Phil Steinmeyer has released the Mac port of his word-hunt game Bonnie’s Bookstore.
I might be biased, since I was a beta tester, but I found the game to be both pleasant and challenging. The art style is cartoony and fun. The game’s graphic design has “marketed to chicks” written all over it, but don’t let that stop you from playing — type in the right cheat code and you get to see Bonnie naked (footnote 1). The music is particularly relaxing and enjoyable.
The game itself is a word hunt. Find adjacent letters to spell words. When you spell a word, those tiles disappear and new ones drop in. The longer the words, the higher your score. Very long words will earn you “wildcard” tiles, and as you play new game mechanics (in the form of new types of tiles) appear.
In his blog entry on the subject, Phil talks a bit about the experience of porting the game to the mac, and wonders what kind of sales he’ll see. All I can say is that when I have a choice between the same game on two platforms that perform equally well, I inevitably choose the Mac port. But I suspect I’m biased about that, too. I would be interested in hearing more from Phil about the experience of porting the game, and what he found positive (or negative) about the experience strictly from a software development perspective.
You can purchase Bonnie’s Bookstore at Phil’s site (although the link seems to be broken right now), or at PopCap Games.
Footnote 1: I am lying.
