Passionfruit Games

New development studio Passionfruit Games plans to release a casual adventure game Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, based on the paramornal romance novel Tiger Eye by Marjorie M. Liu. Romance games are a wildly popular genre in Asia, but in the US, they’re hard to find and usually pretty second-rate games.  (Did I mention how bad My Boyfriend was?) We have high hopes for this one because new Passionfruit is made up of many HER Interactive veterans — the game team who put together Nancy Drew Dossier: Lights, Camera, Curses! and NDD: Resorting To Danger.  The game is currently in beta.

From the Passionfruit press release:

Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box also officially marks the launch of PassionFruit Games and represents a unique moment in the history of gaming.  Although a market for romance themed video games has existed abroad for years, these games are essentially unknown in the U.S.  Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box will be one of the first romance casual games to hit the U.S. market when it goes on-sale in April 2010.

In discussing PassionFruit Games’ decision to launch their company with Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box, Melissa Heidrich, Studio Director, expressed her enthusiasm for reaching out to romance readers: “The majority of casual gamers are women aged 25-65, who report they play casual games mainly to escape.  Interestingly, those same attributes apply to romance novel readers – so it’s surprising that there are currently so few romance casual games on the market.  That’s why we’re excited to bring Tiger Eye to life as interactive entertainment.”

For Marjorie M. Liu’s fans, it will be a great chance for them to experience a game written by, designed by, and created for women. Mari Tokuda, one of the designers translating Marjorie’s novel into game form, says: ““There just aren’t many romance games in today’s market.  And, for many women, romance novels are not interactive enough.  That’s where we come in – we are giving players a chance to experience the romance through fun gameplay and sensual cut scenes that further the relationship.  This game will really appeal to players who want a storyline and those who want to BE the smart, down-to-earth romance novel heroine.  And of course, we’ll have a sexy leading man heavily featured in the game.  A game like Tiger Eye is one of the most engaging ways for readers to experience characters’ relationships.”

Fans will also be able to experience things that weren’t in the book and to search for hidden objects, play minigames, listen to a film quality soundtrack, and solve puzzles, all the while following the storyline as the main characters’ relationship deepens emotionally and grows in intimacy, though there will not be explicit sex scenes.

PassionFruit Games acknowledges the challenges of turning a popular book into digital entertainment and of adhering closely to the book’s storyline.  In their quest to stay true to the novel,  all members of the team—from artist to programmer—read Tiger Eye, as well as other novels in the Dirk & Steele universe, to get a feel for the “essence” of the game.  The producer and lead designer held regular video conferences with Marjorie to go over the latest design ideas and Marjorie herself wrote the script for the game and is involved with the game every step of the way,  giving input on scene art, character design, and voice actor selection.

Says Marjorie, who is well known for her New York Times bestselling Dirk & Steele and Hunter Kiss series and for co-authoring the hugely popular Dark Wolverine Marvel comic book series, about playing the game’s early build: “I was amazed by the beautiful cinematic cut scenes and the way players could actually experience things my characters had done.  It’s an incredible feeling to not only see favorite characters brought to life but to experience life through their eyes as you progress through the game.”

The Tiger Eye novel, which Publishers Weekly praised as a “first-rate debut” and “a striking paranormal romance,” tells the story of Dela, a woman with psychic abilities who buys a riddle box in Beijing’s Dirt Market and opens it to find an ancient warrior, Hari, bound to serve as a slave to the person who has opened the box.  The action moves between China and the U.S. and PassionFruit Games will mirror this international scope through two games, the first to take place in China and the second in the U.S.  PassionFruit games also plans to involve readers in the release of Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box with the chance for a select few fans to be Beta testers and with fan voting on looks for the character, Long Nu.

More on Passionfruit Games and Tiger Eye: Curse of the Riddle Box from Simpson’s Paradox.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Do Tell

The new party game DoTell sets up simple rules for a social game of truth-or-dare. Players race a simple spiral path, moving ahead for completed tasks, but I use “race” loosely, since the focus is on the journey, not the destination. (Quick sidenote: Play makes use of clear icons that didn’t rely on distinguishing between colors or, my personal game hate, squinting at tiny symbols. I’m looking at you, Magic:The Gathering.)

