Thứ Tư, 26 tháng 10, 2011
Planet Cazmo: Monster Battles enters MocoSpace's orbit on HTML5
Of course, Planet Cazmo is far from alone. Zynga just made a big bet on HTML5-based social games with mobile web versions of FarmVille, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker. CrowdStar CEO Peter Relan made clear his goal of launching the first game to reach 1 billion players through the mobile web, and Wooga released an HTML5 version of its new Magic Land.
The Top 10 Most Influential People in Facebook and Social Games
However, we had to populate the list with 10 names. In an attempt at fairness, we took to AppData's developer leaderboard, but also peppered the list with industry transplants of note. We're certain we've glossed over some video game veterans, but did you really want a list of 30 people? So, feel free to give us your two cents in the comments. (We've put on our flame-retardant suits already.) Here are the top 10 most influential people in Facebook and social games:
Q-Games to tower over Facebook with PixelJunk Monsters Online
However, there aren't many types of towers or enemies in the game yet. Q-Games was apparently more worried about laying on the old PixelJunk charm with impressive pseudo-3D visuals with a Candy Land style and a lovely tune. While the game has yet to officially launch on Facebook, you can play it right here to get a taste of what's to come. And what great timing you have, Q-Games: There aren't many tower defense games on Facebook, and yours is one of the best around, we hear.
PapayaMobile's mobile social game network gets friendly with iOS
OpenFeint and Mobage might want to watch out ... or get a delicious fruit in their logo somehow. Beijing-based PapayaMobile announced that it has expanded its mobile social game network from Android to iOS devices. iPhone and iPad game developers can now incorporate PapayaMobile into their game much like they would OpenFeint or Apple's Game Center.
Nexon's next social game, Zombie Misfits, looks for brains on Facebook
Alright, we thought it too: "Another zombie game?" But hold on just a second there, naysayers. Nexon's new Facebook game, Zombie Misfits, takes the whole zombie craze in a decidedly different direction. Co-developed by Canadian studio Antic Entertainment, this social take on what's quickly becoming a tired trend turns is a side-scrolling tower defense game.
Angry Birds Seasons Halloween update means a new bird is in town
We're not sure of the new avian's name, but at least we know what it does. This orange little bugger isn't much of anything when first launched, but tap the screen while it's in midair and the bird will balloon several times its size.
Thứ Hai, 24 tháng 10, 2011
Which Game Is The Best Match For This Steampunk Xbox 360 Controller?
As a trend, steampunk may be yesterday’s fad. And, while this custom controller–created by the folks at MorbidStix — apparently been around for a while, it just popped up into view again. I love the combination of a real-life mechanical act — unlocking the controller with the key-to open up digital worlds. It’s a nice metaphor, almost like a Narnia-esque fairytale thing,
Looking at the controller’s unlockable beauty make me wonder what would be the best pairing, game-wise, for it. Two games that come to mind are Bastion and the upcoming BioShock Infinite. Supergiant’s Xbox Live hit had a bit of a roughhewn, rustic look in its design and Irrational’s flying-city saga evokes an early 20th century aesthetic, what with its skyhook and dirigibles. The steampunk controller looks like it’d fit in both worlds, as if it’s what the Kid or Booker DeWitt would use while playing an analogous projected entertainment device.
The controller doesn’t appear to be available on the MorbidStix site, but I’m sure a uptick in demand would make them pump out some more. And, while not present in mass quantities, it’s likely available on request.
Looking at the controller’s unlockable beauty make me wonder what would be the best pairing, game-wise, for it. Two games that come to mind are Bastion and the upcoming BioShock Infinite. Supergiant’s Xbox Live hit had a bit of a roughhewn, rustic look in its design and Irrational’s flying-city saga evokes an early 20th century aesthetic, what with its skyhook and dirigibles. The steampunk controller looks like it’d fit in both worlds, as if it’s what the Kid or Booker DeWitt would use while playing an analogous projected entertainment device.
The controller doesn’t appear to be available on the MorbidStix site, but I’m sure a uptick in demand would make them pump out some more. And, while not present in mass quantities, it’s likely available on request.
Prime Example Of An Exciting New Massively Multiple Sci-Fi Epic
Three races vie for control over the one planet in the universe that contains an abundant supply of the element necessary to further technological advancement in Prime: Battle for Dominusm an upcoming science fiction MMO I really should have told you about sooner.
What we’re looking at here is actual beta footage of Prime, a science fiction MMO in development for the PC at Phoenix, Arizona’s PitchBlack Games, a company made up of refugees from games like Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Guild Wars. The premise is that three factions — Human, Salent and Rodon — are each attempting to gain the upper hand in an ongoing war over the planet Dominus, where the tech-building flavour is. Players choose a faction, one of six character classes, and then start building up skill points so they aren’t a liability to their friends and allies. They’ll build bases and fashion equipment to help aid their cause, and when they’re done with that they’ll charge into battle like real men, Salent and Rodon, which will look a lot like what’s going on in the video above.
There’ll be plenty of player-versus-environment content as well, with plenty of missions, massive world encounters, and dynamic events driven by real people instead of being scripted.
There’s a lot more to learn about Prime: Battle for Dominus, and with release aimed at the second quarter of 2012, there’s plenty of time to learn it. This is just an introduction. Prime, meet readers; readers, meet Prime.
What we’re looking at here is actual beta footage of Prime, a science fiction MMO in development for the PC at Phoenix, Arizona’s PitchBlack Games, a company made up of refugees from games like Warhammer: Age of Reckoning, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and Guild Wars. The premise is that three factions — Human, Salent and Rodon — are each attempting to gain the upper hand in an ongoing war over the planet Dominus, where the tech-building flavour is. Players choose a faction, one of six character classes, and then start building up skill points so they aren’t a liability to their friends and allies. They’ll build bases and fashion equipment to help aid their cause, and when they’re done with that they’ll charge into battle like real men, Salent and Rodon, which will look a lot like what’s going on in the video above.
There’ll be plenty of player-versus-environment content as well, with plenty of missions, massive world encounters, and dynamic events driven by real people instead of being scripted.
There’s a lot more to learn about Prime: Battle for Dominus, and with release aimed at the second quarter of 2012, there’s plenty of time to learn it. This is just an introduction. Prime, meet readers; readers, meet Prime.
Chủ Nhật, 23 tháng 10, 2011
How EA Sports Kept Loose Lips From Sinking Blitz
For 18 months, Dave Ross surfed forums and blogs and dreaded what he’d find. He couldn’t tell his kids what he was working on, lest they say something at school. Every day, when Ross booted up his computer at EA Sports, he clicked on the shared drive over the studio’s intranet, and then on the folder marked MADDEN PLAYBOOK CREATOR.
“Madden Playbook Creator”, in reality, was NFL Blitz.
Revealed at last this week, NFL Blitz came as a nearly flawless surprise. In an industry permeated with whispers and scuttlebutt, and enthusiasts who scan domain registries and LinkedIn resumes for hints of unannounced products, Blitz‘s 18-month production cycle proceeded in almost total silence up to last week’s announcement. The high-definition reboot of the beloved 1990s arcade football title is due for a January release.
“There have been times where we’ve seen speculation of what we were working on, especially with NBA Jam out there”, said Ross, Blitz‘s project lead. Jam, like Blitz, came to EA Sports in Midway Games’ 2009 liquidation, and the creator of both, Mark Turmell, worked for the label until July.
To my knowledge, just one rumour, by now nearly a year old, presaged NFL Blitz‘s return.
Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann, in November of last year, got a tip from an “industry insider”, then connected some dots and found that NFL Blitz had also changed hands to EA along with the by-then-known NBA Jam. Gerstmann reported what he knew and got the standard no-comment for rumour or speculation from EA Sports.
And that was it.
“It seemed like if we didn’t react, the message out there got doused before anything got to the point where we’d be concerned about it,” Ross said.
Inside EA Sports Tiburon, it was still cloak-and-dagger. The studio had been burned back in 2008 when a listing on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board’s website betrayed a Wii title called NASCAR Kart Racing before it was announced. Stung by that experience, the development and PR team built up the fiction of “Madden Playbook Creator”, which not only would serve as the “working title” it sent in to the ESRB, it would be Blitz‘s in-house name, to keep loose lips from sinking another ship.
“We have internal systems in here that have an audience,” Ross explained. “There are people in here who can see all of this stuff, and someone in a different studio may see ‘Oh, they’re working on NFL Blitz and then word gets out.”
EA Tiburon’s isolation from games development’s power corridors in Silicon Valley, Texas or the Pacific Northwest, also helped keep things quiet, Ross said. “I’ve worked in an area with a lot of different game companies within 5 or 10 miles [8-16km] of each other, and it seemed everybody went to lunch at the same place,” Ross said. “You could be in the checkout line, and somebody would be talking about the game they were working on, and without realising it, they’d give away confidential information.”
The ESRB is a different story. A quasi-public agency set up by the Entertainment Sofware Association, it provides public listings not only of games currently in circulation, but also of upcoming releases. Indeed, it’s a game among the speciality press to watch the ESRB site and out the next re-release of a classic console game on PlayStation Network or Xbox Live, which will both distribute NFL Blitz when it arrives in January.
EA Sports says it didn’t lie to the ESRB; it sent in an early submission under the working title “Madden Playbook Creator”. That sounded like another piece of downloadable content from a label notorious for selling it. But the content description for “Madden Playbook Creator”, had anyone bothered to look, definitely meant it was Blitz.
“We held nothing back from the ESRB with regard to the description of the game,” Ross said. “We never referred to it as NFL Blitz but we certainly told them it was an NFL-licensed product, it was an arcade-style game with 1st down and 30 to go, seven-on-seven and guys catching on fire. But its ‘working title’ was Madden Playbook Creator.”
This preliminary listing wasn’t fully public. Reading that description would have required membership in the Electronic Software Association, the trade group that has set up the ESRB, the US ratings board. “Anybody who would have had permissions and rights to go deeper would have seen it,” Ross said. They didn’t.
Though the certificate has yet to appear in the ESRB’s public listings, the promotional trailer EA Sports sent out for NFL Blitz on last week says the game is rated E10+.
There still were close calls and whispers inside Tiburon, Ross said. For research, the team wheeled in a giant NFL Blitz arcade cabinet, which should have raised eyebrows. Ross and the “Madden Playbook Creator” team laughed it off and put it in a rec room, explaining away the cabinet’s presence to Turmell joining the studio. Old Nintendo 64 consoles with original copies of NFL Blitz were also brought back to study gameplay; they had to be kept behind badge-entry doors back in the Blitz team’s end of the studio.
One day, Ross was in a conference room working by himself, with all sorts of NFL Blitz material strewn about on the table. The conference room doors have a glass pane. A tour group walked by, Ross said, and its guide told the group he was working on NFL Blitz. He got up, politely addressed the group (a private gathering of industry professionals), and reminded them of the non-disclosure agreements they signed before starting their tour. When they left he sat back down and took a deep sigh.
Maybe it’s because of the genre — fewer gamers, per capita, watch these kinds of developments in annual sports titles, where sequels are assumed every year and licenses are typically held by a single developer. But EA Sports Tiburon could conduct a Harvard Business seminar on pre-release secrecy. Its finest hour was back in January, when the first anyone heard that The Masters and Augusta National Golf Club were coming to the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series was the day EA sent out the word officially.
Yet in that case, the label had outside partners well versed in discretion and secrecy. With NFL Blitz, EA Sports was picking up the pieces from a bankrupt company, whose liquidation was a matter of public record. For more than a year, Dave Ross was worried Blitz would become an open secret at any moment.
Now he doesn’t have to worry. Now he can tell his kids what their dad’s really doing at work.
Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games.
“Madden Playbook Creator”, in reality, was NFL Blitz.
Revealed at last this week, NFL Blitz came as a nearly flawless surprise. In an industry permeated with whispers and scuttlebutt, and enthusiasts who scan domain registries and LinkedIn resumes for hints of unannounced products, Blitz‘s 18-month production cycle proceeded in almost total silence up to last week’s announcement. The high-definition reboot of the beloved 1990s arcade football title is due for a January release.
“There have been times where we’ve seen speculation of what we were working on, especially with NBA Jam out there”, said Ross, Blitz‘s project lead. Jam, like Blitz, came to EA Sports in Midway Games’ 2009 liquidation, and the creator of both, Mark Turmell, worked for the label until July.
To my knowledge, just one rumour, by now nearly a year old, presaged NFL Blitz‘s return.
Giant Bomb’s Jeff Gerstmann, in November of last year, got a tip from an “industry insider”, then connected some dots and found that NFL Blitz had also changed hands to EA along with the by-then-known NBA Jam. Gerstmann reported what he knew and got the standard no-comment for rumour or speculation from EA Sports.
And that was it.
“It seemed like if we didn’t react, the message out there got doused before anything got to the point where we’d be concerned about it,” Ross said.
Inside EA Sports Tiburon, it was still cloak-and-dagger. The studio had been burned back in 2008 when a listing on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board’s website betrayed a Wii title called NASCAR Kart Racing before it was announced. Stung by that experience, the development and PR team built up the fiction of “Madden Playbook Creator”, which not only would serve as the “working title” it sent in to the ESRB, it would be Blitz‘s in-house name, to keep loose lips from sinking another ship.
“We have internal systems in here that have an audience,” Ross explained. “There are people in here who can see all of this stuff, and someone in a different studio may see ‘Oh, they’re working on NFL Blitz and then word gets out.”
EA Tiburon’s isolation from games development’s power corridors in Silicon Valley, Texas or the Pacific Northwest, also helped keep things quiet, Ross said. “I’ve worked in an area with a lot of different game companies within 5 or 10 miles [8-16km] of each other, and it seemed everybody went to lunch at the same place,” Ross said. “You could be in the checkout line, and somebody would be talking about the game they were working on, and without realising it, they’d give away confidential information.”
The ESRB is a different story. A quasi-public agency set up by the Entertainment Sofware Association, it provides public listings not only of games currently in circulation, but also of upcoming releases. Indeed, it’s a game among the speciality press to watch the ESRB site and out the next re-release of a classic console game on PlayStation Network or Xbox Live, which will both distribute NFL Blitz when it arrives in January.
