Bogged Down, Quick Rant

This past week I've gotten bogged down again. A combination of being busier than usual and hitting a patch of uninspiring games, I guess.

Something that is readily apparent in these games I've been playing is how amazingly interconnected they are. That is, a lot of these tiny games have multiple options for subscription to social networks of various kinds. It's an interesting element of these games.

The significance, I think, is that it's another demarcation of a split in video games as a medium. We're starting to see a clearer distinction between games that are deep, refulgent, genuinely meaningful works of art and simpler games that are meant to be simply thoughtless entertainment, throwaway fluff for quick consumption.

That sounds like I'm being severely critical of one category in this split, and I fully admit to having a favorite here, but the difference really is the point -- there are people who want simple, mindless video games that they can play without thinking or being challenged in pretty much any way. This type of video game isn't always short, even if they generally are on the iOS platform, and there are plenty of examples of longer video games that are linear and simplistic (the God of War and Uncharted series are very strong examples).

The networking options in these little iOS games is a striking element of this type of simplistic entertainment sort of video game. For games where the result isn't much more complicated than the outcome of a coin toss, the technology involved in reporting the results is far and away more advanced and complex than the games themselves! That is, the actual game here seems to be the networking of the results rather than the generation of the results.

All of this leads me to think that I'm not doing a great job of playing and criticizing these games. I would rather play games on the other prong of the fork, as it were, and I'm not really accessing the extended, networked nature of these little bits of fluff. So, with all that in mind, I guess everyone should take my opinions here with a grain of salt.

Basically, I'm just visiting.

Angry Birds

Angry Birds is like Scorched Earth meets ragdoll physics. (Younger players might go with Worms instead of Scorched Earth, but I say get off my lawn, dammit!)

That simile should be the other way around, really. It's pretty clear that the focus here was on the physics simulation for the stacked objects (bricks and pigs) and how they fall over when other objects (birds) impact them. There's a crucial bit missing, though, in my opinion -- there's basically zero specificity in the launching of the birds.

This is a big deal (or seems like a big deal to me, anyway). Once you have an idea about where you want to hit the structure, the angle and velocity at which you want to launch your bird, you have pretty close to zero chance of reproducing that result. Sure, the game gives you a marker for the trajectory of your previous bird, but it keeps the specific settings that produced that trajectory hidden from the player. All we get as interface is a touchscreen flick-and-release mechanic that winds up being basically random.

Which is goddamn frustrating!

The level I stopped playing on (shown in the screenshot above) was simply impossible for me. I don't know why, either. I even went to the extent of watching a video walkthrough on YouTube in order to find out how to beat this particular level. I hate, hate, hate video walkthroughs, so you can be sure that I really, really, really tried to get past this level. Nonetheless, even knowing exactly what I needed to do in this case, I was unable to ever get the damn thing to work. I made shots that looked to me exactly like what I saw in the walkthrough, but it never worked out exactly the same way. Pretty close, pretty damn close, but never close enough for this piece of shit fucking game.

How can the game designers here have set the bar for success so high for the player and then given them such fucking crappy goddamn controls in order to meet those requirements?! The choices made in this game's development blow my mind.

All this game needs in order to get over this ridiculous hump is to give the player some persistent settings for the launching of the birds. Just numbers, for crying out loud! The game obviously uses math to calculate these trajectories and the results of the impacts, so share that information with the player. Give them control over it! How do we know the game uses math for these calculations? It's software! It can't not be math!!

So this is why I put Scorched Earth first in my simile to describe this game. Scorched Earth was all about player control over carefully calculated trajectories and impacts. I see no reason why this game couldn't be as tightly controlled. I can only assume that the developers started with the knocking down blocks physics idea and then saddled this piece of shit (or really excellent) game with really shitty touchscreen controls. Way to fucking go.

There's a lot of cursing in this critique. I think that's because, other than being a goddamn unplayable pile of fucking shit, Angry Birds is a really great game. Yeah, that's right -- I feel like this would be one of my favorite games so far except for a single element that ruins the whole experience entirely. That makes me angry, thus the swearing. Fuck!

Other niggles about this game might include the fact that it's annoying how the game doesn't want to show you the entire level at once (it is possible, of course) and the long delay after one completes a level. The sounds are okay, I guess, although I think they'd get repetitive and annoying before too long. The different types of birds are really brilliant... and I don't want to think about it because I'll get all angry again about not being able to enjoy such a nifty idea. Fuck! All of these observations are pointless, of course, in the face of the fact that the game is fundamentally screwed.