We quickly came up with game mods, swapping the game’s two six-sided dice for two four-sided dice to regulate movement. Even through Do Tell is not very competitive, the variation in 2d6 for movement can frustrate the player who rolls a 3 early on and never catches up.

The game offers eight pastel tokens, but it’s easy to add a mancala gem or a Monopoly boat to mod it for a larger group. Do Tell is so interactive that it works well with a large group, and each turn is independent of what’s gone before, so it’s a perfect choice to begin with on game night as you wait for guests to arrive.

Tell cards ask players to answer a questions and share something (The DoTell Facebook page offers a list of possible questions), and players quickly begin to share stories and laugh.

Do cards ask a player to sing a song, do an impression, dance, pose or act something out. These were a hit with strangers and long-term partners alike. Other players loved dancing or singing along, or just clapping after performance.  One Do asks the player to be the devil preparing his to-do list, which is a fantastic chance to see if your friends would plan plagues and worldwide floods, or just legions of telemarketers and poorly designed parking lots.

A Mirror question has one player asking a Tell, instead of answering, and all the other players try to figure out what he or she would answer.  When we started playing, Mirror questions slowed the game to a crawl, as players who didn’t know each other fumbled for some innocuous answer to a soul-baring Tell.  But after a little while, answers to other questions made it easier and easier to guess. For a group of long-time friends, the Mirrors were hilarious.

The official rules for Mirror questions have a note that some Tells don’t make very good Mirrors, so they should be skipped. No legalese about how they should be skipped, no tiny icons in the corner of the cards to let know which ones should be skipped. We think this refers to the Tells that ask the player to draw a Risk or a Do, but we really liked this rule. Think this is a bad Mirror? Draw again! This is exactly what we were looking for in a party game.

On my second playthrough, we opened up the, ahem, adult Risk cards, glanced at them, and added house rules.  Take a spicy Risk instead of a regular Risk at any time, but it can be swapped for a regular Risk if it’s too risque. Don’t like the card you’ve drawn? Swap any underwhelming Tell or too-wild Do for the next spicy Risk! (You can also get the Family Version for Spicy-free play, or just put those cards away when you have the fam over to play)

With the exception of one reference to American Idol, DoTell does not require pop culture knowledge (my one complaint with usual party games like Cranium or Apples to Apples is the number of celebrities I don’t know), but feel free to work random trivia or favorite songs into other questions.

Overall, this is a hilarious social game. Sure, you can race to the center, but the real focus is on laughing with friends.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Game Review: Cake Mania 3

I have a new review of Cake Mania 3 up over at Casual Gamer Chick.

Cake Mania 3 is an adorable time-management game for the Nintendo DS. Jill, our heroine from Sandlot Games’ PC versions of the Cake Mania imprint, is cheerfully preparing for her wedding day when she accidentally breaks a time-bender (I suppose it was wedding decor), and sends herself and her loved ones off through space and time, only to be saved through extensive cake baking! Jill must rescue her displaced friends and family, repair the time-bender and make it back for her wedding – all by making and decorating cakes.

Once Jill lands in a new location and sets up her bakery (“Oh look,“ Jill notices, “My oven works in ancient China! That’s not weird at all!”), the top screen is used for progress stats, like time spent and money earned, and icons of waiting customers. The bottom screen is Jill’s bakery. Players send Jill rushing from oven to customer with a tap of the stylus. A checkmark appears over the future actions in Jill’s queue so you can easily keep track of what she’s doing. Tap the checkmark to remove a planned action from Jill’s to-do list.

Read the rest of my Cake Mania 3 review over on Casual Gamer Chick.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Game Review: My Boyfriend

I was way too excited for the new My Boyfriend game. I anticipated all the fun of Sim dating, plus my favorite guilty pleasure (changing my avatar’s clothes every five minutes), without all that tedious eating and sleeping and meter-watching of actual Sims. I really wanted to like it. I wasn’t lying in angry-feminist wait for objectionable themes, I wanted to blog about frothy dialogue, cute outfits and imaginary boyfriends.

But it was awful.

