Big Fish Games has acquired Thinglefin. Thinglefin was founded earlier this year by the lead developer of Asheron’s Call. Thinglefin has been working on a web based Massive Multi-Player Online (MMO) game. There is not much known about the MMO under developement, but Big Fish Games must have liked what they saw.

The acquisition definitely helps out Thinglefin since getting distribution for your MMO is a major part of the success of the MMO. Now Thinglefin has a publisher for their web-based MMO and not a small publisher at that.

“Big Fish Games’ people, culture and vision are uniquely attuned to what game developers and consumers want,” said Toby Ragaini, cofounder and CEO of Thinglefin. “As part of Big Fish Games, we now have an unfair advantage in developing the best experience and reaching the broadest audience.”

Thanks nabeel

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Orb Blaster is a flash shooter game. Players control a little spaceship that shoots bullets at incoming orbs. The spaceship shoots two different kinds of bullets. The first bullet is just a plain old bullet that doesn’t really break any orbs they just push the orbs away from you so the orbs don’t kill you. The plain bullet is shot with just a single mouse click. The second type of bullet is a missile type bomb. The bombs blow up the orbs and make them disappear from the screen. The catch is you can not just shoot bombs all the time. The bombs take a second or two to recharge. The bombs are shot using a double mouse click.

The levels get harder by throwing more orbs at you and then you have to deal with other spaceships as well. The spaceships take a lot of bullets to kill. The bullets will hurt the spaceships and after a while they will blow up. The spaceships also shoot you and you need to shoot the bullets they shoot to make the bullets disappear and not hit you. Things get really complicated when you have to deal with orbs and spaceships all in the same level.

Orb Blaster is an entertaining shooter game. The battles can get intense and you end up clicking away just to survive. There are thirty six levels to try and conquer. If you are looking for a good game to waste some time, check out Orb Blaster.

Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation had teamed with Legacy Interactive and Animax Entertainment to create he Tuttles Madcap Misadventures: Starlight Charity Challenge. The Tuttles Madcap Misadventures is an arcade game that features a family that is trying to bond on the way to see the Alamo.

The Tuttles Madcap Misadventures features a star cast of voices. Bob Saget is the voice for father Barry, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the voice of the mother Barbara, Ashley Tisdale is the voice of the daughter Jess, and Dominic Scott Kay voices young son Zach. If that wasn’t enough, there are still more stars that lend their voices. The other characters include Dave Thomas as The Australian, Dave Coulier as The Islander and William Shatner as the voice of the souped-up mini van that transports the family.

“When you think of charity ‘signature events,’ it’s usually races, walks and golf tournaments. Starlight wanted to do something innovative that reflects how people are having fun today. We learned that there are more than 85 million casual gamers in the US, a growing number of whom are women, 40 years and older. That’s why we chose to design a national fundraising initiative around a casual videogame the whole family can play,” said Patricia Evans, Vice President, Development, Starlight.

The game sells for $19.99 and $15 from every sale goes to Starlight.

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Activision released Guitar Hero III a few weeks ago and MTV just released Rock Band last week. The two giants are set to compete for your money in the music game genre. Guitar Hero III lets players experience playing some hit songs on a guitar. Players have to hit the proper guitar “key” as the notes fly by. The notes are color coded and there are three difficulty levels to try and beat. Rock Band takes the simulation up a notch and allows players to either play guitar, drums or do vocals for the songs.

Rock Band may be the new kid on the block, but the developers had some experience under their belts. Rock Band was programmed by Harmonix, which produced versions one and two of Guitar Hero. MTV bought Harmonix, but not the rights to Guitar Hero. It should be interesting to see who wins the battle over the holiday season.

We’ve never had anything like Guitar Hero in terms of appealing to a mass of people,” said Robert Kotick, the chairman and chief executive of Activision. “The game has been on South Park, Gossip Girl, and The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I don’t know the audience demographic for Ellen, but it’s not your typical gamer.”

Thanks News.com

Astraware announced they will be supporting the Symbian platform in the first quarter of 2008. Astraware has been attempting to add Symbian support for a while now, which means they have games to be released for Symbian devices. The games will work on touch screen and non-touch screen devices.

“Astraware’s portfolio of quality games and applications is impressive, and we are happy to see them porting more and more great titles to the UIQ platform,” commented Naresh Chouhan, Head of Developer Programs at UIQ Technology. “This will broaden UIQ phone users’ choice of add-on software, of course, but it will also lead the way for other mobile software companies to see and grasp the opportunities in UIQ.”

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