Category Archives: mobile

Train2game News 2 Brothers Form Student Studio

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Train2Game studio on the hunt for more team members

Turrall brothers have formed SolarFlare and now looking to grow the team

Two brothers based in West Midlands are looking to expand their studio and take on new volunteers to create games with them. They are using the studio to get hands on experience and want to offer others the same opportunity.

The team called SolarFlare are made up of Edward and his brother. Edward is studying with Train2Game, he’s had a positive experience with Train2Game and wants to get more students involved in studios. The Turrall’s created SolarFlare to release games in the UK on Android, and looking to take steps into Switzerland in the future.

The brothers are using SolarFlare as work experience in their games making journey and the door is open for more students to join them. They also want anyone who is interested in gaming to join up and experience is not necessary, new team members will learn on the job and thrown straight into a working company.

Edward Turrall, Train2Game student and SolarFlare founder, said: ‘My name is Edward James Turrall, 23 years young and live in the West Midlands.’

‘I did a course with Train2Game a few years back. It was the Arts and Animation course, however I did not finish that one and got transferred to the App Development course which I am still doing as we speak. Admittedly, I am taking longer than I thought I would as a lot of other things have come up since I started.’

‘Both the courses have been very informative for me and helped me gain more experience in each field. App Development and Art & Design. My experience with Train2Game was amazing and 100% positive, I would, in future, work together with them to get more Students involved in new Studios, existing Studios and more Student arranged Events.’

‘SolarFlare is a new start-up Studio that my brother and I have formed because we love making games and wanted to get into the Industry in the UK and Switzerland as we want to take the Gaming Industry over there.’

‘We founded the Studio in November 2015 with the aim to develop Android and iOS games at the beginning and then large scale multi-platform MMORPGS based in the distant (or near) future. Another aim that I have had for the UK Office was for Students to get the opportunity to work together with some professionals and gain experience, almost like work experience, just this won’t be anything like it.’

‘I myself aim to give Students a chance to be part of a large company without having to go through years of University or education. They will be able to join us (as long as they Study anything to do with games, art & design or App development) to hone on their skills, get experience and build an amazing Portfolio/CV for the future! Any students we like, could even be offered a starting position in the Studio and work themselves up the ladder.’

‘We are a family run business as it is my brother and I. We get along well, work gets done and we give the players what they want. Games have been a HUGE part of my life growing up, and have helped me through times where I had nothing else to do as a kid. They’ve given me a new sense of my imagination and inspired me to do a lot of things such as Photography, 3d Art and Design and more. I’m not saying I wouldn’t have done all of those things without games, but I certainly wouldn’t have been able to adjust my imagination in such a way without them.’

‘I want to help other people and show them that not everyone needs to go to school for years just to get a great job. I want to be able to pick a few students from a College, give them all a computer and an office to work in and give them 2 months to make a game. And then hopefully over them a job if they can pull that off. If not, I will give them a chance to change their lives and learn more than they could ever learn in a College or University as they would be working on real games, with real people and with real money involved. Sure the College/University Degree/Diploma will be needed at some point, but I hope to be able to work together with Train2Game so that they could work towards that degree while working for us at SolarFlare Studios.’

‘At the moment we only develop for the Android market place as we do not have the funds available to release onto iOS devices. But we plan on working that out in the near future and then develop iOS games as well as Android games. I can’t tell you much about the latest project as it is still on the drawing board, however I can tell you guys about the game already released.’

‘The game we already released on the Android Market is called Count Rockoola and features a Rock that happens to be a Vampire. You adventure as this rock, collect Blood as the Score, Premium Garlic as the “Coins” in the game and avoid the normal Garlics as they will, as you are a Vampire, hurt you and then kill you if you happen to find too many of them (5). The project itself is still in its infant stages but I am bringing out new updates soon to fix a few issues we’ve been having. Crashing issues, Sound issues, Sprite issues, etc. The other things I am also working on are procedurally generated Levels as I do not have any Level Designers that could help me make any at this point.’

‘We are looking for new people!! However, you cannot really call them “employees” as they will not be getting paid as of yet. But in the near future, if we make enough games and enough people download them & buy in game currencies, they will be paid per Level they make.
For example; You make 1 Level for a game that’s got 500,000+ Downloads, if 50% out of those 500,000+ people buy currency, you will be paid. Depending on the length of the Level you made, you will be paid around £1 – £50. It all varies on your experience as well.’

