Need something to listen to on your N-Gage compatible device? I always enjoy the All About Symbian podcasts. This week they talk about Mile High Pinball, Reset Generation, the Nokia N82, and several other topics.
Give it a listen here.
Congratulatons to the Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep team, for winning the Mobile Entertainment Forum, or “Meffy” Award, for best mobile game. Creatures of the Deep beat out three other nominees to take top honors in the games category.
Rimma Perelmuter, MEF Executive Director, said: “A focus on discoverability, interactivity, usability and affordability were the common strands shared by this year’s winners. Above all, the companies selected by the Meffys judges clearly focused on putting the consumer first; attracting and entertaining subscribers though a variety of appealing offerings including innovative new ad-supported, communities and subscription-based models.”
The Games Award
Winner:
Nokia — Hooked on: Creatures of he Deep
Runner-ups:
Hands-On Mobile — World Poker Tour: Texas Hold ‘Em 2
Konami Digital Entertainment — Metal Gear Solid Mobile
Konami Digital Entertainment — Pro Evolution Soccer 2008
Player X — Hollywood Hospital
This month’s issue of EDGE Magazine is now going out to subscribers, who are getting their first look at Reset Generation, the game which you have come to know and love under its code name Project White Rock.
Details from the magazine article have surfaced on Pocket Gamer, Develop, Tech Digest, and All About N-Gage. And yes, there will be a press event tonight in San Francisco, where even more of the game will be revealed to the world. So I won’t say much more about it just yet.
I’d like to add on a personal note, I am really excited about this one, because I did get to play a small role in its development over these last couple years, being responsible for the story and dialogue.
It was a great privilege to work with Scott Foe, Scott Howard and all the guys over at RedLynx. I think you guys are going to have a lot of fun with this game. It’s exceptional and just a lot of fun to play. It is a blast.
Attention game developers, professional and amateur alike! I wanted to give you a heads up about a new book called Games on Symbian OS: A Handbook for Mobile Development that’s coming out this week.
The book, by Jo Stichbury, is an overview of developing games for the Symbian operating system, including an overview of the mobile games industry, key aspects of both writing games for and porting games to Symbian, chapters on audio, graphics, and multiplayer, and other exciting, computer nerd stuff.
Also included is a chapter on the N-Gage platform written by our product management team featuring Peter Nielsen and Roland Geisler. This portion of the book covers the history of the platform, the current application, and offers a deeper look into the N-Gage SDK and just what it all means for a game developer.
Here’s a snip:
“The set of S60 phones that are N-Gage compatible will grow to add more phones and, of those, a large number of additional phones will come to market after a game is shipped. How is the developer to implement the game code? How is the developer to implement the game code?
It would require a logic flow that that takes into consideration the behavior of each N-Gage phone (current and future) so that the game can adjust the graphics for the screen mode and input keys accordingly.
As you expand the number of devices the decision tree for handling all this logic becomes untenable in a single SKU. When using the N-Gage SDK, a developer does not have to manage all this logic, since it is handled for them at a platform level.”
There’s plenty more, take a look at the Amazon page for details.
Do you want to develop mobile games? Do you want to win prizes or even have your game published by Nokia? Then you came to the right blog post.
We are pleased to announce the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge, your chance to rock the gaming world. Originally announced at GDC, the Challenge has just gone live, inviting you to submit your mobile game concept.
We are looking for the best, most ground breaking concepts from the brightest and most creative minds in our industry. This is your chance to shock the mobile gaming world and possibly have your game concept published by Nokia.
We are live! The games, the devices, and the community are all here for you to finally get your teeth into. The Forums are back up and the new N-Gage application is here.
There will be an official announcement on Monday, but for you, the N-Gage faithful we wanted to let you know we’re up and running! So come join our moderators in the Forums for our launch party, and start enjoying the next generation of mobile gaming.
Now let’s Get Out and Play!
The team over at Pocket Gamer has been busy getting their hands on as many upcoming N-Gage games as possible, with two new previews this week.
Hands on with Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Here’s what they had to say about Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, in particular the unique CellWeaver system for controlling the game:
“What’s even more of a shock when working your way through the tutorial, however, is to discover the game’s based around a gesture system that’s officially called CellWeaver. This uses your phone’s (in this case a N81) numeric keys as a 3×3 grid onto which you ‘weave’ your actions.”
