Category Archives: games

Train2Game News: UK Top 20 Games – 28.05.13

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Resident Evil RevelationsFollowing the bank holiday the game charts have been released a day later. There is a new number one this week, Resident Evil Revelations have taken the top spot. Other new additions include, Donkey Kong Country Returns which enters at number five and Fast & Furious Showdown which comes in at number fourteen. Following the reveal of Call Of Duty: Ghosts last week, Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 has plummeted from number five down to number nineteen.

All formats

Week ending 25 May 2013

POS.  TITLE  PUBLISHER  LAST
WEEK 
1 RESIDENT EVIL: REVELATIONS CAPCOM –
2 FIFA 13 EA SPORTS 3
3 METRO LAST LIGHT DEEP SILVER 1
4 DEAD ISLAND: RIPTIDE DEEP SILVER 2
5 DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS NINTENDO –
6 ASSASSIN’S CREED III XBOX 360 CLASSICS 9
7 TOMB RAIDER SQUARE ENIX 6
8 FAR CRY 3 UBISOFT 11
9 LUIGI’S MANSION 2 NINTENDO 12
10 LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER: THE CHASE BEGINS NINTENDO 13
11 INJUSTICE: GODS AMONG US WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 8
12 LEGO BATMAN 2: DC SUPER HEROES WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 14
13 POKEMON MYSTERY DUNGEON: INFINITY NINTENDO 4
14 FAST & FURIOUS: SHOWDOWN ACTIVISION –
15 NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED EA GAMES –
16 GOD OF WAR: ASCENSION SONY COMPUTER ENT. 15
17 THE WALKING DEAD TELLTALE GAMES 7
18 BIOSHOCK INFINITE 2K GAMES 10
19 CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS II ACTIVISION 5
20 SKYLANDERS GIANTS SKYLANDERS 19
< previous week
Leisure software charts compiled by Chart Track, (C)2013 UKIE Ltd

These charts cannot be reproduced either in print or online without obtaining permission from Ukie. If you wish to reproduce the charts in print or online, please contact david.smith@ukie.org.uk for the appropriate license.

Train2Game News: Worlds Most Expensive Game

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Grid 2 special editionCodemasters have announced that the world’s most expensive videogame – the GRID 2: Mono Edition – is available for pre-order with a price tag of £125,000.

This exclusive edition of the game is available for just one customer and includes the highly-anticipated racing game GRID 2, a PlayStation 3 to play it on, a 170 m.p.h. BAC Mono supercar – sporting a GRID 2 livery – and full driver race wear.

The BAC Mono is a British manufactured, road-legal, ultra-high performance supercar which stars in the game. Created from high-strength carbon fibre, the BAC Mono is an unrivalled example of light-weight performance engineering and its 2.3 litre, 280 bhp four cylinder power plant will propel its driver from 0-60 m.p.h. in just 2.8 seconds.

At £125,000, the GRID 2: Mono Edition has set a new Guinness World Records title for the “Most Expensive Video Game Commercially Available – Special Edition” and will include a range of extras for the buyer to enjoy the ultimate experience of racing the car in-game and driving it in real life. The GRID 2: Mono Edition includes:

  • A copy of GRID 2 for PlayStation 3 featuring bespoke packaging artwork
  • BAC Mono supercar in exclusive GRID 2 livery
  • A day at the BAC factory, which includes a factory tour and time spent with technicians, to customise the BAC Mono for size and specifications
  • A GRID 2: Mono Edition branded Bell Racing helmet
  • Race suit, boots & gloves all made to measure in BAC Mono and GRID 2 branding
  • A PlayStation 3

The GRID 2: Mono Edition is available to pre-order at www.game.co.uk/en/grid-2-bac-mono-edition-228776.

“BAC is immensely proud and excited at the release of GRID 2: Mono Edition; a game which offers an opportunity for one lucky person to own a truly unique supercar,” said Neill Briggs, Project Director, BAC Mono. “Codemasters has developed a stunning game which focuses on delivering the ultimate driving experience and Mono is the ultimate expression of this, in both the real and virtual worlds.”

