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Welcome to a new feature on the BlogRide wherein I have the pleasure of sharing some of my favorite questions we’ve received over the years here at PopCap. As you can probably guess, in recent years, they’ve been as zombie-filled as an episode of Walking Dead, but I’d like to take us back a ways, to a time when I was asked to help a little girl get back to her once-favorite game that had suddenly become traumatic to her… a game called Chuzzle.

Her mother explained that the girl had been happily playing Chuzzle for quite some time, but then she started looking more objectively at the cute, fuzzy creatures on the screen and what seemed to be happening to them when she made matches. The girl realized that she appeared to be killing cute fuzzy creatures and collecting their eyeballs in a jar. She was, understandably, horrified.

I was impressed, as I hadn’t given it that much thought myself… it’s a game, and I’m a grown-up, and they’re Chuzzles, not kittens. But it’s one of those things that once it’s pointed out, it’s kind of in your head. So I put some thought into it as I played the game again, this time with an eye toward explaining the events of the game in a way that might help a child sleep at night. And here’s what I came up with:

Yes, I really didn't think about the eyeballs until this was pointed out to me. Man, adults are jaded, simple-minded creatures at times.

The grid on which you find the Chuzzles is a prison. These cute, fuzzy creatures are being imprisoned by an evil overlord who hates all things adorable (like Gargamel or Sauron).  When you match Chuzzles, you are reuniting them with their comrades and giving them the strength to escape, because these are magical creatures, but they’re so small that they can only muster the energy for teleportation (that’s what makes the “popping” sound!) when they are in a group of three or more.

And the eyeballs? Those aren’t their eyeballs at all! Those are contact lenses they need to protect their eyes, because the atmosphere is highly toxic in the alternate dimension where the prison is located. Once they return to their home dimension, they won’t need protective lenses anymore. What you’re collecting in the jar are mementos of your good deeds, when you freed a bunch of helpless little Chuzzles from their captor and sent them home to their families.

I hope this story helps anyone out there who ever worried about the fate of Chuzzles.

You can call it jumping on the bandwagon if you like, because that’s pretty much what we’ve done here, but we have now launched a channel on Twitch TV, which has become the de facto Internet standard for livestreaming in the gaming world. We’re thrilled to join Twitch, and are working now on programming ideas (so please let us know what you’d like to see!). In the meantime, as pretty much just a “test,” I recorded myself playing the first few levels of Insaniquarium, with commentary, just to make sure it all works, and to experiment with the idea of doing video versions of my periodic “From the PopCap Vault” blog pieces, in which I go through our back catalog to talk about old games. Dumb idea? Fun idea? Get a real job? Let me know what you think. Oh, and buy Insaniquarium! One of our best games ever!

Watch live video from PopCap on Twitch

Greetings, earthlings, and happy Monday! It is time, once again, to pry open the PopCap vaults, Geraldo Rivera style, in search of long forgotten or just perhaps slightly less hyped PopCap gold. One thing we’ve learned over the years is that people tend to like our games, but they don’t always necessarily know that we made them. Actually, that goes for some of us at PopCap too, especially the more absent-minded and bewildered amongst us. And then there are the games that, sadly, and sometimes unjustifiably, hardly anyone remembers at all — good games that never fully got their due.

Take, for example, the case of Talismania, from 2006. Here we have a fun, challenging, and charming puzzle game, one that — like all the great PopCap games — starts out simple but gets increasingly complex as you progress, and one that, unlike some of our games, doesn’t ask you to match three of anything. Yes, in this game, we explored an entirely different mechanic! Not only that, but you get to play as King Midas, which not even supposedly “cooler” games like Halo let you do. The guy turns stuff into gold, which we’ll take over an uncharismatic, helmeted alien killer any day.

In any event, you play as King Midas, though not on one of his better days. It seems that the King’s Midas Touch has accidentally transformed his daughter, Marygold, into a golden statue. Zeus, slumming from his throne on Mount Olympus to appear in this computer game, has agreed to help Midas transform Marygold back if Midas uses magical talismans to make money to spend on others rather than himself. As you solve each of the game’s puzzles, builders will take the coins you earn to build structures for local townspeople in need, thus fulfilling Midas’ obligation and saving Marygold. Yes, it is a heartwarming tale with a message: That it is better to give away your money rather than hoard it for yourself. And you can follow Midas’ example and give your money to us to play this heartwarming tale for only $9.95.

About the game itself, it has a few cool things going on. You are presented with a grid of hexagonal tiles, inside of which are sections of a pathway. You must rotate the tiles to line up the pathway, while collecting the two or more talisman tiles that appear on each level. As you clear the talismans, you earn coins, with each level requiring a certain amount of coins to complete. Talismania boasts one of PopCap’s cooler musical scores, performed on classical instruments and sounding vaguely Greek-like at times, as well as a goofy cartoon style created by longtime PopCap artist Matt Holmberg. Once you complete the game’s Story mode, you unlock a Hero mode in which you do basically the same thing, but now with a timer.

