Tag Archives: Game Design

Train2Game News, Smurfs’ Village ‘changing the market’ for mobile games

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It’s very likely that many Train2Game students are aware that Angry Birds is a hugely popular game. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that the Train2Game blog reported that it’s been downloaded over 200 million times.

The CEO of one developer however, believes that it isn’t Angry Birds that’s the most important mobile game, but Smurfs’ Village.

Unsurprisingly, the man singing its praises is Remi Racine, CEO of Smurfs’ Village developer Behaviour Interactive.

“Everybody is talking about Angry Birds, but the game, to me, that is changing the market is Smurfs’ Village,” he told GamesIndustry.biz “Smurfs’ Village is outstanding.”

“I’d be curious to see who is making the most money between Angry Birds and Smurfs’ Village.”

When you look at the charts it’s always among the top three of four grossing games of the last seven or eight months. It’s always there. Angry Birds is in the top ten, but Smurf is in the top three. It’s amazing.”

“About 30 or 40 percent of the top grossing games are freemium based,” Racine added. “It’s the new way.”

Smurfs’ Village is free to download, but allows players to increase progress by downloading the in-game Smurfberry currency, with real money in various sized bundles that cost between £2.99 and £59.99.

For more information about Smurf’s Village, and how free-to-play could be the way to go for Train2Game students, see the Train2Game blog.

And as reported by the Train2Game blog just last week, EA believe free-to-play titles can be as profitable as console games.

So Train2Game, do you agree that Smurfs’ Village is the most important mobile game? Is free-to-play a model a smurfy way of developing games?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]

Train2Game News, Cloud gaming service Gaikai founder on how to combat latency

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As previously reported by the Train2Game blog, streaming video games directly to televisions or other devices is increasingly being talked about as a means of getting them directly to the consumer.

However, with internet connections, well, notoriously unreliable there are those that doubt whether steaming games can truly take off in the near future.

Indeed, Dave Perry, founder of cloud gaming service Gaikai, acknowledges that latency is “the biggest elephant in the room” but claims the company has gone to great length to combat it.

“A lot of programmers  went on record straight away saying ‘this’ll never work’, Perry told Edge “I am an engineer and I get it, I’m there with them, I understand the conceptual problem”

Of course, Train2Game game developers are working towards a career in the area of programming.

“The thing they don’t think about is I have about 60 people coming to the office every day working on this problem. We found many, many ways to do it, and we’re executing all of them.”

“The way the math works is that if I get two states closer to you, I actually get four states closer,” he said

“Two states is four states in latency, we had that epiphany pretty early on. That’s why we have so many data centres.”

Another solution is rather interesting, and also surprising.

“Imagine your game’s running at 30 fps on your console, but we run it at 60 fps [in the data centre], the amount of time that the game took while it was running,” he explains. “The engine itself took less time because we’re running it faster.

“So we take that time and use it for compression and sending, and you can suddenly see how the math starts to work in our favour. The faster we run the game, the more we overclock it, the lower the feel of the latency. This is one of many, many ways we’ve discovered to tighten up the feel of it.”

As previously reported by the Train2Game blog, there are those that truly believe cloud gaming is indeed the future of this industry, could Gaikai’s methods be a step towards this?

So Train2Game, do you think it’s the future of the industry? Does Perry address concerns about latency?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Edge]

Train2Game students MUST read this! Molyneux reveals wacky sources of game ideas

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In a Gamelab talk that should provide a lot of interest to Train2Game students, Peter Molyneux has revealed what inspirations lie behind some of his games, and some of them are a little…odd.

For example, Train2Game students may find it strange to hear that Black & White was inspired by a time when Molyneux had a pet hamster at the age of 12.

“I spent the first three months of my hamster’s life teaching it tricks,” he told the Gamelab.

“Now, sadly, hamsters aren’t clever animals. So eventually I ignored him. One day I came back and, after ignoring the hamster for a month, I found it in its cage and realised it had been dead for two weeks.”

“It was the shame of letting this cute creature die that inspired me,” Funnily enough, Black And White is a game where neglecting your character has consequences.

Molyneux also revealed that the inspiration for Dungeon Keeper came from watching Bond film ‘You Only Live Twice’

In this film, James Bond single-handedly takes out an entire base from an evil villain by pressing one button. I thought this was incredibly unfair. What about the bad guys?” he said

“They’ve spent years building this entire base and it is completely wiped out when James Bond presses a single button?! We never know about what happens to the bad guy,”

“I decided to embrace the dark side, so Dungeon Keeper is all about being evil.” He added.