The game’s record-breaking achievement has been shortlisted for entry into the next Guinness World Records Gamer’s Edition.

GRID 2 is the long-awaited sequel to the BAFTA-award winning, critically acclaimed Race Driver: GRID and will invite players race only the world’s most exciting racing cars on city streets, licensed circuits and open-roads. From Paris to Dubai and Barcelona to California, gamers will journey from rookie to racing superstar as they blaze to the top of World Series Racing, a new world of professional motorsport.

While the GRID 2: Mono Edition is a one-off, the standard edition of GRID 2 will race into retail on Friday, May 31. Fans can keep up with all the latest updates straight from the studio by speeding over to www.gridgame.com and www.facebook.com/gridgame or follow the team at www.twitter.com/gridgame.

Train2Game News: Writer opportunity at Ready Up

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Ready UpReady Up, the UK’s biggest community games media website, is recruiting to fill two News Team positions and one staff writing position. For any Train2Game student who enjoys writing about games, this is an incredibly valuable experience and a great way to get recognition in the games industry and make some good contacts.

Ready Up is staffed by industry professionals and passionate amateurs, each bringing different skills: writing, photography, web design and professional gaming, to the site. With daily updates to the website’s blog and review pages, Ready Up’s staff work closely together to produce fresh, topical content, with a personal slant and with passionate style.

Applicants looking to join the three-time GMA-nominated team must have solid spelling and grammar, be well informed, dedicated and have strong knowledge of both video games and the industry.

Requirements

News Team
Successful applicants will be responsible for researching, writing and editing your own topical stories, one day a week. Previous experience in news writing would be an advantage but is not essential. News writers will work within a small team and be expected to contribute to conference calls and regular online meetings.

Staff Writers
Successful applicants will regularly blog, pitch feature ideas and write reviews, producing lively, clever copy, that’s current, accurate and informative.

What they can offer you

If you’re looking to make your break into journalism, Ready Up offers you the chance to build up a body of work, benefit from the coaching and support of established journalists. You will have the opportunity to attend industry events where you’ll have the chance to spend time with game developers and other industry insiders.

How to apply

If you’d like to apply for a position, email Ready Up at recruitment@ready-up.net with the following information.

  • Tell them about yourself and your background.
  • A brief statement on why you think you will make a good addition to the team.
  • A link to your online profile(s) – Blog/Tumblr/Youtube/Twitter/LinkedIn/Facebook.
  • News applicants should include an example news story in Ready Up’s house style. It should be no longer than 200 words and include a headline and strapline (one sentence summing up the article).

All applicants should include examples of relevant work, either attached or linked.

You have to be 18 years old or over to apply. Ready Up is a non-profit organisation and as such there is no payment for work. For updates on the recruitment process follow the company on Twitter and Facebook.

Train2Game News: Xbox One Launch Games

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Xbox OneInstead of the normal news round up on a Friday I thought, with the announcement of the Xbox One I would do a round up of the games announced for the next generation machine.

First of is the one that everyone guessed, Call Of Duty: Ghosts. Published by Activision Publishing, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, and developed by Infinity Ward, the studio that created the original Call of Duty and the seminal Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, Call of Duty: Ghosts ushers in the next generation of the franchise. The new title delivers a riveting all-new gameplay experience built on an entirely new story, setting and cast of characters, all powered by a new, next generation Call of Duty engine that redefines the series for the next generation. Call of Duty: Ghosts releases globally on November 5, 2013. You can enjoy the trailer for the game here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4pqW0Mtc9c

