downWorld: Puzzle Battles Meets MMO

No, that title was not a typo I was too lazy to correct, that’s how it really is. A little tucked away game in the corners of the world wide web my associate Aron bought to my attention so I thought why not give it a spin.

downWorld is an MMOPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Puzzle Game henceforth) merging together puzzle games and RPG elements. Before I go further I must stress that this game is currently in beta, but with what I have ran into so far I am compelled to write a review. Well, let’s get started.

Gameplay: Like I said it’s a Puzzle game with RPG elements. You can equip different gear to increase the damage you deal and reduce the damage you take from each color bubble. The gear and levels will also increase your HP. If you have played any puzzle games before of this caliber then there is nothing I can say about the basics (and in the time you spent reading this if you didn’t know how to play this kind of puzzle game you could have learned how to). The things to know is that the white crystals generate Flow (turns out this Flow is used in another game they run called ourWorld which predates this game). Think of Flow as Mana. Also, these bubbles do no damage, so you either get Flow or inflect pain. Flow’s used to preform special moves…yes this game has special moves which run the gambit from damage to protection. If you want to use them, just click on their symbols.

The black box pieces will strike out an entire column. The damage you deal with those depends on how many and what kind of bubbles you popped (think multi-elemental damage). If you manage to eliminate four or more of the same color bubble (connected to one another in a straight line) you get an extra turn (this counts those black boxes and Flow crystals).

Also, there is a multiplayer. You and some people can gang up on a creature, but beware of drop in’s. If you’re in the middle of a puzzle and have an opponent on the ropes all someone has to do is run into the monster too and its HP goes up. There is a stealth mode to prevent this from happening BUT I shouldn’t have to do this. Get on fixing it before the full launch, please!

Also, the enemies when they lose (unless they remove this once the Beta ends) explode into a bloody mess. I didn’t know puzzles could make you burst. When you lose, you become a skeleton. Lame.

Artwork: Usually, I don’t go near this segment, but since the art styles of ourWorld and downWorld were rather…unique I feel I have to touch on it. It’s horrible. Aron and I couldn’t bare to look at the games characters any longer than we had to. I was hoping that what I saw was just a place holder until the Beta ended…looking at ourWorld, I was sadly let down. To ourWorld’s credit the animation is more fluent than in downWorld…but this is not my chief complaint. The thing that bothered me the most was…

The In-Game Advertising: This…this would be the thing that made me want to eat the souls of the people who made this game. Each time you move to a new location you have to sit through this video promoting something…EVERY TIME YOU CHANGE LOCATIONS! They do this to try to encourage you to pay for Elite status where you get all kinds of perks (I wouldn’t know what they are or if they’re worth it, no money to see).

I know they need to make money but the way they “ask me” to give money for a month or three of no ads feels less like asking and more like bulling me into making the purchase. Imagine in real life going from point A to point B and between each point you’re slammed with an advertisement which you were FORCED to see through to the end, Could you imagine if you REALLY need to use the bathroom but this douche bag refuses to move till you hear his nonsense that you have no interest in? Me neither. They need to make the ads less intrusive. What’s wrong with having the ads appear every three map moves?

Judgment: I liked the idea of a combat puzzle game, but the horrible graphics and even more horrible ads getting in the way they pretty much guaranteed that I will not recommend this game to ANYONE! Who knows, they might shape up. I plan to post this in their forums and watch the fireworks. I feel like I gave this game far more attention than it deserved. As always I encourage you to try the game for yourself if you desire. If you enjoy it, that’s fine, good for you.

And now, for the obligatory YouTube video..

Urban Rivals: Bashed Into My Heart

Clint City.

A wretched hive filled wit conflict on a regular basis.

Clan wars all abound.

It’s not safe to walk out on the streets no matter what time of day.

I don’t know why a girl like me decided that roosting here for awhile was a good idea.

I think I might have gotten myself into something I don’t quite understand.

Something vicious and dark. Something…that might consume my soul.

OKAY, enough of the film Noir bits. I’m reviewing Urban Rivals.

I just discovered the game a few days ago, and I love what I see thus far. This is like the Magic the Gathering of online games. It’s been around for about nine years now and still going strong. Now it’s got its hooks in me. As we speak I’m checking the in game market to see what I can snap up for a few possible decks I can bust out. But enough prattling on, let’s get right to the review. Some of us have lives…I think.

