Cambridge-based start-up Play140 announced the beta launch of its first three social games playable through Twitter and text messages: T.A.G. (The Acronym Game), Be Greedy, and Robot Smash Battle.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Play140 Launching Public Beta For Twitter, SMS Games
The 'GDC 25' Chronicles: The Inventor of Fire
[Continuing his 'GDC 25' archival research ahead of the 25th Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next February, official GDC historian Jason Scott makes available a rare GDC 2008 video featuring game pioneers Ralph Baer and Al Alcorn.]
So let's say you're a caveman.
A really, really smart caveman, actually - you figure out that fire, which you usually only see burning the tops of trees after a terrifying lightning storm that sends your contemporaries running for the safety of their caves, can be harnessed.
You work out how to strike rocks to make a spark to burn a torch, so you can make a fire anytime. From your discovery, humans learn to cook food, warm themselves at night, and a million other skills.
Now let's say that you live long enough to be able to stand up at a NASA convention and give a speech about those great fire discovery days.
That's the inherent fascination for me about Ralph Baer. Here's a guy who essentially invents video games; actually does the engineering work to create a game that you would recognize in a second as being a video game (pong).
Then he continues to invent and innovate while he watches his idea grow from a tiny niche industry to the dominant form of entertainment.
At this GDC 2008 video presentation we're making available online for the first time on GDC Vault, 'How to Create an Industry', Ralph Baer gets to stand up at that NASA convention equivalent, that Game Developers Conference (an amazing idea in itself, looking back), and talk about how he came about figuring out how to knock the rocks together to make a spark.
He's given this presentation a bunch of times at various events, but it never gets old for me - it gets even better. He walks you through his life, the pieces of thought that brought him to play with televisions, and the design work that brought him to thinking of doing a 'pong' game on them. If you've not seen it before, now's your chance.
And before I stop with Ralph, let me say that he appears here with Al Alcorn, who took Ralph's game and designs Atari's Pong, a game that brings the coin-op industry firmly into the video era.
When Ralph brings us to the Odyssey home console, Al picks up and takes it to the next ten-plus years of innovation at Atari. And all this in 40 minutes. Check it out on GDC Vault now!
Five great Nintendo DS games for the holidays
Nintendo's DS game machine is loved the world over by gamers of all ages. If you're hoping to buy just the right game for the DS owner in your life, these excellent titles are a good place to start looking.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40563327/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Square Enix?s Secret of Mana Out Now in App Store
Final Fantasy series publisher Square Enix reaches into its back catalog for today’s App Store release: Secret of Mana ($8.99), an adaptation of the company’s 1993 Super NES action-RPG. Also known as Seiken Densetsu 2 in Japan (and designed as a sequel to Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy), Secret of Mana stars a [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fingergaming/~3/M5v26ILotSA/
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Zynga Collaborates With Dr. Dre For First Music Partnership
Social game developer Zynga announced its first in-game music partnership, a deal with rap artist Dr. Dre to debut a music video from his upcoming Detox album and branded virtual goods in Mafia Wars.
As part of the promotion, Mafia Wars will begin streaming the music video from Detox's first single, "Kush" (featuring Snoop Dogg and Akon), for free. Players will also be able to watch an exclusive Dr. Dre video message, enter a contest to win headphones and the album, and purchase the single via an in-game iTunes link.
Mafia Wars will feature Dr. Dre-inspired content such as music and limited edition virtual goods in a "Hustlin' wit Dre" section of the game. In that area, players will be able to collect headphones, vintage cars, weapons, and more. There's no word yet on whether his World Class Wreckin' Cru red suit will appear in the game.
This campaign follows another Mafia Wars event Zynga promoted heavily with Dr. Dre's rapping partner Snoop Dogg in August. That partnership, however, did not feature the artist's music and instead centered around the disastrous livestreaming of Snoop Dogg as he blew up an armored truck to promote Mafia Wars Las Vegas.
"Dre is a cultural icon that has inspired generations of music lovers," says Zynga CEO and founder Mark Pincus, who may or may not have spent the early '90s cruising the local strip while blasting The Chronic in his jeep at full volume.
Pincus added, “We're huge music fans at Zynga and we know the players within Mafia Wars will love the chance to discover incredible music content while playing with their friends.”
