The Gray Gamers

In 2003 Pop Cap Games came out with a charming, colourful and addictive match three ball shooter game called Zuma which sold 17 million copies. That figure doesn’t add in the people who have played it online at various game sites. The game has played beautifully on every OS and computer I’ve used which is a credit to the game coders.

While I don’t think I’ll ever beat Jackie Strickland, a 67 year old grandmother from Alabama whose ace time is 5 seconds on one of the levels, I’m working on it. And the world’s top Zuma player is Rick Fortin from Quebec – one province over from me. Gray gamers rock!

Zuma fans are not likely to be disappointed with the sequel and it’s great to see a game company treat a sequel and it’s customers with solid respect.
Zuma game developers rock!  This was worth the wait.

 Zuma’s Revenge takes the happy little original Aztec shooter frog to an island. With improved graphics, funny whimsical verbal asides, a relaxing caribean music score, the famous Pop Cap sound engineers careful  sounds,  an  addition of a few sarcastic Tiki enemies and  extra challenge levels, it took me 15 hours to work my way through the adventure  mode. I’m still not done.
That’s the great thing about Zuma, and now Zuma’sRevenge,  these are games you keep coming back to. To be honest, I think the graphics in Zuma’s Revenge exceed Luxor.

I’m currently working on the Iron Frog challenge which does not give the player easy chains of same coloured balls. You work for every point.

In Zuma’s Revenge, unlike Zuma, your amphibean is not static on every level. When you get two columns of balls coming at you, there are boards where you can pop him over to another lily pad. There is also a level with a slider, so you can slid him cross screen to score your points.

Zuma and Zuma’s Revenge are both relaxing and challenging, depending on what you are setting out to accomplish. If you are working on beating your own scores or ace time, it’s a challenge.  Hmm. Relaxing challenge works for me. 

In Zuma’s Revenge the intrepid frog sails off to an island to confront the Tiki gods. The island has 6 zones which increase in difficulty with engrossing absorption. The graphics are lovely, and you can read about the art work here.  Zone 1 is Island welcome (each zone has 10 boards), 2  is Wish you were here, 3 is Visit fabulous lost city, 4 is Greetings from the coast, 5 is Wish you were here, and 6 is a graphic delight: Greetings from the lost volcano temple. One you complete a zone, a post card pops up to mark your play when you return.

There are new power ups in Zuma’s Revenge. (Hint: use them).  Filling up the power bar by firing matches stops adding balls to the cue. You snooze you lose, as in Zuma, the balls snake toward the death mask  and you lose a life.

Zuma had four power ups. A slow down ball, a back up ball, an explosion ball and an accuracy ball.
Zuma’s Revenge keeps those four and adds a laser coming out of your frog’s eyes (Hint: Shoot power up balls) a glowing nuke ball which eliminates the ball colour you shoot at, and a fun tri-shot where your frog shoots three iron balls to destroy the surrounding balls you aim at.

Each of the adventure levels end with a Boss Battle, where a Tiki god who has been taunting you fires back. I won’t give anything away, at least one is a laugh out loud war, and you get as many chances as you need.

Another hint. When you get to the end of  the adventure mode and credits start to roll, don’t click out.

In the first Zuma you only see the credits if you put your cursor on the sign, and play the notes in sequence three times. (theme: Close Encounters of the Third Kind)  A space ship comes down and rolls credits. 
The developers of Zuma’s Revenge have not lost their comical bent.

You have to unlock your challenge modes in Zuma’s Revenge. Each one has an ace time to beat in 3 minutes, as you beat ace time more challenge modes are unlocked. Again I was surprised, Pop Cap gives more challenge modes than you initially see, which is quite generous to us Zuma addicts. (Hint: There are 70!) Thanks Pop Cap! 

Iron Frog is a one try and you’re dead gauntlet of colour, speed, tactics and accuracy. It supposedly has 10 levels of play, I wouldn’t know about that, because I’m stuck on level two.

Heroic Frog is a more difficult replay of adventure mode. Haven’t gotten there yet either.

hehe, writing this I want to go play.

