split/screen co-op

Bookworm by Reptar-Bar

I’m taking a short break from the Fallout series in a bid to stave off wasteland fatigue. There is still quite a journey ahead and I really want to walk the entire distance.

While off Fallout, I’ve been reluctant to take up a full-blown game. You don’t run marathons by taking breaks long enough to win the World Cup. I’ve been helping Vanya out with some of the more frustrating (to her) battles in The Prince of Persia (the one that all the PoP fanboys hated) and climbing the library ladder of Bookworm on my iPod Touch.

I’ve come to realise that Bookworm — the classic original — is probably the embodiment of gaming on the go. Other games try to remain relevant by cutting the action into bite-sized chunks but none is more successful in this regard than Bookworm. It’s a game where nothing much happens most of the time. You just stare at the letters on the board and try to make out words, preferably long ones. Which means, that you can turn the game on, look at the board for 30 seconds, turn it off… and you will still have played it. Better still, you can play it even in distraction-rich environments, which is always a good thing when on the move.

Pure genius.

Bookworm by *Reptar-Bar on deviantART

Every week we look at what people have been looking for in Google to find our website and try to answer the questions that you should be able to find answers for on our blog. This week in the Q&A section: Star Wars furnishings, Fallout bans, Halloween stuff and more. Hit the jump to check it all out.

Another mini game I played on our iPod touch. The game resembles Popcap’s puzzle hit Zuma.

Luxor is available for PC, Mac, iPhone and iPod. Publisher and developer of the game is MumboJumbo.

The game’s difference to Zuma is that there is no Challenge mode such as the Gauntlet in Zuma and the Iron Frog in Zuma’s Revenge. In Luxor you goal is to clear all balls before they reach the “drain”.

Hit the jump to watch a gameplay video of Luxor on iPhone

I got into playing The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom shortly after completing the excellent VVVVVV (review) and I was expecting more platforming ecstasy. Winterbottom’s lengthy tutorial looked very promising and I had high hopes.

Those were dashed several real-gameplay levels later when I had to accept that this was not a platforming game, but rather a puzzle. Yet this discovery, though a bit disheartening, did not deter me from venturing further into Winterbottom’s misadventures. Before starting the game, I was very impressed with its marvelous retro-movie black-and-white style, and that kept me playing long after I thought I was done with it.

My full impressions follow after the break.

I chanced upon this trailer for in-development puzzle platformer Dustforce! and immediately I fell in love with its art style. It didn’t hurt that the person who’s playing is very good at it, making the action look beautifully fluid. I downloaded the game’s demo to find out that when one sucks at it as badly as I do it is far less fluid and much more frustrating, beautiful art style notwithstanding.

Read on to see what else I thought and what it all has to do with VVVVVV.