Suggested By:
ciawethMy usual reaction to Breakout/Arkanoid style games is "meh." It's one of the easiest types of games to code, and so there are scads of them out there, most of them very dull. I fired up Jardinains with the expectation that I'd be uninstalling it quickly. An hour later, I was still playing, with a toddler on my lap following the game avidly.
What makes Jardinains different can be summed up in one word: gnomes.
It has the usual tropes of the genre -- variable brick layouts by level, powerups that do things like give you two balls or a sticky paddle, but in addition, little gnomes appear in empty spaces or atop bricks as you play -- more over time. Gnomes are both a scoring opportunity and a pain in the ass. When you eliminate a brick beneath a gnome, the gnome falls, and you gain points by bouncing him up multiple times -- but of course this is a distraction, and you don't want to lose your ball to keep him bouncing, a particular problem if you're trying to juggle multiple bouncing gnomes and the ball as well. Gnomes you don't clear drop flower pots on you -- and if they intercept your paddle, you lose points, and also lose powerups (sometimes). At first, this doesn't seem like a big problem, but if you're slow to clear the level you can wind up with dozens of the little giggling bastards and a virtual hail of crockery.
And giggle they do; the grace note here is definitely cuteness. They audibly enjoy being bounced, but also chortle gleefully at your woes.
Mac, PC, and Linux; the demo has no limits, other than having fewer levels than the full game, no 60 minute timeout or such, so there's really no reason not to give it a shot.
