Category Archives: Android

Train2Game News: Jonathan Ross’s game coming to Android

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Catcha Catcha AliensThe wait for the Android version of Jonathan Ross’s critically acclaimed “Catcha Catcha Aliens!” is over as it will be released on Google Play for Android on March 7. The game will be free to play and the iOS version will follow suit the same day.

Alien catchers who have already purchased the iOS App will be credited with 20,000 Zhillings, the virtual currency of the game, if they have the initial version installed on the device when they update their game.

“Catcha Catcha Aliens!” was originally released on December 3 for iOS and is the first title from Hotsauce interactive, a new development studio set up by TV personality, Jonathan Ross.

The game, which is a mission based catching game, has received plaudits for its high quality distinctive graphics, quirky humour, level based mini-challenges, original sound-track as well as its take on a popular genre. It has also been voiced by Stephen Fry and Jonathan himself.

Commenting on the Android launch and iOS update Jonathan Ross said “We’re quietly pleased with how our first game turned out. An Android version was always in the works but having made the decision to go free to play on iOS devices we decided to wait until we could launch both together.

To ensure that everyone who has already purchased the App won’t lose out, we are giving free in-game money to everyone who has already bought Catcha Catcha. Two new levels are nearly finished, and we are working on more characters as well as more games. Being involved in this process is even more exciting than I imagined it to be, and I hope that at least some of this excitement comes across in the finished game”.

For further information on “Catcha Catcha Aliens!” you can log on to http://hotsauceinteractive.co.uk/ follow on twitter @HotsauceTV or visit http://www.facebook.com/HotsauceInteractive

Train2Game News: Smart device games outselling handheld

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Smart devicesGames on smart devices are outselling games on Nintendo and Sony handheld consoles. This is excellent news for Train2Game students looking to break in to the industry.

The final quarter of the year’s sales are normally the best for devices such as the 3DS and VITA, thanks to all the package deals around Christmas time. This time however iOS and Android games completely eclipsed the games sales of the consoles.

A breakdown of the data also indicates that iOS games made three-and-a-half times more money than Android ones over the period but Android games are growing at a faster rate.

The data covers global sales between October and December 2012 and comes despite the fact that games for the PlayStation Vita and 3DS typically cost more than their smartphone equivalents. In-game ad revenues were excluded.

Despite the findings, the researchers said they believed the Japanese firms would release further handhelds.

The Portable Gaming Report by IDC and App Annie is the first of its kind produced by the companies. It helps build on NPD’s influential monthly study of US games sales which does not include smartphone and tablet games.

IDC’s Lewis Ward said “If you rewind the clock a year you will find the dedicated handhelds were clearly ahead, and this year they are more or less tied with an edge going to Android and iOS games.

“If we fast forward to the end of 2013 we should see a decisive edge for smartphone and tablet gaming.

“I think a further version of the Vita could be the last dedicated handheld from Sony, but I suspect Nintendo will continue for a while. They are three to four times as large as Sony in this business and I think they have a much more defensible niche.”

All this data is good news for Train2Game students as the mobile market is much easier to develop for than the console market and with the mobile market growing to even bigger and better heights there should be more chance of developing a financially successful game.

Train2Game News: Train2Game Radio talks to Lee Sainsbury

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Lee SainsburyEarlier this week I got the pleasure of talking to Lee Sainsbury, Game Designer of Icey Monty who are hoping to release there first title, Tamarex, this Sunday, Lee talks about how Train2Game has helped him and how the idea behind Tamarex was formed.

You can listen to the interview, here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1215262-train2game-student-lee-sainsbury-speak-to-mark-on-t2g-radio

Or read the transcript below:

Hi I’m Lee Sainsbury, I am 24 from Manchester and I am studying the Game Design course.

Hi Lee, how you doing?
I’m not to bad Mark, how are you?

I’m very well ta buddy! So tell me a bit about yourself, how did you get to where you are now?
Well I started the Train2Game Course in 2009, I really wanted to study Game Design all my life. I’ve always been a gamer and Train2Game just popped up and it was a perfect opportunity to study in my own time and yeah really give me the opportunity to grow.

