This post has not been edited by the GamesBeat staff. Opinions by GamesBeat community writers do not necessarily reflect those of the staff.
Zen Sound
Zen Sound isn’t a music app, but it isn’t a game either. It’s somewhere in between, and ultimately closer to those abstract experimental games like The Passage, or XBLI’s own Time Flows But Does Not Return. The goal here isn’t to make a song as much as it’s to appreciate the act of creating music. You move a pointer around the screen and press a button to play a note. Each time you do this the sound resonates for a bit, repeating with each measure, but slowly fading away. The fleeting nature of each note forces a constant flow of creativity and experimentation – it evokes the joy of making music on a small scale. The only hitch is that it’s a bit pricey at 400 points. (400pts)
???????? (Jump!)
Jump! is a lot like those Mario levels where the screen scrolls automatically and you’re forced to keep up. It would be weird that someone made an entire game of this, except they didn’t – while Jump! is a solid, if unpolished platformer, it’s also ridiculously short. You can complete the game within the span of the trial. (80pts)
?????????????
This Zelda clone is a little rough around the edges, but it captures the spirit of that classic series. It has all the basic hallmarks including dungeons, treasure, and a boy who rolls out of bed to begin his adventure. Unfortunately, those hallmarks only extend so far, as this game only features a town and two brief dungeons to explore. Using save points over the course of 4 or 5 trial sessions, you can see the credits roll without wasting a dime. (240pts)
X OVER??????????
This game has a unique approach to limiting your trial time. After a few somewhat challenging waves of 2D-shooting action, it launches a random and seemingly endless swarm of ships at you. I’ll admit after several tries I couldn’t get past it. I began to get a sneaking suspicion – I don’t think there’s much more game after that. Either way, this instance of terrible game design left me sour. (240pts)
BitStream
It’s odd that BitStream isn’t the first game to pit lines against each other in a race. On the other hand, it’s not hard to see the promise in the idea – the abstraction of racing lets you remove the strict rules of the real world and boil it down to a simpler form. BitStream does this, but it goes too far, eliminating all of the interesting dynamics inherent in most racing games. You’re either going too fast or too slow, and the mess of colored lines all over the track makes it far too easy to lose track of yourself. (400pts)
MADRISM
It took a little bit of research to get even the slightest grasp on this game. Apparently it’s an interior decorator/puzzle game – you could have fooled me. You place shapes on a grid, and it seems that you’re supposed to connect the various rooms in order to get points. The problem was that a lot of it seemed to either happen incorrectly or accidentally. Madrism may be an example of experimental gameplay, but it seems far more likely that the developers were too lazy to include a tutorial. (80pts)