THE ORIGINAL IS THE BEST THING SINCE QIX:

From the Creator of Bejeweled, Another Digital Diversion From the Day’s Work (SETH SCHIESEL, 9/17/08, NY Times)

Do you sit in a cubicle all day? Is your time filled with inane, interminable conference calls? Do you while away the hours idly clicking on Minesweeper or solitaire? Do you incessantly mess around on Facebook comparing scores on Oregon Trail or trying to find the next Scrabble rip-off? You’re a gamer. You just haven’t admitted it yet. [...]

I am both pleased and somewhat chagrined (given how susceptible I am to these sorts of diversions) to report that PopCap’s latest creation, Peggle Nights, seems poised to suck up millions of hours that would otherwise be devoted to regurgitating the latest monthly quota figures, watching soap operas or perhaps even making the world a better place. And it will feel like a lot of fun.

Like the original Peggle, released last year, Peggle Nights is a digital amalgam of Pachinko and pinball. You aim and fire a small ball from the top of the screen and it bounces off pegs arranged in various patterns until it falls off the screen at the bottom. The goal is to hit all of the orange pegs (the rest are blue) before running out of balls. Like most casual games, it sounds prosaic until you try it. Then you’re hooked. Peggle Nights, which became available for download at PopCap.com this week (the trial is free; the full version costs $19.95), builds on the original with dozens of new levels and some new scoring options.

Perhaps the most beautiful thing about a well-made casual game like Peggle Nights is seeing the raw psychology of game design at work in a pure form. Building a game is about creating a structure of rewards and obstacles that players will find both challenging and gratifying without becoming too frustrated. And that does not have to require a development team of hundreds and a $50 million budget, as with some top-shelf games.

In the Peggle series you can just feel the psychology at work: there’s the escalating musical scale of beeps as the ball hits additional pegs; the way the view zooms in as you try to ricochet into your final target; and the rendition of “Ode to Joy,” reinforcing a sense of accomplishment as each level is completed. Aimed at the broadest possible audience, Peggle Nights even includes a welcome feature to make its graphics understandable to the colorblind.