Gamezebo Archives - May 2010

As a developer of both Flash-based Web games and iPhone apps, I have been paying a lot of attention to the growing battle between Apple and Adobe over the future of the Flash platform. Apple would like us to believe that their rejection of the Flash player both for mobile browsing and for App development signals the death of Adobe’s Flash platform. However, in the near term the facts don’t bear this out.

In a statement that one would normally associate with Time Lords, Terminators, or an alternate-1985 Biff Tannen, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has dubbed Apple “the enemy of the future” according to a recent article in The Times. This is in stark contrast to Nintendo’s official position only two months ago, when Nintendo of America’s Cammie Dunaway was quick to point on that the iPhone had little impact on Nintendo’s 2009 US sales.

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include a challenging spacecraft landing, a heavily armed chopper, a new spin on Sudoku and more!

I have a confession to make: some days I’ll wake up and spend the entire day on Wikipedia. When I can’t sleep at night, I pop it up on my iPhone. When I hear about something new, something old, or something completely mundane, the very first thing I do is wiki it. My name is Jim Squires, and I’m a wiki-holic. And Wiki Hunt? Wiki Hunt is a game that’s tailor-made for people like me.

It turns out for most of my life I've been hooking up trains the wrong way. I've been spending all this time hooking them up with phrases and clauses they way they do it down in Conjunction Junction. According to Appstar Games, however, I could've skipped over all that learning mess and just tapped my finger to get the job done. If Conjunction Junction taught us to hook up trains with words, can The Iron Horse hook us up with fun?

Bugs are nasty little critters, but they can also get pretty nasty with each other when the need arises. Squabbling over resources and mounting tensions between rival hives leads to war in BugBits, a real-time strategy game revolving around the insect world and the need to gather nectar to stay alive. Sending out troops to forage for precious nectar, defending your hive from attack, rescuing captured comrades, and mounting assaults on your own on enemy hives grows into an absorbing cycle of fun.

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include a 16-in-1 bundle pack, an ice cream service simulation, some intense hockey action and more!

Have you ever wanted to take up the deadly arts, but were too busy watching TV? Or wanted to combine your love of Houdini and hexagons, but could never find the proper outlet? Maybe you should be a Slackninja! Or a Mathemagician! Fantasy University is an upcoming Facebook fantasy RPG that doesn’t seem to take itself too seriously, offering a nice change of pace from all of the demons and dragons we’re usually fighting.

When they recently acquired Bungie, the famed developer behind the Xbox-exclusive Halo franchise, Activision clearly had its sights set on taking Bungie’s next title to as many consoles as it could. What we weren’t expecting to hear, however, was that one of those consoles might be the iPhone or the iPad. But it looks like that’s exactly where it might be headed.

When it comes to role-playing games on the iPhone, titles tend to feature production values that mimic the era of the SNES and Sega Genesis. That said, it's not surprising that Square-Enix is pushing the genre forward to the next level, given the company's history with producing critically-praised and groundbreaking RPGs. The recently-released Chaos Rings proves that not only is the iPhone capable of delivering a modern Final Fantasy-like game experience, but it can do so beautifully.

Free games are all around us, but they may not be as easy to find as you’d think. We help you sort through the App Store to find the latest price drops and limited time offers so that you won’t have to spend a penny. Today’s free games include some pocket gardening, two instances of monster matching goodness, a circus adventure and more!

Welcome to the Escape the Lost Kingdom walkthrough on Gamezebo. Escape the Lost Kingdom is an adventure/hidden object game played on a PC or Mac created by Gogii. This walkthrough includes tips and tricks, helpful hints, and a strategy guide on how to complete Escape the Lost Kingdom.

Welcome to the walkthrough for Puzzle Bots on Gamezebo. Puzzle Bots is an adventure game for PC from Wadjet Eye Games. This walkthrough includes tips and tricks, helpful hints, and a strategy guide on how to complete Puzzle Bots.

Earlier this week our very own Joel Brodie took a look at some recent moves by Zynga and made a bold prediction: the social gaming giant might be leaving Facebook. Only 3 days out from Joel’s article, evidence has started to surface that backs up his prediction. An anonymous source has told TechCrunch in an email that Zynga is looking to launch its own social network independent of Facebook, Zynga Live.

Do you like Facebook? How about daytime television? How about ...Plinko? If you answered yet to any of these questions, then come on down! You’re the next contestant on The Price is Right!

Life in Roman time was hard, and nobody knows that as well as Marcus. As a former Centurion Marcus must tend the fields, visit the market -- and deal with cold-hearted revenge. Race to Rome is an upcoming online racing game that pits chariot against chariot as Marcus sets out to protect the one thing that matters most: his family.

While smart readers such as yourself learn about new Facebook games right here on Gamezebo, the vast majority of Facebook gamers rely on little more than advertising to inform them of what’s new. Companies like Zynga and Playfish can afford to spend millions on advertising, and can also rely on their already popular games to provide exposure for their latest releases. Sticking a banner for Treasure Isle in FarmVille, for example, let’s Zynga advertise its newest game to 80 million players already in their demographic. Smaller developers just can’t compete on that scale. Applifier, a new service created by a select group of developers, is looking to rectify that.

Who wouldn't want an adorable little robot of their own? Thankfully, Dr. Hugo's Factory for Making Robots is here to help. The company makes cute little mechanical companions of all sorts, from robotic mermaids to walking flamethrowers. But something is not quite right with Dr. Hugo, so the robots take it upon themselves to find out just what's going on. In Wadjet Eye's Puzzle Bots you'll get to control a gang of five robots as they search the factory, solving puzzles and getting into trouble. The result is an incredibly charming adventure, packed with plenty of humor and some deviously clever puzzles.

Sword & Poker 2 is a role-playing card game developed by GAIA for the iPhone. This quick start guide will provide you with tips to get started playing Sword & Poker 2. The mechanics of this game are similar to that of its predecessor, Sword & Poker, so if you’d like to learn how to play the first game, this guide will work just as well.

This Mother’s Day, don’t buy mom flowers or make pancakes. Buy her games. Download companies are joining in with deep discounts of 30% to 75% off of games, at such web sites as iWin, Big Fish Games, GameHouse, Sandlot Games, and Steam. Also worth checking out is the Humble Indie Game Bundle where you pick the price to pay for games and raise money for charity (cool idea).