Posts with tag: popcap-games

Hey we all love zombies here but is this going too far? Maybe. PopCap, the developer and publisher of tons of successful casual games, is apparently following up their launch of the much hyped (and $1 million reported budget) Bejeweled Twist with...a zombie game?

TheBBPS.com site states they spoke with a PopCap PR rep who told them, "It'll be a few months, but our next new game will be worth the wait... "zombie apocalypse," the PopCap way: no blood, no gore, but blood-curdlingly fun and addictive just the same." Um..if there's no gore and blood involved then it's not really a zombie game, is it? All you get is just...people...coming to eat you. Where's the fun in that?

[Via Joystiq]

Popcap Games continues to dominate the casual games market and one of the reasons is their "Match-3" style puzzle game Bejeweled and its sequel. The games have pretty much been adapted for every game platform known to man, including inside World of Warcraft, with 25 million copies of the two games having actually sold.

Now Popcap has announced that the next game in the series, Bejeweled Twist, is being prepared for a launch next month. Details on the game are being kept under wraps until a launch event to be held in Seattle on Oct. 27. At the moment all the publisher is saying is that the game has been under development for over three years and will "bring a completely new perspective" to the genre.

Somewhere between Popcap's rise to power and Spore's retail release I've found myself both enjoying and being annoyed by the rise of casual gaming. The word "casual" is at best prescribed to games like Peggle or flash-based web games of higher quality. At worst, it's a buzzword, a fallacy and often a crutch. It's because of this that whenever a developer says their game is targeted at more casual audiences, my internal alarms go off in a big way.

There's apparently not enough stuff to do in World of Warcraft to make people happy to play in the best selling MMO so casual game maker Popcap Games is getting ready to release an add-on for the game that will allow players of Blizzard's title to play the hugely popular puzzle game Bejeweled inside the title.

Our sister site WoWinsider has a hands-on preview of the Bejeweled add-on for World of Warcraft which is scheduled to be released for free on Tuesday. The add-on, which is not officially endorced by Blizzard, will have some World of Warcraft sounds and art incorporated into the game and will even interact with World of Warcraft itself in small ways.

If you are a fan of casual PC games then you know Peggle, the addictive action-puzzle game from Popcap Games. The title combines a colorful art style with gameplay that has you trying to get rid of pegs in each level via firing balls and hoping your shot combined with gravity and bounce-backs from other special ricochet pegs. The game was released in early 2007 and has since been downloaded 20 million times. Peggle got an extra boost thanks to Valve, who included a special version of the game, Peggle Extreme, with every version of their game collection The Orange Box in the fall of 2007, complete with art and sounds from the games in the collection.

Now Popcap has finally released the long awaited next game in the series, Peggle Nights. This new game contains, among other things, 60 new Adventure levels and 60 new Challenge mode levels along with new power-ups, trophies and more. The full version of the game costs $19.99 but a free demo is available. The game will be available for sale on other sites, including Valve's Steam, next month. There's no word on if there will be a special Left 4 Dead version of Peggle Nights released.

Download the Peggle Nights demo from Big Download right now

PopCap Games will be expanding its market via the opening of an office in Shanghai, reports Gamasutra. James Gwertzman, senior business development executive for the casual gaming developer accepted the role of VP of Asia/Pacific for PopCap and will be relocating to Shanhai to head the new office.

"With more than 400 million Internet users, the wired population of Asia is bigger than that of either North America or Europe, and casual games are very popular throughout the region," said Gwertzman. "We've had a modest 'stealth' presence in the area for two years now, but now we're ready to open a fully-staffed office. We have enough confidence in our strategy to make a sizable investment, but we're humble enough to realize that these are very different markets, and so we have designed our organization here first and foremost to be nimble and flexible.

PopCap's Shanhai location will focus on developing games specifically for the Asian market. Existing PopCap games will be localized for the Asian market's consumption (and inevitable addiction).

Telltale Games has announced a weighty addition to Valve's Steam service in the form of the Telltale Everything Pack. For only $69.99, adventure gamers can overdose on the first two seasons of Sam & Max, as well as Bone Episode 1 and Episode 2. Rounding out the package is Telltale Texas Hold'em, an outlandish take on the popular card game that has you competing "against four characters of such lethal absurdity, you'll either die laughing or die trying."

