llamas
Latest
Daily Roundup: History of net neutrality, deconstructing Nintendo and more!
Welcome to the Daily Roundup. In today's news, you can learn about the history of net neutrality. Meanwhile, we look at Nintendo's unique strategy and fondly recall Leonard Nimoy. You can read all these stories and more past the break.
Relive Winamp's glory days with a retro Spotify music app
Winamp may be riding into the sunset today, but that doesn't mean you'll have to go without its classic interface in the future. Ludde is paying tribute to the jukebox software by releasing Spotiamp, a tiny Windows app that streams your Spotify playlists with Winamp's 1990s-era flair. The connection to the AOL-owned player isn't just skin-deep, though -- Spotiamp includes its own Shoutcast server, so you can send tunes to a Sonos speaker or anything else with native Shoutcast support. As long as you have a Spotify Premium subscription, you can take a musical trip down memory lane through the source link.
Sharks, skulls, and ships: One year of Pirate101
Pirate101 is a strange beast. It is a family-friendly, free-to-play, colorful MMO with silly characters, simple design, and quirky environments. Adventuring in Pirate101 sometimes demands that you investigate the secrets of a city that literally sits on top of a flying whale or that you and your friends (a fencing crab, perhaps, or a sharpshooting fox) leap onto a flaming, flying pirate ship in order to punch sharks in the face and steal their treasure. Hidden underneath the silliness, however, is a relatively deep turn-based strategy game designed to engage younger gamers while ensuring their adult counterparts have a good time. KingsIsle Entertainment isn't in the business of making kids games; instead, the studio strives to create titles that kids and parents can play together. The success of Pirate101 in its first year demonstrates that KingsIsle might just be on to something. Let's take a little peek back on the last 12 months of Pirate101 to examine its major milestones.
Ask Massively: With thanks to the tipsters
Massively's tipsters are awesome. You've probably seen acknowledgements of their contributions in posts like these. Without them, we'd be limited to just the research our fairly small staff can drum up on a moment's notice. The tipsters broaden our view and bring us news from games that might otherwise have gone overlooked. We love you guys. We do get tips we won't or can't report on, though. And it's not because we hate you. I promise.
TUAW Live Chat with App Store developers
How hard is it to make a living at App Store? Are the naysayers right? Do you need a full-fledged business plan and established company even to step through the door? Or can you make it as an independent, finding your own fortune and success. Today, TUAW talks to a handful of App Store developers to hear their stories and discuss their experience. Today's scheduled panelists include Bryan Mitchell, author of the extremely successful Geared game for iPhone, Scott Lawrence, developer of LlamaSlate, LlamaClock, among others, Darrel Plant, creator of Bedeviled, a puzzle game, Youssef Francis of Brancipater, developers of FlowChat (an iPhone IRC client), and Jonathan Zdziarski, author of the best Nintendo emulator that never made it to App Store, plus an Amber Alert app that did. Jonathan is also the author of several iPhone books.We'll be chatting about the challenges and rewards of App Store: how the little guy can make it big, and how the little guy can get beat down. Join us for this live chat and bring your questions.Read on for the chat
