Twister, argh!
Release type: Freeware
Release date: 1996
Levels: 7
Author: Yurik Nestoly
Website: On Target Programming
Related games: Trees, Godzilla
In Twister, argh!, a loose adaptation of the 1996 summer blockbuster, Nestoly hits on something genuinely interesting and functional. As in Roland Ludlam's Hurdles, argh is sort of a shooter without the shooting. All emphasis is on dodging, while ceaselessly racing in one direction. Whereas Game-Maker quickly shows its limitations in facilitating multi-directional action, games like Dead Awakening prove it more than adequate at supporting action along a single vector.
The premise here also more than justifies some of the mechanistic oddities that a game of this sort would be nature attract. You're racing against a tornado, so of course there will be random airborn hazards to dodge. You're in a flimsy automobbile, racing for your life against one of the most destructive forces in nature, so of course your vehicle is going to keep going forward no matter what. If it slams into something, of course the truck will crumble, fatally.
The controls are a little twitchy and the levels could take some refinement -- you can see how Alan Caudel's Trees might have added some flash to support the raw arcade-style design here -- but Nestoly picked the right game to bring to completion. There is a spark here of something really special and different; with just a few nudges and some gloss, Twister, argh! could be a showcase for twitch action design under RSD's engine.
Everyone involved seemed to sense the promise. The attention to secret levels, the collaboration, the focused effort to push the game through to some form of completion. If it's not quite where it could be, that seems to come from an eagerness to just get it done and move on to the next big idea -- an impulse familiar to any young artist.
Story
N/A
Instructions
- Right arrow: Speed up
- Left arrow: Slow down
- Up arrow: Jump upward
- Down arrow: Dodge downward
Credits
AAAHHHHH!!!! You've reached the end to my game movie adaptation. This is my first truly completed game. OH MY! See, I've made quite a few games on Alan's computer but never exactly finished a game. Hope you enjoyed this game. It seemed a bit easy to me though, then again I cheated, tee hee hee. I must say that if you actually read this far into the credits you sure have a lot of time oh yer' hands, gahyuck!!!! Did you find the secret stage?
Availability
This game is not known to have been distributed in any form, prior to its addition to the Archive.
Archive History
After an earlier wave of rediscoveries, on July 13 2011 Alan Caudel provided another archive of previously missing Game-Maker material, including the following:
Links
Downloads
- Twister, argh! (110 kB)
