Play as a row in a database where your objective is to fight the other rows to decrease their numbers and increase your own. It's a numbers game, pure and simple, and by not pretending to be anything else, mySQLgame has managed to take the ubiquitous browser-based MMO and distill it down to the very essence of the genre.

Pay Day Trivia is a great trivia site that is totally free and gives users the chance to win cash and prizes. Players answer trivia questions from all different categories and as you are answering questions you are accumulating points. If you sign up for an account, your points are saved and when you hit five hundred points you get to spin the jackpot wheel to attempt to win cash and prizes.

There are two different modes of play, Search Quizzes and Sprint Quizzes. Search Quizzes contain questions that are not timed and gives the player a choice to search for the answer using Ask.com. The Ask.com search bar is built into the questions making it convenient to use Ask.com to search for the answer. Each question is worth 10 points.

In Sprint mode, the player has to answer questions as fast as they can. The quicker you answer the question the more points you receive. The answers are calculated at the end of the quiz and the player gets a page telling them which questions they got correct and the point value they received for that question. The player does not get the correct answer for the incorrect questions. It would be a nice feature to have. I found myself wanting to know the correct answer for the questions I got wrong.

The categories change as you answer questions. If the player answers the questions in the movie category the movie category will disappear and a new category will take its place.

Pay Day Trivia is a great site to answer trivia questions and possibly win cash and prizes for doing so. The questions are a good blend of easily answered and difficult to answer questions, if you know the category. If you don’t know the category, you probably wont’ know any of the answers, which makes sense. If you are looking for a good trivia site, head over to Pay Day Trivia.

Miniature white gnomes have been spotted all over the city for half a year now, and their number only appears to grow. Their presence seems permanent, and there is no apparent end to them. Join us in trying to find them all, please.

Pop Me is an interesting flash based action game. Not exactly sure the game qualifies as an action game, but I think that is the closest genre it fits into. The goal of the game is to pop all of the bubbles on the screen. The more bubbles the player pops the more time that gets added to the clock. The more time on the clock the more time you have to play the game. Time is subtracted from the clock when the bubbles escape and when the player clicks the background.

There are bonus bubbles that float by as you are playing. The bonus bubbles are mostly good, but there are a few bad ones thrown in there to throw the player off. The bad bubbles are clearly marked by a skull, but you can click the bad bubbles if you are not paying attention and clicking like a mad man. The helpful bubbles give you a multiplier, which gives you more points, a snow bubble, which freezes the bubbles on the screen in place and a bulls eye target that clears all the bubbles off the screen.

Pop Me is a very different type of game, but it is strangely addicting. I didn’t find the game too challenging on the easy mode, but the harder mode was challenging. It is a great game to pass the time, so if you are looking for a game to pass the time, check out Pop Me.

http://www.chatterboxgameshow.com/archives/Show239_08-26-2008.mp3

I really enjoyed talking to those guys - they know their stuff, having a design background themselves.  They got really far in Schizoid and they clearly "get it" - they had some well-reasoned nitpicks which we talked about...I'm working on a post-mortem for Gamasutra right now that covers some of the same things.

About a year ago, I read an article about digital products and piracy. In the article, it was said that “kids like to buy MP3 players, but hate to buy music”. Basically, teenagers were willing to put 300 dollars for a device that plays music, but wouldn’t be willing to pay for the actual music. That should be free.

Today I saw an article that reinforces this view. While the article is about ‘>PC manufacturer’s attitude (according to the CEO who was interviewed), it still reminds us that people are more likely to pay hardware than software.

I suppose it can help hardware sales. If people know they get to play all the good games for free (illegally), then it can boost sales.

I don’t know whether PC manufacturers view piracy as hidden benefit or not, but in my opinion it’s not their problem to solve. We game developers could suggest alternative business models… or just keep making so bloody good games that people can’t wait to pay for them.

Natsume announced the release of Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness, which commemorates the 10 years of franchise existence. The Harvest Moon franchise has been entertaining people for a decade and they are exciting to celebrate the milestone.

“We are proud to mark the ten year anniversary of Harvest Moon with the launch of Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness on the Nintendo DS,” said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume. “The Harvest Moon series has really grown over the past ten years. We are happy to provide this exciting new Harvest Moon adventure, and we think that both our loyal fans and newcomers to the series will enjoy it tremendously.”

Players find themselves shipwrecked on an island in Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness. Players have to plant and farm the land to turn it into a thriving tropical paradise. Players have to harvest crops, raise animals and mine for gems to grow the land and attract people to their island.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is available now for $29.99.

Burlingame, Calif., August 26, 2008 - Natsume, a worldwide developer and publisher of family-oriented video games, announced today that Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness for the Nintendo DS has officially shipped, marking Natsume’s ten year commemorative anniversary celebration for the popular Harvest Moon series. Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is rated E for Everyone by the ESRB and will retail for $29.99.

The Harvest Moon phenomenon began ten years ago when it launched on the Super Nintendo. Since then, the RPG/Simulation series has sold millions of units in North America, garnered a large and loyal fan base, and has appeared on most every home and handheld console available, including GameBoy, GameBoy Color, GameBoy Advance, Nintendo 64, GameCube, PlayStation, PlayStation2, PSP, and the Nintendo DS. The celebration of a decade of Harvest Moon success includes special anniversary packaging, various retail promotions with special collectible pre-order plush toys, an exclusive 10th anniversary DS Lite Kit, strategy guides, and many more specialty items to commemorate the beloved Harvest Moon series.

“We are proud to mark the ten year anniversary of Harvest Moon with the launch of Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness on the Nintendo DS,” said Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume. “The Harvest Moon series has really grown over the past ten years. We are happy to provide this exciting new Harvest Moon adventure, and we think that both our loyal fans and newcomers to the series will enjoy it tremendously.”

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness (DS)
Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness brings the largest portable Harvest Moon experience ever to the Nintendo DS!
Players find themselves shipwrecked on a deserted island. Starting off with nothing but an abandoned farm, a handful of seeds, and the determination to start a new life, it’s up to them to tame the land and develop this mysterious island into a bustling tropical paradise!

By harvesting crops, raising animals, and mining for precious gems, players will help the island grow into a vibrant town filled with people, businesses, and eligible bachelors and bachelorettes! Players can take on the role of a male or female in their quest to find love and start a farming family.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness is a great game for players of all ages; it provides wholesome, non-violent entertainment that anyone in the family can enjoy. Players can also test their farming skills against each other and compete for prizes via the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection.