‘But for now, we just want Students to get involved as we want them to gain experience and get a good feeling with the Programme we are using. You just need to know how to use a Programme called Construct 2, which was made by Scirra LTD. You will need to know how to make a Level in it and how to send it as an individual file. Nothing special J’

‘The main objective of our “employees” will be to make Levels and improvements to the game if they wish to do so, in future, I want to be able to have over 500 levels, if not over 2,000. They will need to be able to attend weekly, if not daily Skype calls to give us updates on what they are doing and give us weekly/monthly reports on the Levels they have made, if they hit any issues or if they’ve made a mistake in the game.’

‘This is a great opportunity for a Student to jump out of their comfort zone and show everyone what they can do! If you are someone that wants to show everyone what you can do, then you should come help us out! You will learn a lot about is and about the gaming industry in the UK. You will have the chance to meet new people and get closer to something you love doing – MAKE GAMES.’

‘We aim to be the first ever Gaming Studio to succeed in Switzerland and bring games to the people down there in Central Europe. We aim to help Colleges and Universities with Student Projects and give them support with Students that don’t know how to do a certain thing. We want to show people that making a game isn’t always “fun” or “lazy” or something you do because you are a Nerd/Geek. I myself, want to give everyone the opportunity to jump out of their seat, shout at the TV and say “I HELPED MAKE THAT GAME!!!!” without having to hide it. Be proud of making a game and be proud to be a gamer. The future is now, not tomorrow.’

‘Join SolarFlare Studios as a volunteer, help us spread our wings and you might just get a chance to be part of the Studios first ever employees to bring out amazing games for Kids, Teenagers and Adults in each and every country of the world.’

Visit SolarFlare here: http://solarflare-studios.com/

For more information contact: mark@train2game.com
Train2Game, bringing City & Guilds to the Games Industry
Read the Train2Game blog at www.train2game-news.co.uk Train2Game is a proud supporter of  www.gamatier.com

Train2game News Windows Android Emulator

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KOPLAYER is a Windows Android emulator that lets you run one or more virtual Android instances on your Windows 7/8/10 PC-bridging the gulf (or filling the void) between relatively scarce Windows Mobile games, Windows PC games, and Android games.

KOPLAYER makes it easy to enjoy the larger screen and added convenience of playing some of your favorite Android games on your Windows PC, whether it’s a little Angry Birds side action to distract you from work, catching up on your favorite strategy game, or playing multiple games simultaneously if you’re a gaming multi-tasker.

Installing KOPLAYER is as easy as running a simple Wizard, and KOPLAYER emulation works seamlessly via mouse right out of the gate. Opening a new KOPLAYER instance starts a basic tutorial and presents an uncluttered Android screen with a Google Play Store link. Just connect a GMAIL account, open the Play Store, and then install your favorite games.

KOPLAYER also includes KOPLAYER Multi-Manager, which lets you run multiple, simultaneous virtual Android instances-which you can name and even quickly clone, so you don’t have to re-configure every instance. For example, if you create an instance and have already installed all your favorite games, you can then clone that instance. You can run as many instances as you have screen space for, and run a different app in each one.

Thus KOPLAYER can be perfect for keeping up with your favorite ‘time-based’ F2P games like Clash of Clans, checking in on virtual villagers and their building progress when your mobile device isn’t available-or when you just want the benefit of a larger screen.

The KOPLAYER supports 1280×720 resolution and 1024×600 resolution, and it even enables you to configure the amount of video RAM dedicated to the display. You can also customize the resolution manually. There are also convenient buttons for taking screenshots and video of your games in KOPLAYER icon bar, as well as buttons for activating your camera (if your PC has one), configuring/accessing a shared folder, and adjusting your volume. And if you’re the sort who wants to play some Angry Birds on the sly at work, there’s even a default ‘boss key’ (CTRL+ALT+W).