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorldsInMotion/~3/JoS6eJKjMgo/zynga_collaborates_with_dr_dre.php
NA PlayStation Store Update - Marvel Pinball, X-Men Arcade, POP Warrior Within HD, I Must Run! And More
Bit of a Marvel Comics day today with two new releases encapsulating the franchises that came from them.
First up is X-Men Arcade, bringing back classic 1992 brawler to the for $9.99, and Marvel Pinball -- 4 brand new stand alone tables featuring Wolverine, Blade, Iron Man and Spider-Man also for $9.99.
Alongside it we have some ex-retail releases getting the digital treatment -- Prototype can be bought online for $29.99, Prince Of Persia: Warrior Within HD is available for $14.99, and Sackboy?s Prehistoric Moves, a PSMove specific piece of content from Little Big Planet 2, is also available for $5.99, or free with a PS+ subscription.
Speaking of PlayStation Plus, those with a subscription can try out Prototype for free, and pick up Sam & Max Season 3, Fieldrunners and Crash Team Racing all for free.
PSOne Classics bring another import title -- Galaxy Fight for $5.99.
And finally, one new PSP Minis -- I Must Run! by Gamelion for $3.99. If you're into Canabalt, this might be worth a look.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamerbytes/~3/URc5OqLmvtI/na_playstation_store_update_ma.php
Wall Street Journal Examines Angry Birds, Bejeweled In iPhone Privacy Report
Persistent, connected entertainment has become ubiquitous across mobile and social platforms, and that’s raising questions for many users about the security of their online identity. A new Wall Street Journal report is causing some trouble for Angry Birds developer Rovio and Bejeweled house PopCap — claiming the games share users’ personal data with third parties. [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fingergaming/~3/e2CcCIBwFO8/
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2011 IGF Nuovo Awards: Jury Statement About Finalists
Following the announcement of the eight finalists for the 2011 Independent Games Festival Nuovo award, which is intended to "honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games", the IGF Nuovo Jury has released an official statement explaining and expanding upon the reasoning behind this year's picks.
The Nuovo Jury's finalist statement discussing and justifying their picks - also adding a number of 'honorable mentions' for games that were just outside the finalist selection, but had fascinating characteristics - reads as follows:
"Thanks to everyone who submitted their games to the Independent Games Festival this year, all of whom were in consideration for this award. Our larger body of Main Competition judges nominated nearly 75 games for this year's Nuovo award, all of which represented an enormous breadth of boundary-pushing ideas, concepts, mechanics and viewpoints.
This year, the Nuovo Jury discussion focused on celebrating games that not only embody a strong authorial voice, but "open the eyes of the audience (and other developers), that provoke discussion... not for the sake of being contrary, but for the sake of expanding the form, of treading on unexplored terrain."
The jury also felt Nuovo finalists should make the player "feel lost at the beginning because they've never experienced such a language before, but then should feel delight when they manage to 'understand' it, and feel eager to build on it," and should "have some obscure magic that transcends analysis and picking apart of individual design choices."
Keeping these criteria in mind, the discussion focused on the games that were most-recommended by Main Competition judges, as well as our own picks from IGF entrants. We have decided (via online discussion and jury voting) on the following finalists for the 2011 IGF Nuovo Award, each of which will receive All-Access GDC 2011 tickets and the opportunity to exhibit their game in the conference's IGF Pavilion:
Finalists
- A House in California (Cardboard Computer)
As a retro-styled point-and-click adventure, A House in California was praised for taking the mechanics of that classic genre and repurposing them "in strange and touching ways to create a game that's about stuff that games are rarely about (memory, childhood, generations, and the importance of physical places to all of these things)."
- Bohm (Monobanda)
Monobanda's reflective, zen-like tree-growing experience surprised the jury with the "audio/visual follow through" to its straightforward and ambitious concept, with one juror noting how quickly they became "immersed, despite my generally cynical attitude towards games that proclaim poetic beauty."
- Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now (B.U.T.T.O.N.) (Copenhagen Game Collective)
B.U.T.T.O.N.'s raucous approach to essentially controller-less play (bar its titular set of buttons) was praised for going "programmatically in the opposite direction" of the wider industry's take on motion controls like Kinect, Move and the Wii, which "aspire to control and discipline your movement," and was called "one of the few titles here that potentially introduce a new kind of gameplay instead of adding a new twist to existing forms."
