Just one more early-game
I feel like sometimes I get lost in chasing the new, shiny, high-tech offerings in gaming. This world is larger than ever, you can see individual snowflakes on Sad-Dad’s face, what about this many frames. Every now and then it takes a game like Ding Dong XL, so pure in its gaminess, simple in its mechanics, to realise why you bother playing games in the first place.
In Ding Dong XL you click to send a ball from one side of the screen to another. If you wait too long, the ball gets bigger and eventually explodes, resetting your score. Sometimes objects block your path, sometimes you hit bombs that clear the way. With each successful crossing your score increases by one, you fail, you start again. You can change the look of the ball you’re bashing around, but other than that there are very few options to speak of. It’s all about getting that score higher, if only by one or two points each time.
There are very few games as addictive as Ding Dong XL, I honestly play it every day, even if just for a single go. It’s the perfect example of ‘just one more’, and the name is very funny too.