Boulder Dash®-Treasure Pleasure™ Premieres Online At Shockwave.comFIRST STAR SOFTWARE AND SOLWARE RELEASE LATEST GAME KICKING OFF 20TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF SERIES |
CHAPPAQUA, NY, U.S.A., December 17, 2003 -- First Star Software, Inc., the Westchester, New York based developer and publisher of award winning games, announced today that Boulder Dash®-Treasure Pleasure™ , the latest installment in their Boulder Dash® series of games, will debut online at Shockwave.com. A major hit for years in arcades, on consoles and on PCs, this sequel to the nostalgic action-puzzle game, was jointly developed with Solware, Ltd. of Budapest, Hungary and will be available both as a free, browser-based game as well as for download and purchase for Windows computers. Next year marks the 20th Anniversary of the initial release of Boulder Dash® with well over 2,000,000 units having been sold in the series. Versions of the game have been released into the coin-operated arcades four times and Boulder Dash®-M.E.™, is currently ranked #1 for J2ME, BREW and mophun handsets in numerous territories throughout the world. Boulder Dash®-Treasure Pleasure™, retailing for US$24.95 contains twenty two Tutorial levels as well as sixty Game levels spread across three different graphic worlds of twenty levels each. In addition to the ability to play as either Rockford™, or his sister Crystal™ , users will be treated to ever increasingly difficult levels and many new and exciting tools and features including: Reverse Gravity (diamonds float in the underwater world); Screen Rotation; Dynamite & Detonators, Bombs; Hammers; Boots; Growing Walls; Magic Walls; and, numerous enemies. First Star’s president, Richard M. Spitalny states: “This represents our first major release in the ever growing ‘Try & buy’ markets and we were very fortunate to have Solware as our development partner and Shockwave.com as our first major portal partner. Solware has done an exceptional job pushing technological limits and developing a game second to none.” “Boulder Dash® is widely recognized as one of the great classic arcade games,” states John Welch, VP of Games at Shockwave.com. “It is also one of my personal favorites. Now, through our relationship with First Star Software and Solware, Ltd., for the first time, Internet users world-wide will have access to a modern version of this amazing game and be able to dodge those boulders online – without having to visit a video game store." Said Balazs Revai, Managing Director of Solware: “The development of this new Boulder Dash® sequel was an interesting and joyful journey for our team. It is an old-time favorite that we used to play a lot as kids. Besides our multi-player line of games, we wanted to try the single-player game market and the success of Boulder Dash® along with the experience of First Star and broad reach of Shockwave.com provided the perfect background and opportunity.” About First Star Software, Inc. Founded in 1982, First Star develops, licenses and publishes games across all platforms including cell-phones, hand-held devices, home computers and next generation consoles. Distribution partners and licensees have included or include: Airborne Entertainment, Digital Bridges; Electronic Arts; JVC; Nintendo and Sega. About Solware, Ltd. Founded in 1998, Solware Ltd. is developing multi-player, cross-platform games under the FlyOrDie™ brand. As an R&D organization, Solware is also engaged in soft-computing building products applying Fuzzy logic. For more information please visit www.flyordie.com and www.solware.com. About Shockwave.com Shockwave.com™ (www.shockwave.com) is widely recognized as the Web’s leading destination for interactive entertainment. More than 16 million unique users visit Shockwave.com every month to enjoy hundreds of world-class online games and entertainment software applications. Based in San Francisco, CA, Shockwave.com™ is a service of AtomShockwave Corp. *All brands are registered trademarks of their respective owners. Boulder Dash® is a registered trademark of First Star Software, Inc. Boulder Dash®-Treasure Pleasure™; Boulder Dash®-M.E.™; the names and likenesses of Rockford™ and Crystal™ are trademark of First Star Software, Inc. All rights reserved. |