Die Froschbrücke

Das macht Spaß… glibbrige, kichernde Kügelchen zusammenkleben, Türme oder Brücken bauen und Hindernisse überwinden. Ein bisschen Mitdenken muss man schon – und ein Gespühr für Physik – kann auch nicht schaden. Sicher – es ist nicht das Neuste, aber bei diesen Games-in-Game war ich noch nie auf dem neusten Stand. Mein Avi hat für sowas aber auch nicht die richtigen Skills.

Aber World of Goo hat sogar Jutta angefixt (obwohl sie bei der oben abgebildeten Froschnummer immer noch nicht am Ziel ist *g). Und ich bin auch ganz zufrieden… wenn Jutta spielt kann sie nämlich nicht kommunizieren – und ich hab auch mal meine Ruhe – hmmmmmmmm…

There’s never been a better time to check out the extraordinary lineup of downloadable games from Nintendo. This week, Wii™ owners who connect their Wii consoles to the Internet can enjoy demos of five exceptional games for the WiiWare™ downloadable game service for zero Wii Points™: BIT.TRIP BEAT, FINAL FANTASY® CRYSTAL CHRONICLES®: My Life as a Darklord™, NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits, World of Goo™ and a brand new entry in the Pokémon™ game series, Pokémon™ Rumble. To get a taste of any or all of these tremendous titles before downloading the full versions, go to the WiiWare section of the Wii Shop Channel and search for “Demo.” For more information, please visitwww.nintendo.com/wii/wiiware/demo.

This week’s launch of Pokémon Rumble for WiiWare delivers more than just a fun-packed new addition to the beloved Pokémon universe. Anyone who joins Club Nintendo™ – or is already a member – will have the opportunity to unlock an exclusive Toy Pokémon character that can be used in the game. Simply connect your Wii Shop Channel account to your new or existing Club Nintendo account, use Wii Points to download Pokémon Rumble and watch for an e-mail containing a special password that lets you access the character in the game. More information about this offer can be found at us.wii.com/wiiware/pokemonrumble/register. The offer is available only through April 30, 2010.

In addition to the WiiWare demos and a new Pokémon adventure, visitors to the Wii Shop Channel this week will also find a pair of classic Virtual Console™ games – one offering irresistible action with the iconic Indiana Jones® series, the other featuring the timeless thrills of Capcom’s Street Fighter™ series. Meanwhile, Nintendo DSiWare™ users can visit the Nintendo DSi™ Shop to discover an eye-popping new Art Style™ game, a fun, arcade-style bowling title and a robot-themed logic game, all available for easy download and playable anytime, anywhere on the hand-held Nintendo DSi system.

WiiWare

Pokémon Rumble
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Cartoon Violence
Price: 1,500 Wii Points
Description: Available exclusively for the WiiWare service, Pokémon Rumble is an action game in which you control Toy Pokémon (referred to as “Pokémon”) and take on wave after wave of other Pokémon in a variety of stages. You can befriend some of the defeated Pokémon along the way, which lets you add them to your collection and grants you the ability to use them in battle. Switch between collected Pokémon at any time, taking advantage of the fact that the amount of damage you deal depends on the type of move used and the type of Pokémon hit. Be the last one standing to gain the right to compete in the Battle Royale and test your skills against many Pokémon at once. You can also team up with three people for some multiplayer action (additional Wii Remote controllers required), working together to take down tough Bosses and earning points that can be used toward recruiting or training Pokémon. You can even save your favorite Pokémon to your Wii Remote™ controller for exchanges with friends. Combining beautiful cel-shaded graphics and exciting game-play features, this is one rumble you won’t want to miss. Note that a demo version of Pokémon Rumble is also available for zero Wii Points.

BIT.TRIP BEAT Demo
Publisher: Aksys Games
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 0 Wii Points
Description: BIT.TRIP BEAT brings retro action back as you use the Wii Remote controller’s motion sensor to bounce beats in this rhythm game. Retro visuals, classic game play, four-player multiplayer and an 8-bit soundtrack will get you in the zone and rock your world. Pay attention, though: As with most classic games, the challenges are mighty. If you can stay cool as the difficulty increases, you’ll discover the beginnings of the BIT.TRIP saga.

FINAL FANTASY CRYSTAL CHRONICLES: My Life as a Darklord Demo
Publisher: SQUARE ENIX
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Fantasy Violence, Mild Suggestive Themes
Price: 0 Wii Points
Description: Step into the royal shoes of the Darklord’s daughter as she installs traps and monsters inside her tower to fight back the endless waves of invading adventurers in this world-conquest role-playing game. Filling your demonic tower with monsters and traps called Artifacts is your only hope to keep the adventurers from destroying the Dark Crystal on the top floor. Fly your tower across the land and conquer every stage on your way to dominating the entire world.

NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits Demo
Publisher: Over The Top Games
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Mild Fantasy Violence
Price: 0 Wii Points
Description: NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits is the awesome story of Nyx, an enigmatic winged girl who must descend from heaven in search of her missing friend, Icarus. Fly over the ruins of ancient Greece and avoid falling into blazing sands or perishing in the claws of cruel harpies and hydras. You’ll need the help of Zeus and other benevolent gods from Olympus to summon their powers. They will let you cast rays, modify the scenery and control winds at will. Fly, aim and shoot using the Wii Remote controller. Play with a friend and maximize your abilities: While one player controls Nyx, the other will control the powers from the gods.

