Circuits

Developed by Digital Tentacle

 

Circuits is a short indie puzzle game where you must carefully listen to music and then recreate it using set sound samples and a circuit based grid pattern on the screen. As things move on from stage to stage, the game gets much more complicated and what I thought in the early rounds would be an easy to finish game ended up becoming more complex the further I delved. Based on what I completed, I’d say this game is only a few hours in length, but at $2.99 it seems to be perfectly priced to sell. A unique puzzler, if you enjoy music creation and have a good ear for it, this could be a great addition to your library.

The gameplay of Circuits is pretty easy. Each short track is comprised of a set number of layers that you can switch between and listen to different beats of the track. As the track hits different circles on the grid, you must fit the correct pieces in to the puzzle to duplicate the computer’s track. It’s an aural jigsaw puzzle at the start, but quickly turns much more complex as loops, switches, and more are introduced. There is a lot of repetition in the gameplay, but the tracks are interesting to listen to and the game does it’s best to keep things difficult by sometimes putting pieces in that have no match and are just there to trick you. It’s easy to complete a stage and think you have the solution only to find the playback telling you that something is amiss.

What you end up with is a surprisingly challenging puzzle that gives you that rewarding feeling when you complete a song. Gameplay for the most part works, but sometimes samples that need to be looped feel a bit jumpy or provided me a challenge in figuring out where exactly the loop ends. The game lacks a polish and consistency that you might find with more seasoned developers, but it’s easy to forgive at a game that is being sold at such a low price point. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time with this game and look forward to spending more time with it. I just want to be clear that it isn’t the perfect experience.

The high point of Circuits is the original soundtrack composed by David Garcia. The soundtrack manages to fuse a handful of different genres but for the most part has an ambient feel to it that I really enjoy. All of the songs on stages are real short at around the 30 second mark, but they have a lot of variety and sometimes the different tracks bounce into other styles like dubstep and techno. It always keeps your ears alert and spotting the subtle differences between music in different styles felt like it was using different parts of my brain. For example, I had a harder time with stages that had ambient noise than ones that had in your face blasting bass.

Visually, things are extremely minimalistic and I really enjoy that style. It’s always easy to see layers and see exactly where your usable parts lay. The game has optional powerups that appear on the slick interface and give you a way out if the game gets too challenging. There also are options to completely skip stages if you need to. I would assume this game is near impossible for anyone without a musical ear, but know there are failsafes in place to allow you easier access to the more challenging areas of the game if music isn’t your strong suit.

Today’s post is a bit short, but that’s mostly because this is a really simple game. Simplicity is why I enjoyed Circuits and anyone with a love for music games as much as me will feel right at home with this one. It’s inexpensive, easy to learn, has a great difficulty curve, and provides a challenge to all skill levels. I will invest the time in finishing this which says a lot with how many games I have unplayed still remaining in my library and I highly recommend this to anyone with similar tastes to mine.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played for 1 hour an 12 minutes and completed the first dozen levels or so.

The 7th Guest

Developed by Trilobyte Games

 

The 7th Guest is a game from my childhood that I have completed multiple times but had the chance to recently play again with a new Steam release that emulates the game via the ScummVM platform. It was an interesting experience going back and playing a game that I have completed multiple times. While I played this at a young age, it’s still a fairly mature game with lots of questionable content for the time of it’s release. The 7th Guest is a first person adventure game based around a collection of puzzles that has you figuring out the secrets of the Stauf mansion. This is a legend in the gaming industry, but times change and the experience this time was far different than the last time I played it nearly a decade ago. It’s dated, it’s at times difficult and unfair, it’s par for the course for classic adventure games. There’s still a lot to love with The 7th Guest, but whether you want to put up with it is at your discretion.

The gameplay of The 7th Guest is extremely simple to follow as you move around the mansion exploring creative rooms and searching for puzzles and easter eggs. This game has no inventory or items to find, just rooms filled with puzzles, full motion video sequences, and spooky secrets. Instead, the game relies a lot on locked doors and returning to old areas in order to find where to go next. There are many paths to complete the game, but they all end up taking you in the same areas as the story gets slowly pieced together. Unfortunately, this form of story telling is ineffective at times when characters who die are suddenly appearing in FMVs in other rooms. It might not be the best way to tell the story, but at times it’s real convenient from a gameplay standpoint. The movement of the game is extremely slow paced and moving from room to room uses static screens with motion transitions. It was a way to get past the technical limitations of the release year, but unfortunately it shows its age greatly as you spend a lot of time waiting for your character to move to the next room. Puzzles also work at this same slow speed. It’s still playable, just don’t expect the fastest of gameplay.