What Talismania lacks in visceral thrills or action it makes up for in more methodical strategic thinking. Plus, again, you get the valuable lesson that it is better to share your riches than keep them for yourself. We like to think of ourselves not just as game makers, but also as teachers — philosophers, if you will — imparting valuable life lessons upon you as you spin the hexagons around and collect coins. No, it may be no substitute for a college degree, but for anyone who tells you computer games are immoral or a source of social decay, Talismania stands proud as a beacon of wisdom and reason. Just as I was a better person for writing this blog post, you’ll be a better person for playing this game. Congratulations.

Well, anyway. Back to Big Money. It is, as were many of our games at the time, based on the idea of matching groups of three or more colored objects together on a board to make them disappear. The objects, in this case, are coins. The more coins you match together, the bigger the payoff and the higher your score. Each level, of course, gets a little bit tougher. The really cool part about Big Money — and the part that is related to real life — is that you have to learn, most of all, when *not* to match the coins. Sometimes, it’s better to let them pile up, rather than match, so that you can clear an even bigger pile as new coins emerge from the bottom of the screen. Sure you can match those three green coins right away, but, if you wait a few more seconds, you may be able to match them to six more green coins, thus garnering an even higher score. To spend, or to invest? This is what it’s all about, kids. Yeah, sure, go ahead and be fast and cavalier about it — match them as fast as you can — but the really big Big Money players know when to be patient, and they know, as Karl Marx would likely confirm, that the rich get richer, always.

And just in case you weren’t quite clear on what the game is really about, your game over screen will find you ranked with specific job titles, depending on how well you did. Fail to play wisely, and welcome to your new career as an assistant fry chief. Play smart and strategically, and congratulations, you are now at the apex of financial success — a videogame blogger. No wait. Sorry. That’s the level right after assistant fry chief. Man, this is one depressing blog post to write.

In any case, I highly recommend Big Money. Sure it’s a little dated looking 10 years down the line. But you know what else is dated looking? The dollar bill.

So go ahead and get it. You’ll have all sorts of match-3 action to entertain you, and you may, in the process, just learn how to have a better career than me.

Ironically, I was actually editor-in-chief of one of the only big press outlets at the time — Computer Gaming World magazine — to give the game a very positive review, so it’s possible, if one wants to examine my psychological motivations, that perhaps this blog post was a 7-year-delayed bit of overcompensation. Because, ya know, maybe I felt that my masculinity was threatened or something by admitting to liking a game like Bonnie’s Bookstore. I don’t know. We’ll have to ask my therapist.

Me this week.

In any case, I do offer my apology both to anyone who enjoys Bonnie’s Bookstore, and, especially, to anyone who worked on it. At the very least, one has to be some kind of first-class curmudgeon to bash any word game, ever, because they are nothing if not outstanding brain exercises, something that I myself could have used before thinking about writing my poison piece. Also — bookstores! Come on! In my town, (Berkeley, California), I’ve had to watch with utter frustration and heartache as one awesome bookstore after another, in real life, has shuttered its doors (Cody’s Books, Black Oak Books: R.I.P). If for nothing else, a videogame that celebrates bookstores — and offers you the chance to help one stay in business — is something that in its very concept is reason enough for our praise, or, at the very least, respect. If the game had been called Bonnie’s Toxic Waste Dump, it’d be another matter entirely.

And so there it is: A full-on mea culpa from me, as I hang my head in shame for a thoroughly uncalled for and mean-spirited bashing of something undeserving of such wrath. I am a bad boy. And to fully serve out my penance, after posting this entry, I am going to head out to one of the only independent bookstores left in town here (Books Inc.), and buy a few books.

For Bonnie.

Have a good weekend, everybody.

-Jeff

Today’s look into the PopCap Vaults finds us prowling around in the darkest, dankest corners, where the lonely and forgotten games lie, like Edmond Dantes, mostly unloved and unplayed, waiting only for that day when they can see the sunlight once again, and declare themselves to anyone who cares: “I am alive, I do matter!”

For Hammer Heads, today is that day.

Released about 6.5 years ago, in 2006, and then somewhat surprisingly overshadowed by such other games as Gears of War and Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, Hammer Heads was PopCap’s take on the always respected and complex “Whac-A-Mole” genre, in which you hit things on the head as they pop up from holes in the ground. Why this was not up for any Game of the Year awards remains, to this day, one of gaming’s great scandals.