World of Goo Demo
Publisher: 2D BOY
Players: 1-4
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief
Price: 0 Wii Points
Description: World of Goo is an award-winning, physics-based puzzle/construction game made entirely by two guys. Use living, squirming, talking globs of goo to build structures, bridges, cannonballs, zeppelins and giant tongues. The millions of Goo Balls that live in the beautiful World of Goo are curious to explore, but they don’t know that they are in a game, nor that they are extremely delicious.

Virtual Console

Indiana Jones’ Greatest Adventures™
Original platform: Super NES™
Publisher: LucasArts
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E10+ (Everyone 10 and Older) – Mild Violence
Price: 800 Wii Points
Description: Grab your trusty whip and slash your way through all three Indy classics in this no-thrills-barred adventure. If it happened in the movies, it happens here: the giant boulder from Raiders of the Lost Ark, the mine-cart chase from Temple of Doom, the three trials from Last Crusade, Rene Belloq and Colonel Vogel – it’s three times the action, all in one fully loaded game.

STREET FIGHTER II’: CHAMPION EDITION
Original platform: TurboGrafx16
Publisher: Capcom
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: T (Teen) – Mild Blood, Violence
Price: 700 Wii Points
Description: This is the classic PCEngine (TurboGrafx16) version of the two-player fighting game that started it all. At the time, a large capacity HuCARD was used to allow faithful recreation of the dynamic arcade game and its features, including bonus stages and sound effects. In the game, players select one of 12 characters and face opponents in a no-holds-barred battle to decide the top fighter. Master a character’s special moves and combos to defeat your rivals around the world. In “V.S. BATTLE” mode, there’s a convenient handicap feature. Using this feature to adjust a character’s performance, a novice player can be evenly matched against a seasoned player to enjoy an intense, head-to-head combat experience.

Nintendo DSiWare

Art Style™: DIGIDRIVE™
Publisher: Nintendo
Players: 1-2
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 500 Nintendo DSi Points™
Description: It’s traffic control with a twist as you try to direct identical cars down the same road in Art Style: DIGIDRIVE. This constantly moving puzzle game combines an easily understood playing field (an intersection) and a simple goal (create fuel), challenging you to properly guide a never-ending stream of cars. Stack similar cars five deep to create some fuel, then use that fuel to continue your progress in the game. Play in ENDLESS mode to see how long you can last, or compete against the computer or a human opponent in VS mode. Use combos to your advantage and see if your reflexes can handle the intensity of Overdrive mode. When all is said and done, you may never look at gridlock quite the same way again.

Arcade Bowling
Publisher: Skyworks Interactive
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: From Skyworks comes another addictively classic game, Arcade Bowling. It was designed by video game legend David Crane, one of the original founders of Activision and one of the most critically acclaimed game designers of all time. In the tradition of everyone’s favorite Boardwalk bowling game, use your stylus and steady aim to flick “laser” balls down the alley and up the ramp into the scoring holes. The farther away the scoring hole is, the more points you’ll get. Arcade Bowling features three futuristic sound tracks, state-of-the-art 3-D graphics and two addictive game modes, Classic and Progressive. In Classic Mode, roll up to nine balls to score as many points as you can. In Progressive Mode, enjoy multiple levels of game play with increasing score plateaus and bonus targets.

Robot Rescue
Publisher: Teyon
Players: 1
ESRB Rating: E (Everyone) – Comic Mischief
Price: 200 Nintendo DSi Points
Description: Robot Rescue is a fun logic game based on a simple but entertaining concept. Your mission is to free robots trapped in 45 evil computer labyrinths while avoiding deadly traps. Sound easy? Not so fast. Each robot shares linked controls, so when you move one, you move them all. It will take clever planning and nerves of steel to pull off this electronic escape. You’ll need to avoid many traps, such as mines or electrical circuits, and take advantage of special elements like glue stains. Choose one of three difficulty levels and get ready for a challenge.

Nintendo adds new titles to the Nintendo DSi Shop and the Wii Shop Channel at 9 a.m. Pacific time on Mondays. Users with broadband Internet access can redeem Wii Points or Nintendo DSi Points to download the games. Wii Points can be purchased in the Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo DSi Points can be purchased in the Nintendo DSi Shop. A Nintendo Points Card™ can be purchased at retail locations. All points from one Nintendo Points Card must be redeemed in either the Nintendo DSi Shop or the Wii Shop Channel. They are not transferable and cannot be divided between the two systems.

Remember that both Wii and Nintendo DSi feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about this and other features, visit Wii.com or NintendoDSi.com.

If you’ve checked out today’s Nintendo Week or one of the WiiWare Channel notices, you would know that Nintendo is offering demo versions of some of its games.

The list of games available as a demo are: Bit Trip Beat, NyxQuest, World Of Goo, My Life as a Dark Lord and Pokemon Rumble. The games are some of the more popular downloads on WiiWare, with the exception of Pokemon, which just came out today.