The game opens with you and your best friend arriving at a resort full of  fun activities and hot guys! Unfortunately, the dialogue is stilted, partly because it’s EFL, and partly because I hoped for witty banter. There’s a lot of clicking ok, only “ok” is an awkward agreement. The dialogue was so awkward that I couldn’t always tell who was supposed to be an attractive possible friend and who was a mean girl to be thwarted with my killer wits. I could tell which guys were potential boyfriends, though, because the minor NPCs only had one line to say.

As you walk around the resort, white stars appear over activatable items, and you have the option to participate in different resort activities. Whether you choose to relax in the sun, rent waterskiis, or swim in the pool, you don’t play a minigame or even watch a little cutscene animation. You watch a clock tick. I’m not exaggerating. You watch a pink clock tick. Um, when does the fun start?

Other activities do involve minigames. These are activated by talking to an NPC. I’m usually a big fan of minigames (see also: all my recent hidden objects game reviews), but these minigames were awful. AWFUL. We’re talking incomprehensible directions, repetitive gameplay and bizarrely uneven difficultly levels. For Step Aerobics, you need to click the right color in the right order five times to complete level one. For Kareoke, you need to click the right color at the right time FORTY EIGHT times to complete level one. Wait, one is more difficult than the next by a factor of ten?

Your character can also experiment with makeup, but the extremely limited choices forbade either adorable looks or hilarious fashion trainwrecks. (If you think makeup doesn’t lend itself well to a videogame, check out the facial minigame in Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting To Danger for a makeup game done right, or Sims 3 for recreational avatar decoration.)

I really wanted to like My Boyfriend, but we have to break up. This just isn’t working out.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Game Review: Women’s Murder Club

James Patterson’s Women’s Murder club has been a successful series of novels, a TV show and a series of casual mystery PC games before coming to the DS. The new Women’s Murder Club: Games of Passion seems designed for a casual DS gamer to tuck her into her purse, instead of a Patterson mystery novel. Most of WMC is played with the DS turned sideways, using the read-only screen to display a list of objects to find, instructions, or images to accompany the action in the interactive screen, which creates a book-like format for more of an interactive novel feel.

WMC follows the usual pattern of story cutscenes, hidden objects and minigames. The hidden objects casual adventure game is a pretty crowded genre, so it’s hard for a new game to really stand out. Probably the most unique characteristic was the James Patterson characters.  Players solve crimes and meet with the WMC ladies as Patterson’s detective Lindsay Boxer, and supporting characters with solid personalities made this more that just a reskinned HO game.

The story progresses via cutscenes and dialogue options. Players have some choices for what to say, but it was more of a quiz on recent plot events. Believable banter makes the cutscenes worth reading, and the linear storyline makes it feel like reading a novel, not being hemmed

Random side note: The mysterious Chinese markings found on the victim actually do say bu zhong, Not Loyal. My Chinese  literacy is just good enough to be completely thrilled with the developers for using real words when dramatic red scribbles would have acceptable. (It always cracks me up when I see upside-down characters or random other words.) Good work, THQ.

A lot of the game was hidden objects, whether it was tidying a crime scene or looking for clues, but this was a particularly bad HO. The small DS screen doesn’t really lend itself to searching, and players search a picture that’s larger than the screen, for maximum squinting-at-the-screen annoyance. It was also the Highlights magazine type of hidden objects, instead of the cluttered-room HO. It felt oddly childish to look for giant peace signs and lightning bolts, especially on crime scenes with mysterious dead bodies. The game does mix up the hidden objects a bit by giving players a clue instead of a list of items, but still gives the feel of an activity book more than an adventure game.

The story leads to several minigames, which were much more engaging than the picture find. When I got the Women’s Murder Club press release, I was pretty excited to see the game included a science lab minigame, and the puzzle’s gameplay didn’t disappoint.

One of the minigames was a mah-jong game, which is also accessible under an icon that says China (This character is a different zhong, an object lesson on why I am not so good at Chinese!). I usually consider mah-jong games to be computer solitaire 2.0, but I found something charming in the tiny tiles and stylus interface, and ended up playing this minigame more than I’d expected.

Women’s Murder Club: Crimes of Passion offers a solid storyline and characters from the popular novels to fans of the hidden objects mystery.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal

I’d been meaning to play the new Monkey Island game since I first heard about the Telltale Games release, but it was the pirate-day free download that finally got me started.

