I can't stop playing KOLYDR

I can't describe KOLYDR more succinctly than it describes itself, as a game in which "you clear out reds by crashing into blues until a green appears." It's a tiny, single screen PICO-8 game you can play in your browser right now. What makes me keep playing is that it's a game of constant risk and reward, one where nearly every moment is a gamble and every death was preventable if only I hadn't pushed my luck.

This is also what makes me yowl in anguish every time I die.

Here's the longer explanation of how KOLYDR works: you move a small craft (using arrow keys, ESDF or gamepad) around a square arena. Blue squares appear which explode when touched, and the explosions destroy red squares, which are otherwise gradually filling the arena. Destroyed red squares drop gold which can be collected and are worth 100 points. After a short while, green squares will begin to appear which allow you to end your run and bank your score.

Naturally, you want your score to be as high as possible, so you don't leave when a green exit first appears. Instead, you keep going, as reds appear at random throughout the level alongside larger blues that cause bigger explosions, dropping larger golds which grant 1000 points. Your score ticks up and up, the space you have to maneuver within becomes smaller and smaller, and the risk of being trapped without an exit increases as the walls close in around you.

All it takes is a single mistake, a momentary lapse in concentration, and you're dead. Each red block that appears foreshadows its arrival for just a moment, giving you the opportunity to dart out of the way or alter course, but your reflexes need to be laser quick. It's more likely that you will move with a permanent staccato rhythm, shiftily moving towards your target less out of strategy than of anxiety.

The obvious risk-reward lies in when you decide to keep going and when you decide to cut your losses and make for the exit, but the reality is that you'll be taking smaller risks throughout. A larger blue block will appear, for example, promising a windfall in gold, but you won't trigger it immediately because you know that if you wait, more reds will appear nearby and increase your points potential. Every red that appears increases the odds that you'll crash or be trapped or that the blue itself will become blocked off, but getting more points is everything.

I've found it additionally motivating that there's a small group of people posting their high scores online on Bluesky or in the comments on Itch, and even more helpful that the high scores aren't that high. My current best is around 75,000; the best in the world is currently around 190,000. That's a long way off, sure, but also not that far. I bet I could reach that. If I just risked a little longer.

KOLYDR is the work of Adam Saltsman, best known today as the co-founder of Finji, the publisher and sometimes co-developer of games like Night In The Woods, Tunic and Wilmot's Warehouse. He is also no stranger to creating simple, compulsive browser-games, having designed one-button endless runner (and perfect videogame) Canabalt in the 2000s.

Saltsman has returned to his roots recently and not only with KOLYDR. In December he and Finji released an anthology called CorgiSpace, containing 13 games that "have short legs on purpose." The development process inspired a manifesto of sorts, which Saltsman delivered on YouTube (in eight parts), and a game jam of like-minded works.

This makes me extremely happy. There's the temptation with something like KOLYDR to hope that Saltsman continues to explore and expand on the idea - and sure enough, I do hope that. But I sometimes worry that inherent in that hope is the belief that games like KOLYDR and Canabalt - simple, constrained, perhaps with short legs on purpose - are less legitimate than a game that's longer or deeper or higher resolution. I don't really think that's true. I don't need KOLYDR to have levels or modifiers or a UFO50-style framing device - not when it's able to make me yowl in anguish and keep coming back for more.

Play it now.