Qix

It's games like Qix that make you realize the power simple ideas. Qix was originally released for the arcade in the early eighties and Nintendo bought the license later that decade, brining the game to the Game Boy. Although not nearly as popular as Tetris, Qix did achieve large-scale success as a action/real-time strategy game. As with most all classic arcade games, the rules and gameplay are simple. You control a diamond marker that starts on the boarder of a rectangle. Inside the rectangle is a series of lines that make up what is called the Qix. Your goal is to capture the majority of the area of the rectangle. You to this by drawing entering the interior of the open area, drawing a line in your wake. You can turn while in the interior and your drawn path follows you. If you are able to connect your path back to the existing boundary without having your drawn path touch the Qix during the act of drawing, you win the area carved out by your polygon.

Some twists on the game that make this challenging. One, you have two draw buttons. One gives you double points, but draws twice as slow making it easier to be hit by the Qix. Second, there are additional enemies called sparks that travel along the boundaries of the polygons that you have created. If they touch you, you lose. The good news is that they travel relatively slow and are easy to dodge by creating a polygon as they get close to you (they cannot travel on open draw lines and cannot reverse directions). Lastly, there is a timer in this game. If you waste enough time, the sparks turn into fast moving super sparks that have the ability to travel on draw lines. It is VERY hard to avoid these so speed matters.

It is games like Qix that make you appreciate the simple structure of classic arcades. The graphics are very basic, composed only of straight lines, and the rules are very simple and easy to understand. Yet this is one of those games that is hard to put down. It is easy at first, but the difficulty ramps up with each passing level (including multiple Qix on a level). You want to get the high scores in a short amount of time so you have to create quick polygons with your normal draw button, but do so in a fashion that does not take up much area and leaves you with a short draw distance you can use your double points draw button for massive area and massive points. Like Tetris for the Game Boy, Qix is an absolute classic. It may not quite be on the Tetris level, but if you like strategy games, it is an enjoyable game.

This is another staple game mechanic: You draw lines to trap a moving object. A lot of variations feature you closing a ball or whatever, but the arcade Qix is particularly merciless when it tells you to stop a randomly moving wave while also being chased by two enemies. Really intense, and demands a lot of adjusting to beat the first couple of levels.

Also, you didn't hear this from me, but AntiXonix and JezzBall are much more perfected games than this one.

In quix you cut an area in sections with straight lines, however you cant be touched by enemies whilst doing this. Its easier seen than explained, but this is a concept that works pretty well. Since you get to the next stage when you cover 65% of the area, there is a neat dynamic between risk and reward. Should you go for a larger cut and risk to get hit more, or go for smaller cuts and put yourself at risk more times. Its pretty neat.

Qix was not a common game to find in Australia. Indeed, the only place that I ever saw one was in the Crystal Palace at Luna Park, so this was not a machine that I spent a lot of time on. In spite of this, I always loved playing it, and years later was able to continue to enjoy the game via emulation.

The premise of the game is to claim at least 75% of the playing area by drawing rectangles with a cursor. On the completion of the shape, the area is locked off and added to your total. Sounds fairly simple right? Wrong. Also floating around the playing field is the "Qix" - a strange being that can be best described as "moving string art" - and if this creature touches the line of an incomplete shape you lose a life. Also, just to keep the tempo of the game flowing, if you stop at any time the line that you are drawing becomes a fuse and your cursor is chased by an ever nearing spark which will kill you on contact.

You can draw shapes at two speeds. Drawing slowly will double your points, drawing quickly awards fewer points but is safer. The aim of the game is to score as many points as possible, so obtaining the high score will require a good amount of slow drawing, great evasion skills, and plenty of nerve. A good strategy is to open a round by attempting to take a big chunk out of the playing field straight away. Conversely, if you are capable of planning ahead you can set yourself up to claim a large area by building up "bridges" from either side of the screen and then quickly connecting them when you get the opportunity. This takes more cunning and guts, but is well worth it if you can pull it off.

The concept may not sound like much in words, but the gameplay is challenging, and I always found it addictive.