Posted by Heartbourne on Friday, April 24th, 2009 - 35 Comments
Tags: Addons, bejeweled, games, peggle, popcap
As you may have already heard, Peggle was just released as a WoW addon (get it here). I’ve dreamt of this day for years! Ever since I pre-ordered the Orange Box and was tempted to casual gaming with its sweet nectar, I have yearned for a way to conveniently play Peggle. Now I can play the Pachinko-like pinball game while stomping around Azeroth.
As the game is a WoW addon, it is free, unlike most versions of Peggle. Like Bejeweled, you install it as a typical WoW addon and they hope it entices you to buy a full version. Their strategy worked for Bejeweled; I bought it for my iPod Touch when it showed up on the app store because of my great experiences with it in WoW. I hear there is a version of Peggle headed to the iPod Touch, so I’ll keep my eyes peeled.
Peggle is a simple game where you have a “cannon” at the top of your screen and a playing field consisting of different colored pegs. There are maybe around 100 pegs on the screen on a given playing field. At the beginning of the game, 20 pegs are colored orange (at least that’s what the game claims, they’ve always looked red to me), 2 are colored green, and the rest are colored blue. The color distribution is completely random and changes every time you play a given stage. You have 10 balls to start, the primary goal is to clear all the orange pegs. You can also try to get a lot of points or clear the entire board. Like WoW, you can place priorities on your goals.
As you shoot balls out of the top canon, they bounce down. Blue pegs get you a small amount of points, while red pegs increase the multiplier applied to pegs you get throughout the rest of the round. Green pegs trigger a special effect. In a full-fledged Peggle client, you would have a choice of around a dozen. In the WoW version, you have a choice of 2: super-guide and space blast. Super-guide allows you to see a detailed trajectory of your next few potential shots, while space blast explodes around the green peg and clears all nearby pegs. At the start of each shot, a random blue peg is colored purple and is worth a ton of extra points. If you gets lots of points on one shot or manage to land the peg into the moving bucket at the bottom, you get extra balls.
This may sound complicated, but you essentially point and click and a bouncing ball triggers all sorts of happy lights and sounds and its extremely satisfying.
The WoW implementation is very true to the stand-alone versions with a great WoW flair. The stages are based on capital cities in WoW; every Horde and Alliance capital is included as well as Dalaran, Shattrath, the dark portal, and Icecrown Citadel. Pegs are mapped along a background image of the city, much like the stand-alone game. There are many multiplayer options, such as battles (where you challenge a group of people to get a high score), duels (time limited skill shot challenges between two players), and even “Peggleloot”, which is a loot distribution option implemented using Master Looter and skill shots in Peggle. By clearing stages, you can earn talent points, publish high scores to your guild, see all your friend and guild-mates high scores, and more.
The addon uses less memory than many heavy addons like Lootlink or Auctioneer and does not affect my WoW performance at all. However, there are some small bugs and caveats. On stages with moving pegs, performance drops in WoW mess up the timing of the moving pegs, making the shots very crazy and giving you very little planning ability. But, if your computer rarely has these hiccups with WoW or you avoid playing while in Dalaran or on Northrend flight paths (both of where I get these hiccups on my Macbook Pro), this is hardly an issue. There are some very rare pathing issues where what looks like a smooth surface created by square pegs has embedded corners, and hitting it just right sends the balls flying off in an unexpected direction. Aside from these small bugs, the game is a blast. The fact that all these physics are happening in a WoW addon and we are comparing it to a full-fledged games really speaks to how polished this addon is. It gives me something to do while fishing, during raid downtime or breaks, or scanning the auction house. I don’t leave home without it!
Do you think having games inside of WoW is pointless, or do you use it as a casual distraction? I’d love to see more games myself in WoW (as stupid as that sounds, as WoW is a game). Playing chess with a friend while raiding sounds immensely fun, and I’d love to see it implemented. Post comments with your recommendations for mini-games, I’d love to find more!
