Dots (Betaworks, 2013, iOS)

I have a pretty wide taste in video games, but I generally lean towards games that are naturally finite.  I like to know when I get into a game that it has a clear ending, or at least a point after which I can step aside from it without second thoughts.  The same is true of my favorite puzzle games; I like the solvable kind.  So as much as I can appreciate how great Tetris is, it was never one of my favorite games growing up, and I'm still kind of wretched at it.

The same is mostly true of it's myriad clones and descendants.  You won't catch me playing Candy Crush Saga on the T.  But I have flirted with these types of games on occasion, and since I'm on a puzzle game trip lately, now's as good a time as any to share my thoughts.

Dots, for example, is certainly pleasing in it's minimalism.  For those who haven't partaken, Dots gives you a simple grid of colored dots, and you link consecutive dots of the same color in order to remove them from the screen.  Do this for a minute, and the game scores you on how many dots you've removed.  That's it.  Shortest game summary ever.

Well, not quite.  The hidden twist is that if you remove a square, then all dots of the same color are removed at once.  This is the key to getting a high score.  Well, that's not quite all either, since the game allows you to spend your accumulated points (or real dollars) to purchase all sorts of power-ups that boost your score in various ways.  But these would seemingly make your best score somewhat arbitrary and meaningless, which defeats the purpose entirely.  So I've stayed far away from those. 

Like I said, I like games with a goal, and so I came up with a way to make this game (and other score-oriented games) worthwhile to me; the back-and-forth.  My wife and I would alternate with this game (which we played on my iPod Touch), each one playing until he or she could beat the high score of the other.  Actually seeing someone get to a certain high score gives you the knowledge that it's possible, which motivates you to work to beat it.  We actually had quite a bit of fun getting better at the game...until Clare got lucky, with a score so ridiculously high that I had no chance of matching it (or even coming close, really).

Like I said, the real goal of the game is to find as many squares as possible.  Well, sometimes, you just get really lucky and a whole bunch of them come together in sequence.  Now, if I was really good at the game, then I would know how to choose my matches, so as to create squares.  But as soon as I'm thinking about that, I'm not moving my finger as fast as possible, and my score suffers.  So the game was fun for a while, but I don't see myself getting anything better.  And that's it.  I can understand that it's still a good way to use up a free moment, but I play enough games as it is, that my time-wasters take other forms.