What sort of things are you doing with it now?
Well since I’ve been on the Train2Game course for so long, I’ve made a lot of contacts, worked on a few personal projects and recently I’ve just joined Icey Monty, where we developed Tamarex.

How did the idea for Tamarex come about?
Well, before we worked on a project that ran into some circumstances and we had to stop. So really we wanted to come up with a really easy fun idea that we could just sit down and work on. The idea for a Tamagotchi game came around and of course, my generation, everyone had a Tamagotchi! I thought it would be fun to make a fresh take on the Tamagotchi genre. That’s where the idea for Tamarex came around.

So what’s the idea behind Tamarex?
Ah, the idea behind Tamarex. OK well, the idea behind Tamarex is that you take care of a pet Dinosaur. We didn’t really want to go for the usual Cats and Dogs. We found that the Dinosaur was a bit funny, a bit quirky. So yeah you have to take care of a pet Dinosaur, you can feed it, you have to wash it, you have to clean up after it, you can play with and yeah that’s it.

Were you a big fan of the Tamagotchi when you were younger then?
Oh definitely! I think every kid my age, at the time, had a Tamagotchi and we all used to palm it off on our parents when we went to school.

Yeah I remember doing the same thing! So how’s the course helping you get to making the game?
Well there’s no bounds, it’s helped me massively! Just understanding game design and game development was a help too. I think that if I hadn’t done the course, I wouldn’t be where I am now. It’s just helped me so much, it’s unbelievable!

Is that where you met the other members of Icey Monty?
Yes! John and Nick, both Train2Game students and they’re both programmers. We met through the forums, we did a couple of projects together and then decided we would go for a commercial release eventually, which was Tamarex!

Where can people find out more about the studio?
We’ve got a website which is www.iceymonty.com we also have a Facebook page at IceyMonty. Or you can come and chat to us on the forums at http://www.forum.train2game.com we are all on there.

Excellent, so it’s all going pretty well then?
Yeah, it’s going fabulous actually!

When is the game going to be out?
We have scheduled the release for this Sunday! If everything goes well with Apple, and they decide the game’s going to be released then it should be this Sunday, hopefully, fingers crossed! It will be on the Android store as well.

Excellent, brilliant news! Thank you very much Lee
Thank you very much Mark

And good luck with everything
Cheers

Train2Game News: Pokémon TV app for mobile devices

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Pokémon TV appToday Train2Game brings more great news for Pokémon fans around the globe! You can now watch Pokémon episodes on your iOS or Android device.

The Pokémon Company International launched the official Pokémon TV application earlier this week, it is available now for free on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch—and Android devices. The Pokémon TV app helps fans follow the many adventures of Ash, Pikachu, and their friends in fan-favourite episodes from the animated television series that will be updated weekly from a library of more than 700 episodes spanning fifteen seasons. In addition, Pokémon fans can catch special features, trailers, and Pokémon movie events using the Pokémon TV app.

Also, Pokémon fans can catch the debut of the animated short Meloetta’s Moonlight Serenade on February 15—available only through the Pokémon TV app and on www.pokemon.co.uk. This special event will be the first time Meloetta’s Moonlight Serenade is shown in English, and fans who watch can expect a sneak peek at the magic of Meloetta’s Pirouette Forme! Stay tuned—further exciting Meloetta news for video game fans will follow shortly!

Standard data charges will apply when using the Pokémon TV app. The Pokémon TV app is available in countries outside of Asia and can be downloaded from the App Store here:
https://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/pokemon-tv/id594261405?mt=8

Or from the Google Play Store here:https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pokemontv&hl=en_GB
.
Be sure to visit Pokemon.co.uk, Like the official Pokémon Facebook page at Facebook.com/Pokemon, and follow Pokémon on Twitter @Pokemon to receive the latest Pokémon news.

Train2Game News: End of week round up – 08.02.13

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Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3's does it look dated to you?Train2Game are this week bringing you an end of the week round up of news.