The 7th Guest follows the tale of Henry Stauf who was an incredible toy maker that made dolls for children. When the children began to mysteriously die, Stauf disappeared and his mansion was left to rot. He was a big fan of creating puzzles and six guests are one day sent invitations to the abandoned mansion as special guests. What none of them know is that there is a 7th guest in the building that no one knows exists. The game puts you in control not as any of these guests but as a character unaware of why he is even in the mansion. The story plays out with live actors in full motion video scenes showing the ups and downs of each character. It’s a bit cheesy at times, but extremely ground breaking as this was one of the first major FMV games to be a commercial success. The technology is dated, but it’s still fascinating to see how a game like this existed over two decades ago.

The real meat of The 7th Guest are the puzzles and this is where I have the most issues with this game. I can stand the outdated graphics, the questionable story, and the at times laughable acting, but when puzzles become so difficult and frustrating to the point of not being able to complete them, then I just can’t finish this game. I planned on finishing this game in a single sitting and I couldn’t because of one late game puzzle that has you jumping dots in order to outscore your opponent. The computer AI had near perfect play every single time and making one mistake during the entire game meant you would definitely be losing. Unfortunately, this kind of a randomly generated puzzle can’t be beaten by a walkthrough or a guide. Brute force and learning how to play it was time I didn’t want to invest in this game. So many puzzles involve things that take a lot of time like switching positions of pieces on a chess board or navigating a large maze while being taunted by the voice of Henry Stauf. I can forgive a lot of things, but the puzzles are what prevented me from actually finishing this game. It’s better than some old point and click games that become literally unbeatable if you make a wrong move, but it’s still a real deal breaker for me. At least the inferior sequel to this game added the ability for in game hints and skipping puzzles if you ever became truly stuck, but this one has a much more unforgiving design.

Graphically, this game looks terrible with it’s low resolution graphics and laughable full motion video, but yet the game still manages to have a real unique style and character. The mansion is filled with rooms that are distinctive and each have their own style. The characters are all unique and have unique vulnerabilities and flaws that show. I don’t think that this game is going to scare anyone with how much the age shows, but if you know before hand that the game is old I don’t see any problem. One interesting thing I found about the game was because I was playing this while streaming it I was messing with the contrast to try to brighten it up for viewers as the visuals are very dark in this game. I quickly learned that the creators used darkness to cover a lot of flaws and it was an interesting insight on classic game design. The things this game does with the technology that was available at the time is truly remarkable and I don’t want to insult this game just because it’s ugly by today’s standards. The one thing that I do really enjoy about this game and it’s sequel is an original soundtrack by The Fat Man. This game has some awesome and iconic music that shouldn’t be skipped. In addition to the fantastic soundtrack, you are constantly hearing the voice of Henry Stauf as you move through the mansion and if there’s anything that you will take away from this experience, it’s his words. His voice acting is a great part of why this game is so iconic and it’s much better done than any of the live action guests.

I have a real hard time saying this but I don’t know if The 7th Guest is worth playing anymore. Sure, I had a pretty good time playing it, but most of that was just nostalgia peeking through and as time moved on the flaws really became apparent and took away greatly from the experience. If you have a fascination with full motion video games like I do, this is definitely one with a lot of historical value that I recommend checking out, but for those casual onlookers it’s a bit of a mess. If you do want to pick this up, I think $5.99 is an acceptable price point and you will get at least a few hours of entertainment out of it. Turn the volume up, the lights down, and enjoy the game for what it is, a creepy adventure game with a lot of heart.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played for around 3 hours and completed about half of the game.

Flockers

Developed by Team17 Digital Limited

 

Well, well, well. What have I become covering two early access games in a row? Earlier today, this wasn’t even a part of my library and today I made the decision to pick it up and play it after a number of opinions from people I respect began to surface. Bear in mind as you read this that this game is still in development and only half of the planned levels have been completed so far with many other features arriving at a later date. Things are subject to change and improve with time, but from what I experienced this is a pretty playable game already.

Flockers is an A to B puzzle game that pits you in control of a group of mindless sheep as they walk continuously forward with you in charge of guiding them to the proper exit. As they walk, they find items that are picked up for you to use to make them do basic actions from jumping to exploding in a style that is extremely reminiscent of the classic puzzle series Lemmings. From the creator of Worms, this game has the same dark style humor of that series and manages to feel unique from it’s inspirations in a package that I thoroughly enjoyed. It might be some odd nostalgia for the format, but I am excited to see where this game goes and will continue to play the levels that are available to me in this early version.

