Ikariam - Simple Review

After playing Travian and pretty much enjoyed myself, it is only natural that I started looking for other city building games. One that caught my eyes was Ikariam. Ikariam is a real time city building games centred around Greek mytho.

I gave it a try, and the game is generally alright. The goal is not exactly clear, i.e. no particular objective except to grow the cities you own. Cities in Ikariam are grouped together on an island, like the picture shown below. Each island will have two particular resources, wood and another e.g. wine, sulphur, crystal. Players on the same island can help each other by upgrading these two available resources on the island, thus allowing for more of these resources to be harvested.

Within each city, there are empty plots where buildings could be sited. Initially the range of buildings is limited. There are some default plots for walls and harbour. After some 'research' in one of the 4 areas, buildings options (e.g. embassy) will appear. Buildings could be upgraded for better functionalities later. News and updates will result in one of the 4 advisors (the 4 faces on top of the screen) having a lighted background.

In Ikariam, resources can be traded easily or shipped among your settlements. If you clicked on the main townhall, a report is shown containing coins, happiness of the citizens, housing left... etc. It reminded me of SimCity somehow.

While gamers in Ikariam are generally cooperative, the existence of battle options mean players will get attacked. I haven't exactly see the benefits of attacking, except perhaps to loot the resources. Walls are useful to up the defence attributes of your troops. Various troops are available, e.g. slingers, archers... etc. Players need to upgrade their barracks level before troop options are available to be built. If the level is not high enough, the game will indicate that.

There are many other islands in this Ikariam world, which contain the default wood, as well as another resource. So players will colonise a few more settlements, partly to reap these other resources. Wine (and taverns) is useful to keep citizens happy, and thus allowing for bigger settlement. Sulphur allows for troops to be built (I don't understand the logic of this but oh well), and crystals can be used in research to improve the attributes of the troops. Stone blocks are needed to upgrade the wall and for higher level buildings.

One thing to note is that when players want to colonise more settlements, remember to send wood piles along with the ships. Once settlements are built, it will be ideal to build governor building soon to reduce corruption. The number of settlements allowed is tied to the level of the palace built in your capital. Also, when more settlements are built, the respective governor buildings have to be upgraded to reduce corruption.

Generally the game is not fast paced enough for my taste, and so after 3 settlements are built, I left the game. :p Give it a try and see how you like it.

Video Games Live - Full Concert Orchestra 19 June 09

The Video Games Live concert is going to reach Singapore shores in about 1 month's time! The music from World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Donkey Kong...etc will be played by a symphony orchestra on 19 June at the Indoor Stadium, 830pm (Friday)

Tickets are selling at $55, $70, $85, and $115, but those who are students will have a 10% discount for their own tickets. More details can be found at the Singapore Video Games Live website. Online sales can be done via the SISTIC outlet, and SISTIC added a $3 charge per ticket (ouch!).

Afternote: The Straits Times ran some articles about the event on 19th June itself, and here's two pictures of the articles.

Paid to Scan Porn at Facebook!

I read from Slashdot about a Newsweek article that there is actually a 'cyber patrol / porn cops' at Facebook! They do more than checks for 'graphically challenging content' and include protection against spam, phishing attacks, and investigating users' 'harassment' complaints, i.e. when you click 'report this' someone at Facebook actually investigates it. They also check names against a blacklist, e.g. Batman cannot be used as a user name.

It's quite an interesting job, they have even help police locate run-away children for reconciliation with their families, since the kids do log into Facebook and leave a treacbale IP address.

More importantly, these folks are paid about US$50,000 a year! Wow, interesting jobs with a decent salary is surely attractive. Hmm wonder what they will put on their resume, 'porn cops'?

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. :)