Fresh out the door from developer Nitrome is a brand new physics-based action game, Skywire. You control a small chairlift that runs a crazy path through the sky. Three passengers are on board who would appreciate if you got them to the goal unharmed. A variety of obstacles stand in your way, from birds dropping bombs (the real kind, not, you know, organic bird-type bombs), deranged-looking pandas, and whales that leap from the sea. Each hit you take knocks a passenger from the car. Lose all three and you have to start over again.
The controls in Skywire use a bit of physics to give it a very visceral feel. Press the [up] arrow to move forward and [down] to move back. You can't start and stop on a dime, you have to build speed. Momentum plays a huge part in the difficulty of the game, as you have to fight to climb inclines and hold back when you start sliding downhill. Don't be surprised if you find yourself grunting when climbing upwards to escape a crazed butterfly.
The art style is also superb and really lends a fun atmosphere to the game. Everything has a minature dollhouse feel to it that's difficult to describe but easy to enjoy. Most of the creatures are blocky and almost mechanical looking. Joining the colorful visuals is a wacky soundtrack that, despite my best efforts, is still stuck in my head.
There are 20 levels in Skywire, each with increasing difficulty. Your progress is saved automatically, so don't worry about messing up. Take your time and really drink in the game.
Analysis: This is one of my favorite games from Nitrome so far. I love the art style, the music is perfect, and the gameplay is really something to get into. Some of the hits you'll take feel a bit cheap, as the entire chairlift setup is vulnerable, not just the car itself. The stages often feel a bit short, but later when the difficulty increases you'll be glad they aren't longer.
Another great game from Nitrome to get completely addicted to.
Haha, like it. But then i like all nitrome's physicsy games.
I don't understand why there is a 'mute' button. I mean, everbody loves the sound! :D
And the graphics are so cute, it makes me a little happy inside. :)
Go Nitrome! Everytime it amazes me again.
awesome fun :) the
"well done" vox
at the end cracks me up everytime
I appreciate the mute button on Nitrome's games. Some of their choices for background music are a bit too dissonate for my tastes. Yes, I realize it's supposed to be a retro 8-bit sound, but their games are much prettier than any 8-bit game I've ever played, and therefore I feel some of the music selections only serve to cheapen the experience.
I really enjoy Nitrome games for their uniqueness but this has got to be one of my favourites. I keep wanting to play for the next level just to see what crazy creatures are there next. Also for the funky retro music!
Aaaaarrgh!
It's a great game, with great music, but, for the difficulty, so insultingly - nice
love it!
ARG I finished every level after a few tries except the last one, which i spent about half an hour on before giving up. Frustrations aside, great game. Probably one of my fav coming from nitrome.
kind of a common sentiment but:
absolutely great game. i love it. it's one of my favorite from nitrome.
This game seems like a lot of their others; good pixel art, pretty well produced but pointless and dull gameplay.
The entire idea of this chairlift game is:
Press forward until you see an enemy.
Make sure enemy isn't on the track.
Keep pressing forward.
It's just dull. One of the early bat levels where you have to carefully keep in between two bats for the entire track is a great example. Why haven't they done more with this game, like having junctions, keys, buttons etc?
Best part...
Well Done!!
Yeah, the music can be annoying after a while, but that be their style, and it can't be helped.
The game isn't supposed to be complicated. None of their games have much in the way of key searching other than the devilish Hot Air game.
I find this game akin to that child's toy which involves sliding beads on a wire bent in odd directions....in that the bead slides really fast when it's going down, and you have to push it to get it up inclines. Simple, yet much more entertaining when the whole animal kingdom is out to destroy you.
By the way, I'm pretty sure that thing is called a cable car. Chairlifts are for skis.
