AbleGamers' Web Game of the Week: The Gainful Waltz

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Published on Monday, 30 April 2012 07:03

Written by Mark C. Barlet

AbleGamers' web game of the week is titled The Gainful Waltz. I'd like to think that this is a game that will go down in the history books as a classic Flash game. It's short and quirky and best of all, only needs a mouse. It has charming NES graphics and music to accompany the mouse-only gameplay.

The only goal of the game is to get to the top of the castle. You can achieve this by completing a series of rooms. Each room has three items that you can buy, one of which is the key to exit the room. The cheapest item is a heart which restores your life to full. The second item will be something to help your character. For example, one of the items will repel enemy ghosts when they come near you, making it easier to complete each room. To get the actual money is quite simple. Money is constantly being thrown into the air and it's your job to jump around and snatch up as much as you can. All you really need to get is the key to each room, but I'd definitely suggest getting each helpful item as they work in all future rooms and reduce the challenge significantly.

The accessibility of the game is a strongpoint thanks to the controls. There is no keyboard input required - only the mouse. Your character will follow the mouse as you move it around and clicking will make your character jump, making the game accessible to one-handed gamers. There are some reflexes required while jumping and avoiding obstacles, but once you get the item that repels ghosts you only have to worry about fireballs. Also, you can restore your health in each room if you have enough coins. Hearing impaired gamers will be fine since the audio only consists of unimportant bleeps and bloops from a past era. Gamers with low vision may have a hard time seeing the smaller coins or even the small character. Colorblind gamers won't encounter any issues.

About the Author

Author: Mark C. Barlet

The President and Co-Founder of the AbleGamers Foundation.