Valo

January 5, 2007 3:28 PM

Valo. Lovely abstract flash game with a simple ambient score generated by the gameplay itself. Draw over the blue squares, avoid the red. via Good Experience Games.
posted by treepour (31 comments total)

76K. Very nice find.
posted by boo_radley at 3:40 PM on January 5, 2007

Looks like something Ralph Steadman would enjoy.
posted by nevercalm at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2007

I got about that, but I don't remember. If you ask me the difficulty curve isn't steep enough. There are a few challenging levels in there, but most are really easy.
posted by delmoi at 3:51 PM on January 5, 2007

76K. Very nice find.

I read that as filesize praise, initially. Mod scene on the brain.
posted by cortex at 3:52 PM on January 5, 2007

I read that as filesize praise, initially.

I totally thought that was filesize praise until you pointed out it wasn't.
posted by mrnutty at 4:09 PM on January 5, 2007

The music is my favorite part. I hope the idea of a score generated by the gameplay catches on in other flash games. I wish you could set the tone values; a soothing major is nice, but it sounds a little bit (too much) like Eno's Music for Airports.
posted by sleevener at 4:14 PM on January 5, 2007

Ditto on the music. I wrote a tetris clone a few years back that had tones associated with each movement/event, scattered around a I, IV, V harmonic arrangement. It was pretty rough, but the sense of a musical element to the gameplay was there.

This sounded like that done right.
posted by cortex at 4:24 PM on January 5, 2007

58,888. Fun.
posted by koeselitz at 4:26 PM on January 5, 2007

Neat game. I didn't move very quickly during the first few levels, then realized that moving quickly would make much larger lines when I managed to wipe out a rather large block of red squares. I recovered, barely, but was irrevocably shaken by the incident.
posted by The God Complex at 4:31 PM on January 5, 2007

This game absolutely pins my CPU, so within a couple levels it becomes a chore to play. Am I the only one? I tried IE and both Firefox 1 and 2...
posted by chimaera at 4:32 PM on January 5, 2007

neat game
posted by Hands of Manos at 4:44 PM on January 5, 2007

49k. But I keep trying to kill the red states - I mean- squares.
posted by hal9k at 4:44 PM on January 5, 2007

Decent game, although I got a little bored with it around level 14. Still much better than 80% of the Flash Game Crap some "humor" sites like to foist off on you. A nice twist (and it could happen in later levels, like I said, I stopped playing it) would be to have the blue square be the moving objects, and you have to chase them down within the time limits without creating lines large enough to interfere with the stationary red squares....
posted by Debaser626 at 5:06 PM on January 5, 2007

I like this...and that's with the sound off.

It had just enough difference from the norm to make me happy.
posted by django_z at 5:13 PM on January 5, 2007

It's like raking a zen rock garden with my touchpad
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 5:23 PM on January 5, 2007

139,000.

It became much easier when I realized that the purple-blue squares reset the timer and the yellow ones reset health--so you can ignore the floating squares if you have more health than them and there's a yellow on the screen and ignore the timer if there's a blue on the screen--just collect those last thing.

Wish I knew what green did, though.
posted by reventlov at 5:23 PM on January 5, 2007

Er, collect them last thing before the very last blue square on the screen. That part is important.
posted by reventlov at 5:24 PM on January 5, 2007

Green is bonus points. There's a handy tutorial beforehand that explains this :P
posted by The God Complex at 5:25 PM on January 5, 2007

Does it ever get, um, non-trivial?

I gave up waiting for that after 29 levels.
posted by Flunkie at 5:44 PM on January 5, 2007

Cute, nice concept. It distinctly lacks difficulty progression though. More of a test of how long it keeps you entertained.
posted by cj_ at 5:53 PM on January 5, 2007

Like the roster of the New York Knicks, this game will frustrate you if you view it as part of some sort of competitive endeavor; you have to just appreciate it as art.
posted by ibmcginty at 6:07 PM on January 5, 2007 [1 favorite]

This game absolutely pins my CPU, so within a couple levels it becomes a chore to play. Am I the only one? I tried IE and both Firefox 1 and 2...

Mine also, in Safari, on a Powerbook G4. On my G5 desktop it ran fine however. Weird.
posted by MarvinTheCat at 6:08 PM on January 5, 2007

The game was kinda cute but afterwards I had to shut down firefox entirely to make the music stop playing. Not sure what was going on there.

I'm totally interested in playing cortex's muscial tetris.
posted by shelleycat at 8:39 PM on January 5, 2007

That was pretty fun. Thanks.

I wish I could turn you on to one I saw a while back - just a little search game where you had to find four or five stars to solve the problem - but it was fun just poking around, seeing the sights.
posted by rougy at 11:23 PM on January 5, 2007

211,000 at lvl 100.
posted by Richard Daly at 11:35 PM on January 5, 2007

I'm totally interested in playing cortex's muscial tetris.

Sadly, the source code was last to a dead hd a couple years back. Don't worry, it's better in your imagination.
posted by cortex at 11:53 PM on January 5, 2007

I wish I could turn you on to one I saw a while back - just a little search game where you had to find four or five stars to solve the problem - but it was fun just poking around, seeing the sights.

Was it Tranquility?
posted by leahwrenn at 6:03 AM on January 6, 2007

Clearly have a very high boredom threshold today, as I got to the end (level 100). Was then gutted that my score didn't get onto the leader board for some reason.

Having the major third as the 'red' noise was quite a nifty psychological trick as I often found myself want to resolve all that I, IV, V jangling into a major chord.

For some reason it reminds me a bit of mono, which I'm sure has been previously mentioned here at some point.
posted by dogsbody at 9:09 AM on January 6, 2007

Leahwrenn - no, it wasn't, but thanks for sharing "Tranquility."

Looks like fun.
posted by rougy at 12:03 PM on January 6, 2007

Cool. I got 81,000.

Reminds me of Transcend.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 12:34 PM on January 6, 2007

Ah! I used to play Tranquility on the SGI, and I never was able to find it again for any other platform. Thanks for the pointer leahwren!
posted by jimfl at 1:29 PM on January 6, 2007