G'day Steemians, this is @stabilowl and Welcome to the third Issue of Steemgg Newsletter. Each week, I will be reporting New games on the Steemgg Platform, reviewing a featured game, and run a competition so that everyone can get involved!

Special News

Thank you for all those who have submitted their game onto itch.io and onto Steemgg for the Steemmonsters Game Jam. We will wait until next week when all the browser game are uploaded onto Steemgg before for a full review of these games and for the voting of the Player’s Choice Prize. Gamers if you want a sneak preview of the games and also look at the non-html5 game entries you can go to our game jam page.

New Games this week

We are pleased to announce that now we have 16 games on our platform! We got a big boost from the Steemmonsters Game Jam, but there were other games as well! The following games have been uploaded onto our platform in the last week:

	Eleven Fingers: This game by @bartosz546 test out how well you can multitask. See how many individual ninjas can you control with separate fingers before it’s too much to handle!
	Steem Dominion: This game by @n42k is the first blockchain game on Steemgg! Grab a steemit friend and play a game of Steemmonster Chess! You can win new monsters and summoners if you win!
	Gates of Steem: In this RPG by @phonebox, you are the summoner Zintar Mortalis, and you need to fight your way through the map with your spells
	Goblin Tower: This game by @mys is a tower jump game where as a goblin you need to climb up the tower by jumping on platforms. Don’t fall!
	Tap Monsters : In this game by @ surfknasen your goal is to defeat the bosses by clicking or tapping on them. See how many you can defeat as you level up and unlock new cards

Featured Game: Ball vs Zombies

This week’s feature game is Ball vs Zombies by @bitgem

Ball vs Zombie is a fun game that requires both skills and luck. You are in control of a ball which you can shoot, and the goal is to destroy as many zombie bricks as possible. Initially, you only start with 1 ball, and there are only a few zombies. Click on the game screen and hold the mouse button to aim. A row of empty balls shows you where your ball is going to go. Once you are happy, release the ball.

If the ball hits a zombie, the number on the zombie will decrease. The number on the zombie tells you how many times the zombie needs to be hit before it gets destroyed. Once the number reached zero, it will disappear from the map. After the ball hits a zombie, it will bounce off, in a direction that depends on the angle at which the ball hits the zombie. The ball can also rebound off walls. Therefore, a single ball could potentially hit multiple blocks before it returns to the bottom of the screen.

Once your ball returned to the bottom, all zombies will walk closer to you, and then you get to shoot again. New Zombies would also appear at the top of the screen. As the game progress, the new zombies would get harder and harder to kill. You might also encounter blue and red boss zombies that are much much harder to kill than others

But as the game progress, you can also collect more balls by hitting the empty circles that are scattered across the map. Each one that you hit, you will get one more ball. In the Classic game, you can collect as many balls as you want. In the 18 Balls game, you are limited to 18 balls which makes the game harder. The more balls you have, the more likely you are going to get multiple rebounds that potentially be the game changer, where with a small number of balls you might be able to tackle the hardest of the zombies.

Because of the unique mechanics of the ball rebound, you can sometimes see some very interesting and cool effects. For example, you might find a single ball keep bouncing between the top wall and the top row of zombies for a long time, slowly but surely chipping their life away. Or you might find yourself in a situation where your balls are bouncing horizontally, seeming never going to reach the bottom. But @bitgem had thoughtfully put in a mechanism where the balls will slowly drift back to the bottom even if it is doing horizontal bounces.

Sometimes you might see a rainbow ball. If you hit your ball with it, you will get a rainbow ball next turn, which would destroy any zombie within one hit. Something that is definitely wanted when your map is covered with red boss zombies.

If you are lucky enough to clear every zombie on the screen, you get a Clear Screen Message. But that is not the goal of the game! The goal of the game is to destroy as many zombies as you can. Besides, it is nearly impossible to get a clean screen anyway once you are into the 5th or 6th rows of zombies.

At times, especially when you just finished slashing through multiple red boss zombies, you feel that you are the king of the world. But then you looked at the high score and it hardly moved. That’s because the high score tells you how many zombies you have taken down. Doesn’t matter whether they are grey, blue or red, they are still worth one point. So it gets harder and harder to climb the high score ladder. When a zombie reaches the bottom of the screen, you die. The game gives you one chance to continue, which would help you destroy the closest rows and the zombies and let you continue the game. But if you screw up again, its game over. My high score is 46 zombies. (Apparently there is a gravity button – see if you can figure out how to make it work!)

Ball vs Zombies is a really fun game to play. It is very well made, easy to pick up, but to get further into the game you need a lot of strategy in terms of the angle you release your balls, which zombie to take out first, how different zombies can change the course of the ball etc. Or, you can be just like me, ignore the strategy and just be happy at seeing your balls fly around the screen doing multiple rounds taking out many zombies. It is actually extremely satisfying to watch. Overall, Ball vs Zombies is an awesome game! You should try it and see if you can beat my score!

Gamers Competition 2: Last week's results

Last week we had the 3anglez Competition for the best player. Thank you to all of those who participated. It is slightly easier than Jump Fatty, but it is still hard to play and not many can get up to 3 digits scores. Of the entries, there were some very impressive results, with a few that scored above 100. But there could only be one winner, so let's give a round of applause for @ferdov who achieve a fine top score of 261!

Congratulations, @ferdov, we will be sending you your prize of 1.14 STEEM which is half of the liquid reward of the previous post. We also promise to give you a 100% upvote of your latest post, but you have not posted for a while, so comment on this post to claim your reward! Also, congratulations to @honoru, @ericet, @techbuzz07 and @flash07, who will be awarded with a 100% upvote on their submissions for being one of the top 5 participants.

Gamer Competition #3

This week, we will be running a competition on our feature game this week, Balls and Zombies by @bitgem. We are again looking for the player with the highest score.

Prize:

The winner will receive half of the STEEM/SBD Payout from this post. The winner will also receive a 100% upvote on their latest steemit post

The top 5 players will receive a 100% upvote on their entry

To Enter:

Upvote this post
Upvote Balls and Zombies latest post
Screengrab your High score and post it in the comment section under this post
Resteem this post（Optional）

The competition will finish after the close of this post in 6 days (This is to make sure your comments can in fact be judged and voted in time).

Happy Gaming! And may the odds be ever in your favour!

Thank you for reading this issue of Steemgg Newsletter. Don't forget to enter our comp! See you next week!

Steemgg Newsletter Issue #3 + Gamers Competition #3