Tag Archives: Game Development

Train2Game News: Elder Scrolls Online release date

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elder-scrolls-online-logoBethesda have announced when their highly anticipated Elder Scrolls: Online will be released with a new gameplay trailer to go with it.

The Elder Scrolls Online, the latest chapter of the award-winning franchise that brings the legendary experience online for the first time, will be launching worldwide for PC and Mac on April 4, 2014. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions will follow in June 2014.

Players can choose their own style of play as they embark upon an epic adventure across all of Tamriel, playing alone on a heroic quest as in previous Elder Scrolls games, exploring the huge, rich world with a few select friends, or playing with hundreds of others in massive PvP battles to save the Empire.

“We are thrilled to bring this game to consoles, in addition to the PC and Mac,” said Matt Firor, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online. “It’s something our fans have been requesting since we first announced the title, and something our team is excited to offer. Everyone will be able to play The Elder Scrolls Online the way they want to play”

You can see a brand new trailer for the game below:

Train2Game News: Mobile Game Creation App Released

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IMG_0146Independent Polish developer Incuvo have released their innovative game creation app Createrria.

This is the first application that allows players to create and publish their own games, free to download, Createrria is available for iPhone, iPad and iPod with an Android version to follow next year.

Createrria turns the fun and joy of making games in to a game itself. Become an instant game designer by creating the games you always wanted to play or construct your own improved version of world famous franchises! Want to tell a story or create an awesome action game? No problem. Have a great idea for a puzzle game or platformer? Go right ahead. Createrria offers quick and easy tools to create any game you want without any technical or programming skills. With just a few taps you can craft your own games and share them with your friends.

“Nowadays you can create almost anything on mobile devices; Take photos, paint, compose music, even shape virtual pottery – you  name it. But until now there hasn’t really been a good app for game creation. We want to change that with Createrria. And remember, this is meant for players, not developers.” commented Jakub Duda, Incuvo co-founder.

“I often start Createrria early in the morning just to check new crazy game ideas that appeared in the community the previous night. It’s a great feeling when players surprise you with new creations.” said Wojciech Borczyk, Incuvo’s second co-founder.

Want to create that great 8-bit classic? Then the Pixel Art Theme is for you. How about a Grimm fairy tale with a twist? The Fable Theme is what you’re after. Featuring a variety of powerful and easy-to-use tools, all the graphic styles in Createrria comes with its own set of backgrounds, terrain, items and enemies!

Already the recipient of critical acclaim including making the final of the ‘Game Connection 2012 Best Project’ Createrria will unlock the game making dreams of aspiring creators everywhere.

You can view the trailer for Createrria below

Train2Game News: GallantCloud Blog – Final Week

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Gallant CloudThe week before demo day has just begun. What happened with the time?
It seems to accelerate before a crucial deadline like this. We had the amazing opportunity to go to Lionhead Studios and refine our pitch and our game with Gary over the whole week.

As always we felt very welcome by Gary and his generous support for us and our game was invaluable. I can’t stress how important it is to have a mentor on board who has 28 years of game design experience. It makes a huge difference.

The demo day at the Level 39 in Canary Wharf has finally arrived.

This is what we are working so hard towards the whole 12 plus 1 weeks. As always there are thoughts of how things might go terribly wrong, but practising the pitch on stage a few times made us more confident and it became more a routine over time. Keeping focused on delivering our passion and excitement for our game helped a lot.

I brought my Oculus Rift along to demonstrate that we have a cutting edge game that is ready for the future next year.

The pitch and the demonstration of our game went very well and we where all relieved that it was finally over. Time to celebrate and enjoy the successful demo day with Microsoft!

It has been a great journey indeed.

I highly recommend this accelerator experience to anyone who wishes to move on the fast track and learn very fast and likes challenges.

Train2Game News: Avenged Sevenfold releasing mobile game

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Avenged SevenfoldFollowing a number one album release and a world tour, Avenged Sevenfold, are developing their own animated series and mobile game.

