WINDOW DRESSING
BATTLE OF WINDOWS imagines a civil war on your desktop
One very specific niche I like is games set in operating systems. Games like Digital: A Love Story, which told a visual novel in the Amiga’s Workbench OS. Battle of Windows does something similar, in that it repurposes an old version of Windows. However, the titular windows are given unlikely utility.
The windows of Windows have had a bit of a falling out, going to war in an aerial battle on your desktop. Enemy windows fly towards you from the right of the screen – as in a typical horizontal shmup – and, playing as a wizard, you have to fend them off by summoning windows of your own.
The cheapest window you can summon contains a clipart of a spaceship, which will automatically fire Minesweeper mines at the enemy. You can summon multiple ships, and position them wherever you want by dragging them around.
Walls physically restrain enemy windows, stopping them from reaching your wizard and reducing their health. It made me smile to watch them butt against them, piling up in a Windows traffic jam.
Eventually, stronger enemies appear. So, you summon more walls, and more ships, and you chuck in a few of the playing cards as well, which will attack enemy windows at close-range. Soon the screen is full of windows, which you’re furiously squishing and dragging around – while you remember to skip the music player to an appropriate track.
This is a great idea, taking the Windows we all know so well and finding a fun new use for it. The game feels fresh thanks to its novel dragging mechanics.