Microsoft closing Age Community
Age Community was the excellent online community started 8 years ago by Ensemble Studios back in 2005. The site was set up as the official community website for Age of Empires so that fans could enjoy all Age content in one single place. News, forums, statistics, ladders, account tools and patches were all available on one single website aptly named Age Community. So how did it all go wrong? Read more
Tony Goodman live on Reddit “Ask me anything” right now!
Tony Goodman is now speaking live on his Reddit “Ask me anything”. Come and join in and pose your questions to the man who started it all!
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1j64tv/im_tony_goodmanfounder_of_ensemble_studios_age_of/
Tony Goodman to take part in Reddit – Ask Me Anything!
Great news of all Ensemble, Robot and PeopleFun fans – the man behind it all is due to host an Ask Me Anything (AMA) next Saturday! This will be your chance to pose your questions to the man at the top! From Age of Empires to Word Chums, anything goes in the AMA!
It’ll all be kicking off next Saturday 27th July at 1PM CST. Or 8pm UK time! PeopleFun and Remember ES will be posting links to the Reddit URL just before the start time. There is no better time than now to be following @PeopleFun and @Remember_ES on Twitter!
Be sure to think hard about your burning questions and Remember ES will see you there!
Age of Empires 2 HD announced!
Microsoft Studios have today announced that an HD edition of Age of Empires 2 is in the works. This may not come as a surprise to many who noticed that the Age of Empires Online website has featured articles and blogs about Age of Empires 2 recently *cough* Retro Sunday *cough*. With Ensemble Studios sadly closed many fans will be wondering who is developing this title. Perhaps one of the studios to form out of Ensemble? Well, no, not so I’m afraid. Microsoft Studios are working with Hidden Path Entertainment (developers of Counter Strike). That said, there is at least one Ensemble staffer on board – Mark Terrano was Lead Game Designer at Ensemble Studios during Age 2’s development. He now works as Design Director and Chief Creative Office at Hidden Path. Read more
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. Read more
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! Read more
About Windstorm Studios & Dusty Monk
With Atomic City adventures launching in under a week, Windstorm sole employee has taken to his company webpage to describe the journey taken so far to bring Atomic City to market. Dusty Monk had previously worked at Ensemble Studios since 2000 where he first worked on Age of Empires 2, The Conquerors. Before Ensemble Dusty worked at Midway on games like the incredibly popular Hydro Thunder. Read more
Charles Tinney begins Age of Empires Online animation blogs
Charles Tinney an animator at the late Ensemble Studios who worked on Halo Wars has recently started a blog about his awesome animation work with Age of Empires Online. Charles or “chazbot” Tinney has been taking care of most of the animation on AOE-O while the game was developed at Robot Entertainment.
My initial role, once the art style was finalized, was to concept and visualize the animation style that best complimented the game’s art direction. It was great pulling reference from Looney Tunes and old Disney shorts. Through animation reference, exploration, pushing, pulling, trial, error, I eventually hit a style that was wacky and exaggerated in some circumstances, and kind of an overly animated subtlety for most cases; both with an overall defined timing and spacing that melded the extreme and subtle together
Halo Wars beat MGS sales targets and could work on Kinect says Frank O’Connor
Halo Wars has recently cropped up in conversation between Computer and Video Games and 343 Industries creative director Frank O’ Connor. Frank talks about Halo Wars as being “a huge success” and rightly so as he also revealed that the Ensemble Studios developed game “beat our sales forecasts, so it was a bigger success than we expected” and that:
“It was a big critical success and it’s still the number one selling RTS on consoles this generation. In that regard it was a huge success but is the will to do a sequel there? Who knows. We could do something that works on Kinect, for example. There’s no will against it but we’re not working on it right now.” Read more
Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games talks to Venture Beat about Age Online
Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games who have recently took over the Age of Empires Online development from Robot Entertainment has given an interesting 6 minute interview to Venture Beat on his thoughts regarding Age Online. Chris Taylor re-affirms the community that his studio are excited about the game and post release content. There will be a number of booster packs post launch including vanity packs to jazz up capital cities and packs to unlock premium civilizations. Check out the video interview below: Read more
