TechCafe: Games

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <article class="omc-inner-standard" id="omc-full-article" style="text-align: left;"> <div id="omc-inner-placeholder"><img alt="DICE-Battlefield-4-s-Naval-Combat-Will-Be-Similar-to-Tank-Battles-in-1942-380619-2" class="featured-full-width-top wp-post-image" src="http://sknr.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/DICE-Battlefield-4-s-Naval-Combat-Will-Be-Similar-to-Tank-Battles-in-1942-380619-2-620x350.jpg" />  </div> <h1 class="omc-post-heading-standard">5 Mistakes That Game Publisher Make Over and Over</h1>Being a multi-billion dollar a year industry would to many be a sign that things are being done well. However for every game that does well and breaks the bank, there are scores that fail to find an audience, largely go unnoticed, or worse, cause a developer to fail. I worked at both Monolith and Sierra as I was starting out as a film and game journalist so I have seen how this system works up close and personally for several years in addition to over 20 years as a game journalist. With that in mind, let us look at the five biggest mistakes that game companies make that often lead to disaster. <a name="more"></a> <h3 style="text-align: left;">5. Telling the public what they want rather than listening to their requests.</h3>Like the auto industry before it, game companies often think they know best and unleash hordes of games that do not take into account the wishes of the public. When the public says they want dedicated servers, in game saves, and customization. Do not be shocked when they are upset when you do not give that to them and they go elsewhere or ignore a release. I have seen beta sessions where the public was invited in to play a game and give feedback to developers. Far to often the great ideas were ignored as implementing them would cost additional money, delay a game, or cause some tension amongst developers who think they know best, which results in a sub-par product. I remember one dungeon crawl game where I was brought in to be a lead tech on. I mentioned that the game had a wide range of enemies from reptiles, to insects, to other mythical creatures. Yet they all had red blood. To me the insects needed dark ichor, reptiles, green, and so on. I was told it was a great idea but it would cost money to change the code. The game ships, and low and behold, critics slammed the lack of variety in the enemies and their colors and variation most notably the same red blood effect. <h3> 4. Putting out unfinished products.</h3>I have seen this many times. A prime example was the game Outpost being releases without features that were touted in the box. It took almost a year after release for the Monorail and other items listed on the box to be patched in and by then most gamers had given up on the game which harmed the eventual Outpost 2 and the series. Another one that I remember well was Tribes 2 being so unstable that the Q&A department refused to sign off on the build. The game was over budget and time so upper management said it had to ship. It did not matter than the new engine was unstable and we knew this from a game released earlier with the same engine. Tech support calls increased 8X and returns were abundant. I remember going into a Costco a week after release and seeing stacks of the game in the return area. Soon after, the developer was closed and the company was sold off. The series never recovered and to date the engine was never able to be salvaged. Many companies are so worried about shipping X number of titles in a given quarter to appease the share holders, they forget the rule of quality over quantity as if you put out enough bad or buggy games I a row, your reputation will suffer and in time so will your sales. Just as E.A. found out about Battlefield 4 and Sim City, consumers will not put up with buggy games that a publisher continues to release. <h3> 3. Playing fast and loose with a series.</h3>Dead Space and Dead Space 2 for me were two of the best games of their type ever created. So when Dead Space 3 came along I was looking forward to it with great anticipation. Like many gamers I was not thrilled with the emphasis on action over story and suspense and the abundance of micro-transactions in the game. The developers stripped away what was good about the two previous games and added content that caused gamers to turn their backs on the game which has resulted in the series currently being in limbo in regards to future installments. <h3 style="text-align: left;"> 2. Releasing a bug filled game at launch.</h3>Stability is the key not only in life and business and this goes double for gaming. Look how many games have been released as unstable and unplayable messes by publishers who are only concerned with meeting a deadline or recouping on their investments. The mentality of fixing it after it shipped causes more harm than good as most Battlefield 4 fans will tell you. In their haste to beat the latest Call of Duty to the market, EA and Dice released a promising game so laden with issues that it caused severe harm to the series and their reputation and also delayed other projects when developers were called away to help fix the game. Combine that with lawsuits filed by frustrated gamers and you can see how damaging this can be. The balance of rising development costs combined with the need to recoup on an investment is understandable but business 101 is clear to make money you have to spend money. Does an extra month or two delay and some additional development funds hurt the bottom line more than a bad game that gets bad press and undermines a franchise and publisher? <h3> 1. Graphics are not the be all and end all of gaming.</h3>So many times developers like to give you the Sizzle but not the Steak. By this I mean they give you an impressive looking game that has outdated gameplay, boring storylines, and control and online issues. The tout how well a game looks but do not pay attention to what gamers really care about, fun and exciting gameplay that makes them want to return for more. Gamers do not want a souless tech demo that is made to simply show off a gaming engine they want a complete and immersive experience. There is hope as with the abundance of social networking, fans are becoming more and more vocal and it is harder and harder to hide issues with the games. Let us hope that better times are ahead for gamers. <div class="omc-single-tags"></div> </article></div>

Games Gamming 5 Mistakes That Game Publisher Make Over and Over

