Every Friday, in co-operation with Laohu.com, Gamezebo strives to bring you the latest and greatest news to come out of the Chinese gaming scene - and if this week is any indication, Chinese gamer's really like parkour. A lot.If someone were to introduce China to Mirror's Edge, it's entirely possible that brains would begin to melt. At the very least, I hope Adam Saltsman is taking notice. Let's break Canabalt out of the vault for a trip overseas!As always, if you dig any of these articles, we encourage you to visit Laohu.com for the whole story. These posts are just the Reader's Digest version of what they're tackling all week long.
Time Surfer has received a sparkling winter-themed update today just in time for the holidays, which adds a brand new time attack mode called "Holiday Hills" that has players trying to navigate the snowy hillsides as quickly as possible. Of course, the real challenge comes in trying to avoid all of the presents and gifts that are blocking your path (I guess Santa had a big old hole in his presents bag this year!).In addition to the new Holiday Hills mode, the new Time Surfer update also brings with it brand new characters like a festive gremlin, Daft Penguin, the protagonist from Kumobius' latest game Duet, and even Santa Surfer himself! In addition, you'll also find new music, 24 GameCenter achievements, and three all-new pets: including the Space Reindeer, Santa's Elf Helper, and my personal favorite, an inanimate lump of coal known described as the "anti-present.""Tis the season to play some Time Surfer! The brand new free title update to one of our favorite endless runners from this year is now live for both iOS and Android versions of the game. Happy surfing - err - sledding!
Anyone who's a fan of the board game Catan will tell you that playing it is often better with friends. Well the good news for you is that the developers behind the mobile iteration of Catan have heard your pleas loud and clear, and are just about ready to roll out the first update to the game with new multiplayer functionality. However, they also need your help to test out the new multiplayer components to make sure everything is working up to Catan standards before the full-fledged release.Now there's even more good news: to help with this testing, the developers are giving everyone a chance to try Catan's new multiplayer on the Android version of the game before its final release! If you want in on the action, all you need to do is request to join the new Catan Google+ Community that the developers have set up right over here, and wait to be added by the team to the server test group within a week's time."It should also be noted that the build you'll receive will be limited to the new multiplayer functionality only, which currently includes the options for quick and custom online matches. And of course, if you happen to partake in the testing event, don't forget to help the team out by providing them with feedback about your online Catan experience!
As a Literature major for life, I've read more than my fair share of Franz Kafka throughout my college years, so the idea of a new video game that's actually based on the famous German author's classic body of work is really bringing out the book nerd in me. Mostly because now I can use terms like "Kafkaesque" while writing something for Gamezebo!The Franz Kafka Videogame itself was first teased a good while back, but now a few more interesting tidbits of information about the literary adventure have begun to surface this week, along with a truly fascinating debut trailer. For starters, the overall plot of The Franz Kafka Videogame will be based on a number of Kafka's own writings, such as "The Castle," "Amerika," and the high school English class staple, "The Metamorphosis."In the game, players will take control of a character named K, who sets off on a distant voyage after being offered a new means of employment. And naturally, that voyage will quickly spiral into an adventure filled with "absurdity," "surrealism," and "total uncertainty," as one would only expect from something that bears the Franz Kafka name.And that's really all we have to tell you about The Franz Kafka Videogame right now, other than that it will be coming to iOS, Android, PC, and Mac platforms sometime in 2014, and that we really can't wait to play it. Don't forget to check out the debut game trailer that's embedded in this page up there, and feel free to start your very own Kafka literary circle down in the comments section!
Spil Games, the leading global company for all things online gaming, has announced a $5 million investment today to be put towards the creation of HTML5 games. All in all, that lump sum of $5 million will be delegated to developers creating brand new gaming experiences, as well as updating existing ones to fit the new HTML5 foundation. Spil Games also plans to put some of that money towards the marketing of their own games, which currently enjoy more than 180 million users each month.In case you might be unfamiliar with the prospects of HTML5 as it continues to make its mark on the gaming industry and the world of technology at large, it is essentially a more fluid and flexible markup language for making content on the internet. But the biggest draw of the new coding language for game developers is that it can be utilized by a number of different platforms and mediums, such as mobile devices, which could potentially allow them to bring their games to a far larger number of platforms without sacrificing the additional time and resources needed to create an entirely new port."Of course, as if often to be expected with any kind of new or emerging technology, HTML5 has experienced a fairly slow adoption from the majority of game developers so far; however, Spil Games feels this is all about to change, and that 2014 will truly be the year for HTML5-founded games to truly explode. And just in case you didn't believe them, Spil Games CEO Erik Goossens has already stated the company's plans to launch 500 brand new HTML5 games over the course of 2014 alone! HTML500 anyone?
November has always traditionally been one of the greatest months to be a gamer: after all, that's usually when all of the big-name developers decide to release their most highly-anticipated projects of the year, just in time for the holidays. But now it looks like the same could also be said for the mobile games industry as well, as this past November gave us so many amazing new releases that we had an unbelievably difficult time trying to narrow them all down for this list!So here's a quick rundown of the incredible new gaming experiences that kept us busy all throughout November: an exhilarating platform-runner that took us through all sorts of hot and cold places where the ground is made of food; a strategic look at the afterlife for shoguns, where things are actually a bit more crowded than one might initially believe; and of course, a monstrous adventure across the colorful seas that could even give The Legend of Zelda a run for its money."For a more detailed account of all the games we thought were among November's best this year, just keep on scrolling down this page. And don't forget to let us know what you think of our picks in the replies below, or if you have some other great November games in mind that you think should have been included. I guess the only thing left to say now is this: Bring it on, December!
Calling all strategy enthusiasts with an Android device: boy do we have an early Christmas present for you! Today we've learned that Witching Hour Studios' popular turn-based strategy war game Ravenmark: Mercenaries is now available on Android for the very first time. The latest Ravenmark game scored impressively high marks from us here at Gamezebo when it first came out on iOS this summer, and so there's really no reason why Android owners shouldn't check this one out!In Ravenmark: Mercenaries, players are able to build their very own mercenary army and wage wars against other players online across the game's desolate landscape. Perfecting the engrossing turn-based battle system that we saw in the first Ravenmark game, Mercenaries progresses the story events an additional six years, as inhabitants are struggling under the reign of a vengeful new ruler named the Scarlet Empress.And best of all, the game is absolutely free to download and try out! You can pick up Ravenmark: Mercenaries for your Android device right now by heading over here to the Google Play Marketplace.
Inspiration is just as likely to come from unlikely sources as it is from the most obvious places. In the case of Touch & Learn, a British studio devoted to creating educational games and apps, it relies on a little of both.The surprising part of the equation starts with the Touch & Learn's founder and CEO, James Lewis. With experience as a Hollywood art director responsible for the look of work as wide-ranging as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Band of Brothers, he's not the first person who'd come to mind as a creator of kids' apps.Yet his motivation is both simple and easy to understand: he's got kids of his own, and he watched how easily they were enthralled by mobile devices."I'm a bit of a tech geek, and I got the original iPhone," Lewis said to Gamezebo. "Once I got over the fact that I didn't want to damage it and it wasn't so precious, I let my daughter, who was 18 months old at the time, just interact with it. It blew me away how intuitive the phone was. And then we got the first iPad and it was the same thing.