PixelJunk Eden, Now With More Easy

An update that makes PixelJunk more forgiving? Yes, please! Q-Games president, Dylan Cuthbert, recently posted on his blog that an update is coming to PixelJunk Eden this Thursday, January 15. In addition to typical bug fixes, the update brings a change to the way the game is played.

Originally, each stage was a timed affair. Collecting certain items would extend the clock, but never eliminate it completely. The new update doesn’t totally do away with the clock, unfortunately, but it does at least mitigate the damage caused when the timer runs out. Within each stage are “Spectra” that the player must collect. If the timer ever runs out, players will be able to continue from the last Spectra they collected, rather than have to start the stage over from the very beginning. Additionally, whenever a player collects one of the large, time extending crystals, a full half of the timer will be replenished.

My only major criticism of the game when it released was that it was far too stressful. Constantly worrying about the clock was enough to get me to stop playing it before I’d even finished half of the game. The unforgiving timer turned this otherwise “casual” game into a much more “hardcore” experience. Now that the challenge of dealing with the clock is all but gone, I can finally see myself relaxing to this game after a hard day of work. That’s what it should have been all along. A game you relax to, not something to stress you out (that’s what 99% of the other games made each year are for).

UPDATE:

The patch is now live. I tested it and found that the changes make a big difference. It was very easy to refill the timer back to full when it started to get dangerously low. There’s still some stress in having to ascend the levels without falling clear to the bottom, but even that is less stressful now that there’s more time. There’s also a new control scheme available in the options menu. “Simple” control changes it so that you no longer have to double tap the X button to jump from the plants. That control scheme should have existed from day one. These changes didn’t make the game more simplistic, they made it better.