For the war game fans that don’t enjoy the Call Of Duty series, Battlefield 4 was also announced. Developed by DICE, an EA owned Studio, the game will be availble this holiday series for Xbox One and PS4. Powered by the advanced Frostbite 3 engine, Battlefield 4 delivers a genre-defining all-out war experience brought to life with unmatched visual and audio fidelity, superior character animations and dynamic destruction that ensures no two matches are alike. Players that pre-order Battlefield 4 will receive the Battlefield 4 China Rising premium digital expansion pack at no additional cost. In this sprawling expansion, players fight for dominance across the vast and majestic Chinese mainland in four massive multiplayer maps, using all-new vehicles and high-tech military equipment. Separately, players that pre-order the Battlefield 4 Digital Deluxe exclusively on Origin will receive the base game, bonus in-game digital items, the Battlefield 4 China Rising digital expansion pack and access to the exclusive Battlefield 4 multiplayer beta. More information will be released on the game at E3 in June. You can view the trailer for the game here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y1PhCzUe2w

Electronic Arts Inc. announced that it has developed EA SPORTS IGNITE, a new game engine that will power EA SPORTS games on Xbox One and PS4. One of which being launched with the Xbox One is FIFA 14. Fuelled by EA SPORTS IGNITE, EA SPORTS games will be alive with players who think, move, and behave like real athletes and dynamic living worlds, transforming the way people play and experience games on next gen consoles. With the new engine players are alive with contextual awareness and instincts—thinking, anticipating, and reacting—just like real athletes, and players are conscious of their environment. In FIFA 14, a player’s sense of urgency increases as the match draws on and a goal is needed, rushing to take a free kick, corner, or goal-kick if time is running down. You can enjoy a trailer for the EA SPORTS IGNITE engine here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bexvqjJ9TD4

One of two new IP’s to launch with the Xbox One is the next project from Bungie, Destiny. In the game, you are a Guardian of the last safe city on Earth, able to wield incredible power and have to defend the City and the World. The game features an incredible story set within a newly-imagined, always-connected universe filled with action and adventure where you can create your character. You forge your legend by defeating powerful foes and earn unique, customizable weapons, gear, and vehicles. There is an unprecedented variety of FPS gameplay, including story, cooperative and competitive multiplayer modes combined with public and social activities. You can enjoy a sixty second trailer for the game here, http://www.youtube.com/embed/ChicpIzV5vM?rel=0

Finally, the second new IP to launch with the Xbox One is Quantum Break. Created by Remedy Entertainment, the game will feature live-action videos blended with regular gameplay. A Quantum Break television series is also in production, with Remedy stating that “how you play the game impacts the show, and the show informs how you play the game.” This is the same as how the Defiance game for PC is working. Remedy didn’t reveal more than this teaser trailer, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYcHyOo6AWU&feature=player_embedded You can look forward to more information at E3 on this game and, hopefully, many more.

Train2Game News: Top 3 Game Engines

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UDKAcross the past week Train2Game held a poll to see which is your favourite game engine. These are the results!

In descending order the Third most popular games engine for Train2Game Students is the CryEngine 3.  It was originally developed by German studio, Crytek, as a technology demo for Nvidia and, when the company saw its potential, it was turned into a game. That first game developed using the engine was the first Far Cry.

The CryEngine 3 Free SDK, originally called Sandbox Editor, is the current version of the level editor used to create levels for the CryEngine line of game engines by Crytek. Tools are also provided within the software to facilitate scripting, animation, and object creation. It has been included with various Crytek games and is used extensively for modding purposes. The editing style is that of the sandbox concept, with the emphasis on large terrains and a free style of mission programming. The editor can also construct indoor settings.

Recently the engine has been used to create games such as Crysis 3, Monster Hunter Online and Ryse which will be released on the Xbox One.

Second in the poll was the Unity engine. Unity (also called Unity3D) is a cross-platform game engine with a built-in IDE developed by Unity Technologies. Unity is primarily used to create mobile and web games, but can also deploy games to consoles or the PC. The game engine was developed in C/C++, and is able to support code written in C#, JavaScript or Boo. It grew from an OS X supported game development tool in 2005 to the multi-platform game engine that it is today.

The Unity Engine is simple to use and as of this month free to publish to mobiles. It is clear why it is popular among Train2Game Students.

