Well I love my casual games me. Don't get me wrong, I love a good 300 hour Mass Effect 3 (+ ME1 and ME2) save file as much as the next hollow souled recluse but with my often busy lifestyle I feel that while I'm neglecting my duties as a virtual hero in an expansive RPG world, I still need to have my gaming itch scratched.
The downside often is though however, that such casual games can often lack the depth and progression of their bigger production value cousins. However sometimes a casual game will come along which will have you coming back to play little by little for what must sum to hours and hours worth of time because of its devious game design which opens more and more game elements and challenges as you progress. One game, which I've paid the full premium price (a measly £1.24 or something) is Zeptolab's Cut The Rope (an in-browser trial version of the game can be played here) and it's taken over my work life in this last month or so. Research? Cut the Rope! Reading? Cut the Rope! Marking? Please don't go on for too long as it will only interrupt my rope cutting time.
The aim of the game is to feed pieces of candy to a very cute cartoon baby dinosaur/dragon creature called Om Nom by completing an array of skill/puzzle challenges which largely involve (you guessed it) cutting ropes from which the delicious candy hangs from. The levels (and there a lot of them) are organised into ten "boxes" of 25 levels (do the math son) and every time you move onto a new box, lo and behold a brand new element of gameplay is added to the mix for the next wave of levels and by god to they exploit every new feature to its fullest, especially when you'll be using a combination of all the elements revealed to you so far to not only feed Om Nom. but also to use the candy to collect three deviously placed stars in each level before you do so. If you're anything like me, the prospect of three stars per level is a curse as I personally must complete a level with all three stars in tow before I can move on. It's that Angry Birds bullshit all over again but this time it's actually fun and requires some modicum of skill.
It definitely scores highly in my books and I think you'll find that it is a very satisfying casual challenge, especially at the bargain sum of 0.5 p per level. My only concern is that Om Nom isn't getting a balanced diet. All he eats are lollipops, donuts and muffins but I also envy the little mite for this too. Sometimes I deliberately destroy the candy to spite him which leads me to the conclusion that I need to seek therapy. So long folks!
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| Cut the Rope's candy deprived Om Nom makes the same expression I do when I've not had a game to play all day long. |
The downside often is though however, that such casual games can often lack the depth and progression of their bigger production value cousins. However sometimes a casual game will come along which will have you coming back to play little by little for what must sum to hours and hours worth of time because of its devious game design which opens more and more game elements and challenges as you progress. One game, which I've paid the full premium price (a measly £1.24 or something) is Zeptolab's Cut The Rope (an in-browser trial version of the game can be played here) and it's taken over my work life in this last month or so. Research? Cut the Rope! Reading? Cut the Rope! Marking? Please don't go on for too long as it will only interrupt my rope cutting time.
The aim of the game is to feed pieces of candy to a very cute cartoon baby dinosaur/dragon creature called Om Nom by completing an array of skill/puzzle challenges which largely involve (you guessed it) cutting ropes from which the delicious candy hangs from. The levels (and there a lot of them) are organised into ten "boxes" of 25 levels (do the math son) and every time you move onto a new box, lo and behold a brand new element of gameplay is added to the mix for the next wave of levels and by god to they exploit every new feature to its fullest, especially when you'll be using a combination of all the elements revealed to you so far to not only feed Om Nom. but also to use the candy to collect three deviously placed stars in each level before you do so. If you're anything like me, the prospect of three stars per level is a curse as I personally must complete a level with all three stars in tow before I can move on. It's that Angry Birds bullshit all over again but this time it's actually fun and requires some modicum of skill.
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| Yes, yes it is, but that's the entire point... moron. |
It definitely scores highly in my books and I think you'll find that it is a very satisfying casual challenge, especially at the bargain sum of 0.5 p per level. My only concern is that Om Nom isn't getting a balanced diet. All he eats are lollipops, donuts and muffins but I also envy the little mite for this too. Sometimes I deliberately destroy the candy to spite him which leads me to the conclusion that I need to seek therapy. So long folks!
