I like word games. I always have. Classics like Scrabble and Boggle leap instantly to mind.
Lately, I’ve been playing a flash game called Quick Words. You are given six random letters and you have to find as many 3-6 letter words as you can before the time runs out. You need to find at least one six letter word to move to the next round.
For a long time I spent all of my waking hours playing a game called Bookworm Adventures Deluxe made by PopCap Games. You are presented with a 4 x 4 grid of tiles and you have to spell words. The longer the word, and more exotic the letters, the more damage it does to the boss you are fighting. There are special modifier letters too. Things that cast a fire ball, or heal you, or multiply your damage, etc. It is just a really cool concept.
I’ve been seeing a lot of reimaginings of classic game concepts in the last year or so, and they tend to be some of the best games. For example there is an RPG out there that is essentially Bejeweled. It is called Puzzle Quest. When you match three of a kind you get mana, and you can then use that mana to cast spells against your enemies. You can also match three skulls and deal some damage to your opponent.
Peggle is another that tries to marry together pachinko and pinball into a game of skill. It still tends to be mostly luck in my experience, but I can see where if you could think four bounces ahead it could be about skill.
There are even some games, such as BioShock, that embed what used to be standalong games inside of them. The hacking minigame in BioShock is just PipeDream from over a decade ago. The interesting thing is to think how at one point, PipeDream was a standalone game. No one would ever pay full price for that today.
Even with all of that, I’ve been slacking when it comes to gaming lately. My poor Xbox Live gamer score has leveled out at around 10,000. I need to get back to it. There are never enough hours in the day or enough days in the week though.
Someday you’ll be able to rent time outside of time. I’m sure of it. You’ll pay for two hours and step into a pocket wormhole. Inside of that pocket two hours will pass, but you’ll only miss two seconds of real time.
Of course, when we have that level of control over wormholes we’ll be able to live in Italy and work in British Columbia with a one minute commute time. I’ll have to address how that will change the world in a future post. The really interesting tidbit is how it could almost completely replace the internet as we know it today. Think about it. Soften that noodle between your ears.
I’ve been watching my Red Wings dominate the league. The Senators are looking very strong this year as well. The Canucks have been dreadful. It is pretty amazing because they really didn’t change personnel over the summer. There is still hope, but I think it might be time for a new coach. The Oilers even have a better record than Vancouver.
/end rambling