tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9358119890903763822024-02-20T01:21:50.971-08:00Kiwi BlogKiwi BlogAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14987348514118414077noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-38006037694282359912014-09-16T15:12:00.000-07:002014-09-16T15:12:16.983-07:00Keys to working with offsite writers<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Managing multiple writers, particularly ones you don’t see in person everyday, can be an extremely difficult task. Maintaining a consistent character voice or organized plotline is difficult for one writer, and while spreading it among different contributors helps to alleviate each individual workload, keeping everything straight becomes quite a challenge for the person in charge of the project.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In Kiwi’s quest-based games, new content is introduced on a weekly basis - that’s a lot of work for the teams creating it. Kiwi tasks much of this new content creation to off-site contract writers. Some of our contractors work on the main plot, which is weaved into a continuing story, others work on stand alone quest chains. Having offsite writers is crucial for our workflow, and I’ve compiled some best practices on how to manage the multiple personalities and work styles. </span></div>
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<b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Choose Excellent Writers </b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The first step to establishing the top-quality writing team you’re looking for is to find top-quality writers. This may seem like an obvious step, but doing your due diligence at the beginning of the teambuilding process can save you countless headaches down the road.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First and foremost, test your new additions. No matter how exemplary the referral, it’s important to test each individual. I give the writers tests that are more difficult than the actual contract writing required in order to be sure they can meet or exceed the needs of the game writing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Assuming they meet your expectations and pass whatever test you give them, keep up the close scrutiny for their first few projects. If they aren’t excited about writing and willing to learn, they probably won’t be a longterm solution for your team. Writers can get very defensive about their work (no matter how simple the mistake), and that can be a deal-breaker. Avoid these kinds of complications at all costs. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Train Your Writers</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Once you’ve found an external writer worth working with, it’s important to get him or her up to speed ASAP. I recommend having a writers guide or wiki. You don’t want to explain the world, characters, and the plot repeatedly to each new writer. If you have a single document that you can send to each person you work with, you’ll save time ramping new team members up and correcting simple mistakes later down the line. For complicated projects, get into the habit of writing and keeping outlines. That way, you don’t have to remember what should be coming next or whether they hit the right points. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To make sure your writers are ready for the job ahead, start them off small. Give prompts to the writer during their first few projects. I will give a writer a 3-quest chain that has the characters listed, and all prompts written in. As I become more comfortable that they know the material, I remove the prompts and give them more control over what they write. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally, make sure to give plenty of feedback - positive and negative. It’s important to encourage the writers, as well as give them guidance on nuances in the writing. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Think Like a Writer</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The best way to make sure new writers are contributing meaningful content to your story is to know the story yourself. You should know more than anyone what is going on, how the characters sound, and what they would and would not do. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At the same time, don’t be afraid to learn from your writers. Encourage your writers to really think outside the box, and let them run with ideas that they are passionate about. Even if I end up making plenty of edits in the final draft, I love learning new ideas from my writers on how to squeeze a multitude of information into 125 characters. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That said, make sure to leave enough time to make necessary edits and ensure that everything is a good fit. I prefer about a week of runway before launch day, but more complicated stories or projects may require more attention. I’ve also had a few writers disappear on me at inopportune times (usually for legitimate reasons), and I had to quickly turn their project over to someone else. The more time you leave for final edits, the less you have to scramble at the end.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is by no means all that it takes to manage a team of writers, but it’s a good place to start. It’s extremely important to know the people you’re working with - at least as far as personality, skill, and accountability - so that you can plan accordingly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Trisha Huang</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Game Writer, Kiwi, Inc.</span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-67462667557931675702014-08-22T12:51:00.001-07:002014-08-22T12:51:47.160-07:00An Artist Transitions from Console to Mobile Games: Lessons Learned<br />
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Before joining Kiwi Inc., I spent the first five years of my career working on AAA console games. In more than two years since I’ve been with Kiwi, I have learned a lot about the differences between each platform. Previous experiences with projects like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 were instrumental to helping me gain a bearing in the games industry, but ultimately offered less tangible experience when applied to mobile games.</div>
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That’s because mobile game development is a very different process than building games for PC and consoles. Even though the end goal of building any game is same - to create something fun and engaging - the nature of the mobile platform is different, and demands a totally different approach for artists and developers. In many cases, the lessons of “traditional” game development can get mobile developers into trouble! If you are an artist or developer looking to make the jump from AAA to mobile development, consider shifting these paradigms when you get started building games for mobile.</div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Build an Elite Squad...Not an Army</b></div>
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Console game teams are generally huge, and each member has a specific function or skill set. In contrast, mobile game teams need to be able to move fast and hard like an elite team of Navy Seals. Like these commandos, mobile developers need to be be multi-talented to handle new challenges and more than just experts in their domain. Mobile game timelines are short and the pivots can be hard. Developers need to adapt and be capable of filling in key gaps to survive in such a harsh climate. An environment of trust should also be fostered because smaller teams lack the redundancy that larger teams have, and each member is tasked with a larger individual responsibility. </div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">See the Big Picture on the Small Screen</b></div>
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In PC or console games, attention to detail adds richness and depth to the worlds you create. On a 5 inch screen, that level of immersion is much more difficult to achieve. Knowing when and where to pull back visually is crucial - not all detail is good detail when everything needs to be readable on a pocket-sized screen. Think big shapes with contrast and strong color palettes. Testing your assets on a mobile screen as soon as possible (and NOT on a monitor or LED TV) can help troubleshoot small problems before they become major issues. This will help cut down your production time and costs.</div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Prototype Like Iron Man</b></div>
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Games are not easy to make. The mobile market seems to shift every few months, and developers are forced to get on board quickly or be left behind. In order to be effective, companies have to be able to produce quickly, learn from their mistakes, and adjust to the new climate. Building a prototype, whether it is an animatic in flash or a slice of the game with only its core elements, is crucial. Here is the feedback loop: Build core elements, get feedback and iterate until you get it right.</div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">Pipeline to Success</b></div>
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For any game developer to be successful, they need a rock solid pipeline. Artists need to be able to see their work in the game with the click of a button, and nothing can cripple the development of a game faster than slow asset delivery and iteration. Applying the same rigorous approach to pipeline development, regardless of the project’s size or scale, is key to avoiding headaches in the future. This is something worth investing in or hiring someone to set up for you.</div>
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<b style="box-sizing: border-box;">It’s All About Scale</b></div>
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Mobile game budgets are tighter, timelines are shorter, and teams are smaller than those at console or PC studios. With that in mind, outsourcing work can be crucial to economically scale your operation. Finding good outsourcing vendors, especially ones who can deliver with quality at a price you can afford, can be difficult so can consider hiring a team of remote freelancers. You may need to also add an art outsourcing manager or personally manage the team, but generally freelancers are flexible, skilled, and easier to negotiate with than large art vendors. </div>
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;"><b>About the author: JUAN MENDIOLA</b></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">Juan Mendiola has 7+ years of experience in the entertainment industry as a 3D artist,working for companies such as Electronic Arts, Activision and Walt DisneyFeature Animation. One of the highlights of his career was being part of theteam behind Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, which generated 1 billion dollarsin revenue in 15 days. Currently, Juan is the Lead 3D artist Palo Alto-based Mobile Gaming startup Kiwi. Some of his professional interestsinclude entrepreneurship, mobile games and 3D printing. Juan's personalwork can be viewed at <a href="http://www.designsbyjuan.com/">www.designsbyjuan.com</a>.</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #444444; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><span style="line-height: 18px;">This article was originally published on <a href="http://appdevelopermagazine.com/1784/2014/8/22/An-Artist-Transitions-from-Console-to-Mobile-Games:-Lessons-Learned/">App Developer Magazine</a>, on August 22nd, 2014. </span></span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-53400159556075750302014-07-18T14:06:00.004-07:002014-07-23T10:37:02.608-07:00Feature Friday #18 - Dungeon Plunder<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Okay, no more soccer games for a while, I promise. Actually this week I’ve been playing a game that’s really unlike anything I’ve seen in a while. <i><a href="http://www.dungeonplunder.com/">Dungeon Plunder</a></i> is a semi-open world roguelike that oozes old school. It does a great job of mixing chance and strategy, and offers way more depth than you might expect. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I’ll be honest, I wasn’t hot on <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> at first glance. The icon could use some work and both the pixels and somewhat clunky controls threw me a bit. It’s nice that you can choose your class from two or three options (this varies based on the game version - more on this later), and although not immediately apparent, your choice makes a pretty big difference. The game basically consists of your character roaming around fighting monsters and collecting rewards, pretty standard stuff. But <i>Dungeon Plunder</i>’s combat system is probably the highlight of the game, and really deserves a closer look. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When you engage an enemy you’re presented with a five reel slot machine. The same symbols appear on all the reels even though each character has an item only they can use. Turns are fast and play out basically like a hand of five card draw: one spin gives you items, you choose how many you want to keep, then you spin again and keep the results. Any item you have at least two of will affect play that turn - two weapons deals damage, two hearts heal you, etc. - and the more you have of each item, the more its effect is amplified. Each character class also gains stat points and special abilities by leveling up - e.g. amplifying damage or gaining extra spins. Combine these with the reel selection in battles, and players have a good amount of agency, keeping play fresh a long time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is all helped by the roguelike element, where each death is permanent, but some traits and items carry over to your next game. I haven’t been able to determine exactly when or how, but if you progress far enough in one game, you get to start over at a higher level the next time you play with that class again. You can also find runes randomly throughout the game - item drops that permanently immbue your character with stats - to help advance progress farther each time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">True roguelikes frustrate me, so I think this is a pretty good compromise. Between the art and the fairly barebones nature of the game, I’m assuming that <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> was a fairly low budget game. In this context, roguelikes are a great way to save money - most players won’t be able to advance <i>too</i> far, or at least not before you’re able to expand the game. Though as I’ve already mentioned, <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> is really fun and fairly deep, because the developer allowed enough of your progress to carry over. Well done. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I think the thing that impresses me most about <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> is how it handles multiple elements of mobile so well. Sure the graphics and leveling up are more reminiscent of NES or old PC gaming, but there’s more. All too often these days, developers try to implement a gambling or randomized element into their games, and <a href="http://www.vvolume.com/?p=236">rarely does it create a fun experience</a> <a href="http://www.cracked.com/article_18461_5-creepy-ways-video-games-are-trying-to-get-you-addicted.html">that doesn't feel slimey</a>. <i>Dungeon Plunder</i>’s slot machine style battles are a perfect example of how this can be done right: they’re fun, strategic, and un-monetized. Equally important is the fact that the entire game is untimed and mostly playable with one hand. These are crucial features for mobile games - even ones with core elements - because they emphasize strengths of the platform: playing on the go and in short bursts. All the enemies in <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> are stationary, and even battles can go as quickly or slowly as you allow. All of this mixes extremely well with semi-roguelike to create an experience that’s immersive, but not <i>too</i> serious. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My biggest criticism for this game isn’t even content-based, it’s one of confusion. There are <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-plunder/id588551503?mt=8%20($1.99)">two</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-plunder/id588551503?mt=8">versions</a> of <i>Dungeon Plunder</i> in the App Store - one paid, one free - but both offer IAPs for additional content. Fortunately, a quick google search produced an explanation the developer gave on <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/iosgaming/comments/1fpi05/dungeon_plunder_is_amazing/">Reddit</a>: </span><br />
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<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"Sorry for the confusion - here's a rundown of the differences:</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Free has 2 classes with ads, Paid has 3 with no ads. Ads will be removed off the free when you spend $3 worth of classes/skins.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Free version has IAP runes and scrolls available, paid doesn't have them.</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Full upgrade (platinum) with all classes and skins ends up costing the same as it's priced $2 cheaper on the paid but if you're just interested on the missing classes you'll save $1 by using the free version ($0+$3) vs Paid ($1.99 + $2.00).”</span></i><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That may not all make sense without having played the game much, but it’s actually a fantastic answer. The developer not only provided a fully functional free version, he created a more robust paid edition and left a way to get the same full game no matter which you originally chose. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Dungeon Plunder</i> looks mediocre at best, but in actuality is way better than that. Such a deep experience, built explicitly for mobile, does a ton to cover up what are ultimately superficial shortcomings. This is a game that crosses several genres and really captures the best elements of all of them. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Dungeon Plunder</i> is only available on iOS but has equally cool <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-plunder-rpg/id639964395?mt=8">free</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dungeon-plunder/id588551503?mt=8">paid</a> versions. It’s definitely worth checking out the free one, and from there you can decide if and how you want to upgrade your experience. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-40265132114203776242014-07-11T13:13:00.002-07:002014-07-23T10:36:50.291-07:00Feature Friday #17 - Pixel Cup Soccer: Maracanazo Crush Brazil<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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I didn’t write a post last week because Friday was the Fourth of July, but we’re back and the World Cup is still going, so let’s finish it off with another soccer game. This week it’s <i><a href="http://pixelcupsoccer.com/">Pixel Cup Soccer: Maracanazo Crush Brazil</a></i> (say that three times fast), a pretty fun soccer sim that captures the old school arcade feeling, but doesn’t really bring enough to the table.
<i>Pixel Cup Soccer: Maracanazo Crush Brazil</i> starts with a quick <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9re6bLFKB9M">intro video</a>, alluding to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguay_v_Brazil_(1950_FIFA_World_Cup)">real-life match</a> giving the game its name (I’ll abbreviate that going forward, but the full title is relevant here, plus it’s also necessary to differentiate it from the company’s other game, simply <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixel-cup-soccer/id868123351?mt=8"><i>Pixel Cup Soccer</i></a>). The Uruguayan developers at <a href="http://www.batovi.com/">Batovi Games Studio</a> made a really cool pixelated video that both provides context for the game and highlights their country’s triumph. Fittingly, they’ve set the player as their home team, pitted against the soccer powerhouse that is Brazil.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">No hometown bias at all...</span></div>
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The soccer part plays very much like an old NES sports game with only two buttons and player quality that’s dramatically varied, and it’s great! Many sports games today are able to handle realistic detail and nuanced play, but just as often, the games seem to trip over themselves in the process. Too many controls, pass variations, chip shots, et al. often complicates gameplay and crushes the overall experience. <i>Pixel Cup Soccer</i> keeps it simple and creates a very playable game - on offense you can pass or shoot, on defense you’re able to switch players and slide tackle. That’s it. </span></span><br />
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Scoring isn’t too difficult - it basically requires doing laps in front of the goalie until you get him out of position, or curving a shot past him. In a weird twist, one goal is all that’s required to “win”, because a single Brazilian goal ends the game. This shifts the challenge from whether you can score, to how many times you can net the ball. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">You can also pay to keep playing</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The 45 minute clock is sped up to two minutes of real time, and each goal you score subtracts 10:30 from the time elapsed. With goals possible in less than five minutes of game time, your potential high-score is limitless, though I’ve had trouble reaching double digits consistently, and 154 is the mark to beat as of this writing. I enjoyed the gameplay and have had a good time with <i>Pixel Cup Soccer</i>, but with virtually no customization available, it gets old pretty fast.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Pixel Cup Soccer</i> isn’t a bad game, and it succeeds in capturing the old school feel. The art is great, gameplay is super easy to learn and not too difficult to master, and the Game Center competition makes you want to keep playing. If you’re looking for a retro experience and a couple hours of fun, this should cut it, but the game lacks depth. For a free game that doesn’t bludgeon you too hard with ads, that’s not the end of the world, just would’ve liked to see a little more given how well it started.
