…and unceremoniously at that.

We didn’t get a goodbye message like we did when the game community was shut down, we didn’t get a warning so we could say our final goodbyes, around 10:20am pacific time today, the chat disconnected and that was the end.

More screenshots of the final moments here. Thanks to everyone for coming to our little party and for making this the best fan community out there! Now, on to bigger and better things!

This site will remain open as an archive of Big Sea Games information and we’ll move forth providing hints and tips for these games at Treasure Quest on Facebook. Some former Big Sea players are finding new sites to play at and we’re all keeping in touch using the Big Sea Fans Community forums.

The end of Big Sea Games is near!

Mark your calendars, we’ll be meeting in Riddle O’Day to ride out the last few minutes of Big Sea Games together! Travel down memory lane with us, here’s the event details:

When: September 1, 2010
Where: Big Sea Games / Riddle O’Day / Riddle Masters Room
(overflow rooms Riddle Lovers and Riddle Solvers)
From: 9am Pacific
To: site shutdown (estimated to be somewhere between 10 and 11am Pacific)

If you need help calculating what time it’ll be in YOUR time zone, visit TimeAndDate.com. Choose 9am on September 1, then U.S.A. – Washington – Seattle as the time zone to convert from. Convert to your own.

Please take time out of your busy schedule to spend a few moments with us as we say goodbye. If you haven’t yet, please register on our community forums and post an introduction for your old Big Sea friends and new ones you might not have met yet — we’re currently discussing other game sites, the BSG closure, and more.

Hope to see you all there!

I got an email from the site admin of Spigo.com — another game site like Big Sea Games. For a limited time, they are offering a signup bonus for us Big Sea castaways. If you sign up through this link you’ll get 50,000 Spigos and 90 Gold Days free. That’s like getting a bunch of tokens and a free 3 month membership to their paid features!

For more info on Spigo, here’s a favorable review from Mira of Free2WinGames (who I know of via my Pogo fan site, BadgeHungry).

My username on there is Lure if you want to add a first friend. Feel free to list your username and your impressions of this site on our community forum. Does anyone want me to create a Big Sea Fans “club”? I just need a good motto. :)

I’ve created a forum so that all Big Sea Games fans can keep in touch after the bigseagames.com site shuts down. Right now we’re talking about new places to play games, but hopefully in the future the Big Sea Fans Community will grow into a place we can talk about all kinds of things.

Please take a moment and check it out, create an account and make a post or two. Introduce yourself or help us discuss different web sites similar to Big Sea Games where we can find a new home!

Thanks, and see you there!

From Big Fish Games’ official announcement:

We know it’s been awhile since you last heard from us, but we didn’t want to post any updates until we were certain of the direction we were going to take. Anything less would have been unfair to you as a community.

At this time, we are announcing that – beginning September 1, 2010 – the Big Sea Games service will be discontinued and no longer available.
Big Sea Games has been special to everyone who had a part in it – from the game development team to the design team to the community that played such an important role in creating the overall experience.

Moving forward, our team will shift focus to other areas of the business, applying what we’ve learned to create new game offerings.

We want to thank you for the passion and support you’ve shown Big Sea Games over the past year. We are grateful for your commitment and involvement as we continue to grow and evolve.

I am still processing this information, but I wanted to make sure the news got top billing on the site here for you guys. I’ll add my thoughts here when I have taken some time to think. I will tell you this: this site isn’t going anywhere. I’ll continue to maintain an archive of BSG information, continue to provide hints/tips/etc for Treasure Quest on Facebook, and hopefully find some way to keep the community of BSG players together even though our original home is going away.

More soon. –Lure :(

When you earn experience points in Treasure Quest, you gain levels. Certain levels come with bonuses, that can earn you extra gold in Treasure Chests, discounts in the stores, and more gold from Gold Spins. Check out the level bonuses:

Level 4: You get 5% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 7: You get 5% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 10: You get 5% discount on all items in Simplicity!
Level 18: You get 10% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 25: You get 5% discount on all items in Casual Corner!
Level 31: You get 10% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 34: You get a 5% discount on all Tops purchased in any store!
Level 37: You get 15% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 49: You get 15% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 52: You get 20% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 55: You get 5% discount on all items in Finer Things!
Level 64: You get 20% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 67: You get 25% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 70: You get a 5% discount on all Bottoms purchased in any store!
Level 76: You get 5% discount on all items in Fitness Fanatic!
Level 79: You get 25% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 88: You get 30% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 91: You get 5% discount on all items in In the Details!
Level 94: You get 30% more gold from Treasure Chests from now on!
Level 100: You get 35% more gold from Gold Spins from now on!
Level 106: You get 5% discount on all Full Outfits purchased in any store.

