Do you remember 2007? If you're like me, your answer is probably, "What was I supposed to be doing this morning?" If you're more of a clever sort, however, your answer is going to be, "Of course I remember 2007, Dora. That was when indie developer Sandhill Games released a little gem called Ring Pass Not, which was a puzzle game which, while occasionally unfair in its luck-based gameplay, was addictive and unique and pretty darned awesome. But why do you ask? Surely it can't be... " But it is! After listening to the community and going over feedback, the developers have finally given us Ring Pass Not 2, featuring better bonuses, better looks, the all-important save feature (awww yeaaah) and much more.
Apparently, you, a wizard, or at least someone in possession of a wizard's staff, are journeying across the land, and the only way to prevent being eaten by dragons is to create rings of matching symbols and/or colours as you progress. You know, just like in real life? You do this by placing runes on the circular playing field. Runes can only be placed next to each other if the symbols or the colours of the ends that touch each other match. If you don't have anything suitable, you can click the Deal button, which you can do several times per game. When you click it, it grants you a new set of runes, but reduces the number you get by one each time. to If the board fills up and all of the adjacent runes don't match each other, you'll lose the game.
Fortunately, as a wizard, you have access to special power-ups that will be revealed as you go along. Place a certain coloured symbol beside another and unlock a helpful ability, or make use of the coveted Bonus Deal, which shuffles your available runes one more time even if you've already hit the Deal button. As you progress, the game gets even harder by introducing requirements for certain areas of the board that change with each stage. They'll limit you to placing only matching symbols on one spot, or a particular colour on another. Think you've got it all down to an art? Then try the game's even more restrictive additional difficulty mode the next time you play.
Analysis: Strictly speaking, Ring Pass Not 2 is not so much a sequel to the original, as an upgrade. The game is prettier, sounds better, and offers a handful of new abilities and bonuses which are really just there to beef up your score. Which isn't a bad thing, since the original Ring Pass Not was fun, just very basic. Ring Pass Not 2, by contrast, is as easy as you want it to be. You can still "win" by slapping down runes that meet the basic requirements, but to get the highest score you'll need to challenge yourself to place the best runes in specific positions so you trigger bonuses. It's an appealing approach to gameplay that leaves room for people who just want to have fun, and those of you who take the "mine's bigger" approach to the scoreboard to play your little hearts out.
My main gripe with an otherwise enjoyable game is one that endures from its predecessor. You can't have much real strategy in a scenario where Lady Luck dictates the outcome, especially since we all know what a fickle harridan she is. Carefully plotting rune placement does you no good if the game can decide to throw down three useless sets of runes in a row. You don't need strategy, you need a crystal ball. How much you'll enjoy Ring Pass Not 2 depends on how well you handle the Deal button frequently giving you useless runes when you've painted yourself into the corner. It's not all luck, of course, and a good bit of careful planning and saving your power-ups will go a long way, but it still stings.
Regardless of how many times chance knocks you down, there's something addictive about Ring Pass Not 2's simple-on-the-surface gameplay that will probably bring you crawling back. It's surprisingly adept at making you lose track of time, and "just one more round" is a trap any puzzle fan should be prepared to fall into. It's also just begging for an iPhone port. (hint, hint) As it stands, Ring Pass Not 2 puts on a good coat of polish and refines an old title into something bright, shiny, and altogether fun.
Cheers to Anji for sending this one in! =)
It's refusing to let me place perfectly matched tiles, for what appears to be no reason other then to annoy the hell out of me.
Lame.
glitch:
after first game, new game started with half completed circle and no way to add new tiles to it. sometimes the new ones would actually stick over the previous tiles
I didn't have the same problem. Perhaps the tiles aren't as perfectly matched as you may think? Are you taking into consideration any 'limiters' that may be in play?
Thanks for this one - I hope you got my recommendation I sent a week or so back!
I love this game, the only niggle I have is that you don't know how many "bonuses" you have, so you don't know whether to , say, save the Extra Deal or use it because you actually have 2 or more.
(I've emailed the developer about this .)
It's WAY better than the original.
Great time waster. Brilliant!