His main point is sure to be useful to the Train2Game Game Designers.

“Nurture your ideas. Care for them. Don’t criticise them. Think about the reasons why they excite you. I obsess about the reason why my ideas excite me,” Molyneux told Gamelab

“And be prepared before you tell other people about them. As soon as you present your idea you’ll have to answer to the negativity. Start with the people who will believe in your idea. Eventually, you’ll need to be prepared to change your mind as well.”

Useful advice for Train2Game students if there ever was any.

Peter Molyneux often offers advice to up and coming developers, and as reported by the Train2Game bog, he believes they should be getting more support. And as also previously mentioned on the Train2Game blog, he’s offered advice on how to get into the game industry.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Molyneux’s inspiration and advice? Have you had game ideas in odd situations?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Develop]

Train2Game good news for modders! Source SDK will soon be free

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Exciting news for Train2Game modding enthusiasts! Valve has revealed that their Source Software Development Kit will be available to anyone for free.

The announcement comes following Valve stating that they were working on making the Source SDK ‘less painful to use, as reported by the Train2Game blog earlier this year.

Currently, you need to buy a Source based game such as Half-Life 2 in order to gain access to the mod tools, but it appears Team Fortress 2 going free-to-play last week has fundamentally changed this.

The news of the Source SDK becoming free first appeared on Reddit, after a mod tester known as Riley contacted Team Fortress 2 developer Robin Walker to ask if buying an in-game item would allow access to the tools. Walker replied with:

“Yep. That said, your email has triggered a process here that made us re-examine that, and we’re going to just go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available. Thanks for making us better!”

PC Gaming blog Rock, Paper Shotgun also contacted Walker to confirm the news, to which he replied:

“We are in the process of getting it all done. It’s a bit messy because we have multiple versions of the SDK, and there’s some dependencies we need to shake out. But yes, the gist of it is that we’re just going to go ahead and make the Source SDK freely available.”

So there’s good news for budding Train2Game game developers, you’ll now be able to access the Source modding tools for free!

Valve have a long history of supporting modders, and as many Train2Game students will know, the popular shooter Counter-Strike begun as a mod for the original Half-Life.

More recently, Valve have allowed Team Fortress 2 community developers a cut of the revenue made from the in-game items sold through digital transactions.

In an interview published on the Train2Game blog last month, Red Faction: Armageddon Lead Level Designer Jameson Durall said that modding is an excellent way for those with desires to get into the games industry to practice their skills.

So Train2Game, will you be using the Source SDK? Have you used it before? And does the  support Valve give mods inspire you?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Rock, Paper Shotgun]

Train2Game students have the opportunity to join Hellgate Open Beta

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Here’s something that may especially be of interest to Train2Game students on the Games QA Tester course, the Open Beta period for T3 Entertainment’s MMO Hellgate has begun.

As Train2Game students will know, a Beta period not only acts as a good source of promotion for a game, it also allows users to essentially become QA Testers and report any bugs or problems they encounter.

The Hellgate Open Beta could therefore provide a Train2Game QA Tester with an opportunity to test their bug testing skills, while having some fun with a new game at the same time.

Hellgate is described as “an online, action RPG that allows you to play in a first-person or third-person perspective.”

Set in a near future where the gates of Hell have opened and Demons roam the earth, the game is based in London! Perhaps some Train2Game students would be interested in testing Hellgate purely for that reason.

To sign up for the Hellgate Open Beta, visit the official website and follow the Hellgate logo.

Hellgate is a free-to-play MMO, and as reported by the Train2Game blog just yesterday, freemium games can become very profitable for developers and publishers.

Train2Game students who want an in-depth look at how developing a free-to-play title can bring success should see this previous post on the Train2Game blog

So Train2Game, will you be joining the open beta? Do you see it as a good opportunity to test your abilities as a QA Tester?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Gamasutra]

Train2Game student developed game Postal Panic released via iTunes app store

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Train2Game student developed game Postal Panic is now available to download for free from the iTunes App store!

Postal Panic was produced by Train2Game student team Horizon Studios  in just 11 days as part of the Train2Game Christmas competition 2010. 

The game is free to download for its first three weeks of release, and then the price will rise to 59p. Half of the revenue from Postal Panic will be going to the Prince’s Trust charity.

Postal Panic is the fun postcode delivering game developed by Train2Game students. Your job is simple; deliver the parcels to the postcodes as quickly as you can.

As the Parcels come down the conveyor belt, you need to deliver them to the postcode displayed on the Postal Scanner 7000; you need to do this before they hit the bottom, as this will damage the parcels and Postal Paul will get fined. Too many fines and you’re in for the sack!

