Delta Yowai!

[jack]

This week I have been addicted to an action-solitaire game (Every Extend, but it might as well have been any other I think :) ).

Only maybe one or two games a day, and each takes only a few minutes, but it's worrying: I always see the images from a game whenever I play too much, but now even when I sneeze, when my eyes close, the image hits me in the face. When I went to bed, I suddenly had the impression a large green hemisemitransparent cube was waiting in the dark to eat me.

The other game I was considering writing, way down the pipeline, would be of this mode. Can anyone think of a better description of the genre than action-solitaire? I mean, things like Tetris (except that tetris is a whole genre by itself by now, with millions of clones, some of which vary the idea and some which, well, don't) where the gameplay is random but getting more complicated, you need a small amount of strategy played out over a large time.

What other games are in this category? Things like "drop pipes into a square grid to keep something flowing through them and score points the further it goes" whatever you want to call it, though I don't like that one. Or asteroids, though that doesn't really have any strategy, just blasting.

It's the frustrating sort, where you always want one more go, but you know you need to concentrate, so it's boring to just keep playing, unlike progressive games where if you keep playing you get somewhere, or you face one bit you can't do and have to try later. But it's pleasing to keep improving and working out ways to keep scoring higher.

The ranks granted were all badly translated Japanese things, I think my favorite was when I bust 1000000 and was "Delta Yowai!" (Update: the next two were "MADAMADA ikuyo-" and "A++-", followed by, according to the internet: "OMEGA tuyoi" "MECHA MECHA" "UCHU- yabai" "YOU ARE GOD" :) )

Comments

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

Strategy games?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Maybe, but to me that says something like Age of Empires, I'd have thought Tetris would be more likely to be called an arcade game, though that doesn't seem specific enough either. *shrug*

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

Arcade strategy game?
Strategy arcade game?

:-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

:) Yeah, that'd do.

[innocencest.livejournal.com]

'Arcade game' applies to any repetetive, endless game you play to get a high score rather than complete some story.

Strategy on it's own doesn't mean anything, but it's usually a shortened form of Real Time Strategy which is a category of war games.

Tetris is significantly more an arcade game than a stategy game.

[tienelle.livejournal.com]

Arcade puzzler? Puzzle 'em up?

[calamarain.livejournal.com]

I'm oddly reminded of the Neil Gaiman short story "Virus"

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

What's that?

[calamarain.livejournal.com]

The story talks about a computer game - similar to the one you describe that is addictive. The writer of the story plays it all the time, and gives out copies to all his friends. It's so addicitve that people stop going to work, they just spend all the time playing it and playing it. It ends on an unhappy note - saying that the shops aren't open any more, and when the food runs out, he'll keep playing until he dies.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

LOL. Before Microsoft Solitaire? :)

[calamarain.livejournal.com]

Yes, but far far more severe

[liv]

I don't think there's a good name for that style of game, which is a pity because I love them, and they're always really hard to find in online catalogues because of exactly this issue. Puzzle? Strategy? Arcade? Classic?

I had a look at Every Extend just because I was curious. And you're right, it is deeply addictive. One thing I'm confused about, though: is there actually only one boss guy? I think I've killed him a few times, or at least, he explodes when I still have plenty of stock and time left over, and the game ends anyway. So is there just nowhere to go beyond that, you just have to try and get as much score as possible within a defined set sequence?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I get that all the time, I had the same with my other favorite genre being "games like chips challenge" :) Sometimes I've actually googled for that :)

It is very addictive. Though self-limiting: I can't play it again immediately, bnut nor can I *stop* playing it.

I think there's just the one level. It gives you bonuses for what time/bombs you have left. I was puzzled, and some googling says so; there's apparently another non-free game by the same guy which has a similar concept and goes on longer. It works well enough trying to do the same thing again and again, but I think it'd be more satisfying if you could see how long you could go on; I'm always cross when I've just got a marvellously full playfield, and then the boss comes instead.