Village Gamer

Cell Bound, the latest iOS device game from Hothead Games is available now in the iTunes App Store, and for just 99 cents, you can pick up a simple and addictive puzzle matching game that players in control of an important piece of science equipment – a sterile culture dish. Unfortunately, as soon as the dish is in the player’s hands it is subjected to contamination from a constant bombardment of colored cell structures.

To save the scientific sample, players have to spin the dish around using on-screen controls, catching and matching different colored cell structures as they drop into the field of play. Link five or more of the same color and cause the cells to burst and vanish before they can contaminate the whole dish. Burst more chains at a faster rate to score more points.

Cell Bound has three different game modes to play, plus Game Center support:

• Infinite Mode: The main mode, colored cells drop towards the center and explode when 5 like colors are connected. All of the cells can be burst using the smart bomb trigger in the center of the dish. More smart bombs can be accrued by racking up points.
• Timer Mode: Gain as many points as possible in 1:30 minutes. There are no smart bombs, and for every 1,200 points, one more second is added to the timer.
• Burst Mode: Cells that connect and are not the same color turn black and inert, obstructing the new cells.

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Collect shiny gems raining down from the sky, but beware of lurking sea monsters, all while playing four exciting mini-games – in tvokids.com’s The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay.

TVOKids.com continues to lead the way in teacher-approved, kid-tested fun with the launch of its new online educational game that was developed in close collaboration with students from a Toronto community school. The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay, which launches today on the TVO Kids web site, is an online board game that can be played by one to four players on the same computer – perfect for families.

Built from the ground up, over a one-and-a-half year period, game developers and educators from tvokids.com worked with a group of 10 children, aged five to seven, to incorporate their ideas and preferences into an exciting and challenging game. Not only is it adjustable for different skill levels, but The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay finely balances a mysteriously fun game while reinforcing the Ontario school curriculum.

The tvokids.com team began by building a life-sized physical board game and workshopped it with kids to determine the best way to make the educational elements of the game really come alive.

Players select one of six unique characters and compete to collect the most gems by playing four types of mini-games. Each game is designed to help kids with adding (Nice Dice), patterning (Ball Fall), geometry (Shape Escape), and spelling (Word Herd). The game’s adventurous setting incorporates suggestions from kids to add hidden passageways, top-secret trapdoors and wonderful surprises.

“The Mysteries of Lagoon Bay is the result of a collaborative effort between kids and tvokids.com – we really listened to what they liked in their favourite games and tried to pack as much as we could in this game,” says manager of tvokids.com Marie Morency-Lee. “When we showed the kids the final game, they were excited and screaming, ‘This was my idea!’. The game is a great tool to practice math and language concepts while having a blast playing with friends and family.”

New Brunswick indie studio On The Fly Entertainment has announced the launch of the studio’s first Xbox Live Indie Games release, math-based puzzle fighter Sum Fighter. Choose from one of six high school archetypes, use their unique abilities to bury your opponents and rise to the top of the school math competition.

To crush your opponent, rapidly add numbers to destroy blocks on your board and drop them into your opponent’s board. To destroy your blocks, you must drag adjacent blocks together, combining their face values. Once you’ve connected as many groups together as their face value the blocks disappear (players would connect five groups of the value 5 to destroy them or two groups of the value 2 and so on). The first player whose blocks reach and stay at the top for ten seconds loses. Our narrated tutorial steps the player through our mechanics before their first match.

Each character has their own path through story mode with their own unique character interactions and ending. The Jock, Nerd, Emo, Tagger, Principal and Librarian each have a unique ability they can unleash on their opponent, in order to be crowned the Sum Fighter Champion!

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Sum Fighter Features:

• A fully animated intro
• A narrated tutorial
• 2 Player vs Mode and Story Mode
• 6 Animated characters at a gorgeous 720p
• 6 Character Endings
• 8 Expertly composed and varied music tracks

Sum Fighter is available now on Xbox Live Indie Games for 240 Microsoft Points.

