I'm a damn sucker for flash games.

April 5, 2005 12:06 PM

Gyroball. [Flash, Addictive]. Remember Marble Madness? At least the controls on that game were orthogonal.
posted by psychotic_venom (24 comments total)

Fun. But these controls are orthogonal (up/down/left/right). And wasn't Marble Madness controlled with a track ball?
posted by nobody at 12:17 PM on April 5, 2005

At least the controls on that game were orthogonal.

A little orthogonality can be a good thing.
posted by 327.ca at 12:29 PM on April 5, 2005

FUN!! Score=0!
posted by Balisong at 12:32 PM on April 5, 2005

On the NES, you had two choices of controller orientation. It was controlled by the regular directional pad, but you could hold it at whichever 45 degree angle was more natural to you.
posted by knave at 12:46 PM on April 5, 2005

Ortho-what?

That game sucks.
posted by Fofer at 12:48 PM on April 5, 2005

Entertaining - but utterly unforgiving. The best game I've seen like this is Overball- unfortunately I believe it's full of spyware and wildtangent stuff. I've been trying to crack it for years. You control the ball with the mouse and it feels totally natural. Check out the online one, but be sure it doesn't install any wildtangent "helpers' or 'web drivers.'
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:50 PM on April 5, 2005

The game really did not work out well for me. The controls were garbage and you couldn't fly off the edge. Trackballs is a free and opensource marble madness clone done in GL. It works on linux and windows and is millions of times more fun and playable than this garbage. You can also make your own levels.
posted by abez at 12:52 PM on April 5, 2005

I'd like to play a little more but that whole "start over at level 1" killed it for me.

What is this? The arcade where they want another quarter? Let me play until I get bored; don't frustrate me by sending me back to the start ...
posted by devbrain at 12:59 PM on April 5, 2005

the whole "start over at level 1" is a moot point for me -- i can't get past level 1 anyway. apparently you need to have the pixels precisely aligned to get throuigh the exit. lame.
posted by howling fantods at 1:04 PM on April 5, 2005

you can achieve orthogonality by pressing two directional arrows at once. On my laptop, the biggest challenge was coordinating the tiny arrow keys.

I gave up after the third level. Some things are just not worth fighting for.
posted by Jonasio at 1:20 PM on April 5, 2005

adversarial orthogonality.
egregious!
posted by andrew cooke at 1:42 PM on April 5, 2005

It does have orthogonal controls. It's the levels that are not at right angles. But somebody already said that ...

This game sux: I approach what looks like a ramp, only to get sucked into some kind of vortex? Horrible graphics, unless inclined surfaces are *supposed* to be opposite, but only some of the time. And no passwords pretty much guarantees the oppositive of addictiveness. How many times do you want to complete those first few levels? The answer: Not many.
posted by mrgrimm at 1:46 PM on April 5, 2005

How many of you guys responded just so you could be the straight man for orthogonality's eventual appearance and wisecrack?
posted by painquale at 1:53 PM on April 5, 2005

This shockwave game is the best Marble Madness style game I've found online.
posted by rafter at 2:19 PM on April 5, 2005

rafter's right: this shockwave game really is an awesome MM-style game! I'd go on, but I'm too busy tryting to finish level 1!
posted by TheStorm at 2:29 PM on April 5, 2005

This game is interesting. The controls taste like two fingers in a frogs ass.
posted by vagus at 2:34 PM on April 5, 2005

after's right: this shockwave game really is an awesome MM-style game!

It was kind of good, except that it kept resetting my system volume (I didn't even know flash games could do this) to the max value. Not recommended at work...
posted by advil at 4:25 PM on April 5, 2005

I couldn't get it to work under Firefox 1.02 / Linux. It is so slow that the time runs out by the time I get to the bottom of the first hill. Anyone else running into this?
posted by bh at 5:40 PM on April 5, 2005

That Slickball game rules. It's as hyperannoying as Gyroball, but also looks really cool.
posted by painquale at 5:58 PM on April 5, 2005

A little help for you non-German-speaking time-wasting MeFites: in Slickball, the C-key acts as a brake, the X-key rotates the view one-quarter turn to the right, the ridiculously chosen Y-key rotates the view one-quarter turn left, and the P-key pauses the game. After the first level you are asked to buy the full version of the game.
posted by squarehead at 6:30 PM on April 5, 2005

The Y-key isn't ridiculously chosen, on a german keyboard, the Y and Z keys are interchanged.
posted by bap98189 at 1:16 AM on April 6, 2005

the original marble madness had some of the best in-game music of its generation.
posted by joedan at 1:35 AM on April 6, 2005

slickball is good, but: level nicht geschafft. which is german for "I fucking suck."
good thread though.
posted by blacklite at 1:46 AM on April 6, 2005

vagus: "The controls taste like two fingers in a frogs ass."

I like my gyros with grilled onions and extra tzatziki sauce. Hold the frog's ass.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:51 AM on April 6, 2005