Posts Tagged ‘computer games’
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I just found the original SimCity game online for free, and its one of those games I used to enjoy playing about… 15 years ago? Anyhow, I gave it a quick spin and…. oh no!!!
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Just when I think I have a better grasp on what little time I have, and right when I think I’m doing my best to avoid unnecessary distractions, along comes something like ‘Bookword Adventures Volume 2‘. I played the first Bookworm Adventures game, thoroughly enjoyed it, and I would just happen to visit PopCap games to check for an update right as a sequel rolled out. Drat.
Bookworm Adventures Book 2 is a lot of fun, and in many ways is an improvement over the original. Its not perfect, and I have noticed a couple bugs along the way (namely missing words, both complex ones listed in Merriam Websters, but also some smaller obscure words as well) but overall the pace and gameplay is a lot of fun, and the additional mini-games are a nice feature as well.
Two improvements I’d love to see are: instead of Lex or the enemy just making inane comments during the battles, why not throw out the definition of the word being played? would it be that hard to make a web service call to some dictionary site to retrieve back a word definition and throw it on the screen? I suggest this because I’ve noticed that on a fair number of times I’ve spelled a word by mistake that I have no idea what it means (I’m still not sure what “qua” is).
Additionally, the ‘scramble’ feature is nice, but I’d love to see a ‘selective scramble’, or a way to lock certain letter tiles you want to keep and just scramble the rest. This would be cool for trying to build massive words. Otherwise the only option is to save the letters you want and just try to play off the unneeded letters, and that can be a pain (or difficult when all of the other letters are just “i” and “u”).
Bookworm Adventures, both book 1 and 2, are both a lot of fun, and actually put the brain to use, so they go a step beyond silliness like shooter games (or even games like Tetris) because you need to formulate words that destroy the enemy before they destroy you. It’s actually pretty tame for kids to play as well (aside from some mildly creepy ghost characters in the 5th book.) The biggest negative: its a highly-addictive game that you get started playing and you totally lose track of time. But its time well-spent.
I hate Tetris. I’ve played an unhealthy amount of it growing up, and even today, I’m hooked on the stupid game. So along comes “Tetris Friend“, and, of course, lemming that I am, I click the link and get hooked. Not only is this classic Tetris free, but there are some variations where you can battle random strangers of different skill levels: some you can defeat easily, and others who clean the floor with you. It’s an awful drain of time that I need to stop playing at night, because it’s wasting time I should be using for December Sun #5, which I’m lettering now.
My earliest memories of Tetris were from the old Nintendo system. I used to play this for hours, then dream of falling colorful shapes and obnoxious Russian-sounding music. Then in high school, in the computer lab, there was a really cheap knock-off of Tetris, ironically called “Nyet”, installed on the PC’s there. I wasted a good amount of time playing Nyet, truly making the most of my time in school.
The curious thing about Tetris is, I think I’ve hit the skill wall with the game: I don’t get any worse, and I don’t get any better. My gameplaying just sortof leveled off at this strange level of Bruce Lee-style playing of “feel, don’t think”, where I just start playing and pow-pow-pow just start dropping shapes at the same consistent speed. I don’t think about it: the shapes just drop into place. It’s sad, and a little frightening, actually.
While cleaning out the Geocities website I found a number of old WAD files, or modified custom levels for the original DOOM and DOOM 2 game. I recall, maybe around 15 years ago, spending time with a level editor building faux-3D levels for DOOM and trying these out. I put a good amount of time into it, then realized one day, “Why am I doing this?” Games were changing so quickly, and DOOM was rapidly becoming a thing of the past (plus true 3D games like ‘Descent’ were coming around) so I was wondering (maybe correctly?) if my level-building was worth the time? Anyhow, I did have some fun with it, and some of my favorite levels were the ‘Airport’ level (intended to look like an airport terminal, but it doesn’t really) and ‘Mulhare’, a level that was supposed to resemble the castle from the old, silly “Secrets and Mysteries” television show from years ago (including a castle with an imp sillouette in the window, ala the show’s host Edward Mulhare. I don’t think I did this right though, because the imp character wasn’t blind/deaf and wouldn’t stand still at the window.) But anyhow, these were all exercises in designing fun and challenging levels for me.
I wish I still had the original games so I could demo these quick and grab some screenshots, but alas I Ebay’ed my copy of DOOM 2 awhile ago (actually, it was DOOM 95 or something like that. My “original” copy of Doom 2 was the store-bought copy on floppy disk. Ah, those were the days…) So instead I’m including a screenshot of a sweet and lovable fawn…
Anyhow, here are the levels below. Enjoy, and a disclaimer: these are NOT necessarily going to be the greatest, highly-tested levels ever. In fact, it’s completely possible that some of these levels have no exit, pits you can’t get out of, weapon limitations, etc, etc. Play them knowing that these were products of my poor level design skills and feverish imagination. Doom was a fun game (a tad dark at times) but due to it’s simplicity, level editing was a piece of cake for a dummy like me. Enjoy!
Bookworm Adventures – a fun (and time-wasting) way to keep the brain sharp
April 2nd, 2009 |Posted In: 3, computer games
I get a kick out of the Bookworm Adventures from Pop Cap games, which is basically like a Scrabble/RPG variation with cartoons and sound effects. It’s a clever idea, actually: you play as a heroic worm character(?), and on each turn, you fight battles by building words from a series of Scrabble-like tiles in the center of the screen. The more complex the word, the greater the damage done to your enemy. And the nice thing about the game is, as you advance, not only do all of the enemies continue to change, but more and more power-ups are granted, making for more interesting variations in gameplay (such as, trying to work x-y-z characters into words for more damage, etc.)
Using word complexity as a weapon is a great idea: you can’t beat the game playing “CAT” and “DOG” words, but it’s the hefty-character words that do the most damage to the enemies (I managed to play “refridgeration” once, and I think I finished off the baddie of that stage instantly with that word.)
The campaign version of the game is the best way to play this. I found the arena mode to be a chore (namely because it doesn’t give you enough time to figure out words. Or I’m just slow. Likely the later.)
The only thing that I wish this game had was a player-vs-player option (which it didn’t have, last time I checked. Maybe it’s since been upgraded, but I don’t think it has.) I think it could be fun to face off with another thinking human playing this game. Maybe in a future edition.
So where is there going to be a Bookworm Adventures sequel? I want more!
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