Parameters (2012)

Parameters is a nefarious little game that boils RPG mechanics down to a clicking science. Beneath all that, however, lies a game with a mean curve that prefers to keep players clicking endlessly near its end.

The game is split into a variety of rectangles of various sizes. There are quest rectangles that are clicked on to complete and receive benefits, and enemy rectangles that attack and can get defeated for extra bonuses. The click is an action that makes this a real-time game, with life and action points that recover over time. The player can usually increase their recovery rate, attack, defense, and in some special cases their action and life points. Attack and defense bonuses can be bought as well.

One of the largest issues with this game is that even if the player is very careful about a steady stream of clicking the right places and making the most of their parameters, they will be stuck reclicking old rectangles for a very long time. When a quest is completed, money can still be farmed from an available spot but the rate is dreadfully low - keys to open doors, stat bonus shops, and most anything else will require a LOT of grinding these completed quest rectangles.

The stats are also quite deceptive. Recovery rate is seemingly important in the game, as some enemies can even be clicked repeatedly to death, but the game shows much too late that attack is far more favored, and that secret squares like a pay-to-heal life recovery block (which requires even more grinding) are necessary.

Past the cute and simple aesthetic, this game grows tiring quickly. This game grimly reminds us why RPGs are about magical quests and interesting stories and cool characters - beneath it all we don't want to just grind slowly and endlessly to a strategy that doesn't even work out for us. Parameters forgets to be fun after the initial dopamine rush.