Related Posts: Managing Addons, Interface Tips for Patch Day, Juggy’s Addons - Grid, PopCap Games Pushing A Bewjeweled Addon, Time, Time, Time!,
By Freq on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
First
By PatrickD on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
When will someone make a game inside an add-on? …and then maybe another game inside that?
I find the whole concept idiotic. If I want to play a game (besides WoW), I’ll bring up another window on my computer. I don’t need an add-on to WoW to do that…especially if it means the game will launch slower and there could be compatibility problems after a patch is released.
NO thank you!
By Dyra on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
My guild now know when I’m flying they when they get completely ignored as I’m playing bejewelled :D. Peggle looks like alot of fun though and I’ll be downloading it very shortly. As I only use games as a distraction while I’m flying I really don’t want anything that takes too much time to figure out or too long to play.
While I would like multiplayer games I’m not in the air for long enough to make it worth it for the other player who isn’t likely to be flying with me. Though playing against a computer might work.
As for what games I’ld like, word games and puzzles I’ld enjoy the most, otherwise slot machine games would be fun though I doubt they’ld be allowed.
By Vayder on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 2:49 pm
im completly addicted to Bejewled. i take the long flights just so i can break my high score.lol
By GvJordan on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
Looks nice. Can’t wait to try it.
By Zerth on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
I must point out:
“point and click and a bouncing ball triggers all sorts of happy lights and sounds and its extremely satisfying.”
-Heartbourne
By aerislan on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I wound up playing this thing for about 2 hours after I initially downloaded it…
By plfanman on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
It would be a neat idea if you could have an addon that affected your wow game.
Consider it like this: a Bartender, where a chessboard is your keybinding.
When you duel someone, their pieces are on the top, and when you, say, use Kings on the chessboard (the 6th tile? not sure) it would activate your “6″ ability. Your character’s movement could be affected by your movement on the chessboard.
Maybe not an addon, but how about a UI where you’re at a different PoV; like the Chessboard above, however, its not a chessboard, but the game itself from an arial position, and u use ur mouse to drag/move your player. That would be cool,
By Jeff on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
Peggle is free if you subscribe to Shockwave Unlimited…
… just saying.
I concur with the poster above - I login to WoW to PLAY WoW… not OTHER games… :-/
By Conxcore on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
I usually go AFK in flight or go on Thottbot, Wowhead, etc.
Otherwise hells yea!
By cocopuff on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 7:36 pm
i love what happens when you eat a level
By cocopuff on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
this is game is kind of stu[id my prospective i mean the sound when you complete the level is cool implentment of all the major places on azeroth and outland but what i realy hate is taht you can only control whear tyou shoot the ball after that you have no control over teh ball or teh bucket bellow leaves it completly up to luck
By GreeM on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 12:32 am
It looks maden from fat guys…
By S128K on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 2:34 am
@cocopuff Not just luck, very interesting article on wired.com re peggle & luck/physics http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2009/03/gamesfrontiers_0309
By Alternate on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 6:28 am
Peggle was fun when I first played it, but a very nice game thats fun, for some atleast, is Tetris. Of course it would have to have an “auto-save when exited” feature so you can get right back in when you are flying again or just waiting for party/raid members to get to the instance. Personally, I would pay $20 to have it, since I have it on my phone and when I’m stuck sitting somewhere for a while, I pop it out and play tetris for the entire wait.
Other than Tetris, many other games should also be implemented into WoW, Connect Four is a quickie, and its fun, even if its against a computer.
They should also implement a feature for waiting raids, like a big online game of spades, hearts, or euchere (that spelt right?). Lord knows how I hate sitting there waiting for 15 minutes on just two people and all I am stuck doing is working my numbers up on my JumpCounter.
On an accomplishment side note, my average Tetris game is 2 hours 37 minutes. I play it too much =/
By Gene on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 8:59 am
Honestly, Peggle is ruining me.
