Review
Konductra (DSN)
I am Steven, and I enjoy budget games. I enjoy games that clueless mothers buy for their kids for Christmas instead of Mario Kart and Yoshi's Island 2 because "All of those electronic things are the same." I have many budget games. Not because I can't afford the top-tier titles, but because I respect small upstart developers who pour their cheesy little hearts into their cheesy little games with a limited budget, limited resources, and limited time. Konductra is a budget game. It was made by a budget company and brought to us by a budget games publisher. I'm talking the archetype of "budget games". Its presentation is simplistic, its graphics obtuse, its music powered by low quality samples and simple construction, and its gameplay is admirable but heavily flawed. Konductra is not Mario Kart. Mothers, take note of this. Konductra is Konductra: a puzzle game that I barely "got a charge" out of, as the box so cleverly encouraged me to do.
Konductra is played by using the DS's touch screen to clear blocks off of a grid. You start off with a blank playing field and your mission is to place same-colored blocks next to each other in an effort to chain them across the grid to connectors. Once you're able to reach two connectors of the same color by bridging them with blocks, you'll be able to run your stylus through the blocks and clear them off the playing field to make room for more. The strategy comes with chaining these together in an effort to multiply your score. If this sounds confusing to you, that's because it is. There is absolutely no way to properly grasp this game's concept without looking at the tutorial. Luckily, the tutorial is fairly polished (which the developers were so proud of that they actually mentioned it on the back of the case) and there's a demo mode that allows the player to watch a CPU play through a bit of the game's score mode. After watching the game play itself for a bit you'll be ready to hop into a round of the electrifying mayhem that is Konductra.
The game has a paltry number of modes for the player to choose from. There's your classic score attack mode, a Polarium-esque puzzle clearing mode, and a couple of two-player modes. Konductra is notable for its WFC mode where you can play against a stranger or a friend over a wireless internet connection, which is something that is unexpected for a budget title. I hopped on to play a worldwide match a few times, but each time I tried to find an opponent my DS would search for minutes until eventually giving up.
As for the offline modes, the score mode is your standard fare, but the game comes equipped with numerous puzzles for you to solve. These puzzles basically consist of clearing away an established pattern in one fell swoop. The pattern will be displayed on the top screen and you'll need to strategically place blocks to create the same pattern, and then you'll need to clear all of those blocks in one try, lest you start over. This mode of play is fairly clever if not frustrating; I often found myself spending minutes on a single pattern only to clear all but one of the blocks required to finish the stage, forcing me to restart my progress. But that's more player error than it is the game's fault.
To compensate for my lack of puzzle stage clearing skillz I would often find myself playing the score mode. This mode is essentially the meat and potatoes of the gameplay system as it allows for you to play around with the grid at your own pace. However, I hope you have a lot of that patience stuff that I hear so much about, because Konductra is slow. The problem with the game isn't in the gameplay system itself – it's fairly solid and clever – but rather lies in the fact that it can take you up to fifteen minutes of playing straight in order for there to be any variation in the round.
The other day I picked it up and played for half an hour without even realizing it, and the game had just started introducing a new color to the mix shortly before I gave up. It's incredibly difficult to get the gameplay to pick up and it's even harder to lose, which sometimes makes the matches redundant chores that can become agonizing to play through. Sometimes your playing field will fill up and you won't have any space to place blocks (which much be placed in sets of two), but chances are if you let the timer run out and let the game place the blocks for you it'll open up some possibilities to continue playing the match. This makes rounds agonizingly long and not very proper for train rides or anything. I played this going sixty blocks uptown on the subway one day and I didn't even break 10,000 points before reaching my destination and having to shut the DS off. I just can't emphasize enough how slow it is. And this is a game about lightning!
Another thing that really chafes me is the music. I love the music in this game because I feel like I should be playing a Sci-Fi beat 'em up for the Super Nintendo (circa 1997) instead of connecting blocks. The music is positively electric. However, it's not electric for half an hour straight. After a while that cheesy crash cymbal sample drives me insane and I actually have to take my headphones off because it pounds my ear drums.
As for the other parts of its presentation – graphics, for example – the game is adequate. Nothing flashy, but nothing that will degrade the experience. The only real problem I have is the menu system. When I'm switching between menus before entering a game they almost seem to load. It takes a second or three for the menus to switch which can be a nuisance when you're trying to navigate into a game that you know is going to be slow no matter what.
When I played over WFC with Ben Wood, our game lasted far too long and neither of us are quite sure how I won. I really don't have the patience for a rematch any time soon. The developer could have allowed you to up the difficulty level or the gameplay speed or something. It's playable, and it's fun if you like plodding, leisurely puzzle games, but it's honestly just too slow for the average puzzle gamer to sit through. I like what it was trying to do and I like where developer oe fun was going with it, but the end result is a game that fizzles out not in a flash, but a static electric shock.
