Category Archives: Casual

And in news from Over The Pond, the Australian Bureau of Statistics have created an iOS game that brings together the city simulator genre with actual Census data. Who needs to control a mythical town, when you can control an actual town mythically?!

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Rovio’s latest free addition to Angry Birds Seasons looks like a lot of fun for fans of long-fall boots, if you know what I mean.

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Not content with an animated TV series, Rovio has signed a deal with Sony Pictures to bring Angry Birds to the silver screen.

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Rovio has announced Rovio Account, which allows users store your game progress and continue playing games on another device. This will allow you to continue playing on your tablet once you get home from the office and have put your mobile away. It also works for homes with multiple users on one device. So far, the new feature is available in The Croods game globally, and in the classic Angry Birds game on iOS in Finland and Poland. Rovio Account will gradually be introduced into more areas in the future along with new features.

As the App Store heads towards the magical 50 billion download figure, Apple has released a list of the top 50 apps of all time – both paid and free.

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Facebook gaming showed positive growth in the first quarter, but long term partner Zynga wasn’t a contributor to this success.

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Check out Drop, a neat little browser-based game from Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson.

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Zynga reported its Q1 earnings today, posting net income of $4.1 million compared to the $85.4 million loss the prior year. Still, not all is rosy in social gamesville, as sale fell 18% to $264 million.

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Brenna is never, ever going to give PopCap any money for Solitaire Blitz, and has no idea if this makes her part of the problem, or the solution.

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Electronic Arts CCO Richard Hilleman believes video games aren’t mass market yet, with the closest medium to reach the sector being the social and mobile space.

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The award-winning Little Inferno – a fireplace sim slash critique of microtransaction culture – has sold 250,000 units across all platforms. The pretty hilarious litle gem is available digitally for iOS, PC and Wii U; it was one of the first indies on the Wii U’s eShop. Little Inferno won a technical excellence award at this year’s IGF.

Thanks, Destructoid.

PlayFirst has announced that Tom Hall has joined the company as a principal designer.

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No, you’ve probably never heard of it, but in Japan Million Arthur is a big deal. Siliconera reports Square Enix is sensibly porting this phenomenally successful card battler from smartphones to Vita, and bringing it to Korea, too. It will join a number of free-to-play Vita games available for Asian markets. Let’s hope it helps Square Enix climb out of its financial hole; it’s attracted over 1 million users since launching in April last year.

ZyngaPlusPoker and ZyngaPlusCasino will launch in the UK on April 3. GamesIndustry reports the two apps, the first of Zynga’s real-money gambling efforts, will be available for web and as downloadable clients, with Facebook and mobile versions also touted. Zynga is also pushing for real-money gambling games in the US, and the move is sort of the great white hope for the social and casual publisher since its Facebook revenue began drying up.

Thanks to a Eurogamer preview, we have some details about Tenya Wanya Teens, the new game from Katamari damacy creator Keita Takahashi and long-time Namco compose Asuka Sakai. The game’s custom controller has 16 buttons which change colour thanks to LEDs, and players have to keep track of what colour does what – and where that colour is, as they move around mid-game. Mistakes can be dire, such as accidentally peeing all over your love interest instead of making a move. It’s probably not going to get a commercial release thanks to the custom controller, which is a shame.

Despite the suspicious timing, it seems Telltale isn’t kidding – it’s secretly produced a sequel to 2010′s Poker Night at the Inventory, starring Claptrap from Borderlands; Ash Williams from Army of Darkness; Brock Samson from The Venture Bros; Sam from Sam & Max; and even Portal’s GlaDOS.

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Gameloft has nabbed the rights to Iron Man 3 and produced an endless flyer for Android and iDevice. The licensed spin-off arrives on both mobile platforms on April 25. Check out a trailer through the break.

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Although Ouya’s Kickstarter backers will be receiving their consoles in April, everyone else will be able to buy the thing on June 4, we learned today. That date is good for the UK and North America. It will cost, as you know, £99/$99. Tonight is Ouya’s launch party; hopefully we can avoid scandals this time.

MCV magazine is apparently reporting that last week sales of Wii U systems rose 125 percent. The last two weeks have been eventful for the console, as it saw the release of Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, and on Monday HMV began clearing out its stock by offering the Premium Wii U sets with Nintendo Land and ZombiU bundled for £199 — £45 cheaper than the nearest competitor.

Thanks, Nintendo Life

Launched last November on Sony’s service and made free a month later, Halfbrick’s Jetpack Joyride has hit the 2-million download mark, according to Joystiq. The game is wildly popular on all platforms; on Google Play it’s been downloaded more than ten million times. This is a good sign for Sony, because it means folks are actually using PlayStation Mobile, which is accessible on the PS Vita and Sony phones.