electronic-games « WordPress.com Tag Feed

Rolling Dice on the iPhone

Yehuda — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 14:42:05 +0000

Fullpower has created a technology they call MotionX. It's a realistic simulation of dice rolling on a motion sensitive device, such as an iPhone. You shake the phone, and the dice go tumbling around the screen, clicking when they hit each other or a wall and eventually coming to rest.

Here's a video showing their first game, MotionX Poker:

(source)

Automated Poker Tables

Yehuda — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:45:00 +0000

likecool points out Pokermate fully-automated touch-screen poker tables, eliminating cards and chips, and eliminating some types of cheating and mistakes in favor of other types of cheating and mistakes. I'm assuming that you don't even have to actually be sitting at the table to be playing at the table.

Other downsides include not being able to read your opponents (but you may be able to see what button they're reaching for), no chit-chat (moves are timed), no hostesses and no tips. Kind of takes all the fun out of it, I think.

likecool previously brought us the X10 flat surface poker table. On this table, the cards are face down on your screen, but when you cup your hand over them, the card images curl up.

Casinos are slowly phasing in these types of tables to replace traditional tables. Other automated tables in the industry include Axtra poker table:

and the PokerTek PokerPro:

30 Years of Computer Gaming = $30,500

Yehuda — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:36:11 +0000

GameStrada, an online game community, reports that an average computer gamer spends over $1,000 each year between the ages of 18 and 48 to support their gaming hobby.

I'm pretty sure I don't spend that much on my own gaming obsession. And what I buy, I plan to leave to future generations, something that may be difficult to do with an XBox.

(source)

Gen Con Plans

David — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:03:33 +0000

I just wanted to post a quick note to let you readers know that Purple Pawn will feature special coverage of the Gen Con game convention scheduled for August 14-17 in Indianapolis. I'll be attending the con, and in addition to playing a some games, I'm hoping to arrange a few interviews, as well as demos of new and upcoming products.

Leave a comment here to let me know if you have any requests or recommendations. Any burning questions for the game company reps? Anything special you're dying to see from the exhibitors? Which companies or personalities do you most want to hear from? Also let me know if you plan to be there. I'd love to meet some of our readers in person.

Buy The Office DVD Game and meet Mindy Kaling

Yehuda — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:52:50 +0000

Mindy Kaling of The Office will be on hand to launch The Office DVD Game in Scranton, PA on July 19.

The first 125 customers will get to meet Mindy, writer, co-executive producer and the actress who plays Kelly Kapoor on the show. The launch will also raise funds for United Neighborhood Centers of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

(source)

Trailer: Blood Bowl for PC and XBox

Yehuda — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 07:15:08 +0000

Unfortunately, Wordpress is too stupid to allow me to embed objects from sites it doesn't recognize, so you'll just have to visit gametrailers.com to get your fix.

(hat tip)

The 39 Clues: Books, Movie, Online Mystery, and CCG

Yehuda — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 06:19:11 +0000

The 39 Clues will be a new book / game experience for kids aged 8 to 10.

The books will be released in September, and are slated to be authored by an assortment of popular children's writers. The first book (The Maze of Bones, September 2008) will be by Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson series, the second by Gordon Korman (January 2009), third by Peter Lerangis (April 2009), and fourth by Jude Watson (July 2009).

Each book will include six cards with codes, out of 350 total cards. Log on to the official website to play the game. Grand prize for solving the mystery is $10,000.

Steve Spielberg is already slated to make the movie.

(source)

African American Trivia DVD Game

Yehuda — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 20:58:06 +0000

Are You Sure? the African American Edition is a DVD game from Daryl Penn, a teacher who saw a need for such a game after failing to find much in the way of black cultural questions in the game Scene It?

The edition identification is a hope for turning the game into a generic base for other trivia games. He invested $25,000 to produce 1,000 copies of this edition, each of which retails for $34.99. According to the source, he figures he needs to sell about 800 copies to break even. (I'll wait while you do the math.)

For what it's worth, I couldn't find any other African American DVD games, either, but it's not hard to find the Black Heritage trivia board game.

(source)

Get Thee to Origins!

David — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:16:19 +0000

In one week will begin one of the premier national gaming conventions in the United States. Origins Game Fair will be held in Columbus, Ohio June 25-29 and feature every type of tabletop game—board games, roleplaying games, war games, miniatures, and card games—as well as LARPs (live action roleplaying). At Origins will be over 200 exhibitors, 4,000 tournaments, and extensive opportunity for casual play. There will be a Play with the Creator series of games and the Origins Wedding Chapel. I've heard especially great things about The Board Room and The War Room, run by the Columbus Area Boardgaming Society and set aside for open board gaming and war gaming, respectively—beginners welcome.

Was Will Wright's Spore Inspired By EON's Quirks?

Yehuda — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:53:27 +0000

Over at Joystiq, Kevin Kelly wonders if Will Wright's infamous, never-quite-released game Spore (in progress since 2000) was inspired by the 1980 board game Quirks.

Spore is a massive online game where players evolve a group of single celled animals through various phases until they end the game by taking over the universe. Quirks is an evolution game of adapting single cell animals so they can thrive in a hostile and ever-changing environment.

But Quirks isn't the only game about evolution and adaptation. Evo, Primordial Soup, Trias, and dozens of other come readily to mind. And Spore is surely more reminiscent of civilization building or "god" games, such as Civilization or The Sims.

I'm guessing that Quirks was simply the first evolutionary / adaptation game that Kevin saw, and he put two and five together.

Digiboard Enters the Crowded Field of Interactive Computing

Yehuda — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 19:00:20 +0000

Digiboard is the latest to enter the field of interactive tabletop computing technology. Here is their video demonstrating some sort of electronic game interaction on a table surface:

Their competition includes Intuilab's DIgiTable, Phillip's Entertaible, Mitsubishi's DiamondTouch, and Microsoft's Surface, to name a few. Gizmo Watch lists 15 technologies in this area.

Hasbro Licensing Deals

David — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:55:14 +0000

In conjunction with the 2008 Licensing International Expo, a recent announcement by Hasbro provides some information on a number of its licensing arrangements (some of which had already been made public). Hasbro explains that its Trivial Pursuit: America Plays television game show will have a home audience participation component. Viewers will be able to submit questions for contestants. And if a selected question stumps the contestants, the viewer who submitted it will earn cash.

The announcement also reports that in addition to the already released digital versions of Monopoly, Hasbro's partner, EA, will soon be taking Monopoly to the Wii, Playstation 2, and Xbox 360. Other video games under development include Scrabble, Yahtzee, Trivial Pursuit, and Operation.

Outside of electronics, apparently Monopoly is the most licensed brand worldwide for lotteries. And deals are in place for a new compact Scrabble travel game by L.L. Bean, Monopoly trivia books, and appearances by Monopoly, Trivial Pursuit, Taboo, and Twister on grocery products (in conjunction with upcoming movies).

4Girlz Launches 2008 Toy and Game Awards

Yehuda — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 20:09:25 +0000

4Girlz, a UK teen magazine, is soliciting votes for it's 2008 "Star Awards". You can vote for Best Electronic Game, Games Console, Best Craft Kit, Best Board Game, and Toy of the Year.

Entries close August 31st, 2008.

(source)

Monopoly Comes to the IPod

Yehuda — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 21:30:29 +0000

Monopoly is now available to play on your IPod for $5.

That's all I have to say on that.

(source)

An Education in Games

David — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 03:44:46 +0000

We're here mostly because games are fun. But we also appreciate that games can be a serious business, or can have a role in serious business. Professor Roger Ngim of the University of California at San Diego wants to make sure that games are taken seriously in higher education. So, this term he's been teaching two sessions of his class, Playing by the Rules: Games In and Out of the Ordinary World. As he states on his blog, Breaking Every Rule:

After all, the leading item on my agenda is to show these first-year students how anything they are passionate about can be the subject of scholarly study.

Now with the end of the term approaching and final projects turned in, Professor Ngim has 120 game prototypes to test.

Man vs Machine at the World Series of Poker

Yehuda — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 18:36:59 +0000

When considering games with no random events, such as Chess, programmers can "solve" the game if, from any given position, the computer can demonstrate a guaranteed path to victory.

With Poker, the game can only advance sufficiently to beat a human player over the course of many games; and by "beat", I mean "win more money than", not "win more games than". There's never a guarantee that freak odds won't ruin your day, although as the number of hands gets higher, the math becomes more and more like certainty.

So it is that man will play machine July 4-6 during the Gaming Life Expo of the World Series of Poker. The machine is Polaris, designed by University of Alberta's Jonathan Schaeffer and co. It's the same group that designed Chinook, the program that is now invincible in Checkers.

