Dodge That Anvil!

Cheerful Arcade Fun
2006 Adultswim.com Award Winner

A 2006 IGF finalist and winner of the Adultswim award (sponsored by Cartoon Network), Dodge That Anvil! is a game in which you play a bucktoothed bunny trying to harvest carrots and other veggies as anvils drop from the sky. Why? Well, um.... Does it matter? This is cartoon logic here.

Each level, you must harvest a quota of carrots (extra points for more); radishes give you points you can spend on equipment, like hard-hats that save you from one anvil-strike, and veggie magnets that let you collect plucked vegetables by moving near them instead of through them. Just about every level adds some new type of obstacle, powerup, or other feature--in other words, enough variety to retain your interest as the game progresses.

Jake Grandchamp, the game's developer, polished the gameplay for almost 9 months after its IGF appearance, and the result is a nicely balanced game with surprising depth, a happy-go-lucky feel, and controls that are simplicity itself: arrow keys and the space bar do everything. (There's also a mouse interface and joystick support, if that's what you prefer.) If this sounds like fun, give the demo a shot.

The Developer Says:

The rabbits of Eastwarren have always been unusually intelligent. While other animals stole crops from humans, they watched and learned to grow their own. They prospered for many years by planting vegetable patches in forest clearings.

Then, one autumn day, the impossible occurred. Anvils began to rain from the sky! Fearing for their lives, the rabbits fled from the fields, leaving the crops to languish. They cowered in their burrows, struggling to understand this cruel twist of fate.

Faced with starvation, Eastwarren's greatest minds met to devise a strategy for surviving the relentless anvil storm. In collaboration with gopher engineers, they developed a set of highly advanced harvesting equipment. These tools, they explained, would in theory allow a very quick and brave rabbit to endure the anvil onslaught indefinitely.

Only one such rabbit volunteered.

Can one brave bunny feed the entire warren? Who is behind the anvil storm, and why? Join the intrepid Harvester of Eastwarren and find out!

Reviews

"It's the perfect indie game: super-simple to play, but edge-of-your-seat addictive."
  - Dave Kosak, gamespy.com

"There is much to love about Dodge That Anvil, not the least of which is the fact that Jake has created the entire game himself. Over the course of about a year of development, the game has shaped up to be a very impressive work, and one that is a lot of fun to play."
  - Jay is Games

Awards

Winner, Adultswim.com Award (IGF 2006)

Nominee, Best Web Browser Game (IGF 2006)

Nominee, Innovation in Audio (IGF 2006)