- The Cat and the Coup (Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad)
This "documentary" game of the first democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran, told from the vantage point of his cat, was called out both for how "the physics system functions as a broad metaphor for instability," and its unique mix of "Islamic art and dada collage," and for perfectly embodying the Nuovo Award's various "abstract, shortform, authorial, unconventionally fun, meaningful" criteria.
- Dinner Date (Stout Games)
Stout's first-person/internal-monologue of a would-be romantic-encounter was noted not just for being "about something totally untouched by games", but for being a game that symbiotically manipulates both the protagonist's subconsciousness and that of the player as well, and was praised for being more "play as in theater or instrument than it is play as in sports."
- Hazard: The Journey of Life (Demruth)
Built on top of the Unreal engine but employing "abstract pseudo vector graphics", Hazard was said to be a textbook example of a 'Nuovo' game for using all the "storming through corridors" conventions of the first person shooter to create a deeper examination of personal philosophy.
- Loop Raccord (Nicolai Troshinsky)
A 'video editing game' involving synchronizing video clips, Loop Raccord was specifically noted for being a work that "would NEVER have been made by a commercial studio," and for taking on the Nuovo Award's challenge of "advancing the medium and the way we think about games" by dealing with aspects "more related to fine art than the gaming world."
- Nidhogg (Messhof)
Variously praised as "stylish, perverse, incredibly deep, elegant, compelling and joyful", Messhof's tug-of-war swordplay was most often called out for its "hip, lo-fi, punk" aesthetic, but more importantly, for "supporting players in expressing themselves in a variety of ways" and "creating a social space and a spectacle through its play."
Honorable Mentions
There were many titles that were recommended or advocated for by judges and received multiple votes in our final tally, but did not make the Finalist list due to insufficient votes. Nonetheless, we're happy to mention and recommend these titles as Nuovo 'honorable mentions', that those interested in alternative independent games should certainly check out:
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games) A deeply psychological, unique take on the first-person/immersive horror game.
- Choice Of Broadsides (Choice Of Games) A Royal Navy text adventure with deep consequences.
- Faraway (Steph Thirion) A fantastically stylish, joy-provoking arcade game of constellation creation.
- Feign (Ian Snyder) An "exploration of the metaphysics of virtual space."
- Spy Party (Chris Hecker) Like a Turing-test in reverse, a game of "acting as artificial intelligence," and a thrilling one-on-one battle of wits.
Thanks,
Daniel Benmergui, Ian Bogost, Auriea Harvey, Clint Hocking, Rod Humble, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, Paolo Pedercini, Jason Rohrer, Michael Samyn, Justin Smith, Eddo Stern, Eric Zimmerman [IGF 2011 Nuovo Jury]."
The Nuovo Award, which was previously won by Jason Rohrer's acclaimed abstract multiplayer title Between in 2009 and Tuning, the perception-warping platformer from Swedish indie developer Cactus, allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles.
As in 2010, a panel of notable game and art world figures -- spanning previous Nuovo award winners and finalists like Ian Bogost, Daniel Benmergui, Justin Smith and Rohrer, Molleindustria's Paolo Pedercini, Area/Code's Frank Lantz and more, have decided the finalists (and will decide the winner) for the Nuovo Award in discussion-based, juried form -- mirroring similar, artistically important awards in other industries.
All eight Nuovo finalists will exhibit their games at Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco in the IGF Pavilion, and a Nuovo Award winner, alongside an increased prize of $5,000, will be revealed at the IGF Awards Ceremony on the evening of March 2, 2011.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/W8swPdO2UIE/2011_igf_nuovo_awards_jury_sta.php
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Column: The Blue Key: Fable III - The Good, The Bad, And The Surprising
[?The Blue Key? is a bi-weekly GameSetWatch exclusive column from Connor Cleary. In this column he examines the good and the bad in Lionhead's newest installment in the Fable series.]
Shakespeare wrote ?... Love is not love / Which alters when it alteration finds? so, I must love the Fable series. Despite Lionhead's many missteps, despite Peter Molyneux's irritating habit of promising more than he can deliver, and despite so many of my friends repeatedly insisting that the games (especially II and III) are horrible, I can't help myself.
These games are too fun and too full of character, I can't not love them. Don't misunderstand though, I'm not saying that Fable III is a phenomenal game, but it's not horrible either. Even though I was extremely disappointed with Lionhead this time around, I still couldn't stop playing.