EA Sports says it didn’t lie to the ESRB; it sent in an early submission under the working title “Madden Playbook Creator”. That sounded like another piece of downloadable content from a label notorious for selling it. But the content description for “Madden Playbook Creator”, had anyone bothered to look, definitely meant it was Blitz.
“We held nothing back from the ESRB with regard to the description of the game,” Ross said. “We never referred to it as NFL Blitz but we certainly told them it was an NFL-licensed product, it was an arcade-style game with 1st down and 30 to go, seven-on-seven and guys catching on fire. But its ‘working title’ was Madden Playbook Creator.”
This preliminary listing wasn’t fully public. Reading that description would have required membership in the Electronic Software Association, the trade group that has set up the ESRB, the US ratings board. “Anybody who would have had permissions and rights to go deeper would have seen it,” Ross said. They didn’t.
Though the certificate has yet to appear in the ESRB’s public listings, the promotional trailer EA Sports sent out for NFL Blitz on last week says the game is rated E10+.
There still were close calls and whispers inside Tiburon, Ross said. For research, the team wheeled in a giant NFL Blitz arcade cabinet, which should have raised eyebrows. Ross and the “Madden Playbook Creator” team laughed it off and put it in a rec room, explaining away the cabinet’s presence to Turmell joining the studio. Old Nintendo 64 consoles with original copies of NFL Blitz were also brought back to study gameplay; they had to be kept behind badge-entry doors back in the Blitz team’s end of the studio.
One day, Ross was in a conference room working by himself, with all sorts of NFL Blitz material strewn about on the table. The conference room doors have a glass pane. A tour group walked by, Ross said, and its guide told the group he was working on NFL Blitz. He got up, politely addressed the group (a private gathering of industry professionals), and reminded them of the non-disclosure agreements they signed before starting their tour. When they left he sat back down and took a deep sigh.
Maybe it’s because of the genre — fewer gamers, per capita, watch these kinds of developments in annual sports titles, where sequels are assumed every year and licenses are typically held by a single developer. But EA Sports Tiburon could conduct a Harvard Business seminar on pre-release secrecy. Its finest hour was back in January, when the first anyone heard that The Masters and Augusta National Golf Club were coming to the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series was the day EA sent out the word officially.
Yet in that case, the label had outside partners well versed in discretion and secrecy. With NFL Blitz, EA Sports was picking up the pieces from a bankrupt company, whose liquidation was a matter of public record. For more than a year, Dave Ross was worried Blitz would become an open secret at any moment.
Now he doesn’t have to worry. Now he can tell his kids what their dad’s really doing at work.
Stick Jockey is Kotaku’s column on sports video games.
I Wield The Mighty Doomhammer
The Doomhammer is the weapon of the Orc warchiefs in World of Warcraft, passed down from father to son over the ages. Thrall himself wields it, the weapon given to him during the flight of the Orcs from their homeworld of Draenor. I might have that wrong; either way it’s a pretty important piece of equipment.
There are actually two different Doomhammers at BlizzCon 2011 this weekend. One, available for purchase at the BlizzCon store for under $US200, is a live-action role-playing weapon, crafted of PVC and foam and then painted to look extremely similar to its weightier, more expensive inspiration.
The one I’m holding here is the real deal, or as real a deal as you can get. It’s made by Epic Weapons, the same company that made the gorgeous reproduction of Frostmourne a few years back. It’s up for preorder on the Epic Weapons website for $US284.95, a small price to pay for the ultimate in home security.
There are actually two different Doomhammers at BlizzCon 2011 this weekend. One, available for purchase at the BlizzCon store for under $US200, is a live-action role-playing weapon, crafted of PVC and foam and then painted to look extremely similar to its weightier, more expensive inspiration.
The one I’m holding here is the real deal, or as real a deal as you can get. It’s made by Epic Weapons, the same company that made the gorgeous reproduction of Frostmourne a few years back. It’s up for preorder on the Epic Weapons website for $US284.95, a small price to pay for the ultimate in home security.
Thứ Bảy, 22 tháng 10, 2011
Indie Game Spotlight: Mommy's Best Games
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Indie Gamer Spotlight: Mommy’s Best Games
October 15th, 2010
By: GHR Superman
After spending some time at the Mommy’s Best Games booth at PAX East last march. We here at GamerHusbands Radio just can’t wait to see more. That’s why I have decide to make them the first indie game developer that I put in the spotlight in my new Spotlight series. Check out this trailer of the upcoming game GrappleBuggy.
Take one look at Mommy’s Best Games and you’ll know that they are different. Every part of their games from the innovative game play to the heart pounding music grabs hold of you and refuses to let go. If you don’t believe me, just go to XBLIG and download Shoot1up for 80 space bucks and see if I’m wrong. What makes these games so exciting and fun? The same things that made arcades and Atari so successful in the 80′s. The fast paced arcade style scrolling, the insane moves required to dodge oncoming projectiles and urge to try and beat that high score.
Let’s take a closer look at the people behind Mommy’s Best Games. The company was started by founders Nathan and Amy Fouts in 2007. They have since released three games, Shoot1Up, Explosionade and Weapon if Choice which are all available in Xbox Live. And they are currently working on, the very exciting, Grapple Buggy.
Here’s a closer look at their games:
Shoot1Up- Think back to the classic arcade space ship shooters like Galaga, then add fresh new graphics, heart pounding music, more features and power-ups, more fast action shooting and you’ve got Shoot1Up. MBG takes arcade style spaceship shooting to a new level as they put you in control of more than 30 ships at the same time in single player and over 60 in co-op. They also include a feature that allows you to adjust the game play to your level of difficulty. And you can’t beat the value of this game, it’s just 80 space bucks on XBLIG. That’s right, you can Shoot1Up for just $1 US on XBL.
Explosionade- This action packed reminds me of some of the great side scrollers like Metroid and Castlevania. It features destructible environment, 2 player co-op, and online high score so you can show off your high score to all your friends. And once again you can pick this game up in XBLIG for just 80 space bucks. At that price, what do you have to lose?
Weapon of Choice- Weapon of Choice holds the title of IGN’s Best of XBL Community Game of 2008. Once again MBG changes the way you will look at side scrollers as you battle through non-linear levels and face dynamic in-level branch decisions that lead to multiple endings. Add in unique weapons and powers for multiple playable characters, and you’ve got an award winning game. Download the demo today on XBLIG and if you want more you can download the entire game for 400 space bucks ($5 US).
Grapple Buggy (Soon to be released) GHR Superman and Teetock watched GHR Maverick as he got some hands on with Grapple Buggy at PAX East, and it was something else. The originality of the game was amazing. Who would have guest that a game about a little buggy driving around on a distant planet could be so gripping. But it left us wanting more. Once again this game incorporates upgrades dynamic decision branching, and multiple game based endings. Explore new heights with your grapple as you hunt through the planet Vald-End 317. And you choose weather to strip the planet of it’s valuable resources or rebel against your government as you fight to save the planet.
Indie Gamer Spotlight: Mommy’s Best Games
October 15th, 2010
By: GHR Superman
After spending some time at the Mommy’s Best Games booth at PAX East last march. We here at GamerHusbands Radio just can’t wait to see more. That’s why I have decide to make them the first indie game developer that I put in the spotlight in my new Spotlight series. Check out this trailer of the upcoming game GrappleBuggy.
Take one look at Mommy’s Best Games and you’ll know that they are different. Every part of their games from the innovative game play to the heart pounding music grabs hold of you and refuses to let go. If you don’t believe me, just go to XBLIG and download Shoot1up for 80 space bucks and see if I’m wrong. What makes these games so exciting and fun? The same things that made arcades and Atari so successful in the 80′s. The fast paced arcade style scrolling, the insane moves required to dodge oncoming projectiles and urge to try and beat that high score.
Let’s take a closer look at the people behind Mommy’s Best Games. The company was started by founders Nathan and Amy Fouts in 2007. They have since released three games, Shoot1Up, Explosionade and Weapon if Choice which are all available in Xbox Live. And they are currently working on, the very exciting, Grapple Buggy.
Here’s a closer look at their games:
Shoot1Up- Think back to the classic arcade space ship shooters like Galaga, then add fresh new graphics, heart pounding music, more features and power-ups, more fast action shooting and you’ve got Shoot1Up. MBG takes arcade style spaceship shooting to a new level as they put you in control of more than 30 ships at the same time in single player and over 60 in co-op. They also include a feature that allows you to adjust the game play to your level of difficulty. And you can’t beat the value of this game, it’s just 80 space bucks on XBLIG. That’s right, you can Shoot1Up for just $1 US on XBL.
Explosionade- This action packed reminds me of some of the great side scrollers like Metroid and Castlevania. It features destructible environment, 2 player co-op, and online high score so you can show off your high score to all your friends. And once again you can pick this game up in XBLIG for just 80 space bucks. At that price, what do you have to lose?
Weapon of Choice- Weapon of Choice holds the title of IGN’s Best of XBL Community Game of 2008. Once again MBG changes the way you will look at side scrollers as you battle through non-linear levels and face dynamic in-level branch decisions that lead to multiple endings. Add in unique weapons and powers for multiple playable characters, and you’ve got an award winning game. Download the demo today on XBLIG and if you want more you can download the entire game for 400 space bucks ($5 US).
Grapple Buggy (Soon to be released) GHR Superman and Teetock watched GHR Maverick as he got some hands on with Grapple Buggy at PAX East, and it was something else. The originality of the game was amazing. Who would have guest that a game about a little buggy driving around on a distant planet could be so gripping. But it left us wanting more. Once again this game incorporates upgrades dynamic decision branching, and multiple game based endings. Explore new heights with your grapple as you hunt through the planet Vald-End 317. And you choose weather to strip the planet of it’s valuable resources or rebel against your government as you fight to save the planet.
On EA Louse
I’m not going to give you a diatribe about the whole EA Louse/IceFrog thing that started a few days ago. Game development is something I don’t know much about.
But that’s the point of today’s post. How many gamers know anything about game development? EA Louse’s blog, for most, is a tiny peephole into the great, wide world developers enter every day when they go to work. In the realm of media representation the ground-working group, who probably make up a majority, are entirely silent. We sometimes feel the residual rumblings in our world when reports of a tremulous round of layoffs come in, but we never get any comment from that shader who got discharged or the five-year veteran of a dev’s art department who got a little pink paper rather than a paycheck.
We always hear from the big folks, though. Hideki Kamiya, Shigeru Miyamoto, David Jaffe, Cliffy B. And it’s almost always all smiles and mysterious tweets, isn’t it? But is that how it is for the average developer? What does the average developer even do? I honestly don’t know, but I’d absolutely love to find out. There’s just so little information out there until those rare moments every fifth full moon when the planets align and someone gets pissed and takes up anonymity to become the next whistle-blower. Then we get the bitter, angry description of development—“layoffs are always looming, management’s a joke, it’s like living in a police-state.” But is that even the full picture? Is that even what we should care about?
I think so, but not just that.
I think the process of game development should be more accessible general knowledge than it is. If you consider games to be an artform, you must agree. After all—no other major artform is such a mystery. I love books—I can write a book. I love music—I can make a song. I love art—I can paint a picture. These are things everyone knows how to do, whether they have the desire or determination or not. But games development is such a nebulous, esoteric concept that I wouldn’t know where to start.
Hell, how many of us know everything necessary to even make a flash game?
Exactly.
But it’s not like people just hate getting information from low-level developers—it just never comes up. Even something as big as EA Louse’s blog isn’t covered on Gamespot or IGN. Instead, GS gives us “uDraw doodling on Wii Nov. 14.” Well fuck them. Because they’ll ignore the small guys when they bitch about work conditions but if Gabe Newell says the PS3 is balls, LORD HAVE MERCEY. It’s allover the fucking place.
I don’t know about any of you, but I’m done being in the dark. I’m going to learn about these people more. Who is EA Spouse? Who’s Sanya? Who’s Abdul Ismail? Why do I know more about Gordon Freeman than the tens of people who created him from the ground up? Or, hell, any game character. If you care more about playing the games than hearing about all the bullshit politics around them, that’s perfectly legitimate. But can you really say you don’t care about who made the game? These faceless developer names you hear—SledgeHammer, Bungie, 5th Cell, Ninja Theory—all have many people that actually do the developing. And I think we need to learn a few of those faces if this industry’s ever going to do some developing itself.
But that’s the point of today’s post. How many gamers know anything about game development? EA Louse’s blog, for most, is a tiny peephole into the great, wide world developers enter every day when they go to work. In the realm of media representation the ground-working group, who probably make up a majority, are entirely silent. We sometimes feel the residual rumblings in our world when reports of a tremulous round of layoffs come in, but we never get any comment from that shader who got discharged or the five-year veteran of a dev’s art department who got a little pink paper rather than a paycheck.
We always hear from the big folks, though. Hideki Kamiya, Shigeru Miyamoto, David Jaffe, Cliffy B. And it’s almost always all smiles and mysterious tweets, isn’t it? But is that how it is for the average developer? What does the average developer even do? I honestly don’t know, but I’d absolutely love to find out. There’s just so little information out there until those rare moments every fifth full moon when the planets align and someone gets pissed and takes up anonymity to become the next whistle-blower. Then we get the bitter, angry description of development—“layoffs are always looming, management’s a joke, it’s like living in a police-state.” But is that even the full picture? Is that even what we should care about?
I think so, but not just that.
I think the process of game development should be more accessible general knowledge than it is. If you consider games to be an artform, you must agree. After all—no other major artform is such a mystery. I love books—I can write a book. I love music—I can make a song. I love art—I can paint a picture. These are things everyone knows how to do, whether they have the desire or determination or not. But games development is such a nebulous, esoteric concept that I wouldn’t know where to start.
Hell, how many of us know everything necessary to even make a flash game?
Exactly.
But it’s not like people just hate getting information from low-level developers—it just never comes up. Even something as big as EA Louse’s blog isn’t covered on Gamespot or IGN. Instead, GS gives us “uDraw doodling on Wii Nov. 14.” Well fuck them. Because they’ll ignore the small guys when they bitch about work conditions but if Gabe Newell says the PS3 is balls, LORD HAVE MERCEY. It’s allover the fucking place.