The Unity Engine has been used to create popular mobile games such as Bad Piggies, Slender: The Arrival and it was used to port Temple Run 2 to Android devices.

Finally the number one games engine according to Train2Game students is Epic’s Unreal Engine. Although primarily developed for first-person shooters, it has been successfully used in a variety of other genres, including stealth, MMORPGs and other RPGs. With its code written in C++, the Unreal Engine features a high degree of portability and is a tool used by many game developers today. It was first developed in 1998 for Unreal.

The third and current generation of the Unreal Engine (UE3) is designed for DirectX (versions 9-11 for Windows and Xbox 360), as well as systems using OpenGL, including the PlayStation 3, OS X, iOS, Android, Stage 3D for Adobe Flash Player 11, JavaScript/WebGL, PlayStation Vita and Wii U. Its renderer supports many advanced techniques including HDRR, per-pixel lighting, and dynamic shadows. It also builds on the tools available in previous versions.

In October 2011, the engine was ported to support Adobe Flash Player 11 through the Stage 3D hardware-accelerated APIs. Epic has used this version of the engine for their in-house games. Aggressive licensing of this iteration has garnered a great deal of support from many prominent licensees. Epic has announced that Unreal Engine 3 runs on both Windows 8 and Windows RT.

The engine is free to download and has a small charge of $99 to publish from, as long as you don’t make over $50,000 after which Epic will start to take a percentage.

The Unreal engine has been used in countless games including The Batman Arkham Games, BioShock Infinite, The Borderlands games, Dishonored, The Gears of War series and countless others.

It is quite clear why the Unreal Engine is the most popular engine among Train2Game Students.

Train2Game News: Xbox One revealed

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Xbox OneThe big news from yesterday evening was that the next generation Xbox was revealed, the Xbox One. Train2Game has written up a round up of the features on the new system.

The console is shaped in the 16:9 aspect ratio and employs a horizontal orientation optimized for its high-speed Blu-ray disc player. It is moulded in a deep and rich liquid black colour and includes a distinctive bevelled edge.

The completely redesigned, revolutionary 1080p Kinect is more precise, more responsive and more intuitive. Its unparalleled vision, motion and voice technology let you reach into games and entertainment like never before by dramatically expanding its field of view and fidelity. It works in nearly any lighting condition, recognizes precise motion control from a slight wrist rotation, and distinguishes your voice even in a noisy room using advanced noise isolation.

The Xbox controller is refreshed with more than 40 technical and design innovations. Updated directional pad, thumb stick and ergonomic fit immerse all gamers in ways that are uniquely Xbox, and precision and control have been dramatically increased with all new vibrating impulse triggers. The Xbox One Wireless Controller is designed to work in concert with the new Kinect, allowing the two to be paired automatically to create seamless player syncing.

With Xbox One, games push the boundaries of realism and your TV obeys your commands. Say “Xbox On” to launch your personalized Xbox One Home screen, discover what is popular on TV or see friends’ latest gaming achievements all using the most natural interface — your voice. The more you interact with Xbox One, the more it gets to know you and learns what you like. Some of the breakthrough Xbox One features that put you at the centre of your living room entertainment include the following:

TV on Xbox One Navigate and watch live TV from your cable, telco or satellite set-top box through your Xbox One. Microsoft is committed to bringing live TV through various solutions to all the markets where Xbox One will be available

Home Turn on your entertainment system with two powerful words, “Xbox On,” and a custom-tailored Home dashboard welcomes you with your favorite games, TV and entertainment.

Snap Do two things at once on the biggest screen in your home. Use Snap to jump into a multiplayer battle while watching your favourite movie, talk with friends on Skype while watching live TV, or track your fantasy team on TV as you watch the big game and more.

Skype for Xbox One Specially designed for Xbox One, talk with friends on your TV in stunning HD, or for the first time ever, hold group Skype calls on your TV.

Trending Stay on top of what is hot on TV by discovering the entertainment that is popular among your friends, and see what is trending within the Xbox community.

OneGuide Find your favorite entertainment easily, searching by network, name or time, all with the sound of your voice and presented in a tailored program guide.

