Star Trigon (Namco 2002) - one switch arcade game

The only off-shoot game from Namco's Project Driller team, known for their whimsical Mr Driller series of puzzle games, Star Trigon is a deceptively simple action-puzzle game. How simple? It uses only one button - and no joystick - for play. Three characters are selectable at the beginning of the game: Hoshi Wataru (with his cute kitty, Pachee, in tow), Choufuto Bigguban (the token fat-and-slow oaf), and Mr Driller himself, Hori Susumu. The object of Star Trigon is to rescue all of your stranded friends in each level. Stages are made up of a variety of planets viewed from a top-down perspective. The one button used for control simply makes your character hop from one planet to another. As the game begins, your character is put into "orbit" around one planet. He can then hop from planet to planet with skillfully-timed presses of the button. As you hop from one planet to another, a line is drawn connecting the two. Repeat this again and again to form triangle shapes, which encapsulate your free-floating friends and, in turn, rescue them. The triangles drawn can be large or small, as long as they remain a triangle shape. The gravitational pull of each planet - essentially the margin of error, as a larger pull will suck your character in if you send him flying slightly to one side of the planet - decreases as the game progresses, increasing the difficulty. Missing a jump from one planet to another will send you careening off into outer space, though one-hit-kill barriers do line some stages in order to help train you. There is also an air meter (a la Mr Driller) constantly depleting, which can be replenished via pick-ups that are found circling certain planets on each stage. Mixed in with the dozens of normal stages are a variety of bonus stages, in which you must collect as many friends as possible within a time limit. Missing a jump and exiting the playfield instantly ends a bonus round. The graphics and sound are very distictive and unusual, much in the same vein as Mr Driller - the entire game is extremely stylish and unique. Star Trigon runs on Namco System 10 hardware, which is also home to games such as Taiko no Tatsujin, Mojipittan, and Mr Driller G. Taken from www.klov.com