Warp Zoned Presents
Author: Melissa Niedringhaus
PC puzzler Break Blocks benefits Doctors Without Borders
And your mom told you playing games would never do any good…
Instead of wasting all your time camping Aeonaxx, why don’t you do something nice for somebody else? Don’t worry, you don’t have to leave the comfort of your computer chair. Just head over to Greater Good Games, and check out their debut title, Break Blocks.
Break Blocks is an action puzzler where you place blocks on a circular dance floor in time with the beat. Group primary colors, and connect them using secondary colors as “bridges” to clear more blocks and out “break” your enemies!
Break Blocks is available on PC, and uses a pay-what-you-want model (minimum $1.00). Greater Good Games will donate 20% of the proceeds to the international humanitarian organization Doctors without Borders.
8-Bit Funding provides an alternative to Kickstarter for funding indies
8-Bit Funding, a crowd-funding website launched in 2011 and targeted towards game focused projects, was recently acquired by the management team behind Indie Game Magazine in an effort to resurrect the site and create awareness and excitement among gamers and developers. 8-Bit Funding brings with it the support of DIY Gamer, an indie game website that will be used to promote the best game campaigns. Campaigns will also be featured on IGM.
8-Bit Funding is targeted towards gamers, and focuses primarily on alpha and beta game funding, but is also open to to non-video gaming related independent projects like board games, card games, and pen-and-paper role-playing games. 8-Bit is an international website, and allows developers from all over the world to start a campaign, so get cracking!
For more information, visit the 8-Bit Funding website.
Better Draw Something on your iPhone while the social cred it gives you is still legal tender!
Wanna know what the hipsters at your neighborhood gastropub are tweeting about while you try to figure out why anyone would drink a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon?
It’s an iPhone app called Draw Something, and it’s been downloaded over four million times with very little press coverage to support it. Even celebrities like Questlove and My Chemical Romance have been sharing their drawings on their Twitter feeds.
CEO of OMGPop Dan Porter attributes the success of the game to social media platforms, saying “People are taking to these social channels to share their drawings, and that is causing the game to spread.”
Draw Something is available for download on Android and iOS in both free-to-play and premium versions. If I were you, I’d see what the hype is all about before your mom starts posting Instagrams of her drawings on Facebook, and you’re left in the dust.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Draw Something
Should we start calling it the eye pad? Eye therapy games developed for iPad
Now, people with visual impairments can look to video games as a new form of therapy! Dr. Jeffrey Becker, a developmental optometrist, and Dr. Robert Bohlander, a neuropsychologist, created a variety of games for iPad dubbed the Oculomotor Therapy Program to treat visual system dysfunction and strengthen visual skills.
The iPad program was created with the help of a special education teacher, and combines the fun of playing a game with carefully monitored therapeutic benefits to improve a patient’s quality of life. Every time a patient uses the program, doctors can track progress in real time and adjust the prescribed game activities to meet patient goals.
“There are currently 16 different game activities, with new games in development. Each has multiple levels of difficulty designed to address vision problems of different levels of severity.”
Right now, the Oculomotor Therapy Program is only available through an approved doctor. For more information, or a list of approved doctors, check out the NeuroSensory Center of Eastern Pennsylvania!
Guild Wars 2 beta signups gone wild
In an effort to keep gamers from ever seeing their friends or family again, NCSoft and ArenaNet opened the signups for the Guild Wars 2 closed beta on February 22nd for a mere 48 hours. In that short time, they received over one million signup requests.
For those of you that missed out, the next closed beta is scheduled for sometime in late March, and will provide you the opportunity to experience Guild Wars 2’s RPG elements, World vs. World battles and social gameplay before any of the slow pokes who can’t click the signup button fast enough.
If you want to see what all the hubbub is about, check out the official Guild Wars 2 website for more information!
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Guild Wars 2
Slash will be your guitar instructor in BandFuse: Rock Legends
So you got burned when you showed your friend “Through the Fire and Flames” on Expert, and he insinuated you couldn’t play it on a REAL guitar. Well, Realta Entertainment Group and Mastiff are teaming up to offer you the authentic experience.
BandFuse: Rock Legends is due out in 2012, and it allows gamers to plug their guitars and microphones into their Xbox 360 and play along with their favorite songs using animated tablature. This approach gets novices jamming right away, and helps more advanced players master their instrument, so don’t be intimidated, newbies! Grammy-winning guitarist Slash, formerly of Guns N’ Roses, will serve as BandFuse’s master instructor, and other artists will be integrated to mentor players.
Gamers can expect a wide variety of hit songs to play along to, from artists like Coldplay, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Judas Priest, and Maroon 5.
For more information, check out the game’s official website.