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It sounds like Facebook Messenger will soon have more games
Facebook's gaming aspirations are deeper than its Gameroom app and quick rounds of basketball, soccer (football to the rest of the world) and chess in Messenger. Zuckerberg and Co. are shopping a development kit to, well, third-party developers to bring more distractions to Facebook Messenger. The "Instant Games" toolset will launch later this month, according to a report from The Information.
Frozen Synapse primes itself for Vita on September 23
Turn-based tactical game Frozen Synapse Prime will reach Vita on September 23, PlayStation Blog revealed. Its soundtrack will also be available on PSN at that time, bundled with the game in the Prime Soundtrack Edition. The asynchronous strategy game allows players to tackle multiple matches at once, and also features a single-player campaign set in a dystopian future. Frozen Synapse Prime is the Vita port of Mode 7's strategy game, first revealed as Frozen Synapse Tactics in February 2013 before changing the game's name last month. The move from PC and Mac is being handled by LittleBigPlanet Vita developer Double Eleven, the same studio that brought PixelJunk Studio Ultimate to PS4 and Vita in June as well as PlayDead's Limbo to Vita last year. [Image: Double Eleven]
Google update paves the way for more multiplayer games in the Play Store
Google's latest update to Play Services should keep its mobile OS developers busy for a bit, particularly if they're making games. Android's SDK now has asynchronous multiplayer baked in, the kind of turn-based system that makes playing Words With Friends with distant pals possible. The update also features a developer preview of the new Google Drive API, better auto-complete options when sharing to Google+, and fixes the battery-draining bug that affected some Android 4.4 KitKat devices. Thrilling updates? Not quite, but it's good to see Google investing in its budding games services.
Free-to-play Ascend: Hand of Kul out tomorrow on XBLA
Free-to-play action RPG Ascend: Hand of Kul will launch on XBLA tomorrow. Developed by Signal Studios, the game was originally known as Ascend: New Gods until being renamed in May. Ascend: Hand of Kul features both single player and asynchronous multiplayer modes, the latter allowing players to invade the worlds of other players. Among the other games being offered on Xbox Live this week is Alpha Protocol, which is now available via Games on Demand along with Viking: Battle for Asgard, Phantom Breaker Extra and Hot Wheels World's Best Driver.
Turn-based MOBA Arena of Heroes enters open beta
If your primary complaint about MOBAs is that they move too quickly, Arena of Heroes might be something that lands a bit more in your comfort zone. Developed by Sneaky Games, Arena of Heroes is a turn-based, tactical MOBA that focuses more on strategy than on twitch-clicking hard skills. Essentially, you and another player square off in an arena (duh), each controlling a team of four heroes in a battle for supremacy. It's your basic MOBA fare, but with a smaller battle zone and a slower, more deliberate pace. You and your opponent receive two minutes each to make your moves, or you can try the game's asynchronous mode and play several games simultaneously, with up to two days being allotted for turns. Arena of Heroes has officially shifted into open beta, so you're free to check it out at your leisure. You can also read our hands-on with the game for a more detailed look at its inner workings. The free-to-play game will launch on PC, Mac, iOS, and, at some point, Ouya and Android. [Thanks to Venova for the tip]
Daily iPhone App: Bookworm Heroes takes Popcap's wordfinding classic social
The big deal with Popcap's latest big entry into the App Store, Bookworm Heroes, is that it's social. It's a version of the company's popular wordfinding game given a social twist, so that you can play against your friends, neighbors, or just random people online. But here's the thing I most don't like about Bookworm Heroes: It's social. Yes, the thing that might most appeal to you about this one is the thing that makes it least appealing. Bookworm Heroes isn't a bad game. If you love the Bookworm series (the first version of the game has been on the App Store for a while), Heroes shows off the same polish and excellent gameplay that the other titles offer. But Heroes is only social, which means that to play, you've got to wait for your opponent to pass a turn back. And if you don't have anyone else interested in playing (like me), you have to stick with random opponents, which just weren't very successful for me -- either I forgot about their games and ended up forfeiting, or they forfeited the game for me. At any rate, Bookworm Heroes is excellent -- if you have friends to play with (or kids interested in playing with you). It's available as a free download right now. As for me personally, I'm looking forward to an iOS port of Bookworm Adventures. I'd much rather play a full game against the computer than a half a game against someone else across the Internet.
Richard Garriott's Portalarium secures $7 million funding for iOS social RPG
Richard "Lord British" Garriott is in the middle of a new gaming venture called Portalarium (it's working on a social game for Facebook and iOS called Ultimate Collection: Garage Sale), and he's just been able to convince a round of venture capitalists to support his projects, to the tune of roughly $7 million.The money will also be used to build a social RPG tentatively titled "New Britannia," which may have ties to the Ultima tradition, as well as new school features like asychronous gameplay and social profiles.Portalarium was announced to be one of the launch companies in Zynga's upcoming partner program, so Garriott and crew are definitely laying the foundations to launch some large and well-supported titles. Ultimate Collection is supposed to be available to play sometime later on this year.