I don’t know about any of you, but I’m done being in the dark. I’m going to learn about these people more. Who is EA Spouse? Who’s Sanya? Who’s Abdul Ismail? Why do I know more about Gordon Freeman than the tens of people who created him from the ground up? Or, hell, any game character. If you care more about playing the games than hearing about all the bullshit politics around them, that’s perfectly legitimate. But can you really say you don’t care about who made the game? These faceless developer names you hear—SledgeHammer, Bungie, 5th Cell, Ninja Theory—all have many people that actually do the developing. And I think we need to learn a few of those faces if this industry’s ever going to do some developing itself.
Thứ Năm, 20 tháng 10, 2011
Cheevo's made me a Hoarder
Not so long ago, in fact approximately 1 month BC (before cheevo’s) I could regularly be found heading down to my local independant game retailer, 5 or 6 members of my beloved game collection in hand, most of them still half complete on my xbox hard drive, ready to do something I loved to do…..trade.
Getting a good price on my old games & leaving the shop with some shiny new ones, or some dusty pre-owned ones was a regular occurance back then.
But no longer, and it’s all thanks to those sometimes easy, sometimes painfully difficult & sometimes downright ridiculous achievments (or trophies if i’m in the PS3 mood).
I just can’t part with games knowing there’s still points to be earned, points that in most cases I know I will never see, points in games that may never even see the inside of the disc tray again, but you never know so I better keep hold of them.
This has of course led to me having what can only be described as a huge collection of games and an emergency shelving shortage and has led me to be what can only be described as a hoarder, but you know what…..I love it.
Thanks to the almighty achievment i’ve played and more importantly enjoyed games that I wouldn’t otherwise have given a second look, persevered with games that only a few years earlier would’ve been tucked neatly under my arm on a trip to the trade in store & given me that joyous feeling of nailing one of you’re more difficult tests. So thankyou cheevo’s, you’ve made me a more open minded gamer and a more hardcore gamer, oh, and you make a beautiful sound when you unlock.
Getting a good price on my old games & leaving the shop with some shiny new ones, or some dusty pre-owned ones was a regular occurance back then.
But no longer, and it’s all thanks to those sometimes easy, sometimes painfully difficult & sometimes downright ridiculous achievments (or trophies if i’m in the PS3 mood).
I just can’t part with games knowing there’s still points to be earned, points that in most cases I know I will never see, points in games that may never even see the inside of the disc tray again, but you never know so I better keep hold of them.
This has of course led to me having what can only be described as a huge collection of games and an emergency shelving shortage and has led me to be what can only be described as a hoarder, but you know what…..I love it.
Thanks to the almighty achievment i’ve played and more importantly enjoyed games that I wouldn’t otherwise have given a second look, persevered with games that only a few years earlier would’ve been tucked neatly under my arm on a trip to the trade in store & given me that joyous feeling of nailing one of you’re more difficult tests. So thankyou cheevo’s, you’ve made me a more open minded gamer and a more hardcore gamer, oh, and you make a beautiful sound when you unlock.
Too old.....NEVER!!!!!
I can see the future, a bold statement indeed, but one I believe, and here’s what I see……30 years from now gameshops Worldwide over-run by an army of pensioners hungry for the next installment of Call of Duty (which by then is set in deep space as the Human race battle a cyborg army and everyone still camps) or FIFA 40 or Gears of War XIV : 'The nursing home years' or god forbid Quantum Theory 2 (it’s been 30 years, we hoped you’d forgotten how bad the 1st one was….no we haven’t.) I know this because as long as there’s still breath in my body i’ll still be gaming & i’m not alone.
It’s sometimes thought, wrongly of course, that playing video games is the domain solely of whiney, shouty kids or angry teenagers with a penchant for tea-bagging & verbal abuse, those 2 groups exist of course , god do they exist, (better just say not all the young ‘uns are bad news….most of them, but not all) but there’s another group out there, large in number, occaisionally quite skilled, frequently quite drunk but always having a good time…..the ‘mature’ gamer.
Gamers like myself who have grown up with video games, gamers who spent hours playing Jet Set Willy & almost as long waiting for it to load, were mesmerised by Pac Man (or in my case Hungry Horace), and sat in awe as Sonic sped across the screen in his lush green World collecting rings & looping the loop, gamers that have been playing since it all began & will be playing for decades to come, I for one didn’t sit through hours of loading screens, poor graphics & laughable sound only to hang up my controller now it’s starting to get good!!!!
Fair play, it wasn’t all bad back in the old days but jumping over barrels & climbing up ladders to rescue a princess from a Gorilla didn’t quite enthrall me in the way going on a sniping mission deep inside enemy territory in ‘Ghillies in the Mist’ did.
So look out for me in 30 years time when you head out game shopping, i’ll be the one with the Master Chief slippers, the hover zimmer and a big, happy toothless grin from decades gaming, hope i’ll see you there.
It’s sometimes thought, wrongly of course, that playing video games is the domain solely of whiney, shouty kids or angry teenagers with a penchant for tea-bagging & verbal abuse, those 2 groups exist of course , god do they exist, (better just say not all the young ‘uns are bad news….most of them, but not all) but there’s another group out there, large in number, occaisionally quite skilled, frequently quite drunk but always having a good time…..the ‘mature’ gamer.
Gamers like myself who have grown up with video games, gamers who spent hours playing Jet Set Willy & almost as long waiting for it to load, were mesmerised by Pac Man (or in my case Hungry Horace), and sat in awe as Sonic sped across the screen in his lush green World collecting rings & looping the loop, gamers that have been playing since it all began & will be playing for decades to come, I for one didn’t sit through hours of loading screens, poor graphics & laughable sound only to hang up my controller now it’s starting to get good!!!!
Fair play, it wasn’t all bad back in the old days but jumping over barrels & climbing up ladders to rescue a princess from a Gorilla didn’t quite enthrall me in the way going on a sniping mission deep inside enemy territory in ‘Ghillies in the Mist’ did.
So look out for me in 30 years time when you head out game shopping, i’ll be the one with the Master Chief slippers, the hover zimmer and a big, happy toothless grin from decades gaming, hope i’ll see you there.
Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says
Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Phineas And Ferb 3D Game – Disney XD Games 63
New Disney Game – Phineas and Ferb
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Play the Scary Maze Game With Your Friends!
Have you ever played the Scary Maze Game 8 now? If not, brotha you haven’t lived!!! This maze game is the most awesome game on earth! But in order to play it you MUST have a partner in the room with you. So go find a friend, co-hort, or even an enemy – it doesn’t matter! Then match your wits and your mouse skills with the game and see if you’re awesome enough to win the BIG prize at the end!
Chinese Couple Sells All Three Kids to Play Online Games
A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online Nick jr games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
Thứ Bảy, 15 tháng 10, 2011
The End of Pre-Owned Games?
With the announcement of the PSN Pass, many gamers are asking themselves “Could this be the end for the pre-owned video game market?”.
Sony announced today that they would be implementing the PSN Pass which is a “network pass program” which would require the gamer to purchase the game new instead of used to have full access to the game content.
We first saw this when EA released Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 which used a redeemable code to allow those who buy the game to access free and additional content. Those who buy the pre-owned version must either do without or pay for a new code.
Sony will roll-out the program with Resistance 3. Any games that are part of the program will come bundled with a code that can be used once, and grants users “full online access for that title.”
So what does this all mean for gamers? If you plan on pickup up games such as Resistance 3 in the future, then you won’t be able to access many of the game’s features without a “PSN Pass“.
Online pass programs are viewed as a way to combat the sale of used games, as publishers have often complained of never seeing any profit from that massive secondhand industry. Stores like GameStop receive full revenue on any pre-owned games, leaving developers empty-handed.
Microsoft has not released any information on future plans to implement a pass for their network, but many game developers such as EA Sports and THQ are implementing “passes” in many of their upcoming games to be released next year.
Sony announced today that they would be implementing the PSN Pass which is a “network pass program” which would require the gamer to purchase the game new instead of used to have full access to the game content.
We first saw this when EA released Mass Effect 2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 which used a redeemable code to allow those who buy the game to access free and additional content. Those who buy the pre-owned version must either do without or pay for a new code.
Sony will roll-out the program with Resistance 3. Any games that are part of the program will come bundled with a code that can be used once, and grants users “full online access for that title.”
So what does this all mean for gamers? If you plan on pickup up games such as Resistance 3 in the future, then you won’t be able to access many of the game’s features without a “PSN Pass“.
Online pass programs are viewed as a way to combat the sale of used games, as publishers have often complained of never seeing any profit from that massive secondhand industry. Stores like GameStop receive full revenue on any pre-owned games, leaving developers empty-handed.
Microsoft has not released any information on future plans to implement a pass for their network, but many game developers such as EA Sports and THQ are implementing “passes” in many of their upcoming games to be released next year.
Official Pokemon Game Coming To Smartphones
The Pokemon Company is set to bring an official Pokemon Online game to smartphone devices, marking the first time that an official Nintendo-copyrighted app will be available on the iOS and Android.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Nick Jr., MTVN expand in Asia
Rugrats and music fans in Singapore and Malaysia will be able to tune in to “Dora the Explorer” and 24-hour music videos, docus and concerts with the launch of Viacom’s Nick Jr. and MTVN HD in the territories in coming weeks.
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
Is Uncharted 2 Multiplayer a Joke?
I've recently gotten back into Uncharted 2 multiplayer. Well, I tried anyway. You see, after playing Uncharted 3's beta, I've concluded that the predecessor was so flawed, I don't see how I didn't see it for what it was prior.
Now before anyone discredits me, I consider myself an UC2 multiplayer vet. I normally do very well in my matches (at the top of the scoreboard most times) and have almost hit rank 60. I also have a platinum trophy in the game. I have logged in 14 days of mulitplayer in all. Now, seeing as I met most of my current friends list in UC2 and they play it often, I thought I'd give the game another "season". Shortly afterwards, I found myself putting down the controller and saying, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, "What were they thinking???"
Only after time with what I would consider a vastly improved sequel, I just can't take the cheapness that runs as a rampant excuse for "skill" in the game. Now, I don't think I even have to mention the abomination that is Situational Awareness. I'm sure many of you shivered as you read that. Well, I encountered a fellow in Elimination using just that booster... wielding a shotgun... standing motionless around a corner. Yeah, 'nuff said.
But wait, what about all that other garbage? What about the hair-tearing frustration that is corner shooting? In case you didn't know, corner shooting is when a player uses (abuses) the "lopsided" perspective of the third-person camera and will repeatedly move in and out of cover, usually with a FAL and Fleet Foot (faster movement while aiming), and shoot you, EVEN IF HE ISN'T VISIBLE ON YOUR SCREEN.
Then there's the bunny hopping. You know those guys who jump around like a moron, making them an extremely difficult (annoying) target? Yeah, those guys. Or maybe you've been killed by a dude who dropped a grenade when he should technically be dead by that point? Or the shotgun that only requires the user to face his camera in the general direction of the enemy?
When the Uncharted 3 beta initially began, a lot of people accused the developers of making the game "clunky". What Naughty Dog ACTUALLY did was limit the number of ways people could exploit the animations like they did in the previous game. If you noticed, grenades must be held up before throwing, diminishing the chances of the despicable "manual martyrdom". This goes for just about everything I mentioned above. The worst part is that if you don't follow the ludicrous play styles of these "elites", you'll suffer most times.
Now, I've had several friends ask me to a game of Uncharted 2, but I politely deny the request. After UC3, the garbage that goes on in UC2 is nigh unbearable for me: full-autoing weapons across the map with perfect accuracy, the ease of camping in the upper end of The Temple, the treasure cheating and game-breaking geometry glitches that still haven't been fixed, etc.
So, I have to say, I'm officially retired from UC2 multiplayer.
I will most definitely play through the game for a fourth time in anticipation of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, but for multiplayer, well, you guys can hit me up on November 1st. Hopefully, it won't turn out like the last one.There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Now before anyone discredits me, I consider myself an UC2 multiplayer vet. I normally do very well in my matches (at the top of the scoreboard most times) and have almost hit rank 60. I also have a platinum trophy in the game. I have logged in 14 days of mulitplayer in all. Now, seeing as I met most of my current friends list in UC2 and they play it often, I thought I'd give the game another "season". Shortly afterwards, I found myself putting down the controller and saying, as the Angry Video Game Nerd would say, "What were they thinking???"
Only after time with what I would consider a vastly improved sequel, I just can't take the cheapness that runs as a rampant excuse for "skill" in the game. Now, I don't think I even have to mention the abomination that is Situational Awareness. I'm sure many of you shivered as you read that. Well, I encountered a fellow in Elimination using just that booster... wielding a shotgun... standing motionless around a corner. Yeah, 'nuff said.
But wait, what about all that other garbage? What about the hair-tearing frustration that is corner shooting? In case you didn't know, corner shooting is when a player uses (abuses) the "lopsided" perspective of the third-person camera and will repeatedly move in and out of cover, usually with a FAL and Fleet Foot (faster movement while aiming), and shoot you, EVEN IF HE ISN'T VISIBLE ON YOUR SCREEN.
Then there's the bunny hopping. You know those guys who jump around like a moron, making them an extremely difficult (annoying) target? Yeah, those guys. Or maybe you've been killed by a dude who dropped a grenade when he should technically be dead by that point? Or the shotgun that only requires the user to face his camera in the general direction of the enemy?
When the Uncharted 3 beta initially began, a lot of people accused the developers of making the game "clunky". What Naughty Dog ACTUALLY did was limit the number of ways people could exploit the animations like they did in the previous game. If you noticed, grenades must be held up before throwing, diminishing the chances of the despicable "manual martyrdom". This goes for just about everything I mentioned above. The worst part is that if you don't follow the ludicrous play styles of these "elites", you'll suffer most times.
Now, I've had several friends ask me to a game of Uncharted 2, but I politely deny the request. After UC3, the garbage that goes on in UC2 is nigh unbearable for me: full-autoing weapons across the map with perfect accuracy, the ease of camping in the upper end of The Temple, the treasure cheating and game-breaking geometry glitches that still haven't been fixed, etc.
So, I have to say, I'm officially retired from UC2 multiplayer.