Of the games listed I would probably try Pokemon Rumble and World Of Goo. Pokemon Rumble is one of the games that I think would benefit from the demo version because it’s not one of those games that looks that fun and most likely it isn’t, but if you can try it out for free, who cares. World of Goo is one of those games where everyone says it’s one of the best games on WiiWare and I want to see if it really stands up to that claim. Also, I’m not really into the design of the game and I’m glad they’re offering it a demo so I can try it out.

Hopefully this becomes a trend with some of the WiiWare games because I feel this is something the WiiWare channel desperately needs, aside from some other additions, in order to get people to try out some of the more “experimental”  games in the WiiWare lineup and hopefully get them to buy them.

Those of you with a Wii, check out the Wii Shop Channel, and then go to WiiWare.

Nintendo has five demos up for free download:

- BIT.TRIP.BEAT
- Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a Darklord
- NyxQuest: Kindred Spirits
- World of Goo
- Pokemon Rumble

Downloaded FFCC, and it sucks, at least too me. Will delete that soon enough. World of Goo is of course fun on the Wii. NyxQuest demo is pretty short and uneventful, as it’s basically a tutorial, but it definitely looks pretty sweet and something that could be worth buying the full version of. $10 for it, probably be a while before I bother with it though. But it is definitely on my radar now, and it wasn’t before (probably because I hadn’t heard of it!).

Haven’t downloaded the other two yet, and well I won’t download anything Pokemon related ever.

Downloading the three I did, I have about 700 blocks left. So definitely something you’ll want to try out and then delete.

It’s awesome that Nintendo is finally bringing demos to the Wii, even if it is just for WiiWare games at the moment, because demos should be standard across all platforms. But the extremely small memory space of the Wii, won’t allow for you to load up on them and keep them stored on the Wii. Although I believe you can play them from a SD card now, but I’m not sure about that and I don’t have an SD card anyway.

Juego parecido a “The world of goo”, pero en flash.

World of Goo se va haciendo grande. Hace poco celebró su primer aniversario con una iniciativa al estilo “paga lo que creas conveniente por el juego” y aquí vamos a celebrarlo con un recordatorio sobre el juego.

El sector indie ya venía avisando desde hace algún tiempo de lo que era capaz. Cracks como Kenta Cho o Jenova Chen abrieron el camino al público para que obras como la que hoy nos ocupa nos alegrasen la vida con una apuesta simple, arriesgada y descarada como pocas.

World of Goo ha cumplido un año, un año de reconocimientos, beneficios para su ingente equipo programador (2D Boy compuesto por 3 personas), horas de juego incansables, agradables comidas de cabeza para los jugadores, niños alemanes enfurecidos viendo como una sarta de bolitas pegajosas se iban al garete en sus ordenadores…

Nacido de una iniciativa en http://experimentalgameplay.com/, Kyle Gabler y Ron Carmel propusieron  un puzzle que jugaba con influencias fisico-arquitectónicas de una manera adictiva a más no poder. Nuestro objetivo en el juego no era otro que el de alcanzar una altura predeterminada mediante una serie de bolas con las que podíamos formar una estructura para alcanzar dicha meta. Había nacido el por entonces llamado Tower of Goo, del cual podéis probar una demo en su estado primigenio en la página de sus creadores.

Con el tiempo el juego fue evolucionando hasta  conseguir alcanzar su reconocido status actual y, salvando las lógicas diferencias de actuación en ambas obras, poder ser considerado el Lemmings de la actualidad; me explico, World of Goo, por su estructura, nos propone una obra en la cual nosotros, como persona-Dios que maneja el cotarro, debe organizar a una serie de individuos interdependientes entre sí con una serie de características que los diferencian y clasifican en pos de una meta común. En el caso de Lemmings, eran los distintos tipos de leminos los que debían acatar nuestras órdenes(picapedrero, “paraguas-caidista”, portero de discoteca, etc.) para ser guiados hsata el final de cada nivel, y de paso, evitar su suicido colectivo.

Pero no solo del modo “historia” vive World of Goo, como aliciente y recompensando nuestra pericia, con las bolas de goo que nos hayan sobrado al acabar las distintas fases, podremos edificar una torre de bolas de goo que competirá con otras a lo largo y ancho del mundo. Cabe reseñar que, como suele pasar con este tipo de iniciativas, ya hay un nutrido grupos de viciados al juego que han llegado a levantar torres de monstruosas proporciones. Aquí os dejo un ejemplo de ello.

Aunque no sea precisamente lo más llamativo dentro de este tipo de títulos (¿quién dijo que Tetris necesitase un argumento que fuese mucho más allá del juego?), tengo que realizar una pequeña reseña sobre su trama. Lejos de conformarse con una simple historia, 2D Boy dotó a World of Goo de una serie de elementos que consiguen potenciar la historia goo de manera simple pero magistral, desgranando poco a poco los entresijos y evolución de las criaturillas conforme avanzamos  en nuestra goodisea (sí, es un juego de palabras bastante malo).

Si a todo lo dicho sumamos un tratamiento artístico excepcional tanto en lo gráfico, donde nos encontramos con unas alegres 2D realizadas únicamente con aplicaciones de tipo open source, como en lo sonoro, donde predomina la influencia de varias BSO’s cinematográficas e incluso retrojueguiles, no podemos calificar a World of Goo con ningún otro calificativo que no sea”obra maestra”. Es por ello que nos ahorramos el ponerle nota numérica.

