Click the mouse button to start the game. First you hold down the mouse button to have Raven launch the canoe. Then you can slow down the canoe by pressing the mouse button. Try to get the canoe as far as you can!
There is a lot of layered meaning in this game. The setting is based on Haida culture, where the humans live on the surface of the water and danger comes from above or below, the sky or the sea. The canoe is also a metaphor for life, of navigating dangerous waters. So we see that in both the game and Haida culture, humans are certainly not the ones in control. All they can do is steer a little bit to maintain their course and avoid disaster.
Instead, the trickster Raven is in control. The most important action a player does in this game is to launch the canoe as Raven. Like all tricksters, Raven tries everything, whether or not it will hurt other beings. The player must also carry out that role when trying to find the right timing to get the highest score.
But it is not at all straightforward to figure out which timing will give the best score. This is a chaotic system. A slight difference in timing may result in a completely different chain of events and a completely different score. Each time you retry, a new peak is added to the mountain range in the background, forming a graph of the system. How is it possible to find the highest peak in such a chaotic landscape? That is the fundamental challenge of this game.
This is my third Flash project, and my first Flash game.
Alex Cho Snyder