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Astraware is holding an Annual Hogmanay Party and during this party they are discounting some of their games. The discounts start today Dec. 31st and continue until midnight on January 11th 2008.

Each day there will be discounts on one or two games and the games will change each day. Customers will want to visit the site each day to see which games are on sale that day. There are all types of different games on sale including action, puzzle, strategy and card games.

The first game on sale will be a puzzle game Glyph for just $9.95.  Glyph can be downloaded at http://www.astraware.com/promo/hogmanay08.

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Colliso is a very challenging puzzle flash game. The goal of the game is to match tiles and make them disappear. Of course, the goal sounds a lot easier then it really is. Matching the tiles is quite difficult because you need to slide matching tiles into each other. The problem is when a tile is moved it keeps moving until it hits the edge of the board, a brick that is on the board or another tile.

Players have to position the blocks in such a way that they can be slid into each other and make a match. Once the tiles are matched, they disappear and are cleared from the board. Clear all of the tiles and you beat the level. There are a certain number of moves that the player should use to complete the level and that number adds to the challenge. The number of moves is not set in stone and you can use as many moves as you need to complete the level, but the more moves you make the less challenging the game becomes.

If you are looking for a challenging puzzle game, check out Colliso.

A study performed by Parks Associates found that many mobile phone owners are interested in casual games and not more hardcore games. The report found that mobile phone owners are not interested in playing games made for consoles that have been ported to mobile phones. The study found 55% of the respondents want to play puzzle or card games and more than 30% want to play word games or arcade style titles.

“New 3-D and multiplayer mobile games look great in demos, but casual games are where the money is and will be for the next few years,” Yuanzhe Cai, director of Broadband and Gaming for Parks Associates, said in a statement. “Portable game players will maintain strong growth momentum as they provide an experience yet to be matched by mobile phones. Next-generation players will likely include mobile broadband, which will enhance their value proposition.”

As of right now, casual games are what mobile phone users are interested in playing on their phones. This is great news for mobile casual game developers.

Thanks Information Week

Bomb Chain is a very different type of puzzle game done entirely in flash. The objective of the game is to clear all of the bombs from the screen. The player accomplishes this task by lighting one bomb and that bomb will blow up and hopefully ignite other bombs on the board in a chain reaction until all of the bombs have been lit and explode.  The bombs are different colors and the different colors signify the blast direction when the bomb explodes. The red bombs explode in a diagonal fashion and the green bombs explode in a horizontal and vertical fashion.

The puzzle part of the game is figuring out where to place the “spare” bombs you receive at the beginning of each level. The pattern of bombs that each level contains varies and is never complete until you fill in the gaps with your bombs. In other words, you couldn’t just click on a bomb at the start of a level and have the chain reaction complete the level without you doing anything. If you could, that wouldn’t be much of a puzzle game. The player drags their bombs onto the board and puts them in the place that they think is most likely to explode all of the bombs on the board.

Two bombs can be combined into a super bomb. The super bomb’s explosions are two tiles bigger than normal bombs. The player creates a super bomb by dragging one of their bombs onto an already placed bomb on the board.

The levels start out fairly easy and don’t require much thought to figure out, but they get much harder as you progress. Some of the levels I had to try multiple times before I got the correct bomb placement. Bomb Chain definitely makes you think, but it is a lot of fun at the same time. If you are looking for a different, but fun, puzzle game, check out Bomb Chain.

PJ Pride: Pet Detective is a new hidden object game released by iWin. The goal is to uncover the reason behind the towns pets disappearing. The pets started disappearing when a new cosmetic company set up shop in the local town. The people that live in the town are worried about their missing pets and would like to get them back.

“When comparing PJ Pride(TM) to other Hidden Object games, it is clear that the quality of the artwork is among the best out there.” said Dennis Cheng, lead producer of PJ Pride(TM). “While the search screen are beautiful, we went a step further and added an animated element to the normally static screen, making it the first of its kind with this game play mechanic. We anticipate that this game will be one of the most popular games of 2008.”

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