krome studios
Hands On
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes Preview
5:00AM AJ Glasser | Star Wars: The Clone Wars is a massively successful CGI show on Cartoon Network. Can its tie-in game live up to the hype? More »
News
10:00AM David Wildgoose | We know that Blizzard just got named Develop magazine’s “most bankable” studio in its annual Top 100 list. But did any Australian studios make the cut? More »
Aussie Devs Crack The Top 100
10:00AM David Wildgoose | We know that Blizzard just got named Develop magazine’s “most bankable” studio in its annual Top 100 list. But did any Australian studios make the cut? More »
News
Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes Detailed
2:00AM Brian Crecente | Star Wars The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes is being developed by LucasArts and Krome Studios as a two-player coop action game. More »
Krome Artist Lost In Plane Accident
10:30AM Logan Booker | You may have read a story on Monday about an aerial joy ride that went terribly wrong over Jumpinpin Bar, near North Stradbroke Island and South Stradbroke Island. It appears Ian Lovell, an artist for Krome Studios, was on the plane.
According to the story, the plane disappeared during an attempt to perform a massive loop. Search and rescue efforts found a propeller on August 31, but otherwise no wreckage has been found. Very sad news, and I can’t imagine how everyone over at Krome is feeling. All the best to the studio and Lovell’s family.
Krome Studios artist in tragic plane accident [Tsumea] More » 
George Lucas, Dave Filoni Talk The Clone Wars Video Game
12:00AM Brian Crecente | Entertainment Weekly got a chance to meet up with George Lucas, Dave Filoni and company to talk about the upcoming Clone War movie and video games. The DS version is being developed by LucasArts Singapore and looks to be very touch-heavy, while the Wii version is being developed by Krome Studios in Australia. The LucasArts folks call Wii game the “ultimate light saber dueling experience”. Check out the whole interview over at EW. Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Exclusive [EW] More »Clone Wars On Wii: Wagglesabers
12:20PM Luke Plunkett | Read this: “The promise of a Wii Lightsabre game has hung in the air since the Wii hit the shelves. We think this is the game that delivers on that promise”. That’s Ken Fox, from Krome Studios, developers of the upcoming Clone Wars game for the Wii. Excited? Cool those jets. He also says this: “We’ve tried to make the lightsabre control as intuitive and fun as possible. It’s not a Lightsabre simulator, but when you swing your Wii remote left to right; your character does the same. You use the thumbstick on the nunchuck to move your character and swing the Wii remote to swing your Lightsabre”. Wait, that doesn’t deliver on the promise at all! Unless the promise was for yet another third-party action game based on a Star Wars story, only this time with waggle. Which it wasn’t! More info on the game below, which is a must-read if you want to see a man use the word “lightsabre” 20 times in a single interview. Interview: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [IGN] More »G4: Video of Force Unleashed for Wii, Duel Mode
1:00AM Owen Good | Ah the Wiimote. An elegant weapon, not as clumsy or as random like a blaster. Paired with the Nunchuk, it’s pretty awesome too, according to this video from G4, which got an exclusive hands-on with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed for the Wii’s duel mode. (Man that was a mouthful). G4’s reporter went as Luke Skywalker, duking it out in a TIE Fighter bay with Asajj Ventress There’s saber-slashing and Force-choking galore, all arising from a pretty shrewd use of combinations and reverse moves in both controllers. It’s not all lightning bolts and throws, either. Check out that old-school kick to the grill Luke delivers at the end. More »
News
4:30PM Logan Booker | A Courier Mail story, posted today, points out that at 48.5%, the Queensland has the highest percentage of game developers in the country and collects 40% of the industry’s earnings, or $55 million if you happen to like dollar signs. It’s all in the Australian Bureau of Statistics report we talked about not long ago.
The article includes comments from Steve Stamatiadis, creative director at Krome Studios, as to why the state is such a force in the Oz games industry. According to Stamatiadis, Queensland is not only a hotbed of talent, but has the educational facilities and history to back it up.