Telltale’s new Monkey Island is not to be confused with the LucasArts updated re-release. No, the Screaming Narwhal is an all-new tale in the saga of Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate. Elaine and LeChuck (and at least one other familiar character!) are back as well, revamped from their grainy 2d incarnations, but following the spirit of the originals.

Goofy dialogue, creative uses for found items and pirate-y silliness are the hallmarks of the Monkey Island games, and the Screaming Narwhal has them all. Guybrush uses his razor-sharp wits to deal with the wacky denizens of Flotsam Island, whether that’s a clever ruse of selling fine leather jacket, an amazing use of misdirection (Look! It’s Louis XIV!) or coming up with a believable excuse on the spot. The dialogue is not a memory test of in-game facts, but a chance for zany interactions.

The freedom of the old Secret of Monkey Island and LeChuck’s Revenge options was in stark contrast to the thousand ways to accidentally off the protagonist in the punishing other adventure games I played around the same time. (Getting killed by a passing car when Laura Bow crosses the street still sticks in my memory as the finest example of the I Made This, You Play This, I Hate You mindset.) Guybrush can stick a bomb in his pocket or attempt all sorts of athletic feats without any ill effects.

The Monkey Island games make you wonder What would happen if I…? and then encourage you to try it out! When you try to pair two objects that didn’t belong,  use something in the wrong way, or say something ridiculous, Guybrush makes a joke instead of a beep, an error message, or a score punishment. LucasArts rewarded creativity by offerings zany responses to zany questions and zany actions. The object was not to beat the level, the boss, or the game, but just to see what would happen next!

The Screaming Narwhal contains the old Monkey Island mechanic of an old pirate map for Guybrush to decipher. I don’t want to give away too much, but this isn’t the usual hidden object standard, there isn’t any squinting at the screen to find map pieces. If you’d like to make the puzzles easier or harder, the hint frequency is on a slider in your options menu, so you can adjust how much Guybrush tells you.

When I think about it, the only thing that could possibly be improved is the inventory. Oh, no, not the actual inventory, the U-tube and manatee monocle and breathmints leave no room for improvement. But the way to access the inventory is to mouse over the right hand edge of the screen. This is also the way to walk off the right hand edge of the screen or look at things on the far right of the screen. It is not a game-breaking mechanical failure, but a minor annoyance that came back every time I mean to look at something on the right and opened my inventory.

Go check it out and remember why Monkey Island was such an awesome story.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Game Review: Lost in Blue 2

I’ve been playing Lost in Blue 2 on the DS, and while I always love games about island survival, like MyTribe, Sims 2: Castaway, etc., there’s a lot of room for improvement.

Cool minigames make use of the the DS’s capabilities, but the hundredth time you have to light a fire, it stops being fun. The same can be said for cooking, fishing, catching animals, and every other repetitive action. I’m a big fan of Cooking Mama 2, but this is no Cooking Mama. Also, the actions you need to perform repeatedly are hidden in sub-menus or are only available after a chain of choices, instead of being accessible, one-click actions.

The story begins as two high-schoolers are washed up on a beach after a shipwreck. Players can choose Jack or Amy as their primary character, but they are responsible for the survival of both.

Jack, your companion on the island, is not the brightest bulb in the box. You need to feed him, making him more like a rather dim pet than a boyfriend. Every time he gets hungry, you need to let go of his hand (one click), target Jack (varies), select Talk (one click), tell him you have something for him (one click), wait for him to ask what it is, tell him it’s something to eat (one click), wait for him to ask what he’s eating, and then select the item from your backpack to feed him (varies, but you select, choose ‘give’ and confirm), he says it’s delicious (one click to confirm). Early items, like raspberries and coconuts, fill his meter between 3 and 5 percent, out of a possible hundred percent, so even if he doesn’t perform any physical labor — like a million walks to the stream to quench his inexhaustible thirst — which makes the hunger meter empty faster,  you’ll need to do this series of actions between 20 and 33 times in a day to get him full.

Items must be fed from Amy’s backpack to Jack. You cannot feed him items that he’s carrying, and he will literally die of starvation with a backpack full of lunchboxes and fruit.  To exchange items between backpack, you need to let go of his hand (one click), target Jack (varies), select Talk (one click), tell him you have something for him (one click), wait for him to ask what it is, select give  (one click), wait for him to ask what you’re giving him, and then exchange items between the backpacks. If you play as Jack, Amy becomes similarly dim-witted.

