Minimalist Adventure Game Makes Fun Out of 81 Pixels
Tinyhack is about as minimalist an adventure game as you can get.
Going back to play Legend of Zelda on the NES might seem simple after playing the 3D, vertex-shaded, bloom-lighted games of today, but Rob Beschizza of Boing Boing's Tinyhack will show you what a simple game really is. It's an adventure game that plays out on a grid of just 9x9 squares.
Tinyhack boils gaming down to its simplest elements. It uses pixels of different colors to represent various virtual objects. The player is a square of white, dungeon entrances are red, gold artifacts are yellow, and monsters are brown and purple (those purple ones are tough!). The player's health is represented by a square of green that darkens as it lowers.
The goal is to collect 16 gold artifacts to get the key to the island fortress. Players can find a sword, shield, and boat to help them along with way, in addition to magical abilities.
The name of the actual game is randomly generated from set titles when you load it up. I got titles such as Nemesis's Gemstone, The Sphinx's Artifact, and Dreamstone of the Unicorn. They all basically work because, well, the graphics leave a lot to the imagination.
Despite its minimalist style, Tinyhack is not easy. It requires some memorization to learn which dungeons to take on first for health management purposes. It's a fun little thing though, and reminds us that gaming is not about graphics all the time. You can play it here [http://boingboing.net/rob/tinyhack/].
Source: Boing Boing [http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/20/tinyhack-minimalist-1.html]
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Tinyhack is about as minimalist an adventure game as you can get.
Going back to play Legend of Zelda on the NES might seem simple after playing the 3D, vertex-shaded, bloom-lighted games of today, but Rob Beschizza of Boing Boing's Tinyhack will show you what a simple game really is. It's an adventure game that plays out on a grid of just 9x9 squares.
Tinyhack boils gaming down to its simplest elements. It uses pixels of different colors to represent various virtual objects. The player is a square of white, dungeon entrances are red, gold artifacts are yellow, and monsters are brown and purple (those purple ones are tough!). The player's health is represented by a square of green that darkens as it lowers.
The goal is to collect 16 gold artifacts to get the key to the island fortress. Players can find a sword, shield, and boat to help them along with way, in addition to magical abilities.
The name of the actual game is randomly generated from set titles when you load it up. I got titles such as Nemesis's Gemstone, The Sphinx's Artifact, and Dreamstone of the Unicorn. They all basically work because, well, the graphics leave a lot to the imagination.
Despite its minimalist style, Tinyhack is not easy. It requires some memorization to learn which dungeons to take on first for health management purposes. It's a fun little thing though, and reminds us that gaming is not about graphics all the time. You can play it here [http://boingboing.net/rob/tinyhack/].
Source: Boing Boing [http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/20/tinyhack-minimalist-1.html]
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