Independent development studio Chaotic Box has launched its latest mobile game title to the iTunes Store. Match Panic challenges the tap skills of iOS gamers as they race to beat the clock and level up in order to increase their score multiplier as they tap madly to match the game pieces. Power-ups help blast players through each challenge to the next level, each more difficult than the previous.

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Unlock a dozen cute pixel characters and compete with friends on 5 Game Center Leaderboards. For the ultimate player challenge, there are 9 Game Centre Achievements for the taking. Match Panic is available for 99 cents USD and is rated 4+. This game is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad devices running iOS 3.1.3 or later.

Summer 2011 will see two new titles on many platforms coming from the Ludia game studios. The first announcement comes from Ludia Inc. and FremantleMedia Enterprises, who announced today that Hole In The Wall will be available worldwide exclusively for Kinect™ on the Microsoft Xbox 360^® and will be available for purchase from Xbox LIVE Arcade. Based on the global television game show phenomenon, Hole In The Wall is one of the trickiest, fastest and funniest games on the planet where agility and a hearty sense of humor are essential tools to survive.

Players must contort their bodies to fit through bizarrely shaped holes in themed moving walls hurtling towards them. Competitors attempt to clear the walls in order to boost their scores, or risk being swept away into a pool of water. Hole In The Wall will also incorporate online play, single and multiplayer game modes, as well as image captures of the outlandish player movements performed within the game and hilarious bonus videos from the TV show.

“Ludia is thrilled to create an immersive, controller-free Hole In The Wall game play experience that is perfectly suited to leverage Microsoft Kinect technology,” said Alex Thabet, Founder and CEO of Ludia Inc. “This first title is just the beginning of Ludia games for Kinect on Xbox 360, and serves to further reinforce our multiplatform game strategy.”

“The Hole In The Wall television show has been highly successful in dozens of countries worldwide, so we are very pleased to work with Ludia to extend the franchise to Microsoft’s Xbox 360, said Olivier Delfosse, Director, Interactive, FremantleMedia Enterprises, licensor for Hole In The Wall. “We are sure that fans of the show and wider audiences alike will enjoy partaking in a fresh and exciting new Hole In The Wall experience.”

The second development announcement came from Ludia and Mark Burnett’s One Three Television LLC. The development studio will publish games based on the multiple-award winning Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader?® TV game show. The North America-wide, multi-year will result in games for Facebook and mobile platforms including iPhone™, iPod touch™ and iPad™.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to create Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader? games for the millions of people that play games on Facebook and mobile devices,” said Alex Thabet, Founder and CEO of Ludia Inc. “This new license helps amplify the Ludia portfolio of game show games, which has been a highly successful category for us and one we believe has strong on-going potential across platforms.”

The Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader? games will feature the favorite game play elements of the television show as contestants vie to earn money by answering trivia questions from a set of ten grade school subjects in a quest to earn the top prize. The games will also incorporate real-time multiplayer competition as well as other unique social features that will result in high dynamic and entertaining game play experiences.

“We are pleased to add Ludia as a licensee to our Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader? licensing program. We look forward to working with them on 5^th Grader games for social media and mobile platforms,” said Mark Burnett. “We are thrilled to see the franchise thrive so that fans of the show and wider audiences alike can enjoy their very own Are You Smarter Than A 5^th Grader? game experiences.”

Toronto studio March Entertainment has released its first Android game to the Marketplace. The bubble-popping puzzler Cranky Cat is a free to try title, with more levels available through in-app purchasing. There are more than 250 hand-crafted levels in Story and Puzzle modes, as well as three variations of “infinite” mode. A free demo can be played on the official Cranky Cat website. An Apple iOS (iPad, iPhone and iPod touch) version will arrive in the coming weeks, as well as full online and downloadable versions.