The five piece from California released their album Hail To The King back in late August and have since been touring the world to great reviews. I had the pleasure of seeing them on Thursday night and was blown away by the stage show they put on.

The band is well known for always evolving and trying new things. Their new adventure has lead them to create a Hail To The King animated series which is being produced with help from Jon Schnepp who has previously worked on Metalocalypse for Adult Swim. The series will be shown this holiday season and is a prequel to a mobile game the band have been involved with, Hail To The King: Deathbat.

Lead Singer of Avenged Sevenfold, M Shadows said “Two years ago while touring in South East Asia I looked around the bus taking us from the airport to the hotel and noticed everyone was on their phones and iPads playing different types of games. We had a discussion and decided that it would be fun to create one of our own. The problem was that we didn’t feel passionate about doing a full on typical music game. We wanted to do something different. Something inspired by some of our favorite games. So we came up with the idea of turning some of our songs and art work into a living, breathing, evil world. We wanted to bring the story of the Deathbat to life and allow you to control its destiny.”

Through the game you will be able to unlock 16 pieces of never seen before artwork from all of Avenged Sevenfolds albums. There will also be 7 new Cam Rackam paintings available in the game. He is the artist responsible for creating the Deathbat logo.

The band have also recorded 7 new songs for the game. These aren’t metal songs, they are theme songs for each level and are done in an old school video game fashion with a new school twist. There will also be reimagined versions of some of the bands older songs.

The trailer for the game will be released with the Machinima “Hail to the King” series on December 15th with the game scheduled for an early 2014 release.

You can enjoy a teaser trailer for the series below. Be aware there is some graphic cartoon violence. MUST BE OVER 18 TO WATCH.

Avenged Sevenfold will be headlining Download Festival this summer.

Train2Game News: Train2Game Winners site live

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Train2Game WinnersTrain2Game have launched an exciting new website where we get to show off the great accomplishments of our students.

Train2Game Winners is a place where students who have achieved great things in the games industry will be celebrated. We thought it was high time to show the world just how successful our students can be.

The website features testimonials from students in their own words about how they feel about Train2Game and the support they have received.

We are proud of each and every one of our students and hope that we will be adding to this site with more new achievements from students in the near future.

Visit www.train2gamewinners.co.uk to view the new site.

Train2Game News: UK Top 20 Games – 09.12.13

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Call of Duty GhostsIn the lead up to Christmas now and the new console launches over, the charts have become very quiet. CoD: Ghosts has retained the number one spot and the only new entry to the list is Gran Turismo 6 which comes in at number eight.

All formats

Week ending 7 December 2013

POS.  TITLE  PUBLISHER  LAST
WEEK 
1 – CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS ACTIVISION 1
2 – FIFA 14 EA SPORTS 2
3 – BATTLEFIELD 4 EA GAMES 3
4 ASSASSIN’S CREED IV: BLACK FLAG UBISOFT 5
5 GRAND THEFT AUTO V ROCKSTAR 7
6 – LEGO MARVEL SUPER HEROES WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 6
7 JUST DANCE 2014 UBISOFT 9
8 GRAN TURISMO 6 SONY COMPUTER ENT. –
9 KILLZONE: SHADOW FALL SONY COMPUTER ENT. 4
10 – BATMAN: ARKHAM ORIGINS WARNER BROS. INTERACTIVE 10
11 NEED FOR SPEED: RIVALS EA GAMES 8
12 SKYLANDERS SWAP FORCE SKYLANDERS 11
13 MINECRAFT: XBOX 360 EDITION MICROSOFT 12
14 WWE 2K14 2K SPORTS 17
15 DISNEY INFINITY DISNEY INFINITY 16
16 TOMB RAIDER SQUARE ENIX 19
17 FOOTBALL MANAGER 2014 SEGA 20
18 KNACK SONY COMPUTER ENT. 13
19 THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK BETWEEN WORLDS NINTENDO 17
20 SUPER MARIO 3D WORLD NINTENDO 14
< 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: Assassin’s Creed Pirates out on mobile

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AC PiratesToday Ubisoft announced that the next game in the award-winning Assassin’s Creed franchise, Assassin’s Creed Pirates, is now available on iOS and Android.

