Fun Web Game ---> The Huffington Post's "Pyramid Scheme"

For those of you who've been the victim of a pyramid scheme, The Huffington Post has got a game for you!  It's like one of those crosswords... no, that's not it.  Jumble?  You know, one of those games where you have to look for a word in the midst of a matrix of seemingly random letters... Word Search!  Apparently that's what it's called... really?  Word Search?  Seems kinda plain somehow.  It's like if someone tells you their name is John Smith.  Really?  Not a pseudonym, not an alias, not a joke name, it's actually John Smith.  Okay, if you say so!  Well, one thing I do like about the HuffPost's variation on... Word Search... is that they're pretty strict about what the right answer is.  Sure, there might be OTHER correct words in there, but it's not the right one.  Sometimes it's possible to screw up on a Word Search and circle the wrong word, but they're pretty careful about it.

Ooh!  Before I forget, as long as we're talking about HuffPo, I've got a terrific new slogan for the Huff Post.  Here goes... Huff Post!  Newsmakers huff, and we post... no good?  Too wordy?  Don't give up the day job?  Okay, fine.

Mr. Robot, Level 'T'

Ah yes, finally we come to what I was alluding to in previous posts. And yes... I am that fool that needs to be pitied. If you're like me, you use 'saved states' to play games on that awesome Atari emulator... a feature missing on my 2600 Emulator, sadly! Oh well, I wasn't planning on playing Ms. Pac-Man for the 2600 for too long anyway. AND SO... those stupid white downspouts make their triumphant return again, and yup!  You guessed it... Slip up once, and you're finished.  At least it's a quiet death.  I do kinda like the one where the bomb blows you skyward.  Kinda feels like you're getting something done, don't it?  No?  Just me?  Okay, never mind... oh, right.  So I use 'saved states' to play this game.  Usually, I only need one per level.  On this level, however, I needed TWO!!!  Getting to the middle of the board is just that much of a pain in the........................................

Mr. Robot, Level 'S'

Good Lourdes! Are we EVER going to get through this damn alphabet? Guess we're just lucky they're not using the Chinese or Japanese alphabet... am I right?  According to Wikipedia, there's 50,000 Chinese characters in the language... but that's since antiquity.  Only 10,000 are in use today, 3,000 of which are frequently used, especially in their media.  Keep fighting, guys.  Meanwhile, there's just a few thousand letters in the Japanese alphabet.  Therefore, probably not a good way to label your levels in a video game.  Who's got time to play a few thousand levels?  You gotta do like Doom II, and just have a few really good levels... man, I miss that thing.  ENNY WEIGH, as you can see from the attached pic, Level 'D' strikes again, with a twist... is this a first?  Maybe not.  I'm too beleaguered to check.  I think this is the first time that those bombs are used as a downward staircase.  I should probably put a bunch of arrows on this thing!  Give myself a map for when I try to flip this game's score.  I wouldn't have been able to do it if I was playing this on an actual Atari machine.  I had other games to play, besides.  I mucked around with that Racing Destruction Set way too much, that's for sure.  It's like Marble Madness, but with cars!

(the next afternoon) Level 'L', you idiot!  It's like Level 'L'!  Also, the theme song!  That's why I mucked around so much

Mr. Robot, Level 'R'

Ah yes, the triumphant return of Level 'N', but with a twist... I forget what it is. Oh! I think I know what it is: watch out for dead ends! And, some of the live ones too, for that matter, especially if they've got fireballs in them.

Mr. Robot, Level 'Q'

Ah yes, the triumphant return of Level 'D', only a little tougher, and even though there are no new gimmicks, icons, features, characters, what have you... there is a slightly new way of looking at things. And a new philosophical question to ask yourself: can you climb down a ladder if it's blocked by one of those bomb things?

Will you get Killed if you Just Stand There? Oh, very much so... go quickly now!

Mr. Robot, Level 'P'

All right! The triumphant return of those... white downspout things. I think this was one of the first times when I worried I wouldn't finish in time. If not the first, definitely my favorite. SPOILER ALERT: believe me, the worst is yet to come!

