@nnci's blog

Game nostalgia: Oxyd

When I was just a little child, (luckily) my family was eager in buying personal computers in its early years. Many saturdays mornings was spent sitting in front of the computer in the living room, still wearing pajamas and poking around in MS-DOS and later on Windows 3.1. Yes, I was a geek already at the age 6, and I loved exploring the seemingly unlimited possibilities with new technology. Because I have a stern and harsh (German) father who wouldn’t have his kids waste their time playing silly computer games, there were only a few games available (because he could never find them! ) Our old computer had Snake and Space Invaders, both in only 16 colors, playing on MS-DOS. So it was no surprise I was in awe when a friend of mine showed me Oxyd for the very first time. It was monochrome (black and white) but I was still amazed by the detailed graphics. My friend had the shareware-version of Oxyd on a floppy disc, and I remember I begged and begged and nagged to borrow it so I could install it on my family’s computer.

The original
monochrome Oxyd

The gameplay of Oxyd is simple. You control a marble with your mouse, and to solve a level you need to “open” boxes (touch them) and match all pairs of matching patterns. It’s like Memory. When you touch a specific type of box with your marble, the eventually previously opened box are closed if the pattern doesn’t match. If you successfully make a matching pair, they stay there until you have matched all pairs on the level. When you advance in level, there are different obstacles (some of them you can move around), larger landscapes, enemies, different kind of floors and puzzles you need to solve. Since the entire game is based on using only your mouse, you’ll need a steady hand and a good mouse!

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October 8th, 2008 in Gaming | tags: game, Oxyd |  Print This Post | 1 Comment