TikGames/Creat Studios is proud to announce the grand opening of our new, dedicated PlayStation Network publisher page! (Here is where you imagine thundering applause, blaring trumpets and a cascade of confetti.) After launching our eighth and ninth PSN titles last week, the great, hard-working folks at PlayStation provided us with our own special place where you can always go to get our latest and greatest new games, videos, themes and wallpapers. And if you did miss anything along the way, it will be there too.

Now, I know what you’re thinking as you’re shaking our hands and congratulating us…what’s in it for me? So glad you asked! Actually, we want to congratulate YOU, since we could never have been able to get this far without you. You deserve a little something for helping us make so many games that we had to build a new digital space to put them in.

When the publisher page launches on Thursday, April 1, our first seven titles will be on sale for 50% OFF for two weeks! Never got around to trying Magic Orbz? Grab it for $4.99! Have you wondered what all the fuss was about with Smash Cars? You can’t go wrong at $7.49! Are you curious about all the critical acclaim for Mushroom Wars? It’s a steal at $4.99. Cuboid, Mahjong Tales, Interpol and Digger HD are also available for $4.99 each for the duration of the sale.

Now you can fill in all of your TikGames/Creat Studios gaps in your PSN collection! No longer must your list of PSN titles remain incomplete. And don’t worry… there’s plenty more on the way. TikGames/Creat Studios is devoted to PlayStation Network like nobody else, and we can’t wait to show you what’s just around the corner.

Until then, thank you again from everyone here at TikGames and Creat Studios. We love what we do, and we can’t do it without your support. Please let us know what you think of all the games in our catalog, and what else you would like to see.

You asked for it and we heard you! For those of you who are looking for even more Mahjong, TikGames and Creat Studios are excited to tell you that today we are releasing new downloadable content for Mahjong Tales.

We have created an awesome pack of downloadable content. This new pack contains 25 never-before-seen layouts that will literally give you hours more Mahjong fun. We took an animal approach on this first expansion pack. All layouts have been cleverly designed to resemble different animals, fish, insects and the like. Bugs, cats, and even an elephant await their Mahjong Master. I hope you enjoy playing these new levels as much as we did designing them!

And, I’ve saved the best for last. For the ultimate in Mahjong-joy, we are also including a Level Editor. Now you can create amazing levels of your own. You can even share them with your friends, or work as a team to iterate on an existing level to make it awesome. And of course we didn’t forget Trophies! All-new Trophies are available in the Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom Booster Pack.

And how much will all of this Mahjong goodness cost, you might ask? Well, you get all this for the low, low price of just $4.99! Enjoy!

I’m both honored and thrilled to announce the release of Booster Packs for the Creat Studios/TikGames titles Magic Ball, Cuboid, and Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom. Here are the details:

• Magic Ball, a fresh spin on classic brick-breaking gameplay in which players bust apart 3D environments, offers gamers new action with the release of the Magic Ball Booster Pack, featuring a whole new world to destroy. Players will be able to smash their way through 25 all-new magical, witch-themed levels, earning a series of new trophies along the way. Custom music support will also be made available via a free patch download.



• Cuboid, a mind-bending 3D puzzle game, will offer gamers three different options for add-on content. The Cuboid Booster Pack contains 33 new levels that will test even the best players’ skills, rewarding gamers with new trophies. The Cuboid Level Editor allows players to become level designers and challenge others with their own custom levels. Players can either create a brand new level from scratch, or improve upon any existing level, created by other players or taken from the original campaigns. User-created levels can be uploaded to the PSN where they will be made available to other players (who have downloaded the free patch). Players can also earn trophies for creating their own levels, and for rating the levels created by others. The Cuboid Bundle Pack includes both the Booster Pack (33 new levels) and the Level Editor. Custom music support for Cuboid is also on its way via a free patch download.
• The Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom Booster Pack features 25 all new layouts to beat in Infinity mode, as well as a level editor that allows players to create their own layouts from scratch and share their creations with other gamers by hosting an online multiplayer game on their custom-created level. Players can then save any new customized level that they have created or played via online multiplayer invitation to their HDD. Also included is a series of new trophies, obtainable by only the most dedicated Mahjong players. Highly-requested mouse support will also be made available via a free patch download.

First up will be the Magic Ball Booster Pack, scheduled for release this Thursday, April 16. The Cuboid and Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom Booster Packs will be released in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for those exciting and highly anticipated releases as well.

On behalf of Creat Studios and TikGames, thanks so much for your unwavering support of Magic Ball, Cuboid and Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom. We listened carefully to your feedback as to what you were looking for in add-on DLC for these titles, and I think we have managed to deliver on almost everything that was requested. How’s that for customer service? Cheers!

