Sunday, March 9, 2008
On Developing a Passively Multiplayer Online Game
1:00PM Maggie Greene | Last month, we mentioned something called PMOG, a passively multiplayer online ‘game’ of sorts, developed by GameLayers. One of the developers of this little experiment is Merci Victoria Grace, and she’s over at Terra Nova for a guest writing stint; she’s put up an interesting little article explaining what’s going on with PMOG: how it came to be, how it’s been implemented, and the challenges that come along with the ‘game’ design: More »
Weird Preview of the Weekend: Blueberry Garden
12:00PM Maggie Greene | Blueberry Garden is a forthcoming indie release from Erik Svedäng that looks like … well, I’m not entirely sure. A surreal, super-minimalist Viva Piñata, perhaps? Your guess is as good as mine. I’m totally mystified, and I kinda like it. There’s a bit more information over at the creator’s blog (plus info on his other games), including a short story from Blueberry Garden involving party hats, birds, blueberries, and starving party hats. Poor little party hats. My interest is piqued and I’m waiting to find out more. Blueberry Garden (sneak peek trailer) [Blip] More »
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Pwned.Com Responds to Pwnage Trademark Filing
11:00AM Brian Crecente | Oh the Pwnage drama just won’t stop. Last weekend we reported that Futuremark Games had filed a trademark for Pwnage, later that week Jukka Mäkinen, Executive Producer, Futuremark Games Studio, responded claiming that they only filed the trademark because they wanted to “protect ourselves from squatters”. MTV, quick to poke fun, tracked down one of the folks who work at Pwned.Com to see what they think about the whole legal silliness. “PWNED.com is a site for gamers pure and simple. We never felt the need to trademark the word we never created. We do this for fun. We are looking into our options because of this”. Yes, that’s right, we need someone to trademark Pwned too. ‘Pwned.com’ Weighs In On ‘Pwnage’ Trademark Attempt [MTV Multiplayer] More »
Mgame, CDC Settle Yulgang Dispute
10:30AM Maggie Greene | Last year, CDC Games (China) and Mgame (Korea) got into a heated legal battle over the status of Yulgang in Mainland China: CDC sued Mgame for breach of contract, and Mgame said they dropped CDC since they weren’t paying per the terms of that same contract. But, just as was predicted last November, the two companies have kissed and made up: More »
“Improved” SSBB Tourney Trophy
10:00AM Brian Crecente | You were, I’m sure, as horrified as we were when you caught your first glance of the GameStop Super Smash Bros Brawl trophy. Lucky for us, we weren’t the only ones permanently scarred by the sight of a singlet-wearing, gold-dipped high school wrestler. The assistant manager of a EB Games said he and his fellow employees broke into gales of laughter when they unboxed the trophy at their story. Fortunately, they figured out a way to make the trophy more SSBB “appropriate”. I like it! [Thanks Brett] More »
What Distinguishes Independent Games From the Rest?
9:30AM Maggie Greene | I mentioned Eludamos a while back: it’s an open access academic journal dealing with games. They released volume 2, issue 1 last month, and there’s plenty of interesting reading to be had, if you’re into that sort of thing. Ian Bogost mentioned one particularly interesting article on the indie/mainstream divide in games, which uses the independent film industry as a comparison point. Well, sort of. The author expounds that the very things that generally distinguish independent films from their mainstream counterparts break down when it comes to the indie/mainstream game divide. It’s not so much an issue of opposition to a dominant norm when it comes to games; on the contrary, it’s a matter of tweaking mechanics and other aspects while still fitting into a mainstream framework: More »
New Condemned 2 Screens
9:00AM Brian Crecente | Condemned 2: Bloodshot has sort of snuck up on me. Did you realise it’s hitting next week? Tuesday in fact. I really loved the first game, so I have pretty high expectations for the second and with all of the time Sega has had to work with the 360 and PS3 it should really shine. Here’s a slew of new 360 screens. Hit the jump to check out the PS3 screens. Both sets provided by Sega.
IndieCade ‘08 Submissions Now Open
8:30AM Maggie Greene | IndieCade is a festival of independent games that makes appearances all over the place; this year, they’ll be at events in Hangzhou, E3, E for All, PAX, and a couple of other places. And, like their name would imply, they’re out showcasing independent games. The call recently went out for independent game submissions for the 2008 festivals. The rules look pretty flexible, with the primary requirement being that no major developer’s money has crossed your palm in reference to the submitted game: More »
Wii Shop Gets Puyo Puyo 2 and POWERBALL
8:00AM Brian Crecente | Sega has confirmed that two of their Genesis titles, Puyo Puyo 2 and POWERBALL, will be hitting the Wii Shop Channel this month with prices starting at 800 Wii Points. More »
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