From Popcap release (shortened): Steve Day was a man on a mission – now he’s the proud possessor of the world’s highest-scoring Peggle shot. A currency trader from Portsmouth on England’s southern coast who previously spent a dozen years as a software developer, Steve achieved his 18-million+ point shot after being inspired by a video of the previous best shot, a 13-million point shot by Max Daube of Australia, using the same level and power-up. Steve’s YouTube video of his shot, along with a shot-by-shot “video tutorial” of the entire level on which the shot occurred.

After buying Peggle Deluxe and completing most of the game, Steve did a Google search looking for tips on scoring 750,000 points on one level – generally considered the toughest of the game’s 75 “Challenge Mode” hurdles. “If I hadn’t found the YouTube replay of Max’s wondrous shot, I don’t think I’d have ever thought of it myself,” Steve admits. “I’d already managed to clear all of the pegs on that level (“Beyond Reason,” the last level in the game, known less formally as “Zen Frog”) using the “space blast” power-up, but thanks to the videos on You Tube I finally achieved the 750K challenge. However, having completed the game I felt somehow robbed of what had become my working companion, and having read some of the comments on You Tube regarding the ‘impossibility’ of clearing the side pegs, I decided to see if I could find a way, and perhaps set a new scoring record in the process.”

“First, I set about finding a way to clear all the pegs – orange and blue – from the sides of the level without creating holes in the central ‘DNA strands’ of pegs due to ricochets,” he recalls. “As it turned out I achieved this in only an hour or so. I employed the same technique I’d used obtaining the ’100% clear’ on some of the harder levels, namely picking logical landmarks on the screen to use as mouse position markers. In this way I could easily replicate the shots, and when combined with a little ‘bucket timing’ could be guaranteed of getting a free ball to boot. Clearing the hole at the bottom of the helix proved more difficult though, since it was a moving target; and it took awhile longer to work out some shots that had at least a 70% chance of getting a free ball.”

Steve continues, “By this time I was regularly getting 5 million point finishes, and completing probably 1 in 5 attempts, and I had decided I wanted to beat the 13.5 million by a decent margin, and make a video to put on YouTube. It had also become apparent that the highest scores were dependent on having a large number of blue pegs left to clear after the last orange peg had been hit. So having got 14 Million a couple of times, the extremely lucky 18 Million point shot came about through a combination of the law of averages and 3 ‘lottery winner’ type lucky shots, each being the result of miss-timed shots that ended up kicking the bucket, taking out an extra peg or two, and miraculously ending up back in the bucket where I had originally intended them to go. It was these extra pegs, and a lucky final shot, that secured the very pleasing Cool Clear and Ultra Extreme Fever – though I don’t think that this added greatly to the final score. Of course getting an extra ball off of Reinfeld was just the icing on the cake and did add 300K to the score board which was a nice touch.”

As for the painstakingly shot and edited “how-to” video that follows the footage of the shot itself in Steve’s YouTube video, “I wanted to make a ‘live play’ tutorial section to show that it was indeed possible to clear the side pegs without touching the inner helix,” Steve explains. Indeed, Steve’s exhaustive video tutorial provides details on each and every shot of his record-breaking effort, including exactly where to position the cursor prior to launching each shot AND location and direction of the bucket below the playfield when each shot is launched.

When asked whether he believes his record will stand the test of time, Steve is realistic to say the least. “I’m under no illusion that my score is somehow ‘unbeatable’ – and in fact would love to see someone top it,” he grins. “That was the intention behind the tutorial in the video, to see if collectively the Peggle Deluxe community could compile enough information to achieve and even better shot and score. However there must be an absolute theoretical ceiling on the maximum score possible. Hopefully someday we’ll get to see what it is!”

Peggle review.

Well, I had my 10 best casual PC games of 2007 all ready to go… then Ken Edwards from Blogcritics.org’s gaming section asks me if Peggle Deluxe is on the list. When I told him I hadn’t played it (I’d never get work done if I play and review every released game), he told me to check it out before posting the top 10.

Oi! Within minutes, I know this game deserves a spot in the top 10. But what unlucky game am I going to knock off the top 10 list?

Before digging into the world of Peggle Deluxe, let me tell you a story. My parents had a classic Pachinko machine with a door handle. It only worked some of the time, but I loved the noise when you hit a jackpot. Years later, Paul and I went to Atlantic City for the weekend and saw modern Pachinko machines with the round handles for sale.

So the first thing that I thought about when playing Peggle Deluxe was that it was a twist on the Pachinko. Sure enough, I found an article about PopCap’s creation of Peggle. Yes, it’s PopCap’s fault that many of us are addicted to several games… Bejeweled (originally Diamond Mine), Chuzzle, and now Peggle.

In Peggle Deluxe, shoot a ball anywhere and let it do the work. The goal is to clear all the orange pegs. After letting go of the ball, sit back and hope it hits lots of orange pegs along with a green peg for a power up and a purple peg for bonus points. Once it makes it through the jungle of pegs, hope that it lands inside the moving bucket that you can’t control. It simply moves side to side. It’s nice not having pressure to control the bucket on top of everything.

The game begins with a unicorn as your guide. Every guide has its own special powers that you earn when hitting a green peg. The unicorn reveals a guide so you can see where your ball goes next after it hits the first peg. I won’t mention the others as finding out their powers is part of the fun. Each character has its own theme that changes the pegs and background to match that theme.

The pegs often line up to look like an object or create a challenging shape. One level had three infinitys, another shows one of many animals, and still another has moving circles. Lots of variety! Impossible to get bored and almost impossible to tear yourself away.

The game compels you to cheer and whoop when you hit that last orange peg thanks to its cool close up slow motion effect. The view zooms in to the last orange peg, which slows down like a dramatic moment in a movie. Now, sometimes you might miss, but when you hit it — Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” plays with booming enthusiasm like a running back scoring a touchdown.

Would you believe that one of the best features — “Ode to Joy” — was originally a placeholder? That’s what the previously mentioned article says.

Occasionally, you’ll be amazed by a move. Watch it again with the “Instant Replay,” that does exactly that… replays the last move. After you play through the quest and conquer all the games with all of the characters, you unlock more game modes including Quick Play for playing a previously played puzzle using any character you want, Duel (to play against someone or the computer), and Challenge that contains 75 puzzles.

Each level comes with a specific amount of balls. The fewer balls you use to clear the orange pegs, the higher the bonus. You can also earn free balls by scoring a specified amount of points or dropping the ball into the bucket.

Just try it — play Peggle Deluxe for at least 15 minutes and you’ll love it.

System Requirements

• Windows Vista, XP, 2000, ME, 98
• 256 MB RAM
• 700 MHz or faster processor
• DirectX 7.0 or later