Monday, October 27, 2008
The Bejewled Twist Launch Party
Games: Tonight, the evening of October 27, gamers and journalists from across the country gathered at the Experience Music Project in the heart of Seattle to celebrate the release of PopCap Games’ newest offering: Bejweled Twist.
Gracious enough to extend an invitation, I was only too happy to attend.
Though the EMP is better known as a museum of music, the upstairs portion near the northern end of the building is a stage/performance space called the Sky Church, which is where PopCap held the event. Greeted by a mad professor and his highly reflective assistants, things soon got underway after a brief stop at the snack table. (The cedar plank salmon was quite well done, and the desserts were to die for. I could have eaten the cappuccino mousse all night long…)
The presentation itself was nice and tight, a good mix of information and entertainment that was over long before anyone had a chance to be bored. Towards the tail end they brought out some performers to demonstrate the concepts of "three-in-a-row."
Closing the formal talks were the three founders of PopCap, Jason Kapalka, Brian Fiete, and John Vechey, three my-age-ish guys who probably drive better cars than I'll ever be able to afford.
Some interesting factoids about PopCap from their press release:
>PopCap itself has sold over one billion downloads, with more than 350 million of those being related to Bejweled.
>PopCap itself has sold over one billion downloads, with more than 350 million of those being related to Bejweled.
>A Bejeweled game is sold every ten seconds.
>76% of PopCap’s customer base is female, and 71% of the base is over age 40.
> In the early days of PopCap development, they used the “Mom Test”: if one of their mothers could play an Alpha or Beta stage game anywhere between 30 and 60 minutes, they knew they were headed in the right direction.
>Bejewled is the original “match three” game, and is the most mimicked game of all time with over 150 knockoff versions.
As far as Bejweled Twist goes, the game sports a number of additions including HD graphics, a new soundtrack, and six new types of gems which affect gameplay.
me, trying to make an impressive combo for the crowd
Taking it for spin, I was a little surprised to find that the computer I was playing on was also being broadcast on the big screen, so I tried hard not to embarrass myself, with only moderate success.
Bejeweled Twist is available now at popcap.com, and will be available atother online sites such as MSN Games and Steam starting November 18.
the best swag EVER... just look at the size of this diamond.
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That's one cool diamond you got there!
Is Bejeweled really the original match three game? I remember playing Columns on my Sega Game Gear back, oh, around 1989 or 1990 or so and that was a match three game. A damn good one too.
Now if only PopCap would release Peggle for XBLA!!1
well, I was just quoting from the press release... I actually thought the same thing myself.
I guess technically, it depends on how you define "match 3".
I could imagine PopCap making the case that Columns is more a "block drop", whereas Bejweled starts with a full board and the gems need to be maneuvered in order to match.
it's a fine point of distinction, but my guess is that PopCap likes to say the invented the genre and in that sense, they're probably right. ; )
Sounds like a party i want to be invited. Anyway I'm a big Bejweled fan, felt the urge to mention that.
this people are my hero, thanks to them I got the most funny and hard zombie game in the history, Plants vs Zombies, thanks to Pop Cap games.
run 3 , Thanks for the helpful sharing