Blocks

Blocks is a 1986 Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore 64, released (according to GB64) by Robtek Ltd.

This one seems very much like a recolored version of Glen Fisher’s Hanoi. I’d be surprised if it weren’t based on it or one of its successors. As a result, my opinion of this one is the same as with those–it’s functional, but not worth a second look.

Towers of Hanoi (1985)

Towers of Hanoi by Daniel Miller is a 1985 Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore 64.

This is just your standard Tower of Hanoi game, with a couple of differences: first, it doesn’t seem to be able to tell when you’ve won, instead requiring the player to press F1 to quit; second, pressing F1 during play will offer the option of having the computer solve the puzzle.

The animation of the discs moving is quite slow, making it rather boring to solve–it takes fully seven seconds to move a disc from the bottom of the left stack to the bottom of the right stack.

This would just be a rather poor Tower of Hanoi game, worthy of no particular notice, if it weren’t for one thing. Towers of Hanoi was published in the June 1985 issue of Ahoy!, a magazine for Commodore users–in fact, it was mentioned on the cover–and the writeup for the game is really great. It gives Lucas’s story about the priests in the temple moving discs about, counting down to the end of the world; it discusses the number of moves required to solve the puzzle; and it also describes some programming tricks the game uses quite lucidly. It’s a lovely little article, the sort that I really enjoy reading. It’s just a pity it wasn’t attached to a better game.

Stack

Stack by Glenn W. Zuch is a 1985 Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore 64 with stunningly bad design.

I’ve opened this on a rather strong assertion, but it’s really deserved. For all the games I’ve reviewed so far, the worst thing you could really say about them was that they were unoriginal, boring, and ugly. Certainly flaws, but totally common ones and not entirely the fault of the authors.

Stack takes badness one step further–or a dozen. Behold:

Both the bars and the stacks are numbered, and rather than, as with every previous Tower of Hanoi game, selecting the source and destination stacks, you first select the bar you want to move, and then the stack you want to move it to. So solving the two-bar game, involves moving bar 9 to stack 2, bar 11 to stack 3, and then bar 9 to stack 3. Why weren’t the bars numbered 1 to 5 instead of 3, 5, 7, 9, 11? Who knows. But that’s not even the worst of it. Observe the game when a few moves have been made:

Each time you make a move, Stack redraws the stacks below the old ones, but it doesn’t tell you what the numbers are. So, you’ve got to keep in mind that in this case the medium sized bar is number 9, when you want to move it. How much worse it would be with five bars.

This is a horrible design choice with really no excuse. It’s a poor decision even if you’ve never seen a Tower of Hanoi game before, but by 1985 there were plenty of better examples.

This was a type-in game in the December 1985 issue of RUN (Issue #24), and the description there is priceless. It was written, I presume, by the author of the game, and repeats how easy the game is to play, while the underlying puzzle is difficult–not quite. Best of all is the one-sentence blurb introducing Stack: “Moving a few bars from one pile to another sounds easy, until you try this game.”

Yeah, that sounds about right.

Hanoi (1984)

In 1984, a final (to my knowledge) update to Glen Fisher’s Hanoi was released, also called Hanoi.

The gameplay is identical to its predecessors from 1978 and 1980. The only difference is that this 1984 version includes color–quite a bit more than the 1980 version, and in contrast to the monochromatic 1978 version.

I suppose that this version is the best of this lineage, which isn’t really saying much. Of course, for a Tower of Hanoi game, there isn’t much to say.

This version was released as a type-in game in Commodore 64 Fun and Games by Jeffries, Fisher, and Sawyer.

Die Türme von Pompeji

Die Türme von Pompeji is a 1983 Tower of Hanoi type-in game found in a German magazine, CPU (Computer programmiert zur Unterhaltung).

Though not, in my opinion, as visually appealing as the earlier Pharaoh’s Needles, Die Türme von Pompeji includes some features not found in the earlier Tower of Hanoi games I’ve played. Namely, sound effects and a timer. The sound effects are very primitive–just beeps to indicate successful or unsuccessful moves. The timer counts the number of minutes and seconds it takes to solve the puzzle, a nice addition.

Unfortunately, Die Türme von Pompeji supports only the six disc puzzle, has a rather unattractive red background, and, like D. Buckeye’s Tower of Hanoi, it is harder to tell at a glance how many discs are on a stack. Also, it has no animation, though whether that is a drawback may be a matter of opinion. Upon winning, however, the screen flashes through an exciting display of colors, which is nice.

Displaying the incremental and unpredictable nature of video game development, Die Türme von Pompeji is in some ways superior and in others inferior to its contemporaries.

Tower of Hanoi (1983)

Tower of Hanoi by D. Buckeye is, as the name suggests, a Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore 64 and PET 64 computers, released in 1983.

This one is less featureful than even Glen Fisher’s version from five years prior: the number of discs is fixed at five, and the movements are not animated. The graphics are also less impressive–it’s harder to tell at a glance how many discs are on a stack, since they merge together onscreen.

