Baby you can park my car

Here’s something odd: the latest phenomena to hit the casual gaming scene is parking cars. At last count, Millions of Games was tracking 20 of them, and the number keeps growing.

For me, parking the car is about as exciting as checking the mail and locking the door. It’s a fleeting inconvenience that almost goes unnoticed — certainly not something I’d expect to inspire a sensational game.

And yet, I was intrigued, so I tested my ability and was surprised by what I found:

• Parking: Battle of the Sexes challenged the notion of men being good with cars. Nice touches in this game included hazard lights that flash when you bumped another car.

• I also found myself losing track of time with Parking Perfection 2. It was encouraging when awards were given for top efforts.

• The puzzle idea behind Parking Zone was monotonous and fairly plain.

These games are infinitely more forgiving than trying to navigate a real car park. At least you can revise your efforts until you’ve done a good job without someone beeping, swearing or laughing at you.

My verdict: while the games could be fiddley and the sound was generally mundane, I had fun. I liked the fact that objectives were generally clear, and playing them was usually simple even when it was tough.

Let me know whether they do the same for you.

Dusting off a classic

Here at 3RD sense, Lightning Pool has been our most popular game by far. According to the UK television station Channel 4, it’s actually one of the world’s most popular casual games — coming in at number 3 overall on the day I wrote this post, and number 1 for sports games.

According to one school of thought, you shouldn’t touch the classics. Let them lie, it is argued, even when the times move on and they start to show their age.

We considered that option, but decided to take the opposite approach — dusting off this classic and giving it a new engine, fittings and duco.

Engine. We completely recreated Lightning Pool using the latest version of Flash.

In particular, we used a Flash technology called Shared Objects. This technology is a bit like web browser cookies in that it allows Flash to store data on the player’s own PC. Most of our 1.2 million users don’t register to play Lightening Pool, but with Shared Objects they will still be able to use features like our new medal tallyboard system, described below.

It’s worth noting that just like with cookies, the Flash user also has ultimate control over whether Shared Objects are stored on their PC. Just right-click (or on a Mac, control-click) on any Flash animation, select Settings and then click Advanced. This takes you through to the Flash Player Settings Manager web page. Select the Global Privacy Settings Panel, click the second tab, and then deselect “Allow third-party Flash content to store data on your computer”.

Fittings. These range from new tricky levels to a new medal tallyboard system and to the addition of spin.

The new levels will include a ‘Ghost’ level, where some of the balls will let the others pass right through them, laughing maniacally, an ice hockey rink and a level inspired by the Playaholics game Jewel Thief.

Spin is one of the major new features and affects how the white ball behaves after it strikes a red or black ball. Without spin, the ball will stop after a collision. Using the arrow keys players can now create, top, back, left and right spin, enabling the white ball to travel forwards, backwards or in either direction after a collision. The advantages here are obvious for players, giving them the chance to place the white ball advantageously for their next shot.

Of course the game will still play without spin — it’s just an option we think many players will use and enjoy, especially when they reach the tougher new levels.

With the new medal tallyboard system, players will finish each level of Lightening Pool in either a bronze, silver or gold medal time. Players score points for each level and each medal. Thanks to our use of Flash Shared Objects, these points will grow from one play session to the next. As they play more and more, they’ll build up more medals and higher scores. We think this will be an interesting way of keeping players drawn in to the game.

Duco. Of course, this is the first thing you’ll notice. The whole game feels fresh and “of our time”, with completely new artwork.

Version two of Lightning Pool has everything that helped the original reach the top of the Channel 4 casual game charts, but with a range of new features that we hope will sustain its popularity in the years to come. Watch for Lightning Pool 2 on Playaholics, and let us know what you think.

The Little Gamer

Rubik’s Cube revisited

When researching my recent post calling for a new puzzle game format, I took a fresh look at dozens of famous games from Tetris to Zuma — but I think the Rubik’s Cube may still be the king of all puzzles.

One minute I was examining Rubik’s Cube from the casual game developer’s point of view, and the next I was carried back to my school days, when this remarkable puzzle was launched and more than 100 million copies sold in just two years.

Back then, I was a teenage student in Britain, not running a company in Australia. I had only been on this planet a decade and a half and had so much to learn. Yet somehow I managed to get my personal best time for the Rubik’s Cube under 25 seconds.

The secret to the success of Rubik’s Cube is that it was the ultimate challenge. It seemed almost impossible, but it wasn’t. People talked about the millions of permutations — the endless variety of patterns that could be formed on the six sides simultaneously. But one of the secrets to solving the Rubik’s Cube is to focus on the fact that it’s built from just 27 pieces. Sometimes it’s the simplest concept that creates the most complex and challenging casual games, but that sort of magic is very hard to recreate.

I certainly couldn’t beat 25 seconds at the moment, but I’m tempted to dust off my old Rubik’s Cube and start practicing again. There’s a whole community that never forgot the Rubik’s Cube, and I feel like it’s time for a revival.

The Little Gamer