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Space Race Blastoff. Image credit: NASA

This week, NASA has launched its first multi-player online game on Facebook to test players’ knowledge of the space program, as well as an interactive air traffic control mobile game for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch.

The first game, Space Race Blastoff asks players questions such as “Who was the first American to walk in space?” and “Who launched the first liquid-fueled rocket?”

Sector 33 is the second game, which puts the player in the role of a lead air traffic controller. The players task is to guide air traffic safely through “Sector 33″ as quickly as possible. To achieve their goal, players must choose the most efficient route and make strategic speed changes.

Are you up for the challenges NASA has put forth in Space Race Blastoff and Sector 33 ?

Space Race Blastoff tests players’ knowledge of NASA history, technology, science and pop culture. When players answer correctly, they earn in-game “badges” which depict NASA astronauts, spacecraft and celestial objects. Points are also awarded for correct answers, and players can redeem the points to obtain more badges, including “premium” badges.

Space Race Blastoff character select screen. Image credit: NASA

The game play experience is fairly straight forward: Players choose their avatar and then answer 10 multiple-choice questions. Correct answers earn the player 100 points. The first player to answer correctly earns a 20-point bonus. The winner of the round advances to a bonus round where they can earn additional points and a badge.

“Space Race Blastoff opens NASA’s history and research to a wide new audience of people accustomed to using social media,” said David Weaver, NASA’s associate administrator for communications. “Space experts and novices will learn new things about how exploration continues to impact our world.”

While NASA is emphasizing the “multi-player” aspect of the game by making the game available through Facebook, players can also opt to play solo games.

Sector 33 screenshot. Image Credit: NASA

Ever wonder what it’s really like to work as an Air Traffic Controller?

Put yourself in this scenario:

It’s a stormy night in Northern California as air traffic is quickly approaching the San Francisco Bay Area from the East. You are in charge of Sector 33 which all flights must pass through.

Can you handle the job of guiding planes safely through Sector 33 as quickly as possible?

Sector 33 is designed to be an interactive game to interest students in aeronautics-related careers and connect mathematics and problem solving to the real world.

Some additional features of Sector 33 are:

Moonbase Alpha screenshot. Image credit: NASA

You can play Space Race Blastoff at: http://apps.facebook.com/spacerace

Download the Sector 33 App for free for the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch through the App store

For those of you a bit more “hard-core” about your gaming, NASA continues to offer their “Moonbase Alpha” demo via STEAM.

Tagged as: facebook, ios, online gaming

Article source: http://www.universetoday.com/93158/test-your-knowledge-and-skills-with-nasas-new-online-games/

Continue reading »]]> Super Potato

Super Potato isn’t really a shop, it’s more like a video game museum where you can buy stuff. The store is actually from western Japan, but its Akihabara shop is the centrepiece and it has been visited by countless Japanese celebrities. Want a Japanese Famicom? Or how about a Dreamcast? Japanese PC Engine Games? This cramped, multi-storey shop is packed with them, like some great gaming repository. Prices here run on the high side, but the old game consoles and games are in great condition. Most Super Potato stock is on show, but the extremely rare (and extremely expensive) titles are behind glass.
• Kitanayashi Building 3F, 1-11-2 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5289 9933, superpotato.jp. Open 11am-8pm (weekdays), 10am-8pm (weekends)

Yodobashi-Akiba

Photograph: Ulana Switucha /Alamy

The game section is nothing special and it’s not exactly cheap, but Yodobashi Camera’s real draw is its size. Occupying an entire city block, this electronics retailer is gigantic, with legions of escalators leading up to sparkling aisles of pristine hardware. The gaming section only occupies one of the nine storeys , but thousands of people queue here when new Sony and Nintendo game machines are released. Yodobashi-Akiba is ideal for shoppers who want to pick up games, electronics and cameras in one fell-swoop. • 1-1 Kanda Hanaokacho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5209 1010, yodobashi-akiba.com. Open 9.30am-10pm