A lot of the game involves learning about the island… read the rest here.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Thoughts on Game Distribution

CasualInsider has a piece on exclusive distribution. I hate to quote such a huge portion of the article but I really can’t condense. Basically, the makers of Totem Tribe decided not to offer their game exclusively through one games portal, instead it was offered for sale through multiple channels. Big Fish Games was one of the portals.

I reviewed Totem Tribe about a month ago, after getting it on BFG, but I had no idea of the politicking behind the scenes. Totem Tribe is still available on Big Fish Games even if it’s not on the top 100 list.

The game was released silently on BFG, with no front page coverage, and still manged to get to number 13 on BFG’s top 100 games within a few days of being released, but on the next day, the game vanished from the top 100 completely. On the day BFG removed Totem Tribe from its top 100, the game was the top game on Reflexive, two on Shockwave, and three on Real Arcade. Since, the game has reached the top ten on Amazon, Arcade Town, iWin, Logler Global, Real Arcade, Reflexive, and Shockwave, and, on many of these, reaching the top place.

The game’s best rank on Big Fish Games was 13 of 100, but now the game is no longer to be seen. Moral of the story? Never rely on portals. Build up your own site, and work on developing strong brands that consumers will remember and want more of.

I agree, but I think CasualInsider’s moral isn’t as pat as it sounds. How is a casual game-player going to find the indie websites of small developers, or even hear about those developers and games at all? Portals like Big Fish Games have a massive advertising budget to spread the word about new games. It’s also easy to bookmark and check back. If I don’t use a portal — and I’ve blogged about my concerns with portals before — how will I even hear about games I might like to try and buy?

Once I discover the site and play a good game, I try to remember the developer’s name but that’s because I blog on gaming. I didn’t care about that before, and besides the big names, I didn’t really follow any development news.

So, how do you hear about new games? Portals? Word-of-mouth? Word of, um, keyboard? And, when you do play a good game, do you remember the developer and check back for new things?

Via Portal Wars: Exclusive, or no deal | CasualInsider.com.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Used Console Games From JJGames!

I’m really against pirating games, but who can pay $50 or so for a new game? JJGames is a new site where gamers can buy used console games without going broke. They has used games for the N64, Playstation, and other systems, and accessories like controllers, memory cards and rumble packs, etc., and even some used consoles. Plus, their logo matches our colors!

Um, back to the games. Usually the price of shipping or the wait time can be a deal-breaker for online discount sites. You save $6 only to pay $10 in shipping. But they offer free shipping on orders that total over $25 or you can pay extra for faster shipping, like on Amazon.

You might also be able to sell games that you’ve beaten (or gotten bored with) to JJGames, if they’re in good condition. See if the games you have gathering dust qualify here.

Definitely worth checking out before you pay full price for your next game!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Thoughts On Casual Games Dev

Game development isn’t exactly my strong suit. Personally I prefer to let other people work long hours, pouring their heart and soul into a game, and then I play it and complain about what’s wrong with it. Hey, that’s where my talents lie!

But I do have huge admiration for indie developers, and I hope to focus on lesser-known titles here on ThumbGods.

Cliff Harris of Positech Games talks about making independent development profitable. Cliff is behind the Positech Games titles Democracy 2, Kudos (and Kudos 2!) and others. The entire interview is worth reading, if you’re all interested in what makes a game succeed, but one statement really stuck with me.

Who will survive in the casual game business in 2010?

Big Fish Games, Popcap.
I think I’ve got the full list there.

Big Fish Games is an awesome casual games portal. The “new game every day!” works perfectly for repeat business.  They’re a total giant, even my mother-in-law has a Big Fish Games account. But I worry that massive portals like BFG (much as I love them!) and now Amazon are making it harder for the guy-with-website development model to succeed.

Not to be all doom and gloom, because as Cliff’s interview shows, an indie game developer and creative marketer can still do very well.

Via Interview with Cliff Harris (cliffski) from Positech Games | Sell More Games.

Popularity: 17% [?]

Amazon Enters The Casual Game Market

Amazon.com is entering the casual games market! They’re offering downloadable casual games to try or buy, using the Big Fish system of a timed trial and then a paid download.

