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Postmortem: Ronimo Games’ Swords & Soldiers
[In this in-depth postmortem, the Dutch independent developer Ronimo Games discusses what went right -- and wrong -- in creating critically acclaimed WiiWare side-scrolling console RTS Swords & Soldiers.]
A year ago, our big adventure started. As a young studio — having previously created De Blob as a student game before THQ bought the rights and made a console version — we began working on our first console title for WiiWare: Swords & Soldiers. It’s a streamlined RTS that plays out on a single line with a castle on each end. Though it started out as a Flash game, we quickly saw great potential at an early stage of the prototype process.
We strongly believe that a good game is a fun game. If the core mechanics of your game are enjoyable to play, then the rest should come naturally. In the case of Swords & Soldiers, this turned out to be mostly true.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Free Games Bring Big Profits
Luke Hsieh, an analyst at the government-run Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, forecasts revenue of NT$11.6 billion (US$351.5 million) for 2009 for Taiwan’s online game industry. Income from free-to-play games has already surpassed annual revenue earned in Taiwan by “shrink-wrapped” and console games, which in 2009 had sales of NT$10.8 billion (US$327.3 million)—NT$7.3 billion (US$221.2 million) for hardware and NT$3.5 billion (US$106.1 million) for game software—according to Euromonitor, a global market researcher.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Perlman Demonstrates OnLive Thin Gaming Client
Former Quicktime guru Steve Perlman has been flogging his latest startup, OnLive, for awhile now. He’s hawking a thin client for gaming, which requires a bit of explanation: think of gaming in the cloud. Instead of installing an MMORPG or FPS on your Mac, you instead logon to a central server with beefy hardware, which pumps out the game to you over the Internet.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Interview: Star Trek Online’s Christine Thompson
Star Trek Online’s Christine Thompson answer Jon Wood’s questions about the lore in Star Trek Online and how the STO team managed to keep up with so many different sources of information.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Divinity II Arrives in North America with a Quest for Glory
Publisher cdv Entertainment USA is announcing that it is organizing a “Quest for Glory” competition for all those North American players who are interested in the deep role playing experience that will be delivered by Divinity II – Ego Draconis.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Review: Blockoban
I had plans for a highly productive evening yesterday, then I discovered Blockoban, a simple block sliding game that not only is a ton of fun but also serves as an excellent example of a free trial that is upgraded to the full version via an in-app purchase.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Facebook Protest over Forbidden Words in Scrabble Dictionary
Until now an uneasy peace has prevailed between casual Scrabble players and their more serious competitive counterparts but the popularity of internet versions of the board game has caused the two cultures to clash.
Players who use websites such as Facebook have been incensed to discover that official word lists, which are compiled by competitive players, allow proper nouns, archaic terms, foreign words and slang that would have been forbidden when the game was first published in 1949 and may contravene present rules.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Rook: An Itawamba Pastime
Rook is a card game that has been enjoyed by many Itawamba families, and our family is no exception. My husband and I both grew up in long-time, Rook-playing families and have fond memories of watching our elders play Rook and later, when we became old enough, joining in the Rook games ourselves.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
Curse.com Gets $6 Million For MMO Add-On Manager, Portal
San Francisco-based MMORPG community add-on manager and portal Curse.com revealed that it raised $6 million in a second round of funding in early 2009 from new backers Ventech Capital and SoftTech VC.
Read the story here and discuss it in the forum.
A Holiday Respite
Your Master of the Revels plans to take a little time here and there over the next few days to celebrate the holidays and watch the blizzard rage outside his window.
I wish for you all a very Merry Christmas.