NHB Mission Darkstar - 5 Finalists Awarded

National Heritage Board has announced the 5 finalists for the online games competition to develop a Singapore heritage related game! The details of the Mission Darkstar - Heritage Gaming Redefined can be found in the NHB news release (16 Dec 2008).

These 5 finalists, having passed the first stage of this competition, will each get $4,000 seed funds to develop their online game on social media platform, that 'raise the awareness and appreciation of Singapore’s unique heritage and culture.' The competition will run until October - November 2009, when the top winner will be selected, and total prizes of $13,500 will be given out (top prize has a payout of $8,000). The judging will be done by both experts and public votes, with criteria linking to quality of the game and how the game resonates with the users and Singapore’s history and heritage.

More information about NHB's Mission Darkstar can be found on their website: www.missiondarkstar.com.sg and there is even a Youtube on the site about this competition!

Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures on Facebook

There are a good number of interesting Facebook applications. Other than the Pet Society which I covered earlier, there is also this Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application.

In Tiny Adventures, one could choose from over 16 classes of characters, including Tiefling Warlock, Eladrin Wizard, Human Rogue, Dwarf Warlord etc. Each character can level until they reach level 11, and the application will automatically retire the character. At this point in time, the player can choose an item from the retiring character to pass on to the next character, and the next character will be labelled as Generation 2. This retiring process can carry on, and each generation will unlock new ability. At Generation 5, a new class of Swordmage will also be unlocked.

As per other Dungeons & Dragons game, the character will come with a set of attributes but for Tiny Adventures they are pre-rolled. There will also be equipments for each 'slot', including weapons and armour. The equipments will come with different attributes enhancements but not all classes can wear all the equipments, e.g. wizard can only wear light armour.

In order to level up the charater, the character could choose from a number of available adventures of around the same level as the character. There are quite a number of interesting quests / adventures to choose from. As the character level, bonus attribute points will be given at level 4 and 8.

Prior to the start of the chosen adventure, the character can choose two potions to bring along, including healing potions or others that boost the attributes, e.g. Potion of Heroism giving +5STR for 4 encounters.

Each adventure provides multiple encounters / parts (from 5 to 12 parts & higher levels seem to have more encounters), and each encounter comes with a description of what is happening to the character, as well as a dice roll that determines the outcome of that particular part. Occasionally there will be 'rare' encounters that provide better challenge and rewards. Success from the encounter will reward the character with experience points, golds and sometimes items.

The different adventures could also be reviewed later and the review log includes the different dice rolls as well as rewards from each adventure. Tiny Adventures has many tabs and statistics that keep track of the character's progress.

Generally the Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application is quite fun to play with. The option of 'drinking potions' with triggering of certain conditions is also useful. The irritating part is that many of the encounters requires AC checks, and certain weaker classes like mage will have problems. It does not help that each healing potion costs 130 golds, i.e. expensive potions.

Will try the application and see if I have the patience to reach Generation 5!

Smallworlds application in Facebook

Smallworlds has progressed well over the past many months. It is not surprising that Smallworlds is now on Facebook (see article), since Smallworlds has always gave the impression that it is an applications that is highly mashable. It seems that other than Facebook, Smallworlds is also on Bebo (see article).

The user created missions, and generally missions based play (picture above) has given Smallworlds a more unique element based compared to other social networking applications. Yet with individual rooms and tokens to decorate the rooms, Smallworlds retains enough social networking flavour that will be attractive to the casual gamers.

Recently I played their featured mission, 'Break Out 1' (pictures above and below) that described a mad scientist who captured users for experiments. The user is supposed to get out of the moon base with the help of a fellow prisoner. It is relatively easy, except for the initial part where a user needs to find that room with a 'Trooper' poster and search for an item. The crucial element is that the user must first receive this part of the 'quest' in the correct room, i.e. if the mission box told you that your room is in area B, do not go to area C to get the quest. After finding the correct room, the user can proceed to the room with the 'Trooper' poster.

There are other quests that require simpler actions to complete. For example there is this 'classroom maths quest' where the user just needs to provide correct answer to the maths questions. At the end of the 15 questions, just /clap, and the quest is done.

As of February 2009, Smallworlds has about 300,000 users, and 65% of these users are female. A similar proportion of the users created content to share with other users. An example of such user generated content is the 'Arcade game machines' found littered in Smallworlds, where a 'game' with the game of Smallworlds could be played and progress saved.

This user figure is healthy but still pales in comparison with giants like the Wtorld of Warcraft. Nonetheless, with a reported Average Revenue Per User of US$1.40, and a progressive looking development team, Smallworlds is likely to go far in the virtual world arena.

Related Posts
- Update about Smallworlds
- Simple Review of Smallworlds

imeem Soundtracks from the World of Warcraft

Recent months I've spent more time playing games than updating my blogs. One big attractive point of playing online games, especially the good ones, are the soundtracks. Other than Cabal Online and Granado Espada, the other online game with great soundtracks is the World of Warcraft.

Yeah, some would say that World of Warcraft (魔兽世界) offers even better soundtracks, simply for the many variety of music. Each home city, each scene, each dungeon, will have its own unique ambient music. Completing some quests, e.g. Lament of the Highborne, will also result in unique music being played.

Here's a playlist of some of the World of Warcraft music that I compiled from imeem. Have fun.

