Tag: ios

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Games of 2012: Girls Like Robots

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2012 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. As I did last year, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2012 posts.

It is a strange thing when my favorite television “network” has become one of my favorite game publishers as well. Adult Swim, home of staples like [The Eric Andre Show](http://theericandreshow.tv/) and [Check It Out!](http://video.adultswim.com/check-it-out-with-dr-steve-brule/), has been steadily releasing Flash and mobile games for the last few years. Unsurprisingly, most of these games are pretty twisted – but not the subject of today’s post, Popcannibal’s Girls Like Robots.

GLR is a charming little block puzzler, with a nice drawn art style that sort of reminds me of Double Fine’s Stacking – perhaps because the animation style is similar. Most levels give you a grid, a number of tiles to place, and asks you to organize them to achieve a certain score.

There are rules to those tiles, naturally, and they are gradually rolled out over the length of the game as the story unfolds. As the title says, girls like robots – but girls don’t like nerds. Nerds do like girls, but they don’t like other nerds. Robots like girls (but don’t like being surrounded by them) and are indifferent to nerds. Everyone likes pie, except for robots. One particular girl doesn’t like robots but does like bugs. Fish and robots are mortal enemies. Space seals make…actually, let’s not talk about the space seals.

The rules of placing tiles is often variable too – sometimes you can pick the order, sometimes it’s pre-determined. Most levels are asking you to maximize happiness, but some want you to make everyone miserable, and others demand a balance of emotions. Some levels feel like Tetris, others involve physics.

Putting this all in text may sound overwhelming, but the thing I’ve really dug about GLR is that it keeps slowly changing as you play it. Add a tile type, take away some tiles, change the rules…it’s a gradual build and it works really well. There’s a little storyline with some cinematics (which you can skip, but it’s worth watching for the little jokes), and most new gameplay elements are introduced with enough tutorials to get the point across.

GLR also manages to balance the difficulty well – the best solutions are typically non-obvious, but I’ve never felt stuck on a puzzle (and there is a Skip button in the menu).

This trailer probably explains the gameplay and style a lot better than my text did:

I enjoy a good high-stress, twitchy game as much as the next guy – but sometimes a relaxed puzzle like Girls Like Robots just hits the spot.

Girls Like Robots is available as [a universal iOS app](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/girls-like-robots/id533815482?mt=8) for $3. It’s also on Steam Greenlight.

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Played

Games of 2012: Super Hexagon

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2012 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. As I did last year, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2012 posts.

We were crammed three deep in the back of a taxi, feeling every mile and a half between our office locations. All I had on my mind was the upcoming meeting with the client – trying as one does to pre-plan my declarations and anticipating potential points of conflict.

One of my coworkers broke the silence: “Hey, Dan, random question – how did you get over 60 seconds in *Super Hexagon*?”

—

Terry Cavanagh’s Super Hexagon [is self-described](http://superhexagon.com/) as a “MINIMAL ACTION GAME”. Two buttons, no written instructions – you can rotate left; you can rotate right; hit a wall and the game ends. If football is a game of inches, then Super Hexagon is a game of milliseconds – the leaderboards are solely on the length of the your survival across 6 progressively ridiculous difficulty levels. To “beat” any given level and unlock a future one, you need to survive for one minute. This is generally perceived as impossible when you first pick up the game. When 10 seconds of survival is a struggle, asking for 60 seconds is tantamount to emotional abuse.

When I first downloaded Super Hexagon, I actively hated it – the somewhat imprecise controls, the randomness of the levels, and the spinning camera added up to leave me wondering if I had been pranked. Where was the brilliant game I had been promised? But Super Hexagon is not a prank – it just took a few days to realize that it demands patience and practice. Your skill evolves as you identify patterns, find ways to position yourself, and learn the cues as to when the rules of the game change a little. Jenn Frank’s voice will haunt you, insisting “BEGIN” every time you restart after death. (For the longest time, I swore she was saying “AGAIN”, which seemed more fitting.)

There’s a continuum of gaming as to how complicated the player’s thought process needs to be. On the higher end of the spectrum lives things like *Civilization*, *Dwarf Fortress*, and *Football Manager*. Super Hexagon lives on the other end of the scale, getting as close to a raw twitch/reaction game as anything I’ve played as of late. No upgrade system, no micro-transactions, no story, no Facebook integration.

In a industry where “retro” typically means “pixel graphics and bad jokes”, Super Hexagon does retro the right way – in its core, and not merely the exterior.

—

So, back to that cab.

I would’ve loved to explain all the strategy and nuance for how I finally broke the 60 second barrier. But the parts of my brain that became good at Super Hexagon weren’t easily put into words. And while I was still considering the work day ahead, I went for broke:

“Well, let me show you.”

Internally, I was cringing as I pulled out my phone to start the game. The terrifying amount of bravado, combined with the fact that I had only ever done it once before, combined with the poor conditions of a crowded, bouncing NYC cab – there was no way this could possibly work as an answer to the question posed.

But somehow, it did. 69.24 seconds passed before I crashed into a wall. I couldn’t help but smile a little as I shrugged and said something along the lines of “So yeah, that’s how.”

That’s how I will remember Super Hexagon – it’s the one game that has ever made me look really, really good at video games.

Super Hexagon is available for iOS, OS X, and PC.

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Enjoyed

Games of 2011: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2011 posts.

iOS gamers are this year’s gaming community scapegoats. With Nintendo and Sony’s handheld platforms under siege, there’s a certain level of disdain that generally comes up when discussing the ascendancy of smartphones. “Touch controls are terrible!” they shout. “Angry Birds is a terrible game,” they whine. “The App Store is full of garbage,” they blabber.

Should anyone take a step back and look at the library of any mobile gaming platform, there’s always a lot of poorly written garbage. The DS has been predominantly shovelware and the PSP has been a graveyard for the last few years. The key, as with any system, is to find the diamonds in the rough.

There are plenty of great games available for iOS, but generally the gamers who complain are looking for a critical success: something arty, something with a stark art style, something with a deep and symbolic story. In short, they’re looking for a game that can be put on a pedestal.

Beyond all other iOS games this year, that game was Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP. It won seemingly the most superlative praise of any game this year.

Kill Screen:

> It manages, with reverent deftness, to evoke and honour the influences of its creators, while simultaneously providing a multisensory experience that feels novel and groundbreaking today. A landmark achievement, it raises the bar for independent game design much as the Washington Monument did for independent obelisk design.

The Wall Street Journal:

> If Roy Lichtenstein were weaned on things like 8-bit games, “Kid A” and the iPhone, these would probably be his Benday dots. Yes, in the end, “Sword & Sworcery” is just a game, but in its own meta way it’s also a kind of pop art for the digital age.

MSNBC:

> Steve Jobs may have promised all you Apple fans some magic … but it’s the Superbrothers and company who are delivering it.

Wired:

> It’s a game that will make you believe.

Destructoid:

> Gaming doesn’t need to find its Citizen Kane, but it may have discovered its Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead without even trying.

I can vouch for it being a beautiful and absorbing game, but like many other titles I’ve played this year, it was one I failed to make much ground in. I have placed it in this list not only because it’s won widespread praise from critics and friends alike, but also because it represents that iOS can indeed have those critical-smash titles that gamers so deeply value when measuring the worth of a platform.

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is available as a universal iOS app.