I’m proud to finally present Don’t Look Back, my very first game in flash! For the next week or so it’s available only on Kongregate, but after that I’ll provide a standalone version of the game here.
Being a flash game it doesn’t have a readme, so this seems like an appropriate place to say thanks to the people who helped me test it and gave me feedback during its development! I’d like to say a special thanks to Denis Cavanagh, Stephen Lavelle, Gregory Weir, Alex May, Josiah Tobin, disasterpiece, benzido, Tim W., zaphos, dock, Noyb, agj, Kian Bashiri, cactus, Annabelle Kennedy, Brandon McCartin, Ian Snyder, Porter, ozdy, lachhh, and finally, to Kongregate.
I hope you enjoy the game 🙂
[Edit 12th March] Don’t Look Back is now also available on this site!
[Download offline DMG for Mac]
[Edit 26th March] To those of you looking for the soundtrack; you can find it here.
great game a love the end… I didn’t spected it
and great music…
very very good!!!
u have a talent
Take care..
bye
Hey Just Finished the Game, I liked playtime, it was just right, not too short, but didn’t drag on either (perfect little distraction at work -he he he)
hey, dude, that´s what I searched for a long time!
Good game! Bravo!!!
Thanks a lot for this game.
It brought a lot of nostalgia in term of gameplay, and was at the same time new and refreshing. It is good to see that some people remember that gaming is not only about how much pixel you can have on your screen.
Thank you again for this piece of art.
sir, this game was awesome. beat the devil and retrieve your soul in all pixelated glory was great. congratulations and thanks for this piece of minimalistic art.
the game is perfect!
amazing game 😀
Well… I am totally blown away…… just loved every pixel of it… This suggestion is also a spoiler, so those of you who havent finished the game please stop reading.. but in the very end, couldnt you change it so that you have to continue walking towards the grave, and when you get a few meters away, the person actually turns around, thus making the couple disappear? EXCELLENT GAME Terry, actually very deep and it really moved me. Please consider my suggestion 😉 best wishes from Sweden!
I’m with Chris, I don’t think you have to move any closer, I feel that the arrival at the grave site would get his attention enough to have him turn around to glance at what was making the footsteps… But him turning around causing the disappearance at the end would be icing on the cake, for sure.
I still got chills when it happened though lol… amazing game, would love to see more like this these days.
Chris and Kevin: Cheers! I did consider that pretty seriously while developing it, but eventually decided against it because I thought it obscured the real meaning behind what I’d intended. I think it just works better the way it currently is!
Incredible, incredible game, especially the ending. (First time I’ve seen that cliché done well, by the way)
Game got me all depressed for one day, though. Ah well.
For those who didn’t understand the ending: (My opinion, at least)
SPOILER!
You’ve probably heard of Orpheus’ tale by now.
The hero of this game has lost his lover. He goes to hell and back to save her. But when he comes back to his lover’s grave, he knows he has just been standing here all along. He never went to hell. The game was a dream, and the dream characters disappear.
The hero dreams of a desperate chance to save his lover, no matter what the cost. He wants to be Orpheus. He wants to go on an epic adventure where he’ll sacrifice everything to resurrect his love. But life doesn’t work that way. His lover’s dead forever.
The game doesn’t end there, it only repeats. The hero will never be able to move on.
[…] spelmekaniken som genomsyrar hans spel, anvÁ¤nder sig av av samma stil. Terry Cavanagh med Don’t Look Back och svensken Nifflas som har gett oss klassikern Knytt Stories kan ocksÁ¥ skrivas in i […]
I just LOVED the game. Thank you very much for a great use of like 15 minutes of my miserable life. I really liked it. I hope you do more like this old-style games. love them. just love them. thanks againn
My interpretecion of the end:
when a close person die, is imposible bring come back but part of you are gone with her.
sorry for my english
Amazing end, grafic, jogability, all! I love it.
the best flash game.
I almost cried
I’m kinda euphoric now, I never thought such a game could impact me so thoroughly.
Congratulations
awesome!
it should be longer! 🙂
[…] I begin this review, I urge you to play the game. There are links there to the online and downloadable versions of the game. It only takes a few […]
[…] stark textures and sprites evoke early first-person shooters like Doom and Wolfenstein 3D. Don’t Look Back counts on the player having internalized platformer conventions (such as timed jumping puzzles and […]
Awesome game. Any chance for a sequel?
What was your inspiration for this game? It reminds me of the Orpheus and Eurydice story.
A really excellent game. I love the focus on mood and subtly suggested emotional content in both this and Judith. You’re really doing something creative with these games, going in a direction that I personally have never seen before.
Good game. And it’s ending makes game not just good, but excellent.
*SPOILER begin*
There may be many versions of ending, but, I think the one right is that all was just a dream, fantasy. And when person dies there is nothing you can do… Even killing giant monsters can’t help it…
*SPOILER end*
Good job, Terry.
your game rox and nice ending
Brilliant – very emmersing and deep. Anyone who rates this as a bad game doesn’t deserve to play it, and as other people have said, it isn’t about collecting items and gaining levels, and is therfore all the better. What a great Gem!
