Ikariam - Simple Review

After playing Travian and pretty much enjoyed myself, it is only natural that I started looking for other city building games. One that caught my eyes was Ikariam. Ikariam is a real time city building games centred around Greek mytho.

I gave it a try, and the game is generally alright. The goal is not exactly clear, i.e. no particular objective except to grow the cities you own. Cities in Ikariam are grouped together on an island, like the picture shown below. Each island will have two particular resources, wood and another e.g. wine, sulphur, crystal. Players on the same island can help each other by upgrading these two available resources on the island, thus allowing for more of these resources to be harvested.

Within each city, there are empty plots where buildings could be sited. Initially the range of buildings is limited. There are some default plots for walls and harbour. After some 'research' in one of the 4 areas, buildings options (e.g. embassy) will appear. Buildings could be upgraded for better functionalities later. News and updates will result in one of the 4 advisors (the 4 faces on top of the screen) having a lighted background.

In Ikariam, resources can be traded easily or shipped among your settlements. If you clicked on the main townhall, a report is shown containing coins, happiness of the citizens, housing left... etc. It reminded me of SimCity somehow.

While gamers in Ikariam are generally cooperative, the existence of battle options mean players will get attacked. I haven't exactly see the benefits of attacking, except perhaps to loot the resources. Walls are useful to up the defence attributes of your troops. Various troops are available, e.g. slingers, archers... etc. Players need to upgrade their barracks level before troop options are available to be built. If the level is not high enough, the game will indicate that.

There are many other islands in this Ikariam world, which contain the default wood, as well as another resource. So players will colonise a few more settlements, partly to reap these other resources. Wine (and taverns) is useful to keep citizens happy, and thus allowing for bigger settlement. Sulphur allows for troops to be built (I don't understand the logic of this but oh well), and crystals can be used in research to improve the attributes of the troops. Stone blocks are needed to upgrade the wall and for higher level buildings.

One thing to note is that when players want to colonise more settlements, remember to send wood piles along with the ships. Once settlements are built, it will be ideal to build governor building soon to reduce corruption. The number of settlements allowed is tied to the level of the palace built in your capital. Also, when more settlements are built, the respective governor buildings have to be upgraded to reduce corruption.

Generally the game is not fast paced enough for my taste, and so after 3 settlements are built, I left the game. :p Give it a try and see how you like it.

Video Games Live - Full Concert Orchestra 19 June 09

The Video Games Live concert is going to reach Singapore shores in about 1 month's time! The music from World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy, Donkey Kong...etc will be played by a symphony orchestra on 19 June at the Indoor Stadium, 830pm (Friday)

Tickets are selling at $55, $70, $85, and $115, but those who are students will have a 10% discount for their own tickets. More details can be found at the Singapore Video Games Live website. Online sales can be done via the SISTIC outlet, and SISTIC added a $3 charge per ticket (ouch!).

Afternote: The Straits Times ran some articles about the event on 19th June itself, and here's two pictures of the articles.

Paid to Scan Porn at Facebook!

I read from Slashdot about a Newsweek article that there is actually a 'cyber patrol / porn cops' at Facebook! They do more than checks for 'graphically challenging content' and include protection against spam, phishing attacks, and investigating users' 'harassment' complaints, i.e. when you click 'report this' someone at Facebook actually investigates it. They also check names against a blacklist, e.g. Batman cannot be used as a user name.

It's quite an interesting job, they have even help police locate run-away children for reconciliation with their families, since the kids do log into Facebook and leave a treacbale IP address.

More importantly, these folks are paid about US$50,000 a year! Wow, interesting jobs with a decent salary is surely attractive. Hmm wonder what they will put on their resume, 'porn cops'?

Dragonica Closed Beta Testing from 7 May 2009

Hurry! For those who are interested to try Dragonica, they are opening Closed Beta Testing from 7 May 09 till 18 May 09. The announcement is on their website.

Those who have signed up for their newsletter will also receive this email (picture below). I've downloaded the 700+M of Dragonica installer, which took about an hour or so.

Have fun!

Abilities in MyBrute (some)

Having played the MyBrute flash game for a week or so, here's some of the abilities that I have seen in the game.

