Friday Fun picks! Let's match crap!

I always find myself rather stunned and amazed when there is a concentration of the same services in a small area. Like when you see a Starbucks on every street corner for blocks. Or you walk past head shop after head shop on Haight St. Or visit downtown San Rafael in which there are about five ice cream parlors within a three block radius. It's as if all the laws of competitive business have completely flown out the window. I mean, how many people are buying coffee that they need to have their choice of Starbucks? How many varieties of bongs can one season of tourists really need? And MAN the people of San Rafael must consume a TON of ice cream! If you look at the world of downloadable casual games, you'll see a similar phenomenon. There are only about a gazillion games where the gameplay is similar to collapse or Zuma. And about three gazillion match some stuff games. In a matching crap game, you generally have some sort of grid that contains several different shapes/colors of items. You have a time limit in which to match, through some simple point and click mechanism, sets (usually three) of these items. When the items are matched they are cleared from the board, and often other items take their place. That's it. Sounds pretty simple, huh? So why on earth do we need so many slight variations on that theme? (Note that I am not even addressing the matching crap sub-genre where you match things as they fall from the sky). I mean, casual downloadable games haven't even been AROUND that long. You'd think there was still room for innovation in a platform this new. And yet every week there's a new matching crap game to play. I like matching crap games. They are fun and oddly compelling. The rules are simple, and the gameplay is hypnotic. I can play while I clear my head from a hard day's work, or while I am thinking of a solution to a game design problem. They are soothing but can also be exciting when you get down to the wire with the timer. Plus, it is very satisfying to make the doo-hickeys disappear or to line up some huge combo where alot of them disappear at once, or to clear the very last hard-to-reach one from the board. I have tried quite a few of these games, and alot of them are (surprise surprise) extremely derivative and don't add anything new or exciting to the matching crap genre. However, there are a small handful which I have found intoxicating. I share those with you now. Jewel Quest So admittedly the first matching crap game I really liked was the bilging puzzle in puzzle pirates. Jewel Quest was actually recomended to me as a way to see how a puzzle game works a story into the game. Jewel Quest is great. It is challenging, there are alot of levels to play with, and the 40's adventurer seeking relics in the jungle theme is fun. It features odd shaped boards (not always a square grid), and these really annoying (but neat) pieces that you can't match without a penalty. The difficulty curve is quite good. The story is also surprisingly addictive, to the point where at some levels you want to play the next one to see what happens. Big Kahuna Reef This is my fav at the moment. The basic gameplay is quite similar to Jewel Quest, including odd shaped boards and pieces you don't want to match without being set back. Unlike Jewel Quest, if you clear a row on the side of the board that isn't connected to the top (where new pieces come from)pieces above it and to the side flow down so that every square is filled. In Jewel Quest, clearing a row without pieces above it means you now have a partially empty row/column, which makes it harder. This feature in Big Kahuna Reef helps to keep you from feeling stagnated and keeps the game flowing. Reef also has locked pieces which keep you from accessing a certain part of the board until you've matched with them. And a super-nice feature is the net, which lets you take any piece off the board. The net has to then recharge. Oh, and did I mention that the presentation is fabulous? And instead of unlocking parts of a story, you unlock new fish that you can then let zip merrily around your game background while you play. I like the sea turtles. This game also includes a plethora of other crazy features that I haven't tried yet. Fairies OK, this one I was skeptical of when I first downloaded it. But it is actually pretty neat. What sets it apart from the other games in its genre? First of all, it's HARD. You spend too much time thinking, and you are pretty much toast. Secondly, instead of clicking two pieces to switch their places, you drag a row or column until you have three matching colors together. This might seem on the surface like a small difference, but actually it's huge. When you drag a row or column, you can make more than one match at once. You can also match huge groups, or multiple huge groups. This also makes locked pieces (ala Big Kahuna Reef) extra tricky. Instead of locking up one piece which you can try to work around, in Fairies if a piece is locked up, that means the whole row and column that piece is in cannot be moved until you match to unlock it. This slight mechanic change is enough of a difference that it feels worth playing, even if you are king of the matching crap genre. (Fairies is not the only game out there with this mechanic, but it is the first one I tried and I still think may be the one I like best.) The game also has lots of special pieces you can unlock while playing to help you out. You will need the help. Also the presentation helps you feel mesmerized by the game. The music and sound is truly great. One big issue I take with it: The timer thing that indicates how much time you have left looks like a little clock, but the hand moves COUNTER clockwise. What the heck is up with that? It took me several levels before I even figured out what the thing was. I played alot of matching crap games in preparing this post and these are still the three I like best. Oh, and bilging in Puzzle Pirates of course. If I get to post next week (I'll be in Atlanta, so we'll see) I will be posting jolly holiday themed games. Send in suggestions if you have them to jetgirl [@] jetgirl.net.