Stamatiadis also couldn’t help but mention that the Wii version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is being developed at Krome. He reckons it’s “a big honour and a huge marketing juggernaut”, two facts we couldn’t agree more with.
State leads the industry [Courier Mail, via Sumea] More »
Queensland, Home To 40 Percent Of Australian Developers
4:30PM Logan Booker | A Courier Mail story, posted today, points out that at 48.5%, the Queensland has the highest percentage of game developers in the country and collects 40% of the industry’s earnings, or $55 million if you happen to like dollar signs. It’s all in the Australian Bureau of Statistics report we talked about not long ago.
The article includes comments from Steve Stamatiadis, creative director at Krome Studios, as to why the state is such a force in the Oz games industry. According to Stamatiadis, Queensland is not only a hotbed of talent, but has the educational facilities and history to back it up.
Stamatiadis also couldn’t help but mention that the Wii version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed is being developed at Krome. He reckons it’s “a big honour and a huge marketing juggernaut”, two facts we couldn’t agree more with.
State leads the industry [Courier Mail, via Sumea] More » 
Krome “Proud” Of Party Animals, Australia Full Of Quality Devs
12:30PM Logan Booker | Gamasutra chatted recently with Krome Studios’ Cameron Davis, lead designer of Viva Pinata: Party Animals. While I can’t say I was a big fan of the game, Davis says he was happy with the end product:
I’m very proud of the game. I think it turned out exactly how I wanted it to be. The guys at Microsoft were really helpful, helping us get it done on time. They were happy with it. I don’t know what happened in the marketplace.
Davis also discusses the merits of the Australian developer scene. In the past, he feels the dollar helped coax publishers to our shores but now, the quality of work is what’s tickling the right places:
But ultimately, we just try to do the best quality we can; all the studios in Australia do, and I think that shows. I think it’s regardless of region; that’s become less of a barrier now.
Gamasutra has more with Cameron, if you’d like to hit the link.
Q&A: Krome’s Davis On The Pinata Franchise [Gamasutra, via Blue's News] More »
News
11:30AM Logan Booker | Over at InvestorTV there’s an extremely eye-opening talk with some of Australia’s most prominent game developers. Included in the all-local mix are Tony Hilliam, CEO of Auran; Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus and Krome Studios’ CEO Robert Walsh. While Hilliam gets stuck explaining the downfall of Auran, Tom and Robert go over the positives of games development in Oz.
The first part of the interview sees Hilliam deconstruct the failure of Fury, citing poor sales in the US and Europe and the sheer size of World of Warcraft as contributing factors:
“Ultimately, sales of Fury were worse than our low case projections. We did OK in Australia, we were top 10 in Australia, but Europe was a complete write-off. In the US – again the Australian sales have nearly outstripped the US market altogether. When Australia is almost your biggest market, you have a problem.”
It’s not all rotten, though. Tom Crago paints a more alluring picture of the local development scene: More »
Oz Fury Sales Outstripped the US, Asia & Europe Better Places To Develop?
11:30AM Logan Booker | Over at InvestorTV there’s an extremely eye-opening talk with some of Australia’s most prominent game developers. Included in the all-local mix are Tony Hilliam, CEO of Auran; Tom Crago, CEO of Tantalus and Krome Studios’ CEO Robert Walsh. While Hilliam gets stuck explaining the downfall of Auran, Tom and Robert go over the positives of games development in Oz.
The first part of the interview sees Hilliam deconstruct the failure of Fury, citing poor sales in the US and Europe and the sheer size of World of Warcraft as contributing factors:
“Ultimately, sales of Fury were worse than our low case projections. We did OK in Australia, we were top 10 in Australia, but Europe was a complete write-off. In the US – again the Australian sales have nearly outstripped the US market altogether. When Australia is almost your biggest market, you have a problem.”
It’s not all rotten, though. Tom Crago paints a more alluring picture of the local development scene: More » 