Some of the descriptions of the MyBrute abilities are:

Pugnacious - In the arena, you're not really so ungrateful... When they strike you a blow, you give it back... for free!

Shield - A shield. To stop the blows... sometimes.

Bolt of lightening - You hit faster than your shadow and bite faster than your enemy.

Fierce Brute - Now you really are a true Brute. More so than ever. You are more powerful and violent than ever in the fight.

Feline Agility - You haven't even got a ball of string to pass the time with, but you can always thump the Brute you have opposite you.

6th sense - Thanks to your eagle-eyed vigilance you can anticipate your enemies sneaky tricks. Now you can attack before he knows what hit him!

Vitality - Your life expectancy has risen! Now you will be able to resist longer in the arena.

Herculean Strength - With your strength, you are capable of moving mountains! But that moment has not yet come, you have an enemy to destroy.

Tornado of blows - ... and you hit hit hit, that's just your little way of showing love! You're a mad torrent of misunderstood love!

Tragic Potion - Haaave a sip of this. It could make you a bit drunk. Hic... hic... This peach juice restores some of your energy lost in the fight.

Cry of the damned - Fierce beasts? Pfffff ... You only need to give a shout... They will soon run for their lives!

Hammer - A catch technique consists of jumping with your enemy, and then falling on top of him.

Implacable - When you strike a blow, it's always dead on target. Nobody can stop it. And certainly not your enemy!

I will add more descriptions as I come across them. There are about 28 abilities in all.

See also:
- MyBrute Flash Game - Simple Review

MyBrute Flash Game - Simple Review

There is another flash game attracting much attention for the casual online gamers, and that is MyBrute. MyBrute allows the player to create an online character which fights with other players' characters of the same level. Upon creation, the character will have one special skill / item / pets and a set of three attributes, namely strength, agility and speed. As the character levels up, additional weapons, skills or pets are acquired.

The skills are interesting, offering benefits like better speed, agility, more health, or the capability to immediately respond to opponents' blows with their own additional blows. The descriptions of the skills can be quite funny.

Fights are conducted in the arena. While the player could choose which of the opposing characters to fight, he cannot control the exact skill or weapon to use. So the fighting is quite random. There are times when I wish my character could be smarter in his choice of weapons. It can be frustrating to see your character fighting with bare hands and not use his store of better weapons, e.g. spear, against the opponent. Other times I wonder why the character throw his knife / spear at the opponent and not hold onto it longer.

Another drawback of the game is the limited number of fights per day. When the character is first created, 6 fight opportunities would be given. After that, only 3 fights per day is allowed. 3 fights is somewhat limited, and given the experience per fight (1-2 points depending upon victory or defeat), the character progression can be slow.

Other features of the game include pupils and clans. If you create a new character by fighting against one of the existing ones, your character becomes the pupil of the said character. The pupil then showed up as an avatar in the dojo. When the pupil level up, the main 'teacher' could get some experience as well. I've not tried the clan function but the game said that one could create a clan upon level 10.

Overall the feel of the game is alright. I suspect the game is created by the same group / developer who done Myminicity. The look and feel of the game, and the buttons announcing the progress of the games, e.g. leveling up, seems familiar. There were also some posts in the Internet about a downloader.swif.C virus when users access Mybrute via Internet Explorer. Firefox or Chrome have no such issues.

Want to give it a try? If so, click on www.scraze.mybrute.com and have fun!

See also:
- Abilities in MyBrute (some)

Games and their impact on books

It is interesting how the games industry has spun off many little and sometimes big developments in other industries, e.g. movies and books, and vice versa. A walk in the bookstore nowadays and one is bound to notice rows of fictions that are linked to games.

This is not a new phenomenon, as we are all too familiar with the story of AD&D board games in the 1970s, that spun off many fiction books on the Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance that lasted the next many decades. There are also playing / trading card games with such developments into books, e.g. Magic The Gathering.

Sometimes I do wonder if games developer earns more from these associated sales compared to the actual games? I know that can happen in the movie industry, where the spin offs from a particular movie into books, games, toys, DVDs, may earn more compared to the actual cinema tickets.

