Origamo Download (1994 Strategy Game)

Origamo creates an electronic-itch that puzzle gamers, once hooked, feel they must scratch. In the guise of a computer game, Origamo, sad to say, is really nothing more than a gimmick game in the same category and tradition as such action puzzlers as Tetris and Pipe Dream. Basically, the entire challenge is, after all things are considered, a race against time. These types of games excel in the process of addicting the player to the peculiarities inherent in each specific game and create a false sense of competition, when, in fact, you are only competing against a computer routine that is set to adjustable time limits if you're lucky. If not, the level of progress made in any one of these games slowly and inexorably grinds to an inevitable halt when the player reaches the limits of his/her ability and nothing, not even hours of practice, will appreciably increase the overall results. Usually when said limit is reached and realized, the player is left with nothing more than another game to file on the shelf of old game derelicts and is faced with moving on to the next puzzle game in the hopes that the parameters will be a little more forgiving and reasonable.

The fact that there are 113 puzzles included in the game is tempered somewhat with the realization that many of them are awfully similar to each other. You get a diagram on the screen that has both filled and unfilled blocks (translated as folded sections of paper) and the entire purpose of the exercise is to grab blocks off the conveyor belt that whizzes along from right to left on the bottom of your screen and, turning them just so, fill up the empty spots on the picture. The action requires two very basic requirements on the part of the player: (1) hand-eye coordination and (2) a slow processor. No matter how many ways the game presents the 113 puzzles, at their core they still require the same action. Fortunately, there is a dump area where you can grab tiles wholesale from the conveyor belt and trash them, regardless of whether they fit the puzzle or not. In many instances, the time race denigrates into such action just to free up more time for more tiles. It's probably a good thing that the game will save up to 1200 unfinished games as it's easy to see, no matter what difficulty level you play at, your graveyard of unfinished games will continue to grow with dead ends. The storyline that goes along with the puzzle maze is nothing short of a contrived shell which attempts to draw attention away from the monotony of play by insisting you are on some sort of quest. One must hope that there are much better ways in which to waste time and in this instance, the itch should be treated with something else besides game play.

Graphics: Drawn "paper" picture shapes representing folded paper with seven different shapes to manipulate.

Sound: Really bad.

Enjoyment: Learning the real art of origami would be infinitely more fun.

Replay Value: After the first hour most gamers will have had enough.

In the game you have to exit the maze filled with mythological characters of 5 different philosophies (Japanese/Chinese, Tribal, Egyptian, Indian, European) with the Orb of Time. To acquire it you have to take some item in one room and to bring it to another room to get next one, and so on to the Orb of Time. In each room of the maze you must solve the puzzle, where the main gameplay flows.

You have to put the tiles in the place to fill the entire figures of different sorts. Seven types of tiles are convex combinations of the right-angled triangles. The tiles are moved to you on the belt of conveyor. To successfully finish the level you may dump the unnecessary tiles (up to 50) which do not fit in the places and take the limited space on the conveyor belt. Placing the tiles in all places of specific types will clear the conveyor belt. Time is counting and allows you to make the best time on the level. Completing each puzzle successfully will give you the fixed amount of money and unsuccessfully will take this amount from you. These amounts may show you how difficult the puzzle is and how fast the conveyor belt will move.

Logging in the game with certain name you begin your career. There are four modes of gameplay: Basic, Master, Random, and Adventure. In Adventure Mode you have 3 lives at start and may gain another ones by scoring 500 points while in other modes you have infinite number of lives. Different difficulty levels allows you to score standard, more (+25%), or less (-25%) amount of points. Highscores are also showing the best of the best.

How to run this game on modern Windows PC?

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