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Harvest Moon, which many consider as the inspiration to Facebook gaming king FarmVille from Zynga, will see several browser-based social game releases thanks to Japanese developer and publisher Marvelous Entertainment.

The company looks to put out five to six titles designed for social networking services, according to a report from the Nikkei Industrial Journal translated by Andriasang. It's expecting to begin releasing those games this summer.

The 14-year-old series has seen dozens of releases, ports, and spin-offs on a multitude of home console, portable, digital download, and mobile platforms, so this move to spread the franchise to popular services like Facebook isn't surprising.

Marvelous didn't disclose any gameplay details behind the projects or specific strategies for attracting FarmVille's 83 million fans to its own farming simulator, but the publisher says it "aims to use its game development knowhow to deliver full game experiences."

Toronto indie studio Capybara Games announced an HD port of its acclaimed Nintendo DS puzzle/SRPG hybrid Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network, releasing later this year.

This downloadable edition will feature a number of changes and additions, such as replacing the game's super-deformed 16-bit style sprites and scenes with hand-drawn artwork, throwing in new idle animations for heroes and combat units, and other visual improvements.

Also, seeing as the dual screened version only supports two-player local multiplayer, Capy is taking advantage of the ports online battles by adding four-player versus and co-operative modes, as well as new multiplayer-specific artifacts.

The single-player experience will see enjoy new tweaks, too; you can now revisit previous chapters to complete outstanding side-quests or find secrets they might have missed. You can see several more screenshots from the Clash Of Heroes HD port, courtesy of IGN, after the break:

Mushroom Roulette is a simple puzzle game, and like all good puzzle games, comprises a handful of elements, with levels ringing the changes on what's feasible with those elements.

You control a single character with the arrow keys; scattered about the screen are red mushrooms, which earn you both score and health, and you must eat them all to complete the level. There are also sliding blocks, leading to Sokoban-style puzzles, as well as inert ones; purple mushrooms allow you to destroy a block, while black ones freeze all in place. Pink mushrooms give score but cost health, and there are also butterflies, mobile enemies that will cost both health and score. However, after eating a purple mushroom you can eliminate one instead of a block. Hats protect you from butterflies (once), but if retained increase your score as well.

The game contains two progressions -- the "normal" levels and the "map" levels -- as well as randomly-generated levels, which are less interesting. A separate level editor is downloadable, and the game is technically donationware, although the author invites level contributions and/or ports to other platforms as constributions. (He has versions available for Dingoo and the GP2X, obscure Linux-based handheld consoles, as well as for PC at present.)

By default, the game plays in a tiny 320x240 window, although there's a .bat file that will start it in full-screen mode.

While the gameplay is quite good -- reminiscent of the DROD games, though not as polished -- the game does not, awkwardly, allow you to save your progress through either of the two progressions, so that you must start with the first level of each on a subsequent play. Still, it's fairly entertaining.

Though we already have Manic Miner In The Lost Levels, an impressive Nintendo DS homebrew collection of extra levels from the game's commercial non-ZX-Spectrum ports (e.g. BBC Micro, Amstrad CPC), programmer Alekmaul went ahead and adapted the original ZX Spectrum Manic Miner for the dual-screen system, too.

Alekmaul's work is actually based on Andy Noble's 1997 PC port of Manic Miner, so it should have all 20 levels from the 1983 release. Unlike Lost Levels, which shared a brief story for each stage on the bottom screen, this adaptation doesn't seem to do anything interesting with the touchscreen other than display a colorful log.

You can download the Manic Miner DS port for free from Portabledev and play it on either an emulator or a homebrew device. If you have a Nintendo DSi, this could be the best way to play Manic Miner on your portable, as the system doesn't have a slot for the official GBA version. Also, it's a great complement to Lost Levels.

I wasn't aware of this until this week, but Rockin' Android, the curious publisher specializing in localizations for obscure "doujin" shooters from Japan, has started its own podcast and is now in its third episode.

The company's Adam Milecki hosts the audio show and is typically accompanied by some interesting guests -- the second episode brought in Rockin' Android CEO/president/founder Enrique Galvez, while this latest release features Kurt Kalata from the excellent Hardcore Gaming 101 and David Heineman from retro gaming site RacketBoy.

Along with discussions on 3D versus 2D titles, copyright issues with fangames, and iPhone gaming, Episode 3 contains an interesting revelation on Rockin' Android's plans for future console ports of its doujin shooters.

"We just recently completed a contract with Sony," said Milecki. "They are porting a few of our games to the PlayStation 3, and they will be available eventually to download on the PlayStation Network."

He adds, "That’s including Acceleration of Suguri. And I believe Gundemonium is another one. We are very excited about that. That's a big thing for a little new company like us. I believe in the case of Suguri, they're even bumping up the resolution, so it's going to be an HD version, stuff like that."

You can learn more about and watch videos for Gundemonium and Acceleration of Suguri in the post we compiled earlier this year for upcoming Rockin' Android releases.

[Via Hardcore Gaming 101, Siliconera]

If lighting your cigarettes/cigars/etc. with a video game-themed device is paramount to your smoking experience, Banpresto has you covered. Along with its Mega Drive, Sega Saturn, and Pac-Man lighters, the company is now producing limited edition Zippos for Namco Bandai arcade classics Xevious, Dig Dug, and Galaxian.

This series, created in honor of Pac-Man's 30th birthday next year, will probably hit import shops like NCSX, as was the case with Banpresto's previous game Zippos. They don't come cheap, though -- each lighter sells for around ¥8,400 ($93) in Japan.

[Via Technabob]

I don't usually pay attention to strange-sounding WiiWare games that I've never heard of, especially when they're mobile ports, but after hearing my friend describe Konami's Tomena Sanner as "like Canabalt but with more dancing", I knew this title required a thorough investigation.

Tomena Sanner's primary parallel to Canabalt is it's a single-button action game in which you guide a running character, businessman Hitoshi Susumu. In addition to controlling his jumps, that button is used for attacks, upending cars, dunking basketballs, bowing toward a jogging group of Shaolin monks, and more.

Susumu races through nine levels, hopping over T-Rexes and swinging around trees while trying to show up on time to "the ultimate dance party". The esoteric game features a four-player versus mode, an endless level mode, a turbo mode, and online rankings.

Konami will release Tomena Sanner stateside in the first quarter of 2010. You can see screenshots and find more information for the quirky title on Konami's official site.