Ready yourself for the most interesting rumor of the morning. We all know that Amazon is getting into the games hardware business. I'm not keeping score, but it seems safe to say that this is the worst kept secret of the year. What's been a rather well-kept secret, however, is what this gaming hardware would be.Now it looks like we have our first hint.TechCrunch is saying they've learned from multiple sources that the device is going to look an awful lot like the Chromecast, Google's $35 streaming device that plugs into your TV's HDMI port.There's also the very real possibility that the device will be more of an "all-in-one" unit than a dedicated games console. With a variety of instant services already in-house - Prime customers can stream unlimited movies, TV shows, books, and soon music - offering a set-top box to bring it all to your living room is just good sense. Think AppleTV meets Chromecast meets Spotify meets Netflix, but with games.
There's a pretty fantastic-looking Godzilla reboot on the horizon. If you haven't watched the trailer yet, you should go and do that now. Go on. I'll wait.Did you watch it? Amazing, right? Godzilla + Walter White = the only movie you need to see this summer. A monstrously huge movie like this deserves an equally monstrous video game tie-in. But instead of a crazy, over-the-top action game, the King of All Monsters is about to get saddled with a genre not terribly befitting of his city-crushing nature: the match-3 game.Godzilla Smash-3 looks to blend some pretty stellar visuals with the "draw-a-line" match-3 tactics of games like Dungeon Raid. The game's official announcement promises "RPG-style progression" as well, which usually pairs nicely with match-3 gameplay.And did we mention it's being developed by Pipeworks Software, the folks responsible for Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee and its two sequels?Ok, maybe this could be good after all.
Google has always had the tools to make mobile gaming on Android devices into a force to take on iOS toe-to-toe, it's just been a question of having the will and awareness to put them together in a way that makes sense for developers. With the now-underway Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco as a backdrop, that time may have arrived.On the same day it's sponsoring a Developer Day at GDC, Google is introducing a range of improvements to the Google Play Games service intended to make it even more attractive to designers and players alike. Chief among them are game gifts, roping in Google+ to allow in-game items to be sent to anyone in a person's Circles, and the option for direct multiplayer invites through the Play Games app.The Google Play Store is getting 18 new categories to aid in discoverability, something Google Play Games lead product manager Greg Hartrell told Polygon was sorely needed."We've never had a role-playing game category," Hartrell said to Polygon. "There isn't a music game category. And if you're into those types of games, you're relegated to using search right now, or relying on it being recommended to you."
From March 1st through the 11th, game developers from around the world participated in the Cyberpunk Jam, an event which challenged developers to create a game based in the cyberpunk genre.The only rules for the Cyberpunk Jam were the game must be cyberpunk-themed, and based on an image provided by the event organizers. By the end of the game jam, 256 games had been produced. The following five were some of our favorites.
We ran a survey recently asking our game developer friends what more they want to see on Gamezebo. One of the key pieces of feedback we received is that you want to see more industry news. Who k(new)? As long as you read and share this news round-up (hint, hint, you wild and crazy people with tons of followers on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), and there's enough interesting news to round up, we'll sum the news up for you every Friday.This week: PopCap and Disney layoffs, Large Animal Games is closing, King is still going public, and lot of new studios and businesses forming.
Earlier today, Gamefront had an anonymous source claiming PopCap Games, maker of the Plants vs. Zombies titles, had suffered a round of layoffs. Parent company Electronic Arts wouldn't comment on the source's number of 30 jobs lost, but did provide the site with a statement from PopCap GM and co-founder John Vechey confirming that some people had been let go:"The changes we made today at PopCap were painful and we're sorry to lose some of our friends and colleagues. But it was also necessary in order to stay on course with our future plans for mobile games, live services, and new IP. PopCap is a studio that made its name building great games that the world can fall in love with, and that's what we'll continue to do."This isn't the first time PopCap has suffered a reduction in headcount since it was purchased by EA in July 2011. Fifty employees were laid off from North American locations in August 2012, and the company's Dublin studio was closed a month later.
Having already tackled the worlds of physics-based puzzle games, kart racing, animation, plush toys and more, you'd think there were few frontiers left for Rovio left to conquer with the Angry Birds brand. And apparently, you'd be wrong.The next game in the seemingly unstoppable franchise is on the way, and in a move sure to make people everywhere do double takes, it's a turn-based RPG with a crafting system. Angry Birds Epic is its name, and the always fortunate folks in Canada and Australia will be able to play it this week before it invades iOS, Android and Windows Phone 8 devices worldwide later this year."It sounds like the crafting will tie in with the game's monetization, as TechCrunch's Darrell Etherington says players will be able to use in-app purchases to help make weapons and armor. A bigger question might be what birds would even use to make gear. Can you grab an old hubcap to use as a shield or fashion really pointy sticks into arrows?
"Less is more." It's something we say all the time, but how often do we actually think about what it means?Greg Wohlwend has considered it more than most people. As an artist on games like Ridiculous Fishing, Hundreds and, more recently, Threes!, it's his job to make the games you play pleasing to look at. But sometimes the best designs are the simplest, and that's not just aesthetics."At one point we tried broccoli and cheese soup as a theme," Wohlwend said during our interview. "You had broccoli, then you had cheese and so those are your ones and twos. Then you create soup. And maybe you create more soup. That's obviously, as I say it, a horrible idea."Like previous games Wohlwend has worked on, Threes! is very minimalist. It's about sliding together numbers to add and multiply one another. On its face, that's hardly the most exciting subject matter for an artist to tackle. So Greg, along with his co-developer Asher Vollmer, looked for more distinct designs: from broccoli and cheese soup, to military ranks, textile patterns and hydrogen atoms.Over the game's year and a half of development, the duo went through something like two dozen themes. None of them worked.