In Praise of Braid

After replaying the classic puzzle game Braid this weekend, I realized I've barely even mentioned it here! Clearly this must be rectified. Even more than similar works like Portal, Braid sublimely demonstrates how games can be more than mere diversions. Instead, it is a work of art.

The easy first bit of the game.

Braid is a platformer puzzle game with mechanics similar to those of the classic Mario franchise. You run around two-dimensional worlds, climb ladders, stomp enemies, solve puzzles, and occasionally fight a boss. What distinguishes it is the time travel. Your avatar, Tim, possesses the ability to rewind time. Instead of relying on a store of lives to get him through danger, when killed he is obliged to simply rewind time to before his death and try again. The time mechanic is the core of Braid's fascinating, puzzle-based gameplay.

Sometimes the Mario homages are more blatant.

In the first world, the time mechanic simply allows Tim to complete some challenges and puzzles that would be infuriatingly difficult without it, like a blind leap into a pit with strategically-placed spikes. But in subsequent worlds, things get more interesting as more mechanics are added. Objects and characters that glow with green magic are unaffected by Tim's temporal meddling, moving normally as he is freezing or rewinding time. In one world Tim gains a shadow that repeats whatever actions Tim just rewound, allowing you to partner with yourself to solve some puzzles. In a particularly memorable world, the passage of time is directly tied to Tim's position; moving forward advances time, moving backward rewinds it.

One of the more action-packed levels.

Hopefully you can imagine the kind of brilliant, elegant, and diabolical puzzles this allows for. Beyond that, the gameplay is very simple: collect puzzle pieces and rescue the princess. But the time mechanic is so engrossing, so well-executed that the game doesn't need to consist of much else. Pictured below is my favorite puzzle: it took me around half an hour to figure out the simple solution for the first time.

One key, two locked doors...how is Tim going to get this puzzle piece?

Beyond the basic gameplay, there is plenty more to enjoy about Braid. The plot is minimal and unobstrusive, but surprisingly well thought-out. Books at the start of each world tell the nonlinear story somewhat cryptically, tying it in with whatever time mechanic is being introduced in that world. Other clues are filled in by the puzzle you assemble from each world's collectible pieces. As you progress, it draws you deeper, leading you to the possibility that the "princess" is more than just a literal damsel-in-distress... I won't spoil the ending, but it is a brilliant twist made possible only by the time mechanic, exemplifying the deep intertwining of gameplay and plot that Braid demonstrates (to say nothing of the secret ending...).

It gets much deeper from here.

The more artistic parts of Braid are what really complete it as an aesthetically fulfilling game. The game's licensed soundtrack is soft, beautiful, and pensive. As you rewind, freeze, or fast-forward time, the music stops or changes its speed accordingly, giving you satisfying audible feedback for your actions; there are also similar visual cues. The visuals are absolutely gorgeous, as the previous screenshots have shown; the game is vibrantly illustrated like a storybook brought to life, and each world has a distinctive visual theme. Mechanics, plot, and eye/ear candy all fit together incredibly well to create a game that is surprisingly emotive and immersive for being so short and two-dimensional.

The screen you are treated to at startup. A burning city never looked more beautiful...

Braid is only $10 on Steam, barring any sales.

Twitch Plays Pokemon

Some of you may already be familiar with the recent internet phenomenon known as Twitch Plays Pokemon (TPP). If not, a brief primer: Twitch.tv, a website that streams live feeds of people playing video games, is hosting a rather unique playthrough of a modded, emulated version of Pokemon Red in which the player character (Red) is controlled collectively by people watching and commenting on the feed, with the "players" typing button commands into chat which are then interpreted and executed by poor Red. The result can be described as entertainingly chaotic, with Red spastically wandering around, opening and closing the Start menu, and (more rarely) inadvertently releasing his cherished Pokemon. See for yourself (it's worth watching, if only for a few minutes); Randall Munroe of xkcd has posted his take on it, as have others.

So why am I referencing this short-lived internet trend on my blog? To reflect on it, of course! I can certainly understand the appeal of watching TPP (though maybe not of trying to play it). It's entertaining to watch the chat commands rapidly scroll by and Red attempt to execute them, with the action bordering on nihilistic absurdity. And at the same time, this (admittedly artificial) difficulty to completing the most basic tasks, while entertaining, also turns what began as a children's role-playing game into an epic group effort that has captured the attention of hundreds of thousands. People (I imagine) get to celebrate as Red makes it to the next trainer battle or catches a Pokemon, and howl in confusion as he releases his cherished starter Pokemon, ABBBBBBK( the Charmeleon. Whether they'll make it through the whole game is anyone's guess.

It's even more interesting to see how the game has captured peoples' imaginations. In his random flailings around the Start menu, Red often seems to select the Helix Fossil in the Item menu. And so the Helix Fossil has become an internet meme of its own, a sort of magic 8-ball that holds all the answers. Red's current strongest Pokemon, aaabaaajss the Pidgeot, has become "Abba Jesus" the glorious leader of the team; similar identities have been assigned to most of Red's Pokemon. People have divided into factions supporting the two control modes, Anarchy and Democracy, almost like political parties (or houses of Hogwarts). A whole mythology has begun to spring up around the idiosyncratic, near-random happenings of this playthrough, giving us artistic depictions of moments like when Red inadvertently released his Flareon (which was supposed to be a Vaporeon), or what I can only describe as the information-age version of Gematria linking Flareon with the evil Dome Fossil, the dualistic opposite of the good Helix Fossil.

"Bird Jesus [Pidgeot] banishing the False Prophet [Flareon]"

My choice of the word "mythology" in that last sentence was not accidental. I see more than idle internet diversion going on in TPP. After four weeks of studying the cultural and philosophical background to the Old Testament, I see the same kind of mythmaking at work here that so many pagan Ancient Near Eastern (ANE) cultures engaged in. In the absence of science, ancient cultures' myths were their way of exploring and understanding the world around them, of infusing both daily life and the historical goings-on of nations with meaning. ANE myths tended to reflect the societies that made them. Hence the phenomena of nature (the waters, the sky, the land, the storm, the sun, etc.) were associated with humanlike deities dwelling in a society much like the mythmaking one. Ancient Egyptians, protected from incursion on all sides by natural features and sustained by the dependable rhythm of the Nile, saw life as orderly and under the wise rule of the gods, including their divine-human ruler, the Pharaoh. Ancient Mesopotamians, by contrast, lived in a region with unpredictable weather and flooding, with life dependent on irrigation; they saw the gods as clashing and competing, creating humans to do the grunt work of sustaining society.

