Game Analysis: The Impossible Quiz

Overview

Title: The Impossible Quiz
Author: SPLAPP-ME-DO

The Impossible Quiz is an online 2D casual Flash game. It can be found at a number of websites, but this one has a version which does not have background music (I prefer this version, the original plays the 'Rocky' theme over and over again).

http://www.addictinggames.com/theimpossiblequiz.html

It is fun to play, and also extremely addicting.

Gameplay

The format of the game is a quiz, and the objective of the game is to beat the quiz (which is hard to do, hence its name). The quiz is also linear: the player must complete each question before receiving the next one, and the quiz always starts at question 1.

The player receives three lives, which are used up when answering a question incorrectly. Periodically throughout the game, there are also chances to receive 'bonus arrows' which allow the user to skip a question if they find it too difficult to answer, and do not want to lose a life.

The questions in the quiz are quite unconventional in nature, and usually require out-of-the-box thinking and backwards logic. A lot of the questions in the quiz are multiple-choice, although there are some which are more like micro-games, such as finding a hidden object.

The answer to this question is "no, but a tin can". There are often answers included as choices which may seem to be correct at first glance (i.e. "yes"). To complicate the quiz further, the correct answer is not even always one of those 4 choices:

The correct answer to this question is literally found in the question: "the answer". There are often very few instructions given for the questions, making finding the answer to many of them a trial-and-error affair. There are also many pop culture references in the game:

The answer is, of course, the hammer.

Sometimes, the player is not permitted to use one of their 'bonus arrows', in cases where the question is more difficult.

There is one last element to the game. There are some questions which are timed, and if you do not find the correct answer, the game will end. This timer is represented by a bomb:

Strengths

This game is wickedly addictive, since is it does not take long to remember the answers, (I haven't played this in probably a year, and I can still remember quite a few of them). In this way, even when a player loses all their lives, it is not difficult or time-consuming to return to where they were in the game.

There are also many humorous elements in the questions and micro-games which make playing the levels interesting.

Weaknesses

Although I have played this a countless number of times, I still have not beaten the quiz. This may be seen as a strength at first, because keeps people playing longer, but it can also be downright frustrating. Consider this: when I Googled "Impossible Quiz", the second-most-searched field was "impossible quiz answers", proving that I am not the only person to be annoyed at times.

Also, some of the answers actually make no sense to me, and I only know they are correct through trial-and-error.

Summary

Despite its frustrating nature at times, the Impossible Quiz keeps me coming back again and again, (even if I have to take a hiatus from it for a while). This probably has a lot to do with human nature and wanting to solve it, to complete it, especially knowing that others have already done so.

The Impossible Quiz may not be impossible, but it sure is close to it. I can complete up to question 85 or so, how far can you get?

Tutorial Four: Space Invaders

In today's tutorial, you will create a Space Invaders-like game. There are some pretty complicated parts, so I tried to be as thorough as possible with the instructions. If you have any questions, let me know.

I would budget about 45 minutes to an hour to complete it. I also highly recommend that you do Mandy's tutorial first, although you don't need that file to complete this one.

I've emailed a copy to all of you over UW-ACE (it is a .pdf file).

Good Luck!

Yahoo! Towers

Well, I've taken a sick day from school, and I thought I could catch up on some casual gaming to make me feel better.

Today I revisited a game that I like to play once in awhile - Yahoo! Towers. It's Tetris-like in the fact that there are shapes that fall which the user can rotate, and that it is totally addictive, however it is completely different in all other aspects.

Game Play

First of all, it is a multiplayer game - at least two people, but up to eight people, must face-off against each other. If there is someone playing directly beside you, they are your partner and can help you out.

There are rectangular shapes, made up of 3 separate square blocks which fall. These blocks can be 6 different colours (grey, green, blue, purple, yellow or orange). The player can rotate the order of the blocks, but the rectangle always stays vertical.


The goal of the game is to force your opponent(s) to fill up their screen with blocks while keeping your screen clear. You do this by placing your blocks into colour-groups of 3 in order to clear them. They can be grouped vertically, horizonally or diagonally. If you have a partner, you can clear blocks across BOTH of your play areas (e.g. if you have a blue block on the far right side of your screen and your partner has 2 blue blocks on the far left of their screen, and they touch, all 3 will clear). There are also special blocks which can attack your opponent(s) or help you (or your partner). Blocks that rotate come to your defense, while blocks that have sparks attack others.

The blocks also have letters on them that spell Y-A-H-O-O-! There are more advanced things the player can do with the letters (i.e. if you spell YAHOO! with your blocks and break 3 more right after, bad things happen to your opponent(s).)

Controls

The controls of the game are quite simple: use your arrow keys to move / rotate blocks and your space bar to use special blocks (attack / defense). For more advanced game play, you can target specific people by pressing their number (you and your partner would have numbers 1 and 2).

Try it out!

It might seem a bit complicated at first, but that is one great thing about this game: you can build up your knowledge of how to play slowly. At the very least, all you have to remember is how to rotate / move blocks and to smash the space bar when you collect special blocks.

You have to have a Yahoo! account to play, but its totally worth it since I only use mine to play this game.