puzzles
Latest
Video: echochrono certainly isn't like echochrome
Were you thinking echochrono was just going to be more of same old puzzles? Well, think again. The follow up to the original Escher puzzler looks like it's taking things to a whole different dimension. Judging from this trailer, players won't have to alter perspective anymore as the game appears to be fixed on a 2D plain; however, this doesn't mean things will be any easier -- it just means it's a whole new way to play the game. What else is new? Color. Seriously, who thought of that one!%Gallery-64983%
MMO pacifism: Expanding combat alternative systems
Murder. Death. Kill. These words are synonymous with most MMORPGs (oh, and 1993's Demolition Man too, but let's not go there). There have been a number of systems introduced to the genre since its birth, but combat (PvE and PvP) has always been at the forefront. One blogger wants that to change.Syp of BioBreak has been playing a lot of LOTRO lately and he's starting to feel like Turbine are a bunch of nature-haters forcing players into the roll of exterminator extraordinaire. "It's not just 'kill 10 rats,' it's 'kill 10 of every freakin' last thing that ever walked, crawled, slithered or flew over the earth, just because'." This got him wondering about what the alternatives were. If done well, what activities would he choose over combat?He came up with a fairly extensive list of established features that could use some buffing up in his opinion, including: crafting, mini-games, puzzles, trading card games, vehicle action, achievements, and diplomacy/politics. Head on over to read his thoughts.
3D Realm: Prey coming to the iPhone
This is pretty exciting -- 3D Realms has announced that their 2006 first-person shooter, Prey, is coming to the iPhone. IGN has a preview up now, and it looks pretty impressive -- the texture work is very well done, and the gravity-defying puzzles that helped the original game stand out as an above-average shooter are back as well.As you can see above, the controls are overlaid on the touchscreen, and while IGN says they take a little getting used to (they're obviously not the usual WASD and mouse movement that most shooter fans are used to), they do work well once you figure them out (and you can change the transparency of the controls, so they won't get in your way while you're blasting aliens). 3D Realms says there's no release date yet (the port is being done by a company called MachineWorks Northwest), but it'll definitely be something to watch out for. Thanks, Nick!
WoW Crossword: January 13th, 2009
Some of you may remember that some months ago, we tried out these WoW Crosswords on Sunday mornings to go along with Sunday Morning Funnies, to give your lazy-day a slight newspaper feel. Open up the blog, read your comics, fill out the crossword, and then read the stories. Really, though, what WoW player does that on a Sunday? If you're at home, you're probably killing boars or whatever and not trying to fill in some blanks. Tuesday is more likely the WoW player's Sunday, isn't it? Kind of a slow day, you catch up on the news, you don't have to worry about tending to the crops, so you find other entertainment, right? So let's try this crossword thing again, but with feeling.Here's how this works: Below the cut will be your hints/questions. There is only one correct answer for each blank. Some answers are two words, and if that's the case, leave the space out of your answer. Pretend the space between them does not exist. Most of those ones are obvious, and usually marked.All of the questions are related to WoW, WoW Insider, or the greater community around the MMO, such as machinima, fan content, or simply related nerdity. For example, one day you may run into a question in which the answer is Kevin Werbach. He plays WoW and has been mentioned on our site, so he is fair game. You will not, however, get a question like "What is Batman's true identity" because as far as I know, that has nothing to do with what we do, unless Bruce Wayne is the next Lich King. If that becomes the case, we're just screwed then, aren't we?
Why you should be playing Puzzle Pirates: Swordfighting
"Why you should be playing ..." is a free form column from Massively.com intended to inform you about our favorite parts of our favorite games. We want you to know why we play what we do!Free to play MMOs just don't get the respect they deserve. The problem is that that the entire submarket is painted by the same brush. Yes, there are many examples of not-so-great Asian MMOs poorly translated and dumped on the US market as free-to-play titles. Despite that, not only are some imports well done but home-grown free games are increasingly high quality. Three Rings has been making high quality free games for years, and Puzzle Pirates is their flagship title. You probably already know the outline of the gameplay just from the name; it's an MMO where everyone does pirate-y things via puzzles. Everything is a puzzle in the game, from sailing and bilging to drinking contests. One of the most popular games in Puzzle Pirates is the swordfighting contest, and rightly so. Truly massively multiplayer, based on the Puzzle Fighter 2 console game, swordfighting is craftily, beautifully fun. Read on below the cut for my thoughts on why this simple puzzling technique may be one of the most engaging combats you can enjoy in an MMO.