...Indeed.

Anyway, today we tend to turn to science (or some similar manifestation of our post-Enlightenment worldview) to explain things, except the weightiest matters of life, afterlife, meaning, morality, and so on, for which we turn to religion (though it's becoming increasingly possible to believe that there is no need for this). But when confronted with something we truly can't explain or (effectively) control, like Red's bizarre behavior while making his merry way through Kanto, we turn back to mythological storylines to put it together in our heads.

From a more detached perspective, though, I can't help but see TPP as the projection of all the chaos, diversity, and pluralism of our modern world, which at times seems to be going in every direction at once, onto a single (virtual) individual. Seen in this microcosm, we laugh, celebrate, and mourn with Red's exploits. Being able to see and understand our own society in this way is as hard as it is scary. Most days I don't feel like trying.

And from a theological perspective, I ask the question: I wonder if this is how we look to God? Like bumbling, spastic lunatics who can't tell their Charmeleon from an Elixir, wandering directionlessly through life and doing things that, ultimately, don't make any sense? It's a different perspective on what "sin" is than the classic view of willful rebellion, but no less accurate.

Update: The Helix Fossil has been revived. The theological implications are enormous.

Some deep thoughts on games

Disclaimer: This post is far more subjective and personal than my usual. Everything I say here applies only to me, as far as I know. Enjoy!

In the rush of games that happened over Christmas break (from Marissa getting Power Grid for Christmas to a marathon that stretched over New Year's Eve and Day when my friend was visiting from New Jersey), I glimpsed the almost unequaled ability games have to work me up emotionally. One round of Dominion could put me in a sour mood for an entire evening. With some prompting, I remembered the simple truth that my submission to Jesus extends to every part of my life, even to things that I normally consider idle distractions. So I started asking some long-overdue questions: why do I enjoy playing games—of the board or video variety? Why do I sometimes get so frustrated at them? Why have I disliked competition since I was little?

One of the first things I found was that my enjoyment of games breaks down into a few discrete categories. Just as flavors have five basic tastes, so I realized the the appeal of games to me consisted of four different "flavors". For lack of any other literature to draw from, I've tentatively named these flavors "strategy", "flow", "immersion", and "progress", and I describe them below.

Strategy

(I'm actually no good at chess, but it's a highly recognizable example)

Strategy is possibly the most fulfilling flavor for me, because it engages the intuition/thinking loop that forms the core of my thought process. It gives enjoyment by allowing me to use strategic, high-level thinking to creatively overcome complex challenges (even more complex than checkmating the opponent's king). Ideally, it involves open-ended play with lots of options, echoing the nonlinearity of the real world. Where I often find details difficult to handle in the real world, these games help me to practice uniting them into a "bigger picture" with strategic thinking, pursuing my goal from many different angles at once.

On the other hand, strategy gets frustrated when I am unable to engage in this kind of creative/strategic planning, either because my options get cut off or because my choices are no longer meaningful/impactful to the course of the game. This feeling of powerlessness or a sense of meaninglessness to my actions is the opposite of how I seek to feel in Strategy games.

Examples: Strategy games (obviously), some puzzle games, most adventure-type board/card games; Supreme Commander, SimCity 4, Civilization V, Portal

Flow

Once again, I don't play DDR, but good example.

In contrast to strategy, Flow doesn't focus on higher thinking at all and simply employs a stream-of-consciousness, act/react loop that emphasizes skill and precision at high speed. It's hard to describe why, but successfully strumming/drumming a hard song on Rock Band just feels good, much in the same way climbing a difficult wall does. The appeal of Flow games is the development and successful use of a skill; conversely, I get frustrated with them if I feel that skill is not being judged or evaluated fairly, or if I'm prevented from using it (like if a display lag in Rock Band makes me miss notes and fail a song).

Examples: Rhythm games, fighting games; Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Divekick, Super Smash Bros.

Immersion

I miss Skyrim almost like I miss the Canadian Rockies.

In contrast to both of these, Immersion appeals to my imagination, emotions, aesthetics, and sense of wonder. Games of this flavor attempt to create a sweeping, cohesive world that you can lose yourself in, and so appeal strongly to my inner escapist. If they are done well, you begin to feel attached to the people and places in the virtual world almost like real ones. Obviously this can lead to unhealthy, addictive behavior, but mostly I find the chance to step into another world incredibly enjoyable and refreshing. Some of my favorite games became so because of this flavor.

I don't get frustrated with Immersion games as much, but when I do, it's usually because something breaks the immersion—such as a game-breaking glitch, poor camera control, or a bad mechanic that keeps your character from doing something they "should" be able to do.

Examples: Most RPGs, adventure games; Paper Mario, Golden Sun

Progress

Progress becomes possibly the most addictive "flavor" by appealing to my sense of (obviously) progress, or accomplishment. It encourages the regular setting (and meeting) of goals, and a steady increase in abilities, resources, or prestige that gives the game a bigger and grander "scale" over time. There's something highly rewarding about going from a penniless Rogue with a wooden dagger and no armor to (say) the leader of the Thieves' Guild. I get frustrated with Progress probably the least of any of the flavors, but when I do, it's usually because the steady effort-reward cycle the game builds up has been disrupted, or the sense of accomplishment I seek has been invalidated. ("I can't believe my awesome team of dragons I spent weeks building up got swept by an Aerodactyl!")

Examples: Some RPGs, Pokemon games in particular, FarmVille

Of course, hybrids of these flavors are also possible, such as:

Strategy/Flow: Call of Duty (single player)
Strategy/Immersion: Braid, Portal 2
Flow/Progress: Sequence
Immersion/Progress: Lots of MMORPGs, The Elder Scrolls, Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy

Strategy/Flow/Immersion: Halo
Strategy/Flow/Progress: Call of Duty (multiplayer)
Flow/Immersion/Progress: Mass Effect?

I'd be very interested in hearing from any readers who can identify other "flavors" of games that they enjoy besides these.

Since this post was prompted by my experience with board/card games, which generally all fall into the category of Strategy games (though collectible games like Magic or Warhammer have elements of Progress, and tabletop RPGs also have Immersion), I'll be focusing on their appeal and challenges for the rest of my time.

Going deeper

I often think of games as decision trees, a perspective which focuses on the choices the player makes and the control I have over my position in the game. Each choice alters the game state and leads to more choices. It is this diversity of choices that makes, for instance, Chess more interesting to me than Checkers. Here is a sample decision tree for the first few turns of a game of Dominion.