This version is essentially inferior to the several Tower of Hanoi games which preceded and followed it. I do not recommend it.

Pharaoh’s Needles

Pharaoh’s Needles is a 1982 Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore 64 by Ron Wagner & Wim (thanks to GB64 for this information).

Well, this incarnation of the Tower of Hanoi puzzle is a bit more appealing than Glen Fisher’s versions. Rather than just moving discs around, we’re going to engage in the Game of Kings! Very exciting. Of course, the rules are all the same, but you know, you’ve just got to give ’em the old razzle dazzle and what does it matter if your game’s nothing new?

Pharaoh’s Needles looks nice, and, like Hanoi, animates the moving of discs. Unlike, Hanoi, though, the animation in this game is quick. It’s much nicer, especially if you have the misfortune of choosing to play with nine discs, as the game allows. 511 moves, even quick ones, would wear on my patience long before the game was over. Still, I can’t fault the game for giving you the option.

This is the best Tower of Hanoi game, so far, and will hold that title for several years.

Towers of Hanoi (1980)

In 1980, according to GB64, Brookfield Software released an updated version of Glen Fisher’s Hanoi, including limited color.

This newer version is substantially similar to the first release, including the same animation and interface, and very limited color.

As before, there’s nothing in particular to recommend this version, so let this brief review stand as testament to the insignificant nature of the differences between the 1978 and 1980 versions of the game.

Hanoi (1978)

Hanoi by Glen Fisher, published in Cursor #05 (Nov. 1978), is a Tower of Hanoi game for the Commodore PET.

Hanoi, like most Tower of Hanoi games for Commodore computers, is a very simple and straightforward implementation. The rules should be familiar to most of us, but you may see Wikipedia for details. In this version, you select the number of discs in the puzzle, between two and seven, and then you are prompted from which pile to pick up a disc, and onto which pile to place it.

The discs move with a simple but smooth animation–nice enough, I suppose, at first, but it would get very tiresome indeed in the 127 moves it takes to solve a puzzle with seven discs. Upon completion of the puzzle, the game tells you how many moves you used, and how many were required, at minimum.

While I doubt anyone will be much interested in a simple Tower of Hanoi game in any case, I’ll still recommend against this particular version. It’s not bad, for what it is, but it’s got nothing in particular to recommend it, either.

Two updated versions of Hanoi were released, one in 1980, and another in 1984, which included color but were otherwise similar.

Crystal Defenders R1

Well, it’s been more than a year since I posted here–not because I’ve stopped writing, but because I’ve not yet managed to finish any posts to my satisfaction. I’ve been writing some fairly in-depth, multi-post reviews of several games, but since I didn’t want to publish any of the individual posts until they were all complete, in case revision was necessary. As a result, no posts for a year. Well, let’s change that.

I recently completed Crystal Defenders R1 for the Wii, a Final Fantasy-themed tower defense game by Square Enix, released 20 April 2009 in North America.

Crystal Defenders R1 is grid-based, and the enemies move along a fixed path, while your units are placed elsewhere on the screen. There are a variety of units available–soldiers, archers, black mages, and others–each with their own strengths and weaknesses. For example, soldiers are very strong, but have limited range and cannot attack air targets. Some enemies may be resistant or immune to physical or magical damage, so black mages or archers, respectively, may be needed to deal with them.

Each area in the game contains two stages, with the same map, but different waves of enemies. Each time a stage is played, though, the waves are the same, so it is possible to learn what enemies will come, then play a stage over, in order to use resources more efficiently, and maximize the score.

As is usual for a tower defense game, the units cost money to place, which money is earned by destroying enemies and surviving waves. Units can also be upgraded to do more damage or have greater range.

Early in the game, resources are quite tight, so it’s necessary to be as efficient as possible with unit placement and upgrades, in order to survive. Here, a criticism: it is more efficient to build a bunch of level 2 units, rather than upgrade the ones you have, so the winning strategy, early on, is to place a dozen or more level 2 soldiers and archers, and just let them take care of everything while the money rolls in. You can always upgrade a few or just place more with all the money you save by not upgrading units.

Worse, though, is that late in the game, the rogue becomes available. These allow you to gain extra money from destroying enemies, if they’re in range. Once rogues show up, the new best strategy becomes to spend as little on units as you can manage, until you’ve upgraded your rogue completely, then just kill everything immediately by upgrading things with the thousands of spare gil you’ll have. Resources become a non-issue, and all you really have to worry about is whether you’re placing the units efficiently in terms of space–not a big worry.

Basically, Crystal Defenders R1 is a very standard, and fairly easy, tower defense game. Getting a perfect on every stage may require more than one try (particularly the final stage, unlocked by getting perfects on each previous stage), but shouldn’t prove very challenging for anyone familiar with tower defense games. It’s fun, and you may get a few hours of play out of it, but I’m not sure it’s really worth the 800 Wii Points, considering how many excellent free tower defense games there are.

I’ve included the Japanese trailer for the game below–there is a trailer in English, too, but it’s not nearly as cool, and anyway the words aren’t terribly important.