Minimalist Adventure Game Makes Fun Out of 81 Pixels

Tom Goldman

Crying on the inside.
Aug 17, 2009
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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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Baldry

New member
Feb 11, 2009
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Well this looks interesting, I'm sure i'd have fun if I played it...Maybe I'll play it before skyrim comes out just so Skyrim can blow my mind even more...[sub][sub]God I want skyrim[/sub][/sub]

Edit: FINALLY! After God knows how long I got the first post.
 

Rad Party God

Party like it's 2010!
Feb 23, 2010
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Wow, this game is actually pretty... uhh... what was the word?, the one I used to say about this wonderful medium?... oh yes!, fun!.
 

videocrazy

New member
Dec 17, 2009
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Does anyone know why when I load the page up, the name of the game keeps rapidly changing for a few seconds before stopping? It creates a weird dissonance between the title & description.
 

snave

New member
Nov 10, 2009
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Gahhh!!! 5 pinkies in a room at once. Now that's just a brutal surprise.

Poster above: It's a joke, namely saying that games back then relied on their box blurb and imagination to have any semblance of story.