Mr. Robot, Level 'O'

And again, there are no new features to deal with... hmm! What are they, technically? I mean, the girders, the power puffs... pills, the fireballs? Features? Axioms? Icons? Gimmicks? Gizmos? Whatever they are, there's no new ones to learn. But if you take a first and or second glance at it... seems impossible, right? You gotta think outside the box a little bit, so to speak... although, when you do finally figure it out, that's probably not the right phrase. At all. It's not one I'm sick of yet, actually. I'll know it when I hear it, though. Epic! Iconic! Game Changing! Kony 2023

Mr. Robot, Level 'N'

...guess how you do THIS one??!!! Incidentally, this is a lot like Spelunker where... SPOILER ALERT... you play the most rotund cave explorer of all time. Still quite lithe and agile, however! And when the game makers want to make sure you can't go back to the areas you already explored... and taken all of the treasures and energy / oxygen, so what would be the point, really? Anyway, you do about five or six of these big jumps where you fall just short of the distance that will kill you. Same thing in Level 'N' of Mr. Robot, but I gotta tell ya... at my age, I climb over one fence that's the same height as me, and I'm done for the day! Just sayin'... #justsayin #videogamelife #zxkuqyb #stopthesehashtagsiwanttogetoff

Mr. Robot, Level 'M'

Okay, Smart Guy... whaddaya got to say about this one?  Whelp, thank God... in this case, Ron Rosen... for the occasional easy level.  An epic game like this definitely needs one or two... just the one?  Okay, fine.  Sorry... SPOILER ALERT.  Now, you're probably asking yourself, why is it spelled "Bonus Rouhd"?  Well, I think that "h"-looking thing is supposed to be an 'n.'  For whatever reason, it doesn't look like the 'n' in 'Bouns'... bonus.  Bonuses abound, my friends!  Not so much in nature anymore, of course... Well, these guys were under tremendous pressure to get their games to market.  Administrative errors were bound to occur in tiny quantities.  For example, I probably already told you a thousand times about the glitch in the emulator version of "Preppie! II", and thank God... in that case, Russ Wetmore... for it.  That particular sequel is just not as good as Original Recipe.  As for bonus rounds in general, well... Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man don't have any at all!  They just figured the rousing game play would be enough, and perhaps they were right.  SUPER Pac-Man, on the other hand... they figured they needed a little something.  In the (instant) case of Mr. Robot and his Robot Factory, I think this is the longest one goes to get to a bonus round!  SPOILER ALERT - And, as we find out later, we can flip the score and the levels, so you end up going 22 levels to get to the next one!  Pretty long slog.

Mr. Robot, Level 'L'

Okay! Back to it. I'm getting a little déja vu, I'll admit. So this one's a little bit like Level 'D'... just a little less fun.  I mean, sure, I like a challenge and all... I just don't want to have to write out step-by-step instructions for all the damn levels!!!  Incidentally, that's usually a good maze-making strategy for your game.  If you design a level that turns out to be really good... use it again, but make it tougher.  Not too tough!  Not MechWarrior 4 tough...

Mr. Robot, Level 'K'

FINALLY! A chance to relax. No new features on this one... you just have to be careful what you do first. This is another one of those Everything levels. Everything... except trampolines. The Fun Police are on patrol again! I gotta say, I don't care for those 'Everything' bagels too much; the least they can do is give you a pair of gloves or something for handling the sticky bastards. Well, I'm just being downright picky tonight. Also, avocados are fun... slicing avocados, not so much.  That also can get quite messy.  The one nice thing about it is you can slice your way around the non-ripe parts and just throw those out.  Life's too short.

Mr. Robot, Level 'J'

