Zombie from Plants vs. Zombies

Zombie already say Zombie not make resolutions but Zombie editor getting all fussy so Zombie going to make exception just this one time. ‘K, you know how Plants vs. Zombies 2 is coming out in 2013? You know that right? How does you not know that. Oh, wait. Now you know that. Okay, anyways, where was Zombie… Oh, right. In 2013 Plants vs. Zombies 2 is coming out and Zombie resolve to win this time. You has been warned.

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Lex from Bookworm

I will endeavor to further assay lexicological phenomena in my continual undertaking to expand my already Brobdingnagian personal word-hoard. In this, I am resolute.

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The Frog from Zuma

My resolution is to keep my cool when in Hot Frog mode. Seriously, no more panicking and wasting those shots when I could be clearing the curve for major points!

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Tula from Peggle

I will give more blooming flowers and magical flowering rainbows of budding extremeness to the world. And get more shimmer lip gloss. And some really good eye drops. And eat a few bear claws now and again.

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Buckethead Gnome from Hammer Heads

I resolve to get out of my hole with my bucket intact, and to remember not to remove my bucket so often (as it leads to headaches). Also, I plan to begin and chair the “Jeff Green for Gnome President” committee, as he really seems to want to take the battle for gnome rights to the people of the world.

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Walter the Penguin from Insaniquarium

2013 is the year I will overcome my pugilistic nature.*

*Totally not. But I was asked to like, set a better example and stuff. Come on, I’m a penguin! I have wings but can’t fly, and everyone thinks I’m sooo cute and cuddly. Plus, my name is Walter, and every time I’m introduced to someone new, their eyes light up, and they yell, “Waaalllt!” and then look at me eagerly for approval. Yeah, I’ve seen Lost, the kid had the same name, I get it. Tell me you wouldn’t wanna punch someone from time to time. Except, um, don’t.  Because it’s only funny when penguins do it. And kangaroos. And Malcolm Reynolds.

Happy Birthday Bejeweled Gems!      (cake by Sensational Cakes)

Happy Birthday Zombie!      (cake by Girl-Jagon)

Happy Birthday Zuma!      (cake by Alan and Lourdes)

Happy Birthday Plants vs. Zombies!      (cake by Sugar Shindigs)

We have a ton of great coverage this week including a new breed of Bejeweled Blitz, and PopCap games that are helping the colorblind match gems and blast balls!

• Last week PopCap had TWO games on the top 20 list of fastest-growing Daily Active Users on Facebook! According to Inside Social Games, Solitaire Blitz came in at #5, while Zuma Blitz was #15!

• Plants vs. Zombies is also getting some love from Kotaku and is listed as one of the 12 Best Games on the iPhone. They say the game is a good match for all those “urban gardeners” out there.

• Check out this boxing movie montage-style video, on the AOL Games Blog, announcing Bejeweled Blitz: Rubies and Riches. The Game Show Network and PopCap have come together to allow players to compete for cash and prizes in the brand new Rubies and Riches.

• If you own a NOOK, you’re in luck! Plants vs. Zombies and Bejeweled 2 are now on the Nook HD and Nook HD+. Engadget has all the details.

• Last, but not least, The Wall Street Journal wrote an article about colorblindness and technology. PopCap was mentioned as a video game developer that has enforced gaming disability guidelines, with both Peggle and Zuma Blitz including a colorblind mode.

Don’t believe me? Would you play Zuma if it were called “Amphibious Ballshooter”? Well, okay, maybe that’s a bad example.

You may be aware that Bejeweled was originally called Diamond Mine, way back in 2000. But did you know we once wanted to call Plants vs. Zombies “Lawn of the Dead”? We decided George Romero (or at least his lawyers) wouldn’t like that too much.

Here’s a list of some other title ideas that didn’t make the cut — and some that I wish we could’ve tried. Because why not?

Peggle
Thunderball – Yep. This was a Thor-themed prototype of Peggle
Pego – Too close to another game brand, perhaps? You decide. But we had to change the name just weeks before the game release. That was fun!

Plants vs. Zombies
Lawn of the Dead
Morticulture
Bloom & Doom – In the game, this is the seed packet company’s name
Zombotany – Not easy to say or read, but people at PopCap liked it enough that it became a mini-game title

Venice — the only game I know of starring an unmanned gondola!
Sinking City
Better than Milan
Extreme Gondola!
Gondolamania (And why not? I mean, we already had Rocket Mania and Talismania… why not Gondolamania?)

