Tag Archives: Android

Train2Game News Android PlaytestCloud

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Games usability testing startup PlaytestCloud will start offering playtests and usability studies for Android games today.

For just $49 per player game designers can quickly learn how real players behave in their games and fix problems even before the game is launched.

PlaytestCloud offers game designers the ability to easily perform user studies on Android devices within 48 hours. By looking at how actual players engage with games and making changes based on their feedback, designers can easily improve the playability of their in-development titles. PlaytestCloud’s quick turnaround time and relatively low price point allow companies like TinyCo, Wooga and ZeptoLab to quickly iterate on game designs and gauge players’ enthusiasm for their prototypes.

Until now, PlaytestCloud offered testing exclusively for iOS devices. Starting today they also added Android game testing to their platform. Game designers do not need to make code changes to their game. They can upload any recent game build to the PlaytestCloud web site to get player recordings within 24-48 hours. Designers can pick their target audience by age, gender and casual/midcore/hardcore gaming preference. They can also select players of competitors’ titles. Each game test costs US$49 per player. Testers play the games on their own Android device, while their screen is being unobstrusively captured by an SDK that is automatically added to the game.

“Android players are accustomed to different user interface conventions than users of iOS devices. You can really profit from testing an cross-platform game with Android users as well as iOS users.” says Christian Ress, who co-founded PlaytestCloud in 2012. With their Android support, PlaytestCloud also bets on the growing importance of Android titles for game studios’ bottom lines. In 2015 Google’s Play Store has surpassed the App Store’s monthly revenue in Germany for the first time.

Train2Game News Unity UI update

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Unity Technologies has released version 4.6 of its popular game engine, which introduces a brand new user interface system.

The tech allows developers to create their own UI within the editor. They can also check out the source code for the UI system, which lets devs “build a UI module that will work as a drop-in replacement for the bundled UI system”, according to the official blog.

“The release cycle has indeed been long,” the company wrote, “but we’ve taken the time needed to work with you to test the UI system and incorporate your feedback to ship a UI system that we’re really proud of.”

Unity 4.6 also adds x86 support for Android, opening the options of FAT, x86 or ARMv7 as a build target so devs can export for x86 Android devices such as Google’s new Nexus player.

Train2Game News Clan of the Cloud

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Clan Of The Cloud has today unveiled its new ‘platform agnostic’ CloudBuilder framework for any developer to incorporate social elements into their app, game or any program they are working on, whether for corporate content to social gaming.

The company is already partnered with and speaking to many indie game developers, medium sized studios and healthcare companies including Pastagames, The Game Bakers, Astraware & Advanced Mobile Applications.

The launch of this new version for the framework sees these libraries come out of Beta and phased into general release and can be accessed here:

https://account.clanofthecloud.com

Clan of Cloud is truly disrupting the social experience – with only one line of code you can add many features such as:

    Social Features – Chat, Twitter & Facebook sharing, Leaderboards, Challenges, Push Notifications, Offer Rewards/Gifts and more.

    Monetisation – IAP, Set your own virtual currency, view sales/ROI, Virtual items on the fly, Rewards & promotions all in real-time.

There’s also a full CRM system, which gives developers complete data collection & control per user in real-time including data export/bulk push notifications.

Whether you’re working on Mobile (Android, iPhone, BB, Windows Phone), web (HTML5) or desktop to third- party middleware including STEAM, Unity3D, Marmalade, all these features are available and cross pollinated seamlessly with all of these platforms.

The features the cloud-based framework offers would usually take developers a minimum of four months to create via dedicated programmers – Clan of the Cloud are already there.

The latest version of the framework is online from today via http://cloudbuilder.clanofthecloud.mobi/

Train2Game News Big Huge Games returns

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DomiNationsBig Huge Games is back from the dead, once again under the helm of its original co-founder Brian Reynolds and on course to publish its first mobile game next year.

In its first life, Big Huge Games faced a series of troubles. The PC developer was acquired by THQ back in 2008 but the publisher decided to sell the studio just over a year later when it first began experiencing financial difficulties.

Big Huge Games was saved by Kingdoms of Amalur dev 38 Studios. Sadly the latter also went bankrupt last year, with its assets – and Big Huge Games – being sold in an auction last November.

It was in that auction that Reynolds purchased the rights to the Big Huge Games name, now revealing that his previously announced studio SecretNewCo is a revival of the fallen developer, according to GameSpot.

Headed up by Reynolds and his fellow Big Huge Games co-founder Tim Train, the new studio will focus on mobile games starting with strategy title DomiNations, due on 2015 for iPhone, iPad and Android. The game marks a return for Big Huge to the strategy genre and will be released through a partnership with Nexon.

“I have had a history of going where I perceive the biggest market to be,” Reynolds told Gamespot. “I certainly perceive mobile, free-to-play as being the biggest market; the opportunity to reach the largest number of players. And so, that’s exciting to me.

