Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Over the last month I've gotten three DS games that I haven't seen much written about here, since they don't have the latest greatest graphics, but I've been enjoying them quite a bit.

Scribblenauts has had the most attention here. You know the deal, you're presented with a situation, you can create nearly any conceivable object, and you solve the situations. I'm into Level 8, and I've been having a great time. At first I was worried about the use of the same couple objects to solve most levels (helicopter, wings, rope, drawbridge), but the existence of "genius mode" solves that (beat a level 3 times in succession, not copying any objects). I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys any puzzle games.

More recently I got Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes, partially due to being a fan of Might & Magic and Heroes of Might & Magic games and partially because I saw some good reviews. I wasn't totally sure what to expect, the descriptions were all vague in their "puzzle battle" system, but I've taken to enjoying it. During a battle you have a random assortment of troops in a grid, and above your army is your opponent's. On a turn you can slide the bottom troop of a column into a different column, or you can remove any troop of yours, sliding everyone up to fill the hole. If this rearrangement causes three troops of a kind to be in a row vertically, you get an attacking unit, and if you get three in a row horizontally, you get a defensive wall. The attacking units charge for a few turns, and then wipe out some enemy units directly above it, and if they have enough strength, continue on to damage the enemy Hero himself. The enemy is doing the same to you. You win once the enemy Hero gets down to 0 HP (and vice versa, the enemy wins if you get to 0). The battle play is vaguely, vaguely reminiscent of Bejeweled, arranging like-colored things on a grid, but employing much more strategy. There are cool combos you can do, the troops all act somewhat differently, having special abilities and different attack values, charging time, toughness, etc. In addition, outside of battle you can, through quests and encounters, determine what troops you want to have in your army, rather than just getting whatever random stuff the game decides to give you. Also fun are preset puzzle battles, where there's a solution in order to, say, wipe out all enemy units within one turn. The framing story isn't astoundingly interesting, but it's enough to tie things together so far. There is some slightly humorous dialogue, although I'm not sure if some things were intentional. When two elf characters are talking, one shouts out in frustration, "Wilted leaves!" presumably as some sort of elvish swear. I recommend this to players who enjoy spatial puzzles, are fine with a thin storyline, and like to solve things.

Finally, the one I've played least so far, the new Legend of Zelda game, Spirit Tracks. I bought this game knowing almost nothing about it except that it'd be like Phantom Hourglass, which I loved. Well, so far it's a lot like that. Simplistic combat, some neat puzzles and items, slight humor, and an overall enjoyable experience. (The humor can be subtle. My favorite part so far, tiny spoiler: the protagonist starts as a train engineer, wearing an engineer outfit. When Zelda calls him in to have him sneak her out of the castle, she has him dress like the castle guards. Lo and behold, the castle guards are dressed just like classic Link! And thus you wear the standard Link garb despite your backstory.) So far, things aren't too different from Phantom Hourglass - the boat travel is the same, it's just train travel now. You're still completing four parts of a map as your main quest. You're saving the princess (although not really all of her... it's kind of weird), and really everything is pretty much just like it was. Luckily, I liked how it was! My main complaint at the moment is that the train travel, just like the boat travel, is needlessly tedious, and that a lot seems to use the DS mic, which I'm not a big fan of. The enhancements, like controlling the Phantom, more than make up for it though. If you don't mind some saminess, and you liked Phantom Hourglass, go for this.

As a fellow Heroes lover and DS owner, but Bejeweled loather, should I buy the game? It's too bad the series migrated away from Erathia to some faceless locale that doesn't have the Forge or even Gryphonhearts, as the pre-HoMM IV storyline was effuse with awesome.

I didn't even think of the Bejeweled tie until I played Bejeweled on facebook the other day, and I thought, "Wow, this is a lamer, ADD version of Clash of Heroes combat." It doesn't really feel like a Heroes game (because technically, it isn't, despite having "Heroes", "of", and "Might & Magic" in the title). It takes place in the same universe as Heroes V, but really it's just a cool puzzler with some story to tie it up. If you don't like puzzle games, don't get it. Definitely don't get it just because of the Heroes connection.

Is HoMM anything like Puzzle Quest? You guys talking about Bejeweled makes me wonder.

Scribblenauts was an okay game, but I honestly got bored of it after a week or two and sold it back to Gamestop.

Zelda rules! I don't think there has been one bad Zelda game yet.

Majora's mask. Oh no the moon is crashing into the earth again! What a totally unfrustrating way to play a video game.

It was, that 3 day limit thing was just infuriating.