In this hectic world we live in, many times work and appointments must come before the fun and joys in our lives, including that of getting to play videogames whenever we want. Gone are the days when we could fire up a game of our choice and spend hours toiling away – now we seem to game in stolen moments here and there. With that in mind, perhaps it is no wonder that casual games have become such a popular gaming choice (especially with women who make up the vast majority of casual game players), as casual games allow us to either jump in and get those quick fixes of gaming bliss or either play them for as long as we want when we do have the time. In honor of the casual game, we'll be bringing you a new Casual Game of the Week every Monday to help you find that fix you might be needing in your life, and this week we have: Super Slyder

Imagine if you were nothing more than a little blue ball and all you wanted to do was to be able to escape from the mazes that torment your existence, but hampering your escape was the fact that once you start moving in one direction, you have to keep moving that direction until you hit something, and only then can you change directions. Welcome to the world of Super Slyder – one that sounds more difficult on paper than it actually plays.

In Super Slyders the controls consist of exactly four keys: the arrow keys (and the R-button technically as it will reset the level for you should you find yourself stuck making the wrong move). As mentioned, Slyder will only roll one of four ways, and he'll keep rolling that one direction until he hits something to make him stop, which will ultimately make up where the challenge comes from. It would be easy to walk a straight diagonal line to a finishing goal, but what if you could only move completely horizontally or vertically. In the early levels finding a solution to a problem is pretty apparent, as walls protrude in such a way to make you think, "Okay, so I need to go that way," and sure enough many of the early levels you'll complete with nary a head scratch.

Thankfully the game gets slightly more hard and complicated, but still many times you'll beat a level on one try, maybe on the second one, and maybe, just maybe you'll occasionally get a stumper that totally confuses you until you experiment around a little and see how objects in the maze works. Still, often you'll have a good idea what to do from the beginning, or even be able to pinpoint early "trick moves," which are item placements that seem too good to be true for early moves, and so diverting opposite them to start off usually leads to quality results.

Besides the walls, the further along you advance the more obstacles and dilemmas that come into play. You'll come across purple balls that move in whatever direction you are moving; rollers that will only move vertically or horizontally depending on their affiliation; mean red balls that will kill you if you touch them; electro balls that can zap other balls or obstacles to take them out of the way; rock blocks that are unmovable and can only be destroyed by the electro balls; vats that you can only cross if you get something to fall into them first; walls that are missing so Slyder can roll off; and holes in the floor that Slyder and other objects can fall through. The items are all specifically placed in the level for a reason, so if you see one expect to use it in one way or another – never will you stumble across a puzzle where something is there just to be there.

There are over 280 levels, which is quite a large number, but since many of it breezes by in no time at all, that ultimately won't be a huge chunk of time. You'll spend some time thinking over puzzles, but many of them can be solved on the fly with little to no planning needed ahead of time, thus making the time spent on those levels nothing more than the seconds needed to carry out your actions. The game does include a level editor to make and share your own levels, so hopefully you and others will be able to make some levels harder than the ones actually in the game.

In terms of Super Slyder's graphical and audio presentation, the game is very barebones, as the only thing the games does is the minimum it needs to get its gameplay across; there isn't any advanced 3D graphics, quality animation, and the background music and sound effects are on a constant loop, so it's not a very auditory listening experience to really get you invested, and more than likely you'll play with the music turned off.

If you're used to the brain scratching puzzle games out there and find yourself getting annoyed rather easily because of the difficulty, then Super Slyder's more laid back and simpler style might be right up your alley. I'm not exactly a fan of regular ol' Jeopardy due to the difficult academic questions, but turn on the teen version to me or a World Series of Pop Culture episode and I'll enjoy myself much more since it's good to feel brighter than something at least once in awhile.

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