Gamezebo Archives - May 2010

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 trip into space, a meatball memory competition, a sad jellyfish and more!

Gamasutra has an interesting interview with Brian Reynolds, chief game designer at Zynga. Brian Reynolds is a veteran in game design and previously worked on such core strategy games as Civilization II and Rise of Nations. The interview delves into the culture shock and design differences between traditional video games and social games, and debates the importance of the social vs the fun factor in game design for social games.

Escape the Lost Kingdom, the new hidden object adventure from Gogii, is a game with a twist: It's the first-ever casual game to include 3D game levels and animations. But there's a lot more to it than just an extra dimension, as a well-rounded blend of hidden object scenes and entertaining minigames come together to make a game that would be very good even without the need for groovy cardboard glasses.

Social gaming is so clone-happy at the moment that even seeing a new motif applied to a familiar genre can be refreshing. Birdland plays identically to your average aquarium sim, but you raise cute birds in an expansive cage instead of dainty fish in a fantasy tank. I get the feeling Zynga is going to be watching this game’s growth very closely over the next few months, to see if it needs to go register a trademark for BirdVille.

If you're a fan of hidden object games, chances are good that you've come to view hints as a last resort to get you through a particularly frustrating part of the game, be it that one object you just can't seem to find or a puzzle that you can't quite crack. In Eternity, however, using hints is a necessity because without them, you'll frequently find yourself dumbfounded as to what you're supposed to do next.

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 the return of an 80’s hidden gem, a brand new farming experience, a multiplayer trivia game and more!

Just so we’re clear from the beginning – Linkin Park: 8-Bit Rebellion is a licensed property of a real band used as inspiration for a fictitious setting in an iPhone video game, which is also a schizophrenic mash-up of the fleetingly hip 8-bit graphics craze. If this isn’t meta, then I don’t know what is.

Within every hard-boiled detective beats a warm and sentimental heart, which is why Anton Muller is following up on strange note he found in Little Noir Stories: The Case of the Missing Girl. A single photograph with a shadowy figure in a window isn't much to go on, but what Anton lacks in leads he makes up for in determination, instinct, and sheer bullheadedness.

When the programmers behind Bejeweled 2 designed the game back in 2004, they had never thought a player could possibly reach a score of 2,147,482,575. That’s why they set it as the maximum possible score. Steel contractor Mike Leyde proved PopCap wrong, becoming the first person to ‘beat’ Bejeweled 2.

If you read about Steve Jobs and Apple anywhere online in the past few weeks, you’ll know two things. One, if you find a device in a bar that looks like a future iPhone prototype, don’t take it and sell it to Gawker. Two, Steve Jobs really does not seem to like Flash.

If you took a life simulation, a la The Sims, and dropped it into a blender with a copy of a time management game, such as Diner Dash, you'd end up with Life Quest, the latest from Big Fish Games that proves to be a charming (but not challenging) digital diversion for your mouse-clicking finger.

Gogii goes 3D with it’s new hidden object adventure, Escape the Lost Kingdom. You can download a free trial, write a review, and discuss the game in our forum now. Be sure to follow the game with alerts to be notified when our review, guides, and your user tips are updated.

Also, go to our Facebook page, scroll down to the CONTEST entry, and tell us which casual game you would like to see remade in 3D. We’re going to pick 5 winners at random on Monday to win a copy of the game. If you have not already, become a fan of Gamezebo on Facebook by clicking the “LIKE” button on the top of this page (it’s that easy!)

Welcome to the Nanotowns Walkthrough on Gamezebo! Nanotowns is a real town Simulation game created by Digital Chocolate and played on Facebook. This walkthrough includes tips and tricks, helpful hints, and a strategy guide to get your best score on Nanotowns. This guide will be updated as the game changes in addition to weekly updates located at the lower right side of the screen so be sure to check back frequently.

Most recent hidden object games have tried to switch up the formula a bit, adding new twists and features to the well-worn genre. But that's not the case with Cruise Clues: Caribbean Adventure, which is instead about as straightforward as a HOG can get. It's a strictly linear experience, with an underdeveloped story and a few generic mini-games holding it all together.

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 planet-hopping hero, a pole-jumping platformer, a super fast ninja and more!