At Nordic Game this afternoon Nathan Vella, co-founder and president of Toronto indie Capybara Games, shared with the audience his belief on how downloadable games should be marketed. In an honest, modest and cheerily profane talk, Vella whittled down the tough business of promoting games in an increasingly crowded space, on a shoestring, to a five-step process. One of the main themes, though, was that indie devs should know their limits.
In March we launched the Edge Create Challenge 2012, in which we invited game makers to dive into Unity's free game engine and create a game on the theme of 'edge'. We received over 50 entries, and today we reveal the overall winner and two runners-up.
Randy Pitchford, president of Aliens: Colonial Marines and Borderlands developer Gearbox Software, told the audience at Nordic Game 2012 this morning how he turned Valve’s Half-Life from a single PC game into a franchise.
Following allegations that Whale Trail maker Ustwo has 'cloned' Move indie game Johann Sebastian Joust in making iOS party game Papa Quash, Ustwo marketing manager Steve Bittan last night confirmed that it had pulled it from the App Store.
"We are pulling the app ASAP,” said Bittan.
The story of racing games could perhaps be told by a mode, and that mode is Eliminator. Lap after lap of competition scraps the weak – or unfortunate – until just a handful are left. Skill, experience, strategy and brawn are what it takes to reach the podium, where Codemasters now sits after years in the race.
Writing videogames is character-forming. Well, part of it is. And it’s a crucial part. After all, who’s going to do the wisecracking? And who can we put on the box? Yep, characters are here to stay. In the same way our brains are geared to pareidolia, ‘recognising’ rudimentary faces in clouds and on toast and the front of Adrian Chiles’ head, we latch on to characters in games. They’re something we can associate with in an otherwise weird gameworld. Stories, even ones in videogames, are all about people.
Yet another block puzzler with a match-three mechanic, it’s strange that Cubis Creatures should feel unique. Maybe it’s down to the design, allowing you to shunt new pieces onto the isometric grid from either the X or the Y axis, and stack the battlefield high with combo-rich towers. Maybe it’s because of the art, providing everything with a bright, hard candy solidity and setting the entire game within the gaping mouths of a series of strange animals.
Fledgling developer Monstars Inc. possesses some enviable talent; its creative team alone boasts several Q Entertainment alumni, with the likes of Rez, Lumines and Child Of Eden on their CVs. The studio’s iOS debut Kotomon therefore arrives with a heightened sense of anticipation, which makes the resultant mess that much more disappointing.
Flight Control’s breezy charm and perfectly tuned touchscreen gameplay have made it one of the few permanent fixtures on our iPhones for the three years that have past since its launch, even as numerous other apps have come and gone. While updates have added new airfields, gameplay twists and even a second chance rewind option, the core game is so solid that it’s difficult to imagine an improvement on the formula.
Filmmaker, comic book writer and prolific podcaster Kevin Smith oozes nerd appeal. Above all else, he’s a talker, so for a change of pace Smith took to his keyboard and wrote Tough Sh*t: Life Advice From A Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good, a memoir of sorts that hit US stores in March.
Ghost Recon: Future Soldier’s journey through development parallels that of fellow Tom Clancy and Ubisoft stablemate Splinter Cell: Conviction. Both games debuted to the press and public in a form vastly different to their final product, and both ultimately put fresh spins on the established mechanics of their respective long-running series.