Icarus Studios News

Part 3, Puzzles and the Rest

(Continued from Part 2)

If, however, you’re not a social butterfly, you don’t have a God complex, and smashing things to bits doesn’t sound appealing to you, puzzle games might be right up your alley. Puzzles require either problem-solving intelligence or extremely developed hand-eye coordination, depending on whether you have to navigate through a complicated maze or rapidly organize geometric shapes, like in the highly mesmerizing game Tetris (that I deny playing in my youth until my fingers were callused and my eyes crossed, thank you very much). These games are typically (but not always) popular among older players who enjoyed crosswords, brainteasers, dominos, and chess in their youth, before the electronic game industry exploded. (My grandmother, for instance, is mad for Window’s Solitaire and Sodoku. If this mild addiction does eventually lead to Granny gambling online, I take comfort in the fact that no one on the Internet will see her poor poker face.)

Now, in this article series, I’ve mentioned several kinds of games, but did I cover all the bases? Nope. There’re tons of other game subgenres worth exploring. These include, off the top of my head: visual novels, interactive-movies, party simulations, sports events, 3D board games, and musical competitions, such as the smash hit, Rock Band. All the games I’ve mentioned are very lucrative because they’re all very engaging. (Although, if one were partial, one might say they are not as engaging as a virtual world…) Game genres come in many shapes and styles, and by that I mean they can be adult-oriented and feature sexual activity, or they can be educational and used as a teaching tool (more on edutainment in another post), or they can feature survival/horror elements, which may result in many nights sleeping with the light on; they can focus on epic adventures or casual text-chat conversations; and they can even have thematic game-play involving things as specific as physical exercise or religious teachings. (I breathlessly anticipate the day when Dance Dance Revolution and Bible Grand Slam Deluxe join forces to create a mega-game for the mind, body, and spirit.)

The best way to figure out what game is right for you is to sample a little bit of everything, make some patient friends who love to game, and subscribe to Fallen Earth and other Icarus Studios’ Virtual World properties as they become available—er, I mean… um… be an informed consumer; the more you learn about what games you enjoy, the more you learn about yourself. And as one of my coworkers said just today, “Knowing is half the battle. The other half is violence.”

Happy game-play.

-Kara Stambach, Virtual Worlds Team