A new Call Of Duty has been confirmed for the fourth quarter of this year. “The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect a new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher,” said CFO Dennis Durkin during a financials conference call today. Historical trends indicate this year’s title is likely to be a new entry in the ‘Modern Warfare’ line, developed by Infinity Ward. Expect an early November release.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot told investors on Thursday that Ubisoft plans to publish a new Assassin’s Creed game during the 2014 financial year. The game, developed across several of Ubisoft’s global games development studios, will likely be introduced at E3 this year. Although Guillemot didn’t go into too much detail, it was confirmed the game will take place in a new time period and star a new character. In further Assassin’s Creed news, Assassin’s Creed 3 sales have reached 12 million across the globe.

Yet another big game sequel that surfaced this week was that of Little Big Planet 3. The game is being developed by Sumo Digital who were the company behind the cross controller pack for Little Big Planet 2. Sony have yet to comment on this but VG247 was told that the independent, Sheffield-based studio has been working on the project for unknown platforms for “well over a year”.

The first trailer has been released for the up coming Activision Walking Dead game, The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct. The game features the Dixon brothers, Daryl and Merle. In addition, Activision announced that those who pre-order The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct on Xbox 360 or PS3 at GAME or GameStop Ireland will receive the Walker Herd Survival Pack, which contains Herd Mode where you stave off endless waves of the undead. The add-on will also grant new weapons in the story mode including a survival knife, sawtoothed machete, kukri, reinforced hatchet and advanced machete. If you do get the add-on, be sure to install it before starting the game as you won’t be able to access the new weapons in a game already in progress. You can watch the trailer here.

The developers of the OUYA android console have said that they want to release a new OUYA every year. Ouya company founder Julie Uhrman said “There will be a new Ouya every year. There will be an Ouya 2 and an Ouya 3. We’ll take advantage of faster, better processors, take advantage of prices falling. So if we can get more than 8GB of Flash in our box, we will.” By the end of last year, 1200 Ouya dev kits had been sent out. By the end of January, the software development package had been downloaded 22,000 times.

Train2Game News: GameStick Kickstarter earns over $600k

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GameStickThe Android based GameStick has now finished its Kickstarter and it has made over 6 times more than it needed.

The GameStick is a new portable console that runs the android operating system. It is a very small stick, similar to that of a USB stick, with a HDMI connection so it can plug straight in to your HD TV. The stick can be stored inside of it’s specially made Bluetooth controller to keep it safe and compact. The GameStick will also work with other Bluetooth controllers.

GameStick´s purpose-built game store will be powered by PlayJam´s built-for-TV technology enabling users to browse, download content and interact with the wider GameStick community.

The campaign to fund the production of GameStick, which is set to ship in April 2013, closed on Friday with pledges coming in right up to the last second finishing at 648% of the original target with a total of $648k. Those that missed out on the Kickstarter campaign will be able to pre-order via the GameStick website at www.gamestick.tv.

Anthony Johnson, CMO, PlayJam said “We are overwhelmed, excited, grateful, thrilled and everything in between. The campaign has been an incredible success with support from thousands of backers worldwide but this is just the beginning. The feedback from the Kickstarter community has been invaluable in shaping the final product and we will continue to seek input from those that supported us to ensure continued innovation ahead of a global retail launch.”

Throughout the campaign the team responded to thousands of comments and suggestions from Kickstarter backers that saw the product evolve in real-time as the team scrambled to incorporate a number of requested features from additional memory capacity to support for peripheral hardware via a docking station.

GameStick, described as ‘The Most Portable TV games Console Ever Created’ has been hailed by many supporters as the console to disrupt the games industry. The device has gathered high profile supporters throughout the campaign such as; Jason Kingsley, (Founder of Rebellion), Jason Bradbury (Gadget Show host) Jermaine Dupri (Record producer) and Shaquille O’Neal (Basketball Legend).

You can download a SDK for the new device at www.gamestick.tv and start developing for a new consoling experience.

