So after I saw the fun with the iPhone accelerometer video I got to thinking, “Wow… this is going to be the start of something big!” Namely, the return of those cheap-ass little plastic puzzles with the metal balls that you have to guide into various holes. I wanted to know more about this type of game, so I googled for “dumb plastic ball puzzle” and found out that the “official” name for this type of game is the “dexterity” puzzle. (Don’t believe it’s “official?” Well then what is this “Mechanical Puzzle Classification and Taxonomy” all about, huh?? =) Anyway, “Dexterity” sounded like an apt enough name I thought, but after reading a bit more about the genre (incidentally, that page has an awesome description of ball-in-a-cup which reads, “the objective being to swing the ball into the air and catch it in the cup. Sometimes the cup was replaced with a pointed stick and the ball had a hole in it. You can imagine.”) I was most intrigued by the “less common” variety of dexterity puzzle which involves moving various beads into different parts of a blown glass tube. Check it out, it’s like “OCD Maracas!” So in conclusion, yes… let’s make “dexterity” games for the iPhone and the Wii and maybe even the PS3 if Sony will give us enough money. Or has somebody already beaten me to the 1890s nostalgia wave?
bouci-boula looks fucking infuriating