UPDATE: The game Pony World Deluxe has already been finished. We encourage you to visit Pony World game page. It is available for PC Windows and Mac OSX.
Last few weeks we’ve been working really hard on ponys game. Hopefully the toughest parts are behind us (at least technical). Combining 2d prerendered world with realtime 3d rendered ponys was not an easy task. Then making them walk on the farm wasn’t easy too. It’s about time to post some work-in-progress screenshots.
Seth Godin points out that Amazon’s shopping cart is broken. It’s broken for him, it’s broken for his friends and no one know what’s going on. My website stands still, but there are so many thing that can go wrong in online business (and sometimes they go) – your hosting my crash, your credit card payment processor can crash, your bandwidth might get used by pirates and so on… those are the things you can’t do much about. Not to mention “one million little things” you can brake on your own 😉
After 8 hours of coding I need to do some mind refreshing tasks. Tasks, that will get me excited for upcoming work. Talking (writing) about Runique always puts me in good mood.
We are finishing ring of spells for Runique. You won’t find regular power-ups like you do in many games. Instead, we introduce ring of spells. How does it work? Bright red spheres are active spells. Cast those spells and watch the runes exploding.
Most will probably say that spam is worth nothing or even worst – it wastes time & resources. But sometimes someone comes with original idea and spam is worth a game. Of course, if you win the contest. The rule is simple – you had to guess total number of SPAM within month of September. The lucky number is: 10298.
It’s amazing that one team can make smash hit games one after another. Emmanuel knows for sure how to make them. He’s newest title – Atlantis Sky Patrol, sequel to Atlantis – is one of the best ball matching games (ever played Luxor or Zuma?).
What’s so hot about Atlantis Sky Patrol? In three words: gameplay, graphics, music. In that order. Did I tell you that I am the fan of Emmanuel’s particle works? Explosions, lasers, shots looks very good, very spectacular.
That’s not all. ASP has it’s own twist. Upgrade store – buy new features for your ship – better accuracy, stronger bonus magnet and more. Upgrading your ship has significant impact on gameplay.
Atlatnis introduces control panels that need to be destroyed to stop new waves of balls. It adds an extra element not yet found in other puzzle shooters. Instead of having to make so-many matches to stop the flow of balls, you have to shoot matching balls to stationary ones around the board. This means that if you are interested in getting through levels quickly you can focus on those, if interested in points you can play a level almost indefinitely.
Check it out! You will not regret.
PC Download: Atlantis Sky Patrol
We did initial playtesting for Runique and received very promising feedback. Everyone was excited about the game. That’s what you wanna hear after working on your game for few months. Although people enjoyed the game, they pointed to us some weak points in the game. One of them was runes shapes.
We created new set of runes. Started with the same size. They look much better and are far easier to play. You can compare them on your own on the picture the below. New ones are more vivid and crisp.
We also decided to create another set of runes. Bigger shapes will be used in cases where the playfield is a little bit smaller – 12×12 maximum (maximum playfield size is 15×15).
Well, this made me laughing on the floor. I’ve played Treasure Island yesterday. It’s a match-3 kind of a game with pirates theme. Music is excelent and graphics is very nice. You start to play right away and when you advance to the next level… dancing skeletons pop in the front of you. That’s really funny and makes the game quite unique. I was impressed how smooth and realistic those moves are. Screenshots doesn’t show it – you have to watch it on your own.
 
PC Download: Treasure Island
There are just a few puzzle games that I like and Fairies is the one I like the most. Why do I like it so much? There are few reasons. Not only it has amazing special effects, but also graphics and music are awesome. And it’s very challenging, which is quite odd in nowadays games.
When I run the game for the very first time and started to play I lost on a first level. I was like “what the hell?”. That’s not what you expect from a casual game. In other games it is enough to click on the?playfield few times and you make it to the next level. But not in Fairies. You need to do matches fast and smart. And that’s what I love about this game! Game might be difficult, but not frustrating. Take it as a challenge.
Does this game have any odds? If I had to point one, I’d say story-line. It’s not exposed at all in the game, but that’s a minor falldown.
So go and play Fairies. This game is worth it.
I can’t do more coding today so I decided to give my grain a little breake and review one of the most enjoyable games I had a chance to play.
This game is exceptional – not only because it’s great, but it’s also rare (in a positive manner) – you won’t find many like this one on the net, so make sure you start downloading your free trial version while you read this review (PC, Mac, Linux).
The story is simple – genious professor needed some help in his lab with cleaning and sweeping, so he build a robot. Not long after the robots went rage and through professor out of his lab. Now you have to help the prof. to get back to his lab.
So what prof. can do? Manualy he’s much less skilled than mentaly… he can walk, climb a ladder, push and use power-ups. Not much you say, but it’s not the muscles that are important here. And he’s unbreakable – no matter from how high he falls it doesn’t do any harm to him.
As simple as it may look like at the beggining it’s not at the end. The more you play, the harder it gets. I am very impressed by the smooth introduction to all new features in the game. You don’t need to read the story, you don’t need the manual. Everything is explained nicely within the game so you even doesn’t notice that you’re playing tutorial.
The game has about 200 levels, but you probably don’t want to count level sets for kids. Still, it’s enormous amount of excercice for your brain. Believe me – later levels are not that easy, but whenever you’re stucked don’t have to tear hairs out of your head. Just use show solution feature to pass any element of the level or whole level. Zero frustration gameplay guaranteed as stated on developers website.
As a bonus, when you get the full version you gain access to custom levels made by fans of a little prof. And if that is not enough for you, you can made your own with built in level editor.
Almost last words
My recommendation: buy it. You can’t go wrong.
Parents point of view
The game does awesome job as a kid entertaing toy. No matter how old they are – they’ll love music and graphics. There are two sets of levels for kids – alphabet and kids (although some levels are in both sets). Those levels are much easier so you won’t be bothered by kid every time one struggle with the game.
Finally, when you have really small kid – let’s say 2 years old like my younger daughter Amelia – you can put one on your knees and press “show solution”. This way kid doesn’t interupt playing and there is something going on the screen.
The only thing I don’t get is why kids like so much watching professor falling of the ground 😉
Last words
So is your download complete? Install it now and start playing.
Summary
Title: Professor Fizzwizzle
Genre: Puzzle
Developer: Grubby Games
Platforms: PC Windows, Linux, Mac
This kind of news is really nice to hear. Recently I’ve been contacted by Dick, Summer Camp Computer Lab Manager from The Rivers School in Massachusetts. He run the game for kids and they like it so he asked for the price of 16 licences. Because I was working at Camp Lakota (Wurstboro, NY) so I felt kinda sentimental. I decided to make him generous offer which he accepted. This year Summer Camp ends today, but next year all kids can play Tom’s Hen House without limits 🙂 So if you have a kid 3,5 to 12 years old or work at summer camp please consider Tom’s Hen House as an addition to your game library.
