popcap-games posts

Released back in September 2008, PopCap Games's casual puzzle game Peggle Nights is still a highly popular (not to mention addictive) title to play. Now PopCap Games is conspiring to give all of us the full version of the game for free. However this is a catch involved in this deal.

It isn't much of a catch, though. All you have to do is sign up to receive the company's Passport email newsletter. The sign up itself is free and then you can send a free copy of Peggle Nights "to a friend or relative." Of course there's nothing to stop you from sending that free copy to yourself if you have more than one email address and we don't think the gang at PopCap will mind too much.

Download Peggle Nights Demo (24 MB)

Two of the biggest casual game developer/publishers, MumboJumbo and PopCap, have apparently been fighting in court for the last few years. Today MumboJumbo announced it has been awarded a sum of $4.6 million in damages by a Dallas, Texas jury.

MumboJumbo claimed that it entered into an agreement with PopCap in 2006 to "produce, distribute and sell certain PopCap games in North America." However MumboJumbo then claimed that PopCap went behind their back and decided to sell their games on their own. The jury agreed with MumboJumbo that Popcap "committed fraud and tortious interference when it severely damaged the business relationship between MumboJumbo and a key retailer." Big Download contacted PopCap for comment and received this response from their PR head: "PopCap continues to believe that it did nothing wrong in this case, and will vigorously pursue its claims and defend itself through the appeals process."

The massive devastation and loss of life in Haiti following Tuesday's 7.0 magnitude earthquake is almost unimaginable. However the collective response to the disaster shows that no matter what happens there will always be folks who will help out. Casual game publisher PopCap Games is giving you a chance to donate money to one of the many groups trying to help the country.

For today only, PopCap will donate all proceeds from any game bought from their online store to Partners In Health, which is trying to help ease the pain of people who are currently living with this situation. So if you ever wanted to buy Plants Vs Zombies, now is the time.

[Via Joystiq]

Last September during the Tokyo Game Show, publisher Square Enix announced a collaboration with casual game developer PopCap Games with their upcoming puzzle-RPG Gyromancer. Today it was revealed via a new trailer that the downloadable game would be released for the PC on November 18 for $15.

The game itself has that Square Enix art style for the RPG portion of the game mixed with a Bejeweled Twist puzzle gameplay experience. You can expect to have access to over 50 monsters that can be used in your puzzle-RPG battles across 12 different stages. An online leaderboard will also be made available to compare your scores with others.

Download HD Gyromancer Trailer (73 MB)

If you have been thinking about buying the full version of Zuma's Revenge but feel that the price of $19.95 is just too much money to pay for the sequel to PopCap Games' popular casual puzzle title, then you might just be interested in Zuma's Revenge Adventure. This "lite" version of the full game is priced at just $9.95 and should be available now via a number of download outlets.

Zuma's Revenge Adventure has just the one gameplay mode, the Adventure mode, to play but does not contain any of the extra modes that you can access in the full version of the game. It still has all of the features of the full game's Adventure mode which includes 60 levels, new power ups, boss battle levels, support for up to 1920 x 1200 resolution and more.

Download the Zuma's Revenge demo at Big Download (98 MB)

The Tokyo Game Show is the place for some of the more unusual announcements in games and this year is no exception. Square Enix has announced plans to team up with casual PC game king Popcap Games to create Gyromancer, a downloadable PC title that will be released via Steam.

A la Puzzle Quest, this is a fantasy puzzle-RPG combo that has a distinct Square Enix art style mixed in with some Bejeweled gameplay options. Your character of Rivel has to naturally fight off creatures and you can even use the beasts to your advantage to join the fight. Pricing and a release date for the game have not yet been announced.

You might have heard about Popcap's successful tower defense-style game Plants Vs Zombies. While you can download a free demo of the game, Popcap is making things even easier by launching a free Flash based version on their official web site.

The Flash versions doesn't have all of the content and features of the downloadable PC game but it does have an extra Zombie unit that isn't in the full PC version of the game. There are three available gameplay modes, 14 levels, a total of six zombie types and a total of 12 plant units. All in all this should be a huge distraction for people at work as well as an effective way to sample the full downloadable PC game.

Casual game publisher PopCap Games has had big success with sequels to their hit games like Peggle Nights and Bejeweled Twist. Today PopCap revealed their plans for yet another high profile game sequel, Zuma. The sequel to the addictive ball-based puzzle game, Zuma's Revenge, is scheduled to be released for the PC and Mac on September 15 for $19.95.

Zuma's Revenge will have 60 new levels, new power ups, new "boss batles" and new gameplay modes. PopCap also promises the game will have three time the resolution of the original Zuma along with support for widescreen monitors and "cool 3-D particle effects". PopCap even hired the highest scorer known in the original Zuma, Rick Fortinm to beta test the sequel. MTV's Multiplayer site has some screenshots from the game.

A few weeks ago, PopCap Games' PR rep told us that their next big casual game release would be " . . . a sequel to one of our best selling franchises." Today PocCap let the cat (or worm as the case may be) out of the bag with the announcement of Bookworm Adventures 2, the sequel to their 2007 best selling word puzzle-oriented title.

Like the original game (which you can see above; no screenshots of the sequel have been released yet), Bookworm Adventures 2 has you playing Lex the worm who has to form words via letter tiles in order to fight enemies and collect power-ups. The sequel will have features like a infinity Replay mode, six mini-games, an arena mode, achievements and more. Look for the game to be released on July 30 for $19.99. We are guessing that a free demo will be released at the same time.

You may remember a few months ago that Popcap Games released a free add-on to World of Warcraft, allowing folks who play Blizzard's best selling MMO to play their casual game Peggle while still inside World of Warcraft (there's also another free add-on that let;s you do the same thing with Bejeweled). Well, in an unexpected move, Popcap has now released a stand alone free World of Warcraft version of Peggle.

The PC only release (sorry Mac users) has 10 levels, each with a Blizzard-created World of Warcraft background and support for a Duel mode with a friend or a computer AI opponent. PopCap did something similar with an Orange Box themed Peggle game that can be downloaded for free via Steam some time ago.