysis: The cheery pixel-art and energizing music make this a fun game to play, and the variable falling speed gives you a bit of control over how difficult you make the game for yourself. The major drawback is that there are only eight levels and the final landing to this game, which (pun unintended) fly by rather quickly. On the other hand, it's highly unlikely that you made it from Point A to Point B unscathed (and the analysis of each level at the end is proof), so you know your finger is itching to click the "Jump!" button again. Hey, you know what? If at first you don't succeed, try skydiving again!
I usually avoid mouse-avoidance games, but this one was really quite fun, and just the right length for a coffee break. I got 127,354 points on my first attempt.
I liked the smooth acceleration when changing speed and found it much easier to control than other similar games. However, sometimes the mouse pointer and the skydiver were not quite in the same place, which was a little confusing. The skydiver being able to move upwards seems a bit contrary to the game mechanic!
This is a fun little game!
I'm usually not much for mouse avoiders either, but there are a few that are very well done, so they make me want to play them. I think this is an original take on a mouse avoider game, and probably the best one I've seen so far.
Cute pixel graphics, nice fitting music, and the fact that I found this easy enough to get the 13th place on my very first try doesn't hurt either. ^^
Finally a game where I have a chance of going for 1st place.
I am the only one who couldn't resist intentionally hitting the way for extended periods of time?
>.>
[Fixed your angle bracket smileys. Please use < and > instead of typing just the angle brackets, because in HTML they have special meaning and can mess up the page. Please use Preview to be sure your comment appears as you expect. Thank you! -Jay]
@Franco: No you're not. I just found it too funny. OWOWOWOWOW!
An interesting bug I found:
I had another website open which brought itself to the foreground while playing the game, and all of hte levels disappeared, and he just free fell to the bottom.
At least I got some Perfects out of it:)
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