The concept of Flockers is that a group of 50 or so sheep slowly pour out of an entrance and walk in a straight line to either the left or right. You must use the items available to you to do things like freeze them in their tracks to create roadblocks or stairs, use well timed suicide explosions to blow up obstacles, jump and fly over narrow gaps and chasms, and just avoid a mirage of well placed death traps. Flockers is a game of mistakes and a lot of the challenge is adapting to the scenarios you are given. Sometimes, hesitation leads to death; other times, rushing in to a scenario gets your entire group murdered. Flockers is absolutely relentless and surviving levels with all of your sheep intact is near, if not completely, impossible. Luckily, to complete a level you only have to save a single sheep. How the game does this is with a three star ranking system that lets you know how well you performed. It gives the addition of difficulty levels without actually changing the stage design itself. A welcome touch to take away some of the stress of the gameplay as this allows for the game to be as difficult as you make it.

While there are a lot of similarities in this formula to Lemmings, the game manages to feel completely original by changing the types of powerups and making the game much more heavily action based than it’s predecessor. Stages seem to go by much faster and the addition of things like hidden golden sheep add extra bonus objectives to those who dare for more of a challenge. Flockers is a humorous game, but it’s also extremely dark at times. Every death is gory and visceral and when a group of sheep die you feel the pain in every one of their screams. The game oddly enough makes you feel responsible for your missteps through the violence. From my puzzle experience, this is much less family friendly than any other game of this genre that came before it.

In addition to some superb gameplay, Flockers also supports a plethora of features such as Steam leaderboards and custom levels created via the Steam Workshop. While not all of these things have been fully implemented yet, the ones that are currently in the game seem to work well. Flockers even supports built in Twitch streaming which is a thing that I rarely see in PC games right now. It’s an interesting concept, though one that seems a bit unnecessary on the computer platform. Not a lot of people play this as of this posting so the leaderboards seem to be fairly sparse, but they work and help motivate you to increase your star rankings. The game also has a number of achievement based awards that unlock specialty types of sheep. I didn’t achieve any of these as many of them involve lifetime stats, but I’m assuming they allow you to reskin your sheep in to things like zombies.

Flockers has some interesting art style with cute cartoony character design surrounded by metal stages with rotating saw blades, axes, explosives, and more. Playing the game is almost like watching a cartoon made for adults. The violence is reminscent of cartoons like Itchy and Scratchy and the absurdity of some of the traps on the levels helps to take away any semblance of realism. Backed by a fitting soundtrack, the art direction of Flockers can best be compared to Team17’s other major series, Worms. It works well and allows the extreme violence to take place without becoming uncomfortable.

I had a hunch before even playing this that Flockers would be a game I would enjoy, and I wasn’t wrong. I was hesitant to get it in early access because I felt like I wanted to play the complete experience, but I am glad I picked it up. There are still some bugs and quirks, but for the most part the game feels finished and responsive and worth playing even in it’s current state. If you’ve ever enjoyed puzzle games such as Lemmings, you’ll feel right at home with this one and I thoroughly recommend giving it a try. A fun and rewarding experience without relying on wholesome charm to get you through.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played for around 1 hour and 11 minutes and completed the first 10 levels or so. This is an early access game so all opinions are subject to change.

7 Wonders: Ancient Alien Makeover

Developed by MumboJumbo

 

7 Wonders is a game I’ve never heard of until I purchased this one in a bundle of casual MumboJumbo games. Yes, this is another casual game, but it’s one that I found pretty fun to play in short bursts and not one that I would write off if you want some good mindless fun. The closest thing I can compare this to is a game that I feel has a bad connotation and that is Candy Crush Saga. Think of this as a less scummy version of that game. It’s classic match 3 action with the purpose of destroying the background of the playing field. A lot of games have used this formula in the past, but I think Ancient Alien Makeover is one of the more engaging ones I have played in my lifetime.

Unfortunately, because this is the first in the series that I have played, I can’t give you the hard hitting comparisons that the casual enthusiast may want. From what I’ve read, this is the fifth game sequentially in the 7 Wonders series and I don’t know what parts of it have been in previous iterations and what improvements have been made, but I can at least speak for what I’ve played here. At the start of the game, you pick a difficulty going from Easy to Insane. I played on the default level of Normal and I must say that it pr0ved to be over the top easy on that setting. Changing the difficulty may affect your enjoyment of the game, so just choose whatever is most comfortable for you. You can change at any time, so my suggestion is to experiment with the options.