The graphics really are excellent, there are new back end features such as 3D particle and widescreen support, and the same smooth play Zuma is known for.  Heck, for me the graphics are art, even picky gamers could be  be delighted, especially with the volcano temple.
 
If you have someplace to go and start playing - watch the clock - tempus fugit with this gem.  Even the game load bar makes me smile, having gone in and out a few times I notice the script isn’t the same every time. 

If you haven’t tried Zuma, I recommend heading over to a game site and downloading a hour free play. 
Pop Cap  has released this game in 8 languages which is going to build a huge fan base, as well the download and CD release was simultaneous which is something many casual gamers appreciate.
This isn’t a game that needs the ad and sales department pushing it. Fans and newbies will do the work for them.
Give Zuma’s Revenge a free try. Zuma’s Revenge will have a familiar feel to Zuma fans, and I think that is what makes this new one as enduring as the first one.

Zuma’s Revenge official site

System requirements:
OS:  XP/Vista
Memory: 256 minimum, 768 MB recommended
Ram: 700 MHz minimum, 1 GHz recommended
Direct X: 8.1 minimum, latest recommended
Available for Mac

Price: 
$19.95/US  for download
download & CD: $27.90/US
Zuma download pack: Zuma & Zuma’s Revenge $29.95/US

Top bang for your buck.

Ribbit. Zuma fans, weigh in. Blast or bust? 
Comments are open.

According to Casuagamingbiz, People Magazine and Big Fish Games have signed a major partnership. A smart one.

People Magazine website traffic is huge.  This deal is going to target casual gamers and potential gamers in a way no affiliate can.

The 10 million unique users that People.com has attracted will now have access to Big Fish’s  ‘A New Game Every Day’ initiative, which delivers the company’s full catalogue of 2,000 games. Visitors to the website can now make use of downloadable titles, as well as browser-based content.

“People.com continually looks for new and innovative ways to enhance our users’ online experience beyond the celebrity genre,” said Mark Golin, editor of People.com.

“We know that People.com’s target demographic of women is very engaged in casual gaming. By expanding and diversifying our games channel to include casual games from Big Fish Games, we are providing our audience with an even wider variety of entertainment options.”

“This strategic partnership brings together two trusted entertainment industry leaders that share a common focus of providing the best online and downloadable casual games to the large and rapidly growing audience of women and mums,” added Jeremy Lewis, CEO of Big Fish Games.  

“Together we will provide People.com’s visitors with world class online entertainment and unparalleled customer service, both of which are cornerstones of our respective brands.”

Big Fish Games has been busy rebuilding it’s online play site which goes out of beta August 18th. (Just popped over – the online play site has over 400 thousand people playing as I write this).  
People magazine’s website has celebrity fanboy/girl type games of it’s own for readers. (Hollywood Hangman, Celebrity News Quiz, Odd Star Out, Celebrity Concentration, Love Connection and Puzzler)

Big Fish Game designers and back end techs get high marks for the look and navigation of the new online play site.

The online play component of Big Fish Games (online games tab) will be called Big Sea Games, their play for free site similar to reliable play for free sites such as Pogo, Gamesville and iWin.
 Big Sea Games was formerly called Atlantis (I think). The company is bringing it’s branding together. Now I understand why the affiliate pages weren’t updated. They don’t need the small fish.
Add  this online re-vamp to the real feature of Big Fish Games, which is the game a day video and download platform for games, and it’s another indication of  the popularity of  PC gaming.
With the affiliate agreement with People Magazine, Big Fish is going to get people wandering over to have a look see and staying to play or download.  A 1.5 people download a game a day already from Big Fish Games. These companies don’t need a market outside the US, according to Comscore Media Matrix, 87 million Americans use casual game sites.

Don’t see an announcement up at People or the affiliate buttons up yet, nor any noise about this announcemnt at Big Fish.
Whew. When the magazine site gets those affliate buttons up, let’s hope the server guys are wide awake.
This deal with People. com gives Big Fish Games a lot of potential eyeballs.