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<i>Pixel Cup Soccer: Maracanazo Crush Brazil</i> is free on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixel-cup-soccer-maracanazo/id867944588?mt=8">iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.batovi.pixelcupsoccermaracanazo&hl=en">Google Play</a>. It’s aforementioned counterpart, <i>Pixel Cup Soccer</i>, can be found on both <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/pixel-cup-soccer/id868123351?mt=8">iTunes</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/mas/dl/android?p=com.batovi.pixelcupsoccercupedition">Amazon</a> App Stores for $1.99.</span><span style="line-height: 1.15;"> </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-36374917818777762912014-06-27T11:55:00.000-07:002014-07-23T10:36:39.556-07:00Feature Friday #16 - Score! World Goals<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The World Cup’s here and everyone seems to be talking soccer (or football, or fútbol, depending on where you’re from). So I felt it was only right to check out a soccer game this week in hopes of getting even more people interested in the world’s most popular game. I’ve played many of the popular soccer simulators like <i>Fifa</i>, but wanted something different. I was excited to have found it in <i><a href="http://www.firsttouchgames.com/w/?page_id=1493">Score! World Goals</a></i>, but my initial enthusiasm waned as I got further into the game. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Score!</i> doesn’t have you play out a whole soccer game, but instead puts in you climatic situations and has you control the key passes and shots leading to major goals. This is fun, different, and often very well done. A lot of the levels are really intuitive and play out smoothly, making you feel like a soccer star, even with little or no prior knowledge required. I like the bitesized pieces and the attention to detail with regards to players, teams, and historical events - cleverly working around the lack of league or FIFA rights - making the game unmistakably about soccer while simultaneously focusing on precision as much as the sport itself. The problem is that the control (which is the key to gameplay) is really hit or miss, at times feeling just right, but often leaving me scratching my head. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Taking full advantage of the touch interface, you drag the ball to its target - whether pass or shot. The game follows your motion pretty well and there’s no time limit, but the biggest problem I’ve had is that <i>Score!</i> often shows you a path that’s inconsistent with the action required to actually beat a level. Before each level you’re shown a diagram detailing the ideal path of the ball (you’re also able to refer back to this map whenever you want during play), and the game stops each time action is required. While you can see where the ball needs to end up, how it gets there becomes the challenge, though I’ve found it’s not always a good one. The game uses a three-star scoring system, as each pass and shot is rated “Ok”, “Good”, or “Excellent”, though this is extremely inconsistent in its own right. So far <i>Score!</i> has mostly alternated between mindlessly easy and impossibly difficult, rarely reaching that hallowed middleground. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, because each Excellent pass is satisfying in itself, and many levels can be repeated at rapid fire, but it also bogs down more than I’d like. In between passes the computer runs the rest of the play itself, kind of neat if you like soccer, but more often building frustration, especially on levels that require a lot of tries. I’ve found these instances to crush replayability and hamper my overall impression of the game. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I only briefly mentioned the issues with the scoring, and I won’t go too much deeper, but it does deserve a little more explanation. In a level with only one or two actions required (such as a free kick), there can only be so much variation in your movements. I feel the game does a poorer job in these instances, giving too much leniency on some bad plays, but making others frustratingly vague. Plenty of passes also seem to get near enough to your players, only to have them run right past the ball or stop short because it didn’t quite reach the game’s hit box. These cases could certainly qualify as Ok, allowing for more differentiation between Good and Excellent passes, a much bigger problem I’ve seen overall. Way too often I’ve seemed to make an identical motion, only to have it scored drastically different between tries, this is frustrating and devalues the experience by making performance seem much more random than it should.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The worst part is that a lot of these things could’ve been avoided, and </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Score!</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> could be a really great game. A simple way to skip dead time would make me much more willing to replay levels, subsequently earning more in-game currency, "credits", and eventually playing longer. Other small tweaks to the actual scoring and players’ ability would’ve made a big difference too. It would also be really cool if the quality of your passes affected your subsequent passes and shots - for instance, an Excellent first pass makes it easier to have a high scoring second pass, while an Ok first pass makes it that much more difficult based on the players’ positions. Something like this happens in a couple of levels, but it seems like a fairly minor change that would’ve made the game much more dynamic. The gameplay is pretty cool, and if it were polished a little more, could be something truly great. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another interesting thing I’ve noticed playing <i>Score! is</i> the game’s advertisements. It’s a free title and I certainly don’t mind them showing ads, especially because they’ve done a really great job in a couple of areas. First, ads seem to be shown at a pace proportional to your in-game progress. That is, when you’re rolling through levels in just a try or two each you don’t see many ads at all, but when you get stuck for a few minutes on a level you’re sure to see one when you finally do advance. Secondly, a good percentage of the interruptions aren’t actually the ads themselves, they’re a prompt asking if you’d like to view a video ad in exchange for credits. Not unique, and I can’t fully assess how this affects their advertising revenue, but certainly more user friendly than they need to be. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Score!</i> is also an extremely deep game, with close to 50 level packs, each containing 30 original levels, played out three times each at different difficulties. That’s a lot of soccer, coupled with a unique daily goal as well. I’d argue that the game could use some serious work in its UI - the main menu is more than a little cluttered, and the level selection screen isn’t as fluid as I’d like - but cosmetic preferences always come second to functionality. With the depth offered I hoped <i>Score!</i> would be a little more generous with their credits, though I’ve found the pace is basically one level pack at a time, after which you’ve earned enough to unlock another. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Too. Many. Options.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All things considered, <i>Score! </i>is unique and certainly has its fun moments, but lacks a lot too. I’ve been constantly frustrated with the controls and even left levels unbeaten on more than one occasion - truly a rarity for me. The game’s daily goals keep it going, and my desire to try new level packs have kept me interested (especially during the World Cup), but I often feel that my interest is not being fully rewarded, which isn’t exactly ideal. If you’re looking for something a little different to satisfy your soccer cravings, check out <i>Score!</i>, just make sure you bring plenty of patience too. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Score! World Goals</i> is free on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/score!-world-goals/id490952152?mt=8">iOS</a>, <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.firsttouchgames.score&hl=en">Android</a>, and <a href="http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/score-world-goals/ccd32eea-ec3c-468d-b261-49601d68aaa6">Windows Phone</a>. While it may not be perfect, <i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/scoreapp">Score!</a></i> is pretty fun and definitely something different, so if you’re going a little soccer crazy right now it’s worth checking out if you have any of those platforms. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-5178919430869203552014-06-20T13:24:00.003-07:002014-07-23T10:36:30.240-07:00Feature Friday #15 - Yukon Warrior<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s really hard to make a great game, even harder to make one that’s perfect. That’s all I could think about while playing <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yukon-warrior/id660962105?mt=8">Yukon Warrior</a></i> this week. Here’s a really fun game that does a lot to make itself stand out in a sea of clones and uninspired spinoffs, but it doesn’t go all the way. The gameplay is shockingly fun, but ultimately gets a little too stale a little too fast and really leaves me wanting more. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Yukon Warrior</i> is effectively an endless (or at least auto-) runner, but it’s also a lot more than that. Instead of dashing to avoid a <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/06/feature-friday-13-worm-run.html">giant beast</a>, or just trying to stay on level footing, you’re running into swarms of demonic woodland creatures, massacring everything in sight. Sounds a little crazy, <i>is</i> a little crazy, but also extremely fun. The game rocks the gore pretty well, but you don’t feel so bad for the animals as they try their best to trample, slash, and generally ravage you, eyes glowing red the whole time.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The resemblance is uncanny...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even if you’re not a fan of demonic animal slaughter, <i>Yukon Warrior</i> is a blast to play. You have multiple attacks, each of which does something a little different to give you a chance against the waves of fauna stampeding towards you. Although the tap/drag/hold mechanics aren’t perfect, given the frenetic pace of the game, they do a pretty good job. They scale difficulty pretty well throughout the levels - adding powerups and upgrades as you reach bigger and badder animals - but ultimately stop too soon. After only 10 levels you reach the Last Stand, an endless showdown to see how long you survive against the undying undead. It’s in this process that the game shows its biggest weaknesses.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can’t really say that <i>Yukon Warrior</i> doesn’t have depth, in fact there are dozens of upgrades available and each one gives your character a significant advantage over your foes. The problem is, it takes a disproportionately long time to accrue a worthwhile amount of “spirit”, the game’s currency. Coupled with the scant number of levels, this becomes a problem. If everything was spread out over 15 or 20 levels, rather than 10 , the grinding might not feel so… <i>grindy</i>, but even as fun as it is to beat down scores of savage animals, it does eventually get old. After several hours I got to one of the major upgrades - double tomahawks - and was able to effectively beat the game, but it still felt like too little too late. Admittedly, I’ve kept playing even past this point because as I said before, the gameplay itself is really satisfying, I just wish I had a little more to play for. I will say that having a leaderboard through Game Center is huge in letting me track my progress and strive for something (I’m #68 in the world as of this writing!), but it’s still not quite enough.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The developers also made <i>Yukon Warrior</i> as minimalistic as possible, and I’m still not sure if I like this or not. Reducing clutter is always preferable, so on the one hand this is nice. In the same vein though, a barely visible, but still robust menu can help a game quite a bit. The play screen is completely void of anything not related to gameplay, minus a small pause sign in one corner. That’s great, but when you activate the menu, your only options are Resume, Restart, and Wave Select. From Wave Select you can choose the levels, make purchases, and check the leaderboards, but that’s it. No sound options, no way to recall a tutorial or change the controls, no credits, nothing. This isn’t the worst thing in the world, it just feels unnecessarily blank. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Let me reiterate that my biggest complaint about <i>Yukon Warrior</i> is that there isn’t <i>enough</i>, and that’s a pretty good problem to have. <a href="http://www.raresloth.com/">RareSloth Games</a> did a really nice job making this game, especially given that it’s their first project, I just would’ve loved to see a little more. It seems that between the UI and level length, the developers went with the less-is-more approach, and while that’s probably better than <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/06/feature-friday-14-gravity-lab.html">bogging everything down with fluff</a>, it’s disappointing given how great this game could be with a little more meat to it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All in all, <i>Yukon Warrior</i> is a pretty great game, and is more than worth the free price tag it holds on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yukon-warrior/id660962105?mt=8">iOS</a>. <a href="http://www.raresloth.com/">RareSloth’s website</a> also has a Beta signup for their next game, and they offer some great tips for working with Mobile. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-54555845223324615972014-06-17T09:56:00.000-07:002014-06-17T09:56:40.531-07:00Finding Success in Failure<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A good friend of mine died recently. Fabio had cancer for the last 5 years but never quite drove it into remission. The constant drugs and surgeries eventually took his life.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fabio’s life couldn’t be more different from mine. My professional life takes place in a chair at a screen, his took place outside in the open air. I ride mountain bikes for fun to relax from the stress of work. He was a truly world-class professional cyclist. In his youth he was Italian national trials champion moving on to work full time in the bike industry as a product tester and product manager, finally starting his own business in SF.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fabio seemed to have no limits on a bike. Going for a bike ride with him was usually fodder for a story that started with “This one time, Fabio …”.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For example, there was this one time Fabio rode along a fallen tree that was about 15 foot above some abusively sharp rocks, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">clearly representing impending doom</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">. Once at the end, he hopped over a giant mound of upturned roots and back onto the trail in front of me. I watched this from below as I cautiously walked my bike over the same rocks. The magnitude of this can be expressed easily in words, you kind of had to be there.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Or this one time, Fabio rolled up to a 20 foot drop that most people would think twice about standing on top of, let alone consider it something to ride down. Unbelievably, I watched as Fabio rolled into the most casual vertical dive before pulling several Gs at the bottom, </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">without even checking out the drop. His first words were</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> “Did you get a good shot of that?” all the while </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">with a smile on his face.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This is made all the more incredible when you consider he would do these things while treating cancer with plastic tubes digging at his insides, scars through his stomach and all sorts of chemicals pumping through his veins.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When he died I considered which one of these feats of daring had the most influence on me. It turns out it was actually something very mundane and small.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This one time Fabio fell off his bike going around an easy corner. I saw it happen. It was because his front wheel fell out from under him because he was pushing his speed so hard. This is a corner that most mortals like myself would ride</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> virtually upright</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> around, since the chance of falling on its wet roots was high. I couldn’t believe he hit the corner at such a high velocity. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The fall obviously hurt, but Fabio brushed himself off and just kept going. I asked if he was okay and he told me he’d been falling like that since he was a kid, so no worries. In fact, he went on, if he didn’t take a fall like that at least once during a ride he wasn’t trying.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Without those little failures he wouldn’t have pushed his skills far enough to be able to do take on those bigger challenges.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There was an acceptance that failing was part of the process to ultimately succeed.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He didn’t dwell on the consequence of the fall. He let his muscles absorb the knowledge of the limits of traction, but he didn’t allow his mind to linger, instead he was looking for the trail ahead and the next massively impressive stunt to conquer.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now what does that have to do with making games? We all spend so much time at work that it’s hard to not see that our general attitude to life bleeds into everything we do. So now, I give myself permission to go beyond my own limits everyday, knowing that I’m probably going to fail once in a while. But more importantly I try to encourage and empower others to push beyond their own limits too. Like teaching my kids to ride their bikes, I have to fight the fatherly instinct to protect (aka micro manage) and learn to let go and see them take their own small spills as they fight for achievements far greater than anything I could have hoped for.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fabio's influence then, I hope, is being felt by not only me, but also my family at home and at work. Thanks Fabio.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Jason Woodward</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Executive Producer, Kiwi, Inc.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-20643353383096165362014-06-17T09:52:00.000-07:002014-07-23T10:36:20.500-07:00Feature Friday #14 - Gravity Lab!<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">First impressions are tough. So are second impressions. Sometimes you can immediately get a sense of what you’re walking into, other times not so much. That first line is an example of the latter, so is <i><a href="http://www.gravitylabgame.com/">Gravity Lab</a></i>, the game I’ve been playing this week. At its core this is just a three-star physics puzzler, but it’s also much more than that, and also a little less… Sorry, very confusing, I’ll explain. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Visually, <i>Gravity Lab</i> is stunning. It’s really high quality 3D animation, and uses the Unity Engine as well as any game I’ve seen. Seriously, the opening cutscene instantly made me like this game (great first impression!). Then I started playing, and immediately wanted to go back and watch the cutscene a few more times. The first dozen or so levels of this game are absolutely… unimpressive. In fact almost the entire first Lab did nothing to differentiate itself from <i>Angry Birds</i> or the scores of other physics puzzlers out there, besides having really nice graphics (that would be a bad second impression…). Whether it was the graphics, my curiosity, or just the fact that I’d sat down to play this game and wanted to give it more than a couple minutes, I kept playing. It's a good thing too, because when I did, I found something pretty great. </span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1WYYmYoo1Ew/U5dYrC5vfYI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Zc0jSeRMZtA/s1600/screen568x568.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1WYYmYoo1Ew/U5dYrC5vfYI/AAAAAAAAAKc/Zc0jSeRMZtA/s1600/screen568x568.jpeg" height="225" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Oooohhh pretty...</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I still wouldn’t say that <i>Gravity Lab</i> revolutionizes gaming or even the physics puzzler, but it certainly has enough going for it to keep me occupied, the problem is that it took quite a while getting there. The game has you drag and shoot a little robot named Steve around a zero-G space, hitting blocks and collecting stars. Steve can’t touch the stars or he zooms away, but the blocks nab the pointy little things and are your keys to success. The levels get interesting when the blocks start changing their gravitational pulls and outside forces like portals and trampolines are thrown into the mix. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I blew through the entire first Lab in one train ride, needing more than one try on just a handful of the first 30 levels, and feeling largely unsatisfied. In fact, it took until the very end of the opening Lab to find any challenging puzzles at all. As I said earlier, this changed over time and I’ve since found myself stuck on levels for frustratingly long, but I believe the lag in getting to this step could be a major turnoff to less patient players. It seems the developers weighted the quantity of levels over the quality, but may have miscalculated. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The decision to back-load the better (and more challenging) levels is a curious one, but it’s almost certainly an impact of the developers’ larger plan for the game. As a free-to-play title, <i>Gravity Lab</i> utilizes one of my favorite monetization methods: selling additional content. You can play the entire game for free if you go start to finish, or you can pay $3.99 to unlock later Labs, extra levels, and a whole bonus game. This is certainly an explanation for the boring levels being first - <a href="http://www.mobilesnap.com/">the developers</a> are tempting you into paying if you like the overall gameplay, but are craving more of a challenge. It also allows both paying and non-paying users to have the experience they want with the game, and even stays away from that gross pay-to-win label. Buying all the levels will also allow you to play <i>Gravity Lab</i> offline, a uniquely shrewd feature unavailable to non-paying customers.</span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8HAZssyN6vo/U5dacGWtgxI/AAAAAAAAAKo/vmeNQh3CxZ0/s1600/photo+%25281%2529.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8HAZssyN6vo/U5dacGWtgxI/AAAAAAAAAKo/vmeNQh3CxZ0/s1600/photo+%25281%2529.PNG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><a href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2012-08-25-how-to-monetize-of-free-to-play-games">I hadn't seen this one before...</a></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I will say that after getting to the bonus levels I was a little underwhelmed, but that’s not as negative as it may seem. The chase to unlock the bonus stages was such a challenge in itself that unless the prizes were phenomenal it wouldn’t really compare. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case, but that does say how much I enjoyed nearly perfecting the game in the process. There are both bonus levels and a completely separate bonus <i>game</i>. The levels feature both green stars - which only Steve, not the blocks, can capture - and red stars - which can't be touched at all - and several different kinds of challenges. The bonus game, meanwhile, is essentially an endless runner mode (okay, it’s not technically<i> endless</i>, but I don’t think I’ve made it more than a quarter way through, so it might as well be) that’s been the hardest thing so far. You can buy extra lives and continues for the bonus game, serving as the only IAP other than the level unlock and plenty of hats.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Overall, this is a really good game that makes a great first impression visually, and a really so-so first play through. If you can make it past the first twenty or so levels you’ll really like <i>Gravity Lab</i>, and if you can’t, well there’s still the tutorial to watch over and over. Even ignoring the first chunk of levels which you should fly through, the game provides a lot of depth and a fair amount of replayability, and it’s definitely worth a look. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Gravity Lab</i> is available for free on both <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gravity-lab!/id427760902?mt=8">iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mobilesnap.gravitylab">Android</a>. You can also get it on <a href="http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/122230/?CPID=SOC_IBB1000069&countrycode=US&lang=en">BlackBerry World</a> for $0.99, making it two weeks in a row that I’ve played a game that’s actually available on a platform other than iOS and Android, so that’s cool. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-85515947054455740302014-06-06T10:57:00.000-07:002014-06-06T10:57:08.864-07:00Feature Friday # 13 - Worm Run<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I feel like my <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/05/feature-friday-11-x-invasion-2.html">last</a> <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/05/feature-friday-12-guide-light.html">two</a> posts have been fairly negative, so with June starting I’m turning over a new leaf. Great timing too, because the game I’m playing this week is awesome. That game is called <i><a href="http://goldenrubygames.com/games/worm-run">Worm Run</a></i>, and it’s an endless running/jumping/flying platformer that flat out crushes everything it sets out to. I’ve discussed endless runners <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/03/feature-friday-3-fishbowl-racer.html">before</a> (and probably will again), but I don’t know that any of them have been as complete as <i>Worm Run</i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The comparisons to <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.halfbrick.jetpackjoyride">Jetpack</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jetpack-joyride/id457446957?mt=8">Joyride</a></i> can’t be missed, nor should they. <a href="http://halfbrick.com/our-games/jetpack-joyride/">Halfbrick</a> created one of the best endless-whatevers, and I don’t think I’m assuming too much in saying the game had some influence on <i>Worm Run</i> (you’re flying a jetpack after all…). That doesn’t take anything away from Worm Run, though, and in fact makes it even more impressive, since it improves on pretty much every aspect of an already great game. Instead of autorunning and only maintaining the character’s elevation in a control scheme that hasn’t changed since the <a href="http://www.helicoptergame.net/">early days of Flash</a>, <i>Worm Run</i> puts you in total directional control of your doomed little flyer, apparently named Zeke. You can run forward and backwards as well as control your flying with directional swipes. I think the coolest part of all is that you have to constantly swipe to keep your speed up, turning games into a flurry of thumb-flying action. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Worm Run</i> is fast and really fun, and would be a pretty sweet platformer game on it’s own, where it takes an extra huge step, but also stumbles a little, is the chase. On an ever-changing map littered with Grubies (from the developer’s name - <a href="http://goldenrubygames.com/games/worm-run">Golden Ruby</a>), navigating the spikes, lava pits, and other sources of imminent demise would be something of a challenge, but there’s of course the titular worm to deal with first. Everything about your enemy is perfect - its looks amazing, completely contrasted by both color and size against the background and runner, and moves in a way that optimizes both difficulty and fairness, while remaining visually interesting and physiologically accurate. The worm is able to chew through the platforms which stall Zeke, but is also forced to wind its way around the edges instead of cutting corners - this makes certain areas mad dashes but buys you time other places. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It’s true that these controls are better than almost anything I’ve seen, but that doesn’t mean they’re perfect. The omni-directional movement is a little loose, and I swear there have been times that I’ve hit a gap only to be bounced off because my swipe wasn’t interpreted as I intended. This happens in plenty of games, but it's particularly frustrating when you’re trying to constantly avoid imminent destruction and have just a split second to outrun a giant evil worm. But I digress, if my sole complaint is that occasionally this game feels a little too hard, there isn’t really much to complain about. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Worm Run</i> is great, and has been for a while, seeing as it was successfully funded on <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2134982299/worm-run">Kickstarter back in December 2012</a>. This is noteworthy, as only 35% of Kickstarter games are successfully funded, lower even than the <a href="http://blog.sfgate.com/techchron/2013/10/18/kickstarter-category-dance/">44% success rate for all projects</a> (full data <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/help/stats">here</a>). This doesn’t mean that all games are hopeless or that <i>Worm Run</i> is one of a kind, but there are certain <a href="http://www.crowdclan.com/the-best-time-to-crowdfund/">things developers looking for crowdfunding can do</a>, and Golden Ruby did enough of them right.</span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ndspvfzFh2w/U45izNI1wHI/AAAAAAAAAKI/IPQN7wsW29w/s1600/kickstarter.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ndspvfzFh2w/U45izNI1wHI/AAAAAAAAAKI/IPQN7wsW29w/s1600/kickstarter.png" height="320" width="305" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In fact, the developers did just about everything right, and made a really incredible game. I thought I’d seen it all from endless runners, but this isn’t <i>just</i> an endless runner. Simply put, <i>Worm Run</i> is a very well made game that looks great and plays even better. It very much allows for pick-up-and-play gaming, but has enough depth to keep you playing for quite a while. Stop reading, start playing it now.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Worm Run</i> is available on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.GoldenRubyGames.WormRun">Android</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/worm-run/id569497239?mt=8">iOS</a> for $0.99, and <a href="http://apps.microsoft.com/windows/en-us/app/wormrun/f3a97f77-a3f2-4c7b-a9c3-a520462b86d1">Windows</a> phone for an even more ghastly $1.49! While free-to-play is nearly universal in the endless-whatever genre, the quality here really warrants the price tag if you’re at all a fan of these games. </span><br />
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-64332280632468328912014-06-02T14:07:00.000-07:002014-06-02T14:07:26.206-07:00Art Direction in Video Games - A roadmap for finishing your projects<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">These notes were inspired by the idea that it's difficult (near impossible?) to complete art for a game. The challenge is keeping the team inspired while working against deadlines, disagreements & lulls of creativity. </span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Commit to a vision</b>: If you have the luxury of time on your hands, create a style guide before other artists join the project. This forces you to actually think about what it is that you are doing and trying to accomplish, visually. Strive for consistency and clarity in style, shape, size, line, color, perspective and anatomy. Sell the team and yourself on the gestalt and the fiction of the game. Sounds daunting? Here’s a trick to take the pressure off; If you’re still trying to figure things out, schedule it in to your daily routine. Dedicate an hour at the end of each day for a week to reflect, curate, itemize and resolve your work. You will be left with the beginnings of an elegantly compiled style guide. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Alignment in vision</b>: Aim for each artist to have a clear understanding of what the game should look like. Distribute the style guide and have an open forum to discuss the visual direction that has been chosen and why. Hold art "town hall" meetings to get realtime feedback from the team about the overall look and feel of the project. Great ideas tend to be presented by team members when asked for feedback on artistic decisions that have already been made. Remember that alignment in vision is a living process. It involves many opinions and may never be fully realized. Aspire to give artists a visual and mental starting point rather than having them start with an intimidating blank canvas.</span></li>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BSmdVaE9iYM/U4zdjCzlxtI/AAAAAAAAAJs/8Yb37eAqs1U/s1600/CrowHill_TownHall.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BSmdVaE9iYM/U4zdjCzlxtI/AAAAAAAAAJs/8Yb37eAqs1U/s1600/CrowHill_TownHall.jpg" /></a></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Play to strengths</b>: Amidst a hectic production schedule, where artists may feel less inspired, enabling them to do what they do best can significantly increase engagement. If an artist excels at sketching, then allow them to focus on that skill. If they show an interest in other artistic areas, such as painting, work out a tactical plan to exercise that skill. For example, dedicate 90% of their time towards what they do best, and allow 10% for skill development. Keep your team strong and flexible.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Chunks, not bites</b>: Rather than having artists complete daily isolated tasks, think of their contribution to the team in terms of chunks of work. Aim for significant outcomes from each artist. Let them know how their work fits in to the big picture and benefit's the project. Taking ownership of a large portion of work is empowering and acts as motivation through the daily grind.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Keep things moving</b>: More is lost through indecision than wrong decision. Aim for rapid iteration. Avoid getting caught up in the beauty of just one image. When it feels right, move on to what needs more attention.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Celebrate the milestones</b>: Show that deadlines matter. Successful delivery is something to celebrate. This could take the form of a presentation of all the work done by the team in a meeting or on a visual board. Let them take a step back, see how it all came together and appreciate it. A round of applause goes a long way.</span></li>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Work is for the game</b>: Remind yourself and others that the work you are doing is for the game. It is dangerous to fall in love with an isolated idea only to have it be misaligned with the overall direction of the project. Check-in with the Design and Product teams frequently to make sure you’re staying on track.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Play the game!</b> Each artist should be playing the game that they are building. If it is too early on and a build is unavailable, the Art Lead/Director should understand enough about the game to describe it in detail to the team. The artists should know the context for which they are creating art. Inspire them with a written synopsis and reference images that capture the spirit of the project. Daily interactions with the Game Design & Product team also provides a healthy dose of inspiration. Immerse your team in the theme of the project. Artwork should not be done in a vacuum.</span></li>
</ul>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Obviously not every single point will apply to all teams and all artists, nor is this list entirely comprehensive. The important thing is to create a roadmap like this one for yourself, with what's best for you and <i>your team</i>. If you're planning ahead and doing what you set out to, you'll be just fine.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Ricky Baba</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Art Director, Kiwi, Inc.</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-17180484293849187802014-05-30T13:37:00.000-07:002014-05-30T13:37:33.711-07:00Feature Friday #12 - Guide The Light<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mobile gaming has changed immeasurably since Apple opened its App Store almost six years ago. It seems that with each new year we’ve seen several different paradigms that take the platform in a direction, only to be shifted again by the next trend. It’s been the features that don’t dictate gameplay, but provide value across genres that have prevailed while other gimmicks faded away. These are things like Game Center achievements, friendly and encouraging character animations (even if they don’t have anything to do with actual game itself), and an emphasis away from actual story, opting instead for a common theme to hold the game together (think <i>Temple Run</i> - they never even explain <i>why</i> you’re running from those Demon Monkeys...). All of these aim to provide depth to a game, while simplifying the actual gameplay into the ever popular bite-sized pieces mobile gamers seem to crave. Sometimes, though, it backfires. <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guide-the-light/id549605137?mt=8">Guide The Light</a></i> is a pretty good puzzle game that gets in its own way with features like the ones listed above. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At its essence, <i>Guide The Light</i> has you use mirrors to connect different colored beams from one point to another. Of course there are intricacies and special abilities to make this more complex and challenging, plus a few that nearly ruin the whole experience (more on this later), but that’s the premise. It’d be perfectly fine if they kept it like that, but the developers decided to add in the aforementioned “staples” of mobile games. The Game Center achievements basically amount to “You solved this puzzle” and most of the animations serve only to slow down the game. </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suppose I appreciate that there’s some kind of theme to it all - you’re trying to recover jewels from the pyramid, and various traps are set to put an untimely end to your expedition, or something like that - but my attention to detail (or lack thereof) shows the overall relevance to the game itself. I don’t feel a need to belabor this point, so I’ll leave it as this: if you’ve made a good game, don’t feel that you </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">need</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> to put gimmicky features in it just because everyone else does. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0GxLLI0WTxs/U4jiDwB9SbI/AAAAAAAAAI8/vy0U56NMtho/s1600/photo+(1).PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0GxLLI0WTxs/U4jiDwB9SbI/AAAAAAAAAI8/vy0U56NMtho/s1600/photo+(1).PNG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I've achieved so much!