The First Annual Gamers Guild Awards is Here! And the Winners Are…

Heat up some popcorn, sit back and enjoy the First Annual Gamers Guild Awards! We, the Gamers Guild at I-play, selected five games across the categories of Best Lead Male, Best Lead Female, Best Art Direction, Best Game and The Lifetime Achievement Award that wowed us and our members in the last year. And the award goes to…

MORTIMER BECKETT in Mortimer Beckett and the Crimson Thief

What hasn’t Mortimer Beckett done? First, he rid Spooky Manor of ghosts. Then, he went on wild adventure to find a time bomb scattered across eight eras in The Time Paradox. He recovered the jewels of The Lost King‘s crown, found the king and returned him home. In The Crimson Thief, Mortimer returns for his most challenging adventure yet! In the fourth installment of his journey, Mortimer travels the world to recover artifacts stolen from museums and private collections. Only you can help him bring the Crimson Thief to justice! Play Now

EVELYN TAO in Hidden Mysteries: The Forbidden City

Another standout game in the blockbuster Hidden Mysteries series that has taken gamers to Buckingham Palace to unveil secrets of regal treasures and royal romance, Notre Dame Cathedral to track down a priceless artifact, the Crown of Thorns, and Salem, Massachussetts  to investigate rumors of witchcraft! Now our heroine is the remarkable Evelyn Tao, a bright young professor who has arrived in Beijing grieving over the death of her father. While exploring her old home she stumbles upon some work left by her father right before he died. After analyzing her father’s journal she realizes that he discovered hidden treasure! Play Now

Empress of the Deep 2: Song of the Blue Whale 

Enter a mystical, forbidden cloud city, where nothing is as it seems. In this gorgeous adventure game, our heroine, Anna, is tasked with finding a path to the Temple of the Clouds and saving the Children of Light from the Evil Empress Pandora! Play Now

Mystery P.I.: The Curious Case of Counterfeit Cove

In the seventh game in the extremely popular Mystery P.I. series, your task is to seek and find hidden clues to break up a counterfeiting ring! You’ve been to San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, London and Las Vegas. Now you’ll travel to New England after being hired by the town elders to save Whaler’s Cove. Can you piece it all together before fake bills ruin tourism season? Play Now

Emily from the Delicious series

Emily has achieved high accolades from both the I-play Gamers Guild and you, our members, for her role in the blockbuster Delicious series. She’s opened her own tea garden and managed a booming Hollywood restaurant business. She courted romantic suitors while planning a holiday bash. She captured our hearts as she took us through her youth in Emily’s Childhood Memories. Emily has achieved what most lead characters dream of, but had not yet found real happiness. Now, in her latest starring role, we witness Emily as she searches for True Love.

Voodoo Whisperer Headlines a Blockbuster Week of Adventure Games!

Our friends at Gogii Games have been putting out some of the best hidden object-adventures we’ve seen yet, and this week’s new one is no exception. If you don’t know the name, Gogii is the force behind the recent favorite Empress of the Deep 2: Song of the Blue Whale, as well as Princess Isabella: A Witch’s Curse, Mirror Mysteries, and other gorgeous adventure games. Now they’re back with a new one that we’re already considering a candidate for Best Game of 2011 — Voodoo Whisperer: Curse of a Legend:

Lillian is a remarkable girl with a strange talent. She can speak to ghosts. Apprenticed to one of the most powerful voodoo priestesses in the world, she is learning to use her abilities. But a dark force has settled over New Orleans and Marie Laveau, the world’s most powerful voodoo queen, is missing. Much of the town has been placed under a curse. Now young Lillian must uncover the dark secrets of voodoo to save her master and free her friends before it’s too late.

If you’re a fan of last year’s Deadtime Stories – another voodoo mystery based in New Orleans, and one of our Best Games of 2010 –  we can’t recommend Voodoo Whisperer enough. Download it today and let us know what you think!

Keep an eye at www.iplay.com for more top-notch adventure games coming this week, including Dark Parables: The Exiled Prince  and Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker.

NEW Member Pre-Release – Allora and the Broken Portal

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend, and if you celebrated Labor Day in the U.S. that you were able to enjoy good weather and fun times with friends and family as the summer comes to a close. Now we’re back to work and school, but that’s no reason to think that we can’t still have fun. Take a game break for yourself today so you don’t get too overwhelmed. If you’re a GameSaver member subscribed to our email newsletters, you’ll see the email below in your Inbox this morning — this week’s new GameSaver exclusive pre-release, Allora and the Broken Portal:

     

Not getting our emails? Make sure you’re signed up by entering the email address associated with your GameSaver account in the “Get Our Newsletter!” box on the right side of the iplay.com homepage.