So sad.

Doodle Jump

Doodle Jump is like Super Mario Bros. meets Galaga. (Think about it.)

This game sucks.

Well, okay. This is a really well made game. The art is cute (even if it's not exactly to my tastes), the controls work really well (unless you're riding on the subway), and the level of polish displayed here is impressive (although what's with all the social networking hooks?! ...I'll be getting back to this complaint later). On a fundamental level, this is clearly a very successful iOS video game.

So, clearly, I hate it.

Don't get me wrong! I don't hate this thing just because it's successful, I hate it because this game is nothing but non-stop instant death from beginning to end. No matter how well you're doing, you're one event away from the entire game coming to an end.

I get that the idea here is quick pick-up and put-down gameplay, but... seriously? I'm surprised, honestly, that people are satisfied with this. A full minute of gameplay would be an epic session of Doodle Jump. There's no development or change or progress or anything. It's just:

Boing, boing, boing, dead.

Boing, boing, boing, dead.

Boing, boing, boing, next game!

Passage

Passage is like The Sims ported to the 2600. (It's probably better than the actual results of a project like that, though.)

This is another game that isn't really an iOS game. It's hardly even a game at all. A pretty brilliant work of art? As an object it's very impressive, but I hesitate to really call it a game because the gameplay is so limited. There's pretty close to zero replay value and it's incredibly unclear what choices the player might make (beyond having your character hook up with the woman at the beginning).

Why does the guy always die first? That seems statistically unlikely. I question the accuracy of this simulation!

The controls work well on the touchscreen, but that probably has more to do with how incredibly limited they are and how the game allows for the vast majority of the screen to be devoted to the controls. I don't think this title has much to say about how games might function on a touchscreen beyond "keep it incredibly simple."

Spider

Spider is like Qix meets In The Night Kitchen but with spiders instead of prepubescent wieners. ...That simile was pretty disturbing. Sorry about that.

This is the first iOS game I've played on the Touch that I really like. It's got some problems, like the spider's transition from walking on a web to walking on the floor/walls/ceiling/etc., but I feel like I'd actually put up with the annoyances in order to play this game more. In fact, this is one I will probably play quite a bit more even after writing this post.

The level design and the feeling of exploring the environment is really great! Not only do I really want to look around, but it's generally pretty fun just moving around (flinging the spider is quite satisfying) and the ability to interact with the environment by creating webs and eating insects actually starts to feel immersive.

As usual, there are issues related to using the touch screen. Overlapping, context-sensitive controls related to touching the screen to move around and zoom in or out suck ass, as usual. As I mentioned above, the game is a bit schizophrenic about transitioning from moving on a web to moving on the walls/etc. It's also annoying when the portal to exit the level happens to appear where the spider is standing, randomly ending the level. Slightly less annoying is when I accidentally jump into the portal because it materialized off screen. "Oh, there's the portal. Great."

Finally, I wish the game would let me look around even more. The strongest point here, in my opinion, is the levels themselves. As each level starts you get a good, fully zoomed out view of the level, a perspective that doesn't seem to ever really return. That's a shame!

Generally, though, this is my favorite so far.

---

Update after staying up all day playing Spider:

I've thought of a better simile for this game -- it's like Glider Pro meets Silent Hill.

All of my complaints about this game seem to be invalid! The thing about accidentally going through the exit portal? There's an option to return to the level when this happens. Going through the portal lets you see the entire level, so this is actually a gameplay strategy (eat enough insects to open the portal and then go through to check out the level to find hidden stuff and whatnot). The zooming still doesn't seem to work wonderfully, but I did get a little better at it and it's probably safe to say that I'm just messing something up there.

Moving from a web to a wall/floor/etc. is still a little finicky, but I'm pretty happy to let that issue slide at this point, in part because I finally noticed that this game has no instant death at all. In fact, no death whatsoever! That's probably one of the reasons I like the game so much.

Oh, I should say that there's no player death in the game. Having finished the adventure mode now, I have to say that the story in this game is awesome. Super well handled and very creepy. I haven't solved whatever the puzzle is relating to the hearth (a multi-level puzzle, I think) so there's still that to go.

All-in-all, I think this is a really excellent game.

I'd like more! ...Hm, I think I'm going to wind up writing a post about length of gameplay now.

Pocket God

Whoops, I skipped over Pocket God!



Pocket God is like the world's most pointless machine meets Grow Cube.