Of course, as the game goes on you would also gain the option of playing the various cards you buy, which further multiplies the complexity of the game in ways dependent on your earlier choices. But I'm getting ahead of myself. With some more introspection, I identified three reasonably discrete properties of Strategy games that I enjoy:

Open-ended play/high complexity: I prefer games that present me with a wealth of options and choices to navigate. This means a decision tree with a high branching factor, enough to allow for "creative" gameplay, yet with enough structure that you don't feel hopelessly lost. It means having many paths to a successful outcome to allow for a variety of viable and interesting strategies, each of which might involve making goals, subgoals, and so on. I like games that resemble optimization problems (simply trying to do the best you can at overcoming complex challenges) rather than a simple decision of winner/loser(s).

Proactive gameplay: What I mean here is that I like when the real challenge and thrill of the game is in "figuring out" and implementing my own strategy, not responding to the actions of others. (This contrasts sharply with Marissa's style of play) Lest you think me inflexible, what I mean is that the game should (ideally) allow you freedom to form a strategy at a high enough level that unexpected circumstances (such as other players' actions) can only affect the implementation of a strategy, not render it completely invalid. My preferred style of thinking handles complex challenges by innovating or stepping one level "out of the matrix"—being able to partially define my challenges, rather than simply being the best at a particular one that I am forced into. I like being able to roughly decide a big-picture "path" through the decision tree that is general enough to adapt to other players' actions, so I readily have another tactic to fall back on. If I lose sight of this big picture, I begin to feel helpless.

The "Feedback Principle": This is probably the most important one. I define the Feedback Principle as the general rule that the outcome of a situation requiring my input should be connected with my actions. In other words, success should be contingent on sound play, and failure on mistakes made or ineptitude. It's important that I be able to see a meaningful connection between my actions and their outcomes, or I quickly get frustrated. If I fail, I must be able to at least recognize choices that, made differently, could have led to success—otherwise, failure was inevitable and then what was the point of playing? Of course, there is probably some self-serving bias at work here, but not in every case.

Addendum: On his blog Richard Beck defines "power" as the intersection of capability and opportunity. I think a lot of what I am saying about my preferences above are that I like to be limited in my "power" in a certain game only by my capability, not by my opportunity—or I like it if part of my capability is redefining and shaping my opportunity. If I see opportunity as a limiting factor to my ability to play, outside my control, then I get frustrated.

Hopefully some examples will help illustrate these preferences...

Case studies

Candyland: As an extreme case, Candyland gives the player no choices, and so I don't develop any expectations of strategic thinking (or attachment to the game). Not suitable for adults.

The Settlers of Catan: I'm pretty biased against Settlers because, to date, I've lost every game of it horribly due, as far as I can tell, a combination of improbable dice rolls and inconvenient robber placements. (I think I keep picking the most favorable spots for resources without thinking, and so get heavily affected by both of these) Overall, it gives external things, namely the whims of the dice (which I swear are weighted to not roll 6 or 8) and the actions of other players, too much control over my options, which are generally pretty slim to begin with.

7 Wonders: Both an interesting and somewhat exasperating game. It has seven different resources you have to balance and a multitude of ways to win like military, science, civic buildings, and guilds, which must be pursued somewhat all at once.  On the other hand, you only ever have a maximum of eight choices of what to do each turn, and these decline over the course of each age. Plus, several of the cards in a given hand are usually useless to you due to either not being able to play them or their contributing virtually nothing to your position, and the most desirable cards in an age are often snapped up before they ever get to you. Like Catan, 7 Wonders gives other players a high degree of control over your options (often the best move is to take a card that the player next to you would love to have), which I don't find enjoyable.

Power Grid: I like how Power Grid promotes long-term strategic thinking with such relatively simple mechanics. The rhythm of the game is a simply feedback loop: you collect money by powering cities, use the money to buy plants, resources, and cities (that part doesn't really correspond to reality), and feed resources into the plant to make more money. The balancing system is interesting; players often jockey for last place to get the best pick of plants, resources, and cities while plotting to pull ahead in the last few turns for the win. Lastly, I also like the simple way in which the resource market mimics the law of supply and demand.

Most of my hard times with Power Grid come from how it comes close to simulating a real-life economic race (though energy markets tend to be monopolies), but not quite. The resource market could more accurately be said to capture the law of demand, as the supply rate is based entirely on the stage in the game and not the rate at which resources are being used. This allows the players who go first to exert a crippling degree of control over the players who go later if resources get depleted. Likewise, the limited selection of the plant market makes for heated bidding wars, but doesn't really intuitively justify itself with any basis in the real world. I simply don't see how other players choices should be able to restrict which plants I can build.

Wizard: Wizard is another simple, but enjoyable strategic card game. The bidding system means that there are basically no "bad" hands, only easy or hard-to-bid hands. Still, I notice that while pondering bids I tend to set expectations for how many tricks a given set of cards "should" be able to take, and I get frustrated when these expectations are broken.

Dominion: Is probably my favorite card game. The huge number of possible games makes the game extremely open-ended and favors the creative exploration of new strategies and combinations instead of sticking to just a few. Still, my preferences come through; I strongly dislike attack cards when they cut off my options or force me to respond to other players' actions instead of focusing on my strategy. Why can't we leave each other alone? (Or have reactions that are more positive/interesting, as with Governor)

And as benchmarks, three of my favorite strategic computer games...

SimCity 4: Ah, SimCity. No interactions with hostile opponents out to ruin your city (except the occasional alien, kaiju, or giant robot) Just you, a plot of land, and the open-ended challenge of building your dream city. Most of the challenge comes from complex, intangible environmental forces like the education level, health, safety, traffic levels, and land value of your city, which if optimized will make it a more appealing place to live for tax-producing Sims. There are always at least several things to do in your city (zone for more industry, expand the bus/subway system, put in some libraries and museums...), and the whole game is something of an optimization problem on a city-scale. It encourages the setting of broad goals (expand your city's commercial sector, cut pollution, improve traffic...) and their methodical implementation.

Supreme Commander: Easily my favorite real-time strategy game because it exposes other games of its genre as real-time tactics games by virtue of its epic scale. The maps range from 5 x 5 km (corresponding to a mid-sized StarCraft skirmish) to a ridiculous 81 x 81 km. The slow pace that these larger maps lead to encourages analytical, long-term thinking about your strategy, and the extremely nice order-queuing system lets you assign all sorts of complex behaviors and plans to your units with a minimum of hassle. It gives a lot of room for creativity in strategy that goes behind the simple unit-combination mechanics of other RTSes. You can play aggressively, expand defensively try to claim more territory (and resources) to slowly choke your opponent, sneak a secret firebase within striking distance of them, rush to an experimental unit/nuke... The possibilities and choices are nearly endless, which is just what I like about SupCom.

