OnlineMindPuzzles.com

Casual gaming, most especially among women is on the rise. And even though Nickelodeon’s plans include expansion into other markets, there is an interesting shift happening that is starting to draw a variety of demographics. The shift includes seeing a trend in creating games centered around current events and news. The idea is that if the games are centered around things like this, it will promote social awareness and change, as well as help educate people.

The big shots are starting to shift their thinking in game creation. Instead of looking at a game as a product that gets created, sold and shipped they are looking at it instead as a media that is consumed, much in the way television is, except it has an interactive twist.

Take Nickelodeon. They have produced some games that have gone on to become viral hits, and many are games that spoof on current events, and promote awareness of culture. Gaming is now being tied into pop culture, and sending gaming out of the category of product and into the category of mass media instead.

News centered games are created around a sensitive subject and designed to provoke thought. Usually they are created within two to four days, and a sleepless night or two. Costs for development can run the range of very cheap, to pretty darn expensive. But budgets are growing because advertisers are starting to jump on the bandwagon, so developers are able to invest more in the content of the games.

Stats show that online gaming sites went from 67 million in December of 2007 to 86 million in December 2008. Even casual games like Solitaire and Tetris have surged up in popularity for many users. Instead of games being something only the gaming geeks did, online games are becoming more and more prevalent and a staple of the new pop culture and it’s habits, especially with the mobility now of the Internet. Who knew?

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PC games and puzzles are taking a right turn and becoming truly interactive. Mystery Case Files: Ravenshearst is the next step to becoming a Master Detective and solving exciting crimes. Created by Focus Media, it is a hidden object game licensed by their new partner in crime, Big Fish Games. Big Fish Games also happens to be one of the leading casual gaming developers in the world and also the leading destination in the world for online games.

Because it’s the most popular hidden object franchise out there, you are sure to have an adventure to remember! Offering an interactive and full of depth storyline, as well as challenging brain teaser puzzles, your gaming experience is sure to be unique each time you sit down to play.

And you should know that Mystery Case Files: Ravenshearst is not for the faint of heart or timid. The storyline reads that Ravenshearst Manor has had rumors circulating about regarding it’s history for decades. The latest person in residence, Emma Ravenshearst left behind a diary that may help to fill in the blanks and get to the bottom of things. But according to the story, it looks like someone doesn’t want that to happen, as it seems some of the diary pages have turned up missing.

Anyway, if you want to find the clues and solve the mystery, you have to soldier on despite nerves and fear, and turn the dark, dusty, spooky mansion topsy turvy to unearth the hidden clues. And to top it off, you really have to twist your brain in knots to unravel cryptic problems to unlock a few doors and gain access to other rooms.

With over 32 rooms to discover, two gaming modes you can play in, and a new unique set of clues each time you play, Ravenshearst is the perfect game to keep players coming back again and again.

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Generally speaking, flowers, chocolates, and moonlit walks on the beach are considered romantic by young couples and old alike, all around the world. However, everyone is different, and one couple was drawn together by their love of math and puzzles, and has channeled that love into a website that is now picking up quite a bit of traffic and visitors!

Mathdoku.com is the online version of KenKen, which is a variant of Sudoku. Math puzzles really, in laymens terms! The site offers several different types of math puzzles, and they start out with fairly simple puzzles in 4×4 blocks, that only use the numbers 1- 4, and work up to puzzles that use 8×8 blocks.

Currently the site is now offering close to 1,500 puzzles, and receives almost 15,000 puzzle lovers daily. Players currently are timed on each puzzle, and the site offers hints to those that find themselves stumped for an answer. It also checks for correct answers, keeping players on track.

Another unique feature to Mathdoku.com is that instead of just offering up one puzzle a day, like you would get if you were playing the puzzle in an off line newspaper or something, you get a randomly generated puzzle selected from one of the many they have available.

There is even a no holds barred special op puzzle, called a no- op that hides the math to make it tougher for the player. As to the owners of the site, while they think Sudoku has already hit it’s peak of sorts with popularity, Kendoku’s future looks quite bright. The websites traffic did a pretty big spike in fact, up to 28,000 visitors when the New York Times started featuring a KenKen puzzle on it’s puzzle page.

So, while Mathdoku.com was born of love and romance, it is sustaining itself with solid growth and numbers, and is the next big thing in online puzzles and gaming. Ready to drop by and test your brain skills?

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On line games are becoming ever more popular in todays high tech world. There are on line puzzles, on line competitions, on line roleplay, and on line chat. There are gaming applications being created right and left, whether for your iPhone, or in the case of the prodigy I am about to talk about, for social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace.

The latest craze has been invented by a 29 year old creative genius named Keith Schacht who has been starting and growing several on line businesses for over a decade now.

So what is this creative phenomenon? Crafted Fun Inc, which is simply on line games that are played within Facebook and other similar social networks. Two you may recognize are ‘Growing Gifts’ and ‘Hatching Eggs’, that are currently getting about 4 million hits per month.

4 million hits per month translates into a pretty hefty amount of ad revenue for a 3 man operation, whose sole focus is on the next great game they will be creating! In 2005 Keith was named one of ‘The Top Entrepreneurs Under 25′ in Business Week, and with Crafted Fun Inc, is gearing up to becoming a real media mogul in this day and age.

So how is it they are so successful? Simple market research and testing. Within a matter of weeks their operation knows whether or not a game will be a hit or not, and if an application isn’t up to snuff and doesn’t take off like they want, it is killed right away and they are on to the next great app. The ones that prove popular are then virtually syndicated and rerun for profit.

So what’s next for Crafted Fun Inc? Future plans and financial information is being kept pretty carefully under wraps at the moment, but regardless, Keith is still dedicated to supporting his followers and tries to share his knowledge and expertise when possible. So I guess we will all just have to wait and see!

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