This game is almost interesting, even if the interface sucks (I'm looking at my goddamn finger, for crying out loud!), but it seems really shallow. I poked around at it for a while, sort of trying to get into the idea of figuring out what the different objects did and stuff, but then I stumbled across the instructions that explain what the different objects do and stuff... so I stopped playing with Pocket God.

Clearly, I don't like Pocket God. I feel similarly ambivalent about Grow Cube, although I think it's much more clever. I do, however, love the heck out of the world's most pointless machine, it makes me squeal and I want to hug it! So I can't really hold it against anyone who like Pocket God, I guess, I'm just not joining that club.

Shift

Shift is like the shadow world from Super Mario Bros. 2 (that's the North American one) meets Portal. ...Well, maybe it meets Portal halfway.

(Hey, I'm over my Rolando-instilled enthusiasm block -- yay! ...Right? Yay?)

So this is a great game. It isn't, of course, an iOS game, exactly. This is a port of a game that's quite good where it started into this buttonless touchscreen environment. How does it hold up?

Fairly well, I think. I mean, if this was the only way you could play Shift, you wouldn't be doing too bad. I feel like the context sensitive stuff wasn't a great idea (you can only really go left or right and when you do the unused direction becomes the jump button) but that's a bit of a niggle. I also didn't have a very good time using the controls, but I can see how one would get used to them. Having to devote screen real estate to onscreen controls seems like a bummer, but this game was originally in a different aspect ratio so it's sort of a lucky coincidence that they needed to account for the extra space anyway. Luck developers!

Basically, I wouldn't play Shift on this platform, but this game fundamentally works. Hooray!

Rolando

Ooh, this is an easy simile -- Rolando is like LocoRoco.

This one got me bogged down. Or, rather, I got bogged down at this point, I guess. Not only did I actually have to do work at my job (crazy, I know) but also Limbo came out on Wednesday. So Wednesday was pretty much return home from work, sleep, play Limbo and then return to work. Limbo is easily one of the most beautiful games ever made, so it was a clear priority. Thankfully, Limbo is a very short game (this and it's inordinately high price are Limbo's only two failings) so it only knocked out Wednesday and I was still able to get a little sleep. ...Um, that means everything else can be chalked up to the fact that I find Rolando depressing.

Actually, I find LocoRoco depressing, so it's a sure bet that I'm going to find Roland depressing. I want to like these games! In theory they're exactly the sort of thing that would appeal to me. I basically like the art, the level design is fundamentally appealing, I generally like the concept and I even dig the music. I just can't stand playing these games.

After expressing this frustration to Lorna she said, "Why don't you just say that?" Which is great advice. So that's what I'm going to say. What I have said. Written. Whatever. Next paragraph!

Rolando is kind of extra depressing because the touchscreen stuff doesn't seem to work very well. I don't know if it's me or what, but once the game gets to the point of wanting me to tap to deselect the rolly guys and also tap to zoom in or pan around or whatever, everything goes to shit. To be blunt. I guess it could be just me and I should practice, practice, practice. But instead I'm going to go with no, no, no, fuck off.

So I'm done with Roland. And LocoRoco, if that makes anyone feel better.

Screen Shooting

Josh explained in an email about the built in screen shot feature of iOS and now I can grab my own pictures of these games rather than hunting around on the Internet.

From this point on I'm going to try to take a screen shot of the point where I stop playing the game, which will reduce the amount of writing I'll have to do in each post. Okay, so it's a very small reduction, but every little bit helps.

RjDj

RjDj is like I don't know what.*

Before Dave goes getting all excited, RjDj hasn't defeated my ability to form similes. I don't know what RjDj is like is because I haven't been able to play it. Whatever it is that this game does requires that you have headphones with a microphone on them, apparently, and that's not something I have.

The loading screen is neat, though. Maybe I'll get to try the game one of these days.

* Also, this may still be a simile.

Ramp Champ

Like Skee-Ball meets, strangely, some of my criticisms of Skee-Ball. (I think that maybe, in the future, I should start looking ahead in this list of games before I write my critiques. It seems like Josh has set some traps for me here.)

A couple steps forward, one huge step back. This version of skee-ball features some immediately noticeable improvements over the previous simulation. It's prettier, for one, and the levels (of which there are more than one) offer some much-needed variation in the gameplay. Most importantly, though, each level has a few pre-established goals, which really marks a significant advancement in the skee-ball simulation arms race.

This installment also features little items to buy with tickets won while playing the game and also has a little display case for your loot. In a fickle twist, I think the items here and the display case, etc., are better drawn/designed but the items themselves seem less interesting. I guess I'm kind of hard to please (sorry!) but maybe this underscores how difficult it is to pull off this type of "collectible things" sort of bonus in a game.

