Freeware Game Pick: Perfectionism (Jason Rohrer)
Perfectionism is the first of many games to be published together with Jason Rohrer's monthly column for The Escapist (titled "Game Design Sketchbook"). This new project was created using Game Maker, and will only work on PCs with the Windows operating system installed.
The rules are simple enough. Click on two rows or columns to swap yellow blocks. Points are scored by placing the blocks inside hollow squares. Only rows can be swapped with rows, and likewise with columns. Browse levels by clicking on the green arrows located at the bottom of the screen. A penalty of one point is incurred whenever the player is flipping through any of the twenty-six stages in the game.
Name: Perfectionism
Developer: Jason Rohrer
Category: Puzzle
Type: Freeware
Size: 2MB
(source: Braid News)
Comments
This has to be good if it doesn't even need a write up...
Posted by: oranda | March 14, 2008 10:26 PM
Haha.
I'm not sure how I feel about this one. It's an interesting premise, in that instead of having a win state you just see how close you can get, but if it weren't for the fact that Jason wrote it and has his usually interesting thoughts to back it up it really doesn't have anything to recommend it at all.
Aside from the fact that at least one of the puzzles is unsolvable, I think (one of the really simple appearing ones). Be warned, perfectionists!
Posted by: oranda | March 14, 2008 10:47 PM
The old arcade games of the 1980s usually didn't have win states -- just, how high of a score can you get? This game is the same way. Though it's interesting that you can visualize what the win state would actually be.
Posted by: Jonathan Blow | March 15, 2008 1:01 AM
I completely forgot about all of those old school arcade games. Shame on me and my youth!
Posted by: oranda | March 15, 2008 2:22 PM
Playing this game without having read the article is useless, the game is like kind of complex illustration for the article. Read it before playing, everyone. It's great thing.
Posted by: Anonymous | March 18, 2008 5:45 PM