Thoughts about Grimrock style game development

Grimrock is a damn cool game. Damn good looking. Damn “old” core mechanics (Dungeon Master 1987). And it sells hotcakes.

Why?

Because they put together a dedicated 4-man team who is passionate about this sort of game. The game isn’t stuck in the 20+ year old mechanics, but offers various new twists and makes the genre take a big leap forward. Not too big though, as it seems that everybody buying the game is saying “how they loved this type of games back then…” – for nostalgic reasons too.

I’m 110% confident no publisher would ever have taken this type of game. Because “it’s old stuff, nobody plays those anymore”.

Grimrock sold already more than what development costs were, so they are doing already pretty good.

Smells like the success formula:

“good old mechanic” + “add your own passion” + “boil with some new ingredients” = tasty gaming meal is prepared.

This entry was posted on Friday, April 20th, 2012 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Game Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

View the original article here

FarmVille: Parisian Bench free gift will let you sit in style

by Brandy Shaul, Posted Jul 27th 2011 12:22AM

While there may not have been a large update added to FarmVille this evening, a new free gift did appear on the game's free gifts page, with this item going hand-in-hand with the recent Parisian limited edition item theme that some of you may have used to decorate your farms. The Parisian Bench II (not to be confused with the original Parisian Bench, which was released just a few days ago) is an ornate, dark brown bench with a mustard-colored pattern, and it can be sent yo your friends just as any other free gift: just pick the friends you'd like to give one to from a list and send away. On a side note, am I the only one that can see a face in the design of the bench and pattern? The back-rest contains the eyes and the curve in the seat is the mouth... oh, nevermind.

Where was I? Oh yes. If you'd like to make sure you receive one or more of these benches back, remember that you can always use the game's Wishlist feature to share a news feed item alerting your friends to your wishes, or you can just contact friends directly if you feel more comfortable. Either way, it's likely that this item won't stay around on the free gifts page forever; likely, once the Parisian theme expires from the store, so too will this item leave the game. Of course, stranger things have happened, but do you really want to rely on chance when these benches are so easy to earn as it is?

If you're looking for an intricately themed final touch to your Parisian area on your farm, make sure to take advantage of this freebie while you still can.

Do you like the look of the Parisian Bench II, or did you prefer the original Parisian Bench more? How many of the game's Parisian-themed items have you splurged on? Sound off in the comments.

Bookmark this site!

Tags: farmville, farmville free gifts, farmville parisian bench, farmville parisian bench ii, farmville parisian items, france, free gifts, french items, parisian bench ii, parisian items, zynga

View the original article here

Fortune League: Fantasy Sports League, EverQuest2 Style

Fortune League is a purpose-made game in the same vein as fantasy sports leagues, but created for Sony Online Entertainment’s EverQuest2 players by Fastpoint Games, rewarding successful players with virtual good for use in the EverQuest2 MMO.

Much like fantasy sports leagues, players receive a fixed amount of coins to draft a team for their league. However, in place of real life statistics, players have to match the stats of their team to weekly objectives which are a mix of any 4 or 5 of the following game statistics:

DMG-P — Damage PhysicalDMG-M — Damage MagicalDMG-AOE — Damage over an Area of EffectDMG-Pet — Damage by petsDMG-S — Damage by StealthBUFF — Buffs CastDEBFF — Debuffs CastDMGSTP — Damage StoppedKILLS — Number of kills madeDTHS — Deaths SufferedHATE — Hate GainHEAL — Heal PointsEVACS – Number of Evacuations used

A team, or party, as they are called in Fortune League consists of five slots and players fill these slots to maximize the points earned. During the week, various opportunities and disasters are hinted at and revealed. These may or may not directly impact each week’s objectives.

Unlike the online game where a balanced party will include at least a healer and fighter, players will draft only heroes that will help their party maximize the weekly objective. The cost of a race/class combo can have something to do with how they perform, but this is not always the case. Similar to Fantasy Sports Leagues, the price of a hero rises with popularity, and falls when the race/class is not needed or does not perform.

The game monetizes by selling trades. Leagues run Sunday midnight through Saturday, and numbers are also crunched every night and points awarded. Each Saturday, a player receives three trades for free, and unused trades accumulates and on Sunday, a new quest begins. The purchase of a new party member does not count as a trade and only the sale of a group member who has earned Hero Points will be deducted. This means that until the party locks each day, players can change out a newly purchased party member for another without incurring a trade.

