Cat Mario | Free Game You Must Try

So I'm not sure where I found this game, or why I even pursued it, but let's just say it has ruined my day. This is one of the most frustrating games I've played in a long time and as I type this I am still fuming mad.

Cat Mario is a 2D Japanese platforming game that looks and feels like Super Mario Bros. The game was released in 2007 and has a few names, probably because of the translation. Some people call it Syobon Action or Neko Mario. The game is free to play, or rather, free to ruin your day by increasing your level of infuriosity (new word, add it to your dictionary).

Basically you'll control a friendly kitty cat like character. He doesn't have a name, that i'm aware of, but by the time you're finished playing you'll want to call him any number of expletives. The game consists of four levels, although I never even made it past the first one, with all sorts of traps that are designed to trick you. You will find hidden blocks, power-ups and spikes, angry clouds, mean lasers and something to fuck your day up around every corner.

So if you're not convinced already, then I would recommend giving Cat Mario a try. You can find it on any number of free to play websites but i'll link to you were I found it first. Also there are many YouTube videos of people playing Cat Mario and getting extremely frustrated, which are quite funny to watch.

Play Cat Mario

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May game: Angry Troll Run

I’m finalizing The Infected card game (hoping to hit the online store this by the end of this month…) but also participating in game jams. In May, I created the Angry Troll Run (art public domain).

It’s my very first mobile app creation, so naturally I’m darned proud of it.

The game was created during several nights, using Monkey (buy it). And after all the manifest files and ant and whatnot setups, I managed to get it to google’s store.

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Facebook SPMD SocialCode adds Colin Sutton Vice President of Client Strategy

SocialCode, a Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer, announced Wednesday that the company has named Colin Sutton as the Vice President of Client Strategy.

Suttom comes to SocialCode from OMD, where he was the U.S. Director for Social Media, leading OMD’s social business while overseeing a group of media-focused strategists. He managed more than $50 million in advertising spend across social platform. Sutton has advised Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Pepsi, Audi, GE, Hershey’s, Warner Bros. and other Fortune 50 brands.

Out of SocialCode’s New York office, Sutton will help the company grow relationships with the world’s largest advertisers. He will lead client strategy and delivery for the U.S. East Coast and Central regions. Sutton will also serve as a senior consultant for top clients globally.

SocialCode CEO Laura O’Shaughnessy welcomed Sutton to the company in a press release:

Colin Sutton is one of the most respected social marketing strategists in the business. He has an impressive history of capitalizing on social media to drive larger marketing strategy, while executing social advertising programs at global scale.

Sutton is excited to start, as he noted in the press release:

Social media continue to evolve as a core pillar of marketing, which has created growing demand for highly advanced technology-driven solutions. As an agency partner for several years, I’ve enjoyed SocialCode’s partnership and innovation in driving success for our most important clients. I look forward to contributing to SocialCode’s rapid growth and client success.

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A First Look at Capcom's Deep Down

There were a few games during the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 era that brought back the excitement of playing an old school dungeon crawler. In this day and age, it seems as though traditional genres are changing to become fast-paced action games. Even the Final Fantasy series plays more like an action game than a traditional RPG these days.

When Capcom revealed Deep Down at the PlayStation 4 unveiling last year, our first impression was that it was a return to the days of old, similar in style to Dragon's Dogma or Dark Souls. The game was absent at E3 2013, but it made an appearance at the Tokyo Game Show. We still don't have a great deal of details, but let's go over what we know about the title thus far.

If you're expecting a fast-paced action game, Deep Down is not going to fill that need. While the atmosphere definitely feels similar to Dark Souls, the action is much slower with a more traditional dungeon crawler vibe. In fact, from what we've seen, the game is more about navigating dungeon-like mazes than it is fast-paced battles.

What takes the game to the next level is the atmosphere combined with the randomness of the dungeons. It's been known for a while that the game will feature randomly generated dungeons, and it looks like it will be presented similar to the Assassin's Creed Animus system. It takes place in 2094 New York, which means that's probably just where the real world begins. Touching long lost artifacts generates a random dungeon that we presume will be loosely tied to the artifact. Much like in Assassin's Creed, how you get to the dungeon isn't important. It's what you do after you arrive that matters.

While you slowly make your way through each dungeon, you won't know what to expect. Moving beyond the fact that the dungeon is randomly generated, it's simply hard to tell what's ahead of you. You'll hear a monster lurking in the shadows, you'll know it's there and closing in on you, but you won't know when or where it will attack. Most of the twists and turns in each dungeon are blind corners, so you won't know what to expect until you physically look around a corner. It's eerie and almost gives you that frightened feeling similar to the first time you played Resident Evil back in the day.

Strategically, you'll have to use the limited tools available to overcome the mysterious and random nature of each dungeon. The combat system features the ability to parry or deflect attacks with proper timing, but damage doesn't seem to be a concern at this point. Once we've seen a build of the game closer to final, it's likely damage will play a role, so knowing how to take down an enemy will be key.

