Dangerously addicting pick-up and play games. Why are there so many of them in this 1001 list? Handheld consoles are an obvious destination platform for the simpler games that can be understood in seconds, but when those games grab you and don't let go, the battery life of your handheld of choice will soon be stretched to its limits, as my PlayStation Portable was with Lumines.
To be more accurate, it was Lumines II that I played far too much of back then, but the games are damn near identical, having now played this original release. But what is that game, and why is it so addicting?
Fun Times
This is Lumines, a grid, some falling blocks, some electronic backing tracks and a simple goal: create some squares.
Blocks come in sets of four pieces, of one of two different colours. You can move a block left or right, and rotate it in 90-degree chunks, Tetris style, before letting it fall - or more liking making it slam - into place on the grid.
If you match four pieces of the same colour in a square, they light up, ready to be scored. The line that always travels the length of the screen is your marker here, for the next time it passes over that glowing square, the pieces will be zapped from existence, you'll be rewarded with points, anything above will fall down, potentially into new squares, and the game will keep marching on.
That's almost it for Lumines. While a square is ready to be scored, you can add to it, chaining together more pieces, so long as they keep forming a square somewhere. Be careful with your timing, however, as you can often slam a block into place, only for it to create a square halfway through being scored, resulting in half of its pieces staying in place for the next go around.
As you make progress and score square after square, the 'skin' of the game will change (depending on the game mode), bringing with it a change in music, tempo, and even the sound effects that are applied when you rotate blocks - not that I'd recommend Lumines as a music-making game. More a noise-making one.
Now, the danger with Lumines is that it is so simple, you'll get the hang of it in no time, and will wonder just how far it is until the end. Well, it's like Tetris once again. It'll end when you're not good enough to keep up, and depending on your skill level, that could be a while...
Do well, or get lucky, and you'll get bonuses for clearing the screen of one colour, and probably of all blocks too, I can't remember. When you manage that, you're just building everything up from scratch again, chaining together pieces so that scored blocks will make way for more pieces to fall into new squares, again and again.
That's not to say it's so simple that it's boring - you'll make mistakes, mistiming placements, or over-rotating and the like, but it's usually not the end of the world. Keep an eye out for pieces with gems in the middle, and if they form a square, all pieces linked to it of that colour will disappear, which is often a great screen-cleaner.
Frustrations
Every few minutes, if the skin changes, you'll be thrown a little curveball. Often it's just the colour that messes with you. Some of the red and white stages were quite tricky to keep track of, for example. Other times, it's the subtle - or not so subtle - change in tempo that throws you off, the score line taking its time to travel across the screen, upsetting your flow.
If you don't manage to regain your rhythm, the threat of reaching the top of the screen starts to loom large. The widescreen nature of the PlayStation Portable suits Lumines really well until you wonder where all that space went.
Before you've realised, your position is unwinnable, your fingers aren't fast enough, thirty minutes have gone by, and you've scored your last square. Congratulations on your high score. Going to try again?
Final Word
On Lumines II, I would. That's because I recognised some of the music. The Chemical Brothers, Gwen Stefani, The Black Eyed Peas... their skins are even accompanied by the related music videos, so you've got something else to be distracted by.
Of the two games, Lumines II is the clear winner, but it didn't make the 1001 list, perhaps because Lumines is the purer of the two? Maybe just because it was the first. Either way, the gameplay is identical, so if you like recognising the music, check out the sequel, and if you don't care, pick either.
A good few versions and releases of Lumines have come out over the years since it first emerged, so finding a version to suit your tastes shouldn't be a hassle at all, and if you want to lose an hour without realising, it's a nice and chilled way to do so.
Fun Facts
It could have been much more like Tetris with music had licencing issues not been too problematic.
Lumines, developed by Q Entertainment, first released in 2004.
Version played: Lumines: Puzzle Fusion, PlayStation Portable, 2005, via emulation
Lumines II, PlayStation Portable, 2006.