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For my next point, let’s handle the <i>good</i> game aspect. <i>Guide The Light</i> is a </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">good</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> game, but not a <i>great</i> game. In addition to the mobile features it shoehorned in, later levels have some really annoying aspects that detract more from the game than they add. <i>Guide The Light</i> has depth - 50 levels total - and most of the advanced items succeed in making the game challenging, in the right way. Boxes that produce multiple colors, double-sided mirrors, and motion-activated walls all force you to get creative when solving later puzzles. On the other hand, booby-trapped barrels and walls, plus creeping spikes and crawling spiders lead to constantly restarting the level, and slow the game down to a crawl.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> It’s true that I wouldn’t have reached these misguided challenges if I hadn’t enjoyed the ones I played first, but that doesn’t change the fact that these end up making incredibly more frustrating. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Another feature to help me through the tough times was the Vision Crystal, the once-per-fifteen-minute get out of jail free card. Yes, set on a 15 minute timer (which you can pay to remove), you’re allowed to watch a video depicting exactly how to beat the level you’re currently stuck on. I’m torn because although it’s easy to detest the pay-to-win strategy, I appreciate the relief in skipping some of the levels that drove me equally crazy. Maybe it’s just me, but this seems like the developer is acknowledging the game’s faults and weighing them against the users’ inherent distaste for cheap monetization tactics. True, the solutions are probably online somewhere, but this leaves a weird taste in my mouth at the very least. Despite my compaining, I’d imagine anyone looking to get something out of the game will use this feature sparingly, making it more of an irritant than a real concern. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOqy7w8QKJM/U4jmypMUNWI/AAAAAAAAAJI/vjGIPk6n-D0/s1600/photo+(1).PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vOqy7w8QKJM/U4jmypMUNWI/AAAAAAAAAJI/vjGIPk6n-D0/s1600/photo+(1).PNG" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Dun, dun, dun!</span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">It might be hard to believe, but through all this I mostly enjoyed playing <i>Guide The Light</i>. As I said earlier, the criticisms all come from getting <i>too</i> far into the game and being subsequently disappointed that the later stages didn’t live up to initial (high) standards. For a puzzle game, it’s solid, if not spectacular. As a story-based adventure, on the other hand, it falls completely flat. If there’s a lesson to be pulled from <i>Guide The Light</i>, it’s do one thing well, not several things okay. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>Guide The Light</i> was </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">developed by Phasic Labs and published by AppyNation.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The game </span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">is only available on </span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guide-the-light/id549605137?mt=8" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">iOS</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, and goes for $0.99. It's a pretty good purchase for a while, and if you're into colorful and tricky puzzles, is definitely worth a buck. There's also a </span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/guide-the-light-free/id621291846?mt=8" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">free version</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, so you can check the game out before you buy.</span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-85133285658498164832014-05-23T15:15:00.002-07:002014-05-23T15:15:43.767-07:00Feature Friday #11 - X Invasion 2<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone talks about the good ol’ days. The air was fresher, the grass was greener, games were more fun and they <i>didn't</i> ask you for money (you know, except for that big ol’ price tag on the front). There are a lot of good older games, granted. There were also a lot of really bad games and just kind of <i>okay</i> games that gamers in 2014 would never put up with. I won’t name names, but I’ll say that I’ve played some “classic” NES and SNES-era games in the last year or so that made me question a lot about my childhood… Presumably in an effort to recoup the past, developers have added increasingly more “old school cool” devices to their modern games, some <a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/05/feature-friday-10-elements-war.html">good</a>, some <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/26/the-worst-video-game-ripoffs-on-the-app-store">not so good</a>. This week I played a game that found a way to do both, simultaneously impressing and infuriating me. That game is the flying, jet-fighting, bomb-dropping, alien defending simulator <i><a href="http://www.viderea.com/X_Invasion_2/">X Invasion 2</a></i>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everyone Jonesing for their 90’s or early-2000’s fix can find solace in <i>X Invasion 2</i>’s old school graphics and sound effects. The game screams retro - pew pew pew! (yes, those are actually the sounds of ships firing) - and hits the mark pretty well. It’s level-based and does a great job stretching the tutorial over the first half-dozen or so levels, showing all the aspects of gameplay without dumbing it down too much. The developers at Viderea, Inc. did some really great, untraditional things with the level design and that did a lot to keep the game fresh. I’ve played plenty of jet-fighting games, and most consist of the same few elements: flying, shooting, upgrading your plane, then flying and shooting some more. <i>X Invasion 2</i> has most of these, but notably leaves out the whole upgrade-and-buy-new-planes aspect. The lack of this RPG element is bittersweet for me - I like that they’re trying something new rather than relying on traditionally successful models, but I think they chose the wrong feature to leave out. </span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UVlv-5Ei1WI/U3_IabG2G-I/AAAAAAAAAIg/Q8u5bzxpVG8/s1600/supplyroom_full.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UVlv-5Ei1WI/U3_IabG2G-I/AAAAAAAAAIg/Q8u5bzxpVG8/s1600/supplyroom_full.png" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Come on, this was great!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I love that there’s an order to the levels, and consequently, that the game dictates which plane you’ll be using. I like that they simplified things and took the choice out of the users’ hands. I don’t even mind that they ommitted one of my favorite features - upgrading your ships and weapons - which also happens to add depth to the game. Where I think they missed the mark is in not allowing for any kind of progression or improvement. I didn’t notice this for a while, I was just going through the campaign, struggling a bit, but generally passing levels after no more than a few tries. Then came level 15… </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I don’t have a problem with difficult games or seemingly impossible levels as long as there’s a way to improve your chances of success. As may have realized by now, <i>X Invasion 2 </i>left this out, intentionally or not, and as a result I still haven’t beaten level 15. Ah the good ol’ days, when you’d get stuck on a level and be left with three options: </span><br />
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<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pressing on, sometimes indefinitely. This offered a sense of satisfaction in eventually overcoming the challenge, but at the risk of going insane and diminishing your overall enjoyment in the game. Whether the game allowed grinding until you could improve your character enough to pass the challenge, or simply playing for so many hours that you’d exhausted every possible way to fail, this rarely felt wholly good at the end of it all. </span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Cutting and running, or “Do you value your sanity and your time more than your pride?”</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Buying your way to the finish (what we now call pay-to-win). Back before the internet and free-to-play, the shame of admitting defeat lasted much longer than the satisfaction of advancing in the game (</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">when applicable).</span></li>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WtyNGz_EDjE/U3_E29va00I/AAAAAAAAAIA/8O5_hprDNYE/s1600/StrategyGuidesBooks2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-WtyNGz_EDjE/U3_E29va00I/AAAAAAAAAIA/8O5_hprDNYE/s1600/StrategyGuidesBooks2.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I had no idea they still made strategy guides...</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now it could just be me (though I <i>really</i> doubt it isn’t), but I’d like a few more choices. I think that one thing modern gaming has done really well is fend off this stagnation and give users a chance to keep playing without going insane. Sure, plenty of games exploit this too, relying on the aforementioned pay-to-win, or finding other ways to soullessly eat money and/or patience from their players, but there are plenty of ways to do this the right way too. <i>X Invasion 2</i> has an Arcade Mode, and that’s a good start, but I’d really like a way to get past level 15 at this point without diluting the game with an easier setting or the ability to buy progress directly. This lack of observable improvement is disheartening, and if I hadn’t been trying to make a point with this article, I probably would’ve stopped playing long ago. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This used to fly a lot better in past decades, but there are at least two legitimate reasons for that. First, games were much less prevalent than they are now, so your choices were pretty much grind your way through this game, or don’t play video games. How long did you spend trying to beat <i>Street Fighter II</i> for the first time on SNES? There were no (acceptable) cheat codes or powerups that would help you win - success relied on improving your reflexes, anticipation, and strategy. It’s largely the same argument for </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">, but that’s exactly my point. If you couldn’t beat <i>Street Fighter</i> and decided to give up, you could play <i>Mortal Kombat</i> or… well that was about it for consoles. Sick of </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">? <a href="https://play.google.com/store/search?q=fighter%20jet&c=apps">Here</a> are dozens of other games just like it that you might have better odds with. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The other argument for sticking with a game goes much deeper into the psyche. <a href="http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/03/25/the-sunk-cost-fallacy/">Sunk cost fallacy</a> and loss aversion are two extremely human conditions that thoroughly describe why people have done things they don’t like for a long, long time. It can basically be summed up as:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>People don’t like feeling that they’ve wasted something, particularly money, so they’re more willing to suffer through that something they’ve invested in (i.e. a bad game) than something else they’ve gotten for free</i>. </span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Since <a href="http://www.insidemobileapps.com/2014/03/28/wildtangent-86-percent-of-gamers-prefer-free-games-with-ads-over-paid-games-without/">so many mobile games</a> today (including <i>X Invasion 2</i>) are free to download, and therefore represent virtually no loss, users are significantly more fickle, and developers must work harder to keep them. Enter modern monetization tactics and pick-up-and-play game styles popular in mobile gaming today, and the rest is history. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All this doesn’t negate the good, <i>innovative</i> things that </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2 </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">does. Its accelerometer works as well as any I’ve seen, and the devs came up with a cool control-firing system that uses two hands in a non-awkward way, while actually improving gameplay. Firing is on the left, speed is controlled by sliding up or down on the right, altitude depends on the angle of your device. It’s that simple, and it works really well. Another small thing that I really liked, </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is located in the San Francisco Bay Area, not some anonymous terrain-less fictional world. While most of the map looks like Google Maps from about 2001 (hey I said the graphics were old school...), they built up notable landmarks around SF - Coit Tower, Golden Gate Bridge, I think even Town Hall - and you can even take pictures of them while flying around in Tour Mode. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">All that said, </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is a pretty fun game, for a while. I had a lot of fun exploring different level types, and I thought the night vision, cloaked, and bombing levels were really impressive. Eventually though the game burnt itself out by not providing a way to improve or advance, and left me little regret when I stopped playing for good. <a href="http://www.viderea.com/">The developers</a> had a great start, and if they continue to update it, this could be a lot more than a niche flying game with some fun levels. Let’s hope they do.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If you’re looking for an old-school flying game that’s going to beat you up a few times, </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">X Invasion 2</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> is awesome. The devs did a lot of fun things, and I really enjoyed playing this game for a while. Multiple game modes provide some longevity, but ultimately not as much as I would’ve liked. Still, if you want a good way to spend a few days this is definitely worth checking out. It’s available on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/x-invasion-2-extreme-combat/id355559243?mt=8">iOS</a> for free and does contain banner ads, but no IAP. </span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-91408734703530589112014-05-19T12:33:00.001-07:002014-06-02T14:05:49.221-07:00Stories from GDC<div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is a great place to hear about what is happening in the gaming industry. As a writer, I was most interested in the narrative track, and I sat in on 7 different talks about Narrative in Games. I’ve listed my favorite highlights from three of them below. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Video Game Rx: Narrative as Therapy </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Kim Shashoua (Researcher, Therapist (MsWi)) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I came into this talk not sure what to expect, but Ms. Shashoua was a great speaker, and had some very interesting things to say about therapy in games. Ms. Shashoua discussed games as both active and passive therapy to players. I really enjoyed her discussion on how game companies can be more active by understanding how their games affect those who might have a mental illness. She broke it down into Virtual Narrative Therapy (education on dealing with emotional and mental problems), Passive Narrative Effects (see description below), and Active Skill Acquisition (purposely giving the player tasks that can be used in life). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One of the topics I found the most interesting was: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Passive Narrative Effects: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Repetition leads to learning. The more you see something the more you expect it in everyday life. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Minorities are not the only ones who benefits from seeing different types of characters in games. Games can cause problems when expectations don’t match reality.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When someone only sees a subgroup of people in a stereotyped fashion, when they interact in life they will fall back on the stereotype when dealing with people. If they see people in various different roles and attitudes, they are more likely to be opened minded about the new type of person that they meet. One example the speaker gave was a young man who only sees a specific type of helpless female in games, will become ingrained with the idea that all women are helpless. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Mobile Game Storytelling Lessons </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Erik Marcisak, Sr. (Narrative Design - Eidos Montreal) <a href="http://www.marcisak.com/index.htm">http://www.marcisak.com/index.htm</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This talk went over lessons learned in mobile game play that could also be used for all video games. Mr. Marcisak discussed that in mobile it was imperative to keep everything concise, and how that now makes him a better writer for all games. There were three things to keep in mind when writing dialogue. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“When writing dialogue for Mobile it’s good to keep in mind three things: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">1. Clicks: How often a player needs to click to get through the dialogue (Lower is better). </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">2. Meat: The important stuff that the player must know. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">3. Fat: Words around the important information.”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Knowing how to strip the fat to fit dialogue to a tiny screen can really improve a writer’s ability to find the important parts of every conversation. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Love/Hate Relationships: New Approaches to Romantic Relationships</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chris Dahlen <a href="http://savetherobot.com/">http://savetherobot.com</a>/</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Mr. Dahlen discussed how to change up the way we deal with relationships in video games. Right now, in many games there is a single scale that will go up and down, but doesn’t allow for different types of interaction. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He wanted to use Romantic Comedies as the basis for a multiscale chart for dealing with relationships in games. The player is allowed to mess up the relationship, but they can still end up with the other person as long as they are trying. The characters can be flawed, and the relationship will still work. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The Other Talks:</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>User Responses to Narrative-Driven Games</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Fasih Sayin, PhD (Producer/Game Systems Designer, Crytek) </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>It's Not in the Writer's Manual: A Q&A Session for New Writers</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Chris Avellone (Creative Director, Obsidian Entertainment), Vander Caballero (Creative Director, Minority Media), Toiya Kristen Finley (Narrative Designer/Game Writer and Consultant, Schnoodle Media, LLC), Elizabeth LaPensee (Game Designer and Researcher, Independent), Jill Murray (Director of Narrative Design, Ubisoft), Jonathon Myers (CEO & Creative Director, Reactive Studios)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Making Storytelling a Fundamental part of the Gameplay Experience </b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Thomas Grip - Creative Director, Fictional Games</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Fewer Tifas and More Sephiroths? Male Sexualization in Games</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Michelle Clough http://michelle-clough.com/</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- Trisha Huang</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Game Writer, Kiwi, Inc.