I will most definitely play through the game for a fourth time in anticipation of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, but for multiplayer, well, you guys can hit me up on November 1st. Hopefully, it won't turn out like the last one.There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Thứ Năm, 13 tháng 10, 2011
Angry Birds for PC
Finally, those birds that everybody likes has arrived on PC. After iPhone, iPad, Android and other mobile versions, also iPhone cases and toys, Angry Birds has finally arrived on the PC thanks to the Intel App Up store. It’ll work fine and dandy on laptops and netbooks and will cost you only $4.99 to download. Nice price for this lovely game.
Angry Birds is a global phenomenon in mobile gaming and the top grossing iPhone app of 2010. So if you’re not a smart-phone wielding hipster, you no longer have an excuse not to be part of this franchise.
Overall it’s pretty much an identical game play experience to the iPhone app, with some minor differences. It’s snappy, gorgeous, and it sounds amazing. On the netbook version you use a mouse or trackpad instead of touch. There is an open hand icon when the mouse is in hover state, and a closed hand icon when you are clicking or dragging. This visible clue when pulling the slingshot is a nice aid. It allows you to fine tune shots more than just observing the angle of the slingshot band.
Angry Birds for PC
Larger screen means more visibility in the game. On many levels you can see the target that can’t be seen on the iPhone. The previous shot trail is more easily seen, allowing fine tuning of your next shot. Overall the animations and physics seem to have more fluidity.
In terms of features, options, menu etc it’s pretty close to the original. On the netbook the replay level icon has been added to the game space. So you don’t need to pause first then replay. If you start off with bad shot, just click the replay icon, then you can start over. Saving a click is nice. There is a Menu button in the Pause menu that gets you back to the Start screen. There are some things not in play on the netbook version. The leader board and achievements are not available in the main menu. The Golden Eggs are there.
Angry Birds strikes an interesting balance of repetitive, simple tasks and challenging game play working for the many scenarios. So, if you liked this game on your iPhone or Android phone, you’ll sure like it on your big PC screen. If you are new player, don’t hesitate and join the fun now.
You must know and recognize the game from the Rovio, Angry Birds.
This game consists of seven birds with super abilities are different. By using slingshots, you can control the jump and the height of ill-tempered birds to tear down the building where the collection of green pork fat is shelter.
Where is a funny collection of birds swelled, turned into a grumpy group of birds which destroy the kingdom of lustful pigs these cunning thieves.
Angry Birds now not only for the iPhone, Android OS, PS3 and PSP. even Angry Birds has been available in Ovi Store for Nokia. And now Angry Birds have been available for Windows XP and Windows 7
Free Angry Birds for PC
Plenty of dodgy website owners want to rip off Google and push traffic towards their sites on the bogus promise of the free version of Angry Birds for PC. This is only a scam but in fact there exists a download free Angry Birds for PC nevertheless, you will need to move quickly to take advantage of that offer
Finland games producer Rovio Mobile has produced their very 1st version of Angry Birds Game for the Apple iPhone. This particular game was immediately caught by the iPhonesters, and Rovio understood that they will become successful. That has been fine. However, Rovio needed to get going by recoding Angry Birds Games for several programs, which become easier for small companies to get done.
Several weeks went by and finally, the Nokia and Android users could get themselves the Angry Birds Game. After that, the RovioMobile switched their attentions to the huge users of the PSP or the Play Station Portable and the PS3. That has been an additional huge porting project for Rovio operations.
During that time, the PC users have been reading and hearing rumors regarding Angry Birds for PC. Ultimately, in January, Angry Birds for PC was released, and downloading is not for free. However, not everybody is willing to pay for $5 for just a game, even if they will enjoy playing with it. These days, several users have grown to be familiar of getting some thing for free, so there are many who are on the lookout for a totally free Angry Birds for PC download. It can be downloaded via Windows 7 and Windows XP and Vista, or Mac support. But downloading can only be downloaded if you have an internet connection for the process to activate successfully.
Angry Birds pc is one of the well-known games that have taken the popularity with over 200 million downloads. The availability of this game is taking place in almost all of the popular platforms. In addition to playing the game online in the browser you can now download it on your laptop and take it wherever you may go to enjoy the amazing games, enabling you to play whenever, wherever you go. Take it to your workplace or even in the park, while resting and basting under the sun. Probably launching the Angry Birds for PC the wisest and the best move the game maker ever made. This availability made for the millions of platform owners, even made the popularity of Angry Birds known to more video-gaming enthusiasts more than over.
Incoming search terms:
* angry birds for pc
* activate free angry birds for pc
* angry birds FLASH SCAM
* angry-birds-online scam
* free angry birds games full version for window xp
*
- Angry Birds PC Updated
The PC version was updated last week which we talked about in this post. This update will finally include all episodes of Ham ‘Em High and the two chapters of Mine and Dine. I’m sure this is welcome news for all the PC players who have been feeling left out. It shouldn’t have taken this long to get all the episodes out but that’s in the past now so lets just get to playing. Since all the chapters are available you also have access to all of the golden eggs. You can finally complete your collection!
As a side note because I didn’t want to do an entire post about the subject, have you all seen the Angry Birds bra? It’s available over on etsy you should go check it out. I personally don’t know anyone who would wear it but i’m sure there is someone out there who would. I don’t recommend buying this for you girlfriend or wife unless she really loves angry birds.
Angry Birds is a global phenomenon in mobile gaming and the top grossing iPhone app of 2010. So if you’re not a smart-phone wielding hipster, you no longer have an excuse not to be part of this franchise.
Overall it’s pretty much an identical game play experience to the iPhone app, with some minor differences. It’s snappy, gorgeous, and it sounds amazing. On the netbook version you use a mouse or trackpad instead of touch. There is an open hand icon when the mouse is in hover state, and a closed hand icon when you are clicking or dragging. This visible clue when pulling the slingshot is a nice aid. It allows you to fine tune shots more than just observing the angle of the slingshot band.
Angry Birds for PC
Larger screen means more visibility in the game. On many levels you can see the target that can’t be seen on the iPhone. The previous shot trail is more easily seen, allowing fine tuning of your next shot. Overall the animations and physics seem to have more fluidity.
In terms of features, options, menu etc it’s pretty close to the original. On the netbook the replay level icon has been added to the game space. So you don’t need to pause first then replay. If you start off with bad shot, just click the replay icon, then you can start over. Saving a click is nice. There is a Menu button in the Pause menu that gets you back to the Start screen. There are some things not in play on the netbook version. The leader board and achievements are not available in the main menu. The Golden Eggs are there.
Angry Birds strikes an interesting balance of repetitive, simple tasks and challenging game play working for the many scenarios. So, if you liked this game on your iPhone or Android phone, you’ll sure like it on your big PC screen. If you are new player, don’t hesitate and join the fun now.
You must know and recognize the game from the Rovio, Angry Birds.
This game consists of seven birds with super abilities are different. By using slingshots, you can control the jump and the height of ill-tempered birds to tear down the building where the collection of green pork fat is shelter.
Where is a funny collection of birds swelled, turned into a grumpy group of birds which destroy the kingdom of lustful pigs these cunning thieves.
Angry Birds now not only for the iPhone, Android OS, PS3 and PSP. even Angry Birds has been available in Ovi Store for Nokia. And now Angry Birds have been available for Windows XP and Windows 7
Free Angry Birds for PC
Plenty of dodgy website owners want to rip off Google and push traffic towards their sites on the bogus promise of the free version of Angry Birds for PC. This is only a scam but in fact there exists a download free Angry Birds for PC nevertheless, you will need to move quickly to take advantage of that offer
Finland games producer Rovio Mobile has produced their very 1st version of Angry Birds Game for the Apple iPhone. This particular game was immediately caught by the iPhonesters, and Rovio understood that they will become successful. That has been fine. However, Rovio needed to get going by recoding Angry Birds Games for several programs, which become easier for small companies to get done.
Several weeks went by and finally, the Nokia and Android users could get themselves the Angry Birds Game. After that, the RovioMobile switched their attentions to the huge users of the PSP or the Play Station Portable and the PS3. That has been an additional huge porting project for Rovio operations.
During that time, the PC users have been reading and hearing rumors regarding Angry Birds for PC. Ultimately, in January, Angry Birds for PC was released, and downloading is not for free. However, not everybody is willing to pay for $5 for just a game, even if they will enjoy playing with it. These days, several users have grown to be familiar of getting some thing for free, so there are many who are on the lookout for a totally free Angry Birds for PC download. It can be downloaded via Windows 7 and Windows XP and Vista, or Mac support. But downloading can only be downloaded if you have an internet connection for the process to activate successfully.
Angry Birds pc is one of the well-known games that have taken the popularity with over 200 million downloads. The availability of this game is taking place in almost all of the popular platforms. In addition to playing the game online in the browser you can now download it on your laptop and take it wherever you may go to enjoy the amazing games, enabling you to play whenever, wherever you go. Take it to your workplace or even in the park, while resting and basting under the sun. Probably launching the Angry Birds for PC the wisest and the best move the game maker ever made. This availability made for the millions of platform owners, even made the popularity of Angry Birds known to more video-gaming enthusiasts more than over.
Incoming search terms:
* angry birds for pc
* activate free angry birds for pc
* angry birds FLASH SCAM
* angry-birds-online scam
* free angry birds games full version for window xp
*
- Angry Birds PC Updated
The PC version was updated last week which we talked about in this post. This update will finally include all episodes of Ham ‘Em High and the two chapters of Mine and Dine. I’m sure this is welcome news for all the PC players who have been feeling left out. It shouldn’t have taken this long to get all the episodes out but that’s in the past now so lets just get to playing. Since all the chapters are available you also have access to all of the golden eggs. You can finally complete your collection!
As a side note because I didn’t want to do an entire post about the subject, have you all seen the Angry Birds bra? It’s available over on etsy you should go check it out. I personally don’t know anyone who would wear it but i’m sure there is someone out there who would. I don’t recommend buying this for you girlfriend or wife unless she really loves angry birds.
BBCW launches CBeebies games app
Games based on popular CBeebies Games series Charlie & Lola, Teletubbies, 3rd & Bird and Numberjacks are available through a new app launched by BBC Worldwide.
CBeebies On The Go is available for free on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to pre-school children in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and South Korea.
Developed by Tag Apps, it includes matching pairs picture games for the Teletubbies and Charlie & Lola, a Kerwhizz jigsaw game and a 3rd & Bird tap-the-fruit challenge. It also holds a number of short video clips from popular shows.
Director of CBeebies investment at BBCW, Henrietta Hurford-Jones, said the team had “worked hard to build a product that upholds the core values of learning through play”.
She added: “This new kids’ app is a first for the Channels business, so the learnings from this pilot phase will help shape any future plans to roll CBeebies Games On The Go out to new territories and different devices.”
More than 53m homes have access to the CBeebies channel worldwide.
CBeebies On The Go is available for free on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad to pre-school children in Australia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and South Korea.
Developed by Tag Apps, it includes matching pairs picture games for the Teletubbies and Charlie & Lola, a Kerwhizz jigsaw game and a 3rd & Bird tap-the-fruit challenge. It also holds a number of short video clips from popular shows.
Director of CBeebies investment at BBCW, Henrietta Hurford-Jones, said the team had “worked hard to build a product that upholds the core values of learning through play”.
She added: “This new kids’ app is a first for the Channels business, so the learnings from this pilot phase will help shape any future plans to roll CBeebies Games On The Go out to new territories and different devices.”
More than 53m homes have access to the CBeebies channel worldwide.
Disney-branded Facebook games coming in 2012, Playdom head says
Can we all just say, “finally?” During a panel named “The Rise of Social Games” at the f8 Facebook Developers Conference in San Francisco, Disney Interactive and Playdom head John Pleasants revealed that two to four Facebook games surrounding Disney xd brands will hit Facebook in 2012. The general topic of the panel was the fact that branded social games are taking off.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Pleasants was joined on the panel by Kabam CEO Kevin Chou, EA Interactive head Barry Cottle and Zynga CBO Owen Van Natta. Facebook director of games partnerships Sean Ryan moderated the panel with the preface that branded games will take over the Facebook platform. And he might be right: EA just released The Sims Social, Zynga will soon re-brand its new Adventure World with Indiana Jones and Kabam recently announced The Godfather: Five Families.
Playdom, which Disney acquired in July 2010 for a whopping $740 million, is ahead of the pack with two branded games on Facebook: ESPNU College Town and ESPN Sports Bar & Grill. Both games performed well, thanks to advertising through the ESPN TV network. While Disney owns the ESPN brand, notice how neither of those actually involve the insanely popular Disney characters we’ve come to love.
Honestly, we’re surprised this didn’t happen sooner. Consider this: Disney has its own cable TV channel through which it could, in theory, advertise whatever it wants. Pleasants didn’t get into why it’s taken this long for disney channel games to throw its cast of characters into Facebook games, but did reveal the power of the Disney name.
Gnome Town, which Playdom launched in the summer–and we enjoyed quite a bit–peaked at 530,000 daily players. But just plopping the Disney logo on top of the existing one made users more likely to spend in the game just through trust of the company’s name, according to Pleasants. “We think it’s an advantage, if you put game play first,” Pleasants said.
It’s comforting to hear this emphasized by these developers. (Kabam’s Chou shared the same sentiment.) Branded games on Facebook are OK in my book, but the last thing anyone wants to see is the genre become a branding machine.
Phineas And Ferb 3D Game – Disney XD Games 63
New Disney Game – Phineas and Ferb
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Disney released a new game. Phineas and Ferb 3D online game. Klick here to read the complete review.
The new game is available at the Disney XD discovery channel. Get ahead of the game before its officially released next week!
Disney is introducing the brand new DisneyXD game. Phineas and Ferb in: The Transport inators of Doooom!
Doofenschmitz is up to his old tricks again, and who has gone missing? Phineas! Help Ferb find his brother and try to help Agent P thwarth Doofenschmitz evil plans!
Check out this new exciting Disney XD online game before all others do at the Disney Cartoon network games website!
Check out Disney’s cartoon network to find a lot of amazing games and news. Disney offers a lot of cartoon games on their site. So head over to the Disney XD site and play the new Phineas and Ferb – The Transport-inators of Doooom! game!
