Even Canabalt 's creator can't explain its success

Adam Saltsman, developer of Canabalt talks to Gamasutra about why the game has been a hit with fans -- though he's "hesitant to give any specific reason," maybe the key lies in one of his workaday fantasies.

"I used to have this fantasy when I worked in an office building with this long, long hallway with this glass window at the end that looked out over a river and a cliff," says Saltsman.

"You'd be in this office and a two story party boat would just creep down the river, filled with people partying. What a beautiful thing to feel -- if you were invincible, how beautiful would it be to take off down the hallway at top speed and physically and metaphorically explode out?"

That, as much as anything, could explain the appeal of Canabalt -- a game which has become not just successful but highly influential in the mobile space, with its one-button approach toward platforming easily executable on smartphones.

"My general sense is that there's a clutch of different things that it does that are good" about Canabalt , says Saltsman. "It's pretty awesome right away. One of the things that doesn't hurt it is that the game turns on, the music gets super creepy, things start shaking, you jump out of a window, barely land on your feet and take off running."

For more on Canabalt -- and the claustrophobic Capsule , which forces players who run out of fuel to wait for death -- check out Gamasutra's talks to Gamasutrafull feature interview with Saltsman
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