...oops! Looks like I took the screen capture a little bit late. Gonna lose some followers on that one! Anyway, whew! I'm pooped. And we still got more new features to get adjusted to! We got all the usual suspects: power pills, extra men, the ubiquitous dots... but what is this? Are those magnets? Yes they are! Now, you will notice that there are actually two magnets: a small one, and a large one.  Need I go on?  I could... but I won't.  Pass on the suffering, that's my motto to the gamers.  Sure, there's probably a web site or two out there with explicit instructions... there's probably a YouTube (TM)(C)(R) video or two.  Let me check... my work is done here. (sniffs, wipes away tear)  ...or is it?  After all, look at all the platforms they have "walkthroughs" of!  Apple II, Commodore 64... this NES version of Spelunker is what's wrong with video games... if only for me.  The avatar's cuter, the game play's way less dangerous.  Lode Runner and Sokoban all got the Gameboy (TM)(C)(R) Cute-ification treatment.  Now, THIS is what I'm talkin' about!  This was before Broderbund (TM)(R)(C) bought it from Tim Martin and Micro GraphicImage.  Broderbund did, however, fix it.  The one main bug was that if you get two of the more points-laden artifacts in a row, you don't get the full point value.  Micro GraphicImage only used one byte as a point counter.  Broderbund used two... okay, maybe just nine bits, but STILL!  Anyway, this all brings me to my next point: magnets.  I hate to sound like a rich record executive... but I did just watch the Clive Davis documentary on Netflix (TM)(C)(R)... okay, I listened to most of it from the next room, but I think I got the gist of it.  Anyway, games like Spelunker, Lode Runner, Sokoban, Boulder Dash... no magnets!  Robbo?  Yes magnets, but deadly!  All you can do is block them with the Sokoban-like blocks you push around.  Doom, Doom II, Quake?  No magnets.  Microman?  Magnets, but they're bad.  Fortunately, you can shoot at them!  You need to fire about a thousand bullets or so, but... totally worth it!  Okay, I'll give you one insider tip: when you're under the influence of the magnets, and you're climbing a ladder... keep climbing!  Because the magnet will pull your ass off.  And second... nice job on the multi-tasking!  Keep up the good work!!

Mr. Robot, Level 'I'

...is it just me, or are these levels getting less and less fun?  Just kidding... they just keep getting better and better.  As you may have guessed from the attached picture, there's a new gadget in the robot factory, which means a new opportunity for high quality maze making.  If you actually play the game on one emulator or sorts, you'll see that these slim white ladder-looking things are moving down, which is what they'll make you do: gently slide down.  Thereby adding more time to your game play.  And for those of you planning ahead... will these down chutes be used for an increasingly harder level?  Well yes, but I dare not spoil the surprise...

Mr. Robot, Level 'H'

Oh boy!  Here's another fun one.  In level 'H', you... hmm!  Usually levels are numbered, not lettered.  Of course, there's "Boulder Dash," and you probably know how I feel about that one.  The original Donkey Kong (TM)(C)(R) was trying to be enigmatic like tennis.  I mean, 25 meters?  I'm assuming that's what the "M" stood for.  Oh... must be how tall Donkey Kong (R)(C)(TM) is.  And look!  If you stand six of them on top of one another, 150 meters!  WOW!  It's like some kind of a Donkey Kong (C)(TM)(R) Totem pole!  Or something!  Then there's the space games: Buck Rogers (TM)(C)(R) and Star Trek (C)(R)(TM) for Atari feature decimal point levels... just out to a tenth of a digit, thankfully.  Of course, the higher-end games give their levels actual names, like Jumpman (C)(TM)(R), Jumpman Junior (R)(C)(TM) or Championship Lode Runner (R)(TM)(C)... did I go through all six permutations yet?  Plus I gotta go back and do all the hyperlinks.  What damn good is a blog posting without accompanying hyperlinks?  And of course, bringing it full circle more or less, there's Pac-Man (TM)(R)(C) or Ms. Pac-Man (TM)(C)(R) whose levels are basically emojis.  We should probably call the last five years or so The Emoji Age.  Give the Japanese their due, for once!  We got an emoji movie, after all!  Why not an Emoji Age?  You know, if you would've told me 30 years ago that people would eventually be communicating with tiny pictures, I wouldn't of believed it... have believed it.  And if you told me about NFTs or Crypto-Currency, I would've needed a second or third explanation at least.  And if you told me that in 30 years we'd have Mexican White Supremacists, well... if I was a bartender, I'd probably tell you it was time to leave.  And the bouncer would back me up on that, but hey, that's just me.  Pepe the Frog, Mexican White Supremacists... I just love this Insane New World we live in.  Can't get enough of it.  Aldous Huxley was close... or maybe he was being ironic.  I mean, it's like that new Billie Eilish thing... it's from TWO YEARS AGO????  Well, FORGET IT, THEN!!!!  And don't even get me started on that Lana del Rey album, "Born to Die."  Well, that's a little negative, isn't it?  I mean, you can get some absolutely lovely plastic surgery before then!  I'll bet that's not even her real name... Micklewhite?  I mean, Elizabeth Woolridge Grant?  Well, before you die, you can try and raise the profile of your great-great... great Grandpappy Ulysses.  I'll even help you out: he was actually pretty hard-working in his youth before he became one of our drunkest Presidents ever.  And he was on the right side of the Civil War!  If that doesn't entitle him to some booze, well... what gives?  I mean, what does?