De ustedes depende el probarla en cualquiera de sus versiones… o no (en este último caso estarán cometiendo un craso error).

2D Boy http://2dboy.com

Cómo era originalmente World of Goo: Tower of Goo (demo jugable mediante descarga directa, para hacerla funcionar hay que hacer click en tog.exe).

Nota: Una bolsa de gominolas con sabor a Coca-Cola bien repleta. Así tendrás un montón y nunca te cansarás de ellas.

—

Artículo publicado originalmente el día 7 de Noviembre de 2009 en Nuevebits.

Nereden buldum tam olarak hatırlamıyorum ama, yüklediğimden beri severek oynadığım güzel bir oyun bu. Bu tarz küçük çaplı oyunlar (World of Goo gibi) büyük yankı uyandırmaya başladı. Yapımcıların da bunu farketme ve günümüz yazılım teknolojisiyle bu eski tip minimalist zevklere hitap eden oyunlar üretme konusundaki gayretlerini takdir ediyorum. Yukarıdaki görüntü sizi aldatmasın. Oyunu çözdüğünüzde bu anlamsız gibi görünen karmaşık manzara yerini keyifli bir cümbüşe bırakıyor. Oyunun konusunun, Spore’un başlangıç bölümünün ve bazı eski arcade oyunlardan ilham alınarak geliştirildiğini söyleyebiliriz. Büyük balık küçük balığı yer, yedikçe büyür, en büyük olur ve bölüm değişir… Tabi ilerleyen bölümlerde ortamda sizin gibi yedikçe büyüyen cisimler ve daha sonra da sizle birleştiğinde yok edici özelliği olan anti-matter’larla karşılaştığınızda her şey daha büyük bir eğlenceye döner. Kimi zaman dap dar bir geçitten kurtulmaya çalışıyor kimi zaman büyük bir canlının peşine düşüyorsunuz. Bu sırada harika diyebileceğimiz sound track de oyunun atmosferine eşlik ediyor.

Bu güzel oyunu Hemisphere Games‘in web sitesinden 10$’a satın alarak indirebilirsiniz ya da demosunu deneyebilirsiniz. Şiddetle tavsiye olunur.

Lemmings é básico para a compreensão do mundo. Deveria ser obrigatório nas escolas.

De uma porta – ou portal dimensional; ou prisão; ou calabouço; ou cabine telefônica – saem lemmings. Lemming, pouca gente sabe, é o nome vulgar do Lemmus lemmus (eu tô falando sério), um roedor da família Cricetidae que aparentemente não tem nome vulgar em português. Acredita-se que um lemming de verdade seja um bicho imbecil que vai atrás de seus pares para onde quer que eles sigam. Forno microondas, precipício, poço de piche, fogueira… Onde um for, o outro vai, e assim vão todos. Dizem. Por isso o nome do jogo é Lemmings, embora no lugar de ratinhos, os lemmings do jogo são antropóides de cabelo verde, muito pálidos e de roupa azul.

A meta, em cada fase, é conduzir uma quantidade mínima de Lemmings para uma outra parte da cenário – supostamente um outro portal dimensional (está claro que contexto não é o forte). Para isso, dá-se comandos a um lemming, para que impeça a passagem de outros lemmings, por exemplo, ou, cave um buraco. E ele obedecerá para sempre, até explodir, se afogar, ou você mandar ele parar.

Lemmings 3D, para PlayStation

Certa feita fui a Porto Alegre. Passei por três aeroportos. O nosso ALEM (Aeroporto Luis Eduardo Magalhães), o metropolitano aeroporto de Congonhas, e por fim, o alegre aeroporto de Porto Alegre, o famoso Salgado Filho. Notei três tratamentos distintos: em Salvador, atender as pessoas é… desnecessário. Você pega a passagem, deixa a bagagem, entra no portão, e é provável que ninguém lhe dê indicação nenhuma, ou lhe dirija a palavra, mesmo na hora de pôr as coisas de metal na bandeja. Em Porto Alegre fui tratado como um cliente do Itaú Personalité, com sorrisos, atenções, indicações e gentilezas.  São Paulo merece um parágrafo a parte.

No aeroporto de São Paulo, fazendo conexão, fui tratado como um gado. “Por aqui, senhor”, “Vôo Gol, senhor? Aguarde aqui”, “sente”, “levante”, “entre no ônibus”. Devo ter recebido uns 48 comandos no espaço de uma hora e pequenos empurrões de “anda logo”, muitas vezes para que eu fizesse o que já estava fazendo. Os funcionários não foram errados, provavelmente. É muita gente, muito movimento, é melhor reduzir as possibilidades de confusão e tratar todo mundo como uma anta.

Uma experiência direta do que Lemmings ensina insistentemente desde 1991, que é: multidões não raciocinam. Quanto mais gente no mesmo espaço, menor a média de QI, com uma tendência exponencial ao zero. Quando saí no carnaval experimentei isso de forma ainda mais vibrante. Mas eu já sabia, porque eu jogava Lemmings.

PS.: Uma variável do conceito de Lemmings, bastante interessante, é World of Goo. Esse, com mais contexto. Talvez até demais.

