974 Proximity is a game that's easy enough to learn. You begin with a map made up of hexagons, and you and an opponent (human or a computer with three levels of difficulty) take turns placing tiles numbering 1 through 20. If your tile is placed to an enemy tile with a lower number, you capture it, and it changes to your color. If you place a tile next to a friendly tile, you increase that tile's value (making it more difficult to capture). You take turns, placing tiles, until the board is filled. The winner is determined by adding up the value of all of your tiles.

Easy enough, and that makes Proximity a fun diversion, once you learn the strategies of the game. Should you use a low number to start a new "colony" of tiles, away from the others, or use it to completely surround another of your tiles, making it impossible to capture? Should you capture enemy territory as soon as possible, or wait for the very large numbers to come into your hand? Strategists should relish learning the game's ins and outs.

But what really makes Proximity stand out is its configurability. In addition to the three levels of difficulty when facing the computer opponent, you can also change most of the rules of the game: the victory can go to whomever has the most territory (tile spaces), rather than who has the greatest total value of tile numbers.

Placing your tile next to friendly tiles can increase (the default) the value of friendly tiles, have no effect on them at all, or actually decrease the value. You can also set these actions to occur when you place your tiles next to enemy tiles, but there is a glitch: if you set the game to increase the value of enemy tiles, and you capture the tile, the value will be increased after the capture, rather than what I thought was probably the intended effect: making captured territory less valuable, rather than more.

You can also play around with the amount of territory available, making the style of play completely different, as you try to guess how to capture as many invulnerable spaces as possible, as quickly as possible, rather than nuturing colonies of tiles for maximum value.

This Flash-based game is incredibly addictive, and fun to play. Kudos to its creator, cableshaft, for such an original, simple game.

Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.

Tags: Reviews ï Game Reviews ï

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