A new Eyezmaze game and a new Orisinal game both in one day? Pinch me quick! Am I dreaming? Two Flash game pioneers, who virtually kick-started this blog in its early humble beginnings, bring me back to my roots by releasing new games today.
Immediately upon opening Ferry Halim's latest, Sunny Day Sky, you feel as if the sun has just come out, the birds are singing and all is right with the world. Grab your trusty umbrella and embark on a journey cross-country. Take a leap (by clicking the mouse) and sail as far as the winds (and your umbrella) will take you. But be sure not to land in traffic, land ON it! If you land in the road between vehicles your journey is over, and so is the game.
The game really gets interesting when you close-then-reopen your umbrella as you're floating along, giving you extra bursts to fly further. But watch your umbrella power gauge and look for a landing spot before it runs out. If you think your timing is off for a landing, you can also click the mouse again to begin your decent immediately. Avoid birds that fly by or risk dropping like a stone to the ground. Collect floating (cherries? apples?) for extra points. How high a score can you get?
Analysis: Ferry Halim has been making Flash games longer than most of us have even known about Flash games, and all of the games on his Orisinal site exhibit exceptional production values. Sunny Day Sky is no exception. His talent as an artist shines through and it feels like playing within a gorgeous painting. Add to that the uplifting soundtracks he includes and you would be hard-pressed to find a more revered collection of Flash games in the world.
If there's any criticism about his games, though, it would be that these are not deep gameplay experiences. If you're more than a casual, casual gamer that requires complex level design or a significant ramping up of difficulty as a game progresses, you won't find it in any Orisinal game. Instead, what you will find are simple, unique and beautiful experiences that are fun for a few minutes at a time. The quintessence of a casual game. And all things considered, that's not such a harsh criticism.
Thank you, Ferry, for another wonderful game in your famous Orisinal style.
Well this is just a fun little game! Also note that grabbing a cherry/apple/red thing extends the "life" of your umbrella. You can close then open the umbrella while still in the air to keep on sailing. I'm at 93,990 for a high score right now, and plan on coming back to improve on it!
I was far too happy to see this posted here. Ferry Halim is truly the King of casual games and he's hasn't disappointed here. Everything that you'd expect from him and everything you'd expect from a brilliant game. It's a shame he doesn't update more often, but whenever he does, it's exceptional, so it's not really a complaint.
300,000 before I decided I was bored.
Not all Orsinal games get it done for me, but this one definitely does!
314400
Ferry Halim Rocks!
I love how the little guy lands safely at the side of the road! First time he fell I was worried he was gonna get squished!!
Yeah right. Squished bear in an Orisinal game. Like that would happen.
Orisinal probably has the shallowest gameplay you can ever find on the web, with some games being so easy you could play them with their eyes closed. But what they (severely) lack in gameplay they more then make up in such a charming music, graphics and overall atmosphere. All in all, you'll be hard pressed to find anything more casual to this.
Or, in one sentence - in Bizzaro world, Orisinal is spelled "Ginormo Sword".
Pinch...
was i quick enough?
At last! :D
(I was wondering if anyone would try)
This game was awesome!
Sure it wasn't deep and the challenges dont get harder or easier... But i like games like this because it makes me happy because I can finally get a high score...
The most cars I flew above was 999 until I fell to the ground in between car 999 and double decker bus 1000 when a duck (how often do ducks fly over a highway?) hit me and I fell just before the double decker... I would have had an awesome score... but w/o the land, I didn't get it... My second highest score was 53990...
Just a note - the difficulty does increase the further you get, with many many more ducks (?) appearing later on. The gameplay in general is deeper than it may at first appear, since your umbrella timer goes down faster the more you open and close it and you get much bigger bonuses for landing smoothly (i.e., without closing your umbrella).
The difficulty doesn't ramp fast enough, though - I got bored at about 600K.