For games with touch screen controls, you can activate the ‘keyboard’ (press F12 or click the icon in the left menu) to assign key commands on-the-fly. Click a location on the screen, and then press a key to assign the keypress to the touch screen control. For example, in Angry Birds Go! You can click the keyboard, then click over the directional arrows to assign the A and D keys to the left/right touchscreen arrows. This does mean that in some games-Angry Birds Go! For example-you must first start the action and then assign the keys because the touchscreen controls don’t appear on screen until the action starts. The keyboard control editor isn’t the most intuitive element of the KOPLAYER, so you may need to experiment with it a bit to find the optimal keyboard/mouse combination for different games. And a game designed for a touchscreen may still not play as well with emulated keyboard controls.

That said, the KOPLAYER still works very well with a variety of games, with real time and turn-based strategy games (i.e. those where a mouse makes a suitable replacement for a finger) being particularly well-suited to it. Angry Birds (and its various incarnations), Clash of Clans (an RTS game), and Clash Royale (a tower defense game) all seemed to work flawlessly, at least within the limited scope of testing performed for this review. Similar games would likely play and perform equally well.

For the true gaming multi-tasker: Using KOPLAYER’s Multi-Manager to play multiple games simultaneously.

Train2game News Pocket Gamer Top 50 Finalists

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The complete Pocket Gamer Top 50 finalists have now been announced and the list is available to view on the PocketGamer.biz website.

Developers including: Rovio Entertainment, Space Ape Games, Next Games and Wargaming have used the opportunity to discuss why the accolades are so important and to thank Pocket Gamer.biz for the recognition.

PocketGamer.biz and Developers are available for comment.

The full list including the top ten can be viewed here
http://www.pocketgamer.biz/list/62773/top-50-mobile-game-developers-of-2016/

Or view the video of the Top 50 here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZGrLovn2E4

The PocketGamer.biz Awards are in there 7th year and continue to demonstrate just how global and dynamic the mobile game industry is, with representatives in the top ten from the Nordics, Europe, Asia and the US. These awards are incredibly important in being visible in the global market place and to the wider games industry. Interestingly five in the top ten are Asian.

Some developers have found that they are appearing for the first time, showing how much can change in a year in the mobile games industry. But some are appearing for years running, demonstrating they’ve cracked this very challenging market.

Jon Jordan, PocketGamer.biz, said:
‘A number of factors go into the decision of winners: Financial is key, but the criteria also includes wider issues: is a company successfully operating in different global regions (or just one); across many – and/or different – platforms; running a single big title or experimenting with different genres and themes; and looking to expand?’

‘We also take into account a company’s soft power: how does it present itself to players and the industry at large and we love to reward ambitious startups who are attempting to innovate and shake up the entire market.’

‘But, let’s be clear. The lodestone running throughout our entire process is the quality of each developer’s game(s). For, not only is this list an attempt to gauge the top developers over the past 12 months, it’s also the attempt to highlight those who will be making the headlines over the year.’

‘And the quality of a company’s mobile games is – in my opinion – the best (if not the only) measure of this.’

Saara Bergström, CMO, Next Games
‘2015 was an awesome year for Next Games with our two first game launches. Our unique collaboration with AMC, The Walking Dead: No Man’s Land has been well-received among the TV show fans and has fared tremendously well on the store charts. We have plenty of big surprises in store for 2016 and can’t wait to get them out into our players’ hands!’

Chris Akhavan, Glu Mobile
‘We’re delighted Glu has made the PG.biz Top 50 2016 list! It’s great to see Pocket Gamer continuing to recognize talent across the industry. Our inclusion is a testament to the hard work of our studio teams over the past year.  We’d also like to congratulate the other Top 50 finalists.’

Wilhelm That, Rovio Entertainment
‘Fabulous to be recognised amongst the best of the best! Honoured!’

Simon Hade, Space Ape Games
‘Thanks Pocket Gamer! We are honored to be included in the Top 50; we are dedicated to keep making games we are passionate about.’

Antoine Morcos, Ketchapp
‘We’re very pleased to be included in the Top 50 list this year, and humbly accept this recognition, on behalf of the developers we work with, as a reflection of their beautiful work.’

Sean Lee, Wargaming
‘Wargaming is honored and delighted to be included on this year’s PG.biz Top 50 list. To make every Player happy is our vision as a company, and we promise to continue to deliver even more happiness to our Players around the world.’

