Pixel Pop

Website: http://www.nitrome.com/games/pixelpop/
Developer: Nitrome
Genre: Casual, Rhythm game
Platform: PC, Mac

Pixel pop is a point and click, rhythm-based game, illustrated in pixel art. They uses bright colours and retro soundtrack theme which remind me of games in the 80s. There are 4 stages + 1 ( combine of the previous 4 stages) of mini game in each of the 3 levels.

How to play?
The rules are simple, just click and follow the beat, the instruction and the short story is given at the start of the game, which I always fail to reads and prefer to explore the game play myself which is also quite easy. Later in the game, it gets more challenging as you point and click, double click or press and release the mouse while trying to follow the beat.

Gameplay

Like any rhythm-based game, the initial play is always not easy, as you are new to the beat, following the beat is hard. Later when I go more into the game, I realize that without the sound i can still rely on the visual to play, which I felt it failed the purpose as a rhythm game, perhaps the sound track is to accompany the visual to make the game more interesting.

Why am I attracted to it?

Visual
The animation is funny and the use of bright colours make it a good cheerful causal game.

Audio
The sound track used in Pixel Pop started off with an easy and catchy rhythm until the middle part, a change in the beat kinda screw up the rhythmic pattern I had in mind but I guess its this kind of challenge that keeps me playing. And everytimes when you hit the beat, the character give out a funny squeak which I find it abit entertaining.

Overall
This is still a good causal game to play when you are too bored or feeling down haha

Screenshot

Continuity is a platform, puzzle game created using flash. It a very direct game, once you see it, you know what to do and it also has very simple control. In the game, there is only 4 element, a red door, a red key to the door, the character itself and the shift-able space. I felt this game is cleverly made because you have the solve the puzzle of shift-able space of platform in order to create a continuous platform for the character to move through.

Mechanism

The controls are the usual arrow keys and the space bar, the space bar is to zoom in and out to view all the movable space. The arrow keys can be used to shift the platform together and also to move the character in the game. Not all the spaces match, the shapes of the side must fit together and its not just a left-right way thing, character can also jump up a space or fall into one, which I felt the level design is really meticulous created.

Even thought the control is easy it still require you to have a certain level of coordination skill in jumping platform and pausing the fall while you change to another space. In case your jump isn't successful, you will be revive at the same platform, save the frustration of having to restart and you have infinity life. You can take your time to solve each level as there isn't a timer.

Game Play

Even though the game play is direct but it require the player to have a different way of seeing, you will know what I mean when you play the game. Every level seem solvable, you can feel the solution is close by, just a little more thinking will solve it, unknowing you will keep playing level by level, within a few hours, you can complete all 32 level, its almost an effortless play compare to other puzzle game.

Aesthetic

Its a simple black and white design, important clue are in red, simple and straight forward. The current design works, if its too colourful, likely will cause a headache when you stare at the screen for solution.

Sound

Through the game, there is 2 types of background music played, when u zoom out, there will be a slow pace music and when u zoom in to move the character, an action sound effect is played, personally I find the music quite distracting but lucky they provided the mute option. A game won't be complete without a music after all.

Conclusion

As the level increase, the numbers of movable space also increase, even though it gets harder, you will feel that its not much of a challenge, especially if you manage to complete the game but I have to kudos to the level design in this game, that lots of thinking :D

Play: http://www.continuitygame.com/

Machinarium is a point-and-click adventure game, based on flash. In the game, you play a lone robot thrown out of the city working his way through deserted machinery wasteland. Solve puzzles, find and combine items, and encounter loads of creative characters in your quest. The illustration is beautiful and the animating and personality of the robot is cute.

Everything is handled with a click of the mouse, you can explore the environment using the cursor, if the cursor turn into a pair of walking feet, mean you can walk to that direction, if the cursor turn into a pointing finger, mean you can interact with that object. You can only adjust the height of your robot in order to get to hard reach object. You also have an inventory, so you can collect and combine item within your inventory. There is also a quick hint to help you get out of the place, just mouse over to the top right corner. If you are still seriously stuck and couldn't think of any ways to move to the next level, there is a walk-through solution of that level, but before you are able to read the solution, you have to complete a mini game. When you click something that the robot can't do, he'll shake his head which is kinda cute. Sometimes when you idle, the robot will start to wonder about his girlfriend which often end with a cute giggling.

