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The sci-fi all-stars behind Morning Star Alpha
Morning Star is a huge gamble. It's an interstellar FPS for mobile devices built by a crack team of geek-industry experts at Industrial Toys, all hoping to break stigmas of handheld, hardcore gaming. Morning Star Alpha, the tie-in graphic novel for the game, is an even bigger risk. Add-on apps for games have earned the reputation of being rushed, shallow and of poor quality, and most players don't take these digital comics seriously, no matter how fanatical about the series they may be. Convincing people to play a new shooter on their iPhones is one thing – getting them to read a digital comic about that game is another world of salesmanship. So far, Morning Star Alpha has three things working in its favor: It's free, it offers a new way of reading on-screen comics, and it comes from an all-star team, written by award-winning sci-fi author John Scalzi, drawn by Marvel and DC artist Mike Choi, and overseen by Halo creator Alex Seropian. And a fourth thing – it looks really cool.%Gallery-193419%
Humble Bundle goes literary, offers octuplet of books at a humble price
The Humble Bundle tends to be associated with not just low prices, but also indie video games (and occasionally music). Today's bundle, however, centers on the literary-minded among us, offering a set of eight e-Books for just under $10. Of course, a main staple of the bundle is its pay what you want price model, which applies here as well -- should you only want six of the books, you can pay any price (one penny for six books! hot dog!). If you want access to John Scalzi's Old Man's War and Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, you've gotta shell out over the average payment price (currently sitting at $9.84). If you want that sub-$10 price, we'd suggest heading over sooner than later. Another good reason? You've only got two weeks before this humble e-Book bundle disappears forever.
The comic nerds, sci-fi writers and grizzled vets of Industrial Toys
Industrial Toys was created by three self-described and proven industry veterans: Alex Seropian (Bungie founder), Tim Harris (Seven Lights founder) and Brent Pease (Bungie San Jose). They came together in Pasadena, California, in February 2012, with a mission to create hardcore games for mobile, touchscreen devices.Since then, Industrial Toys has picked up sci-fi writer John Scalzi to help build its worlds, Marvel's Mike Choi and DC's Phil Tan as artists (and to balance the company's comic zen), and a handful of "grizzled veterans and fresh, new talent," president Tim Harris told Joystiq at E3.There are a total of 15 employees at Industrial Toys, split down the middle between those new to the industry and those who may have seen too much of it, Harris said.If splitting an odd number of employees into two even groups seems like an improbable feat, know that it isn't the most ambitious of Industrial Toys' goals: By the end of the month, Seropian and Harris plan to release information about their first title, a sci-fi shooter with a world potentially as large as World of Warcraft's.
