Monster Crew is now live on the App Store!
Hot on the heels of spooky Halloween, Bonus XP have now launched their first action packed game on iOS – Monster Crew! A perfect game for the season, Monster Crew launches with its first episode which sees Frankie complete his collection of cards, only for them to be accidentally sold in garage sale by the typical local crazy scientist. In the first episode Frankie takes charge to get his cards back and travels to the scientists castle where things end up not going quite to plan… Frankie ends up being turned into Frankenstein! Here beings Monster Crews strategy-platforming gameplay as Frankie sets about recovering his cards from the many levels in the castle.
“Monster Crew is now available to download and play for free,” said Dave Pottinger, BonusXP’s CEO. “We’re already working on exciting new features to add to the franchises as well as updating our website with tips and tricks that will let players master the deep system of upgrades and power-ups. When the iPad Mini launches tomorrow, we know Monster Crew will be a must-download title out of the box.”
Monster Crew is free to play and available for download right now for iOS devices from the App Store? So what are you waiting for? Head over to the App Store and check it our now!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/monster-crew/id561545477?ls=1&mt=8
Coming soon from BonusXP – Monster Crew!
Hot on the heels of PeopleFun the latest mobile video game studio to form from Ex Ensemble talent is “BonusXP” formed by Dave Pottinger, John Evanson and Jason Sallenbach all of whom are Ex Ensembler’s. A little while ago they lifted the lid on their first soon to be launched mobile title “Monster Crew”. The game is a strategic platformer game featuring combat and RPG elements. The story resolves around the young “Frankie” a boy who enjoys playing his “Monster Crew” card game. After having collecting numerous cards his collection is unfortunately sold by accident after a yard / car boot sale. Keen to get his cards back Frankie sets out on a mission to recover them. Turns out his cards are held by a mad scientist in a creepy castle. After setting about trying to get his cards back Frankie accidentally presses a button in the castle which turns him into Frankenstine, and here the adventure begins!
Trailer
BonusXP have put together an excellent trailer for the game which sums up the story and demonstrates some of the gameplay. Check it out below!
As can be seen the game features youthful gameplay suited to a wide audience. There is also a good element of strategy that would would expect from this Ex Ensemble minds. There is a comprehensive tech tree which allows players to spec up their character and purchase upgrades. The challenges that lay ahead may best be solved with certain combinations of the tech tree. Numerous enemies await players including full size battles bringing traditional console platform gaming onto mobile devices.
Speaking of mobile devices, Monster Crew is launching soon on iOS devices with support for Android coming down the road.
Episodic gameplay – Monster Crew will feature episodic gameplay which means the game will be released with various “episodes” which are unlockable overtime. These episodes are in no way short, with the first episode offering around 15 hours of gameplay, not to mention the re-playability options. The game will be free to play with the option of spending money in game on items.
Screenshots
Be on the look out for this brand new game in the App Store soon! We’ll update you as soon as its available!
Kenny’s Word Chums review – there’s no going back!
When I was preparing this review for Word Chums, it hit me. Word Chums is like one of the following analogies, so pick the one that applies to you depending upon your age. It’s like you went from cassettes to CD’s or home phone landlines to a cell phone or dial-up internet to broadband. When I went from Words With Friends and other word games to Word Chums there was no going back. When I first installed Word Chums I immediately noticed some things that may seem trivial when you see them on a press release or someone tells you about them. But upon further inspection there are major changes to the genre of the game. And by major I mean they improve the experience by one hundred percent. The guys over at PeopleFun took what annoyed me about other word games and they fixed them. And some of them I didn’t even know that I disliked until I played Word Chums.
First of all I can verify if a word is real before I submit it. And I was really growing tired of being rejected over and over when trying to submit a word for verification. Word Chums automatically turns the word green and gives you a point value called a scoring badge and you can see how much it’s worth. Now I can spend my time finding the best word instead of being rejected all day… I don’t do well with rejection. They also made games for 2-4 players, head to head, 2v2 teams. You and your friends battling it out and pairing up with each other is a big improvement.
Part of it is also streamlined game play. And what I mean is I don’t have to go back to a menu and select a game and go to another menu and hit a button. There are fewer steps in getting to other games. I can simply take my thumb, swipe and go to the next game. This is a very streamlined interface. I didn’t realize how much it annoyed me for me to go back and pick and hit another menu and go pick another game. So adding streamlined game play and streamlined interface into the game makes it a hundred percent better for me.
