Mobile software development firm eMobiSoft Inc. is gearing up to launch their physics challenge game “Troll Blaster” which sets out to claim its place among iOS classics. Troll Blaster is a projectile destruction game which has players strategically select from a choice of weapons to destroy structures holding the “evil” trolls. The player then pulls the weapon back selecting power and trajectory and then launches it smashing into the structures. Read the rest of this entry »
WildTangent and the Degree® brand are working together to deliver free access to premium games for a limited time within the WildTangent Games service. Designed to appeal to male hardcore gamers, the custom game channel features fast-paced, adrenaline charged games.
The Unilever campaign is the first to deliver both a French and English language version of the experience, dynamically targeting users based on their language preference. Powered by WildTangent’s BrandBoost ad platform, the campaign unlocks pay to play games for consumers who engage with a Degree Adrenaline Series video commercial. Games in the Degree channel are typically $19.99 to own or anywhere from approximately $.25 to $1.00 to rent, but Canadian players will be able to enjoy free unlimited, uninterrupted play during the campaign courtesy of Degree Men Adrenaline Series.
“The Degree Games channel is a great way for Unilever to build equity with gamers by giving them free access to the games they love,” said Linda Kessler, director of sales for WildTangent in Canada. “Our BrandBoost platform allows Degree to dynamically target video advertising to our Canadian users in their native language across a selection of contextually relevant games. That is scalable, addressable engagement at its best.”
Editor’s Note: Is it just me, or do you lady gamers out there find this campaign’s focus a little…short sighted?
Silicon Sisters Interactive has announced the Japanese debut of their School 26 game series for girls ages 12 to 16. The fully localized first installment is now available in Japan’s App Store for iPhone, iPod Touch (¥250), and iPad (¥450). School 26 initially released in English earlier this year.
School 26 is a social mastery game that balances high school drama with cute cartoon artwork, lively characters, and an engaging storyline. Playing as Kate, the new girl in school, you must build relationships, defuse tensions, and navigate high school’s sticky social situations. From first crushes to troubled friendships to sexual confusion, the game explores real issues its teen audience can relate to. Read the rest of this entry »
Just in time for the Labor Day Weekend developers JoshOClock and ArtWitz Design (working under the SkyModo label) have released a brand new version of their critically acclaimed and highly praised “Dog Pile” title, updating the game on its entire range of platforms for the Apple iPhone®, Apple iPod touch®, Apple iPad® and Android. In celebration of the extended holiday weekend, the game is currently available as a free download, but only for a limited period of time.
This new and improved version of “Dog Pile” features 12 brand new levels in a unique Pirates Theme called “Pirates Challenge”, much harder than previous stages, and primarily aimed at more experienced players. The update also includes two new objects, Cannons and Breakable Crates with the dogs uttering things like “Walk the plank you scurvy Dog”!
“Dog Pile” is a hilarious and cute match-3 spinoff, featuring the best gameplay components from all genres. Throughout a series of ingenious and brilliantly designed levels, your fat puppy falls from the top of the screen into what can best be described as a pinball-style environment! Incorporating realistic physics you must “touch, swipe and tilt” to aid your furry little friend match up with his buddies at the bottom of the screen before time runs out. The sound effects and music add so much to the game you just feel like cranking up the volume full blast, and the cutesy and adorable graphics begs you for just “one-more-go” like a dog begging for a bone. As you become better at the game, and you rank up points and dog bone biscuits, you have the option to go shopping, upgrading your dog pack to feature awesome accessories such as cool eye wear and hats!
“Dog Pile” is ideal to anyone, regardless of age, and its multiple stages with plenty of levels will keep you snapping at anyone trying to stop you from completing the game!
Cackleberries, the latest online virtual world introducing children to the future of education is now open for familes to explore. This living community, full of fun learning and adventure, is the brainchild of entrepreneur Eronne Foster, a passionate mother cared so much about the future of children’s education and the promotion of a safe online environment to learn in that she assembled a team of educationalists, British Columbia’s finest animators and game developers to develop an imaginative world rich in learning and packed with entertainment.
