Monday, August 29, 2016

Split the Atom

Here's something i came across on YouTube: A classic game from the Amiga, called Atoms!

 Original video located here. Accessed 29th August 2016

History will decree that the Amiga folded with the collapse of Commodore circa 1994. But what people may have forgotten is that the Amiga actually had a lifespan beyond Commodore: For a few years afterwards, it proved to be very accommodating that amateur developers, giving them a platform to come up with games of their own - much like how Steam does for amateur developers today. It was an interesting time and one that sadly gets overlooked by gaming historians.

And Atoms was one such game. It was a relatively simple game but damn, if it wasn't a lot of fun. It required players to place atoms in the grid and build up groups of them. Get enough atoms in a box (two in a corner box, three in a side box and four in the rest) and an explosion would trigger sending the atoms in corresponding boxes. The object of the game was to turn all the atoms on the board into the player's respective color. Again, this was a simple game and admittedly it took a while to get going, but once the players had enough atoms, it was possible to send off tremendous chain reactions in attempt to achieve victory. There was fun to be had, especially with multiple people, and it was hilarious to see a colossal chain reaction play out. It may have been brief but it never ceased to function as an entertaining party game.

Looking at this game through the perspective of modernity, there is no reason why a game this simplistic would ever work. It might work as part of collection of mini-games (ie Mario Party) but not as a standalone game. So why does this game so simple work?

The zany music? Yeah lets go with that

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