unreleased images

On Monday of this week, EA (Pogo’s parent company) announced it would lay off 1500 workers by April of 2010 in an effort to reduce costs. It’s probably no coincidence that the same day they announced the acquisition of PlayFish, a maker of social networking games such as Restaurant City, a Facebook game Pogo is now heavily promoting on their web site. Unfortunately, the layoffs began on Monday and Pogo was not immune. We’re not sure how many people in total were laid off, but they lost at least one very talented graphic artist: Julia Lundman.

As fans of Julia’s Pogo artwork, we’ve been following her blog for about a year and a half now and were saddened yesterday to see the following:

For the past few years, I have been working at Electronic Arts online casual gaming company, Pogo.com, as a staff artist. I have been primarily designing game art, costumes, backgrounds, and badges. On Monday I was laid off due to overseas outsourcing. I feel sad about this, especially since every single day I came into work feeling excited and happy about the work I was doing. I always took every single project seriously, no matter how ’small’ or how ‘big’ the assignment was. I’ve always held that if an artist is a good artist, no matter what he or she touches, it should be of the highest quality and taken seriously.

Julia’s art speaks for itself — she’s talented and creative and undoubtedly she was the artist behind many of your favorite badges, mini costumes, and more around Pogoland. She spent most of yesterday posting some of her work to her blog, most of which we’ve already seen. (She was the creative force behind the cool Canasta beatnik art, the game rank images for Penguin Blocks and First Class Solitaire, and a ton of our favorite mini items.) Perhaps the most interesting to us is the concept art she posted for a Pogo Kids version and a virtual world concept that might still be in our future in some form due to the Hasbro contract.

These pieces give us a glimpse not only of Julia’s amazing talent but of some of the ideas that Pogo might be bouncing around behind the scenes at any given time. Check out the Pogo Kids avatars and the Pogo Virtual World concept art that she’s posted. Really neat stuff.

Her whole blog is worth checking out because you can see her influence on Pogo projects over time (or vice-versa!), but our favorite Pogo-related post is about last year’s Thanksgiving Mini release.

Julia: if you’re out there, best wishes from all of us fans. We’re really going to miss your unique style and creativity. Pogo is not going to be the same without you. No matter what company you’re exercising your creative muscles with, we’re sure your talents will take you very far!

Pogo has decided to add 50 more ranks to MONOPOLY Here & Now: The World Edition. There will be a total of 100 ranks and you’ll be earning new badges at ranks 60, 70, 80, 90, and 100. Here are the badges and requirements:

Monopoly – Become a Supervillain!
Pass GO 4,148 times to achieve Rank 60 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Clone Yourself!
Pass GO 4,748 times to achieve Rank 70 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Build a Private Zoo!
Pass GO 5,498 times to achieve Rank 80 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Get Extra Cheese on a Burrito!
Pass GO 6,488 times to achieve Rank 90 and earn this badge

Monopoly – Enjoy the Simple Life!
Pass GO 7,613 times to achieve Rank 100 and earn this badge

Of all of the games that Pogo has promised will get new ranks (cough, KenoPop, cough) and older games that surely could use new ranks (cough, Hog Heaven Slots, cough), we’re surprised to see Monopoly come up as the next one to get them. We guess Monopoly money really does talk! We’ll keep you posted if we hear when these new ranks will be added.

Pogo’s got yet another Premium Badge Album in development. This one, which will probably be released next month, is called “Take a Trip”. When it’s released, it’ll cost you $5.99 or 86 gems. It includes the following 10 challenges:

Click to view animated badges and challenges

We’re getting closer to having Mini Awards in some more games! The first batch is coming out of the gazillion we showed you earlier, and they’re for the following:

Quick Quack:

Shuffle Bump (this includes the oops freebie Puck Head we mentioned last week, which is sure to be removed from our closets now):

And the upcoming game Puck’s Peak will also have the following mini awards (originally we thought they’d be freebies or for-token purchases at the Mini Mall, but Pogo sure likes to keep us guessing):

It looks like the Stellar Sweeper awards will also be coming with this batch but they haven’t nailed down what levels you’ll be earning them at.

For those of you who are interested in claiming these awards the moment they come out, make sure you are at least rank 7 in Quick Quack, and rank 6 in Shuffle Bump.

Puck’s Peak is currently in the testing phase and we are starting to receive tons and tons of information on this unique, new game!

Puck’s Peak is a tower-building game with unlockable characters and levels where your goal is to stack blocks of different shapes and sizes to certain heights (500m, 1000m, et cetera). Each time a block falls, you earn a strike — so many strikes and you have to start over! Once you build a pile of blocks to the required height, it must stay standing for 3 seconds.

Click to read the rest of this article and view screenshots

Check out this cool new Premium Badge Album that Pogo is creating for us! It’s got ten badges and challenges — all in solitaire games — with an album completion badge, as usual. When it’s released, it will cost $5.99 or 86 gems.

Click to view animated badges and challenges

The graphic artists at Pogo have been busy creating a lot of artwork for our minis. Recently, the following images were created.

Please note: while sometimes game-related mini items may mean a game is going to be deluxe, this is not a deluxe game. In addition, these are not mini awards that will be awarded in game. Right now, they appear to be mini items that will be released either in coordination or shortly after the release of the game. (Pogo did this with Trivial Pursuit last year.)

Puck’s Peak-related Mini items: background, goodie, and costume:

These images may give us a hint to gameplay as well. What do you think?

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Here is a sneak peek at the five rank badges and two in-game achievement badges (aka “secret badges”) for Battleship.

Rank 10 – Excellent Ensign Badge

Rank 20 – Loyal Lieutenant Badge

Rank 30 – Clever Commander Badge

Rank 40 – Capable Captain Badge

Rank 50 – Astounding Admiral Badge

Battleship Bomber Badge
Sink 2500 Battleships to earn this badge.

Terrifically Tenacious Badge
Miss 50000 times to earn this badge.

PS: there’s a possible spoiler in the comments here. Good things come to those who read the comments. *laugh*

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Battleship is coming along nicely and should be released by the end of this month! The game is scheduled to be featured in the next game night (after tomorrow’s) on November 6th, so it should be released before then or Pogo’s going to have to change up their promotion! Thanks Chadd for pointing this out! It’s worth mentioning that we are assuming at least a week of “sneak peek” mode where the game is “out” but not generally released — ie linked on the Pogo home page — before the game would be used for a promotion or event.

The graphics in the game are coming along nicely, everything is very shiny and sharp. Behold a loading image:

Here are some details about the powerups you’ll be playing with while you battle to sink your opponent’s ships (thanks John2!):

Some powerups are always available:
* Heavy Shot
* Counter-Attack
* Reinforcements
* Sinking Shots
* Torpedoes

Some powerups are unlocked at certain ranks:
* Rank 5 – Skipper Powerup
* Rank 15 – Harpoon Powerup
* Rank 25 – Attack Squadron
* Rank 35 – Tomahawk Powerup (Only Active if you have very few ships remaining!)

We’re still waiting on the badge graphics and requirements for Battleship, but they should be out soon. As usual, stay tuned to BadgeHungry for the latest information, and look for this game near the end of the month!

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