Just how small can a game be while still being playable?

That’s the question answered at http://www.guimp.com/ where the entire website is only 18×18 pixels. Some of the notable games you can play in an insanely shrunken form include Pong, Space Invaders, and my personal favorite, Pacman.   This little site is ingenious as it shows how the gameplay of these early games can be boiled down to almost nothing while still retaining the key elements that allow the games to be playable (and dare I say it, fun?).  Of course, in Pacman, you’re reduced to only a single “ghost” but any more than one would easily be overwhelming in a game of this size.  What do you expect with only 324 pixels of information?  In any case, if you have a few extra minutes, Guimp is definitely a fun site to check out.

One thought on “Just how small can a game be while still being playable?

  1. Professor Sample

    Very interesting find! When you talk about boiling the game down to its essential key elements, you reminded me of a term we’ll talk about in class: the “core mechanics” of a game. More on that later….

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