Hahaha, amazing fun! :D There's a bit of skill involved here, at least if you're going for high scores. Longer streaks of cars give you hugely more points (I'm not sure of the scaling, but it's way more than linear) - and smooth landings double the score for the jump. I was able to get more than a million points off my first jump by getting a streak of more than 300 cars before a smooth landing (500k * 2).
Later on in the game, the duck frequency goes WAY up - by the time I was past 600 cars there was *always* a duck on the screen, and by the point where I finally crashed (692) the second duck was entering the screen before the first one was off.
Wow Jay, no kidding. Maybe On and Ferry Halim conspired to send us gamers a heart attack.
Whoa, that bear or mouse is so cuuuuuute.
Fun! This one holds my attention longer than most Orisinal stuff. I like it.
Can I ask how it's even possible to get more than, say, 8 or 9 cars in a jump?
Nevermind that last comment. I didn't realize you could re-open the umbrella after closing it in midair.
Hoo boy. The thing that really gives this game it's charm is the music. It amplifies the cheery atmosphere the backdrop & colors are already giving off by ten. This is so relaxing and yet addictive! Great find, and what a game developer!
Is it me, or the site is unavailable?
Yep, looks like the server is down. Try again in a few minutes.
I like this! It's deceptively simple, like most of his other games, and it's got a lot of charm. Hope the server will get back up soon!
While I was playing earlier, I noticed that you could walk around the cars once you land, even backwards. Can you launch facing the other direction at all?
What a fun little game. I was disappointed with the Eyemaze game but this is cute and the music is delightful.
Now all we need is a new game from Donut Games and we have the trifecta :)
@Karin -
or Tonypa, though he just released one last week.
The server is back up!
hahaha! I just realized you can reopen your umbrella in midair! It makes me feel like I win!
I absolutely LOVE Ferry Halim's games. All are wonderfully smooth, very casual and have great graphics. The music in every game is perfect, completing the relaxing mood. Each time I play this game, I am internally driven to make a higher score than my last, which is the type of game that I love to play.
This has to be one of my favorite Orsinal games, along with The Crossing, Winterbells and Pocket Full of Stars. Thanks for posting!
Ahhh! I am in love with this game's music!!!
Is the music an original piece for the game? If not, what's the title and who's the artist?
Hmm... so am I the only person who still can't access the game? Gah, a new Orisinal game and I can't play it! I get to the "Loading... Please Wait" screen but then nothing happens. I've tried a hard refresh and the bar will go up to what looks to be 90% but it won't load further than that.
:(
[Edit: Sounds like it could be a corrupted file in your cache. Try emptying your browser cache and reload the page. -Jay]
I'd say that the edge-detection is so forgiving that "smooth" landings are too easy to get...
This game makes me kind of want to watch Marry Poppins... but not really..
A good way to easily drive up your score is to go 20-50 cars and land smoothly... you get about 5k-20k... do that a bunch of times and you end up getting 100k easily... But thats if you arent good and looking for a high score with no skill needed...
oh my god. the music is *perfect*
And I love orsinal games because nobody else can make them. They are the quintessential casual game: charming, simple and fun!
Also, if you could have the pop-up window be a little wider to fit all of the flash game, that would be great :)
current highscore: 117K
Jay: It doesn't appear to be my cache. I tried emptying my cache and reloading, and now the loading bar fills up completely but nothing happens. I tried loading it up in IE (a browser I never use), and the same thing happens, so it doesn't appear to be a browser issue at all.
It appears that I can't access *any* of the Orisinal games anymore. All of them react the same way--they load to a certain point and then just sit there.
I have no idea what is going on, but boy does it suck.
Wow. :(
Sounds like a Flash Player issue if it's happening across browsers.
Have you tried uninstalling/re-installing Flash?
I just gave that a shot... uninstalled and then reinstalled Flash. No dice. :(
I'm not having problems with any other Flash files for any of the other games here. I am completely baffled. I keeping coming back every now and then to see if it will work, but I'm out of ideas.
Thanks for trying to help.
Can Ferry Halim make a bad game? (No)
I love this game... It makes me happy inside...