**There may be some holes here — especially from 18 through 31 and 67 through 70. Please help out the Treasure Quest fan community and post a comment as you level up with the bonuses you earn at the missing levels so we can complete this list quickly!

Special thanks to Lexandria for collecting most of these for us!

Below is a list of what you need to do to earn a Gold Spin for the games in Treasure Quest on Facebook. Also listed are the amounts of gold you can win per spin before modifiers (like 2x, 3x, free spins, etc) and how much experience (xp) you earn per spin.

Daily Detective 15-1500 gold, 15xp
- Daily: Find all of the hidden objects and solve the daily case (answers)
- Solve older cases (cost 200g each)

Deuces Wilder 3-300 gold, 3xp
- Earn 2000 points (countdown at top of screen)

Fairway Solitaire 2-200 gold, 2xp
- Find a Gold Spin card (random)

LOBE 7-700 gold, 7xp
- Fill up the gold spin bar (50 stars)

Mush 7-700 gold, 7xp
- Win the game

Oz Video Poker 4-400 gold, 4xp
- Move forward to middle of each chapter (4 of 8 steps)

Plunder 3-300 gold, 3xp
- Find a Gold Spin doubloon in a chest

Riddle O’Day 3-300 gold, 3xp
- Daily: Solve the Riddle (answers)
- Find a shamrock

Snow Globe 3-300 gold, 3xp
- complete a stage of Jack’s life (i.e., find all the gifts of baby stage in the bonus rounds)

Suits Me TriPeaks 1-100 gold, 1xp
- Win the game

Suits Me Yukon 10-1000 gold, 10xp
- Win the game

Thunderbolt 21 2-200 gold, 2xp
- Make 14 or more 21′s

Unwell Mel 7-700 gold, 7xp
- Daily: Complete the Daily Dose

Treasure Quest is currently testing Oz Video Poker for an upcoming release. If you’re interested in getting a sneak peek, you can take a look right now — but it’ll cost you. For a one-time fee of 5,000 gold, you’ll have full access to the game on Treasure Quest on Facebook before everyone else.

The game should be released to the general public eventually, but if you’ve got a hankering for some new content now just head on over to Treasure Quest on Facebook to get a preview. There’s a prominent link/icon to it on the Treasure Quest app — you can’t miss it.

Is 5,000 gold too rich for your blood? If there’s something you want to know, go ahead and leave a comment and ask your question. I’ll bite the bullet and fork over the 5k and give you the answers you seek. :)

Those of you familiar with Fairway Solitaire on Treasure Quest will notice a few changes! They’ve added a Pro Shop so you can purchase upgrades to your game.

The new shop has two tabs: Upgrades and Clubs. The Clubs section is fairly straightforward: you can purchase irons for 100 gold a piece, or fill your bag for 800 gold. The upgrades section contains five items that will give you a leg up in winning the courses. For 2,500 gold, you can purchase x-ray sunglasses which will show the next card on the draw pile when the mouse is hovered over it. There’s a 7x multiplier for 7,500 gold that changes the multiplier bonus for maxing out the Long Drive indicator to 7x. For 15,000 gold you can purchase an extra mulligan and start every hole with an extra Undo. 25,000 gold will buy you a Power Cart 1.3 that starts each hole with a 1.3x multiplier. Last, but not least is the Deluxe Bag which holds 2 of every club — it’s free when you purchase all of the other upgrades.

Since some of the game mechanics have changed, like the extra undo you can purchase, your game window now has a few extra and different buttons on it. There’s a Shop button on your points sign, an undo x1 (or x2) button under your card pile, and instead of the old mulligan button on the clubs, there’s an Add Club button which takes you straight to the Clubs tab of the Pro Shop.

And, to celebrate these additions, Treasure Quest has temporarily increased the odds of your quest chests to pay out a huge amount of gold. Good luck!

Leaderboards have been added to Treasure Quest on Facebook! This adds back in some of the social aspect of the games that we loved on Big Sea Games. Currently, you and your friends are ranked according to points earned all-time in each game individually.

According to the latest news:

Announcing leader boards! Compare your Treasure Quest skills with your friends. Each game now displays a leader board underneath that will show any of your friends who play that game. You can also challenge those friends to beat your score!

It’s unclear if these leaderboards will be reset each week like many other popular apps do, but you can still challenge your friends to beat your all-time points score by inviting them to play and see where you rank against them in each game on Treasure Quest. If you have no friends who play Treasure Quest, you’ll be automatically #1 — you may be tempted not to invite them to play and stay on top, but hey, what’s the fun in that?