Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson has released a new game, a free browser game called Drop. The game has a minimal look and is very simple to play, but quickly becomes a challenge. Here are the instructions from the website:
press d to start playing. type blinking letter to advance. press space or enter to submit letters. bonus points if more than four letters. game gets faster. game over if letter leaves screen. typing wrong letter speeds up.
everything is real. nothing is real.
According to Notch, the clean, white, minimal look of the game was inspired by a ceiling, while the game itself was inspired by Super Hexagon and the ending of Fez:
The inspiration. Also, super hexagon. Also, the fez ending. twitter.com/notch/status/3…
— Markus Persson (@notch) April 28, 2013
You can see where the Super Hexagon inspiration shines through. The letters that you need to press pulse around the screen in an outward spiral to the beat of the music, and flash different colours, though the cubic background only rotates if you make an error and press the wrong key. The speed of the letter rotation increases as you progress, making it harder and harder to type the letters in time.
You get points not for how many letters you type but how far the spiral gets, but if you miss a single letter and it gets the edge of the screen then you lose, and a negative word appears in red on the screen. “Dead”, “bitter”, “insecure”, what you get depends on how many points you've scored.
My current best is 418. Let us know how you do in the comments below.