Rewards for playing the game are only usable within EverQuest 2 itself. The weeks are grouped into sets of four and named Adventures. Active participation in any week yields an Alternate Advancement scroll. Ending any week in the top 50% yields an Experience Potion. Ending in the top 20% of any Adventure gains the player a cosmetic item – currently a set of tattered wings – that can be displayed by their character in game and the top 40 players at the end of any four week Adventure gains a trophy that can be displayed in their in-game house.

The game is currently in an Alpha stage and there is little wonder that numbers are low and headed downwards, with an all time high of over 3,700 daily active users and over 20,000 monthly active users to the current 2,100 DAU and 9,600 MAU. As a purpose built game with rewards that can only be used in an online game, the target market is small and even further smaller are the players within that subset that are attracted to the Fantasy Sports League genre. Unless SoE decides to broaden the rewards for playing the game, we can expect numbers to remain low.

View the original article here

The Like Button Style Guide: How to Pick the Design That’s Right for Your Website

The following is an excerpt from the Facebook Marketing Bible, the comprehensive guide to marketing your company, app, brand, or website using Facebook. The full version of this article, available through a Facebook Marketing Bible subscription, includes a guide to choosing whether to use the verb “Like” or “Recommend” in your button, what button color scheme will match best with your site, advantages and disadvantages of showing users the faces of friends who’ve clicked a Like button, and exactly what signals are summed to determine the Like count that a button displays.

This is the first installment in a three part series detailing how to use the Like button. Subsequent installments will cover how to choose the Open Graph meta tags that will give your Like buttons the ability to publish news feed stories to users, and strategies for implementing Like buttons on a variety of sites ranging from news publishers to brand websites to social games.

The Like button is an embeddable plugin for third-party websites and Facebook apps. When clicked by a Facebook user, it publishes the piece of content the button is attached to to the user’s wall and the news feeds of their friends. In many cases it also causes the Liked object to appear in the user’s profile and allows the owner of the button to publish news feed updates to the user in the future.

Facebook offers several different implementations of its Like button social plugin. Here we’ll discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different stylistic options, and provide a guide for choosing the Like button implementation that will drive the most clicks and thereby generate the most referral traffic for your website.

To create and install a Like Button:

Visit the Like button documentation page Input the URL of the website page or piece of content you want the Like button to representUse the configurator in Step 1 to choose style options for your Like buttonClick the “Get Code” buttonCopy the iframe or XFMBL codePaste the code into your website’s codeReturn to the Like button documentation pageUse the configurator in Step 2 to select Open Graph tags in order to describe the website page or piece of content your Like button representsClick the “Get Tags” buttonCopy the tag codesPaste the tag codes into the of your website

URL to Like: Use the URL of the entity you want the Like button to represent. You can embed the button on multiple website pages, such a both a ecommerce product page and a directory of products. However, his URL should the one dedicated to what the button represents, such as the product page.

Layout Style: This determines the size and amount of social context that appears next to the button. There are three options

Standard – displays social text to the right of the button and the profile pictures of friends below of applicable. Minimum width: 225 pixels. Default width: 450 pixels. Height: 35 pixels (without photos) or 80 pixels (with photos). The widest, and all around largest Like button, and the only one that can display the names and faces of a user’s friends who have already clicked. Best for sites with ample empty space, or which dynamically resize, such as blogs. Its large size makes it especially noticeable, and the faces of friends creates a compelling personal social recommendation to click. For most sites that have space for this button, this is the best layout option.

button_count - displays the total number of likes to the right of the button. Minimum width: 90 pixels. Default width: 90 pixels. Height: 20 pixels. The shortest and all round smallest Like button. Best for sites displaying large quantities of Like buttons on a single page, or that are trying to integrate the button into a short header of a news article. With no protruding elements, it is the most elegant Like button, and is therefore the best choice for those trying to minimize Facebook’s presence or impact on their site’s design.

box_count - Displays the total number of likes above the button. Minimum width: 55 pixels. Default width: 55 pixels. Height: 65 pixels. The narrowest Like button. Best for sites displaying multiple social media sharing buttons side by side. It depicts the total Like count more prominently than other layouts, and is therefore good for sites that receive a lot of LIkes. It is also good for niche sites as it provides the most compelling social recommendation that doesn’t require a user’s friends to have clicked, as the Likes of non-friends are displayed prominently in the count.

Access the full Like button style guide including tips for choosing between Like and Recommend terminology, pros and cons of showing the faces of friends who’ve clicked the button, and more marketing best practices at the Facebook Marketing Bible, Inside Network’s industry leading resource for marketing and advertising on Facebook.

View the original article here