PopCap's Bookworm Adventures

Just announced, PopCap's next casual gaming hit: Bookworm Adventures. Perfect for the casual gamer and their children. Many of PopCap's games including an educational/puzzle twist, their new release is much the same in this regard. Take an educational design and wrap an RPG element around it and you have a game that will be addicting and fun. If the game contains the same addictive nature as Bookworm we're in for a long few weeks of gaming -- casual style.

2old2play reviewed Bookworm several months ago in 2o2p Magazine and we'll do it again, in the next few days, for this new release. Stay tuned for that review (with pretty pictures) soon.

Until then, here is the press release...

SEATTLE, Washington – November 29, 2006 — PopCap Games®, the leading developer and publisher of casual games, today announced the launch of Bookworm® Adventures, an all-new type of word game that incorporates elements of adventure, role-playing and other game genres to create a truly unique experience that will appeal to all ages and both genders. Bookworm Adventures carries a retail price of $29.95, and a free trial of the deluxe version is available for download at www.popcap.com and other leading game portals, including RealArcade.com, MSN’s Game Zone and Yahoo! Games. Under development for more than two years, Bookworm Adventures is PopCap’s most elaborate and ambitious title to date.

“Bookworm Adventures is really a new kind of word game, infusing the traditional word-building activity with RPG-style elements and a compelling, humorous storyline that gives the player a great sense of progress and accomplishment,” said Jason Kapalka, Chief Creative Officer of PopCap. “This may be the first word game ever to be truly character-based, as well as allowing players to customize their special abilities in literally dozens of ways. The feedback we’ve received from beta testers has been overwhelm-ingly positive and indicates a high level of ‘replayability,’ which is always a major goal for us.”

The original Bookworm, introduced in 2002, garnered numerous accolades and has become the best-selling digital word puzzle game of all time, available for Web, PC, Mac, Gameboy, even in-flight on leading airlines. In the new sequel, players fully take on the role of Lex the bookworm – leading him through a series of well-known books and fictional characters which Lex must overcome by forming words from an ever-changing set of letter tiles. From Dracula, the Wolf-man and other famous monsters to legendary Greek, Egyptian and Arabian tales, Lex explores many great works of fiction and takes on scores of enemies, all with their own unique characteristics and powers.

Making longer and more complex words gives Lex greater fighting prowess and generates special letter tiles with special power-up effects of their own. Various potions and treasures provide Lex with added power, defense and dozens of other automatic and one-time abilities to help him defeat the legions of bad guys standing between him and the safety of his beloved Cassandra and the safety of The Great Library. Three “mini-games” give players additional word puzzles to solve, with their level of success determining the number and strength of extra potions and power-up tiles they’ll take with them as they advance from one “chapter” of the game to the next.

Key features of Bookworm Adventures include:

• Three story books teeming with over 150 uniquely animated enemies
• Three challenging mini-games: Word Master, Letter Rip and Link N' Spell
• Special timed Arena mode for super-speedy spellers
• Beautiful 2D graphics, cut-scenes and special effects
• Stunning sound FX and themed music
• Jokes, dialogue and plot twists aplenty
• A glittering Hall of Fame where top scores, best words and other records are kept,
• A topical Tome of Knowledge containing information on game progress, secrets discovered, attributes of friends and foes and more

About PopCap

PopCap Games (www.popcap.com) is the leading multi-platform provider of “casual games” – easy-to-play yet utterly entertaining and engaging brain food enjoyed by players young and old, male and female. Based in Seattle, Washington, PopCap was founded in 2000, and has approximately 100 employees in its Seattle, San Francisco and Dublin offices. PopCap’s games have been downloaded more than 200 million times by consumers world-wide, and its flagship title Bejeweled® has sold more than 10 million units across all platforms. PopCap games are available for Web, PC, Mac, mobile phones, PalmOS and Windows Mobile PDAs, Xbox Live Arcade, iPods, in-flight on leading airlines, as scratch-off lottery tickets, and more. PopCap is the only casual games developer with leading market share across all major channels, including web portals, mobile phones, Xbox, retail, and PDA.

source: popcap.com