There's no getting around the fact that studio closures in the gaming industry are just a part of the business today, and although we should come to expect them, it never gets any easier to hear. Today we bring the difficult news that creative game studio Hide&Seek will be calling it quits at the start of 2014, after over five years of making fun gaming experiences that everyone can enjoy. Pulling double duties as both a game developer and creative agency, Hide&Seek was behind such innovative gems as Tiny Games and Sesame Street Family Play.In a thoughtful post on the official Hide&Seek website, studio director Alex Fleetwood discusses the reasons behind this untimely closing, and outlines some of the ways that he and his team tried to keep the studio afloat going forward, including everything from pitching to investors, to trying to secure a license for working with the film medium. But in the end, the creativity and energy of Hide&Seek was just no match for that dreaded thing called budgets and finances."It's truly a shame, especially considering the great potential for longevity that we've seen from Tiny Games and a number of Hide&Seek's other gaming projects. Fleetwood went on to clarify that Hide&Seek is currently finishing up the last remaining strands of prior commitments before the company will officially close its doors sometime early after the start of the New Year.If you have any fond memories of playing some of Hide&Seek's many great and unique games, please share your stories with us down in the replies.
It's said that nature abhors a vacuum, and that's true in the world of video games as well. When something popular disappears, it's just a matter of time before a replacement pops up to take its place.For mobile developers, the void in question was created when OpenFeint shut down late last year. Though not universally beloved, especially after it went through a bit of a data privacy flap in 2011, the social platform was a favorite among many game creators for the way its SDK enabled them to add social features to classic titles like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. It was also ahead of the curve in recognizing the growing power of the Android market, adding support for Google's OS to its original focus on iOS in 2010.OpenFeint was purchased by GREE in the spring of 2011, and there were high hopes that it would continue to be available going forward. Twenty months later it was gone, leaving behind enough remorse to serve as an example of what Joni and Janet both warned people about.
With the first signs of snow fast approaching, you'll no doubt be firing up the furnace and bundling under some blankets for the long winter ahead. And if the developers at Neutronized have their way, you won't have to do it alone. While you're warm and cozy in your house, there's a poor Lost Yeti out there that needs your help!From the folks that brought you Roar Rampage, Lost Yeti is set to deliver a sliding puzzle game with a cool retro feel. Everything from pixel art to the soundtrack is dripping with old school goodness. The gameplay looks as though it should present a good mix of easy-to-grasp and challenging-to-play, with players sliding blocks around to create a path for the Yeti to find his way home.While we weren't completely sold on their previous effort, the aesthetic here is so @#$%ing cute that we're ready to give Neutronized another try. Expect to see Lost Yeti on the App Store in early 2014.
Remember the adventure game called Moebius that we first previewed way back in April of 2012? Well guess what: the game's release is finally coming up soon after a successfully funded Kickstarter campaign! So in celebration of the game nearing its completion, the team behind Moebius has unleashed a flurry of new assets for fans to feast their eyes on, and these run the gamut from screenshots and trailers, to movie posters and prequel comics. Because that's what we're all here for, right?Now in case you're new to the world of Moebius, the game is a third-person adventure from Jane Jensen - the same Jane Jensen who brought us the Gabriel Knight series all those years ago. In this new game, players will be introduced to an eccentric genius named Malachi Rector, who has been gifted with the uncanny ability to distinguish between genuine artifacts and cheap knock-off treasures. The adventure of Moebius begins when Malachi is enlisted by a secret government agency on a project that is brimming with all sorts of mystery and - what else? - danger."So to build up that hype for Moebius before the game gets released on PC and Mac in early 2014, you can keep scrolling down on this page to take a gander at a handful of new screenshots and the stylish movie poster. But wait, you didn't think that was everything, did you? I sure hope not, because you can also click here to view a glorious 10-page Moebius digital comic in full color that serves as a prologue to the events of the actual game, as well as here to view a brand new story trailer for the upcoming adventure.