I am having the same annoying glitches as the two people above me and it has completely ruined the game, I'm also having some glitches not mentioned yet. Sometimes when I place a tile that completes the circle the game will remove a different tile for no reason, this screws me over pretty badly as you can imagine.
Yeah, it's very buggy. I also had the same problem as the first two players. If this many people are having trouble there must be a serious bug. No limiters--I had a perfect match in the first round and was killed for no reason. Opened game 2 and had the half-filled ring. It's so pretty--hopefully the developer will see these posts and fix it.
If you play the game on the www.sandhillgames.com site, you don't get the glitch. I just played it on the site here from the picture link., and when I started the 2nd game, having finished one, it came up with a partly filled in ring, as mentioned above. But I've been playing for weeks now on the Sandhill site with no problems....maybe that's the place to go? And maybe there is a glitch on the JIG based page?
The developer sent me a version to host here at JIG since their site uses one of those funky Javascript overlays that don't always work on all platforms/browsers.
Apparently the version they sent over still has some issues with it.
So, I've switched the links in the review above to point to the Ring Pass Not site. From there you'll have to click on the link to play the game.
Other than the tile generator flat out refusing to give you any chance whatsoever to fill in a three-limit circle, it's fun.
You know, until you can't play anymore because you need a green and it gives you not one single one, five deals in a row.
I've honestly never understood that about games like this (some Bejeweled clones fit, too). "Match Colors!" "It's Fun!" "Do it for five minutes then start over because the random generator is horribly weighted against you!"
What's the point if it's totally impossible?
I would like this game if it didn't keep not giving me tiles that I need. It's one thing to be clever, but to never be given anything you can even potentially use changes this from a game of skill to a game of chance. I'd rather roll dice a hundred million times and hope for a six than waste my time with this, thanks.
Oh, and I'm waiting for the title screen to load. It says press cancel if it doesn't load, but cancel's not working. Too bad. It was fun when the levels worked.
my biggest gripe with the first one was that you couldn't save your progress, so if you didn't finish the game in one sitting (yeh right) you started again next time you went back.
is that still an issue or is it something they've addressed?
(i was playing it on kongregate - don't know if that makes a difference)
never mind, i obviously missed that bit the first read thru - i've been up since 4 am and the coffee obviously hasn't worked its magic yet - sorry
I just played the game and I think it's awesome. They've made a huge step from Ring Pass Not 1. Especially the volcano dragon he he....
Yes I have had same bugs and glitches as previously mentioned by my esteemed gameheads.
To top it all my tea has gone cold....ugh
Love you all..
Glitch Kingdom!
Like previous posters, tiles that should match are not matching. Seems that "Taming the Dragon..." is not my thing.
While I recognize that not getting dealt the piece you need can be frustrating, there are ways to minimize the chances of this happening:
- You can earn yourself a lot of bonuses in the early rounds by going for sets and synergies, especially the Ultimate Harmony (4 of each color, 4 of each symbol). Don't be satisfied simply with completing the ring -- look at your initial deal and decide what set to try for: if you see 6 moons initially, go for 10+ moons; if you have a good mix of symbols and colors, try for the Ultimate Harmony. Use your collection of jokers, bombs, and modifiers in later levels to help make everything fit.
- Plan how you're going to finish a ring before you're down to one space remaining. The chances of you finding a set of two or three pieces that work together are better than waiting for one exact piece. Try to select pieces that can fit multiple places, so that you can do some rearrangement later on if necessary.
This seem very similar to the classic PopCap game Alchemy.
I was just thinking about Ring Pass Not this week. Weird.
It's just as challenging as I remember it!
I think the bugs are gone now
Yes, the developers at Sandhill have found and fixed a glitch that was causing some issues for some players. They sent me the new version, which we are again hosting as before.
OMG!!!! It is not letting me toggle the annoying music off and even when I quit the game, the music was still playing. It also would not let me enter a comment until I pressed it 5 or 6 times. Please fix this.
The random tile generator can be annoying, but if you think carefully, you can usually beat the odds. Hint: Don't set yourself up for a pile that requires one exact piece it won't spit out... and given that you can move tiles you've already placed, that gives you some remarkable flexibility. You just have to think hard and shuffle pieces around for a moment to try and make a good opening. Just save up your special moves for the later levels, when you have six friggin' limiters on one board.