Harvest Moon: Island of Happiness will retail for $29.99. Players who pre-ordered the game through select retailers will also receive a free chicken plush as a bonus gift with purchase while supplies last.

This week, we present the exclusive debut of a super-duper, extra-special room escape game, one we can guarantee that absolutely no other website has yet featured. Don't you feel special? To all the JIG faithful, we present to you the world premiere of.... Casual Gameplay Escape!

Frequently, I like to check the app leaderboard over at Adonomics, the Facebook analytics service and see what games are poised to become hits.

It's a pretty straightforward process so I thought I share it with you.

First sort the leaderboard by active users rather than the useless default of total installs.

Then go to the 4th page of rankings to view apps that have 50,000 users or less. Smaller apps are where the best acquisition opportunities are.

Look for apps that have double digit active user percentages. For instance Elven Blood has a 47% active users. With total installs of 76,000 and a DAU of 36,000.

Clicking on the name (Elven Blood) reveals the DAU graph for the last 30 days. In this case, the DAU for Elven Blood has doubled in the last week. Clearly, it's got some juice.



So it might be worth acquiring. Looking at the game, it's a clone of Mob Wars reskinned with a medieval fantasy theme. Nothing innovative here, but with Mob Wars being the 5th most popular app on Facebook, its growth prospects are good. As far as I can tell the only comparable games are Zynga's Dragon Wars, and Might of Many, both Mob Wars clone with medieval fantasy reskinning. Neither are as popular.

Looking at the reviews, the users are enthusiastic, not many fake reviews as far as I can tell. There was a torrent of anger over a data loss that brought all the players back to level 1. Sounds like database scaling issues, unsurprising at this rate of growth for an indie team. Not worrying.

Then I'd ask how Elven Blood is acquiring its users, organically, or deviously? Perusing the games, nothing looks devious. No incentizived invites. Nothing spammy. They use a good call to action, " Invite friends who would be most likely to enjoy playing Elven Blood, and remember to invite daily". And it's clear that the incentive for players to invite their friends, so they can advance faster through the game by sharing the spoils of victory is compelling on its own. Good stuff.

On the monetization front, it's running google ads and social media, but more importantly it has a virtual currency tied into a CPA offer program ($uper Reward$), so they are probably making decent cash, probably over $25,000 a month based on current DAU.

Hmm, that means I'd have to offer a pretty impressive figure to bring them in, unless the scaling problem is so bad that they exhausted and desperate (doubtful).

So kids, how much would you offer for Elven Blood based on this analysis? And why, if you're ambition. Let us know in the comments.

To celebrate sending the kids back to school, take 40% off all regularly priced games purchased at Big Fish Games. Take your pick. The whole inventory is on sale! Be sure to use the coupon code above when ordering to receive your discount. Hurry! Offer expires September 3rd.

One of the worst things you can tell a child to do is clean their room. Children hate to clean their rooms, but they may feel differently if they had some of the methods displayed in The Magic Toychest. The goal of the game is to pick up each room of the house. Players use physics to get the toys into the toy box. The goals of each level differ, as far as the toys that need to be picked up, but each level contains a puzzle challenging players to get the specific toy into the toy box.

The Magic Toychest is a bit different from other casual games, as far as the way they introduce the game play. There is an entirely different area for the tutorial levels and the tutorial levels walk the player through all of the different items that can be used to get the toys into the toy box.

Once the player has worked their way through the tutorial levels, they are off to put their newly learned skills to the test. The first few levels are fairly easy to figure out, but the levels get a bit challenging after the first few. I was able to solve the puzzles in the first room without too much of an issue, but if you can’t get through a specific puzzle you can always skip the puzzle and go to the next level/puzzle. I did have to skip a few puzzles and continue on with the game. The skip feature is a great feature and eliminates the frustration factor. It is a big frustration to have one level stop the player from continuing on with the game, especially in puzzle games because some puzzles can be challenging.

The puzzles involve getting the specific toy to the toy box and the player has to use physics to get the toy into the toy box. Each toy is “propelled” to the toy box by using other toys. For instance, whiffle bats can be used as bridges, letter blocks can be used to prop up the whiffle bats and teddy bears can be used to get toys rolling in the right direction. The toys always have to be put into motion in some way. The player can drop a toy on another toy, such as a ball, to get the ball moving or shoot a dart from the gun to get things in motion. Once the toys are in motion, it makes it a lot easier to get them into the toy box.

The graphics in The Magic Toychest are bright and the rooms of the house look like the rooms they are suppose to be. For instance, the children’s rooms look like children’s rooms and have bright walls and bright comforters and furniture. The different sections of the game take place in a house and each room looks great.

The Magic Toychest was a really fun game and had a good balance between challenging puzzles and easier puzzles.  The physics in the game are great and the toys and balls roll like you would expect them to when they are hit. Any player that likes physics games and enjoys puzzles, should definitely check out The Magic Toychest. The game has a lot of game play and is worth the $19.95.

Is anyone tired of Portal-inspired games about some faceless dude stuck in a sterile laboratory environment full of death traps yet? I know I'm not! Here's another one, comin' atcha! Control a smoothly animated silhouette of a man who is trapped in the middle of a giant maze full of spikes and shifting blocks. Alter gravity by rotating the entire room 90 degrees at a time!

I'm going to do an interview on Chatterbox Video Game Radio tonight, talking about Schizoid and I'm not sure what else - it's going to be live, as I understand it, so tune in and listen to me make a fool of myself.  That's at 9 PM. 

And this weekend is PAX - I'm not sure when I'm going to be there;  I hope to be there a lot;  Bill's going to be there every minute he can spare.  There's a PAX 10 booth and that's where you'll usually be able to find us.  Richard Garfield and Skaff Elias will be there too, and when I know what time for sure I'll post it.

An ingenious piece of alternative history interactive fiction created by Adam Cadre. In Varicella, you have the pleasure of abandoning your usual scruples to play one of the most delightfully nasty antiheroes that I've come across: the eponymous Primo Varicella, Palace Minister at the Palazzo del Piemonte, and a tremendous opportunity awaits you. Can you seize the day (and the throne)?

Bounceroid 2000 is a unique flash-based game. I have never seen another flash game like Bounceroid 2000. The goal of the game is to get the color ball to hit the same color wall, which is more difficult than it sounds.

