WORLDVIEW | ALPHA
FOR THE LATEST NEWS... HEAD TO WWW.DEVELOP-ONLINE.NET Our online resource features news, features, analysis and commentary posted daily, and is avaulable via the web, mobile, RSS and daily email and news alert blasts.
BLIZZARD’S UNVEILS STARCRAFT II EDITOR Blizzard wowed attendees at the fourth annual BlizzCon event by showcasing its powerful and versatile StarCraft II editor. During a panel discussion at the event, StarCraft II lead designer Dustin Browder revealed footage of three separate custom games built using the editor. One was a real-time-strategy game, another a third-person action romp and the last an Ikarugainspired 2D shooter. Browder revealed mouse control will soon be implemented in the engine, suggesting that modders could even piece together an FPS using the editor. He said the demonstrations showed just “the tip of the iceberg” of what the editor can produce. Blizzard apparently hopes that modders will craft some arresting custom maps and new games using the tool, as each creation can be sold through an official marketplace. “Imagine what could happen if you could hire a small dev team and use StarCraft II almost as an engine,” said Rob Pardo, VP of game design at Blizzard. “This is an opportunity for modders to share in the rewards of our success.” www.blizzard.com
It is hoped that this new policy will convince smaller developers there is more opportunity to turn a profit on the service. www.nintendo.co.uk
saying it had been offered “a bucket of money” to port an iPhone product to Zune. www.zune.com GERMANY
UNITED KINGDOM
UK INDIE TUNA WINS £30K REGIONAL GRANT UK-based indie outfit Tuna has become the newest beneficiary of a regional ‘digital business investment’ fund. Tuna will receive a £30,000 grant to aid development of the studio’s newest title, Cletus Clay. The funds come via Game Republic, the trade association for the games sector in Yorkshire and Humber. “As a Sheffield-based company, it’s great that we can be supported locally by organisations such as Game Republic,” said Alex Amsel, Tuna managing director. www.tunatech.com UNITED STATES
MICROSOFT COURTING IPHONE DEVS FOR ZUNE HD Microsoft revealed aggressive pricing for its upcoming Zune HD device last week, with plans to sell it for $219.99 - less than the price of an iPod touch. It also seems the company is also planning to take on Apple in the mobile Apps space, by enticing developers to convert their iPhone apps to run on new Zunes. That’s according to tech blog Daring Fireball, which quotes an iPhone studio as DEVELOP-ONLINE.NET
GAMESCOM SCORES A QUARTER OF A MILLION Around 245,000 attendees visited this year’s Gamescom event in Cologne, organiser Koelnmesse has announced. The sizeable show, which opened its doors to the public as well as the games industry, saw 458 exhibiting companies come from 31 different countries. “The gamescom premiere ran splendidly” said Koelnmesse MD Oliver Kuhrt. Next year’s Gamescom event will take place from August 18th to 22nd. www.gamescom-cologne.com UNITED STATES
HALO LEAD DEV SCORES $29M FOR TOY PROJECT Washington-based start-up Smith & Tinker has won around $29m in VC funding for its new range of games and toys based on its emerging Pokémon-esque online card-battle game Nanovor. The company will offer a $49 handheld gadget that allows players to battle each other and upload their results to a PC via USB. Smith & Tinker was founded in 2007 by Jordan Weisman, who was the lead designer of the first Halo project. www.smithandtinker.com
Giving a DAM: Achievements This month, Ben Board takes a look at how to design for optimal Achievements…
ACHIEVEMENTS ARE A CURRENCY of accomplishment. They allow the developer to craft challenges and quantify the skill required to meet them, while a player’s prowess across all the titles in their collection is flaunted with one unified measure: their Gamerscore. Achievements are reinvigorating the way people play, and they are helping developers understand how players are experiencing their game. Boxed Xbox 360 or Games for Windows LIVE titles are allowed to hand out up to 50 Achievements for 1000 Gamerscore, while XBLA releases must give out 12 for 200G – both of which are extendable with paid DLC. When designing your achievements, consider and target different player types, like those Richard Bartle once suggested (Bing it!). Reward Killers for hardcore achievement, such as reaching 100 kills—but not ‘Best in the World’, which few can ever attain. Socialisers value communal triumphs: my favourite, ‘Play against someone who already has this Achievement’. Reward Explorers who seek out different corners of your game experience, and Achievers for making good progress through its narrative. And as you grant Achievements, feel free to include your own game goodies at the same time. Players won’t thank you if you reward the loss of matches, or other negative results, because they value a clean sheet; and pathologically repetitive tasks can grate. Achievements can be marked secret, too, or designed to artificially extend play time, but beware: their appeal is very limited, as is that of games that don’t schedule their rewards evenly. But humour works – I’d happily spend an evening trying to get the goalie to score. In the docs, we suggest some Achievement categories: Carrot, Mode Exploration, Social, Hidden Treasure, Grinder, Mission Impossible, Trophy, and Scarlet Letter. Perhaps they’ll inspire you. Used effectively, Xbox 360 and GFWL Achievements help your game live longer in players’ consoles and memories. Registered developers can find much more in the Achievements whitepaper and the Live Meeting presentation on XDS – or contact your DAM (if you don’t know who that is, ask gamesrep@microsoft.com). Ben Board is a European developer account manager at Microsoft. He welcomes registered developers to contact him at eudam@microsoft.com. SEPTEMBER 2009 | 11