MindFuse's The World of Gatheryn detailed, kinda dated
MindFuse Games, which a couple of weeks ago announced it had raised $1 million in funding for a Victorian-themed MMO, sent out a press release yesterday officially announcing and providing details about the game, which is called The World of Gatheryn. Gatheryn is not merely Victorian, as we originally reported -- there are steampunk elements too.The focus seems casual, although the graphics are quite strapping for an independent game. MindFuse promises character customization, apartments, and puzzles, while specifically singling out violent conflict as a no-go. It seems to be a mostly laid back, friendly, social affair, but aimed at grown ups rather than pre-teens, in contrast to a lot of other casual titles.When we say the game has been pseudo-dated, it's a bit of a stretch: the press release says it'll be released in 2009. When in 2009? Your guess is as good as ours, but we'll bet it's not soon.
The Daily Grind: do traps and puzzles make content more fun?
In a showcase of coming Age of Conan content, Erling Ellingson pointed out new traps as a main feature of the revamped dungeons. The dungeons would feature cunning Indiana Jones style hazards, with non-obvious solutions, such as firing an arrow into a huge stone eye in order to slay an otherwise unkillable snake. However, everyone who's seen the video will now know what to do in that event. That's the thing with puzzle-type content: once you know the trick, you've solved it. A tough boss is just as tough each time you encounter it, but you only ever have to solve a puzzle once. Having said that, puzzles can offer a level of satisfaction that boss-fighting and minion-crushing just can't. Some players welcome an intellectual challenge in an MMO. The original tabletop roleplaying games that preceded MMOs still feature puzzles and pitfalls, so why not MMOs?Should content designers include puzzle-type content as well as the tactical challenges of combat? Do you enjoy finding a puzzle in the course of a quest, or does that sort of thing detract from the pace of play? Is trick-and-trap content that has a clever solution a waste of developer resources, or an important facet of MMO gaming?
Geeks love The Incredible Machine
Oddly enough, Midway's Mechanic Master won't be the only Incredible Machine knockoff coming to the American DS. I Love Geeks is a localized version of Clever DS, the Rube Goldberg-building game based on the German TV show of the same name. The American version, published by CDV, will have a new story from ... Marc Ecko and his team? When we think "geek," we definitely think of hip-hop-influenced fashion designer Marc Ecko.Geeks has some storyline about assisting four scientists to solve puzzles while also dealing with high school bullies or something, but basically it's 100 puzzles requiring machines built out of specific parts to solve various simple problems. Awesome!
Professor Layton DLC already on the cartridge
We're sure that many of you inquisitive DS owners out there have spent countless hours with your eyes peeled to your handheld's twin suns, waiting for Nintendo to post the latest downloadable brainteasers for Professor Layton and the Curious Village. This same group of puzzle junkies may be upset to learn that what they're actually downloading is a code to unlock puzzles which are already on the game cartridge -- essentially meaning that there's a set number of puzzles on the game (162, to be exact).GoNintendo discovered a supposedly complete list of the game's riddles to back up this claim. You can check out every single puzzle featured in the game, and even choose to sneak a peek at every solution as well -- an action we can't help but feel would be frowned upon by the eponymous scholar and his pint-sized associate.
Under The Hood: Puzzling Developments
There's an interesting counterpoint to the increasing amount of games following the traditional MMO mechanics layout. No, I'm not talking about space MMOs and the mechanics they follow. We covered those last week! I'm talking about the gradual seepage of puzzlers into the genre. It's a budding paradigm, and has both failings and virtues. Naturally, it's time to dissect them.
Eidos goes on a Brain Voyage
The brain training bandwagon has gotten increasingly crowded over the last year, with everyone and their brother seemingly thinking it's their duty to churn out interactive tools to help the cerebrally infirm. The latest company to climb on board is Eidos with Brain Voyage, a new "stylish and challenging" noodle puzzler coming to the Nintendo DS later this year.For board game enthusiasts, the game features "ingenious" puzzles designed by noted German game designer Dr. Reiner Knizia, known for such board games as Amun-Re, Modern Art, and Lord of the Rings. As for what sorts of puzzles we can expect, Eidos notes that the game will feature a sort of globe trotting mechanic, as players ponder 80 different geographically-relevant puzzles "ranging from easy to elaborately ambitious." Details remain cloudy on how exactly these puzzles will work, though that could simply be a side effect of our mental faculties being on increasingly shaky ground.