Fast-paced and addictive, the game features a cantankerous Victorian-era cat trying to create a youth elixir by condensing chemical compounds in a steam-powered centrifuge. Cranky Cat is March’s first game not tied to an existing intellectual property, and marks the company’s foray into “pure” casual gaming just for the fun of it. Cranky Cat is OpenFeint-enabled and was built in the Unity game engine, another first for March Entertainment, which has previously built games primarily in Flash, such as The Great Canadian Trivia Shootout and Dex Hamilton’s Bug Quest.

Last month the studio’s groundbreaking web-to-TV animated comedy series Chilly Beach became available in the U.S. for the first time on Hulu and the Hulu Plus subscription service, via a deal with distributor Duopoly. Originally produced for the CBC, Chilly Beach ran over three seasons and garnered a large and enthusiastic following through a combination of broadcast play and the property’s dynamic, interactive website.

Along with Chilly Beach, two original series-related movies released after the TV series, The World is Hot Enough and The Canadian President are also available on Hulu and Hulu Plus. The series and movies are viewable for free on Hulu.com to U.S. viewers.

“Chilly Beach was the first web-to-TV series in Canada and we are delighted to launch this flagship comedy franchise to U.S. audiences for the first time on Hulu,” said Catherine Tait, President of Duopoly. “We’ve seen impressive viewership numbers for great Canadian series like Odd Job Jack on Hulu and believe it is a valuable option for producers seeking to monetize their content in the U.S.”

Flew The Coop is a very simple game with very simple mechanics featuring auto-run and 2D retro-styled graphics. This pick up and play title was developed by Jason Kaplan and Damian Sommer, with Troy Morrisey and Ryan Cox of Darc Productions providing the sound and music.

The premise of this game is to help the renegade chicken avoid the Farmer in his attempts to run away from the farm. You do this by jumping on other farm animals – pigs offer a little extra bounce to chicken-powered flight, by the way. Some quick thinking strategy and running across hay bales or jumping on crows to reach the barn roof will get you to the weather vanes, which can help to propel the renegade chicken beyond the reach of the fun spoiling Farmer.

It is necessary to jump the other farm animals, because running into them is not good for your health and slows you down. Simply tap the screen for a quick jump or hold your finger down for a longer flight – sometimes a longer flight is needed, so time your taps carefully. Your success in Flew The Coop is measured in the distance you covered before being nabbed by the Farmer, and the faster you run, the more ground you’ll cover. Unless you run into the Farmer, that is.

Flew The Coop is available now on iTunes for 99 cents USD, supports Game Centre and is rated 4+. The game is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.0 or later. I can attest to it working on a 2nd gen iPod Touch with the current operating system. The developers may port the title over to Android, WP7, and possibly XBLIG, Steam, or the Mac App Store in the future.

The dev team over at TransGaming Studios, the creative group who brought you Garage Inc., have been tormenting me for weeks now with hints and images from their upcoming title Kula Blox. I have yet to figure out just exactly how this game is played, but I think it involves some type of match play – or maybe it involves tilt play (which means I’m pretty well toast before I begin), and I know it involves several characters from the animal kingdom. These are the details I have so far – some are from the game’s sell-sheet and others are pure conjecture.

While free-falling through exotic locales, you have to fight your way to the top of the Food Chain. In a total oxymoron, your game avatar becomes faster while growing bigger as you consume more and more enemies. Apparently your avatar – and I’m presuming that you will take on the appearance of one of the animals in the game – must consume enough enemies who are lower on the food chain than you are, in order to become big enough to defeat enemies who are higher up on the food chain than you. The developers have also provided special powers for each character and pick-ups to assist you with this task. Those who reach the top of the food chain will be recognized for their world supremacy on the Leaderboard as well as player achievements.