Nu, nu e vorba de ceva covor rosu care se extinde automat, e vorba de melodia Red Carpet Extend-o-matic, care a facut furori printre impatimitii jocului indie World of Goo. Melodia e pur si simplu geniala, auditie placuta.

Also, stiu ca nu am mai postat de mult pe blog, asta e viata de pulitehnist… De ce naiba mi-a trebuit Puli???

With the advent of the newest generation of consoles, the Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360, the gamer population has grown to an unbelievable size. Naturally, the gaming market has grown indescribably as well. Back in the days, when it used to be the NES and Famicom, the gamer’s market was not a widely known or even widely appreciated one. Many remember playing The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and admiring it’s beautiful graphics. Even I remember those days. The Wizard is still a classic movie (meaning horrible, horrible, horrible) for those of the time. Even Tron was a great breakthrough!

But now, Gaming has become a commodity. It’s not that such a state is bad. For the gamers out there who enjoy games, more games ultimately means more fun. The problem, then, lies in originality or the framework of these games.

Gaming is much a template nowadays. Most notably seen in Nintendo, there is a constant stream of utter garbage that floods the market, making that one gem even harder to find. In fact, for the once renown makers of Zelda and Mario, the reputation garnered by the sewage material spewing from this source is enough to send Miyamoto straight to Hell three times over while being tarred and feathered, in a chicken suit. Apart from that though, because gaming is now more capital focused than ever, the focus is on producing faster and making things look prettier. Quality is less of a factor, nor are aspects such as storyline, music, gameplay and the like. Of course, some games are still high quality masterpieces, balancing story, gameplay mechanics, control, music into blends of greatness. Some of the template games are still marvelous as well. In fact, some games are good enough to compensate for the incessant amounts of horsepiss that clogs the gaming market. The problem that many gamers face, obviously, is that these diamonds in the dust don’t appear as often as they should in comparison to the sheer number of games being produced.

Of course, it must be acknowledged that game developers, especially larger companies, are forced, by precedence, to release a certain type of game, to stay their course and creativity. As a result, many long term gamers find certain dullness, repetitiveness to these games. Examples, of course, include Zelda, Final Fantasy, and Tekken. The brand name, having been so popular, causes development of similar products following a format, a template, a frame. Because of such, innovation, though possible, is limited. Zelda may have cool new toys, but the old ones will always remain. Final Fantasy will still use the Fire, Fira, Firaga series of spells. Tekken will always be a normal 1v1 fighting game with complex combos. Development can happen, but the frame will not be altered. If it is altered, much like Mario and Sonic have been, the successes will generate another template and the failures will just cut the reputation. I’m not, in any way, bashing these titles. Personally, I love most of the games that I listed above. It’s just that now, after more than 20 years of gaming, brand names are beginning to be viewed as repetition.

This is where Independent developers must butt in. These games, such as World of Goo, Braid, N+, Portal and more, are creative masterpieces in the world of gaming. World of Goo is a structural design game where goo balls ARE your structure. They branch out forming trusses and beams to support themselves as you stack them higher and higher to reach pipes. The puzzle possibilities, alongside the hilarious script and obvious memetic references, increase as you progress the levels. This is the same for Braid, except with a different mechanic. N+ is a puzzle game based solely on skill and Portal, the most well known of them all, is the crowning achievement of the genre. Fathering a few very well known memes, alongside a great side market for popular culture, Portal is the game involving some hilarious dialogue, warp portals, and cake. These games of independent make are the jewels that litter the gaming world. The only unfortunate aspect, is that these jewels are located in a single genre. But, even by showing their amazing potential, these independent game developers are issuing a challenge to the big companies of gaming. They are challenging the innovative minds of these companies to bring out a product that will trump theirs in fame and fortune.

These are the independent games that will bring about a new generation of games. Hopefully anyways. More and more, new ideas are being brought onto the table and slowly, the gaming market is being redesigned. Games with new battles systems such as The World Ends With You or just an incredible mechanic period (Scribblenauts) are being released and are slowly find their way into the gamer market. As these games slowly proceed up the ladder, hopefully, the market will be more innovation oriented than now. This slump is but another step to overcome.

Kun Woo

The guy who played Braid too much.

Helios brings up the point Linux Users are willing to pay for games.

So Linux has has 26.1% of World of Goo’s on Windows sale volume and earns 47% as much money.

So to rephrase Linux has just over a quarter of the sales but almost half of Windows revenue.

The numbers list below are derived the 2D Boy birthday-sale-wrap-up as of noon on the 28 Oct.  They are in NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM OFFICIAL.

Just an analyst bored and wanting to get a better picture of the situation.

 2dBoy Total d/l                83,250 

                                  Number D/L     avg donation    approx amnt earned

 Linux (deb) 8%              6,660.00       $3.57               $23,776.20

 Linux (tar) 6%               4,995.00       $3.42               $17,082.90

 Linux (rpm) 3%             2,497.50       $3.19                $7,967.02

 Linux total 17%                                                          $48,826.12

 Mac OSX 18%              14,985.00       $2.54               $38,061.90

 Windows 65%              54,112.50       $1.92              $103,896.00

                                                               Total           $190,784.02

If you would like to know how I arrived at these numbers. I will send you my spreadsheet upon request.

P.S.  anyone have a good way to do tables in WordPress.

Fez in action

Huomenta!

