Parameters is a role-playing game with no graphics, no sound effects, no music and no story. And I can't stop playing.
This Japanese Flash game looks as much like a Microsoft Excel document as its title sounds like one. Parameters is nothing but boxes, numbers and the occasional line graph. Click on a mission box to earn experience points and money. Click on enemy boxes to earn keys that unlock more missions and enemies. Eventually you click the largest enemy box on the screen until you win.
Everything that Parameters is missing is exactly what makes it irresistible. By ditching everything but the essential elements of an RPG, it plays like a commentary on the RPG genre. After all, when we play a traditional RPG videogame, what we're really doing is clicking a mouse like crazy, watching numbers appear. Not that Parameters is mindless clicking, far from it. Spending upgrade points wisely and deciding which boxes to unlock in which order is vital to completing the game.
Clicking the final enemy box into oblivion brings up a victory message with an option to post your completion time on Twitter. My first full game lasted 50 minutes but I was dawdling. Some players have reached the end in less than five minutes, according to the site's official Twitter account.