But in the meantime, as a token of our appreciation for the tremendous response we have received from our recent releases on PSN, and since we are in such a giving mood, I’m happy to announce the release of FREE Themes for your PS3 available tomorrow on the PlayStation Store! So, instead of starring mindlessly into some wacky swirling color mass on your XMB, why not be the envy of all your family and friends by downloading a FREE Theme from one of your favorite Creat/Tik PSN games? How can you go wrong? Check out some screenshots for the Themes below, and remember, friends don’t let friends have boring XMBs!

A lot of people assume that Mahjong layouts are generated randomly, sometimes creating layouts that are impossible to solve. Not so! In Mahjong Tales, each level started from a set of algorithms we wrote and was then completed with manual touches. Basically, we allow the game to randomly populate the individual tiles for match-up (i.e., whether a particular tile is a red dragon or green dragon), but the pairings themselves (i.e., this tile and that tile are a matched pair) are done by hand. Combining an automated algorithm and our own know-how in designing levels means that we can guarantee that every layout will have a solution and that there’s an appropriate level of challenge for players. This keeps gameplay fun and enticing for everyone.

In fact, the vast majority of the time spent developing Mahjong Tales went into editing tile layout. Our game designers and balancing engineers worked tirelessly on those algorithms and ramping rules (how tile layers are created), while experimenting with various arrangements and hand touch-ups. The entire time that the art, audio and various features were being integrated, that core team of designers and engineers was continually refining the gameplay — tweaking and playing, tweaking and playing…

Plus, we built the tiles in 3D and enforced physics rules, so that players would feel like they were handling a real Mahjong set. It was important to us to ensure that not only could our Mahjong tile layouts be solved, but that they could exist just as if they were made with actual, physical tiles. If you wanted to, you could recreate in real life every layout we made (and any of those created in the level editor to be released later).

I hope this gives you a little insight into what goes into making Mahjong tile layouts. We’re so proud of the results we got from our efforts in making them, we decided to recognize players for their dedication in completing all of our Infinity Mode tile layouts. If you complete all 100 of our tile layouts, you’ll receive 30 points and a silver trophy entitled “Infinity and Beyond.” Good luck!

You see, one of the keys things about Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom for PS3 (available on PSN in early January for $9.99) is right there in the name. There are three modes to the game, each offering a unique experience. In Ancient Tales mode, each piece of an old Chinese story is revealed when the player finishes a layout by matching the one pair of golden tiles on the board. So, if you want to see the end of the story, you have to play your way through it and unlock the next episode. The stories are meant to add to the enjoyment of the classic game and pass along some ancient wisdom from one of the world’s great cultures.

Now, keep in mind that there are hundreds of Chinese tales out there, all of which offer insights that we the players would value. However, many of them contain story elements that aren’t exactly ‘clean’ by modern standards. It was important to us to select stories that were meaningful, but that also would pass ESRB considerations. Can you imagine an M-rated Mahjong game?!

In the end, we selected five Chinese morality tales, entitled “The Fox,” “Tiger Shoes,” “The Magic Paintbrush,” “The Man Who Moved Mountains” and “Li Chi.” Then, we boiled them down into ten-part sections with the help of Heather Lehr, a Hollywood writer, making the stories understandable and enticing to the player as he progresses through each tile layout. Each teaches something about human nature – I won’t spoil it for you, but the stories grapple with important considerations like deceit, love, kindness to strangers, and determination in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Then, we set about illustrating each story. Each background image was drawn by hand to give it that authentic look. We really wanted people to feel like they were visiting a wise old person who was proudly showing off an ancient, priceless hand-drawn book of traditional tales. You can’t beat having paper translated directly to the screen to get that effect. The PS3’s sheer graphical power was the perfect fit for these images. Just knowing that there was that look and feel that we wanted to achieve, and that the PS3 would help us do it, meant that we never had to consider any style but the one we used…the vision, artistry and technology all came together smoothly.

Here’s a few images to give you the idea:

There you have it. I hope this gives you a little peek inside the Ancient Tales portion of Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom. Don’t forget, though, that that is just one gameplay mode available; there are two entirely different modes out there that I haven’t even touched upon: Motion mode (“action Mahjong,” complete with wild power-ups and crazy-fast mechanics) and a level editor planned for building and sharing levels via PSN, along with a whole pile of pre-made levels from Yours Truly. I’ll leave the possibilities to your imagination for the moment. ;)