I saw this posted on fark a few days ago, and I thought it’d be something the people of the straight dope might enjoy.
It’s one of the many flash games that exist on the Internet, but I think it stands out as something better than average. Something… glorious.
Ok, well, maybe it’s not that good, but it’s fun nevertheless.
It’s a game called Space Cab. The goal is to return all the miners who are scattered around the map to the mothership, and to do it as fast as you can. Also, be sure to return 6 miners at a time to give you the most points, if you’re interested in one of the prestigious high score spots.
I hope someone else besides me finds this game amusing. Happy Space Cabbing!
Plus, after I spent the first two hours trying to get those two initial guys back to the red thingy and I finally did, I couldn’t figure out where to go after that. Yeesh.
Those poor little suckers are going to starve to death before I can do a damn thing about them. Plainly, the Galactic Overlord will be keeping them for a while…
I have to bump this back up to Page 1 just so a few others can share in my misery. I’ve picked up the 2 spacemen a couple of times, but get killed trying to open the door on the bottom…
pulling my hair out here.
If you suck at this game, I wouldn’t worry too much; it’s damn hard.
Having said that, I’m starting to get the hang of it. (Hey, I studied Physics in college, okay?) But there must be a few tricks I’m missing. I just had a decent game; I crashed twice in the lower cavern and six miners died with me. But I rescued the other twelve. I got back to the landing pad with the last miners and nothing happened.
The Ctrl key fires a shot from the top of the cab, but is there anything, anywhere that you can actually shoot?
In the main cavern, there’s a door on the right. There’s a pad which opens that door, it’s all the way to the left and then down. But when you trigger that pad, alien ships start coming and shooting at you, and if there’s any way past them, it’s going to be damn hard.
And once you get into that right hand cavern, then what? There’s a landing pad there, but all it does is close the door and seal you in with a huge ship that starts shooting at you. And there aren’t any miners in there to rescue anyway.
Playing the game is hard enough, but there seem to be a few snags in the narrative flow, too.
Wow, I’ve never rescued any of them but the first two. I’ve gotten down into the lower caverns and tootled around but never done anything productive and/or made it back to the “mothership” safely. You’re a pro Robot Arm.
I’ve shot quite a few things now. They all took more than one shot to kill, though. Like 5 or 6 at least, usually.
the main cavern meaning the one you start out in? I only see one switch there, directly under the place where you start. And that opens the doors to go even further down.
[spoiler]When I went into the caverns directly down, it was relatively basic (only had to watch out for walls and stationary things shooting at you – still hard, don’t get me wrong). Found one switch that unsheathed some guns and opened the caverns to the left of the starting room. But in that cavern to the left were some “jets” that push you right into the walls. That was too much for me.
I’d guess you have to keep shooting the big ship, or look for a weak spot to hit.
Those quotes at the bottom are pretty funny, imho. At least the first time you see them. Then they get boring.
There are plenty of things to shoot throughout the game. Anything that fires those little green bullets are fair game, and I think the only things you can’t attack are the air blowers in the left cavern and the miners themselves.
I’m probably one of few people that’ve actually beaten this game (that is, saved every miner 6 at a time and blown everything up), so maybe I can offer a bit of assistance.
If anyone has any specific strategy questions I suppose I could help, but at the moment, I don’t feel like writing out exactly how I made it through.
The alien ships in the left cavern aren’t too hard once you know how to deal with them. As soon as you land on the pad, go up into the air a little bit, turn slightly to the right and start firing. That should take care of the first ship, and then you can take your time with the others, because I think all their shots will hit rock.
The end boss in the far right cavern isn’t too difficult either. You really don’t even have to see him for 90% of the battle. He has a very predictable moving pattern, so you can stay on the bottom of the screen, just firing where you know you’ll hit him.
And for anyone who’s having trouble getting past the wind blowers on the left, just try to gently place yourself over them, and as soon as you’re in their power, turn yourself upside down and hit up a few times. After that it should be like there’s no gravity at all.
Well, hot damn, now we’re getting someplace! That clanking noise when you shoot something sounded like nothing was happening, so I’ve been going around everything. Now that I know I can just blast stuff, it’s getting easier.
I went all the way through just to what was waiting for me, but I didn’t rescue any miners. They get kinda testy about that.
Hmm, it’s not that way for me. I can be one click off level (either left or right) and it lands fine. And it doesn’t matter how fast you’re coming down, as long as you don’t mind bouncing.
But damn that game is strict. I rescued twelve miners (the other six were on board when I crashed) and got out, and they still read me the riot act at the end. If you play perfectly, rescue all the miners and get out, do the bosses still find some way to tear you a new one?