After solving the first 3 level of the game and you still haven't give up, you are hooked to it. Its a pity that the demo only has 3 level to play, I'm addicted to it after solving the 3rd level :(:(:( Pay $20 for the full download, anyone wants to share? haha

Some reasons that this game appeal to me is the storyline, artwork, animation, personality of the character and the cute sound he always make. The puzzle solving by exploring the environment and combining item is really engaging and makes you devote all your attention to it. I wonder what is the ending of the game.

You can play this game here : http://machinarium.net/demo/

Ping Ting

Viwawa is a website built and conceived in Singapore, by a group of developer for online casual gaming.

One of the most popular game under Viwawa is Wahjong, which mean Mahjong, the favourite socializing-gambling game for many Singaporean.

Mahjong itself has simple rules but can be a complicated game which exercise your observation, judgement and decision-making, sometimes it even trigger your emotion stability when you lost lots of money. Its a good brain warm-up exercise but it require 3 other more players to play with you and you need a place to setup the Mahjong table.

The good

Wahjong is making Mahjong playing incredibly convenient, you no long have to setup chairs and table, wash and arrange your tiles physically, its all programmed to be done in the game itself. Whats even better is that you are playing with other real players, who you can interact with and not just computer default player who is programmed to play along with you. Whats even best is that you can play casually at anytime of the day and quit whenever you want too, whereby quiting in the real physical Mahjong game will get you whacked by the other players.

There are very few online Mahjong game but Wahjong appeal more than the rest because of its cartoonic illustration and use of colours. Viwawa also allow users to custom their wawa (player's character) making it even more personal for them.

The game play

Select the channel and numbers of tai you want to play

Select the table which you want to join

Game setting

Game end when someone hu

Calculation of tai for you

The bad

The 2 worst scenario that can happen in this game is when someone quit the game or walk away from their game, even though the game can still continue but its makes winning even harder with randomly discard tile for every round and having to wait for the player to timeout.

The other scenario is when the game lag and you miss a turn, that rarely happen but when the connection is overloaded the game play will be affected by other players.

Even though its advantage is being causal and convenient, some player still prefer the physical game because of the strategy involved to tackle other players, money and physical touch as luck.

The last bad about this game is that it only speaks in Chinese or Cantonese, player who cant understand Chinese and Cantonese will have problem playing and understanding the game.

The conclusion

Now that you know of Wahjong, you can Mahjong in the middle of the night without having your neighbour knocking on your door to complain about the noise :)

Try this game yourself!!

http://www.viwawa.com/en_US/game/Wahjong

I never own a PSP but this is one super addictive game I played on my friend's PSP for weeks :X

Locoroco is a super adorable game, the little wobbly character is on a quest to save its own planet from the evil Moja (black jellyfish). The Moja is a monster that capture and feed on little locoroco. Locoroco is a happy singing character, thus the cheerful music and singing at the background of the game to brighten your day up!

At the start of the game the character is just a tiny ball, its grow bigger whenever it consume a special orange berry. The character can break itself into many smaller self (depend on the numbers of berries it ate) or group itself back. Its easier to move in one big ball as the small little one might lost their way or get capture by Moja. In the game each little character sings a part of the song, a maximum of 20 little character can be gathered in a game and form a complete background song. There are different colours of character to unlock after completing each level. Each character sings different and has a different personality.

The mechanic of this game is very different as compare to the usual 4 directional move. In this game, instead of the character moving, you actually tilt the world inside the game so that the character can roll around. There is only 4 simple move for this game, tilt the world left, tilt the world right, jump and group/break the character. It can be a fast game depend on how many berries you want to collect on your way to the safe destination or it can be a longer game. You can explore the hidden cave, collect more tiny pink berry (score), play little bonus game or rescue the charcter's best buddy muimui for a higher score. At the end of each game, a special asset will be given, you can use the assets to build a muimui playhouse for your charcter to roll around.

Something which i don't like about this game is the limited numbers of level, and after playing for quite some time, you will realize that some parts are repetitive. The tilt screen control sometimes makes you dizzy because of the tilting world but after getting used to it, its still a great fun after all =)

Watch the game trailer!




Ping Ting