You have to hand it to the people at PopCap. It’s amazing how something so simple can be so addictive. I mean the player strategy behind their hugely successful game, Peggle Deluxe, amounts to little more than a digital coin toss. Despite this, the game is immensely satisfying and keeps players coming back for more. One of the reasons is the sheer joy you get when you pull off shots like this:

In many ways, Peggle has a lot of the same visceral qualities that made games like Ambrosia Software’s Malestrom and Apeiron so great. These noteworthy creations from Ambrosia Software helped to inspire my love of Mac gaming and provided a great deal of inspiration when it came time to bring the user interface and general feel of Frenzic to life. Ambrosia has gotten away from these types of straight forward, fun as hell, games lately (with the possible exception of Sketch Fighter) and it’s too bad. I would kill for an updated OS X version of Malestrom. One that combines the simple fun of Peggle with the classic sensibilities of Ambrosia and the power of Mac OS X.

In the meantime, my hat goes off to the folks at PopCap for creating Peggle. I think it’s almost as addictive as Frenzic… almost 😉 If you have videos of your favorite shot replays, post links to them in the comments and help spread the Extreme Fever. Tally ho!