The balls fall from the top of the screen and the player has a round half ball to direct the falling balls. If the falling ball hits on the side of the half ball it is directed in the direction it was hit. It can be challenging to get the ball in the direction you want it to go. Players don’t want to hit the wrong wall because they will lose a life and you only have three lives.

The center of the board contains numbers and lines. The player wants to get the ball to hit the wall on the higher point lines to score more points. The higher point values are in the middle of the screen, which makes them harder to hit. The falling ball has velocity, when it is falling, which means it hits the half ball and bounces higher than the high point values and hits the wall on the lower values. The goal is to angle the bounce, which makes the ball bounce lower and hit the higher point values.

If you are looking for a fun, but different type of game, check out Bounceroid 2000.

Emergent Game Technologies has announced the casual version of their game engine Gamebryo. Gamebryo, up until this point, has been aimed at big development projects and has been used by companies such as Bethesda and NCSoft.

Emergent Games has decided to offer a casual games license under the Gamebryo Casual title. Casual game developers now have a chance to utilize a popular game engine for their casual games, which should make certain aspects of building a game easier.

Emergent is looking to take the casual game industry beyond what is possible today. We see a future where short format games have the same level of graphics, interactivity and gameplay as big budget releases.

It is great to see a popular game engine opening up to the casual side of things. Many casual games contain great graphics and now they have the chance to contain even better graphics. Even though it is the game play that makes the game and not the graphics. There has not been a price announced yet, but hopefully it is priced at a fair level, which will give casual developers a chance to use the engine.

Thanks Geek.com

So Scrabulous finally got bounced by Facebook from markets outside the U.S, as they were at end of last month from the U.S. The details are over at Inside Facebook.

If you recall, the Agarwalla Bros positioned their underperforming game, Wordscraper as a Scrabulous alternative. That was about 3 weeks ago. The move got a lot of press in the blogosphere and some mainstream press as well.

So did the PR pay off for Wordscraper? Here's the graph:



Answer: massively. Nearly 0 to 80,000 in a couple days. Since the growth has been flat.

Scrabble showed a nearly pattern of growth and flattening. I assume that it also benefit from the flurry of stories.



Of course, alternatively, the growth could be attributed to the sudden vacuum created by the loss of Scrabulous with players seeking other places for their word tile fix.

I'm sure it was a mix of both, however I do think the PR was crucial for drawing players to Wordscraper. Players would have found Scrabble anyway, I suspect.

So should I invest in PR?

Despite this Wordscraper example, probably not. It's an unique sets of circumstances. Other apps that have gotten blogosphere press haven't seen any traffic spikes at all (especially launch announcements). If your story isn't sufficiently interesting to attract mainstream press then don't bother. I tend to think of the blogosphere as a pathway to the mainstream press, often if a blog story is interesting enough, journalists will pick it up.

The death of Scrabulous is one of those stories. For people outside of tech or games (i.e. normal people), Scrabulous is the iconic social game. Mainly, I suspect, because you didn't have to explain what it was, everybody knows what Scrabble is. Try explaining Friends for Sale to someone who hasn't seen it before and you'll see what I mean.

In any case, I predicted that neither Wordscraper, nor Scrabble would ever reach the traffic that Scrabulous had. Judging by the lack of growth on both games, looks liek I'm right.

A unique new anti-shooter game of collection and avoidance by Felix Reidl. You have two minutes to collect as many yellow squares as possible, while various gun turrets try to mow you down. Whenever you start to feel overwhelmed, you should hit [Space], which instantly ends your game and adds up your score. If you don't hit the space bar in time—and this is important—you don't get any points. You have only one life, and if you die, your score is zero.

Smiley Puzzle is a flash-based match three game, along the same lines as Chuzzle. Instead of matching furry creatures, the player is matching smiley faces of all kinds. The goal is to match three or more of the same smiley face and it fills up the big smiley face on the side of the screen. The level ends when the big smiley face is full.

Smiley Puzzle has three different modes of play, challenge, extreme and relaxed. The challenge mode contains twelve different levels and all the levels are timed. The player needs to fill the smiley face before time runs out. Filling the smiley face can be difficult. The player wants to get combos because combos and four or more of a kind fill the smiley face much faster than three of a kind. If you only match three of a kind, you probably won’t complete the level, unless you are really fast at matching. The extreme mode contains only eight levels that are very difficult to complete and in relax mode the player plays at their own pace.

The game was fun and challenging and contains a few different modes to accommodate any type of gamer. If you are looking for a fun game to pass the time, check out Smiley Puzzle.

My email inbox seems to get all kinds of fancy pieces of news… here’s some picks you might want to check out.

Cliff Harris interview on TB’s Show about Videogames Aug 25th (This is about piracy, and they will have podcast will be available on that site later. Remember to digg the article.)

Acclaim Games as US publisher for The Chronicles of Spellborn (They keep sending me these press releases…)

Multiverse MMO client gets an update (It’s pretty slick tool, I’ve watched their progress. Perhaps you should too…)

I’ll be getting a new computer tomorrow (and hopefully get it working too…)

The latest Ludum Dare results have been announced. Congratulations to Hamumu, Fiona, and Notch! I didn’t do very well with Tower Defender itself. Each rating is scored of 5: Overall: 2.33 Fun: 2.05 Innovation: 2.95 Theme: 3.62 Polish: 1.76 Graphics: 2.57 Audio: - Humor: 2.64 Technical: 2.10 Food: 4.07 Journal: 4.33 Timelapse: 3.80 Overall, my game placed very low. Still, I managed to come away with the [...]

Nintendo announced the release of Mario Super Sluggers for the Nintendo Wii. Mario Super Sluggers is a baseball game, as you may have guessed from the name. Players use the Wii remote to mimic the motions of a real baseball game, they swing the Wii remote to swing the bat and use a throwing motion to throw a pitch. The game offers forty different characters and two modes of play.

Single player mode has players battling other baseball characters with all sorts of different skills. The player has to beat the opponent to convince them to join their team. All of the characters have a special ability and much like real life, certain players have better chemistry together than other players.

Multi-player mode lets up to four people compete at the same time. Players have the option to compete in hitting, fielding or form a team and compete against each other.

Mario Super Sluggers sounds like a fun game, if you are into baseball. It even sounds fun if you are not into baseball. There seems to be enough characters and special abilities that non-baseball fans may enjoy the game too.

