Every Extend Knitting
The Xbox Live game Every Extend Extra Extreme (E4) isn't so much a game as it is a thing you do--like whittling wood on your front porch, or knitting. In this, uh, "software experience" your main action is to destroy your own cursor which causes a chain reaction of other explosions. The floating things that explode then leave powerups (loot!) for you to pick up.
There are several strange aspects to that. First, there are no "lives" so you can destroy yourself over and and over forever. Next, after you destroy yourself, you have three seconds of total invulnerability to pick up the powerups--and these three second bursts are the only times you actually play the game. If you get hit by enemies (as opposed to detonating yourself), then you lose all your powerups, which greatly reduces your ability to earn points. There is technically no reason you'd ever die this way though, because you can always detonate yourself within the 3 second shield period and never be vulnerable the entire game.
The gameplay actually involves collecting the powerups in the most efficient way possible. For example, you'd like to collect a few powerups that extend your invulnerable shields a couple seconds, then pick up the time extender and various bonus multipliers. The only way the game ever ends is if you run out of time, but you can pretty much always focus on collecting the yellow time powerups to keep your time remaining at an acceptable level.
The very first game of E4 I played, I got my bearings and figured out what was going on. The second game...well I'm still playing it. It's been 2.5 hours so far with no sign of stopping. At some point I paused the game to answer the phone. At another point, I went to the grocery store. Now I stopped again to write this post. But my session of E4 is still there waiting, ready to go on forever if I like. I have 28 trillion points right now (yeah, trillion). I know you have BusyBeaver(7) points or whatever, so you don't have to tell me.
I'm not actually knocking E4. Like Rez, I enjoy it as an experience. I was totally shocked to see that my game session lasted 2.5 hours, because I didn't remember playing it for so long. It's a hypnotizing synethsesia that gives an overworked brain a vacation from itself for a while.
Another interesting property of the game is that on the one hand, it requires almost no skill because a very simple and obvious strategy allows you to play virtually forever. On the other hand, there is a skill in knowing when and where on the screen to detonate, when to cancel the chain reaction, and which powerups to get if you are trying to *efficiently* get a high score. That actually makes it nearly an ideal game to be used for crafting goods in an MMO. Anyone could play forever to get enough "magic essence" or whatever MMO quantity, but dedicated E4-crafters would learn to play efficiently and sell their greater wares to others who would rather spend their time killing monsters...or playing the Rez crafting mini-game to make green stitched linens or something.
I think E4 is going to be greatly misunderstood by the gaming public. As a relaxing flow experience, it hits the mark. Unfortunately most people probably don't understand the mark it hits.
--Sirlin
Update: I got to 126 trillion with no sign of it ever ending, but finally I wanted to play Rock Band with my girlfriend. Too bad I couldn't save and quit to continue the pointless, ProgressQuest-like journey. Instead I had to just let the time run out and lose. Anyway, E4 is quite an experience. Something compels me to keep staring at it. It's by far the best screen saver I've ever played.
January 6th, 2008 at 8:57 am
I’m curious, have you played EEE? The game made you string together longer and longer chains in order to score enough points to gain extra lives, which were definitely in finite supply. I loved the combination of twitch gaming plus strategizing of when it made sense to detonate. You could pretty much extend your time infinitely in EEE as well, but do it too much and you wouldn’t be able to earn enough lives to make it to the stage boss (which appeared when there was around a minute left) and then defeat it by catching it within a large chain.
EEEE sounds like it’s got less of the addictive gameplay, but just enjoying the sensory experience sounds like it could still be a good time.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:43 am
Wow E4 sounds very interesting, that comment you made abour implementing a similar system for crafting in MMOs sounds awesome.
On a side comment Sirlin, are you going to do the annual Sirlin awards this year? last year’s was great, I’m looking forward to it.
January 6th, 2008 at 9:58 am
Well, I’m not entirely sure it will be the completely misunderstood. I’m not saying it won’t either, but here are some thoughts I have:
There is a game called “Bejewelled”, and although I’m sure you’ve heard about it, there may be one or two others in the world who hasn’t, so I’ll just fill those two people in:
The basic premise is simple: You have a lot of squares filled with different symbols - originally gems, but of course different variants use different ways. Click on two gems that are adjacent horizontally or vertically and they will switch places -if- the move places one of them so that there is made a row or coloumn of 3-5 identical symbols in a row. Then they will disappear and new symbols will fall down from the top. And you’re supposed to make a certain amount of such rows within the time limit.
