| 
| | January 10, 2008
Happy New Year 2008
Can you believe it’s already 2008? When I was a kid, the year 2000 seemed like the distant future: I was sure that by the time it rolled around, we’d all have household robots and flying cars. Now here it is, eight years after that much-anticipated date, and I’m still cleaning my own kitchen and sitting in traffic on the 520 bridge. The future’s just not what it used to be. | |
|
On the upside, I never would have guessed that I’d be typing my thoughts onto the screen of an inexpensive computer so small that it fits on my lap and so powerful that it puts the supercomputers of my youth to shame. I certainly couldn’t have known that I’d carry my phone in my pocket, or that the tiny Zune in my other pocket could hold my entire collection of music and play whatever I wanted on demand. If I could go back in time and tell my younger self that she could someday get an instantaneous answer to any question about any topic in any language by asking a free world-wide electronic network, she’d either laugh or have me hauled off for psychiatric evaluation. And then there are videogames: the glorious, elaborate, scintillating wonders that they’ve become.
In retrospect, I think videogames alone make up for the lack of android butlers and flying cars.
Oooooo, shiny!
Sometimes the next cool thing in gaming isn’t a completely different concept, but a very spiffy hybrid of other designs. This is definitely the case with my new favorite free web game, Joboo’s Gems. It’s a little bit Tetris, a little bit Bejeweled, a little bit Astropop, and a little bit Collapse, but somehow still manages to feel unique. The goal is to clear gems from the screen by dropping more gems from above; once three or more are touching, they’ll vanish. The game isn’t quite that straightforward, though, since every few levels, you have to battle Joboo, the protector of the gems. He has some nasty special attacks to stall you and make matching far more difficult. Of course, you’ll also have special moves, but Joboo just keeps getting tougher every time he shows up. Frankly, I’m hooked. I love the combination of puzzle action and strategy, although I still have a long way to go before I can say I’m really good at it.
Let’s see… my high score so far is 309,500. I fully expect the members of our 1000 Badges Club to trounce me senseless, if they haven’t already, since that’s only Mastery Level 6. How about you? Have you already beaten my score? If so, send me a screenshot of your badge page with your top score listed; first person to email in a score that tops mine (along with your MSN Games nickname or preferred name) gets a mention in the next Coffee Break!
So what is it with the sock monkeys?
As I seem to recall saying last time, I’ve been playing a lot of hidden-picture games lately. And one thing I’ve noticed is that each developer seems to have a preference for some certain type of item; you’ll find ‘em everywhere in their puzzles. In the games from SpinTop (such as Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb), for instance, you’ll usually find children’s spinny top toys: not a big surprise there. But in Little Shop of Treasures II, what you’ll find in nearly every puzzle is… a sock monkey. Somebody at GameHouse must really geek for sock monkeys. Go figure.
Knitted simians aside, though, this second Little Shop game was really a treat. I’m not sure if you played the first one, but the premise of both games is basically the same: you’ve acquired a shop, and you want to fix it up before opening. So you work at other stores around the area to build up funds. In the first game, at the end of each week you’d see part of the store’s exterior improve; in the new version, you can choose between different options for paint color, sign design, landscaping, and other goodies. Better still, once you finish the outside of your store, you can customize the inside to your liking as well.
I think I’m over my hidden-pictures kick for the moment, but I’m sure it’ll be back in force the next time a wave of good games becomes available. Meanwhile, I noticed that Chocolatier 2 just showed up on the site a couple of days ago; I’m a huge fan of the first one, so I can’t wait to see what they did with the sequel! More on that next time, once I’ve had a chance to play it!
| |
| Could you say “no” to a face like this?
Okay, so technically, our office has a strict no-pets policy. Unlike my favorite bookstore – which is practically infested with friendly, overstuffed cats – or the dog-happy offices of Amazon.com, our workplace allows only one species of mammal, and that would be us. So this little lady, pictured here in her stylish new Xbox-green jacket, is officially not a visiting French bulldog puppy smuggled in once a week or so by the back door, but is instead a very short, insatiably curious and affectionate toddler with large ears. No rule against that.
Her name is Lola, by the way. | | 
| |
