I have just received word that the sequel to the immensely popular Peggle has now been released on PopCap.com Peggle Nights is the name of the game, and thanks to some sneaky back handers I have already had the pleasure of playing this game. I must say it is just as good as Peggle, if not even better. There is an amazing selection of new adventure and challenge levels along with a new character and new awards. Expect more on this from me within the next few weeks, for now Press Release awesomeness follows!

PopCap Launches Peggle Nights for PC

Extreme Fever Imminent

DUBLIN, Ireland – September 16, 2008 — PopCap Games, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced the immediate availability of Peggle Nights at www.popcap.com. The game is the much-anticipated follow-up to the original Peggle game – named one of the top twenty videogames of 2007 according to the Guinness World Records 2008 Gamers Edition.

Peggle Nights sports 60 all-new Adventure Mode levels and 60 new Challenge Mode hurdles, along with a new “Peggle Master” power-up, new kinds of style shots, achievements, and other special bonuses. In addition, Peggle Nights takes players into the “dream worlds” of each of the eleven Peggle Masters, providing five beautifully rendered and themed levels for each character’s secret dreams and aspirations.

“We at PopCap love the Peggle ‘master’ characters as much as anyone, so we decided to delve into their personalities a bit further and take a peek inside each one’s dream states,” explained Sukhbir Sidhu, studio director in charge of Peggle and Peggle Nights at PopCap. “We also took the opportunity to incorporate user feedback from the original game by adding more challenges and style shots and ultimately making the game even more achievement- and skill-oriented.”

Peggle has been downloaded from the web more than 20 million times since its introduction in February 2007, and has spawned dozens of Facebook groups and clubs and hundreds of YouTube videos. Due to the public intense passion for Peggle, Popcap, who ordinarily shy away from talking about future plans, has had to promise to bring the game both to mobile phones and Nintendo DS over the coming months.

In the game, players fire a metallic silver ball from the top of the screen, relying on gravity to propel the ball downwards while it ricochets off orange and blue “pegs”. The goal is to clear all the orange pegs from the screen before running out of balls. A moving “bucket” at the bottom of the screen offers free balls, while green power-up pegs give the player special abilities via the Peggle Masters who guide players through the game. These power-ups include explosive area-clearing blasts, lobster claws that serve as pinball-type flippers and “fireballs” that cut through all pegs in their path.

New features in Peggle Nights include:

· New Peggle Master/power-up: “Marina,” the electric squid, brings the number of Peggle Masters / power-ups to 11; her “Shockwave” effect arcs between the first peg hit and the bucket at the bottom, clearing all intervening pegs with a jolt of electricity

· New Trophy/Achievement: In addition to the original game’s “all clear” achievement, Peggle Nights sets an “ace” score for each level; “acing” each level earns a special trophy

· More Trophies: The new game offers four different trophies for the various achievements: completing Adventure Mode, completing Challenge Mode, clearing all levels of all pegs, and “acing” all levels. Oh, and a new trophy room to keep ’em in!

· 60 Newly Designed Levels: Each Peggle Master has five themed “dream state” levels in the game’s main Adventure mode, plus a final five Master levels in which the player chooses the Master/power-up

· 60 New Challenges: Five dozen new Challenge Mode levels, with many fiendishly tricky objectives for players to reach; new types of challenges include “low ball” challenges in which the player tries to get the lowest possible score, Style Shot based challenges and challenges involving specific or combined power-ups

· New Style Shots: More ways to score bonus points based on the player’s aim and timing acumen: “Off the Wall,” “Double Long Shot” and more

· All-New Soundtrack: Maintaining the cultured sensibilities of the original Peggle, the new game offers a mix of original tunes and well-known classical music – including a fully-orchestrated introduction by the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra

· Admire Your Skillz: You can now drag and drop replays of your top shots into the open game window to view them

· Power-Up Improvements: Existing power-ups including Tula’s “flower power,” Kat Tut’s “pyramid” and Lord Cinderbottom’s “fireball” have been tweaked to optimize their effectiveness

· Level Packs (Coming Soon): Peggle Nights is designed to accept additional levels and PopCap plans to begin issuing custom-made, in some cases themed, Level Packs

About PopCap

PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of “casual games” — fun, easy-to-learn, captivating computer games that appeal to everyone from age 6 to 106. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000 and has a worldwide staff of over 200 people in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin, Ireland and Shanghai. Its games have been downloaded more than 1 billion times by consumers worldwide, and its flagship title, Bejeweled®, has sold more than 25 million units across all platforms. Constantly acclaimed by consumers and critics, PopCap’s games are played on the Web, desktop computers, myriad mobile devices (cell phones, smartphones, PDAs, Pocket PCs, iPod, iPhone and more), popular game consoles (such as Xbox), and in-flight entertainment systems. PopCap is the only casual games developer with leading market share across all major sales channels, including Web portals, retail stores, consoles, mobile phones and MP3 players.

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The PopCap logo and all other trademarks used herein that are listed at www.popcap.com/trademarks are owned by PopCap Games, Inc. or its licensors and may be registered in some countries. Other company and product names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners and are used for the benefit of those owners.

Tags: Peggle Nights, PopCap

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under General News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.