Arts, marriages, and online games in the New Media

It seems that recently the Singapore government has embraced New Media in a big way. Over the past few days there were articles about how 'television advertisement campaigns' about marriages would be shown in YouTube. Quoting from this article:

To further tap the power of new media and reach the younger, Internet-savvy generation, the ministry has also made the ad available on YouTube.

Other than marriages, it seems that arts and heritage will also have an official space in the New Media. According to this CNA article, the new MICA Minister said that:

He said: "We have an archive, we do not display everything in the museums. If we can put them on the net and digitise them, we can encourage people to come together, those who share like-minded interests to, for example, build their own virtual museums."

Coupled with my earlier blog post about NHB organising a competition to develop online games linking to heritage, the Internet and related media may have built up a good influence among the Singapore officials. YouTube, virtual worlds, and online games, I wonder what other Web 2.0 will they use next?

Bomba by Nitrome - Miniclip Flash Game

Miniclip offers a lot of interesting flash based short games. One of them is Bomba by Nitrome, a game where the player controls a small green critter via the use of mouse, to light up the dim stars within the Bomba stages / maps.

While the concept looks deceptively simple, the game play is not. Player needs to avoid the solid walls, moving objects, other creatures...etc. Along the way, new functions are also added in the different stages of Bomba, to help the small green critter get past obstacles like green moss. The green moss can be demolished via the use of bombs. Again the control is via mouse and mouse clicks. Bombs could also be used to kill the other creatures like flies (they look like flies to me) and fishes. Only one bomb can be released each time.

The bombs are floatable. Once the bombs are released in water, they can float up. The green critter only have a short breathing time within the waters before the critter would drown and so the player has to be fast and strategic. There are also 'flying' bombs which remain stationary at the spot where the bomb is released. Players need to be careful about the flying bits released when bombs destroy the green moss. Maybe the name of the game, Bomba, is derived from these bombs in the game.

Other than bombs, there is also the 'flaming' function introduced towards the middle stages of Bomba. Flaming function has a limited timespan, and while activated the small green critter can burn through green moss. There is a danger though because the moss may hide walls which are still deadly to the green critter at flaming state.

Stages of Bomba may introduce a combination of these different functions, and the player need careful timing and innovative use of these tools to get pass the obstacles.

The game is never boring because new features are added frequently, e.g. laser beams that only allow bombs to pass through and not the critters, and also bombs with short timing before explosion.

Generally Bomba is fun and worth a try. Players need to be patient, and think carefully before navigating each stage. Each stage of Bomba offers only 3-4 green critters, i.e. lives, but the game remembers which stage the player has cleared, and the player could always start from where he left off the next time.

See also:
- Canyon Defence on Miniclip

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.