Poker Smash
Encyclopedia
Poker Smash is a puzzle game
developed by independent software developer Void Star Creations for the Xbox 360's
Xbox Live Arcade
service and iPhone OS
. The title was officially announced during Microsoft's E3 2007 press conference and was released on February 6, 2008.
Poker Smash is a "rising block" puzzle game
in which the player is presented with a stack of face cards (10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace) arranged in five columns. The stack constantly rises toward the top of the playfield, with new cards being added at the bottom. The main objective of the game is to line up three or more cards in horizontal or vertical poker hands, such as three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, up to a nine-card flush, and a royal flush. Making a legal hand will cause those cards to clear from the board and any cards above them to fall into the gaps left by the cleared cards. As legal hands are made, the player wins poker chips as his or her score. After each single-player game, the player's winnings are added to a running total (the "bank"), and the player can spend chips from the bank to unlock custom themes, pictures, and puzzle solutions.
The player moves a single cursor around the playfield using the Xbox 360 controller's left analog stick or D-Pad, while the right stick moves the selected card (or blank space) left or right. Moving a card onto an adjacent card causes the two cards to switch positions. The player has a limited allotment of bombs that can be placed on single cards to make them disappear. Bombs are replenished as the game progresses. The player may also temporarily cause the stack to rise faster using the left trigger, and can slow down the game time with the right trigger. The slow-time feature is limited by an energy bar that depletes with use, and recharges slowly when not in use.
Scoring is based on the difficulty of each hand the player creates. Simpler hands are worth a small number of chips, while more complex hands award more chips. Creating multiple hands at once awards a "Shape bonus", and creating a chain of hands increases the player's score multiplier. (Chains are achieved by lining up cards so they form new hands as previous hands clear from the board.) The game also periodically presents the player with "Challenge Hands", giving him or her a limited amount of time to create a specific hand. The challenges vary in difficulty and award increasing amounts of chips as the game progresses.
multiplayer mode and an Xbox Live
"tournament" mode that supports up to five players simultaneously. In both modes, a limited number of chips is given to each player, and the objective is to win all of the chips from all the other players. As a player creates hands, the value of those hands is deducted evenly from the other players' chip stacks. If a player loses all of his or her chips, that player is eliminated from the game. Each player takes turns being the "dealer", and while a player is the dealer, he or she can drop "garbage blocks" on other players by forming odd-numbered chains (blocks are sent on the player's third, fifth and seventh chains, and so on). To clear a row of garbage, the player must form a legal hand that touches that row – this causes the garbage row to turn into new cards.
The game supports both Ranked and Unranked online matches, with the Ranked mode utilizing the Microsoft
TrueSkill
ranking system. The game also supports online leaderboards, tracking players' best scores, longest chains and highest TrueSkill ranking, among other statistics.
. According to its developers, "The idea for Poker Smash grew out of the daily Tetris Attack
battles that used to occur in the old Oddworld
offices." The game features ten music themes spanning a variety of styles, all composed by David Sease of the band Stretch Arm Strong
.
awarded Poker Smash a 9.0 of 10, stating "it's one of the best action brain-busters in ages." Team Xbox also gave the game a 9/10.
Computer puzzle game
Puzzle video games are a genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles to be solved can test many problem solving skills including logic, strategy, pattern recognition, sequence solving, and word completion....
developed by independent software developer Void Star Creations for the Xbox 360's
Xbox 360
The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade
Xbox Live Arcade is a type of video game download distribution available primarily in a section of the Xbox Live Marketplace, Microsoft's digital distribution network for the Xbox 360, that focuses on smaller downloadable games from both major publishers and independent game developers...
service and iPhone OS
IPhone OS
iOS is Apple's mobile operating system. Originally developed for the iPhone, it has since been extended to support other Apple, Inc. devices such as the iPod Touch, iPad, and Apple TV. Apple, Inc. does not license iOS for installation on third-party hardware...
. The title was officially announced during Microsoft's E3 2007 press conference and was released on February 6, 2008.
Gameplay
Computer puzzle game
Puzzle video games are a genre of video games that emphasize puzzle solving. The types of puzzles to be solved can test many problem solving skills including logic, strategy, pattern recognition, sequence solving, and word completion....
in which the player is presented with a stack of face cards (10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace) arranged in five columns. The stack constantly rises toward the top of the playfield, with new cards being added at the bottom. The main objective of the game is to line up three or more cards in horizontal or vertical poker hands, such as three-of-a-kind, four-of-a-kind, full house, straight, up to a nine-card flush, and a royal flush. Making a legal hand will cause those cards to clear from the board and any cards above them to fall into the gaps left by the cleared cards. As legal hands are made, the player wins poker chips as his or her score. After each single-player game, the player's winnings are added to a running total (the "bank"), and the player can spend chips from the bank to unlock custom themes, pictures, and puzzle solutions.
