The Power of ONION

onionsWhat onions have in common with game development? Not much, but listen to the story.

I come down with strep throat for the second time within a month. This is no good. My body resistance seems to be very weak and that’s no wonder. I work?way too much. I took last antibiotic on Saturday and didn’t feel quite healthy. My doctor says it’s normal and that I’ll be healthy pretty soon. But I was not so sure… I had to cook a dinner for my?family and?rediscovered onion. I decided to eat raw onion to increase my resistance. It wasn’t a?pleasure, although I like to do some crazy things from time to time.?Next day I did the?same. OK, I haven’t eat whole onion, just a half (but of a big one). What?counts is that I?feel much better (healthier) today. Better than I felt any day within last?month. Now that’s?the power of onion.

To make this post game related – because of strep throat I missed Game Conference – one of two conferences in Poland that I care about. And of course our games release has delayed.

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Luxor 2 vs. Atlantis Sky Patrol

Recently we received two similar games (gameplay): Luxor 2 and Atlantis Sky Patrol (pc download). Both hitted top10 charts on many sites. Both are great games. Luxor has better roots, you can say it’s a classic game. Sequel is very?polished, has great art, but… somehow it’s not as fun as Atlantis is to me (of course ASP is very polished too). It’s hard to define, but Atlantis seems to be more consistent in presented theme. I am really irritated by the bug that pushes balls in Luxor. It doesn’t suit that game.

Power-ups are so hard to catch in Luxor (and are hardly visible). It often irritates me when I get them (and miss another time). That doesn’t happen in Atlantis – all power-ups are well designed and visible. And their not that hard to catch. This is very important – you want to blast that balls, not to be irritated by missed bonuses.

Luxor 2 has a nice feature, very unique in casual games, resolution selection/ You can choose resolution you want to play with, so you’re not forced to play in 800×600 mode. That’s very important for all LCD monitor users. Still, some graphics are strechted, but game overall looks much better.

To sum it up: try both games, their great, but my vote goes to Atlantis.

Please read Atlantis Sky Patrol review here.

Atlantis Sky Patrol: PC Download
Luxor 2: download not available yet
Luxor: PC Download
Luxor – Amun Rising: PC Download

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WANTED: Beta testers

Do you love games? Do you want to play newest ANAWIKI GAMES releases before anyone else can even think about them? And you know how to use email, right? Then we might be looking for you!

We look for beta testers for our upcoming games (Runes of Avalon, the Ponys, etc.). If you want to become one, please do not hasitate to write to feedback@anawiki.com. Every time we do a beta test we will pick 10 people to win full version of tested game and another 10 people to win 50% discount coupon on any ANAWIKI game.

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My Secret Game!

I am getting more and more excited. We’re just a couple of days of releasing Runes of Avalon (previously known as Runique). The game looks and sounds awesome (and playes even better). But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. While we are busy polishing Runes of Avalon, one of our artists is working on graphics to our next game. It’s too early to talk about details, but I can show you one of the background images. The game has two sources of inspiration: a book and a game. Try to name the book 😀 Here are the screens:

my secret game
my secret game

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Genious or insane…

I’ve downloaded some new levels for Prof. Fizzwizzle game (did you know that there are more that 550 of them?). Some of them are really impressive. To be honest – some of them are designed by insane or genious people. Let’s take for example level called Feeling blue. It looks difficult just by looking at it. But guess what – this one is so hard that you’ll probably have to watch it hundred times to learn full solution. It’s not just puzzles – you need excelent timing also. I strongly recommend to download this one and turn on show solution feature. Very soon you’ll start asking yourself – you have to be either genious or insane to solve it on your own 😀

But don’t be afraid – each custom level has rating that say whether it’s good or not, how difficult and so on. And in game levels are well designed with superb difficulty progress.

Prof. Fizzwizzle download

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Playing with old game concepts

Recently I’ve been playing with old games concepts. Games like tic-tac-toe or checkers. I’m an academic teacher and do classes about game design. So I put those two concepts in front of my class and forced their brains into creative mode. And you know what? I was really surprised what you can get from such an old and simple concepts. Actually, I really fall in love with our checkers remake. You add up bonuses, power-ups, new types of pawns, new grounds… and you end up with new cool strategy game. I’ll have to do this one in 2007.

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Will you miss me?

Will you miss me… or actually my games? Seth raises this important question in his blog. Thanks god we’re mostly online and you didn’t have to wait to get our games when I was sick for two weeks. I know for sure that there are game company’s that no longer exist, but are missed by player. There are also many old games that people miss and talk about them, although they don’t play them anymore. Hopefully, one of our games will become one of those great titles.

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My favourite garden designs

I am always amazed how creative people can be. I recently reviewed our online gallery for Maggie the Gardener. There are few pretty cool designs which I am going to post here. One of my favorites is Eleonore’s clock, although probably inspired by Horia’s clock, this one is much better performed.

Garden design

I enjoy cake concept (TORT by Horia).

garden design

Iva created well looking 8-shaped garden.
Garden design

Iva5 is good looking design too.

Garden desgin

Well, show me your creativity. I am eager to see what you can design!

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FizzBall preview

Do you remember professor Fizzwizzle? Now he’s back in FizzBall. What’s FizzBall? This is next great invention of cute professor. It bounces, it flyes and it catches everything on it’s path. And then it gets bigger (and bigger). FizzBall is an arkanoid kind of game. I am not a fan of that kind of games, but I really like what I have seen in FizzBall so far. The Twist is very oryginal, game physics reminds me BreakQuest a little. Unbreakable trees drop fruits or pinecones, hens hit by fizzball lay eggs. Lot’s of small details to enjoy. Bouncing fizzball reminds me pinball games. I like that very much.

Grubby Games new game keeps the same level of polish we could see in Prof. Fizzwizzle. It also is as playable as their first game. Here are few screens from FizzBall. I can’t wait to see full version release.

FizzBall screenshotFizzBall screenshot
FizzBall screenshotFizzBall screenshot

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Smiley Puzzle Project and Jeweltopia

I’ve found 2 interesting game concepts today. Jochen De Schepper posted in his blog early screenshot for his new game project: Smiley Puzzle. Smileys are so popular on the internet that I am really surprised that it took so long to create a game around it.

soniCron?posted?gameplay?video?from his upcoming game – Jeweltopia. While i thought that this will be yet another match-3 clone this video looks really cool. Hopefully this game will play as good as it looks.

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