The year is 1716, the dawn of the Golden Age of piracy in the Caribbean. Players take on the role of Alonzo Batilla, a young and ambitious Captain who is embarking on an epic quest to find La Buse’s legendary treasure. Along his way Alonzo will cross paths with famous buccaneers including Blackbeard, Bellamy and Hornigold and find himself caught in the middle of the ancestral fight between Assassins and Templars.

In Assassin’s Creed Pirates, players will be tasked to manage their crew, upgrade their ship, recruit new crew members and engage in massive and brutal real-time naval battles to become the most feared pirate in the Caribbean.

Ubisoft Paris has developed a brand new mobile engine to bring groundbreaking 3D visuals to Assassin’s Creed Pirates. This engine is responsible for the breathtaking moving waters, lush islands, and gorgeous graphics that set new visual standards for mobile platforms.

This is definitely becoming a trend with the big franchise games to have a smaller mobile game. It shows that the big developers even see the mobile market as a strong and healthy platform.

Train2Game News: 32 developers announced for ID@Xbox

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Xbox OneMicrosoft has revealed thirty two teams have signed up for their independent publishing programme, ID@Xbox.

Head of ID@Xbox Chris Charla announced the list of thirty two developers today with studios from all over the world including big names like Double Fine and Team 17 all the way down to smaller first time studios developing for Microsoft like The Men Who Wear Many Hats and Iron Galaxy.

Microsoft claims to have shipped over 50 SDKs to independent teams working on Xbox One projects, and intends to enable retail Xbox One units to be used as a dev kit in the near future.

“Bottom line, we’ve been blown away by the interest in the ID@Xbox programme, and we can’t wait until the games start shipping so players can experience the amazing titles that the independent developers will be bringing to Xbox One,” said Charla.

Iron Galaxy’s Dave Lang, makers of Divekick, added: “All developers care about is being able to make the games they want and get them into the hands of as many people as possible. Now, thanks to ID@Xbox, Iron Galaxy can bring Divekick to a Microsoft platform for the first time. We’ve been working on Xbox One games for a while now, and because of that you can bet Divekick will take advantage of all the platform’s unique capabilities.”

Microsoft are certainly stepping in the right direction to help the little studios get their foot in the door and get their games seen by a wider audience.

If you are interested in joining the current list of developers visit http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/developers/id

Train2Game News: GallantCloud blog – Week 12

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Gallant CloudThis is officially the last week on the Microsoft Accelerator Program. Can’t believe that it is almost over already. The demo day is coming fast as it is scheduled for the next week. We have made some great friends over the last 12 weeks. It is quite a shame that it is over soon.

We had the German State Minister of Economics Affairs (Labour and Transport) Olaf Lies in the office this week and he was quite impressed with our game. He left a delicious traditional ‘Baumkuchen’ cake for the whole Microsoft Accelerator program. A great treat for the start of the week I would say.

The last Pitching Doctor session this week was located at the L39 boardroom in Canary Wharf. It was an amazing location to practice our pitch and soaking up the banking and start-up atmosphere. Practice makes perfect as we know and refining our pitch after every presentation and genuine feedback really makes a difference.

Later that evening we had some great Wine tasting and talk by Naked Wines and our office farewell toast with Pizza.

Next day it was time for two more pitching rounds in front of ‘friendly investors’ and we got some good feedback from them too. This is all very encouraging as it seems we are on the right track with our game and pitch.

As it is still November we formed a team at the begin of the month for ‘Movember’ and raised some money from people in the Co-working office. Growing a moustache for a whole month is quite a high maintenance as well. Also it makes you feel like a cool dude, but the people around you look suspiciously at us and very likely to make some funny comments. I think I heard them all by now, but I am strong and resist the temptation to shave the fur off between my nose and lips. One of our team members actually was getting rid of his one, so we had to give him a fake moustache for a while. It was all great fun!

The final day at the Accelerator arrived and we making best us of it by polishing our game and doing more pitching practice for another event in front of hundreds of people.

The last week has past so quickly, it is unreal. One more week to go before the demo day.
It is going to be a crazy week ahead!

This is officially the last week on the Microsoft Accelerator Program. Can’t believe that it is almost over already. The demo day is coming fast as it is scheduled for the next week. We have made some great friends over the last 12 weeks. It is quite a shame that it is over soon.

We had the German State Minister of Economics Affairs (Labour and Transport) Olaf Lies in the office this week and he was quite impressed with our game. He left a delicious traditional ‘Baumkuchen’ cake for the whole Microsoft Accelerator program. A great treat for the start of the week I would say.

The last Pitching Doctor session this week was located at the L39 boardroom in Canary Wharf. It was an amazing location to practice our pitch and soaking up the banking and start-up atmosphere. Practice makes perfect as we know and refining our pitch after every presentation and genuine feedback really makes a difference.

Later that evening we had some great Wine tasting and talk by Naked Wines and our office farewell toast with Pizza.

Next day it was time for two more pitching rounds in front of ‘friendly investors’ and we got some good feedback from them too. This is all very encouraging as it seems we are on the right track with our game and pitch.

As it is still November we formed a team at the begin of the month for ‘Movember’ and raised some money from people in the Co-working office. Growing a moustache for a whole month is quite a high maintenance as well. Also it makes you feel like a cool dude, but the people around you look suspiciously at us and very likely to make some funny comments. I think I heard them all by now, but I am strong and resist the temptation to shave the fur off between my nose and lips. One of our team members actually was getting rid of his one, so we had to give him a fake moustache for a while. It was all great fun!

The final day at the Accelerator arrived and we making best us of it by polishing our game and doing more pitching practice for another event in front of hundreds of people.

The last week has past so quickly, it is unreal. One more week to go before the demo day.

It is going to be a crazy week ahead!

Train2Game News: GamesAnalytics report assess GTA Online

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GTA VPredictive analytics specialists GamesAnalytics, has today published a special report which explores the Free-2-Play (F2P) potential of Grand Theft Auto Online.

The latest release of the game took Rockstar’s blockbuster franchise in an ambitious new direction, with a multiplayer world and in-game economy and the Benchmark report assesses whether GTA Online would also make a successful standalone F2P game.

The report has been produced using GamesAnalytics’ evidenced based research methodology, where 50 game design aspects across six main categories including Monetisation, Retention, Engagement and Virality are assessed against industry best practice F2P game design from over 80 F2P titles.

The report found that GTA Online surpassed the best in genre scores for categories including Retention, Game Mechanics and Engagement. However, if the game was released as a standalone F2P title then the report identifies mechanics that it would benefit from improving key mechanics to achieve high levels of Monetization and Virality.

Based on the reporting findings, GamesAnalytics highlights five recommendations in the report to help achieve best practice F2P design:

1. Improve the currency structure with first / second payment structure
2. Introduce a VIP structure to fast track progress and reward members
3. Develop a trading mechanism to help increase community aspects
4. Utilise no lose gambling mechanics
5. Build in reward mechanics for social sharing

Mark Robinson, Co-founder and COO GamesAnalytics, commented on the report: “GTA Online is clearly a quality bestselling premium game and this Benchmark report shows its F2P potential as a standalone game. The assessment does however highlight when designing F2P games all areas of Player Relationship Management need to be taken into consideration in particular mechanics that maximise virality, monetization and retention.

F2P game design is evolving across multiple platforms and genres. GamesAnalytics’ tools and services help publishers and developers understand best practice game design and integrate learnings upfront in the design and development process.”

These could be helpful suggestions to bear in mind for your own F2P game if you choose to take that route.