Media Monday: Monument Valley Not a Monumental Value!

And also browser-based "idling" games!

- Choppin' Wood - ★★☆☆☆
I'm really into this kind of game lately. The balance of attending and then ignoring fits in just right with the jobs I've been working recently. There's not much to this one though. More theme but maybe less interesting than...

- DerivClicker - ★★☆☆☆
I collected all the things in this game. I don't think there's anything else to do. It's not as fancy as Cookie Clicking or Candy Box or Clicking Bad from last year, which it occurs to me now I never even logged. I guess I never got every last thing in Cookie Clicker though.

- A Dark Room - ★★★☆☆
The best of today's bunch. It was intriguing as I unlocked new things, and surprising as I kept forgetting I was playing and returned days later to find I had tons of supplies. Combat becomes a chore towards the end, but I finished this one twice.

- Monument Valley - ★★☆☆☆
It was a really shrewd move for the developers of this game to target the Apple and graphic design / tech nerd segment of the web, either instead of or in addition to the gaming press. I liked the one level that was a box that opens because I miss The Room, but I ended up disappointed in this one.

As far as I know, I don't mind the "non-game" game genre. These are games that are generally more of a walking tour of a (usually) lovely thing the developer has made to show you, different from a book or video in that there is usually some clicking or tapping involved to keep you engaged, but there are no real obstacles present to keep you from seeing all of the carefully crafted content. My blunder was not considering the non-gamer sources of the reviews and blurbs I was reading that promised 4+ hours of gameplay. After the first 45 minutes, when I thought we were just about done with the tutorial and intro levels and it turned out the game was over, I think I felt a little cheated over the relatively high price and small amount of content.