Kula Blox will launch directly to iOS devices, GameTree TV, Mac and PC with three geographical map areas, each with several levels to play through. The Jungle, The Savannah and The Forest will each feature its own set of unique characters, with more maps, levels, predators and prey coming in future updates. This game is rated E for everyone and will be available in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

There will also be the option to make in-game purchases of items such as the previously-mentioned power-ups, and possibly other types of upgrades, but I don’t know what they will be, because they won’t tell me. Not a nice thing to do to a Gemini. I’ll get my revenge at Casual Connect in Seattle, though. I have more than a month to plot and ponder, which is only slightly different from pillage and plunder. However, now that the studio knows I’m plotting, maybe they will defeat my evil plans and release the game before Casual Connect Seattle, although the game is slated for a Summer 2011 launch, and summer doesn’t technically begin until the final day of Casual Connect.

In the meantime though, TransGaming’s Managing Director Wojtek Kawczynski is currently wandering the floor at E3. If you see him, feel free to accost him for me and pry some game details out of him – or ask to borrow his iPad, because he’s carrying the game around with him, and TransGaming did announce on Twitter that they were putting the finishing touches on Kula Blox prior to E3. Once you have completed your mission, send the details to me and I will reward you with a very big cookie.

zuluMe is a mobile social network that gives you and up to ten of your closest friends a level of privacy and interaction that you will not find anywhere else, except in the real world. This new app, created by Vancouver-based digital media entrepreneur (and one of my all-around favourite digital media ladies) Lynda Brown-Ganzert, is designed to put the “social” back into social networking.

“People are beginning to wrestle with digital identity concerns and privacy issues in the social networking sphere. They want to connect in a greater way with the people closest to them,” says Brown. “zuluMe is designed so people can use their devices to build more meaningful and intimate experiences.”

The design is based on how human beings operate and connect in real life, with features that differentiate it from any other app on the market. It is the only completely private network that allows users to update and share moods in real-time, send gifts, dedicate songs by emerging artists, post polls, chat as a group, take photos, update locations, and more, all with the help of a personalized avatar.

The current trend of mobile social networks, while they allow you to connect with a large number of people all over the world, do not allow for more intimate interaction with the people that matter most. In the past few years, there has been a profound shift in the way people communicate. Social networking is a great way to share information, but there is a growing desire for a greater level of connection within that sphere.

This app was born out of a simple idea: The people closest to you, who matter most, you want to know what they’re doing and how they’re feeling, all the time.

zuluMe has retained this simplicity in its digital identity. Unlike other mega-social networking tools, it is more image than text-based. So, when you update your mood, the look of your avatar and profile changes, and friends can respond according to that change. It is modeled according to how people would respond to those changes in a real face-to-face interaction.

zuluMe is a novel (and fun) way for people to connect with those they care about the most. It is now available, and free for a limited time (June 8th – 17th), on the iTunes store and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.2.2 or later.

Vancouver studio Renown Entertainment has released its latest free to play ad-supported casual title to the iTunes store and Facebook. Ball Hop Bowling is a digital version of the arcade skill-testing game that requires players to get a ball into the centre ring by rolling the ball over a ramp, landing it in one of the rings to rack up points.

Ball Hop Bowling features high definition, retina display graphics and is Game Centre-enabled. Players can redeem their prizes in the game’s shop, as well as remove the ads by purchasing an upgrade for $1.99 USD. Some of the top in-app purchases include extended time and extra prize tickets.

Renown will be releasing free content updates, as well as premium content. Ball Hop Bowling is rated 4+ and is compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, 3rd and 4th generation iPod Touch and iPad/iPad 2 devices running iOS 4.0 or later.

Renown also developed Waves: Survivor for iDevices and Facebook, and is currently working on a Triple A title in Unity called Project Rift. A release date for Project Rift has not yet been announced. Waves: Survivor is currently (at the time of this writing) on sale for 50% off in the iTunes Store, priced at 99 cents USD. Help Johnny Calm survive the epic ocean waves with your Paddle, Jump, Attack and Collect skills for as many days as possible.