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Jack BBQ :: News
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GameBox Sudoku


GameBox Sudoku is our fantastic, high quality Sudoku Puzzle game including Three different board layouts and Three levels of difficulty.

Superb graphics, high-quality music and sound effects, and fantastic playability make this a excellent addition to your game collection and to the GameBox series.

GameBox Sudoku is designed to be the most intuitive Sudoku, easy for anyone to be able to pickup and play. And of course, as a GameBox it strives to be the best looking, best sounding, best overall Sudoku experience on the market.

Features

  • Three board layouts: 4x4, 9x9, and 16x16 puzzle sizes

  • High quality graphics: High quality graphics that are easy on the eyes even during long Sudoku sessions

  • Hint feature: An integrated hint feature helps you along whenever you hit a Sudoku stump

  • Ambient music: High quality, relaxing background music which fits the mood of Sudoku perfectly

  • Unlimited Undos and Redos: Unlimited Undo and Redo features gives you a chance to correct any error you make

  • Auto-save: Games are automatically saved when you exit, so you can continue where you've left off


Allen Gall
Games Editor
Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine
 allen@pocketpcmag.com

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The game I played most this week: Jack BBQ

 

Pit of Fire: Jack BBQ

The official title of this game is "Jack, Or 100 Ways to Barbecue," the name being a reference to how easy it is to fall into a pit of fire in the game. Jack has five levels, which may not seems like much until you realize that each level has a ton of screens or "rooms."  In fact, the game has a total of 300 across those five levels. This is a refreshing difference from most other platform scrollers, which stick with the simpler approach of one level displayed on a screen at a time. As levels progress and get more sophisticated, the screen can become really cramped, especially on a Pocket PC. Using multiple screens per level, however, allows for broader and more interesting level designs. 

Although Jack BBQ isn't based directly on any specific game, it shows a strong lineage to platform scrollers from the 1980s. (I also see some influence from early 90s shareware games from Id and Apogee.)  Graphically, the game is so 1980s (especially the color scheme) that it looks a bit chintzy. The player's character moves around the screen robotically and a little sluggishly. There's plenty of Lode Runner-style ladder climbing and collecting goodies along the way. Although there's plenty of running, jumping, and shooting involved, Jack follows a slower pace than most modern arcade games, which tend to be much more hectic and more about reflexes than thinking. Speaking of thinking, Jack has plenty of puzzles as well.  

If you're looking for a full-featured modern platform scroller, with sophisticated physics, fancy parallax scrolling, 3D graphics, and an immersive interactive environment, then Jack BBQ probably isn't your game. But for those of you who like the more laid-back pace of 1980s platform games, Jack BBQ is a very good modern interpretation of those older games. (Incidental note: the default control scheme actually works pretty well!  This is a minor point, but I've played so many games lately where the default key mapping is completely unworkable.)  It strikes a good balance between using the modern technology of Pocket PCs and phones while capturing the simplicity and feel of those older games. Another plus: the game is frequently updated.
 
Title: Jack BBQ Developer: Industry Entertainment
Genre: Platform Scroller Demo: Y
Platform: Pocket PC 2003+ Price: $19.95
Discuss this game Rating (of 4): 3.3/4.0

News: Etch a Sketch!

Most of you who've been checking the news sites have seen that new game based on the Etch-a-Sketch toy most of us got to play with at some point in our childhood. I didn't really do much drawing on mine, but I spent lots of hours back in the 80s playing Tron, which amounted to seeing how long a line you could draw by turning at right angles and avoiding touching any part of the line. We sure were easily amused back in those days.

What struck me as funny about the Pocket PC version of that game is that it looks like they took a picture of an actual Etch-a-Sketch and Photoshopped "Pocket PC" over "Etch A."  For those of you longing to play the game but not wanting to cough up the $10 required for the Pocket PC game, you can mess around with this one here.

Discuss...


 

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Allen Gall's The Week in Games is a free service of Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine and Smartphone & Pocket PC magazine ONLINE: in-depth articles, tips, an Encyclopedia of Software and Accessories, and links to the best Windows Mobile PDA and Smartphone Web sites. It is edited by Michelle Talley.

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Allen Gall's The Week in Games  Copyright © 2007 by Thaddeus Computing Inc.