Building a game developing company from the ground up is no easy task and this is something that the guys at halfreal games have learnt. There is no tried and tested formula on how to build a successful gaming company that specialises in location based games. halfreal games, who are based in Berlin Germany have spent almost a year working on their up and coming game Target Earth. Their journey has been long and hard and along the way they ran into about every challenge that could be thrown at them. But they are on the last stretch of their journey and have already released an impressive looking game trailer and there are rumours of a playable demo being released soon.
But they still need help. They have created a campaign on Indiegogo, which for those of you who don’t know, is a crowd funding website and community. With their campaign they wish to cover the final costs of the last phase of the Target Earth development.
Even if you don’t personally contribute any money, you probably know someone who will. So please help them by spreading the word about their campaign, share it on your Facebook, send a tweet and ask people to retweet or spread the word on Googles newly redesigned Google+. Together we can help another geo-location game come to life.
I tried… I really tried. I ran through the city, collecting XM and bursting it. But even after a full week of playing Ingress I did not acquire a single portal. And now I am done with it.
In November we have already reported about Ingress, which is still in the closed beta. We were really excited to get a beta key and actually play the game, because it is a game made by Google. So it must be awesome or revolutionary are at least somehow great. We thought that with Google’s power in development and marketing it could become the first widely popular geosocial game. This expectation has vanished after one week of playing. Continue reading: «Playing Ingress…»
A new player has entered the market of geosocial games and it does with a big bang. On the striking date of 12/12/2012 the Berlin-based start-up Eellusion published their geosocial game eevoo. The marketing obviously was better then the technical infrastructure, so the servers have crashed due to the unexpected high number of players in the first hours after the launch.
But now it is running. And it gives a good impression about how our game genre could evolve in the near future. But let’s start from the beginning:
Eevoo is about an alternative dimension that someone is connected with our world. Your smartphone becomes a device to link this two different dimensions. This is achieved with augmented reality elements. After starting the game and entering your username and password the game you were told the story. I liked the fact that the story tries to connect the virtual world with the real world in a way that gives you the feeling of being in both worlds at a time while playing. I you have an easy imagination you will like it too. Otherwise, well… it does not hurt either. After the intro the tutorial starts and explains you the basic functionalities. Then you are released to the world of eevoo, which is basically your current location. So far, so typical for a geosocial game. Continue reading: «eevoo – next step…»
Jon Jordan from pocketgamer.com made an interesting series of interviews with the leading developers of location based games. He asked them the same set of questions and their answers are covering a wide range of possible future scenarios. Most interesting are the answers to the following question:
Do you think location-based gaming is a good niche or does it still have the potential to be truly mass market?
Rescue Rush is one more location based game extending the list of upcoming games from the game developer and publisher Red Robot. In that list, we can count Life is Magic, the location based game with 3D graphics which were suppose to be released last fall but which apparently is still in the development phase. Let’s Defend the other announced geosocial game is also not yet available, although Red Robot mentioned on its website 7weeks ago or more concerning the game: “coming soon to iOS and Android”. Even a description for the game is not available. Fact which let believe that we are going to wait even longer before the game is being released.
Back to Rescue Rush, the new “soon coming game” which in reality would better fit to a “Coming but not soon coming game”. The story of Rescue Rush is that of a gigantic cat called Columbus which size was multiplied by 100 prior to some experimental tests. Colubus has escaped from an experimental lab where evil scientist submit animals to tests with disastrous consequences for the animals and Columbus has decided to rescue the other animals from the lab. Your mission is to help him.
Features announced for the game are worldwide interaction with landmarks, great visuals, location based leader board and more than a million plying level. Just hope we will live to see the game published.
2. Location based games always incorporate geographic maps.
3. The gameplay gets the current location of the players. Interact with you surrounding.
4. Location based games are mostly designed to be played on Smartphones. Consoles and computers are not suitable devices for this type of games.
5. Location based games are very social and are also called geo-social games.
6. They are not popular. People confuse them with location based services and network such as Foursquare, Gowalla and SCVNGR.
7. Most location based games on the market are very primitive and crash all the time. The game design as well as the graphics can not compete with that of games out there.
8. It is a Start-up thing.
9. It is a nerd type of game.
10. location based games are mostly free to download.
But now it is running. And it gives a good impression about how our game genre could evolve in the near future. But let’s start from the beginning:
