Jose Zagal's Home Page - Games & Game Studies

Home	Talks and Slides	My GameLog	Research and Projects	Publications	Resume	Teaching
Back // GameBreadth Project // Game Ontology Project // GameLog

Holedown (iPd) Status: Finished playing I started playing this game on Wednesday 29 April, 2020 // I stopped playing this game on: Sunday 31 May, 2020
Current opinion of this game
No comment, yet.
May 15, 2020 10:58:09 AM
The rest of the game is basically the same....yes, there was a grind bump - but the last planet was pretty smooth. I'm not sure what else to say other than the final mode being endless. I unlocked all the upgrades just in case. It's nice and short, you can play while semi-paying attention, and there is some skill involved in getting shots off. I like it as a nice variation on breakout - inverse, because you're going down. So, if you're looking for a nice variation/experiment on bouncing ball games? Here you go!
May 4, 2020 11:57:10 PM
I was listening to a podcast in which they interviewed the creator of this game, so here I am curious to play it and see what it's like. The game is sort of like a reverse breakout - you fire balls at targets wanting to destroy them in order to continue going down. You get upgrades to fire a longer stream of balls, and the targets also take more hits to destroy. Once you get to the bottom, you have to take out a "core", and then a new planet opens up. It's pretty repetitive, but it's simple and the levels are randomized - so, some runs are pretty good while others are terrible. I've played enough to unlock the 4th (of 5?) planet, and it's been a slog. It's gotten quite grindy at the moment and I find myself going back to the 3rd planet because I can mine little upgrade gems or whatever to help me have more of a chance in the 4th. It's a bit of a shame because the progress seemed pretty even/straightforward up until this point. It makes me wonder if I want to continue or not? It's actually not a bad game to play while you're watching TV - you don't really need to pay that much attention, just fire and then wait. There is some skill in lining up the shots and so on, and it's fun to play the angles, but overall I don't find it terribly engaging. That's not a bad thing, like I said, it's fun to play while watching some TV.

Holedown (iPd)