The Ancient Art of Staying Alive
A downloadable Retro arcade game for Windows and Linux
NOW WITH STEAM KEY!
Nominated for AGS Awards 2020 in the Best Non-Adventure Game Created With AGS and Best Programming categories.
Based on the old "Daleks" game, TAAOSA turns the concept into an arcade game with 20 levels, 5 game speeds, a challenge mode and the ability set the player either as always moving (MUCH trickier!) or with the ability to stop.
Unashamedly retro in every aspect, if you want amazing visuals then look elsewhere, but if you want a simple, challenging game that's randomised every time you play it, you might just find this to be your cup of tea.
Controls:
- Arrow keys or WASD to move
- T or O to teleport (to a random location)
- B or M to launch bomb (clears area immediately around you)
New features in v1.2 :
- Change background colour
- Bombs
- Obstacles
- Chose number of Teleports / Bombs / Obstacles per level
New features in v1.4:
- Synthesized speech for each level start
- High score table added
- Linux version released!
New features in v1.41:
- Left-handed controls added (WASD/O/M)
New features in v1.54
- Optional 8-bit loading screen complete with horrible screechy sounds :-)
- High score table for Challenge Mode as well as normal
- Animated characters
- Some more synthesized speech
New features in v1.84
- Boss level added (every 5th level in Challenge Mode)
- Challenge Mode now starts with 5 lives, if you have more than one life left upon completion it will give you a bonus score
- Music added for menu screen (only after ten seconds though to allow people quickly making adjustments and playing levels to not et annoyed!) and in Boss levels
- General quality of life updates (new font, snazzier credits and high score screens, etc)
Purchase
In order to download this Retro arcade game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.99 USD. Your purchase comes with a Steam key. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Steam version released! Claimable soon for Itch owners.Jan 19, 2022
- er... v1.85 nowDec 01, 2021
- V1.84 released for Windows - MAJOR UPDATEDec 01, 2021
- Planned updatesJul 09, 2021
- AGS AwardsMar 04, 2021
- Steam page is upJun 01, 2020
- v1.54 released for Linux!May 09, 2020
- Updated!May 08, 2020
Comments
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Awesome got it to level 7 xP
Great! Hope you're enjoying the game :-)
Oh cool I didn't know it was here too, just got it moments ago on Steam! Very cool looking! Hope to play it soon so I can leave a review. =)
Thanks mate, much appreciated! Hope you enjoy it.
Anyone tried the Boss Levels yet? :-)
I'm happy to announce that this game has been nominated for two categories of the AGS Awards 202:
- Best Non-Adventure Game Created With AGS
- Best Programming categories.
The game is fun! I find it's a bit too much self-service when it comes to difficulty. You can give yourself maximum bombs and then all levels become super easy. I feel level 20 should be challenging no matter what you tweak in the UI.
I see what you mean though I wanted it to be as accessible as possible while offering a good (or brutal!) challenge if you want it to. The easier the game the slower your score increases btw. So the score you could achieve by beating the same level will vary drastically depending on your settings.
I don't rule out the possibility of further tweaking in the future of course! :)
My highest score is 47500 - can anyone beat that? Post your high scores
Just destroyed my high score! 61450
I'm sure someone can beat it though...
39850 so far :D
Yay a worthy adversary at last!
Hmm... just tried this on my laptop, the position of the cursor keys makes it very tricky. I think I'll add an update to let you use WASD as well / instead (?)
v1.41 with alternate control method now available for Windows users (will include it in a later update for Linux).
First review!
https://www.wraithkal.com/the-ancient-art-of-staying-alive-impressions/
"It’s simple, incredibly easy to pick up and play, while still maintaining a degree of difficulty. A tweakable degree. The best kind."
One of the most fun parts is using your imagination along with it. Are you a lone survivor running away from a horde of zombies? are you a Rebel space ship escaping a huge empire in space? The only limit is your imagination. The game it self is charming in a simple way and a good time killer, if you're a lover of old atari style games then this will be perfect for you it's like playing minesweeper along with you being allowed to run the things chasing you into bombs and other traps. I had a good time with the game and enjoyed how charming it was.
Thanks for the feedback! Glad you enjoyed it. :-) tbh I'd never thought of it in terms of it being like minesweeper with moving mines, but that's actually quite an apt description!
Planned for future updates:
These updates are now in the game :)
Currently adding:
- High Score system
- Old school digitised speech for the level intros
- Linux version
- Hopefully, Mac Version
High score and synthesized speech added.
Hopefully Linux build later today...