So this version generally seems better. Unfortunately, that impression only lasts until one starts playing the game.

It turns out that the controls and physics in Skee-Ball are brilliant! Here I thought it was just a dumb, repetitive game! After playing Ramp Champ, however, I have a much clearer idea of how well made Skee-Ball really is. Oh, it still seems dumb and repetitive, but it's rocket science compared to Ramp Champ! (I'm going to have to revise my entry on Skee-Ball now.)

Basically, it's way, way harder to be consistent in Ramp Champ. I'm not sure if its the fact that the "runway" is much shorter or if the controls are less nuanced. Maybe the physics engine is less robust or perhaps the game just sucks, I don't know, but Ramp Champ is a very frustrating game. This is more of a tragedy here than it would have been on Skee-Ball because on Ramp Champ one has to shoot at moving targets and (this may be my own issue) in Ramp Champ I actually cared about what the ball hit. Skee-Ball was only about points and tickets which, if one just keeps flinging balls down the alley, you're guaranteed to get. Here, however, I'm actually trying to hit that damn clown and I just can't freaking do it! (Curse you, clown!)

Finally, this is the first game I've played that actually crashed on me. Boo!

I played (all?) four levels, completed the first goal on each level and bought some finger puppets. (You can see the finger puppets in the screenshot I found for this post. Finger puppets are cool.)

P.S. I'm writing the first draft of this critique on the Touch. Why won't this thing let me (slowly, painfully, frustratingly) move the cursor if it's already offering a suggestion for correcting my spelling? It's... it's being an asshole! (Oh, wait -- I see. I have to tap away to dismiss the suggestion and then re-tap and hold to bring up the magnifying glass. Okay, not an asshole, just retarded.)

Skee-Ball

Skee-Ball is like... well, it's like skee-ball.

On one hand, it's impressive how focused this game is -- it feels just like skee-ball. On the other hand, it's a shame how focused this game is -- it just feels like skee-ball. The result may be really boring, but it's clear that someone put a lot of work into this simulation. Thanks to this little game, I can now safely say that I will never feel the need to have a real skee-ball machine of my very own (not that this was something that was likely to happen or which I was likely to feel).

There's definitely some added gameplay in the idea of redeeming tickets for items, but not much. I'm saddened that this is the case because I really liked this concept. By the time a player is interested in this feature, which is probably the same moment they get tired of playing the game, they will have realized that the most obvious way to play this game is just to keep flicking balls as fast as one can. This guarantees a certain rate of return with regard to tickets, which will allow the player to buy items in the little shop.

Even this idea is a little too focused on recreating the real world experience, though. The items in the shop are generally pretty lame (in the world of this game that means they're ugly and poorly drawn) and minimally functional (you can buy different balls to use in the game, but they seem to behave exactly the same). So there's not a whole lot of point in pursuing this added feature.

At least, I assume there isn't any point -- the game doesn't give me much reason to think that things will get better if I devote a few more hours of my life to playing it, and I'm certainly not going to try on the off chance that Nirvana awaits after the millionth ball toss. As Chet and Eric wrote on Old Man Murray: if you've got something really good in your game, be sure put it up front because no one's going to see it otherwise.

I played until I could buy a new ball and then I bought a plastic spider ring, some vampire teeth, a fake mustache, a kazoo and a finger trap. In real life I would probably have done the same thing except without the new ball. ...Plastic spider rings are cool.

P.S. As I went to look for a screenshot for this game, I'm disturbed to have seen some of the reviews from people who found it engrossing and to learn that this was a number one best seller in the App Store at some point. People are so disappointing!

P.P.S. After playing Ramp Champ, I have to admit that this game is really, really well made. I don't have to admit that it's fun, though, because it isn't. ...Well, not for more than a minute, anyway.

Settings

Settings is one of the more awesome games on the iPod Touch. It's like Zork meets AutoCAD.

My favorite part is the level called "Airplane Mode." I love flipping that switch and seeing the little airplane come in to land. I imagine all the people getting off the plane, airport workers coming to refuel it and then a new group of passengers getting on board. Then I flip the switch and the plane takes off again. Awesome!

The other levels are more abstract and I don't understand them as well. I think there is some sort of metagame aspect to Settings because there are lots of levels titled for software that appear elsewhere on the Touch. I don't know why these levels weren't included with the other software itself, why these extra Settings levels can only be found here, but whatever.

