Text for a level editor can be found in main.pak. And the conversion of those dreams into five levels of Peggle each.There is hardcoded stuff too! Maybe it's usable? Not bizarro sleepy dreams you won't see Jimmy being heckled by a Plasticene dinosaur during his Peggle "A" Levels. The only element of the original that PopCap has run with is the characters -Â Peggle Nights is a journey into their dreams. But it's completely justifiable here, because Peggle Nights is virtually the same game. Why am I spending so long talking about the original Peggle? For any other game, you'd have every right to be angry at this shoe-gazing retrospective. It was warm humour, and even the most ardent dark-hearted goth couldn't fail to love that enthusiastic flower. From Renfield the eerie Pumpkin, to Jimmy the skateboarding chipmunk, they were charming enough to be popular with mums, and self-consciously funny enough to cut the mustard with ironic young men.
Bjorn the Unicorn headed up the scholarly Peggle Institute, along with his friends, the Peggle Masters. The final thing that edged Peggle into the lands of love were the characters. It's times like this, you really need a chipmunk to tell you you're radical. If you went for the final trophy - 100 per cent peg clearance on all levels - then you were cheerfully walking down the road to mental disorder. The second trophy, for completing these levels, was enough to keep you going for weeks. You survived ten rounds with one set of balls, and went for rock-hard score challenges. You had the audacity to duel against the Peggle masters. Levels were reiterated with increased numbers of orange pegs. Then there were the challenges - unlocked by completing the adventure mode. They're inside your chest, playing your ribs like a wet xylophone. Don't think the chaps at PopCap aren't geniuses. You can mute everything, and still have that burst of Ode to Joy telling you you're brilliant. Go into the game's menu - there are three volume sliders. And it's impossible to overstate how important that explosion of extreme fever was in making you feel like the Prince of Awesome. The drum roll, and close-up Fever Cam which kicks in when you approach that final orange peg. The rising pitch of the peg collisions, the heavenly choir that punctuates an extra ball. There were also a brilliant set of audio rewards. Marina, the sparky new girl, lets off a massive crackle. These are the huge rewards, held within reach but not over-used, that casual gamers subconsciously demand. The first extra ball, awarded at 25,000 points, is hard to get, but once you've got it, the second two extra balls always seem tantalisingly within reach. The simplicity of the system - a score per peg, multiplied by the amount of pegs hit - was intuitive, and allowed for an exponential increase in score for a cunning (or, let's be honest, lucky) shot.
The scoring in Peggle Deluxe was perfect. It's so suffocatingly basic, you'd need something special to bring it out of mediocrity. You only have control over two things: which direction you launch your ball, and when you launch it. Once the ball drops out of play, the lit pegs disappear, and you shoot another ball. Bonuses are awarded for slides, trick shots, and blind luck. Purple pegs give a score boost, and green pegs activate the special power of the character you're using. Orange pegs are the ones you have to clear to progress. Fire a ball into the pegs, and the pegs light up. It was that cocktail of psychological components that makes casual gaming such a lie of a phrase. It wasn't just the basic bagatelle mechanic that made everyone fumble about in their trousers. It's easy to underestimate PopCap and the year it spent painstakingly creating a version of pachinko that would work outside of the arcades. "Little old uncool us?" I continue to imagine them saying. I like to think that, when Valve joked that The Orange Box was delayed because everyone was playing Peggle, the PopCap staff fluttered a paper fan to their shy faces, and giggled. I like to think PopCap was surprised when Peggle Deluxe made the leap from casual moneyspinner and guilty pleasure to industry-wide disease.