#yosumin!

[gaming-pasq]

Yosumin!

(third choice out of 10 random rolls)

At the end of 2015, there was a Humble Square Enix bundle, which I bought because it had like all the Tomb Raider games. I never had a chance before to play any of them since I never had a PlayStation or the like, but always was interested in trying them out. Now, this bundle also had Yosumin! (Steam store link) which is a little puzzle game. And... this is actually the first game I’m playing from this bundle. The whole bundle has been untouched for 2 and a half years... Whoops.

While the game looks like a bejeweled clone, it certainly isn’t. The gameplay is easy to understand though: select rectangles in the 9x9 grid, so that each corner is the same Yosumin piece. It starts very simple but gets trickier later on, especially once more different pieces are added.

Fin or Bin?

I actually like the game. But it’s too simple for me, and definitely aimed to a much younger audience. I have a lot of other puzzle games that I would chose to play over this. So for games like this, there’s really only one thing that gets me to keep playing and finish them: achievements. And sadly, this game does not have them, so it goes into the bin.

Square Enix apparently doesn’t care about adding achievements to their (older) games, which is also why I hadn’t touched any of this bundle’s games. It’s a shame, really, cause for games like this it actually makes a big difference. If they ever do add achievements to this one, I will gladly take it out of the bin.

[wickedbaggins]

Yosumin!

so i’m a corporate drone and like all corporate drones of the modern age, my goal is to retire young enough that I can actually sit down and play my games, but it is more likely that I will continue to sample them for twenty minutes at a time and determine if they’re worth remembering in some distant future. of course, even these twenty minutes are hardwon; look how busy I was this evening.

1. fretted about being up at 5:30 tomorrow for day one of a three day design acceleration seminar.

2. fretted about having food for the seminar.

3. fretted about forgetting to do laundry until this very (too late) moment, but remembered that on telepresence no one can tell if you wore that sweater three times.

4. read pages of oscar commentary to shore up opinions of movies I have not seen.

5. watched Venture Bros.

6. watched John Oliver.

7. paranoided about politics with my husband.

8. wrote the long conclusion to a long essay for a project.

9. sniffed at fault milestone one because it’s on sale.

10. read some noam chomsky and felt less optimistic than he does.

11. ate dinner.

but still i managed to squeeze in twenty minutes of Yosumin! which like the human experience is about the inexorable passage of time while you diddle around trying to figure out what to do. also, like the human experience, sometimes tiles flash urgently to try to give you hints, only you sit and squint at the flashes uncomprehending. “What do you mean?” you ask. “Do you want me to click here? Oh, okay. Clearly not. Well, I don’t know what you want. Why can’t you be clearer?”

And then the clock runs out and you have not returned light to the world!! maybe you should’ve used your words, tiles.

Anyway, Yosumin! is a tile-clicking game where you define rectangles where each corner is the same kind of tile. That’s it. It’s cute and kind of addicting. The hints are totally baffling to me, though. The end.