Being of a fine, renowned Canadian ancestry myself, it seems only fitting that I should finally draw your attention to Endless Migration, an avoidance title from HotAirRaccoon featuring the noble Canadian Goose. Why, I remember fondly watching the great migrations myself in my youth, and they are realistically created here in intricate detail. Only, uh. I don't quite remember so much air traffic. Or blood. Or missiles. Or shining golden paragon birds that descend from the heavens and provide score multipliers. Hmmm.
You start out with a single, solitary goose, controlled with the mouse. (So, yes, trackpad users are going to have issues with this one.) Avoid all planes, helicopters, blimps, and other dangers, and fly over stray birds to add them to your flock. The goal is to flock your little heart out for as long as possible, gaining points along the way to spend on upgrades that can help your flocking abilities after purchasing them from the main menu. The bigger your flock gets, the harder it is to keep it safe, and being struck by anything that isn't a fellow avian will cut out a member of your flock. If all your flock dies, including the leader, it's game over.
Things like weather conditions have an effect on how well you fly, and different birds handle better or worse than others, or grant more points. You can also gain achievements for a variety of things, which will in turn grant you additional upgrade points. It's all very sleek and well put together, complete with the melodic, nasal honks of the geese, and the familiar sound of goose-meets-propellers. Trust me; it will become familiar. It does, however, feature what may be the single most annoying background track I have ever personally heard in the game; it drove me for the mute option from the main menu in less than five minutes. Maybe it just needs a soothing narration from Mike Rowe?
It's likely that after a few hours you'll have every upgrade and every achievement. When that happens, all that's left is for you to flock as long as you can and see how high a score you can get. (Or wipe your data and start all over.) If avoidance games are your cuppa, Endless Migration will entertain for a time, and bring attention to the plight of the Canadian Goose to boot. Why isn't Sarah McLachlan filming a soft-focus commercial about geese being unable to afford Phoenix Upgrades right now?
hehe..."flock your heart out." Thanks for the giggle!
Man even with all the upgrades I still can't even get close to surviving for 180 seconds. Managed to get all the other achievements though.
And OF COURSE I manage it on my very next attempt (and my intended last one) after posting that.
Now there's an air traffic controller's nightmare!
63,273
3 minutes is definitely the hardest one by far... at least for me. That is the only one still evading me. 162.3 seconds is my best so far.
Wow, you're right...very hard to play with a touchpad. However, I think 78,275 is a pretty acceptable score! Longest I made it was 72 seconds. HARD!
So...much...blood...*twitch*
I have every upgrade, and every achievement except 2: Bourgeoisie and the "survive for 3 minutes" one. Keep accidentally picking up non-swans...
Background music isn't that bad, but it's just the same two lines repeated over and over, so it can get repetitive fast. The game's kinda fun, but those 2 achievements are pretty hard. (At least the swan one is. I haven't even bothered playing through beyond my best so far, because I keep trying to go for that one.) It's a relatively simple but fun game at first. After a while, it can get boring.
Also, Zeke, which one are you talking about: the numerous avian objects, or the ridiculous numbers of aircraft? (Or both? :P)
I managed to get everything except the three-minute survival.... and playing 25 times. Though I think that NOT having that one is better than having it.
Man, what happened, did Reagan fire the air traffic controllers again or something?
(Nothing too spoilerish in here here, but I'm putting it in spoiler tags anyway just to be on the safe side)
The timed achievements seem to be unnecessarily hard because it seems that for some reason, the clock in the game runs about 30% slow, meaning it takes about 78 seconds to complete a "minute" in the game. I've managed to get just about everything but the million score (I think I'm somewhere around 978,000 on my high score) and the 3 minutes (I've managed about 2:40, which given the above mentioned time issue should be enough, but apparently it isn't,)
Very enjoyable! I've achieved everything but the time challenges and the "around the world."
The only thing that bothers me is that the half of the flock to your right seem to be a little faster than those on your left. That is, when you move to the left, they all bunch together, but when you move to the right, they actually spread way out! This may only happen after buying the Hive Mind upgrade, I'm not sure. But it's kinda weird having to remember, "okay, if it's crowded, try to move to the LEFT to stay small."
I was lulled into a false sense of serenity by the instructions music and general ambience and was totaly shocked by the brutal nature of the deaths and blood!
I guess that's life isn't it.
Also a bit shocking is the thought that this could be set near the Hudson river.
Quite a pleasant diversion.
I didn't have any problem with Bourgeoisie, but I didn't bother getting the "die in 5 seconds" one until after I had the Phoenix stone, and it's completely impossible after that...
Suffers from the same problem as many of these games that once you get most of the achievements, there's nothing left to do except keep looping endlessly trying for the endurance ones. Got 2 minutes, not going to get 3 minutes; got 500k, not going to get 1m. But nonetheless, pleasing for a few plays; a solid 4/5.
There's a reset button in the upgrades menu. It gives you back all your upgrade points to redistribute. Very helpful since the very first upgrade I bought was the one to increase the main swan's attraction range: it made "Flying Solo" and "Bourgeoisie" waay harder than they would otherwise be. I don't think I would've been able to get them at all without that option. So kudos on them for thinking to put it in.
I am also suspicious that the in-game timer might be moving too slowly.
2790183 :D 157.7sec..aiming now for the last achievement, 180.sec of continuous play..hehe
I honestly didn't have too much trouble with this game.
After about twenty minutes of play, I got a record of:
High Score: 1600571
Best Time: 276.6 sec
All Achievements.
Here are some tips that I've noticed.
1. Golden Goose Bonus is your score king. Get it early before the screen is littered with flying monstrosities and keep it as long as you can. My high score was not from my best time run, but a shorter run that had a golden goose bonus of over 32000 points per bird. Hefty bonus.
2. To last long, ignore all your other birds. It's almost impossible to go for a high score if you're going for a high time (unless you kept your golden goose bonus from the beginning). You just need to make sure you always have a path to escape, and ignore your flock. Regather your flock after each trouble. Preservation of self > Preservation of Flock.
3. If you ever need to keep your flock small, move backwards. The flock will reduce its size to be pretty tiny.
4. To get a higher bonus over time, it may be better to not get the expanded bird recruitment range upgrade so you can pick swans for your flock rather than ugly birds. For my longest run, I got a score of about 1.2 million.
I have to say, I'm quite shocked that the US Air Force never realized that
Canada Geese are the key to making stealth fighters... not stealthy. I hope our enemies don't take a cue from this game and massacre hundreds of birds just to make stealth planes visible.
Man, that gem thingy is a lifesaver! Longest time: 223.5 seconds. Dumb luck if I ever saw it!
NOOOO!!!!! 179.2 secs!!!
i have all achievements except the 3min and 25 plays!!!! the posidon upgrade helps ALOT!!
Nitpick : It's called a Canada goose , not a "Canadian goose".
! I love Mike Rowe!
This is the best game I have played in a long time! I love these frantic avoidance games! My poor geese are daring to fly through such crowded airways. 5 stars
LOL, The black bird thinks he's saving his friends, but his friends are safer on their own.
Quite good, featured on Kongregate a few months ago. Only problem is that there's no save, only a little problem due to the shortness of the game but still, a save feature would have been nice.
182.5b secs in 14 games
I remeber playing this! I ended up quitting because two of the acheivements were too hard to get.
It's a great game though!
Fun game. Got all the achievements in 20 plays. Had to kill myself 5 times for the 25 games played one.
"flock your little heart out"
I love your reviews.
Try seeing how long you can survive solo :) my record is 223.2 sec.
Update