Friday, April 30, 2010
Monday, April 20, 2009
What is the Lumines Effect?
I hadn't played Lumines in about six months when my friend linked me to a wikipedia article on the Tetris effect. While I have played plenty of Tetris, I immediately recognized the symptoms as something I had experienced most intensely after long sessions at my favorite puzzle game. Remembering this sensation and the accompanying effects (intensely focused awareness, heightened adrenaline, euphoric success at beating my prior records) , I decided to pick up my PSP again and have at a few time trials. Fast forward several hours and I was in the clutches of the Lumines* effect. While the Tetris effect is something that is described as a mental artifact after one has stopped playing, I think of the Lumines effect as being something that occurs not only after but while playing. The mind and body merge into a piece of machinery with one task: clear as many bricks absolutely as quickly as possible. No other game can command so much of my attention so quickly.
Though the intensity that is felt when one plays a game may not be unique to Lumines, I feel that there is a beautiful elegance to its simplicity that allows the player to be absorbed in a way that other games with more complex mechanics would prevent. The goal of this blog is to examine all of the various aspects of Lumines that I have noticed since I first played it in 2005. The topics will in general focus on the psychological, physical, metaphysical, philosophical, and metaphorical aspects of the game as well as just the game itself.
For a little background about myself, I have been playing Lumines, as I said, since 2005. I played through much of the challenge mode but was most taken by the concentrated intensity that I found when I played the time attack. Other reasons why this mode was so popular was that I felt it fit the hand-held mentality of a game that could just be picked up to kill a few minutes and then set down again (even if the shapes kept playing on in my mind). I quickly outpaced any of my friends that had Lumines in vs mode so I sought out online forums where I could compare my skills with others and I was quite pleased to find a little app from the now defunct inthebin.co.uk website. The app allowed me to upload my scores directly to the site with a simple leaderboard ranking system that showed me just how bad I really was. This only inspired me more though as I decided that I would hit the 999,999 club and continue to crank up my time attack times. Before the site went down and stopped being updated I had uploaded a 999,999 score and a time attack of 100 in 60 seconds which is still better than I can do 99% of the time I play but hey the point is that it happened. I realize that there are probably a lot of people out there that are better than me and a lot of people that are worse but this has no effect on my level of passion that I have for the game. These days there are plenty of videos online of people not only breaking 100 in 60 but 200 in 60! In the future I hope to get some insight in to how some of these top players feel about the game and whether or not they continue to play.
Lumines has been the longest running gaming passion in my life and I hope to convey this to you and convince you that maybe it is possible for a game to be more than just a game if you open your mind to the possibilities.
*Lumines and Lumines II will be used interchangeably
Though the intensity that is felt when one plays a game may not be unique to Lumines, I feel that there is a beautiful elegance to its simplicity that allows the player to be absorbed in a way that other games with more complex mechanics would prevent. The goal of this blog is to examine all of the various aspects of Lumines that I have noticed since I first played it in 2005. The topics will in general focus on the psychological, physical, metaphysical, philosophical, and metaphorical aspects of the game as well as just the game itself.
For a little background about myself, I have been playing Lumines, as I said, since 2005. I played through much of the challenge mode but was most taken by the concentrated intensity that I found when I played the time attack. Other reasons why this mode was so popular was that I felt it fit the hand-held mentality of a game that could just be picked up to kill a few minutes and then set down again (even if the shapes kept playing on in my mind). I quickly outpaced any of my friends that had Lumines in vs mode so I sought out online forums where I could compare my skills with others and I was quite pleased to find a little app from the now defunct inthebin.co.uk website. The app allowed me to upload my scores directly to the site with a simple leaderboard ranking system that showed me just how bad I really was. This only inspired me more though as I decided that I would hit the 999,999 club and continue to crank up my time attack times. Before the site went down and stopped being updated I had uploaded a 999,999 score and a time attack of 100 in 60 seconds which is still better than I can do 99% of the time I play but hey the point is that it happened. I realize that there are probably a lot of people out there that are better than me and a lot of people that are worse but this has no effect on my level of passion that I have for the game. These days there are plenty of videos online of people not only breaking 100 in 60 but 200 in 60! In the future I hope to get some insight in to how some of these top players feel about the game and whether or not they continue to play.
Lumines has been the longest running gaming passion in my life and I hope to convey this to you and convince you that maybe it is possible for a game to be more than just a game if you open your mind to the possibilities.
*Lumines and Lumines II will be used interchangeably
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