All Features List

Hello Gamezebo-ers,

 

This is Ryan Modjeski again, designer and producer of Legacy Interactive's upcoming hidden object adventure, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 2. Since my last developer diary, things have gotten really hectic around here. Murder, She Wrote just launched (at the time of writing it is #1 on Big Fish Games and Legacy Games) and the energy surrounding that project amplified our stresses as we are quickly approaching our own release date in December.

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Zynga, the leading social games company and creators of popular games that you've probably have played (such as FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Café World) is officially having the worst week ever. Read more»

So fresh off production of The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes and Emergency Room: Real Life Rescues, it seemed like a natural fit to combine the two elements and start on a game based on the TV series House M.D. I was very enthusiastic to start working on the project because I was a fan of the show, which is saying a lot because I don't watch very much television (I'm more of a movies-kind-of-guy) so finding a show that I've actually seen, let alone enjoy, is pretty challenging. (Nothing against TV programs per se, I just generally prefer to play games and watch movies.) Read more»

What Halloween-themed games are you playing this weekend? Gamezebo put together a roundup of 13 of our favorites to help you get into the spirit. Some are light-hearted romps with pumpkins and dancing zombies, while others are downright scary. So turn the lights down, pull out the bowl of candy, and let's get spooked! Read more»

Casual Games and even games in general are not known for engaging its audience with with heart felt emotion. Gold Sun Games newest title hopes to put an end to that with the first Romance casual game Broken Hearts: A Soldier's Duty. Help our madly in love heroine Maria Lopez restore her memories in this heart breaking romantic tale of love, romance, deception, and tragedy.

My name is James Bernard (Lead Designer and Producer at Gold Sun Games) and I am very pleased to present to you a sneak peak of our upcoming game in the form of this Developer's Diary. I'd like to take this opportunity to give an inside look at the development and creative process starting from the very first day of the original concept. Read more»

Learn how Playrix Entertainment's Gardenscapes evolved from "Fishdom with butterflies and flowers" to the hidden object/gardening hybrid that it is today, which characters didn't make it into the final version of the game, and what 1960s British pop group inspired Austin the Butler's sideburns in our Behind the Game interview with Playrix's VP of Production, Igor Elovikov. Read more»

What's the most popular video game these days? If you think it's Halo: ODST, Batman: Arkham Asylum or Wii Fit, think again. While high profile console games are hogging the consumer spotlight, Zynga's FarmVille - a free-to-play Facebook game about tiling soil and tending crops in a virtual farm - has quietly amassed more than 58 million active players. Read more»

Seattle residents have various ways of coping with the city's notorious rainy season: Seattle-based iWin chose to create a game set on a sunny tropical island paradise. iWin's Andy Megowan talked us through the development of Coconut Queen and how what started out as a relatively modest project evolved into one of the company's flagship titles of 2009. Read more»

Hello Gamezebo readers,

 

My name is Ryan Modjeski, designer and producer extraordinaire at Legacy Interactive and I am writing to give you all a peek at my latest project, The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes Vol. 2.

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ARRRR!!!!! T'day be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and Gamezebo is proud t' bring ye 10 pirate-themed casual games that are ripe for the plundering.... er, downloading. Read more»

Howdy folks, it's time once again for another edition of The Dracula Files Developer Diary with eGames Product Manager Greg Zesinger (that's me).  As always, follow us on Twitter and Facebook for your chance to win some very cool Dracula-related swag! We last awarded one copy of The Complete Dracula #1 comic book to a lucky Twitter minion, and this week we'll be giving away at least one advance reader copy of Dracula: The Un-dead, the Stoker family-endorsed sequel to the original classic, set for release in October. Read more»

Alawar's producer and VP of publishing, Kirill Plotnikov, took us behind the scenes of Farm Frenzy to talk about the evolution of its heroine Scarlett, getting the right game balance, and... flying bears? Read more»

Alawar's fox cub Sprill has become a recognizable mascot in casual games, having headlined three successful titles including his latest hidden object adventure Sprill & Ritche: Adventures Through Time. In this post-mortem, Alawar Entertainment's Maxim Michaelis and Tatiana Chernova, and Alawar Five-BN CEO Eugeny Sokolov look back on the development of Sprill & Ritchie: Adventures Through Time and how the character of Sprill evolved. Read more»

Greetings casual game fans!  It's time for another installment of The Dracula Files Developer Diary.  As always, I'm Greg Zesinger, eGames Product Manager and your host as we tiptoe through the development of our upcoming vampire-themed hidden object adventure.  Read more»

It's been an interesting couple of weeks here at Legacy Interactive.  It's sort of like life imitating art - now that we're deep in the development of the Murder, She Wrote game, we're practically tripping over the bodies all over the office around here.  Read more»

Her Interactive has given us an advanced look at the cast of characters who you'll get to meet in the upcoming Nancy Drew Dossier: Resorting to Danger when it launches on Sept. 1. Read more»

Attention super sleuths! Her Interactive is just a few weeks away from releasing the second title in the Nancy Drew Dossier series, Resorting to Danger After the amazing success of the first game, Lights, Camera, Curses!, Gamezebo was excited to try the sequel. We've had some hands-on time with it, and everything looks like it's shaping up to be a worthy successor to the Nancy Drew moniker. Read more»