Other Ocean now operates from the Atlantic Technology Centre, a sleek four-storey building in downtown Charlottetown. Visitors to the studio pass through the entrance area, where producers and designers share space with couches and a big-screen television, and into the dimly lit area for artists. Farthest from the door is the quiet, intense and almost bare space where the coders work.

The building’s tenants also include Longtail Studios and Telos Entertainment, which does computer animation as well. Bight Games is on a nearby street.

In all, more than 100 people are employed in the local industry, its growth helped by tax incentives, loans, rebates for office space and industry-friendly courses now being offered at postsecondary institutions.

“We had an interest here,” acknowledged Deirdre Ayre, Andrew’s sister and Other Ocean’s general manager, referring to their Atlantic Canadian roots. “But we had to make sure it made good business sense.”

Super Monkey Ball helped put them on the map. One reviewer wrote that “everyone wanted this iPhone game, it received almost as much hype as the iPhone itself.” Another noted that it set “the tone nicely for the iPhone as a serious gaming platform.”

The Globe and Mail

The new game for the DS, Puffins: Island Adventures out in April will have a soundtrack by a member of the band Great Big Sea. Along with over 100 events and mini games, the game features pictures and videos of real puffin colonies off the Canadian coast. The company had a big hit with it’s iPhone game Super Monkey Ball.

Other Ocean blog
OtherOcean Interactive home page
Puffins Island Adventure

DS
Action/Adventure
April 2009

 Meddle not in the affairs of  the dragon for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

 
 Here is what iWin has done, and is doing to fix their purchase platform issue.  David Schroeder:

We have disabled e-Check with PayPal as an acceptable method of payment on our site. We will rectify the API between PayPal and iWin – test and then restore this capability at some point.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention. It seems that method of payment was not very common for our customers and this problem was not identified until the clarity of your report came in.

You’re welcome.

Uppity date: I’ve received information that iWin returned the final payments to PayPal.
It’s Jan’s job to check with the bank, my job will be to close the PayPal account. While millions use PayPal successfully, I obviously haven’t. While thousands purchase games from iWin without a hitch, I didn’t.

I want to be fair to iWin.
The first support ticket was closed for a simple reason: support staff had fulfilled their obligation. I requested two things: stop payment and put me in touch with an executive.

The employee did their job.

Once I talked with Head of Customer Care, David Schroeder did what he deemed necessary to duplicate the technical issue with their PayPal/check out screen.
A new support ticket was opened.
That wasn’t virtual money it was real, life isn’t a game, he knew that, his focus was on getting tech staff moving.
I was kept informed of the steps the company is taking.
I received records from David today that iWin billing/customer departments did their job to return the funds through PayPal.

In online parlance the ticket has been resolved.

After a few intense days, did I get the game I initially ordered?
No.
That’s my choice, not iWins.

While I was focused on ‘vague’ gamers like grampa in Poughkeepsie
who might experience the same technical problems, it didn’t occur to me I was going through the stress I was hoping to keep grandpa in Poughkeepsie from experiencing. Duh. Lessons learned.

Opps. We have another failure to communicate. Jan just called. PayPal returned double the amount. sigh. I think we owe iWin. Tomorrows another day.

iWin has some explaining to do
iWin and I
David Schroeder of iWin and I

In February the long running online Hoyle community was in an uproar when it appeared contracts had run out and the site was in imminent danger of being shut down. There is background in the February 7th post I wrote. A decision has been made:

Cases Ladder is pleased to let everyone know that we’ve come up with a way to keep the site up and running.

For the month of March, everything will continue as-is.

Starting April 1st, in order to cover the costs of upcoming hardware migration, our bandwidth and overhead, we will need to collect a small yearly membership fee. With the economy where it is, we worked very hard to keep the yearly ante (membership fee) as little as possible.

If enough community members sign-up, we can make this work for less than $1.70 a month. Because of the way credit card companies bill us, we do need to collect the full year $20 membership at sign-up.

Membership will require a credit card. The announcement has been out 2 days and a vibrant community of over 3 thousand have viewed the decision.