Overall, I guess, settings is kind of a weird game, maybe a little too abstract or cerebral for me.

I played most of the levels (although I didn't read all of About) and I skipped a lot of the levels that seem like they were supposed to be part of other games.

Peggle

Okay, it's Peggle. This game probably doesn't need an introduction (it's PopCap, after all, the 800 pound gorilla of studios that make little games), but here we go -- Peggle is like Breakout played on a Pachinko machine.

This is a good game, of sorts. It's almost a stretch to call this a game, it's more like an incredibly clever toy.

In my childhood there were always interesting puzzle-based toys anywhere we'd go for vacation -- at the lake house, in whoever's cabin we were borrowing, those sorts of out of the way places -- and this game reminds me of those things. These things were always interesting diversions, but only for a limited period of time. As it always goes, you can be sure that we stay wherever this toy resided long enough to become so bored one would wind up playing with the thing way, way past the point of disinterest.

Another way of putting this idea, maybe, is that Peggle has the feel of a game one has played a million times and the activity itself has become completely perfunctory. Like playing a game of cards for a few hours with the same people, no one stops to ask who's supposed to deal or what the score is or whether anyone needs another beer. Everyone just knows, things progress like clockwork.

So it's fairly interesting that Peggle has this feel from the outset. This is a game everyone has played before, even if they've never played it before.

Then, of course, it's made by PopCap. This isn't a little software project, it's a goddamn huge software project. Reading the credits for the game is a staggering experience -- all those people contributed to this tiny little thing?! Well, yeah. This is a game that has been through more QA than some full-priced current generation console titles. It's been released on more platforms than one can probably name off the top of one's head. Of course tons of people worked on Peggle. Loads of resources were poured into making this game.

All that effort really shows, too. Peggle is ridiculously polished. Here's a niggle, though, relating to this particular version of the game:

Perhaps it would have been a good idea to not put the "fire" button in line with the scrollwheel thinger the player is using to adjust the angle of the launcher? I can't say that this was some sort of gigantic tragedy, because I only ever won through luck anyway, but I definitely launched more than a few balls inadvertently because my finger swiped a bit too high.

Now there's a real problem -- it shouldn't matter that I'm not looking at what my fingers are touching when I'm playing a game. That's basically the whole point of video games, that feeling of immersion where the controls disappear and you're just projecting yourself entirely into the virtual environment. With this touchscreen crap, though, everything feels the same. That scrollwheel thinger feels the same as the button that's right above it. It's all just the same seamless glass surface. As I'm watching the screen, waiting for the right moment to fire the ball, I can't say for sure whether my thumb is hovering over the fire button or if it's slightly off to one side or another. (My thumb was, pretty often, off to one side or another. Again, not a huge tragedy -- nothing happened when I failed to press the button. But, still.) So this is something that's just retardedly stupid about trying to play video games on a device with no buttons.

On the other hand, it's worth recognizing the fact that I was so engrossed in the details of this bouncing ball that my gaze regularly became focused on an area so small I couldn't see what my fingers were doing an inch or two away. That's pretty impressive. This is definitely an engrossing little game (or toy, if you buy my previous argument).

One last criticism: the art here is pretty bad. It's color is garish, the characters are poorly drawn and the composition is cluttered. ...Yeah, I still kind of like it, but it is pretty crappy. I mostly hated the music, too, although the Ode To Joy bit was probably my favorite move in the game, as far as stylization goes.

I played all of the "adventure" portion of the game and a few of the challenges.

The Moron Test

A quick puzzle game, sort of visual brain teasers. Functions well on the Touch. Is visually uninspiring. In the end this game is basically just memorization and the fact that it's timer-based is, as is usually my opinion, bullshit. Finally, calling it The Moron Test is insulting so I'm happy to say that whoever designed this game can go fuck off.

The Order of Things

This may not have been made clear previously (who isn't doing their job around here, huh?!) but I'm playing and writing about games as they appear on this iPod Touch I've been given. This means that Josh decided on the order in which things will be appearing in this blog, even if he didn't know it at the time.

Mouse About

This was the day where I was going to take a break but the next game is so easy to comment on that I'm just going to plug ahead.

Mouse About is a typical sort of puzzle game, basically like Boxxle with no walls. (Hey, Boxxle is what I think of, you can insert the name of whatever block-moving puzzle game that rings your bell. Cool?) This implementation of the game is pretty good, even on the Touch. The game itself is so simple (at any moment you can only choose one of four directions to move the mouse) that the controls can be similarly simple (touch the screen and move your finger in the direction you want the mouse to move). This is good and, surprisingly, I already find it a refreshing change.