“It’s the same reason I went to Facebook games – boy, were a lot of people playing Facebook games. And then even more started playing. It was certainly interesting when I was at Zynga – it really opened my eyes to ‘Wow, how many different kinds of players play games than used to play them when I started in 1991’. I never would have dreamed both the kinds of players and the numbers of players that are out there.”

You can check out the launch trailer for Dominations below:

This story just goes to show there may be set backs but you are never down and out!

Source: Develop

Train2Game News Live Game Board

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logo_title_wbAfter months of hard work the Live Game Board has been announced, the first Augmented Reality gaming platform, released to both players and developers.

Live game board comes with 5 games you can enjoy playing in Augmented Reality. All are available for free for Android at http://www.livegameboard.com/apps/.

“Live Game Board is a platform for games and educational applications. That means you can play many games and apps on one single board. Augmented reality way of playing games makes things look much more real and part of your real world. Gaming is also more social, similar to classic table games with Live Game Board you can play the games together with your friends or family.” Stan Kuhn, Founder.

Although it is possible to download Live Game Board for free for self printing, it is recommend to order larger and better quality boards at http://www.livegameboard.com/shop/. Boards are available as hard paper or water resistant plastic banners. There are 3 available sizes to maximize AR experience, remember size of the board dictates the size of the game in real world. Smaller boards are better for table play, larger boards are best to use on a floor in your room.

Together with publishing Live Game Board there is also a developer section with tutorials and SDK for Unity3D to help developers to easily add Augmented Reality play mode into their games. All game developers are welcome to get the SDK for free and publish their games for all Live Game Board players. The developer section is available at http://developer.livegameboard.com/

Enjoy the video of the Live Game Board in action below

Train2Game News Google Play Games adds multiplayer

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Google Play GamesGoogle has rolled out an update to its Google Play Games development toolkit that allows for local multiplayer matchmaking. Prior to that, the service supported only online multiplayer.

The toolkit, which offers a raft of services to devs, and to players functions as a game network similar to Xbox Live or Apple’s Game Center, can be implemented in iOS, PC, and Android titles. More info is available at Google’s developer portal, here.

Google Play Games’ Greg Hartrell said earlier this year about the company’s aspirations for the service and tools.

“Our game services are there, and our game network is there, to bring together this concentrated network of people who love playing games — to make it easier for someone who is a game creator to reach that highly valuable audience,”

The Google Play Games service is designed to help developers create mobile games for both Android and iOS devices, as well as browser games.

You can find out more information at Google’s developer page.

Train2Game News Avenged Sevenfold game out now

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Avenged SevenfoldMulti-platinum hard rock superstars Avenged Sevenfold are pleased to announce their action adventure role-playing game, Hail to the King: Deathbat, is available now on the App Store and Google Play.

“After over 2 years in development, we are proud to present you with Hail to the King: Deathbat,” noted Avenged Sevenfold lead singer M. Shadows, a lifelong gamer who oversaw production and design. “After watching all of the members of this band play mobile games on tour over the years we decided to create one of our own. A game for our fans who love games as well. We decided to create this adventure with a nod to our favorite games growing up. No hand holding here, no fluff, just a hard, bad ass game that lets you discover the story of the Deathbat. How many of you out there can beat this game? Only time will tell. We are excited to share this story with you now.”

As you battle through seven beautiful hellish landscapes inspired by the band’s iconic discography and artwork, you’ll interact with other characters to uncover more of the game’s deep and engaging mythos. Hail to the King: Deathbat features classic Avenged Sevenfold tracks along with a new and original score, composed by the band in the immortal tradition of 8-bit masterpieces like Castlevania.

Hail to the King: Deathbat’s epic story follows the Deathbat, the resurrected King of the Underworld, who must reclaim the lands of Haides from the despotic Dark Andronikos. The game is massive in the totality of its scope, with hours of robust gameplay. But it is not for the faint of heart – players will need to traverse sprawling environments, combat skillful undead, and best unforgiving bosses, combining brutal melee attacks with powerful projectile magic to survive.

Hail to the King: Deathbat is available now for $4.99 on the App Store and Google Play.

Train2Game News Mobile Chatter

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Fresvii, the one-stop platform service for smartphone game developers, today announced Open Beta for APPSTEROID, a Mobile Game Cloud Platform.

APPSTEROID features Chatter, the first in game mobile voice chat, providing mobile developers a feature never before available for mobile games. Chatter allows players on iOS and Android devices to talk with each other while playing a game together, and developers can integrate the voice chat feature seamlessly using Fresvii’s APPSTEROID platform.

“We are excited to introduce the ability for in game chat for mobile gaming. No other platform provides the breadth of community features. APPSTEROID encourages player loyalty which helps mobile developers acquire and retain players,” said Hiro Nakagawa, CEO of Fresvii.

Fresvii also announced that the company has raised $1.8 million funding led by Nissay Capital Co., Ltd. a VC firm based in Japan and other angel investors.

