Blog regular Morgan Ramsay is getting a lot of ink for the newly announced Entertainment Media Council. I had to tell him I was too busy to participate on any boards in formal fashion, but I think the goals are great — it’s worth checking out at their site.
Today’s nifty indie find: (Don’t) Save the Princess! is Chu-Chu Rocket meets platformer, sort of.
(By the way, has anyone remade Chu-Chu Rocket onto a more modern platform? If not, could someone get it onto XBLA, please? One of the best party games of all time.)
Not Possible IRL has a great interview about Blue Mars up, with tons of details on how they plan to work.
In a lot of ways Blue Mars looks like this generation’s try at the original There.com model, with some evolution. Themed zones based on corporate partners, lots of pro-only pathways for content but not UGC, pretty graphics and lots of friendly interface. It’s got great partnerships and visuals, so it’s worth keeping an eye on.
Mitch Wagner of InformationWeek & TechWeb TV came by, and the result is this video showing off a few worlds and talking about Metaplace in general. It’s a decent intro for those who don’t know much about it yet (which given how much I talk about it on this blog, I can’t quite fathom, but hey, you must exist).
Especially for Len, given the current discussions in the comment threads, check out the stage shown near the end. 🙂
Edit: looks like there’s a bug on their site which is pointing to the wrong video.
I’m going to at this Idea Exchange: Emerging Trends in Game Development virtual event in about an hour.
The Basics:
When: Friday, April 10th, 12:00PM PDT
Where: http://beta.metaplace.com/Interval/ or http://slurl.com/secondlife/Idea%20City/145/129/37
Topic: Emerging trends in game development.Format:
This event will be an informal group discussion loosely led by Raph Koster, Adri Haik, and myself. We will present some trend that was discussed at GDC, discuss our experience with the trend, how we see it playing out, how it impacts our work, etc, and we will take whatever opportunities we can to engage the audience and encourage group participation in the discussion.
Possible trends to discuss:
– Microcontent
– Social game development
– Free-to-play MMOs
– Engagement and retentionThis event will be held simultaneously in Metaplace and Second Life. I will be in both virtual worlds simultaneously, but chatting (via text) through Second Life. Raph will be chatting from Metaplace. Adri will be chatting from Second Life. Attendees will participate from both virtual worlds and will include both people working within the virtual world/gaming industries and consumers interested in emerging trends in game development. You are welcome to invite anyone you like.