On the other hand, the actual gameplay concept here seems completely broken. This is a puzzle game with timer. That's annoying but not fatal. Unfortunately, if you fail to complete the level before the time runs out, the game gives you a new puzzle to solve. This is good in the sense that the player won't get stuck on a single puzzle that is (perhaps only for them) unsolvable, but it's bad in that you don't get to finish the puzzle.

I hate that.

The gameplay made me feel like someone kept yanking away the book I was reading and jamming a new one in my hands in its place. Yeah, it's possible there are people who might actually like this concept (probably Apple fans in general -- "It's a feature!"), but I am not one of those people.

To sum up, this is a well made game designed for fans of speed dating.

I don't know how much of the game I played because it's got ADHD and doesn't keep track of insignificant details like that.

Enigmo

Ahhh... I'm home from work, I've got a beer, a Fluff sandwich, and a review to post.

Enigmo is like Archer Maclean's Mercury meets every laserbeam puzzle ever made.* It's a fine game, if somewhat aesthetically uninspired.

The controls are, again, fundamentally borked thanks to the fact that the player is limited to a single action -- touching objects on the screen. Touching a new tool on the left side of the screen puts that tool "in play." touching a tool in play either allows it to be rotated or dragged to a new location.

Fine.

Except for the fact that whether you'll be dragging or rotating a tool is nearly random, especially depending on how far out the camera is zoomed, and simply touching a top will throw of any fine calibration that may have been set previously.

In fact, getting those fine settings dialed in is an enormous chore in and of itself because the tools have a habit of shifting slightly as the player's enormous sausage-like, level-obscuring finger is lifted from the screen.

If one is looking for an interesting thing to mess around with for a while, or something to show off the processing power of the Touch, this one is basically a success. In terms of actual gameplay, however, it sucks. I mean, the timer-based score concept in this title is completely bullshit. The difference between having never played a level before and having played it one or more times is functionally infinite!

On almost any other platform this would be a genuinely fun title, but on the iPod here it is like an exercise from the Phantom Tollbooth. With all that said, I could see myself poking around at this game again in the future, despite the frustrations I've mentioned. I played this one up to level 16, I don't know how high it goes.

* Yes, I'm going to describe every game with a simile.

Eliss

This is a very pretty game, sort of like a mashup of Katamari Damancy and Asteroids. It's really well designed and the music is nice.

The Instructions only really make sense once you've played the game, which is a little bit bonkers, but it's nice that the game includes instructions.

It was interesting to play a game that really demanded the use of multiple-touch (for both splitting the stars and holding them in place on levels with black holes). Fairly effective, although I did find that my fingers were frustratingly obfuscating the screen pretty often. That's not an issue I'm going to let slide here when critiquing touchscreen games. It's an inherent problem for the platform and one that must be addressed.

The context-sensitive controls added to my frustration. Because there's really only one action the player can perform (touching something on the screen), that action gets used for every function in the game. Moving a star? Touch it and drag it to where you want it. Moving two stars? Touch them and drag. Picking up star dust? Touch. Splitting stars? Touch it in two places and drag. This intense overlap in the controls results in lots of situations where, for example, one drags a star into another star when one was trying to pick up stardust, splitting stars instead of moving them or combining stars inadvertently.

For a game that is arcade-oriented like this, this seems like a big deficiency. It's possible that with more training I would get better at playing this game, and there certainly are people who are into this kind of "gaming as athleticism," but then the obfuscation of the screen seems to become an even bigger issue. I understand how some people are good at hard games and I'm really, really impressed. But I can't imagine that fans of, say, Ikaruga would be okay with having to actually hold the controller between their eyes and the screen while they play. If this is an "old school" hard, athletic sort of game, then doesn't the control scheme basically fail on that front?

On top of all that, the difficulty progression seems too steep to me. The designer clearly wanted to have each level offer something new or, at least, newish. For me, personally, this instilled a feeling of despair each time I finished a level. That's probably a personal thing and, as I've said, there are people who enjoy that kind of gaming.

Basically, I think Eliss is a potentially enjoyable game. It's a rather limited arcade-style game that is fundamentally well made but which is hampered by deep frustrations and general anxiety, so I'm not really inclined to play it. I'm not going to fault folks who like to play this game, I'm just baffled about the concessions they're making in doing so.

I played Eliss up to level eight before writing this review.

(This post wasn't particularly shorter, really. Sorry about that. I'll keep working on the length.)