There is a core gaming experience that revolves around some characters called the Chums and I really like them. They have fun gear that you can buy as you win games. You can get coins and use those coins and buy hats and canes and hairdos and all types of stuff. I didn’t know if I’d be into it but I like it actually. You see your friends’ characters change things and add glasses, add coats, all types of things inside the game to make it a more enjoyable experience. They have taken a fun feel that many other games have and they put it into a game that usually looks academic. Most word games have a tile placing academic look and academic feel to them. The people at PeopleFun have overcome this obstacle and actually took these two and merged them. They have merged the academic fun with the personalities of these Chums. Word Chums has also been a wonderful success at expanding my vocabulary. Now I can actually touch a word and it will tell me the definition of it. It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, but it really annoyed me when people played words that I didn’t think were actually words that are in the dictionary and I wanted to know what they meant. I would actually take my phone and Google it and look it up and try to figure out what the word meant. It was just annoying to me. Now with a single touch – Boom! I can touch the word and I know what it is because the built in dictionary shows what the words mean. Perfect.
They’ve also added hints so if you run into a problem you can use your hints to point you to a location of a higher point word. The good thing is that it doesn’t give you the highest word, it gives you a high point word and you can actually beat the hint word, which I think adds a great balance to the game because you don’t actually pay to win.
Word Chums has leader boards and you get experience points with each game played and you level up. They also have a ribbon system for the best word and best game of the week. That doesn’t seem like a big deal but I like that the leader board changes each week because I feel like I have a shot at redeeming myself when playing bad.
I didn’t like when games kept a continuous record of lifetime losses only. If I was losing to a friend and they were 74 wins to my 10, I didn’t think I was ever going to catch them. And so the new leader board gives me new challenges and another chance to beat them. So in short, there are weekly refreshing leader boards and ribbons making me go back in there to get revenge and beat my friends. So it has kind of a competitive game experience to it also.
In closing, Word Chums has taken all of the things I have disliked about different word games and they fixed them. And another thing, PeopleFun kept all the things that were great. I think they looked at these other games, they looked at the word games that people play and they said- These things don’t need to change, there are great mechanics, there are great things in the games that people love. Leave them alone. Now what do people dislike? And they fixed all the things I disliked.
So remember I warned you – Once you buy Word Chums there’s no going back.
Listen to the audio review:
Download from iTunes
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/word-chums-free/id517840944
By Kenny Newell
Kenny Newell interviews Tony Goodman. Ensemble Studios, Robot Entertainment and PeopleFun founder
Fantastic news for all Ensemble fans. Our expert audio interviewer Kenny Newell has managed to bag an absolutely superb interview with Tony Goodman, founder of Ensemble Studios. Tony was kind enough to invite Kenny into his house to talk about Ensemble and his newest venture, PeopleFun over dinner. The hour long interview takes fans right through Tony’s video gaming career starting right at the beginning when Tony first formed Ensemble Studios with close friends and colleagues from Ensemble Corp. This interview is an absolute must listen for all Ensemble fans where for perhaps indeed the first time you can listen to Tony first hand explain how the Ensemble journey began and his motivations. There is great insight into life at Ensemble and how the Age games came together. The Ensemble Studios acquisition by Microsoft is also discussed at length.
As we move through Ensemble’s highly successful history we learn about how Halo Wars came together and how the management of Microsoft lead to Halo Wars being a Halo game as opposed to its original incarnation headed up by Graeme Devine. Later we learn from Tony about the circumstances surrounding the studios closure and how things came to be with Robot Entertainment and Age of Empires Online. There are no assumptions or speculation here, with Kenny’s interview we learn about the full facts straight from the Studio Head himself. I wont go into it too much in text form, as you really need to listen to the whole interview to understand the circumstances fully.
Moving forward to present day Kenny quizzes Tony on his latest venture PeopleFun and that studios first brand new game “Word Chums“. If you can’t get enough from this interview about Word Chums then don’t worry as Kenny will also be presenting his audio Word Chums review too! The Word Chums review will be available here on Remember ES in just a few days time. You’re going to want to be checking back often and keeping a close eye on our Twitter feed thats for sure!
Now is the time to grab a nice drink and sit back, relax and tune into this brilliant audio interview by hitting the play button below.