5 Mistakes That Game Publisher Make Over and Over Being a multi-billion dollar a year industr...

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="post-body entry-content" id="post-body-5116613873545150846" itemprop="description articleBody">As Android phones have increased in popularity the number of apps available for the platform has rocketed. And that means more free Android games. There’s a lot of junk out there, but fortunately, there are gems within the junk. We’ve worked our way through a whole load of Android games to reveal the ones you should download to your phone. If we’ve missed your favorite free Android game, let us know in the comments. 1. Angry Birds The amazingly popular iOS game moved to Android recently, earning over two million downloads during its first weekend of availability. The Android version is free, unlike the Apple release, with maker Rovio opting to stick a few adverts on it rather than charge an upfront fee. The result is a massive and very challenging physics puzzler that’s incredibly polished and professional. For free. It defies all the laws of modern retail. Angry Birds for Android was first available to <a href="http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and-communications/mobile-phones/angry-birds-android-app-full-version-now-available-for-free-901163">download from app store GetJar</a> but is now available through Android Market. <img alt="Angry birds" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/angry-birds-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="more"></a> <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=3255700700863079464" name="more"></a> 2. Bebbled Your standard gem-shuffling thing, only presented in a professional style you wouldn’t be surprised to see running on something featuring a Nintendo badge with an asking price of £19.99. You only drop gems on other gems to nuke larger groups of the same colour, but with ever-tightening demands for score combos and scenes that require you to rotate your phone to flip the play field on its head, Bebbled soon morphs into an incredibly complex challenge. <img alt="Bebbled" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/bebbled-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> <a name="more"></a> 3. The Red Stone There’s an awful lot of square-shuffling games on Android and Red Stone is one of the best. And one of the hardest. You start off with a big fat ‘King’ square that’s four times of the normal ‘pawn’ squares, then set about shuffling things so the fat King can get through to an exit at the top of the screen. It’s hard to accurately describe a puzzle game in the written word, but seriously, it’s a good game. <img alt="Red stone" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/red_stone-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 4. Newton Released a few months back in beta form, Newton is a maths/physics challenge that has you lining up shots at a target – but having to contend with the laws of nature, in the form of pushers, pullers, benders (no laughing), mirrors and traps, all deflecting your shot from its target. The developer is still adding levels to it at the moment, so one day Newton might be finished and might cost money. But for now it’s free and a great indie creation. <img alt="Newton" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/newton-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 5. Sketch Online Surprisingly free of crude representations of the male genitalia, Sketch Online is a sociable guessing game where users do little drawings then battle to correctly guess what’s being drawn first. It’s like Mavis Beacon for the Bebo generation. The version labelled “Beta” is free, and if you like it there’s the option to pay for an ad-free copy. But Google can’t make you. Yet. <img alt="Sketch online" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/sketch_online-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 6. Drop Some might call Drop a game, others might classify it as a tech demo that illustrates the accuracy of the Android platform’s accelerometer, thanks to how playing it simply involves tilting your phone while making a little bouncy ball falls between gaps in the platforms. Either way it’ll amuse you for a while and inform you of the accuracy of your accelerometer – a win-win situation. <img alt="Drop" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/drop-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 7. Frozen Bubble Another key theme of the independent Android gaming scene is (ports of) clones of popular titles. Like Frozen Bubble, which is based around the ancient and many-times-copied concept of firing gems up a screen to make little groups of similarly coloured clusters. That’s what you do. You’ve probably done it a million times before, so if it’s your thing get this downloaded. <img alt="Frozen bubble" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/frozen_bubble-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 8. Replica Island An extremely polished platform game that pulls off the shock result of being very playable on an Android trackball. The heavy momentum of the character means you’re only switching direction with the ball or d-pad, letting you whizz about the levels with ease. Then there’s jumping, bottom-bouncing, collecting and all the other usual platform formalities. <img alt="Replica island" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/replica_island-420-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 9. Gem Miner You are a sort