Game Play: Unlike other card customizable card games it only takes a few minutes to really get the hang of the rules. Though it may seem rather “cut-&-dry” those views might become obsolete the moment you get into things like Clan bonuses, but more on that later.

When you sign up you get to select from one of three random booster packs. Each one of these packs will have a random assortment of 8 cards from a pool of all the available clans. As I write this there are 22 Clans with 2 new characters being introduced every 2 weeks and a new clan every 6 months. Its getting to the point where I can’t help but wonder exactly how big is Clint City? It’s got to be close to bursting right about now. Anyway onto the basic stats. Power (indicated by a Fist icon near the number) and Damage (indicated by an Explosion looking Icon). Power determines the odds of that character winning, while Damage determines how much damage they do to you if they win I’ll expand on that a little further along.

Onto the Clan Bonuses I mentioned earlier. Clan Bonuses are a unique trait among clans which can only be accessed if at least two characters you control are from the same clan. These could tip the balance in your favor, but it’s not always an absolute. Abilities also come into play as well. Some have them, some don’t. Sometimes lacking an ability can be a Godsend as opposed to a hindrance since you got Abilities and Bonuses that stop Abilities and Bonuses. I’m not going to get into ALL the abilities and bonuses since these kinds of reviews are to be compact as possible since people can be quite busy these days (also if I told you EVERYTHING that would probably make you less eager to visit the site).

ANYWAY, onto the game play. Your deck is comprised of 8 cards. Once you find an opponent (shouldn’t be that hard, the place is pretty active) out of those 8 cards 4 are picked at random, and so is turn order. In standard play you start off with 12 Life (60 in Pratice) and 12 Pillz. Pillz are what you can use to power up your characters to help give them that extra push needed to gain the upper hand. Part of the game is to know when to spend Pillz and when to hold onto them (as a side note, neither one of you will know how many Pillz (if any) have been used until both players finalized their choices).

Another key element is to know when to lose. Yes, you read that correctly. There are going to be situations where it would probably be better to throw a Character to the wolves as opposed to trying to actually win the fight. The game is determined by who has the most Life left by the time the 4 rounds are up. It’s possible (if not hard) to lose 3 rounds, then come back in the 4^th round to win the game.

Another interesting feature in the game is that the cards gain experience points and can level up to become more useful. The artwork will also change on these cards. Changes can vary anywhere from cute, to sexy, disturbing and everywhere in-between. Most of the strategy in battle comes from the deck building, so experiment, see what works for you.

Features: Like any of these “free to play” games, you don’t need to pay in to get anything out of it, but expect it to do it SLOWLY if you’re not lucky enough to get anything that sells well. Oh, the game has two forms of currency. Credits and Clintz. Credits are used to purchase from the in game system while Clintz are used to buy cards from other players (as an added annoyance, if you’re a seller they take 5% of the Clintz you priced the card for, so take that into account as you set prices). Clints are obtained in small amounts just for playing the game to completion.

Tournaments are held every two HOURS. Yeah, ALWAYS at least 12 going on in a 24 hour period. They give out cards and extra Clintz depending on how well you perform by the time its over. No entry fee needed, you can enter in as many as you want in a day you just need to at least be level 15…well, you need to get adjusted to the game so its for your own safety.

The game also has several kinds of formats, so if you’re looking for a challenge from the norm you can take part in them as long as the deck follows the regulations of the format (you can look this up easily in the My Collection/My Deck screen by clicking on one of the formats to produce a dropdown list).

The biggest format in the game is known as Elo. I don’t know what that means, but the key feature of that format is that it’s the only format where certain cards are banned. If you see a crossed out pill on the upper left hand corner it can’t be used in that format. The list of cards banned is always in flux. The players can actually vote on what cards they want on the list and which ones they want off. So, they do care what the players think. Just pray that the community at large sides with you. It also seems to be the format that gives the most Clintz.

Expanding further on the buying and selling of cards you can either make the sales public, private or hold an auction for the card. The message boards can also be used for such conduce and other things like advice and the joining/establishing of Guilds.

Final Judgment: I would defiantly give this game a try at least once. It’s free to start and the games can be nice and quick so you can get in a bunch without throwing off your entire day. Not too deep on thinking but not too shallow either. Go on, give it a look and try it for a day.