Play now!
Great job Kenny!
Paul and David Bettner leave Zynga
Ex Ensembler’s Paul and David Bettner who set about forming the hugely successful mobile studio NewToy have confirmed that they have now left the mobile gaming giant, Zynga. Paul and David Bettner joined Zynga after NewToy was acquired in December 2010. Back then the brothers commented that joining Zynga made perfect sense as both parties “share the same dream of building a social treasure”. Since the acquisition the NewToy studio which was re-named “Zynga With Friends” have greatly expanded the “With Friends” series of games from the massively successful Words with Friends to including Hanging, Matching, and Gems with Friends.
There isnt much information on why the brothers decided to leave Zynga. It has been speculated that the brothers may have owned about 2.2% of Zynga a whole. Perhaps the troubling stock issues Zynga has been facing lately has had an impact on their decision to leave. Speaking to Venturebeat they only made note that they are excited about the future. Methinks we’ll be seeing another game from these great minds again in due course.
Check out the full article over at VentureBeat. Its going to be interesting to see whats next for the Bettners. Stay tuned!
http://venturebeat.com/2012/10/05/words-with-friends-co-creators-leave-zynga/
Hero Academy goes viral in China; a beacon of localization success.
Hero Academy fans may remember that back in late June this year Robot Entertainment announced that it was partnering with YoDo1, a Chinese video game studio, in order to bring Hero Academy to the mass Chinese market. Hero Academy has been available in China for a number of weeks now and the launch has been a great success. So much so that the YoDo1 localized version of Hero Academy made the Top 10 list in free games, and Top 25 iPhone apps overall in just 48 hours after going live on the App Store.
Localizing the game & servers
The results are very impressive and it is great news that Hero Academy is reaching a global audience. Robot Entertainment partnering with YoDo1 have really shown the industry the kind of results that can be achieved by localizing games for the Chinese market. Recently Henry Fong, CEO and founder of YoDo1 took part in an interview with Gamasutra to give us an insight to how we arrived at this point. There were a number of considerations and challenges that Robot Entertainment and YoDo 1 had to address to achieve this success. One of the key decisions was to provision the servers in China and have a separate Chinese version of the game rather than connecting players to the same USA based servers. This was an important consideration not only for technical reasons (connectivity from China to USA servers was slow) but also it was important to give Chinese players and experience they were familiar with. As Henry Fong tells Gamasutra:
As a multi-player turn-based game, Hero Academy needed a local server presence in Asia. Otherwise, it would take forever for Chinese players to find opponents, and cause long delays in between moves. On top of that, the Western version of Hero Academy has a lot of connectivity to Twitter and Facebook, so players can share content with their friends, and find fellow players on those social networks. Trouble is, neither Twitter nor Facebook are even accessible in China.
Robot and YoDo1 set about replacing the existing US based social network links (Facebook & Twitter) and replaced them with Chinese social network Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo. After all its no good having functionality to invite friends by Twitter if all the Chinese players are using Weibo. This move was certainly important to allow players to connect with friends in China.
A brand new exclusive team
In order to help entice the Chinese players a brand new team was created based on the Chinese equivalent of Middle Earth “Jiang Hu”. Think “Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon“. As Henry describes:
Hero Academy is full of elves, orcs, and other character types that Western gamers are totally familiar with, from Lord of the Rings and other classics. So what if we introduced a China themed heroic team to the game? We thought that this would certainly be a bigger draw to the Chinese gamer audience.
New marketing materials
The concerns that Chinese players wouldn’t be familiar with the Western style characters also centred around the need to create new marketing materials such as a new video trailer to promote the Chinese launch of the game. YoDo1 went about creating a brand new trailer unique to the Chinese market and the results are pretty impressive – check out the trailer below!
Its fantastic to see that the Chinese version of Hero Academy has had such great success. YoDo1 are continuing to work with Robot to add new content to the game. The Chinese launch of Hero Academy is clearly a beacon of success that says Western games with the right level of localization can make it big in China. Hero Academy is now at the forefront of this kind of game localization. Congratulations Robot and Yodo1!
Further reading
Check out the full article with Henry Fong and Gamasutra here:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/177767/How_Hero_Academy_went_big_in_China.php
PeopleFun’s first mobile game “Word Chums” launching tomorrow!