of mole character that likes to dig things out of the ground. But that’s not important. The game itself has you micro-managing the raw materials you find, upgrading your digging powers and buying bigger and better tools and maps. Looks great, plays well on Android’s limited button array. Go on, suck the very life out of the planet. <img alt="Gem miner" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/gem_miner-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 10. ConnecToo Another coloured-square-based puzzle game, only this has you joining them up. Link red to red, then blue to blue – then see if you’ve left a pathway through to link yellow to yellow. You probably haven’t, so delete it all and try again. A brilliantly simple concept. ConnecToo used to be a paid-for game, but was recently switched to an ad-supported model – meaning it now costs you £0.00. <img alt="Connectoo" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/connectoo-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 11. Titres Once you’re successfully rewired your brain’s 25 years of playing Tetris in a certain way with certain buttons and got used to tapping the screen to rotate your blocks, it’s… Tetris. It hinges on how much you enjoy placing things with your phone’s trackball or pad. If you’re good at it, it’s a superb Tetris clone. Let’s hope it doesn’t get sued out of existence. <img alt="Titres" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/titres-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 12. Trap! Not the best-looking game you’ll ever play, with its shabby brown backgrounds and rudimentary text making it look like something you’d find running on a PC in the year 1985. But it’s good. You draw lines to box in moving spheres, gaining points for cordoning off chunks of the screen. That sounds rubbish, so please invest two minutes of your time having a go on it so you don’t think we’re talking nonsense. <img alt="Trap" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/trap-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 13. Jewels Coloured gems again, and this time your job is to switch pairs to make larger groups which then disappear. That might also sound quite familiar. The good thing about Jewels is its size and presentation, managing to look professional while packing in more levels than should really be given away for free. <img alt="Jewels" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/jewels-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 14. OpenSudoku We had to put one Sudoku game in here, so we’ll go with OpenSudoku – which lives up to its open tag thanks to letting users install packs of new puzzles generated by Sudoku makers. It’s entirely possible you could use this to play new Sudoku puzzles for the rest of your life, if that’s not too terrifying a thought. <img alt="OpenSuduko" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/OpenSudoku-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 15. Abduction! A sweet little platform jumping game, presented in a similarly quirky and hand-drawn style as the super-fashionable Doodle Jump. You can’t argue with cute cows and penguins with parachutes, or a game that’s easy to play with one hand thanks to its super accessible accelerometer controls. <img alt="Abduction" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/abduction-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 16. The Great Land Grab A cross between a map tool and Foursquare, The Great Land Grab sorts your local area into small rectangular packets of land – which you take ownership of by travelling through them in real-time and buying them up. Then someone else nicks them off you the next day, a bit like real-world Risk. A great idea, as long as you don’t mind nuking your battery by leaving your phone sitting there on the train with its GPS radio on. <img alt="Great land grab" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> 17. Brain Genius Deluxe Our basic legal training tells us it’s better to use the word “homage” than to label something a “rip-off”, so we’ll recommend this as a simple “homage” to the famed Nintendo Brain Training franchise. Clearly it’s not going to be as slick, but there’s enough content in here to keep you “brain training” (yes, it even uses that phrase) until your battery dies. The presentation’s painfully slow, but then again that might be the game teaching you patience. <img alt="Brain genius deluxe" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/brain_genius-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 18. Coloroid Very, very simple and has the look of the aftermath of an explosion in a Tetris factory, but it works. All you do is expand coloured areas, trying to fill them in with colours in as few moves as possible – like using Photoshop’s fill tool at a competitive level. <img alt="Coloroid" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/coloroid-320-100.jpg" width="320" /> 19. Cestos Sort of a futuristic recreation of curling, where players chuck marbles at each other to try and smash everyone else’s balls/gems down the drain and out of the zone. The best part is this all happens online against real humans, so as long as there’s a few other bored people out there at the same time you’ll have a real, devious, cheating, quitting person to play against. Great. <img alt="Cestos" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/cestos-420-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 20. Air Control One of the other common themes on the Android gaming scene is clones