Maxim Petrov, CPO, ZeptoLab
‘2015 was a really important year for us: we successfully launched our first free-to-play title outside Cut the Rope franchise — King of Thieves — and it became a real hit. This was a result of two years of hard work on searching an innovative core gameplay, but we finally proved that we are not a one-hit game studio. Moreover, we didn’t forget about Cut the Rope either: by releasing a new game called Cut the Rope: Magic, we grew the series’ installs up to 800 million. We are glad that PG.biz noticed all these facts and included us into its Top 50 rating.’

Tom van Dam, Head of Mobile Business Development, NetEase
‘We’re all enormously proud to have been included in the PocketGamer.biz Top 50 Developers List and honoured to be listed among such esteemed fellow developers. It’s a happy recognition of the hard work and dedication put in by a huge number of people across NetEase, all talented and creative individuals, as well as a reflection of our loyal gaming community the world over. With the massive success of Fantasy Westward Journey and other new mobile games, it’s been a hugely productive year for us. And there is much more to come!’

Ben Liu, Pocket Gems
‘We’re honored to be counted as one of the world’s top developers by Pocket Gamer. Mobile games have come a long way in recent years and we believe we can build on our pioneering history to make something truly great. With new advancements in technology, developers exploring different concepts, and greater player interest, there’s never been a more exciting time to be making mobile games.’

Train2game News Joystick App

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Coming soon to iOS and Android, Joystick is an incredible new app set to revolutionise the way gamers can consume news in the future!

Joystick is the World’s First one-stop destination where they can watch all live gaming tournaments across Youtube, Twitch & Azubu.

Joystick will also allow users to create a bespoke personalised news feeds in which they can follow their favourite pro-gamers across all social media and keep up with all different types of gaming news plus watch entertaining game shows.

The Joystick GUI is slick, intuitive and a bespoke news feed can be created in seconds. The user will select their choice of platform, genre and topic before being presented with their personally crafted news feed.

The Joystick trailer is available to watch: https://youtu.be/4ej77ZESa-4

Joystick You’re In Control…

Train2game News Iron Maiden Legacy of the Beast Founders Packs

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Nodding Frog, Roadhouse Interactive and 50cc Games are pleased to announce that the  Founders Packs for their  Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast  mobile game are now available direct from  www.ironmaidenlegacy.com/founders 

Founders Packs and Collector’s Editions are relatively commonplace in PC and console gaming circles, but something new in mobile gaming. In keeping with the spirit of innovation prevalent throughout Iron Maiden’s career, Legacy of the Beast Founders Packs will offer fans and players limited edition collectibles, exclusive insider access to game-design forums, rare in-game Eddies and boatloads of ‘Ferryman’s Gold’ (in-game currency) to commemorate the launch of the game.

“There are tons of Maiden fans at Roadhouse, and rock, metal and punk is a big part of our studio culture with lots of the team wearing band shirts at any given time. We decided to create some exclusive apparel to celebrate the launch of the game and show off the many iterations of Eddie that appear in it. It’s been fantastic to see the band’s fan base show their support for the project online, engaging with our social channels and sharing their views on what we’re up to. Alongside the T-shirts, Hoodies, and other cool swag, we’ve created a new opportunity for fans, gamers, and newcomers alike to have an even greater role in the creation and direction of the game with the Founders Forum” says James Hursthouse, CEO, Roadhouse Interactive. 

Llexi Leon, Creative Director, Phantom Music Management, added “With the Founders campaign we’re offering exclusive access, awesome in-game items, and some killer custom-designed Iron Maiden gear. As a video games Collector’s Edition addict I’ve been particularly thrilled to curate this range, and we’re all excited to be pioneering this approach in the mobile space. We’ve combined items you might expect like T-shirts and Hoodies with totally new offerings, such as exclusive character art cells, a gorgeous giclee on canvas print, and a beautiful digital art book.”

“We’re offering incredible value in every pack, working with our partners at Global Merchandise and Dark Ink Art to ensure the same top quality products our fans expect, but at an unprecedented discount to celebrate this amazing game and the expansion of the Iron Maiden universe. Our friends at Onkyo have even provided a limited number of the remarkable hand-wired Japanese made Ed-Ph0n3s as part of our top tier Eternity pack, a jaw dropping collection that’s limited to 666 units on a first come first serve basis.”

All those who order a Founders Pack will get to participate in online discussions with the development team, be granted access to exclusive community forum content, and have the opportunity to vote on the direction of the game and proposed content.