Sofmap

Akihabara map at the Sofmap store. Photograph: Alamy

This national retailer is a good place to pick up new game hardware on launch day as queues are often more manageable than those at Yodobashi Camera. In Akihabara, Sofmap has several locations, each with a slightly different focus: Akiba Sofmap #1 (computer games and popstars), Sofmap Amusement-kan (video games and posters ), and Akiba Sofmap #2 (figurines and used games). All three are worth visiting, although if you’re travelling with kids, you might want to venture away from the idol and DVD sections. Amusement-kan, with its distinctive blue awning, is the best bet for gaming goodness. Be sure to check the bargain bins.
• Hiraoka Building, 1-10-8 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3253 9255, sofmap.com. Open 11am-9pm

Akihabara Gamers

Photograph: NunoCardoso on Flickr/some rights reserved

Despite its name, this store’s focus is anime and manga, although it does have a fantastic selection of Japanese game magazines as well as a whole floor dedicated to video games and computer games. The upper floors typically host card game tournaments and autograph signings. There’s some eyebrow-raising stuff here, such as adult PC games featuring anime schoolgirls, but that’s true for most of Akihabara. • Takarada Building, 1-14-7 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5298 8720, akiba.kakaku.com/en. Open 9am-10pm (first floor), other floors 11am-9pm

Book-Off

Manga at Book-Off. Photograph: Alamy

This Japanese chain, with branches in North America, France and South Korea, specialises in used books, and its Akihabara branch offers good gaming deals. It spans six storeys, with floors dedicated to DVDs and CDs, manga, and, of course, books. The narrow building, with its grey stones and mirrored facade, looks more corporate Japan than secondhand game shop – if the sign “Please sell us your books and games” wasn’t written on top of the building, it might be mistaken for an insurance company. The Akihabara branch also carries new consoles and accessories, often cheaper than elsewhere.
• 1-6-4 Kanda Sakumacho, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5207 6206, bookoff.co.jp. Open 10am-11pm

Game Hollywood

Claiming to be the best place to buy US games in Japan, Game Hollywood is an ex-pat favourite. Visitors might scoff at the high import prices, but Game Hollywood embodies the Japanese vision of what an American game shop looks like, complete with the Stars and Stripes over the doorway. It’s located on the fifth floor, so keep an eye for a movie style logo surrounded by yellow lights. Not only is this an interesting location, it’s also a good place for non-Japanese speakers to take a break from the aisles of aisles of indecipherable domestic games. Be aware that the “Asian versions” of Xbox 360 games (intended for South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore) are priced slightly lower than US imports.
• Uchida Building 5F, 1-9-9 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5297 3281, gmh.jp. Open 11am-8pm

G-Front

Melty Blood fighting game

Tired of shopping for video games? How about buying some arcade games? G-Front sells arcade game boards (the circuit boards operating within the big boxes) intended for use in game centres rather than home consoles. The place is stacked with circuit boards, arcade cabinets and machine parts in neatly organised bins . It looks like a library, but instead of books there’s everything you need to create your own personal Japanese arcade. Arcade games can be expensive, with the pricey boards, such as the most recent Melty Blood fighting game, placed behind glass and priced at more than £700. What’s more, for ¥50 a pop (around 45p), you can even test out some of the Japanese arcade game cabinets first.
• Kanda Building 2F, 6-14-12 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 5807 1685, gfront.com. Open Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, , Sun 10am-6.30pm

Media-Land

Photograph: wyinoue on Flickr/some rights reserved

Anyone after a bargain should head straight to Media-Land. It looks rather dilapidated and it’s not the most relaxing shopping environment – like so many in Akihabara, it’s jam-packed with kit and overrun with posters for new games – but what Media-Land lacks in floor space, it makes up for with good deals and a great selection. The first floor has new games at slightly discounted prices, alongside month-old releases often already at half price. Secondhand games are a bargain here, too – in Japan, used games are often in pristine condition, as gamers buy them planning to finish them quickly and then sell them back at a high price. Look out for off-beat Japan-only titles as well as romance games aimed at women.
• 1-14-1 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3251 7004, m-land.co.jp. Open daily 10.30am-8pm