So next time when I play a game, I should be prepared to also see the game story line and characters being featured in books and perhaps movies. :)

Arts, marriages, and online games in the New Media

It seems that recently the Singapore government has embraced New Media in a big way. Over the past few days there were articles about how 'television advertisement campaigns' about marriages would be shown in YouTube. Quoting from this article:

To further tap the power of new media and reach the younger, Internet-savvy generation, the ministry has also made the ad available on YouTube.

Other than marriages, it seems that arts and heritage will also have an official space in the New Media. According to this CNA article, the new MICA Minister said that:

He said: "We have an archive, we do not display everything in the museums. If we can put them on the net and digitise them, we can encourage people to come together, those who share like-minded interests to, for example, build their own virtual museums."

Coupled with my earlier blog post about NHB organising a competition to develop online games linking to heritage, the Internet and related media may have built up a good influence among the Singapore officials. YouTube, virtual worlds, and online games, I wonder what other Web 2.0 will they use next?

Bomba by Nitrome - Miniclip Flash Game

Miniclip offers a lot of interesting flash based short games. One of them is Bomba by Nitrome, a game where the player controls a small green critter via the use of mouse, to light up the dim stars within the Bomba stages / maps.

While the concept looks deceptively simple, the game play is not. Player needs to avoid the solid walls, moving objects, other creatures...etc. Along the way, new functions are also added in the different stages of Bomba, to help the small green critter get past obstacles like green moss. The green moss can be demolished via the use of bombs. Again the control is via mouse and mouse clicks. Bombs could also be used to kill the other creatures like flies (they look like flies to me) and fishes. Only one bomb can be released each time.

The bombs are floatable. Once the bombs are released in water, they can float up. The green critter only have a short breathing time within the waters before the critter would drown and so the player has to be fast and strategic. There are also 'flying' bombs which remain stationary at the spot where the bomb is released. Players need to be careful about the flying bits released when bombs destroy the green moss. Maybe the name of the game, Bomba, is derived from these bombs in the game.

Other than bombs, there is also the 'flaming' function introduced towards the middle stages of Bomba. Flaming function has a limited timespan, and while activated the small green critter can burn through green moss. There is a danger though because the moss may hide walls which are still deadly to the green critter at flaming state.

Stages of Bomba may introduce a combination of these different functions, and the player need careful timing and innovative use of these tools to get pass the obstacles.

The game is never boring because new features are added frequently, e.g. laser beams that only allow bombs to pass through and not the critters, and also bombs with short timing before explosion.

Generally Bomba is fun and worth a try. Players need to be patient, and think carefully before navigating each stage. Each stage of Bomba offers only 3-4 green critters, i.e. lives, but the game remembers which stage the player has cleared, and the player could always start from where he left off the next time.

See also:
- Canyon Defence on Miniclip

NHB Mission Darkstar - 5 Finalists Awarded

National Heritage Board has announced the 5 finalists for the online games competition to develop a Singapore heritage related game! The details of the Mission Darkstar - Heritage Gaming Redefined can be found in the NHB news release (16 Dec 2008).

These 5 finalists, having passed the first stage of this competition, will each get $4,000 seed funds to develop their online game on social media platform, that 'raise the awareness and appreciation of Singapore’s unique heritage and culture.' The competition will run until October - November 2009, when the top winner will be selected, and total prizes of $13,500 will be given out (top prize has a payout of $8,000). The judging will be done by both experts and public votes, with criteria linking to quality of the game and how the game resonates with the users and Singapore’s history and heritage.

More information about NHB's Mission Darkstar can be found on their website: www.missiondarkstar.com.sg and there is even a Youtube on the site about this competition!

Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures on Facebook

There are a good number of interesting Facebook applications. Other than the Pet Society which I covered earlier, there is also this Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application.

In Tiny Adventures, one could choose from over 16 classes of characters, including Tiefling Warlock, Eladrin Wizard, Human Rogue, Dwarf Warlord etc. Each character can level until they reach level 11, and the application will automatically retire the character. At this point in time, the player can choose an item from the retiring character to pass on to the next character, and the next character will be labelled as Generation 2. This retiring process can carry on, and each generation will unlock new ability. At Generation 5, a new class of Swordmage will also be unlocked.