Seven packs have been created, five of them themed to in-game iterations of the band’s iconic mascot, Eddie, in a variety of character classes. The Packs range from the digital only Part of the Legacy Pack, right up to the strictly limited Eternity Pack that contains all the character class Eddie T-Shirts and art cells from previous tiers, a pair of extremely limited items including an archival quality print on canvas and a premium embroidered hoodie, topped off with a set of Onkyo’s Maiden Audio Ed-Ph0n3s, representing amazing value across the board.

Priced in Canadian Dollars and shipping worldwide, the packs are available for a limited time only and will be dispatched throughout June / July 2016, to coincide with the game’s global launch.

At the time of going to press, the in-game digital add-on packs will be an option only applicable for Android users.

Iron Maiden: Legacy of the Beast, is an action-packed, free-to-play epic mobile RPG steeped in Iron Maiden mythology, and launches on both iOS and Android platforms in June 2016. “Maiden Vancouver, Played Everywhere!”

Train2game News Mobile Fraud Prevention Suite

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At the San Francisco Mobile Growth Summit, adjust announced a major product addition to their mobile attribution and analytics system with the Fraud Prevention Suite.

With today’s product release, app developers and marketers will be able to leverage a comprehensive suite of tools that analyze and intervene in hundreds of millions of user acquisition workflows to prevent fraudulent activity from claiming payouts. Early beta results of the Fraud Prevention Suite indicate a substantial improvement in campaign activity with an estimated $1.7 million USD identified within 17 days, based on recent CPI rates of fraudulent charges.

Paul H Müller, adjust’s Co-Founder and CTO, said: “The Fraud Prevention Suite gives our clients a completely new way to proactively mitigate potential fraudulent charges and optimize their user acquisition spend across their entire user acquisition stack. We’re uniquely positioned to offer this kind of solution in the market because our technology is directly embedded in all the advertising our clients run – so we can analyze every interaction as it happens, and change how that data is interpreted on the fly. This is unlike reactive, after-the-fact analysis tools that are unable to prevent corrupted datasets and illegitimate payouts.”

adjust’s Fraud Prevention Suite specifically targets three typical approaches by fraudulent publishers:

● Anonymous IP Filtering is the first implementation to actively reject pay-outs for simulated traffic originating from data centers or other illegitimate locations.
● Purchase Verification synchronously vets and verifies purchases, allowing app publishers to block cost-per-acquisition payouts or revenue shares from faked purchases.
● Click Spam Distribution Modelling analyzes the aggregate distribution of users acquired to rapidly prevent apps from faking background “clicks” and thereby claiming organic traffic as paid.

In January, adjust ran initial beta tests of its product suite with customers, like San Francisco-based HotelTonight, by sampling a traffic flow that included more than 400 million installs to generate an overview of fraudulent activities. This initial test targeted only the portion of paid user acquisition from major US and European brands which were generated from so-called “anonymous IPs” – a strong indication that the traffic had been tampered with or falsified. Starting today, all customers have the opportunity to access adjust’s product suite for protection from fraudulent activity and charges.

Brian Han, Head of Growth at HotelTonight, said: “Controlling the quality of our traffic, and thereby preventing fraudulent activity, is a key concern for us. adjust’s Fraud Prevent Suite is the first solution we’ve found that is able to proactively intervene, and we’re really excited about using adjust for that purpose.”

Additionally, to provide deeper understanding and insights to customers and partners, adjust is hosting the first-ever European mobile fraud conference, called “Mobile Spree”, on June 2 in Berlin. Initial confirmed key speakers for the conference include Spotify, Zalando, Delivery Hero, GetYourGuide, and HotelTonight. Interested parties can learn more at http://mobile-spree.com.

Train2Game News 2016 Mobile Gaming Insights

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SOOMLA, an innovator in mobile gaming analytics, today announced its latest Q1 2016 Mobile Gaming Insights report, which illustrates user spending habits by cross-game behaviour, virtual economy model and game genre.

The new report reveals that users who completed an in-app purchase in one game are six times more likely to pay in another game, compared to any random user who hasn’t purchased. Furthermore, the likelihood of a user to pay in a second game increases by up to 40% based on the amount spent in the first game. Over 20 million players from more than 200 countries were included in the study, which is now available publicly on the company website.