To distinguish Hammer Heads from the roughly 8,050 other Whac-A-Mole clones, PopCap came up with a unique and innovative vision: Instead of hitting moles on the head, you would hit gnomes on the head. To add to the game’s complexity, the developers created not just one, but a variety of gnomes, some harder to hit than others, some that would blow up if you tried to hit them, some whose heads inflated back up if you didn’t keep hitting them fast enough, and so on. Each time you missed a gnome, you’d lose a little bit of health. On the offensive side, you would start with one hammer, but then earn in-game coins (this was, sadly, before the existence of real-world microtransactions) which you could spend on bigger hammers, extra health, power-ups, and so on.

Like most PopCap games, what starts out bone simple ramps up with each succeeding level, so that by the time you hit the game’s later levels, you are frantically swinging the hammer so fast in an attempt to bash every gnome (or avoid the ones who damage you) that you may find yourself literally dripping sweat, which is why I always played the game with a lobster bib on.

Succeeding levels also reveal a whole host of new gnomes, that, when put all together, form an entire society of little people, thus adding an element of pathos to the entire affair, as you realize, with horror, that with each succeeding level, you are in fact committing genocide on an entire race, whose only crime was simply to attempt to come up for air after being banished to live in underground holes. Were the gnomes attempting to look for a new homeland, away from the relentless bashing of the giant hammers? Or were they simply attempting to get even one tiny gulp of oxygen before resuming their miserable lives underground. You’ll never know, because, in fact, you’ve killed them all.

And this is where the true impact of Hammer Heads lies, in the at-the-time rather revolutionary attempt to put the player in the role of the anti-hero, the Sauron, if you will, of this tragic fantasy universe. Bringing this kind of moral ambiguity to what had heretofore been unfairly dismissed as “mindless and uninspiring action of the lowest possible caliber” (my words) is what, with six years perspective, makes Hammer Heads truly a work of unqualified and unparalleled genius — a Dostoyevskian examination into the dark hearts of man, disguised as a jaunty little puzzle game. In this way, it might possibly be the most subversive game ever released.

It’s also a mildly entertaining diversion, for a few minutes anyway, when you really, truly have nothing better to do.

But sometimes you don’t want a roller coaster. Sometimes you want to ride the teacups. And sometimes what your heart longs for is a quiet, tranquil glide along the canal in a gondola.

If you think that sounds crazy, that's because you haven't tried it yet.

When we put up our poll on Tuesday, I was pleased as punch to see not only a fair percentage of votes but even a comment in support of my pick, Venice! (Perhaps more than one comment… the reply of “add me” is a little ambiguous. “Add” you to the list of folks who’d love to see Venice for iPad?  Sure thing!  ”Add” you as a friend?  Coming on a little strong there, guy. “Add” you to the menu? Wrong post, buddy, Zombie’s on Wednesday.)

And sure, 6% isn't much, but Zuma is unfair competition.

BlogRiders may have picked up on our quiet love for Venice over the last year. We have a tendency to bring it up in almost any list of games. When I wandered around the office asking people to name their favorite PopStrip, more than one simply exclaimed, “Gondola!” And yet, I suspect not everyone has actually played this little gem of a game, and I hope to change that.

The first thing you’ll notice about Venice is the absolutely beautiful art.

Well, and the kinda creepy baby. You get used to him.

The colors are rich and vibrant, the backgrounds filled with vines and flowers against deep red bricks, aged stones, and skies the lush hues of sunrise, dusk, and everything in between. This game is just so pretty to look at, it’s good for the spirit.

And then there’s the deceptively simple gameplay. You start out with that tutorial above, and you think, “Aim and shoot shapes? Easy.”

Like fish in a barrel, so are the shapes from the gondola. Or so you imagine.

But there’s so much complexity that develops over the course of the game. The obstacles add up, and there are slots you just cannot shoot at directly — you have to use the planes and angles to bounce the shapes into place, like a game of billiards. Then the obstacles start moving, and you not only have to plan around their angles, you have to wait for them to line up just right.

Here, for instance, I utterly failed to line up my shot to get that wind tube to deliver the heart to its home. It will ricochet all over the board, and I'll have to chase it down to avoid sinking.

That need for patience and deliberation, to me, is the heart of Venice. You can’t rush through it. If I want to challenge myself with speed and reflexes and decision-making on the fly, I’ll take on Iron Frog mode in Zuma’s Revenge.  But if I want a challenge that’s more like a zen state, I go for Venice every time.  It’s a soothing experience that pleases the eye and stimulates the mind.

So that’s my pitch for my preferred candidate. Download the free trial (right now it’s PC only, but together we can change the world), give it a go, and then, if you haven’t already voted in the poll, go do that too.  You don’t have to vote for Venice… but I wouldn’t be surprised to see its percentage rise throughout the day like the water level of the canals.

We’re wondering: what’s your favorite vault game from PopCap? Take the poll below and come back to see where your favorite ranks. If you don’t see your favorite vault game (check here to see the full list), post your choice in the comments.