Pretty cool. I like the music. Kind of funereal and hopeless. Like, don't worry, you will be killed. You should make you don't need to hit num lock on the numeric keypad...

:s/make you/make it so you/

I also like the music

Pretty addictive. My best so far is 27.

You should make you don't need to hit num lock on the numeric keypad...

Oh, ho, good idea. I didn't really test for that because I am a lazy jerk, basically.

Like, don't worry, you will be killed.

Heh, exactly. I've always liked the soundtracks for the Resident Evil games, how they tend to default to a sort of gloomy, slow-burn horror tenseness. This isn't exactly the same feel but it's in that territory of sort of this-isn't-going-to-go-well pessimism.

I don't get it.

It's sort of like Chat Noir in reverse, special-k.

I like a lot! Playing in between traded rounds of Punch-Out! for Wii at the moment, but I'll give it a more thorough go tomorrow to be sure.

It tells me to burn things.

I left the Wii at the neighbors' across the hall, which allowed me to spend some more time.

The thing that would prevent me from playing this non-stop and obsessively, I think, is probably what you're referring to as the "death comes unfairly" aspect. Namely: Teleporting isn't safe. (Where "safe" means that you're not in danger of same-move-dying from teleporting.) Would it be too easy if teleporting was safe? What about the once per turn safe teleporting referenced by the wiki?

I've never played Robots before. Perhaps that will shed some light on this. Regardless, it's fun for what it is, no question.

Yeah, it's an inherently unfair game. There are more feature-rich versions of it that provide things like limited safe teleports (unlimited safe teleports would make the game unloseable, natch), extra power pickups on the board, etc.

I don't think this version is necessarily the most fun one possible, in that respect, but it's definitely the purest. And just about the simplest, which was a big design plus considering the learning-the-ropes context.

It's the sort of game that I play for a half an hour, cursing every time I die and then immediately starting another game. I think it might be a zen koan or something.

I was tempted to create a winning state—survive level 10, something like that—but it didn't seem right. You can't win at Tetris, either, not real Tetris; all you can do is not lose quite yet. This is just more existentially bleak yet, since not only can you not win, you can't even really keep yourself from losing.

My next game will involve hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, maybe.

This is just more existentially bleak yet, since not only can you not win, you can't even really keep yourself from losing.

Isn't that the Second Law of Thermodynamics?