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Game Guy

February 27th, 2007

Speedcluster! Or Productivity is for Wimps

Speedcluster is a fairly crazy flash game that’s kind of like playing 5 breakneck games of solitaire at the same time. Cards drop from the top of the screen in 4 columns, and it’s up to you to build up the cards in play incrementally using the cards in your hand. If you’ve ever played some Solitaire variants before, this should all be pretty familiar, and if not, you should be able to figure it out with a little experimentation.

The “speed” element factors into play in two ways. When a card in play reaches the bottom of the screen, it disappears, and you receive points equal to the number of cards attached. This ties into the steadily depleting time counter on the left-hand side of the screen - the only way to prevent it from emptying out is to fill up the point gauge on the right-hand side of the screen. The resulting push-and-shove flow, with you placing cards as quickly as possible in order to fill up the point counter as time steadily ticks away, is veritable game design gold.

Aesthetically, the game is beyond reproach. Everything looks shinier than Mr. Clean’s bright bald head, and the music is perfect. The only playability issue I can think of is that the game forces you to play using a sluggish in-game cursor, which can feel a little inadequate once everything starts speeding up to a hectic pace.

Like any good coffee break game, Speedcluster is easy to learn but difficult to master, and takes only a few minutes to play at a time. It’s Japanese in origin, but the entire game is in English outside of the gigantic, obvious start button at the game’s outset. Since it’s a flash game, it should also run on your computer, regardless of operating system. Maybe I’ll see someone in Morgan Library playing it sometime? Man, that would make my day.