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Graeme Devine takes off with Rocket Patrol
Graeme Devine is a veteran game developer (he created The 7th Guest and then worked on Quake 3 and Halo Wars) who's turned his attention to iOS recently, putting together touch-based games meant for gamers of all ages. His latest title, which I got to see at GDC 2013 last week, is a board/card game called Rocket Patrol that runs on Apple's touchscreens. The game involves two players (you can play against the computer or asynchronously online), and has you running a rocket ship across the galaxy, trying to complete your journey before your opponent does. During each turn of the game, you get access to a hand of cards that you can play one from. Distance cards are how you win the game: Each player has a little chart of cards with various distances on them that you need to fill up, so you need to play eight cards of five light years, four of 15 and so on. As you play those cards, the chart fills up, and the first person to fill up their chart sends a rocket all the way across the screen and wins the game. Just racing would be a bit too simple, so Rocket Patrol also has red and green cards of various types. Red cards attack the other player (perhaps by sending them through a warp hole or causing some engine trouble), and then they need to play a green card to fix whatever problem you've given them. Certain green cards match up with certain red cards, so if there's a problem card on your ship, you need exactly the right green card to fix it. That's how the game goes back and forth, with the two players trying to play distance cards in between attacking each other and solving problems they've been attacked with. Devine says he got the idea for a game from an old 1906 automobile board game called Touring, but of course he's translated it to a journey across the stars. Rocket Patrol seems like some good clean fun -- and it's due out sometime this month. It'll be free to play, with some freemium elements in there for in-app purchase. Devine is also working on his very popular Full Deck Solitaire game -- he says the title "by and large is our number one platform," and that the game has reached a whopping 750,000 daily active users so far (with about four million downloads total). He's working on an Android version, thinking about bringing the game to Kindle Fire, and says players have asked for a PC version as well. Devine originally built that game just for his own family to play, so it's fascinating to hear that it's grown so big since its release a while ago.
GDC 2011: Graeme Devine on the iPad for gaming
Veteran game developer Graeme Devine took the stage at GDC 2011 this week to talk about Apple's iPad (and by extension, the new iPad 2, of course), and called it "the best gaming machine on the planet today." He went through his own thoughts on the device, talked a little bit about how developers could use the metaphor of touch to make the best games possible, and then went through a list of what he felt were the best practices for iOS development. Devine said that the first time he held an iPad, "I felt like I was holding something from science fiction in my hands. It was different from any other experience I've had before." The iPad reverses the trend in gaming to move the screen farther away from the player, and instead puts it relatively close up and personal. Additionally, the joystick is gone, and while a lot of games depend on that virtual joystick (more on that in a bit), the iPad removes any hardware between your fingers and what's happening on screen. A finger isn't a mouse, either -- rather than selecting and then clicking, fingers on iPad screens just tap and move.
TUAW's Daily App: Full Deck Solitaire
A solitaire game? That's what you're probably asking out loud right now, since a) there are a ton of solitaire games on the App Store, and b) I haven't had a lot of luck picking your favorites in the past. But there's a reason Full Deck Solitaire is here, and his name is Graeme Devine. Devine is a highly experienced game developer who designed the classic 7th Guest game, worked on Quake 3 Arena, and also worked as Ensemble Studios on Halo Wars, Microsoft's console RTS title. Devine knows how to make great games, yet he's released this, Full Deck Solitaire, under his own personal GRL Games studio. The story behind Full Deck Solitaire is a pretty personal one for Devine, who wanted to make a casual title that his own family could enjoy. Full Deck Solitaire offers 22 versions of solitaire to play, smart hints when you get stuck and lots of customization, including the ability to put your own photos in the background or on the cards. Stats track all of your scores, and full Game Center integration lets you watch friends over the leaderboards. The game's available on the iPad right now for the low price of absolutely free, or you can check out the Mac App Store version. Not only is this an excellent solitaire app by a developer who's been around the block before, but it's a nice personal story for him as well.
Graeme Devine's new studio releases Clandestiny on Mac App Store
Former Ensemble Studios lead designer Graeme Devine's new development studio, GRL Games, released its very first title today on the (similarly recently released) Mac App Store: a remake of Trilobyte's 1996 adventure game Clandestiny. Considering Devine helped develop the original -- shortly after co-creating The 7th Guest and The 11th Hour, no less -- we trust that this remake simply reeks of authenticity. Check out the trailer posted after the jump to get a sense of the game's super charming, retro animated style. If it floats your boat, you can grab Clandestiny on the Mac App Store for $9.99. If it doesn't, you should take a look deep inside yourself, and try to figure out exactly when it was that your soul died.
Graeme Devine leaves Apple, jumps back into game development
After Ensemble Studios launched Halo Wars (and was subsequently shuttered), lead designer Graeme Devine joined Apple to help the company "make gaming on the iOS devices fantastic." But he's decided to move on -- specifically, back to game development. "I wanted to get back to the actual business of making games and while I loved my time, the people, and the platform I worked on at Apple I am ultimately a game designer that wants to make games," he told Kotaku. Devine wants to create games for iOS devices (no way!), and has a game in the works for the "Mac desktop" (likely the upcoming Mac App Store). Hit the jump for a teaser image from said unannounced title.
Halo Wars lesson: Don't play basketball with Spartans
Obvious advice, really, but it's nice to have it delivered in the form of some Halo Wars fan fiction. And before you castigate us for our seemingly derogatory description of Graeme Devine's efforts, note that the Halo Wars lead designer himself has labeled one section of his personal website as such: "Bits and pieces not in the game, but made to support the story and help the team get the vibe of what it was like to be on 'Spirit of Fire' (essentially this is fan fiction)."If you'd like to dig into the backstory of the Spirit of Fire and her crew -- including the aforementioned altercation on a b-ball court -- then there's plenty for you to absorb on Devine's page. Should you happen to stray over to Devine's resume page, you might also absorb some forgotten facts. Did you know he was lead designer on The 7th Guest and Quake III: Team Arena? It's true!
TGS 08: A guided tour of the Halo Wars campaign
Shortly after learning that the Flood would be making an appearance in Halo Wars, we were whisked away to a meeting with Ensemble's Graeme Divine where we immediately asked: "Is the Flood a playable race?" As quickly as we asked it, we were answered: no. With an emphasis on the story-driven single-player campaign, Divine told us that the multiplayer component would only include the UNSC and Covenant forces, as already revealed, and the campaign would only be playable as the UNSC, not the Covenant. But that brings up another issue: how is the Flood present in a prequel taking place 20 years before the events in Halo: Combat Evolved? The more Halo-aware amongst you (read: total nerds) will recall that the introduction of the mysterious Flood in that seminal title was a surprise to the player and, indeed, to the entire UNSC command. When asked if they're retconning the Flood earlier into the Halo timeline, Divine said that the events observed in Halo 1 "was the first time UNSC knew about the Flood." So how does the existence of the parasitic aliens twenty years earlier go entirely unrecorded? Unsurprisingly, they're not saying (our guess: everyone dies). %Gallery-1676%
