By "pure," I mean games that don't have distinct levels and a 3 star system and that sort of thing. I'm looking for games where the only goal is to play as long as you can and achieve the highest score you can get. Bonus points for games that have meaningful leaderboards that have somehow managed to minimize the friggin HAXXORS!!!! (although I don't think that's actually possible based on my experience with GC) Some historical examples would be games like Galaga or PacMan. A couple of mine for IOS would be Fruit Ninja and Silverfish...
You could try some endless runner games like outland games, Daneger Boat, Le Vamp, Temple run, I gave up on the high score thing because there are a lot of cheaters and hackers in GC leaderboards which pretty much ruin the experience.
Yeah, "endless" games (runners, climbers, whatever) are OK. The thing about them though is that they are a straight time-based score. The longer you play, the higher your score. I like a combo system of some sort where you can achieve exponentially higher scores by mastering the system...
Any of the Cave games or Danmaku Unlimited 1/2 if you like bullet hell games. Especially some of Cave games have complicated scoring systems. Some people spend all their time learning and perfecting high scores. They are level based though. Solpskier is pretty much endless. I've scored higher scores on a 2-3 minute runs vs a 10 minute run before. Edit: Been looking at Ziggurat lately. Sounds like it ends, but most people won't reach it. There seems to be a combo system as well..but I'm not exactly sure if there's a complex scoring system or if its just straight number of aliens killed. Unfortunately it sounds like there's no GC leaderboard support..and I don't know if there's even a local high scores kept.
This was probably the best answer to this question for years, but it is no longer a "pure" high scoring game since they went freemium. Now you have to split your time between grinding to earn money for powerups and scoring runs where you spend your money to be able to compete on the leaderboards. This was the first game that popped into my head when I read the question.
Yes...the Greedies! MAMC gets my bid too (Did they remove the endless mode in SMAMC?), the mechanics allow for that "exponential score" that Zevious Zoquis was talking about. AND...my buddy Bo and I have been working on just such a game. It's called the *Greedies*. You play a ROBBER, and you run around the level making hits on citizens and grabbing their $$$. Collide into a COP and your lose. There are three floors, and you travel from floor to floor through portals at the edges of the screen that YOU control -- imagine "pac man" meets "portal" and you're partly there) (you can see what it's like here: thegreedies.tumblr.com ). Exponential Scoring: The "combo" mechanic (hitting a line of citizens) allows you to multiply your score The "Bonus Target" mechanic will give you mad cash if you hit a specific citizen head on (not as part of a combo) "Power-Ups" available in the game allow you to take additional risk The more $ you pick up, the more time extensions you can pick up. The conseqence is that I've scored as low as $0, average about $15k and gotten as high as $300k Honestly can't wait for arcade gamers to try it... Crazy thought: Since YOU ALL are interested in such games, if you PM me I will send you a link to download our current *PC only* build for free!
I like the addition of the boosts in Phoenix HD. If I'm playing on the train or something, I'm better off making money than actually beating my old high scores. The full assortment is just 5525 coins anyway. I don't think Ziggurat ends. Supposedly there are 9 hours of scripted events. I believe after what is considered the ending, it's mostly just the same after that without progress in the vague narrative. I'd love to see a video of all in that game up to the "ending." The two endless modes in God of Blades use a multiplier based on consecutive kills without taking damage, so it's not just how long you play. Most games with a complicated scoring system are going to have explicit levels and an endpoint.
@Smegly, Ziggurat has 9 hours of scripted events !? If that's true that is completely insane! Fun, but insane.
The game's creator seems at least partially full of shit, so I'd take that claim with a grain of salt. I doubt that anything unique happens after 20 minutes or something, and he just means that there is some degree of non-randomness that is coded for nine hours. I'm lucky to survive three minutes and based on the high scores I saw when it was on GC, nobody likely went past two hours.
@Smegly, Ok that sounds more plausible. I've been meaning to try it for a while. I think I'll have to now. Thx
Whoa..I was under the impression the version of Ziggurat that was re-released didn't have GC. Does the re-released version have GC?
That's correct, the re-release is recognized by GC but there are no leader boards or achievements. The first release had a huge selection of leader board categories though, and I'm just referring to that from memory.
My favorite pure hi score games... Fireball SE Eve of Impact Phoenix HD Monsters Ate My Condo The Blocks Cometh Mr. Ninja Pix N Love Rush Unstoppable Fist Star Wars Pinball
I dont think these qualify as pure hi score games because they involve grinding so you can do better as you get higher level upgrades.
For one thing I can say that we are very swift at removing cheaters from the Phoenix HD Leaderboards. If you are ever unsure about a score (apart from the obvious ginormous numbers), just check the next day, if it's there, it's legit Cheaters are the main reason for us to not have a Game Center leaderboard.