As per other Dungeons & Dragons game, the character will come with a set of attributes but for Tiny Adventures they are pre-rolled. There will also be equipments for each 'slot', including weapons and armour. The equipments will come with different attributes enhancements but not all classes can wear all the equipments, e.g. wizard can only wear light armour.

In order to level up the charater, the character could choose from a number of available adventures of around the same level as the character. There are quite a number of interesting quests / adventures to choose from. As the character level, bonus attribute points will be given at level 4 and 8.

Prior to the start of the chosen adventure, the character can choose two potions to bring along, including healing potions or others that boost the attributes, e.g. Potion of Heroism giving +5STR for 4 encounters.

Each adventure provides multiple encounters / parts (from 5 to 12 parts & higher levels seem to have more encounters), and each encounter comes with a description of what is happening to the character, as well as a dice roll that determines the outcome of that particular part. Occasionally there will be 'rare' encounters that provide better challenge and rewards. Success from the encounter will reward the character with experience points, golds and sometimes items.

The different adventures could also be reviewed later and the review log includes the different dice rolls as well as rewards from each adventure. Tiny Adventures has many tabs and statistics that keep track of the character's progress.

Generally the Dungeons & Dragons - Tiny Adventures application is quite fun to play with. The option of 'drinking potions' with triggering of certain conditions is also useful. The irritating part is that many of the encounters requires AC checks, and certain weaker classes like mage will have problems. It does not help that each healing potion costs 130 golds, i.e. expensive potions.

Will try the application and see if I have the patience to reach Generation 5!

Smallworlds application in Facebook

Smallworlds has progressed well over the past many months. It is not surprising that Smallworlds is now on Facebook (see article), since Smallworlds has always gave the impression that it is an applications that is highly mashable. It seems that other than Facebook, Smallworlds is also on Bebo (see article).

The user created missions, and generally missions based play (picture above) has given Smallworlds a more unique element based compared to other social networking applications. Yet with individual rooms and tokens to decorate the rooms, Smallworlds retains enough social networking flavour that will be attractive to the casual gamers.

Recently I played their featured mission, 'Break Out 1' (pictures above and below) that described a mad scientist who captured users for experiments. The user is supposed to get out of the moon base with the help of a fellow prisoner. It is relatively easy, except for the initial part where a user needs to find that room with a 'Trooper' poster and search for an item. The crucial element is that the user must first receive this part of the 'quest' in the correct room, i.e. if the mission box told you that your room is in area B, do not go to area C to get the quest. After finding the correct room, the user can proceed to the room with the 'Trooper' poster.

There are other quests that require simpler actions to complete. For example there is this 'classroom maths quest' where the user just needs to provide correct answer to the maths questions. At the end of the 15 questions, just /clap, and the quest is done.

As of February 2009, Smallworlds has about 300,000 users, and 65% of these users are female. A similar proportion of the users created content to share with other users. An example of such user generated content is the 'Arcade game machines' found littered in Smallworlds, where a 'game' with the game of Smallworlds could be played and progress saved.

This user figure is healthy but still pales in comparison with giants like the Wtorld of Warcraft. Nonetheless, with a reported Average Revenue Per User of US$1.40, and a progressive looking development team, Smallworlds is likely to go far in the virtual world arena.

Related Posts
- Update about Smallworlds
- Simple Review of Smallworlds

imeem Soundtracks from the World of Warcraft

Recent months I've spent more time playing games than updating my blogs. One big attractive point of playing online games, especially the good ones, are the soundtracks. Other than Cabal Online and Granado Espada, the other online game with great soundtracks is the World of Warcraft.

Yeah, some would say that World of Warcraft (魔兽世界) offers even better soundtracks, simply for the many variety of music. Each home city, each scene, each dungeon, will have its own unique ambient music. Completing some quests, e.g. Lament of the Highborne, will also result in unique music being played.

Here's a playlist of some of the World of Warcraft music that I compiled from imeem. Have fun.

World of Warcraft

Here's the link to the Lament of the Highborne (track number 8) movie from Blizzard, for those WoW players who are interested. Quite touching.

