Shades of Resonance: Fond Reminiscence - Memory Log #34

Daedalian Opus

Now, I can't claim to be an expert in the field of marketing, but still I feel safe in guessing that one of the biggest mistakes that you can make as a video-game developer is to give your game a name that (a) has an entirely obscure origin, (b) maybe only five people on the planet will be able to pronounce, and (c) infers absolutely nothing about the game's actual content.

That's the first thought that pops into my mind whenever I think about my introduction to Daedalian Opus. I remember how I took one look at its inexplicably weird, tongue-twisting title and instinctively expressed repulsion.

"What the hell am I looking at?" I wondered as I gazed upon the game's cartridge. I didn't know what to make of the item. I was confused by both its displayed title and its curiously abstract artwork, which I could only assume was speaking of an Odyssey-style epic whose story entailed a hero battling mythological creatures at the behest of some creepy-looking religious figure.

"Or maybe," I also considered, "it's a game about flowers?" (Because its name sounded a bit like "dandelion.")

I wasn't sure.

And that was what happened when my friend Dominick suddenly handed me Daedalian Opus during our car trip to Atlantic City. I had no idea what it was. And certainly I wasn't prepared for what I was about to get myself into.

By that point in time, it was common for me to bring a friend along to Atlantic City. It's what my parents encouraged me to do. They knew that I'd quickly grow bored if my only option was to wander alone through Tivoli Pier (the TropWorld hotel's indoor amusement park) and the Boardwalk's many arcades, so they'd always suggest that I bring along a friend to keep me company.

The majority of the time, I chose to take Dominick. He was my best friend, and having him by my side always helped to make the Atlantic City experience so much more energetic and fun.

His presence, in particular, served to liven up the 2-hour car trip, which was ordinarily long and boring. When he was there, I'd have someone to talk to and banter with, and I'd have the accompaniment of a friend who shared an interest in one of my favorite road activities: playing Game Boy!

Whenever he'd join me on a trip, he'd be sure to bring along the clear plastic bag that contained his Game Boy and his entire portable library, which included all of the standard games (Super Mario Land, Tetris, Golf, etc.), yes, but also a number of games that were either largely unknown or completely obscure. In fact, it was common for him to show up each time with a newly purchased game that I'd never heard of or seen in gaming magazines. He'd always find new ways to surprise me.

And in time, we established a routine: In the first hour, we'd link up our Game Boys and compete in Tetris, and the rest of the time, we'd engage in some solo play after swapping games. I'd lend him, say, The Amazing Spider-Man or WWF Superstars, and he'd reciprocate by lending me Tennis or, more often, one of the aforementioned unknown or obscure games.

And during one particular trip, he lent me one of the weirdest-sounding games in his collection: the exotically titled Daedalian Opus.

And like I said earlier: I didn't know what to make of the images that were being displayed on the game's cartridge. As I examined them, all that I could do was make assumptions about their meaning.

Immediately I took the title's inclusion of the word "Opus" to mean that the game was an RPG. To me, the word opus implied "grand adventure," and that's what the average RPG tended to be: an adventure on a grand scale. "So this game is likely related to the Greek epics," I thought to myself.

And what I saw after I popped the game into my Game Boy seemed to support my theory. I was met with an opening dialogue scene whose style and visual presentation strongly resembled those I'd seen in every RPG I'd ever sampled. "So my guess was correct," I felt safe in assuming.

In the following moments, however, Daedalian Opus quickly abandoned the pretense that it was a character-driven RPG and, in surprising fashion, revealed itself to be something else entirely: a jigsaw-puzzle-type game that was pretty close in spirit to Tetris.

And, really, I welcomed this swerve because I had an aversion to RPGs and preferred every other genre to them. I was happy that Daedalian Opus was something else entirely. But still, I didn't mind that it had RPG-like presentational elements. I actually liked them. I enjoyed looking at all of the game's delightfully rendered characters, cut-scenes and overworld environments, and I appreciated how they worked together to shower the game with personality and imbue it with cheerful energy. Both they and the game's wonderfully buoyant music filled me with positive spirit and made me feel good about playing games.

Admittedly, though, I was a little worried that the game's main content wouldn't have as much success in carrying its own weight. I just wasn't sure that its core concept had that kind power--that it represented an exciting-enough twist on the block-arranging puzzle genre. I had doubts that a puzzle game whose goal was to study layouts and methodically assemble pentominoes into larger shapes could be anywhere near as fun or as entertaining or Tetris or hold my attention in the same way.

But within a few minutes, my feelings completely changed. Daedalian Opus quickly worked its magic on me, and before I could realize it, I was deeply engaged in the process of flipping and rotating blocks and arranging them into squares, rectangles, L-shapes and whatever weird formations the game was daring me to assemble.