Mystery P.I. – The Lottery Ticket
Mystery P.I. – The Curious Case of the Hidden Reality
Mystery P.I. – Have You Seen My Pants?

Zuma
Enter the Frog
Fancy Frog and the Frightening Four (no, not really)

Alchemy
Gold-Maker (exciting, isn’t it?)
Solid Gold Prancer

And finally, our old mobile game, Mars Needs Cows, likely had lots of bad title ideas. But we don’t remember any of them. So, we think it may have originally been titled Interrupting Cow.

Okay, I’ll stop there, before I Interrupting Cow.

We took the hit PC/Mac game and transformed it into an un-frogging-believable game for Xbox LIVE. You’ll find new game modes like Boss Rush and Weekly Challenge, and a fun new way to advance and power up with the help of Spirit Animal companions. And more!

Here’s a video:

So, what does all this ball-blasting mean? Well, it’s hard to explain. So, while I was at lunch, I drew a graph:

Should I have asked a designer to help?

So there. Totally way more ball-blastic action. And definitely worth playing right now. Go get it!

It’s all true — and here’s what else is true: this weekend only, you can save up to 60% on Zuma’s Revenge! for your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad!

You can save 50% on the iPhone or iPod touch game — it’s just 99 cents. And you can get the iPad game for just $1.99 — that’s 60% off. Plus, with the iPad game, you’ll actually get a version you can play on iPhone or iPod touch, too.

The sale ends Sunday, April 15, so hop over to the iTunes App Store and pick up this awesome game today!

Here it is again, a little closer.

Because we are process nerds, we contacted CJ to find out how she made it. This is that story:

“He is carved out of 1 lb EPS foam (that’s the white stuff made up of little beads.) I used a heated carving tool and a rasp. Once I got the shape right, I cut the accent markings from a very thin sheet of the same foam and hot glued them on. I sanded him down with 80 grit sand paper then brushed on a layer of thinned joint compound. When that dried, I sanded him again, this time with 220 grit sand paper. Then I repeated the joint compound and sanding step. Once he was smooth, Larry sprayed him with a two part epoxy hard coat. Finally I airbrushed him and applied a gloss top coat. The joint compound and hard coat are what make him look like he is made out of something other than Styrofoam. The airbrush paint I used had a pearlized finish – I don’t know if you could tell in the picture, but he looks like a glass Christmas ornament…. well a very large ornament! He was a lot of fun to make and brightens my day when I see him in the office.”

See? Simple!

Seriously, though, that is a great piece of work and we are impressed by the level of skill and artistry required to create it. We are also crazy jealous that we don’t have one.

When she is not creating Zuma frogs for her own enjoyment, CJ runs (with the aforementioned Larry) a company called Pirate’s Palette. “We paint backdrops, build and restore furniture, make props and sets, and create styrofoam sculptures. We originally started doing this work for theatre, but have branched out into other areas – signs, architectural ornamentation, trade show pieces… the applications are really limited only by imagination. And when it comes to Styrofoam, we can make anything.”

CJ was also very forthcoming about the challenges of her work which I am sure are things that nobody at PopCap could possibly relate to in any way. “My work isn’t without its share of stress. Deadlines can be killer. People call up asking for items in an impossible time frame. And people call wanting things that I have no clue how to accomplish, but I am not smart enough to say ‘No, I can’t do that.’ I take the job and we stress until we figure out how to make it happen. I am lucky enough to be surrounded by brilliant, imaginative people.”

You can check out more of CJ’s great work on the Pirate’s Palette site or on their Facebook page. Don’t miss the life-size Delorean with working gull-wing doors!

Yes, PopCap’s beloved match-3 game is finally available on the Nintendo handheld, meaning now you can play Zuma’s Revenge wherever you are, like at the movies, or in class, or on a first date! Okay, actually, those are all bad examples. Please don’t play Zuma’s Revenge on any of those occasions. That would be bad. But any other time is totally okay! The point is that it’s portable now, so you never need to be without Zuma’s Revenge, ever!