Basically there's good news and bad news, unfortunately more bad than good. There are quite a few elements missing from Fable III that were such strong signifiers of the brand that I never would have imagined they were on the chopping block. For me, it boils down to this: Previously, the gamer's imagined internal narrative was greatly enhanced by the nearly unlimited control over the character's (inter)actions, but in III much of this narrative control is lost.
The Fable franchise was built on the premise of giving the player more control over what kind of character they wanted to be. Fable III takes a large step away from this philosophy, removing many actions that were freely available previously, and replaces them with limited, repetitive, and context-sensitive options.
The prime example is the altered gesture system. Instead of having free reign over a wide array of gesture options as in previous games ? and instead of being able to communicate with an entire crowd with a single gesture ? you can now only interact with a single NPC at a time, and only through randomly-chosen categorical gesture options.
These fall under ?Good/Nice,? ?Evil/Threatening? or ?Rude/Silly,? and the game picks a random gesture from each category. You end up watching the same animations and associated sound bytes so many times that you may end up muting your TV every time you initiate an interaction ? that's what I ended up doing anyway.
One of the more satisfying aspects of Fable was ? and still is ? the ability to become filthy, stinking rich by mid- or end-game, and one of my personal favorite things to do with that excess of wealth was to give gifts to random people. Someone complimented my stylish hat? They get a big teddy bear. I got drunk and smashed up the bar? My apologies Barkeep, a big fat jewel should handily cover the expenses.
Alas, no longer. You can't give gifts to people for no reason in Fable III, you can only give someone a gift if they ask for it ? someone you're courting may ask for flowers or jewelry, for example. By the end of my game, I could have filled a warehouse with the amount of unused gifts I had lying around.
I fondly remember the many times the original Fable had a room full of people laughing hysterically. We would often get wasted in town and generally cause a ruckus ? you know, because we could. Breaking into someone's house to give them some chocolate, then paying off the guard just before belching in his face ? that sort of absurdity is what Fable is famous for.
Now, you can't use food or drink items unless you are injured, and that includes alcohol. That's right: You cannot get drunk unless you're in the middle of a fight, which is a rather inconvenient time to do so. Alternatively, you cannot eat all the blueberry pies in Albion until you are a corpulent mess just because you feel like it ? or because a Demon Door wants to challenge popular notions of beauty.
One of the most unbelievable ? and unexpected ? changes is how your morality is manifested physically on your character, or rather, how it is not. In both previous games if you become evil you got to sport big gnarly horns, your skin grew pale and gross, your hair turned black, and you went bald ? you generally looked like a pretty bad dude, which is probably what you were going for.
On the other hand, if you became a goody-two-shoes heroic type, you started to glow with a golden light and looked pretty dashing and radiant and healthy, and eventually you got your very own angelic halo. In III there are very few visually apparent changes that take place due to your morality. Where's my halo? (Eventually you do get a pair of wings that appear only when you charge flourish attacks, and the appearance of the wings reflects your morality, but that doesn?t happen until very, very late in the game.)
I know there are people who were irritated by the horns and/or halo in the other games, but in my opinion it was a core element of the Fable universe, and I am sad to see it go.
Time for some good news... and some more bad news. The new, simplified combat system is extremely fun. Flourish attacks are better than ever, and using one sometimes activates a bullet-time style mini-cinematic, and there are so many different flourish animations that you never get tired of watching them.
Unfortunately these mini-cinematics sometimes break your concentration, and make you lose track of where you are in relation to your enemies, but the majority of the time this is forgivable. Spell gauntlets provide less magic options than in previous systems, but spell weaving (combining two spells into a hybrid) make for some fun and interesting mechanics, like my personal favorite, the flaming tornado.
The bad news? As unbelievable as it sounds, you don't have a health bar. That is my only real gripe with the new combat system. To indicate when you are slightly low on health, you suddenly have the option of using food/drink or a health potion; to indicate that you are very low on health, a small red glow appears around your in-combat hot-key menu.
But that glow is quite subtle, and the change of intensity between ?Pretty Hurt? and ?About to Die? is not extremely apparent. So the problem is, the moment when you most need easy access to your health status, is precisely the most dangerous moment to check ? like when you are in a particularly hairy battle. And speaking of interrupting battles...
Fable III is the most recent example of Lionhead Studio's attempt to do away with menus as much as possible. This is an admirable goal, albeit rather idealistic; creating an uninterrupted interaction with the game-world is a good idea in theory. In practice however, it is more annoying than endearing. In Fable III you have a set of rooms called ?The Sanctuary,? tended by your loyal butler Jasper ? excellently-voiced by John Cleese. These room are essentially three-dimensional menus. For example, you can walk into your Armory and look through all of your weapons on display in the hands of mannequins.