Trader Akihabara #4

Photograph: NunoCardoso on Flickr/some rights reserved

Trader shops, a retail chain dotted throughout Akihabara, are easy to find thanks to their eye-catching yellow and blue signs that read “Trader” in English. “Trader4″ is the one you want, offering a fantastic selection of Japanese shoot-’em-up games, fighting games and rare PC games as well as stocking an array of limited edition game bundles and rare promotional items. Limited editions of new games often sell out fast, so you need to snap them up. This is also a good place to pick up Japanese game soundtracks and “superplay” DVDs that show expert play. It’s the perfect place to get lost.
• 3-15-8 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3255 3493, e-trader.jp. Open Mon-Wed 11am-8pm, Thurs 10am-8.30pm, Fri-Sun 10am-8pm

Tokiwa Musen

Photograph: Stéfan on Flickr/some rights reserved

While many Akihabara game shops span entire floors or buildings, Tokiwa Musen is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tiny. It’s an eki-ten or station shop, and is the first game shop you see coming out of Akihabara Station’s Electric Town exit. You never feel overwhelmed by Tokiwa Musen’s scale. Red “sale” signs are plastered all over the shop like Post-it notes, so it’s easy to scan the place for bargains. The service is friendly and personal, and the shop feels like the Akihabara equivalent of a corner shop.
• 1-15-8 Soto-Kanda, Chiyoda-ku, +81 3 3253 8768. Open Mon-Sat 10am-8pm, Sun 10am-7.30pm

For more information go to the Japan National Tourism Organisation’s website: jnto.go.jp/eng

• Brian Ashcraft is the editor of Kotaku gaming blog

Article source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2012/feb/01/top-10-video-games-shops-tokyo?newsfeed=true

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Fingers crossed Steam operator Valve might have found a way to plonk stuff like Skyrim, Rage or Sins of a Solar Empire onto your mobile phone? Alas, the new freebie Steam client for smartphones won’t do anything like that. What it will do, however, is let you buy Steam games from your phone and chat with pals on the go.

Valve just announced its Steam app for iOS and Android devices last week and rolled it out in closed beta, but things went well enough, apparently, that it’s now available in finished form internationally.

(MORE: 13 Years Later: EverQuest Finally Going Free-to-Play in March)

In addition to buying games and chatting with your Steam friends, the 1.7MB app lets you browse community groups (though you can’t interact yet), view Steam news and syndicated news affiliates, check the service’s games catalog, your wish list, your cart or search for something. Valve’s also touting it as a way to “stay up to date on unbeatable Steam sales” (because of course they are!).

User reactions on Apple’s App Store — of 500 weighing in so far — are generally upbeat, though several say the app needs an official iPad version (“For me, the screen items seem so compact at the moment,” complains one user), that they occasionally receive error messages (“this service not available yet”) and that the app sometimes lags.

Other things users are clamoring for: compatibility with older devices, the option to keep mobile chats separate from the computer version (it currently mirrors chats between your phone and computer, Skype-style), game achievement integration, the ability to search by platform and of course actual iOS or Android games for purchase — at the moment, Steam only offers PC and Mac platform games.

MORE: The Used Games Debate: Kingdoms of Amalur Locks Up Content

Article source: http://techland.time.com/2012/02/01/steam-for-ios-android-devices-wont-play-games-but-lets-you-chat/

Continue reading »]]> Ubisoft’s alerted gamers to an upcoming sever transition for its titles, which is set to take a number of online features offline.

“Starting February 7, Ubisoft will be transitioning the hosting of many of its online services from a third-party data center to a new facility,” it says.

“During the transition, some Ubisoft services and online games will not be available – a full list of affected games and services can be found here.

“We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience. This move ultimately will help us improve the maintenance of our infrastructure and deliver better uptime and greatly improved services for our customers.”

Assassin’s Creed Revelations and Driver: San Francisco will not be affected.

