| 
| | March 3, 2006
Child’s Play
Don’t you hate it when somebody answers a question with another question? As an admittedly self-serving example, earlier today I asked whether I could tell you all about the new game that everyone here is working overtime to finish, and the answer was, “Well, how much do you like your job?”
Oblique, but effective. Mum’s the word! | |
| It’s been a great week anyway. Things around here are always exciting when a game is this close to completion, and of course there are plenty of opportunities to play (it’s not called “slacking,” it’s called “game testing”). But really, the most fun I’ve had this week was assembling answers to the following letter from a player named Ann.
“Dear Moxie: I am a mom of two girls. I was looking for some games that they can play. Are there any on MSN games?”
What a great question! I may not have any children myself, but there are plenty of people around here who do. So I polled a random sample of the MSN Games staff (‘cause, hey, you just can’t get much more random than these guys) to see what their own kids like to play. Here’s the scoop.
Insaniquarium (four votes!)
Smalls@zone’s 12-year-old brother is a huge fan of Insaniquarium, as are Dexter@zone’s son and daughter, ages 11 and 9. Scott (who is new, and therefore doesn’t have an MSN Games nickname yet) also has a 13-year-old daughter who loves Insaniquarium. This game is awesome for older kids: it’s very funny and whimsical in a slightly twisted way, although a bit fast-paced for the younger crowd. I’ll also hazard a guess that parents who download this game for their kids will be playing it themselves after the “tweens” are in bed.
Panda Craze
cmyvest@zone’s 5-year-old son is a huge fan of this game! And what’s not to like? Cute panda, colorful graphics, very simple controls, and goofy zookeepers… this game has kid-friendly written all over it. I was originally planning to say that “the later levels might be a bit too challenging for younger kids,” but I’ve just learned that the tot in question is further into the game than I am. (Ouch!)
Bejeweled 2
irongirl_03 has a 6-year-old nephew with a fondness for swapping gems in Bejeweled 2. Why would the Bejeweled games appeal to kids? For the same reason they appeal to everyone else I’ve ever met: they’re easy, addictive, and fun. (And tasty. Well, virtually tasty. And no, I’m not crazy, I’ve just been playing Chocolate Oreo Bejeweled. Mmmmmmm, chocolate…)
Collapse®
Another of irongirl_03’s nephews, age 4, really enjoys Collapse, particularly the SpongeBob version. Since the controls are extremely simple (just click), and the main point of the game is spotting sets of the same color, it’s perfect for kids of almost any age. And hey, what kid doesn’t dig SpongeBob?
Chuzzle
UnfailingBat has an 8-year-old daughter who loves this downloadable game to pieces. Gotta admit that I’m right there too; the first time I played this game (at work, of course), I didn’t go home until 11pm. Not only is it a blast to play, but the Chuzzles themselves are downright adorable, and the game has a trophy room for various achievements. It’s hard to stop playing when you’re thiiiiiiiiiiiis close to figuring out how to nab that next trophy.
TextTwist
Now, I know I said at the start of this section that I didn’t have any kids, but after looking at everyone else’s suggestions, I just had to add a recommendation of my own. When I was a kid, I used to play a fun game with my dad when we were sitting in traffic. We’d choose a word off of any nearby sign, mentally shuffle the letters, and try to see how many other words we could make with them. So the first time I played TextTwist, I had this immediate flash of recollection: “Wow, this is just like what I used to play with Dad!” It’s a lot of fun, and you don’t have to wait for bad traffic in order to play it. | |
| You Can’t Save The Universe Without Breaking a Few Eggs
In other “eating my own words” news, I remember saying last week that I loved a good excuse to play games during work hours, and that writing up game tips is one of the best excuses possible. So it’s a bit embarrassing to admit that this request from MSN Games player PooKat was beyond my abilities.
“Dear Moxie: Please give me some insight as to how to destroy the final egg in Chicken Invaders.”
Ahhhh, Chicken Invaders 2, the game that kicks my tuckus. Fortunately, though, I sit in an entire building of gamers, and it seems that LoneWolf@zone is something of an expert in the elimination of giant antigravity poultry. So I made a few polite inquiries (read: blackmail), and he scribbled up these helpful tips for you:
- The meteors/asteroids flying across the screen won’t hurt you. Just try to ignore them.