Ancient Alien Makeover  is a game about travelling around the globe in order to capture the wonders of the world. Each stage is comprised of as many levels as it takes as you collect pieces of the wonder and build it. Stages each have a grid layout and the goal is to match 3 of a single color and destroy the background of each square by swapping two pieces on the board. This can be done by destroying a block on top of it or by using a powerup that are granted by performing well and making larger matches throughout the level. Once all spaces are hit, a block spawns at the top that must drop to the bottom to complete the stage. Failure is only achieved if the timer on the right side runs out. It’s a real simple concept that is best understood by seeing the game in action, but it is also an addictive one.

Beyond the core gameplay, there is a lot hidden in this game on top of the basics. First of all, the game has a world map that is fully customizable using buildings you unlock and items you purchase via in game currency. No, this game doesn’t have microtransactions – all the coins you need to use are unlocked via the wonders you build and the achievements you unlock. Each country you visit has blueprints that can be found which allow you to build more buildings to put on your overworld map. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a purpose to this other than for looks and bragging rights, but it’s a nice addition to the regular gameplay. Blueprints are found by matching certain color blocks over certain squares during normal gameplay. You also have a number of powerups that can be unlocked and used regularly on a panel on the left side of the screen. I found that these make the game a bit overly easy and I rarely ended up using them, but I’m sure on higher difficulties they become more of a necessity thanks to the fact that clearing out corner pieces in this style of the game is very difficult at times and comes down to a game of chance.

Graphically, the cartoon world of 7 Wonders is colorful and everything here is exactly what you’d expect out of a casual game. The sound effects feel satisfying and fit in place perfectly while animated characters walk around under the playing field the entire time. Effects like bolts of energy flash at you as you unleash powerups and the overall game just creates a nicely put together complete package. It’s nothing fancy, but it works very well for what the game tries to be and the audience it tries to appeal to. I think this game would even work well for children thanks to the art style.

Sure, 7 Wonders: Ancient Alien Makeover is just another of many casual games in my Steam library, but even as a hardcore gamer I can find something to enjoy here. If you’re looking for a game to play for an hour just to wind down, this is the perfect style. It doesn’t bombard you with microtransactions and there is never that grinding feeling of trying to get enough currency to hit the next level. There are definitely elements of it that come down to luck and it isn’t always a fair game, but it’s fun and that’s all that really matters.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played for 1 hour and 24 minutes and completed the first four wonders.

Critical Mass

Developed by Manic Game Studios

 

Today, I played a pretty simple game in the form of Critical Mass. Critical Mass is an easy to learn, yet fast paced puzzle game, that has you matching groups of 4 or more with the end goal of eliminating all the colors on screen. The main game consists of 10 levels at three different difficulties and has you racing the clock to defeat the mass before it becomes critical and explodes. Powerups and a variety of modes keep the action unique, but don’t expect a ton of variety here. Luckily, the game is priced to sell at only $1.99 and this quickly becomes an easy recommendation because of that.

Maybe not the best reference point, but Critical Mass reminds me a little bit of Tetrisphere in the way it works. You have a cube or similar shape on screen which can be rotated by holding a button and moving the mouse. You are giving colored squares of a random color on the board each turn and can place them anywhere on the field of play in order to try to match 4 or more of a color and eliminate those from the board. This adds some odd random elements that can be unfair when you can only see some of the board at the time due to hidden blocks. In addition to placing blocks, you have three powerups that can be used and are charged over time to help boost your score or pause time to give you more of a chance to complete the stage. On normal difficulty, the game quickly became difficult about halfway through and speed became of the utmost importance. This isn’t a casual game, though there is a casual difficulty setting. You’ll have to work fast and get used to mechanics in order to complete all the stages and earn high scores.

The way powerups work is you have three different levels that charge over time. You can choose to use the first powerup when it’s charged, or save that charge towards the second powerup. This means that the first powerup, the multiplier, is always the easiest to achieve while the final powerup requires you to save charges sometimes through multiple levels just to access it. If you lose a level, the game starts you over on the same stage instantly and you always feel addicted to that “just one more game” mentality.

In addition to the standard game mode, there are also ones that require you to complete a stage as fast as possible and a more casual mode that has you setting up combos without a strict timer. These add a nice bit of variety to the game, but lack the depth that the standard game mode offer. All of these modes have their own scoreboards and competing with friends is a great addition via Steam leaderboards. Sometimes, your scores can feel very luck based due to the random creation of colors on stages, but great use of powerups is the best way to hit the high scores. A very challenging achievement list also helps to add replayability to the game.

