Curse you, Tonypa! No, seriously, you have to stop making these games that suck up all my time as I try one more time...uh, where was I going with this? Oh yeah, Taberinos. Taberinos is a fun new game of skill by Tonypa which, frankly, is going to cause productivity to drop in offices, schools, and homes across the nation, exacerbating the troubles of our already shaky economy. It's a plot I tells ya!
The concept of the game is supremely simple. You control a dark blue ball with the mouse. An arrow around the ball moved by said mouse indicates a direction, and then you left click to release. Why would you want to do this? Well, there are white lines on the screen, evil white lines that simply must be eliminated. Bounce the ball against a line and it disappears, keep going until you run out of shots, or all of the lines are gone and you advance to the next level. Well, it sounds simple, anyway. As you progress, obstacles appear in the form of nodes. Nodes are little dots connected by a line. The only way to make a node disappear is to vanish all the lines connecting it. Still pretty simple, but wait, there's more. Black nodes are still easy to get rid of, but then angry nodes show up. These white nodes are very testy, and if you hit them with your little ball they will generate more lines. Then bloated gray nodes show up, which must be hit to deflate them.
Scoring is equally simple. Receive 1 point for each line you remove. If you manage to ricochet around and erase more than one line with a shot, you get extra points for each one. Nodes will get you 10 points except for the angry nodes and the bloated grays. If you manage to first deflate then erase a gray or vanish a white you're looking at 20 points.
The strategy is a combination of both geometry and physics, making Taberinos play like a wacky version of billiards. Try to judge how to line up a shot to take out as many lines as possible with the limited momentum of the ball, while attempting to avoid the angry nodes. If you manage to erase everything from the screen before you run out of shots, you get to progress to the next level, which is even more difficult. Fortunately, after every 5 levels you will earn one extra shot, and trust me, you'll need it.
Analysis: For something so simple, Taberinos is horribly addicting casual gameplay. Run out of shots and think, "Hey, I can do better, let's try that again." Next thing you know, hours have passed, and you might be still trying to make it past one...more...level.
You might think, well, why obsessively play the game over and over? It should be child's play to go back and change strategy so that you can get that last line or node in level 7. But no, kind reader, it's not that easy. You see, each level is randomly generated, so the level 3 you play the first time is not the level 3 you'll play the next. Each level will supply you with a certain number of lines and nodes, but after that, well, it's new each and every time you play, making memorizing patterns useless and a walkthrough impossible. Clever, because each and every time you play it is literally a brand new game.
The graphics are about as basic as it gets. Dark blue ball, light blue background, white lines, and black, white, and gray nodes. That's it. Stark visuals, matched up with a wacky, tango-like music clip that is guaranteed to drive you insane within minutes. Basically, pool stripped down to the bare essentials.
Taberinos shows the brilliance of stripping down a type of game to its very basics. Simple, elegant gameplay that changes every time you start it up. Yes, that is a recipe for serious time suckage. So get shooting! Just, you know, don't let the boss catch you.
I don't usually like Tonypa games but I can really get into this one. I can see myself playing this for the rest of the day.
Oh man, I have been addicted to this all week! And it was not a good week to have a time suck enter my life!
Einstien said "Everything should be as simple as it is, but not simpler."
Tonypa is the Einstien of casual gaming!
Grinnyp, This is a casual game site. This is not a casual game. This is possibly one of the most annoying games ever!! Infact it makes me angry. Angry nodes make me angry...why can't i get past level 13 (no matter how hard it try) makes me angry...
"Are you still playing that game?"
See! It even makes my wife angry...
Little_geoff -
Why do you think my review starts off: "Curse you, Tonypa!"? Back to trying to get past 14...
The best bit is the Tango music.
The trick, I've found, is getting incidentals, and managing your momentum. Hit at an angle so you don't rebound miles away, etcetera.
Great music as usual by Kevin MacLeod. Simple but addictive gameplay.
I got to level 12 my second time through.
The music is definitely a good match to the game. When I finished the first level, it was timed so that the cymbal crashed right on the beat. I though that was a nice little touch.
But then I was disappointed when I finished more levels, and realized it was a coincidence.
Very good game with a simple concept. I played 4 times and couldn't make it past level 15. The biggest problems with the game that prevent me from liking it too much are the difficulty in knowing how your ball will bounce off of the ends of lines and whether or not it'll make contact with nodes on certain shots. At level 13 onward, it seems like the level randomizer liked to position 2 nodes really close to each other so that removing the line between them would be difficult unless shooting from nearly perpendicular.
Very nice. Probably one of the more accessible TonyPa games.
That may not be the correct word. What I mean is that it has enough variation to be replayable, but not so much randomness to aggravate. In the few plays I made I didn't have one time where I thought it was unbeatable.
The only change I would request is to have the game remember that I've already played, and not tell me the instructions anymore. There's something beautifully seamless about how each level leads into the next.
(In fact, I wouldn't mind optionally skipping the high score screen and continuing the next game where the last one ended, so you could effectively play on infinite shuffle mode ;-)
grinnyp, sorry for taking away all your time :)
As I have included level tracking in the game, from all the plays level 18 has been reached 10 times and level 19 has been reached only once. Its not probably player with highest score as the score can be increased with removing multiple nodes with single shot or finishing level with more shots remaining.