“Information technology provides us with opportunities to make learning material more visual, interactive, and accessible,” Eronne says. “We encourage children to learn through creativity, playful thinking, social integration and computer skills. Cackleberries is designed to allow young children between the ages of 3 and 7 to play and learn. It’s not just about reading and math, but embodies life skills, social practices and cultural integration.”
Cackleberries, named after an Australian word for “egg,” reside in a live, ever changing, exciting virtual world. Aside from the wondrous characters and structures illustrated by Vancouver artist Ken Rolston, many unique features contribute to this learning environment.
“We have strived to make the learning seamless” says Eronne, “in the reading skills component, for example, it is the word bar that helps children learn. It brings together both visual and audio cues. Multimedia learning is enhanced with this combination of visual and auditory stimuli, and the beauty is that children are fast tracked into learning outcomes without even realizing they are learning. ”
A highlight of Cackleberries experience is the safety aspect. Using Adobe AIR, developers of Cackleberries are able to build and deploy rich web applications and content directly to the desktop. They have developed a proprietary “Cackleberries Desktop Safety Icon.” The safety icon takes your child into the online world of Cackleberries with no access to the wider internet and no one on the internet has access to your children. The wondrous characters children interact with are carefully crafted computer generated avatars that deliver the fun and education.
“While many parents have recognized the advantage of online supplemented early education, there is nevertheless a fear of allowing children unrestricted access to the internet,” says Eronne. “At Cackleberries we are passionate about providing the safest online environment for your children to play, explore, and learn in. We take early childhood education and online safety very seriously, and consult with some of the top experts.”
“It’s important that parents are able to engage and help direct their children’s play and learning outcomes,” continued Eronne. “We are building a growing resource centre with current information on parenting, early childhood education and child safety. To this end the Cackleberries team has developed Club C for grownups. Club C is for anyone who has a child in their life – parents, grandparents, educators and caregivers.”
In Cackleberries world children develop their own avatars, which are engagingly interactive and kick start the child’s creativity. Children participate in a growing, living world, with houses, streets and communities that evolve around them. The creators imagined a place for children where everyone is accepted, differences are never feared and innocence still exists.
“We are always developing exciting new learning delivery methods which encompass a wide skill set,” enthuses Eronne. “As borders open between nations, ethnic diversity has become part of the mosaic of life. Cackleberries teaches acceptance, understanding and caring; and shows our young audience how to celebrate, not fear differences.”
After experiencing the great success with their two iPhone apps “Stylish Girl” and “Cool Guy” (more than one million downloads and over 100000 active users worldwide), the Toronto based DDN Media team has decided to expand their fan club by inviting Android users in it. They gave advantage? to the girls first and developed “Stylish Girl” for Android so that they could feel as stylish as their iPhone friends.
Stylish Girl is a multifunctional fashion app focusing on three major fashion elements:
1. users’ virtual closets where they can create numerous outfits
2. Shopping by allowing users to combine items from the online fashion stores with their own and shop from their phone directly
3. fashion news on style and tips from professional stylist The social element anchors the fun by the allowing users to post links and pictures of items and outfits with comments to twitter and Facebook
Stylish Girl was presented by Apple on New York Fashion Week as a successful symbiosis of mobile technology and fashion and later included in their well-known campaign for the app store”There’s an app for that.”
“Our strength lies in the number of users. We love and them and respect their feedback always replying each of them. Many of those emails were surprisingly from Android who have seen the app at their iPhone friends and wondering if they would ever be able to use it on their android devices. The Android version was on our to do list for some time already but we have finally hired another developer and shortened the process getting the Android users closer to fashion style and shopping by making Stylish Girl inseparable part of their lives. And this is not the end of surprises. The soon coming app. upgrade includes a pop up shop and the version for guys is on the way as well,” says DDN Media co founder Dubravko Naumov.
Frima Studio and Build-A-Bear-Workshop® have announced that Bearville.com™, the online virtual world extension of the Build-A-Bear Workshop brand, has surpassed 20 million avatars. Bearville™ is a premier virtual world experience for children, families and fans of the Build-A-Bear-Workshop brand. Co-developed and maintained with Frima Studio, Bearville is a free online virtual world and entertainment destination where Guests bring their furry friends to life, interact with other users, play games, take on virtual jobs, buy virtual items and explore.
