Casual Online Gamers Thrill to Pajitnov Puzzle Games

Thanks to Wired for its article discussing the rise of casual, Web-based online gaming from websites such as EA's Pogo.com and Microsoft's Zone.com. Particularly interesting is confirmation of post-Pandora's Box projects for an extremely famous game designer: "Today, Tetris is the model for how to reach the increasing number of middle-aged and elderly Americans online. The creator, Alexey Pajitnov, is a designer at Microsoft, where Gates & Co. are hoping he can repeat his magic." The piece names Zone.com games Mozaki Blocks and Hexic as Pajitnov creations, although they're not heavily promoted as such, and explains of Mozaki Blocks: "MSN's marketing team took Pajitnov's Atari 2600-style lo-res math game and sexed it up with an Eastern flair: smooth, rounded tiles, Chinese letters... [and] a gong-shaped progress bar."

What?

[Lobo]

How could these games compare against Cat-A-Pult [catquart.com]

Re:Surprise surprise

[Ginga_Ninja]

erm, yes it does (and I only installed Firefox this morning). You need the Flash plugin from here: http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/downl oad.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

Admittedly, it takes a minute to install, but then that's probably the amount of time it took to write your post and is much less a waste of time.

Re:Surprise surprise

[denisb]

Well if you really got those MSN games to work with Firefox 0.9 and Flash 7.0.19 please inform how, otherwise I don't see how your "Informative" score applies.

I could not get any of the linked MSN games to work, all I got was an error when MSN "tries to install or update" my flash (which is brand new and working fine other places).

Gong-shaped progress bar

[mwvdlee]

Just what every game need; gong-shaped progress bars really make a game play much better.

Re:Gong-shaped progress bar

[Alkaiser]

What I had issues with was the article describing it as being "sexed up" where there's clearly nothing sexual about it.

Eastern Flair = Sex?

Seriously people...only government officials and people in marketing are misguided enough to try and link gong shaped progress bars, round tiles and sex.

Re:Gong-shaped progress bar

[b1t r0t]

Um, if it's "gong-shaped", how can you still call it a "bar"? Bars are long, narrow things. Gongs are round things. Pie are not square.

Simplistic Games = Fun

[Tuvai]

People can add all the bells and whistles they want. If I run down a list of the games I've personally enjoyed the most recently it'll include games such as Wario Ware and Puyo Puyo Fever, a notoriously simple concept brilliantly executed.
The most successful Puzzle games have always stuck to this concept, from Tetris to Puyo Puyo, the limited options and emphasis on pattern and formation with multiple routes to the desired goal can flesh out something that doesn't require the player to remember complex keyboard layouts or button combos. Instead the only limits in place are the logic functions of the Human mind.

Re:Simplistic Games = Fun

[eoyount]

Wow hidden troll. Look at the italicized letters to see it.

I heart microsoft

[xgamer04]

So I tried to play the games, right? The first page says I need IE, flash player and win98, and I'm like "yeah whatever", then the page says "you do not have flash player 7". Sure I don't (I do). Then the game doesn't load. Riight.

Somewhat OT rant

[drinkypoo]

I'm really tired of people claiming they "sexed something up". When you say you're gonna sex someone up it means you're gonna fuck 'em up one side and down the other. Unless they made sweet love to it (get naughty with the football... spank it, ever so gently, spank it) they did no such thing.

Furthermore, adding cruft is not sexy. Removing it is. The fourth generation corvette was a piece of crap and the fifth generation has half the parts count yet has more power, better handling, and a body that creates

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

[Moqawama]

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

Death to America! Ten thousand have died in Iraq, and ten million will die soon in America! We do not forget what has happened, and we will make sure the Americans never forget the day they decided to set foot in our lands!

Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!
Tahya al-Moqawama al-Iraqiya!

Long live the Resistance in Iraq!