Sunday, January 9, 2011

#7 - The Impossible Game


This game is so addicting. This is probably one of the most addicting games I’ve ever played. In this game you play the hero, an orange block who has the ability to jump. Now, I’ve fought some pretty badass villains in my time. I mean, big daddies are pretty cool, brutes might pose some trouble, the Joker is one of my favorite villains of all time, and I could merc zombies all day long, but in this game your biggest enemy is three triangles next to each other or a thick black line at the bottom of the screen. 

The concept is pretty nil, but the idea is that you’re on a white line, and triangles begin to rush at you, and obviously you have to jump over them so as not to explode. Then there are blocks that you can jump on top of, but if you run into them, you also explode. Then, sometimes the floor turns from a white line into a thick black line, which also makes you explode. So the idea is to avoid the obstacles by timing your jumps correctly… I think I just explained what a platforming game is by definition... So I feel a little stupid for boiling a game down to it's core mechanic and saying "That's what the game is about!", but this is what makes this game so much fun, its textbook platforming, without all the hoopla. The true entertainment in this game is its shear intensity. This game is so hard it keeps you coming back with the desire to defeat it. 

I can’t even believe how fun this game is, and I mean that‘s really what matters in the end right? I bought it because it looked like something my girlfriend might enjoy, and I played it a couple of times and I couldn’t stop. There’s a practice mode where you can set up checkpoints throughout the level, and see the whole deal, which is a lot of fun in itself, but playing the game the way it’s meant to be is awesome. It may not sound like it, but this game is great. The controls work well, which I hope considering you really only use 1 button in the regular mode and four during practice, but everything feels natural and flows well. At first I didn’t realize you could hold down the jump button so I was trying to get into a rhythm, and there was literally this one part I spent a half an hour to an hour trying to beat this one part that I later realized I could just hold down the button and the orange box would skip through it with no problem for me. The “Level” design is really good, just when you think you’ve got the hang of how you’re going to conquer the level, there’s a curve ball. There are a couple of misleading paths, and different obstacles later in the level, with a definable difficulty curve. I mean the developer himself has only beaten the game a couple of times not in practice mode, I think that says something. Not only that, but the soundtrack is great, and how it flows with the obstacles, this game almost plays like a music/rhythm game. All of that coupled along with the fact that the game is only a dollar, I think this is awesome, and it’s a great example of how indie developers should be getting more credit in the community. You can purchase the game on both Xbox Live, and at the iPhone App store. Go check it out Here, this guy deserves to make some money off of this game.

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