Since its launch in 2007, Bearville has entertained millions of young fans and earned a spot as one of the top children’s virtual worlds. With exciting adventures, avatar customization and mini-games, Bearville has solidified Build-A-Bear Workshop as a leader in kids interactive entertainment. With the success of Bearville, the company continues to extend its brand from retail shops into e-commerce, online virtual worlds, mobile entertainment apps, and more.
“We’re extremely proud to reach the twenty million avatar milestone with Bearville and are thankful to all of our loyal fans who visit the virtual world each day,” commented Maxine Clark, Founder and Chief Executive Bear of Build-A-Bear-Workshop. “This achievement reinforces our commitment to provide a fun, interactive experience for our guests.”
“Frima Studio has been a critical partner for us in developing the online world on Bearville.com. From concept to twenty million Guests, Frima has been with us every step of the way,” noted Dave Finnegan, Chief Information Bear, Build-A-Bear-Workshop. “Their strategic partnership, creative thinking and technical expertise have been essential to the success of Bearville.”
“This has been an exciting project for us from the start and we’re honored to have been a trusted partner of Build-A-Bear-Workshop for almost five years now,” remarked Steve Couture, CEO, Frima Studio. “Bearville is one of our biggest projects here at Frima, an incredible family brand and a very forward thinking entertainment company.”
Big Blue Bubble Inc. has announced that the will be releasing 5 new titles across iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook in the next business quarter. Not all titles will be available for all platforms, please see individual titles for details.
“We’re excited to see our next round of amazing original IP be released simultaneously and across multiple platforms. The range of genres covered will further cement our standing as Canada’s top gaming company.” said Bryan Davis, Director of Business Development of Big Blue Bubble.
Burn The Rope: WORLDS, the sequel to one of Big Blue Bubble’s most successful games, brings totally new and unique gameplay mechanics combined with the well-known gameplay and visual style. Burn The Rope: Worlds is a challenging game where players try to burn as much rope as possible in each level, but there’s a catch – naturally. The fire only burns upwards, leaving the player to tilt and turn the phone to keep the flame alive.
As the player progresses through the levels, he will encounter bugs crawling along the rope. Different bugs have different reactions to the flame. For example, burning the ant changes the color of the flame so rope of the same color can be burned, and burning the spider shoots out a web bridge so the player can access parts of the level that were inaccessible before. Burn The Rope Worlds will launch in September 2011 for iOS, Android, PC and Mac.
Fling a Thing is a simple game where you shoot your Thing in the air and collect all the bubbles. The player advances onto the next level when all the bubbles are collected. The player has a limited amount of shots and when they run out, the round ends. The Thing is shot in the air by touching and pulling it back like a slingshot.
Once released it bounces around the screen collecting bubbles and power-ups. The goal is to collect as many bubbles as possible and beat your last high score. The player needs to pay attention to the Suckies’ Hunger Meter because when it’s empty they can head on over to the “Feeding Ground”. As the player taps the bubbles, the Suckie jumps up and collects them, filling their Hunger Meter. Fling a Thing will launch in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, PC, Mac and Facebook.
Dark Incursion is a side scrolling hack and slash game that gives the player a full stereoscopic 3D experience. It takes place in an alternate reality in the late 1800’s, amidst an industrial revolution and a world war. The player is the character, Anya, who is one of the few who know about a secret military laboratory developing biological weaponry that could devastate the entire planet if it got out of control.
The player has a multitude of melee and ranged weapons at their disposal to eradicate the abominations from the city. Weapons and attributes are upgradable to best suit their play style. The deeper they get into the secret bunker the more advanced and powerful these monsters become. To top all of this off, the player must complete their mission before the government gives the order to send these bio-soldiers on to the battlefield where there will be no stopping them. With a vivid steam punk art style using new 3D technologies, the creatures will literally jump off the screen. Dark Incursion will be released in September 2011 for iOS and Android devices, and will be available for PC and Mac in October 2011.
Hamster Cannon is a physics-based puzzle game in which the player combines and launches various hamsters out of cannons to collect Golden Noms. The player will select three different hamsters out of a possible eight – each with their own special skills. The player will use angles and bouncing to navigate the levels with a myriad of different surfaces that can react differently depending on which Hamster is being used.