Press Release Follows:

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Today Nintendo is calling on its star player to step into the batter’s box and hit one out of the park with the launch of Mario™ Super Sluggers. The new baseball game for the Wii™ console lets players use the Wii Remote™ controller to mimic motions they might experience on a real baseball diamond. Just swing the Wii Remote like a bat or make a pitching motion to throw a pitch. This wild, Mario-styled take on baseball includes more than 40 playable characters from the Nintendo universe, and players can even use their Mii™ characters in some modes.

“Mario Super Sluggers has enough depth for core gamers but also offers controls that are instantly accessible to everyone,” said Cammie Dunaway, Nintendo of America’s executive vice president of Sales & Marketing. “Mario Super Sluggers takes the fun into extra innings with cool characters, baseball-themed challenges and different control options for novice and experienced gamers.”

The single-player mode lets players visit Baseball Kingdom, where they encounter characters with different baseball skills. Players must defeat them in a variety of challenges to persuade the characters to join their team – and the characters that people choose are important. Team captains can perform special moves on the field. For example, Mario™ can pitch a wicked fireball, while Luigi™ can turn infield hits into a tornado. Just as in the real world, some players play better together than others: Different character combinations result in good chemistry for a team. In the world of Mario Super Sluggers, this could result in amazing catches in the outfield or the ability to interfere with fielders.

Multiplayer modes let up to four people compete at once. In Toy Field mode, for example, up to four players compete in a hitting and fielding extravaganza. Or just choose your players and play an exhibition game against friends.

To celebrate the launch of Mario Super Sluggers, Nintendo is giving the characters in the game the big-league treatment by creating a series of special baseball cards. These online cards can be found on a variety of Web sites and collected by users on a special album site. Pairing some players together creates a “Double Play” that unlocks bonuses like game videos and screensavers. Just as with real-life baseball cards, fans can collect multiple versions of the same card and trade them online for other cards they need. The more cards a person collects, the more bonuses and secrets they can unlock.

Remember that Wii features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other Wii features, visit Wii.com.

For more information about Mario Super Sluggers, visit www.MarioSuperSluggers.com.

According to the recently formed PC Gaming Alliance, online PC gaming hit 4.8 billion dollars in revenue, of that 800 million was from ad-supported games.

For now, most social games are monetized through advertising. It's nice to know that there's at least $800 million dollars out there looking for games to support. I'm fairly certain that figure has been growing consistently year after year, I believe Alex St. John, CEO of casual games company, WildTangent has indicated so in one of his many talks. Regardless, I'd happily predict that the ad-supported games market will reach 1 billion dollars this year. And I'll say that despite the downturn in the online market...yep, I'm pretty brave.

Tellingly, the Asian market, where free to play games are the norm, was the main driver of growth in the PC gaming market, generating nearly half of the 10.7 billion dollar PC gaming revenue.

Sponsored Games on Facebook

Recently, I've been seeing quite a few ad-sponsored games on Facebook. Ad-sponsored games are games created and branded for a specific sponsor, as opposed to a games surrounded by banner ads. They are also different than existing games that allow a company to sponsor them for a fixed period of time, as Vampires/Werewolves did with a movie tie-in for the horror movie, Underworld.

Inside Social Games has reviewed of a couple of sponsored games recently. They weren't impressed. That's unsurprising as sponsored games are rarely well-designed. Parking Wars, an ad-sponsored game (sponsored by A&E, created by Area/Code) is the rare exception.

For this week’s Thousander Club update: Game Hours: 409.25(previous two years) + 116 (current year) = 525.25 / 1000 Game Ideas: 710 (previous two years) + 36 (current year) = 746 / 1000 I had every intention of working at least an hour each day to guarantee that I’ll have at least five hours by Saturday. Instead, [...]

At least if venture lawyers are concerned.

Early last year, when I still had a company, I was looking around for representation and met with lawyers from a bunch of firms. I focused on guys who knew something about the games industry, rather than vanilla startup guys. The first question, all of them asked was, "Are you doing mobile?" Fortunately, we had a mobile component planned, so I said yes. This got them super-excited.

Venture lawyers are an excellent proxy for venture investors. Since they do deals together all the time, lawyers get a good sense of what is exciting to investors at any given time.

Last year, games on mobile must have been scorching. Of course, games on mobile has been the next big thing in games for the last five years, maybe more. However, with a couple exceptions, mobile games companies haven't seen the success everyone expected.

And for that, they all blamed the carriers for making their games available to users. This was largely true.

Apple changed that with the iPhone app store, giving users an easy way to find content, and developers an easy way to charge (or not charge) the users for that content. With games like Super Monkey Ball making 3 million bucks in a couple months. A month or so later, content from Apple's App Store has been downloaded 60 million times equal to the amount downloaded on every carrier combined in the first quarter of the year.

That put the fire under the other carriers, and T-Mobile is the first to announce their own app store for their entire range of handsets, not just smartphones.

It's Facebook vs. Myspace all over again. Like Facebook, Apple creates a successful platform, then a rival with larger reach, T-mobile/Myspace, launches their own platform.

Once again, game developers have to decide the platform on which to focus. Unless you're Zynga who can manage to be on every platform, having $29 million in the bank helps. If you're indie, my good friend Blake (of Zombies infamy) advises sticking to one platform unless you want to drive yourself insane (I paraphase).

Since details are thin on the T-mobile store, I don't expect it to rival the iPhone store. In fact, my cynical side suspects it's just a positioning move by T-mobile and we can't expect to see its app store open until next year.

Regardless, I'm with the lawyers on this one. It is a huge opportunity for game devs. Mobile is finally a gaming platform. Woo hoo!

A new action puzzle game from NinjaKiwi, Boombot is beautifully simple and well-executed. Your job, as some sort of evil omniscient explosives technician, is to maneuver an itty-bitty robot called Boombot to the exit of each level. Aside from the black bombs under your control, you'll have to manipulate TNT, oil drums, and explosive Senso-Gel to clear all fifty levels.

The following games are available from Game Du Jour this week. The games are all offered a significant price cut, which is represented by the percentage after the game name.

Monday August 25 Blobyrinth: Maze Island Quest 50%

Blobyrinth: Maze Island Quest brings the feel and difficulty of arcade classics to the mind-bending world of Sokoban-style puzzles that pull no punches. Guide Blobby through seven zones and 84 levels on his quest to save his girl Soozy from the mad antics of Madbeard. Play Blobyrinth: Maze Island Quest today!