The findings emphasize the contribution of cross-game purchase data to the ability to predict paying users, a coveted virtue in an industry where only 2% of consumers spend in games. Furthermore, knowing a user’s in-app purchase history by genres played, dollars spent and virtual items bought empowers game developers to tailor personalized offers at the user’s “comfort zone” price point.

Yaniv Nizan, Co-founder and CEO of SOOMLA, said: “Attracting payers to your game is like finding a needle in a haystack, but when crossing in-app purchase data from thousands of other games, our payer prediction technology reveals which user segments will eventually convert and what they’re likely to buy.”

Key Report Insights:

●      Past in-game payers are six times more likely to pay in another game.
●      Quick payers (first in-app purchase within 24 hours of install) are nine times more likely to pay in another game.
●      Over 40% of users who paid $25 or more in one game, will also pay in another game.
●      Holiday season savvy developers achieve an average revenue per paying user (ARPPU) lift in December of 83% above the annual average.
●      For each in-game item users purchase with real currency, an average of 18 additional items are purchased with virtual currency.
●      65% of all app revenue comes from “lifetime” goods (e.g. characters, level packs, remove ads), which cost $2.60 USD on average.
●      “Single use” goods (e.g. “save me”, ammo, 30-second boost) account for 71% of all in-game purchases.

Solomon Foshko, Manager of Strategic Intelligence at Wargaming Inc., said: “SOOMLA’s latest report provides a greater understanding of key trends in the mobile market and how best we can apply that insight for a competitive advantage within our product portfolio.”

Additionally, the report provides developers with insights on when players are more likely to play and how they play. For instance, daily active users increase as much as 33% over weekends, and this occurs primarily on phones, although sessions on tablets are often longer. Usage patterns differ across game genres as well, with strategy games boasting the highest average session duration of 11 minutes – 2.6 times more than other genres.

SOOMLA enables payer segmentation with its realtime payer prediction system – a programmatic API that detects when a highly likely paying user has just walked into your game.  Developers can adapt the game to potential payers from the first session and segment them for targeting and in-game promotions. For big publishers, SOOMLA offers highly targeted payer audiences through its recently introduced Audiences dashboard. Mobile marketers can build custom and lookalike audiences based on SOOMLA’s proprietary dataset and provision their campaigns to reach the best users.

Train2Game News Amazon Game Engine

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Amazon Web Services Announces Amazon Lumberyard — a Free, Cross-Platform, 3D Game Engine Integrated with AWS and Twitch.

Amazon Web Services Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), today announced Amazon Lumberyard, a free, cross-platform, 3D game engine for developers to create the highest-quality games, connect their games to the vast compute and storage of the AWS Cloud, and engage fans on Twitch. Amazon Lumberyard helps developers build beautiful worlds, make realistic characters, and create stunning real-time effects. With Amazon Lumberyard’s visual scripting tool, even non-technical game developers can add cloud-connected features to a game in minutes (such as a community news feed, daily gifts, or server-side combat resolution) through a drag-and-drop graphical user interface.

AWS is also announcing Amazon GameLift, a new service for deploying, operating, and scaling session-based multiplayer games. With Amazon GameLift, Amazon Lumberyard developers can quickly scale high-performance game servers up and down to meet player demand, without any additional engineering effort or upfront costs.

Amazon Lumberyard is free, and available today in beta for developers building PC and console games, with mobile and virtual reality (VR) platforms coming soon. Amazon GameLift has a small per-player fee, plus for both Amazon GameLift and Amazon Lumberyard, developers pay standard AWS fees for AWS services used. To learn more about Amazon Lumberyard, visit http://aws.amazon.com/lumberyard.  To learn more about Amazon GameLift, visit http://aws.amazon.com/gamelift.

