Feb. 16 Update

For the past week, I’ve spent more time playing iPhone games and for this review I’m going to talk about ‘Boxed In 2’. To start off, this game has NO AUDIO, which kind of sucks. On the other hand, audio is fairly pointless in this simple puzzle game but some background music would be nice. The goal of the game is simple: collect all the gears and reach the exit. Although it sounds easy, this game can get mind boggling at times. There are coloured barriers that block your path and you must push cardboard boxes into the corresponding coloured ‘tile’ to open it. The player is a robot and makes 1 move at a time, can only push boxes (no pulling), and undo will only work for one move (the most recent one made). Once the player gets further into the game, it becomes obvious that each move must be carefully considered since they MUST be moved in a certain way, otherwise, it will not work out. 

‘Boxed In 2’ is the sequel to the original ‘Boxed In’, which is exactly the same in terms of gameplay and graphics. The only difference is in the puzzles. ‘Boxed In 3’ has also been released recently and from the looks of it there seems to be some changes in the graphics. Other than that, gameplay seems to remain the same. A spinoff in this series is the ‘Iced In’ game, which follows the same basic concept of moving boxes except for the fact that the player is trying to save a penguin and with each push, the ice cube (box) will slide all the way to the other end or until it hits an obstacle. 

The game is heavily focused on the gameplay portion as it offers many different puzzles. The challenging gameplay is what compensates for the lack of music and makes it acceptable to have more ‘cartoony’ graphics for everything. Overall, it is a fun game that’s worth the $0.99 (or nothing if you’ve downloaded them when they were free) and is a great way to pass time on the bus.

Here's a gameplay / walkthrough video for one of the levels:

For the progress update on the GDW game, I’ve finally managed to finish the particle system! The current state of the system allows for it to be easily integrated into the game and should prove to be easy to for use on the various particles in the game. The system does need to be patched up here and there but they are very minor and I will also continue to add to it should it become necessary. Also, I am doing some research into salaries and costs for various things (rent, software licenses, etc.). This is for the cost analysis portion of the pitch document.

As soon as I get the chance I will post a video / screenshot of the system. My regular school laptop has been sent in for repairs and running bootcamp on a mac WILL fail hard when you want to print screen... I have yet to find a keyboard shortcut for doing so so I will post one when I get the chance.