Game Boy Works

We return briefly to Game Boy Works to mark the system's 30th anniversary... not that this these games are necessarily glorious celebrations of Game Boy's existence. But then again, maybe they're perfectly apt? Square Deal combines two of the system's most common genres—puzzlers and casino games—and Parasol Henbee is a licensed platformer. Together, these comprise the fundamental Game Boy experience. And while they're not amazing, they're both above average for their genres. So... a concise summary of the Game Boy experience, I guess.

Next on the Game Boy agenda is an odd little puzzler with loads of personality, a great central hook, and some of the most frustrating gameplay imaginable. Go! Go! Tank flies a little too close to the sun, which maybe explains why you have to keep nudging your stupid little airplane down constantly. Also in this episode: A frustrating, grind-intensive role-playing game in which it's entirely possible to lock yourself into an unwinnable state after dozens of hours of play. Fun!

We're briefly jumping one month out of chronological order here in 1990, from Nov. 30 to Dec. 31, to look at a game that keeps showing up in Video Works: Namco's The Tower of Druaga. While admittedly it's the arcade game from 1984 and the Famicom port from 1985 that keep getting mention for their formative impact on Japanese games design (rather than this port from five or six years later), this is a more or less direct conversion of the original with a few quality-of-life tweaks. Anyway, with this episode in the can, I don't have to explain The Tower of Druaga every time I reference it. We all win.