Tiistaina käytiin läpi pikseligraffan saloja webdesign tunnilla, ja päätinpä taas jakaa teidän kanssa jotain omasta mielestäni vallan mahtavaa.

Kyseessä on indiepeliprojekti Fez (Polytron Corporation), joka julkaistaan toivon mukaan ensi vuoden alussa XBox 360:lle, mutta näyttääkin jopa 20 vuotta vanhalta tekeleeltä.

Suosittelen että vilkaisette traileria, ja Polytronin sivua muutenkin (News ja Projects osioita) sekä linkkejä muihin indiepelitaloihin; 2DBoy:n World of Goo, ja suomalaisen Petri Purhon blogi (mm. palkinnon voittanut Crayon Physics) ovat vilkaisun arvoisia, sillä sieltä näkee mainiosti miten mahtavaa jälkeä niinkin raa’alla grafiikkatyylillä saa aikaiseksi.

Ehkäpä webdesign ryhmä saa jotain inspiraatiota näistä meneillä olevaan pikseligraffa tehtävään.

-Ile

PS. Kirjoitusvirheistä voi huomauttaa kommenteissa…

Indie musicians are thinking and talking about the name-your-own-price model for digital music (what Radiohead did with their last album). There’s a dearth of data though—Radiohead, for example, never released their numbers. But last week, San Francisco-based indie game developers 2D Boy ran a NYOP birthday sale for their game World of Goo, and they plotted and shared the distribution of how much people paid for it. As well, they surveyed purchasers about why they paid what they did. (You can read their full analysis here.) One thing that really stood out for me—and that has clear parallels to musicians—was the collateral rise in full-price purchases of 2DBoy’s other titles.

The other thing that struck me was that they plotted a distribution of how many people bought the game at different price points. But that plot didn’t take into account how much money they made at each price point – one person who pays a dollar is ‘worth’ as much as 100 people who pay a penny. So I took their data and replotted it, first multiplying the number of people who paid in each price range by how much they paid (this is analogous to something I do in my day job). It’s only an approximation, since I took the amount paid as the mean of each bin but it’s probably a little lower, since a lot more people would have paid the round number than any other amount (for example, for the $2.00-$2.99 bin, I approximated the amount paid as $2.50, but I imagine a lot more people paid $2 than any other number, so that would skew the mean lower). You can see from the graph (click for a cleaner PDF) that people who paid around $5 contributed the most revenue, followed by people who paid $1 and people who paid $10.

What does this mean for musicians? Well, it seems really discouraging that most people paid the minimum amount. But you can think of this group of people as just taking a chance on you, and helping to get the word out. Because when you put it in dollar terms, the many fewer people who paid $1, $5, 0r $10 had a disproportionate impact.

Note, of course, that the NYOP model is a whole different world when you’re dealing with physical CDs, since they don’t have a negligible incremental cost.

(thanks to @zeroday for the pointer!)

Tenía bastante tiempo que no publicaba algún jueguillo por el blog y creo que es momento de hacerlo .

En esta ocasión les traigo un juego bastante adictivo y entretenible, aunque probablemente muchos ya lo conozcan, se llama World of Goo y el creador de éste es la compañía 2D Boy.

El juego trata a grandes rasgos acerca de unas llamadas “Bolas de Goo” de las cuales dispondrás y con ellas necesitarás armar o construir un camino uniéndolas entre sí para llegar hasta un fin común: una tubería. El objetivo de cada nivel es llegar hasta esta tubería a través del camino creado y que las demás bolas de goo pasen y sean recuperadas ya que necesitarás un numero específico de ellas para pasar cada nivel.

Aquí les dejo algunos vídeos para que puedan ver mejor de qué trata.

Que puedo decir… un juego que recomiendo completamente y los invito a que lo prueben ^^

El juego se encuentra disponible para diferentes sistemas operativos: Windows, Mac OS X y Linux.

Lamentablemente no pueden conseguir el juego completo gratis, pero sí el demo. Pueden descargarlo en múltiples formatos de paquete desde el siguiente enlace:

2D Boy – Games.

Si descargan el demo y les gusta ya después pueden comprarlo a un precio de 20 USD, peeeero hace unos días lanzaron la promoción, gracias al cumpleaños del juego, de que puedes comprarlo al precio que creas que vale.

Una oferta bastante interesante y que no pueden dejar perder. Ésta termina mañana 25 de Octubre así que aprovechen!

Por mi parte agradezco infinitamente al todo el equipo de Glatelier que, gracias a un concurso que publicaron, gané el juego completo!!! (parece que mi suerte está empezando a cambiar xD)

Aquí yo en mi Fedora 11 jugando World of Goo

World of Goo en Fedora 11 KDE 4.3.2.

Bueno, eso es todo… una vez más los invito a que al menos prueben el demo y si pueden compren el juego tanto para apoyar a la compañía, como para poder disfrutar de todos los beneficios del juego

Depuis quelques années, l’industrie du jeu vidéo se lance dans une course effrénée au chiffre d’affaires. Les budgets explosent (près de 100 millions de dollars pour GTA IV) et les licences deviennent de plus en plus rentables grâce à une pléthore de suites. Les jeux s’ouvrent au grand public pour engranger d’autant plus d’argent dans les caisses. Paradoxalement, de petits studios indépendants sont de plus en plus nombreux à se lancer dans l’aventure. Du développement à l’édition, ils démontrent qu’il est encore possible de réaliser un jeu de qualité à moindres coûts. Les récents succès de World of Goo ou de Braid en témoignent. Dernier en date, Machinarium, un jeu d’aventure tout droit sorti de l’antre d’Amanita Design. Et déjà encensé par la presse comme un véritable bijou vidéo-ludique.

