Arcade Game Central

Alawar Entertainment, a leading publisher of downloadable games for the PC, has announced the online release of Beezzle. Your goal: help a hive of honeybees raise their young.

Each stage of this match-3 puzzler consists of a honeycomb packed with different colors of nectar. In Beezzle’s brain-teasing Puzzle Mode, you must turn one or more pupae into adult workers by guiding them to the honey they need to grow. You help the young insects reach the wholesome nourishment by swapping them with adjacent nectar drops and creating matches of three or more objects of the same color.

In Beezzle’s mouth-watering Action Mode, you must first create and then gather a specific number of honey candies. As you match drops of nectar, a status bar fills with honey. When it’s full, you create a piece of candy that must be included in a match before times runs out.

Beezzle offers:

• Unique match-three gameplay
• Both action and puzzle modes of play
• Choose easy, normal or hard difficulty levels
• The game automatically saves your progress after each level
• Point-and-click simplicity
• 300 challenging levels

Quick Review: Beezzle offers yet another variation on the match-three puzzle theme exemplified by such classics as Jewel Quest. The beehive setting has some charm, and the interface is smooth and responsive. The graphics and sound in this game are no more than average, but they are adequate. Though the level of difficulty seemed cast a bit too high, even at the “easy” level, the gameplay is quick, fun, and addictive. With 3 game modes and 11 different types of bonuses (such as bombs and rockets) spread out over 300 game levels, there’s easily enough to keep someone busy for a good long while.

More information about Beezzle
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Oh no! Evil insect forces have kidnapped your colony’s queens, spelling doom for your collective unless you can protect its few remaining eggs. But, never fear! As the heroic bug, Agent Brisk, you’re outfitted with enough firepower to shoot and destroy the evil insect forces that are working against you! From shotguns and bazookas to guided missiles and air strikes, you’ll be able to exterminate your enemies with extreme justice! Become their worst nightmare and start shooting!

Feelers is a great little shoot-em-up with incredibly smooth and colorful character animation, lively music, and responsive control.

Paul Hyman has a fine Feelers Review over at GameZebo, and I think he gets it just right. Good points include “Plenty challenging for kids, challenging enough for adults. Huge variety of baddies and weapons to keep game play constantly interesting.” On the minus side, he says “If you’re looking for “depth,” look elsewhere; this is all about shooting straight! Only 39 levels, one difficulty setting, and one mode of gameplay; lacks replayability.”

Can you save the bug kingdom from disaster? If you accept this mission, intense action, awesome graphics and pulse-pounding audio will be your reward. Download Feelers today!

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.

Professor Fizzwizzle is a fun, mind-expanding puzzle game, where you take control of the diminutive genius, Professor Fizzwizzle. You must help the professor use his brains and his gadgets to solve each exciting level. Do you have what it takes to get past the Rage-Bots and bring the prof back to his lab?

Canada.com features an article (Score One For The Little Guy) about Matt Parry and Ryan Clark of Grubby Games, creator of Professor Fizzwizzle, which was released in mid-2005 and has garnered a good deal of industry recognition, including being named “Indie Game of the Month” by PC Zone magazine, winning the 2005 “Casual Game of the Year” award from Game Tunnel, and being a finalist for the 2006 IGF (Independent Games Festival) Seumas McNally Grand Prize award. GamaSutra published an interview with the developers in early January.

The game has also been reviewed by a number of sites, including:

• Bytten - Gold Star Award
• FNG Gaming News - 4/5
• Game Tunnel - 5 Stars
• Home of the Underdogs - “Top Dog” Award
• Inside Mac Games
• JayIsGames
• Nomad Gamer
• PC Magazine - 4/5 Discs
• Softpicks.net - 5 Stars

GameShark has a review of Bonnie’s Bookstore, a word puzzle game developed by Phil Steinmeyer of New Crayon Games, and published by PopCap Games.

In this whimsical new game, your goal is to help fulfill a writer’s dream. Bonnie has been running her bookstore for a while, and now she wants to write her own books. Help her write updated, best-selling versions of classic children’s tales by spelling words on the 50 unique levels. Change tiles to green and wind your way through the word grid converting consonants, vanquishing vowels and evading the dreaded Writer’s Blocks. Pick up Wildcards and special bonus letters to spell extra-long words.

According to the review:

All in all Bonnie’s Bookstore is a word search game with a lot of heart - something you don’t see too often in the casual space, no matter what the genre you’re talking about. If you like word games then Bonnie’s Bookstore is a game that the whole family can try their hand at and have fun with. For $20 it’s a B-A-R-G-A-I-N.

With its friendly style and appealing game play, Bonnie’s Bookstore will appeal to the budding author in everyone!