I’m worried that massive portals like Amazon and even my beloved Big Fish are becoming the Wal-Mart of casual games, making it even harder for indie developers to compete. Amazon and BFG have advertising budgets (I could just stop the sentence here, couldn’t I?) that are far beyond the reach of the average independent developer, and they’re able to offer a wider assortment of games at lower prices. This seems like all good things for game players, but I’m afraid it will come at the expense of the smaller, more creative amateur developers, who can’t possibly make a profitable game with that kind of competition. That leads, ultimately, to a smaller assortment of games for us to try.

PS — Amazon is also offering the full version of Build-a-Lot free as part of their promotion, just like Big Fish did. But don’t fall for it! Build-a-Lot is just not a fun game.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Netbooks: Tomorrow’s Laptops or Just a Phase?

Slate Magazine has an article on the netbooks trend — a move towards smaller, cheaper and less powerful laptops. A netbook is usually a minimalist laptop, free of the bloatware and resource-heavy OS that my laptop came with (did yours?), with the minimum requirements and maximum portability.
I know I can’t stand typing on a less-than-standard size keyboard, but everything else sounds perfect for computing while traveling.

Minimalism pervades Amazon’s laptop list; over the last few weeks, the
great majority of the 25 best-seller slots have been occupied by
various permutations of the Eee PC and other souped-down, sub-$500
machines. In the computer industry, these miniature computers are known
as “netbooks.” The term is vaguely defined, but the best way to spot a
netbook is to peek at the specs: Today’s bigger laptops run on Intel’s
speedy Core 2 Duo processor, while netbooks use a smaller, less
powerful, and cheaper Intel chip, the Atom. Netbooks also run older or
more lightweight operating systems—generally Windows XP or some flavor
of Linux.

PC companies are looking to these machines in much the same way John McCain once looked to the governor of Alaska—as an easy way to put a fresh face on an otherwise aging product line.

Via What does the “netbook” craze tell us about the future of laptops. – By Farhad Manjoo – Slate Magazine

Popularity: 3% [?]

Google Adsense for Games

Google has announced its intentions to enter the in-game advertising sector, with a post on its Adsense blog suggesting it will be targeting web-based games to begin with.

It read: “Do you develop or publish web-based games? If so, you’re contributing to a growing trend – according to comScore, over 25% of Internet users play online games every week, which is over 200 million users worldwide. As a beta user of AdSense for Games, you can display video ads, image ads, or text ads within your online games to earn revenue”.

The pitch continued: “You’ll be able to show these ads in placements you define, such as interstitial frames before a game, after a level change, or when a game is over. Members of our AdWords team will sell your in-game ad placements directly to top brand advertisers, and you’ll also see contextually targeted text and image ads based on content and demographic information. In addition, you’ll be able to control the ads you see on your pages using our filtering options”.

The beta for Adsense for Games has now been opened and is available to those publishers with over 80% of their traffic from the UK or US.

It will be run in partnership with Mochi Media and its MochiAds network, with Google providing advertisers to fill its available advertising slots.

The news comes not long after Google announced it would start selling games and other products via links from relevant videos to online stores such as Amazon and iTunes.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Youtube Joins Amazon To Sell Video Games

Youtube is a great website for entertainment. Sometimes when I have some free time to kill, I go to Youtube and watch some funny videos which helps me in getting some entertainment. If I have miss episodes of my favorite TV shows and programs, I just have to go to Youtube and type the name of the program in the search box and it shows hundreds of results based on my keywords. Youtube is owned by Google and millions of people visit this site daily. Now Google is planning new strategies to make more and more money out of this site. They are planning to join hands with big online retailers such as Amazon to sell stuff like games, movies, books and things like that. The retailers will be sharing revenue with Youtube sales.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Power-Up!

Power-Up!

Super Mario Bros: Power Up Energy Drink

Power Up is a video game tie-in from Nintendo’s Super Mario Bros. The drink comes in an 8.4oz can and has been round for some years. It caused a bit of a storm with some media outlets claiming that the drink was being targeted to kids. In this particular story – a dad purchased it for his 6 year old son. A 6 year old boy with 80mg caffeine in him would not be pretty.

Available from Xoxide or Amazon.