Also, I’d like to say that in about a week from now I plan on reviewing cards from the game as a common occurrence. Though I must tell you I have a rather STRICT “review what I own” policy. If I don’t own it I won’t review it. I just don’t think I can give a fair review for anything I have not had any first hand experience with. If by chance you want to alter that you could either offer me said cards for sale (provided I can afford) or simply donate cards or Clintz to my cause so I can have more stuff to review. You’ll find my profile on the Gaming Haunts page. So, have a good evening people.

So back to the streets of Clint City I go.

This girls gonna hustle.

Got to keep some kind of edge.

Sea Treasure Match

Ahoy there MATES!

Captain Kawaiido here, back from sailing the high seas in search of treasure on the high sea- OW! Oh GOD…my head. It hurts so badly. And it’s not from the rum I pounded back seventeen times because the alcohol content wasn’t nearly enough to make anyone this way. Let me get a seat…there.

Okay today’s game happens to be a puzzle game. One of those Bejeweled knock offs as it were. Okay, its not a complete Bejeweled knock off, it’s got its own elements- OW! So of a…anyway, lets get to it before I take a gun to my- SWEET ZOMBIE JESUS MAKE IT STOP! Sorry, sorry, onto the game

Game Play: The objective of the game (like others of its kind) is to clear away a certain number of jewels in order to advance to the next level. In this case, replace jewels with sectors. They’ll be indicated by yellow boarders. Jewels might switch places but the boarder will always remain where it is. You eliminate these boarders by matching jewels by at least 3’s to clear them, and off to the next level.

To aide you’ll be getting items such as bombs, dynamite, hour glasses and lightning bolts for clearing certain amounts of jewels in one swoop. The bombs if matched with a jewel of the same color eliminates jewels in a 3-by-3 area- OH GOD, WHY WON’T THE POUNDING STOP!? Sorry about that. AS I WAS SAYING, dynamite does the same thing with the same trigger as the bombs except in a cross pattern and wider range. Lightning- KILL ME, SOMEONE KIILLLL MEEEE!! Again sorry about that, back on task. Lightning has the same trigger, but it takes out 7 random jewels and finally Hourglasses (same trigger as the others) give you an extra minute to the clock.

As an added hindrance, you’ll run into these locked jewels further on. They can’t be moved, but can be eliminated if matched or blown up. They will get in your way by having somewhere under them more boarders that must be cleared away. If you run out of any possible matching jewels the game will help by reshuffling jewels. The only true foe here is the timer.

Interface: What interface? It’s just point and click! Though I do like that if you click outside of the game it pauses for you. That’s very nice of the game.

Final Judgment: The game is fairly challenging and could keep you busy for at least an hour. One thing I should advise. The games music (and only song) is sleep educing. Just something about it just makes you want to curl up and snooze, which in turn could also educe boredom. If you’re going to play it either quiet the music or turn it up and play it when you’re having issues sleeping.

Now excuse me. I need to find a bullet to put in my head to stop the headaches. OKAY, not a bullet, but pills. Allergies suck!

Princess in the Dungeon

Well, seems like my wandering fingers had led me to this game. A Princess lacking a name (who may or may not resemble a certain other princess from a game with a certain plumber in it) is locked in this dungeon for some…reason or other.

Okay, we don’t know who put her in their or why, it’s just a lame excuse to set up this puzzle game. The objective is simple in principle. All you have to do is get the jewels to our nameless Princess so she can escape her prison.

Interface: The game is controlled using the mouse. You click the bolts this jewel is clinging to, in an effort to insure that when you click the last one, it rolls to her. YES, she is so damn lazy that you got to make sure it lands next to her. It makes sense for the sake of being a puzzle game, but still…maybe I’m thinking about this a little too hard, who knows.

ANYWAY (sorry for trailing off) back to the game! In the later levels you’ll encounter the likes of destructible blocks, warp points and even air pumps to help you get the jewel to the princess.

One complaint I got relates to the words on the screen shot. Some of the bolts start off near that thing and if you click closely (its too easy to do) you’ll end up opening a new tab/window. I guess the designers were more concerned about pimping out their website as opposed to insuring that…you know, it doesn’t become a hindrance.

Game Play: As I mentioned earlier, it’s a fairly simple in concept, yet at times you might make slip ups at first in later levels. It’s not just enough to click the anchors, you must also in a good deal of cases TIME the clicks just right so the jewel lands right where it needs to be.

Final Judgment: Despite the game featuring a Princess Peach knock off, I liked it while it lasted. The game is short. Very, VERY short and no real replay value outside of four achievements. We’re talking attention span of a goldfish short. But for what its worth try it at least once.

Twas a nice distraction.