</span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-1976973326606324562014-05-16T12:41:00.002-07:002014-07-23T10:36:07.715-07:00Feature Friday #10 - Elements War<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">At first glance, <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wynsoft.chain">Elements War</a></i> looks like your typical mobile game - it’s got great graphics and utilizes the smartphone’s touchscreen. Sure, there’s a bit of the Bubble Bobble feeling, given that the game runs on colored orbs, but other than that, nothing nostalgic about it. Not long into the game, actually the first time you fail a level, the game hits you with the Old School: “<i>Continue?</i>” Okay, <i>Elements War</i> doesn’t use this exact word, but it charges soft currency, the game's only currency, to keep playing. Now before you grab your torch and pitchfork, take a second to think how this differs from decades of arcade games and pinball machines (I’ll give you a hint, <a href="http://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/58368/gdc-2014-the-drownings-ben-cousins-blames-the-snobbish-establishment-for-unethical-stigma-surrounding-free-to-play/">it doesn’t</a><b>)</b>… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8_wiSaH7PIE/U3U4Q8FyvQI/AAAAAAAAAEY/bbDQCi-KQNg/s1600/DSC_0078.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8_wiSaH7PIE/U3U4Q8FyvQI/AAAAAAAAAEY/bbDQCi-KQNg/s1600/DSC_0078.jpg" height="320" width="269" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I get the counterargument: this game costs $0.99 up front, how dare the developers charge for more? Aside from the fact that it’s pretty hard to make a living selling things at a dollar apiece, this is a blanket statement that doesn’t pay any attention to the game itself. In a week of playing <i>Elements War</i> I haven’t once been even tempted to buy more Gold. The game’s economy is very well-balanced, and there are several things to do while you earn more spending power. The game is broken into Story Mode and Chaos Mode, as I often do, I began with the Story. This is a bit of a misnomer, there’s no <i>actual</i> story, but this phase of the game progresses in stages and levels. Story Mode features 80 total levels, broken into 8 worlds, each representing a checkpoint. Fail at Level 1-1? Start over. Move on, but fail at 1-2? Here’s the fun part. You’re given the choice of starting over from 1-1, paying 50 Gold to start the level over, or paying 100 Gold to get one more shot from where you failed. </span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3IALb_PZiZY/U3U6cx8KscI/AAAAAAAAAEo/cflc0SX1pgQ/s1600/whoa-300x223.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3IALb_PZiZY/U3U6cx8KscI/AAAAAAAAAEo/cflc0SX1pgQ/s1600/whoa-300x223.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Pretty cool, right? Instead of making the decision to autosave after all the levels or none, the game puts the choice in your hands. <i>How much are you willing to spend to keep your progress?</i> <i>Elements War</i> forces you to put your next quarter on the machine or step away. Except that it doesn’t… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Not only can you choose to start the world over if you’re out of Gold or simply elect to hold onto it, you can also head right over to Chaos Mode. This is the arcade-style, never-ending gameplay that serves as a great way to wrack up Gold while getting used to <i>all</i> the titular elements, even if you haven’t unlocked them in Story Mode. That may be a little confusing, let me explain the game a bit because it’s actually pretty great. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You control elements (duh) - fire, ice, electricity, etc. - and your job is to pop these little colored bubbles. Sounds simple, <i>is</i> relatively simple, but also surprisingly satisfying and at times extremely challenging. Each world introduces a new element, and each element has its own feel and abilities. Their common feature is that the element continues a chain reaction after making contact or popping a bubble (this varies by element), making it possible to destroy dozens of bubbles, even bosses, with no more than 3 tries. Oh yeah, there are bosses. This is cool, at the end of each world there’s a new boss, and the last world is nothing but big guys. These are as varied as the elements, and take different strategies to wipe out - some reincarnate, others split into clones, some just take a ton of damage to pop - all are really tough. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The game does a lot of other little things really well, and a few things not so well, or at least a little confusingly. The sound effects are really fun - popping the bubbles sounds a little like jingle bells exploding, this is weirdly pleasant - and Elements War lets your music override the game’s sound. Also, as well as the game’s economy is balanced, they still confirm <i>every single time</i> you buy a continue. I can’t tell you how many games I’ve played that don’t do this, instead snatching my patience along with bits of IAP. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Where the game has let me down a bit is the UI and timing of things. Every time you beat a level you have to wait while it tallies your points and score to date. The timing and responsiveness of the Restart button could also use some serious work. These seem like minor complaints, and they are, but when you end up playing the first level of a world a couple dozen times, the seconds add up. More importantly, it just feels sloppy in an otherwise highly-polished game. I’ll also say that <i>Elements War</i> seems too reliant on luck or chance. The gameplay focuses on chain reactions, but in my experience, physics and strategy only get you part of the way there. Lastly, Game Center integration would seem to be an obvious feature of a game like this, but <i>Elements War</i> lacks any sort of leaderboard at all. This is a curious omission that would seem fairly easy to resolve in future updates, I’ll keep an eye on it… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Despite a couple really minor flaws and equally negligible complaints, <i>Elements War</i> is a really solid game. It uses an old school mechanic in a really non-slimy way and absolutely crushes the arcade feel. This kind of decision won’t work for every game, but these developers went forward by looking back, and made something totally rad, bro. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">~~~ </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh yeah, those developers… <i>Elements War</i> was developed by <a href="http://wynsoft2011.blogspot.com/">WYN Soft</a> and is available on both <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/elements-war/id622396036?mt=8">iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wynsoft.chain">Android</a> for $0.99. The dollar price point might turn some people off, but I can’t overstate the fact that that’s all you’ll ever <i>need</i> to spend, and the game is really pretty fun. The devs have also promised to add more levels, if and when you beat Story Mode, so there should be more value for your purchase if you stick around. Even as it is currently, Chaos Mode provides a lot of replayability and really makes this game a keeper. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-57248765820937030372014-05-09T14:34:00.000-07:002014-05-16T14:41:40.442-07:00Feature Friday #9 - Undead Slayer<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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Let’s talk about extremes. This week I’ve been playing <a href="http://undeadslayer.toast.com/"><i>Undead Slayer</i></a>, an RPG brawler that was thrown my way by a colleague (<b>shout out to Sachin</b>!), and it’s truly one of the deepest free-to-play games I’ve played in a long time. Through a few days of playing I appear to be only a fraction of the way through the story, and I’m still unlocking new features. The graphics are awesome; gameplay is fun, innovative, and challenging; even the aforementioned story balances humor and intrigue really well. So this game is <i>extremely</i> good, right? Yes, but there’s a but… It crashes. A lot. That’s <i>extremely</i> bad. This game marks virtually every box on the proverbial checklist, except the most important one: playability.
I’m going to largely dwell on the good because that’s the overall impression I have of this game. <i>Undead Slayer</i> seems like an early-to-mid 2000’s console RPG, and I mean that very much as a compliment. The story is more than just present, it’s funny and even a little engaging, lightheartedly poking fun at popular tropes and mechanics within the genre. The graphics are reminiscent of that era of games, and look surprisingly good on a four-inch screen. Its one-touch movement and auto-attacking also work incredibly well, and makes <i>Undead Slayer</i> essentially a one-handed game, despite its landscape layout. The RPG elements - upgrades, skills, allies - are well-weighted, complex, and varied enough to keep you playing for quite a while; the map system not only looks neat, but also provides depth to the game by creating distinct regions; and best of all, <i>Undead Slayer</i> features two equally engaging, interacting game modes. I’ll unpack this a bit and offer my one critique of the gameplay itself.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Quick, which is <i>Undead Slayer</i>, and which is Dark Cloud?!? Just kidding...</span></span></span></div>
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<i>Undead Slayer</i> opens with the option to create an account or play as a guest (<a href="http://blog.kiwiup.com/2014/04/feature-friday-7-cards-and-castles.html">a huge plus in my book!</a>), then leaves you to choose Story Mode or Extreme Mode. The first time playing through I was only feeling mild, so I opted for the former. Story Mode is everything I’ve already described, unravelling features like character training, bonus levels, and adding allies sporadically through the early levels. The last of these is my favorite, as gaining more powerful allies is only possible by playing Extreme Mode.
This phase of the game is largely similar to Story Mode in the way it plays - waves of enemies, ending with a boss - but leaves out the story element. It also lets you access all powerups, in contrast to only the ones you’ve unlocked, as in story mode (it does seem that the rarer, more powerful attacks are less common, but that could just by my perception or small sample size). Extreme Mode is a ton of fun, and I honestly could’ve written a whole column about this aspect of the game, but it also features an unpopular F2P mechanic. Unlike Story Mode, where players can progress at whatever rate their skill allows, Extreme Mode requires a Key for each go. Keys replenish over time, or can be bought with IAP; this game features an energy wall.
I really don’t mind IAP most of the time (<a href="http://gamasutra.com/blogs/LeePerry/20130510/192097/Theres_good_in_you_yet_F2P_games_I_can_sense_it.php?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+GamasutraNews+%28Gamasutra+News%29">how dare developers try to make money off of their work!?!</a>), and all things considered, this isn’t a big deal; players who can’t get enough can simply go back to Story Mode and grind or advance to their heart’s content. Regardless, this irks me a bit. As thoughtful as Undead Slayer is throughout, I’m disappointed they resorted to such an <a href="http://gamesareevil.com/2012/10/freeplay-pox-energy-systems/">unimaginative and overplayed mechanic</a>.
Little takes away from the fun I had playing <i>Undead Slayer</i>, and that's what matters. Ultimately, the game is <i>extremely</i> good. I'll mention that it takes some liberties showing both gore and scantily-clad cartoon babes - maybe not the most kid-friendly game around - but as with most aspects so far, they fit right into the overall feel of the title.
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<i>Undead Slayer</i> is a fantastic game, and you can get it for free on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nhncorp.skundeadgr">Android</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/undead-slayer/id576664803?mt=8">iOS</a>. <a href="http://e27.co/hidea-and-hangame-korea-launches-mobile-game-undead-slayer-in-southeast-asia/">According to e27</a>, “<i>Undead Slayer</i> was actually developed by Hidea, a one-man development startup run by Dong-kyu Kim from South Korea. Publisher Hangame is a subsidiary of NHN”, and one-man startups are cool, so there’s that. If you’re into hack-and-slash, RPGs, gratuitous animated violence and cleavage, or just really good mobile games, check this out.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-72703770658994613022014-05-05T13:36:00.002-07:002014-09-12T11:34:18.526-07:00User stories: How to maintain structure with creativity<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a product manager making a game, you are tasked with balancing many opposing goals. Time, cost, quality, fun, lifetime value, appeal, and retention are the obvious ones that come to mind, but there’s a lot more that go into the final process. Finding the right balance between all these variables is crucial, and becomes the focus of nearly every decision you make. This is a difficult task for you and your team, and is made even more difficult by the fact that the balance you’re looking for is often situational, varying from game to game and company to company.
I have a number of “tools” to help find this middle ground, but above all, I've found user stories to be the most valuable in achieving balance.
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1idYt5UvX9Y/U3aRU-fqRcI/AAAAAAAAAFY/EFWct9PevFM/s1600/root_android_toolbox.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1idYt5UvX9Y/U3aRU-fqRcI/AAAAAAAAAFY/EFWct9PevFM/s1600/root_android_toolbox.png" height="200" width="182" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">“User stories are short, simple description of a feature told from the perspective of the person who desires the new capability, usually a user or customer of the system. They typically follow a simple template:</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.020000457763672px;" /><span style="background-color: white; color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20.020000457763672px;"></span><span style="background-color: white; color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">As a <type of user>, I want <some goal> so that <some reason>.”</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #6aa84f;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">- </span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>http://www.mountaingoatsoftware.com/agile/user-stories</i></span></span><br /><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;">“A true user story is a metaphor for the work being done. It is not a highly documented requirement but rather a reminder to collaborate about the topic of the user story”</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #6aa84f; font-size: 15px; font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">- http://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2010/april/new-to-user-stories</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I suppose we should replace “system” with “gameplay” to make this more applicable to our needs. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">User stories are often associated with agile development methodologies like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)">Scrum</a>, but no matter what methodology you use, describing your goals in terms of <i>how they affect your target user</i> is a great way to achieve direction for both your team and your game. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The prime alternative to user stories is breaking your game development into tasks. While tasks can be derived from user stories, they rigidly confine and constrict your goals. This may be useful for engineering a defined structure like a bridge, but can actually be detrimental to a project as nebulous as a game.</span></div>
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Let’s take a look at some ways that user stories can improve the design and development process for a game:
<u>Alignment
</u>The first benefit is better alignment for your team, even as things change. Most, if not all, features of your game will be the result of collaboration between many people. These individuals will often be of different experience levels and different disciplines, so user stories can more easily describe your goal in a way that's agnostic to any particular member of the team. This is in contrast to tasks, which tend to be more useful to your team members’ focus, but not the overall result you’re trying to achieve.
The vagueness of a user story is also an advantage because it prompts discussion early on in the process. If you encourage the completion of one user story before moving on to the next, you will also derive two benefits: <i>dark matter</i> management and <i>follow through</i>.
<u>Dark Matter
</u>With traditional tasking, you’ll often find that the integration of individual work happens very late in the process. This leads to padding schedules to make room for all of the things you didn't spot when you laid out your tasks to begin with: aka <i>dark matter</i> tasks. Measuring and optimizing your pace as a metric of your team’s output (i.e. how many user stories can they complete in a given period), rather than individual pace, gives you a more accurate measure of your overall schedule.
<u>Follow through
</u>Very much connected with dark matter, <i>follow through</i> is the commitment to finish what you started, strongly. In professional cycling, riders learn to pedal their hardest for a point that is slightly over the crest of a hill. Those few yards before the crest is the point where most riders ease up, but that extra push to finish what you started will pay dividends on the next downhill. Tasks make it very easy to say you are done when you aren't, segmented and specialized as they are. Encapsulating the entire process, it’s much harder to fool yourself into thinking you’ve finished a user story when you haven’t.
<u>Empowerment</u>
I know, management speak, but we employ many talented, passionate game makers who do their best work when they are engaged and committed to what they are doing. This engagement comes from making big things happen with creative problem solving, not following directions. Tasking leaves a team with directions to follow, and management with the responsibility of dictating those steps. User stories keep the whole team focused on the result you want, and allow everyone to determine the best way to achieve it.
<u>Agility</u>
Even if you use a traditional waterfall approach, your goals will (understandably) change as more information becomes available. Tasks can be easily disrupted by unforeseen circumstances from above, within or outside of your team. Therefore, finishing something before moving on allows you to lump changes in small batches without fear of abandoning an unfinished project. Of course you may still throw work away, but you will be throwing it away based on a finished solution and a complete view of it's value.
<u>What not to do
</u>The last benefit depends on how you create your user stories. My preferred method is start with a single story that describes the game as a whole, then break that into 3 or 4 pillars. These pillars can be broken down into a number of epics and the epics can be broken again into meaty, but still bite-sized, user stories.
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Each layer of this pyramid can align with the layers of your organization: from senior managers, through leads, to individuals. At each layer, the more senior person takes on the what and can delegate the how to the person or persons below him. This structure gets everyone thinking about and solving problems in the same way. In turn, this also allows each team member to consider the big picture and their own upward mobility, as well as the scalability of the organization as a whole.
You’ll also (hopefully) find that your team is generating great ideas throughout the entirety of the project, and user stories allow you to incorporate these ideas much more easily into your work. In contrast to task-based schedules, unflinchingly rigid as they are, user stories leave the team plenty of agency with regards to their objectives. The trick with user stories then becomes choosing which ones to follow, and which to leave behind. This decision is made easier if you have your user story hierarchy, because you can rule out anything that can’t be easily integrated into the structure.
