Sequel Shower
Similarly to people, games are born, get older, and are under the threat of popularity breakdown. This is why, just like people, games have kids. Well, seriously, developers tend to produce sequels to their hit games in order to strengthen player's interest towards the products, not to let the titles die out with time.
Rather than just updating our monthly column Round-up of Sequels we decided to sort things out and have a closer look inside the nature of sequels. So...
Sequels: how do they appear and where do they come from?
Of course, the truth in undeniable: it's much more profitable for a game developer to enhance game graphics, add some features to an existing hit game than create a new game from scratch (which is a pretty risky undertaking for every game developer, I must admit). That's the reason why it turns out that there are more sequels than original and new games.
As far as players are concerned, they gladly play the newly-released sequel games just because they're looking forward to sorting out what can be new about their favorite game, what's going to happen to their favorite character etc. For the same reason, people watch sequels to the great movies, cartoons, listen to remixes of popular songs.
What's good about sequel, is that you don't have to learn to play the game from the very start, pass through the notorious tutorials. As a rule, sequels preserve the game play basics and rules.
The sequence of actions in Diner Dash remains the same, no matter whether you're trying to preserve your business in Diner Dash 2 : Restaurant Rescue or serve cocktails in a space ship in Diner Dash 3: Flo on the Go.
During the last month, a lot of developers pleased the game fans with the sequels to the branded titles such as:
Jewel Quest 2 - a sequel to match-3 hit game. Released 2 years after the original version, the game is enhanced with:
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1) New story. In Jewel Quest II, a player is to follow Rupert, a university professor left by his beloved and who had to set on a quest to Africa in search of ancient treasures.
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2) Single-player and multiplayer modes. Over 170 tile layouts on Single-Player Mode.
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3) Power-ups and bonuses.
Flip Words 2 - a sequel to the famous world game by HipSoft.
Now you are to spell words out of the mess of letters on the playfield.
The first letter of each word you spell constitutes a phrase that you are to eventually guess by spelling all the words on the playfield.
Virtual Villagers - the Lost Children - In February LDW Software finally released the long-expected sequel of Virtual Villagers. Just as well as every game designated to simulate reality, the sequel features a rather engaging plot. According to the story, two villagers crept inside the cave located on the undiscovered part of the island and found the tribe of young children, left alone, hungry and exhausted. Thus, the point is to raise and teach them some new skills(the number of skills ) and bring up a tribe of civilized humans capable of providing for themselves.
Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor - a sequel to the famous Nancy Drew detective series. In this totally realistic and not that casual game, you as young detective Nancy Drew, are to set off on a trip to Great Britain and solve the mystery of life of Linda Penvellyn, who's been staying in bed sick with some unknown malady. The state-of-art game promises hundreds of hours of realistic game play.
More sequels are on the way. And that's what you are to hopefully expect in the coming year (although we cannot tell you no precise dates):
Travelogue 360 - representatives of Big Fish Games told us we're to expect the trip to more locations of the world.
Virtual Villagers - LDW Software don't make it a secret, Virtual Villagers does not ends with the second version. Check back for a sequel at http://virtualvillagers.com/.
Mystery Case Files - Judging from the information announced by the official website of the game series, http://www.mysterycasefiles.com/, Big Fish Games are working closely on the next episode and are even selling space for your pictures to be placed on the next levels.
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