Having had a basic education in game design, I can't help but try to see beyond the graphics and puzzle out what makes these games so darn addictive. So here's my two cents on one:
Elephant Quest:
Made by Armor Games.
This game is adorableness armed with laser cannons. You're a small blue elephant. Your hat got stolen by a big purple woolly mammoth and now you want it back. To do so, you have to brave a maze of levels inhabited by hordes of strange monsters and complete quests from other elephants to get upgrades so you can face Woolly in the final showdown without getting trampled to death.
Though you will get killed repeatedly, you also have an infinite number of lives. The rooms can be visited as many times as needed and the monsters are always there exactly the same as before. This may seem like an annoyance at first, but becomes essential at the end. Just completing the quests and beating all the rooms is not enough to beat Woolly. I'm not familiar with gamer terminology, but I believe this is called "level grinding".
The level map is laid out in a easy-to-navigate spiderweb, if such a thing is possible of existing. The level-up is the real unusual part because it's graphical. You start at the center and collect the increments sequentially through a virtual maze. There are 5 categories for upgrade points: intelligence, agility, endurance, charisma, and HP. Except for HP, the upgrade points can be spent on upgrades like weapons and jump height and little elephant fairies that deal damage to nearby enemies (and they're so very cute). Complicated? Yes. It took me a while to figure out how it all worked.
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Earworm for the day: Emperata Overture
Made by Armor Games.
This game is adorableness armed with laser cannons. You're a small blue elephant. Your hat got stolen by a big purple woolly mammoth and now you want it back. To do so, you have to brave a maze of levels inhabited by hordes of strange monsters and complete quests from other elephants to get upgrades so you can face Woolly in the final showdown without getting trampled to death.
Though you will get killed repeatedly, you also have an infinite number of lives. The rooms can be visited as many times as needed and the monsters are always there exactly the same as before. This may seem like an annoyance at first, but becomes essential at the end. Just completing the quests and beating all the rooms is not enough to beat Woolly. I'm not familiar with gamer terminology, but I believe this is called "level grinding".
The level map is laid out in a easy-to-navigate spiderweb, if such a thing is possible of existing. The level-up is the real unusual part because it's graphical. You start at the center and collect the increments sequentially through a virtual maze. There are 5 categories for upgrade points: intelligence, agility, endurance, charisma, and HP. Except for HP, the upgrade points can be spent on upgrades like weapons and jump height and little elephant fairies that deal damage to nearby enemies (and they're so very cute). Complicated? Yes. It took me a while to figure out how it all worked.
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Earworm for the day: Emperata Overture
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