Civilization V: Much like with the other two games, I enjoy how much is always going on in Civ V. You have cities to manage, units to direct, diplomatic relations to navigate, and a world to conquer. there are over a dozen various resources and variables to manage, and you have a great degree of control over the direction you take your empire, which is exemplified in the four victory conditions: domination, cultural, science, and diplomatic. Like SimCity, it throws a great deal of complexity at you but manages to do so in a clear way that lets you manage it surprisingly easily. All the parallels with real history allows each game to be its own kind of alternate history, some more entertaining than others (like the time I played as Gandhi and slaughtered the rest of the world with Giant Death Robots, or when George Washington besieged Mumbai for 500 years straight). Civ V encourages you to combine creativity with strategy and just a bit of megalomania, leading to the legendary "Just one more turn..." syndrome.

From preferences to obligations

It seems like I have different expectations for games than most people. I don't enjoy competition for its own sake; I enjoy the strategic challenges that it accompanies. When the competitive elements of a game get in the way of the strategy (e.g. by violating one of the three properties above), it's no longer "fun" for me. So I tend to gravitate toward games (like the last three) that embody these properties more, by design. All this research into how I enjoy strategic games might even help me to identify such games before I even try them.

I also noticed something else that you might have as well: all the times I use "should" or other words conveying a sort of moral ought-ness when talking about what are supposed to be my own subjective preferences. This way of projecting preferences into a moral dimension is seen in how I usually dislike using "attacks" that hinder my opponents: I'm applying the golden rule. Similarly, I reinterpret violations of my expectations as injustices committed against me. Once a situation has been cast in this light, it's easy to get angry; after all, (I'm convinced) I have a right to be.

I think I'm somewhat of an escapist in how I approach games, as I often am with books and music. I play them to temporarily leave the real world for a simpler one that is more like my idealized world-that-should-be. So, recast in moral terms, those three properties that I like games to have correspond to three ideals I value, perhaps excessively: freedom (to blaze my own path with my choices), power/agency (or a realized internal locus of control), and justice/fairness (or a simplified version of justice I'd label "karma"). I recently came across an article about the video game jump that sounded surprisingly like me (emphasis added):

Begy claims that jumping in a virtual world is "ultimately about expressing power." This is not just limited to power over the physical opponents in a game. In many games, the greatest challenge a player faces is the environment itself.
"Jumping over ledges, walls, or down stairs is defying the environment's attempts to constrain or influence your navigation of it," Begy says. "The dominating jump can be a means of attack or avoidance, but dominance is always present."
Donkey Kong's "Jumpman" jumps to dominate the barrels. If he does not jump over the barrel, it will dominate him. But by jumping over it, he can render it harmless.
Begy's theory is that the real world does not always grant individuals the control over their lives that they desire. However, through the jump, video games provide a virtual world in which freedom, dominance and autonomy can be expressed at the mere press of a button.

There's nothing inherently wrong with valuing freedom, fairness, or a sense of dominance and seeking to enjoy them in games. But my giving them a moral dimension indicates that they have become more than mere preferences. I feel entitled to have games I play meet my expectations by embodying these things for me, and in a selfish way that views other people as obstacles to their enjoyment. When they don't, I feel like I've been wronged.

But "love does not insist on its own way" (1 Cor 13:5, or more literally, "love does not seek its own"). When this moralizing insistence on my expectations gets in the way of enjoying my friends' company, then I stop loving them and act selfishly. I'm reminded of God's question in Jonah 4:4 (I can't remember the translation): "do you have a right to be angry?"

2013 Year-End Steam Games

And now for something completely different: a rundown of the games I got for cheap this Steam holiday sale. I suppose this would have made more sense right after I got them and they were still on sale...they'll probably get discounted again.

Sid Meier's Civilization V: Brave New World (2013)

I've realized I'm a big fan of games that offer you lots of choices—think of it as room to innovate and play more creatively. Few games embody this ideal better than the latest iteration of Sid Meier's turn-based masterpiece, Civilization. I highly recommend the base game and the first expansion God and Kings; Brave New World offers less dystopia than the names suggests, but a similar expansion and improvement of the game's features to G&K.

As the above screenshot shows, there are new playable civilizations, further adding to the near-comprehensive selection Civ V offers. In my first game I tried playing as Poland, which gets beefed-up cavalry (Winged Hussars!) and a free social policy at the start of each new era (Solidarity!). Also pictured is Venice, which cannot build new cities but can turn city-states (like La Venta and my former ally Panama City) into puppets. Other selections I didn't try include Assyria (which plunders other civilizations' technologies), Brazil (which focuses on its golden ages/Carnivals), and the formerly-missing series long-timers the Zulu.

But the main improvements Brave New World makes are three new mechanics. First, caravans and cargo ships can now be built and used to create trade routes, either within your civilization (to give a city a boost to food or production) or internationally (to share in riches, science, religion, and more). I ended up really appreciating this mechanics, which could have needlessly complicated the game but was instead well done (and quite helpful). Just protect your trade routes from pillaging barbarians or enemy civs.

Second, the cultural victory has been revamped. No longer does it merely involve making a (invariably small) cultural powerhouse civilization and then coasting to a utopian victory in isolation from the res of the world. The cultural victory is now achieved through tourism: collecting great works (either created by great artists, musicians, and writers or dug up by archaeologists) draws other civs' attention to your culture. Once your cumulative tourism output to each other civilization exceeds their own culture, you achieve cultural superiority and win. Granted, this seems a bit unrealistic since at least in my experience America wins other cultures over more with its  TV shows, internet phenomena, and decadent lifestyle more than with its fine arts, but it is still a much more exciting way to win.

Finally, the United Nations has been expanded into the World Congress, which begins once someone develops the printing press and discovers every other civilization. It does eventually hold votes for world leader to allow the diplomatic victory, but before this players can vote on a variety of resolutions like passing a tax on standing armies, embargoing a troublesome civilization, banning nuclear weapons, and much more. Influence with city-states gives more votes just as it did with the diplomatic victory, and overall it gives a very interesting and well-executed way to interact with your neighbors.

The cultural policy system has also been revamped now that it no longer controls the diplomatic victory, with two new policy trees (aesthetics and exploration) added and the three systems corresponding to forms of twentieth-century government have been split off into a larger and more interesting ideology system. Overall Brave New World is a richly rewarding series of additions to Civilization V that don't really take anything away. Definitely worth a look for Civ V players.