Does anyone else find it creepy when you kill off two of the people, but the third one still jumps up and down and cheers at the end? :-)
I first got hooked on Nitrome with Feed Me, a little game I found on my own pre-JIG. Then came many hours of Scribble (still my favourite) and more recently (for me) Sandman. With Skywire, I'd say they pretty much rule the "Frustrating, Fun and Cute" corner of the flash-game market.
My only complaint: their music (and/or sound effects) is often more annoying than enjoyable ("Sandman's" theme wears thin after the first 80 takes). I appreciate Nitrome giving me the option of a mute button, and I really enjoy having the option of muting sound and/or music. Sometimes the f/x alone (a perky "well done!") make the game worthwhile; it's nice to be able to keep them around.
An all-around nice site. Scribble is still #1 for me, but Skywire's a good addition to their physics-based games collection.
This is Nitrome's best game yet! GREAT FUN! I only wish there was a download for offline play! Cheers! :D
Finally. Finished. It.
Really hard game. But great fun!! But Scribble is still my favourite! Wish there'd be Scribble 2!!
I really agree with Merricat. =)
While others seem to appreciate the "Well done!" sound at the end, I much prefer the "guhoh" sound at the start of each level, with a strong emphasis on the 'g'. Just sounds funny every time.
Gah, though, this does get frustrating for a while, and I really wish there was a level number to let me know how many more levels of frustration I needed to sit through. I think I got to around level 17 or 18, but I kept thinking that I had already done 20 and I kept needing to do one more level. :P
Fun game. I like the "Well done!", but I kind of wish there was a different phrase depending on how many people you have left in the car when you finish. "Awesome!" for three, "Well done!" for two, and a "Just made it!" for one.
I COMPLETELY love that game to bits. I like the simple controlls and the graphics completely rule. In fact I think it has inspired me to do some pixel art.
Its not really really impossibly hard like Hot Air, but it's still a challenge.
Well done Nitrome!!
I too love this game with its slick, amuzing, quirky, and stylish graphics and its fantastically simple controls and deviously fun gameplay.
Bees! Lots of bees!
Thankfully it's a LOT less frustrating than Hot Air :3
@Simone: I felt the same about the 'last' levels. Continually thinking I was through it, only to find yet another level. Though I felt a bit sad when it ended. ;)
I enjoyed the game, nice music, cute theme. I liked the various enemies and the whole style of it. Some more different level looks would've been nice, to differentiate between them some more, but it's ok for a Flash game.
I didn't like the in-game menu though. When I unpaused the game, it already started to run even before the whole menu was out of sight. Annoying little thing. Also, when you pause the game before all people have gotten on board, the timer will start even while the game is paused. Oh, and that's another thing: maybe I'm not patient enough, but after a few times I know how those guys will hop aboard, so save me the delay please! :D
A fun and addicting sweet game :) im currently stuck on the last lvl 20... grr its hard. Love the voices - "go" and "well done" especailly!
I haven't been able to get it to load up.
Maybe it is because I have a slow connection. I was wondering if maybe along with the review, someone could post the approximate size of the download (even though it is Flash or whatever, it still has to download to my computer).
Thanks.
Awesome game! I loved and hated the parts where you needed to go really fast to pass enemies(mainly birds) and then had to slow down dramatically to avoid a slow-moving enemy. My only complaint was that my score seemed to be 799. Apparently, the high score system only records your score for the last level, and everything else doesn't count.
Amusingly enough, I just went back to this game, and I found that I finally got frustrated and fed up with it right on level 20. :)
I managed to finish it in about 2 minutes in a non-fed-up state. Heh heh.
not true, score resets after you die which you must have done
Great game, thanks Nitrome team for giving us this cool games
I love the nitrome games.
i finished all of them, i espesially loved hot air.
i hope hot air 2 comes out very soon
Did anyone else get the glitch where your car goes backwards automatically rather than forwards? It only happened to me after my third try on the last level... how weird.
this is a great game, but i turned it off thanks to the frustration on level 14
i loved the game. never listened to the music because im a kid and i play this on my laptop when im not supposed to ;)
i beat the game. it took me about a week. now im working on hot air but i cant get past level 7
I can't get past lever 20!!