Related Post
- Cabal Online and Granado Espada Soundtracks

Growing Online / Gaming Content Market in Singapore

Last year in August 2008, there was an article on Business Times about a Frost research estimating Singapore's online content market to see robust growth reaching US$23.82 million in 2008. It seems the figure is estimated to reach US$120million by 2013. Some more details about the Frost research can be found in this article.

I was pretty skeptical about the figures initially. However, these few days there were reports of Singapore developers earning big bucks with their online games. One such group of developers is the Tyler Projects who developed Battle Stations on Facebook. According to this Straits Times article they are cashing in monthly sales of over $50,000. Not bad for a group of relatively new games developers. It does appear that online gaming (whether via gaming clients or social networking platforms) is fueling online content growth.

The growth of gaming locally has attracted the attention of big boys as well. Another Straits Times article (20 Feb 09) noted that Japanese gaming giant Koei has decided to hire 30 to 60 more staff for Singapore office. I think they had pretty good experience developing the 'Romance of the Three Kingdom Online' in Singapore. What is weird is that the Romance of Three Kingdom Online is not available to the Singapore gamer.

Other than the gaming developers, there are also more exhibitions planned for Singapore. Aside from the annual Games Convention Asia, there is also the Games XPO 2009 scheduled for July 2009 (see article). With all these activities, no wonder even the 9 years old kids are dabbling with games development (see article about 9 years old iPhone apps developer).

Seems like the August 2008 article is quite reliable after all. Maybe I should think about quitting my job to be a games developer, lolz.

Pet Society in Facebook

With so many applications in Facebook, one is often spoilt for choices. Recently I found an interesting apps 'Pet Society' by Playfish. The game is pretty simple, where the player raised a pet, and let the pet engages in various activities e.g. visiting friends, running races...etc. There is also the interactive part where the player could decorate the house of the pets with wall papers, furniture...etc.

Below is a screenshot of the 'Pet Society'. The three bars on the right denotes 'health', 'happiness', and cleanliness. Feeding the pet with food will raise the health bar. Playing with the pets by engaging in various activities could raise the happiness bar. Cleaning the pet with the soap given by the apps will help with the cleanliness bar of the pet. The upper left corner shows the number of coins and the centre top bar shows the level / 'paw points' (i.e. experience) of the pet. Raising levels for the pet will give the pet more rooms, and the house of the pet will also look bigger on the overall map. It is better to save the game (the disk icon located at upper right) before exiting 'Pet Society'.

Coins form an essential part of the 'Pet Society' and the player needs to participate in activities to earn the coins. Some of the ways include

• visiting friends to 'hug', 'tell a joke', 'kiss' (but not fighting though) etc which results in 20 coins per visit per day
• winning bet races, or participating in these races could also earn the pet coins. During races, pick up the banana skins for more coins! (screen shot below)
  
• or else the player could also play the frisbee, ball, or skipping ropes given by the apps with the pet for coins and trophies. Getting trophies is another way of earning coins
• merely logging in everyday means the 'Pet Society' application will give a 'lottery' prize per day to give between 50 and 500 coins
• walk among the trees and the pet could randomly get 2 coins (another screen shot below). If the player logs out of the game and logs in again, the 'trees giving coins' function is reset
• clean the pet or your friends' pets when the health bar is low, will also result in coins
• place the mouse cursor (not soup bar or brush) on your pet and press it while moving the cursor up and down, will also result in coins
  

Pets Racing at the Stadium

Pet getting coins radomly from the trees


List of trophies that the pet can get

Other than the stadium (for races), there are many shops for the pet to visit. There are the furniture and DIY shops for the pet to purchase household items. Some of the items could be animated for effects when the player clicks on it, e.g. the radio, TV set, lava lamp etc. There is also the food shop to buy various foods for the pet. The items could be given to other pets as gifts, or be sold for coins. If the player is tired of the pet's looks, it can be changed at the Stylist shop. Clothes and Luxury shops sell different items like clothes, rings, accessories, etc. If the player wants to visit pets of other people (non-friends), the player could go to the cafe and see the other pets. More shops are added as the developers enhanced the Pet Society apps.

Depending on the occasions, there could be 'special' items for sale. For example Valentine Day related items (flowers, bears, heart shaped decos) are on sale currently. During the Lunar New Year 2-3 weeks back, another set of items were on sale in the shops. