From 2000 to 2010, one of the vital studios in videogames was making the sort of video games you’d see dismissed off-hand at present. If PopCap launched Bejeweled out of the blue proper now each YouTube remark would say “seems to be like a shit cellular recreation,” however as an alternative we dwell within the actuality the place PopCap dominated the informal recreation marketplace for a complete decade, and now nearly every little thing on cellular seems to be like a shit PopCap recreation.
PopCap was so vital there was a Peggle recreation within the Orange Field. Valve’s huge rectangular mic drop could also be remembered for Portal, Staff Fortress 2, and Half-Life 2: Episode Two, but it surely additionally contained Peggle Excessive—a crossover collaboration the place Bjorn the unicorn had a headcrab and every of its 10 Peggle ranges was themed round a Valve recreation. You’d clear a display of orange pegs and listen to the G-Man creepily utter, “Cleverly achieved.”
As of late Peggle Excessive is offered free on Steam, the place it stands as a wonderful reminder of the times when PopCap dominated. It wasn’t the one crossover between the informal gaming upstart and a significant developer. Gyromancer was the results of a collaboration with Sq. Enix that married match-3 gem-spinning proper out of Bejeweled Twist with JRPG storytelling and Ultimate Fantasy monsters. Gyromancer lacked the PopCap humorousness, which might be why it is forgotten at present, but it surely’s one other signal of an period when PopCap was so culturally vital UNESCO ought to have slapped World Heritage standing on it.
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A few of PopCap’s video games had been endlessly replayable as a result of they introduced easy concepts wrapped in sufficient colour and incident to maintain them compelling. Chuzzle is an ideal instance, one other match-3 recreation however one the place you dragged rows and columns of cute fuzzballs and L-shaped combos had been allowed. I nonetheless play it at present, and my girlfriend laughs when she pokes her head into the research to see what hardcore PC technique recreation I am taking part in at present solely to seek out I am Chuzzling once more.
Finest consider I am nonetheless (taking part in) Bejeweled
The very best of PopCap’s video games took these easy concepts and wrung each drop of juice out of them throughout a mania of modes. Bejeweled 3 has traditional mode, timed mode, puzzle mode, and the buck wild “Zen mode” the place you play limitless Bejeweled whereas being reminded of your respiratory as ambient sounds and mantras reinforce your selection of optimistic considering, self-confidence, or weight reduction. 4 extra unlockable modes allow you to match gems to rescue butterflies, stop ice from freezing your grid, dynamite a mine filled with diamonds, or full poker palms in what’s principally a Bejeweled tackle Balatro 14 years earlier than Balatro was a factor.
And Bejeweled 3 did not even have one of many story modes the place a complete marketing campaign of whimsical oddness linked the degrees collectively. These actually went above and past, with Bookworm Adventures having a plot about touring via completely different genres of fiction and mythology you would not anticipate from a word-forming puzzle recreation. Even Heavy Weapon, a Flash-style arcade sidescrolling shooter, got here with a thick parody of “Purple Menace” propaganda.
The jewel on this explicit crown was Vegetation vs. Zombies, which felt just like the end result of every little thing PopCap had been working towards for the prior decade. Whereas the number of vegetable defenders made it extra difficult than one thing like Insaniquarium, its lane-based format stored it easier than the opposite tower protection video games of the time. The story mode was light-touch, advised via Loopy Dave’s rants and barely literate letters from the undead, and unlocked an unbelievable number of minigames and puzzle modes. In addition to bowling and a zen backyard and survival mode there have been recreations of entire different PopCap video games with undead theming, Insaniquarium showing as Zombiquarium and Bejeweled as Beghouled.
The traffic-cone zombies, much more shambling and pathetic than zombies normally are, had been an ideal distinction with the bold-faced vegetation (whose almanac entries had been written by cartoonist and PopCap common Steve Notley, creator of Bob the Offended Flower). The climax of the sport being a musical quantity with a singing sunflower carried out by Laura Shigihara was the icing on the cake, but additionally appears like a relic of a distant time, an entire ‘nother period of web—a relic of a much less cynical web age.
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PopCap’s early video games had been typically constructed on present concepts, with Zuma a reasonably blatant reskin of ’90s arcade recreation Puzz Loop, whereas Peggle drew inspiration from pachinko and pinball, and Bejeweled’s match-3 mechanics have been traced again to a Russian recreation referred to as Shariki. However as informal video games moved to Fb and cellular, PopCap grew to become the one to repeat, with Sweet Crush essentially the most blatant instance. When it joined them, buying and selling the world of deluxe informal for freemium, it grew to become simply one other crab within the bucket.
Apparently the studio was planning a shift to cellular and free-to-play video games earlier than being purchased by EA, however that second nonetheless marks a handy line. Most of PopCap’s video games stopped popping out on PC and had been filled with offputting compulsion mechanics, whereas Vegetation vs. Zombies grew to become a pores and skin to stretch over a sequence of middling multiplayer shooters.
Relatively than finish on a down word, let me level out that the spirit of PopCap is alive and nicely in idiosyncratic indie video games that take one easy thought and rinse it, normally with an offbeat story mode thrown in. There’s Donut County, Octogeddon, Gray Alien’s Regency Solitaire sequence, Peglin (principally Peggle with goblins), and Creepy Redneck Dinosaur Mansion 3 (principally an imaginary Dino Disaster spin-off from a world the place “survival horror match-3 metroidvania” is a legitimate style).
PopCap spent a decade arising with new methods for us to match three issues, whether or not we spun them in a circle or shot them out of a frog’s mouth, and that stage of creativity remains to be with us even when it is unfold over a bunch of indie builders. I have never seen anybody comply with up on Bookworm Adventures, however fortuitously that one did find yourself with de facto World Heritage standing as a result of you possibly can nonetheless discover it on the Web Archive.
