Satisbox Mini Games

Observed in play

You pick a task from the box and do it. The tasks are small and physical in feeling: sorting objects into their right places, filling a container properly, clearing a surface that has been left in a mess.

There is no timer and no score, so a task ends when it is finished rather than when you run out of something. That changes the pace. You can stop midway through the box without losing anything.

Everything is done with one pointer. On a computer that is the mouse; on a phone it is a single finger. There is nothing to learn beyond pointing at the thing you want to move.

Because the tasks are independent, the collection works as a list to dip into rather than a game to work through. New tasks appear from time to time on Poki’s side.

The tasks borrow their satisfaction from real objects rather than from game rules: a drawer that closes properly, a surface that comes clean, a set of things that end up in rows. That is the whole design, and it is why the collection reads as a box to open rather than a game to beat.

Because nothing is scored, the only thing separating a good task from a weak one is how well the object behaves under the pointer. The better tasks give you something that moves convincingly; the weaker ones are over before you have felt anything at all.

Nothing tracks which tasks you have done, so there is no sense of a list being worked through, and no task is a prerequisite for another. Handing a phone to somebody else mid-session costs nothing and needs no explanation.

Notes for a first attempt

• Try three different tasks before deciding what you think of it. They vary more than the first one suggests.
• There is no scoring, so working slowly costs nothing. Rushing mostly makes the tasks fiddly.
• If a task does not appeal, leave it. Nothing is locked behind finishing the previous one.
• Use it as the short thing between other games rather than a sitting of its own.
• Hand it to somebody else after a minute. It is the one game of the six that explains itself with no words at all.