Skill and Action

Jacob's Matrix is a seven-day Rogue-like developed by Jeff Lait (of Fatherhood). It's also -- very un-Rogue-like, really.

Oh, it's a Rogue-like, all right; you're tooling around an algorithmically generated ASCII dungeon, moving in eight directions and fighting by running into things. But you're under time pressure: A song is playing, and if you don't finish the level by the time it ends, you lose. Maybe it's a "Musical Chairs-like."

Puls is a game of mental arithmetic and timing. Each player is dealt 10 cards from the deck; cards are printed with numbers (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, and 15) in six different colors, with numbers and colors mixed. Also on each card is an arrow symbol. The objective: get rid of cards more quickly than your opponents.

Gandhi Gandhi Boom Boom was "best in show" at the Columbia University site of the 2009 Global Game Jam. (I was one of the judges that selected it as such.)

You begin with a single Gandhi head, moveable with the arrow keys, and rotatable with E and R. From the screen edge, additional Gandhis, and hamburgers, begin drifting toward you. At screen top is a green bar that slowly declines in size with time.

The basic rule is to match like with likes and avoid opposites. Spotting a Gandhi, you move yours into it; they conect with a "snick," and you gain 2 additional seconds of life (the green bar adjusting accordingly). If a hamburger attaches to a Gandhi, though, you lose 10 seconds. But once a hamburger is attached, you can attach it to further hamburgers. One problem: hamburgers are attracted to Gandhis and vice versa (opposites attract), so making the right rather than wrong connection is tricky.