Article source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/334245/ubisoft-games-going-offline-next-week/

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While we have heard of handheld devices such as the iPhone or iPad being used as part of therapy programs for children with cerebral palsy, an actual game being developed to raise money for a child with a birth injury is a new – and to us – fantastic idea.

According to the video game publication Gamepro, mobile developer Big Ideas Digital has launched a charity drive involving one of its iPhone games – Say What You See: The Collection – to raise money for a 5-year-old girl born with spastic dyplegic cerebral palsy.

Grace Windram was diagnosed with the birth injury – which affects muscle control in the legs, arms, mouth, and tongue – after she was born prematurely in 2006. After undergoing treatments, she still is unable to walk. There was hope that this could change after Grace was accepted to receive intense physiotherapy that could teach her to walk at the St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

However, the price tag for the complicated procedure (approximately $68,000) presented a road block. Grace’s parents would have to raise money so they could afford the medical bills. Enter, Big Ideas Digital.

The mobile game developer launched a charity drive in September, selling a 99 cent update to their iPhone game consisting of a new level (called “Grace’s Tunes”) in which the user has to find 50 well-known cartoon names in a Road Runner-themed backdrop

In eight weeks, the drive has raised approximately $30,000, more than enough to help the Windrams start to pay for the procedure.

“We will be eternally grateful for the generous support that Big Ideas has given Grace’s Fund,” said Helen Windram, Grace’s mother.

Medical costs can escalate quickly if you are caring for a child with a birth injury such as cerebral palsy. Speak to a birth injury lawyer at Sokolove Law today to learn more about possibly pursuing a lawsuit that could result in a monetary settlement to fund medical care for your child in the years to come.

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Short URL: http://www.seedol.com/?p=10698

Article source: http://www.seedol.com/blog/2012/02/02/cerebral-palsy-victim-can-afford-care-after-iphone-game-fundraiser/

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Humble Bundle: Android games for the price of… whatever you want?

We like games, and we like to be able to afford games. Sometimes purchasing game after game can burn a hole in your pocket. Humble Bundle has been a great solution for affordable gaming before. But this is the first time Humble Bundle has hit the Android platform.

The bundle offers 3 (4 if you pay more) cross-platform games. This means you could play the games directly from your Windows (via Steam), Mac or Linux computer. And you can choose how much you pay for them.

The included games are Anomaly, Osmos and Edge. If you pay more than the “average” you also get World of Goo. The average is currently at about $5.27. It will be going up, so hurry up and get it while it’s still cheap!

• Anomaly: This game was recently released, so it’s definitely a good deal. It’s basically a “tower offense” game, where you fight through a field against enemy towers.
• Osmos: This is a very peaceful and relaxing game. The new age music soothes you into the zone. As a molecule, your objective is to become bigger by absorbing smaller molecules and avoiding bigger ones. (Highly recommended by Taylor).
• Edge: This game is a bit of a trip. You basically navigate a cube in an animated field. The field moves and changes as the game gets more complicated.
• World of Goo: Most of you probably know this one by now. It’s a bit of a surreal physics/building puzzle game. You can use globs of goo to build all sorts of things, like bridges, structures and even cannon balls.

Not only is this an affordable bundle for all the gamers out there, but customers would also be helping out with Child’s Play Charity. When purchasing, you have the option to divide your payment as you wish between the developers, charity and what they call a “Humble Tip.” Humble Tips go straight to Humble Bundle, Inc.

Not only can you name your own price, but you can divide your payment to most benefit whoever you see fit. If you’re looking to purchase some games for your spare time, this deal is quite the no-brainer. Go ahead and purchase the bundle straight from their site, and try to support with whatever you can!

Who’s getting this Humble Bundle? Have you guys enjoyed these deals before? Let us know what you think, and excuse me, as I will be playing these games for a while.