There's been a pretty cool trend in mobile games lately that's getting harder and harder to ignore: games that are social. And no, I don't mean "social games." I'm not talking about the FarmVille's and Facebook fare of the world. I'm talking about really, truly social. Games that you can play with real people right there in your living room (or car, or grocery line).Marvelous Games and developer SockMonkey Studios are looking to join this trend with Wurdy, a guessing game that sounds an awful lot like The $10,000 Pyramid. Players will have 60 seconds to get their friends to guess as many words as they can - but they can't say the word, act it out, or even rhyme.There are going to be plenty of categories to pick from, with more coming post-launch, but the really neat twist comes in the form of sharing highlights of your play sessions online. The game will use your iOS camera to capture the guessing action, and - if you choose - you can share the resulting video to YouTube or Facebook.Party game fans won't have long to wait on this one. Wurdy is hitting the App Store on December 5.
Now that another successful year in the video game world has nearly come to a close, it's time we start looking ahead to 2014 and all of the potential the future can bring. So many big things have already happened in gaming throughout the course of 2013, so what could possibly be next for gaming staples like microtransactions and cross-platform experiences? While Gamezebo's predictions for 2014 are already on the way, we thought we'd get a real expert in the field to weigh in with some of his own predictions before then, and to let us gamers know just what might be in store for 2014. To that end, I recently had a chance to speak with Kenny Rosenblatt, the CEO of hugely successful game development studio Arkadium, and to find out just how he thinks the next year of gaming is going to pan out.For starters, Rosenblatt predicts that there will continue to be consolidations throughout the gaming industry in the forms of mergers and acquisitions, although nothing too crazy like we saw in the days back when Facebook gaming was really taking off. And while we're on that subject, he also feels that Facebook gaming will continue to stick around in 2014, although developers won't have big success unless they go cross-platform with a mobile release. But regardless of Facebook or mobile, Rosenblatt still predicts that casual games in general will begin to have similar marketing campaigns as some of today's biggest console game franchises like Assassin's Creed or Call of Duty, with big investments in both TV and print ads."According to Rosenblatt, a revamp of the Apple "Top Charts" is likely in order for 2014, specifically with the "Top Grossing Chart" either being heavily changed or removed altogether. The reason for this, Rosenblatt asserts, is that paid games are no longer on this list as they were in the days before the free-to-play model became cemented in the industry. And furthermore, in what could likely be a game-changing move in the mobile games business, Rosenblatt also thinks that one of the big players like Apple or Google will reduce the 30% fee or tax from game purchases on their respective platforms.
We get more emails that you can imagine here at Gamezebo, so it takes something really unique to stand out and grab our attention. And by unique, I mean "clearly ripping off a classic Nintendo formula, but hey, we'll take it!"If you've had a hankerin' for Smash Bros. style fun on your mobile device, Appsolute Games is hoping to scratch that itch. Fright Fight is expected to hit iPhone, iPad and Android in January 2014, with a soft launch in New Zealand right around the corner in the first week of December. The game is set to offer cross-platform play for up to four players, be they random strangers or BFFs (best fightin' friends).The developers are promising a theme that mixes horror, fantasy, and steampunk -- and the Yeti with the golden glove in the trailer seems to support this nicely. We'll be keepin' an eye on this one, if only because Nintendo hasn't given any sort of a firm date on Super Smash Bros. for the 3DS.
Land ho, fellow pirate-assassins! Ubisoft has announced a brand new Assassin's Creed game today that will be coming exclusively to mobile devices next week. As someone who's personally played through every main game in the Assassin's Creed series (and who is currently enjoying this year's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag to no foreseeable end), I'm more than a little excited to see what Ubisoft is able to do with their huge blockbuster franchise on the mobile platform.Keeping up with the prevalent pirate theme of AC IV, the aptly named Assassin's Creed Pirates on mobile will let players take control of a young and aspiring pirate captain named Alonzo Batilla, as they set sail through the Caribbean during the Golden Age of Piracy. The gameplay itself looks to take many of the same core mechanics that fans of the console series will recognize, such as managing their crew, upgrading their ship, and taking part in massive naval battles that play out in real-time."And of course, what kind of Assassin's Creed game would it be without lots of encounters with the Assassins and the Templars along the way? Well everything we've seen from the debut gameplay trailer so far makes it seem like Ubisoft's upcoming mobile adventure has captured the naval components of AC IV perfectly, right down to the firing mechanics and the breathtaking 3D graphics of the ships themselves and the crashing waves.Assassin's Creed Pirates will be coming to higher-end iOS and Android mobile devices on December 5, 2013, and will set you back a handful of doubloons (or more accurately, $4.99).