Features

• Accurate map of the UK postal code system

• Simple, intuitive touch &swipe game controls

• Single or Multiplayer with up to 4 players

• Addictively fun puzzle game play and scoring

• Learn the Post Code areas of the UK and impress your friends & family

For updates on Postal Panic head to the official website at http://postalpanic.horizonstudios.co.uk/ 

Postal Panic can be downloaded now from the iTunes app store. The Postal Panic trailer can be seen on the Train2game Youtube channel.

To play more games developed by Train2Game students, visit the official Train2Game Game Jam website, where all the games developed during the 48 hour event are available for free.

So Train2Game, will you be downloading Postal Panic?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

Johnny Robinson – Train2Game Industry Experience Diary No.1

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Train2Game Game Designer Johnny Robinson is on a  Train2Game student work placement at DR Studios.

This is the first in a series of Train2Game student work placement diaries Johnny will be writing during his placement. Read it below or on the official Train2Game industry experience diaries website.

You can also watch Johnny’s first video diary here on the Train2Game blog.

 

 

Laurence Gee – Industry Experience Diary No.4

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Train2Game student Laurence Gee writes about his Train2Game industry work experience placement for the fourth time.

Read his Train2Game industry experience diary on the official website, or here on the Train2Game blog. Industry diary 3 is also available on the Train2Game blog.

Mojang’s Scrolls to follow same release strategy as Minecraft

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Regular Train2Game blog readers will be highly aware of the success of indie game Minecraft, as well as its huge following among Train2Game forum users.

Some of them have been there since they purchased Minecraft when it was in Alpha, or in its current Beta form, and Mojang have revealed that their next game, Scrolls, will follow the same pattern.

“With our new game, Scrolls, we’ll follow the same formula as Minecraft,” said Mojang’s Daniel Kaplan while speaking at GameLab in Barcelona.  “That means we’ll release the game very early, at the minimal playable state.”

That means people will pay for it, play it, and give feedback from a very early stage, in essence, almost asking like a QA Tester. Kaplan also revealed that Scrolls has a five person development team.

“That sounds like a small team, but it’s very big for us. One thing that means is we’re going to have to outsource art,” he added.

As reported by the Train2Game blog earlier this month, Minecraft for the Xbox 360 IS being developed by Dundee based 4J Studios, and Kaplan says it’ll be quite different to the PC version.

“I don’t think we can have the exact same experience because of the lack of a keyboard, so we’re going to do a complete overhaul of the user interface, and make sure it works on a 360 controller.”

Kaplan also commented on the prospect of Mojang publishing games by other indie studios, something the Train2Game blog revealed the developer was thinking of last month.

“We’re looking for people with a similar structure [to Mojang],” he said. “People who are very passionate about what they’re doing. We’re also looking for games that last longer, and treat games as a service, like Minecraft does.”

“And of course, [they need to have] passion,” he added. “A lot of people join the game industry because of passion, but you should also learn that that’s what it takes to stay there.”

That last statement could describe many Train2Game students who are very passionate about finding work in the games industry.

So Train2Game, what do you think of Scrolls release structure? Will it mirror the success of Minecraft? And will you be jumping in straight away?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Gamasutra]

Allies & Empires gains more users than Farmville

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Just last week, the Train2Game blog reported that Zynga’s Empires & Allies had reached 33 million users. Now the game has passed 41 million players, meaning that more people are playing Empires & Allies than are playing Farmville.

It provides a reminder to Train2Game students as to how big a phenomenon social media gaming has become.

Empires & Allies is free-to-play, but like many other Zynga and social media games, players can spend money to help them progress faster. And as noted by Venture Beat:

“If the game continues to get users, it could reach a much bigger audience than a hardcore game would typically get.”

“The combat strategy element will address the tastes of hardcore gamers as well as many mainstream gamers who have complained that there isn’t enough game play in Zynga’s other games, such as FarmVille.”

As the Train2Game blog reported earlier this year, a survey suggested that 70% of internet users play casual games. Social games are therefore potentially a lucrative market forTrain2Game students to be involved in.

Indeed, the Train2Game blog also reported that Game Design  is the most important aspect of a social game, and that Game Designers behind them much larger roles than those who help produce console titles.

If the popularity of Empires & Allies keeps growing, could it reach the 100 million player peak that the Train2Game blog reported Cityville had?

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Empires & Allies? Have you played it? Could it potentially appeal to a more hardcore audience then previous Zynga games?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: Venture Beat]