When I'm listening to the radio, I like to play a little puzzle game to keep the rest of my mind occupied but not distracted. Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzle Collection is especially good for this.
I've been thinking about what my ideal game for this situation would be, and I've come up with a few criteria:
- No words: I can't read and follow someone talking at the same time.
- It must always be possible to play succesfully, so you're never losing a game, just stuck. So Solitaire is out, but Freecell is in.
- It must always be different. Playing the same puzzle over and over again is boring. So books of sudoku are out, and so are old platform games.
- It mustn't rely on sound. I'm listening to the radio, after all!
- It must be quick to open and close, and not require any investment of time once started. Sometimes when I've started a really hard puzzle during a programme, I can still be solving it for another 15 minutes after the programme's ended. Not the best use of my time, but I hate leaving puzzles unfinished and my Freecell winning streak is in four digits now!
- Preferably, it should never end. I'm not playing in order to finish, I'm playing to distract my mind.
SO, with all that in mind, I've made this.
Here's a screenshot:
It's a game where you connect dots. There are limits on which dots you can connect, so you have to plan your moves. It has some very soft sounds, so you can play it on its own and still feel engaged. It never ends, and saves your progress when you quit so you don't lose all your hard work.
Don't worry about connecting all the dots, I don't think that's possible, just pan around looking for clusters to connect up into one big network.
A few notes about the implementation:
- I made a special data structure for storing the dots, which is a set of concentric circle segments radiating out from the start point. They are only generated when they come into view, and can be efficiently searched so only the areas on screen are displayed and used in game logic. I could've used squares to make the geometry a bit simpler, but I think that would've meant more bookkeeping.
- The networks are directed trees, which makes counting members and finding paths between member dots easy. You can also use the arrows on the links to track back along the tree.
- Because I wanted to make the game universe scale indefinitely, I had to reject a lot of gameplay ideas because they would grow in complexity with the networks - for example passing objects along the network between dots, having anything which depended on time elapsing, or having the dots move about in anything but a nonlinear fashion.
- The sound effects are chime notes on the minor harmonic scale, I think. I'm not musically trained at all but I think just using this selection of notes is the most pleasing. I considered using them in an order that makes a tune, but just picking them at random sounds nice enough.
- It's interesting, while panning around the space, that so many clusters of dots look like real star clusters. A good case for pareidolia, I think!
- The game is quite addictive if you're not really concentrating on it, so I'd call it a big success. I absent-mindedly connected up a thousand dots while I was meant to be debugging something yesterday.
Cripes, this looks like a manifesto! Anyway, please take a look at the game and give me your comments.
I've been thinking about what my ideal game for this situation would be, and I've come up with a few criteria:
- No words: I can't read and follow someone talking at the same time.
- It must always be possible to play succesfully, so you're never losing a game, just stuck. So Solitaire is out, but Freecell is in.
- It must always be different. Playing the same puzzle over and over again is boring. So books of sudoku are out, and so are old platform games.
- It mustn't rely on sound. I'm listening to the radio, after all!
- It must be quick to open and close, and not require any investment of time once started. Sometimes when I've started a really hard puzzle during a programme, I can still be solving it for another 15 minutes after the programme's ended. Not the best use of my time, but I hate leaving puzzles unfinished and my Freecell winning streak is in four digits now!
- Preferably, it should never end. I'm not playing in order to finish, I'm playing to distract my mind.
SO, with all that in mind, I've made this.
Here's a screenshot:
It's a game where you connect dots. There are limits on which dots you can connect, so you have to plan your moves. It has some very soft sounds, so you can play it on its own and still feel engaged. It never ends, and saves your progress when you quit so you don't lose all your hard work.
Don't worry about connecting all the dots, I don't think that's possible, just pan around looking for clusters to connect up into one big network.
A few notes about the implementation:
- I made a special data structure for storing the dots, which is a set of concentric circle segments radiating out from the start point. They are only generated when they come into view, and can be efficiently searched so only the areas on screen are displayed and used in game logic. I could've used squares to make the geometry a bit simpler, but I think that would've meant more bookkeeping.
- The networks are directed trees, which makes counting members and finding paths between member dots easy. You can also use the arrows on the links to track back along the tree.
- Because I wanted to make the game universe scale indefinitely, I had to reject a lot of gameplay ideas because they would grow in complexity with the networks - for example passing objects along the network between dots, having anything which depended on time elapsing, or having the dots move about in anything but a nonlinear fashion.
- The sound effects are chime notes on the minor harmonic scale, I think. I'm not musically trained at all but I think just using this selection of notes is the most pleasing. I considered using them in an order that makes a tune, but just picking them at random sounds nice enough.
- It's interesting, while panning around the space, that so many clusters of dots look like real star clusters. A good case for pareidolia, I think!
- The game is quite addictive if you're not really concentrating on it, so I'd call it a big success. I absent-mindedly connected up a thousand dots while I was meant to be debugging something yesterday.
Cripes, this looks like a manifesto! Anyway, please take a look at the game and give me your comments.