The player moves a single cursor around the playfield using the Xbox 360 controller's left analog stick or D-Pad, while the right stick moves the selected card (or blank space) left or right. Moving a card onto an adjacent card causes the two cards to switch positions. The player has a limited allotment of bombs that can be placed on single cards to make them disappear. Bombs are replenished as the game progresses. The player may also temporarily cause the stack to rise faster using the left trigger, and can slow down the game time with the right trigger. The slow-time feature is limited by an energy bar that depletes with use, and recharges slowly when not in use.
Scoring is based on the difficulty of each hand the player creates. Simpler hands are worth a small number of chips, while more complex hands award more chips. Creating multiple hands at once awards a "Shape bonus", and creating a chain of hands increases the player's score multiplier. (Chains are achieved by lining up cards so they form new hands as previous hands clear from the board.) The game also periodically presents the player with "Challenge Hands", giving him or her a limited amount of time to create a specific hand. The challenges vary in difficulty and award increasing amounts of chips as the game progresses.
Game modes
Poker Smash provides four main modes of single-player play. In Action Mode, the card stack rises continuously and gradually speeds up over the course of the game, and the player keeps playing until the stack hits the top of the playfield. Timed Mode limits game time to three minutes, challenging the player to score as many points as possible in that time. In Puzzle Mode, the player must clear all of the pre-arranged cards from the screen. Cards do not rise in this mode, and the player has an infinite number of moves and infinite time to solve each puzzle. An additional Practice Mode is provided to allow players to learn how to play the game and practice chains – this mode does not save scores or upload statistics to the online leaderboards.Multiplayer
In addition to the single-player modes, Poker Smash also provides a local split screenSplit screen (computer graphics)
Split screen is a display technique in computer graphics that consists of dividing graphics and/or text into non-movable adjacent parts, typically two or four rectangular areas. This is done in order to allow the simultaneous presentation of related graphical and textual information on a computer...
multiplayer mode and an Xbox Live
Xbox Live
Xbox Live is an online multiplayer gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft Corporation. It is currently the only online gaming service on consoles that charges users a fee to play multiplayer gaming. It was first made available to the Xbox system in 2002...
"tournament" mode that supports up to five players simultaneously. In both modes, a limited number of chips is given to each player, and the objective is to win all of the chips from all the other players. As a player creates hands, the value of those hands is deducted evenly from the other players' chip stacks. If a player loses all of his or her chips, that player is eliminated from the game. Each player takes turns being the "dealer", and while a player is the dealer, he or she can drop "garbage blocks" on other players by forming odd-numbered chains (blocks are sent on the player's third, fifth and seventh chains, and so on). To clear a row of garbage, the player must form a legal hand that touches that row – this causes the garbage row to turn into new cards.
The game supports both Ranked and Unranked online matches, with the Ranked mode utilizing the Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
TrueSkill
TrueSkill
TrueSkill is a Bayesian ranking algorithm developed by Microsoft Research and used in the Xbox matchmaking system built to address some perceived flaws in the Elo rating system...
ranking system. The game also supports online leaderboards, tracking players' best scores, longest chains and highest TrueSkill ranking, among other statistics.
Downloadable content
Void Star released two downloadable content packs on April 9, 2008, each for 100 Microsoft Points ($1.25 USD):- Environment Pack: 2 Action Mode Environments
- Puzzle Pack: 15 Puzzles
History and development
Poker Smash is very similar in design to the Puzzle League seriesPuzzle League (series)
Puzzle League is a series of video games published by Nintendo for its various video game consoles. The series began with Panel de Pon in Japan and Tetris Attack in North America, and has since been adapted to many other consoles...
. According to its developers, "The idea for Poker Smash grew out of the daily Tetris Attack
Tetris Attack
Tetris Attack is a puzzle video game developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System home video game console and Game Boy handheld game console...
battles that used to occur in the old Oddworld
Oddworld Inhabitants
Oddworld Inhabitants Inc. is an American video game developer founded in 1994 by special-effects and computer-animation veterans Sherry McKenna and Lorne Lanning. The company is primarily known for the Oddworld Quintology, a series of award-winning video games about the fictional planet of Oddworld...
offices." The game features ten music themes spanning a variety of styles, all composed by David Sease of the band Stretch Arm Strong
Stretch Arm Strong
Stretch Arm Strong is a hardcore punk band from Chapin South Carolina, and the flagship band for We Put Out Records. They have been active since 1992. Several of the band members are outspoken Christians, but they prefer not to be classified as a Christian band in some cases. They do prefer to be...
.
Reception
Official Xbox MagazineOfficial Xbox Magazine
Official Xbox Magazine is a monthly video game magazine which started in November 2001 around the launch of the original Xbox. A preview issue was released for E3 2001, with another preview issue for November 2001. The magazine is bundled with a disc that includes game demos, preview videos and...
awarded Poker Smash a 9.0 of 10, stating "it's one of the best action brain-busters in ages." Team Xbox also gave the game a 9/10.