Building technology capable of making the highest-quality games is difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. Game developers either have to spend several years creating the more than 20 significant technology components that are needed to build the highest-quality games (such as real-time graphics rendering, world and character editors, animation systems, physics simulation, low-latency networking, particle systems, scripting systems, terrain generation, and more), or they have to invest in commercial game engines that are expensive and do not include native integrations with Twitch or cloud back-end technologies (like AWS). And, as live, multiplayer games have risen in popularity, game developers have also had to invest thousands of hours to build and manage the back-end infrastructure needed to connect their games to the cloud and support high volumes of fluctuating player traffic. Amazon Lumberyard is the only game engine that gives developers a combination of free, feature-rich development technology, native integration with the AWS Cloud to make it easier for developers to create live and multiplayer online games, and native integration of Twitch features that help developers connect their games to the world’s leading social video platform and community for gamers. By starting game projects with Amazon Lumberyard, developers are able to spend more of their time creating differentiated gameplay and building communities of fans, and less time on the undifferentiated heavy lifting of building game engine components and managing server infrastructure. And, with Amazon GameLift, developers can be sure that on day one, their live, multiplayer games can scale to support millions of players, while maintaining the high performance gamers expect.

“Many of the world’s most popular games are powered by AWS’s technology infrastructure platform,” said Mike Frazzini, Vice President of Amazon Games. “When we’ve talked to game developers, they’ve asked for a game engine with the power and capability of leading commercial engines, but that’s significantly less expensive, and deeply integrated with AWS for the back-end and Twitch for the gamer community. We’re excited to deliver that for our game developers today with the launch of Amazon Lumberyard and Amazon GameLift.”

With Amazon Lumberyard, game developers can:

·         Create the highest-quality games—Amazon Lumberyard helps developers build rich, engaging, world-class games—from a full-featured editor, to native code performance and stunning visuals, and hundreds of other features like performant networking, cloth physics, character and animation editors, particle editor, UI editor, audio tools, weather effects, vehicle systems, flocking AI, perception handling, camera frameworks, path finding, and more. Developers also have full access to Amazon Lumberyard source code, making it easy to customize the technology to create differentiated gameplay.

·         Build live, online features in minutes— Live, online games enjoy higher engagement and retention than offline games. Amazon Lumberyard’s visual scripting tool, with its drag-and-drop graphical user interface, makes it easy to build connected game features that access AWS services, such as DynamoDB, Lambda, and S3. In minutes, game designers can create features such as granting a daily gift or sending in-game notifications without having to write a single line of code. Amazon Lumberyard also comes integrated with AWS’s C++ SDK to provide developers access to dozens of AWS services through native C++ code, the most common language used to make games.

·         Reach and engage fans on Twitch— Amazon Lumberyard is integrated with Twitch so that developers can build gameplay features that engage the more than 1.7 million monthly broadcasters, and more than 100 million monthly viewers on Twitch. With Amazon Lumberyard’s Twitch ChatPlay, developers can use a drag-and-drop visual scripting interface to create gameplay features that let Twitch viewers use chat to directly impact the game they are watching in real-time. For example, with Twitch ChatPlay within Amazon Lumberyard, a developer could build a game that lets viewers on Twitch control a character or vote on game outcomes using chat commands like “up,” “down,” “live,” or “die.” And, the Twitch JoinIn feature within Amazon Lumberyard helps developers build games that allow Twitch broadcasters to instantly invite their live audiences to join them side-by-side in the game, with a single click, while others continue to watch.

Amazon GameLift, a new managed service for deploying, operating, and scaling session-based multiplayer games, reduces the time required to create multiplayer back-ends from thousands of hours to just minutes. With a few quick steps in the AWS Management Console, developers can deploy game servers across the AWS Cloud, start connecting players to games, and scale capacity up and down to meet player demand. Developers can also identify operational issues using Amazon GameLift’s real-time reporting of game server capacity and player demand.  With Amazon GameLift and Amazon Lumberyard, developers can create multiplayer back-ends with less effort, technical risk, and time delays that often cause developers to cut multiplayer features from their games.

“Amazon has been a great partner and we are deeply excited about both Amazon Lumberyard and Amazon GameLift,” said Josh Atkins, Vice President of Creative Development, 2K Games. “The integration of a fantastic game engine with amazing cloud services presents a wonderful opportunity for both independent developers and established publishers.”
          
“Developing and maintaining a back-end infrastructure for multiplayer games requires a lot of time, resources, and expertise that are beyond the reach of many developers,” said Chris Jones, Chief Technology Officer, Obsidian Entertainment. “Amazon GameLift removes much of that burden from the developer, allowing them to focus their energy on bringing their great game ideas to life.”
                                  