Obligatory Obligation Explanation

After my previous post where I ranted about how "I'm not really very interested in any of this software." That's still true, I guess, but it seems like I should try to explain it a little better.

Because he's very polite, Josh wrote to me saying "I don't want you to feel obligated to actually USE the infernal device against your will." This makes me feel like I've given people the wrong idea. I certainly don't feel obligated to use this thing, let alone write a whole blog about it. The activities being discussed here, including the discussion itself, are all things that have some sort of appeal to me, even if all I wind up saying is that everything sucks and I hate the world.

To sum up, by paraphrasing words from Radiohead: I'm doing it to myself.

So here's some of what I do like:

The hardware is pretty cool. There are certain things about it that annoy me, like the on-screen keyboard and Apple's "simplified" user interfaces, but in general this little device really is the spiritual successor to the Newton, which I loved. Josh and I have discussed this in the past, since we were both Newton users, and anyone who understands the situation will see how using an iPhone or iPod Touch or iPad will be a bitter sweet experience for a Newton user.

Quite a bit of the built-in software does seem very cool. I've been trying to use the built-in Notes app to write my posts about the games and, despite the huge learning curve involved in figuring out how to type and edit text on this thing, that's been going pretty well. I set up an email account in the Mail app, which seems pretty well done, if somewhat simple. I'm excited to see the Pandora app is already on this device and am looking forward to giving it a try (partly because I've been meaning to give that service a go). The Weather app is pretty sweet (hm, hot today but better the rest of the week -- haha!) and I've set it up to tell me how the weather is in cities where my family members live. The Clock is pretty cool, I've set it up for every applicable timezone where I know people, similar to the Weather app. The Calculator is cute as hell, with a color scheme lifted from the classic Texas Instruments Little Professor calculator. Finally, the Google Maps and YouTube apps seem entirely useable.

All this has been exciting enough that I'm considering ways that I could replace half of my cellphone with this device. Bluetooth tethering for data access? Can I get used to the on-screen keyboard? What about text messages? I'm going to consider this idea further.

The thing I am most skeptical about with this device, and the thing I'm planning on focusing on with my writing here, is the idea that this thing can be a gaming platform. On that front, I'm really not convinced. I've expressed this position to Josh and Dave, and I think it's a good idea to explore further now that I actually have a device and can make more specific complaints.

And that sounds like fun to me, too.

(Sorry for the longish post, I'm really going to try to keep the word count down now. Posts about actual games will definitely be shorter!)

A Quick Thought

Something just occurred to me and I thought I'd post it because it will probably make our two person audience feel better:

Future posts will be shorter.

You're welcome.

More To Say

Yesterday was pretty eventful.

There was the exchange of the iPod Touch, of course. But other than that...

First off, I had what can only be described as a good night at work. It was dead slow and I'm ahead of my assignments, so I took a few hours to make a new tiny book for Lorna and Josh. I really enjoy these moments when free time and excess energy converge, it makes me very happy to take advantage of them to make little books for Lorna. Today I added Josh to my tiny, specific audience because I had plans to meet with him when I got off work. It turns out there's a typo in the book (arrg!), so I suppose everyone should look forward to the much improved upcoming second edition.

Breakfast with Josh was excellent. I drove up to his neighborhood and we went to a diner on Broadway. After initially sitting in a tiny, cramped booth in the back with what Josh described as (I think) "surprisingly unyielding seats"), we scored an excellent position in the front window of the diner. Good light, better seats, more space and Josh could point his lemur-like gaze at all the passing people on the street. I think he hypnotized them. Josh ordered corn beef hash, something I always assume is a stunt people perform in order to show off (I'm impressed!), and I got a really excellent egg sandwich with gigantic strips of bacon that extended past the edges like tentacles. And we got fries that also turned out to be pretty much perfect.

Oh, and I drank a lot of coffee. Which is interesting, because I had already had a lot of coffee at work. And, unusually, I had some coffee before going to work. Josh observed that I was "punchier than usual." I think we can all imagine why.

When I eventually got home, Lorna was awake and we had some time to hang out together. One thing we wound up talking about was how we actually feel about this iPod Touch thinger, something that's clearly pertinent material for this blog.

There is at least one game that Lorna is actively interested in playing. She explained that she had put off buying this game for the DS because she knew we would be getting an iOS device at some point and she figured she'd try it on the new platform.

That's kind of amazing to me. In talking about these things, something that we discovered is that I'm not really very interested in any of this software. I mean, I haven't seen any iOS game that I actually wanted to play. It's true that I have played a handful of what is generally regarded as the best iOS games on other platforms (hilariously, usually Flash) but there hasn't been any game that made me think I should acquire an iOS device specifically in order to play it.