Bonjour, voici... heu... un petit être robotique désireux de retrouve son chez-lui.

L’histoire commence avec un robot, éjecté de sa ville et séparé de sa promise. Ce petit autochtone automate va devoir se frayer un chemin à travers un monde entièrement mécanique. Dans ce ʺpoint and clickʺ, pas l’ombre d’un dialogue. Tout n’est que rouages, antennes, boutons et tuyaux. Et notre protagoniste de tôle – bien plus sobre que Bender et bien moins téméraire que R2-D2, mais tout aussi attachant – évolue d’une scène à l’autre en résolvant des énigmes. Rien d’original : des objets à ramasser, à combiner, et à utiliser à l’endroit et au moment opportun. Certains casse-têtes sont poussifs, mais tous restent d’une logique absolue : on est bien loin des puzzles loufoques de Runaway. Ce petit droïde communique donc avec les autres robots au moyen de bulles de bandes-dessinées. Elles donnent des indications primordiales à la progression : elles désignent un objet à trouver ou une action à réaliser. Mais parfois, ces bulles se remplissent de flash-back. Une manière d’en apprendre un peu plus sur la vie du personnage et de s’immiscer dans un univers beaucoup plus humain qu’il n’y paraît.

Les décors se scindent souvent en vignettes. Un style poétique et très emprunté de la BD.

Plus que de faire cogiter le joueur, le propre de Machinarium est de l’enchanter. C’est une véritable incitation au voyage. Chaque décor du jeu émerveille : les dessins fourmillent de détails, et l’arrière-plan souvent griffonné ne fait que rajouter davantage de poésie à l’ambiance déjà envoûtante. Cerise sur le gâteau, le jeu mérite d’être parcouru rien que pour la bande originale. Des sonorités souvent indéfinissables, mais toujours oniriques. Douces ou saturées, elles rythment le parcours de notre petit robot. Un parcours semé d’embuches, mais qu’il est toujours possible de dénouer grâce à un double système d’aide. Première étape, une bulle qui donne idée du déroulement de la situation. Si vraiment le joueur bloque toujours, il est possible d’avoir la solution complète de la scène – après avoir passé un mini-jeu d’arcade relativement fastidieux. Mais rien que la planche d’esquisse décrivant la marche à suivre pour résoudre l’énigme en vaut la chandelle.

Un exemple des "dialogues" du personnage. Simpliste, mais redoutablement efficace.

On pourrait reprocher au jeu sa faible durée de vie. L’aventure – bien qu’intense – peut durer moins de cinq heures pour un joueur aguerri. D’autant plus que le jeu, réalisé intégralement en Flash, ne permet pas de déplacements rapides. Mais les quelques défauts de Machinarium sont vite gommés par son ambiance insaisissable et sa réalisation irréprochable, surtout au vu des moyens dont bénéficient les petits gars d’Amanita Design. Pour obtenir ce chef-d’œuvre, il vous faudra vous délester d’une quinzaine d’euros. Le jeu, disponible sur le site des développeurs, est d’ailleurs téléchargeable avec l’intégralité des musiques. Au final, Machinarium reflète la créativité de ses développeurs : c’est un jeu bourré de talent et d’instants émouvants pour une expérience magique.

Akyryn

After falling smooth in love with World of Goo over the past few days and feeling progressively guiltier about the measly buck I ponied up to try the game out, today I went and donated another $9 to round out my payment to a more respectable number. Anyone reading this who hasn’t yet played the game, do yourself a favor and click on over to take advantage of their magnanimous birthday offer while it lasts (through 10/25).

While in that supportive frame of mind, I noticed the Osmos demo on my desktop, which I completed some time back. I had such a good time with it that I signed on to Steam and grabbed it for $9.99. The ambient music and cool gameplay make this one a definite winner as well. Try the demo if you like the looks of it.

I was going to write up a post about guild culture, but I was horribly distracted by Dragon Age Journeys which is a) really good and b) does things I didn’t even know you could do in flash games. Imagine a fully featured little RPG with several hours of gameplay where you can level up, pick talents, recruit a party, do quests, explore dungeons, get achievements, unlock items to download to the full Dragon Age game later, and it has a neat little fighting minigame built in. Highly recommended. And free.

(I finished my first play through as a sword/shield warrior which worked like a charm, especially once I got the ability to have a passive threat aura.)

With an eye to the future, they ask a few questions in a survey at the end about whether people would be willing to pay for future chapters. And this highlights one of the strong points of RMT in my mind, which is that if you feel something is worth money, you can pay for it. I’d have no qualms about paying for another chapter of Dragon Age Journeys, and a few hours of gaming entertainment is definitely worth something to me.