This management style of course has drawbacks, mainly the risk of losing precise control. I’ve worked on my fair share of games tried very hard to make task-based management work, but more often than not, games end up as the sum of their parts. Focusing on the end result grants your team much more freedom, and can be hugely beneficial as long as your approach is thorough and each step is solvable. In my opinion, user stories accomplish this better than following a rigorous series of tasks. The way I see it, describing games as tasks is a little like describing a painting by the color of the paint, it just doesn’t quite cut it.
- Jason Woodward
Executive Producer, Kiwi, Inc.</span></span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-74462323388669559362014-05-02T11:38:00.001-07:002014-05-16T15:51:25.808-07:00Feature Friday #8 - Robots Love Ice Cream<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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Innovation is a tricky thing. People crave new, but when given the choice to try <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/3026366/most-innovative-companies-2014/the-worlds-top-10-most-innovative-companies-in-gaming">something truly unique</a> or stick to what’s been successful, so many developers choose the latter. <a href="http://dragonarmy.com/">Dragon Army</a> made a really funky, arcade-style action-defense-shooter thing, where maybe the weirdest thing about it is the name: <i>Robots Love Ice Cream</i>. Yes, the title is equal parts insane and original, the gameplay is genuinely fun, even if not groundbreaking, and... that’s about it. The game takes one step towards awesome, and one back to plain vanilla. Don’t get me wrong, I like vanilla. It’s safe, generally appealing, and will almost always get the job done. While this game started to whet my appetite, it definitely could’ve used another helping of boldness to finish the job.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">That’s a lot of ice cream… </span></div>
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I’ll start with the bad, or better put, the bland. Despite gameplay that’s <i>actually</i> kind of different, the levels and objective layout in <i>Robots Love Ice Cream</i> just feel like <i>Angry Birds</i> and <i>Jetpack Joyride</i> got smashed together in a very cookie-cutter, formulaic way. <a href="http://angrybirds.wikia.com/wiki/Stars">Three-star levels</a> feel really old at this point, especially when the criteria for each star isn’t obviously apparent. While plenty of games use rotating objectives to keep things fresh (a great addition for a lot of endless-style games), with defined levels this feature seems forced. These objectives rarely diverge from the genre’s staples: time trials, combos, and perfect runs are common requirements. Each completed goal rewards the player with Sprinkletonium (the game’s currency), but ultimately feel pretty hollow and repetitive.
Despite this criticism, some of the challenges are fairly well-tailored to the specifics of each level - times and combo requirements are reflective of the level’s difficulty, and all seem feasible with moderate spending. This is of course excluding the objectives which intentionally require additional upgrades, a feature I kind of like, as Sprinkletonium is gained fairly quickly, and this lengthens the game without energy walls or another equally cliche mechanic. I’m aware that I might sound pretty flip-floppy, and I should, because that’s really how I feel about the game. At times it’s really fun and engaging, even captivating, other times it seems poorly-paced, repetitive, and more than a little tedious.
There have been stretches in the game where I’ve been so caught up in the goals that I lose track of the actual point of the game: staying alive and protecting all the ice cream. I think this is a good sign - showcasing the attention-grabbing ability of the challenges - rather than a critique on the overall gameplay, because as the levels progress, just staying alive turns out to be pretty difficult. This isn’t exactly a common problem, but when you lose for the first time in a while it’s surprising (and kind of refreshing).
<i>Robots Love Ice Cream</i> does a lot of other things well too. The graphics are great, and all aspects of the sound fit the game (though I would’ve also welcomed <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZB6WXDuM1g"><i>real</i> ice cream truck music</a> if not copyright
protected).
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Futurama meets Space Invaders</span><span style="font-size: x-small;">, all held together by centripetal force</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Overall, gameplay hits a really good difficulty, and though the game is clearly in its early stages, if offers a decent amount of playing time (even if a bit repetitive). I think the game could definitely use more things to spend Sprinkletonium on - weapons, upgrades, maybe even a new ice cream truck? - because I think these features could stretch out gameplay and hide some of the monotony of the goals. The most troubling problem I’ve come across, and likely one that will be fixed immediately, is somewhat regular crashing and freezing that occurs. I’ve had this happen more than a few times in the first days I’ve played it, and to be completely honest would’ve likely given up the game had it not been for this feature. That said, when I’ve been able to play, I’ve been mostly satisfied.
</span><i style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robots Love Ice Cream</i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is clearly a bit rough, but there’s definitely a lot to work with. If later updates improve the level/scoring/star system this could be a really special game that captures the eccentricity of its title.
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As of this writing, </span><i style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Robots Love Ice Cream</i><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> is free on both </span><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ayopagames.robotsloveicecream" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Android</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> and </span><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/robots-love-ice-cream/id840151571?mt=8" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">iOS</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">. The game apparently retails for $2.99 normally (at least on iOS), so check it out pro bono while you can! There’s already a bunch there, and the game’s both Kickstarter-backed and featured by Apple recently so I’d expect updates and improvements going forward. Sidenote: I found </span><a href="http://www.copyblogger.com/mental-blocks-creative-thinking/" style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">this list</a><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"> interesting for improving creativity; check it out and use these tips to do something new :)
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-88680187330809232122014-04-25T13:43:00.000-07:002014-05-19T15:43:58.809-07:00Feature Friday #7 - Cards and Castles<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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One of the most interesting things that mobile has done is increase the cross-pollination of gaming genres. Some of the most popular titles on the platform have combined aspects of well-known games and turned them into something new and unique, not to mention highly profitable. <i>Clash of Clans</i> would be a perfectly average city-builder game if not for the multiplayer and attacking elements; <i>Puzzles and Dragons</i> leverages a <i>Pokemon</i>-style collectathon with a match-3 component replacing trainer battles; even <i>Infinity Blade</i>, one of mobile’s earliest mega-hits, combines an arcade-style fighting mechanic with an adventure RPG story. Mobile has avoided a single-genre takeover like we saw in <i>Mario</i>’s early days on Nintendo, because there have already been several different paradigm shifts, each one more massive than the last. This week I’ve been playing <i><a href="http://cardsandcastles.com/">Cards and Castles</a></i>, a collectable action card game that perfectly crosses genres, and wouldn’t be the same on any other platform.
The first thing <i>Cards and Castles</i> does is crush the digital CCG aspect. I’ve played a number of collectable card games on various platforms, including the paper kind, and the biggest problem most of them has is valuing the cards properly. <i>Cards and Castles</i> gives you a generous starter deck and the ability to create seemingly unlimited additional decks from a decent sized pool of cards. You’re also provided enough Card Points (the game’s currency) to buy nearly two booster packs, and you earn points quickly enough to buy more after just a few matches. Even though you pick only one of the four factions (Crusaders, Pirates, Warlocks, and Vikings) to create your starter deck, you’re able to access and create multiple decks from each. The importance of this flexibility, and the attention to detail in <i>Cards and Castles</i>, can’t be overstated. This small tweak eliminates the buyer’s remorse of your initial uninformed decision, something that games too often take advantage of by either not letting you reverse your choice, or charging you handsomely to do so.
<i>Cards and Castles</i> features a couple of my least favorite game mechanics, but another minor detail softened my view on their conformity to modern gaming trends. I can’t say I’ll stop playing a game entirely if it makes me create an account, but when it’s the first thing the game does, it rubs me the wrong way. <i>Cards and Castles</i> throws you into a winnable match - a tutorial with limited instructions (most of the game is pretty free form, with more info and help just a double-click away) - and only <b><i>asks</i></b> you to create a username, etc. when you’ve elected to start a battle against another real player. I emphasize the word “asks” because the game doesn’t require you to create an account - you’re welcome to play as a guest, even against other players.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">If you choose not to create an account, your username is simply “you”, though you can’t be searched for by other users. </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">It’s also after electing to play a game online that <i>Cards and Castles</i> asks if you’d like Push Notifications to alert you when it’s your turn. This seems like a pretty minor thing, but the fact that these requests come after you’ve decided to keep playing, and not as soon as you step in the door, made a huge difference to me.
I’ll take a hint from <i>Cards and Castles</i> and brush over the rules of gameplay, another thing it does very well. A much-criticized aspect of modern games is the depth and tedium of <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2013/07/09/5-tips-for-creating-a-better-tutorial/">tutorials</a>, especially in casual, social games. <i>Cards and Castles</i> is extremely accessible to anyone who’d played other CCG’s. Each card contains information for health, damage, movement, attack range, casting cost, and special abilities. The rules are really basic, but there are enough cards and the board is just big enough that a good amount of strategy prevails. Above all else, the game offers an unlimited number of Undo’s before you send play back to your opponent. This may seem like the game is making things <i>too</i> easy, but this proves extremely helpful given the lack of thorough instruction, not to mention my lack of dexterity on an iPhone screen.
Where the game impresses me most is its ability to cross genres. It’s got all of the CCG aspects you’re looking for: booster packs, card rarity and special abilities, factions (card types); but it doesn’t stop there. The game plays more like a board game due to the non-unit buildings located or placed on the board. Each map features four identical towers which drastically shape the strategy of each match. The towers begin as neutral objects, but are captured (and recaptured) fairly easily and become short-ranged defense posts for your side. You can also place friendly buildings near your base, adding things like gold (mana), unit health, or damage to your cause.
There are a lot of comparisons between <i>Cards and Castles</i> and one of my absolute favorite mobile games, <i>Outwitters</i>. No one would ever call <i>Outwitters</i> a CCG, but the games play virtually identically. The major difference, and point in the former’s favor, is that the CCG element adds not only a way to improve your team, or deck in this case, but also an exponentially greater pool of characters (cards) to choose from. I can’t speak to the game’s longterm depth as I’ve only been playing it this week, but through several days I’m still encountering new cards.
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<span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One Man Left’s <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/outwitters/id432969074?mt=8">Outwitters</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Another major difference from <i>Outwitters</i> is that <i>Cards and Castles</i> has an offline AI opponent. Granted, this option doesn’t award you card points, so it’s essentially just practice and deck testing, but if that’s all you’re looking to do it eliminates the need to find and wait for an opponent. As for the competitive gameplay, you’re awarded points each time you finish your turn and send the proverbial ball back in your opponent’s court. With an unlimited (or at least very high) number of games you can play simultaneously, you’re able to rack up points fairly quickly, but the game also weights your first move at a fraction of your subsequent turns, so you can’t spam the system to rack up points - quite clever.
My biggest complaint is that you can’t block specific users or turn down fights, and that should say something. This is a really minor problem, but I’ve played several matches against the same opponent and have no way to stop him or her from challenging me ad infinitum. My initial concern was the overall depth of the game, particularly over a longer period of time. <i>Cards and Castles</i> features 87 different cards, so it should last a while, but I’ve encountered another potential problem. Within a dozen or so games I’ve discovered a vast difference in quality of cards. I haven’t played long enough to determine if these massively powerful cards are simply luck of the draw, or only available in the paid sets. The latter would be quite disturbing, introducing an unfavorable pay-to-win element to an otherwise nearly flawless game, so I’m withholding strong judgement for now, hoping that strategy will prevail.
~~~
<i>Cards and Castles</i> was developed by Thousand Eye, and is available for Free on both <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cards-and-castles/id674210616?mt=8">iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.cardsandcastles.game">Android</a>. For a free-to-play CCG it’s extremely conservative about pushing IAPs (I’m hoping not so much that the game can’t sustain itself) and contains no ads whatsoever. There are IAPs for better booster packs and specialized sets, but it’s not conclusively a pay-to-win kind of deal, and I haven’t been severely outgunned in most of my matches so far, only outplayed. If either the turn-based strategy or CCG elements interest you, this game’s worth a look. If you do catch yourself playing and want a challenge (...or an easy victory), go ahead and add me: jdombro.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-14355787863111179232014-04-21T14:34:00.001-07:002014-05-19T16:00:14.196-07:00Leaderboards, Loopholes, and Lessons From Our First Experience with RTS<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaderboards and Rankings: two of the main foundations for any competitive, social game. When we at Kiwi decided to take a crack at making a mobile RTS (Real Time Strategy) style game with our title <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kiwi.enemylines">Enemy Lines</a></i>, we knew that leaderboards would be part of our formula for making the title work. Players who enjoy the RTS genre all know of Starcraft 2’s ladder ranking as well as other leaderboard systems in comparable games. We decided to aim for that feeling and experience in mobile form.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-UKoVKIgClvw/U1Vtnz73BhI/AAAAAAAAAB8/nGjkLf4IX30/s1600/Screenshot_2014-04-10-22-49-26.png" height="225" width="400" /></span></div>
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For <i>Enemy Lines</i>, we decided to base our leaderboard off of a fairly simple token system: medals. All players started with 1000 medals when they became eligible for player vs. player. Players could then win more by successfully attacking another player’s base or defending their own from an enemy’s siege. Conversely, an unsuccessful attack or failure to stop an enemy’s offense resulted in a loss of medals. At the launch of <i>Enemy Lines</i>, this medal system was a closed loop. If you lost an attack the medals you sacrificed went directly to the opponent for a successful defense and vice versa. This worked well for a while, until the leaderboard began to stretch itself too thin.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ngLaV22AY98/U1VtpxvkECI/AAAAAAAAACE/jIfEFO5qX2A/s1600/Leaderboard+1.png" height="223" width="400" /></span></div>
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The simple search criteria for an opponent was +/- 30% medals. As users rose up the leaderboard, the number of opponents they could find within that medal band (+/- 30%) became smaller and smaller. This created a negative experience for the players in the top ranks of the game. They’d worked hard to gain all of those medals, yet once they got to the top, they started to get “Enemy Not Found” (ENF) messages as matchmaking began to fail. Not only was the search pool smaller at the top, a lot of high-ranked players would leave their games on indefinitely. This prevented them from being attacked and kept them out of the matchmaking pool, helping them individually but hurting the system as a whole. Frustrated top players began to “dump” medals (purposely losing in order to find easier enemies to attack). Soon, we found that very powerful, high-level players were decimating new players at low medal bands. We had to find a solution to both the ENF and Dumping problem.
The dumping problem was addressed fairly easily. We added a +/- 5 “player levels” to the matchmaking search. This meant that high-level players who dumped medals still couldn’t be matched against a disproportionately new player. These players would either fight others who had dumped their medals, or they wouldn’t find opponents at all.
The ENF issue for higher level players was a bit more complicated to solve. We decided on a solution where we would “clone” a player base that would be an appropriate match, upgrade all the defenses to max, and fill the base with troops. When a player would have gotten an ENF message, they were instead presented with the “cloned” base. This eliminated the ENF problem, but a HUGE new problem reared its head.
Players were having a blast with the clone bases, but we underestimated the strength of some of these players. With no limit on the medals or resources looted from these clone wars, high-level players took just hours to begin abusing the new system. Two days in, a player had racked up more than a thousand medals from the clone maps and perched himself at the top of the leaderboard. We quickly released a patch capping both medals and resources that could be gained from cloned bases per day, but the damage was done. The players who had abused the early stages of the clone system had cemented themselves atop the leaderboard.