One puzzle became two, and two became ten, and eventually I became so consumed by the action that I lost all sense of time and place. At that point, it was as if nothing of importance existed outside of my direct field of vision; the only thing that mattered to me was the activity that was occurring on the Game Boy's screen.

And by the time that car ride was over, Daedalian Opus had completed a striking transformation. It had gone from a game that I was once prepared to hastily dismiss to a game with which I'd developed a total obsession.

In our subsequent trips to Atlantic City (and also Long Island), I'd forgo the usual random game-swapping phase and just flat out ask Dominick to lend me Daedalian Opus. I wanted to spend as much time with it as I could.

And in each session, I'd get into the game in a big way. I'd become completely invested in its puzzle action, and resultantly I'd lose track of time. The hours would quickly drop off as I attempted to solve even single puzzles--normally one of the game's mid-teen stumpers. And all the while, I'd be in a state of total immersion.

And because Daedalian Opus was always able to do the job of deeply engrossing me, I was happy to include it on my list of favorite "road games." Admittedly, I felt a little strange about doing so because, well, I didn't even own the game! It was Dominick's. "Does it make sense for one of my favorite Game Boy road games to come from someone else's collection?" I often debated in my head. "Can it really hold that status when I can't play it unless another person is there to supply it to me?"

I mean, I thought about buying my own copy of the game, sure, but I decided that I didn't need to because I had such easy access to it via Dominick. He was pretty much always by my side. "So that's pretty much the same as owning it, right?" I rationalized.

Sadly, though, my time with Daedalian Opus eventually came to an end as did my experiences with road gaming in general. As the 90s rolled on and we neared the end of our high-school days, our lives began to change, and we started to move on from the old traditions. By 1996, Dominick and I had gone our separate ways, and circumstances had caused the Game Boy to relinquish its role as my steady travel companion; and consequently those fun fun-filled car rides became a thing of the past.

So there were no more frenzied Tetris battles, no more Super Mario Land races, and, tragically, no more engaging two-hour sessions with Daedalian Opus--one of my favorite puzzle games. That era was over.

In the months and years that followed, I tried to obtain my own copy of the game, yeah, but I was never able to find it in stores. Retailers would always swear that they'd never heard of it.

So it seemed as though I would never again get the chance to see my precious Daedalian Opus!

At the time, of course, I didn't foresee something like the Internet coming along, so I couldn't have known that my fears were misguided. I couldn't have known that I was in fact destined to be reunited with Daedalian Opus.

And, really, that was the best part about the arrival of the Internet: It allowed me to regain access to Daedalian Opus! "Who cares about any of that ' mass communication' or 'access to information' nonsense?" I thought. "I'm here for the block puzzles!" (I'm only half-serious.)

So as soon as I discovered Game Boy emulation, I hunted down a Daedalian Opus ROM (which in those days was a struggle akin to discovering intelligent life in an IGN comments section) and tore into the game in the same way I had in the past.

And for a long time, I returned to it with great frequency. I played it every day in the after-dinner hours, and I did so with the intention of accomplishing what I failed to do a decade earlier: clear all 36 of the game's levels and find out how its wacky story concluded!

The only problem was that playing it eventually became too time-consuming. At a certain point, its board shapes became maddeningly complex, and it started taking forever to solve even a single puzzle. And, honestly, I didn't want all of my leisure time on one game. I had so many others that I wanted to play! So I wound up abandoning Daedalian Opus for an extended period.

And that's how the story continued: I'd return to the game every few years or so, and each time, my march toward victory would be halted by time constraints or my desire to play some other game (a new GameCube or PS2 release or an old 8- or 16-bit game that I missed out on originally).

It wasn't until 2009, at a point in which I was on a mission to complete all of the games that had gotten the best of me in my younger days, that I determinedly loaded up Daedalian Opus and made a serious effort to conquer it. I went in hard, and after several hours (and after I suffered multiple mental breakdowns), I was finally able to solve all of the game's later puzzles and clear its final challenge (in my first try, no less). And just like that, I'd freed myself from the torment. I'd lifted a weight that had been resting on my chest for over a decade.

It has now been six years since that day, and my only lasting feeling is the lament that so many others are missing out on such a great puzzle-game experience. Daedalian Opus, sadly, continues to wallow in obscurity and remain criminally overlooked. And that's a shame because because it's the kind of game whose existence makes perfect sense in the current era--one in which mobile gaming is so huge; it's a simple, easy-to-understand puzzler, and it provides an experience that could potentially last for months (and if it were available, it would cost virtually nothing).

That, to me, is the definition of value.

So trust me when I say that Daedalian Opus is worth your time. It's one of the best, most engaging puzzle games out there.

Try it and see for yourself.

Just don't forget to leave your sanity at the door.