So, what do you get in the Zuma’s Revenge DS version? I am glad you asked. Because there is some cool, brand-new stuff for Zuma fans. Here’s what’s inside:

• The complete, original 60-level Adventure mode, in which you must make your way through six island zones, battling ever-tougher tiki bosses along the way.
• Challenge mode: 70 really tough levels guaranteed to make you cry and/or smash your DS with a hammer.
• Iron Frog mode: Beat 10 levels with just one life.
• Daily Dungeon: Exclusive to the DS, spin the Dungeon Slot once every 24 hours to receive a new, random level along with three mini-games. Astro challenges you to survive 10 waves of balls; Blitz (familiar to anyone who’s played Zuma Blitz on Facebook) gives you one minute to get your highest score; and Boss pits you against a random tiki boss.
• Versus mode: Also new for the DS, there are three ways to play against a friend over a wireless network, just like people in the future do! In VS Battle, each player tries to add balls to the other’s chain while trying to eliminate their own. Score Attack is essentially 2-player Zuma Blitz, with each player playing the same level for one minute, with the high score winning. Survival pits the two players on the same level, with the person who lasts the longest winning.

Seriously, this is a great version of Zuma’s Revenge. I’ve played this game on every other platform more than once,  and I’m still happy with this one. And I’d be saying that even if I didn’t work here. I’m just saying it with more words because I do. Go get it! And if you don’t have a Nintendo DS, get one of those too, and then get Zuma’s Revenge! Tell them Jeff sent you! You won’t get a discount, and, in fact, they won’t have any clue who I am or what you’re talking about, but it’ll make me feel important! And that’s what counts!

TL; DR version: Zuma’s Revenge for DS! Out today! Huzzah!

“Oh, you mean Zuma’s Revenge,” I said, and I realized there was a perfectly fine excuse to write another column about my obsession. And to show off my Peacock’s Provocation (not yet fully Aced but all conquered with honors!).

I nearly sat here and spent the morning completing these levels just for a more impressive screenshot. But I probably have other things I should be doing.

So as the name implies, Iron Frog is a very difficult game mode. For one thing, you only get one life to complete all ten levels, and you can’t save your game and come back to it later! You know, like the olden days when you plunked in a quarter and never got past level 1 but kept playing over and over. It’s old-school unforgiving arcade-style goodness, and I love it.

It took me a while to get all the way through this mode, and even though I know now I can beat it, I still feel challenged every time (and I still often burn out on Level 6… it’s a tough one!). So I’ve put some thought into the tips I would offer a dedicated player who is stuck on any particular level in Iron Frog.

Level 1: Ok, I really don’t have much for you. This one’s pretty straightforward. A slog, to be sure, but just do your Zuma thing and save your energy to worry about what’s to come!

Level 2: This may be my personal favorite place for the Lightning power-up, because that curve is long, and it’s just so satisfying to see a huge number of balls clear from all over it all at once. Cannon’s also great, aimed up to the right to cut across all the layers of balls rolling in.  On this level, the number of times the balls curve makes for a daunting obstacle but also a great opportunity for gap shots!

Try to allow your eye to take in the board as a whole (I find this much easier if I play in a smaller window rather than full-screen mode) so you can plan a shot that clears a gap and sets up a subsequent gap shot whenever possible! This is the beauty of the “preview” ball on the frog’s back as well as the option to swap between them if necessary. At the same time, those many layers of curve do mean you won’t have the chance to pick off any combos you set up for long, so immediate rather than long-term planning is the best strategy here. By the time you see the pairs you created coming around again, it may be because they’re heading into the final turn!

Level 3: Try not to let the balls encircle the second lily pad, but if they wind up over there, jump between lily pads as often as needed to take advantage of the biggest combo available at any moment so the balls will suck back together and close big distances. And of course, there’s the exception to that rule, which is if you have a Lightning power-up you can use, let the balls roll out as long as you feel comfortable letting them go so that when you choose your color to detonate it takes out the biggest possible number.

Once the end is nigh, try to remain on the first lily pad until there are no longer any balls on that side, because from that vantage point, you can shoot through the nearer balls to create, yes, gap shots! Gap shot bonuses are a very worthy goal!

With a Lightning power-up in hand (or mouth, I suppose), I allowed the balls to run nearly the full length of the curve just so I could enjoy the blast!

Level 4: This is my favorite one for using a Cannon power-up (the three cannonballs that roll out at once). If I’m not in serious trouble, I’ll aim it straight up into the left corner where the balls are rolling in from, because the tracks are so closely wound at that point you’ll get rid of a huge section at once.

