Dragonica Closed Beta Testing from 7 May 2009

Hurry! For those who are interested to try Dragonica, they are opening Closed Beta Testing from 7 May 09 till 18 May 09. The announcement is on their website.

Those who have signed up for their newsletter will also receive this email (picture below). I've downloaded the 700+M of Dragonica installer, which took about an hour or so.

Have fun!

Abilities in MyBrute (some)

Having played the MyBrute flash game for a week or so, here's some of the abilities that I have seen in the game.

Some of the descriptions of the MyBrute abilities are:

Pugnacious - In the arena, you're not really so ungrateful... When they strike you a blow, you give it back... for free!

Shield - A shield. To stop the blows... sometimes.

Bolt of lightening - You hit faster than your shadow and bite faster than your enemy.

Fierce Brute - Now you really are a true Brute. More so than ever. You are more powerful and violent than ever in the fight.

Feline Agility - You haven't even got a ball of string to pass the time with, but you can always thump the Brute you have opposite you.

6th sense - Thanks to your eagle-eyed vigilance you can anticipate your enemies sneaky tricks. Now you can attack before he knows what hit him!

Vitality - Your life expectancy has risen! Now you will be able to resist longer in the arena.

Herculean Strength - With your strength, you are capable of moving mountains! But that moment has not yet come, you have an enemy to destroy.

Tornado of blows - ... and you hit hit hit, that's just your little way of showing love! You're a mad torrent of misunderstood love!

Tragic Potion - Haaave a sip of this. It could make you a bit drunk. Hic... hic... This peach juice restores some of your energy lost in the fight.

Cry of the damned - Fierce beasts? Pfffff ... You only need to give a shout... They will soon run for their lives!

Hammer - A catch technique consists of jumping with your enemy, and then falling on top of him.

Implacable - When you strike a blow, it's always dead on target. Nobody can stop it. And certainly not your enemy!

I will add more descriptions as I come across them. There are about 28 abilities in all.

See also:
- MyBrute Flash Game - Simple Review

MyBrute Flash Game - Simple Review

There is another flash game attracting much attention for the casual online gamers, and that is MyBrute. MyBrute allows the player to create an online character which fights with other players' characters of the same level. Upon creation, the character will have one special skill / item / pets and a set of three attributes, namely strength, agility and speed. As the character levels up, additional weapons, skills or pets are acquired.

The skills are interesting, offering benefits like better speed, agility, more health, or the capability to immediately respond to opponents' blows with their own additional blows. The descriptions of the skills can be quite funny.

Fights are conducted in the arena. While the player could choose which of the opposing characters to fight, he cannot control the exact skill or weapon to use. So the fighting is quite random. There are times when I wish my character could be smarter in his choice of weapons. It can be frustrating to see your character fighting with bare hands and not use his store of better weapons, e.g. spear, against the opponent. Other times I wonder why the character throw his knife / spear at the opponent and not hold onto it longer.

Another drawback of the game is the limited number of fights per day. When the character is first created, 6 fight opportunities would be given. After that, only 3 fights per day is allowed. 3 fights is somewhat limited, and given the experience per fight (1-2 points depending upon victory or defeat), the character progression can be slow.

Other features of the game include pupils and clans. If you create a new character by fighting against one of the existing ones, your character becomes the pupil of the said character. The pupil then showed up as an avatar in the dojo. When the pupil level up, the main 'teacher' could get some experience as well. I've not tried the clan function but the game said that one could create a clan upon level 10.

Overall the feel of the game is alright. I suspect the game is created by the same group / developer who done Myminicity. The look and feel of the game, and the buttons announcing the progress of the games, e.g. leveling up, seems familiar. There were also some posts in the Internet about a downloader.swif.C virus when users access Mybrute via Internet Explorer. Firefox or Chrome have no such issues.

Want to give it a try? If so, click on www.scraze.mybrute.com and have fun!

See also:
- Abilities in MyBrute (some)

Games and their impact on books

It is interesting how the games industry has spun off many little and sometimes big developments in other industries, e.g. movies and books, and vice versa. A walk in the bookstore nowadays and one is bound to notice rows of fictions that are linked to games.

This is not a new phenomenon, as we are all too familiar with the story of AD&D board games in the 1970s, that spun off many fiction books on the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance that lasted the next many decades. There are also playing / trading card games with such developments into books, e.g. Magic The Gathering.

Sometimes I do wonder if games developer earns more from these associated sales compared to the actual games? I know that can happen in the movie industry, where the spin offs from a particular movie into books, games, toys, DVDs, may earn more compared to the actual cinema tickets.

So next time when I play a game, I should be prepared to also see the game story line and characters being featured in books and perhaps movies. :)

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!