of games based around pretending to be an air traffic controller, where you guide planes to landing strips with a swish of your finger. There are loads of them, all pretty much the same thing – we’ve chosen Air Control as it’s an ad-supported release, so is technically free. <img alt="Air control" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/air_control-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 21. GalaxIR A futuristic strategy game with an abstract look, where players micro-manage an attacking alien fleet. Pick a planet, pick an attack point, then hope your troops have the balls to carry it off. There’s not much structure to the game as yet, but that’s what you get when you’re on the bleeding-edge of free, independent Android gaming development. <img alt="GalaxIR" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> 22. Graviturn An accelerometer based maze game, where the aim is to roll a red ball out of a maze by tilting your phone around. Seems embarrassingly easy at first, until increasing numbers of green balls appear on screen. If any green balls roll off the screen you die and have to try again. It’s abstract. It’s good. <img alt="Graviturn" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="420" /> 23. Alchemy Classic There are a few variants on Alchemy out there, each offering a similarly weird experience. You match up elements to create their (vaguely) scientific offspring, so dumping water onto earth makes a swamp, and so on. It’s a brain teaser thing and best played by those who enjoy spending many hours in the company of the process of elimination. <img alt="Alchemy" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="420" /> 24. Action Potato You control three pots. Pressing on the pots makes them jump up into the air, where they harvest potatoes. See how many you can get in a row. That’s the gist of it. And don’t collect the rotten potatoes, else you die. That really is it. The Android Market stats say this is on well over 250,000 downloads, so it’s doing something right. <img alt="Action potato" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/action-potato-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 25. Scrambled Net Based around the age-old concept of lining up pipes and tubes, but has been jazzed up with images of computer terminals, high score tracking and animations. Still looks like something you’d have played on a Nokia during the last decade, but it’s free – and looking rubbish hardly stopped Snake from taking off, did it? <img alt="Scrambled net" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> 26. Word Drop Laid out like your standard Android block-based puzzle game, the difference here is we’re not dealing with gems – you make blocks disappear by spelling out words from the jumbled heap of letters. There’s not an enormous amount of point to it, but you can at least submit your scores and best words to the server, where an AI version of Susie Dent will pass her approval. <img alt="Word drop" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> 27. Barrr What you do here is man-manage a bar world, pointing men at the beers, games or tattoo parlour, then taking their money off them once they’re drunk and happy like a good capitalist. And make sure they go to the toilet. Things, as things do in games, soon start speeding up and it gets rather insane and difficult. <img alt="Barr" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/barr-420-90.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="420" /> 28. Tetronimo The name gives it away – this is a Tetris clone. Or rather it’s a game that uses the same sort of block-shifting rules as Tetris, only with a very nice and user friendly touchscreen area beneath the block pit to make it easy to play. We’re having trouble locating this on the Android Market at time of writing – either a glitch or the inevitable legal troubles. UPDATE: Tetronimo seems to have been removed from the Market, but the same developer has released Block It Up Lite, which mixes elements of Tetris and Bejewelled. [Thanks to tmahoney in the comments for the tip.] <img alt="Tetromono" src="http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/classifications/gadgets/phones/mobile-phones/Android/free_android_games/tetronimo-320-100.jpg" style="display: inline;" width="320" /> 29. Word Feud A superb little clone of Scrabble, with a big, clear screen and online play options that actually work. The game’s been offered for free with some hefty advertising over it thanks to the developer being based in Norway – which only received paid-for app sales support recently. A paid version may arrive soon, but Word Feud remains free right now. <img alt="Word feud" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> 30. Friction Mobile A very odd concept that makes no sense in still images. You fire a ball into the screen, then try to hit that ball with other balls until it explodes. The catch is you’re not allowed to bounce balls backwards into your own face. Because then you die. Sounds rubbish, but works well. It’s free, so give it a no-obligation, no-commitment whirl. <img alt="Friction mobile" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkl0ZBjzVH6QrlPBvaJN4r7TUYEL2aoITzuflz17cNQIXJgD4dk5eMZ7YF0RXTG5xWhBdCrY3oNJrZ2Q95sC0LQqkYRrelnGi44y0MhMNL5kIM9LIj2_jRmMxdu4QTduHsC0eBhwAXwcg/" width="320" /> <div style="clear: both;"></div></div></div>

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5 Mistakes That Game Publisher Make Over and Over

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