Game Classification

GlitchHiker is a single-screen game where players guide a character around to collect coins. The background is filled with blocks that appear at random intervals. When the character collects a coin near non-solid grey blocks, they turn into coins and can be used to build up a large combo. The main character can also dash (in a single direction until something solid is hit) and exchange 50 coins for a bomb that blows up everything on the screen. The character can be killed through black blocks when they turn red. They cause a disturbance in the game and explode in horizontal or vertical beams, killing everything in the way. When it hits the glitchhiker, the game is over.

The game as it was fully intended can no longer be played. When it was released at the Global Game Jam 2011 event, it was tied to a metagame called the system. The individual efforts of players playing the game affected a larger event. When the game was launched, the system surrounding the game had 100 lives. Whenever a single player collected 100 coins, a life was added to the system. When a player's glitchhiker died, a life was subtracted. The game was launched at 15 PM and by 21:41 PM all lives were gone, causing the system to shut down and making the game go extinct. The number of lives left globally also affected the force of the disturbances inside the players' individual games. To keep track of progress, an account needed to be created in-game.

The game can now still be played locally, but the larger metagame is no longer available. [source:mobygames]

Distribution : Retail - Commercial
Platform(s) : PC (Windows)

Links

• http://www.mobygames.com/game/glitchhiker/