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[musical tones from a game]
Hi there, I'm Roberto. Hope you guys are doing well.
Besides video games, there have been many electronic games throughout these decades.
There's the Speak n Spell to cater to your education needs.
There is Melody Madness to cater to your hipster, musical needs.
But few games have enjoyed the huge mainstream appeal and have stood the test of time the
way Simon has done. I love playing Simon!
It's one of these games that kids can play, adults can play, and it is quite accessible.
Blind people can play it. Deaf people can play it.
Deaf-blind people... Okay, so it's not that accessible but hey,
it's something. And to think that the creators of Simon took
that repetition concept so far that the game itself was a repetition.
Yeah it wasn't an original; it was based on a concept from an Atari game.
But this is one of those cases where the copy is actually better than the original.
And I don't mean it because in the Atari game all the buttons had the same color or because
the sounds were ugly. I'm talking about the name.
The Atari game that served as the inspiration for Simon was called Touch Me.
Yeah. Can you imagine that?
Instead of "I love playing Simon" like I said earlier, imagine me saying "I love playing
Touch Me." No. Just, no.
And what if I had a few friends over and instead of telling them "Hey, let's play Simon!"
"Hey, let's play Touch Me." Oh, I wouldn't be making videos; I'd probably
be locked up in jail. So yay, good thing it was Simon and not Touch
Me the one that people chose as their favorite. Like I said, Simon stood the test of time.
Even to this date it is still being made. And the gameplay is exactly the same, even
though there are a few changes in the mechanics. The current model uses touch-sensitive pads
instead of push buttons; that can throw off people expecting the old feel of this game.
And the new model runs off three AA batteries instead of that awful combination of two D
size batteries and one 9-volt battery. Who thought of that?!
But there is one thing about Simon that makes me not happy.
It is not available in what I think is the best way to release it in this decade: an
application for smartphones and tablets. I'm aware there are hundreds, probably thousands
of clones out there in the Apple App Store, the Google Play Store and the Windows Store,
but there is no officially licensed Simon game.
And the problem with those clones is that most of them really suck, and the ones that
are really good, that get the closest to the experience of playing Simon, get pulled off
of their respective stores, probably because of licensing or copyright issues.
But imagine if Hasbro or whoever owns the rights to Simon now released this as an application.
It would be so awesome to have the same game experience as in the tabletop and handheld
versions I once had. But they could also expand on it.
Why stop at thirty-one sequences? They could make a level five and keep adding
sequences until who knows how many! They could add online multiplayer mode.
Ooh, and there are some people I would love to challenge.
And they would solve one of the biggest drawbacks Simon has always had, and it still has to
this date: You cannot turn down the volume or play with
no sound. Did you ever try playing Simon late at night
or early in the morning while your parents were still asleep?
Imagine playing it now as an adult while in bed with your spouse.
Imagine playing it while in the hospital, sharing the room with other patients.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen. So this is why I think we really need an official
Simon application. But what about you?
Is there any electronic game from your childhood that you would wish it would be available
as an official application for your phone or your tablet?
Please, let me know in the comments below. Thank you for watching.
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