Tuesday August 26 Engine Of War 50%

Fight zombies and design electric circuits in this brand new action/simulation game. Customize your weapons, shields and sensors, right down to the wiring. Engine of War is easy to learn, complex to master: combine parts to make teleporters that detect nearby enemies, homing missiles that follow the mouse, and shields that adapt to the enemy’s weapons!

Wednesday August 27 Puzzle Brainstorm 50%

Put three or more blocks of the same color in a row to blow them up. The more you play the faster it gets! There are three game modes in Puzzle Brainstorm: Stage Clear is the main game type, clear all the blocks under the line to go to the next stage; in Puzzle mode, clear all the blocks with a limited count of moves; and finally Endless mode goes on forever until game over. The rules are simple and the game is fun for people of all ages!

Thursday August 28 Snoogles 70%

Snoogles is a nice combination of a logical game and a classic arcade. Get control on two snoogles. Guide our heroes through 40 original levels, collect rings and solve many cleverly designed puzzles. Get Snoogles today!

Friday August 29 UNO - Undercover 40%

UNO - Undercover lets players experience their favorite card game in two exciting modes. In Adventure mode, help an undercover secret agent, posing as a professional UNO® player, as she tracks down spies, foils their evil plots and regains her former glory by winning the UNO® World Tournament. Quick-Play Mode lets players drop in for a few rounds of classic UNO® game play, set in beautifully themed locations against challenging opponents. It’s UNO® like you’ve never seen it before!

Saturday August 30 CycleMan 50%

CycleMan is a combination of three original arcade games: Revolve Pipes, Bind Blocks, and Pipe Genius. Each game has two levels. The second level adds new obstacles on the game field making the game more challenging. CycleMan makes a great coffee break diversion and is suitable for all ages.

Sunday August 31 The Magic Toy Chest 50%

The Magic Toy Chest is a physics-based puzzle game for the whole family. It is inspired by classic retro 2D games such as “The Incredible Machine.” Use 16 wacky and zany toys to create crazy sequences of events that get the desired toy into the Magic Toy Chest. Build block towers, lay down train bridges, jump back flipping dogs and much more!

If you see a game you like, head over to Game du Jour on the right day and pick up the game dirt cheap.

Howdy all! Whew, what a month this has been! As I mentioned before, the whole family went to Colorado for a week. We stayed near the Rocky Mountain National Park and wow, what a view! I didn't even miss my computer...much. I got to do some hikes, horse back riding, and take tons of pictures. I got back just in time to move back into the dorms yesterday. I really like some of my professors this semester (always a good thing) and even though they'll probably work me to death, I know I'll be able to squeeze in time to write some guides. I'm currently working on a guide but until then, I wanted to review the few HOG's that were released recently. Enchanted Fairy Friends: Secret of the Fairy Queen The introductory graphics were stunning and I had high hopes for the game, then I got past the story and to the actual hidden objects. While I don't usually mind searching for objects where you only have a silhouette to guide you since it's a nice challenge, the silhouettes were badly drawn and the pictures were a jumbled mess. Small items scattered here and there and everywhere! I was very disappointed to say the least because it looked good in the screenshots, ah well. The game has three modes of play, Easy, Medium (which I tried), and Hard. It also has an option to play it timed or untimed. My rating on a scale of 1(bad) to 5(awesome) is 2. Righteous Kill This is a basic HOG game with very nice graphics,and an interesting story line. The game is actually based on an upcoming movie of the same name. The objects are not overly difficult to find and the puzzles range from dusting for fingerprints to putting pieces of a paper back together (jigsaw) and find the missing item. However, I found the game didn't really hold my attention for very long and I like mysteries. While it's not the best HOG I've ever played, it would be an easy play for a rainy day. My rating for this game is a 3. Yard Sale Hidden Treasures: Sunnyville Currently writing a guide for this so... stay tuned! In other words, it's worth playing. !NEWS ALERT! Azada fans will be happy to hear that a little birdie has told me that as of next week, Azada 2 will be released! Don't worry, as soon as I can get my hands on it, I'll start writing you a guide, but be patient, if it's anything like it's predecessor, it may take me awhile.

Things are getting back to normal at our house. The smoke from all the wildfires is finally cleared up and we can see blue skies again. The good Delta Breeze is back and giving us some relief from the very hot weather. Shelly the Turtle is back home with my granddaughter and school has started. I am ready for fall although it is a little early for that. Just as I was getting a little bored with the games on my computer a new favorite of mine came along. I really liked the first Jewel Match and the new one is even better. It still has all the beautiful graphics and soothing music that I like so much but also has a lot for you to do. You gather resources to build castles, shop for things for the castles and it also has special coins and magic spells and many other things to keep you busy. I can't wait to play the rest of the levels to see what they will come up with next. If you liked the first Jewel Match I know you will get a kick out of this one.

Got my classes, got my books... school is about to begin. Finished my summer internship. Sort of in limbo. That's where Ranch Rush comes in. I haven't had time to play it yet. Having grown up on a cattle ranch in northern California, of course we always have to play the ranching and farming games. But please don't confuse a ranch with a farm, like Ranch Rush does. Ranches are where you raise cattle... they're not dairy farms for milk and cheese, not the place where you grow crops, etc. But I'll let it slide. Ranch Rush is a fun game that certainly kept me distracted from the pain in my from after a dentist appointment I had on Friday. What makes this time management game a little different is that there is a lot of strategy in how you lay out your "ranch" (eh hem... farm). It's kinda fun to play with different lay outs and experiment. So have fun with it, and if you get stuck, check out our guide.