This is a level that starts out a little bit easy… deceptively so. It speeds up very quickly, so don’t let yourself rest even a moment! Once the balls pass beneath you, you will have little chance of beating the level without some seriously fancy frogwork.  But as I always say in Zuma, hope is not lost — remember that you can see power-up balls forming out of the corner of your eye, so you will always instantly know where there is about to be a shot you could use to regain some ground quickly. Cannons, Lightning, Reverse, and Bombs are always worth taking extra steps to trigger. (Accuracy is not helpful enough to risk letting balls get by on a level this nail-biting! And Slow-down is great if I can get to it easily enough, but I won’t sacrifice time or other moves to reach it.)

Level 5: This one’s almost a gimme, like a breather. Just try to keep making matches on both sides quickly enough that the lines of balls never even pass each other; it’s easier than it may sound. (I’ve always suspected this level was deliberately made a little easier to let you rest up for the onslaught that follows.)

Level 6: Try not to make any shots that aren’t matches if you can avoid it, unless you’re setting up combos. (That’s actually good advice in general, but I find levels 6 and 9 move especially fast, making it even more important. Level 9 has the additional nerve-wracking quality of taking the playable area out of range within seconds, barring gap shots.) On 6, the area right in front of you is ripe for matches, combo preparation, and setting up gaps to take advantage of. Most importantly, though, always try to be putting each ball you shoot next to another ball of the same color. Even if it’s not a match now, it’s a match later.

Level 7 is a deadly curve that feels almost easy... because the skull is so slyly hidden away down there. The end comes sooner than you know!

Level 7: This one’s great for gap shots, and all those places where the path of balls crosses over and under itself are perfect for Bomb power-ups, because you can take out more than one section of the curve simultaneously! Be very careful with your aim when you’re shooting into any of the areas where the path overlaps, though, because it’s way too easy to hit the path above or below. Better to just choose shots that avoid those intersections whenever possible. And this winding path is deceptive too — it can reach the end before you even notice, just because it’s so hard to see where it starts and where it will terminate!  Just try to keep on top of the curve.

Level 8: This is a marathon. Try to keep your eyes moving quickly between the two halves of the screen so you can aim in the direction where the matches/gap shots/power-ups are going to clear the biggest path at once, because if you can get one side pretty clear in a quick shot or two, that gives you a few seconds to focus on the bigger challenge on the other side. If you can keep that up as a kind of momentum, knocking down one side then picking at the other until it’s set up for a big blast, then taking that blast and switching your attention back to the first side again, you’ll get through this one.

Level 9: This one is a nightmare, no lie. Take a moment and pause the game as 8 is clearing, because your eyes are probably watering by now, and it’s a good idea to blink a few times before you try to tackle this monster. It’s going to be fast and furious. You’ve got mere moments before the balls are out of shooting range, so just keep plonking blues next to blues, whites next to whites, right-click if you have a shot at a match, but don’t take time to think, or you’re done!

See that? I misplaced a few shots and paused to consider a few others, so all the matches are out of reach, and nothing can save me now.

Once the line of balls stops rolling out, you may be tempted to relax before clearing the last of what’s already on the board, but don’t do it! This is the hardest level in the game, and it will whomp you if you don’t stay on point! Just plug at those last few matches as fast as you can. The only thing more important than speed here is accuracy. No, I got that backwards. No, I was right the first time… the point is, be fast as you can be; you cannot afford to pause for thought on this level! But at the same time, be very judicious with each shot, because you cannot afford more than a few false moves! And never be afraid to throw a ball or two away by shooting it off the bottom of the screen. You need to make each move count, so if there’s no good move to be made, toss away your hand and see what comes up on the next deal!

Then pause the game again before 10 loads, blink some more, take a breath, and settle in for the last trial of Iron Frog.

Level 10: Long and arduous, but not capriciously cruel. You can get this one, if you’ve made it this far. The curves are very tight, so if you are aiming into corners of the triangle path you are likely to miss and wind up breaking up a line of lovely matches waiting to be combo-blasted. For that reason, I recommend aiming into the straight sections of the triangle path. Triangle corners are great for setting up and taking advantage of gap shots, though, so that’s a strong edge you’ve got in this one.

I hope some of that was helpful; if nothing else, it may help to know you’re not alone in obsessing and going white-knuckle on your mouse over this one. Iron Frog is a big challenge, which makes defeating it a big achievement! Have fun, and if you have any tips of your own, share them in the comments below, or better yet, head over to the forums to discuss with other players!