So, there are lots of variants of this simple theme, especially in the world of Flash games. Obviously lots of them include different kinds of bonuses, and also different approaches to what constitutes a decent time limit.
And frankly, it’s the variants with the most forgiving time limits that I find to be the best. Because I don’t play this kind of game to beat the game, I play it to time out, to get into a different zone, to simply don’t care. Amazonia, for example, is a “play to infinity” kind of Bejewelled variant because of its forgiving time limit. (The hexagonal spaces is what separates this one from the ordinary square spaces, by the way).
And puzzle games like these do have their fanbase. There are plenty of people who just wants to “zone out” with their games every now and then, and that’s why I believe that you may (it’s a big “may”, though) have cause for a bit more cautious optimism with regards to the reception of this game.
And at the same time, there are also Bejewelled variants that could work as part of bigger games. Search out and play “Rome Puzzle” to see what I mean, Sirlin. It’s pretty obvious that that game with only a few minor tweaks could be part of a much bigger game just like E4. It’s also one of the more forgiving games, with soothing music to encourage tranquility rather than going all bananas to make it in time.
January 6th, 2008 at 7:29 pm
Wonderful!
I’ve always said that games do not need to punish players (like having them start over) to let them know they aren’t playing well. They’ll learn how to play better and start to create their own pressure. This makes playing a creative experience as the player will be able to decide how to win the game, not the game itself.
I look forward to more games that allow such freedom.
January 7th, 2008 at 6:24 am
I like these kinds of games because they show that the gaming medium isn’t just for presenting difficult challenges - from how popular the Wii and its minigame packages have become, it’s pretty clear that there’s a huge market for games like E4 where you can just chill out and have fun without being challenged.
Even if this game is rated poorly by gaming journalists (IGN gave it a good score, by the way), its download numbers will probably speak for themselves.
January 9th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
You’ve totally summed up my feelings on the game. Everyone I know couldn’t stand it (especially in comparison to Every Extend and E3) but it’s the relaxation aspect that really appeals to me. Thanks for this post.
January 9th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
You might be interested in this extensive article on E4: http://www.idlethumbs.net/display.php?id=267. Covers the same ground in great depth.
January 11th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Hey Sirlin. I agree a lot with you about E4, but there is one aspect of the game you either forgot to mention or never caught on to. The meter at the bottom of the screen is pumping in a rythym and over time it pumps faster and faster. When you “explode” when the meter is full, referred to as perfect (I think), you get a bonus multiplier. Do this multiple times in a row and your multiplier goes up. This is vital in the other game modes with time limits.
I haven’t played it in some time, so I am stating this off memory. But, a funny story: I was playing at my workplace over the course of a few days, pausing the game overnight, and when I finally had an obscenely high score I gave up and let the game end. At some point my account logged off and the high score was lost forever, and I never played E4 again.
Personally I really like the game. I haven’t played an EE game since the first downloadable demo from earlier in the decade, and I enjoy(ed) the rythym aspect Q? added to it.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Austin: Yes, I’m well aware of that. The bonus maxes out at 5x. That doesn’t change anything I said though, because a) you can ignore it and the game is as easy as ever and b) if you want to get a lot of points per second, this is just one more aspect you need to care about (and I already said it’s challenging if your goal is points per second).
But for completeness sake, sure you can detonate at the right moment to the beat and you get 2x the first time, then 3x, 4x, 5x. If you ever detonate NOT to the beat, you go back to 1x.
–Sirlin
January 12th, 2008 at 1:48 am
Hey Sirlin: I actually played it again AFTER writing my statements, and I forgot that the Beat Bonus maxed out at 5x, and looking back it doesn’t change anything you said. I agree with everything you are saying, I was simply bringing this up for the sake of the other game modes with the 5 minute time limit, or however long they are (I would power it on to look again, but I am afraid I will be sucked in and never put it down) where the beat bonus is vital to get a good score in a time limit, but in unlimited you’re only pleasing yourself by scoring high quicker. I feel the time limit games should have been the main game instead of the unlimited mode, but that’s another story.
Anyway, it was a great read and I understand why I do (and don’t) like E4 better than ever.
March 2nd, 2008 at 4:20 am
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March 4th, 2008 at 12:54 am
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