The game will be Duplicate Poker.

(source, hat tip, image)

Escapist: Board Games Are The New Black

Yehuda — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 17:08:12 +0000

Joystiq's Off the Grid contributor Scott Jon Siegel writes about the surge in electronic adaptations of board game in the latest issue of Escapist. He covers why these board and card game adaptations are doing so well.

It's a great article full of juicy tidbits, such as how the XBox Settlers of Catan expert AI came to be (adaptations of Klaus Teuber's strategy notes).

(article)

The Norwich Bulletin on Board and Video Games

Yehuda — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 12:42:36 +0000

Sharma Howard in the Norwich Bulletin contrasts board games with video games. She's not a board game fan, but she observes:

See, that’s the great thing about board games, isn’t it? You can vent your competition, frustration, at your siblings, your spouse, in a healthy way that hopefully ends up in laughter, as long as you don’t take it too seriously. I just don’t think we can do that electronically.

In electronic games, the action on the screen takes on a life of its own, not the relationships among the players.

(source)

Coder Needed to Turn Board Game into Flash

Yehuda — Fri, 30 May 2008 12:15:48 +0000

There's an open project on Getacoder for turning a board game into Flash.

You could earn $1000 to $3000.

(job)

Chaotic CCG Further Blurring the On and Offline Gaming Worlds

Yehuda — Fri, 30 May 2008 11:10:02 +0000

Chaotic is one out of hundreds of CCGs trying to capture market share dominated by behemoths such as Magic: the Gathering, Yugioh, and a few others.

Many CCGs are created as throwaway cardboard teasers to already existing anime series or video games. According to my source, Chaotic went the other way and created an anime series in order to push sales of the CCG.

Another separator is that each card is marked with a code that lets you play with its virtual version online. Now if only you could print out a physical version of a card that you own virtually, we'd be all set.

(source)

Government to blame for UK Games 'downfall'?

discontents — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:52:34 +0000

The UK games industry has been vocal throughout the year protesting the inaction of government amid declining domestic production and developers in Canada receiving generous tax incentives.

Yet is it accurate to blame government inaction for the industry's decline? Some industry participants survey in politics.co.uk article UK games industry 'dead man walking' believe it is.

Richard Wilson, Chief executive of Tiga, said: "Without real measures to turn the tide, we'll see our best people follow the money overseas to where governments are more willing to invest in the future. A great British industry could become a dead man walking, just like the British film industry the before government gave it a tax credit.

Something that is not often mentioned in lobbying for government assistance is the difference in cost of living (and therefore labour costs) between London and several Canadian cities where major game developers have established studios. Regardless of tax concessions and wage subsidies, low living expenses make locations attractive to multinationals, and may also make it easier for employees to setup their own companies.

Tax-based incentives that are based on cultural production are also a highly inefficient instrument for industry to rely on. Assessing the cultural component of any one game to qualify for assistance could well be an arbitrary endeavour, and the stipulation for games to contain cultural content is bound to distort production decisions away from market preferences.

Production-based tax incentives and subsidies tend to appeal to small, independent developers, whereas larger studios particularly first-party studios linked to publishers are far more concerned about the supply of skilled talent.

Are appealing for tax incentives for local producers really the best way to enhance the international competitiveness of the industry?

'FIFA 09' primeras imágenes

megaline — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:50:21 +0000

Por fin un Fifa luce genial y deja de ser un problema para la serie, ya saben FIFA buenos movimientos, mas realista etc, etc, pero las graficas promedio a malas, ahora parece que le ponen empeño al motro grafico, pueden ver la imagen en HD pulsando sobre ella y para ver el resto de las imagenes mostradas, en la via.

Via WorhtPlaying

Two New Games from Educational Insights

kroyalusa — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:23:22 +0000

Educational Insights introduces two new learning games, Freeze Up! and Digitz.

A quick overview of the two games:

Freeze Up! is a category name game that challenges students to name something that begins with a specific letter in one of 170+ "think-quick" categories. With Digitz, students race against time to complete five fun multiplication-skills games.