It's a really fun game only took me 20 minutes to beat, graphics are decent and the voices are funny espiecially if you beat a level
"Well Done!"
I like the confeti after you beat the final level (20)
weird......however very fun. the bats seem ugly...:)
I WANT this sound!!! PLEASE help me if you know how ic can get it =)
Tip for the last level:
I had great difficulty with level 20, as it requires some very fine control to get past the dragons. Finally, I found that using both hands (right hand for the accelerator and left for the decelerator) gives the necessary fine-tuning. Hope this helps.
wah~~ i love the skywire.... was GREAT!!! fun!!! scribble also.... i think if create more games like this... it will many people come to play.... really!! i love this place... thank you very much that people create skywire.... good...
wow!
best game ever!!!
how do you get past level 10??
cool butterflies!!!
the bats are sooo anoying!!!! they kill you in three seconds just like that: 1... 2... 3... DEAD!!!
make another game called skywire vol. 2 because skywire rocks!!!
JOKE: what did the butterfly say to noseman the bat?
AWNSER:
your soo nosy, stop following me!!!
can someone give me some tips on how to get past level 10?
my friend shanon said something really mean about skywire, she said: "I think skywire spoils all of nitrome."
I strongly disagree with shanon.
Well I think skywire makes nitrome the best website ever!!!
I told all my friends about skywire
sorry but I had a lot to say about...
the best game in the world!!!!!!
oh and sorry about all the
spoilers... cant help it
oh tell me how to get past level 11 please
Deni:
Its easy! All you have to do is slow down and take your time not roller coaster all over the place and you'll do fine.
So I apparently made it to the final level, Level 20, and I just couldn't take this anymore. SO many repeated efforts, SO many frustrating same hit spots. SO..yeah, not a bad game, but a GREAT concept.
A really groovy game but I am still stuck on level 20! It is annoying but it spurs you on to keep going! Skywire rocks!
I hate the @#$$% Whales. I almost beat a level, stop for a moment and the little people are devoured!
can anyone please send a link to the music?
thank you
HOORAY!! A Skywire 2 looks like it's the next game!
17% voted for it in the Nitrome sequel poll.
13% voted for Feed Me, 2nd in the running- this may actually be more likely, since it is an older game than Skywire.
After ALL the people who said 'Scribble 2 will be THE best game evar!!' and 'If Scribble had a sequel, it would be my favourite game of Nitrome's, far and away'- it gets 6% of votes! Third from bottom! Oh well.
SKYWIRE!
ROX my KIZOX!!
skywire is really fun. i gave up after a while my new fav game is off the rails. if you havent checked nitrome yet check it out
i can't get past level twelve!!!!!
aaaaaa
I just played part 2. Gotta check out this one which started it all...
dude1t:
If you can't listen to the music, try using a pair of headphones. That'll work.
Oh, Mad, that's my favorite too! Got tired of Skywire after beating version 2.
I can't get past level 20! Any help?
Who has noticed that
There are robotic enemies that are directly based on chick flick
Whoa, #1 on the highscores.
Bob:
Get your moves right. That's all I can suggest. Look at some Youtube videos if you need to.
What the ending screen looks like:
It just says "congratulations" with some confetti and your score.
the link seems to go to the nitrome homepage. I dont know why or how, but what I do know is that the /index.php isnt on the skywire game URL
[Edit: Thanks very much for pointing this out, Cooley123! Seems Nitrome had changed the format of their URLs since we first reviewed these older games. There are a few others I've found that follow the same, broken format. I'm fixing them all now. Cheers! :D -Jay]
I need to get past level 10 now! I need too can anyone help me do it?!
I think that the game is too challenging and hard to beat the levels. It should be easier or they should have extra lives or more lives.
Update