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 30.01.13

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It’s time for another Train2Game mid-week round up!

As the Kickstarter draws to a close for the Gamestick console, images of the android gaming machine have been released. You can visit the Kickstarter site to view the console and add to the cause if it takes your interest. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/872297630/gamestick-the-most-portable-tv-games-console-ever

In previous Bioshock games, the moral decisions have been to choose whether the Little Sisters lived or died. In Bioshock Infinite, the decisions you have to make are more powerful and less commonplace. BioShock Infinite will still present plenty of moral quandaries, but these are not tied to a specific system that in turn determines what ending you’ll get.

Google is to provide UK schools with 15,000 free Raspberry Pi Model B computers. Qualifications awarding body OCR will also create free teaching and learning packs to go with each Raspberry Pi. Responding to the news, games industry veteran Ian Livingstone said: “Putting Raspberry Pis into the hands of children on this scale is potentially the most positive initiative to spur digital creativity since the advent of the BBC Micro in the 1980s.”

Lifetime Xbox 360 sales look certain to overtake those of current-gen leader Nintendo Wii in the UK. Microsoft’s console was less than 200,000 sales behind Wii at the end of December, having sold over four times more units than Wii in 2012. Nintendo UK confirmed before Christmas that around 8 million Wii consoles had been sold in the UK. Despite a reported 33% decline in video game console sales last year, Xbox 360 is said to have outsold its current-gen rivals by a “significant margin” in Britain during 2012. Nintendo DS and PlayStation 2 remain the UK’s first and second best selling games consoles respectively, with Wii and Xbox 360 currently in third and fourth spots.

Temple Run 2 has been released for iOS and now Android. The sequel to the hit game has hit 20,000 downloads on iOS alone. Developed by Imangi Studios, the app rushed to the top of the free App charts on iOS in just eight hours, and also hit number three in the Top Grossing chart. In its first week on sale, Temple Run 2 racked up 210 million sessions and 1,775 years of gameplay.

Train2Game News: Train2Game Radio talks to Dan Rutter

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Dan and Vicki RutterTrain2Game radio got the pleasure of speaking to Dan Rutter about his new studio him and his wife have started, Turret Studios. They have a great game idea and a lot of ambition to get it done.

You can listen to part one of the radio interview here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1181723-train2game-student-dan-rutter-talks-to-mark1

and part two here: http://audioboo.fm/boos/1181705-train2game-student-dan-rutter-talks-to-mark2

Or read the transcript below:

Hello my name is Dan, I am on the Art and Animation course and I live in Teddington.

Hi Dan, how you doing?
I’m fine Mark, how are you?

I’m great thank you buddy! So, tell me a bit about yourself. What’s your story and the past experiences that have shaped your life?
OK, I went to university studying Model Making for TV and Film. I came out of that with a degree, I’ve ended up working in the model making field, I’ve done some stuff for film and TV. I then moved in to Architecture but through all of that games have been a massive passion of mine and my wife. So I looked at the Train2Game course, applied in May 2 years ago now I think it was. Entered the Game Jam competition in November where we came in the top three, ended up going to the Gadget Show Live in April where we had some pretty good success. I mean, we didn’t win but it was a fantastic experience and I met loads of great people! I’ve been plodding on with the course since then and new year, new resolutions and new goals, decided to branch out and do something different this year.

Yeah and what was that?
My Wife and I have started our own company, Turret Studios, aiming to make apps for iOS and Android platforms using the Unity 4 engine.

Is it just Unity that you’re going to be using?
At the moment yes as it is the only engine we can find that enables you to make apps for iOS and Android, giving us as large a spread of the market as possible. We obviously loved using the Unreal Engine during the Game Jam but at the moment it only supports iOS. Whether the Unreal 4 engine will be any different, and I really hope it is because I do really enjoy using that.