XDD
A beautiful game :)
And why didn't you add a 'onebutton' tag to this game? It certainly involves only the left mouse button :)
[Edit: Done. :) -Jay]
I don't think I'm ever going to be able to get that music out of my head, but in a good way.
I am still playing this. It's the ultimate 'thing to do when theres nothing to do'. :D
I realize that this page is no longer current and not a lot of people are going to be reading this comment, but I wanted to share.
If you've read through the comments above, you'll know that I was having problems loading this game. Not long after posting those comments, I received an email from Ferry expressing concern that the game wasn't loading for me. I was hesitant to bother him about it, but he went ahead and created a battery of simple tests for me to try out. I reported my results, but I had to leave that afternoon on a trip and so I didn't know if Ferry had been able to solve the problem. I returned from my trip this morning, though (thus my belated comment here), and discovered that the game now loads for me.
I thought that this is the sort of thing people might like to know. Not only does Ferry make lovely, enjoyable games, but he is also very eager for people to enjoy them and will go out of his way to see that they do. I have always thought highly of Ferry and his work, but this experience takes that to a new level. I take my hat off to a great artist and a very nice guy.
(By the way, I really enjoy the game!)
Cool Suho. I think it's really neat that he would go the extra mile to help you out like that. Give me an even deeper respect for him and his amazing games.
Yeah, I was having tons of problems until I realized you could open and close the umbrella while you are in the air!!
Doh!! Makes a huge difference.
After that I was fairly quickly to 1,300,000+. It's a bit more interesting at that point but it takes a little bit too long to get there.
The key is flying over around 300-400 cars before you even think about landing the first time and THEN you have to have a natural landing where you double your points.
If you wait too long to do this the ducks fly by too frequently and landing naturally takes too much luck!
NOT WORTH IT!!
After I got the first hit of points at around a million, I piece mealed together the final 300,000 points in smaller jumps!
I am finally back here after losing touch for 4 months! I've been so caught up with schoolwork and such... so wonderful to meet you guys again =]]
Anyway enough of that! This game... just the fact that it is by Ferryhalim, is enough to bring tears of joy to the reader's eyes. It was absolutely thrilling, absolutely wonderful, every single minute/ second of it. Lovely.
Anyway, trying to catch up with 4 months worth of daily updates... you can trust me, it'll take a long time(:
Highscore: 124530 What lovely, almost consecutive numbers xD
Yay! Just got 28,000,000 points or so. I think I can go to sleep now.
My score so far is 5,069,75 :D
753 cars.... + smooth landing!!!
I love the music in this game, but I like playing it while listening Baba O'Riley (by The Who) even better!
I like it because it makes every move you make seem meaningful in someway..
and the lyrics "it's only a teenage wasteland" make me think I am starting a new form of transportation that doesn't use fossil fuels like cars, and that the bear is helping me show that transportation to all the car drivers :D
Try it out for yourself, see what you think.
Ah, Orisinal, you've once again captured my heart with your adorable characters, simple yet fun gameplay, and whimsical music. Simply addicting, I'll be coming back again and again.
36760!
I enjoyed this game very much, but got pretty bored pretty fast. My Favorite part about this game is the music. Its my altime favorite song of all the games.
I'd like to buy it on Itunes But I don't know the actual name. Can Someone tell me?
Great game my high score is 309830! I am addicted, it doesnt seem I can beat it though! I try and stay up as long as possible until i get past 100 cars and then i drift onto a car to get "smooth landing"points as opposed to the "nice landing" points you get when you just drop.
BEAT MY HIGHSCORE! it is now 548,120 !!!!!!! wooooo.
All right, from what I gather, the scoring goes like this:
10 points for every car passed
Bonus for "nice landing" is 10 times the "triangle" of the number of cars passed. If it a "smooth landing", this bonus is doubled.
By "triangle" of a number, I mean, for example, the "triangle" of 6 is 1+2+3+4+5+6, which is 21.
Update