i miss that old PopCap feel

[Fat4all]

you know that feel, right?

playing simple, addictive games on a Dell computer you got for school (but instead would use to play PopCap games and Runescape)

you'd walk into a kmart and look around the electronics department, wondering how the hell multi-disc stereos worked

(THREE discs??!?)

looking at games and playing the demo PS2 (ooo, Frequency demo), and you'd see a long row of PC games

bright, popping red accents letting you know it's PopCap, and that it's also not very expensive

boom, plop down a 5ver or 10 note and you've got a game you could play for hundreds of hours

luckily you can still find that same sort of satisfaction on mobile if you find the games that fit you just right, but there was sommit about that early aughts feel

im old

 

[BossAttack]

No, I don't know that feel. Either I bought "real" games or played the stock games that came on Windows.

 

[nsilvias]

that top down car parking puzzle game i used to play on my old desktop on some flash game site was one of the goats imo

 

[jwhit28]

I just found out last weekend Pogo still exist.

 

[Rodney McKay]

It's insanity that they abandoned original Peggle on iOS (and never brought it to Android).

Actually, not insanity, just greed from EA since they wanted to make way more money with Peggle Blast, the IAP filled version.

 

[Giga Man]

Remember Typer Shark?

 

[Berordn]

ea play on game pass has allowed me to relive this popcap feel and i can say with certainty that life is darker with it being gone from my world

that said so many of them are still perfect at least it's easy to dip back into that brief glimmering moment of joy. PvZ1 will never age

 

[Fat4all]

I just found out last weekend Pogo still exist.

Click to shrink...

they got dog Spades

 

[ArtTeitlebaum]

Oh yeaaah. Zuma was digital crack. Addictive as hell.

 

[Robin]

This was THE ONE.

 

[Fat4all]

This was THE ONE.

Click to shrink...

i recently redownloaded that and I've been playing the hell out of it

 

[Milennia]

Bejeweled and Peggle were the most addicting games in existence

 

[krae_man]

I remember going to Popcaps site daily because they had flash versions of a bunch of their games I could kill time on at work. Then one day I went on there and they stealth released Peggle Nights.

I remember buying it the second I got home from work and posting about it excitingly and getting met with "you mean I have to buy it somewhere other than Steam? Fuck that!"

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Peggle is so much fun. Same it got mobiled. Same with PvsZ.

 

[FinalArcadia]

Waaaaaay back in the like the late 90s/early 2000s, I had a CD that came with a box of Cap'n Crunch where you made a Crunchling character and played games. Think it was called Crunchling Adventure? For a cheap little cereal box game, I played a lot of it for some reason.

Not quite the same thing (close, though), but man, I also used to love JumpStart games. There was one my classroom had with a robot that was a lot of fun, and I used to love either the kindergarten one or the 1st grade one with the little dachshund guy that had a cooking game to teach fractions. There was some other game my school had that involved getting parts to upgrade a car or something, and you got parts by answering questions right. I have no idea what it was called and it haunts me to this day trying to remember the name lol.

EDIT: Ohhhh, PopCap games are a specific thing, oops. I thought it was shorthand for simple PC games lmao ignore me

 

[k0decraft]

Good thread OP. I have to comment on that pic of that Aiwa stereo.....damn that brings back Sega Saturn/N64/PS2 days for me. I had these systems hooked up to the AUX L/R and got my first taste of a booming sound system while gaming. Pure bliss.

 

[floridaguy954]

Plants vs Zombies on my DSi back in the day was my jam.

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

No love for Insaniquarium. *shakes head*

 

[Fat4all]

No love for Insaniquarium. *shakes head*

Click to shrink...

i was more into feeding frenzy 2

 

[Princess Bubblegum]

i was more into feeding frenzy 2

Click to shrink...

I remember the first, never played the sequel.

 

[NinjaScooter]

I spent way more time than I should have playing that King of the Hill mini-golf flash game.

 

[Deleted member 29691]

Remember Typer Shark?

Click to shrink...

Nobody remembers Typer Shark

 

[Giga Man]

Insaniquarium made me a fan of PopCap's general catalog.

Heavy Weapon is just a fun little SHMUP.

I somehow missed that they made an updated version with multiplayer!

No love for Insaniquarium. *shakes head*

Click to shrink...

*Raises hand!*

Nobody remembers Typer Shark

Click to shrink...

>:(

 

[Akauser]

that top down car parking puzzle game i used to play on my old desktop on some flash game site was one of the goats imo

Click to shrink...

Yes!! Its was like candystand.com or something got me through college loved the parking games but too much of my college life and I wholly mean too much of it was spent playing Roberto Baggios Magical Kicks.

 

[Fat4all]

I somehow missed that they made an updated version with multiplayer!

Click to shrink...

a couple of their earlier titles got XBLA updated versions, Feeding Frenzy got one too iirc

 

[I Like Ginger Cats:3]

Bejeweled (or whatever clone) got my mother into playing games, haha

 

[Giga Man]

i was more into feeding frenzy 2

Click to shrink...

I remember playing Feeding Frenzy on RealArcade, a service that let you try a timed free trial of a full game before you buy it. The fun part was the as long as the game is running, you can play past the time limit. I completed Feeding Frenzy in one sitting before shutting the game off. It was super easy but super fun. The Killer Whale was the top of the food chain!