If $69.99 seems a steep price, consider the $59.99 price tag of Sam & Max Complete, which contains the first two seasons of Telltale's adventure series. Ten bucks more net you three extra games, which is quite a deal indeed.

Telltale Everything Pack is a fitting addition to Steam, which is quickly becoming a hot spot for revered game compilations. The id Super Pack, containing all of id Software's Doom, Quake, Wolfenstein, and Commander Keen titles, is also available for $69.99. Eidos Everything, a diverse omnibus of Hitman, Thief, Deus Ex, Commandos, and Tomb Raider titles, sits at $99.99. The Complete PopCap Collection, featuring the casual gaming juggernaut's most popular hits, is also priced at $99.99.

Offering such a rich catalog of games bundled at affordable prices made us ponder collections we'd love to see available via Valve's virtual vault. A Sierra adventure pack containing all King's Quest, Gabriel Knight, Space Quest, and Police Quest titles would be fantastic.

What compilations would you like to see available on Steam, or any other digital distribution service?

A recent survey conducted by PopCap Games reveals that one in five (20.5 percent) of casual gamers have physical, mental, or developmental disabilities. Of the 13,296 survey participants, 2,728 described their disabilities as mild, moderate, or severe.

One common source of relief among the surveyed: casual video games. The PopCap survey showed that "Compared to the casual gamer population as a whole (which industry estimates peg at 300 million to 400 million players worldwide), those with disabilities play more frequently, for more hours per week, and for longer periods of time per gaming session." Additionally, handicapped gamers place a higher emphasis on their game-playing sessions compared to non-disabled players.

For handicapped gamers, the benefits of casual games encompass more than simple entertainment. According to the survey, additional benefits were "numerous and varied, often citing deeper sensations of achievement and "belonging," or distraction from loneliness and/or chronic pain."

Dr. Carl Arinoldo, a New York-based psychologist with over 25 years of experience treating patients suffering from various physical and mental handicaps, is not surprised by those results. "With some forms of depression, a person may be very focused on something that clearly amounts to a misperception of reality. So the chance to distance themselves from the perceived negative situation and relax may allow them to think more clearly and consider the situation later in a more realistic manner."

For 58-year-old Gary Robinson, a North Carolina resident who suffers from "severe physical disabilities," cites games like Peggle and Bejeweled as "idea" due to their simplistic controls and mental engagement. "In some ways," Robinson said, "games like these are the greatest thing that's appeared on the computer scene for people like me."

Leading casual game publisher PopCap Games has decided to do a very special promotion to celebrate Mother's Day. People who purchase any game on their web site site from now until Mother's Day on May 11 will have 30 percent of that price donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The organization is the largest non-profit group dedicated to raising funds for breast cancer research.

People who purchase games from the PopCap web site don't have to do anything special; the 30 percent is automatically taken from the regular price of the game and people can even purchase gift certificates will apply to the promotion. If PopCap Games reaches its intended goal of $100,000 by the end of the day of May 11 it will send out a special free gift to every customer who participated. If you haven't purchase a casual game from PopCap but have been meaning to do so this is certainly the time to do it.

Want an excellent way to get your girlfriend involved in gaming? Get her hooked on clicky web-based games like PopCap's insanely successful casual title, Bejeweled. Want to make sure that not only will she continue to love gaming, but stick around and geek out with you for years to come? 'Hack' her favorite game and use it to propose to her!

Sound far-fetched? We thought so too, until we heard the story of Bernie Peng, who got creative when it came to popping the question to his other half, Tammy Li. After working for a month or so on a homebrew Nintendo DS port of Li's favorite PC game, he passed it along to her claiming he 'found' it. After she hit the required score, a ring dropped down on-screen -- something totally different from her usual gaming! That's when Peng asked her to marry him, she said yes, and the rest became gaming geek history.

In an interesting aside to this story, PopCap Games, makers of Bejeweled and many other highly addictive time-sucking clicky games, have decided to fly the happy couple to Seattle for a visit to their offices as part of their Honeymoon. (Getting angry about a cool port would be a bad call, after all.) They are also giving the happy couple lots of free copies of Bejeweled to give away as wedding favors. We sense many more clicky-game addicts will be in the making as the happy couple kick off their new life together.