But therein also lies the other issue with RMT in MMOs. How do you value a virtual object? How much is it actually worth to you? So for example, I’d have no issue with paying for content but I’d be disinterested in cosmetic items — how many hats does one character need anyway. Other people might value these things in a completely opposite way. Ideally, all players who were willing to pay for content would be able to pay what they felt it was worth to them. Even if I only think the hat is worth 10p, that’s still 10p more than the company would have gotten otherwise, and if some more fashion conscious player wants to pay £5 for the same item, then so much the better.

Aside from complaints about unfair pricing structures, there’s been a great example this week of ‘pay what you want’ pricing in action. 2D BOY had a special birthday sale for World of Goo, their smart,  utterly charming and award winning physics-based puzzle game (I paid full price when I bought mine and felt it was worth every penny). The price was … whatever people wanted to pay. In the link above, they dissect the results.

Short form: The sale was a massive success. It generated thousands of new sales for a product that is a year old. Even if most of those people paid way less than the full price, that’s money the company would not otherwise have got and all the work in producing the game was already done. It’s definitely food for thought. They also reveal some of the results of an associated survey which show that people actually don’t pay what they think the game is worth, they pay what they feel they can afford. (ie. the amount people spend doesn’t necessarily reflect how much they wanted the game or valued it.)

If anyone wants to try World of Goo and take advantage of the ‘pay what you want’ sale, the sale is still on until tomorrow (Oct 25th). If you like puzzle games, you will probably love it.  There’s a demo about halfway down the page.

Time is running out! Developer 2DBOY is conducting an experimental “pay-what-you-want” sale for the 1st birthday of it’s hit game, World of Goo. Simply follow the link below, click “get it”, then use PayPal to enter your donation amount, anywhere from $0.01 to a bajillion dollars! The sale is extended through Sunday, October 25th, so you’d better hurry!

[Pay What You Want For 2DBOY's "World of Goo"!]

Here are a few bits from recent news that I found interesting. The first is that the developers of the fantastic game World of Goo decided to go with a PWYW (Pay What You Want) model to celebrate the 1st birthday of the game. One week of this model brought in over $100,000 in sales for them, far more than they see in a standard week. They analyzed the purchasing and user motivations in a detailed blog post that is worth reading. I paid full price for the game when it was released and I would be happy to do so again.

The second bit is a short summary of a game that University of Texas economist Daniel Hamermesh plays with his students in a Principles of Economics class. The game teaches students that it is very difficult to maintain collusion in economies because the rewards for breaking the rules are too great. I wonder if he could develop a similar game based on a PWYW model?

Por Barry Burton

Para comemorar o aniversário de World of Goo, a 2DBoy fez uma promoção relâmpago: pague o quanto quiser pelo jogo!

Isso mesmo, você pode pagar de U$ 0,01 até U$ ∞,99! Seja generoso e incentive a produção de jogos independentes clicando aqui: Buy World of Goo NOW!!

E, se você quiser saber como andam as vendas (e o que a 2DBoy está aprendendo e achando disso tudo), clique aqui: site da 2DBoy.

The rather excellent World of Goo is celebrating its very first birthday.

Happy Birthday World of Goo.

To celebrate, creator – 2D Boy – is offering gamers the opportunity to pay whatever they think it is worth, a bit like Radiohead did with their last album, In Rainbows – except this isn’t gloomy and overlong. I recommend playing the demo first before splashing your cash.

Get your Goo here:

Indie game developer 2D Boy just made an interesting experiment, in which they sold their game World of Goo for whatever price you were willing to pay.

I find this quite interesting from a business standpoint. Considering that most things are freely (if often illegally) available on the internet, I think exploring new marketing strategies is of paramount importance, probably more so for smaller companies than for large companies.

2D Boy wrote an exhaustive blog entry about how the experiment went and they also published an interesting chart on how much people decided to pay:

Click for a larger image.

Many people only paid one cent for the game, (16,852 of them), and 15,797 paid between $1 and $2. They even had a questionnaire later on where they asked people to answer why they paid what they paid, and while many said “That’s all I can afford right now” (which I don’t buy for the 1 cent crowd, as I imagine anyone who can download a video game online could probably do without at least $1), many also said they wanted to support the “pay-what-you-want model”, many said they already had it but wanted it for another platform, too. Some said “I’ve played the game but never paid for it, took this opportunity to get legit”.

They also wrote that their sales of the game on Steam rose 40%, which makes me wonder whether maybe some of those that paid 1 cent for the game decided to buy it for the normal price once they tested and liked it.

I also wonder whether the people that only paid $0.01 would have bought/obtained the game through any other means or whether they wouldn’t have been customers any other way.

It’s also interesting to know that 2d Boy made no money on purchases of around 30 cents and under, as they had to pay PayPal for those purchases, too.

“Since the birthday sale started, about 57 thousand people bought World of Goo off our website. The average price paid for the game was $2.03 a significant percent of which went to PayPal for transaction fees. Normally, they keep about 5% of the revenue, but because PayPal fees are structured in a way that they take a larger percentage for smaller transactions, we ended up paying over 13% in transaction fees. For all purchases of around 30 cents and under, we actually saw no money, PayPal took it all, but they probably ended up losing money on most of those transactions ($0.01) as well, they’re not the bad guy.”
(http://2dboy.com/)

At any rate, I suppose this could be a good way to make some money off of a digital “product” few people are buying anymore.