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Friday 26 April 2019

=== Mobile Game Review -- Connection - Puzzle - 10/10 ===


Welcome to Connection, a minimalist-style puzzle game all about connecting the dots.


With each level the player is presented with a series of spaces which must all be connected from a starting position through all the other spaces on the level. Each level presents varying numbers of colours and each space can be connected with any available colour as long as the chain remains unbroken and all spaces are covered.


Some spaces will have a dot within a circle which means it must be connected twice. This can be completed either by running the same colour through the space twice, or running two different colours through the space; this is the only way to have two different coloured lined cross each other.


Another mechanic in Connection are what I would call portals. These spaces come in pairs which allow the player to connect a line into one side of the portal and continue out from the other side; this would be the only way to have an unconnected line of the same colour in two different places.


The last mechanic of Connection (that I have come across so far) are empty coloured spaces. These spaces MUST be filled with only that specific colour and no other colour. With all of these available mechanics, there are many different forms of available levels... I have yet to break the surface of the game as the advertisements seem to indicate that there are more than 200 available levels to play.


Many level have more than one way to complete them...


And not all levels have the same type of layout, which may end up throwing your for a loop every once in a while.

Summary

Gameplay: I'm not usually the biggest puzzle-type person because they aren't as action-packed or strategic as I prefer, but this one is very fun and even though the same few mechanics are being used throughout each level, it's still a fun activity when killing time to exercise your brain.

Possibly my favourite part about this over other games, is that there's no energy-limit to stop the player from continuing to play more. There's nothing saying it costs 1 energy to play a level and you can only save up 1 energy per hour up to a maximum of 10. NOTHING LIKE THAT AT ALL. Which means as long as you're up to the task of arranging colourful lines, you can continue as long as you like.

Sound: There are some nice and satisfying clicks and some very chill music to listen to while completing each level. Though it's nothing special to talk about, it's very enjoyable and definitely doesn't take away from the game at all.

Replayability: As already mentioned, I keep wanting to play more and more levels even though they're the same mechanics over and over and over. I definitely wouldn't want to replay the same levels that I've already passed over again, but as long as I'm continuing to progress into newer levels, I would happily keep going forward through this game.

Sidenote: I wouldn't call this game difficult, though there are certainly times where you must give a little thought about how to arrange things... Reading the advertisement on the Connection page claims that if you can pass 200 levels in less than 30 minutes, you're a genius. I just did the math and figure that would be about 9 seconds per level. I'm sure if you practiced a lot at the mechanics and patterns that you'd be able to pass level quite quickly, but 200 levels at 9 seconds each seems like a pretty far stretch to actually be able to do without any prior knowledge of the game.

SCORE: I really enjoy Connection not as a measure of how smart I am, but rather as a simple and relaxing puzzle game. My score for Connection will be 10/10 because as far as puzzle games go, this one is the first which has really caught my eye and had me continue to play further and further even without any new mechanics being involved.

Thursday 25 April 2019

My Apologies - Life Is So Busy

I definitely want to apologize for not being very active lately on the blog and with making videos and things. There's tons of stuff that I want to do, but with so much overtime being available for work lately and so much going on at home, I've found myself to be so busy that I haven't had any time to work on my own things.

I have so many plans and so much that I want to do, I just don't know what to do with it all when I get the little amounts of time that I do have where I'm not busy. Let me take this moment to inform you that I have a lot in the works to post as soon as I get back on track and find some free time to do so. You know... once I get over being so tired that I can't focus on anything and only feel like sleeping when I'm doing something other than working.

I'm sure I've said this before, but I really have a want to get back on track with all of my content production including blog posts, YouTube videos, Twitch streams, book readings, song singings, and more! My goal for the coming months is to do more of everything even if it's only a 1-hour stream each night.

As I think about this more I realize that not only am I having a problem with available time (which will get better I'm sure), but also that when I do actually have time available to me I'm often too tired or generally not motivated enough to actually do anything other than watch someone else's content instead of making my own. Perhaps what I should be doing (and I'm finding this with work as well) is being more enthusiastic about things and put more emotion into my actions. I do find that music works much better for becoming active rather than sitting and becoming a zombie... I'll have to give it some work in the coming month and see what happens.

Keep an eye out as I get back into the groove of things and get going on all the plans I have in motion. At this point, once I get started, the content won't stop any time soon.... I just have to get over the hurdle of GETTING STARTED rather than sitting around. We're going to make next month amazing and get right back on track where we left off, or do even better than before.

I know we can make this big together, just stick around and wait for the fun to come about. We're going to be amazing.

~ Kyle Welykholowa