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Retro-inspired Cubixx kicks off on PSP Minis

We want to be more upset at Laughing Jackal's wholesale appropriation of the Qix concept -- even going so far as to use a similar title -- for its PSP Minis game, Cubixx. But the fact is that Qix is awesome, whether Taito is making it or not, and it's relatively unexplored compared to other arcade classics like Pac-Man. And Cubixx does add an interesting wrinkle to the Qix gameplay: a cube, in which you attempt to draw lines to cover the area of all six faces.

Cubixx will be released in Europe on Thursday 3rd December at a £2.49 price point. See some footage on the other side of the post break.

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Puzzle Quest 2 coming to DS, XBLA in Spring 2010

Though we're confident Infinite Interactive's Puzzle Quest 2 will eventually be a mega-multiplatform release like its predecessor, D3Publisher announced that the game's roll-out will start on DS and Xbox Live Arcade. It'll be out in spring 2010, along with every other game you've ever heard of, which means that you'll now have the choice to play all those games or Puzzle Quest. They'll occupy about the same amount of time.

Puzzle Quest 2 will let players match gems as one of four new character classes: War Mage, Inquisitor, Barbarian, or Assassin, using "all-new weapons, spells, and shields." Sorry if you just got over a Puzzle Quest addiction.

Puzzle Quest sequel revealed

It appears that GamePro will reveal the first details of Puzzle Quest 2 in its next issue. Beyond a single image, the mag doesn't drop any details on its website. After Infinite Interactive went a tad off course with Galactrix -- meanwhile, developing Puzzle Kingdoms, Puzzle Chronicles and Neopets Puzzle Adventure -- it's good to see the team going back to its roots.

From the image, it seems that Puzzle Quest 2 is being developed for Xbox 360, but if it's anything like its predecessor, the game will eventually release on every console, handheld and electronic device known to man. One can also deduce that purple is now a rune for spells instead of XP. But what purpose do the gloves serve? We're sure to learn more very soon.

iPhone It In: bitFLIP

I first heard about iPhone pseudo-puzzler bitFLIP from the game's developer, Metamoorephosis Games owner (and JPAG member) Josh Hernandez. I'd be remiss to not mention upfront the hesitation with which I approached reviewing said game for iPhone It In, given the development source being a Joystiq reader and podcast listener.

It was a convenient delight then when I first loaded the game up on my 3G and had a thoroughly enjoyable time playing it. Though a truly egregious boot time put me off from playing bitFLIP during my every free moment over the two or so weeks I spent with the game (that time was reserved for Canabalt), I was still anxious to play it when my free time was longer than a scant few moments. Mixing interesting puzzle mechanics, great music, a truly unique (and often beautiful) visual presentation, and a variety of gameplay options, I can confidently say that there's more than enough enjoyable gaming to be had here to warrant your two bucks.

Gallery: bitFLIP

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Level-5 reveals Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, coming to Japan next fall

Professor Layton and the Devil's Flute is out in Japan tomorrow, so Level-5 decided it was an appropriate time to go ahead and announce the next DS game in the second Layton trilogy. At a Devil's Flute launch event, Level-5 president Akihiro Hino revealed the above artwork for Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask.

This fifth game has Layton and Luke investigating the mystery of the title artifact in Casino City, which seems to have been created by the wish-granting mask. According to a Famitsu report that leaked before the official reveal, there could be major changes to the familiar gameplay system.

Miracle Mask will be out in fall 2010, and may be followed by a second movie, Hino said. The company first has to solve the puzzle of how much money it will receive from the first one.

[Via Famitsu, Andriasang]

This Wednesday: XBLA takes you out for Diner and a Gyromantic date

Xbox Live Arcade shows a belligerent disregard for productivity this week, hosting a pair of light puzzle games that are sure to weigh heavily on your mind during working hours. Why not have a go (and then just one more) at Gyromancer, the gem-shifting collaboration between Square Enix and PopCap? The cost of entry is 1200 ($15). If it's a cohesive concoction of puzzles, RPG elements and item collection, your departure is likely to be at no point.

PlayFirst is also serving up an XBLA version of Diner Dash for 800 ($10). The culinary-themed time management game should be an ideal snack in between gorging on Dragon Age: Origins, Modern Warfare 2, Assassin's Creed 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and ... hmm. How good are you at time management?

Professor Layton and the sinister graffiti

We were going to comment on the creepy "sign of the witch" that Professor Layton, Remi and young Luke encounter in this screenshot of Professor Layton and the Devil's Flute -- and how it seems that this Layton game is going in an unusually spooky and dark direction -- but then we remembered that both of the Layton games out in North America contain some fairly scary supernatural-seeming content: mysterious murders, monsters, curses, and the like.

We tend to think of the Layton games as so pleasant and so light-hearted, but, really, there's often something a bit sinister in many of the puzzles Layton must solve. Grab a cup of tea and head to Famitsu for more totally spooky screens.

Fortune-hunting industry hit hard by recession, apparently

What Nathan Drake possesses in charm and acrobatic adroitness, he seriously lacks in luck. Much like that fedora-capped, state-named adventurer, he never seems to end one of his adventures with the loot he set out to obtain, leaving his cash-flow as non-existent as his reservations over killing thousands of pirates and mercenaries. Therefore, we're not surprised to see he's been branching out, and is now putting his keen analytical mind to work as a detective in Big Fish Games' Hill Stone Animation Studio's PC puzzle-solving title, The Broken Clues.