The APPSTEROID Open Beta introduces new features in addition to Chatter:

In-Game Texting: Developers can easily integrate in-game texting into their mobile games.  Players can text to friends while playing their mobile game.

Leaderboards: Quickly integrate Leaderboards that display across both iOS and Android devices. Developers can change the Leaderboards user interface to match their games’ aesthetics.

Matchmaking: APPSTEROID will automatically find opponents across both iOS and Android devices. Developers can setup and define filtering conditions to create the ideal matchmaking systems for their games. The initial release supports turn-based games with up to 16 players.

APPSTEROID services range from community management, game forums, social network integration, and push notifications.  Developers can integrate these features easily via the SDKs, which are specifically designed for developers to add components as needed. The APPSTEROID SDK is cross-platform and supports Unity, Android, and iOS.

Fresvii already has game developers creating games using the APPSTEROID platform:

“APPSTEROID’s suite of game community tools lets me bypass the costly process of building social network infrastructure and focus on great game play instead,” said Chris Pruett, CEO of Robot Invader, a game development studio based in the Silicon Valley.

“Developers can easily wrap other APPSTEROID community features around Chatter such as forums, group and friend management,” said Sherman Luong, Chief Strategist at GameCo, a game development studio based in Newport Beach, CA.

Fresvii also provides a robust platform for 3D avatar automation called Frenbee that allows developers to create avatars easily with Unity.

The Open Beta Release is free and now available for mobile game developers to download at  http://www.fresvii.com.

Train2Game News LootXP

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Want free gaming stuff? Of course you do! LootXP is a new app (and website) that delivers you the best perks gaming has to offer, including Steam codes, beta keys to the latest upcoming games, in-game items, discount codes and so much more! Best of all, it’s all free!

LootXP is also a win-win solution for publishers and developers, as well as gamers. LootXP will provide them with an easy and risk-free method to expand their audience and raise the awareness of their game. The platform will help promote their game titles in a engaging and reliable way while at the same time giving value to gamers.

Now available via Google Play, users can simply download the LootXP app to their Android enabled mobile device and the iPhone version is coming to the Apple Store soon. LootXP connects our Looters with the best gaming companies in the world, and provide them with all the free loot they can handle.

For more information, head over to http://www.lootxp.com

Train2Game News Ms PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign

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BANDAI NAMCO Games America Inc. has joined forces with the National Breast Cancer Foundation (NBCF) in the fight against the second leading cause of cancer deaths among women with the launch today of its Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign.

Headlined by BANDAI NAMCO’s iconic Ms. PAC-MAN mascot and anchored with new gameplay incentives across the video game publisher’s range of mobile titles, this new effort will raise funds for NBCF to help women now and inspire hope to those affected by breast cancer through early detection, education and support services.

“Awareness and early diagnosis are critical in the fight against breast cancer,” said James Kucera, head of Mobile at BANDAI NAMCO Games America Inc. “We are proud to lend our voice to the fight with Ms. PAC-MAN and BANDAI NAMCO’s Pink Ribbon Campaign.”

“While video games often bring amusement and joy to our lives, this is a chance to bring hope as well.” Senior Producer Ben Acevedo said. “Breast cancer has directly affected my immediate family and it’s a fantastic opportunity for gamers and the industry to get involved. While the mazes we are offering in October are fun, the real challenge is to raise awareness and get players, producers, artists, programmers across the mobile industry to join us and Join the Pac.”

“We are very excited about our new partnership with Bandai Namco and the Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign,” says NBCF Founder & CEO, Janelle Hail. “By encouraging their gamers to Join the Pac, we can reach more women than ever with our message of hope. The funds they raise will allow us to provide early detection services for women in need.”

The heart of the Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign is an exclusive new maze for sale across a multitude of Ms. PAC-MAN and PAC-MAN iOS and Android titles for $0.99 through October. All proceeds from purchases of this new level will go directly to support the National Breast Cancer Foundation. The in-game user interface and artwork for these products will change to a new pink ribbon theme for October alongside this new content. In addition, players can share their scores via Facebook and Twitter, inviting friends to meet the challenge with a donation and high score of their own.

The full list of titles the new Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign content can be downloaded on includes:

iOS

    PAC-MAN/Ms. PAC-MAN
    PAC-MAN Lite/Ms. PAC-MAN Lite
    Ms. PAC-MAN for iPad/Ms.PAC-MAN for iPad Lite

Android

    Ms. PAC-MAN
    PAC-MAN + Tournaments

Ms. PAC-MAN and PAC-MAN are two of gaming’s most historic characters, the stars of a long series of high score-fueled retro arcade experiences. Players navigate either character through labyrinths of tight corridors, dodging dangerous ghosts while gobbling up points, fruits, power-ups and extra lives.

The Ms. PAC-MAN Pink Ribbon Campaign will run from now until October 31.