Amazon Lumberyard is available for download in beta for PC and console game developers. The Amazon Lumberyard engine is free to use, including source. There are no seat fees, subscription fees, or requirements to share revenue. Standard AWS fees apply should developers choose to use other AWS services.

Amazon GameLift is available at launch in the AWS US East (N. Virginia) and US West (Oregon) Regions, with additional Regions coming soon.  Amazon GameLift costs $1.50 per 1,000 Daily Active Users plus the standard AWS fees for AWS services they consume.

Train2Game News Miitomo

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Nintendo’s first app made exclusively for smart devices, Miitomo, will launch in UK & Ireland in March for both iOS and Android phones and tablets. Today, Nintendo outlined the steps that fans can take to be among the first to get in on the social fun.

Starting 17th February 2016, people in UK & Ireland will be able to pre-register for Miitomo by creating a Nintendo Account using their Nintendo Network ID, social Network accounts or email address,. People who pre-register for Miitomo will be among the first to be notified about the availability of Miitomo when it launches in March.

Miitomo is a social experience that uses Nintendo’s Mii characters to engage friends in a lighthearted, playful and welcoming social setting. Mii characters first debuted on the Wii console and to date, more than 200 million Mii characters have been created around the world. Using Mii characters users will be able to interact with their friends in an entirely new way to spark fun and interesting conversations by answering questions such as “what song has been stuck in your head lately?”, “do you believe in aliens?”, or even “if you saw a nose hair sticking out of your friend’s nose, what would you do?” By answering questions in Miitomo users will be able to discover surprising information and secrets about their friends, as well as share their experiences with others easily by taking and sharing photos featuring their Mii using the Miifoto feature.

Nintendo’s new My Nintendo rewards program will launch alongside Miitomo in March 2016, and will be able to connect with Miitomo. A special Miitomo bonus will be offered to anyone in UK & Ireland that creates a Nintendo Account between 17th February and the launch of Miitomo in March. My Nintendo aims to become much more than a traditional rewards program. It is a more comprehensive service that rewards users for interacting with Nintendo products and services in a variety of ways. Miitomo users with a Nintendo Account will be able to take advantage of My Nintendo to enhance their experience.

Including Miitomo, Nintendo plans to release approximately five smart device applications by the end of March 2017.

More information about Miitomo, Nintendo Account and My Nintendo, will be available on https://miitomo.com/
in the coming weeks.

Train2Game News Reverse The Odds seeing success

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All 4 Games announced today that Reverse The Odds, a cancer cell analysis game commissioned by Channel 4 for the joint Stand Up To Cancer campaign with Cancer Research UK (CRUK), has had almost 4.5 million slides analysed by the public to date.

Inspired by the tremendous effort made by citizen scientists the world over; CRUK hope to reach their new target of 5 million analysed slides by the end of March 2016. In order to reach their new goal, they’re calling on the power of the public on World Cancer Day to help beat cancer sooner.

“Reverse The Odds is helping to expand an important cancer study that could shed light on how to treat certain types of bladder cancers more effectively. Thanks to the game, anyone can take an active role in fighting cancer. And with a target of 5 million images to analyse, I’d encourage as many people as possible to pick up their mobiles and do their bit for World Cancer Day by helping to bring kinder treatments to clinics, sooner.” -Dr Anne Kiltie, CRUK/MRC Oxford Institute for Raidiation Oncology at the University of Oxford, and leading researcher for Reverse The Odds.

The Emmy award-winning mobile title, which launched in October 2014, was developed in collaboration with Maverick Television’s Multiplatform team, Glasgow based developers Chunk Digital and CRUK. The game allows players to analyse real images of cancer cells, contributing to vital research being carried out by multiple researchers and scientists across the CRUK. Players directly help to speed up this normally time-consuming process by simply playing the game. Data is then fed back to those working to find new and kinder ways to fight the disease.

“We’re absolutely thrilled to have reached this amazing new milestone in Reverse The Odds and can’t thank those enough who’ve contributed with their analysis so far” said Colin Macdonald, Channel 4’s Games Commissioner and Head of All 4 Games “Our new goal is to help CRUK reach the 5 million mark by the end of March, and with the help of our citizen scientists, we believe this can be achieved”

The game is available to download from the App Store, the Google Play Store on the Amazon Appstore for free now.