Graphically, there isn’t much to say about Critical Mass. It works in what it does smoothly and has some nice explosion effects but there isn’t anything fancy about it. For what the game needs and is trying to do, I think the graphics and audio work fine. The colors are bright and the flashing red effects of impending danger always warn you that trouble is brewing.

Critical Mass doesn’t have a lot of depth and there isn’t much to say about it beyond basic concepts, but the fact that I played this for almost double the time I meant to says a lot about it’s addictive nature. For $1.99, you cannot go wrong with a purchase here. It’s a great puzzle game and kept me engaged very well and I definitely recommend playing this if you’re in to puzzle games. I know for sure that I will continue playing.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played for 1 hour and 57 minutes. I completed the standard game mode on normal difficulty and tried out a few other modes.

Samorost2

Developed by Amanita Design

 

Samorost2 is one of the classic point and click adventure games on Steam. It’s a beautiful atmospheric world that encourages you to explore with minimal options given to you to find solutions and progress to the next screen. You play the role of a space gnome on a mission to find his lost dog which has been kidnapped by aliens. Along the way, you come across many interesting environments and characters. An extremely short game, this will last the average person a little over an hour, but that time is quality and the game is relatively inexpensive at $4.99.

The gameplay is you clicking around the environment interacting with objects. Really that is it. There are no inventory screens and no free movement. The complexity of puzzles only get as difficult as having to time your clicks on different items just right in order to make things succeed. The puzzles never get overly difficult, but at times you will need to pixel hunt just to figure out the next thing you are supposed to click to progress. I never had troubles finding a puzzle solution, though sometimes the execution proved to be a bit more difficult than I would have liked. While the game doesn’t support a save system, each level does have passwords so that you can return to any of them with a simple entry in to a text field.

Samorost2 is the sequel to a free Flash game and is pretty old and the design of the platforming is starting to show it’s age. The graphics look amazing and stylized still, but the gameplay mechanics could really use some work. Flash just is no longer a viable option for creating a game. The game is completely playable, but it just shows its age at every corner. The music is incredibly atmospheric and sounds really great. This is some nice relaxing music that I would listen to outside of the game.

My only issue with this game is how some of the timing is extremely difficult and later in the game you are actually punished by messing up the puzzles by forcing you to do earlier elements multiple times. The last section of this game took me four attempts to do where I had to repeat the same actions over and over in order to get back to the final section to do one more attempt. This was frustrating design and I wish they had approached it differently.

It’s really hard to say more about this game because of how basic it is. This is definitely a game I would recommend to anyone looking to play a nice short point and click game. The atmosphere is fantastic and the puzzles are creative and smart. The game is never overly complex and I never felt completely stuck. There were some moments of anger and saltiness, but overall this is a fun short experience. If you are feeling questionable about it, you can check out Samorost1 on the Internet for free.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played it for 1 hour and 42 minutes.  I completed the game in much more time than it should have taken due to some issues with late game puzzles and some distractions.

Gunpoint

Developed by Tom Francis

Gunpoint is a stealth based strategy puzzler where you take control of Richard Conway, a freelance spy sent on missions to infiltrate and steal data. A game that fuses a ton of genres, Gunpoint requires a lot of thinking and will provide even the best of sleuths with challenging scenarios. An interesting story, branching dialogue paths, and the ability to purchase upgrades and gear, there is a whole lot to love about Gunpoint and will keep you entertained for quite some time.

The entire game takes place in a 2 dimensional side view of a building (or in some cases multiple buildings) and you must stealthily sneak around guards to find your way to your objective, collect it, and escape via the subway tunnel on the far right. The world of Gunpoint is a brutal one and if you are shot, you will die immediately. There are no health bars of any sort. Guards sometimes do miss while shooting at you, but don’t count on this as they are usually fairly accurate. Luckily, Gunpoint presents you with a pretty creative checkpoint system where on death you can choose to restart the current level or go back a set amount of seconds to one of three previous checkpoints. This gives you the ability to try strategies without having to be in fear of starting over. While this checkpoint system is pretty reliant on algorithms, seeing as most levels do not have a set path but many options you can follow, I never once had it cause me to be stuck and forced to restart the entire stage.

While you have no weaponry initially due to a gun ban, you are slowly introduced to a number of gadgets that really define this game and set it above the competition. By clicking the mouse wheel, you switch over to a grid pattern that lets you see circuitry of the electronics around you. You have the ability to rewire everything from elevators to switches to lights in order to get access to rooms and finish the levels. Usually, these solutions have many options and are fairly straightforward. Sometimes this game is absolutely brutal in difficulty and really requires you to think all your moves ahead. At first, taking out lights becomes the go to strategy as guards can’t see you in the dark. As the game progresses, even enemies begin to evolve and gain armor and then the ability to see in the dark. Each mission you complete grants you skill points and cash which can be used to purchase new upgrades or abilities. The upgrade system allows you to add or remove points from categories at any time so you will never feel stuck or broken based on the skills you pick early on. Some missions require certain upgrades before you can complete them and typically the harder the mission the more money you earn.