SimCity 4 (2003)

I also found a game from ten years earlier that similarly risks overwhelming players with options. For those who similarly missed out on it, SimCity 4, like its predecessors, puts you in the shoes of the mayor of a city of sims, which you are responsible for developing. It's a very detailed city simulation; you are responsible for zoning, electricity, traffic management, fiscal management, education, health, and the pollution your disgusting smelting plants put out, among others.

After getting to a fairly large city of 50,000 Sims, I can personally attest to how brilliantly addictive this game is even ten years later. After you get the hang of it (the tutorials help somewhat), it manages to always give you plenty to do without truly overwhelming you. Your advisers alert you to urgent needs your city faces (like a heavily congested road, imminent power outage, or health crisis) with convenient pop-up messages, and you get a wealth of charts and map overlays to help you plan your next development.

For my first real city, I set a goal of keeping a balanced budget and trying to free myself from cars and dirty energy as much as possible. I created a city with bustling residential, commercial, and industrial sectors, added blocks of offices and manufacturing plants, watched as my Sims got wealthier and wealthier, and finally quit as I was building my subway system and saving for a solar power plant because I realized it was 8:00 and I hadn't eaten dinner. Highly recommend this game.

Sequence (2011)

My roommate introduced me to this title which I can only describe as a rhythm RPG. You collect items, level up, and fight monsters, but the core battle system is heavily inspired by DDR. You hit arrows to the beat of some fairly nice (though out-of-place) techno songs to block enemy attacks, cast spells, and regenerate mana. This is the core of the gameplay and it is quite fun and fast-paced; if you have a XBox 360 Guitar hero controller like me, you can even plug it in and use it to play (sorry, I don't think you can use a DDR pad, nor would you want to). A typical battle consists of rapidly queuing up and casting attack and defense spells, blocking as many enemy attacks as you can between spells, and regenerating mana when you get a chance, all of which necessitate rapidly switching between the three different note boards. Unfortunately, this is pretty much all the game consists of and it's set in the context of a bit of a tedious grindfest; it feels a bit more like a proof of concept than a fully-featured game. Still worth it for the right price.

Divekick (2013)

Do you, like me,find fighting games bewildering and difficult to learn? Then look no further than Divekick, the two-button fighter game in which the only move is divekicking and all hits are KOs! Fight in a variey of exotic places with increasingly zany characters! No, seriously, besides being a parody of fighting games, Divekick is also a surprisingly good game, though the polar opposite of the aforementioned games that offer tons of options. Each character has his/her own dive height and kick angle, with some having the ability to adjust their attack style mid-battle. It's especially rewarding in versus mode, where the challenge of kicking the opponent without getting kicked yourself leads to some crazy twitch battles and mind games.

Fallout: New Vegas

...I'm going to hold off on this one until I have more time (and have played Fallout 3, which i also have on Steam).

Diablo III (not a review)

With the releases of Mass Effect 3 and Diablo III this year, I've been doing a lot of critical thinking about the game industry recently. This is a topic I could (and hope to) go into a lot of detail on. I'm not nearly as serious a gamer as I used to be; partly this is because I have less time and other things to do now compared to 10th grade, and partly it's because thanks to ongoing trends increasingly few games are worth it for me. In general, the gaming experienced (at least for big-ticket games) is becoming increasingly publisher-oriented instead of gamer-oriented. For now, I will leave you with this article about how the biggest problem with Diablo III isn't the constant server problems but the fact that you now need servers to play a single-player game at all.

Skyrim, Revisited

Well, I've logged a respectable 35 or so hours on Skyrim, and despite having gotten almost nowhere in the main quest, I'm feeling about ready to provide a more educated opinion on the game.

I've come a long way from rolling into Riverwood as a fur-armored ex-convict loaded with cheap loot. My character is now a level 42 badass battlemage who owns a shack in Whiterun and a very nice cave house in  the western city of Markarth. He wears a mixture of glass and dragonscale armor (I need to kill one more dragon to finish upgrading the dragonscale) and is extremely dangerous with his Legendary Daedric Sword. He throws fireballs, summons atronach companions, and is quite good at delivering devastating sneak attacks. If you can't tell, the gradual but undeniable sense of advancement is one of Skyrim's biggest draws.

I can't believe I only touched on the leveling system last time. The leveling systems of Morrowind and Oblivion were deep, rewarding, and multifaceted, but also quite flawed. The system of major/minor skills in Morrowind and major skills in Oblivion meant that when you created your character, besides choosing your name, race, birthsign, etc., you also picked a subset of skills your character was especially good at. You would advance more quickly in those skills, and increasing a total of 10 of them cause you to level up. Except your total skill gains also controlled the possible attribute bonuses you received upon sleeping to level up, and you could only pick three, and if you had too many bonuses you'd waste some of your skill level ups, and if you had too few you weren't gaining attributes fast enough, and you had to devote one of the bonuses to luck almost every level if you wanted to maximize it, and you had to maximize endurance quickly by leveling Armorer, Heavy Armor, and such to maximize your HP...

As you can see, the leveling system of previous games was a mess. The major skills were the ones you were supposed to be good at, the ones that defined your character's archetype, but you wanted to make them skills you wouldn't be leveling, at least not naturally, because then you wouldn't be able to precisely control when you leveled up to ensure you always gained the right amount of skills to maximize your attribute bonuses. If it sounds confusing, that's because it was; I had to get mods to "fix" the leveling system and keep myself from having to obsess over which skills I was leveling when. It was nasty and seriously broke the immersion of the games (at least for calculating players like myself) by keeping you from playing your character "naturally".

The leveling system in Skyrim, then, is probably its biggest improvement. I would say it's even better than any of the mods of the previous two games. Basically, there are no major or minor skills anymore; all skills count towards your next level, though higher-level skills (the skills your character is best at) count more. Makes sense. Also, as I mentioned before all the attributes (strength, endurance, intelligence...) have been removed; health, magicka, and stamina (which also controls how much you can carry) are now your character's only attributes, and rather than bizarrely tying their advancement to your skills, you simply pick one to increase by 10 whenever you level up. Total control. You can increase mostly health and stamina for a beefy fighter character, or more magicka for a mage. Just being able to do whatever I want, increase whatever skills I want, actually leveling up a diverse variety of skills willy-nilly, is tremendously freeing, like the way The Elder Scrolls should be. The birthsigns and specialties of previous games have both been folded into the guardian stones; rather than picking them once at character creation, you choose a guardian stone and can switch at any time by visiting another stone.