(Again with blaming videogames for bad parenting choices!)

Via 11 Cartoon and Video Game Energy Drinks

Popularity: 3% [?]

Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Collector’s Edition

Amazon.com has the  Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Collector’s Edition for $19.99, (not including shipping — but with orders over $25, you can get free Super Saver Shipping).

Popularity: 3% [?]

Pre-Order WoW

If you’re thinking about  World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, get it from Amazon for $59.99 with free shipping. If the Amazon.com price decreases between your order time and release date (11/30, which makes it a great Christmas gift), you’ll pay the lowest price.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Best of Niner Niner July 06

Niner Niner, a collaborative weblog network, has over 25 great blogs and this “Best Of” highlights just a few of the posts that were written by some of the Niner authors, in topics that range from High Heels, Ajax, HIPAA Privacy Regulation to gadgets, books and health. 

In Ajax Blog, Sreejith introduces us to a few new things. First is Vox a new blogging service from Six Apart that uses WYSIWYG with a taste of web 2.0. After that we learn about Krun.ch and Wishlistr.

Blogging Naked: Scarification and lip plates are shown to be some of the newest and more popular form of “self-expression” in recent years.

Bookadoodle: Nancy Callahan posted more in her series “Getting Published” and this latest edition was part 5.

Boomer 2.0 had posts that pointed out that boomers can still have that second career and another that shows many are not even planning retirement anytime soon.

In Class Action Questions find out about lawsuits involving pyramid scams, hair raising beauty product claims and why State Farm was penalized.

Credit Cardenza: Unfortunately, millions of people are drowning in  credit card debt, have to worry about credit scams and fraud, and let’s not even talk about the international fees.

Dealsneak managed to sneak more than a few deals pass us this summer including, the Samsonite laptop case, a gorgeous leather bench, and a sweet looking Thermaltake Tsunami computer case.

Feed Money discusses the fact the Ebay has jumped on the contextual ad bandwagon as well as blog feeds and a program called RSS To Blog.

If you need to Fix Your Finances one of the first steps is learning how to save your money. After that you can check out Mvelopes to learn all about budgets.

At Games For Money you can find places to play free online gambling games and also learn some card counting tricks and tips.

The High Heels Blogs show us which killer heels are on sale including boots, sandals, slides and mules. Also take a look at some killer wedding heels for this summers nuptials.

A few notable gadgets that were blogged in the HyperGadget blog were the Kurzweil-National Federation of the Blind Reader, and the jumbled and messy looking organizer.

Over at the Medcare Forum, Kathleen Milazzo tells us more about that scary mad cow disease and our medical privacy laws.

Find out just how much house you can afford before you go running off to get that mortgage. And is the housing bubble really ready to blow? All this and more in Mortgage Updates.

At My Secret Side Biz learn how to make a profit, how to get your own powerwash, and simple business and Ebay tips.

On Healthy Living: Sarah White tells us all about a new study that could help with asthma reduction when it comes to do light exercise that involves stead breathing like yoga.

On Movies has a decade of super heroes list that includes recent and unreleased movies. Leafworks reviewed The Omen and we got to see the trailer for the new Ghost Rider movie.

Powersellers Blog: Ebay has done it. They finally reached 200 million members and they are also expanding into new ideas. Also people are fed up with Paypal while crooks are finding more ways to defraud your account.

Seo Updates: Yahoo one of the biggest email services was hit with a worm and Google expanded into real estate but won’t be making a browser, at least not anytime soon.

Get some free exercise tips from The Diet Logs. You will certainly need them if you plan to take a bite of this $100 burger.

Living the Single life? Well take a look at some great break up lines and if your looking to meet people Leafworks posted a great review of club La Rumba.

Thumb Gods: Nintendo is no, no to the name Wii for their new console a game system that is at the end of this long list containing The Evolution of Video Game Consoles.

Las Vegas Revealed that it was ill prepared for a massive disaster, but til then you can still get married and get comp’d in Vegas.