Konductra is played by using the DS's touch screen to clear blocks off of a grid. You start off with a blank playing field and your mission is to place same-colored blocks next to each other in an effort to chain them across the grid to connectors. Once you're able to reach two connectors of the same color by bridging them with blocks, you'll be able to run your stylus through the blocks and clear them off the playing field to make room for more. The strategy comes with chaining these together in an effort to multiply your score. If this sounds confusing to you, that's because it is. There is absolutely no way to properly grasp this game's concept without looking at the tutorial. Luckily, the tutorial is fairly polished (which the developers were so proud of that they actually mentioned it on the back of the case) and there's a demo mode that allows the player to watch a CPU play through a bit of the game's score mode. After watching the game play itself for a bit you'll be ready to hop into a round of the electrifying mayhem that is Konductra.
The game has a paltry number of modes for the player to choose from. There's your classic score attack mode, a Polarium-esque puzzle clearing mode, and a couple of two-player modes. Konductra is notable for its WFC mode where you can play against a stranger or a friend over a wireless internet connection, which is something that is unexpected for a budget title. I hopped on to play a worldwide match a few times, but each time I tried to find an opponent my DS would search for minutes until eventually giving up.
As for the offline modes, the score mode is your standard fare, but the game comes equipped with numerous puzzles for you to solve. These puzzles basically consist of clearing away an established pattern in one fell swoop. The pattern will be displayed on the top screen and you'll need to strategically place blocks to create the same pattern, and then you'll need to clear all of those blocks in one try, lest you start over. This mode of play is fairly clever if not frustrating; I often found myself spending minutes on a single pattern only to clear all but one of the blocks required to finish the stage, forcing me to restart my progress. But that's more player error than it is the game's fault.
To compensate for my lack of puzzle stage clearing skillz I would often find myself playing the score mode. This mode is essentially the meat and potatoes of the gameplay system as it allows for you to play around with the grid at your own pace. However, I hope you have a lot of that patience stuff that I hear so much about, because Konductra is slow. The problem with the game isn't in the gameplay system itself – it's fairly solid and clever – but rather lies in the fact that it can take you up to fifteen minutes of playing straight in order for there to be any variation in the round.
The other day I picked it up and played for half an hour without even realizing it, and the game had just started introducing a new color to the mix shortly before I gave up. It's incredibly difficult to get the gameplay to pick up and it's even harder to lose, which sometimes makes the matches redundant chores that can become agonizing to play through. Sometimes your playing field will fill up and you won't have any space to place blocks (which much be placed in sets of two), but chances are if you let the timer run out and let the game place the blocks for you it'll open up some possibilities to continue playing the match. This makes rounds agonizingly long and not very proper for train rides or anything. I played this going sixty blocks uptown on the subway one day and I didn't even break 10,000 points before reaching my destination and having to shut the DS off. I just can't emphasize enough how slow it is. And this is a game about lightning!
Another thing that really chafes me is the music. I love the music in this game because I feel like I should be playing a Sci-Fi beat 'em up for the Super Nintendo (circa 1997) instead of connecting blocks. The music is positively electric. However, it's not electric for half an hour straight. After a while that cheesy crash cymbal sample drives me insane and I actually have to take my headphones off because it pounds my ear drums.
As for the other parts of its presentation – graphics, for example – the game is adequate. Nothing flashy, but nothing that will degrade the experience. The only real problem I have is the menu system. When I'm switching between menus before entering a game they almost seem to load. It takes a second or three for the menus to switch which can be a nuisance when you're trying to navigate into a game that you know is going to be slow no matter what.
When I played over WFC with Ben Wood, our game lasted far too long and neither of us are quite sure how I won. I really don't have the patience for a rematch any time soon. The developer could have allowed you to up the difficulty level or the gameplay speed or something. It's playable, and it's fun if you like plodding, leisurely puzzle games, but it's honestly just too slow for the average puzzle gamer to sit through. I like what it was trying to do and I like where developer oe fun was going with it, but the end result is a game that fizzles out not in a flash, but a static electric shock.
Closing Comments
Needs a power charge.
Like I said, the game takes too long to get into and the end result really isn't worth it. For the money it's a nice gift for a fan of budget DS puzzle games to try out, as they might just get a kick out of it for a while (as I did). But playing it regularly is something like getting up to level 8-4 in Super Mario Brothers without using warp pipes and pressing the reset button just before you complete it, and insisting on starting all over again. Over and over again.