World of Warcraft

Here's the link to the Lament of the Highborne (track number 8) movie from Blizzard, for those WoW players who are interested. Quite touching.

Related Post
- Cabal Online and Granado Espada Soundtracks

Growing Online / Gaming Content Market in Singapore

Last year in August 2008, there was an article on Business Times about a Frost research estimating Singapore's online content market to see robust growth reaching US$23.82 million in 2008. It seems the figure is estimated to reach US$120million by 2013. Some more details about the Frost research can be found in this article.

I was pretty skeptical about the figures initially. However, these few days there were reports of Singapore developers earning big bucks with their online games. One such group of developers is the Tyler Projects who developed Battle Stations on Facebook. According to this Straits Times article they are cashing in monthly sales of over $50,000. Not bad for a group of relatively new games developers. It does appear that online gaming (whether via gaming clients or social networking platforms) is fueling online content growth.

The growth of gaming locally has attracted the attention of big boys as well. Another Straits Times article (20 Feb 09) noted that Japanese gaming giant Koei has decided to hire 30 to 60 more staff for Singapore office. I think they had pretty good experience developing the 'Romance of the Three Kingdom Online' in Singapore. What is weird is that the Romance of Three Kingdom Online is not available to the Singapore gamer.

Other than the gaming developers, there are also more exhibitions planned for Singapore. Aside from the annual Games Convention Asia, there is also the Games XPO 2009 scheduled for July 2009 (see article). With all these activities, no wonder even the 9 years old kids are dabbling with games development (see article about 9 years old iPhone apps developer).

Seems like the August 2008 article is quite reliable after all. Maybe I should think about quitting my job to be a games developer, lolz.

Pet Society in Facebook

With so many applications in Facebook, one is often spoilt for choices. Recently I found an interesting apps 'Pet Society' by Playfish. The game is pretty simple, where the player raised a pet, and let the pet engages in various activities e.g. visiting friends, running races...etc. There is also the interactive part where the player could decorate the house of the pets with wall papers, furniture...etc.

Below is a screenshot of the 'Pet Society'. The three bars on the right denotes 'health', 'happiness', and cleanliness. Feeding the pet with food will raise the health bar. Playing with the pets by engaging in various activities could raise the happiness bar. Cleaning the pet with the soap given by the apps will help with the cleanliness bar of the pet. The upper left corner shows the number of coins and the centre top bar shows the level / 'paw points' (i.e. experience) of the pet. Raising levels for the pet will give the pet more rooms, and the house of the pet will also look bigger on the overall map. It is better to save the game (the disk icon located at upper right) before exiting 'Pet Society'.

Coins form an essential part of the 'Pet Society' and the player needs to participate in activities to earn the coins. Some of the ways include

• visiting friends to 'hug', 'tell a joke', 'kiss' (but not fighting though) etc which results in 20 coins per visit per day
• winning bet races, or participating in these races could also earn the pet coins. During races, pick up the banana skins for more coins! (screen shot below)
  
• or else the player could also play the frisbee, ball, or skipping ropes given by the apps with the pet for coins and trophies. Getting trophies is another way of earning coins
• merely logging in everyday means the 'Pet Society' application will give a 'lottery' prize per day to give between 50 and 500 coins
• walk among the trees and the pet could randomly get 2 coins (another screen shot below). If the player logs out of the game and logs in again, the 'trees giving coins' function is reset
• clean the pet or your friends' pets when the health bar is low, will also result in coins
• place the mouse cursor (not soup bar or brush) on your pet and press it while moving the cursor up and down, will also result in coins
  

Pets Racing at the Stadium

Pet getting coins radomly from the trees


List of trophies that the pet can get

Other than the stadium (for races), there are many shops for the pet to visit. There are the furniture and DIY shops for the pet to purchase household items. Some of the items could be animated for effects when the player clicks on it, e.g. the radio, TV set, lava lamp etc. There is also the food shop to buy various foods for the pet. The items could be given to other pets as gifts, or be sold for coins. If the player is tired of the pet's looks, it can be changed at the Stylist shop. Clothes and Luxury shops sell different items like clothes, rings, accessories, etc. If the player wants to visit pets of other people (non-friends), the player could go to the cafe and see the other pets. More shops are added as the developers enhanced the Pet Society apps.

Depending on the occasions, there could be 'special' items for sale. For example Valentine Day related items (flowers, bears, heart shaped decos) are on sale currently. During the Lunar New Year 2-3 weeks back, another set of items were on sale in the shops. Playfish is somewhat diligent in producing new items each week. There are also 3 different categories of mystery boxes which may give special items not found in the shops to the pets.

These are but brief description of the game. While this is essentially a social casual game with minimal depth, it is nonetheless a somewhat addictive game. Log in at the forum to see what other fans think about it, and get a pet yourself to try it!

See also:
- Pet Society - New Gardens Function

Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - April 2009

Read the news that Fullmetal Alchemist 2 will debut in Japan on 5th April 2009.

There is some doubt whether this is a re-make or is it a sequel, with story carrying on from the movie. Nonetheless you can take a look at the trailer from this website: http://www.hagaren.jp/special/trailer.html

There is also a second version of the trailer circulating around in the Internet but I've not obtain a copy yet. The 1st run of Fullmetal Alchemist is great, and hopefully this would be a sequel and not re-make.