Desert Golfing

Two of the best dollars I ever spent were for this game.

This game procedurally generates (mostly I think) golf holes in 2D. The player uses an Angry-Birds style shot meter to "hit" the ball. Once a hole is gone, it's gone. You can't go back and play previous holes. And there appears to be no end-game. The "can't go back" policy is interesting. There are holes where I get a tricky hole-in-one. This means I can't replay the hole to do it again. Likewise a hole that takes a hundred (or over two hundred in at least one case) shots can't be retried to improve the score. So how important is the score? I've decided it's not really important. It is Zen-like. All you can worry about is the current hole. All previous holes are gone. The future holes have not been generated. It is up to you whether you want to keep trying for the hole in one, or get through it as quickly as possible.

The creator of the game talks about two endings. For the first ending he designed a hole that would adjust the power of your shot to make sure you missed. That was supposed to be in the 3000s (the so-called 3XXX demon hole). It took me a little over ten thousand shots to get to the 3000th hole. The second ending was meant to be hole 2866. To complete this hole the player has to bounce it off a slope that is off-screen. This would be trickier if the game had not already established that off-screen terrain can affect the game. Further, the developer says that the holes after 3000 were by and large flat, though I believe they are still procedurally generated.

At this stage I plan to stop at hole 4000. Or at least, slow down a little =)

Here is a link to an "impossible hole". Hole 17,509. It took the player 2,063 shots to complete the hole. The total strokes to get thus far was 45,183.

Jetpack Joyride - half way there...

Jetpack Joyride has 125 badges. Each badge requires 15 levels, so altogether there are 1875 levels. Today I finished level 937. This means I am almost half way through the game. Level 938 is the mid-point level. After that there are only 937 levels to go...

This is what the totals look like at this stage:

Time spent in game = 9 days, 22 hours, 49 minutes (and 1 second)

Games played = 5,895

Distance covered = 7,923,804 meters

Coins collected = 1,531,377

Tokens collected = 8,705

Missions = 3,568

I can't remember when I first down-loaded this game. It would be handy for the stats to record that too.

Temple Run 2 - 15 million meters

Today is the day I passed 15 million meters in Temple Run 2.

I have collected all artifacts in the Rings, Masks and Critters categories. I have collected all of the artifacts in the holiday categories (Christmas, Valentines, St. Patricks, Easter, 4th of July).

There are still artifacts remaining in Floral and Relics.

The statistics for this game are as follows:

Total Games: 3,402

Total Distance: 15,019,938

Total Coins: 5,116,697

Total Gems: 5,636

Game version 1.12

Currently I have 4,797,798 coins and 2,802 gems.

Temple Run 2 - Infinirunner cleared

I have finally cleared the last objective: Infinirunner (run 10,000,000 meters).

I can't remember when I started this game or how much total time I have spent on it. There are not as many stats as I like to see in endless runner games like that (and Jetpack Joyride and Subway Surfers).

Why do I keep coming back to this game?

It is a genre I like. They also have daily and weekly challenges. Recently they added artifacts (collectible tokens).

The statistics for this game are as follows:

Total Games: 2,523

Total Distance: 10,004,856

Total Coins: 3,222,716

Total Gems: 2,169

Game version 1.7

Currently I have 2,653,416 coins and 1,029 gems.

Moshi Monsters - Level 13

Sorry for the late post, but yesterday my Moshi monster reached Level 13. I had ignored it for a little while so it was hungry and cranky when I resumed playing. Still, it did not take long to get the health and happiness back up to 999.

The Level 12 game is pattern matching and is called Manic Match. The player is presented with a sequence of shapes and then has to find the matching sequence of letters. For example, a shape sequence of (red circle, blue circle, blue circle, red circle) corresponds to the letter sequence ABBA.

The Level 13 game is Shuffle Kerfuffle (I don't make up these names). A four letter word is presented above four empty boxes. An arrow goes from each letter of the word to an empty box. The player then has to assemble the new word. The key words are words like MEAT or EDIT that can be scrambled to give four other words. The hint for this game is often to focus on the first two letters. That is normally enough to indicate which of the four supplied answers is the correct one.

The next Moshi Monster update will be when I reach Level 14

Thank-you for reading

Rhythm Heaven - Superb DJ School (scratch)

For this game the player goes to DJ school to learn to scratch in time with the rhythm. It took longer than I expected to get the medal for this game given how simple and short it is.

Bejeweled

Bejeweled

This is one of the first games I bought from Popcap and it is still one of my favourites. This is not the original (see Shariki) "match three" games but arguably the first popular game of that type. The game play is simple: match three or more jewels on an 8x8 grid by swapping (horizontally or vertically) adjacent jewels. This means the maximum number of jewels of a single color that can be lined up at any one time is five. Under the right circumstances ten jewels can be matched at once.

The original game features two modes: classic and timed. As I said, I prefer the classic mode where I can plan moves ahead rather than the faster pace of the timed version. There is also the hint button to provide impatient players with a prompt as to the next move.

Since the original game, Popcap have gone on to release three more versions: Bejeweled 2, Bejewled Twist (where a 2x2 group of jewels is twisted instead of the player swapping two jewels) and most recently Bejewled Blitz. I didn't like the Twist version of the game as much as the original. I prefer the mechanics of swapping to rotating. Blitz is one of ever-so-many FaceBook applications. This is where I encountered it recently, and bemoaned that I did not invent the game. I prefer the Zen (endless version) of the game to the one minute dash for high score in Blitz. And probably because I am a purist, I don't buy the boosts that are available in Blitz either.

Why is it so popular? I'm not quite sure. Certainly it has something to do with the fact that almost anyone can learn how to play the game. The graphics are simple but look very good. There is almost no start-up time so players can have a long session or short session quite easily. It also has to do with the randomness. One never knows how the initial grid is going to look or what new jewels will drop when the matched jewels are destroyed so no game ever plays the same way twice. The motivation to keep playing is the high-score list. One more factor that contributes to the popularity of the game is its portability. This game has been ported from the web based version to various different gaming consoles and touch-screen devices. There is even an online slot game with the Bejeweled theme!

If you haven't tried it already, give it a go. Popcap have helpfully provided Bejeweled 2 online for free.

Thank-you for reading.