Source: Humble Bundle

• Tagged
• #android games
• #anomaly
• #charity
• #child’s play charity
• #edge
• #EFF
• #Electronic Frontier Foundation
• #Humble Bundle
• #Osmos
• #popular
• #video
• #World of Goo

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Article source: http://androidandme.com/2012/01/news/humble-bundle-android-games-for-the-price-of-whatever-you-want/

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Gizmodo’s Developers Cubed series offers a behind the scenes look into Australia’s up and coming dev scene. This week: We chat with Nic from Sydney-based games developer Nnooo about why all development isn’t just iOS development and why it’s important to carve your own niche.

Developers! Developers! Developers!
It’s not just Steve Ballmer’s favourite sweat-laden catchcry! If you’d like to be featured in Developers Cubed, shoot a note to alex.kidman at alluremedia.com.au. I’d love to hear from you.

Who are you and where do you work?
My name is Nic Watt and I’m the Creative Director (and technically CEO) of Nnooo an indie games company based in Sydney, Australia

Why do we know you? What have you created?
We have created several successful franchises for WiiWare and DSiWare and are now turning our hand to the next generation of consoles with games for Nintendo 3DS and other unannounced consoles. Our most successful projects have been Pop, a launch title for the WiiWare service; Pop + Solo a sequel to Pop for DSiWare and our myLifeCollected series of applications for DSiWare which includes myNotebook, myPostcards and myDiary; finally escapeVektor our latest game was released to critical acclaim at the end of last year on WiiWare.

Our current projects include escapeVektor for Nintendo 3DS (and other platforms – to be announced) and Spirit Hunters Inc an augmented reality RPG for DSiWare and Nintendo 3DS.

What platforms do you develop for?
We develop for home and handheld consoles primarily. In particular Wii, Nintendo DSi and most recently Nintendo 3DS. We have recently started working on some other platforms too which we hope to announce in the near future.

What are you working on right now?
We are working on Spirit Hunters Inc for Nintendo DSi and Nintendo 3DS. It is an augmented reality game where you search the real world for hidden, cute, spirits to battle and capture. Players take the part of a recently initiated member of Spirit Hunters Inc, a global task force set up to investigate more and more frequent occurrences of spirits entering our world from another dimension. The player must align with one of the six elements (Fire, Ice, Water, Light, Shadow and Fungal) and then explore the real world looking for these cute but malevolent spirits, draw them out into battle and then either defeat or capture them. As the player levels up they can purchase new abilities and items to make themselves more powerful.

We are also working on bringing escapeVektor to new platforms including Nintendo 3DS. EscapeVektor sees the player coming to the aid of Vektor who is trapped inside their device’s CPU. Each level of the game is a maze-like puzzle where the player must take possession of the whole maze and then escape. However enemies patrol the mazes and there are hazards like cannons and electric fences to avoid.

What do you think about the rise and rise of App Stores? How has it influenced your titles?
I think the rise of the App Store has led more people to become aware of digital content and it has pushed more power back into the hands of developers rather than publishers which is a great thing. I do think that too many commentators are focusing on a few red-herrings when announcing the early demise of traditional consoles.

In particular it seems that a lot of commentators have looked at iOS’s growth and compared it to Nintendo DS and PSP’s demise and made the judgement that iOS is the only contributor to the demise of these devices. Where I differ in opinion is on a couple of points:

The Nintendo DS and PSP are/were old hand held consoles at the end of the life while iOS devices are the new kid in town. This means that sales of these devices were dwindling as they were becoming old, boring and long in the tooth. This happens to all hardware. People are naturally attracted to new devices over old so new ones will naturally accelerate while old ones decelerate.

When the Nintendo DS first launched it proved a massive success in part due to novelty (the first touch screen games machine and dual screens) so much so that it has gone on to become the most successful handheld games machine in history.

I think a large part of the attraction to iOS devices for gamers has been due to novelty — the great multi-touch display, free apps in abundance, an easy purchasing experience and great online connectivity.

When you combine these two factors A) old hardware which is becoming dated and B) new hardware which is sexy and exciting it is not hard to see why iOS has had such a meteoric rise.

I think the next few years it will be interesting to see where things go for dedicated games consoles, but if you look at the last year Nintendo 3DS sold more units of hardware in 8 months than the original Nintendo DS (the worlds best selling console) did in a year.

