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Line Rider 2 game ditches simple for slick

June 11th, 2008, 2:01 pm by

UnboundFor fans of the web-based sketch game Line Rider, the new version is much slicker than its creator may have intended. It’s also obviously coming out soon, based on the disc full of art, a slick new logo and a very cool demo movie. There is even the box art for the Nintendo Wii and DS versions of the game.

The game has won millions of fans, a few imitators and awards. Created by Bostjan Cadez as an art-school project, Line Rider is simple: Draw a few lines on the screen, press play and watch as a stick-figure “Bosh” rides the lines on his bobsled. The original game had no eraser — so whatever you only had one chance to get the lines perfect. The popular web game has attracted millions of players around the world and, most recently, a McDonald’s commercial.
Line Rider for Nintendo’s Wii

I interviewed Bostjan in December 2006. Game developer inXile Entertainment in Newport Beach had just bought the rights to turn the animation into a game and Bostjan was in town from native Slovenia for a few months.

At the time, he considered his invention “a toy,” but one that encouraged people to make a story out of it.

“The eraser is missing on purpose. It was part of the concept. I wanted it to be, in a way, like life. If you make a mistake, it’s there. You can’t just erase it,” he said.

The new versions of the game for the Wii and DS will be so much more when released this summer.

Details on how this game will work on the Wii weren’t provided. Will I use the controller as my pen? Will the new Wii balance board be used as a sled?

But there is information on the new challenges of the game. According to Line Rider’s media folks, a story has been added to the game:

“Line Rider 2: Unbound” follows the sled-stealing scumbag Chaz, who is up to no good and only you, as the clever and cunning Bosh, can defeat him. For Bosh to save his true love Bailey, players must complete tracks in over 40 mind-bending puzzles created by the #1 Line Rider player in the world, TechDawg.”

Everything is slick about the new Line Rider game — from its new logo to a heftier Bosh, joined by the two new characters Bailey and Chaz, pictured below:

Meet Bailey, the female sledder in ‘Line Rider 2: Unbound’ Meet Chazz, the mischievious-looking dude in “Line Rider 2: Unbound” The new and improved (?) Bostjan for ‘Line Rider 2: Unbound’

I kind of liked the simpler Bosh more:

What about you? Take the Line Rider poll:

Which Line Rider sledder do you prefer?
View Results

Check out the video:

Line Rider 2 Unbound

More on Line Rider:

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The Sims goes bargain hunting at Ikea

May 15th, 2008, 6:00 am by

The Sims meets IkeaLast year, it was H&M.

This year, it’s Ikea.

Announced today, the Swedish retailer of inexpensive furniture and home furnishings is the latest company to open shop in The Sims, the extremely popular computer game where people play house and make sure their virtual characters are fed, rested and regular.

The Sims 2 “Ikea Home Stuff” software pack includes all those unpronounceable names, like the VIKA HYTTAN table, the HELMER drawer unit and, can’t forget, the LACK zig-zag shelf system. Some screen shots of the game, gratis Electronic Arts, which publishes the game (click for larger images):

The Sims meets Ikea The Sims meets Ikea

Last year, The Sims added clothing from Swedish fashion shop H&M, which was a huge hit online and offline. When I interviewed The Sims president, Nancy Smith, last month, she mentioned that as part of the H&M promotion, they organized The Sims 2 H&M runway event online with clothing designed by fans. Broadcast on Yahoo, footage ran for six weeks and attracted 50 million views. More big news about this partnership is expected this summer.

However, there’s no mention if the Ikea/Sims partnership will continue to collaborate outside of the game.

Ikea Stuff goes on sale for $19.99 on June 23 in North America, June 27 in Europe and June 20 across the Asia-Pacific regions.

Related stories:

The Sims Carnival: Design your own game for free
OCRegister, April 2008: OC native is head of The Sims

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Design your own game for free

April 15th, 2008, 9:25 am by

Create your own games with Sims CarnivalWhile working on a story about Nancy Smith, president of EA’s super-popular The Sims games, I learned about a new site in the works: Sims Carnival. Just as Sims players can create and customize anything from fashion to furniture, the new Carnival site will let people create games.

Although it’s in a closed beta, a big green button on the site invites anyone to sign up and “become part of The Sims Carnival community.”

Dreaming up games sounds like fun but oh so complicated, especially for people like me with no programming experience. Carnival has managed to simplify the process. The company invited me into its beta test so I’ve been playing around with game creation for a few hours. Just follow the step-by-step wizard to “create” a game. Choose what type of game you want to build — shooter, racing, action and puzzle — and then add features like time limit, amount of ammunition, speed, etc.