To create the most advanced Xbox system ever designed for games, TV and entertainment, Microsoft created a state-of-the-art gaming operating system and fused it with an equally amazing entertainment platform, so you will not have to switch inputs to watch TV or play a game. An eight-core, x86 processor and more than 5 billion transistors helps make lag and load times a thing of the past, so you can instantly jump between a game and your entertainment at lightning speed or run a host of apps right alongside your game with no loss in performance.

Xbox One is built to amplify an all-new generation of Xbox Live that is more powerful, more personal and more intelligent. Unleashing the virtually unlimited power of the cloud makes everything more convenient and accessible, from allowing games to be installed in segments so that gameplay can start quickly to updates downloading in the background. Save and store your personalized profile, games and entertainment in the cloud to access them anytime, from any Xbox One console.4 In addition, existing Xbox Live Gold Membership for Xbox 360 will seamlessly carry over to Xbox One.

Xbox Live takes you deeper into the games you love with all-new features:

Smart Match A new Smart Match matchmaking system virtually eliminates waiting in lobbies by estimating wait times and finding people you want to play with while you are enjoying other activities — reputation fundamentally matters and helps find best matches.

Game DVR A dedicated Game DVR captures and accesses your magic moments, all saved to the cloud. Along with sharing tools, you will have the most amazing bragging rights with Xbox Live.

Living Games Dynamic, living worlds evolve and improve the more you play, and advanced artificial intelligence can learn to play like you, so friends can play against your shadow.

Expanded achievements A new and expanded achievements system captures video of your epic moments, continues to grow a game’s achievements over time and rewards you in new ways, and your Gamerscore carries over from Xbox 360.

Xbox SmartGlass Xbox SmartGlass is natively part of the Xbox One platform, built in from the beginning with the ability to quickly render content directly onto your device, and now more devices can connect at one time for multiplayer and shared entertainment.

Microsoft have also confirmed that all Xbox One games will require mandatory installation on the system’s hard drive. To install the same disc on another Xbox Live user’s drive, a fee must be paid.

Microsoft exec Phil Harrison elaborated in an Xbox One interview with CVG that players who activate a pre-owned retail disc will need to pay the same price as the original buyer in order to access its content.

Microsoft later added that it is “designing the new console to enable customers to trade in and resell Xbox One games”, but the company’s not yet ready to share details on how this process will work.

Sadly, yet understandably with it’s new drive, Xbox One won’t be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games.

To put to rest one of the rumours in the lead up to the console, there is no sweeping mandatory always-online requirement for Xbox One games. However, Harrison suggested that Xbox One will require an internet connection once every 24 hours.

Following the reveal event, a number of UK retailers kicked off Xbox One pre-orders. Zavvi has predicted an Xbox One price of £400 and release date November 30.

Train2Game News: Games Industry Jobs – 21.05.13

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Train2Game wants you to work in the industry we all love and with that in mind it is time for another job posting!

DEVELOPER

Job Title Gameplay Programmer
Job Category Programming
Skills Required Programming
Location North West, North West
Job Description My client is a successful studio based in the North West, together with their partner studio they have been responsible for creating some of the most fun and original titles of the last few years.

They are seeking a gameplay programmer to work on a major next-gen project. It will involve a bit of everything on the gameplay front – game mechanics, AI, scripting, UI, effects etc. All based on a long established game engine. The role could possibly include working on the handheld version of the title at a later date.

For this role, the ideal candidate will need:
At least one product’s industry experience, or a stunning demo to show their ability/potential.
Solid knowledge of C/C++ with a strong maths background.
Good all round programming techniques.
It goes without saying that experience in any of the aforementioned gameplay tasks would be a major bonus.

In return the company offer an excellent Salary and Benefits.

More details are available by contacting Lisa Corbett via email: lisa@aswift.com

 

ARTIST

Job Title Artists
Job Category Art / Animation
Skills Required Art / Animation
Location UK & Europe
Job Description Videogame 3D Artists

We’re looking to recruit a number of experienced artists with a wide range of skills at our studio on the South Coast of England to work on high-profile projects.

