There may not be any more 100% original ideas...

...but it doesn't mean that ideas are no longer good. In fact, repeated ideas often mean that they are successful - hence repeated. It could also mean that the old ideas have a new twist!

So there's this quote here said by Mark Twain.

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

So using non-original ideas are not necessarily bad or cliche. In particular, I'm going to talk about two games I've briefly tried recently - "Jawns" and "Tricky Towers".

Jawns is a Humble Original and for now, it seems like it's only available via the April Humble Bundle Monthly. Tricky Towers is available on steam! From now until 17th April 2017, you can get it at 60% off (it may come back in the future). I got it because it looked like it could play multiplayer and I had spare Steam Wallet from selling some of my trading cards and D2 cosmetics.

Back to the topic, Jawns, as described by the creators:

"the speed of checkers and the depth of chess", "chess. wit' out the rules."

First off, it has great graphics. This sort of minimalistic art style is very clean, the colours are nice, the music is okay too. The animation is cute and snappy as well. One thing that greatly bugs me however, is that I cannot resize the window. As a "smaller window" it stands as a long vertical thing and part of it sticks out beyond my taskbar. (The only way I could take nice screenshots of it was to maximize the window.)

I have to say that the rules of the game are rather complex, but generally the rule is that bigger numbers eat smaller numbers, and you win when you eat the opponent's target (much like the king in chess). I have to be honest about it - I cannot really explain the rules. (That probably explains why the official Jawns video doesn't have much information either.)

The real reason why the rules are so hard to explain isn't really because it's complicated, but rather, there are multiple game modes. For example...

This is just an example of one of the five main game modes. For treasure hunt in particular, the 6 selected options are "Random jawn distribution", "Strongest jawn has 3 pips", "Drag neighbours to swap", "Invisible targets", "All 1s become blank jawns", "Blank jawns can attack anything once".

Due to this many options, it's not easy to explain every single one of them. (Although I think those above are pretty straightforward sounding.) This is in no way a deterrent to keep us from playing though, I find this interesting, and also because we can create our own custom mode! My personal favourite is the "Swap upgrade" where swapping jawns give them each +1. (And I dislike invisible targets because they make me so frustrated...)

One last thing, I couldn't find the pause button anywhere. It took me a while to figure it out. If you look at the 4th photo (of this post), you can see that there's a pause button visible (but not for the others!). The pause button actually appears only when you hover the bars, both the top and the bottom ones show.

Well, finally I have to admit that I am bad at chess. And checkers. It's just not my thing and I can't get my head around it, so, unfortunately, I won't be playing it that much. I would definitely recommend everyone to at least give it a try though, especially anyone who really likes chess. :)

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Again, this is purely personal preference/opinion, and in no way complete representations or perfect reviews of both games, but I just gotta say that I was just a little more interested in Tricky Towers.

I was drawn to it the moment I laid eyes on it. I mean, tetris? My favourite childhood game. With the element of multiplayer with friends? Sign me up! I was reminded of the times I played Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo on the Playstation with my family when I was six. On further viewing of screenshots, it seemed similar to Not Tetris!

As a student who studied a little about illustration and character design this semester, I've also felt that the little wizards were well-designed and really cute. The sound effects were cute as well, and seemed to go well with the style of the game.

In terms of the placing, of course, there are differences between original Tetris, Not Tetris, and Tricky Towers. On a scale of rigidness to randomness (Tetris to Not Tetris), Tricky Towers would be in the middle. One thing that would definitely make Tricky Towers stand out from the others is the "magic". (Kinda like Mario Kart's powerups compared to regular no-powerups racing games)

Also a slightly special addition would be the solo gameplay. Besides the usual survival mode, Weird Beard has also opted to include game stages. So far (at least for easy stage), there are 3 different kinds of stages.

The first one I've shown here is to stack a certain number of tetrominos without dying (I believe there are 3 lives for easy stage, probably less for high levels). As you can see, my bottom is still rather stable, but the top starts to get all wonky.

Next is the race stage, where you have to reach a certain height within the time limit. You can see that I failed at least once. The AI will cast spells to annoy you, but you also get a spell to use when you reach the rainbow line (see the first of three photos). You can drop as many tetrominos as you want in this stage.

The third one is the puzzle stage. I actually find this one the most interesting. You have to place all the tetrominos and they cannot go above the laser line. Obviously, you cannot drop any tetrominos as well.

And of course, there are the classic endless mode.

In fact, two different kinds of endless modes! The first one, related to the puzzle stage. You are required to place tetrominos under the laser, and managing to place a certain number will raise the height of the laser. The second is straightforward - just endless stacking, and you lose if you drop 3 tetrominos. (I was bad at that...)

There are also global leaderboards for the solo endless modes, and online cups if you fancy playing with strangers or just want a bit of competition.

I also know that the game has power-ups (I mentioned it above but didn't go into it much) and these would be used more often in multiplayer mode. I may make another post about it (or maybe a post with our cool towers) another time.

Mostly, I am just hoping my p3 controller will work so that I can play the local multiplayer when my friend comes over. I'm sure that no matter how well the solo gameplay is done -- the best things about these games are when you have a blast playing with your friends (and the most ridiculous situations will happen and you can laugh with them instead of alone).

That's all from me for now! I hope you enjoyed seeing these old ideas renewed and changed in different ways.

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