Alchemy plays a big role in the combat system. You can throw bomb-like objects at enemies like a grenade, or set them up as traps similar to proximity or timed mines. If you're skilled in melee combat, using the parry system seems to work well. However, if melee combat isn't your thing, you can play around with the alchemy traps to dispatch your enemies.

There are various items to pick up as you traverse each dungeon. At the moment, they don't have much use, but we expect them to offer health and possibly damage-boosting power-ups in the future. While we haven't seen much in the way of weapon variety, it is assumed that weapons will change with each dungeon, if not mid-dungeon. The combat will likely see a few changes between now and the final release of the game, so things are still a bit mysterious.

At the moment, Deep Down does not have a firm release date. Most people expect to see it by the end of 2014, but there's been no confirmation of that from Capcom. What we do know is that Deep Down is a unique title given the slim offerings of the newly released next-generation consoles. We'll have more information on the PlayStation 4 exclusive as soon as it becomes available. At the very least, we expect the title to make an appearance at E3 2014 in a few months.

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News Feed algorithm tweak: Status updates from pages moving down

Facebook announced Tuesday another change to its News Feed algorithm, this time involving status updates. Some page admins last year found that plain-text status updates (or status updates including a link) were doing well in terms of reach. However, Facebook found that engagement was lower for these types of posts.

The social network decided that since status updates from pages behave differently than photo, video and link posts, they should be treated differently. While users may see more status updates from friends, pages may see a decline in reach for these types of posts, writes Facebook’s Chris Turitzin, Product Manager, News Feed Ranking:

As a result, the latest update to News Feed ranking treats text status updates from Pages as a different category to text status updates from friends. We are learning that posts from Pages behave differently to posts from friends and we are working to improve our ranking algorithms so that we do a better job of differentiating between the two types. This will help us show people more content they want to see. Page admins can expect a decrease in the distribution of their text status updates, but they may see some increases in engagement and distribution for other story types.

Many Page owners often ask what kind of content they should post. This is difficult to answer, as it depends on who your audience is and what they want to see.

The move is to prompt more pages to take advantage of Facebook’s more visual link share format, instead of posting a link within a status update (as illustrated above). Turitzin notes that the new and improved link share format (which pulls a large image from the website linked to) has led to enhanced engagement and provide a more visual experience for fans.

He emphasized that there’s no magic bullet format that page admins should be using:

In general, we recommend that you use the story type that best fits the message that you want to tell – whether that’s a status, photo, link or video.

Readers: What do you think of this decision?

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High 5 Games launches Shake the Sky Casino Real Slots on Facebook

Following in the success of its High 5 Casino app on Facebook, High 5 Games has released Shake the Sky Casino Real Slots on the platform. The slot machine game offers multiple slot machines for play, and two kinds of experience points for players to earn over time.

Each machine has its own experience point ranking, while players earn overall experience points that stick with them across machines. As players earn XP on both bars, they’ll receive free bonus money, free spins and more. This dual-experience points setup will be familiar to those who have tried other slot machine games on Facebook, including Solara Casino from Blitzoo Interactive.

Machines in Shake the Sky can be customized in terms of the amount of money bet per line, and the number of lines active per spin, and players can toggle auto-play to have the game play automatically without further input.

Back at the game’s lobby, players can spin a separate wheel for a chance to unlock additional slot machines, or simply bonus cash. Players earn free spins on this wheel over time, or by leveling up.

Shake the Sky Casino launched last month, and is available to play for free. The game has over 582,000 monthly active players and is climbing at a rapid pace, according to our app tracking service AppData.

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Yummy Balls brings candy-themed Peggle to Facebook

After the success of PopCap’s Peggle and King’s Papa Pear Saga (among others), RoyalCactus has released its own take on the peg-destruction formula on Facebook: Yummy Balls. The game sees players dropping candies from the top of the screen, which then bounce off of pegs and accumulate points before dropping into buckets at the bottom of the screen.

Each level has a different layout of rectangular and round shapes, and has a different overall goal, like clearing a certain percentage of shapes from the screen or clearing all symbols of a specific color, as examples. Players earn up to three stars on each stage, and receive bonus points for any leftover shots they had in their pack when completing the level’s requirements.

As players complete stages, they’ll unlock power-ups that make things easier going forward. A “division” power-up, for instance, splits a single candy into two, destroying more symbols without wasting another shot from the pack. Meanwhile, lighting power-ups can be used to destroy multiple pegs with the same shot as lightning bolts shoot across the screen.

Players can compare their scores on each stage with friends, and they’re free to go back and play previously passed levels to earn more stars or increase their high scores.

Yummy Balls was released late last year, and is on the rise on Facebook. The game currently sits at over 651,000 monthly active players and climbing, according to our app tracking service AppData. It’s available to play for free on Facebook.

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