What’s your favourite app that you didn’t create?
I know this is going to sound crap but I don’t really have a favourite iOS app. I love my iPhone but have recently stopped using all but the basic features of the device. I seem to be perfectly happy with Mail, Safari, Calendar, Address Book, Music, Remote, Twitter, Facebook and Currency. Other than that I seem to just look at my iPhone screen, not find anything interesting and turn it back off again.

What phone do you use? Why?
I have an iPhone and it is undoubtedly the best phone I have ever used. I love the interface, how fast and simple it is to use and most of the time how it keeps me constantly in touch with what is going on on my twitter, facebook and email accounts! As I mentioned above I don’t really use it for much more than regular phone things (and updating my statuses) but even so I would be hard pressed to want or need a different one.

What advice do you have for budding Aussie developers out there?
Start small, be laser focused and don’t try to jump into ponds where there are a lot of big fish already. Carve your own niche.

Article source: http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2012/02/developers-cubed-nnooo/

Continue reading »]]> [In the first installment in a new series, experienced iOS developer Jeremy Alessi takes us through the prototyping, production, and launch of his new game friendly.fire -- and shares statistics on how its launch went. He'll be back to update Gamasutra readers on the game's performance every 30 days. ]

I’ve been developing iPhone games since the App Store’s inception in 2008. Along the way, there have been a variety of trends as the market evolved. Initially, almost anything would sell. People were simply ecstatic to pay 99 cents for a game.

After six months or so, the competition began heating up, and titles such as iShoot gained popularity by using traditional shareware marketing techniques. At that point, the App Store was all about pop. It was a game to see who could get the most attention on day one via price or slick marketing in order to rise to the top of the charts.

During the summer of 2009, with the release of iOS 3.0, games such as Eliminate Pro began to use Apple’s new in-app purchase system for microtransactions, and so began the transition from getting attention to gaining retention.

At the end of 2009, I created an okay game called Crash for Cash. This title was good at getting attention, and it rose to several number one spots on the App Store and garnered more than 1 million downloads. The advertising revenue from the title was impressive, but it was based on getting attention; a fairly small percentage of players were actually retained.

I knew at that point in my development career that I’d need to do better, because the market was changing, and if you couldn’t keep players interested for more than a few rounds, success would be impossible. I set out on a quest to create a great game that would have retention. This little journey lasted for over a year before resulting in friendly.fire, which was unveiled just before Christmas 2011.

Now we’re in the beginning of 2012, and friendly.fire has been on the App Store for about a month. The bad news is that the game isn’t doing so hot. The good news is that the bad news was always part of the plan.

Our team has now entered into a new phase of development where our goal isn’t to get our game done and out the door, but rather to make continual documentable improvements until we have a hit on our hands. In addition, we’ll be sharing our experience with Gamasutra readers over the course of the next few months as part of a series. In this series we will document the tiniest changes and the exact percentage gains these changes netted us.

Before we begin reporting our progress it’s important to understand exactly why we created friendly.fire, and the overarching brand Friendly Dots. As I described above, a big motivator for us was to create something with retention and to break away from the typical pop/fall mechanics of the App Store.

I remember reading an article a couple of years ago about NewToy and Words with Friends. This article stated that the game’s retention rate was far higher than that of other games on the App Store. I also realized that as a busy husband and father I really wasn’t getting to play traditional games with my friends anymore — but I was playing Words with Friends with them.

I was already enamored with the App Store, and I had been employing the two minute game design theory of mobile games (with titles like Crash for Cash) for years, but until this point I was missing my favorite part of playing games: my friends! That’s when I knew that I not only wanted to create a game with retention, but that I wanted to play games with my friends again — and I could do it with any game mechanic.

This is when I came up with Friendly Dots. The whole premise of this new label is that we can create any game and call it “friendly.whatever”. We added some simple characters to the mix (conveniently called the friendly dots, or friendlies) and we were on our way.