Not a member? Just select the membership option that’s right for you at checkout during your next game purchase.

Quadruple Savings With 4 Hidden Object Mysteries!

Members, we have a special treat for you this weekend: four hidden object mystery games in one bundled download! If you’re in the U.S. and have some time off for Labor Day, these will definitely keep you entranced at least through Monday. If you get too caught up and forget to go back to work or school on Tuesday, we’ll understand!

Today’s Member Pre-Release – Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker

GameSaver members: there are only TWO days left to qualify for a FREE hidden object game when you buy 3 or more games in August! If you’re still looking for that third game, check your email for today’s Member Exclusive pre-release, Shiver: Vanishing Hitchhiker. A preview of the email and screenshots are below.

If you’re not yet getting our Member Exclusive pre-release emails, visit iplay.com and sign up in the newsletter field on the right side of the homepage.

      

Recent Member Exclusive pre-releases include:

• Mystery Age: Imperial Staff
• PuppetShow: Mystery of Joyville
• Margrave Manor Bundle 2-in-1

New GameSaver Member Exclusive! Mystery Age: Imperial Staff

GameSaver members: have you seen today’s new member pre-release? Here’s a sneak peek of the latest members-only email where you can get it ten days before everyone else.

Oh, and don’t forget — you still have one more week to qualify to get a FREE hidden object game!

          

Recent member-exclusive pre-releases include:

• Dream Chronicles Bundle 3-in-1
• Love Story: Letters from the Past
• Dark Hills of Cherai

Capture The Best of the Summer and Get a Free Game!

This promotion has expired. Keep checking the blog for more member-exclusive promotions throughout the year!

 

*To qualify for your free hidden object game, purchases must be made between July 29 – August 31, 2011. Monthly game redemptions do not count as purchases. Bundles count as one game purchase. New members will qualify if you purchase 3 games in addition to the one you chose at signup. Your free hidden object game will be chosen by our staff and fulfilled via email 7-10 days after the promotion ends.

Hidden Object Heebie Jeebies!

Remember those summers when you would go camping with your friends and tell scary stories, like the one about the man with the shrunken head outside your window, or the babysitter who disappeared and all that was left was an eyeball floating in a jar in the fridge? Well, they might not contain floating eyeballs, but these bundles have plenty of skin-crawling fright factor. Each contains two popular hidden object games that we promise will give you the heebie jeebies!

 

Escape the Emerald Star Headlines a Summer of Sizzling Sequels!

The last few weeks have been chock full of new sequels in some blockbuster series of games! One of our members’ favorites is Escape the Emerald Star, the third game in the “Escape” hidden object series following the hugely popular Rosecliff Island and Whisper Valley. Unlike many hidden object game series which have incorporated more adventure-puzzle elements, moving away from scenes of cluttered rooms and a list of items to find in each one, the Escape series has stuck with tried and true hidden object puzzles. Sheri, a GameSaver member, recently told us on Facebook that although she does like games with a storyline and puzzles to solve, sometimes it’s relaxing to just have a list of objects to find, which is why she loved Escape Whisper Valley. In Emerald Star, the music is soothing and the graphics are top-notch. If you’re a fan of traditional, beautiful hidden object seek-and-finds, we think you’ll love this one.

Here are some more new sequels that our members love. Which are you playing?

 

New at I-play: A Home for Adventure Games

You may have noticed that we recently added a new category to iplay.com to focus on Adventure games. Over the last few years we’ve been paying close attention to a shift in the styles of games that are becoming more popular with our members. It started with match-3 games that incorporated a story or quest into the play. Players weren’t just matching three of a kind to explode gems and gain high scores, as in Bejeweled, but were following the story of an adventurer’s quest, as in the  Jewel Quest series. Creating matches would help you gather resources to rebuild an ancient land in Cradle or Rome, restore an island in Paradise Quest or bring together artifacts that would raise a lost continent in The Rise of Atlantis.

Drawn: The Painted Tower

As the hidden object style was introduced through the Mystery Case Files and Hidden Expedition games, and became our most popular genre, it too shifted from simply screen after screen of cluttered items to uncover. The story became deeper, and you would need to solve more intricate puzzles along the way, using the objects you find to discover new realms and worlds, acting as a hero or heroine to rescue magical items or missing people. This was the start of incorporating more adventure elements into the hidden object games you love, and today we see many games with predominantly adventure-based puzzles, such as Dream Chronicles and Drawn, becoming even more popular than traditional hidden object storylines.

Our new Adventure category highlights these games where solving puzzles to complete a quest is predominant. There may be hidden object scenes to explore and conquer along the way, but the story, the quest and the puzzles are the focus of the game.

Here are a few of our favorites:

 

Are you a fan of these more complex adventure games? Which ones are you playing now?