Oh, the joy of Lumines. It is so unbelievably addictive. I actually played this game last night until my hands cramped up. So incredibly intense.
Today, while I was working on my last model for Flight Sim, I thought a bit about why Lumines is so much fun to play. The basic premise is very easy to understand. Create colored squares that are cleared by the Time Line which moves steadily from left to right. The more squares that are cleared, the higher your score. Clear as many squares as you can before the blocks reach the top of the screen.
It’s easy to see where the developers of Lumines drew inspiration from what worked in both Tetris and Collapse. Initial gameplay is very simple and easy to grasp. Minimal controls are needed to play the game (move side to side and down, rotate left or right). “Lather, rinse, repeat” mentality. There’s not much more to it than that.
To extend the gameplay beyond a Tetris/Collapse-esque clone, the devs included several different game play modes. There is the normal single-player challenge mode in which you just play until you run out of space (or mental capacity). There are timed modes that task you with clearing as many squares as you can in the alloted time. There is a puzzle mode in which you have to use the colored blocks to create cute little block pictures. And, of course, there is versus mode either against the CPU or another player on a second PSP.
I’ve logged in quite a few hours in the past couple of days with all of the single-player games. The timed modes are great for quick fixes. The puzzles are also good for quick games too, since they are timed. However they be infuriating at times but in an “if I can beat this without throwing the PSP across the room I’ll be extremely happy” sort of way.
The game addict in me, however, is completely drawn in by the standard challenge mode. It’s all about getting the high score and surviving for as long as I can. I’m already getting flashbacks to my days with Tetris and Collapse. Hours upon hours were lost to those games. The nice thing about getting addicted now is that I can justify it as part of my job.
Recent Comments