Rules

By: ithamore

On: February 28th, 2010

Rules starts off as a Space Invaders clone but doesn’t stay that way for long. Every 10 seconds, it will change into something different by randomly remixing the rules unless you clear the screen of enemies or lose 3 lives before then. It can become a “Breakout Invaders” mashup, the ship’s movement be changed (1D to 2D, reversed, sliding, etc.) or its firing (use X instead of C, the firing rate, etc.), the borders can become deadly, the ship can function as a battering ram, and more. Different combinations of the rules are chosen for each stage, which can result in a great, ok, or bad mix. Defeating all the enemies quickly enough will net a 10 second time extension and being able to loose 3 lives to end a stage helps to compensate for having to play a bad mix of rules. Space is the start button, the game starts with a 60 second countdown, and the first level is always the same and relatively easy to clear.

In all, Rules can be a quick dose of fun for those who might enjoy its novelty, and it is a nice improvement over Hideki Kubo’s older games. It’s brevity, however, is also its greatest shortcoming. All of its replay value can be used up in less than 30 minutes.

(Source: Windows Forest)

Posted in Doujin, Shoot-em-ups | Tags: HidekiKubo

Spellingspiel

LOSE NOT LOOSE. GAHHHHHHHH.

When you can’t find something, then it is lost, not loost!

*twitch*
EToaster

This doesn’t do anything but crash my display driver when I try to run it on Vista64.
Chris

sounds like ROM Check Fail
http://moonloop.vg Eclipse

are you serious? vs Music was great but nobody seemed to know that you can actually do music with that game, one player controls the ship, the other one do music like a sequencer and controls the bullets!
QcChopper

What chris said, it is exactly the same premise as Farbs’ ROM Check Fail!
ithamore

The site says the requirements are Windows XP/Me/2000/98/95 and DirectX 9.0, and Rules reminds me of ROM Check Fail too.
SirNiko

When I started reading, I was hoping it was mission based, with each level consisting of more difficult variations of the rules. Sort of the way Populous did it, back on the SNES.

-SirNiko
http://www.farbs.org Farbs

Oh wow – it reminds me of ROM CHECK FAIL too :D I think it’s an interesting approach, mixing individual mechanics rather than entity archetypes, but I don’t think it worked as well. Leaving the player to figure out the mechanics each time they change is kind of annoying too since it doesn’t leave you much time to stragegize and respond. A half second long graphical instruction screen on changeover would have been rad.
Pupsikaso

A lovely game, but that music! Argh! Had to mute my sound in order to be able to even play.

Remember would-be indie game devs: don’t annoy your players unless that’s a part of the game!
Troy RULES

I’d make a joke and say this game rules, but that’s not really the case. And I know what rules and what doesn’t.

This game is actually pretty…Okay. Very ROM Check Fail-esque, sometimes it doesn’t really make sense, and overall its…Fun for 10 minutes I guess. I will admit that the music is pretty badass.
tldr: Rules’ music RULES. But the game, not so much.