Archive for the ‘Noteworthy’ Category

N-Gage Player Robot2037 has put together a remarkably thorough and attractive strategy guide and walkthrough for Hooked On: Creatures of the Deep and posted it to the N-Gage Arena forums. 

It includes a level list, Point Pickups, a list of all fish and store items, boss fish, and more. It’s a simple text file too, so it’s quite portable. If you have this game, you’ll want this file, no doubt about it.

Here’s a sample:

     ___________________________________________________________________

    |___________________________________________________________________|

    |     LEVEL               EXPERIENCE               RANK             |

    |———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————|

    |       1                        0              New Angler          |

    |       2                      500            Rookie Angler         |

    |       3                    1,000            Weekend Angler        |

    |       4*                   2,000                Angler            |

    |       5                    3,000             Hook Dunker          |

    |       6                    5,000             Worm Dunker          |

    |       7                    7,500             Lure Dunker          |

    |       8                   10,000             Bait Dunker          |

    |       9                   15,000            Tourny Rookie         |

    |      10                   20,000            Tourny Angler         |

    |      11                   30,000             Tourny Pro           |

    |      12                   40,000          First Mate Rigger       |

    |      13                   50,000          First Mate Caster       |

    |      14                   60,000          First Mate Reeler       |

    |      15                   70,000          First Mate Angler       |

    |      16                   80,000             Pro Rigger           |

    |      17                   90,000             Pro Caster           |

    |      18                  100,000             Pro Reeler           |

    |      19                  110,000             Pro Angler           |

    |      20                  120,000            Master Rigger         |

    |      21                  130,000            Master Caster         |

    |      22                  140,000            Master Reeler         |

    |      23                  150,000            Master Angler         |

    |      24                  160,000             Rookie Guide         |

    |      25                  170,000            Semi Pro Guide        |

    |      26                  180,000              Pro Guide           |

    |      27                  190,000             Super guide          |

    |      28                  200,000            Expert Guide          |

    |      29                  210,000          Location Expert 1       |

    |      30                  220,000          Location Expert 2       |

    |       .                    ...                .........           |

    |       .                    ...                .........           |

    |       .                    ...                .........           |

    |   Each next level is reached after gaining additional 10,000 XP   |

    |     and Location Expert number of your rank is increased by 1.    |

    '———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————'

Well done, Robot2037.

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.

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.

Learn more…

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!

As previously advised, N-Gage First Access has now closed. We thank you for your participation, and to everybody who took the survey.

In the mean time, we have begun preparing for N-Gage Go Live. While we do this important work, some N-Gage functionality will be temporarily removed. There are a few key points to remember during this time:

1. Login, registration, and reserving a new N-Gage Player Name will be inactive during this time. Note that if you are currently logged into the Forums, you will be able to post for as long as your session lasts.

2. We are no longer supporting the pre-release version of the N-Gage application.

3. You can continue to play your games and game trials using the pre-release version of the N-Gage application. However we strongly encourage you to upgrade to the full release version of the N-Gage application and games once it becomes available. Don’t miss out on the fresh start!

4. The Player Name and password you created for First Access will not be valid for full rollout, unless they were the same as your existing Player Name and password on the Arena forums.

5. Game licenses you purchased during First Access will carry over into the commercial launch, but you will need to install the new version of the N-Gage application and re-install the games.

6. Saved games, Point Pickups, and N-Gage Points accrued will be reset, to give everyone a fresh start.

Because logging in to the Forums is down for this period, I will create a new Open Thread for you to discuss up until the point we are ready for Go Live. Today’s thread can begin right here.

Unfortunately because of the amount of spam our blog attracts, comment moderation will need to stay on, but we will approve the comment backlog more frequently.

Stay tuned!

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.

Have you heard this phrase yet? It came up at the Game Developer’s Conference, in a story first broken by PG’s Jon Jordan:

“It’s all very cryptic, and to be honest we’re not entirely sure what this is about ourselves. It’s a phrase Nokia staff have been dropping into conversations, as well as having it printed on their funky shirts at GDC.”

Indeed, the phrase was on the shirt Anssi Vanjokji wore during his keynote address, as well as printed in the Nokia brochure packed into every GDC bag. 

A mysterious source has emailed me some pictures to share with you, along with some additional information I will disclose in due course. Click the pix below for detail on the brochure and “funky shirts. ”

My source asserts that For the Love of Gaming and Project White Rock are related. This was confirmed by some media reports, such as Evergeek. Let’s pick up the story there:

“[Project White Rock] is cross-platform, it’s multi-platform, it’s N-Gage, it’s PC, it’s the amazing RedLynx; the kimono is opening a little bit today. We do it all for the love of gaming.

“If you doubt the gamer’s cred or sincerity, here’s a little self-check, perhaps a humbling one: Test your own for-the-love-of-gaming quotient at www.fortheloveofgaming.com. Don’t blame me if you can’t get the music out of your head.”

Ah hah! So For the Love of Gaming points to a quiz. A tough quiz! For the record, I scored 13 points, but my score has been bumped off the board. I guess I have something to do this weekend. :)  

But it seems there’s more to this story. Here’s Zedge from Zedge.net, who goes a little deeper down the rabbit hole:

“So there I was, minding my own business, at the Nokia booth, playing one of their new N-Gage games… when I got a tap on the shoulder by a friendly PR rep. She asked me if I would want to be part of an ‘experiment’ and I responded with, sure, why the hell not.”

He describes how he was ushered into a private room with a mysterious figure who questioned him about ‘Project White Rock’. He was then given the For the Love of Gaming quiz, but scored enough points to gain a little more information.

Zedge was then handed a mysterious vial with a white USB stick inside. He describes what happened next:

“I was told to immediately put it away and not show it to anyone. How mysterious! I was then told to check out the contents in private and to await further instructions. How clandestine!”

He then concludes with a picture of the mysterious vial:

He hasn’t been heard from since!

My source was unable to provide one of the mysterious vials, and in fact immediately broke the connection when I asked for one. I didn’t even get a chance to ask for one of the funky t-shirts. Maybe someone can find out what is on the memory card in the vial, and learn a little more about Project White Rock that way.

Anyone have any ideas on this one?

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!