But even with no specialties or major skills, you are still encouraged to specialize your character; it just happens gradually as you play the game and explore, rather than at the outset when you barely know your character yet. This is made possible by the "perk" system, which is almost as brilliant an improvement as the skill/attribute system was a fix to previous games. Basically, every time you level up, you get a perk point to spend. Each skill has its own tree of perks to explore and choose from; as you increase the skill and go deeper into the tree, more perks become available. Simply increasing the numerical value of your skills is less powerful than in previous games; to really get good at a skill, you have to get the perks of that skill. These range from greatly increasing the effectiveness of a skill beyond what simply increasing it could do, to nice little bonuses (the chance to critical strike with sword attacks) to awesomeness. (Having two summoned minions at once) It makes leveling much more dynamic, interactive, and all-around fun.

Update: My level 51 character (now the Archmage of the College of Winterhold) has maximized his smithing and enchanting skills. He has fully moved into a three-floor mansion in Solitude, the seat of Imperial power in Skyrim. I've killed enough dragons and captured enough souls to finish his legendary, double-enchanted Dragonscale armor that boosts his stats, lets him resist elements, and lets him cast Destruction spells for free. Yes, spamming the expert-level Thunderbolt spell is tons of fun. Amazingly, though, even with that and my infinite-charge Legendary Daedric sword that does fire damage, the game still has its challenging moments. This game is amazing.

Skyrim

So. I have played Skyrim. But first, since this is my blog, there is no better place to tell my kind of ridiculous story of the past three days than here.

I was happy and not terribly surprised when I opened Skyrim Christmas morning. I soon installed it, which went smoothly enough, but wasn't planning on playing it until I got back from visiting family, or I'd be distracted. As I'm running an adware scan to make sure nothing is slowing my system from running Skyrim, I go take a shower. When I come back downstairs, my computer is off. Huh, maybe I did turn it off and forgot. I press the power button. Nothing happens. Uh-oh.

I open up the case and try messing with a few wires, but can't get anything to happen. I try my dad's power supply, which also doesn't work. The motherboard must be bad. I try my power supply in my dad's computer, which also doesn't work. The motherboard has gone bad and is destroying whatever power supplies I plug it into! I test my dad's power supply in his previously-working computer, which also fails. It's looking bad as we head out to visit family.

I try to forget about these horribly-timed computer troubles as I spend Christmas evening with my extended family. We have a great dinner and I (foolishly) play Settlers with my cousins. The next day I got to see my cousin's wife and their adorable baby daughter for the first time home from Okinawa! The baby is so cute she has a blog devoted to pictures of her, which is apparently way more popular than my blog.

Monday evening, we drive back home. I have just enough time for a Microcenter run before we see A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie. I buy two new power supplies, not having time to get a motherboard yet, and I figure I'll try these and see if they work.

I take them home and install one in my dad's computer first. It successfully boots. We go to the Guthrie. The show was pretty amazing, as I'd expected from going on backstage tours of it twice. Tons of cool stuff flying in and out, sliding/rotating Scrooge's house set, the the Ghost of Christmas Future is TERRYIFYING.

We go back home. Finally no other commitments (besides sleep) stand between me and fixing my computer. I try some stuff on my desktop, afraid to try the other new power supply for fear it will destroy another one. Eventually I try it, reasoning that if the only problem was both power supplies failing independently somehow, I'll be done and won't have to replace the motherboard.

I hook up the power supply; it doesn't start. But then I put it in my dad's computer, and it does start. My motherboard has clearly failed, but it's not corrupting power supplies. After more experimentation, I discover my old power supply is actually fine. Apparently my motherboard and my dad's power supply failed independently, which messed up my tests. (I'm not sure why testing my power supply in my dad's computer didn't work; I must have forgotten something in my hurry)

Tuesday morning I go back to Microcenter to get a new motherboard. At a friend's recommendation I look for a Gigabyte board, with USB 3.0 to make full use of the external drive Seagate gave me. I pick one out and bring it home, then spend the next few hours completely taking my computer apart and putting in the new board. When everything is connected, I hit power and--success!--it starts! And then tries to boot to Windows and unsurprisingly gets a blue screen due to the drivers being all wrong.

I discover I can only boot from my Windows CD to repair them if none of my hard drives are connected, in which case there is nothing to repair. I'm stuck by this and wait a few hours for my friend to come for an X-Men marathon my sister is having. He fixes this with some BIOS wizardry and I'm back in business. Soon I've repair and reinstalled all the necessary drivers and my computer successfully gets into Windows. Huzzah! I spend the evening watching X-Men as my computer runs the scans that were interrupted.

I hope to finish them before sleeping, but they take longer than expected. Finally, by this early afternoon, everything is ready. (I'm still encountering random, sporadic lockups, likely as a result of some driver that needs to be replaced, looking into that) And that's how I spent three days trying to play Skyrim.

But anyway, on to my first impressions of the game. After starting it up and messing with the options as usual, I start a new game. I go through the usual intro/character creation sequence, making my first character a Dunmer battlemage as usual. The story is that you start as a prisoner (as usual) whose execution is interrupted by the arrival of a dragon. No big deal. You and a guard take shelter in the nearby fort, which has tunnels (the tutorial dungeon) leading to safety, in which you get your needed weapons and armor and learn how to play. As a battlemage, I settle on a mace in one hand and a fire spell in the other, which works out pretty well for me. After this, he directs me to the nearby village of Riverwood, where I'm finally able to sell all the loot I've been struggling to carry from the dungeon.

By the way, being on Reddit has nearly ruined Skyrim for me due to all the silly memes. I refuse to do any of the things in them: I will not get a horse, I will not hire Lydia, I will not wear that ridiculous helmet, I will not become Thane of Whiterun, and if I meet the guy who took an arrow to the knee, I will kill him!

The trader there gives me a quest: his golden dragon's claw trinket has been stolen, and of course I offer to get it back. After rearming I set out to the temple the bandits are hiding in one a mountain to the west. They are no match for my mace and fireballs. As I progress into the caves, spiderwebs start covering everything. Soon I find myself up against the first boss: Shelob a giant venom-spitting spider!It very nearly kills me until I get better at dodging it charges while blasting it with fire. I manage to kill it and free the man trapped in its web, who seems to have the claw. Of course, after being freed he betrays me and runs off deeper into the temple. I follow and kill him, then continue in to see what he was going to do with it.

I get into some catacombs infested with zombies draugr who attack me with cool old Nordic weapons, and one strong one who can use magic. They are no match for my growing magical powers and shiny new steel mace. I come up to a door leading into the innermost part of the temple which has a three-ringed lock. It's clearly some kind of puzzle, but I can't find any clues, so I brute-force it. (It only has 27 possible combinations...not very secure)

The innermost sanctum has a large stone alter where I learn the first word of a dragon shout--I think it went "fury" or something. As soon as I do, a coffin behind me opens and an especially nasty draugr comes out. He likes to use the banshee-like shout on me, to which I respond by running away and throwing more fireballs. Once he's dead, I escape via a secret exit (why can't I ever enter through those?) and return to Riverwood.