Play the Scary Maze Game With Your Friends!
Have you ever played the Scary Maze Game 8 now? If not, brotha you haven’t lived!!! This maze game is the most awesome game on earth! But in order to play it you MUST have a partner in the room with you. So go find a friend, co-hort, or even an enemy – it doesn’t matter! Then match your wits and your mouse skills with the game and see if you’re awesome enough to win the BIG prize at the end!
Chinese Couple Sells All Three Kids to Play Online Games
A young Chinese couple has sold all three of their children in exchange for money to play online Nick jr games at Internet cafes, reports a southern Chinese newspaper.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
According to Sanxiang City News, the couple met in an Internet cafe back in 2007 and bonded over their obsession with online video games. A year later, the parents — who are both under 21 — welcomed their first child, a son. Days after his birth, they left him home alone while they went to play online agame at an Internet cafe 30 km away.
In 2009, Li Lin and Li Juan welcomed their second child, a baby girl, and came up with the idea to sell her for money to fund their online game obsession. They did so, receiving RMB 3,000 (less than $500), which they spent entirely shortly after. The couple then proceeded to sell their first child and got 10 times as much for him — RMB 30,000, or about $4600.
Upon having their third child — another boy — the parents followed in their previous footsteps and also got RMB 30,000 for him.
They were finally turned into authorities when Li Lin’s mother found out what her son and his girlfriend had done.
When asked if they missed their children, the parents answered, “We don’t want to raise them, we just want to sell them for some money.”
Sanxiang City Newsreports the couple didn’t know they were breaking the law.
Official Pokemon Game Coming To Smartphones
The Pokemon Company is set to bring an official Pokemon Online game to smartphone devices, marking the first time that an official Nintendo-copyrighted app will be available on the iOS and Android.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Called Pokemon Iie Tap (rougly Pokemon: Say Tap?), the app appears to be a rhythm game where players “tap on Pokemon indigo trading cards to the beat of a song from the anime,” according to a translation by consumer video game site GamesRadar.
According to the game’s official announcement, it will be available for most iOS devices, as well as Android devices running version 2.1 of the platform.
Though this is the first iOS or Android application to carry an official Nintendo copyright, it is not the first mobile app of any kind: a Pokemon mobile phone game called Pokemate was released in Japan in 2006.
Though it is a rarity, Nintendo does have a history of releasing official games on platforms that are not its own, including a promotional Flash game to promote its Tingle character.
A release outside of Japan has not been announced.
Nick Jr., MTVN expand in Asia
Rugrats and music fans in Singapore and Malaysia will be able to tune in to “Dora the Explorer” and 24-hour music videos, docus and concerts with the launch of Viacom’s Nick Jr. and MTVN HD in the territories in coming weeks.
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Nick Jr Games. will bow on Singapore’s Starhub from May 18, while MTVN HD will air on Telekom Malaysia Berhad’s HyppTV in Malaysia from June 1.
Nick Jr. will be available on the StarHub TV’s Kids Basic Upsize Group, while MTVNHD will be available to existing StarHub TV’s Entertainment Basic Group customers who are subscribed to the Basic HD Upsize group.
TM will offer the two channels a la carte to its subscribers on HyppTV, Malaysia’s newest pay TV service.
The services will roll out to the rest of the region at a date to be announced.
There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Thứ Tư, 12 tháng 10, 2011
How Dance Central 2 gets its moves
Frenchy Hernandez has been dancing her entire life. She started when she was two years old, before eventually studying dance at school, teaching dance, and working for the likes of MTV, BET, VH1, and artists like Ashanti and Snoop Dogg. But for the past two years she's worked at a video game studio, serving as one of the resident choreographers at Harmonix, the developer behind the upcoming Dance Central 2.
There's a good chance that those moves you're busting while dancing in front of your Kinect are actually Frenchy's moves.
It's a unique position to be in. Aside from the other resident choreographers at Harmonix, Hernandez is likely the only professional dancer with such extensive game development experience. Though she still teaches, she is a full-time employee at the studio, working exclusively on the Dance Central series alongside her fellow choreographers.
So what exactly does she do?
Well, it depends. The choreographer's job varies depending on what stage the game is in. Early on in the project she works with the animators and designers to come up with ideas for the various in-game characters, ensuring that they're authentic. "Just kind of telling them what we wear, how important sneakers [are] to our fashion," Hernandez told Ars. "You know, helping them find references for the characters that they already had an idea for."
From there it goes to the song selection, as the choreographers work with the audio team to help "scrunch up songs and make them smaller." And once the songs are ready it's time to create the actual dances.
Senior producer Naoko Takamoto decides which choreographer the song fits with best, based on things like their personality or personal musical preferences, and then provides a few notes on how the dance should feel, at which point the choreographer gets to work. In Hernandez's case, she remains at her desk and listens to the cut of the song for a few days, though she doesn't exactly stay still.
"Like I sit at my desk and I'm listening to it and just moving around in my chair listening to it," she explained. "And from there I kind of get up and move to a mirror and just freestyle dance."
Dance Central 2
As she dances in front of the mirror, Hernandez begins to pick out specific moves she likes, and where exactly they fit in the song. Part of the actual choreography process is ensuring those moves come in at just the right beat or lyric. Once that's all set, the fully choreographed dance is filmed and Hernandez and her producer refine it—starting with the expert-level dance before moving on to medium and beginner—and set to naming the individual moves, and determining which ones fit with which difficulty level.
Then it's on to the motion capture suits.
It's a long and involved process, though—aside from a few technical limitations—the actually choreography isn't that different from what Hernandez would be doing if she were working with an artist or teaching a class.
"It's really true to form," she told Ars. "This is the stuff that I would come up with if I was teaching dance or something like that."
Those technical limitations have been reduced as Microsoft continues to improve the Kinect experience, but some still remain. The camera can't recognize hand motions done in front of the body, for instance, and dancers can't move more than five feet to the left or right of the Kinect. The upcoming sequel introduces some new elements to the game, including the ability for two players to be on screen dancing simultaneously. Though these types of features improve the game experience, they haven't actually changed the choreographer's job all that much. But they have provided an extra incentive to make the dances even better.
"It actually inspires us," Hernandez told Ars, "because it makes it really look like real dancing when you have two dancers on the screen doing two different things."
Dance Central 2 is coming to the Xbox 360 on October 25.
There's a good chance that those moves you're busting while dancing in front of your Kinect are actually Frenchy's moves.
It's a unique position to be in. Aside from the other resident choreographers at Harmonix, Hernandez is likely the only professional dancer with such extensive game development experience. Though she still teaches, she is a full-time employee at the studio, working exclusively on the Dance Central series alongside her fellow choreographers.
So what exactly does she do?
Well, it depends. The choreographer's job varies depending on what stage the game is in. Early on in the project she works with the animators and designers to come up with ideas for the various in-game characters, ensuring that they're authentic. "Just kind of telling them what we wear, how important sneakers [are] to our fashion," Hernandez told Ars. "You know, helping them find references for the characters that they already had an idea for."
From there it goes to the song selection, as the choreographers work with the audio team to help "scrunch up songs and make them smaller." And once the songs are ready it's time to create the actual dances.
Senior producer Naoko Takamoto decides which choreographer the song fits with best, based on things like their personality or personal musical preferences, and then provides a few notes on how the dance should feel, at which point the choreographer gets to work. In Hernandez's case, she remains at her desk and listens to the cut of the song for a few days, though she doesn't exactly stay still.
"Like I sit at my desk and I'm listening to it and just moving around in my chair listening to it," she explained. "And from there I kind of get up and move to a mirror and just freestyle dance."
Dance Central 2
As she dances in front of the mirror, Hernandez begins to pick out specific moves she likes, and where exactly they fit in the song. Part of the actual choreography process is ensuring those moves come in at just the right beat or lyric. Once that's all set, the fully choreographed dance is filmed and Hernandez and her producer refine it—starting with the expert-level dance before moving on to medium and beginner—and set to naming the individual moves, and determining which ones fit with which difficulty level.
Then it's on to the motion capture suits.
It's a long and involved process, though—aside from a few technical limitations—the actually choreography isn't that different from what Hernandez would be doing if she were working with an artist or teaching a class.
"It's really true to form," she told Ars. "This is the stuff that I would come up with if I was teaching dance or something like that."
Those technical limitations have been reduced as Microsoft continues to improve the Kinect experience, but some still remain. The camera can't recognize hand motions done in front of the body, for instance, and dancers can't move more than five feet to the left or right of the Kinect. The upcoming sequel introduces some new elements to the game, including the ability for two players to be on screen dancing simultaneously. Though these types of features improve the game experience, they haven't actually changed the choreographer's job all that much. But they have provided an extra incentive to make the dances even better.
"It actually inspires us," Hernandez told Ars, "because it makes it really look like real dancing when you have two dancers on the screen doing two different things."
Dance Central 2 is coming to the Xbox 360 on October 25.
Sony suffers another attack on PSN, 93,000 accounts temporarily compromised
By Ben Kuchera | Published a day agoLast updated a day ago
Sony has been the victim of another attack on the PlayStation Network and Sony Online services, where intruders attempted to log in using a large number of account names and passwords. The vast majority of these login attempts failed, according to Sony, leading the company to believe it has been a victim of an attack of opportunity where hackers tried to access PSN and SOE accounts using information taken from other sources.
"These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources," Philip Reitinger, the SVP & Chief Information Security Officer of the Sony group wrote on the official blog. "In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks."
93,000 accounts have been accessed due to this attack, but Sony claims little activity was seen on the compromised accounts before they were locked down. If your account was affected, Sony will be e-mailing you with details and to have your password reset. The company claims credit card information is not at risk.
The best course of action is to make sure you don't share account names or passwords between online services. "We want to take this opportunity to remind our consumers about the increasingly common threat of fraudulent activity online, as well as the importance of having a strong password and having a username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites," Reitinger wrote. "We encourage you to choose unique, hard-to-guess passwords and always look for unusual activity in your account."
Sony has been the victim of another attack on the PlayStation Network and Sony Online services, where intruders attempted to log in using a large number of account names and passwords. The vast majority of these login attempts failed, according to Sony, leading the company to believe it has been a victim of an attack of opportunity where hackers tried to access PSN and SOE accounts using information taken from other sources.
"These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources," Philip Reitinger, the SVP & Chief Information Security Officer of the Sony group wrote on the official blog. "In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks."
93,000 accounts have been accessed due to this attack, but Sony claims little activity was seen on the compromised accounts before they were locked down. If your account was affected, Sony will be e-mailing you with details and to have your password reset. The company claims credit card information is not at risk.
The best course of action is to make sure you don't share account names or passwords between online services. "We want to take this opportunity to remind our consumers about the increasingly common threat of fraudulent activity online, as well as the importance of having a strong password and having a username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites," Reitinger wrote. "We encourage you to choose unique, hard-to-guess passwords and always look for unusual activity in your account."
MDK2 gets $15 HD re-release on PC, looks and plays great
MDK2 is a cult classic, filled with inventive gameplay and well-written humor. The game isn't talked about as often as other rare games, and it's a shame; it was something special on the Dreamcast, PC, Playstation 2, and most recently the Wii. Overhaul Games, a division of Beamdog, has created an updated, high definition version of the game for PCs. It's out today, exclusively via the team's eponymous digital distribution service.
Here come the bullet points:
* 10 levels
* Over 20 enemies
* Three different player characters, Max, Dr. Hawkins, and Kurt
* Unique levels and items for each character
* Brand new HD graphics
* Enhanced audio from the original sources
* Tweaked gameplay—now Easy really is Easy, while Hard is BONE CRUSHING!
The game features three playable characters: a janitor who wears the Batman-like "ribbon suit" that allows him to glide around the levels as he snipes at enemies and picks up a wide array of interesting grenades, a six-limbed dog that can equip and fire four guns at once, and a mad scientist who fights aliens with the power of invention. The game leverages its absurd situations and premise very well, while remaining fun to actually play. This is one of those rare cases where the game's mechanics are just as good as the writing and humor.
I had the chance to play a preview version of the updated game on the PC, and it looks great, while the game controls work very well with the mouse and keyboard. A few of the game's environments betray their decade-old age, but the game's sense of fun and adventure shine through, and the HD facelift looks great. This is a great way to revisit a classic or try a quirky game for the first time.There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Here come the bullet points:
* 10 levels
* Over 20 enemies
* Three different player characters, Max, Dr. Hawkins, and Kurt
* Unique levels and items for each character
* Brand new HD graphics
* Enhanced audio from the original sources
* Tweaked gameplay—now Easy really is Easy, while Hard is BONE CRUSHING!
The game features three playable characters: a janitor who wears the Batman-like "ribbon suit" that allows him to glide around the levels as he snipes at enemies and picks up a wide array of interesting grenades, a six-limbed dog that can equip and fire four guns at once, and a mad scientist who fights aliens with the power of invention. The game leverages its absurd situations and premise very well, while remaining fun to actually play. This is one of those rare cases where the game's mechanics are just as good as the writing and humor.
I had the chance to play a preview version of the updated game on the PC, and it looks great, while the game controls work very well with the mouse and keyboard. A few of the game's environments betray their decade-old age, but the game's sense of fun and adventure shine through, and the HD facelift looks great. This is a great way to revisit a classic or try a quirky game for the first time.There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Chủ Nhật, 9 tháng 10, 2011
FarmVille could crop up on the big screen, Toy Story writers say
Hey, if the Angry Birds are getting their own flick, why not? During an interview with IGN about their work on Skylanders: Spyro's Adventures, Toy Story writers Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen hinted that they're in talks with Zynga about writing up a FarmVille movie, most likely for theaters. Of course, the writers didn't mention the mega popular farming simulator directly.
"So, yes, we will continue writing movies," Sokolow and Cohen told IGN. "We are also working on several new and very exciting opportunities. We're in conversations with Zynga to do something with one of their brands. Can't really say too much on that front yet, but 'Old MacDonald' didn't have a factory, if you get our drift."
That pretty much confirms it, but when contacted by IGN, the game developer declined to comment. That's most likely because no official announcement has been made regarding a film. (But we bet that some form of a press release is being written up right about now.)