The story in Gunpoint is actually fairly interesting which isn’t something I typically see in this style of game. The game starts out with you trying to solve a murder and acquit an innocent person from false accusations. You are caught between a war of two corporations – Rooke Firearms and Intex. Throughout the game, you will be granted freelance missions from both sides and each time you complete one, more of the story seems to reveal itself to you. Other missions and factions begin showing up as you play the game, but I’ll let you discover those for yourself. Just know, the story is never fully presented to you and you get to make choices based on dialogue options as you progress. It seems like these branching paths don’t really change the game as you move forward, but they will allow you to unlock specific achievements. Some missions end up being completely optional and from what I’ve read these tend to be the more difficult of stages. This means that completion of the game doesn’t require you to be an expert player, just proficient. Within each stage are hidden laptops that you can hack in order to see more of the story. I definitely recommend trying to get these as they make events more interesting and fleshed out.

The pixel based graphics and animations all look great and the way levels are laid out seems like a lot of thought and energy were put in to them. You are constantly given the option of using stealth or just running in full force, which I would never recommend. Gunpoint is also backed by a fantastic soundtrack that is reminiscent of noir inspired spy music.

Replayability in this game seems to be pretty high due to a ranking system on each stage and a robust achievements list. Side quests and gear give each level many paths to try out and you may have to experiment to get the best rankings with the least amount of violence possible. For those on the creative side, the game also does feature a level editor to create your own stages.

Gunpoint is a ton of fun and a game that I definitely recommend checking out. It’s a game that is simple to play, but difficult to master. Stage design is incredible and the mechanics work extremely well once you get a grasp on the controls. You have the ability to do superhuman jumps and climb on ceilings and walls which can feel unnatural at first, but within 15 minutes or so, I seemed to have a good feel for what I was trying to accomplish. If you feel put off at all by the stealth component of the game, know that I am not a big fan of the genre and this is a game that does it properly. The checkpoint system made it so I never felt overwhelmed or frustrated and afraid to take risks at the fear of instant death. Give this game a try. I think anyone that is a fan of interesting independent games will eat this one right up. I’m excited to see where the developer takes us next.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played it for 1 hour and 9 minutes and made it about halfway through the upgrade list playing all side content along the way.

Bookworm Deluxe

Developed by PopCap Games, Inc.

Bookworm Deluxe is a popular PopCap casual puzzle game where you create words on a grid of falling letters. This is one of the earliest iterations of the Bookworm series and thus is a bit lacking in features and gameplay. While this is a casual game, be prepared for long games as the difficulty curve is very slow and takes a long time to build up to any real challenge in my opinion. The game does still feature the option to save progress so you can leave the game off and pick it up at a later time.

For the uninitiated, the gameplay of Bookworm Deluxe is pretty simple. You match up letters to create words of a minimum of 3 letters to destroy them on the grid and cause more to fall. There are two modes, one of which gives you an infinite timer and another which causes you to think fast on your feet. Creating big words causes the spawning of colored tiles that give you bonus points and upon so many points you go up a rank and the game gets a little bit harder. The harder the game, the more burning tiles that spawn and if one of these falls to the bottom of the screen you fail. Each move you make it burns through one more tile and becomes one step closer to the bottom upon which it will engulf the library in flames and the game is over.

My major issue with this game is how the gameplay is far too easy and the curve makes the game take a long time. My first game lasted about 50 minutes and I was bored to death by the end of it just wanting to fail. This game is just way too repetitive for my tastes and the way it approaches the creation of words takes out any from of difficulty. You can just drag your mouse over random letters until it shows that your selection is an actual word. This caused a lot more of me doing trial and error and playing bizarre three letter words that I don’t know the meaning of in order to clear out burning tiles. Sometimes the game gives you definitions on screen which can make it have a hint of educational purpose, but it might be more fun to just read a dictionary. I know a lot of my problems with this game just have to do with how old it is and how it was a different time upon it’s release. It seems like some of these issues have been addressed with more recent versions of the game, but this is the one I ended up playing. I assumed the word deluxe meant an enhanced version, but this is extremely barebones. Bookworm Deluxe does have a timed mode which is a bit more fun than the default mode and I highly suggest playing that one if you are decide to play this.

