I'd like you to meet Gil, a new platform game by the fine folks at Animals Play Games (Alex Miller, Tyler Rigsby, and Owen Whitcomb). Gil is the little guy in charge of a lighthouse on his tiny planet the day a group of evil robots appear and steal his lightbulbs. Clearly, this insult will not stand, and thus we now have a tenuous reason to go out into the world and engage in a lot of really tricky platforming that more often than not results in Gil's piteous cries. Hooray! It's time to load up on the Three Ps; Platforming, Patience, and Persistence. Trust me; you'll need a lot of each.
Control Gil with the left and right [arrow] keys to move, and hit [X] to jump. If you walk off a ledge without jumping, you can actually jump once in midair by hitting [X]. At the end of each level is a lightbulb. You want it. Get Gil to the lightbulb by any means necessary, and avoid touching anything that might kill him along the way... like spikes, enemies, lasers, rockets, water... well, most things, really, and you'll find even more as you progress. A single hit is enough to send our hero back to the start of a level, so you need to be very careful. That's right, friends and neighbours; Gil works on the dreaded one-hit KO. Clearly, this little pink fellow is more hardcore than you or I.
Analysis: This game is hard. That might be the entirety of an analysis right there, but you probably want some clarification. While not as apparently spitefully difficult as, say Wrath of Anubis or its wrathier sequel, Gil is probably going to still cause a few blue words. Since you can always see the entire level no matter where you are you won't find any unfair surprises sprung on you, but so many jumps and runs require near pixel-perfect actions. The spring platforms, for example, don't provide you with the big, bouncing boost you need unless you hit the [X] key at just the right moment when you touch down.
Later levels actually become more puzzle oriented in their construction. You'll still probably die a lot, but you'll go hmmm while you do it. Although there are no checkpoints, most stages are short enough that you probably won't need them anyway. Since you tend to unlock new areas before you complete the one you're working on, you can always skip ahead and come back to finish old levels later. The only level I personally felt compelled to pass on was the final stage of the mountains which had me... well, I won't go into detail, but if you want to imagine me twirling in the countryside singing to the mountains while butterflies lit on my outstretched arms, that'd probably be a better picture.
And yet despite everything, I still kept coming back. A greater variety of items to use might have spiced things up a bit, but that jetpack is still mighty adorable, and figuring out the proper order to do things (and then pulling it off) is incredibly satisfying. One thing's for sure; a lightbulb never felt like such a momentous accomplishment. Never fear, GIL! is here!... and the peasants rejoiced.
ouch! Learning curve rather steeep but the view is nice from up here!
(slightly annoying controls at some points but it's still mostly my own fault when I die!)
How come I fell in love with this game after 1 second of not even playing. Hopefully, it will be a lasting relationship, not like the last one...
Vexing!
Hit detection can be a bit off and it lags horribly on my computer, but I still keep playing!
Hard!!
Hit detection issue is really starting to become a problem now...have given up on this game. It was good while it lasted, but it needs to be more precise on when you die because of touching something (robot) and when you die because you're too close (spike). Is anyone else having this problem?
His voice cracks me up. It makes dying 20 times in a row much more bearable.
And I believe him when he says, "Great job!" More games need to encourage me like that. I am a very needy casual gamer.
Oh my, the last level. I think I need some time to psych myself up for this.
"His voice cracks me up. It makes dying 20 times in a row much more bearable.
And I believe him when he says, "Great job!" More games need to encourage me like that. I am a very needy casual gamer."
I agree.
My review: So frickin' cute. I just grin all the way through the levels.
"Oh no!" reminds me of the Nitrome voice acting.
:P
5/5
You and me both, SkylerF. :)
I thought the exact same things while playing.
the toast was divine
The letters on the "YOU WON!" screen are all jumbled together.
Argh, holy mackerel, this is a bad bad drug which I can't kick.
I keep rage quitting every 5 mins then going back a few seconds later.
To be honest I'm surprised the walls don't kill you when you touch them.
Reminds of "Hello Worlds". Which is good.
Just like the person two slots above me, YOU WON! is jumbled together in a way that looks unintentional.
Holy crap though, addictive. beat it in one sitting, one long, maddening but satisfying sitting. even with an odd win screen. And now it's 5:32 in the morning.
