There was a time I attributed my rapid advances in accuracy with a mouse to Audiosurf, an indy game based on music, with lanes containing blocks, of which you must hit while surfing your music. Now Audiosurf doesn’t require accuracy, but your score can benefit highly from it – the ability to neatly switch between two lanes, hugging the line as you do so, is a nice one to develop. In addition to that it will occasionally require quick flicks to move across all lanes to beat the beat – so it has fast elements too. Hence why I’ve chosen to play it again.

I should note that I play the Mono mode more than anything else, and occasionally have done some local co-op which is a version of Pointman. But not now, I’m using it to enjoy music and improve my mouse control – though it helps that it has new music on a weekly basic to try out. Mono means there are only two block variants: coloured and grey – your aim is to hit all of the former and none of the latter.

In short after just 2 tracks of _ensnare_ 8bit tunes there was a fair bit of aching in the arm – so still getting used to the new position and finer control, though Audiosurf whether intentionally or not does sort of force more finer control – especially with the centre lane, as its quite easy to overshoot and end up in the opposite lane; a worthwhile tool (and fun game) in learning to limit my movements… as I’ve likened my right hand to a sledge-hammer rather than a fencing sword; just to get some idea (or perhaps just a heavy sword, sledge-hammer feels too brutish).

Keys be jingling

Slowly but surely I’m starting to get used to the keyboard now, simple isometric or top-down games proving the easiest to get into it, the likes of Alien Breed 2 and Alien Swarm which provide the best options for that… whereas Titan Quest, Torchlight and Magicka are very mouse-centric, something which I don’t think I need to worry too much about right now based on my experience so far.

So far I’ve got an achy mousing-arm, still getting to grips with the keyboard – but getting there… my plan for the next few days is a bit more gaming, potentially with larger breaks if the aching keeps up. I’m hoping to be playing Red Faction: Armageddon over the weekend, more than anything I’m hoping to see some examples of PC optimisation (in terms of performance), that should give me some clues as to whether Volition are capable of pulling off a beautiful PC version of Saints Row: The Third due out in a couple of months (though I’m hoping to have finished playing through The Witcher 2 by that point – university work willing).