Visually, there’s nothing impressive at all about this game. It’s minimalistic and the audio is incredibly generic. I guess if you’ve played a PopCap games, this is pretty standard as a lot of them are also made for mobile platforms, but there’s nothing special worth seeing here. If you’re hoping for different modes and resolutions, other than full screen and windowed modes, you get nothing else. This game runs at such a low resolution that Steam notifications would block out a large percentage of my screen. Really what I would like out of this game is either a penalty for creating non-words or just more varied modes or achievements so there is something to work with other than a local high score list.

I just really didn’t enjoy this game at all. The concept seems to be perfect for some folks as I see on Steam people have tons of hours invested in this, but for me I’m never going back to playing it. It just felt way too boring for me. If you’re in to this style game, I’d suggest just getting it on some sort of mobile platform. It seems much more situated for it. Playing it with a mouse isn’t much fun and a touch screen device would probably be a bit less clunky. I can’t recommend this and if you must play it, try to find a newer iteration.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played it for 1 hour and 2 minutes and completed one looooong game of classic mode and one quick game of action mode.

AVSEQ

Developed by Big Robot Ltd

AVSEQ is an experimental music based puzzle game that uses procedural elements to create random soundtracks. Each stage gets progressively more difficult as you advance through the game and the mechanics are very basic and easy to pick up on. The game focuses on combos and fast gameplay in order to provide a challenging, albeit short, experience. It’s worth mentioning right off the bat that this is a very inexpensive game at $1.99, so while the risks it takes don’t always pay off, if you want to give this a try, it’s not a huge investment. No matter how you look at it, the game itself definitely tries out some interesting ideas and concepts, but still AVSEQ is a game that falls short in many areas.

Completely controlled with the mouse, the goal of AVSEQ is to match up colored fragments as they fall from the top of the screen to the bottom without letting them fall off the bottom of the playing field. Each match requires you to match up at least two of a color, but the higher the combo the better. You drag the mouse from atom to atom to make a line between them, and right clicking on the mouse begins the pattern of destroying them all rhythmically to the speed of the music. Combos are not just as simple as matching colors though as white gems also exist that let you switch to a different color and keep your combo alive. Some of these atoms also have special abilities like freezing the play field, causing gems to explode into littler atoms, or even speeding up the music to make the level more challenging. Collecting a set amount of fragments gives you a “note” score and each level has a threshold to reach in order to move on to the next stage. Failing to match up gems before they hit the bottom of the screen causes points to be deducted from this score, so keeping everything matched up and destroyed is essential to your success.

The biggest feature of this game is the fact that many elements of it are randomly generated. The gems that fall never seem to be in a set pattern and give the game increased replayability at the cost of sometimes unfair gameplay. There were times when I began stages and a match was impossible by the time the first gems hit the bottom of the screen. This random effect can be frustrating and make the game feel impossible, especially on the later stages where the thresholds needed to move on require near perfection. While the background audio is always the same, the game uses an audio-visual sequencer to create random beats each time. According to the Steam page, this comes out to 22 tredecillion possible audio permutations which is a number I can’t even begin to comprehend. It’s safe to say in this game you will never hear the same version of a song twice.

Unfortunately, this also is a flaw of the game as at times songs sounded like jumbled garbage based on the random beats that were being generated. For the most part, the music is nice and at times even chill and destroying things actually makes you feel like you are creating the music, but when things go south, the game just sounds unfortunately completely unlistenable. I would prefer if this game would have just stuck to a traditional soundtrack, but I suppose that way the game really could never exist. Once you complete a stage, you also unlock infinite freeplay modes if you want to just hang out in a particular stage with no penalties or ending. The speed of the music also determines the speed of the stages and can cause for some really frantic gameplay.

This game is not a long excursion at all. I had completed all the stages at about the hour mark and that was including a bunch of cheap deaths due to the random elements of the generation. At $1.99, I think this is an acceptable length, but don’t go in expecting a lot of content as there really isn’t much. Even the Steam reviews, people seem to average out around the 30 minute to 2 hour mark on playtime, but as I had previously said this is the price of a couple songs on iTunes which works for me.

Other than these issues, I also came across a few bugs where the stages just failed to load properly and I had some frustrations with how the simple gameplay became overwhelming and challenging by the last few stages. This is a fairly casual game, but there is a certain point where it just becomes a bit unmanageable suddenly with no warning. The difficulty curve probably could have used a bit of smoothing out before release. More variants to the gameplay that add elements as you progress through stages also could have been a nice addition.

