Archive for July, 2007

Our friends over at SNAP Mobile are sponsoring a mobile games development contest for all you game developers out there, both actual and aspiring. It’s part of a larger Nokia effort called “Mobile Rules” that aims to convince you that, hey, Mobile Rules.

Among the prizes  are fast track contract negotiation and publishing opportunities, promotion of the winning games in Forum Nokia developer communities, set-up of games in the SNAP Mobile production environment and online services, and last but not least, Nokia devices. Woot!

So why not give it a try, because as we all know, mobile game developers are treated like rock stars, live in limousines, and have a beautiful girl on each arm, like this gentleman below.

Clicky the linky for more.

Scott Howard, the network games product manager for N-Gage, has been on a road show talking to the press about the next generation of mobile gaming, at the Develop Conference in Brighton and elsewhere.

As the write up on Mobile Industry.biz explains,

[Howard] demonstrated how the company has learned lessons from the demise of its dedicated handheld device — focusing on community aspects that can sit around the games across a whole range of handsets.”

Showcasing a raft of functions which should seem familiar to anybody who uses Microsoft’s Xbox Live platform, he explained how Nokia aims to transform the user experience into “smooth, efficient, easy steps”. This, Howard said, could revolutionise the way that phone users perceive the device as a games platform.”

He went on to explain how community and connected gaming are the “lifeblood” of the new N-Gage effort.

Other write-ups include Games Industry.biz and Kotaku, the latter of which notes that the N-Gage is morphing from a “hilarious taco phone” into a connected, community experience.

Mobile game developer Digital Chocolate has signed up to publish games for the next generation N-Gage platform launching this fall.

Digital Chocolate has been a driving force in promoting social interaction within the context of mobile gaming,” said Gregg Sauter, Nokia’s director of third party publishing. “They are also an award winning publisher dedicated to bringing innovative games to the masses.”

Along with this announcement, it was revealed that the first group of games Digital Chocolate would bring to the N-Gage platform would be its DChoc Café series of casual games.

The DChoc Café series of games features casual card, board, and puzzle games set in a ‘virtual café’, allowing players to create customized characters, earn prizes, and make game recommendations to one another.

DChoc Café is a perfect complement to the Nokia’s next generation N-Gage platform,” said Gary Schofield, president of networks, Digital Chocolate. “N-Gage provides the tools we need to tap into the powerful device performance and promote social interaction between players through games.”

No release date has yet been announced for DChoc Café.

For those of you looking forward to or at least interested in the Develop game conference being held in Brighton, Nokia has released details of the three sessions it will be hosting at the show.

The Next Generation of Mobile Gaming?
Martin O’Driscoll, business manager (games)
Tuesday July 24th

The N-Gage User Experience
Scott Howard, N-Gage Arena game product manager
Wednesday July 25th

Developing for the N-Gage Platform
Miikka Skaffari, Online SDK product manager
Thursday July 26th

The Develop conference takes place from July 24th-26th at the Metropole Hotel in Brighton. Among the keynote speakers this year are Chris Satchell of Microsoft and Richard Garriott of NCsoft.

More about Develop can be found here.

Well there have been a lot of stories floating around the internets about the Next Generation of N-Gage recently, and of course we are all waiting with baited breath to see what’s around the corner. But the magazine Mental Floss decided today to take a fond look back and did a little feature about “side talking”. They recommend in particular “side talking with animals”

And todays word of the day: triskaidekaphobia \tris-ky-dek-uh-FOH-bee-uh\, noun: A morbid fear of the number 13 or the date Friday the 13th

Hello sports fans, Ikona here. I’m back from vacation and ready to roll with some more N-Gage news. So let’s catch up on the latest good stuff…

 
Pocket Gamer on Project White Rock

Last week, Pocket Gamer got the scoop on ‘Project White Rock’, the as-yet-unannounced N-Gage game which they report is being developed by RedLynx (of Pathway to Glory fame) and which also (according to this article) will have a playable PC component to the game.

We first talked about Project White Rock in this post from the GDC show earlier this year.

 
Mark Ollila in Mobile Industry

Our own Dr. Mark Ollila talks to Mobile Industry.biz at this year’s Nordic Game conference in this two part interview. In the first section, he discusses the challenges of the mobile gaming industry. In the second piece, he discusses mobile versus PC and console gaming.

Part I | Part II

And there’s even more with Mark here, as Digital Media Wire asks him five questions about mobile gaming. Here’s a quote:

The other thing that we’re pushing toward with the N-Gage experience is that it’s a software platform across multiple devices such as our N-series devices.”

Nokia’s Fast Track Development

Finally we have news from the development side: Nokia has rolled out a program called Launchpad, which gives mobile game developers access to SDKs and other software tools available to Form Nokia PRO members, but at a much lower price.

While not N-Gage-related, that should be of interest to any of you out there interested in developing Symbian games.
As always, if you find more stories, drop a link in the comment section. And P.S. to Sunnycricket — we’re not at E3 this year, at least as far as I know.

– Ikona out