By Alec Meer on June 14th, 2011 at 10:55 am.
OK, now that we’ve had our dose of morning bitterness and recrimination, let’s turn our attentions to something altogether more cheery. Indie dev Quickfingerz’ free browser game Drop combines ambient music-making with pong-style physics. Blessed with minimalist, icy neon prettiness that evokes an thoroughly abstracted Frozen Synapse, it’s a puzzle game that’s both relaxing and challenging. Unless you play the sandbox mode, in which case it’s purely relaxing. A clever webtoy in its own right, and well thought-out drawing-based puzzles to boot. Give it a go, and feel altogether a little more calm and optimistic about today.
14/06/2011 at 10:59 tomeoftom says:
I’m loving this subtle swing towards the intersection of games and music design.
Edit: Actually, after playing, it’s got little to do with music :(
14/06/2011 at 13:17 nerdook says:
there’s a bunch of games out on Kongregate for the Project of Eden music game contest, and this was one of the entries. I have a few entries on there as well!
14/06/2011 at 11:09 Babylonian says:
I think I like this. Sure, it’s kind of just BallDroppings, which itself is an eight year old game, but this time around, it’s actually a game and not just a sandbox toy. Neat!
14/06/2011 at 11:10 McDan says:
It’s prettyful, mhm.
14/06/2011 at 11:11 tanith says:
pfft, why does everything require the unity web player nowadays?
lame
14/06/2011 at 11:22 baby snot says:
Everything? Really?
Unity for Linux would be nice though. Please make it happy Unity devs who read RPS!
14/06/2011 at 11:28 Sinomatic says:
What’s wrong with it? (I’m asking, genuinely, not challenging).
14/06/2011 at 11:28 Raniz says:
Agreed, I won’t be able to try this one out because of Unity :(
Though, it seems the Unity devs are working on a Linux port
@Sinomatic
I dislike most things that requires me to install a browser plugin, especially if that plugin isn’t available on Linux.
Go HTML5 (canvas, WebGL)
14/06/2011 at 11:40 Sinomatic says:
Ah, that’s fair enough. I’m not usually a fan of plug-ins myself but I’ve found the unity one to be pretty painless thus far. I can understand the reluctance though.
14/06/2011 at 11:41 tanith says:
Well, not everything, but it’s getting more.
I’m just a little bit annoyed because, as already pointed out, there is no client for Linux.
And yes, I also read/heard that they are working on a Linux client but I’ll only believe it when I see it.
It is just like last year when people were saying “Omg, Steam for Linux – CONFIRMED!!1!” and it turned out to be false.
14/06/2011 at 14:09 johnpeat says:
Why do games players care so much about how a game is created? – and worse, why do they MOAN about it everytime they get the chance?
Do art afficionados grumble that an artist used chalks instead of oils or sculpted from stone instead of a pile of old bicycle tyres??
I realise Unity locks out the “too mean to buy a decent OS” club but then Windows games lock out Macs and 360 games lock out PS3 owners and – we don’t want to hear the moans about it in EVERY THREAD, do we?
RPS=PC games=Windows, basically. We tolerate some sandal wearers and pocket-protector types because you have ports and ways and means BUT please don’t soil every thread with your own problems eh?
14/06/2011 at 14:43 tanith says:
trollolol
you can’t make it more obvious :D
14/06/2011 at 15:19 johnpeat says:
You use a thread about a game to complain about the Unity Player and then call ME a Troll
Yeah, right…
14/06/2011 at 15:36 The Tupper says:
I think johnpeat has a valid point regarding the critcism developers get for choosing one platform over another. Shouting ‘troll’ any time someone makes a, shall we say, strident point that one doesn’t like leads nowhere.
In fact, that sort of conduct puts me off commenting on a wide array of posts here simply because I can’t be arsed with it. Although to be fair discourse on RPS is like the Bloomsbury set compared to pretty much every other gaming site I’ve ever visited.
To topic: that wee game is lovely.
14/06/2011 at 15:43 tanith says:
Sorry but if you would actually bother to read his WHOLE post and look at how he phrases it and then look at other posts you’d realise that he’s just trolling for attention.
I don’t have to put up with that kind of crap.
14/06/2011 at 15:50 The Tupper says:
I, of course, did read the whole post: it wasn’t very long. Understand me: I don’t know johnpeat, I’m not vouching for his or her conduct in any other regard but I’m certainly not gonna be vetting the history of anyone on here before I choose to agree with them.
