Tikkabik

Ten years ago or so, every shareware or hobbyist developer cut their teeth on arcade-style games. Remakes of 80s classics like Galaxian and Asteroids. And what's more, games that I actually cared about. Nowadays, the vogue in cheap game production has become puzzle games.

Action-oriented puzzle games have been around since the 1980s. Tetris was the first one to grab mass attention, and they've been with us more or less ever since. Columns, Super Columns, Super Tetris. There's been a slow evolution over the years.

Collapse and Bejeweled and their ilk have been hugely popular in recent years, and I can understand why; it's for the same reason that popping bubble wrap is fun. There's a zen meditative quality in the repetion of matching colors and shapes together that's undeniably attractive.

But it seems like everyone has to cash in on the idea, implementing minor, iterative changes to the concept and republishing the same idea over and over again.

Here's some advice, game developers: Just because you slap prettier graphics and catchier music than the last guy doesn't mean you've made a better game. Show some originality, for chrissakes.