Lumines
Do you remember playing Tetris so much that you’d see the pieces falling when you closed your eyes? Sleep was no escape — I just kept fitting them together in my dreams. That’s when I knew it was time to take a Tetris break for a few days.
I haven’t had the same experience with any other game since then. Until last night. I bought a new Sony PSP the other day (yes, I am occasionally susceptible to hype) and have been playing Lumines ever since.
Lumines (darned if I know how to pronounce it) is a puzzle game in the falling-block tradition of Tetris, but its mechanics are different enough to provide a completely different experience. Every block is a 4×4 square made up of some arrangement of two different colors. Your goal is to arrange the falling blocks into 4×4 squares of the same color, which will then disappear. There are more subtleties that enhance the gameplay, but that’s basically about all there is to it. Pretty simple, but somehow it works, and it works very well. Especially when you add up the exceptional production quality of this game. The music is so tightly integrated with the gameplay it feels like I’m composing it while listening to it at the same time. And it looks stunning on the PSP’s sharp LCD screen.
It works well enough that now I have to take a little Lumines break so that I don’t see these stinking blocks falling every time I close my eyes. I left my PSP at home this morning so I wouldn’t be tempted to play it on the train on my way to work. That’s the only reason you’re getting this entry. 
Argh, my eyes! Somebody make it stop!
Here’s a screenshot from the Ubisoft website:
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Hey,
Thanks for not talking about Terri Schiavo or the Pope. You are the last bastien of decency in America.
Sincerely,
-Chris
Hey, small world. I wandered over after your comment on my blog only to find I read yours just yesterday.
Not only that but, yes, I used to see tetris pieces falling as I drifted off to sleep but I managed to break the habit some time ago. So what did I go and do right after reading this…?
Oh no, hooked again!
Ah, so sorry I dragged you down, too! But misery loves company, I guess. Welcome to the club!
Oh my gosh, I had the same problem with Tetris. After my sons were in bed, I would sneak into their rooms and get their Gameboys and play them until the batteries went dead. They never did figure out why they always needed new batteries. I most recently had a similar problem with Zuma at Yahoo games. Thanks for the warning. I know now not to buy a PSP.
Tetris was the bane of my existence almost 10 years ago. I’ve since recovered from it and couldn’t even tell you where my gameboy is as that’s the only thing left that I have with tetris on it since I got rid of playstation a long time ago. I’m hooked on spider solitaire now.