Of course, the preceding paragraph only makes sense in a world where video game characters are sentient beings, capable of performing activities outside of the scope designated for them by a hard-working team of programmers and designers. In reality, it seems that Drake's likeness was straight-up yoinked by Big Fish HSA Studio, in a brazen display of copyright infringement that's reminiscent of Limbo of the Lost, only without the added bonus of being unintentionally hilarious.

Update:
Corrected developer name (i.e., Hill Stone Animation Studio). Big Fish Games is the distributor. Also, check out the even more striking resemblance highlighted in a new image comparison after the break! [Thanks, 7ucky & Sayed]

[Via PSU Forums]

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PSP Mini 'Bubble Trubble' pops up on PSN Nov. 12


Posting on the PlayStation Blog, Creat Studios has detailed the release plans for its upcoming PSP Mini, Bubble Trubble. Featuring both survival and challenge modes, the bite-sized burst-'em-up will launch on PSN this Thursday, November 12, for $4.99.

The color-matching gameplay has you connecting (presumably trubblesome) bubbles together, with similarly colored spheres fusing, expanding and then exploding in space-clearing catharsis. The commentary on humanity's self-destructive propensity for greed and the dangers of corporate conglomeration is perhaps a little too obvious, but the colors are nice.

Gyromancer will end our lives on November 18

Looks like we're going to have to start working on that Bucket List a lot sooner than we would've guessed. The recently released English language trailer for Square Enix and PopCap's RPG-puzzle mash-up Gyromancer has delivered a release date for our pending doom: November 18. Not only that, but the trailer's now-readable text has revealed a gameplay mechanic which slipped our attention in the original, Japanese trailer: Monster collection.

So, it's Bejeweled, Final Fantasy and Pokémon all rolled into one, then? Awesome. That's really awesome. We hope you guys have enjoyed reading our humble site, because Gyromancer looks to be addictive enough make us forget to feed ourselves, let alone work.

Auditorium flowing to XBLA, PSN and PSP next year

We haven't heard anything about Cipher Prime's plans to port its hypnotic musical puzzler, Auditorium, since the studio won a publishing contract in the 2BeeGames competition back in July. Today, a press release from newly named publisher Zoo Games revealed a few details about the title's console destinations: It's coming to Xbox Live Arcade and PSN, both as a PS3 and PSP download "early next year."

For those who want to know what the soothing buzz is all about, you can check out Auditorium for free on the 2BeeGames site. For those who can't access that site for some reason, just turn on some classical music, go turn on the nearest water faucet, and try to redirect the stream with your hands.

Ghost Trick returns to haunt us with new trailer

Capcom's Ghost Trick was one of the most memorable games of TGS (in our opinion), combining a novel puzzle mechanic with a memorable style. We've been eagerly awaiting any new information or media that may (Ghost) trickle out, and now we've got a new-ish trailer to share for the 2010 release.

We say new-ish because it features the same intro animation seen in the TGS trailer. But this extended video also has brief snippets of gameplay footage, in which we can see Sissel possessing and "tricking" things like a cabinet door (to make a dog move). Check out the trailer after the break.

[Via GoNintendo]

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A world of data from the World of Goo birthday sale

Following the completion of the World of Goo birthday sale, 2D Boy gathered up all the statistics it had from the "pay what you want" sale and connected them all into a big pile of interconnected info blobs. After the last stat update, when the developer revealed that many people were buying the game for one cent, something magical happened! The average price went up by a noticeable amount.

Linux users were, on average, more generous with their purchase prices (maybe they offset the money they don't spend on operating systems?), and Swiss buyers were the most "generous," according to a metric that compares average purchase price to a country's per-capita GDP. The most generous individual? One "Stuart", who handed over $150 for a copy of World of Goo!

Meanwhile, the average purchase price for the WiiWare version was $15 -- because the sale didn't apply to that version.

Q? Entertainment: Music licensing, other issues keeping portable Lumines off PSN for now

Lumines was one of the most popular launch titles for the PSP -- but Q? Entertainment's puzzler is notably absent from the PSP Go's initial lineup. Q explained the reason for the non-downloadability succinctly in a Tweet.

"We would love to bring Lumines/Lumines II to the PSN store," Q's rep said, "but there are complications, music licensing, was published by Namco, etc." However, "That said, we're obviously looking into it. :)" Q went on to single out the songs "Shinin'" and "Lights" as requiring new licenses for digital distribution, and clarified that it would be Bandai Namco's decision to publish the first Lumines on PSN, since it published the game on UMD (in Japan).

While the licensed music in Lumines makes it even harder to republish, this is starting to sound really familiar. As Sony's Eric Lempel told us, it's especially difficult for publishers of older PSP games to go to PSN, because licenses will have elapsed, and won't have covered digital distribution in the first place. And Sony isn't requiring third parties to pursue digital distribution, so unless they see significant revenue potential from, say, PSP Go sales, many publishers just won't. That said, it's hard to imagine a PSP without Lumines, and we're confident it'll happen eventually.

[Via PSN Stores; thanks, Kassatsu]

Shadow Walker: Boy of Shadow, Girl of Light, Trailer of Game

One week from today, Game Arts' Shadow Walker: Boy of Shadow, Girl of Light will be released on WiiWare in Japan. To mark the occasion, Game Arts released a trailer (after the break), demonstrating its adorable character design and puzzle-based gameplay.

Okay, so Hudson's Lost in Shadow, which isn't on WiiWare, is about a boy who is a shadow, using other shadows as platforms and making new shadows to travel on with the help of his fairy companion. This game, which is a download, is about a boy who can only walk in shadows, and whose fairy companion helps him create shadow paths.

Despite the extremely similar premise, the gameplay looks quite different. In this game, you control only the fairy, creating paths for the boy to walk through.

[Via Andriasang]

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