Two years ago I bought a new car. My 86 Lincoln, which I named Mary Todd, was beginning to have some problems. But I soon realized that the new car had problems too. It looked like every other car in the parking lot. I would come out of the store and there would be 3 or 4 cars the same color as mine and they all looked like the same model. When I was a teenager in the fifties you could tell a Ford from a Chevy. Then some genius in Detroit decided all cars should look just alike. One way I discovered I could find my car was by pressing the trunk button on the remote. The trunk would pop up and I would know which car was mine. That worked fine until I went to a big parking lot in the mall in a big city. I almost got put in jail twice for Grand Theft Auto because I was trying to get into complete strangers' cars. Some people have no since of humor. I tried putting things on the antenna but they would get stolen. So I came up with a brilliant Idea. I bought a little Hula girl and stuck her on my dashboard. It may be corny but I have yet to see another Hula girl in my part of the country. This brings me to my review this week of Big Kahuna Reef 2. This is a great game. The graphics are spectacular. There are over 750 levels and 50 different themes on the levels. You could play this game all year and not be bored. There are all kinds of fish swimming around which you can change to suit you and what I really like about this game is the fact that you can save your place in one level and go try out another level. How cool is that? There are fish nets, bombs going off and you can even choose the music you want. If you are on a budget like most of us Seniors, you really get your money's worth with this game. If you can only afford a few games a year, give this one a try. I don't think you will be disappointed.

I'm a big fan of Project Runway. I've watched just about every episode of every season except the first. I just love watching them make these amazing clothes out of unique and interesting materials. I know so little about making clothes myself. I can't hardly use a needle and thread much less a sewing machine. It's a whole world a know little about. That's part of why I enjoyed Fashion Dash so much. I get to "pretend" I'm a clothes designer, and it's lots of fun. Basically, you get to be Coco, an aspiring fashion designer, and build her clothing business. The customers come in and you have to help them choose their design from the catalog, get them measured, send the design to the seamstress, give them their finished garments to try on, possibly help them with accessories for their outfit, and then take their payment and clean their dressing room. Whew! And that is with each customer! This game will definitely keep you on your toes and challenge your time management skills. The game play is somewhat reminiscent of it's cousin Diner Dash, but only in that it kinda makes your remember it a little. The characters, graphics, and tasks that you do are all very different (though there is a cameo appearance by Flo here and there). So if you are a fan of the Diner Dash games, or just looking for a new time management game to check out, definitely give Fashion Dash a try!

New out this week is Governor of Poker, a fun Texas Hold'em game. Xavier always beats me at Poker, particularly Texas Hold'em. I know a couple friends who've gotten pretty deep in debt from playing online poker, so I stay away from those. I have to admit I really like this version of it - you can choose your difficulty level and there's lots of tips to make you a better player. The AI of the computer players seemed pretty sophisticated. The idea is to make enough money to buy all the houses in each town, and then you move on to the next. In some of the games, people within the town wager up their houses which you can win as well. It seemed like a new twist on an old favorite.

When Jasper first asked me to review Enchanted Cavern I told him I had taken a look at it and thought it was boring. But I was drawn to it because when I was a kid I lived on a ranch that was close to a little known park called the Pinnacles. We would have Birthday parties and family reunions there. The reason it was so special was because the park had caverns .We would go into those dark caverns with our little flashlights and run amok. In some places we had to get down on our hands and knees to get through. I don't know why we never got hurt or lost in there. Now there are lights in there and they tell me no one goes in without a guide. We were always looking for big piles of gold or jewels, but of course we never found a thing. So I decided to take another look at Enchanted Cavern. I'm really glad I did because I was sure wrong about it. First of all I was trying to move the tiles and that was my first mistake. You don't move the tiles you just point your curser at groups of three or more. I couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting anywhere. Duh! Read the directions, Cecelia. I was way too sure of myself and didn't pay attention, which is a bad mistake in a cavern or computer game. After you finish a level you get a torch and go into a cave to search for pairs of treasures. Just as I was really getting into this game and having a very good time the trial run was over. Darn it! Now I am going to have to buy the game to satisfy my curiosity. This game is a sleeper. It's way more fun than it looks. If you decide to try this game be sure you read the directions carefully or you will be lost in the caverns.

I made it back home from Pennsylvania safe and sound and what better way to recover from a vacation than with... a game! The game in question is Forgotten Riddles: The Moonlight Sonatas, the second in a newer but popular HOG series (Mayan Princess being the first one). The game isn't a really long one but still worth it. It has unique game play - instead of having a list of objects to find, you have to solve the riddle and then find the object. With puzzles intertwined throughout the game it keeps it interesting. The story is intriguing too, a ghostly opera house, a tragic death, a scandal, unrequited love...well, you play it and find out! Now back to my vacation, it was a fun visit, with gas prices what they are we didn't go many places but spent a lot of a time by the pool. Thankfully we had a beautiful week with only a few scattered storms. We did get to visit Pittsburgh one day and see the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium and the Carnegie Science Center which were both tons of fun. After writing the lengthy guide I wanted to see the Carnegie Museum of Natural History but we ran out of time, well, maybe next time. We also took my younger cousins to Chuck E. Cheese, who says it's just for kids, but I won my self a lovely star wand, and as my mother says, a wand a princess does not you make, lol. I'll be off to Colorado (with no internet!) in about two weeks with the whole family. I'm sure when I get back I'll be able to bring you another guide, if not before! Hope you like this one and happy gaming! PS - Something you might not know about me is that I love platformer games, check out the newest one at BFG, Alex Gordon, it's a great little platformer, reminiscent of Turtle Odyssey, with beautiful graphics and challenging!

I don't know if you keep up with current events, but if you do you might have read about all the big lightning fires here in No. California. The skies have been filled with smoke since the end of June. It hasn't been a very pleasant summer for any of us. Outdoor activities have been limited for a lot of people. So many of us are catching up on our reading, watching a little more T.V. than usual and of course playing games on the computer. So that's how I discovered Mahjong. I have never played before and all I knew about it was that it was a favorite game of the Chinese. I was a little apprehensive because I thought it might be too complicated for me. But once Jasper showed me how to play, I really got into it. For one thing the graphics in this game are super. I guess I'm like a little kid. Pretty things draw me in. And you have plenty in this game. Butterflies, the tropics, lagoons. You couldn't ask for more. The game itself is fun to play. Match up pairs of tiles. There are two levels of play. I never made it to the expert level but it is there for those of you who are experts. After you catch the butterflies and matched all the tiles for that level you go to a valley and turn them loose. Then back to a harder level of play. Circles come on the screen and help you out if you get stuck. I think I am going to try more Mahjong. I need something different to put some spice in my life. Give this game a try. If you're an old hand but don't have friends to play with this would fit the bill. And if you're tired of your same old Bridge game then this is something you should look into.