 

[DC5remy]

Plants vs zombies was so good. How did they fuck it up, and forget about it?

 

[SturokBGD]

I feel the same way about Mastertronic games. Now excuse me while I crumble to dust.

 

[Giga Man]

Speaking of Bejeweled, remember the Collapse! series? They made a ton of these games.

If you wanted a mindless mobile tapping game before mobile games were a thing, this was it.

 

[Fat4all]

25 million views, heck yeah



Plants vs Zombies Music Video - YouTube

Speaking of Bejeweled, remember the Collapse! series? They made a ton of these games.

If you wanted a mindless mobile tapping game before mobile games were a thing, this was it.

Click to shrink...

apparently the company that made that are still around today, they merged with RealArcade and now they have some sort of game subscription company

they also make their own "story" mobile games that are popular now, but with more puzzle elements

 

[Dr. Feel Good]

Has there ever been any public comments about what happened to the studio? They seemed to be such a leader in casual and mobile games in those early iPhone era and then just nothing. Did EA drive them into the ground?

 

[Arsene no Kiseki]

I was thinking about this last night while I was playing Bejeweled Twist lol

 

[Berordn]

Has there ever been any public comments about what happened to the studio? They seemed to be such a leader in casual and mobile games in those early iPhone era and then just nothing. Did EA drive them into the ground?

Click to shrink...

seems like peggle 2 was their last chance at replicating their old stuff and after that didn't set the world on fire they're mostly a mobile outfit

i'm not too sure if popcap proper is still responsible for the PvZ shooters or if those teams got folded in elsewhere

 

[Stoney Mason]

Has there ever been any public comments about what happened to the studio? They seemed to be such a leader in casual and mobile games in those early iPhone era and then just nothing. Did EA drive them into the ground?

Click to shrink...

The casual and mobile market completely changed. I mean that type of company would struggle to exist in the existing market outside of Apple Arcade or some premium sort of casual service rather than the f2p casual market that exists now.

 

[Jamesac68]

Has there ever been any public comments about what happened to the studio? They seemed to be such a leader in casual and mobile games in those early iPhone era and then just nothing. Did EA drive them into the ground?

Click to shrink...

Victim of its own success- https://kotaku.com/from-bejeweled-to-plants-vs-zombies-how-popcap-got-jus-1844338169

From the article-

After the sale (to EA), all the people I spoke to gradually moved on. Some stayed for months, some a couple of years, but all found it just wasn't a place they wanted to be anymore. Anthony Coleman put it neatly. "We were less and less interested in making what we were told we had to make at that point, which was mobile free-to-play. Then there were more restrictions, because it needed to be the biggest audience possible. And we had other ideas for games we wanted to try, and we knew we'd never be able to make them here. It was time to just move on."

Click to shrink...

 

[LakeEarth]

ZUMA!

 

[MrRob]

Peggle and Zuma are some of the most addictive games ever. Love them to death.

Pogo Pool as well I wasted thousands of hours at work playing pool.

 

[NESpowerhouse]

No love for Insaniquarium. *shakes head*

Click to shrink...

Jesus that's a game I haven't even thought about in over 10 years

On a related note, does anyone know this one Popcap game that was essentially a Metal Slug clone where you could also summon like bombers and shit. I can't for the life of me remember what the game was called, but it was probably my favorite game on the site.

 

[Starlatine]

i just miss peggle

goddammit i want a peggle 3

 

[Fat4all]

On a related note, does anyone know this one Popcap game that was essentially a Metal Slug clone where you could also summon like bombers and shit. I can't for the life of me remember what the game was called, but it was probably my favorite game on the site.

Click to shrink...

heavy weapon?

 

[dgamemaster]

Plants vs zombies was so good. How did they fuck it up, and forget about it?

Click to shrink...

EA happened.

 

[hanshen]

the first game I played on my brand new Xbox Series X

The true next gen experience.

 

[NESpowerhouse]

heavy weapon?

Click to shrink...

Shit, I think this may be it. This was crazy amounts of fun

 

[Lord Azrael]

Man I fucking loved classic PopCap, all the games in this thread tickling my nostalgia bone

 

[Motwera]

I only sorta miss that vibe because my father had so many of these casual games back in the day (especially from Yahoo Games)

 

[hanshen]

a couple of their earlier titles got XBLA updated versions, Feeding Frenzy got one too iirc

Click to shrink...

They're all on gamepass now as part of EA Play.

 

[BlastProcessing]

I had that exact Aiwa unit in high school. Thanks for the nostalgia bomb.

 

[HStallion]

No love for Insaniquarium. *shakes head*

Click to shrink...

Damn I played the fuck out of this game on my old ass flip phone back while working landscaping and maintenance for a summer job back in college. Maybe it was the sequel, its been so long I forget but I remember how hilarious the late parts of the game became with aliens invading your aquarium.

 

[OldDirtyGamer]

Zuma was soooo good

 

[Camwi]

This thought crosses my mind every once in a while, and I've wanted to make a thread but never got around to it.

Like I'm glad Garden Warfare is doing well for them (and it's a fun series), but I miss the old simple but fun games they used to put out.

And I'd kill for a proper sequel to Plants Vs. Zombies.