We offer excellent conditions and a competitive package in a fun working environment.

As an artist at Stainless you will be working with a creative agile team to deliver high quality art assets in collaboration with designers and programmers.

Successful candidates will be passionate about making the best games and making them look damn fine at the same time!

Essential Requirements:
Passion for creating art for games.
Good sense of scale, composition and staging.
Professional attitude and work ethic.
Good written and verbal communication skills.
A desire to learn.
Self-motivated and organised.

We require artists with any or all of the following skills:
3D Environment creation
3D Vehicle creation

The following are desirable but not essential:
Experience working on games as an artist at any level.
Keen eye for detail and art style.
Skills in Adobe Flash / UI Design
Strong traditional art skills.
Understanding of open world/driving games.
Formal qualifications in related fields.
Knowledge of additional software and plugins

You can apply here, http://www.stainlessgames.com/careers/go/

QA

Area: South East
City: Horsham
Company: Creative Assembly

Position Overview
– The Games Tester position is a responsible job; reporting bugs and providing quality feedback for our titles in development.
– These fixed term contracts are for our new Alien IP title currently in development. Several additional positions are also needed for our established Total War team during the same period.
– Test games in development for software bugs
– Enter bugs clearly and accurately into our bug database
– Verify and recreate bugs as required
– Report additional balancing, design and accessibility problems
– Specific support and general roles available

Essential
– A clear understanding of QA process
– A keen enthusiasm for gaming
– Good communication and reporting skills
– Driven and flexible approach

Desirable
– A clear understanding of QA process
– A keen enthusiasm for gaming
– Good communication and reporting skills
– Driven and flexible approach
– Experience of testing one full shipped title
– A good understanding of Strategy games (Total War)
– A good knowledge of current generation consoles (Alien IP)
– Games industry related degree (e.g. audio, art, design, etc.) or expertise in a specific game area is an asset (e.g. audio, technical, PC hardware, design or scripting etc.)
– Fluent in one or more of the following languages: French, German, Italian or Spanish
– Strong technical knowledge/skills (e.g. programming, scripting)

You will need to be available to start between June and October 2012

You can apply here, http://www.creative-assembly.com/jobs/

Train2Game News: Stillalive studios respond to scepticism

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Son of NorFollowing the release of the video demonstrating the partnership stillalive studios have formed with Emotiv to allow players to control the gameplay mechanics with brain activity, there have been suggestions from viewers that the device and its functions are not genuine.

Today stillalive studio released a further video outlining exactly how the Emotiov EPOC devise works with Son or Nor to quash rumours of fakery and demonstrate the phenomenal function the Emotiv EPOC brings to the 3rd person action adventure PC/Mac/Linux title.

Julian Mautner, CEO of stillalive studios says in the video; “In response to our recent video about the Emotive EPOC mind control device, we got a lot of scepticism. I don’t blame [people] at all because I know how insane and fake it really sounds. So I want to show how the thing works; if you have a certain thing in your mind then the EEG data of that specific thought is stored and as soon as you think it again it will recognise it and trigger some action.” Mautner goes on to demonstrate this in the video by shooting a fireball from his characters hands by only thinking the action.

“The cool thing about the EPOC devise is it recognises more than brain activity, it also recognises facial expressions.” Maunter adds as he demonstrated this by raising the landscape by raising his eyebrows and lowers it with clenched teeth. “The other very cool thing is it can actually measure your emotions; if you are excited or if your are bored or if you’re full of anxiety, [for example] and you can use that data with Son of Nor. For instance, the sound tracks could be selected according to your current emotional state.” Mautner concludes.

The video and claims made by stillalive studios are 100% genuine and backers to the Kickstarter campaign (http://bit.ly/SonOfNor) can pledge to have the EPOC headset included in the reward package; when bidding $300 backers will get the EPOC device plus a digital copy of Son of Nor, a $530 pledge will secure backers an EPOC device plus a pysical collectors edition of Son of Nor.