My grandparents were farmers and my dad always had interesting stories about growing up and working on a farm. I think that really shaped my perspective of how much hard work goes into farming and made me appreciate the produce we can so easily access at our local store. I hope my son, Max, will grow to understand and appreciate his agricultural roots. And even though he is growing up in the city, that he will learn about all that goes into bringing him the food that he eats everyday. Playing the new game, Farmer Jane, brought back memories of visiting my grandparents on their farm. If a game can do that, it gets high marks in my book. The graphics are great, creating a little more of a 3-D look to the characters. You also get to choose your character to play and customize the clothing, which is a nice touch. There are many upgrade options as well that really help but also make the game more challenging at the same time. Also, there is a chance that every now and then you can produce a special crop that will yield you more money. This game definitely poses a challenge to keep up with all the demands of farming and managing to get the products in the customers hands in a timely manner. If you are a fan of time management games or just looking to try something new, definitely give Farmer Jane a try!

Developed by Soldak Entertainment, Depths of Peril is an action-RPG with a huge emphasis on political/diplomatic strategy. The end result is something new and fresh; an independent, isometric action-RPG unlike anything you've played before, which also won the "RPG Game of the Year" award from GameTunnel.

GoGo Digger is a great freeware game for the PC by BadBumbles. The game is a cross between mind sweeper and Dig Dug. The player controls a miner that digs for gems, but there are mines spread through out the level preventing the player from walking in and getting the gems.

GoGo Digger is an arcade style game. The player starts out with three lives and when you “discover” a bomb you lose a life. Lose three lives and the game is done. The more ground you can clear the more points you get and the higher your score at the end of the game. The amount of gems you manage to collect add to your points total too.

The first level serves as the tutorial level and caught me off guard. The player is presented with a board that contains some gems and some mines, but you can see all of the gems and all of the mines. Of course, I was thinking, wow this game is not going to be hard to play and I was wrong. The first level serves as a tutorial to show you how the mind sweeper part of the game works. Numbers appear in the area of the bomb. The players have to figure out where the bomb is based on all of the numbers that appear around the bomb. As the player is navigating around the bombs they can collect the gems. The more gems collected the more points you get at the end of the game.

As soon as the first level is complete, the gems are hidden and so are the bombs. Players only know there is a bomb around by discovering a number and that number gives you a clue on where the bomb may be. The numbers just give a rough estimate and you don’t know for sure, but you can definitely make a good educated guess on where the bomb is. There always seems to be gems really close to a few of the bombs.

Players have a little bit of help in the form of a star ball. Click on the star ball and it will blow up blocks and bombs around you, but you do not die from the explosion. It is a great way to get past an area where there are a lot of numbers and it can be risky to get around. Just blow up the area and you are free to roam around. Players only have a limited number of star balls for the entire game so they need to be used smartly.

The graphics in GoGo Digger give the game an arcade feel, but they are clear and crisp and not old and hard to read like arcade games.

GoGo Digger is a fun arcade style game and is very different from other genres of casual games. The game is a nice blend of a mind sweeper and Dig Dug games. Anyone will enjoy GoGo Digger and you have nothing to lose by trying it because the game is free to play. Check it out here.

Follow the Opportunity, Not the Plan.

This aphorism is one of the key bits of wisdom I gained while running my social games startup.

Think about this: you're on you way to work, you're rushing, you need be there by 9. You stop into Starbucks to grab your morning coffee, and you accidentally bump into a drop-dead gorgeous girl. She smiles as you fumble. She walks out. You want to follow her, make conversation, marry her...but you can't you have to wait in line for your coffee.

After you get the coffee, you rush out to the street hoping you might see her. She's gone. And you obsess over your missed opportunity all week, maybe for a lifetime.

Just because you followed the plan to get coffee, rather than the opportunity to meet the woman of your dreams.

One of the sad truths about the Internet industry is that things change faster than anyone expects. And yet we're still expected to make business plans.

Business plans are a huge waste of time. If you're a nimble company that responds to changes in the marketplace then it'll be out-of-date even as you're writing it. Do the slide deck thing if you have to.

The best opportunities occur when changes are rapid. New platforms are a goldmine, think about the Facebook or the iPhone. You can't plan for a new platform to emerge. New rules are being written and insights discovered on a daily basis. These are the times are when huge companies emerge from nowhere.

Be one of them. Forget the coffee.

Today I would like to use this space to address a horrible error made just one week ago: I neglected to mention the previous Weekend Download was number 50! That means we've placed over 250 downloadable games before your eyes, which is... well, plenty of excuses not to do your homework or fill out your TPS reports.

My three year old daughter saw the Wall-E billboard on the Xbox and said, "I want to play the Wall-E and Eva game."  I tried to convince her that it probably wasn't very good, as it's a movie license game and movie license games are rarely good, but she was insistent.  And when we downloaded it and it didn't run (there's some problem with my Xbox hard-drive;  other games/demos had the same issue - it's funny when the sidebar comes out that suggests I wipe the disk with a soft cloth) she seemed accepting at first but then, a couple days later, repeated, "I want to play the Wall-E and Eva game."

Three years old!  We get 'em young.

I’m getting a new computer (well, at least some new parts), and I had a budget of 500-600 euros. I needed a new mother board, processor, graphics card, harddrive, new OS and stuff like that.

When I went to the store and asked what I could get with this budget, the salesperson showed me list and started asking me “250, 500, 750 gigabytes? 2,5Ghz, 3,0Ghz…? 1, 2 or 4 gigs memory?” And so on. At some point I said that buying new computer parts goes always like this. No matter what budget you have, you will always spend more. If 500 gigabytes harddrive cost only 20 bucks more than 250, how can anybody refuse that offer?

I realized this, and I knew I would have no control over this. The seller wasn’t pushing or anything. He was merely showing me “9600 GT costs this… and if you want 9800 GT, then it costs this many euros more”. He didn’t need to persuade me into buying, my brain was already doing that at full speed. Sneaky little bastards! They shouldn’t have showed me those better parts (even when I asked).

I had no hope, and went home to ponder. It didn’t help anything, my brain tricked me into buying more and more. I ended up in a deal that cost 750 euros (but got a discount one one part, so the final price was 720 actually euros).

So, the bottom line was: my mind managed to buy me into using almost 50% more than I had originally planned.

Oh well… at least there’s something to learn.

The concept of selling computer parts is brilliant. If there’s a “Pretty Good Part” that costs 100, you can get “Fancy Better Part” for only adding 20 euros more. And if you really want power, the “Really Super Nice Part” costs only 20 more than “Fancy Better Part”. It works like a chimp.

