parachute panic

Windows Phone Game Round-up: Doodle Games

Games

By George Ponder, Thursday, Jun 14, 2012 at 9:01 am

Windows Phone Central's round-up of doodle styled games for your Windows Phone

The Windows Phone Marketplace is full of quality apps and games. Each week Windows Phone Central will round-up a handful of applications or games that fit a certain theme. For example last week we looked at panoramic photography apps. Future round ups may deal with sports games one week and news apps the next.

This week the round up focuses on doodle styled games. These are games where the animations and graphics are doodled on to your Windows Phone, often with a graph paper backdrop. We have games where your running a line, dodging balls, and jumping from a perfectly good airplane.

As with every round-up or best of list, we choose the titles that stand out to us. If a title doesn't make the round-up it shouldn't reflect poorly on that title. If we've missed one, feel free to speak up in the comments.

Parachute Panic also got a Live Tile. Wait, what?

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Sep 19, 2011 at 10:14 pm

Yes, in the first for an Xbox LIVE game, Parachute Panic also picked up a double-sided Live Tile with that latest Mango update. Now that we received the complete changelog from the company, we were able to verfify that indeed, it shows your highest score achieved on one side, the regular icon on the other.

Sure, it's not the biggest deal in the world, but between the ringtone that they gave us and this, FDG has kind of outdone themselves. In fact, we think all Xbox LIVE games should do this. Here's the rest of the changelog, most of which we already knew:

Live Tile support (shows the current highscore in the Tile)
Fast App Switching
60fps
Exclusive Ringtone for our WP7 fans
Tons of bugs and minor issues fixed

Parachute Panic's Mango ringtone feature [Video]

Windows Phone News

By Daniel Rubino, Sunday, Sep 18, 2011 at 2:17 pm

The other day we reported on Parachute Panic, the fun little skill game, receiving a Mango bump. The game now supports fast app resume and that 60FPS increase, which really smooths out the game's hand-drawn and charming graphics.

One bonus feature that we missed was the unique ringtone that FDG Entertainment created for Windows Phone users. To refresh, one new feature of Mango is the ability for developers to make apps that pull down and allow you to save music as a ringtone--anyone can do this. FDG took their awesome and catchy barbershop-style music and made one right in the game.

We show it how it works and how it sounds (which is brilliant and hilarious). Our hats off to FDG for adding this little bonus.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Beards & Beaks version 1.1 update and Parachute Panic Mango update

Games

By Paul Acevedo, Friday, Sep 16, 2011 at 10:24 pm

The rash of Xbox Live game updates continues, with Windows Phone-exclusive strategy title Beards & Beaks (review) receiving a nice little update today. It’s good to see the game being supported on top of its post-release DLC.

Beards & Beaks version 1.1 release notes:

We’re listening to our users- the biggest issue reported is people not understanding how to swipe the map. The fix: we added a finger icon, indicating [where to] swipe [in order to scroll the map]
Added support to always show tutorials when restarting
Minor bug fixes associated with edge cases
Preparation for Mango title update

If you enjoy the game’s look inside the battle between gnomes and crows, be sure to read our interview with Adam Isgreen of Microsoft Game Studios.

Speaking of Mango updates, Parachute Panic (review) from FDG Entertainment has now been properly Mango-fied. The recent update (which is only visible to Mango users) adds fast resuming support and increases the frame rate to 60 FPS. That should ease the doomed parachutists’ lives a bit.

Beards & Beaks and Parachute Panic both cost $2.99. Pick up the former here (Zune link) and the later here on the Marketplace.

Xbox Live Deal of the Week: Parachute Panic's price is falling down

Games

By Paul Acevedo, Wednesday, Jul 27, 2011 at 7:33 am

Hectic week at work? Would a simple, lighthearted Xbox Live game going on sale lift your sagging spirits? Don’t worry, Microsoft and FDG Entertainment have you covered with Parachute Panic. It’s on sale this week for $1.99, down from the original price of $2.99.

The object of Parachute Panic is to help stick figure parachuters land safely on ocean-going ships. Players tap the little guys to open their chutes and then swipe to create gusts of wind, steering them towards safety. Threats like UFOs, helicopters, and extremely annoying thunderclouds must be avoided as well. Parachute Panic gets by mostly with its artistic charm. Our review praises the game’s hand drawn graphics and snappy music.

In my opinion, the game is fun but doesn’t have the lasting value of other popular casual games like Angry Birds and Doodle Jump. It does, however, have an awesome cameo by Doodle Jump's Doodler. Cross-game cameos are common among popular iPhone titles, but Windows Phone ports tend to leave them on the cutting room floor (Pocket God’s many cameos, Harbor Master’s Pocket God cameo, and even Doodle Jump is missing its Pocket God cameo).

If you’re in the mood for some challenging gameplay and a touch of silliness, Parachute Panic is a smart buy at this discounted price. It will be on sale for one week only before returning to regular price. Steer your way here (Zune link) to find it.

Parachute Panic - Review

Apps

By George Ponder, Monday, Jan 31, 2011 at 2:50 am

Parachute Panic dropped into the Marketplace a little while ago bringing a unique look to the Xbox Live gaming app line up. The Windows Phone 7 game offers a simple approach to the graphics and may have some of the best sound effects/music tracks of any Windows Phone game.

The object of the game is elementary. Guide your parachute stick figure to a safe landing on a boat that is drifting around at the bottom of the screen. Along your journey you'll avoid helicopters, U.F.O.'s and the stray thunderstorm. Oh and by the way, every now and then the the boats move with the currents giving you a moving target to contend with. Did I mention the man eating sharks?

To read more on this entertaining game from Microsoft Studios and ....., just jump on past the break.

Parachute Panic now available in the Marketplace

By Daniel Rubino, Wednesday, Jan 26, 2011 at 9:38 am

Just a small heads up, the popular Parachute Panic for Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone (phew, that's a mouthful) is now ready for your testing. The game is fetching for a very reasonable $2.99 and should be available worldwide.

Our initial impression? Get it. The graphics are really stunning (for that hand-drawn thing), we really like the Achievements and the game play is quite addictive. We do wonder if we'll still want to play in say, two or three weeks, but for now it has our attention. Of course you can trial it before you buy. Grab it here in the Marketplace.

Parachute Panic coming to Xbox LIVE on Windows Phone this week

By Daniel Rubino, Monday, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:27 pm

The wildly popular iPhone game (yes, we're taking them all, thank you) Parachute Panic by FDG (in conjunction with MGS) is coming to our Windows Phones this week.

The game is a classic "parchute game" where you try to land your hapless skydiver on a moving ship. In the meantime, aliens, birds and even a shark all try to complicate your progress. Having played the game on my iPad, I can say it's actually quite a lot of fun: addictive and yet frustrating too.

This unique casual game requires you to successfully land a host of parachutists into passing boats. Beware of imminent dangers such as helicopter blades, U.F.O´s, sharks and thunder clouds. The game offers beautiful hand drawn graphics, smooth animations, catchy acapella music and awesome sound effects. In addition to that we created funny animations for any failed enemy encounter :D We had a lot of fun creating this game and hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

No word on pricing but this should be a pretty big hit, we think. [Update: price is $2.99, available worldwide]

Source: FDG Website; via @KarlStricker