By cocopuff on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 9:14 am
well they certainly live up to their ramputaion but its not llike bejeweled whear you haveto have a very sharp have a sharp eye to spot clusters of jewls nothing like taht is involved in peggle i knew that you “masters” whuld come up with an excuse like you havento know the perfect timing and perfect to shoot it ya the basicly the game but what about aafter that if you think that by shooting faster or later to the left or right whould determine whear it goes then you must be one high tach computer
By Teal on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 10:45 am
I find the idea very silly… if I want to play peggle, I can close wow and play peggle
By cocopuff on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
i just beat paggle its took me little over 5 hours
By elion on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
the wow version of paggle does not do the game justice the original version is way better their is a larger variety of char and levels plus a whole bunch of other stuff so if your tryin to hook new members with this game you are felling
By elion on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
i forgot this the spelling freak failing*
By David on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Patrick D, your concept has a point, however releasing small puzzle games such as peggle and bejewled is very helpful. Since there is some downtime in WoW it is very convenient to have something to do in the game instead of opening a new window. many people love this concept and I’m sorry if you don’t agree
By elion on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
AGREED
By Hal on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
>>Playing chess with a friend while raiding sounds immensely fun, and I’d love to see it implemented.
Didn’t you think somebody would have done that already ?
http://www.wowinterface.com/downloads/info9182-wowChess.html
By Prower on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 3:16 pm
-movie and windowed mode wow for me, if you can make the room on your screen it definatly kills the boredom of Grinding / questing.
I kinda understand how peggle is for waiting but tbh im yet to meet the group that has a problem with you doing a daily so long as you are lfm…
By Ceilí on Saturday, April 25th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
I’m not much of a peggle, fan however the bejeweled version has me hooked to WoW even more than before.
While doing tedious things like fishing or doing dailies or waiting for a BG queue, wintergrasp or for the raids to commence I go and play bejeweled in WoW.
I don’t have 2 screens, so I can’t play it outside of the game, I do have a laptop next to me to watch movies while fishing etc (but that also get old now and then) but not really great to play even casual games like bejeweled on. And I can’t alt+tab because who knows what you’ll miss in WoW.
I get that some people find this stupid, but people who still play wow for only certain aspects of the game, and thus not always have something to do while being ingame it’s a nice addition instead of staring at a screen.
It’s been a long time that I found WoW challenging but I still like to socialise with guildies, and this prevents me from being bored during those moments of silence or waiting for raids/bg’s/whatever, it’s a great addon, and I can hardly say it’s slows down your game (unless you got a computer that can just barely run WoW and don’t use addons of any kind)
By Dom on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 7:14 am
There is a chess addon where you can play people, idk if it works with the new patch or even with Lich King but you should download it and try it out.
By Barduck on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 8:04 am
guildie got hacked after installing a cartgame addon for wow, I have no idea if this addon can contain such hacks but I for one am not going to risk it. If I want to play a game besides WoW I just turn on the PS3
By Heartbourne on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
@Hal and Dom
I’ll have to try that chess addon out! Last time I had checked it wasn’t updated even for patch 2.4, and this was after WotLK came out iirc. Thanks for the heads up!
By Shoyarite on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
Thanks alot, Heartbourne… maybe in your next post you can introduce me to heroin. =(
By Darkdreamer on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 7:43 am
my guild banned bejeweled ._. i forgot to heal too many times
By Cozmus on Monday, April 27th, 2009 at 10:17 am
Dang, I can’t even find enough time to level up my Blacksmithing let alone play another game while playing a game.
By Pewpewblast on Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Haha, this post was made on my Birthday
Anyways, this game is crazy fun! After I downloaded it, I told my whole guild about it, and OVER HALF of us are now addicts of it
Crazy good fun
If anyone btw has a full clear guide, I’d love to find it
By Samji Wahala on Sunday, June 7th, 2009 at 12:23 am
This game is amazing but kinda to easy and you can beat most of them full clear in 2 flights from dal to the argent tourney area. My highest score so far is 902,000 beat that!
By Artemes on Monday, June 8th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Hooray for Peggle being released on Ipod!!