Developer G5 Entertainment has announced that they will be releasing a series of business strategy simulations called Fix-It-Up for iOS devices. The first installment, Fix-It-Up: Kate’s Adventure, will be available for iPhone and iPad starting September 22, 2011. The game had originally been released on PC, where it enjoyed significant popularity, being in the top ten best selling charts of nearly all major casual games portals for two months.

In Fix-It-Up: Kate’s Adventure, gamers play as auto repair workshop owner Kate, who is tasked to run a profitable business. Part of that job is cleverly balancing resources while making the right business decisions at the right time.

When Kate returns home after the college, she finds her father’s auto repair workshop in financial trouble. Kate decides to revive family enterprise but she needs your help – so roll up your sleeves and get to work! Apply your business skills to make this work: fix broken cars, construct and operate a tuning shop, a bodyshop, a disassemble pit, and more! Explore six exciting locations as you expand the franchise from arid Nevada to glamorous Hollywood.

The game features 70 achievements which can be shared on Facebook and Apple Game Center friends. When the player completes the game and achieves expert’s status throughout, two additional modes become unlocked: “money challenge” and “time challenge”. In addition, players are rewarded with a bonus level. These additional levels will task players with fixing up a harvester, police trucks, buggies, taxi cabs and even a helicopter.

The series is interesting in being aimed at female users with a woman in the non-traditional industry of auto repair. It’ll be interesting to see how the game scores on iOS towards the younger female market.

The game will be released on iTunes for iPhone and iPad in two weeks, check out the official page here.

Electronic Arts has officially purchased casual games giant Popcap Games for a cool $650M plus $100M in stock. The acquisition had been first rumored about three weeks ago.

According to Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello:

“EA and PopCap are a compelling combination. PopCap’s great studio talent and powerful IP add to EA’s momentum and accelerate our drive towards a $1 billion digital business. EA’s global studio and publishing network will help PopCap rapidly expand their business to more digital devices, more countries, and more channels.”

Popcap Games became a casual gaming giant quickly after being founded in 2000, on the strength of Bejeweled. From there, major games like Peggle, Bookworm and Plants Vs. Zombies catapulted the company into a force to be reckoned with.

Electronic Arts had flirted with the casual games market with their EA Casual label, but it didn’t penetrate as EA thought it could have. With Popcap Games, they now have the premiere prize in the genre.

The acquisition becomes finalized in August.

Google continues to acquire social gaming sites. Two weeks ago, Google made a healthy investment on Zynga, best known for Farmville and Mafia Wars. Now, they’ve acquired social networking game publisher Slide – which Facebook users will recognize as the guys behind the SuperPoke app, as well as games like SPP Ranch, SuperPoke Pets, SuperPocus Academy of Magic, and Top Fish – for $182M.

It’s not such a coincidence that the founder of Slide is Max Levchin, who co-founded Paypal. Zynga represents the biggest client of Paypal, and Google will try to funnel monetary exchanges through their own payment proxy service Google Checkout, which allows the convenience of all-in-out account purchasing services through other Google features such as Gmail.

Google is making a huge play to not only usurp Facebook, but Paypal and Microsoft as well, with their Google Chrome web browser and future OS. We’ll keep an eye on this story as it develops.

Some of you may have missed the Kinect Tour when it wasat Macy’s in Manhattan the last two days, well, it’ll be in the South Street Seaport again later this week, as well as other locations on the East Coast and the West Coast. It’s currently at the Mall of America as well.

East Coast:

• July 17–18 Manhattan, NY Macy’s
• July 20–22 East Falmouth, MA Barnstable County Fair
• July 24–25 Manhattan, NY Seaport-Lower Manhattan Entertainment Area
• July 28–Aug. 1 Washington, DC Six Flags America
• Aug. 4–6 Canton, OH Football Hall of Fame – Rib Burnoff
• Aug. 7–8 Canton, OH Football Hall of Fame Festival Weekend
• Aug. 11–15 Chicago, IL Air Show/Navy Pier
• Aug. 19–21 Detroit, MI Woodward Dream Cruise – Auto Festival
• Aug. 26–30 St. Paul, MN Minnesota State Fair
• Aug. 30–Oct. 24 Tampa, FL Westfield Citrus Park Shopping Mall
• Sept. 3–6 Indianapolis, IN Rib America Festival
• Sept. 10–13 Nashville, TN Tennessee State Fair
• Sept. 15–16 Atlanta, GA Atlantic Station – Entertainment Plaza
• Sept. 18–19 Atlanta, GA Atlanta Arts Festival
• Sept. 23–26 Charlotte, NC Festival in the Park
• Oct. 1–2 Orlando, FL Disney Wine and Dine Marathon
• Oct. 8–10 Valdosta, GA Wild Adventures Theme Park
• Oct. 14–17 Dallas, TX Texas State Fair
• Oct. 21–24 Shreveport, LA Louisiana State Fair

Read the rest of this entry »

Independent video game developer 4J Studios has posted a gameplay video Texas Wuggle, a upcoming iPhone poker title, which mixes poker, Scrabble and Breakout gameplay elements.

The game will be released in October for iPhone and iPod Touch consoles for $0.99.