Arcade Game Central

Wik and the Fable of Souls was selected as the 2005 Downloadable Game of the Year by The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences (AIAS) at the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards held Las Vegas in early February.

The Interactive Achievement Awards is a peer-based award that recognizes the outstanding products, talented individuals and development teams that have contributed to the advancement of the multi-billion dollar worldwide entertainment software industry.

Wik beat out several other outstanding titles including PopCap’s Chuzzle and Playfirst’s Oasis. “We are thrilled to be recognized by the Academy for our labor of love that Wik represents” said Ion Hardie, Director of Product Development at Reflexive Entertainment. “Such wonderful acknowledgment really fuels our fire to stretch the creative envelope in our future projects.”

Already a winner at the 2005 Independent Games Festival (IGF) as Downloadable Game of the Year, in addition to winning the IGF awards for Innovation in Visual and Game Design, Wik and the Fable of Souls has captured the imagination and hearts of gamers around the world with its innovative game play, engaging atmosphere and distinctive visual design.

Recent Reflexive Arcade games:

	Luxor: Amun Rising All-new ball-shooting action explodes in the next episode of the smash Luxor series as you return to save ancient Egypt from certain doom!
	Beads Change the way you look at matching games with this new logic game that’s fun for all ages!
	Word Whacky Play along with two zany bears as you build & blast the alphabet. Countless hours of word building fun and interactive adventure!
	Temple of Jewels Follow Princess Sheba in her quest to claim the Temple of Jewels in this adventure of puzzles and secret treasures!

Recent TryGames games:

	Elite Helisquad Survive as long as possible and defend the cities as good as possible. Are you really the best pilot there is? Proof it!
	Mahjong Towers Eternity Call in sick & unplug the phone: Mahjong Towers Eternity, the 3rd installment of our award-winning Mahjong Solitaire series is here!
	Puzzle Championship Puzzle Championship takes jigsaw puzzle game play on your PC to a whole new level!

Tom Hume has published his notes and commentary on a presentation given by Jason Kapalka of Popcap Games at Casuality Europe, a conference for casual game developers, publishers and distributors. “10 ways to make a bad casual game” is a list of things developers should think about when creating a new game.

One item I found interesting: “Use the right mouse button. No-one playing casual games will ever use the right mouse-button.” I suspect that this holds true for the majority of casual arcade games, but it is certainly not the case for games such as Pretty Good Solitaire and Solitaire Plus!, which make extensive use of the right mouse button, and in some ways are the very epitome of a casual game.

Another item I’d take issue with is “Price it weirdly. Self-distribute. Sign any deal you can.“, specifically the “self-distribute” part. The way a game is distributed may have something to do with the financial success of a game, but it has absolutely nothing to do with whether it is a good or bad game. Pretty Good Solitaire is a perfect example of that - it’s always been self-distributed, but is widely acknowledged to be the best and most popular game of its kind.

Still, the list should be required reading for any new developer. While all of its points don’t apply to all casual games, the majority of them are valid for most games.

Star Collapse is a new puzzle game that offers an interesting variation on the “Bust-A-Move” type of game, exemplified by titles such as Aqua Bubble, in which you’re in control of a stationary cannon that shoots colored bubbles into a multi-colored descending field of jumbled-up bubbles. Your task is to pop the bubbles before they reach you, by aiming your cannon and creating groupings of three or more bubbles.

Star Collapse adds several intriquing changes to this classic gaming genre:

• The game is set in outer space, rather than on an abstract gameboard.
• Rather than rows of descending bubbles, your target is a spinning star made up of colored balls.
• Rather than a stationary bubble cannon, you control a starship that shoots colored balls.
• The star begins life as a small cluster of balls, but grows rapidly as more balls fly in from space. If the star grows too large, it goes supernova and explodes, destroying your ship (or, as the game says, “you loose”).

Your objective is the same - to eliminate the target before time runs out, by creating groups of three or more balls - but the changes to the mechanics of the game make this an interesting and unique game. You control your ship with the mouse, moving it left and right, using the left button to fire balls, and the right button to make the star spin faster.

Star Collapse runs either in windowed mode (at selectable resolutions ranging from 640×480 to 1600×1200) or full screen, and features crisp graphics and good sound. You can play the game in either “campaign” or “adrenaline” mode, with the first offering increasing levels of complexity and speed, and the second being full-on arcade mode. In either mode, the game is plenty challenging, and will test the limits of your skills.

Star Collapse was created by Inviting Games, an independent team of developers located in Russia, whose first game, SILENT ATTACK - The Near Danger Zone, was released in late 2004. Silent Attack, unlike Star Collapse, is not a puzzle game, but is more of a shooter, in the Gunner vein.

If you’re a fan of bubble-buster style games, take a look at the challenging and addictive Star Collapse.

In early January, Big Fish Games) acquired the French-based casual game developer (FunPause), a leading European casual game developer. FunPause is known for the cinema-quality game production values, soothing music and addictive game play of best-selling games such as Atlantis, and Fairies.

Big Fish Games is a developer, publisher and distributor of casual, family-friendly games. Their website portal offers more than 300 downlodable game titles. The acquisition gives Big Fish control of FunPause’s portfolio of titles, which includes 20 downloadable games and 55 online games. Patrick Wylie, Vice President Big Fish Games Studios said that “FunPause brings AAA production values found in core console games to the easy-to-get-into addictive world of casual games.”

All current FunPause employees will join Big Fish Games, but will remain in a new branch office in Montpellier, France. “We are excited to be a part of the fastest growing casual game site in the world,” said Emmanuel Marty, former CEO of FunPause, and now Director of Big Fish Games Studios Europe. “We are being given the liberty to maintain our creative freedom to produce award winning games, while benefiting from the years of experience and success that Big Fish Games brings to this market.”