Tony Goodman’s recently announced new mobile studio “PeopleFun” are poised to launch their first game on the iTunes store tomorrow. As anticipated their first title will be “Word Chums”. So what is this all about I hear you ask? Well, the premise is that it is very similar to existing word games like Words with Friends. However, what makes this game stand out is that it is very visually unique. Colourful to say the least, Word Chums adopts typical Ensemble Studios design styles with rich and bright colour palettes to help engage players and make it a pleasure to play. Take a look at the screenshots below and you’ll see just what I mean – this game is bright!
But its not all about bright colours and playfulness, Word Chums brings a good layer of interactivity beyond just your typical Scrabble or cross word – weekly challenges help keep things fresh. There is also a fully featured multiplayer element including leaderboards, stats and challenges to satisfy both casual and more serious gamers. It’s certainly sounding like a fully featured launch title for PeopleFun!
The game is launching tomorrow (September 13th) on the iTunes store with a free, ad-supported version. I’m certainly looking forward to trying this new game out. See you online chums!
Screenshots
Highlights from PeopleFun
- INCREDIBLY STREAMLINED GAMEPLAY
Word Chums is a pleasure to play. See words validate instantly as you place letters and see the scoring badge automatically indicate word strength.- FAMILIAR CROSSWORD GAMEPLAY
Word Chums stays true to the classic word building gameplay you know and love.- EARN TOP CHUM STATUS
Earn experience points with each word played and level up to become King or Queen of the Chums. Show off your “wordly” prowess by climbing your way to the top of the weekly leaderboards.- TRULY SOCIAL
See how all your friends are doing from the friends list on the main screen. Experience a new level of collaborative fun by grabbing a teammate for a couples challenge.- SAY GOODBYE TO GETTING STUMPED
Just when you need it most…Hints can point you to the location of a better word.- SATISFIES THE SERIOUS GAMER
Word Chums has achievements, best-word challenges, leveling, player stats, leaderboards and much more. It’s a deep gaming experience for everyone that gamers can master.- LEARN A LITTLE
Expand your vocabulary as you quickly experiment with new letter combinations and instantly discover new words. Tap any word to see its definition.- SPECIAL FEATURES
Read more
Age of Empires Online – 1 year later by Matt321
August 16th has marked the one year anniversary for Age of Empires Online which was originally developed by Robot Entertainment before handing over the reigns to Gas Powered Games. Much has changed since Robot handed off on the project included complete changes to the business model. Many Ensemble fans will be interested to know just how this Age franchise title has developed into what we see today. Matt321 over at Robot Fans has written up an excellent article which describes how the game has grown over the last year.
If you havent had a chance to play Age of Empires Online recently, check out the article below to get up to speed on the latest development and I encourage you to take another look at the game!
http://www.robotentertainmentfans.com/2012/08/19/age-of-empires-online-1-year-later/
Orcs Must Die 2! – now live!
If you have been living under a rock lately then you will be wanting to get out and start heading down to the caves. The Orcs are here and they really have to die. Thats right folks, Orcs Must Die! 2 is now live on Steam! If you have pre-ordered the game you will have enjoyed a nice 10% off the list price – sweet! If you havent pre-ordered you can still purchase the game from the Steam store right now!
http://store.steampowered.com/app/201790/
Go forth War Mages and Sorceresses!
Two new ex-Ensemble studios form: BonusXP and PeopleFun. Word Chums expected as launch title (Part 1)
VentureBeat has reported this week on two new studios forming from Ensemble Studios veterans. The first studio to be announced was “PeopleFun” a new venture from one of the key founders and CEO of Ensemble Studios, Tony Goodman. The other announcement was also from one of Ensemble’s long serving employees, Dave Pottinger who lifted the lid off his new studio “BonusXP”. These new studios are both small studios focussing on mobile gaming and join the line of many other ex Ensemble formed studios to enter the mobile market including the very successful “NewToy” and “Bonfire Studios” who were acquired by Zynga. So lets take a look at these exciting new announcements in more detail!
PeopleFun
We’ll take PeopleFun first as they were the first of the new studios to be announced this week. This studio will be headed by ex Ensemble CEO Tony Goodman. Tony will be joined by John Boog-Scott, co-founder of Ensemble Studios and Angelo Laudon, employee number one at Ensemble Studios and lead programmer on the Age of Empires engine. The key focus of this new studio will be mobile games.
