Xref: utzoo comp.sys.amiga:59500 comp.sys.amiga.tech:12662 comp.sys.amiga.games:195 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!apple!mips!pacbell.com!pacbell!tandem!zorch!xanthian From: xanthian@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG (Kent Paul Dolan) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech,comp.sys.amiga.games Subject: Re: A Philosophy of Game Design, from the author of PocoMan Message-ID: <1990Jun11.072644.16213@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> Date: 11 Jun 90 07:26:44 GMT References: <1990Jun9.222125.2499@zorch.SF-Bay.ORG> <30670@cup.portal.com> Distribution: na Organization: SF Bay Public-Access Unix Lines: 66 In article <30670@cup.portal.com> Sullivan@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) writes: >> >>> >>> PocoMan - Introduction >>> >>> >>> Hello, and thank you for buying PocoMan. We hope you'll find PocoMan >>> to be a refreshing change from the usual shoot-em-ups and eternal adventure >>> games. You'll actually have to think in order to solve this game, and not >>> a bit of violence anywhere. >>> > >So what is it? PocoMan is a series of 50 puzzles in each of which you maneuver PocoMan ( a tiny and impatient and self-important automaton ) around a board on which are scattered a set of objects which need to be packed away in a storage area. Unfortunately PocoMan has a bad back, so he can only push objects, not pull them. He has a bad habit of getting stuff in his own way, completely blocking himself off from his objective. Additionally, there are corners and "traps" that complicate his task, more objects than there seems room to maneuver, problems in packing the storage area that he can't seem to straighten out. He needs the help of an intelligent, logical, and persistent friend -- you. The puzzles are very challenging; the easiest took me twenty minutes, the hardest (so far) three days. The game is enlivened by a starry background color cycling behind the puzzle, by a cute choice of objects (as you move them into storage, they change shape, and then that is the shape of the objects in the next puzzle), by clicks and clacks as PocoMan walks and pushes, by humorous noises the first object into the storage area sometimes makes, by PocoMan's comments at the beginning and end of the puzzles (some times he gives you credit for solving it, more often he claims the glory for himself) and by PocoMan's impatience with you if you are slow to solve the puzzle. Wait a little bit, he starts tapping his feet; wait a longer while, he settles down with a palm leaf fan and a cool tropical drink. >If the game is any good (even >as just a distraction) I'll go out and buy a copy. The puzzles are an intellectual challenge. At least twice I convinced myself a puzzle was impossible; surely the designers had made a mistake! But then, away from it for a while, or brooding in front of the screen, the thought "what if I try ..." would come to me, and I'd be back into it. While the game counts time and moves, the only "scoring" is moving up a level. There is a score table that shows the level of each person playing, and you start off at the highest level not yet solved. A menu item lets you go back and try to solve previous levels in fewer turns or less time, though that is not entered on the score table. It can take thousands of moves and hours of real time to play some of the more complex, though simple looking, puzzles. The thing that makes the game fun to me, beyond the puzzles, is the great detailing; the same sort of thing that inspires a model train enthusiast. There is one puzzle level where the objects to be moved are nearly indistinguishable from the puzzle wall blocks, which makes you push each block and see if it is play piece or barrier; one where the objects are clovers, and PocoMan says he feels lucky, one of anchors, and you hear a snatch of sea chantey, one where the objects are little PocoMen. I wish I had as much imagination. Try it, you may like it, and it is the kind of game that needs community cash support, to prove that non-copy protected games can be financially successful. Kent, the man from xanth.