Alternate Logic Puzzles
by Terry Cavanagh
Four mini games in one!
| Four different games from four different eras in computing history: Lights Out, Overload, Connect Four, and Dominate. | |
| This game works well on a 486 according to the readme.txt, and it actually runs nicely on my 800Mhz Athlon. The actual games are amazing to play. For most of them, there is the option of multiplayer. Lights Out is a single player game, in which you have to change all of the red tiles to blue. You select a tile, and it changes the tiles around it, so you have to be careful not to change the wrong tiles. There is a time limit that challenges you. Overload is a fun game that is a little more complex, with up to 8 players. You can have up to place tiles down, but once you place them, they will have a number on them. If you select them again, the number increases. If the tile is in a corner, once the number reaches 2, it will place two tiles next to itself. If it is along the game border, it will take 3, and anywhere else takes 4. Any tile that would normally be placed, either yours or your opponents, get incremented. That is the main idea behind this game: capture all of the enemy pieces. This game is fun because someone could be losing terribly, but make one move that causes a chain reaction, and all of a sudden he/she has control of the board again! Connect Four has no real innovations to the regular game. Simply make 4 in a row and you win. A 2 player game. Dominate is similar to Overload, but there are no numbers. In order to create more tiles, you need to move a tile over one space or next to other tiles. You can also jump a piece, but it will not leave the piece behind. Up to 8 players. In general the game is nicely done. There is no continue feature in Lights Out, which can be frustrating at times. Overload can be fun but if you lose and the only opponent left has tiles filling up the screen, you have to wait until the chain reaction is completely over before being told that you lost. I think it should detect if any different tiles are left so that it doesn't take so long. Connect Four could use a little work. The main reason people lose in this game is because they didn't see a possible move by the opponent. What is more annoying that someone who places a piece and says, "I win!" and takes away the board? Luckily you can still see the pieces for the most part, but they are sometimes behind the window that says who won and so are faded. The most problematic error I have found, though, is the game freezing. The music continues, but the game might not. I have only experienced this in Overload and Dominate, but it was kind of annoying to have to exit the DOS window in order to play again. In general though, this game is done nicely. Aside from that error, any problems are insignificant. |
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| The game looks pretty much the same from game to game. It is basically made up of tiles of different colors, which are nicely shaded. I liked how the tiles flickered as they changed colors. It helped to point out what was happening in a fast paced game. Aside from that, the only real difference depends on the game you play. Connect Four has rows and columns outlined. Aside from that, the background is not that bright. While it is ok, it could be more colorful or animated. For what the game is though, the graphics are pretty good considering they are just tiles. The transparency effects would have been pretty cool if they were used for more than just the message boxes. | |
| There is rarely a time when I can complain in this game. The only real problem I had was with the inconsistent controls. In two of the games you can use the Enter key as wekk as the space bar. In the other two, you can't. Besides that, the controls are pretty easy to master. Of course, when you wanted to exit a game, some of them make it impossible. Simply pressing ESC doesn't cut it. You have to hold it down, but then you have to be careful not to hold it down for too long. What happens sometimes is that when you do exit, it takes you to the menu screen, but it thinks that you pressed Esc to exit the program itself. This can be annoying if you are playing multiple times, and it is also annoying how Lights Out is the only game that doesn't ask if you are sure you want to exit. | |
| Some nice background music sets the mood for the different games. I especially liked how fast paced it was in Lights Out, which really added to the intensity of the game. The music is taken from popular bands like Rage Against the Machine. There were no sound effects at all, which might have added something to the game, but for the most part I liked how this game sounded. | |
| The AI in this game is amazing! Good work, Terry! I found Lights Out to be really challenging, although some kind of continue feature would have been nice so that I didn't have to go through all of the levels again. Connect Four is incredibly challenging. And the other games can be quite tough once you get 7 AI opponents in there with you! Sometimes the game seems too hard. I still haven't defeated the AI in some of them! Even though it offers multiplayer options, it is much faster paced with all computer opponents. In fact, if you want, you can have the computer play itself in all of the games except Lights Out. Too bad Tic-Tac-Toe is not available...B-) | |
| This game is fun enough for me to play it while I do the review. The replay value is good since these games are mostly those games that you play in single sessions, like Connect Four. Lights Out is quite fun since it is the only one that requires you to play quickly. The other games are turn based, but it doesn't take away from the fun either. If you don't really like one game, you will probably find another since you have four to choose from. | |
| Aside from the freeze error, which is rare anyway this game is well done. The graphics don't need much work, and the music is just right. And the most important part of the fun of these games is the challenge, and there is plenty of it! I suggest this series of games for those who like thinking games. | |
| .zip file: 134KB download | |
| V Planet |