The first time you branch into a new genre, things are going to happen that you can’t anticipate. Once a game is live it evolves in ways you would never expect and you have no choice but to roll with the punches. Reflecting on <i>Enemy Lines</i> and the RTS genre as a whole, there was one feature that would have made all of the problems easier to handle: Leaderboard/Rank Resets.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MKQEgWeIsUI/U1Vv97Y4FrI/AAAAAAAAACQ/koYJm_31444/s1600/unnamed.png" height="223" width="400" /></span></div>
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</span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Leaderboard/Rank resets are actually common in all top RTS and competitive titles. <i>Starcraft 2</i>, <i>Hearthstone</i>, <i>League of Legends</i>, <i>World of Warcraft</i>, even <i>Clash of Clans</i> utilise resets in some shape or form, often calling them “Seasons”. During a Season, players climb the leaderboard and compete for top ranks. Once the Season is over, rewards are distributed and ranks are reset to a baseline. The next Season starts, and the cycle repeats.
<i>Enemy Lines</i> needed this. While the addition of Seasons wouldn’t have solved all the game’s problems as they sprang up, it would’ve provided an opportunity to undo them soon after. Lets take a look at what happened in <i>Enemy Lines</i>:</span></span></div>
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Top ranked players unable to find matches become frustrated and want to “dump” ranks to find competition.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Players dump medals and ranks to find easier opponents.
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<li><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Certain players abuse a loophole, planting themselves at the top of the leaderboard.</span></li>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Each of these problems are fixed when the Season ends and all players are brought back down to the baseline.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I’ll end with the key lesson we learned from <i>Enemy Lines</i>, one we learned too late: <b>Seasons are the key to any successful competitive game</b>. Not only does it discourage users to see one player infinitely at the top of a leaderboard, having a way to wipe the slate clean if [read: when] something goes wrong is invaluable. Every leaderboard needs the NES reset button, don’t forget yours.
- Nevin Vorfeld
Associate Product Manager, Kiwi, Inc.</span></span></div>
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Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-8246365497322080012014-04-18T14:22:00.000-07:002014-05-19T16:48:08.495-07:00Feature Friday #6 - Rayman Fiesta Run<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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In the spirit of promoting indie games and new ideas, I try not to write about big games from huge publishers, but this week I’ll make an exception. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rayman-fiesta-run/id657811530?mt=8"><i>Rayman Fiesta Run</i> </a>is the followup to the popular <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rayman-jungle-run/id537931449?mt=8">Rayman Jungle Run</a></i>, a mobile spinoff of the nearly 30-year-old <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rayman">Ubisoft franchise</a>. The autorunning collectathon (gameplay is virtually identical between the two, a point I’ll get to later on) may not be revolutionary, but its not yet beaten to death either, and these games are a great example of what the genre should strive to be. The physics feel right, the graphics are spectacular, and there’s enough nostalgia without feeling like they’re banking on the brand alone - good stuff all around for these games. Despite the similarities I’m going to focus on <i>Fiesta Run</i>, the later release, and how it feels given the scale at which it was developed.
Holding Ubisoft and the <i>Rayman</i> franchise to a higher standard is completely valid, as these names were factors to my downloading (and paying for) the game in the first place, not to mention the expectations coming from a AAA studio on mobile should be appropriately elevated. (To backtrack a bit, I bought <i>Rayman Jungle Run</i> largely due to name recognition and critical acclaim; I purchased the sequel because I’d enjoyed the first so much.) Without these factors, the game would’ve fallen in among the countless other games that receive positive reviews, but none of my money. Creating a sequel, much less a full franchise, is a tricky proposition because past experiences inherently influence expectations. Users have invested their time and money into the style of game, the story behind it, even the franchise itself - and they’re expecting that investment to pay off. <i>Rayman</i> benefits from this initial foot in the door, but it’s also provided its own standard for fans of the franchise.
In this sense, <i>Fiesta Run</i> fully lives up to expectations. The graphics are among the best I’ve seen on mobile and stick to the franchise’s roots. I personally don’t love the autorunning genre, but the constant misdirection and changes of scenery do a lot to keep my interest. This is a game you truly have to see to appreciate, and there’s no way to do it justice with words. Hours of gameplay that are truly as challenging as they are fair, plus the option to advance even without 100% completion should satisfy casual players as well as perfectionists.
That’s not to say, however, that <i>Fiesta Run</i> is perfect. Slapping “<i>Rayman</i>” on the title may warrant a premium price tag, but seemingly minor features detract from the game’s overall value. First and foremost, this game is virtually identical to the original, <i>Rayman Jungle Run</i>. If you’ve played this title already, most of what you’re paying for is a new level pack. If you couldn’t get enough disjointed autorunning from the original, this game is totally worth it, but the lack of real innovation felt a little cheap. The biggest change between the two is the transition from <i>Angry Birds</i>-style level selection to a saga-like map, full of challenges and goodies like the ability to unlock cosmetic upgrades.</span></span><br />
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<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/gwykZRddng0qDZDHiSA6R-jvxPfpyzjWAenBCzcJDh0tFJLCE25kIX3y44tu25OxgADlHuM24-C_Hbp6-9bKnYSiIqjyjznBJyC_U9N8Zo95HR7YARpHTqU4rOa24LECSA" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="199px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/gwykZRddng0qDZDHiSA6R-jvxPfpyzjWAenBCzcJDh0tFJLCE25kIX3y44tu25OxgADlHuM24-C_Hbp6-9bKnYSiIqjyjznBJyC_U9N8Zo95HR7YARpHTqU4rOa24LECSA" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none;" width="351px;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Which do you prefer? </span></div>
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<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/eJIM97wxO2bPt495RapeYrZkwkpGitKXFgexgA6cV1Dc2TqS3fn2bhbTfxzhZS49Fm_QWnFbIQFD2JNhq_4tfEk2NPqx0r3T2mvWSiKNrOGsRcBUHnKr8xoALDBoPGRO0w" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="220px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/eJIM97wxO2bPt495RapeYrZkwkpGitKXFgexgA6cV1Dc2TqS3fn2bhbTfxzhZS49Fm_QWnFbIQFD2JNhq_4tfEk2NPqx0r3T2mvWSiKNrOGsRcBUHnKr8xoALDBoPGRO0w" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; line-height: 1.15;" width="350px;" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">This is a fun change and gives the game a more open feel, but also slows things down. You’re forced to watch your path grow after each level you complete, and the map centers to what you’ve just unlocked rather than the level you finished last. Small changes, admittedly, but significant time-sinks at scale and the latter particularly irks my sense of order since I was used to playing levels in a sequence.
The game offers both cosmetic improvements and in-game powerups as IAP, and really seems to give a fair amount of currency, Lums. Because the game isn’t stingy I don’t mind the presence of IAP or the bonus 500 Lums for Facebook integration, but something about this rubs me the wrong way too. This is a paid game from a huge company and they won’t leave the microtransactions alone (maybe that’s how they became a huge company…). The packs of Lums ranging up to $9.99 also sting me a bit, especially given how much the game pushes powerups at the start of each level, and the fact that some really do seem “pay to win”. (I should clarify, one powerup shows you the route necessary to get all 100 Lums in a given level, taking away the problem solving aspect of the game, and turning it solely into a coordination test. It’s worth noting, though, this effect only lasts for one round, so even with a track to follow, if you die you have to re-buy.) Again, the rate at which you earn Lums to spend them seems fair, but the IAPs still feel a little off.
All things considered, <i>Fiesta Run</i> is a great game on its own and does plenty to honor the <i>Rayman</i> franchise. <a href="http://www.pocketgamer.biz/stateside/58841/developers-beware-the-democratisation-of-game-development/">Despite an ever-growing toolbox of premier development tools</a>, a divide remains between large studios and indie developers, and a game’s resources and pedigree cannot be ignored in how we evaluate its success. Neither can its accomplishments, though, and <i>Rayman Fiesta Run</i> certainly has plenty to be proud of.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><i>Rayman Fiesta Run</i> is available for <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rayman-fiesta-run/id657811530?mt=8">$2.99 on iOS</a> and just <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ubisoft.rayman.fiestarun">$0.99 on Android</a> as of this writing! It’s predecessor, <i>Rayman Jungle Run</i>, is $2.99 on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pastagames.ro1mobile">both</a> <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/rayman-jungle-run/id537931449?mt=8">platforms</a>. Both games are a ton of fun, though their similarities may make whichever you play second a bit redundant.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-55412841719915541872014-04-11T13:03:00.003-07:002014-05-19T17:06:04.226-07:00Feature Friday #5 - Only One<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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<a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/IsaacKnowles/20140318/213359/Fitting_mobile_games_into_players_lives.php">Arguably the most crucial factor</a> in determining whether or not a mobile game will become a hit is if it’s enjoyable in short bursts. The ability to create a deep experience that can be enjoyed in bitesized pieces is paramount to a game’s broad appeal and financial gain. <i><a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rebelbinary.onlyone">Only One</a></i> is a level-based battle arena brawler that straddles that line between pickup and play and deep RTS experience with moderate success.
The game is fun, let’s start with that. The combat is entertaining and appropriately difficult for this genre. The gameplay certainly more in-depth than “casual” games, but takes just a few seconds to understand. You’re in a ring atop a pillar in the sky, the fall from which will kill you and your opponents. If you’re able to best your enemies on solid footing you get to pick up their loot, but knocking them off tumbles their spoils along with their bodies. Nuances like this make the game a little more complicated, and the skill tree is fairly tall, so there’s a good amount of long term appeal too.
Where the game struggles isn’t the difficulty per se, but how much you have to grind to progress. I don’t mind dying repeatedly in a game if the gameplay is worth it (which I’ve already established it is), but it’s when there’s a total lack of progress that I get annoyed. When I die over and over, but am gaining valuable money or in-game experience it feels worth it, because eventually these deaths will result in a level up, new item, or some other kind of upgrade. The problem is that <i>Only One</i> is missing the results part of the grinding. There are rewards that you can eventually earn by grinding (or paying), but most are pretty out of reach unless you’re willing to put some serious time in.
The game is broken into micro levels - waves of slimes, archers, and even the occasional Flappy Bird or Pedobear - with a boss after every tenth. Defeating each boss results in a checkpoint of sorts, so at least the game cuts you some slack. In several hours I’ve only reached the fifth boss once, and was quickly destroyed by his fiery attacks. Again, I don’t mind dying a bunch before beating the next boss, but not getting any further than the time before gets frustrating after a while.
Another design decision I didn’t really agree with was the art style. <a href="http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/03/18/why-pixel-art-is-totally-awesome?utm_content=buffera1e50&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer">Plenty of people love pixel art</a>, and I’m all for it when it feels right. There are <a href="https://www.makegameswith.us/gamernews/312/20-top-pixel-games-on-the-iphone">various levels of pixelation</a>, though, and this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel. <a href="https://docs.google.com/a/kiwiup.com/document/d/1v81Bc19f-Tc4tvHUTDhg-6cjDSHFW4hGWPxX6mSCOsI/edit?pli=1">As I mentioned last week</a>, this could have been strategic, as the gore in the game might’ve turned off some users had it been realistic, but this wasn’t a game aimed for young fans or mass audiences. <i>Only One </i>is spectacularly indie, and I think higher quality art, even if a bit gory, would’ve been a dramatic improvement. It’s likely that the developer didn’t have the art resources to do anything other than what he did, but I would’ve loved to see some high-quality pixel art or 3D graphics.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Only One</i>'s graphics</span></span></span></div>
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<img height="286px;" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/KP6jaZd1Hg5EM046_UKNHMdxfOrRjUBMOPfWu0Yndjn65KYL3s8dU_XjdJgApNxnB7xDi_WyToFyRvDHB1OE1cTaqJsP-vIpCgBfPq5EeVHRC4K_1sqRSxqO04cc6MH8Cg" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 1.15;" width="504px;" /></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Higher quality pixel art, seen in <i>Junk Jack</i></span></span><img height="317px;" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_kGicNJRaYMqIbw6G0CJpoWYSss3EYzW4gWz1ldy7AtD8ble2oW4hLAfAtV3RJrrTzlMWlZpRDHWcJjeuquzs5iWaZ7U7DH8_46kbZvye6585wl35FcTeEYDi4HaMEXl1A" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0rad); border: none; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small; line-height: 1.15; white-space: pre-wrap;" width="505px;" /></div>
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Criticisms aside, <i>Only One</i> is pretty great. It’s got 70 levels (of which I’ve barely beaten half), plus an arcade-style endless mode that will keep you busy for hours. There are a ton of abilities that seem both fun and helpful, but as stated earlier, the latency in gaining power means I’ve only had a chance to try a few. All said and done, this game is playable in small doses, but the lack of frequent progression makes accomplishments scarce and skews the game more towards the core persuasion.
~~~
<i><a href="http://www.rebelbinary.com/OnlyOne/">Only One</a></i> was developed by <a href="http://www.ernestszoka.com/">Ernest Szoka</a> and is quite impressive from a one-man team. It’s Free on both <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/only-one/id681646403?mt=8">iOS</a> and <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rebelbinary.onlyone">Android</a> with pretty minimal ads, but a bit of nagging to support the game via in-app purchases. Buying some Power undoubtedly cuts down the grindiness of the game and supports the developer without destroying the difficulty curve. I’d suggest considering making a purchase if that interests you. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-73548789501054463972014-04-04T13:58:00.000-07:002014-05-21T17:41:10.515-07:00Feature Friday #4 - Oh My Heart<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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Some games take years to design, create, and refine, most take months or weeks to polish. <a href="http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/MK-CB327_HOWTOA_NS_20130304183905.jpg">Very few quality products</a> are created in a matter of days; <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oh-my-heart/id599806221?mt=8">Oh My Heart</a> </i>is one of those exceptions. The five-man team at Hyperbolic Magnetism built the game over a 48-hour span and took just another week to clean up and release it on the App Store. While polish and depth might not be the first words that come to mind playing this arcade-style tower defense-like, the game makes no apologies for what it is, and is successful at creating a unique, fun, and challenging experience.
The pixel art was likely an easy choice as a way to save time and programming resources, but also feels consistent with the rest of the game. There’s no shortage of blood and gore in <i>Oh My Heart</i>, so a more realistic art style probably would have required an older age rating and limited the game’s userbase. The gore may not be entirely necessary, but as a finisher to slashing or electrocuting your enemies, at least it fits with the overall style.
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Gameplay is centered around defending yourself from two types of rushing creatures. You have a tesla coil, some magical kind of slashing ability, and bombs to halt the waves of attackers trying to climb your fence and apparently cause you harm. The smaller of the two foes simply need to be electrocuted by the aforementioned coil, and they drop off the fence. Once on the ground, a well-placed bomb can knock out as many enemies as it reaches, spewing blood and bones all around. The bigger variety of baddie needs to be sliced in two, but in a Hydra-like twist, they turn into two of the little guys, causing more problems than before. As if the game wasn’t hard enough on its own, bombs cost money and happen to be the only way to actually kill enemies. This means you can’t spend all your time just stopping the onslaught, you have to catch coins as they fall from the sky or explode from the corpses of fallen enemies. The game gives you more than enough coins to make this possible, but it’s a nice added challenge so that you can’t just spam the screen with bombs.