You know, we normally cringe at the thought of a film based on a video game, much less on a game that has little to no action or plot. But we're cautiously confident, considering the writers behind one of the greatest animated films of all time are in on the potential project. Just forget about those ... other movies.
Are you psyched to hear that a FarmVille movie might be in the works? And now for the ultimate question: 2D or 3D? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
"So, yes, we will continue writing movies," Sokolow and Cohen told IGN. "We are also working on several new and very exciting opportunities. We're in conversations with Zynga to do something with one of their brands. Can't really say too much on that front yet, but 'Old MacDonald' didn't have a factory, if you get our drift."
That pretty much confirms it, but when contacted by IGN, the game developer declined to comment. That's most likely because no official announcement has been made regarding a film. (But we bet that some form of a press release is being written up right about now.)
You know, we normally cringe at the thought of a film based on a video game, much less on a game that has little to no action or plot. But we're cautiously confident, considering the writers behind one of the greatest animated films of all time are in on the potential project. Just forget about those ... other movies.
Are you psyched to hear that a FarmVille movie might be in the works? And now for the ultimate question: 2D or 3D? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Facebook soccer sim Top Eleven gets even more serious in Version 2.0
Seriously, if you're looking for a soccer (football, sorry) simulator that considers nearly every possibility, it seriously doesn't more serious than Top Eleven. If we've yet to drive home that this game by Serbian developer Nordeus is seriously deep, just check out some of the features that will hit Top Eleven when Version 2.0 hits on Oct. 10 ... seriously. In addition to already covering every tiny detail:
* Training – the complete overhaul of the training mode now lets managers control every aspect of coaching their team. Decisions need to be made about which skills to focus a player on developing, how to balance the intensity of training with players physical condition, and whether to change a players career and train them for a new position
* Club Finances – managers can now win more premium currency for free than ever before by strategically choosing sponsorships deals. They can sign a riskier deal linked the results of the team, or play it safe and gain tokens on a daily basis
* New Interface – Top Eleven's sleek new look makes the game even easier to navigate and is built to update with new features in the future
"We've been working really hard over the last six months to get these new features built into the game," Nordeus CEO Branko Milutinović said in a release. "The early feedback we've got from our loyal BETA testers has been fantastic and helped us fine-tune the new features, ready for our millions of players. These changes make Top Eleven even more life-like by bringing in more decisions to keep managers thinking and on their toes."
Top Eleven training
With a game that takes such minute considerations (for fans, at least) and turns them into pivotal gameplay hooks, we can only imagine Top Eleven became the most popular sports game on Facebook because soccer fans are insanely meticulous at heart(?). Well, that and the fact that the game is available in about 27 languages. Oh, and soccer (well, football) is huge.
Click here to check out the Top Eleven changes come Oct. 10 >
Are you a fan of Top Eleven on Facebook? Which type of sports game do you prefer on social networks: action-packed arcade style romps or stat-crunching, serious simulators? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
* Training – the complete overhaul of the training mode now lets managers control every aspect of coaching their team. Decisions need to be made about which skills to focus a player on developing, how to balance the intensity of training with players physical condition, and whether to change a players career and train them for a new position
* Club Finances – managers can now win more premium currency for free than ever before by strategically choosing sponsorships deals. They can sign a riskier deal linked the results of the team, or play it safe and gain tokens on a daily basis
* New Interface – Top Eleven's sleek new look makes the game even easier to navigate and is built to update with new features in the future
"We've been working really hard over the last six months to get these new features built into the game," Nordeus CEO Branko Milutinović said in a release. "The early feedback we've got from our loyal BETA testers has been fantastic and helped us fine-tune the new features, ready for our millions of players. These changes make Top Eleven even more life-like by bringing in more decisions to keep managers thinking and on their toes."
Top Eleven training
With a game that takes such minute considerations (for fans, at least) and turns them into pivotal gameplay hooks, we can only imagine Top Eleven became the most popular sports game on Facebook because soccer fans are insanely meticulous at heart(?). Well, that and the fact that the game is available in about 27 languages. Oh, and soccer (well, football) is huge.
Click here to check out the Top Eleven changes come Oct. 10 >
Are you a fan of Top Eleven on Facebook? Which type of sports game do you prefer on social networks: action-packed arcade style romps or stat-crunching, serious simulators? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
Masters of Mystery hits Facebook as, yes, another hidden-object game
Masters of Mystery Online
At this point, we're surprised I Spy hasn't hit Facebook yet. Canadian developer Big Blue Bubble announced that its Masters of Mystery series has hit Facebook in a brand new, aptly-named game, Masters of Mystery: Online. The game takes a look at the stereotypical gritty world of a beat cop-turned-private investigator as he attempts to uncover the truth behind a murder case.
More specifically, a model is found killed in the apartment of a prominent fashion designer, and it's up to you to figure out, well, whodunnit' through--what else?--hidden object gameplay. According to a release, the plot will only unfurl as you add more friends to your list of helpers, and for fans of the franchise, some familiar characters will return to help you.
Masters of Mystery Online Gameplay
Players are scored for how quickly they find the objects listed across four chapters and 24 levels. From the currency you'll earn by performing well in the game's several stages, you can outfit your office with decorations for friends to check out. Of course, there will be daily rewards to collect and weekly content updates of new quests, as well as achievements for special milestones.
Sure, it's another hidden-object game, but that genre is arguably new on Facebook, surprisingly enough. If you've had your fill of the ornate, historic scenery of Facebook's top hidden-object game, Gardens of Time, then maybe it's time to put your police cap on. The game currently welcomes a whopping 47 players, but give it a break--it's 100 percent fresh.
Click here to play Masters of Mystery: Online on Facebook Now >
Are you psyched to hop into a new hidden-object game on Facebook? Are you a fan of the genre, and what's your favorite hidden-object game? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
At this point, we're surprised I Spy hasn't hit Facebook yet. Canadian developer Big Blue Bubble announced that its Masters of Mystery series has hit Facebook in a brand new, aptly-named game, Masters of Mystery: Online. The game takes a look at the stereotypical gritty world of a beat cop-turned-private investigator as he attempts to uncover the truth behind a murder case.
More specifically, a model is found killed in the apartment of a prominent fashion designer, and it's up to you to figure out, well, whodunnit' through--what else?--hidden object gameplay. According to a release, the plot will only unfurl as you add more friends to your list of helpers, and for fans of the franchise, some familiar characters will return to help you.
Masters of Mystery Online Gameplay
Players are scored for how quickly they find the objects listed across four chapters and 24 levels. From the currency you'll earn by performing well in the game's several stages, you can outfit your office with decorations for friends to check out. Of course, there will be daily rewards to collect and weekly content updates of new quests, as well as achievements for special milestones.
Sure, it's another hidden-object game, but that genre is arguably new on Facebook, surprisingly enough. If you've had your fill of the ornate, historic scenery of Facebook's top hidden-object game, Gardens of Time, then maybe it's time to put your police cap on. The game currently welcomes a whopping 47 players, but give it a break--it's 100 percent fresh.
Click here to play Masters of Mystery: Online on Facebook Now >
Are you psyched to hop into a new hidden-object game on Facebook? Are you a fan of the genre, and what's your favorite hidden-object game? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Crysis maker Crytek looks to support Flash (and Facebook gaming?)
No matter what way you slice it, Facebook games are about to get intense. Crytek, German creator of technologically-demanding and critically-acclaimed PC games like Crysis (pictured), revealed that it's looking into Flash support for its CryEngine game creation tech.
Edge reports that the developer will announce a "truly cross-platform solution" in the near future. More importantly, it will include support for Adobe's upcoming Flash Player 11, the next version of the technology found running beneath almost all Facebook games.
Referring to Gears of War creator Epic Games's recent announcement that its Unreal Engine 3 now supports Flash Player 11, Crytek director of global business development Carl Jones told Edge, "It is an interesting approach we've been investigating as well. We're developing a unifying technology to create high quality social and gaming experiences on all platforms including browser, smartphones, tablets, etc." In other words, it might not be long before social gamers see near-Crysis-level graphics in their Facebook Canvas.
Given this new found competition on the high-end Flash games front, it's all but certain that these type of games will hit Facebook. Facebook is one of the most popular destinations for Flash-based games. More importantly, if you're to believe recent studies, the number of hardcore gamers on Facebook is steadily increasing. Prepare for far more explosions in your Facebook games.
[Via Kotaku]
Do you think games with Crysis-level graphics could succeed on Facebook? How do you think this competition between Unreal Engine 3 and CryEngine on Flash platforms will affect the social games industry? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Edge reports that the developer will announce a "truly cross-platform solution" in the near future. More importantly, it will include support for Adobe's upcoming Flash Player 11, the next version of the technology found running beneath almost all Facebook games.
Referring to Gears of War creator Epic Games's recent announcement that its Unreal Engine 3 now supports Flash Player 11, Crytek director of global business development Carl Jones told Edge, "It is an interesting approach we've been investigating as well. We're developing a unifying technology to create high quality social and gaming experiences on all platforms including browser, smartphones, tablets, etc." In other words, it might not be long before social gamers see near-Crysis-level graphics in their Facebook Canvas.
Given this new found competition on the high-end Flash games front, it's all but certain that these type of games will hit Facebook. Facebook is one of the most popular destinations for Flash-based games. More importantly, if you're to believe recent studies, the number of hardcore gamers on Facebook is steadily increasing. Prepare for far more explosions in your Facebook games.
[Via Kotaku]
Do you think games with Crysis-level graphics could succeed on Facebook? How do you think this competition between Unreal Engine 3 and CryEngine on Flash platforms will affect the social games industry? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
Scott Steinberg: Facebook could be in music games' future [Interview]
"It was too many games in too short a time, playing to too niche of an audience at too high a price--in the middle of the worst recession possible." According to technology analyst and public speaker Scott Steinberg, this was what essentially killed the enormous music gaming franchises, Guitar Hero and Rock Band. The age of sitting around your living room with three friends, plucking and fiddling with plastic instruments to Rush's Tom Sawyer is all but over ... for now.
Well, at least those exorbitant pieces of plastic are through. Steinberg details the rise, fall, and imminent resurrection of music-based video games in his new novel, "Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming's Greatest Hits of All Time," which you can read for free right here. (If you're so inclined to support the guy, it's also available on iBooks, Kindle and in paperback.)
According to Steinberg, music games inspired by Guitar Hero and Rock Band's wild success will get their second shot in the limelight on Facebook and in your smartphones. We recently sat down with Steinberg to hear his thoughts on just how Facebook games can take advantage of this golden opportunity, why it hasn't happened just yet and what the killer Facebook music game might be like.
What advantages would you say social games have to capitalize on the downfall of music games?
There's a number of advantages, right? Free-to-play and incredibly low barriers to entry. You certainly don't have high-end system requirements, and you don't have to buy pricey plastic peripherals. They can tap into your existing music collection or stream it live, and you have millions of players connected to a platform that's uniform.
You don't have to worry, for the most part, about bugs or errors, because everybody is playing the same thing at the same time. So, what you have is a ready made audience, say, on Facebook alone of 800 million people who are incredibly connected. [They] used to playing with one another and are taking part in a platform that's uniquely tailor-made to take advantage of digital music--and oh, by the way, it's completely free to play.
When you take it in this context, coupled with the fact that every human being on this planet is hardwired to enjoy music, that really is the common unifier. Social games really are uniquely poised to take the genre to the next level.
Music Games RockIn your book, you mention that the music genre has enjoyed a revival on social networks through Facebook games like Nightclub City and Dirty Dancing--largely simulator games. But what about games that more closely resemble the now-defunct rhythm games like Pump It? Which of the two do you think has a better chance at thriving on Facebook?
Actually, I would argue that some of the better ones that have a chance of surviving may not even be traditional games at all. Look at a service like Turntable.fm: Wouldn't consider it a game per se, except it's powered completely by gamification elements. You're creating custom play lists, you're interacting with other players in a social environment and ultimately you're competing for the approval of other users by liking the songs.
Or, if you look at other games like YooStar Playground or apps like VidRhythm--these are the titles that are to do particularly well. That said, simulation titles [have a] strong audience for them and proven capability, and certainly because that's where so many games got their roots [on Facebook]. There's likely to be a lot of people interested. I've even seen a number of unreleased games that are in prototype that essentially allow you to take on the role of managing or performing in a rock band--I think they're uniquely well-suited.
I think what's not going to translate over well is simply the standard tap in time with the on-screen indicator type games. Though, these can continue to succeed on mobile platforms, because in the mobile context you're typically looking to play maybe with one hand in a span of five or six minutes. Whereas social games may only be a 15-minute spurt, you're sitting down in front of a PC and you're typically more engaged.
There are some music creation social games on the fringe already, like BreakOutBand, that rely on players to share content to succeed. How important would that be in a social game centered around music?
I think user-created content, as it relates to social games, is massively important, because at the end of the day the developers can only take a game so far. And it's the players' ability to interact with and reshape that music or related content that really creates a sense of community, and allows a title to constantly keep feeling fresh and people coming back for more.
It's essentially a win-win, because for the developer it's a very affordable way to keep adding content to the game and keep people talking about it, and coming back after weeks and weeks. Players aren't constrained by office politics, licensing issues, and--to be frank--everybody loves to mix and mash creations.
But how much of that is going to be super-high quality, or chart-topping hits shall we say, versus underground little diddies? This is social interaction at its core, right? So, if you don't have that level of user interactivity, at the end of the day what you have is essentially a game with a bunch of canned content. And not much reason--unless it's saying you need to recruit other players to earn money for your band or unlock new stuff--there's not much incentive to pass it along.
A good amount of music games already exist on Facebook, but none are taking off like music games did before the turn of the decade. What do you think it would take for a music-based social game to enjoy success and notoriety like Guitar Hero?
You need to have a concept with extremely wide appeal that allows players to enjoy rock star wish fulfillment in a matter of minutes without the painful side effects. What also is important is to have recognizable band scenarios, you know, licensed music. But also the ability for players to put their own spin on it and a reason for them to engage with one another.
