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3. Booksquirm – Mario Party 4
Type: Free-for-all minigame
Players that participate in Booksquirm are shrunken down and are standing on the inside of an open book. Pages start to fall down, and everyone must successfully squeeze through the holes found in each of the falling pages in order to avoid being squished. As the game progresses, pages have fewer holes and fall progressively faster. Whoever survives this onslaught of pages is the winner of the game.
The gameplay of Booksquirm feels like something out of a Game & Watch game to me due to its progressively increasing difficulty. As the pages turn faster, I start to get an adrenaline kick and feel pressure to perform well as the game’s difficulty continues to test my skill. This minigame is especially addicting when playing the endless variation called Challenge Booksquirm, as it is a ton of fun to try to set the highest score possible.
While other Mario Party minigames may add some variety to make them more difficult, they usually do not have instantaneous difficulty increases like Booksquirm does. This increasing difficulty solidifies Booksquirm as one of my favorite free-for-all minigames to date.
I remember when the first Mario Party came out, Nintendo offered everyone the chance to get a glove to keep from burning holes into the palms of their hands. This series is always fun. Great picks!
I remember that all too well! The N64 control sticks were often huge victims of the original Mario Party minigames as well. I went through a couple of controllers just for Mario Party, and I have no regrets.
The blisters I got from the first Mario Party were kind of unbelievable in retrospect. I pretty much tore my hand apart playing some of those games.
Like Anthony, I regret nothing. :)
Also, no Bumper Balls??
I know that feeling all too well, Marc!
Haha I love Bumper Balls, but I opted to take it out because I often got into stalemates when two players were left on the field. But, it’s definitely an awesome minigame :)