Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Mobile
Fortress comes to the App Store on August 2
Recently, Philadelphia has become the city of burgeoning game development, ranging from small studios heading to PAX Prime to one-man companies like Ray Merkler’s Hindrances to Progress releasing its first game. I say “recently,” but in reality, this is just years of work by people like Merkler finally paying off. His first game, Fortress, will be released on the App Store on August 2 for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.
Fortress is a strategy game played with a simple (and pretty adorable) deck of cards. The cards act as soldiers in a colorful army, defending your own King, while you try to destroy your opponent’s fortress. The game is fun and easy to learn, but tickles your brain only the way strategy can. I played my first game of it years ago against Merkler himself, and while he wiped the Fortress floor with me, I enjoyed it, and look forward to its long-awaited release.
Fortress will be $2.99 at launch, but will drop down to $0.99 after two weeks. Support indepedent games and buy it when it comes out! Or wait until it’s under a buck, ya scrooge. Either way, this entertaining little strategy game is worth having on your iDevice.
Game Critics Awards announce nominees for Best of E3 2012
The world’s biggest gaming websites, including Kotaku, IGN, Nintendo Power, Joystiq and The Escapist (don’t worry, Warp Zoned will be there one day!) have released their full list of nominees for awards pertaining to what was shown and played at this year’s E3 Expo. Some of the highlights of the show, such as Star Wars: 1313 or Ubisoft’s surprise Watch Dogs do not qualify, as the rules state the journalists must be able to “manipulate a game in real-time while running on its native platform.” However, it seems there was not much love for Nintendo’s Wii U, with no mention of the system’s most-anticipated game, ZombiU. Although both Wii Fit U and Game & Wario made it into the “Best Motion Simulation” category.
The awards will be handed out at GameCriticsAwards.com on June 26. The full list of nominees is available after the break. (more…)
Microsoft announces Surface, a Windows 8-powered tablet
Microsoft’s big announcement yesterday was the unveiling of Surface, a new line of tablets that will be powered by Windows 8 (and its mobile variant, Windows RT).
Currently, two models have been announced: Surface for Windows RT will feature an ARM processor designed with Microsoft’s new “Metro” interface in mind while Surface for Windows 8 Pro will ship with a full version of Windows 8. Each Surface tablet includes a 10.6″ screen and a 3mm magnetic touch cover that doubles as a keyboard.
The Surface for Windows RT tablet will be available this Fall, alongside the release of the Windows 8 operating system. The Surface for Windows 8 Pro tablet release will follow about 90 days later. Pricing wasn’t announced, however Microsoft did say the Surface tablets would be comparable in price to an Intel Ultrabook ($800-$1,500).
A complete list of Surface specs can be found after the break. (more…)
Bungie co-founder wants to rethink mobile game controls with Industrial Toys
“The innovation is all on mobile,” claims Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian. Of course, the creator of the Halo franchise would say that, as his new studio, Industrial Toys, is focused on mobile platforms. The new company is attempting to bring a hardcore gaming experience to your phone and/or tablet with the help of Unreal Engine 3 and new thinking on the control interface for these devices. Yet for all the innovation, their first effort will be a sci-fi themed FPS… just like Seropian’s biggest hit.
The unnamed project, which is being written by sci-fi author John Scalzi, is gearing up to offer gamers a world on their phone that is as expansive as World of Warcraft, and are focusing on two things that Seropian feels is missing from current mobile games: unique controls and fully integrated community.
“The whole design paradigm about designing for dual sticks is all about creating a software interface for hardware that makes it feel like you have more control and have better skill curves, That’s all about getting closer to how a mouse works. There’s no sense to emulate a relative control scheme, like a controller… We have been designing a control scheme that’s all about putting our controls in the game space, as opposed to the screen space.”
As well as these thoughts on the interface, the company is trying to envelop its social features and functionality into the very mechanics of the game, rather than the default option utilised by most mobile games of creating a separate community space on a linked website.
Industrial Toys plans to officially announce their first game soon, possibly even as early as later this month.
[Source: Joystiq]
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Morning Star
Majesco goes mobile with Sci-Fi Heroes
Majesco Entertainment, the publisher responsible for the Mama series of games (you know, Cooking, Babysitting, Crafting, etc) and Jillian Michael’s fitness range, has revealed screenshots (which can be found after the break) and a trailer (which can be viewed above) of their first internally developed mobile game.
Sci-Fi Heroes, a free-to-play RPG, will feature over forty levels and allow you to take charge of eight unique characters including a space marine, an animal trainer, a Serenity-inspired space cowboy, a priest, an ID Master, an Exxo, a healbot, and a technomancher. With its cutesy graphics and fun humour, it comes across as a tongue-in-cheek version of the likes of Star Wars and Mass Effect.
Piloting the Starship Aphelion, players will take command of up to eight misfit warriors as they go up against the Calimar Space Horde to free four planets in a once peaceful solar system. You can look forward to kicking some Space Horde butt later this summer. (more…)
Robotoki reveals another zombie game… world yawns
Zombies. There is no escaping them, no matter what Jesse Eisenberg preached in Zombieland. Zombies are here to stay for quite some time it would seem, as indie game studio Robotoki announced their first title, Human Element, a zombie survival game, will debut in 2015. Robert Bowling, the company’s President and former Creative Strategist at Infinity Ward, said of the game, “Their greatest strength is the fear that [zombies] instil in us, the survivors, that unreasonable fear. Unreasonable fear that leads us to do unreasonable things to survive.”
While the description sounds very similar to Naughty Dog’s upcoming game The Last Of Us, and the poster echoes the classic Left 4 Dead, Bowling’s new company may be able to offer more than run, shoot and hide. The game will feature a character creation system, where you choose a class – Action, Intelligence, or Stealth – as well as a separate identity or starting scenario, but there is still only a choice of three: survive alone, survive with a partner, or survive while protecting a young child. Hopefully these various combinations will offer much retail value, with Bowling placing a special emphasis on survival on both a physical and moral level.
Will you have to feed a baby human flesh? We won’t know for another three years when the game is distributed across every conceivable platform, from “next genertation consoles” to PCs to mobile phones.
[Source: Game Informer]
Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 given July 10 release date
Zeboyd Games has revealed that Penny Arcade’s On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3 will be available to download for the PC (from Steam) and for the Xbox 360 (from Xbox Live Indie Games) on July 10. A Mac version is being planned for further down the line and purchasing the game through Steam will net you a copy of Penny Arcade’s We Need To Shorten the Title on These Games 3 for both platforms.
As promised, the game will arrive with the very wallet-friendly price of $5 (or 400 Microsoft Points).
Mobile versions for the iOS and Android platforms are also in development, but details on those “will be announced later.”
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, Xbox 360
Tagged Penny Arcade's On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness 3
Square Enix’s E3 2012 lineup features Tomb Raider, Hitman, Sleeping Dogs, a lot more
Square Enix is using this year’s E3 Expo to show off all the shiny new toys it acquired from Eidos and Activision over the last few years.
Those toys include the rebooted Tomb Raider; Hitman: Absolution, Agent 47’s next mission; and Sleeping Dogs, the Activision open-world game that was previously known as True Crime: Hong Kong.
Also on hand will be a slew of handheld titles (correction… 3DS titles) including Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Heroes of Ruin, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. A new Final Fantasy game for iOS and Android, Final Fantasy Dimensions, will also make its debut at this year’s big show.
Finally, the publisher plans to showcase Quantum Conundrum, one of my favorite games from PAX East.
Hit the jump for Square Enix’s complete E3 lineup. (more…)