More detail about the two new games:

Digitz, for ages 8 and higher is priced at $49.99, offers five games that reinforce important multiplication skills, such as multiples (skip counting), memorization of facts, identifying factors, finding factor pairs, and sequencing. Problems appear on an LCD screen, and players enter their answers by pressing colorful paddles that feature bright LED numerals. Students race the clock to become a "Multiplication Master".
With each answer, Digitz offers motivating lights and cool sound effects that make multiplication exciting. Digitz is self-correcting, includes a headphone jack for quiet classroom play. Digitz can be battery operated, or by AC adapter.

Freeze Up!, for ages 8 and higher is priced at $29.99. Students are given one of 170+ "think-quick categories", and asked to name something in that category that begins with a specific letter. Students must answer before their time is up, or they're frozen out of play. If stumped, students can press the "New Letter" button to receive a different letter choice, or the "New Category" button for a different category choice. Freeze Up! has an auto play mode and a manual mode. It includes a built-in timer and scorekeeper, as well as speech, and sound effects. Operation requires three AA batteries.

www.educationalinsights.com

Who Will Win The Console War?

dealsdirect — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:29:52 +0000

Since such a good portion of the world of electronics is comprised of video game hardware nowadays, it’s only fitting that a great deal of attention goes to the innovators, winners and losers within each subsequent generation of video game consoles. This generation seems set to be a knock-down, drag-out brawl as Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo duke it out with their consoles: the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, and Wii, respectively.The Wii is off to a fast start due to its affordable price point and crossover appeal with those who normally don’t play video games. The Wii is also a groundbreaking electronic device because it has placed innovation over technological superiority. So far, that seems to be working as even though the Wii is far inferior to its other competitors from a specs and performance standpoint, it is winning the "console war" so far.

Meanwhile, the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 are following a more traditional path for video game consoles: trying to do it bigger, better, and badder than before. Who does so better is anyone’s guess, but what’s really interesting is that each has hung a bit of their hopes on more than just video games. Sony seems to be the early winner in that respect, as Blu-Ray appears to have won the next-generation video format war. However, Xbox 360 is picking up steam with its downloadable video service that many believe is similar to what will become the norm with digital distribution in the future.

Perhaps the most interesting lesson we’ve learned thus far is that creativity can often trump pure power, even in the tech-happy world of electronics.

Cleaning out Temptations!

homeofhearts — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:32:29 +0000

I thought I would let you folks have grabs first on these games.
I can't have them in the house any longer as they are causing
way too much conflict. These are in used condition and aren't pretty.
I would like to see it all go together. I am not positive that
everything works. Consider that when making an offer.

Here is the list:
White Gameboy Advanced, no battery cover, unless I can find it
Blue/Grey Gameboy Advanced, no battery cover
GB Games:
mystery blue game cartridge
The Flash
Lord of the Rings, the third age
Bionicle, Matoran Adventures
PrehistoriK Man
Harry Potter
Monsters Inc.
DragonBall Z, the legacy of Goku
Sabrina, the animated series
Namco Museum, at least three games on it
F-Zero, Maximum velocity
Pirates of the Caribbean, Curse of the Black Pearl
Lego, Bionicle
Tony Hawk, Pro Skater Three
Froggers Adventres, Temple of the Frog
Aero the Acro-Bat
Possibly one or two other games
Two Portable DVD players, Digital Labs
both come with a rechargable battery pack
remotes
adapters
One has car adapter
Next system.....
Super Games - purchased at Mall contains:
Super Joystick
Power Gun
Regular Joystick
Play thousands of Games from Mario Brothers to Donkey Kong by
plugging directly into TV
Next System...
10 in 1 Casino Game, plugin controller that plays casino games
Next system...
Nintendo 64
two controllers with rumble pack option
1 rumble pack
1 Tremor Pak
1 SharkPad Pro64 Controller
1 Memory Card Plus
1 Jumper Pak
1 WWF Champion Pak - Game
1 Perfect Dark - Game
1 Mortal Kombat Trilogy - Game
1 Conker's Bad Fur Day - Game
1 WCW vs NWO World Tour - Game
1 Worms Armageddon - Game
Next system...
World Poker Tour, Plugin controller that plays poker
Next System...
Nintendo GameCube
two memory cards
Spyro, enter the Dragonfly
Thomas and Jerry
if I find the controllers and more games I will let any that are
interested know what they are.

That is what I have and I ask that you make an offer. I need this
out of my house. Like I said tho, I can't garantee how much of this
stuff works. Let me know if anyone is interested.
Thanks.