Create your own games with Sims Carnival

The site also offers a downloadable game creator kit. This allows users to customize what actions happen if, for example, players hit the space bar or an object collides with another object. You can use the free art and sound effects or add your own. With the kit, you can also download other creator’s games and see how they did it.

I don’t know a thing about programming a real game, but I created a game, which I deleted because it was lame. I want to do better. Perhaps I will revisit the site and develop my own game. One expected caveat: the game can only be played on the site. (Hopefully, you don’t give up all rights to the game if you happen to create the next Tetris.) It’d also be nice if they let you embed the game into your site/blog. Is that even possible? Sims Carnival is slated to launch “in the next few months,” the company told me.

Design your own gamesIn the meantime, if you have a hankering for some easy-to-use game creation tools, Sploder.com is another simple, web-based game creator site. Also check out this list of software for non-programmers. If you have others to share, please do. I’d like to check them out myself with all the extra time I have …

Posted in: news • • • • • • • • | 1 Comment »

WoW developer’s dad hooked on World of Warcraft

March 13th, 2008, 1:03 pm by

One expects a World of Warcraft developer to play the game quite a bit. But what about the dad of one of those developers?

Such is the case with J. Allen Brack (in image by Kevin Sullivan, at right), senior producer of World of Warcraft. As we sat down with Brack during the first press tour of the company’s new headquarters, he admitted that his dad is hooked.

When Brack started working at Blizzard two and half years ago his dad asked about the game. On a Saturday, Brack showed his dad the land of Azeroth.

“He’d never played a video game,” Brack said. “He had no clue on how to move or control the camera.”

It started with Brack showing his dad how to walk, control the camera and do other basic tasks. By the end of that first day, his dad’s mage character was at level 2.

“From that humble beginning, he sort of took off,” Brack said.

Now, Brack says his father’s mage has is at Level 70 and the father-son duo play together in the same unnamed guild. In two and a half years, his dad has played over 190 days (24 hours each) as his main mage character — an average of five hours per day.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Cost of Blizzard staff, development hits Vivendi expenses

March 4th, 2008, 5:20 pm by

Blizzard is still turning high profits on World of Warcraft for parent company Vivendi, but the latest revenues statement shows Blizzard is paying more right now to keep its current employees and to develop the Wrath of the Lich King and StarCraft II.

In Vivendi’s 2007 earnings released, Vivendi CEO Jean-Bernard Levy says that the company’s expenses increased because of Blizzard.

Levy said that Blizzard’s “higher compensation costs related to retention plans and by the current development of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King and of StarCraft II” meant higher expenses for the company. No specific figures for Blizzard’s expenses were given.

After leaving Blizzard, some workers went on on to create their own gaming companies — including Carbine Studios and Red 5 Studios, both in Orange County.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • • • • | Comments Off

Ezra update: Still recovering, playing World of Warcraft

February 29th, 2008, 10:15 am by

**See Latest UPDATES below in links area **

**UPDATE: June 15, 2008: Warcraft fan’s cancer spreads but family remains upbeat **

Eleven-year-old Ezra Chatterton (or to WoW players, ePhoenix) became famous last spring after the Make A Wish Foundation offered to grant his wish to design characters for his favorite game, the World of Warcraft.

The Riverside fifth-grader was diagnosed with a metastatic brain cancer and his father, Micah, wrote to update us on his condition which is improving but still plagued by cancer.

The good news is that Ezra’s most recent MRI results surprised his doctors and Micah with 98 percent shrinkage of the primary brain tumor and similar reduction in the other smaller metastases in his brain and spine. Also, Micah says that Ezra has glasses, his first pair, that offset the damage to his optic nerve. That, Micah says, means that Ezra has been able to “get back to reading and playing WOW (rather than ordering me to go there, kill that, farm those, etc.),” along with watching Lakers games.

Ezra’s Old Rancher character for World of Warcraft

Still, Ezra is back in the hospital. Micah says it’s for an infection that he hopes is something mild. Also, Ezra is still undergoing chemotherapy — treatment that every day has a new effect, whether its chronic nosebleeds, nausea, seizure activity in his brain, or just plain exhaustion.

Micah says that, “During the darker days of a chemotherapy round, it’s difficult to see how far his recovery has actually come. The treatment has also left him open to various infections I’d never heard of, like pancreatitis, which are a nightmare.”

