floating under water / flying up for air to the slaughter / blocks rush by at high speed / sweaty fingers mash to morph, with buttons three / hey aqua rush! / cascade into combos / into shapes that no stacker could ever know / hey Aqua Rush! streamed 3/29/23

hi! i'm doing a stream and youtube series called Walternate Saga 7: Arcade Apocalypse Ochimonogatari, covering ochimono games (arcade puzzle stackers) released on arcade machines between 1987 and 2004. we'll be playing through 115 games reverse-chronologically every wednesday for the rest of the year (at least)! you can follow along @ https://twitch.tv/bedsores

my thoughts: eschewing high scores for fast times leads the design of Aqua Rush into smooth-sanded celerity. on the (still-extant!) website i show in the video, the designers specifically highlight wanting everyone to have the thrill of getting a long combo -- perhaps we can consider this game a response to highly technical chain puzzlers in the Puyo Puyo tradition. in any case, i hope viewing the game upside down helped make it clear that yes, this is a block go down / ochimono game (no matter what my chat says). this is the first proper Time Attack stacker i've encounters; even TGM's robust RTA scene requires meeting certain score thresholds. Aqua Rush designed a racing game into a puzzle stacker, with blooming playfields like courses ribboning out before you; but to also control the size of your block, giving yourself true, weird power -- i can't get enough, really. diving underwater feels like coming up for air. good. i hope they open up the website for more score submissions someday...

footage of the Track and Field mash by Hector "Jet" Rodriguez. this video had a few audio and visual issues that'll be fixed for our next session. art of me by Minasheep! (https://twitter.com/lammyheaven, https://twitch.tv/minasheep) next up is № 11: Puzzle Uo Poko (1998, Cave/Jaleco) i hope you'll join us!