Ladies and gentlemen, warm up your awwwww glands, if you please. (Psssst! They're next to your phalangebous!) Ferry Halim of Orisinal fame has created another game, you see, and we wouldn't want you to injure them! Featuring lush, storybook visuals, easy to pick up controls, and a one-button game of skill, Drifting Afternoon is a perfect little treat to fit right in to your day. Plus, a kitten! All together now:
Eeeeeeeee!
Although it looks pretty windy out there, your intrepid little orange kitten has no trouble keeping up with your mouse as you guide him around the screen. Click somewhere, and he'll jump in the direction of your cursor. Those are the only controls! The object is simply to help him leap from one brightly coloured bubble to another as they float by. Each time you make a successful jump, the amount of points you earn increases. Falling to the ground resets the chain. If you jump over one or more bubbles and land successfully on another, you'll get a bonus. Just keep an eye on your time, and keep an eye out for special bubbles that can grant you a small time extension!
Like all Orisinal titles, Drifting Afternoon is designed to be short and sweet rather than deep and compelling. Most importantly, it's an extremely well made, family friendly game, and that's something we don't see enough of, in my opinion. Not only is Drifting Afternoon a gentle, adorable game, it's controls are so easy to master that anybody can pick it up, for as long or as little as they like. So if you're stuck behind a desk, inside when you'd rather be out, or even just looking for something to bring a smile to your face, let Drifting Afternoon carry you away for a minute or three.
Thanks to WelshGuy for sending this one in!
About 850,000 points. Really fun!
Wow, for such an adorable game, this is extremely addicting..
Fun only for awhile. Then it gets real boring.
#2
What a cute and pleasing game! The music is lovely to listen to, and the graphics are wonderful.
Hi!
"Most importantly, it's an extremely well made, family friendly game, and that's something we don't see enough of, in my opinion."
While I can respect your opinion, I have a really hard time agreeing with it. Can you elaborate on what family friendly means to you? I would guess it's 'non-violent', but I wanted to check.
If you look at number of players, number of games, or commercial sales, you'll see EVERY space is dominated by nonviolent, wholesome games. The zombie games and the warfare games have the multimillion dollar marketing campaigns, but the games with the most players, in terms of head counts, unit sales, number of online players, or number of offerings, are all wholesome!
Thanks for the write-up, and I look forward to getting a better understanding of your opinion.
Hi Andy, thanks for taking the time to respond. Yes, obviously, "non-violent" needs to be a consideration for a family friendly game, but for me that's not all it means. To me, a family friendly game is a game that has enough appeal that everyone, of any age, can sit down and enjoy. More to the point is the "extremely well made" part of the review you quoted, which is what I was actually stressing as something we needed more of. Anyone can slap together some easy dress-up game or simple match 3 title and call it family friendly, but not many put the effort into making something like that as high quality as, say, Little Wheel, The Blue Beanie, or the rest of the Orisinal games.
Also take into consideration that as far as those commercial sales you mention go, that's not something we (that is, JayIsGames) really deal with. We do flash and browser games primarily, and THAT is what I'm always thinking about. The little flash games made by someone in their off hours. It seems to me that someone very rarely makes a game like the titles I mentioned above, and honestly, I wish they would so I could post more of them.
Trust me, I enjoy my gore-splattered zombie-athons as much as the next person, but I've always gotten the impression that people really enjoy it when we feature "gentler" games, and so I'm happy whenever we can oblige. I know not all of our audience consists of hardcore gamers, and in fact there are a lot of people who check the site for something light and fun, and, yes, kid safe. Me? I don't have kids. But there are a lot on the site, and games like Drifting Afternoon will help ensure there is always content for them, too.
Hope that clears things up some.
the orisinal games are always pleasant and diverting, but usually only for a short while for me. I prefer to be rewarded in my gameplay by further exploration and new vistas to see and experience, rather than by High Scores and Points- and so the Orisinal properties often feel like one-note experiences for me... a beautifully played single note, but still just a single note.
Still, who would complain about a little extra bit of sunshine in their day?
Wow - you guys are quick at reviewing these things! I only sent it in last night!
Great job on the review though - it's a really relaxing game.
Cuteness overload! Ferry Halim does it again.
Yet again, another obscenely adorable game, great for a little bit of a diversion. :)
No hard-core gamer here, so I absolutely loved the whole sensory experience of playing Drifting Afternoon.
I tend to agree with Little Light about the single focus of the game, to score high, and a variety of environments to leap bubbles in would have kept me playing for longer. But I absolutely love the family friendly nature of Orisinal games, and others, and this was a lovely start to my Monday. Thanks Dora :)
PS: the closest I've ever gotten to playing gore-spattered zombie-athons was in the Plants vs Zombies demo. Heaps of fun, but that's as far as I go when it comes to annihilation in gaming.
Orisnal makes REALLY GOOD casual games! :)
Still very fun, even twelve hours later! Went from my ~850,000 to 1.7 million.
I like my hard-core gaming, but I prefer that on my Wii over my browser-based games. I like the games on my computer for goofing off when I'm too tired to be up and dancing, or need a simple distraction.
What I love best about the Orisinal games is that they don't require a lot of processing - no extensive puzzle-solving, no achievements, no power-ups of any significance, nothing like that.
When I just need to relax with a game where winning isn't an object and I don't have to feel the need to push for a high score, that's what these kinds of games are great for. They're relaxing, fun, and beautifully designed, so I get to listen to pretty music and enjoy nice scenery for a while.
I mean, not every game *has* to be Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I think that people who find Orisinal games boring just need to put them in proper perspective. Don't think of them as games you have to persue for achievements or rewards. Having a game that doesn't require anything more than the fun of pure play has value as well.
Plus, the music always hooks me. I went nuts hunting until I found "Through the Kaliedoscope" on CD after hearing the sample of it on "Bubble Bees."
Naturally, me being a cat person, Drifting Afternoon is really special. Excellent music, *beautiful* graphics and backgrounds, and a fun bit of play. It's not something I'll play every day but I'm *very* grateful that it's a new part of the website. I don't have any children, either, but I've got that site bookmarked and I pop back about once a week just to relax. You'd be surprised how a sweet game like this can help you to sleep after a long day.
I got a high of 9,197,300 in a successful attempt to keep from falling to the ground. A score of 10M or greater should be possible with deliberate attempts to leap over three or more balloons.
1.8562 mill! Really nice game!
Got 976,000 third try.
How do you get 9 MIL? Seriously.
Just had a game where I was on a real roll -- didn't fail a leap once. 11,671,100 points. When you get up to where new bubbles are 25,000 points and a leap-over is 250,000 you can really rack up the score.
http://img28.imageshack.us/img28/148/driftingafternoonhighsc.jpg
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