The 20 euros difference feels small, but when there’s many parts, and many options to choose from… everything sums up into a bigger amount.

Sneaky.

Myst was a great game, in it’s day, and has since been released on a few different platforms including the Nintendo DS and now it is heading to the iPhone. The original version for the PC contained amazing graphics and clever game play, but the version for the DS did not get great reviews. Hopefully the version for the iPhone will be better and redeem the franchise.

This is a small project that probably a very few of you know about. We are porting Myst to the iPhone. Ok, before some of you start groaning, this is an outside funded project that is keeping a few developers employed… but it is really more than that. It is an interesting and fun project. This is also a very small team with three of us (which includes Derek, Rand (not Randy) and myself).

The quote came from the forums of Myst and gave the official word that Myst will make its way to the iPhone. Myst will have to be redone to accommodate for the touch input, but other than that the iPhone should be able to run Myst.

Myst was a great game for the PC and hopefully that greatness will be carried over to the iPhone.

Thanks ars technica

Music Catch is a full-featured downloadable version of the previously released Flash game also titled Music Catch. The name describes exactly what the game is all about: catching music. Well, catching shapes, to be more accurate, but the shapes are generated according to the music being played, quite literally dropping you inside each song you listen to/play. It's a subtly simple experience that's almost trance-like in nature.

Olympic Challenge is a flash-based web game that contains three Olympic games to compete in. The three challenges are the hurdles, sailing and shot put.

The hurdles are the easiest to compete in, but it did take me a few times of missing the hurdles before I got the timing down. Of course, if you do not get the timing correct, you will hit the hurdle and the crowd gets angry at you and your runner slows down. The hurdler moves by himself, but the player has to press the space bar to get him to jump over the hurdles. Holding the space bar for different amounts of time causes the hurdler to jump shorter or longer. The shorter the player holds the space bar the shorter jump the hurdler makes and the longer the player holds the space bar the longer the hurdler jumps. Players can beat their own records and try and beat the other hurdlers in the race. The world record and Olympic records appear at the bottom of the screen, so the player can attempt to beat those records as well.

The sailing game is very challenging, at least it was for me. The goal of the game is to get your sail boat around the track by using the z and x keys to change the position of your sail and the right and left arrow keys to steer the boat. I could not get the boat to move anywhere. I guess I am sailing challenged. Similar to the hurdles, the player is racing against other sail boats and trying to win. I couldn’t get the boat to even move let alone win.

I was able to figure out the shot put, but I will admit it took me a few times. The goal is to use as much power as possible to throw the shot put ball without going outside the circle and causing a fault. The player holds down the space bar to get as much power as possible without leaving the boundaries of the circle, until you get to the “throw cone” in the circle then you leave the boundaries, which causes the shot putter to throw the ball. Players compete to break their own records, but are also looking to throw further than the opponent. The world records and Olympic records appear at the bottom of the screen, so if you are feeling extra strong you can attempt to beat those records, as well.

The shot put and hurdle games in Olympic Challenge were fun to play and a bit on the addicting side. The addictive nature of the games comes from trying to beat the records. I never came close to beating the Olympic or world records, but I still had fun. If you are in the Olympic spirit and are looking to compete, virtually, in your own games, check out Olympic Challenge.

The casual division of Real Networks has announced the release of Tropix 2 - The Quest for the Golden Banana. The game is a combination of mini-games. With a variety of mini-games, there should be a game for everyone.

Players can play Coco Bowl, Cascade, Puffer Popper and new games, such as Ice Cream Parlor, Stone Stacker and Fish Swap. Each game is suppose to provide hours of entertainment, which means Tropix 2 - The Quest for the Golden Banana will please the pickiest gamer. Players play each game in an effort to earn sand dollars, which allow them to decorate the islands.

Tropix 2 - The Quest for the Golden Banana is available through RealArcade or GameHouse

Press Release Follows:

I think I have said this earlier: Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth (BME - the first product, not the sequel) is the best RTS game I’ve ever played. I like it more than old games like Dune 2, Warcraft 3. I like it more than old and new Command & Conquer games. There are several reasons why I like BME so much:

• Unequal forces: I’m fan of unequal forces in all games. In Battle for Middle Earth there’s multiple factions that are all very different (yet, well enough balanced). Playing Mordor is totally different from playing Gondor.
• Placement of buildings: In BME, there’s only a limited number of places where you can build something. This means you cannot get all the buildings you’d like. You have to choose whether to get stables… or perhaps something else. Limited options is a very fine game design in this game.
• Lord of The Rings: Okay, I admit that Tolkien’s world is giving an extra bonus here (I buy all kinds of Tolkien stuff: DVDs, board games, video games, card games… no, I don’t wear hobbit clothes or anything like that).
• Walls, and an opening gate!: You can open the castle/fortification gate. That might seem like a trivial thing, but I really like how it’s done. Now as I really think about this, it sounds pretty stupid… but I dunno, there’s something fun about having walls and opening the gate (hmm, I enjoyed opening a lego castle gate when I was a kid. I wonder if that has something to do with this gate issue). Maybe this is one of those “tiny details” that make a great game.
• Massive (enough) battles: I’ve really enjoyed seeing a massive number of orc hordes rushing to the walls, and battling against each other. Sure, there are games with even more troops but BME has enough of them. And that’s a good thing.
• Visuals and sounds: They’ve done a great job with the graphics, music and sounds. I really enjoy them in the game.
• Multiplayer: I’m a multiplayer, I admit it. I’ve never played BME in single player mode, and will keep it that way. I just like the multiplayer experience.

What about you - what’s the best real time strategy game you’ve ever played? Care to share reasons why?

From Ypulse! Mashup (still processing my notes):

mDisney, Disney's mobile portal gets a 10% clickthrough rate on the mobile banner ads with $20 CPM.

Disney is planning to link its Pirates MMO to a mobile experience that allows the players to earn unique items for use in the online game. These items can only be earned in the mobile experience.

Smart move, especially considering the insight from yesterday's post that the hardcore gamers (most players of MMOs) are also likely to own iPhones.

Just like the previous two Link Dump Friday features, this week we have a boatload of games to keep your fingers twitching. Unlike the previous articles, however, this one has a tasty breakfast treat I have long been calling for: WAFFLES!!! *confetti*