What's in that crashed plane?

There’s a new mini game, too. You have to move a wooden ball through a maze by tilting it. It’s incredibly easy right now, but I’m hoping it’ll get a bit harder later on. (Some of the other mini games are going on for a bit too long now. I like Fruittle and Gem Swap well enough, but they last for ever now.)

There’s no end goal here, just very ways to raise numbers that help you raise other numbers, but, well, that’s what a lot of games are about, underneath it all. I’m not quite sure why I’m so sniffy about this one. Probably because it keeps stopping you from playing, but letting you know that you could play more if you just gave them some real money. Again, though, that’s what arcade games have done since the dawn of video games and they didn’t even let you play for free.

Maybe I’m just prejudiced because it’s on Facebook, but I doubt it. When Civilization turns up, don’t expect me to be damning with faint praise, pulling aside the curtain and pointing out every little flaw.

The fact is, I enjoy Treasure Madness and I’d like to play it more – but I’m not prepared to pay for the privilege.

Sometimes I find nothing.

Sometimes I find money, which means I can buy items that let me click more squares.

Sometimes I find fruit, which gives me hit points so I can click more squares.

Sometimes I play a mini game and then find some treasure, which gives me MU$, which I can spend on health kits to restore my hit points so I can click more squares.

Look! A strangely familiar mini game!

Sometimes I level up, which means I get more hit points and can click more squares.

Sometimes I click all the squares I can on a map and go to a different one.

Sometimes I wonder what the hell I’m doing, but most of the time I just go with it. For some reason I can’t begin to fathom I enjoy it. I’m not sure what it says about me that I can be happy with a drip-feed of little virtual pellets, but it seems to reach something in my brain, somewhere.

Today I got my scuba gear, so I can explore watery squares. I’ve managed to finish off a lot of my maps now, but I’ve got to save up lots of gold to buy snake venom for a couple of the others.

I probably didn't find anything.

I’m also very annoyed with the way they’ve changed the bonus game that pops up after you go up a level in one of the mini games.

All I want is some fruit somewhere...

You always used to get a bonus, now you can quite easily end up with nothing – as I’ve managed to do three times in a row today.

It’s just plain mean, I reckon.

That’s basically it. Each map is just a giant scratch card where you win XP and HP and things to complete meaningless collections. The collecting is the point of the game and the game itself.

You even level up in each mini game separately. The game has lots of lovely, lovely numbers.

Still, I like doing scratch cards and I like watching numbers increase – I played The Linear RPG for far longer than it took to get the joke – so Treasure Madness suits me. A few clicks every few hours, some new items, some bright colours and the odd mini game.

It’s the bowl of peanuts on the gaming bar that you munch while waiting for a foaming pint of real game, basically.

Must... click... mouse... must... find... treasure...

Yesterday I decided to have a go. It’s decent fun, actually. It’s free to play, but there’s a catch. Every time you click a square to search it, it uses up some of your HP. Once you’re out, you have to wait for it to regenerate. It takes thirty seconds or so to recover one HP and it costs about ten of them to search a single square. You can add HP with fruit you find, or fill it right above your maximum by using a health kit. Health kits can be bought with Museum Dollars, which you get for completing sets of treasures and other things I can’t remember right now. (Or for spending ACTUAL MONEY or completing MARKETING SURVEYS or for signing up to SPECIAL OFFERS, which is obviously how the publishers make their money. I’m steering clear of all that, thank you.)

So your playing time is very limited, which is annoying, but probably a good thing. I could see myself clicking away glassy-eyed until the early hours of the morning if the game didn’t force me to stop. The drip feed of treasures and leveling up and mini games could be very dangerous indeed.

Anyway, my HP has refilled to maximum, so I’m going to pop on over to Key Island again, see what I find.