Yeah, so what are you working on at the minute? If you can say
Yeah, we can. Our first game is called Digital Dojo and it’s kind of cross between Pokémon and Top Trumps. It’s a collectible type of game, the idea is you go around and scan the bar-code of an object and those numbers, from a pool of robot pieces, will generate a robot which you can level up and customize and then you can challenge your friends through Facebook and if you win you get points so you can upgrade your robot further.

That sounds quite fun!
Good!

I would be interested in that one. So is it just you and your wife working on it or have you got other people as well?
At the moment it’s just myself and my wife. I have a coder friend who goes by the name of Wurley who is giving some of his spare time to help work it out which is good, but we will be looking at trying to get some other students involved if possible. We actually have two competitions that we are going to launch, one is to design a robot character for the game and the other is to design an environment for them to fight in. All the details will be up on our website and you can download templates to sketch over the top of or Photoshop files with layers if you want to work digitally and then we will put them up on our website and let people do a poll so they vote for their favourites and hopefully those designs will end up in the game.

Very nice and what’s the website?
It’s http://www.turret-studios.com

Are you a registered company yet or are you still looking in to that?
Nope, we are a registered company. That paper work has been done.

You are?
Yup, so what I have recently done now is I have switched from full time work and have gone back to Free lancing as a Model Maker. So at the minute I am doing a lot of work for other companies just doing some technical drawings and laser cutting drawings just to bring in some cash that way, which enables us in to putting as much time as possible in to this to get it up and running.

Very nice and have you seen the new forum section that has gone up as well?
I had a browse around last night, I haven’t had a good rummage but I have noticed there have been a few changes.

Yeah like there is a new student studio section that you can apply for it and its only student studios that can post on that to get advice and get people talking, so that’s where you can put things like your competition.
That sounds fantastic! I’ll be doing that straight after this.

Excellent! So did you and your wife meet through gaming or was that something before?
My wife and I met at University. I was doing Model Making and she was doing Furniture and Applied Products but we soon found we were sat in front of the Playstation 2 back then playing SSX and all kinds of games which was quite good fun. We even had Little Big Planet wedding toppers at our wedding and our wedding cupcakes had Marshmallow space invaders on the top, so that’s how heavy in to games we are.

That sounds beautiful! That sounds like the kind of wedding I would like.
It was pretty awesome. Our favour boxes had Marvel Superhero candy sticks and penny sweets in.

So is your wife more the arts type like you or does she do other things as well?
She is very good with her Admin and things. She works in a job where she isn’t doing what she wants to do but it brings in money. In terms of the company and how she fits in to things, at the moment she is looking at learning coding, so she’s got some books and signed up to some courses as a long term goal and in the short term she is running all of our social media, the website and keeping the books, making sure things balance.

Very nice, is she going to get in to Train2Game as well do you think?
It’s definitely an option. It’s just trying to get some things set up and sorted and then try and find time for her to do that. She works quite long hours and works every other Saturday and things like that. So we will be looking in to that

So finally, what is your greatest ambition?
At the moment my greatest ambition is just to get that first app out there, hopefully succesful and what I would really love is to be stood on the train, look over some ones shoulder and see them playing our game. I think that would be fantastic!

That’s a beautiful idea
It’s a great idea, it’s kind of the app equivalent of walking in to a shop and seeing it on a shelf.

Excellent. Well I wish you all the luck with everything Dan
Thank you very much

My pleasure and thank you very much for talking to us today!
No trouble at all, cheers!

Train2Game News: Mid-week round up – 16.01.13

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Valve logoIt is that time of week for the Train2Game mid-week round up!

Valve has announced plans to to discuss a port of Team Fortress 2 to virtual reality goggles. The first talk will be programmer Joe Ludwig’s ‘What We Learned Porting Team Fortress 2 to Virtual Reality’ and it will explore the efforts of several employees over the last year to get the game to run in virtual reality goggles. In addition, Valve’s Michael Abrash will discuss the hardware challenges that lie ahead and possible solutions for virtual and augmented reality in ‘Why Virtual Reality is Hard (And Where it Might be Going).’