Which is pretty significant. Acquisition of stuff (hardware or software via legitimate or ...less legitimate means) isn't something that I've ever let stand in my way when I've wanted to play a game. Well, other than in the case of Panzer Dragoon Saga. Copies of that game cost about a gazillion dollars used when I was interested in it, which was at a time when the shadier means of acquiring software were still pretty difficult to access.

So there isn't really any particular game on this thing that I'm particularly motivated to play first, or anything. I think that what I'm going to do is poke away at the stuff that's already on the device (lucky us for getting one used!) and see how that goes. We're going to figure out how to find the game that Lorna wants to play and she'll probably check out the Carcassonne and, I think, Luc Bernard's Mecho Wars (because after Days of Ruin we'd both like to see a good installment of Advance Wars, even if someone else tries to do it, and I'd like to see Mr. Bernard actually succeed at making a game).

Other than that heaping pile of material, I'm going to start paying better attention to app releases and reviews. I realize that we're behind a generation and down a grade on this platform, but hopefully there will be something that will actually get me fired up.

Next up -- something about an actual piece of software. Oh boy!

Thank You!

Well, this is the end of the beginning, as they said at the end of Millennium (which was a laughably bad film, sorry Mr. Varley). Josh gave me the promised/threatened iPod Touch this morning. Still in it's packaging and everything, which is quite amazing considering it's had a few owners already.

There's lots to write about after this morning, but all the coffee I drank is starting to wear off and I'm going to fall asleep soon. Before I crash, though, I wanted to take a moment to write this important post:

Thanks, Josh and Dave!

...Goodnight!

Working Out the Details

The other day I got together with Josh, Dave and a bunch of other people in Washington Square Park and Josh made the situation a little clearer.

First off, they've got an iPod Touch to give me, which is cool. I was slightly wary of the idea of having an iPhone and needing to ignore certain aspects of the device, so I'm happy that the device in question is an iPod.

Secondly, it's a kind of loner device. Provocateurs that they are, Josh and Dave apparently use their extra electronics for nefarious purposes -- like trading them for cakes, bicycles or as tools to trick people into doing work for them. I am clearly immune to their machinations. ...Wait a minute! Hm. Oh, well -- point to you, Josh and Dave.

Thirdly, and lastly of the numberlies, the specific device they have in mind is currently in the possession of their previous victim and they've been angling to get it back. It looked like Josh was going to actually have the device when I saw him in the park, but no go. The other guy's still got the thing. They're still working on the situation and will sort it out eventually.

That's kind of a good thing, I think, since I still haven't taken the time to troubleshoot the access controls for this blog. You can read my progress quite clearly (fill in any gaps with beer, basically) and I've obviously just set this thing up and then run away. Well, time to get to work! ...I guess.

Less Drunk, Still Confused

At this point I'm pretty sure this is all private. Actually, I'm extremely sure that it's about as private as anything gets when using a Google service -- Lorna is my test subject for granting readership permission and even she can't read the blog. That's a pretty significant degree of privacy!

This project was inspired by Josh's threat to give me an iPod Touch or iPhone so I can play some iOS video games myself and, like, form opinions based on actual experience instead of just being grumpy about everything all the time. This is a very generous threat, to be honest, and I thought it might be worth everyone's time to put some effort into my end of the bargain.

To that end -- this blog. If I do get an iOS thing, my plan is to try to play a game at least every week and then write about it here on this blog. I'm comfortable with the thought of Josh, Dave and Lorna reading this writing and I think I could produce posts pretty reliably. We'll see, I guess.

The ball is in Josh and Dave's court, although they don't know it at the moment. It's just a waiting game now. Maybe they will really give me a thinger and I'll have to try to live up to this whole concept, or maybe they'll come to their senses. Who knows?!

A Drunk for Josh and Dave

Alternate title for this post: You Brought This upon Yourselves

Here's the thing: just set up this blog, been thinking about doing so for a while, but now that it's, like, here, I've got to go change all the settings. It seems so sudden -- you think about doing a thing for a few weeks, finally decide to do it ...no, wait -- I missed a step: think about doing a thing, drink a case of beer and then decide to do it, and now it's, like, happening! Wow.

So instead of explaining myself, this first post is sort of damage control. Like: "Hello! ...Holy cats, I've got to try to make sure this is sort of remotely private!! Goodbye!!!" Like that.

Goodbye!!!