In the end, I think this game has some interesting and fun ideas, but overall it just falls flat as a game. If you are into experimental concepts, this is something I haven’t seen much before in puzzle and music gaming. The generation system seems pretty massive for a game on this small of a scale and I think there are definitely things to learn from it in terms of game design. I just don’t think it’s that fun of a game so it’s difficult for me to recommend. I think those that would want to play this probably have either heard of it already or would just know to pick it up without my recommendation. Either way, if this is something that sounds interesting check it out. For $2 you can’t end up too disappointed.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played it for 1 hour and 20 minutes and with a little bit of skill and a lot of bit of luck, completed all of the stages.

Zombie Pirates

Developed by Dust Devil Studios

Zombie Pirates may seem like a fresh casual game of ship combat, but this is likely one that you have played before. Probably not this exact game, but one very similar. In Zombie Pirates, you spend each level fighting off waves of enemy ships waiting for the progress bar to tick down to the end of the stage. Along the way, you collect powerups and coins that help you to deal with the enemies and create new units to fight for you. As the game gets more complex, you end up commanding fleets of ships, but for the most part they stay stationary in a grid-like pattern. A very casual game that relies heavily on repetitive gameplay and at times a luck based system of what items spawn, this is one that gets tiresome far too quickly.

On each stage, you take control of Smilin’ Jack O’Hurlihan. Your main goal is for him to survive and luckily you aren’t alone in this endeavor. Once you get in close proximity of an enemy ship, you auto attack until you or the enemy is dead. Rinse and repeat. As each enemy ship falls, they leave a chest for you to collect by clicking on it. Each chest contains one of three items; a parrot, a pint of grog, or a TNT barrel. The parrots, oddly enough, are the currency of this world and you trade a set number of these in for reinforcements. The better the ship you are calling in to battle, the more expensive the cost. These range everywhere from simple skiffs to ships that throw chains to stop the enemies to even advanced allies that launch magical cannonballs. Pints of grog are used to heal your ships after they take damage and prove to be extremely useful. TNT barrels are arguably the most useful of all the items and do a radius of damage around wherever they are dropped. A well placed barrel can take out a large number of enemies in one quick explosion.

The main appeal of Zombie Pirates is the use of all of these items strategically by calling in the proper ships for each occasion. Once you figure out a set formula, it seems like the same combination of ships can easily overthrow any group of enemies. Different types of enemies seem to have different weaknesses, but most of them attack similarly and just have a different amount of hits they take to destroy. Groups of enemies such as murderous crows can only be taken out safely using certain types of units and large boss fights do a great job of decimating your troops if you aren’t careful. All of the ships have the capability to move around, but for the most part if placed right they can just sit in a grid and do all the work for you easily. The only exception to this is in later areas islands begin to spawn around the map that block your shots and may require you to move.

The graphics of Zombie Pirates are extremely basic and seem about on par with the quality of a flash game. Animations are minimal, the story leaves much to be desired, and the audio is very generic. Unfortunately, there is just nothing in this game that stands out and sets it apart from the rest of the crowd. The graphics are colorful, but this is just white noise in an already overflowing genre of casual games.

Beyond the lack of variety in the game, there are other core problems that exist. Options are extremely basic and could use some more advanced options to make it run a bit smoother. For some reason, when entering my name at the character creation screen, it seemed to only register my keystrokes very occasionally. I had to slow down my typing quite a bit just to get my name entered in to the field. Beyond just some basic troubles I had with the game, the biggest problem I have with it is I feel like I’ve played this game before. At times it feels like a tower defense game, but the direct comparison I just have to make is that Zombie Pirates feels far too much like Plants vs Zombies. I’m in a world where I’m collecting items, building units with them, waiting for waves of enemies to end before I move on to the next stage. There are a few stages that provide variety, but for the most part it’s just the same old repetitive gameplay. The big difference between this and games like Plants vs Zombies is that this game lacks the necessary polish to make it as good and take out the aspect of what I feel are “unfair deaths”.

I really don’t enjoy this game. It’s not that I find it terrible or unplayable, it’s just that I found it to be rather boring and by the time an hour had gone by I was eager to stop. I also feel like the pricing at $14.99 is just a bit much for what you are getting out of this game. To be fair, I have not seen all the content and I have definitely seen some Steam reviews from users with a large amount of hours played, but I can’t see this game lasting the average person more than 5-7 hours. If you’re really in to casual tower defense games, maybe you’ll be in to this, but I definitely can’t recommend it to you as I likely will never play it again.

For the boring statistics part of this game, I played it for 1 hour and 2 minutes and played through the first two worlds.