Level generator does not specially put nodes closer in higher levels, just when less space is available the nodes are bound to end up closer. Or maybe it has some evil mind of its own :)
tonypa is the best
yay
Actually, you don't have to hit the gray nodes to deflate them. Take their lines away, and they too will pop! Friendly big fellows, those grey ones.
I finished in the 4000s or so two out of three of my first games, and so it wasn't until picking it up again and seeing how difficult it is to maintain that sort of average that I became hooked.
I think I've suggested this before with the previous Tonypa game, but I think this game would benefit from score-tracking that keeps track of your average score. (This is something Drop7 on the iphone does, and it's great. You only have to keep track of current-average and number-of-games-played to do the math each time.)
Another iphone game dropzap, goes a step further. It appears to keep track of all your previous game's scores, and allows you to sort them by high-score or -- even better -- by the order in which you played.
A game like Taberinos (or other Tonypa games in the future) would totally benefit from a feature like that.
To clarify, what keeping track of score-averages and/or time-ordered play-history offers is an ability to track one's progress beyond merely attempting to best one's highest score ever. This is especially useful and well-suited to a game like this, which, like drop7 and dropzap, incorporates a bit of luck into the relative difficulty of each random board.
In any case, great game!
Died on level 19. Would have made it to level 20, but missed my last shot. Killed by the two nodes close together phenomenon again. Wish their minimum distance apart was just slightly larger.
Oh my god, this has taken over my life.
Why is it sooooo addictive?
Xadoc -
Did I not warn you? Sorry, must go, must...get...past...level...14...
Can't beat level 19 :(
It's like boomshine all over again... I've lost days of my life :o)
Can't understand how anyone can get to level 19 - can't get past 16!
Really annoyed just gone second for the day:)
Would be first but for one of the obvious cheaters with gazillions :(
Good game tonypa thanks
First try: Level 16; 4,395. Guess that's not bad.
Great Tonypa game... first one in quite a while where a single game lasts more than 90 seconds. I like that.
I LOVE TONYPA GAMES! This one was definitely a time-suck. Whoops! There goes another hour I'll never get back. I wonder if Tonypa keeps all of our wasted hours somewhere in a hidden jar or something, maybe saving them so he can be immortal.
There's only one thing I would've liked to see in this game. First, it'd be cool if when you hit a regular node, your ball picks up some momentum, kinda like a pinball bumpers. Or maybe make it a special node later in the game (it might be, as I couldn't make it past level 12).
I am cleaning up obviously fake scores once a day.
Daniel, I actually had the nodes bouncing with extra momentum in earlier version but that made possible a situation where the ball kept possibly moving on forever in the corner with node.
Thank you Tonypa for getting rid of the fake scores and caring so much about the players and reviewers. I was about to comment on that and then I saw your comment.
I keep coming back to this game-great fun!
Also, yes! Level 17!
A couple ingenious shots and a couple lucky ones. I love the exhilaration when you get a bunch of tricky lines in the same go, and I hate the sinking feeling you get when an angry node is touched.
I also love that there is strategy of where you want your ball to land after you get the last line of a level :)
I got to level 20! I had a lot of luck because I hadn't even been past 18 before that. I don't even have the highest real score. I agree with the guy that said it would be cool if the game kept track of your scores and gave you an average so you could see your personal progress.
I keep dying in levels 11, 12, or 13. :(
Rarely have trouble in levels 9 and below, though.
Fantastic game. Got to level 20 a couple of times, but those close together nodes are killers!
The one thing that would most improve the game would be for (some of) your remaining shots to carry over to the next level (as in Tonypa's other masterpiece Cabacoli). That would make the easy early levels matter for more than points, and make it possible to mess up a bit on the occasional difficult level without totally dying..
seems to be broken -- every game (on numerous sites, including the one I'd saved locally) wants to start on level 'a' and generates hundreds of lines, then hangs.
[I'm not getting the same thing you are. Things to try: 1) re-install latest Flash Player; 2) empty your browser cache and reload the game. -Jay]
I have released updated version. It fixes the problem with new Flash player 10.1 RC which broke the game as soon it started. It also allows to skip first levels and start straight from level 10 (if you find first levels not challenging enough).
I've made it to level 19 numerous times, but just can't make it to 20. Was wondering if it was even possible, but appears at least someone has. I can echo singularity suggestion as I'd love to see an additional mode, like the Classic Mode and a new mode where you can 'bank' you shots into the next round, so there is an advantage to clearing earlier levels (other than score) with less shots.
This is one of my favorite Flash games for unwinding at the end of the day. The music is relaxing and the gameplay is addicting.
Another great, great game by tonypa! horribly addicting, with gameplay fulfilling the golden 'easy to learn, hard to master' rule. Thanks a lot.
made it to lvl 23!
It is my sincere hope that there is a special room in hades for people that invent games this addicting.... thanks for the many hours of down time
a new fan
I find that it's easier on the laptop because I can lean the screen to allow gravity to help direct the ball...
In all seriousness, take your time to aim if you must.. but know ( and I could be wrong ).. know that the ball is faster on the quick shots allowing for maximum rebound action and hopefully a few free lines...
Good luck
Tonypa ruined my life
This is android version of this game: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.cpviet.game.linepong
Update