Oopsie!  Think I got sidetracked by yet another tangent.  ANYWAY, if you love trampolines... and you should... well, you're probably going to absolutely love this lev... el.  Alas, there's no new gadgets or gizmos in this one.  Wait a second!... what's that eyeball-looking thing under the left-most fireball?  Check it out...

Mr. Robot, Level 'G'

Oh boy!  NOW we're getting into the fun stuff.  This slightly reminds me of that old 3 light bulbs and 3 light switches logic puzzle which I first learned about many moons ago in a Windows (TM)(C)(R) Network Administration 101 class... actually, Mr. Robot's level 'G' is probably a little less sophisticated.  No new features this time, so now it's time for some ingenuity in level design.  So what parts to do first?  And what parts to do last?  Well, you should be able to figure out what part to do last.  I mean, you can't just fall onto the trampoline from there, and you most assuredly can't jump, so.... wait, actually there is a new feature!  See those white lines on the left that go from the teeny platform to the longer platforms?  ...well, I've probably spoiled the surprise enough as it is.  Also, this level is mean because it features no fireball-subduing power pills.  Incidentally, isn't the vertical rainbow of color that permeates each level just the best?  It's pretty high-tech if you don't know how to program it.  For the sophisticated Atari programmer, it meant tinkering with something called "display list interrupts."  Activision (TM)(C)(R) was probably the unparalleled champion of such gimmicks.  They would do it with player/missiles mostly.  Pastfinder of course had way way too many, pushing that poor overworked 6502 to its absolute limits... I think that's about it.  Have I not talked about Level 'G' enough yet?  No one was ever able to make a decent arcade game out of those 16-color Atari modes; the pixels were too wide, alas.  No attempts at a topographical maze or anything! :(

Mr. Robot, Level 'F'

Oh boy!  Time for yet another new feature!  Those funny short girders?  Just stand in the middle of them... on the middle of them, press the 'fire' button... that's how you do it, right?  I forget myself.  God bless Instant Amnesia!  Press the button, and you will semi-instantly be transported to a random girder not of your choice... or maybe they're chosen in a cycle, I forget that too.  You know, it's strange... transporters like this are great and all, but they don't seem to be the stuff of truly great and classic game play!  Now you'll say, what about Pac-Man?  Well, that's a little different.  In the original Pac-Man, there's one exit that takes you to the other vertical side of the maze.  There's magic there, sure... especially when the ghosts trap you on both sides, and they can catch you when you're completely disappeared!  For some, it just means that the Pac-Man maze is an example of a torus.  Most of the mazes in Ms. Pac-Man feature two exits, but it's not that kind of magic.  Boulder Dash (TM)(C)(R) only has exits to take you to the next level, and that's one of the greatest arcade-style games of all time!  Quasimodo (TM) of Synapse fame has portals to take you from the bells of the church tower to the three levels of game play.  Frogger?  No transports.  Donkey Kong?  No transports.  Asteroids?  No transports.  Tempest?  Transports only to the next levels.  Crystal Castles?  Secret transports you earn after repeated game play, only to other levels.  Which I certainly like; something about playing two "Tree Wave"s in a row is very depressing.  Pooyan?  NO transports.  No, the only way out of that one is to just stop playing.  Pengo?  No transports.  Shamus?  No transports.  Now, you take something like Doom or Doom II.  They have a few transports used judiciously.  Certainly nothing as diabolical as what we have here, where it's a bit of a crapshoot as to where you're going to end up.  In Doom or Quake, the transport always takes you to the same place, or back from the same place.  Now, in Star Trek, it's all about beaming.  They're always at war with the Vulcans or the Kardashians (TM)(C)(R), but they've all got transports on their ships!  They're not animals, for God's sake!  I don't know what kind of technological revolution it's going to take to give us beaming technology, but it seems to be like clean, abundant nuclear fusion: 40 years off.  Personally, I don't think beaming is ever going to happen, despite its wonderful contribution to science fiction.  Perhaps someday it'll become a neat, high-tech way of losing someone's luggage in the air between ports.