King.com announced the release of 20 games – including Midas Miner, GoGo21, Jungle Bubble or Word Battle – for the most popular feature phones. Following the release of its first-ever games for the iPhone, these new releases make King.com’s award-winning skill games available to the vast majority of mobile consumers.

“King.com’s games are now available to hundreds of millions of consumers to play wherever they are. Through the device that never leaves you, King.com now puts skill games directly into the hands of even more consumers worldwide,” said Riccardo Zacconi, CEO, King.com.

All games are free to play, but King.com will deposit $5 for free in every new account, which can be used to participate in cash tournaments. King.com’s new games are available through a custom app that can be downloaded at King.Com. The app currently contains all 20 games, but new games will be added every month.

“Mobile has triggered an explosion in the growth of casual games. As one of the world’s leading games publishers, King.com is fuelling this growth by making its popular games available to a large and fast-growing consumer market,” commented Jessica Tams, founder and Managing Director of the Casual Games Association, the global industry organization for all gaming executives, publishers and developers.

King.com has launched its first Facebook App Game – Kalorie King, a match 4 (or more) in which players can challenge their friends to a calorie burn off busting foods like pizza, popsicles, burgers, and candy canes, while watching out for sticky jam and trying to catch broccoli, apples, and other healthful foods. It’s an interesting match mechanism where players pull down columns of food to match them up with other columns (or neighbors) of food, while also adding the avoiding skill to not catch the falling diet busters. Play the 2 round game on your own, challenge friends, play in tournaments, and collect trophies.

My Take: I like the game. It is a good addition to the Facebook game family and a distracting way to while away a few extra minutes. I am looking forward to more friends getting in to it to see more challenge results. The only disappointing thing (though maybe appropriate for a Facebook game) is that the regular play is only two rounds. It would be much easier to get lost in it if I could just play until I got too close to the ground. But I definitely say give it a try!

This week, King.com has released two new sponsored games. The first, Spinmatch, combines tricky avoidance skills with moving color matching. Players control a wheel of spinning brightly colored octopi in an attempt to match up the same colors amongst other octopi moving across the screen at different speeds.
My take: I like the challenge of the game and the new spinny concept. The music is quite fun – at first. As the difficulty level rose, the music got to me a little and I had to turn it down. I do think it’s worth a try for a quick break in the humdrum of a regular day.

The second, Dynamic Systems, challenges players with the task of getting the little silver ball into the cup, armed with tools like iron bars, bounce boards, swinging hammers, gears and big wooden arches. It is a test of architectural eyes and deductive reasoning.
My take: This game reminded me of the board game, Mousetrap, that I played as a kid, where we had to build this series of crazy chain reactions that eventually led to the completion of the goal. I enjoy the different feel of the game as a whole, and the ability to create levels or edit what’s there, as well as seeing a possible solution if it’s not apparent how to put things together. The music is not overwhelming at all, and can soothe the frustration of crazy mazes not working. And, you can always try again It’s a great game to try when you have a little time to tinker around for a while.

As with other sponsored games on King.com, there is no need to sign in in order to play, which is also nice. Hop on over and give them a try!

BUY

A puzzling physics game in which you have to guide the ball home. Addicting and challenging, Go Home Ball can consume hours trying to beat all of the levels.

Graphics:  The background images are all part of the stage. They look really nice and they flow together. The stars, which you have to collect to complete the level, stand out and it’s hard NOT to see them.

Sound: The music is really calm and kind of jazzy. It is a good accompaniment for this game. Of course, you can mute it and the sound effects from the in-game menu.

Controls:  A and D or the Left and Right arrow keys moves the logs. Left-click places the logs. A stick only lasts 2 seconds and you can only have one on screen at a time. There are other tools you can use later on, like a spring, and their controls are explained as you get them.

Flow: Perfect. Each level builds on what you just did. It gets harder progressively, not an instant jump from easy to insanely difficult.

Fun Factor: Addicting! If you like a good puzzle game, you’ll love this game. It starts out simple enough, but as you move further along, it gets more challenging. You’ll want to keep trying to get past just one more level before stopping for the night. This game saves your progress, so you can just pick it up where you left off instead of playing through all of the levels again.

Female Factor: You play as yourself, controlling a little red ball.

Replay Value: Good. Sometimes, you won’t want to play through all the past levels, but some of the harder ones it’s hard to not replay them, either because you got a game over or because you want to beat your last score.

King.com has released a new sponsored game called The Sketcher, which challenges players to draw – fast!
With three levels of increasingly difficult shapes and objects, The Sketcher offers a surprising challenge for any level of artistic ability!
The time is quick and the mouse is a fickle friend, but the music is pretty motivating. For a great way to clear your mind and workout our brain, I’d say check out The Sketcher at King.com!

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Tower of Greed is a lovely little game from King that tests your speed and just how greedy you want to be.

Graphics: The graphics are great for this browser-based game. It is easy to tell the items apart, which is sometimes a problem in games like this. The gems are obviously gems and item bags are obviously item bags. Even the game over graphic is cute, though not really something you want to see over and over again.

Sound: There is a catchy little beat that plays on the main menu as well as in game. It’s on a loop so it will keep playing the whole time. The sound effects like when you make your character jump and when you pick up gems are really cute.

Controls: The main menu can be controlled by either mouse or keyboard, and there are two different keyboard control set ups, one much better for left-handed players and the other suited for right-handed players. Both work for those adventurous enough to use both hands to play. In game, everything is controlled by the arrow keys (to move) and the spacebar (to jump).

Flow: Flow is a big key to this game. You must keep climbing up and up, trying to get as many gems as you can, without falling below the screen line. You can pause the game, but once playing, you have to keep moving. It flows well, and you never really realize when you reach the next floor.

Fun Factor: This one is not for people that get frustrated easily. If you’re the type of person that gets upset and discouraged, then this is good for a try or two. You really need to focus to try and get further each time. That does not mean, however, that this is not a fun game. Once you get the hang of the controls, it is a lot of fun.

Female Factor: The only characters are the little white person of unknown gender and the monsters.

Replay Value: Very high. Not only is there the challenge to get further than the last play, there are in-game trophies that are both reachable and challenging at the same time. The levels also change a little each time, so you can’t get away with just memorizing one set of movements for the best score.

Platform: PC
ESRB: n/a
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: King
Release Date: Available Now
Official Website

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Ballies is a free online game brought to us by the wonderful gamemakers over at King.

Graphics:
The graphics are nothing to cheer about. For this type of game, they are perfect. The colors are bright and it’s really easy to tell which balls you’re supposed to hit… there’s a little word bubble above them that says “bump me!”

Sound:
There’s a catchy little tune that plays repeatedly throughout the entire playtime.

Controls:
Mouse-based. You use the mouse to move your ball. You use the mouse to bump into everything. You left-click to set bombs. It’s pretty simple.

Flow:
The levels flow easily. As soon as you finish one level, the background changes and a new ball color becomes your target.

Fun Factor:
It’s okay. The first level is pretty easy, but really quick you have to remember to click and use the bombs to set off all the balls that are coming for you. It’s also important to remember to get the colored bombs that pop up. It’s a lot of challenge for someone who is playing on a laptop or not very quick with the mouse on any system.

Female Factor:
None. You play as a yellow-orange ball. All of the other balls in all the different colors, as well as yourself, are genderless.

Replay Value:
High. If you want to just improve your skill or try to get further, you can keep playing as many times as you want. You get four lives, so you automatically restart after your first 3 deaths.