To tip the balance a bit back in the user’s favor, powerups occasionally appear in crates along with the coins. There are a ton of different powerups, and both their appearance and variety seem completely random - a nice touch so that the game never becomes too predictable. Some powerups help you defend yourself - slowmo, super tesla, etc. - others improve your ability to defend yourself - coin doubler, energy refuel. I’ve found more than once that a well-timed powerup is the only thing between life and death.
The game is fairly simple, and the UI reflects that. Instead of a cluttered menu full of tutorials, the game offers only “New Game” and “Credits”. You have a few gameplay options, but they’re largely similar, so this doesn’t turn out to be a difficult decision, and the game features Gamecenter support and achievements. That’s it, <a href="http://conquertheworldbycode.wordpress.com/nostalgia-2/in-game-ui/">nothing else to clutter the screen or the experience</a>. Despite the simplicity, <i>Oh My Heart</i> doesn’t feel rushed (even though, you know, it was), and really pulls off the wacky, gory, defense experience it’s going for.
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<i>Oh My Heart</i> is available on <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/oh-my-heart/id599806221?mt=8">iOS</a> for $0.99. It features no ads, no in-app purchases, and quite a bit of fun. You can also read the developers' own <a href="http://omh.hyperbolicmagnetism.com/">thoughts on the project</a>. If you like it, check out other the other games by <a href="http://www.hyperbolicmagnetism.com/">Hyperbolic Magnetism</a>.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-89929940439146463822014-03-28T13:53:00.000-07:002014-05-21T17:51:33.052-07:00Feature Friday #3 - Fishbowl Racer<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
*Note: I played this game on an iOS device, the Android version does feature ads.
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Endless runners are one of those categories that just work on mobile devices. It’s undoubtedly for this reason that the genre has been done to death, and then some. It therefore becomes noteworthy when someone is able to make an endless-whatever game and do something different with it, case in point, <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishbowl-racer/id497960879?mt=8">Fishbowl Racer</a></i> by Donut Games. Oddly enough, doing something old, really old, was crucial in making this game something new.
This game puts you in charge of a fish’s life, inside a bowl on an apparently runaway cart. Where things get cool is that you’re in control of both the fish jumping out of the bowl and the inexplicably self-jumping cart. This game is hard. Really hard. Think every endless runner you’ve ever played, now try playing another one with your other hand at the same time. So the first cool thing <i>Fishbowl Racer</i> does is actually challenge the user with a unique control system. The difficulty also keeps things fresh; whereas with most endless runners, an advanced player can often keep a single run going for minutes, <i>Fishbowl Racer</i> is so hard that a minute-long run hardly seems possible.
The game looks good. Nothing flashy, but a consistent art style all the way through. All things considered, the art and the difficulty are reminiscent of SNES-era gaming. It’s not pixel art or chiptune soundtracks, and not so infuriatingly difficult that you’re able to appreciate one release every few years, but still extremely challenging.
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Another nice old-school touch was the complete and total lack of several modern gaming staples: ads*, in-app purchases, and powerups. It’s rare for a game today to leave out any of these components (let alone all three!), but <i>Fishbowl Racer</i> does just that, and it does not go unnoticed. Powerups are especially popular among endless runners - coin magnets, extra lives, higher jumps, et. al. - and would’ve fit into this game perfectly, but the devs took a bold stand against these additions. Including such powerups would’ve likely transformed the game’s points (which function as solely a means of tracking your score) into a soft currency and opened the door for in-app purchases. <a href="http://venturebeat.com/2014/03/26/mobile-in-app-ad-revenues-will-surpass-pc-online-display-advertising-by-2017/">About 40 percent of developers use in-app ads in their apps</a> (and that number is much higher on Android), so it’s worth noting when a game omits them, <a href="http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/do-mobile-ads-still-suck-138189">but not game-changing one way or the other to most users</a>.
There’s also a nice mix of old and new in that they throw in achievements and a daily high score, in addition to an all-time high score. The presence of achievements without any IAP or powerups seems pure - you really have to earn every little trophy you get since there’s no option to buy your way to the top.
The decision to reject both IAP and ads is great for the users, but is a tough decision to make from the developer’s standpoint. It seems a studio the size of Donut Games can afford to take a small hit financially with this game if it helps to build their overall userbase, ideally creating more paying users for their other games. Overall, <i>Fishbowl Racer</i> is a satisfying experience from start to finish (as quick as that may be), and serves as a great example of old school style with a modern finish.
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As of this writing, <i>Fishbowl Racer</i> is available for free on both <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.donutgames.fishbowlracer">Android</a> and <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/fishbowl-racer/id497960879?mt=8">iOS</a>. The team at Donut Games does enough right in this game to justify a little bit of payment (you know, if you’re into that sort of thing), but doesn’t offer any way to accept it. They have created <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Donut+Games">a whole slew of other games</a>, however, most of which cost $1-2 on iOS and are free but feature ads on Android, so feel free to check those out if you love <i>Fishbowl Racer</i>.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-43287009583156038762014-03-21T15:54:00.001-07:002014-05-21T18:14:33.588-07:00Feature Friday #2 - Joust Legend<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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Complexity is a tough issue with mobile games. Financial success favors the casual market, but many developers continue to create the immersive, core gaming experience they love. Building a game that’s accessible to the masses, but deep enough to attract and keep a more core audience is crucial to any developer. <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/joust-legend/id680539008?mt=8">Joust Legend</a></i> by Rebellion Games strikes an interesting middle ground, but may take too long getting there.
The game attracts users with fantastic visuals and a fun, fairly unique control system. The tutorial is extremely patient and will get you through the basics of gameplay, but ultimately is missing a lot of crucial information. They created some really cool mechanics - notably, a two-stage, two-control system for launching and landing your attack - but don’t fully explain them.
You start your horse by timing your release with the launch meter, either with or against the ‘tide’, as the bar is in constant motion on its own. This task is far from impossible, but proves tricky every time. Your performance on launch - either “bad”, “good”, “great”, or “perfect” - affects how much damage you deal your opponent (though never explicitly explained).
Post-launch, aim becomes the key metric of your jousting success. This mechanic is the most crucial - affecting both damage and score - and most fun to do over and over. If you deal enough damage to your rival you can unhorse him, instantly ending the match. Realistically though, healing powerups and improved armor make this fairly difficult, and most jousts end after three passes with the more accurate knight prevailing. The screen presents icons for your opponent’s helm and targe (shield), with blank spaces in between representing the body and crest of the helm. Each part of the body is worth a different score multiplier, and your precision within each region dramatically impacts your score. This is another area that wasn’t entirely transparent upon first playthrough, but the more centered your cursor is within a region seems to mean higher the accuracy for your score.
Both of these systems are simple enough to grasp during the tutorial, but don’t really get any easier as you progress through the game. The combination of all these variables makes each joust different and challenging; after extensive playing, I’m still not guaranteed to hit, let alone pin the lance on the helm directly. This challenge is ultimately a very good thing for the game’s core appeal - put a notch in the complexity column.
There are four game modes - Practice, Prize Fight, Wager, and King’s Tourney - all of which are required to progress through the story, but only the last changes as you play. The dialogue is largely irrelevant, but makes sense from all angles and doesn’t get in the way of itself. In short, I’m totally fine with the way they handled the 'story' element. Some of the modes lock themselves depending on where you are in the story, and while this is somewhat frustrating, it’s also understandable on the first playthrough. The problem lies in the fact that you can’t bypass these delays on subsequent runs through the game, causing a bit of a slowdown and some frustration. After you make your way through a few one-on-one matches and tourneys - each consisting of 3, 5, or 7 rounds (each round containing 3 passes) - you face Louis, the best jouster in France. Regardless of win or loss, the game starts over after this match and everything is reset besides your money and prizes. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">I think the finality of this last joust is great, but the way the game progresses through each game mode and the sheer number of matches feels more than a little tedious as you strive for redemption or domination over Louis. <a href="http://www.flurry.com/bid/109445/Flurry-s-Gaming-Matrix-Re-loaded-on-Android#.U31OylhdVhN">This matrix</a> on the Flurry blog shows some engagement and retention metrics broken down by genre, which largely reflect my (expected) experience with <i>Joust Legend</i>, itself a mix between Arcade and Action-RPG. While I can’t yet speak to my 30-day retention with the game, I don’t expect it to go much past this week, though my number of sessions has been well above average for those genres. </span></span><br />
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<img alt="Android Frequency and Retention resized 600" height="539px;" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/KNzuS89-qKc4uJmY43uiGpae_-GP_8BU5bjNnMrX4GnTUNEcK0UmRBv2zc0gJyV-MXvhhZNMs9fbK-gGPuKXZW1ILLxW8pksEeIyhBkDeJ-om9iUbve_JlkFaz7zkw" style="-webkit-transform: rotate(0.00rad); border: none; transform: rotate(0.00rad);" width="600px;" /><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">After the third go I’m less interested in continuing to joust, but the gameplay is still fun and certainly challenging, which is pretty good staying power for this sort of game.
A big takeaway is that as fun as a lot of these mechanics are, they’re kind of confusing, and definitely not what I expected in a mobile game with this kind of appearance. Keith Andrew recently said in an <a href="http://www.pocketgamer.biz/news/58226/gdc-2014-96-of-ios-revenue-is-from-6-month-old-top-earners/">article on pocketgamer.biz</a>, “If your game can't scale down to fit into a spare five minutes, they're going to stop playing it.” <i>Joust Legend</i> is accessible in small doses and is complex enough to keep the core audience engaged too. Where the devs missed the boat was properly explaining the game’s strengths (interesting mechanics, interlocking of different game modes) and emphasizing the process of grinding rather than the desired goal. Despite these odd quirks and holes, I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed the actual gameplay. Ultimately, you play a game because it’s fun, and <i>Joust Legend</i> is certainly that.
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As of this post, <i><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/joust-legend/id680539008?mt=8">Joust Legend</a></i> is only available on iOS and is free to download. The app has been paid in the past ($1.99), so grab it while you can.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-935811989090376382.post-32395998191401590072014-03-14T15:31:00.000-07:002014-05-22T11:29:01.428-07:00Feature Friday #1 - Mr. Flap<div dir="ltr" style="margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Every Friday on our blog I’ll feature a game that’s doing something unique, innovative, and truly noteworthy. This isn’t just an app review; it’s an analytical look at a fresh game from the perspective of someone within the game industry.
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<i>Flappy Bird</i> is dead, right? So why, more than three weeks after the word “Flappy” was banned from the iTunes and Google Play stores, is this game still relevant? Well, because as of March 11th, half of the Top-10 Free apps on the iTunes store were direct <i>Flappy Bird</i> clones, so clearly the craze still has some legs. More importantly, why is this post, which focuses on quality, innovative games, <i>still</i> talking about that flapping bird? The answer to the latter is <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mr-flap/id822206495?mt=8"><i>Mr. Flap</i></a>, a legitimately fresh take on a painfully stale concept.
<i>Mr. Flap</i> was created by <a href="http://1button.co/mrflap">1Button</a>, a three-man indie team from France, and capitalizes on the one-touch, bird flapping action that’s all the rage right now. Here’s what it does differently: you fly around a circular track with a minimalistic art style – an initial contrast to all the other side-scrolling, <i>Mario</i>-esque Flappy games. Despite the simplicity of the art style, the developers threw in some nice touches like seeing the bird’s shadow as it goes around the track, plus the background changes color every five levels.</span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Jm3mU0XS_U/U35A1t325dI/AAAAAAAAAHY/qy9yAZl2b_Y/s1600/3.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_Jm3mU0XS_U/U35A1t325dI/AAAAAAAAAHY/qy9yAZl2b_Y/s1600/3.jpeg" height="200" width="112" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rz26XEVS8gk/U35A1lSwdzI/AAAAAAAAAHc/6gUFtvAdzt0/s1600/2.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rz26XEVS8gk/U35A1lSwdzI/AAAAAAAAAHc/6gUFtvAdzt0/s1600/2.jpeg" height="200" width="112" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S-3qV2XRx5U/U35A1jDhYWI/AAAAAAAAAHU/9fBJiKlXfSc/s1600/1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-S-3qV2XRx5U/U35A1jDhYWI/AAAAAAAAAHU/9fBJiKlXfSc/s1600/1.jpeg" height="200" width="112" /></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px; line-height: 17.25px; white-space: pre-wrap;">The circular track creates quite a few challenges in <i>Mr. Flap</i> (staying level while upside down is way harder than you think). The game embraces the masocore appeal of its predecessor and improves on it. Not only is <i>Mr. Flap</i> more difficult than <i>Flappy Bird</i>, it’s also much less repetitive. After a certain point, <i>Flappy Bird</i> becomes mostly a test of “how long can you go without messing up?” (in my case, 274 times), given its static obstacles and limited range of heights. Despite <i>Mr. Flap</i> features similarly limited obstacles, the bars are constantly moving, requiring the user to rely more on reactions than the ability to stave off boredom (consequently, I haven’t gotten more than eight).
Finally, and most importantly from the developers’ standpoint, <i>Mr. Flap</i> uses interstitial ads rather than banners. This choice is almost universally preferred by users – one of Flappy Bird’s most ongoing critiques was its use of banner ads during Flapping, obstructing view and disrupting gameplay – and is pound-for-pound much more effective at monetizing than banner ads. Looking at Kiwi’s games for January 2014, the difference is striking. Interstitial ads in three of Kiwi’s games had a click-through rate (CTR) of 3.85% while the CTR for banners was just 0.62%. Admittedly, clicks are meaningless without revenue, but those numbers were just as telling. CPMs (cost per thousand ad impressions) were $1.50 for interstitials and $0.29 for banners, meaning Kiwi earned $1.21 more per thousand full-screen ads compared to banners. When viewed at the scale that Flappy Bird witnessed, banner ads can be successful, but generally interstitials are a better bang for your developer buck.
All things considered, <i>Mr. Flap</i> does a phenomenal job of taking an overdone game and improving on it in virtually every way. From the top down, 1Button did a great job designing this casual reboot, and should be commended for it. Let’s hope for more innovation along these lines… or you know, the eradication of all Flappy games entirely. Either way works.
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<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mr-flap/id822206495?mt=8"><i>Mr. Flap</i></a> is only available on iOS as of this post, [<b>Note</b>: it's now on <a href="https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mrflap">Android</a>!] and is free to download. If you’re interested in reading more about <i>Flappy Bird</i>, check out Rolling Stone‘s <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/the-flight-of-the-birdman-flappy-bird-creator-dong-nguyen-speaks-out-20140311">exclusive interview</a> with its developer, Dong Nguyen.
Josh Dombro
Community Manager</span></span></div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0