There is also an interview with the game producers available.
Hands on with Yamake
Next up is Yamake, an innovative title from our first party team that makes it possible for players to create their own games from a range of mini games by adding content, then playing and sharing them with friends and the wider Yamake community:
“What makes Yamake much more interesting, however, are the distribution options. Once created, you can either send (or receive) a puzzle via Bluetooth or upload to the N-Gage Arena, where – once the application is live – we assume there will be the sort of community-rating features that will allow the most interesting puzzles to be highlighted and shared amongst the N-Gage community. Of course, you can also download puzzles from the Arena for your own playing enjoyment.”
More on Yamake here.
Project White Rock all for the love of gaming?
Finally, we have an update on the For the Love of Gaming story we blogged about last week. It seems Pocket Gamer’s Tracy Erickson has picked up one of the mysterious white vials and examined its contents:
“That isn’t stopping it from teasing us with bits of information though, the latest of which comes in the form of a vial containing a white USB stick. On the portable USB flash drive sits what appears to be the soundtrack for Project White Rock. Clocking in at 25 tracks, the electro-pop selections share a common theme: gaming.”
Read more on his discoveries here.
Here are two video presentations from the recent Game Developer’s Conference featuring Nokia and N-Gage. Click the thumbnail beneath the description of each talk to view the video on Ovi Share. Enjoy!
Note: These videos are designed for PC websites, not mobiles. Clicking on the thumbnail links will open a new Ovi Share page where the videos are hosted. Click on the same thumbnail on the Ovi page to begin play. Be patient, it may take a few minutes for the videos to load.
Anssi Vanjoki
Executive Vice President, Markets, Nokia
Introduced by Robert Tercek, founder and chairman of GDC Mobile
Keynote Title: “Play with anybody everywhere — context, the new paradigm for game play”
With an installed base of millions of N-Gage compatible devices, mobile gaming plays a key role in the company’s recent move into the services market. Through Ovi, Nokia’s gateway to Internet services, people will be able to easily access games, communities and other content with their mobile device. With over three billion mobile phones globally, the mobile device is quickly becoming the platform of choice to enjoy games and a wide range of digital content. Vanjoki will present Nokia’s move into context aware services and the impact that mobile devices are having on entertainment around the world and the role that N-Gage will play in evolving mobile games experiences and the industry.
Dan Scott
Global Head of Production, Nokia
Pushing the Mobile Gaming State of the art with Nokia 1st Party Games Sponsored by Nokia
Mobile gaming will not achieve the multibillion dollar predictions without the help of everyone in the industry. This talk will show how Nokia 1st Party games is addressing the major stumbling blocks that are holding everyone back and taking a leadership role in pushing the State of the Art in Mobile gaming.
Share your thoughts on the videos below.
Here’s a GDC video podcast with some members of our games management team, who took time out of their busy GDC schedules to answer your questions.
Featured in the interview are Jaakko Kaidesoja, Gregg Sauter, and Dr. Mark Ollila. The questions are moderated by Matthew Kumar of Gamesondeck.com. It is about ten minutes long.
Click the thumbnail below to view on your PC.
The video is being hosted on share.ovi.com, a new service from Nokia that lets you easily share your content. And here’s the link to the Mobile Games Innovation Challenge that Mark references at the end of part two.
Hey all, we’re working on getting our vodcast posted. In the mean time here are a bunch of new articles about Nokia and N-Gage stemming from our presence at the Game Developer’s Conference:
* The BBC has put up a video interview with Jaakko Kaidesoja, heads of Nokia’s Games unit
* Gamasutra has an interesting write-up of Anssi Vanjoki’s keynote address
* Another good take on Anssi’s talk comes from Mobile Entertainment
* All About N-Gage has put up videos (by way of Project Next) showing off Creebies gameplay footage and a mini-documentary on the Making of ONE
* MoDoJo has posted a quick talk with N-Gage head of production Dan Scott; so does Joystiq
* Pocket Gamer talks to Jaakko Kaidesoja about First Access
* Pocket Gamer also gives its take on Anssi Vanjoki’s keynote address
* One more from Pocket Gamer: a hands-on preview of Bounce Boing Voyage
If you have more links, drop them in the comments!