Wander the World, well the State of Colorado with Leafworks. He takes us to the Cherry Blossom Festival, Gothnic in Denver, Old Colorado City, Plaza del Arte Festival in Downtown Denver and Garden of the Gods.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Princess Maker 2

I’m a little insulted by the top ten girlfriend-friendly games list on www.iup.com. It’s a good concept, girls tend to like like different games than boys do, and there are a bunch of great games that girls love. The Sims, Morrowind and Neverwinter Nights are excellent examples. The Sims did make number one on this list, but rest of the games listed on 1up.com are for non-gamers with low standards and very little attention span. Especially Centipede. If you really loved me, you’d let me play Nibbles on your TI-85.

And how did Princess Maker fail to make the list of simple games targeted to girls? This game comes from Japan, where preteen girls are a bigger segment of the gaming market. This might be because the American games for this demographic are along the lines of Super Model Barbie.

The story is set in a pseudo-mideval fantasy kingdom. You play as the victor in a epic battle against the dark lord, now retired from combat and the adoptive father of a baby girl. The goddess Venus appears in a cloud of light, ok, in a King’s Quest-era speech box, and gives you the baby and tells you to raise the girl to be healthy, attractive, good-natured and smart. You send her to school, art and dance lessons, etiquette class, assign her chores, take her on vacations, etc. ALthough you are trying to incrase her stats, the random events in the game like competitions or potential suitors, keep Princess Maker from being a repetitive leveling game.

With proper training, your little princess can become quite an ccomplished mage or swordswoman, and venture outside the city looking for monsters and dragons to fight.(See above regarding “pseudo-mideval fantasy kingdon”) The combats are bloodless, although I can’t tell whether that’s intentionally keeping the game girl-friendly or a function of the ancient graphics.

There’s a not-so-subtle message not-so-cleverly embedded in Princess Maker about the fine balance between attractive and slutty. It’s not a good theme for preteen girls, but it’s a message they’ll get from hundreds of sources more important that a videogame. And your princess can also be happy and successful by excelling at academics or fencing or dancing or another skill.

At the end of the game, when your princess turns eighteen, you receive a letter from her, telling you about her life. Some of my princesses ended up happily single, some married nice boys from good families (yes, that’s the description), one ran off with my butler (turns out I had a butler!) and I finally got one to marry the prince. Oh yeah, that’s the goal of the game, but you don’t have to strive for it. One princess was unhappy since she had no children (I’m not entirely sure where I failed as a father).

For the record, I got my copy of Princess Maker 2 from a male friend, after hearing two other college guys talking about how awesome it is. If they’re willing to admit to playing Princess Maker, I think I can tell my secret: Don’t tell anyone, but I once cross-gamed and played Mr. Pac-Man.

RELATED: Ladies, Forget Bra Burning… [Thumb Gods]

CROSSPOSTED: Princess Maker on Simpson’s Paradox

Popularity: 3% [?]

Angry GameFAQs Review Of The Day (3/31)

Today’s winner concerns an obscure title by the name of GoDai: Elemental Force for the PS2. More oddly, you might notice, is that the writer — shouting comfortably from his recliner of rage — seems to have a bit of an age-complex. See if you can sniff it out, too, or if we’re just high on angel dust (or all of the above). Bolding is ours:

Back in the old days, kids didn’t need too much of an excuse to play games… times have changed. Don’t get me wrong here. I don’t figure to sound like an old has-been drumming up the way things were. All I’m getting at is that today, we’re lucky, because there’s as many choices in games as there is fruit in Florida. And if a game stinks, it stinks. You don’t sit around for hours on end, whittling away those fleeting seconds of youth, working out the problems of a glitchy game simply because there’s nothing else around… On a good day, I spend three bucks on soda-pop, so what was the risk in throwing down on a game? I forgot that plum bottom rule they always teach you right off: never, but, never judge a book by its cover… The story was basic, but that’s a draw for me. If I want a great work of story telling, I’ll read Moby Dick… [And] the graphics? If the cover art is to be believed, the graphics are dynamite.

Old has-been? You? I mean, how could a such an obvious hipster like yourself, who’s “whittling” and “drinking” “soda pop” down in “Florida”, using cool hip-hop slang like “plum bottom”, “dynamite”, “it stinks” and “never judge a book by its cover” between reads of Amazon.com’s most buzz-worthy novel, “Moby Dick,” ever “figure” to be an “old has-been”? Sheesh, someone’s paranoid…

The Hard Way [GameFAQs]

Popularity: 3% [?]