“The explosion of mobile platforms including iOS and Android is amazing, and the market that has opened up for game creators is absolutely massive,”
Says Tony Goodman in the PeopleFun press release.
“We watched the space for a while and then it hit a point where I said, we have to get into this market. From that point, we assembled a team of some of the best people in the industry and just a few short months later, we got the studio into full production of our first title.”
It seems that PeopleFun have been working on their first title already, perhaps for some time. Robot Entertainment’s management was reshuffled sometime in around August 2010 it is believed. It was at this point that Tony Goodman became a director at Robot and Patrick Hudson took the reins as CEO. In any event, Tony still remains a director at Robot Entertainment following this announcement, presumably in an advisory role.
In terms of the type of mobile games that PeopleFun is looking to target, in an interview with VentureBeat, Tony is somewhat specific on the type of games they are looking to pursue.
“We’d like to create character-driven games, like the Nintendo games that we grew up with”. “We never indulged our childish desires with Age of Empires.”
This combined with the preview image on their upcoming website may or may not give some clues to what they might be upto. It looks like childish characters could well be on the menu!
Word Chums
Remember ES highly suspects the first title from PeopleFun will be a word game called “Word Chums”. How similar this will be to games like Words or Hanging with Friends is unknown. However the title is certain to feature cartoony characters called “Chums” which may subsequently be used in other games.
There is currently no timescale when we can expect to here more about PeopleFun’s first title be it “Word Chums” or otherwise although the VentureBeat interview and press release does indicate the first title is already in beta and that its release is expected in 2012. This may turn into a public beta in due course, Remember ES will be keeping you updated on any developments.
PeopleFun will definitely be a studio to keep a good watch on – Tony Goodman has previously founded some incredibly successful studios with Ensemble and Robot, he is sure to achieve similar success with his new venture. We look forward to reporting more as more information is revealed on their upcoming mobile title! The full press release of this announcement can be found below.
Coming up in part 2…
In part 2 we’ll be dissecting BonusXP, the other new studio to be announced this week. Stay tuned!
PeopleFun press release:
RICHARDSON, Texas – July 17, 2012 – PeopleFun, a new game company focused on high-quality games for the mobile space and other emerging platforms, was announced today. After founding three previous companies, Ensemble Corporation, Ensemble Studios and Robot Entertainment, and participating in two high-profile exits, Tony Goodman, PeopleFun’s CEO is taking the covers off of the company that he has been quietly working on in the Dallas area since late last year. Known for creating, growing and managing world-class development teams, Goodman is announcing the new venture because the team’s first title is about to hit beta.
“The explosion of mobile platforms including iOS and Android is amazing, and the market that has opened up for game creators is absolutely massive,” said Tony Goodman, CEO of PeopleFun. “We watched the space for a while and then it hit a point where I said, we have to get into this market. From that point, we assembled a team of some of the best people in the industry and just a few short months later, we got the studio into full production of our first title.”
Other key members of the team include John Boog-Scott, co-founder of Ensemble Corporation and Ensemble Studios, Angelo Laudon, employee number one at Ensemble Studios and lead programmer on the Age of Empires engine, and Leon Campise, serial entrepreneur in the technology space. With proven skills on multiple platforms including mobile, the PeopleFun team is poised to deliver breakout titles for the core and mass-market audience.
Goodman continued, “We’ve got our first title almost to the beta stage already which is an accomplishment just keeping the lid on it this long.
This is a departure from the games we made at Ensemble and Robot in terms of scope and genre, but I think our games will appeal to the gamer inside of all of us and hope to play with our friends in the community in the coming weeks.”
PeopleFun is developing games that deliver multiple levels of entertainment.
Much like great movies which appeal to the mass audience, but also feature another level of entertainment for those that seek deeper engagement, PeopleFun is crafting its games with a multi-tier audience in mind.
Players interested in getting into the beta for PeopleFun’s games can express their interest by Liking PeopleFun on Facebook at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/PeopleFun/156777417761719
About PeopleFun
PeopleFun was founded in Dallas Texas in late 2011 by serial entrepreneur and games industry visionary Tony Goodman and a team of highly skilled and respected game creators. The company was formed to create and publish games that offer players compelling characters and worlds that offer new gameplay experiences that are just plain fun. PeopleFun is actively growing as it ramps up to release its first titles in 2012. For more information, please
visit: www.PeopleFun.com
