Casual

GoG.com has been busy this week adding four games to their line-up of DRM-free PC game titles. This weekend they have a special old-school game sale going on; no first person shooters or real time strategy or role playing games here. They have the simple fun of pinball games at a special price.

Yep from now until the end of the day on Monday you can download all four of GoG.com's PC pinball titles (Pure Pinball 2.0 Redux, Timeshock, Big Race USA and Fantastic Journey) for a mere $4.79 each. That's a 20 percent discount on their already low, low prices. This is not a bundle deal; you get the 20 percent price cut no matter how many you want to get.

We have to say, this is one of the most interesting and hilarious games we've seen to come from the indie scene. An entry into TOJam #4, Cheesohol has simple graphics and animation that belie the true nature of the beast: get a bunch of brewskis and chug until you pass out. The catch is that you do this by connecting Wiimotes to your computer through a bluetooth dongle, and then duct taping a beer to the Wiimote. As expected, this is definitely a social game!

The goal of Cheesohol is very simple: kill the goats and reach the top of the mountain. You do this by drinking, or, in order to move forward out of your drunken stupor, stop drinking. The more you drink, the more inebriated you become, with your character's attacks being little black Ts of simulated vomit. It would be digusting if it wasn't so hilarious, especially since there is none of the gross sound effects associated with such things. Just get as far as possible, drinking with your buddies all the while! For those inclined to a less inebriating course of action, you can play the game with your mouse in solo mode, but it isn't nearly as fun.

This is the official soundtrack to FLOCK!, the casual physics-based puzzle game where players use flying saucers to herd animals back to the mothership (or Motherflocker, as the game calls it). Now you can enjoy the sounds of flocking wherever you go. Capcom and developers Proper Games made the soundtrack available in OGG file format, which requires a codec to be installed in order to play in Windows Media Player or iTunes. We've taken the liberty of converting the files to 320 Kbps MP3 files and offering them as an alternative to installing a codec. The FLOCK! game demo can be downloaded here.

Download FLOCK! Original Game Soundtrack [OGG] (46 MB)
Download FLOCK! Original Game Soundtrack [MP3] (58 MB)
Download teh FLOCK! Demo (77 MB)
Check out all FLOCK! downloads

This is the official demo for Plants vs Zombies, a lawn defense game published by Popcap Games.

"A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants. Use peashooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to mulchify 26 types of zombies before they can reach your front door. Each zombie has its own special skills, so you'll need to think fast and plant faster to combat them all. But be careful how you use your limited supply of greens and seeds as you battle the fun-dead, obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge. And with five game modes to dig into, the fun never dies! "

Download Plants vs Zombies Demo (25 MB)
Check out all Plants vs Zombies downloads

Casual game developer and publisher PopCap Games has been on a roll in the past year or so with a number of major sellers including Peggle Nights, Bejeweled Twist and most recently the addictive tower defense game Plants Vs Zombies. All three games have sold very well and Plants Vs Zombies was recently declared to be, " . . . the best-selling game PopCap's ever had"

So what's next for the superstar casual game company. Big Download managed to get one big hint via PopCap's PR head Garth Chouteau: "It will be a sequel to one of our best selling franchises." Hmmmm.... That's all the hint Garth would give us for the moment but we can speculate...how about a new Zuma game? Or maybe a Heavy Weapon sequel? Hopefully we won't have to wait for long.

Zombies are all the rage in games these days, even in casual titles like the recently released Plants Vs Zombies tower defense game from PopCap. The game has generated lots of good reviews but according to a new article on Gamasutra it's also generating high sales as well.

How high? According to a quote from PopCap's PR head Garth Chouteau, "At this very early point in its history, it's the best-selling game PopCap's ever had." And that's saying something considering PopCap has also had huge casual game sales with the Peggle and Bejeweled series. Part of the reason is that the game, while still in the casual genre, also appeals to another audience. Chouteau says, "At the moment, we'd estimate that at least half of all buyers of PvZ would fall into the 'hardcore' category." Yep, it's a true "hardcore casual' game and in this game that means big bucks all around.

Download the Plants Vs Zombies demo at Big Download

In the past several months, casual game developer PopCap has offered up two free add-ons for World of Warcraft players; fully playable in-game versions of PopCap's casual games Peggle and Bejeweled. Now it appears there's an even deeper connection. Our sister site Joystiq is reporting that Popcap's vice president of game platforms Greg Canessa has left the company to work at World of Warcraft creators Blizzard Entertainment.

