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Casual Online Gamers Thrill to Pajitnov Puzzle Games

Posted by simoniker on from the russian-doll-syndrome dept.

Thanks to Wired for its article discussing the rise of casual, Web-based online gaming from websites such as EA's Pogo.com and Microsoft's Zone.com. Particularly interesting is confirmation of post-Pandora's Box projects for an extremely famous game designer: "Today, Tetris is the model for how to reach the increasing number of middle-aged and elderly Americans online. The creator, Alexey Pajitnov, is a designer at Microsoft, where Gates & Co. are hoping he can repeat his magic." The piece names Zone.com games Mozaki Blocks and Hexic as Pajitnov creations, although they're not heavily promoted as such, and explains of Mozaki Blocks: "MSN's marketing team took Pajitnov's Atari 2600-style lo-res math game and sexed it up with an Eastern flair: smooth, rounded tiles, Chinese letters... [and] a gong-shaped progress bar."

5 of 18 comments (clear)

  1. What? by Lobo · · Score: 4, Funny

    How could these games compare against Cat-A-Pult

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  2. Gong-shaped progress bar by mwvdlee · · Score: 2, Funny

    Just what every game need; gong-shaped progress bars really make a game play much better.

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    1. Re:Gong-shaped progress bar by b1t+r0t · · Score: 2, Funny

      Um, if it's "gong-shaped", how can you still call it a "bar"? Bars are long, narrow things. Gongs are round things. Pie are not square.

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  3. Simplistic Games = Fun by Tuvai · · Score: 4, Interesting

    People can add all the bells and whistles they want. If I run down a list of the games I've personally enjoyed the most recently it'll include games such as Wario Ware and Puyo Puyo Fever, a notoriously simple concept brilliantly executed.
    The most successful Puzzle games have always stuck to this concept, from Tetris to Puyo Puyo, the limited options and emphasis on pattern and formation with multiple routes to the desired goal can flesh out something that doesn't require the player to remember complex keyboard layouts or button combos. Instead the only limits in place are the logic functions of the Human mind.

  4. Re:Surprise surprise by Ginga_Ninja · · Score: 5, Informative
    erm, yes it does (and I only installed Firefox this morning). You need the Flash plugin from here: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/downl oad.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

    Admittedly, it takes a minute to install, but then that's probably the amount of time it took to write your post and is much less a waste of time.

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