An iPhone version of Ranch Rush recently launched, and Ranch Rush 2 is on the way for PC. While we've yet to get our hands on a demo of Ranch Rush 2, we have the next best thing: an interview with FreshGames President Stephan Smith where he talks about the making of the original Ranch Rush (a game we liked quite a bit). Read more»

Developers can best weather the storm of increased competition and falling prices in the casual game space by creating strong, innovative brands rather than cranking out greater numbers of cheaper low quality titles, said Last Day of Work Founder Arthur Humphrey during an inspired talk at Casual Connect. Read more»

Playdom's VP of Game Design Steve Meretzky and Executive Producer David Rohrl, along with Hit Detection Founder N'Gai Croal, used their Casual Connect panel to present a survey of the 12 most interesting and ground-breaking trends in social games to emerge over the past year. Read more»

When Tim Conkling was asked to design something for his new employer Three Rings' casual MMO Whirled he pitched the basic concept for Corpse Craft, a casual real-time strategy game that combines collapse match-3 gameplay with a real-time combat mechanic. The idea came out of a desire, as Conkling put it during a post-mortem at Casual Connect, to create a RTS that he could "actually beat people at." Read more»

An awkward name can put an otherwise fun game at a severe disadvantage. Just ask GamesCafe.com, the developer of Mahjomino. Read more»

Kongregate's CEO Jim Greer and Developer Relations Manager Greg McClanahan used their Casual Connect panel to talk about some of the design decisions that just don't work for Flash games, and offered the following advice to new developers: Read more»

The casual games industry should struggle less with "micro-demographics that target 40-year-old cooking soccer moms with two children" and focus on creating more crossover games that play well in both the hardcore and casual space, said PopCap Games CEO David Roberts.

 

In his keynote address to kick off the second day of Casusal Connect in Seattle, Roberts took the industry to task for not doing enough to court crossover gamers.

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Social networking platforms like Facebook offer ways for casual game companies to break away from the traditional try-before-you-buy PC download model, but developers who think they can simply port their existing games over to Facebook and expect them to do well will be disappointed according to Facebook Platform Manager Gareth Davis.

 

Speaking at Casual Connect, Davis said that developers should instead design games that leverage Facebook's unique powers as a social platform.

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Rising development costs and increased competition, combined with pressure to lower price points and decreased profit margins, have created the perception in many quarters that right now is the hardest time to be a game developer in the history of the medium.

 

However, it's a position that Nintendo of America's Senior Director of Project Development, Tom Prata, doesn't agree with. Speaking at Casual Connect, a three-day conference in Seattle geared towards the casual games industry, Prata said that there's still a lot of room to grow - provided developers are willing to follow two basic tenets: focusing on quality, and going after what is different.

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Just like everyone's favorite lord of the undead, The Dracula Files Developer Diary keeps coming back again and again. For those just climbing aboard, I'm Greg Zesinger, the Product Manager at eGames and your guide into the wonderful world of vampire hidden object adventure game development. You can follow the game's progress here, as well as on Twitter and on The Dracula Files Facebook page. Read more»

A field research trip to a world famous perfumer is a dream come true for most women - for me as a female producer - it was an eye opener into the decadent word of luxurious perfumes and one which truly informs the game experience in the upcoming game title, Passport to Perfume. Read more»

I was lucky enough to be chosen to produce the game based on the classic TV series "Muder, She Wrote" because I'm from a town just like Jessica Fletcher's.  Like Jessica, I know what it's like to live in a lovely, sleepy little town in New England: to be part of a close knit community that cares for each other; to feel so safe that you never need to lock your doors at night; to constantly keep finding murder victim after murder victim in every garden, behind each white picket fence and at each ice cream social you attend. Read more»

This week I take a more personal look at some of my favorite things in our forthcoming game, DinerTown Detective Agency, the fun spoof on the traditional hidden object genre that is being released this week! Read more»

This week we revisit some of the interesting facets of PlayFirst's forthcoming game, DinerTown Detective Agency, the fun spoof on the traditional Hidden Object genre that combines a virtual world of intrigue and mystery with a uniquely tongue-in-cheek spin. Read more»

Hey there vampire lovers (and haters)! eGames Product Manager Greg Zesinger here checking in to give you the latest scoop on the ongoing development of The Dracula Files! Read more»

In the first of a series of developer blogs leading up to the launch of the hidden object game DinerTown Detective Agency, PlayFirst Game Producer Ryan Sindledecker kicks things off with a look at the inspiration behind the game's satirical theme. Read more»

This past Thursday, I moderated a panel "The World of Casual Games, Presented by Girls in Tech" in San Francisco.   Ironically, as moderator, I took horrible notes.  Fortunately, Girls in Tech organizer Tina Tran took great notes and she posted the actual video of the event on her web site (nice)!

I can share with you some of my observations from the discussion.

