The Therapist Gamer

It might honestly take longer to explain how Woah Dave! works than it takes to actually play it, so just watch the video below if you don't like reading!  You are a little dude who runs around the stage trying to avoid death.  Eggs fall from the sky and eventually hatch into little monsters who walk, lemming-like, ever forward until the fall into lava.  When they fall into the lava they pop up and land at the top of the screen again, this time moving much faster.  If they reach the lava again then they will transform into a monster that can jump.  If they reach the lava one last time then they will turn into a flying eyeball that tracks you down.  The monsters can be killed at any time by having another egg thrown at them or by having a skull thrown at them.  Skulls will also sometimes fall from the sky, and they kill anything they're thrown at - egg or monster.  You can only hold one item at a time and you automatically pick up anything you walk over.  The bottom platform gradually gets smaller until it's completely gone, and then the lava simply rises to the new baseline.  

 

You get coins for each monster you kill.  If the monster has just hatched then you'll get one coin, but you get progressively more for each advanced stage of monster.  So you can either kill the monsters regularly and quickly for a small payoff, or wait until the monsters have gotten stronger and take home the big bucks.

 

There is also the "Woah Dave" block that functions the same way a POW block works in the old Mario Bros. games - it kills everything on the screen.  

 

I've made the game sound about as complex as possible, but it really is quite a simple premise.  Although it's simple, the game is expertly crafted and thus can be very addicting.  Do you try to get all of the monsters while they're slow to keep things in control, or do you risk letting the monsters get stronger to get a higher score?  My strategy has been to try to keep things under control with little reward until a "Woah Dave" block appears.  Then I'll let things get crazy until I just can't survive any longer.  When I throw the block down I can get some serious coin, and it usually isn't too long before another one appears.  To keep things under control until a Woah Dave block appears, I'll chuck all of the eggs into the same corner up top until a skull shows up and then get rid of all the eggs in one fell swoop.  My strategy has worked all right - my high score is currently $5.27, but there's a trophy for getting 1,000 coins!  I don't think I could ever do that!

 

Of special note is that my wife, a relative non-gamer, has become mildly addicted to this game.  Which of course delights me to no end.