pixelatron

So both these games have two things in common. One: uppercase letters. Two: a finely-balanced sense of how to test your hand-eye coordination to breaking point.

AVOIDAL by Hybrid Mind Studios is another of those 200-odd Ludum Dare 18 games, and clearly there can’t be that many people playing it because I’ve managed to claw my way up to #6 in the high score table. You’re a robot, and you have to destroy mines by triggering nearby rockets and floaty red homing blobs to smash into them. Simple as that.

If I had one complaint – and it’s the nitpicky complaint of someone who’s clearly spent far too long playing the damn thing – it’s that the mines only take out one blob at a time, when common sense tells you they should obliterate everything in the vicinity. Otherwise, AVOIDAL just feels right, gets thrillingly hectic, and gives you the feeling that, attempt by attempt, you’re getting that little bit better. Pretty impressive for a game coded in 48 hours. Play AVOIDAL (Flash)

And then there’s You MIGHT Get Nervous by Lubos Lenco, which was probably coded in 48 minutes. It’s not really a game so much as a primitive test of the ambidextrous skills you’ve built up over years of playing videogames. As blocks swim all over the screen, your right hand’s doing one thing, your left hand is simultaneously doing two other things, everything moves faster and faster, and your eyes and brain try to keep track of everything at once before eventually catching fire and exploding.

Honestly, it’ll put your face into the same involuntary hyper-concentrated grimace you see on people defusing bombs in movies. Play You MIGHT Get Nervous (Flash)