The treatment, Micah says, is a long, slow battle and Micah is still a long way away from going back to school. Still, Micah took the time to thank others for support during Ezra’s journey:

“I’d like to take this opportunity again to thank everyone who has responded to Ezra’s story, both in the World of Warcraft community and out of it, as well as those who have kept us in their thoughts and prayers. Your good will has been a miraculous comfort to us. I believe in my heart that all of you have had a hand in Ezra’s recovery, miraculous as it is to this point. Thank you so much for all the love you’ve shown us. It would have been so much more difficult for Ezra to get through this disease without you.”

The Ezra Chatterton archive:
**Update** Ezra Chatterton passed away on Oct. 20, 2008. Read his father’s tribute HERE.

* Aug. 21, 2008: Ezra Update: WoW fan with cancer suffers stroke
* June 15, 2008:  WoW fan’s cancer spreads but family remains upbeat
*Feb. 29, 2008: Ezra update: Still recovering, playing World of Warcraft
* Sept. 28, 2007: Ezra Update: Warcraft fan has ups and downs
* July 18, 2007: Ezra update: Warcraft fan with cancer turns 11
* June 13, 2007: UPDATE: Condition of Warcraft fan with cancer improves
* May 31, 2007, Big screen for Ezra?
* May 25, 2007: Fund for Warcraft fan with cancer set up
* May 23, 2007: Gamers show their support for Ezra
* May 22, 2007: Images of Ezra’s WoW creations, thanks to Blizzard developers
* May 22, 2007: The original story and slideshow:Blizzard makes WoW wish virtual

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • | 10 Comments »

World of Warcraft $75,000 contest starts in April

February 15th, 2008, 12:31 pm by

Many World of Warcraft players would dream of being able to just sit around and play the game for a whole year. A life free of strifearenatourney from a job with only worries of how to finish quests and level up.

That’s a possibility if a player is good enough at WoW, with a new tournament announced today. The grand prize is $75,000 – which just also happens to be just over the $73,895 average Orange County household income.

The Irvine company, Blizzard Entertainment, unveiled today plans for a new type of tournament competition using the in-game Arena System. Tournaments will take place in special realms that allow competitors to instantly create level-70 characters with epic equipment, placing the focus on tactics and execution rather than normal adventuring. “We’re pleased to expand World of Warcraft’s tournament options for players who want to focus mainly on the competitive aspect of the game,”said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment.

According to Blizzard:

  • The tournaments are scheduled to start in April with two rounds of online qualifiers in Europe, South Korea, North America, and the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau.
  • Each qualifier round will have a per-competitor entry fee — €15/£12 in Europe; 20,000 won in South Korea; $20 in North America; and NT$450 in the regions of Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau — and will run for six weeks. During this time, teams will play 3-vs.-3 matches on the tournament realm in their region, with the top four teams from each round advancing to the regional finals to compete for more than $27,000 in cash prizes.
  • Winners from each region will then be invited to a global championship event to compete for $120,000 in cash prizes, including a $75,000 grand prize.

The site is not yet set up so you can’t register yet. But, you can watch this Blizzard page for more details as made available.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • WoW • • • • • • | 2 Comments »

Blizzard’s fourth invitational set for Paris

February 11th, 2008, 5:09 pm by

blizzardinvitational

Irvine’s Blizzard Entertainment announced today that its fourth Worldwide Invitational will be held June 28-29 in Paris, the company’s first in Europe.

The two-day event brings together the company and gamers for discussions and includes artist and developer signings, a silent auction, a musical performance and competitions between some of the world’s top gamers on StarCraft and Warcraft III.

To attend, tickets must be bought in advance on the invitational Web site. Tickets are limited and will go on sale in the next few weeks on a first-come, first-serve basis until sold out. There is a five-ticket limit per household. The ticket cost has not yet been disclosed.

“We look forward to bringing the Blizzard Worldwide Invitational to Europe for the first time and sharing our latest news with players there,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO and cofounder of Blizzard Entertainment. “In addition to the great tournament gaming that will be taking place at the event, we’re planning an entertaining show for all attendees.”

The invitational will be held in Hall 5 of the Porte de Versailles Exposition Center in Paris. Gamers 16 years or older are eligible to go, but younger gamers can go if accompanied by a parent, guardian or responsible adult.

Posted in: Blizzard • Blizzard/Warcraft/Star Craft • • • • | Comments Off

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