The problem is, to succeed on social networks where you literally have thousands of titles competing, dozens of them coming out every single week--all of which are completely free to play versus Guitar Hero, which was completely brand new. To have that success on Facebook or another social network, I almost think what you're going to see is a title that's going to have to align itself with Spotify or another one of these streaming services to tap into a massive database of real-world artists and then finds new ways for you to interact with that music.
Dirty Dancing Facebook game
Back to the branded music games like Dirty Dancing (pictured). As you know, they're reaching critical mass, so what do you think is the likelihood of a monster brand like Guitar Hero or Rock Band appearing on Facebook?
Oh, it's a certainty. It's not a question of 'if,' but just a question of 'when.' I think a lot of that is because the game makers aren't unawares. Activision, Harmonix, Mad Catz: They understand the power of social networks as a platform. The problem is that their business has been thus far founded in either selling peripherals--good mark up on those plastic guitars--or selling software for 60 bucks a pop.
They haven't had as much incentive to scurry and think, 'How do we make a free-to-play platform where we're probably going to make a lot less money in the immediate?' But slowly and surely, as so many game players are migrating to these platforms, convenience is winning. It's almost as if they're being forced to acknowledge it. It's a completely new approach to game design--Wal-Mart's not going to order a million units. They'll embrace it; it's just a question of 'when.'
Try to describe your dream music-based Facebook game to me. In other words, what do you think would be the ultimate approach to a music game on Facebook?
The ultimate Facebook music game would not only be able to tap into your full library of digital music, but also stream millions of songs on demand. [It would] allow you to set up on stage custom concerts for your friends, featuring this music or original music you created. [You would] style your avatars, build your own bands, create your own followings, sell your own virtual merchandise and connect over shared love of music with millions of players across the world.
It would effectively recreate the rock and recording industry experience, only in a virtual setting. What I mean is a combo listening service, social network, slash simulation game that effectively allows you to build a rock band and recording industry career from the ground up. I don't see any reason why you couldn't create avatars for your band--it's own look, logo, virtual stickers, t-shirts. You could buy branded gear like Gibson's or Marshall's, earn cash from touring, build your own virtual labels. I don't see any reason why a platform wouldn't be able to break new artists.
Wow, I think it's time for you to call the patent office. Thanks for taking the time to chat, Scott.
What do you think of the prospects of a wildly successful music game hitting Facebook? Who do you think could be the first to create the ultimate music game on Facebook? Share with us in the comments. 1 Comment
Well, at least those exorbitant pieces of plastic are through. Steinberg details the rise, fall, and imminent resurrection of music-based video games in his new novel, "Music Games Rock: Rhythm Gaming's Greatest Hits of All Time," which you can read for free right here. (If you're so inclined to support the guy, it's also available on iBooks, Kindle and in paperback.)
According to Steinberg, music games inspired by Guitar Hero and Rock Band's wild success will get their second shot in the limelight on Facebook and in your smartphones. We recently sat down with Steinberg to hear his thoughts on just how Facebook games can take advantage of this golden opportunity, why it hasn't happened just yet and what the killer Facebook music game might be like.
What advantages would you say social games have to capitalize on the downfall of music games?
There's a number of advantages, right? Free-to-play and incredibly low barriers to entry. You certainly don't have high-end system requirements, and you don't have to buy pricey plastic peripherals. They can tap into your existing music collection or stream it live, and you have millions of players connected to a platform that's uniform.
You don't have to worry, for the most part, about bugs or errors, because everybody is playing the same thing at the same time. So, what you have is a ready made audience, say, on Facebook alone of 800 million people who are incredibly connected. [They] used to playing with one another and are taking part in a platform that's uniquely tailor-made to take advantage of digital music--and oh, by the way, it's completely free to play.
When you take it in this context, coupled with the fact that every human being on this planet is hardwired to enjoy music, that really is the common unifier. Social games really are uniquely poised to take the genre to the next level.
Music Games RockIn your book, you mention that the music genre has enjoyed a revival on social networks through Facebook games like Nightclub City and Dirty Dancing--largely simulator games. But what about games that more closely resemble the now-defunct rhythm games like Pump It? Which of the two do you think has a better chance at thriving on Facebook?
Actually, I would argue that some of the better ones that have a chance of surviving may not even be traditional games at all. Look at a service like Turntable.fm: Wouldn't consider it a game per se, except it's powered completely by gamification elements. You're creating custom play lists, you're interacting with other players in a social environment and ultimately you're competing for the approval of other users by liking the songs.
Or, if you look at other games like YooStar Playground or apps like VidRhythm--these are the titles that are to do particularly well. That said, simulation titles [have a] strong audience for them and proven capability, and certainly because that's where so many games got their roots [on Facebook]. There's likely to be a lot of people interested. I've even seen a number of unreleased games that are in prototype that essentially allow you to take on the role of managing or performing in a rock band--I think they're uniquely well-suited.
I think what's not going to translate over well is simply the standard tap in time with the on-screen indicator type games. Though, these can continue to succeed on mobile platforms, because in the mobile context you're typically looking to play maybe with one hand in a span of five or six minutes. Whereas social games may only be a 15-minute spurt, you're sitting down in front of a PC and you're typically more engaged.
There are some music creation social games on the fringe already, like BreakOutBand, that rely on players to share content to succeed. How important would that be in a social game centered around music?
I think user-created content, as it relates to social games, is massively important, because at the end of the day the developers can only take a game so far. And it's the players' ability to interact with and reshape that music or related content that really creates a sense of community, and allows a title to constantly keep feeling fresh and people coming back for more.
It's essentially a win-win, because for the developer it's a very affordable way to keep adding content to the game and keep people talking about it, and coming back after weeks and weeks. Players aren't constrained by office politics, licensing issues, and--to be frank--everybody loves to mix and mash creations.
But how much of that is going to be super-high quality, or chart-topping hits shall we say, versus underground little diddies? This is social interaction at its core, right? So, if you don't have that level of user interactivity, at the end of the day what you have is essentially a game with a bunch of canned content. And not much reason--unless it's saying you need to recruit other players to earn money for your band or unlock new stuff--there's not much incentive to pass it along.
A good amount of music games already exist on Facebook, but none are taking off like music games did before the turn of the decade. What do you think it would take for a music-based social game to enjoy success and notoriety like Guitar Hero?
You need to have a concept with extremely wide appeal that allows players to enjoy rock star wish fulfillment in a matter of minutes without the painful side effects. What also is important is to have recognizable band scenarios, you know, licensed music. But also the ability for players to put their own spin on it and a reason for them to engage with one another.
The problem is, to succeed on social networks where you literally have thousands of titles competing, dozens of them coming out every single week--all of which are completely free to play versus Guitar Hero, which was completely brand new. To have that success on Facebook or another social network, I almost think what you're going to see is a title that's going to have to align itself with Spotify or another one of these streaming services to tap into a massive database of real-world artists and then finds new ways for you to interact with that music.
Dirty Dancing Facebook game
Back to the branded music games like Dirty Dancing (pictured). As you know, they're reaching critical mass, so what do you think is the likelihood of a monster brand like Guitar Hero or Rock Band appearing on Facebook?
Oh, it's a certainty. It's not a question of 'if,' but just a question of 'when.' I think a lot of that is because the game makers aren't unawares. Activision, Harmonix, Mad Catz: They understand the power of social networks as a platform. The problem is that their business has been thus far founded in either selling peripherals--good mark up on those plastic guitars--or selling software for 60 bucks a pop.
They haven't had as much incentive to scurry and think, 'How do we make a free-to-play platform where we're probably going to make a lot less money in the immediate?' But slowly and surely, as so many game players are migrating to these platforms, convenience is winning. It's almost as if they're being forced to acknowledge it. It's a completely new approach to game design--Wal-Mart's not going to order a million units. They'll embrace it; it's just a question of 'when.'
Try to describe your dream music-based Facebook game to me. In other words, what do you think would be the ultimate approach to a music game on Facebook?
The ultimate Facebook music game would not only be able to tap into your full library of digital music, but also stream millions of songs on demand. [It would] allow you to set up on stage custom concerts for your friends, featuring this music or original music you created. [You would] style your avatars, build your own bands, create your own followings, sell your own virtual merchandise and connect over shared love of music with millions of players across the world.
It would effectively recreate the rock and recording industry experience, only in a virtual setting. What I mean is a combo listening service, social network, slash simulation game that effectively allows you to build a rock band and recording industry career from the ground up. I don't see any reason why you couldn't create avatars for your band--it's own look, logo, virtual stickers, t-shirts. You could buy branded gear like Gibson's or Marshall's, earn cash from touring, build your own virtual labels. I don't see any reason why a platform wouldn't be able to break new artists.
Wow, I think it's time for you to call the patent office. Thanks for taking the time to chat, Scott.
What do you think of the prospects of a wildly successful music game hitting Facebook? Who do you think could be the first to create the ultimate music game on Facebook? Share with us in the comments. 1 Comment
6waves Lolapps takes to the skies in Ravenskye City on Facebook
Ravenwood Fair has officially made it to the deluxe apartment in the sky, so to speak. The game's new duo of creators, 6waves Lolapps, announced the launch of the next episode in the Raven series of Facebook games today as a standalone app, Ravenskye City. In that regard, the game is quite similar to Zynga's recent Pioneer Trail, except for the fact that Ravenwood Fair still exists.
Jokes aside, 6waves Lolapps is employing a similar strategy to its top competitor, releasing a full-blown sequel to its mega hit Facebook game. The company's previous release was an expansion upon Ravenwood Fair with Ravenstone Mine. Unsurprisingly, the prefix "Raven" has become a brand for 6waves Lolapps, 6waves Lolapps co-founder Kavin Stewart told VentureBeat. Another game is in the works for the series, Ravenshire Castle, according to VentureBeat.
While Ravenskye City looks quite a lot like previous games in the series, 6waves Lolapps is looking to improve the series in more ways than just content. We punched up the storytelling," Lolapps VP of content Constantine Hantzopoulos told VentureBeat. "That's one of the things we learned from Ravenwood Fair."
Ravenskye City gameplay
The game, which throws players into the familiar situation of having to restore a ramshackle property (only this time ... it's in the sky), makes liberal use of the recently-acquired Fliso Engine. It's thanks to this technology that the game is reportedly smoother and features complex weather effects like rain and tornadoes. The city is comprised of bird-like creatures, a departure from the moles of Ravenstone Mine and the bears and woodland creatures of Ravenwood Fair.
Ravenskye City is said to launch today, though our attempts to get into the game have been unsuccessful thus far. During your exploits in Ravenskye, you'll restore an abandoned city to its former glory, customizing it along the way with several decorations. Of course, you're governed by an Energy system. To get a better idea of the game, check out the trailer below.
[Update: A 6waves Lolapps representative tells us that the game is scheduled to launch today at 4 p.m. PST.]
Click here to play Ravenskye City on Facebook Now >
Have you been able to try the next game in the Raven series yet? What do you think of 6waves Lolapps approach to capitalizing on Ravenwood Fair's success? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Jokes aside, 6waves Lolapps is employing a similar strategy to its top competitor, releasing a full-blown sequel to its mega hit Facebook game. The company's previous release was an expansion upon Ravenwood Fair with Ravenstone Mine. Unsurprisingly, the prefix "Raven" has become a brand for 6waves Lolapps, 6waves Lolapps co-founder Kavin Stewart told VentureBeat. Another game is in the works for the series, Ravenshire Castle, according to VentureBeat.
While Ravenskye City looks quite a lot like previous games in the series, 6waves Lolapps is looking to improve the series in more ways than just content. We punched up the storytelling," Lolapps VP of content Constantine Hantzopoulos told VentureBeat. "That's one of the things we learned from Ravenwood Fair."
Ravenskye City gameplay
The game, which throws players into the familiar situation of having to restore a ramshackle property (only this time ... it's in the sky), makes liberal use of the recently-acquired Fliso Engine. It's thanks to this technology that the game is reportedly smoother and features complex weather effects like rain and tornadoes. The city is comprised of bird-like creatures, a departure from the moles of Ravenstone Mine and the bears and woodland creatures of Ravenwood Fair.
Ravenskye City is said to launch today, though our attempts to get into the game have been unsuccessful thus far. During your exploits in Ravenskye, you'll restore an abandoned city to its former glory, customizing it along the way with several decorations. Of course, you're governed by an Energy system. To get a better idea of the game, check out the trailer below.
[Update: A 6waves Lolapps representative tells us that the game is scheduled to launch today at 4 p.m. PST.]
Click here to play Ravenskye City on Facebook Now >
Have you been able to try the next game in the Raven series yet? What do you think of 6waves Lolapps approach to capitalizing on Ravenwood Fair's success? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment
There may not be another Zynga game in which Energy is more important than in Adventure World. Every switch thrown, every puzzle solved and beastie whacked costs you the Facebook game juice. Players often find themselves without Energy minutes into an Expedition. But this isn't the time for whining--it's time to show you the value of upgrading your Tools and how to do it.
Tools: The Game Changer
If you noticed, each piece of debris and monster has a life bar, and normally take multiple hits with your Whip or Machete to whittle down. This, of course, quickly becomes a waste in later Expeditions purely due to the amount of obstacles in your path. But increasing the amount of damage your various Tools inflict against said baddies could considerably reduce the Energy spend in-game.
For instance, say a Snake has three hit points and is Level 5. Since monsters can hit back in this game, it could take three to five Energy before an enemy goes down. Now, imagine if you had upgraded your Whip to Level 2. Offing that Snake would take just two to four Energy with a beefier Whip. The same situation applies to Tools like the Machete.
Adventure World Tool Shop inside
And Now For Your How-To
Adventure World Tool Shop outsideUpgrading your Tools in Adventure World is simple. All you need to do is head back to Base Camp from an Expedition, and look for a makeshift hut that should already be in place in your headquarters. When you click on the Tool Shop, a window will appear featuring all the Tools you've found thus far on your journeys. Click on the Tool you wish to upgrade.
Once you click on a Tool to upgrade, you'll notice that each Tool costs Coins to upgrade. That's it--no asking friends to help you out with materials or farming certain crops for special items. Just the goods you find during your travels in search of El Dorado. However, Coins are actually quite rare in this game, so you'll need to save and spend wisely.