Stargate Worlds dev chat is not entirely without new info
Information about Stargate Worlds is oh-so-sparse. That's why we were excited to hear that MMORPG.com was to host a live chat with several of the developers behind the game. The chat happened yesterday and we did get some juicy details on a few things. Player quests will be tied into the story line. We're guessing they'll be similar Lord of the Rings Online's quests. Also, quests can be acquired through means other than talking to NPCs. The game's puzzle system allows archaeologists and scientists to level up in their fields outside of combat.And yes, it's been confirmed that the character advancement is level-based. A fan asked whether it was level or skill-based and the developer didn't even understand what the fan meant by "skill-based." If only the MMO industry could remember the days before EverQuest! The developers consistently dodged questions like "what makes Stargate Worlds better or unique compared to competing games" by either saying "it's Stargate" or, well ... that's pretty much it. Even when they were asked a question along the lines of "what makes this game special, and don't say anything about it being Stargate," they still sneakily fell back on "it's Stargate."They did say that the combat system is unique because it's influenced by squad-based shooters, but even that sounds strangely familiar. Hopefully we'll see some more promising info come up as Cheyenne gets further along in SGW's development cycle. In the mean time, read the vagueness that is the chat log or the summary article.
Crossword solving software that has reached version 1.0.7, eight letters one space
Daniel Jalkut over at Red Sweater has updated his crossword-solving application, Black Ink (formerly MacXword), to version 1.0.7. This definitely seems like a niche piece of software (not because only a few people do crosswords-- almost everyone does), but because I don't know anyone who wants a piece of software to help them get puzzles done.Still, I'm betting that the people who enjoy Black Ink really, really enjoy it. Apparently the program even downloads puzzles "on the go," so if you're not already a crossword fan, maybe it'll turn you into one. The new version adds a menu item for zooming in or out of puzzles, a few interface tweaks, and "correctly-solved detection for puzzles with multi-character answers." I never knew those existed, but there you go.Black Ink is available for $24.95 over on Red Sweater's site.
Tangram-like puzzle coming to DS to embarrass us
We have a problem with certain kinds of puzzles-- slide puzzles, for example, are damn near impossible for us, and we're quite smart otherwise (really!) It's just some weird mental block that prevents us from rearranging pieces to form a shape. Put us in front of Tetris and we'll drop Alexey Pajitnov's ruggedly bearded jaw, but slide puzzles confound us every time.The same is true of tangrams. We like making abstract shapes out of them as if they were a building set, but we're useless when it comes to matching shapes. So, naturally, we're really excited about Hamekomi Lucky Puzzle DS, which is a series of tangram-like dissection puzzles in which players put together shapes like the Speed Skater and the Cossack Dance (seen here.)
Word wrapper's delight
We go nuts over puzzle games that put our near-limitless lexicon to good use, so we take every opportunity to highlight releases like Bob Fossil's Word Wrap. His homebrew project digitizes the word hunt games found in daily newspapers where you have to form as many words as possible with a restricted set of letters. The end result is not only fun, but it manages to improve on the traditional pencil/paper experience. You spell out your text by tapping the characters on the touchscreen, sending them to the top screen's list of completed words. Jumbling the letters to get a new perspective of your selection has also been simplified with a "wrap" button. Call us lazy if you want, but this setup beats the pants out of having to write everything out by hand!There are two Time Attack styles where you can work against the clock by either finding the longest word or collecting a specified amount of words. There's also an Endless option where you can sift through the shuffled letters at your own pace. Each mode comes with three difficulty levels, but being the word geniuses we are, it's "go hard or go home" for us. [Via Drunken Coders]
Does brain training really work?
NPR's Morning Edition takes a look at competing theories on the effects of mental exercise on staving off dementia and mental degradation in old age. While the piece doesn't deal specifically with video games, the implications for brain training games like Brain Age and Mind Quiz and even puzzle and adventure games are pretty apparent. The results are decidedly mixed. One study of nearly 3,000 elderly people showed that a few hours of directed mental exercise could show effects up to five years later, but the improvement was rather modest for most volunteers. Another researcher cited in the NPR report thinks that building a "cognitive reserve" of mental skills before old age is more effective than taking up Sudoku in your autumn years. And then there's genetics, which may play a more important role in the proceedings than a simple crossword puzzle. The final takeaway? While games and puzzles might be a good way to keep your brain in shape, don't consider them a sure-fire way to prevent Alzheimer's disease. And whatever you do, don't get too frustrated while you play -- research suggests that's avoiding stress and depression can help you maintain good mental health.
