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THE HE
SCREEN TO LIFE
By flipping character sets,
you can animate a whole
screenful of custom
characters characters on the 64
BY ORSON SCOTT CARD
If you've been playing
videogames for
any length length of time,
you've seen evolution
in action. Survival
of the fittest. Remember
Pong? A
couple of paddles, a
ball, the edges ofthe of the
screen - it it was a
pretty bare little
world world we lived in in while we played. There There aren't
many Pong POl/g machines arourd anymore, are are there?
The most obvious reason a game dies dies is that
it loses its challenge. All videogames (though
not necessarily necessarily all computer games) require the
player to overcome overcome a series of challenges. The The
challenges can be to the player's skill skill-can -can you
move your starship starship at just the right moment to
avoid avoid being hit by the the meteor in Gyrnss-but Gyrllss- but
leave it there long enough to hit enough enemy
ships? ships? The challenge can also be to the player's mind-can mind -can you figure out how to to get through a maze
despite the obstacles? Especially in the arcades, videogames seem to work like puzzles-you playa new
game over and over until you "solve" it. it. While the the players are are still working on solutions, solutions, the the
game makes money; money; when the puzzle is resolved, the income falls fall s off and very quickly the
game is replaced replaced with another that's still hot. When is a game "solved?" After all, all , most games will
go on to infinity, in fi nity, if you can train yourself to play that well. well . In theory, theory , you could play play JOllst Joust forever
-though - though I have a way ofbumping of bumping into the pterodactyl's mouth too often to hope for immortality. Since the
game will will go on fo forever, rever, getting ever faster and more challenging, when have you you beaten it?
I believe a game loses loses its challenge, challenge, not when we can can play eight days straight without ever losing, but rather when when
there is nothing left to discover about the world of the game. I just got through a grueling three-day bout with Bollider­ Boulder­
Dash. It's a wonderful game in which a little cartoon character named Rockford must pick up up a certain number of
diamonds on each game level before the time runs out. To complicate things, the screen is well-supplied with boulders,
which can fallon fall on Rockford and mash him. Also, there are fireflies and butterflies wandering around, around , which blow
up if Rockford gets gets too close to them or if boulders fall on them. them . When butterflies blow up, they turn tum into diamondsand
on some levels, that's the only way way to get any diamonds at all.
The game has has twenty different di fferent screens on each of five fi ve levels. On each level the screens come in the same order-but order- but