Long read: The beauty and drama of video games and their clouds

"It's a little bit hard to work out without knowing the altitude of that dragon..."

If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy.

Lumines Live price cut

Plus new DLC. All tomorrow.

A bit like when my mouse cursor goes to sleep, or when Nanna rings to ask why I'm not married yet, the original price of Lumines Live was met with shouting. Good news then for those of you who didn't bother with it, because Q is permanently cutting the price on Wednesday, 17th October.

From then on, it will cost just 800 Microsoft points (GBP 6.80 / EUR 9.30) rather than 1200. What's more, Q is letting you download "Heavenly Star" and "Breeze" skins for free between 17th October and 14th November - providing you're an Xbox Live Gold member.

There's also a "Rockin' Holiday Pack" due for release on Wednesday, priced 400 points (GBP 3.40 / EUR 4.65).

You will still have to pay a few hundred points more than the base 800 to fill out the extra gameplay modes like Puzzle, but it's still not a terrible price for a port of what was - and remains - one of the PSP's best original puzzle games.

Not sure what Lumines is? It's a puzzle game where blocks of two opposing colours fall into a wider-than-it-is-tall rectangular play area and you have to try and arrange them so that they form same-coloured squares of two by two. This is complicated by the fact that they generally descend in little confused clusters of competing colours that have to be disentangled.

When you have same-coloured two-by-two squares arranged neatly in the box, they get all warm and glowy, and a vertical line that sweeps left to right across the play area removes them with its passing. In order to net bigger scores, you want to line up several squares at the same time.

This being a Q Entertainment game, it's all done to the sound of dance and pop music, and is regularly refreshed by new songs and changes of pace for the sweeping vertical line and the rate of the blocks' initial descent.

Sounds good? Well, it is. To find out more, read our original Lumines Live review by clicking on the link we just put in this sentence. And, more importantly, let us know if you'll be tempted by the new price.