Way Off-Target

Krish Raghav — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 08:37:00 GMT

The cheerfully alliterative Gunning for Gold, a game by the gaggle of game-designers at Games2Win.com, is the latest outlet for general Abhinav Bindra adulation – which, having taken over Twitter, Blogspot, and even the murky netherworlds of Rediff, is breaking into that next big bastion of modern-day internet buzzwords.

Interactivity.

Except that it doesn’t.

But it could have.

And done so quite brilliantly.

(Back to normal sized paragraphs now)
Remember that 80-20 rule? How 80% of something contributes only 20% to an output, and vice versa? Its the law of the vital few, and trivial many, and one certainly true for Gunning for Gold – 80% of the game makes little or no sense, or adds absolutely nothing to the 20% gameplay.

There’s bouncy music that sounds like the ‘Fanfare’ preset on those old Casio keyboards.(Thankfully, there's a Mute button)

There’s an annoying 8 second pause between shots, where you are forced to listen to a generic ‘cheer’ sound effect.

Your two opponents score the same points every time you play, giving the game absolutely no difficulty curve.

There’s a live scoreboard, but it doesn’t give cumulative scores or show who’s leading (agreed, there are colour cues, but c'mon, that’s making the player do the math. In-between a game of shooting things)

And why no multiplayer? Gunning for Gold would have been perfect with an online leaderboard and intense three player shootouts. Shooting is a perfect sport for multiplayer. Heck, Typeracer implemented it perfectly, and that was a game about…err, competitive typing.

The basic gameplay involves nothing more than clicking on the manic ‘SHOOT!’ button, moving the crosshair, now zoomed in to the target, as quickly as possible to the bullseye (because, the quicker you get in a shot, the higher your score), and clicking to shoot. This is then repeated 10 times, after which cumulative scores decide who wins. Of course, anything other than a gold medal is epic fail for this game. Silver medals, apparently, are for losers.

Simple enough, but even these minimalist gameplay elements are broken.

Time matters only if you miss the bullseye – but with the payoff of getting a bullseye disproportionately higher than missing it, the best strategy for the game become a ridiculous one.

You move the mouse down (because, bizzarely, the crosshair starts at the SAME spot above the board EVERY time), carefully align with the bullseye, ignore your competitors who, by now, could have finished all 10 shots, posed for photos and addressed a press conference, and then shoot.

‘Well done!’ the game cheerfully informs you, and you smirk.

All games can be gamed, but not this quickly.

…

I do realize, at this point, that this is a flash game we’re talking about, one that makes no pretensions other than being a momentary distraction. So maybe I’m just being mean.

Summary for convenience: “Gunning for Gold is a timely, fun game that offers 10 minutes of distractive fun in between a workday.”

So, yeah.

Links:

Gunning for Gold

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Play Things : Abhinav Bindra

Way Off-Target