A Gaming Diary
Web
Treasure Madness (Web)
Mar 2nd
Still playing this at lunchtimes and in quiet moments. It’s still just a virtual scratchcard with mini games and I’m still very annoyed when I run out of health and have to wait actual, real time to play some more, but it’s also still very compulsive.
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.
Treasure Madness (Web)
Feb 12th
Still clicking away. I have no idea what to say about it. I just click squares until I run out of hit points, wait for a while, then go back and click some more.
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.
Treasure Madness (Web)
Feb 9th
Still playing this, when it will let me. I refuse to pay actual, real money to it, so I’m very limited in how much I can play at a time. That’s probably a good thing, though.
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.
One Button Bob (Web)
Feb 8th
I read Rock, Paper, Shotgun, despite not having a gaming PC. (I do have a PC, but its last upgrade was about four years ago now and it won’t play most modern games.) I read it because it’s written well enough to be interesting about games I don’t have much interest in, they often talk about games I can play on my consoles and because it links to interesting web-based games.
Which is where One Button Bob comes in.
I like its chunky looks.
It’s a nice, short platform game that you control using the left mouse button. What that button bodes changes depending on the screen. Sometimes it makes you walk, sometimes it makes you stop, sometimes it makes you jump, etc.
It’s a good little lunchtime distraction and I got to the end in somewhere between three hundred and four hundred clicks. I wish I’d remembered exactly how many, so you could have competed against me.
Treasure Madness (Web)
Feb 4th
A sudden flash of inspiration last night and I realised what Treasure Madness really is – it’s a scratch card with mini games.
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.
Treasure Madness (Web)
Feb 3rd
My wife loves games, which is helpful. These days she mostly plays the social games on Facebook, the likes of the all-conquering Farmville and the, er, some-conquering Fish Isle. The one that’s always looked most interesting to me when I’ve glance over her shoulder is Treasure Madness. It’s a map-based collect-em-up. You click squares on a map and maybe you find some gold, food or treasure. Sometimes you get to play a mini game, maybe a Bejeweled clone or a Puzzle Bobble clone or, well, a clone of something else.
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.
Left 4K Dead (Web)
Apr 2nd
Awesome little web shooter. (As in a shooter on the web, rather than, like, Spider-Man.) Far more fun than it should be.
http://www.mojang.com/notch/j4k/l4kd/
My current best score is 944, for reference.
Magic Pen (Web)
May 9th
I know, I know, it’s a shock to see something that’s not GTA here.
Anyway, this is a nice little physics puzzle Flash game.
http://magic.pen.fizzlebot.com/
I’ve got my score down to 84. (i.e. I’ve solved all the levels using a total of 84 pieces.)
Off-Road Velociraptor Safari (Web)
Feb 6th
What the heck?
This is completely broken. I’m not sure what’s happened, but when playing today the game wasn’t working properly at all. The beams of light that come up from catchers were appearing and disappearing completely at random, as were orbs. When I used boost, the flames only came out of my jeep about one time in three. And there’s a horribly ugly white “shadow” under my jeep. It’s not really playable now, especially the orb-hunting stuff. No idea if it’s my Mac or if they’ve broken the game itself, but whatever, it’s gone rubbish.
Bah.