The problem arises when you have to interact with your equipment or clothing or the world map, then guess what: You end up looking at a menu anyway. Combine this with the short-but-noticeable load times when you enter and exit The Sanctuary, or when you enter one of the adjacent rooms, and it starts to feel like a waste of time.
Instead of replacing menus altogether, Fable III merely adds an arguably unnecessary buffer between you and the menu. Ironically, The Sanctuary ends up doing the opposite of what it was supposed to do: It ends up feels like more of an interruption of your game experience than a traditional menu system.
Finally, some purely good news: Albion is better than ever. Watching Albion's consistent evolution through the series has been very satisfying. The beautiful, fantastical world of the original has slowly evolved into a gorgeous steam-punk/fantasy hybrid. When we are introduced to the all-new Bowerstone Industrial in the opening cinematic, it is a thing of beauty.
And somehow through Albion's many changes, it still feels very much like a consistent place with a style all its own. This feeling is aided greatly by the occasional eureka-moment of recognizing landmarks from previous games: the ruins of the Gypsy Camp, the Spire looming ominously on the horizon over the ocean, Bowerstone Clock Tower, and various others.
Many of the side-quests are the usual ?Go there. Deliver/kill this. Come back here. Profit!? But there are many quests that will have you grinning the whole way through. (By the way, be sure to find the wizards in Bowerstone Market and play their game.) Humorous situations, witty lines, clever premises and an abundance of character are things we've come to expect from Fable, and luckily III's side-quests doesn't disappoint on this.
As for the main quest, I lost a lot of interest in the game as soon as I took the crown. Peter Molyneux called this ?the half-way point? in an interview with GameSpot, but it felt more like the two minute warning. And even as the King of Albion, the game still fails to give you the feeling of presence that the previous two games achieved.
Know ahead of time that it's a fairly short game, which shouldn't be a big surprise, but you can also double the play-time by playing both a good and an evil character and have two fairly different experiences. Since the weapons available in each hero's world are randomized, you will also have access to an entirely different arsenal on your next play-through.
As usual for the series, Fable III is quirky and fun, isn't terribly difficult, and can be really rewarding at times. So despite the letdowns, it's quite the pleasant experience.
Monday, December 20, 2010
SecretBuilders Acquires Dizzywood, Absorbing Users
Kid-targeted virtual world SecretBuilders announced that it's acquired the assets of Dizzywood, another online world for children, and will attempt to migrate Dizzywood's users to its site. Terms for the deal were not disclosed. Opened by Rocket Paper Scissors in 2008 at the height of the virtual world craze, Dizzywood invited children aged 8 to 12 years old to create and customize characters with superpowers, chat and interact with friends, take on quests, and work ...
Xbox Indies Uprising - Chus Dynasty (Tribe Toy)
Of all the Xbox Live Indie Games in the Winter Uprising, Chus Dynasty definitely had a leg up on artwork.
Chu is game mixing Super Smash Bros and Street Fighter to create a 4 player game of chaos. Check out out, or buy it for 240MSP.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamerbytes/~3/hi6y7_cw954/xbox_indies_uprising_chus_dyna.php
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GDC 2011 Adds Biz, Production Talks From Sony, WB, CCP Veterans
Organizers of the 2011 Game Developers Conference have revealed Production and Business & Management Track talks spanning Sony, Warner Bros. and CCP veterans for the Main Conference at the 25th edition of the industry's leading digital entertainment event next March.
The Production and Business & Management Tracks take place from Wednesday March 2nd to Friday March 4th, 2011 during the pre-eminent, San Francisco-based event, alongside other discipline-specific Tracks dedicated to art, audio, programming and game design.
As the overall session list for the event further expands, and following notable Game Design/Programming Track and Art/Audio Track highlights, organizers are spotlighting these two final Main Conference tracks.
All of the above Track sessions are open to those with a Main Conference or All-Access Pass. Some of the top new sessions debuting in the Production and Business & Management Tracks are as follows:
Production Track
Newly revealed as a key GDC 2011 Production Track lecture, 'More Pirates on a Burning Ship and Other Leadership Challenges' sees WB Games Seattle GM and Microsoft veteran Laura Fryer discussing key game business learnings.
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