If Son of Nor is successfully funded through Kickstarter, the team anticipate a release in Q2 2014.

Train2Game News: Unity goes free to develop for mobile

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unity-logoGood news for Train2Game students, the Unity engine is now free to use for development for iOS and Android.

In a move to further democratise game development, Unity is making its basic mobile tools free for independent developers and small studios.

Unity is a game development ecosystem: a powerful rendering engine fully integrated with a complete set of intuitive tools and rapid work flow to create interactive 3D content. It also has thousands of quality, ready-made assets in the Asset Store and a helpful knowledge-sharing Community.

Starting today, indies will be able to publish their games and apps to iOS and Android in the build menu. Publishing options for other mobile platforms, such as BlackBerry and Windows Phone 8 will also be included “at no additional cost” once they are released.

Unity CEO David Helgason said “We were able to make Unity free for the web and for desktop computers a while ago, but have been dreaming of doing the same for mobile for what seems like forever.

“Mobile games development is possibly the most dynamic and exciting industry in the world, and it’s an honour to be able to help so many developers be so successful in fulfilling their visions and in building their businesses.”

Taking to Twitter, Unity rendering architect Aras Pranckevičius said that there will be some compensation for developers who had already paid for their licence but he is unsure of how the compensation scheme will work.

This is obviously amazing news for Train2Game students and student studios as it is one less boundary stopping you from developing games. You can download the engine and start developing today from here, http://unity3d.com/

Train2Game News: Icey Monty require staff

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Icey MontyTrain2Game Student studio, Icey Monty have been so successful over the past few months that they need a new member of staff!

If you are unaware of who they are, Icey Monty Ltd. is an app and games development start-up targeting PC and Mobile markets, headed-up by Train2Game students John Esslemont and Nick Walker. The young developers didn’t anticipate the acceleration of business and in the next few months are looking to hire an additional developer on a full time basis.

Due to the nature of freelance work, the length of the employment cannot be guaranteed. Similarly, Icey Monty cannot give any exact figures about wages, work hours or job demand. Given the studios current rate of work, you can expect a junior designer’s salary, this is likely to fluctuate however.

The chosen candidate will likely be hired on a per job basis, as this is how the team currently pay themselves, with a schedule based work flow on a semi-consistent hourly rate. Icey Monty is looking exclusively for a Unity3D developer, who is able to work from home.

The ideal candidate would have the following:

  • Ability to code to a moderate standard in any object-orientated language, although proficiency in C# is preferable.
  • A good understanding of Unity’s IDE, including its non-scripting features.
  • Coding skills in the context of Unity’s engine; Abstraction, Inheritance, Serialization, 3D math, generics, reflection, modularity, logic, events & delegates, procedural, state machines, commenting. Most importantly, the desire to be consistently improving and the ability to teach oneself.
  • General skills, including; time management, mathematics, cooperation, commercial business software, communication, composure, literacy, dedication, stress management, commitment, confidence, respect, ambition and drive.
  • Skype and mobile availability.
  • A passion for games development, design, and quality.

The Icey Monty team are hoping that you can expect an average of forty hours per week. Usually 9-5 Monday to Friday, although there will be fluctuations and quiet days on almost every project. Bonuses may be available for these periods, depending on the client.

Those forty hours will be used doing the following:

  • Creating entire games and apps to client’s specifications in a given time frame.
  • Working with SVN software on team based projects.
  • Scripting key components on top of existing frameworks.
  • Suggesting and incorporating new game and level design to clients in parallel with their ideas and direction.
  • Working with the Icey Monty team; handling clients, organising prices, features and meetings.

The team will ease you into all of the above, especially regarding finances and client interaction. Icey Monty is relatively new to operating as a studio and learning through experiences what works best.

If you think you would like to work with Icey Monty, you can send your CV and application to them at nick@iceymonty.com. Icey Monty also require you to CC them to nickwalker12@googlemail.com