Brain Training used to defeat dementia
According to a BBC report, Nintendo's hugely popular Brain Training titles are invading Japanese classrooms in an effort to help the older population get their minds in motion and running swiftly from encroaching dementia. How effective Dr. Kawashima's unnervingly polite floating head is at preventing or combating the condition (of which hallucination is a symptom) still hasn't been conclusively established, but for some people, keeping their minds active is enough.After demonstrating how to turn on the Nintendo DS and how to insert a game cartridge, the teacher has his elderly students engage in several different activities, not all of which are limited to Brain Training's repertoire of challenges. A golf game is used to train hand-eye coordination which, thanks to the DS' intuitive control scheme, seems to be quite easy to grasp. "It's not difficult to learn how to play them," says Atsuo Umetsu, one of the teachers. "After all I learnt, so everyone can do it." Though one of the students admits that she joined the class in order to better compete with her gamer sons, most are joining in the hopes of doing everything they can to avoid mental problems in a society where a large percentage of the population is older. Dr. Takao Suzuki, an expert when it comes to elderly affairs, points out that "nobody wants to get dementia so even if there is a very small possibility that it might work, most elderly people will want to do something in order to prevent dementia." And it's not just Nintendo that's reaching out to an older generation -- Namco has set up a day-care center allowing older people to bash drums and clobber cartoon crocodiles to their heart's content. Is this the key to defeating dementia? We don't know, but it sure sounds like fun, doesn't it?[Thanks Jon!]
Hands-on with God of War II
IGN got an early hands-on preview of God of War II, and they're lovin' what Sony's Santa Monica studio has come up with so far.Without revealing too much of the sequel's plot, our hairless hero now sports some new magical attacks and context-sensitive finishing moves. Needless to say, prominent Greek mythological figures will also be showing up to keep Kratos company, and there will certainly be a lot of flashy slashing-first-ask-questions-later kind of action to fill the hours.For more spoilers on "an early section of the sequel," simply follow the image link above or Read link below, where you can find a few more details on the new power-up system and annoying enemy combatants (otherwise known as smarter fodder for your sharper blades). A practical explanation goes into the reasons for keeping things on the PS2 rather than the PS3, and hopefully less frustrating puzzles are revealed as well. More will likely be revealed at Sony's big E3 press conference today.See also: New God of War 2 director speaks God of War's Jaffe inspired by Britney vs. Christina God of War 2 GDC video leaked online
Brain Training doesn't help old brains after all
For those of us hoping to clutch onto a DS and listen to the sage advice of Brain Age's Dr. Floaty Head (his real name's so hard to remember these days) in order to lessen the rate of our inevitable mental decline, a recent article in the Wall Street Journal's science journal is sure to come as bad news. According to a recent study, constant mental exercise does nothing to slow down the rate of cognitive decline. Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia notes that "there is no convincing empirical evidence that mental activity slows the rate of cognitive decline," a message that stands somewhat opposed to Nintendo's Brain Age campaign. "The research I reviewed is just not consistent with the idea that engaging in mentally stimulating activities as you age prevents or slows cognitive decline." While the rate of mental erosion is labeled as constant by the study, it suggests that the minds that remain sharp are merely dropping from a higher point. The higher you start, the longer it takes you to hit bottom. The mental usefulness of the innocent crossword puzzle also comes under attack assault fire, with Salthouse concluding that there is no evidence that habitual puzzle players experience "a slower rate of age-related decline in reasoning." What's a five-letter word for bummer? Still, the article points out (perhaps obviously so) that the greatest benefit of games like Brain Age is that the constant training improves an adult's ability to perform the given task well. One thing's for sure--we'll soon be glorified experts at saying "Blue!" [Thanks Vlad! Linked article requires membership to access.]
Some Doctor: Brain Age is good, but don't get fat
According to an article over at Gamasutra, Nintendo is adding some more marketing push to Brain Age: Train your Brain in Minutes a Day in the form of Dr. Elizabeth Zelinski, dean and executive director of Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Her smarty-pants opinion on Brain Age:"Nintendo's Brain Age should be just one element of an active lifestyle that includes mental stimulation, exercise and a good diet. Brain Age is a great way for people to keep challenging themselves."That's right. You could train yourself on Brain Age for hours a day until you become a hyper-intelligent supergenius, but if you don't exercise and eat healthily, you'll become an obese hyper-intelligent supergenius. And as anyone will tell you, that's the worst kind.