14/06/2011 at 11:21 blorg.beard says:
I would enjoy this much more if the notes were related to the speed with which the balls hit the lines (or something), rather than being random. It makes the soundtrack into an unpleasant cacophony :(
14/06/2011 at 14:10 johnpeat says:
You know what I do when I have a thought like that?
I write my own version!!
There you go, project for you…
14/06/2011 at 11:28 Tatourmi says:
Nice one, next in my playlist.
14/06/2011 at 11:34 Armante says:
alt text +1 at internets
oh, and fun to play too :)
14/06/2011 at 11:41 Flimgoblin says:
Cute wee game. Would be nice if sandbox mode had a few more “toys” like splitters or something so you could compose more interesting tunes….
14/06/2011 at 12:27 Dlarit says:
I’m flumuxed on G2 i cant figure it out at all! its making me angry not calm! DAMN YOU ALEC!!!!!! i’ll destroy you all RPS mark my words……
14/06/2011 at 13:12 identiti_crisis says:
Well, some of the puzzles were nice and challenging, I’ve just managed to complete them all.
However, I do wish someone would make a game where the sound actually impacts gameplay. In this case, turning off the sound doesn’t change the game, unless you’re so affected by the ambience, of course. But in that case, it’s no different to any other game with “ambient” music. This is like a (slightly) less-refined pixel-junk game in terms of the background, “procedural” audio – no slight on the author, of course.
I want a game where the sonic cues give real clues, and actually influence the way you play; something akin to Oblivion’s lock-pick mini-game with the tumblers covered up (i.e. with a mod). In some ways it’s actually easier to pick the locks by ear than by eye, because the visuals can give false positives, but the audio never does, so long as you’re quick enough to react. It’s also more in line with how lock picking really works: mainly by feel (haptic controllers?) and then by sound. Another example from Oblivion: the Nirnroots are a pain in the arse to find, but thankfully they make a sound. Rummaging around trying to find the source of the sound can be “entertaining”, just like trying to find your phone by ringing it! Another example: in Ace of Spades, it’s great fun listening out for people digging, and timing your digging with theirs to mask your break-in to their tunnel as you go to assassinate them :D But these are all rooted in reality, somewhat; what about something a bit more abstract?
I don’t know if this game is supposed to be an audio experiment, since the “level select” interface shows that all it’s really doing is choosing random notes from a scale. I’d like to see someone take this further, e.g. grouping notes according to the object to make pleasing chords associated with that object, or perhaps dissonance to be associated with “baddies” etc., that are arpeggiated when stuff interacts with it. Obviously, much more could be done than that which my feeble mind can conjure, and I’d like to see what a real artist could come up with. If more people thought about sound a bit differently, i.e. as an interactive medium, rather than simply something that happens in the background, that would be a start.
Otherwise I might have to have a stab myself, and that won’t end well.
Eugh, too long a post. Apologies, there might be a point in there somewhere…
15/06/2011 at 05:17 Urthman says:
Of all the things that people whined about Myst for, nothing got more whiny comments than the puzzles that required sound cues to solve.
14/06/2011 at 15:43 airtekh says:
What a lovely little game.
I was in a bad mood before I started playing, but now I’m not. Hurrah!
14/06/2011 at 15:52 The Tupper says:
Hehe. You probably haven’t got to level B3 yet. Driving me nuts.
14/06/2011 at 15:50 rayne117 says:
Got stuck on the second level. I’m not good at things.
14/06/2011 at 20:32 Scandalon says:
I was frustrated at not being able to adjust lines once they are placed – makes adjusting things needlessly convoluted.
For a very good example of this type of game, try out Enigmo(http://www.pangeasoft.net/enigmo/index.html). It’s from Pangea, so originally for MacOS (and now iOS toy things), though there’s a windows version available, but it’s kinda hidden, almost like he doesn’t want to sell it or something.
https://www.ifd.com/product_info.php/products_id/103?osCsid=f118d12c15944758b25e0562e219573f
https://www.ifd.com/product_info.php/products_id/100?osCsid=f118d12c15944758b25e0562e219573f
15/06/2011 at 10:05 luckystriker says:
Scandalon, right click on the line to make it disappear :)
15/06/2011 at 09:50 luckystriker says:
I think it’s lovely.