Square Enix have launched a new website to tease all fans of an upcoming iOS game. More information is to be released on January 17. The site has an image of what looks like a front end menu for the game which is called, Final Fantasy: All The Bravest. You can check out the website for yourself here: http://www.jp.square-enix.com/ff_atb/

Since Activision brought out Skylanders it has done very well and now Disney has seen it’s potential. They are now doing their own version with the announcement of Disney Infinity. Infinity will work in the same way as Skylanders, needing action figures and a “toy box” base to give players access to different worlds. Disney fans will recognize plenty of familiar faces, like Captain Jack Sparrow, the cast of the Incredibles, and Sully from Monsters Inc.

Surreal game creator Suda51 has revealed details of his next game, Killer is Dead. The game stars Mondo Zappa, a 35 year old American executioner that abides by a strict suit-and-tie policy and his left hand is a gun that can also transform into a drill and is used primarily to absorb an enemy’s blood for an “Adrenalin Burst” attack. The game’s antagonist is Victor, who can manipulate emotions through song. He’s appropriately styled to look like classic composer, except has a green face and glowing eyes.

Online and mobile are spearheading the game industry’s growth to a potential total valuation of $83 billion by 2016, according to new research. Conducted by Digi-Capital, the global games investment review states that online and mobile could have a revenue share of $48 billion in 2016, 55 per cent of the entire game industry. The biggest driver in mobile and tablet app revenue meanwhile will be free-to-play, which could deliver 55 per cent of revenue in the sector and account for 93 per cent of app downloads by 2016.

Train2Game News: A round up of tech from CES

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The Consumers Electronics Show is coming to a close and Train2Game are bringing you the news of some of the most interesting technology to come out of the show.

Steam BoxValves media named Steam Box was finally confirmed at the show after much speculation through 2012.  Valve has invested in computer manufacture Xi3 who will be developing a special customised PC designed to bring Steam to the living room.

The box, codenamed Piston, will offer up to 1TB of internal storage and the ability to upgrade components like the RAM and CPU in the future, a spokesperson told Polygon. Valve will also be making its own Steam Box in-house, and they’ll be a few more from other PC manufacturers too.

It is currently rumored to have 4-8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a quad-core 64-bit, x86-based 32nm processor running at up to 3.2GHz with 4MB of Level2 Cache.

Asus Transformer AiOA new tablet from Asus was announced at the show but this is a tablet with a difference.

The Asus Transformer AiO is a standard tablet running Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) from an Nvidia Tegra 3 processor but you can take it home and connect it to its stand and it becomes a desktop PC running Windows 8 running on a Core i3 processor and Nvidia GT 730M GPU.

The trick is the stand, which has its own array of USB ports and a built-in 1TB hard disk. The tablet itself has 16GB flash memory.

RAZER GROUP EDGE GAMING TABLETAnother exciting tablet that was announced this year was the Razer Edge which is optimised for gaming.

The Razer Edge is a Windows 8 tablet, but a ferociously powerful one with the sort of tech you would expect to find in a gaming laptop. The standard model has a Core i5 processor, an NVidia GT640M LE GPU, 4GB of RAM and a 64GB solid state drive, while the Edge Pro has a Core i7 processor instead, 8GB of RAM and either a 128GB or 256GB solid state drive.

The tablet can also be plugged into a Gamepad Controller, which comes complete with two Wii Nunchuk-style handles featuring two analogue sticks, a D-Pad and a variety of face buttons.

Xperia ZSony Xperia Z was the smart phone announcement to look at for gamers. It’s only 7mm thin, has a 1080p 5-inch screen and is packing a beast of a quad-core Qualcomm processor with 2GB of RAM.

According to Sony, the Xperia Z is the most powerful phone it’s ever made and the first it’s had a strong say in since it took over manufacturing from Ericsson, and it also claims that while it’s running Android 4.1 instead of 4.2, its own “skin” is very minimal and it should be easy to upgrade the OS in the future.

It is set to be an incredibly powerful phone with a good battery life thanks to Sony’s new technology that apparently draws very little power while in sleep mode.