Maybe I'm missing something, but on level 5 of the cave area, I can't get past the middle left set of levers. I can get over there just fine, but when I touch the first one (the left of the pair), I get stuck. If I jump to try to clear the lever, my second man hits the rocket thingy. I'm sure it's something simple, but I'm about to throw my laptop! Take that GIL!
The lag made me give up on this one. I started playing it at work and the lag got so bad that I figured it was just my slow work puter.
So then I tried it at home, where I have a pretty fast machine on a stupid fast internet connection, and the lag and hit detection, as noted above, made it too frustrating to continue. Too bad, seemed like a fun little game for the first few levels.
Thanks for posting about the "YOU WON" bug, it's been fixed now.
Sorry to hear that the game is lagging for some people. I've noticed that it seems to lag a tiny bit in Chrome on levels with lots of objects. But it runs very smoothly with all other browsers on all of the computers I've tested it on.
@littlefish: It's interesting you compared the game to Hello Worlds. That game was developed as part of a University of Washington class. I'm also a student at the University of Washington! (Although I don't know the people who made Hello Worlds).
Maybe it's just Chrome, then, but it truly becomes unplayable. The last level is absolutely mind-numbing trying to get through (takes about five minutes to get about half-way through), especially if you die after half of it. Good game, wish it worked well on Chrome.
Never mind, should have known. On caves 5, when you hit the left lever it reverses the controls (left becomes right and visa verse). Now on to being stuck on the timing of Caves 6. Stupid rockets!
All right...after much complaining, I managed to beat the game in Chrome (feels like a monumental accomplishment!). Time to try it in Firefox and see if it turns into "You Have To Burn the Rope" by comparison. ;+}
Despite the lag, this is an awesome game which would lend itself well to a level editor.
My name is Gil! And, it's short for Gilbert!
Man, this is tough. The mountain is killing me.
I can't get over how I get to play me. Sadly though, I don't live in a lighthouse.... yet :)
Great game!
Mountain 4 is hard. That spring on the right does NOT like me.
And I don't like the caves level with the "burn bridges" sentence at the bottom.
Desert...there was something weird with that one. I forget which level I'm stuck on.
In the review, it says that you don't get the big boost from spring platforms unless you hit jump at just the right moment. That's not true. Every time Gil touches the ground, he gets a jump that can be used anytime until the next time he touches the ground. If you push jump any time after you hit the spring, you get the additional height.
I for one, would appreciate a Gil 2. I loved the gameplay so much, but there's no more to do :(
Oooh, or a level creator. but that's a whole different ballgame. Still, you have a nice set of elements that could work in that sort of thing.
Desert level 7
It is easy to "cheat" by not flipping the left switch that activates the rockets. You can still get the jetpack.
Cave 4 is killing me here. Help, please?
It might've just been dial-up, but this game was pretty laggy for me. Kept getting lagged into spikes and other dangers. Awesome game either way. I got frustrated and gave up, but came back to play a few minutes later.
I have to say, beating the last level with lag made it harder in some parts, but it was more like slow motion so it actually helped. =P
This game has quickly become my favorite flash game ever. Although I've only recently started playing flash game again, I doubt I'll be seeing a game of this caliber for some time to come. I've literally lost a full work day playing this game. And now I feel really guilty.
Btw, I finished all the levels except for Caves 10. Is it meant to be finished? It's been years since I last visited jayisgame but didn't there used to be walkthroughs with the game posted?
P.S. The music was incredible. Creators should get awards for level design too.
Are there any secrets besides the toast?
There are secrets?
Secret secrets.
Good game :) I finished 3 levels (desert, mountain, forest) but cave.... 5th lvl
I cant go across 3rd switch. it`ll block me and its over :/
its mistake of game or my ?
It's a cute little platformer!
The key detection can't have been done right. I die over and over from keys being either stuck or not responding.
The game speed was very much dependent on cpu load. Gameplay is sometimes fast and sometimes slow. The 'bomb' robots seem to be intensive for some reason.
OMG!?!
Desert 6... how? how? how?
An extremely high compliment in my book: Reminiscent of N the Way of the Ninja. It could benefit from some that game's features, namely, replay, so you can at least analyze the death that included you happening to nail the pixel-perfect jump you need, but you were so freaked out that you died and forgot how you did it.
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