In the beginning we had several games on the table that could potentially receive the turn-based treatment. We created a few prototypes that will probably see the light of day at some point, but in truth I wasn’t excited about any of them.

As a gamer, I had been in love with Angry Birds, Minecraft, and Words with Friends for the last two years. As a developer, I wanted to challenge myself to come up with something that combined my favorite gameplay experiences. Some people don’t think it’s prudent to disclose your influences so blatantly, but in this case I think it’s very obvious. The game I wanted to play was one that would allow me to build, destroy, and share it all… with my friends.

I’m a competent all-around game developer. I’ve developed many games solo — games that involve 3D modeling, 2D sprites, programming, databases, music, and more. However, I knew early on that the concept of friendly.fire was too big to tackle as a one-man band.

Specifically, the game (upon success) would require a robust backend server technology. In the past I had created several games that included simple PHP/MySQL backends, but I knew that I wanted to go beyond the limits of those technologies. Luckily, in late 2010 I was introduced to another local programmer, Jon Nadal, who had a better handle on the technology that friendly.fire needed to tick.

I described to him the amount of traffic I saw with Crash for Cash (in excess of 30,000 new users a day at its peak). After doing some research he came back with a solution involving MongoDB and node.js. In some tests, the combination of these technologies had been able to handle as many as 20,000 requests per second and beyond. Jon and the technology he brought to the table solidified a core necessity of the Friendly Dots plan. We needed a super fast server solution and now we had it.

The other component necessary to pull the concept off really had nothing to do with technology. We needed someone who understood “social”, and not in the Facebook and Twitter sense of the word, but in the truest nature of the term. We needed someone who got people and could represent the community at large. John McIsaac had helped me with several projects in the past, and he always had a good read on the basic everyday person. He was a natural fit for Friendly Dots, because at its core, the label is about friends sharing experiences, which is always paramount in John’s mind.

With our technology in place and a community manager lined up, I headed up the game design and programming. As a developer with an active imagination, I have mountains of prototype code and assets on my hard drive. Most of it doesn’t see the light of day, but every now and then I’ll pull a few old components together to create something cool. With friendly.fire I combined some code from a Games Demystified article on Angry Birds (which never saw the light) with some dynamic 2D physics-enabled building block code (which is now its own product, called friendly.physics).

Article source: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6688/building_an_ios_hit_phase_1.php

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1
Add to My News

Story by Brenna Hillier

Thu, Feb 02, 2012 | 10:01 GMT

Crytek’s once-mysterious GFACE has resolved into a cross-platform online games platform, with social network and streaming games service.

The new service runs in a browser like Battlelog, and is currently in closed testing with no release date set; you can apply for the beta on GFACE.com.

Although it is pitched as a “high quality social media publishing service”, GFACE will apparently also support “core 3D games”. The first of these games will apparently be Crytek’s free-to-play shooter Warface; certain mysteries of nomenclature are rapidly unraveling.

The service seems to be cross-platform, with players shown accessing it from mobiles as well as desktops, and one image even shows a game of Warface in progress on three different devices – the PC player is doing the FPS thing; an iPhone player provides air support; and the commander uses a tablet to issue orders from a top down perspective.

The social side of things includes a simple, integrated drag and drop interface supporting friends lists, invites, video chat, and entertainment media on top of the usual social network gew-gaws like status updates, activity feeds, and avatars.

The team behind GFACE seems to be part of Crytek, with inspiration for the service credited to CEO Cevat Yerli, and job openings posted in Crytek’s recruiting pages. CryEngine business developer Carl Jones teased the platform in October last year when Flash was added to the engine’s list of supported formats.

“We’re developing a unifying technology to create high quality social and gaming experiences on all platforms including browser, smartphones, tablets, etc,” he said at the time.

Crytek has had this concept in the works for quite some time, trademarking the term as far back as April 2009.

Thanks, Kotaku.

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Posted in: Casual, PC, Shooter, Social
Tags: crytek, GFACE, Warface

Article source: http://www.vg247.com/2012/02/02/cryteks-online-games-platform-gface-in-closed-beta/