Skulls of the Shogun gives asynchronous, cross-platform play a turn
Skulls of the Shogun will feature Skulls Anywhere mode, which offers cross-platform play and asynchronous multiplayer across all of its launch platforms: XBLA, Windows Phone, Windows 8 PC and Windows 8 tablet, a la Microsoft Surface. Players with the required devices will be able to take turns independently of one another, for up to four players, and the single-player campaign will be accessible across all Windows platforms through cloud saves."The turn-based nature of the game makes for perfect asynchronous play across every platform we're shipping on," 17-BIT's Jake Kazdal says. "You can start playing a game at home on your Xbox, then head out and play a few turns from the same game on your phone. You might be playing against someone on a PC or a tablet - everyone's connected via Xbox Live. And regardless of platform, everyone's having the same great experience, because it's the exact same game across all those devices."Skulls of the Shogun will still feature online, real-time multiplayer, called Skulls Online, and the standard local multiplayer matches.
Samsung and Toshiba double-down on 400Mbps DDR 2.0 NAND flash memory standard
Our Peter Cetera album collection isn't exactly getting any larger, yet despite the progress of technology every time we get a new smartphone pulling over all those soothing hits never seems to get any faster. Even a fool can see laggy NAND flash memory is the culprit, and Samsung and Toshiba have a fix with a new DDR NAND flash standard. It offers 400Mbps transfer rates thanks to what they're calling "toggle DDR 2.0," similar to the tech in Samsung's latest SSD, effectively boiling down to a 30nm asynchronous design that's three times quicker than current DDR 1.0 NAND chips. Both companies are opening this standard for others, and hoping that their work will be the inspiration for faster devices and SSDs worldwide.
The case for open orders on the auction house
There are changes afoot- PTR build 11599 had variables introduced that mention the mobile auction house. This means that we're probably due for a major AH redesign, and I am talking about more than just the nice "quality of life" changes which bring some popular addon functions into the default UI. I suspect Blizzard is going to have to redo some things from the ground up, so I figured I'd take this opportunity to pitch an idea. Selling on the auction house is a "fire and forget it" asynchronous activity. You choose how often you want to check back and relist, but many people make all the money they need by simply posting 48 hour auctions. This should be how buying works. I think that it would make sense to allow people to post an open order the same way we can post auctions, which would allow people who are selling to choose whether to sell to an existing open order or put the auction up.
Understanding Aurora Feint: The Arena
I am no stranger to the iPhone and the addictive game that dominates said iPhone, Aurora Feint. When we had an email come along letting us know that a follow up was being released, I put my iPhone down and picked up a normal phone (it had buttons on it - it freaked me out!) and spoke with Danielle, Peter and Jason, the people behind the smash hit iPhone app Aurora Feint: The Arena, follow up to Aurora Feint: The Beginning, and asked a few questions about this platform defining MMO experience.They hadn't slept in 36 hours but some how still managed to get through 30 minuets talking with me about their game and still remain incredibly passionate and excited about it's release. Their first title got twenty-four hundred reviews, four and a half stars on the Apple App Store and one million downloads. Their latest title has a lot to live up to.Aurora Feint: The Arena is the iPhone/iPod Touch's first 'Asynchronous' Massively Multi-Player RPG. It's a bit of a mouthful, so lets break it down (Ed. Drop that beat T!). Being 'Asynchronous means that when dueling another player in Aurora Feint: The Arena they aren't playing you directly. Instead you compete through taking a trip down on to the summoning circle and rustling up yourself a Ghost. %Gallery-37293%Check out the gallery above for some in-game action from the hit smash and join me below the break where you can read a little more on my thoughts of this new venture for MMOs.
Aurora Feint: The Arena Pt2
"That's the goal - World of Warcraft on the iPhone" The team isn't stopping with this update either; they are prepared to launch into a full-blown MMO with the sorts of features you'd expect from the genre, "30 different characters to choose from, 7 million quests, guilds, many more puzzle games". Obviously this is a bit of fun, but the plans for Aurora Feint 3 are in motion and these features to some degree should make it through to release. Character classes affecting what you can and can't do in the puzzle games, the ability to customize your avatar, these are all very real plans for the future of Aurora Feint.
Games that shouldn't be MMOs
Here's a corollary post to an earlier story. Our cousin site, Cinematical, has brought teh funneh with a post about which board games would make awful movies. In that spirit, we now present to you a list of games that would make terrible MMOs, in no particular order.Please note that these are merely our particular opinions, and we're not saying that a cleverer-than-thou developer couldn't make a great MMO out of these games ... but for reasons we'll state here, it's highly unlikely. Then again, sometimes the best-sounding ideas turn out some awful games themselves (*cough* Fury *cough*), so it all evens out. Excelsior!
