Lumines: Puzzle Fusion
Lumines (ルミネス, Ruminesu) is a video game created by game designer Tetsuya Mizuguchi. It was released in 2005 for the PlayStation Portable (see 2005 in video gaming). It is a puzzle game based on sound and light patterns.
As of October 11, 2005, it has been confirmed that Lumines has sold over half a million units since its original release in Japan in December 2004. Europe has contributed 180,000 units since its release in September 2005, and North America has sold around 1,300,000 since March. In Japan Lumines has sold around 700,000 units.
In September 2005, mobile gamemaker Gameloft announced that they would be bringing both Meteos and Lumines to cell phones. Lumines Mobile was released on March 1, 2006. A port for the PlayStation 2 was released in 2007 as Lumines Plus. It was also released for PC on the WildTangent platform in December of 2007.
Two sequels titled Lumines Live! and Lumines II were released in 2006.
Lumines is pronounced [lu•mən•əs] (homophonic of "luminous", the word is also the Latin word for "lights").
Gameplay
Lumines is a block-dropping game, that may seem at first to be similar to Columns and Tetris. A 2 x 2 square (an O tetromino) made of four smaller block pieces is dropped into the playing field, which may appear different as the player advances through levels or skins. The small blocks that comprise the larger blocks will be one of two different colors. The objective is to rotate and align the blocks in such a way as to create 2x2 squares of the same color, which may span multiple blocks and, indeed, share blocks. For example, if one should get a 2x3 area of matching blocks, the middle portion will "share" itself with both the left and right halves and create two 2x2 squares. After the "timeline", which is synchronized to the music, sweeps over the matching blocks, they disappear. When too many unmatched blocks pile up to the point where no more blocks may be dropped in the playing field, the game ends.
It is worth noting that when part of a falling block hits an obstruction, the unobstructed portion of the block will split off and continue to fall. More points are scored by creating the largest number of squares during one "timeline" sweep. Increasing score multipliers are earned by repeatedly clearing squares on consecutive timeline sweeps. Bonuses are also awarded by reducing all remaining tiles to one single color or for removing all non-active tiles from the screen altogether.
Occasionally, a block falls with a special square of one of the two colors with a "jewel" in the center. This square, when cleared as part of a matched 2x2 square, will cause all individual blocks of the same color that are horizontally or vertically adjacent to the matched 2x2 square, or adjacent to a square that is. These can be used for both generating large bonuses, since generally several blocks of the other color will be formed once these are removed, as well as to help the player recover if the field becomes too cluttered.
Lumines is played in different "skins". Like the software interface skins, these change the visual appearance of the board, but they also control the soundtrack. Each skin contains a different song and different sound effects, which are triggered by game events and then integrated into the soundtrack. As in Mizuguchi's earlier game, Rez, the soundtrack and sound effects are much more integral to the game than in most others. Skins are unlocked by progressing through the different game modes, or in four-level intervals in challenge mode. Each skin also changes the rate at which the timeline moves across the screen, in time with the music. This can affect the game play; faster tempos make it more difficult to create large combos, and slower tempos may cause the playing field to fill while waiting for the timeline to sweep across. The visual changes can also be jarring. While it's generally easy to distinguish the two colors, nearly always a light and a dark one, the contrast of these colors with the background can be difficult to make out, and thus can make playing more difficult. Compounding this are distracting elements like animated backgrounds and frenetic music.
In addition, the order that the skins are presented to the player in both Challenge and Vs. CPU mode are fixed in a pre-set order that loops around indefinitely. (While this is also true for the basic mode in Lumines Live, this game also includes the ability to create one's own desired skin order). The order of the presentation of the skins can affect the difficulty of the game as well; for example, a fast-paced skin which can cause a lot of blocks to pile up, followed by a skin with a very slow timeline can make it difficult to recover from earlier mistakes. Skins change regularly after a fixed number of 2x2 squares are removed, tracked by a "level" indicator, so that one can prepare for the visual disruption caused by the change.
There are 4 basic modes in the game, Challenge, Time Attack, Puzzle, Vs., and Vs. CPU Mode. Challenge Mode cycles through skins in a fixed order of generally increasing difficulty, and is played until the blocks pile up to the top of the screen. The maximum score in Challenge Mode is 999,999 points. Time Attack games give the player a limited time to clear as many blocks as possible. Puzzle mode challenges the player to create pictures (such as a cat, dog, cross, etc.) by forming the picture with one color while surrounding it with the opposite color. Vs. CPU mode is a series of battles against A.I. opponents. A line splits the playing field in half, and deleting blocks or combinations of blocks shifts the line towards the opposing player, giving the opposing player less room on their side. The battle ends when blocks pile up all the way to the top of the screen for one player. Two players with PSPs can use their wireless connection to play in the same way.
It is theoretically possible to beat at least the slow parts of the single-player Challenge mode of Lumines deterministically [1] [2]. By dividing the game board into separate sections, and using each section to clear blocks of only a single type, it is always possible to place a piece so that the game state stays in a loop. However, this tactic is not completely foolproof; it will only work as long as the speed of the falling blocks (which can increase or decrease with changes in the "skin") does not exceed the ability of the player to place them before landing and the timeline moves quickly enough to delete the blocks.
User Mode Exploit
On June 23, 2007, a PSP homebrew team released a proof of concept for an exploit that allowed execution of unsigned code on all PSP units running firmwares 1.00-3.50, at that point in time, the latest firmware release. Previous Exploits were broken by firmware 3.03, and the newest workaround required a Genuine Lumines UMD, of any edition. Three days later, a downgrader was released for firmware version 3.50, enabling all PSPs at the time to downgrade to version 1.50. This revelation lead to a 5900% increase in the sales rank of the game at Amazon.com and a dramatic increase of the game from retailers like Gametraders and EB Games. This exploit was patched through the firmware 3.51 released a few days later. A patched version of the game was later released in Japan which requires firmware version 3.51.
Ports
In September 2005, mobile gamemaker Gameloft announced that they would be bringing both Meteos and Lumines to cell phones. Lumines Mobile was released on March 1, 2006. It is provided by all major wireless communication providers (Verizon, Sprint Nextel). In February, 2007 a port for the PlayStation 2 was released under the title Lumines Plus. It added new skins and music tracks, although at the same time omitting some other tracks from the original game.[1] According to an ESRB listing, Lumines will appear on Windows. It has been confirmed by Q Entertainment. It is not known if it will be a port of the original Lumines or a completely new game.
Sequels
So far, there has been two other games in the series:
- Lumines Live! (2006)
- Lumines II (2006)
Awards
- Included on Game Informer's "Top 50 Games of 2005" list
- GameSpot's 2005 PSP Game Of The Year
- Electronic Gaming Monthly's 2005 Handheld Game Of The Year
Other implementations
Because of the popularity of Lumines, developers of shareware, freeware, and free software have made their own game programs either based closely on or inspired by the rules of Lumines.
For Mac OS X
For multiple platforms
- Flare - program for Java Web Start technology
- Luminesweeper - Free homebrew game for Game Boy Advance
- LumiDS - freeware homebrew game for Nintendo DS
- Sweep - applet written in the Java programming language
- Zoomines - for Microsoft Windows and Apple Macintosh written in BlitzMAX
- Luamines - Homebrew game for the PlayStation Portable, via Lua Player
References
- ^ Thomas, Aaron (2007-04-02). "Lumines Plus review". GameSpot. Retrieved October 28.
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