When you have enough Coins for an upgrade, just click on the appropriate icon to pay up. Tool upgrades are also level-locked, meaning you must reach a certain level for most Tools before being able to upgrade them using Coins. If you're feeling impatient, you could always unlock access to those higher level Tools early using Adventure Cash.
Just One Small Catch...
However, some Tool upgrades do require an extra boost: your Tool Shop. Yes, the building itself can be upgraded, too. And this time, you will need items from your friends. (Just think of how things work in CityVille.) Luckily, you only have to do this about twice to unlock access to all of the game's Tools. Then, it's back onto leveling up to access new upgrades for Coins.
Adventure World Tool Shop Upgrade
Upgraded Tools are hands-down the way to go, if you want to save precious Energy for the good stuff, that is. You know, exploring ... uncovering the secrets of El Dorado? That kind of stuff. Your wallet might thank us later.
Click here to find all of our Adventure World Tips in one spot >
[Source: Zynga]
Have you upgraded your Tools in Adventure World yet? What other Energy-saving tips might you have for your fellow adventurers? Sound off in the comments. 1 Comment
Thứ Tư, 5 tháng 10, 2011
CityVille: Casa del Sol offers fun-in-the-sun living for a huge price
If you thought the Playa del Rey Apartments in CityVille were expensive, costing 75 City Cash for a population boost of 2,350 citizens (at least), try this newest building on for size. The Casa del Sol home is priced at 90 City Cash, and is also in the Mexican item theme, making it limited edition. Specifically, the Casa del Sol home will be in the game for 10 days (note that that's also one day less than the Playa del Rey Apartments).
Once you purchase the Casa del Sol, you'll have a home that starts with a whopping population of 3,000 citizens, and can be upgraded by collecting from the building (or your friends can collect from them as well; all upgrades drop randomly) to a staggering figure of 5,500 citizens. If you're looking for a quick way (albeit expensive way) to unlock that next expansion by reaching your next population goal without adding multiple homes to your town, this would definitely be an easy way to get that done. However, at a price this high, even I'm not sure it's worth it.
Still, I suppose the building's rent potential could raise its value. You'll receive 156 coins every hour if you're prompt enough to routinely collect your earnings, which would give you upwards of 3,000 coins daily, if you were really on top of things. Still, does that justify the current cost of over $11 US for this single building? I'll leave you to be the judge of that.
What do you think of the Casa del Sol in CityVille? Will you purchase one of the expensive homes for your city, or would you rather purchase multiple, cheaper buildings instead? Let us know in the comments.
Once you purchase the Casa del Sol, you'll have a home that starts with a whopping population of 3,000 citizens, and can be upgraded by collecting from the building (or your friends can collect from them as well; all upgrades drop randomly) to a staggering figure of 5,500 citizens. If you're looking for a quick way (albeit expensive way) to unlock that next expansion by reaching your next population goal without adding multiple homes to your town, this would definitely be an easy way to get that done. However, at a price this high, even I'm not sure it's worth it.
Still, I suppose the building's rent potential could raise its value. You'll receive 156 coins every hour if you're prompt enough to routinely collect your earnings, which would give you upwards of 3,000 coins daily, if you were really on top of things. Still, does that justify the current cost of over $11 US for this single building? I'll leave you to be the judge of that.
What do you think of the Casa del Sol in CityVille? Will you purchase one of the expensive homes for your city, or would you rather purchase multiple, cheaper buildings instead? Let us know in the comments.
Google+ releases API to developers, more social games incoming
Google+ Games is cool with its no-nonsense interface and all, but the sad fact is that it only has 16 games. Compare that to the thousands of Facebook games out there, and it's clear that Google has to do something to compete with that selection. Enter the Google+ API, which was just recently released to developers, and could lead to a plethora of more Google+ Games.
The acronym API is short for Application Programming Interface, meaning it contains the tools for developers to create new applications within a given framework--in this case being Google+. Wired reports that Google will steadily release its developer API, meaning that it will be some time before it's feature-complete. And the features not yet included are, well, kinda vital.
For instance, at the moment developers can only create apps that publish read-only public posts. For instance, if a developer like Zynga released a new social game today on Google+ Games, your friends would not be able to interact with the News Feed posts you create. You all already likely know that this is essentially the bread and butter of Facebook games. It's how things get done in-game aside from directly requesting help from friends.
The reasoning for the omission? According to PC World, Google's Eric Chabot explains that this is because the company would rather improve Google+ over time, rather open up a "vacuum" with too many features at once. I'm not sure adding simple post-sharing interactivity would create a vacuum for the platform, but it's a first step nonetheless. What Google+ Games has to deal with more in its competition with Facebook's wide offering of games is scale. The bell rings on Round 2.
[Source: Google+ Platform Blog]
Do you think developers will flock to Google+ Games, even with a limited API at launch? Does Google+ Games have a chance against Facebook's Canvas platform for games? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
The acronym API is short for Application Programming Interface, meaning it contains the tools for developers to create new applications within a given framework--in this case being Google+. Wired reports that Google will steadily release its developer API, meaning that it will be some time before it's feature-complete. And the features not yet included are, well, kinda vital.
For instance, at the moment developers can only create apps that publish read-only public posts. For instance, if a developer like Zynga released a new social game today on Google+ Games, your friends would not be able to interact with the News Feed posts you create. You all already likely know that this is essentially the bread and butter of Facebook games. It's how things get done in-game aside from directly requesting help from friends.
The reasoning for the omission? According to PC World, Google's Eric Chabot explains that this is because the company would rather improve Google+ over time, rather open up a "vacuum" with too many features at once. I'm not sure adding simple post-sharing interactivity would create a vacuum for the platform, but it's a first step nonetheless. What Google+ Games has to deal with more in its competition with Facebook's wide offering of games is scale. The bell rings on Round 2.
[Source: Google+ Platform Blog]
Do you think developers will flock to Google+ Games, even with a limited API at launch? Does Google+ Games have a chance against Facebook's Canvas platform for games? Sound off in the comments. 2 Comments
It's Talk Like a Pirate Day: Play our Top Five pirate Facebook games
Is there any other way to being this feature than with a hearty "Yarrgg?" Probably not. (In fact, let's use this entire introduction to talk like pirates, eh?) In case ye hadn't noticed, mate, today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. So, I ask ye landlubbers, what better way to honor this joyous, silly holiday than with five of the best pirate games around on Facebook?
Avast, ye swabs! Look no further than right here for the five best seafarin' and land lootin' games on Facebook. Oh, right, and remember to click on the headers to jump off the plank right into each Facebook game:
Mighty Pirates
This release (pictured below) by CrowdStar explores the two most important things in a pirate's life: exploring and fighting. Players create, maintain and upgrade their very own vessel of piracy. And it's all in the name of surviving your next fight with your fellow pirate.
Mighty Pirates handles battles in turn-based affairs that add a bit of strategy to burning your enemies to the blue depths. In your off time, explore islands to dig up buried treasure and other resources to boost your ship with.
Mighty Pirates
Treasure Isle
While it may not directly involve pirates, the swashbucklers have invaded the shores of Zynga's island exploration game more times than not. In fact, players can even embark on Voyages with their own vessels, though simply to explore even more. Treasure Isle has players aiming to complete island maps by digging and digging ... and digging. But judging from more experienced players' islands, it certainly pays off. (In other words, there's lots and lots of treasure in it for you.)
Battle Pirates
Want a more ... serious approach to high seas fighting and looting? Then Kixeye certainly has that in spades with Battle Pirates, its strategy Facebook game centered around modern day piracy. (You know, like those bad dudes off the coast of Somalia?) The game plays much like the developer's previous strategy offerings, giving you a week to prepare your base for incoming attack from anyone playing the game. If you want a pirate game that puts the battle first, then look no further.
Battle Pirates
Pirates Saga
In this take on everyone's favorite sea-faring antiheroes, Can't Stop Games focuses almost entirely on your ship. More importantly, it's concerned with how you navigate it through the deep blue sea ... and away from enemy gunfire. Another battle-focused pirates game, Pirates Saga allows players to interact with each other in real time. As you transport cargo and fight back the forces of the infamous Blackbeard, be wary at all times of opposing ships that may or may not be fellow players.
Pirates Saga
Pirate Legacy
A somewhat smaller game than the rest in terms of monthly players, this game by 6waves and Paprika Lab throws a heavy RPG (role-playing game) layer onto the pirate game aesthetic. Pirate Legacy enlists you, a new corsair, to explore the ocean around your home port and hunt for monsters like giant serpents and ghost ships to acquire materials for contractors. Everything about the game is turn-based, giving it an impressive layer of strategy that's a little lighter on the action.
Pirate Legacy
[Lead Image Credit: Disney]
How are you honoring this most awesome Talk Like a Pirate Day? Which of these pirate-themed Facebook games do you like most, and do you know of any you'd personally recommend? Share with us in the comments. 2 Comments
Avast, ye swabs! Look no further than right here for the five best seafarin' and land lootin' games on Facebook. Oh, right, and remember to click on the headers to jump off the plank right into each Facebook game:
Mighty Pirates
This release (pictured below) by CrowdStar explores the two most important things in a pirate's life: exploring and fighting. Players create, maintain and upgrade their very own vessel of piracy. And it's all in the name of surviving your next fight with your fellow pirate.
Mighty Pirates handles battles in turn-based affairs that add a bit of strategy to burning your enemies to the blue depths. In your off time, explore islands to dig up buried treasure and other resources to boost your ship with.
Mighty Pirates
Treasure Isle
While it may not directly involve pirates, the swashbucklers have invaded the shores of Zynga's island exploration game more times than not. In fact, players can even embark on Voyages with their own vessels, though simply to explore even more. Treasure Isle has players aiming to complete island maps by digging and digging ... and digging. But judging from more experienced players' islands, it certainly pays off. (In other words, there's lots and lots of treasure in it for you.)
Battle Pirates
Want a more ... serious approach to high seas fighting and looting? Then Kixeye certainly has that in spades with Battle Pirates, its strategy Facebook game centered around modern day piracy. (You know, like those bad dudes off the coast of Somalia?) The game plays much like the developer's previous strategy offerings, giving you a week to prepare your base for incoming attack from anyone playing the game. If you want a pirate game that puts the battle first, then look no further.
Battle Pirates
Pirates Saga
In this take on everyone's favorite sea-faring antiheroes, Can't Stop Games focuses almost entirely on your ship. More importantly, it's concerned with how you navigate it through the deep blue sea ... and away from enemy gunfire. Another battle-focused pirates game, Pirates Saga allows players to interact with each other in real time. As you transport cargo and fight back the forces of the infamous Blackbeard, be wary at all times of opposing ships that may or may not be fellow players.
Pirates Saga
Pirate Legacy
A somewhat smaller game than the rest in terms of monthly players, this game by 6waves and Paprika Lab throws a heavy RPG (role-playing game) layer onto the pirate game aesthetic. Pirate Legacy enlists you, a new corsair, to explore the ocean around your home port and hunt for monsters like giant serpents and ghost ships to acquire materials for contractors. Everything about the game is turn-based, giving it an impressive layer of strategy that's a little lighter on the action.
Pirate Legacy
[Lead Image Credit: Disney]
How are you honoring this most awesome Talk Like a Pirate Day? Which of these pirate-themed Facebook games do you like most, and do you know of any you'd personally recommend? Share with us in the comments. 2 Comments
Capital One gets in Zynga's wallet with FarmVille, CityVille, Pioneer Trail
Capital One asks Zynga once again, "What's in your wallet?" To which the developer replies, "Why, FarmVille, CityVille and Pioneer Trail, of course!" Mashable reports that the national financial services firm has teamed up with Zynga again for three brand new in-game branding promotions involving Capital One's infamous goat character. Well, two outta three, at least.
Granted, keep in mind that these promotions are slowly rolling out to players, as I've yet to see most of them in my games. Starting with none other than FarmVille, Capital One returns (remember the Visigoths?) with its beloved goat to the game as a breedable animal, which comes just in time for the slew of Breeding Pens in the game.
CityVille, on the other hand, simply features a Capital One-branded Bank for players to use, and opening it offers players a bonus decoration as well as additional Coins, Energy and other resources. Pioneer Trail has its very own set of Goals to help the goat-on-arrival find his lost band mates, which ultimately reward players with a Capital One goat of their own.
This is the second time Capital One has worked with Zynga this year in a branding promotion, and it comes hot off of the heels of a Best Buy promotion conducted through CityVille. And this will be far from the last branded promotion to be featured in a Zynga game. (If anything, the work of Ecko|Code speaks to its popularity.)
The San Francisco-based (but global) developer is joining forces with Lucasfilm to bring Indiana Jones into Adventure World, Zynga Boston's debut Facebook game. Considering the game has been retitled, "Adventure World: An Indiana Jones Game," it could be the first Zynga game built entirely around a brand. So yes, branded Facebook games are here to stay.
Are you psyched for these upcoming in-game promotions across the company's three most recognizable Facebook games? What do you think of the movement toward branding in Facebook games overall? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
Granted, keep in mind that these promotions are slowly rolling out to players, as I've yet to see most of them in my games. Starting with none other than FarmVille, Capital One returns (remember the Visigoths?) with its beloved goat to the game as a breedable animal, which comes just in time for the slew of Breeding Pens in the game.
CityVille, on the other hand, simply features a Capital One-branded Bank for players to use, and opening it offers players a bonus decoration as well as additional Coins, Energy and other resources. Pioneer Trail has its very own set of Goals to help the goat-on-arrival find his lost band mates, which ultimately reward players with a Capital One goat of their own.
This is the second time Capital One has worked with Zynga this year in a branding promotion, and it comes hot off of the heels of a Best Buy promotion conducted through CityVille. And this will be far from the last branded promotion to be featured in a Zynga game. (If anything, the work of Ecko|Code speaks to its popularity.)
The San Francisco-based (but global) developer is joining forces with Lucasfilm to bring Indiana Jones into Adventure World, Zynga Boston's debut Facebook game. Considering the game has been retitled, "Adventure World: An Indiana Jones Game," it could be the first Zynga game built entirely around a brand. So yes, branded Facebook games are here to stay.
Are you psyched for these upcoming in-game promotions across the company's three most recognizable Facebook games? What do you think of the movement toward branding in Facebook games overall? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.
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