Souper Trooper: Soup Du Jour

Yes, I know this is old, but i) it came out before RPS existed. Therefore it's new. Nothing exists until we say so and ii) I just don't care. The brilliant Star-Trek-as-Solitaire Weird Worlds came up in conversation today, and I realised bar the Eat Electric Death boardgame I had no idea if Digital Eel had done anything since. And they have. It's Soup Du Jour and it's basically a Physics-based Tetris-style game. The tiny - both in size and length of play - demo is here.

Okay, there's not much to say. Blocks fall from the sky. Arrange ones of similar colour together. They disappear and you score points. What makes it fun is just the physicality of the physics - throwing the blobs together and pushing stuff out the way, trying to avoid sending them flying out the pan is fun. And as World of Goo has taught us, playing with blobby stuff appears to be fun on a fundamental level.

(I talked to Warren Spector about this concept once and used the word "Phenomenological" with a straight face. Won't make that mistake again.)

Main problem with the demo is one of simple size. There's only one level in here, and it's over in a second. Well - I suppose Soup is meant to be a starter, not a main course. If the demo takes your fancy, the full thing is available for ten (Count 'em!) dollars. I think it's worth a shot as i) it'll only take you a couple of minutes, ii) a day without a new game experience to play is a bad day in my books and iii) to make me happy. Because I'm feeling sad that my original extended Abba-referencingtitle for this - Souper Trooper Beans Are Going To Blend Me: Soup Du Jour - just didn't fit.

Life is bad sometimes. Sniff.