What Canessa is working on is still rather vague with Joystiq's unnamed sources saying he is involved in an "unannounced project in the online space" for Blizzard. That could mean anything, of course, but Canessa's experience at both PopCap and Microsoft (where he helped to launch the Xbox 360's Xbox Live Arcade business) would suggest that Blizzard has some downloadable casual games in mind for the future.

Download the World of Warcraft Peggle Add-On at Big Download
Download the World of Warcraft Bejeweled Add-On at Big Download
Check out Big Download's new MMO Hub web site

Popcap Games is quite the studio. They manage to take the simplest gameplay mechanic and turn it into something compelling. They did it with Bejeweled, they did it with Peggle, and now they've done it again with Plants vs. Zombies. How could the overdone Tower/Desktop Defense genre be given new life? It can't. That's why Popcap has chosen to give it undeath. Read on to find out more.

Download Plants vs Zombies PC Demo (25 MB)

This is the official demo for Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch, a casual puzzle adventure game developed by MumboJumbo.

"When Samantha's new benefactor asks her to track down Alexander the Great's Scroll of Wealth, the opportunity seems too be good to be true-searching for the scroll while collecting amazing finds for the Museum of Secrets Lost! Little does she know that a secret brotherhood is watching her every move and that she'll have to do a lot more digging to find the true treasure."

Download Samantha Swift and the Golden Touch Demo (157 MB)

Also check out:
Samantha Swift and the Hidden Roses of Athena Demo (110 MB)

We missed this yesterday (it was a fairly busy Tuesday for news) but our favorite DRM-free game download site GoG.com has a couple of extra additions for their library of titles this week. One of them is the 1999 release of the casual game Pro Pinball: Fantastic Journey from developer Cunning Developments and publisher Empire Interactive. You can download the title now for $5.99.

Also added to the GoG.com library is the bundle collection of Simarils' two fantasy RPG titles Ishar: Legend of the Fortress and Ishar 2: Messengers of Doom. The 1994 game was unusual for its time in that it mostly took place in outdoor settings rather than dungeons. You can get the Ishar 1+2 collection for just $5.99.

Playing free games via a web browser is certainly a growing trend for hardcore game titles such as Quake Live and the upcoming Battlefield Heroes. However, the downloadable casual game developer-publisher Flashbang Studios is trying to go in the opposite direction and will see if people will actually pay to play games they have normally played for free.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal the company plans will launch a subscription service sometime in 2009 on their Blurst.com site that will ask people to pay $20 for a six-month period. People will be able to download the Flash-based games they make for that fee and the company will take requests for additional features. They are assuming that 5,000 people will have to sign up for the service in order for it to work. The company claims that 2.5 million people have played their free games so it will be interesting to see if a tiny fraction of those players would like to pay for the service. In the meantime Flashbang's newest game Paper Moon (seen above) is due for release on Friday.

This update for Flock fixes some bugs and makes a few gameplay adjustments. Steam customers are encouraged to use the auto-updater. Continue reading after the jump for patch notes.

Download Flock v1.01 Patch (7 MB)Download the Flock Demo (77 MB)
Check out all Flock downloads

This gameplay trailer for Plants vs Zombies runs down a few of the units players will have at their disposal to repel the zombie invasion. Some zombies are tougher than others and require special plants to counter. However, the trailer does not indicate what one needs to repel the zombie bobsled team. Players will have a chance to find out for themselves when the casual strategy game releases on May 5th.

Download Plants vs Zombies gameplay trailer (4 MB)
Download Plants vs Zombies Demo (25 MB)
Check out all Plants vs Zombies downloads

In perhaps one of the briefest open betas for an MMO game in recent history, Sony Online has posted up word on the official Free Realms web site (if you check out the inviso-text like we did) that the casual themed fantasy MMO is set for its official launch on Tuesday. This is likely Sony Online's only major launch of an all new game this year as both The Agency and DC Universe Online seem to be targeted for a 2010 launch date.

This is Sony Online's first game for the free-to-play MMO audience that has pretty much exploded in the past couple of years with lots of different titles currently online or in the works. Our sister site Massively reports that everyone who played in the beta test will be getting a special unnamed in-game item when Free Realms officially launches tomorrow.

The Plants Vs. Zombies phenomenon continues to grow as we await the May 5 launch of the odd casual title from PopCap Games. One of the promo items that the publisher is giving out is a way to design your very own zombie with a Flash interface on the game's official web site.

The Zomatar interface (which includes an extremely funny license agreement that is a pleasure to read) allows folks to design their own look for one of the cartoony zombies. Once you are done you can download a JPG file of your new undead creation or send a "zombigram" of the image to your unsuspecting family and friends. You can also check out a new YouTube gameplay trailer from Plants Vs Zombies after the jump.