- Use the red gun. While the shot power is higher on the other two, you’ll need the spread of the red gun, especially if you start losing lives on that final battle.
- Never sit directly under the ship. The further you are from the egg, the more time you have to react to its shots. That’s why the red gun is so useful!
- At first the egg will shoot a pattern of lightning zap bolts (the purple squiggly things) around the entire egg. Watch for them and try to stay between two.
- When a wave of chickens arrives, immediately clear out one side so you have an area to dodge without having to worry about the eggs the chickens drop. When you get the chance, clear out chickens on the other side as well (although that shouldn’t be a priority at this stage).
- Keep cracking the egg shell; eventually you’ll destroy it and see what’s inside. Around this time (I’m not sure if it’s just before or after), the egg will start aiming a stream of zap bolts at you. Now it becomes difficult.
- At this point, make sure to clear any the remaining chickens. You’ll need the whole screen for dodging. Luckily, another wave didn’t show up for me. (I don’t know if there are a set number of waves, or if there are just no new waves at this point. I’d guess the latter.)
- The egg shoots on a timed pattern, so try to get a feel for the timing. When it is going to shoot, get away from it, even if that means moving above it. Then, when it starts shooting, keep moving clockwise or counter-clockwise around the egg to dodge the shots.
- After it fires a stream, you have several seconds to sweep below the egg and hit it with a few shots. Again, the red gun helps here since you don’t need to be directly below it to hit the egg.
- It takes a lot of hits, but eventually you’ll destroy the egg ship and win the game. Just be patient and persistent! | |
| You Say Po-tay-to, I say Po-tah-to…
Backtracking a bit in time here, I wasn’t sure that LoneWolf could scramble the final egg in time for me to finish this Coffee Break, so I decided to answer a different question instead. Needless to say, he pulled off a poultry-pummeling miracle, and now you get an extra letter this week.
This email was sent by an MSN Games player named Barb (who doesn’t have a nickname yet… sign up for one, Barb; it’s free!):
“Dear Moxie: I've wondered for the past several months that I have been playing Sudoku - how is it pronounced??”
This has definitely been the week for good questions! Even around here, I’ve heard three or four different pronunciations for the name of this pop-culture gaming phenomenon, so a bit of research was in order. After visiting a few hardcore Sudoku websites, I still didn’t have an official pronunciation, but I did find out some fascinating tidbits.
It seems that nobody is really certain where the game of Sudoku actually originated. Some players believe that it’s based on an 8th century Chinese game called Magic Squares, while others say it’s much more closely related to a later Arabian adaptation, now called Latin Squares, or the 18th-century European game Greco-Latin Squares. A modern version of the game, with almost all the characteristics of current Sudoku, appeared in a United States publication of the late 1970’s as Number Place. But whose game, really, is it? Hard to tell, when even these facts aren’t absolutely certain. Two sites say that Magic Squares originated in China, one says it’s from India; another says it’s uniquely Arabian.
All this controversy aside, there’s no question that the name “Sudoku” originated in Japan, where the game in its current form has been published by the puzzle company Nikoli since 1986 (or 1984, if you count a slightly earlier version… I believe I mentioned that nobody agrees on anything?).
Ironically, that’s the only thing I needed to know in the first place to answer your question.
I adore the Japanese language, although admittedly I only know enough of it to order dinner (or possibly to start an “international incident”). But I do know that it has one major advantage over English: there are only five vowel sounds in the whole language! If we write the vowel as “A,” it’s pronounced like ah. “E” is eh. “I” is ee. “O” is oh, and “U” is oo.
So we get soo-doh-koo.
And a free Japanese lesson. Soon, you too can start an international incident! | |
| Tech Time
This week’s game issue is brought to you by Maureen (who also didn’t tell us her MSN Games nickname… c’mon, Maureen, join us!):
“Dear Moxie: When playing Bricks Of Egypt, I keep getting a pause in the middle of the game asking if I want to continue or abort the game. This happens constantly. Should I be downloading something else to prevent this?”
Nope, you’re already set! This message just appears when you move your mouse cursor outside the game window. The game automatically pauses if it thinks you’re switching windows. So just make sure to keep the cursor inside the game window, and this message will join Ptolemy and King Tut as a thing of the past.
See you next week! | |