The points awarded for collecting Noms can be traded in the In-Game Store to unlock different upgrades. Hamsters are fired out of the cannon at a high velocity, and the player has the ability to adjust the angle of the cannon to maximize the special skills of each hamster. Hamster Cannon will be available for iOS and Android devices, PC and Mac in September 2011
iOracle is one of the most unique trivia games out there! It has players predicting actual real world events, in order to earn the admiration of their fickle followers, who come and go based on the accuracy of the player’s predictions. The more questions they get right, the more followers they will earn. There will be new questions asked every day, with answers being supplied on the following day.
Players will have their own temple which they can decorate to attract different types of followers. Each follower type asks a different variety of questions – sports, movies, weather, etc. In-app purchasing will also be available to help players get past tougher questions, decorate their temple, or customize their avatar. This will all contribute to the players goal of accumulating more followers. iOracle will launch in October 2011 for iOS and Android devices as well as Facebook.
Android smartphone owners are finally able to play the addictive “Cows vs. Aliens” game by XMG Studio, now available for a limited time as a free download on the Google Android Market. The aim of “Cows vs. Aliens” is to save herds of cows from invading aliens by pushing the cows safely into the barn and keeping the aliens out. It sounds simple but when waves of nasty aliens are descending on your innocent cows you will need all eleven fingers on the screen.
Launched for iOS in February 2011, “Cows vs. Aliens” has enjoyed huge success on the Apple App Store, with many players instantly falling for this easy to pick up but hard to put down game. “Cows vs. Aliens” introduces a new way of interacting with your game, using a pushing gesture to move the cows and aliens around the screen. Unlike other games, which rely on line drawing or touch and drag gestures, the pushing mechanic is a much more organic and lifelike interaction.
Like it’s iOS counterpart, “Cows vs. Aliens” for Android appeals to both to casual and serious gamers by keeping the mechanism simple and intuitive, but making it more and more challenging, when moving up the levels. The Android version also allows you to compete with other players and unlock special achievements and awards using OpenFeint’s leaderboard and achievements.
“This game launch includes another significant development for XMG,” says Ray Sharma, founder and CEO of XMG Studio Inc. “We are responding to popular request for our hit games to be available on Android. We have modified our Kanban Agile game development process to be able to more efficiently address this important community. Its important for the tens of millions of XMG users to know this is just the beginning of our Android efforts. To that end we wish Android touch screen users all the best and we hope you enjoy our free game promotion as our way of getting things started!”
IUGO is pleased to announce the launch of its next mobile social title, Animal Academy, a time/resource-management game that lets you build and customize your school for adorable animal teachers and students.
“We wanted to create a fun experience for all ages,” states IUGO’s CEO Hong-Yee Wong. “Animal Academy is very easy to pick up, and the friendly and intuitive activities will keep you delighted for hours.” The game launches with 20 cheery classroom themes and 23 endearing animal characters, with more being added with regular updates.
Animal Academy Description
Customize your school – Build classrooms that will delight the students of Animal Academy. Reading, writing and arithmetic are the basics, but this ultra-fun school can also teach subjects such as paleontology, robotics, fashion and football to name but a few.
Attract adorable animals – Each new classroom unlocks a new animal species! Cats, dogs, penguins, foxes, robo-mice and more.
Play with friends – Pitch your students up against rival schools in friendly competitions or help out by supervising a friend’s classroom! Playing with friends earns you daily in-game rewards.
Play the role of Principal – Build and maintain the greatest school in the land. The students at Animal Academy have been known to reward beloved Principals with heart-felt, home-made gifts.
Expect tons of future content – IUGO is committed to keeping Animal Academy fresh with frequent and continuous updates. Check back often for new classrooms, animal species, game features and more.
The iPhone and iPad enhanced game is available now in the Apple Appstore and is today’s free download thanks to @FreeAppADay. Animal Academy is rated 4+ and is compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices running iOS 3.0 or later.
Mobile software development firm eMobiSoft Inc. is gearing up to launch their physics challenge game “Troll Blaster” which sets out to claim its place among iOS classics. Troll Blaster is a projectile destruction game which has players strategically select from a choice of weapons to destroy structures holding the “evil” trolls. The player then pulls the weapon back selecting power and trajectory and then launches it smashing into the structures.
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