The shopkeeper is happy to have his gold dragon claw back, but I run him out of money selling my loot, so I head off to Whiterun, where I am right now, to finish.

So far, my overall impression of Skyrim is that it seems simplified to the point of being dumbed-down--but the stuff they took out was unimportant and even annoying. Weapons and armor no longer degrade and need repairs; smithing is instead used to craft new gear. The leveling system has been completely changed; the only attributes are now health, magicka, and stamina, and you pick one to increase with each level-up. There are no more major and minor skills; everything now counts toward your next level, eliminating the need to "fix" the leveling system with mods. You no longer need to sleep in a bad to level up. (The horror!) Rather than have armor degrade your spell efficiency, there are now magical items that provide no armor but other great incentives for mages to use them like +50% magicka regen. (Wow!) Bartering with shopkeepers is now done automatically based on your speechcraft. All the little annoyances of Morrowind and Oblivion that I'd grown so attached to are now gone, and what is left is a sleek, more polished game. It will take some getting used to, but overall I think it's better.

Much of the gameplay is the same as in previous games--Skyrim is just as open and inviting as Morrowind and Cyrodiil were--but the combat system as been further refined. Your character is now apparently ambidextrous and can carry a spell or one-handed weapon in either hand--as a battlemage I carry one of each, but I could just as easily dual-wield swords or keep fire in one hand and healing in the other. Another nice touch is that many spells are now continuous--rather than throwing fireballs, I can now shoot a continuous stream of fire at stuff.

The game manages to evoke the same kind of wow response to its graphics as Oblivion did in 2006, maybe dampened a bit by the existence of Crysis, but still gorgeous. The dungeons are much more varied in appearance and layout than in Oblivion. I'll probably have more thoughts after I've played more than a few hours, but for now it's looking pretty good.

Magicka

In the category of "fun casual games I've found recently" is a gem called Magicka. It's an isometric beatem-up game that has you slaying legions of goblins, orcs, beasts, and daemons to save the world of Midgård. The difference is that instead of using weapons, you mostly use magic. Lots and lots of magic.

Magicka's magic system is the centerpiece of the game, and it is endless barrels of fun. You have eight basic elements--water, life, shield, cold, lighting, arcane, earth, and fire--and you can combine them in nearly endless ways. There are plenty of rules to this--certain elements can't be used in conjunction with each other, and some of them can combine to produce new ones. You can also cast spells in one of four ways--in front of you, around you, on yourself, or enchanting your weapon. (You do get regular weapons, but they are much less useful than your magic...unless you get the light saber or machine gun)

The basic elements are predictable enough, but combining them is the fun of the game. Combining arcane with shield gives you mines that tick and explode, sending enemies who walk over them flying. Fire is normally a spraying attack, but combining it with arcane gives you a searing beam. Combining fire and earth gives you fireballs; combining earth and cold gives you hailstones that slow enemies. Combining water and fire gives you steam; combining this with lightning and arcane gives you a beam that soaks enemies as it electrocutes them. Ouch. And multiplying elements increases their power, making zapping enemies with deadly lightning a viable strategy. (Especially when they're wet)

Magicka lets you satisfy your deep-seated desire to zap stuff like the Emperor.

Adding to the ridiculousness is the game's simplicity; there is no mana system, so literally the only limit to your magical exploits is how quickly you can cast spells. It makes you feel almost godly, but the game has plenty of challenges to your magical prowess, not the least of which are other spellcasters. These battles are some of the toughest in the game; predicting their spells is essential as one false move can blow you up or send you flying off a cliff. The potential of magic battles to blow up in your face (literally) gets a bit ugly in one particularly frustrating series of battle, but usually it feels surprisingly balanced.

IMMA FIRIN' MAH LAZOR

Besides the basic elemental spells, there are special spells ("magicks") that can be cast by queuing up elements in a certain order. These let you do special actions like making it rain, calling down lightning, (best if enemies are wet from said rain) messing with time, and teleporting. The element system is compelling and practically begs you to experiment with it to see what fun combinations you can come up with. The possibilities let you try many different fighting styles, like running away from enemies and luring them onto mines, gathering them around you and casting area-of-effect spells, or just lasering everything.

Spell-slinging galore!

Besides its fantastic magic system, Magicka also benefits from some truly fantastic writing. If you enjoy less-than-serious medieval adventure games like Kingdom of Loathing or Munchkin, or if you enjoy the humor of games like Banjo-Kazooie, Magicka is worth checking out for its humor alone. The characters constantly spew cultural references, break the fourth wall, and in general constantly find new ways of making you laugh. So far the best I've seen is a boss fight that has James Bond, Star Wars, and Lord of the Rings references, all within a few minutes.

One example of the game's countless references.

Your narrator and giver of advice is a fellow named Vlad who is most definitely not a vampire. You also get a fairy companion who is an obvious parody of Navi from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and frequently gives you gems like "Maybe you can cast spells on enemies?" and "If you die, I will hate you!". Even the game mechanics have references; when casting beam spells, don't cross the streams! My only complaint of the humor is that it seems a little too reliant on pop-culture references, as opposed to original silliness. But it's great fun all the same.

Your fairy companion is an endless source of obvious advice. And yes, you are carrying a Master Sword.

If you got Magicka during the 75% off sale like I did, congratulations. Otherwise, it's certainly still worth the $10 purchase. The adventure is 10-15 hours long, but the fun combat, humor, and endlessly deep magic system encourage heavy replaying, and there is are many DLC expansions to be had. If you can convince your friends to buy it as well, it also has online co-op and PvP!

Truly "Immersive" Gaming

With signs pointing to the current generation of game consoles sticking around a while longer, the biggest innovations of the "big three" console manufacturers in the last few years has arguably been the development of motion-based gaming technology. Nintendo's Wii has had it since its release and received some upgrades like the WiiMotionPlus and in the last few years Microsoft's XBox 360 and Sony's Playstation 3 have gotten the Kinect and the Playstation Move, respectively. The point of motion-control systems like these, if I may paraphrase, is to give players more novel or intuitive ways of interacting with games that often more closely mirror the actions being performed in-game. Instead of aiming by moving a control stick, you can aim by pointing the controller at the screen. Instead of pressing buttons to make your character perform actions, you can now trigger them by doing something that at least superficially resembles the desired action.

