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Feature: PopCap Games

Friday, 28 Mar 2008 09:19
Casual gaming kings from the birthplace of grunge
PopCap Games hail from the rainy northwest of the United States, Seattle to be exact. The home of genre-defining bands such as Alice in Chains, Soundgarden and the Screaming Trees, Seattle is also becoming famous for the steady stream of casual games emanating from PopCap’s HQ. Ok, not quite as famous…

Anyway, perhaps their most famous (or at least the one to have received most press attention) is Peggle, a game where you fire balls against pegs. Think pinball with only a limited use of flippers. The aim is to destroy all the orange-coloured pegs before your supply of balls runs out, with the help of various power-ups and such. As you progress the levels become more fiendish and require both luck and clever geometrical calculations to succeed.

As with the best casual games, the premise is very simple yet fiendishly addictive. Once you start playing it is difficult to stop, the mark of any successful casual game. I also particularly liked the use of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy whenever you complete a level.

Bejeweled has sold more than ten million units worldwide and is PopCap’s flagship title. Unfortunately, I can’t stand it. Millions love it obviously, but I get bored seconds after starting it up. The most recent version PopCap have released has a few new game modes that will appeal to devotees, but they are all still essentially the same game. I really am the wrong person to be taking a look at this game.

Bookworm Adventures was surprisingly fun. I loaded it up expecting it to be awful, but I was pleased to find myself enjoying it. Boggle on the computer is effectively what the game can be summarised as. Basically, you guide a green worm around a set of mythologically themed worlds, defeating various creatures and beasts by spelling words from a block of random letters. As you progress the enemies get tougher, but a pseudo-role-playing element gives you bonuses and aids in fighting foes. Very addictive, although a tad repetitive, it boasts a good level of longevity and, moreover, teaches players a little bit about the myths and legends the worlds are based on.

Chuzzle is a Bejeweled variant, featuring furry blobs (the Chuzzles) which need to be moved into lines of three or more. Moves are made by dragging rows and columns, with special Chuzzles appearing from time to time to give the game a bit more variety. If you don’t like Bejeweled though, it is difficult to see why this would be of any more interest, beyond a fetish for round, furry blobs.

Lastly, Zuma is a fast-paced puzzler involving the elimination of balls rolling around on a path. The object is to prevent these balls from making contact with a frog’s skull, which is under your control. To achieve this, the player must fire a coloured ball from the skull. When three or more of the same colour come in contact, they explode. In a sense, it is a cross between Peggle and Bejeweled and is good fun while it lasts. Not as good as Peggle or Bookworm Adventures, but fun nonetheless.

David Brown

I thought I was quite good, until I saw this



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