GRL Games launches new blog – “Why a card game?”
Have you been wondering why Graeme Devine the man behind games like Quake, Doom 3 and Halo Wars went on to make a card game as his second game under his recently launched GRL games venture? Full Deck Solitaire recently became the best selling card based game on the Mac App Store and can now be purchased for free instead of the original $0.99 launch price. Graeme notes on his new blog: Read more
Age of Empires Online development blog – “The #1 Thing You Need to Know About Age of Empires Online”
Ian Vogel the design lead at Microsoft Games Studios has posted a blog on the Ageofempiresonline.com website. The blog post goes into detail about the business model behind the game explaining the content which will be available in both the free and premium versions of the game. The blog post also explains some of the extra add on “booster packs” like the “Vanity packs” which allow users to get access to more tools to develop interesting and exciting looking home cities. Below is an example of a maze created by beta tester Solartide: Read more
Rogan on route to Remember ES!
RadioKenny of the Age of Empires Online forums recently came up with a genuis idea to send a small action figure around the world and at each stop members of the AOE-O community will sign their names into passport book before posting it off to the next fan. The action figure is a perfect testament to Age of Empires, a knight called Rogan. Here is Rogan at his first stop in Dallas, Texas with Radio Kenny: Read more
Graeme Devine describes the past and present game industry
Graeme Devine has recently given a presentation to the Baskin Engineering School in Santa Cruz, where he now resides talking about the past and present state of the gaming industry. Graeme describes the previous generation of the gaming industry as “dead” and that the industry is moving forward into new business models. Stepping away from the “four year dev cycles, massive teams and publisher budgets” and moving towards smaller teams, indie development and “creation games”. Graeme kicked off his presentation with a mention to his time at Ensemble Studios working on Halo Wars. Ensemble had a 120 strong team working on the Halo Wars project (although there were other projects in development along side). Graeme made note that 120 is alot of people to work on a game and questions whether such a team size is sustainable. Read more
GRL Games announces “Full Deck Solitaire” on the Mac App Store
Graeme Devine’s GRL Games has announced that its second game following Clandestiny has been published to the Mac Store. Full Deck Solitaire is just like your traditional Solitaire, but with a whole lot more – 22 different variations of Solitaire infact! This will be a perfect game for anyone who loves Solitaire on the Mac OS X platform. The game also sports a friendly UI and moving video backgrounds. Below is a screenshot and link to the App Store where the game can be downloaded for just $0.99. Read more
Bruce Shelley joins Zynga as consultant – also part of a keynote panel at D.I.C.E 2011
Just when you thought enough ex-Ensemblers have joined Zynga, a press release from the D.I.C.E Summit has revealed that Bruce Shelley is now acting as consultant for Zynga having recently finished a consulting role at UbiSoft studio, Blue Byte where he worked advising the team on the Settlers 7 game. It is currently not known what type of internal studio Bruce is working with at Zynga, however my guesses would be that he is working with Brian Reynolds on the FrontierVille game. Bruce had previously worked with Brian Reynolds at Microprose. Read more
Age of Empires Online – Egyptians revealed plus pricing model details
Alot of news has been floating around the internet today on various gaming websites such as IGN, Gamasutra and Joystiq reporting on the news that Microsoft has announced the Egyptians as a playable civilization in Age of Empires Online! This means that the Greeks and the Egyptians are the two civilisations announced so far for inclusion in Age of Empires Online. With this news comes a new trailer with a.. interesting ending plus a new graphic for AOE-O picturing the Greeks vs the Egyptians as below: Read more
“Rather large” Age of Empires Online announcement coming tonight!
Microsoft has announced on its Facebook and Twitter accounts that there is going to be a “rather large” announcement going out tonight about Age of Empires Online. Make sure you are in the loop about whats happening by following Age of Empires Online on Twitter and Facebook. The full facebook and twitter post reads as follows:
We’ll have a rather large announcement coming tonight! Keep your eyes peeled!
Slight ESO maintenance changes and downtime consultation
Just a quick note for all Age of Empires 3 players. Ryz0n the community manager at Microsoft who are now running the support for Ensemble Studios Online have announced the times for ESO maintenance is changing slightly. Previously On the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of each month, ESO underwent scheduled maintenance with Robot Entertainment. Going forward this maintenance will occur on Tuesdays between approximately 10AM PST (GMT -8) and 12PM PST.
There are some discussions about ways users can be better informed about this downtime. You can read about the downtime and the announcement plans over at Age Community:
http://forum.agecommunity.com/forums/thread/908610.aspx
Microsoft brings good tidings to 2011 with another wave of AOE-O beta invites
Good news if you are still in need of a beta invite for Age of Empires Online – CosyGOODkNIGHT on the Age of Empires Online forums has revealed that Microsoft plans to send out a new wave of invites over the next 24hrs. So keep an eye on your inbox’s you may strike lucky and get a chance to check out what your favorite Robot’s have been upto!