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Brothers Pallav and Gaurav Nawani are the founders of IronCode Software and the creative team behind the adventure game Pahelika: Secret Legends. We caught up with Pallav and Gaurav to learn more about their studio and the inspiration behind Pahelika. Read more»

Greetings!  eGames Product Manager Greg Zesinger here coming to you live from Transylvania (well, Pennsylvania, if you want to get picky) with the latest edition of The Dracula Files developer diary. Read more»

PlayFirst has released a trailer for Wedding Dash: Ready Aim Love! in anticipation of the game’s upcoming launch. The 45-second video highlights some of the main gameplay, the new cupid mini-game, and some of the new characters’ dance moves! Watch the Ready Aim Love! trailer here, and chat about the game in our forum.

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My name is Greg Zesinger and I am the Product Manager at eGames, and one of the designers of the upcoming hidden object adventure, The Dracula Files.  While the game won’t be available until the second half of the year, the good folks at Gamezebo have graciously allowed us to present you with an ongoing developer blog giving you some insight into the making of the game.  I am anxious to hear your comments and questions, so make sure to post them in the Dracula Files forum on this site, and I’ll look to address them in future editions of the blog. Read more»

When PlayFirst Lead Designer Dan Chao envisioned a role-playing game without the combat (but with all the other fun stuff, like collecting items, crafting and chatting with characters to complete tasks), the result was Wandering Willows, a unique title that's at least twice as long as most casual games. Dan sat down with Gamezebo to chat about how the game was made in our latest Behind the Game feature. Read more»

When Markus Tuppurainen finished playing Monkey Island 2 back in the 1990s, he suddenly found himself with nothing to satisfy his adventure game cravings. So he decided to design an adventure game himself. A whopping fifteen years in the making, The Tales of Bingwood: To Save a Princess – the first chapter in a planned trilogy - is an homage to classic adventure games of the 80s and 90s. We chatted with Markus about the making of Bingwood and made him reassure us that we wouldn't have to wait another 15 years for the sequel. Read more»

In our latest Behind the Game, the team at Cateia Games sheds some light on The Legend of Crystal Valley's rather ambiguous ending, chats about how European storytelling is often much different from Hollywood, and discusses the challenges of creating a game with good graphics that can still run on older computers. They also provided Gamezebo with an exclusive "blooper reel" of screenshots that didn't turn out quite right during the development process. Read more»

PlayFirst has released the first promotional video for Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child - a video that sheds a bit more light on the game's closely-guarded storyline! Watch the Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child trailer here, and jump behind the cut for some exclusive Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child screenshots and concept art. Read more»

Like Fairway Solitaire before it, Unwell Mel was a successful Web game that found a new audience as a full-fledged PC download. Was Big Fish Games ever worried that people might not want to pay for what they could already play for free? Not in the slightest. Big Fish Games Studios VP Pat Wylie, Lead Game Programmer/Designer Jake Birkett, Senior Game Designer John Cutter, and Art Director Rhonda Conley talk about the making of the match-3 that pokes fun at the hypochondriac in all of us. Read more»

Day 2 at the Games Development Conference, filled with lots of interesting meetings and forewarnings from some who believe that the casual games downloads business may be in trouble.

More Details below the cut. Read more»

Today was the first day that I spent in meetings, walking the show, in meetings, in more meetings, and wait, I only have 15 minutes to write this before . . . I go to another meeting! 

Today's Notes:  I got the inside scoop on Club Shockwave, met with new CEO of PlayFirst, and saw OnLive, a new service coming in Winter 2009 that could change games (including casual games) forever!  More details below the cut.

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Yesterday I went to the Flash Games Summit in San Francisco.  The day was a definite success (kudos to Mochi Media for putting the conference together).  Next year, however, my advice is not to host the conference on a Sunday.  I can’t think of anything I would rather not do on a Sunday, than work and network all day, even if part of work is … playing games!

I did speak with check out a bunch of sessions and speak with a couple of cool flash game companies while at the show.  See my notes below and links to some free flash games to check out.

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Gamezebo recently sat down with the team of talented game designers at I-Play to chat about the making of Women's Murder Club: A Darker Shade of Grey, the second game in what has turned out to be a very successful hidden object series based on the crime novels of James Patterson. Read more»

In our latest Behind the Game feature, Gamgo Games head honcho Andreas Schneider talks about Indiana Jones, the Orient Express, the adventure games of his childhood, and how they all contributed to the making of Gamgo's new hidden object adventure game, The Serpent of Isis. Read more»

Usually when I write an article for Gamezebo, I write out a draft, pontificate, revise, ponder, re-write, and post, a month later.  Half my editorials end up forever hidden on my laptop, never to see the light of day.

No more!  I’m a blogger, a twitterer, a man of action. Welcome to The Brodie Blog, where I’ll tell you my thoughts on casual games, as they magically occur!

Today’s Entry:  How Movies can be a good sign of things to come in casual games. Read more»

The idea to make an adventure game based on the Wizard of Oz novels was one that indie adventure gamer designer Dave Gilbert had been playing around with in his head for a while, but it took a meeting with PlayFirst at the Game Developer's Conference - and a subsequent publishing deal - to finally make it happen. Dave takes us "behind the game" for a closer look at the making of Emerald City Confidential, his witty "noir" take on the land of Oz. Read more»