Pong and Beyond

943rd played so far

Genre: Puzzle
Platform: Nintendo DS
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: Q-Games
Publisher: Nintendo

Looking at the list of other Q-games titles we’ve played and that they published, such as the Pixeljunk series, Starship Patrol and Reflect Missile, it’s clear that they were one of the known indie developers for Sony and Nintendo at the point the first edition was written. I believe Art Style: Intersect, or DIGIDRIVE as it’s known elsewhere, is the final game of theirs on the list, which is quite a remarkable number for a team like this.

It’s part of the Art Style series, which draws on an earlier minimalist game series for the GBA, and the few screenshots I’ve seen show a focus on gameplay over aesthetics – it’s simple and abstract, but that’s something that fit in with plenty of other puzzle games anyway.

Our Thoughts

The core of this game is quite simple – cars in three different colours approach the intersection from four different directions. You need to direct them so they stack up on the same colour, with the limitation that they can’t reverse. When you get multiple of the same colour together, they slowly start giving you points bonuses. The speed builds slowly to add to your challenge, while misdirecting a car can really bite you if they go too far. Add that you can’t reverse cars and you get to a situation where you will start to run out quickly.

It’s quite fun on endless mode as you try to up your scores to get higher, but the versus CPU mode fails in that you get no visibility for your opponent, making it feel like you’re just getting arbitrary bonuses instead.

In the end the game’s downfall is in its simplicity. New modes just change the difficulty and theming, but there’s not much that changes, and what’s there doesn’t have an appeal beyond these short bursts. That’s fine, but it feels like there’s a deeper game in here that could use these options.

Final Thoughts

In the end Art Style: Intersect is a fun puzzle game to play with occasionally, and it obviously won’t break the bank to get it. Like with many puzzle games though, there’s not as much longevity in it, and something focused on shorter bursts of play or that tries to explore the ideas more would have been better. A quicker end state would have provided that goal to strive for.