I do find it a bit inconvenient that you can't see how many of each powerup you have in stock, but that's not really too big an obstacle.
HOWEVER, there is one very big problem: ONE checkpoint in the entire game?! And it's only a quarter of the way through!
Look, I understand the frustration with save scumming. But having no save points is not a good response. Especially when there is still some dependence on randomness.
Now I can toggle the music, but it did nto save my previous game. Still lots of bugs. I'll come back when it is finished. This is ridiculous!
You actually CAN see how many of each power up you have...
If you mouse over a power up you'll see very faint light blue circles floating behind the powerup you moused over...you'll need to count them yourself.
I lost so many hours playing this game the first time around, excited to try out the updated version. Hooray!
I'm sorry, but I don't like this version. I still prefers the original Ring Pass Not. Four are the features that has been changed since the original that affect my opinion:
1) The art is beautiful, but the mage is not inside the circle, so the concept of create a ring to protect us from the dragon has been dropped down. Well maybe the ring is forming a barrier between the mage and the dragon.
2) The button of casting the ring is horribly anticlimatic. In the original game, the dragon breath fire and the ring hold perfectly against the attack. Now you have a better art direction, but the effect was quite better in the original game.
3) The game prevents the player to make a mistake in the last movement about to place a wrong tile in the last movement. This is just wrong for a solitaire game. The errors of perception are part of every solitaire game.
4) Once you have all tiles places, and one wrong, there's no way to reorder your tiles to make a win (less you have bonuses). In the original game, because when you complete the circle, the dragon fires his breath, there was not that problem. The player lose, as it must be.
The main problem is that, having empty slots to place my tiles, there was a moment when I could not reorder a tile because it was remaining obtusely in its place.
That's all and good luck.
PD: Sorry my bad English.
A few years ago, I used to play Ring Pass Not quite frequently. Great seeing it back. I still enjoy it. :)
Okay, this game is making me mad. I got all the way to that last area, didn't make it, and it started me all the way back to Level 11 (Yellow area). If it saves automatically once you reach level 11, why not when you beat any of the other two areas? another glitch, perhaps. I'm not playing back through that again.
Ring Pass Not 2 is frustrating in that it suffers similar balance issues as the first game. Specifically, the special bonus tools that are far away the most powerful (Remove Block, Switch, Joker) are the ones that are the most difficult to "go for" in the earlier levels. Harmonies are next to impossible to plan for, as you have no control over what your last tiles will need to be to complete the harmony as well as complete your ring. It would be nice if in the later levels, the game threw you a bone and randomly gave you a bonus tile just for beating certain difficult levels, but as the higher levels get more difficult, it becomes even harder to earn special tiles, making it an upward struggle with no relief. You eventually end up using more special tiles to solve a level than earn any, since the blocks screw up your chances of earning special tiles. Basically, as another poster said, you have to garner all your special tiles in the earlier rounds to have any chance of survival in the later ones. Very punishing experience.
the game proposes a new game at level 11 (yellow area), even if I've reached the red area. too bad. the game should propose to begin a new game at the beginning of each area.
I got to Level 35 and then got stuck, and had to pick a loser to end the game (I guess). Now it says "Loading" and to click cancel if it takes to long. I clicked cancel and there's nothing, it's been hung up on that screen for the past half hour. Frustrating! Until that I was having fun though.
Yeah... I posted a whole complicated thing about how you could beat the random tile generator by being careful, and then I kept getting absolutely slaughtered by it, over and over, no matter what I did. To this day I've never once gotten past the first level of the fire realm.
I understand they didn't want to make the game too easy, but there is one completely nonsensical problem that makes it impossible to stockpile any decent powerups for the later levels: For absolutely no reason whatsoever, synergies don't count in the first few levels. Without synergies, you can't get "Transform" magic, which makes getting harmonies (four of each color or symbol) impossible without a string of luck that would make Doyle Brunson gape in disbelief. In the later levels, limiters make harmonies near-impossible even WITH Transform magic, unless you want to exhaust half your stockpile of it in a single round.
Seriously, why don't synergies count in the first few levels? Is there any reason, besides artificially ramping up the odds that you won't win even if you do everything right?
Update