WorldPlay's Present Under Wraps

AOL is gearing up for the holiday season (and, one expects, an increase in leisure hours provided by students' Christmas vacations) by debuting a dozen new games on its WorldPlay channel.

Those new games include Baldies Online, a resource-management game based on the boxed game that pits Baldies against Hairies; Version 3.0 of the Incredible Machine, where up to four players race against each other to build contraptions and outwit their opponents; and Spunky's Shuffle, a puzzle game - all available now.

WorldPlay also intends to launch nine new titles between now and the end of January - the role-playing game Darkness Falls; SET, a strategy game that challenges players to match shapes, shadings, and colors from a set of cards; WorldPlay Poker; the Fantasy Adventures Online card game; Front Page Sports: Trophy Bass 2; action-maze game Heavy Damage; arcade-style scroller Claw; the role-playing game Fantasy World of Cosrin; and strategy game MissionForce: CyberStorm.

AOL and WorldPlay are touting their new lineup with promotions that include a 99-cents-an-hour pricing structure for gamers who play any of the channel's classic card games (through Dec. 14) and the Blow Your Mind Instantly promotion (running Dec. 15 - Dec. 21), featuring the channel's puzzle games Spunky's Shuffle, SET, and Incredible Machine 3. Gamers must answer correctly a series of questions about those three titles to nab the prizes in that contest. From Dec. 22, 1997 through Jan. 2, 1998, WorldPlay offers players of any of its games a chance to qualify for a Club Med vacation trip for two. The Eat 'em for Lunch promotion begins Jan. 5, highlighting online tournaments held during the lunch hour.