Saturday, May 18, 2024
I am generally not great at games where you have to think and act fast, but I do really enjoy them. Games like Times Up require speed and performance, games like Scattegories is all about thinking creatively under pressure, and Ghost Blitz tests your powers of speedy perception. Flash 8 is like a speedy version of the classic slide puzzle game and it forces you to both think and move fast.
Flash 8 is like a classic 3×3 slide puzzle. You have eight Electrons (3 blue, 2 yellow, and 1 each of purple, red, and green). This leaves one space open for you to be able to slide the discs around.
The centre of the play area is made up of stacks of cards that each have a different display of three or more Electrons in a specific orientation. You place your board so that it lines up with one side of the cards. When the game begins, it’s a race for all the players to slide their Electrons to match the various cards. Because everyone sees the cards from their own perspective, they’re actually working on slightly different puzzles.
With up to four piles of puzzles on display, it possible everyone will be working on their own. But the chances are that there will be some crossover and just when you’re one move away from matching a card when it’ll be snatched away from you by an opponent that was just a little bit faster. When you match a configuration, you yell ‘Flash’ and everyone pauses to confirm. A good match lets you claim the card revealing the next one down.
Play continues at this frantic pace until the last card has been claimed. Most cards are worth one point each, but some of the more complex ones are worth two. The player that has collected the most points wins.
Now, Flash 8 is a lot of fun to play, but I would worry a little how much fun it would be to play a lot with the same group. There is usually just someone in a game group that is just awesome at this type speed, spacial awareness puzzle and to lose repeatedly to the same person over and over would not be that awesome.
If you do find yourself getting your butt kicked a lot, you can always try out the solo mode to hone your skills. You use the solo side of the cards in a 3×3 grid and work to reproduce columns or rows they make.
I do wish there was some sort of abilities or powers that could be unlocked to change up the game a little bit and add some new things to figure each time you play, but with the way the game is played, I’m not sure how that would be implemented.
Flash 8 isn’t a deep, strategic game. It’s simple and straight forward. It plays fast and I would pull this out to start or end a game night, or if you just have a few minutes to kill (it really does play in about 10 minutes).
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A media copy of Flash 8 was provided by Scorpion Masque.
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