*I want it on my website!*
The sleek melding of challenge and ease is a very modern touch. I was always interested, but never frustrated. I think the difficuly is appropriate to a wide-range of players: skilled players may be able to pass certain “scenes” their first try, whereas less experienced players may require several tries, but the difference in play experience ends there.
Great game, really 🙂
What a fantastic game! My favorite platformer ever. I really like that story, gameplay, and, especially music.
Greatness…
youare a freaking ARTIST
HOLY S**T THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!!!!
ive played thru 3 times, and it still has its charm. oh, and btw, u ppl who said this game was bad can go and cram it.lets see YOU program a better game.
note to the creator (sorry i dont know ur name) i program occaisonally too, and this game inspired me. you can make a TRULY amazing game,even if it has almost no graphics. you are an amazing programmer, and i congradulate you. good job!!!
Great game. Reminds me the first time I saw Atari. I was 5 years old and I can remember thinking: “I have to make something like these some day.”
I hope there are some upgrades in the future.
Greetings from Santago, Chile.
Whoa. Just… whoa.
I think the only thing that could make this game any better would be if someone ported it to the PSP. I would play it, that I know. o.o
Amazing feat in indie gaming. Absoulutly fantastic, so much emotion in such a short title, it justs screams “This is the definition of gaming, no gimmicks, just gaming.”.
Great job and keep up the good work!
Amazing gameplay, bold visual style and an absolutely stunning ending! Epic in all respects.
Great game!!!! Parabéns!! I am brasilian player…your ideia is fantastic!!
excellent game
Wow, I can’t believe how much i liked this game. The music and graphics really set the mood. The idea of having it so dieing only set you back to the beginning of the current segment made the game very playable and enjoyable. Also, great ending.
Wow, this is a good game man ! I like the silence during all the game, music come just at the moments the most importants and that’s cool! Sorry if there’s mistake in the reply, my english isn’t very good :/
A very touching game in two exciting “parts” (the second one totally justifying the title), well crafted gameplay and beautiful graphics and music. The story(not)telling and, OMG, the *ending !* being just… perfect. GOOD JOB: one of the best Flash games I’ve ever seen, I look back so often on it ! 🙂 – I’ll be sure to play your next games.
vary great game, I love the whole depressing environment. I think you should make a sequel, but instead of a “one hit kill” system, maybe you should have a health system. but what do I know, I’m not a game designer or anything. defiantly the best online game I have ever played. it would be cool if you could get all of the games you have made published on a disk for consoles. but, once again i am just a 14 year old fan so…yah.
OMG!!! I love your game, it’s amazing! I hope you will make some special and atrictive games like this.
I love you man! xd
[…] Canabalt, récemment mentionné ici-mÁªme, les jeux de Terry Cavanagh/DistractionWare reposent sur un principe volontaire de simplicité, teinté d’une bonne dose de nostalgie […]
One word: Excellent.
Yeah, top stuff. Just gonna echo what everyone else has already said, the minimalism is great, very often gamers are patronised by the plot of games, but not here. Really sweet stuff, I’ll be checking your next one out.
Fantastic game!
At first glance I wouldn’t have thought I was going to sit there and play it through to the end, how wrong I was!
I’ve bought games that weren’t half as good as this, well done.
Wow, this game really, really impressed me. I’ve never played anything like it. It had the feel of an old Atari classic, it was extremely challenging without being impossible, trial-and-error without forcing the player to start over from scratch, and had a simple but powerful story element to it.
Marvelous game!
Love the ending! 😛
Why do so many people write about how much this ending made them think? For my part, the ending made me feel… not really unsatisfied, more like kind of empty, and just a glimmer of disappointment. It just seemed like a way to end up back at the beginning like a lot of these kinds flash games do and I didn’t give it a second thought until I read what other people thought of it.
That being the case, I’d like to read more of what other people thought of the ending. Personally, I now wonder what kind of rescue attempt this was. Maybe he wasn’t trying to bring her back to life, he was just trying to take her with him to a better afterlife that isn’t, well, hell. Kind of like ‘What Dreams May Come’. I just hope that the real meaning isn’t what Walter said. It doesn’t matter how well it’s executed, after ‘Dallas’, nobody, Nobody, NOBODY, pulls THAT stupid-ass bull$#! without negative criticism and consequences. If you DID intend for the whole thing to be an inconsequential and unimportant daydream, then please do yourself and all of your fans who have standards a favor and lie. I really like juan’s interpretation though. If it’s something like that, it wouldn’t be a colossal “F——— You!” to the audience, unlike the alternative. Anyway, it seems the best thing you can do at this point is to not elaborate and just keep the ending open to interpretation.
(SPOILERS)
1: Although it’s clear this is probably Orpheus or based on him, it’s still just an assumption. After all, the Cerberus-like dog doesn’t seem to have three heads, and the last boss just didn’t seem very Hades-like.
2: Taken literally, the end makes sense considering how often you die. Does anyone know yet if not dying gets a different ending?
My only problem with this game is that it did seem a little short. Another boss might have helped. With only 2 bosses, it felt less like a short game and more like one overlong level in a game, and it didn’t know when to stop. Maybe you could have had him fight Charon in order to ride the ferry for free, since he doesn’t look like he has enough money to pay the fare. Anyway, great game! It’s a lot more faithful than God of War!