I don't deny that these control systems are really cool, even when used for their intended purpose of game control. (Hackers have done some really amazing things with Nintendo's and Microsoft's hardware) The well-known danger is that the coolness of the motion control can sometimes become a substitute for overall quality in the rest of the game, leading to gimmicky, bargain-bin games that rely on the novelty of the control scheme (which might suck anyway) and aren't terribly special in anything else. Even Wii Sports, which comes bundled with the Wii, and its successor Wii Play are well-implemented and fun for an hour or two at parties, but are rather short on depth.

But what about when these new control schemes are applied to the latest in a series of solid games known for their fantastic gameplay, charming graphics, music, and all-around immersive experience--case in point, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword? Fans have been anticipating it for its 1:1 sword control, but now that it's out the response to the controls has been mixed. (Gamestop famously gave it 7.5 despite critics saying the reviewer just didn't understand the controls) Yesterday I found a discussion on Reddit from a disappointed fan; if you don't want to slog through it all, just read the comment that caught my attention:

I'm enjoying the game so far, but in a way I find the motion controls less immersive. When I play with a traditional controller I can easily lose myself in the game. Pressing buttons is like breathing for me. I don't have to think about it. But in SS so far I have been frequently made aware of myself holding the controller, thinking about how I need to move it around, and that brings me out of the game.

He found the motion controls less immersive? It's an interesting theory--players are supposed to be able to get more into games if they're identifying their actions with those of the player character, but this fan found mirroring Link's actions distracting from the game. Pressing buttons and moving control sticks on a traditional, ergonomic controller may seem boring compared to swinging the "Wiimote" like a sword, but it's so easy that gamers (myself as an example) are able to form mental pathways that map the actual manipulation of the controls to muscle memory. You don't have to think "press right bumper" or "contract right index finger" to reload, you just do it. It's a different kind of immersion that is broken by the complex motions involved by motion controls. In light of this, I don't see motion controls making much progress out of the realm of "casual gaming" anytime soon. Thoughts?

The Humble Introversion Bundle

Maybe you've heard of those "Humble Indie Bundles" they've been periodically releasing the last few years. Apparently the latest one just dropped, featuring a pack of games by indie British game developer Introversion. The basic model is that you pay however much you want for the games (including nothing) and select how much you want to go to the developers, two charities, and the site itself. To foster a spirit of competition, it tracks the donations by OS (currently Windows is the most tight-fisted, and Linux users are the most generous) and the top donors. It seems like a pretty cool business model and I recommend checking it out.

As for the games themselves, I've tried a few and they've been worth my payment. Crayon Physics is a pretty brilliant sandbox-puzzle game that lets you literally draw in your solution and let the game's realistic physics engine take over. Reminds me of a video I saw a few years ago of similar drawing-based physics being demoed on a whiteboard, which I thought was the coolest thing ever at the time. It's especially great when played with my Wacom tablet. To get it and one other game, you need to donate at least the average donation, another smart touch. I've also tried Darwinia, an odd RTS-type game with similar aesthetics to Tron or Synaesthete, and a Windows-only demo of a procedural city generator that creates lifelike street plots of cities that will never exist in seconds. Very shallow and not a full game, but promising. I have yet to try DEFCON, a satirical strategy game simulating the cold war, and Uplink, which apparently simulates Hollywood-style hacking. If you're into smart, offbeat-type games, I would follow this site. (It's free if you want, after all)

A Minor Change in Direction

I'm well aware that I've been doing a lot of faith-focused posts recently, including quite a bit of heavy theology. While I'm not ashamed of this and truly enjoy writing about God, I never intended this blog to be about any one thing--hence the hodgepodge of objects in the header image.

So, to break from this tradition I'm going to shamelessly plug a cool computer game! Specifically, Audiosurf. It resembles a cross between hyper-fast futuristic racing series F-Zero and an earlier indie game, Synaesthete. Unlike Synaesthete, Audiosurf is not free (the full version costs $10), but it's well worth the modest price.

Playing some DragonForce should be anyone's first reaction to this game.

The big draw of Audiosurf is, of course, its ability to dynamically generate tracks by analyzing any song you select. The result is that you can literally play (as a game) your favorite music. Colored blocks come at you in time with the beat, and when the music gets louder or faster the track changes to hotter colors and everything speeds up. Calm, acoustic music is largely an uphill climb in blues and purples, while intense metal becomes a frenetic downhill of orange and red. The track bobs up and down to the ebb and flow of the music, various cool visual effects sync up to it, and the thrill you get just before the start of a steep section is similar to being on a roller coaster.

The gameplay has two main modes. In Mono (pictured above) you simply ride the track, picking up colored blocks and avoiding gray ones. Matching colored blocks gets you points--bigger matches equal more points. On the easiest difficulty it's pretty laid back, but on Ninja the track is congested with gray blocks you have to avoid, a tough test of reflexes and precise control. The other main mode has no grey blocks, but multiple colors of blocks that must be grouped together to form matches as well as some special powerups. There are five different "characters" (game modes) to play which all give you special abilities like storing blocks and dropping them at will, erasing everything of a certain color, or controlling two cars at once. This mode is more cerebral and making complicated matches requires some strategy. These modes provide some variation to the gameplay, but mostly this game's replay value is limited by your music library--finding songs that will translate to exciting and varied tracks is a fun challenge.

The graphics are fairly simple by modern standards, but fully 3-D and undeniably pretty. The tracks are laid out as winding, multicolored ribbons that stretch out ahead of you for virtual miles. The ability to plug your own music into the game and experience it rather than just listen to it raises Audiosurf a step up above the sea of music games that have been popping up in the wake of DDR and Guitar Hero and makes it well worth checking out, if only the demo version. Definitely recommended for music and puzzle game lovers.

Astronomicon

Apologies for the silence lately. Partly this has been because I'm working full-time at Seagate this summer (I'd tell you more, but it's all confidential) and partly because I'm developing a game this summer!

Yeah, this is my game: Astronomicon. (I still can't believe that name wasn't taken) It's a retro-style space shooter; for those of you who have fond memories of playing Phoenix on your TI graphing calculator, you'll love this. It's getting to be pretty playable, with most of the basic engine and a sweet HUD implemented as the screenshots show.

I'm hoping to have the programming part all done by the end of summer, at which point the game can be designed with config files. It's already pretty fun blowing enemies up with guided missiles and such and I can't wait to see what will become of the functionality I'm putting into it.

Updates on the game, including the latest source code and a wiki, can be found on the Google Code page. Stay posted!