Original UI

Ergon/Logos is a) quick, and b) so cool you must play it at once. If "play" is the right word: It is, when you come down to it, a surreal, poetic hypertext implemented as an action game, if "game" is the word, too.

Hypertext fiction is not intended to be action-driven, of course, which is one reason why this is so weird and original a thing.

Gum Drop is a terrible name for this game -- makes me think of some pastel-scale 'casual' game, probably of the noxiously cute variety. What it really is, is a space shmup, only you don't actually shoot anything, which is unusual. Instead, you use a tractor beam to attach to what the game calls a "S.M.A.S.H.", which you then swing around yourself, using it to smash into enemy ships. Or you can kill the tractor and fling it along its current trajectory to hit an enemy, then recall it. Or grab a powerup, which does something else (like lay mines) and move around with that.

Coil's been out for some time, but we've never reviewed it, which makes it among the few IGF nominees (in the Innovation category) that you can play at present that we haven't reviewed. So it's about time.

Coil is by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, creators of (among others) Cunt and Triachnid.

A Global Game Jam entry from students at Carnegie Mellon, Balloon Man is a pleasant, dream-like little game in which a man holding three balloons rises upward (an "upscroller" rather than a sidescroller, if you will) past a somewhat surreal skyscape. Various obstacles float in space, and if a balloon intercepts one, it pops -- lose all three balloons, and you lose, of course.

klish was certainly the most polished game at the NYC/Columbia site of the Global Game Jam. It's a little level-based Flash game in which your mouse pointer is a repulsor, pushing other screen objects away; you use it to herd them around. Your goal -- well, this is an almost immediately intuitive game. You will figure it out very quickly. Six levels, each of which will probably take you no more than a minute to play. I list the download site above, but it's a freely distributable swf, so it's also embedded here.

Diver is a stark little game in which you play a small ragdoll model leaping off a cliff. Your goal is to enter the water cleanly (either head or feet first), between two buoys bobbing in the surf below.

The control scheme is quite novel; essentially, mouse position controls the character's stance, and a clean dive involves a precise swooping motion. It's damn hard to get used to, which is part of why the game is challenging -- and also frustrating.

Mightier is a little 3D game in which each level contains a number of object you must retrieve. You begin at level zero, and while you can jump as high as level 1, many objects are at higher levels.

Scattered about the field of play are "crystal pillars," all of whom begin also at level zero. ESCing out brings you to an interface where you can draw closed loops about the play area, each loop containing a pillar and one (or more) of the retrievable objects. Once you have done so, the application interprets your drawing, and then you view a scene in which a laser from space zaps the crystal pillars, "raising" them to a different level. The idea is that you create platforms that allow you to jump up and grab the objects you're after. The platforms are the same shape and size as the loops you drew.

The Line Continues is a little game that looks like it might have come out of the demoscene. Little is the operative word; the screenshot is full size. To get the best experience, you're well advised to change your screen resolution to 640x480 before playing.

You are running along a yellow line that is gradually disappearing behind you, and if the disappearing end catches up with you, you die. Monsters come at you, which you can destroy by "yanking" on the line -- the monsters, like you, are extentions of the line into the second dimension.

Somersault is a platformer, of a sort; each level is traversed from left to right, but extending above and below your entry point, with secret areas. Your goal is to collect gold and silver rings, while avoiding heat, water, and other dangers.

That sounds like any number of other games, but what's interesting, and unique, about Somersault is the UI scheme. You are guiding a bouncing ball, which you do by using the mouse to draw Pong-like paddles on the screen. Basically, when you click, you start a paddle at the point where you clicked; you drag to draw the rest of it. If you release the mouse, the paddle stays in place, but instead you can keep the button down and "swing" the paddle, Ping-Pong-like, to bat the ball. To guide you, a rainbow extends from the ball, showing its future path.

We don't often cover "casual" games, but Out of Your Mind is from Gamelab, one of the most creative and interesting independent game developers -- and its gameplay is original enough to make us pay attention.

From a gameplay perspective, Out of Your Mind is basically an elaboration and extention of Loop (also by Gamelab); in each level, your job is to draw loops around on-screen items, following certain rules about what's allowed inside the loop and what isn't.