Description

1:30 am is not a good time to start a lengthy homework assignment, particularly in your current state of exhaustion. But it's due tomorrow so you pull out a piece of paper and a few pencils and set to work.

Ten minutes later, the paper is still blank. Your mind is blank too. You'll start writing your first sentence just as soon as you can get your eyes to stay open by themselves... But what's this? One of your pencils has jumped over to your paper and started doodling on it! "Hey! I was going to use that!" You grab a nearby push-pin tack and fling it at the pencil. Now the other pencils have joined in.

Your homework assignment is doomed. But you aren't going down without a fight!

Shoot the pencils and pens before they fill your paper with doodles!
Game ends when 50% of your paper has been filled up
Undo some of the damage by hitting bottles of correction fluid- but avoid hitting the bottles of ink.
Created in 30 days using Unity for the 3DU Mac game development contest.

System Requirements

Macintosh

Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" or greater
600 MHz CPU or greater
Rage 128 Pro, Radeon-class, or GeForce video card.

Windows

Windows 2000 or greater
DirectX7-capable video card (Radeon, GeForce, most Intel)
OpenGL drivers installed
1 GHz processor or better (2 GHz recommended)

Download

Click here to download A Tack! for Mac (Universal Binary) (8.2 MB)

Click here to download A Tack! for Windows (4.4 MB)

Screenshots (click to enlarge)

Troubleshooting

If the game appears to be running jerkily or slowly:

Lower resolutions like 800x600 run faster than higher resolutions like 1024x768.
Full-screen often runs faster than windowed.
A lower quality like "Good" runs faster than "Fantastic".

Under Windows if you start the game and the window is almost black or illegible, this is probably caused by your graphics drivers. In particular, Windows Vista does not currently ship with the proper drivers. You may wish to try to get newer drivers from the vendor of your video card.
Click here for ATI & AMD video drivers for Windows
Click here for nVidia video drivers for Windows
(These links are here for your convenience and may change. I assume no responsible for the proper functioning of any drivers you may choose to install.)

Instead of using the mouse, the keyboard can be used. Default keys:

Left Arrow or A key - Move left
Right Arrow or D key - Move right
Spacebar - Fire

Different keys can be assigned by using the configuration dialog that appears when the game is run.

While playing, the *Esc* key will return you to the main menu.

Latest News

March 24, 2007 - Version 1.0.2
New build to support Windows Vista.
Pencils and pens now draw lines instead of points. This avoids gaps if your frame-rate is low.
Also made the collision detection a little more forgiving.

January 8, 2007 - Contest Results
A Tack! wins second place in the 3DU contest! Read the announced results by clicking here.

January 8, 2007 - Version 1.0.1
Official release of Windows version.

December 26, 2006 - Version 1.0.1
Increased firing rate slightly.
New tack will not accidentally fire after previous tack hits an object close to the bottom.
Bottles stay more over the paper, away from tack at bottom.

December 21, 2006 - Version 1.0.0
Released Mac version for the 3DU contest, a 30-day contest run by iDevGames and sponsored by OTEE.
Improved lighting for older Macs and lower quality settings.
Added optional keyboard input.
Mouse cursor is hidden during full-screen games.
Other minor bug fixes.
December 19, 2006 - Version 1.0b
Beta release for Mac.