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So I'm about halfway across the Atlantic, between Washington DC and the westernmost tip of Europe, as of time of writing.
I've still got a very long way to go - I'll be going as far east as Saudi Arabia, and dipping far south too, into Ethiopia. Hence why I'm flying Ethiopia airlines!
And since my row-mate is engrossed in a book, and the people I'm traveling with are seated kind of far away, and the in-flight magazine is... just a lot about coffee. Like, half about coffee? At least.
I'm like "hmm what to do"
Oh, right! Watch a completely insane movie about destroying demons with a book of lullabies and romantic comedy!
Hm. Alright, done. What now?
The answer, of course, is right in front of me!
A bounty!
Incidentally, sorry about the angle. MY touchscreen was broken, so I'm using the empty seat's next to me. The lady two seats away from me was either sleeping or pretty weirded out by what was happening.
Action, Board/Puzzles, Card, Kids, Sports, eh?
The choice is clear.
KIDS GAMES!
So fix the pix and 3d Tic-tac-toe sound boring.
But "doodle touch?" I'm all OVER doodle touch!
Let's boot up this paint clone bad boy and...
Hahaha I love this description. Even the blurb-writer for the game really can't be bothered. Here's the brush. Here's the picture. Go wild, rugrats.
It's a paint-the-numbers thing.
I go back to this screen whenever I go to the bathroom, just to give people something to think about.
Well, that was boring.
Card games?
These might be fun if anybody was actually in the multiplayer lobby, which anybody on board could play on, but matchmaking is a problem. If somebody isn't already on, you'd have to hold a lobby open, which means staying on the most boring screen imaginable instead of doing something more interesting.
Puzzle games?
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Alright, let's go to sports. That seems likely!
Pool is totally unplayable. It's a game that really needs the ability to press and hold down the touch screen, but you have to press different times for every increment, and there are more than 360 degrees in this game, because you can press the "angle left" button 360 times and the pool cue won't QUITE circle the ball.
Then you have to increment the "hitting power" to high, which again takes forever and auuuuuggghhhhhh.
No, it's BOWLING TIME.
ICE bowling!
Now don't get me wrong, I love a theme or gimmick as much as the next guy, but the ice thing literally never enters play. It's just a bowling alley, and you just bowl.
There isn't even winter music playing, or like, a penguin.
Oh well!
OH MY GOODNESS that is a blank high score table! Time to put our mark on this airline!
BOWLING FOR THE BOWLING GOD, PINS FOR THE PIN THRONE!
OR time to fail. But that's doing it one-handed, and distracted. Using the old technique of "mash the button when it's one away from what you want", I can do a straight shot.
So hitting the ball straight down the center gives you...
Ouch. 7-10 split!
But you know, we're not aiming for a perfect game, just the high score. So just keeping everything steady...
BOOM! High Score'd!
Alright.
It's time for action games.
There is only one action game.
I'm beginning to suspect there was only EVER one action game, anime guy on the cover notwithstanding.
Nothing, nothing can prepare you
for
BOXKNOX
BOXKNOX, WITH IT'S BOTH OPTIONS
BOXKNOX, WHICH LETS YOU PICK A NAME, INSTEAD OF JUST A SEAT NUMBER
Boxknox, which is uh... really, really really hard
I cannot emphasize this enough.
Boxknox.
Is.
Brutal.
So here's the deal.
You pick one of two randomly-generated fighters
Your stamina drains every time you punch, and punch power is just how hard you hit.
Those values are NOT randomly generated - each time you can pick between a strong stamina / weak punch guy and vice versa. It's just their appearances that change.
The values are also always SUPER close to each other, so I found that picking the greater punch power guy is probably a good idea just so you can do a few itoas more damage. That IS important.
It's important because doing damage is your FIRST AND ONLY job.
The game goes like this: you punch each other until the timer is up on the round. Whoever has more health at the end wins the round, best of six wins. Ties are resolved by giving both fighters a glove, but the damage is so fine-grained that I bet that never happens ever.
Also, you will never, ever win the round with more health than your enemy. You will win by KO, and by that I mean you will not win at all.
See, the touch screen is REALLY clunky. You press on a thick piece of plastic, which then presses on the actual touch screen. Your touch is anywhere from a half an inch to an inch below where your finger is mashing, and it changes every time. The buttons are usually big enough that this is fine (for movie selection, calling attendants, and etc.), but WOEFULLY inadequate for boxknox.
Sorry this is blurry, I was cursing and weeping while taking the picture. But look at that button/finger ratio. You have to be mashing it RIGHT ON.
Add to that the fact that commands take about a second to process, and the AI has no such limitations, and you can see
how frustrating this quickly becomes.
I said you'll never win by decision, that's because the AI is SUPER HYPER AGGRESSIVE when you have more health. It will charge you, and rapid punch your heart to death. I'll have the reach advantage because it's advancing on you, and you can't block fast enough to keep the damage away. It just stun-locks your slow controls to death.
Another reason you must win by KO is that the very first time any player loses all their health, it's GAME OVER instantly. And you aren't winning four matches out of six AND surviving the other two.
So you have three punches. Low punches are good when the AI is stationary, as they must be blocked with the "duck" command. Ducking also makes high punches miss you, but you take extra damage (I think?) from uppercuts. Or maybe you can't block uppercuts.
High punches have excellent reach, and uppercuts stun the enemy for a half-second.
The AI, as I said, is much quicker than you, but it also cheats. I swear that as its health got lower it stopped getting stunned by uppercuts, and passed right through my first sometimes.
I began to make elaborate rulesets "Ok, when he advances at me, I back up once and do an uppercut, followed by a step forward, two high punches, unless he ducks, then another uppercut..."
And none of it mattered. I'd miss the "back" button at a crucial moment, or he'd walk through a punch, or some BS like that, and it would be all over.
...
And then...
I was a new fighter. I had strong punches, weak stamina, but it didn't seem to matter.
He drifted towards me chin-first, leering because of his unbroken string of thirty-two (yes, true, unfortunately) victories.
I snapped an uppercut into his chin. He reeled back, stunned.
I fired another.
And another.
And another.
He was down to a single health point, too small a sliver to even be seen.
And like mighty casey, he realized what was happening too fast.
Taking back control of his powers of cheating, he broke out of my stun lock and hit me six times in two seconds with high punches. I was down to half health.
I mashed the duck button, praying one attempt would stick.
He hit me three more times. Quarter health.
He flung out his hand, and whiffed on air. I had ducked.
He desperately threw a whirlwind of uppercuts, and one connected. Another would have finished me, but the uppercut animation is slow, and the low punch animation is fast.
And my fist lazily swung towards him.
Through the blood, and the sweat, and the tears, it was like watching a bumblebee fly.
His face contorted in rage - I could see the arrogance melting away, and incomprehension taking its place.
Followed by fear.
FOLLOWED BY VICTORY!
I tried to do this one-handed so I could video it after the fact, but uh... no.
I swear the game was spiteful, because it just obliterated me the next six games. I'm talking either one punch or no punch damage to it, while I was laid out in seconds.
Notice there were four seconds remaining in the round. If the clock had run out, then I would have won that round, and got obliterated instantly in round 2, ending the whole game.
I am BACTER.
I AM BACTER!
I AM THE BOXKNOX CHAMPION!
I AM INDEED READY FOR SOME TEA, THANK YOU FLIGHT ATTENDANT!