HTML5 games reminds me of Oakland, California. Oakland is the smaller sister next to San Francisco, on the wrong side of the Bay. Every year, we say, this will be the year that Oakland becomes the Brooklyn of the Bay Area. But, it never happens. It's always next year.That's the story of HTML5 and games. Whether its Facebook embracing or dropping HTML5, HTML5 startups getting funding then imploding; the imminent success of HTML5 games is always a year away.But this year may be different.There are awesome HTML5 game technologies available, such as Tresensa, GameClosure, Clay.io, and Goo Technologies. Spil taking the lead with new ad technologies and $5 million in funding. And then there is Kik. Kik is a messenger platform with 100 million user and over 275,000 new users signing up everyday. What makes Kik unique compared to other games-focused messenger platforms such as Line, KaoKao, WeChat, and Tango is that does not distribute third-party game apps.
Oh my god, oh my god, Costume Quest 2 is happening.Phew, now that that's out of the way, here are the details. The second full game in the "my first RPG" series was announced courtesy of developer Double Fine and small-time publisher Midnight City.In typical Double Fine fashion, the announcement comes by way of an amusing live-action short featuring Tim Schafer himself. Beyond the title and publisher, the video does little to inform us about the game. Costume Quest was one of several downloadable games cited with helping to save Double Fine after several financial (though not critical) flops. In the original, players controlled a group of trick-or-treating children whose imagination transformed their costumes into the real thing and allowed them to fight supernatural mischief-makers.
Whitaker Trebella is a busy man. When he's not making great mobile games like Polymer (recently a Starbucks free game selection) and Pivvot, he's composing the soundtracks to all of your other favorite games. Tilt to Live, Super Stickman Golf, Velocispider - the tunes in those games are all Whitaker.Keeping him busy nowadays? A crowd-powered attempt to bring Pivvot to Steam. The game is on Steam Greenlight, and if you're already a fan of his work you should do the man a solid and give it an upvote.With so much on his plate, you'd think it would be a real challenge for Mr. Trebella to take a break from contributing to games to actually play them. He's inclined to agree - but that doesn't mean he hasn't managed to squeeze some game time into the last few months.We recently chatted with Whitaker to answer that one burning question that's on all of our minds: what'cha been playing?
Thinking back two console generations ago, I can instantly recall fond memories of lurking through the shadows and patrolling the corridors of Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow's multiplayer mode, Spies vs. Mercenaries. The mode divided a small group of players into the two aforementioned teams. Both the spies and mercenaries came equipped with their own set of abilities and gear. The mercenaries were tasked with preventing the spies from completing certain objectives, and the spies needed to sneak in and out without being killed. Once the game started, a heart-pounding game of cat-and-mouse ensued, with the spies darting in and out of the shadows and the mercenaries trying to hunt them down.Of Guards and Thieves takes the core of the Spies vs. Mercenaries game mode and simplifies it into a less-complex, but just as engaging, concept. With the game's open Beta in full swing, I gave Of Guards and Thieves a download and proceeded to let it sneak off with a few hours of my evening.
With so much business wheeling and dealing, sometimes it's easy to forget that China is a nation enshrouded in communist principles. This week's Chinese gaming news brings a subtle reminder of that - though it certainly brings a fair share of capitalism-loving financial actions too.Thanks to our friends at Beijing-based Laohu.com for sharing this news round-up with our Western readers. If you're looking for Chinese gaming news daily, be sure to give them a look."
In the corporate world, even long-awaited good news doesn't mean there isn't bad news for some people in the organization.That was the case for Disney Interactive, which despite turning a profit in the last quarter of 2013 on the strength of Disney Infinity nevertheless laid off 700 employees this week, or just over a quarter of its total workforce. Along with the job cuts, the division is closing several offices in the U.S., plus one each in South Korea and India.As you might expect with such a drastic reduction in headcount, Disney Interactive will simply develop less games moving forward, relying on partnerships with outside studios instead. It also may avoid big ticket purchases, as many media reports are spinning the company's latest move as a referendum on its 2010 acquisition of Playdom.
Love it or hate it, Flappy Bird managed to touch something very primal in all of us. An urge to triumph over impossible odds; to conquer the unconquerable.Since its removal from the App Store in January, plenty of "me too" games have flooded the App Store. Shameless clones, however, miss what make Flappy Bird great. We don't want to play a cookie cutter knock off, we want the next Flappy Bird.And I think I've just found it.Like Flappy Bird (and Super Hexagon, and a zillion crazy-hard reaction games before it), Tiny Car is a game with a simple premise and immeasurably difficult gameplay. You'll need to keep the titular tiny car on an ever-winding road, and your only control are left and right. Momentum will make those turns harder and harder to make, and if you're anything like me, you'll struggle to even break 10 points."
OnLive, the company that helped spearhead the concept of cloud-based gaming, is back. Alongside it is a new Executive Chairman in the form of Mark Jung - formerly of VUDU and IGN - and a host of new concepts to potentially breathe new life into the old service.The group, which specializes in allowing players to stream PC games to nontraditional hardware over the internet, laid off all of its employees in August of 2012. A new company, also called OnLive, was started in its place, while all of its assets were sold cheaply to Lauder Partners for $4.8 million. CEO and founder Steve Perlman stepped down from his position and the service has been relatively quiet until now.A press release sent by the company this week states their plans for a new subscription, called CloudLift. The service is meant to allow players to use supported games they already have installed on their PC across multiple platforms such as tablets, Macs, OnLive's own streaming device and certain TVs."Apparently, any game supported by CloudLift should work despite where it was downloaded from, but purchasing a game from OnLive directly includes a seven day trial. The service normally comes at a cost of $15 a month.That's not included with the $10 a month "PlayPack" subscription, which provides access to streaming-only games from the OnLive library.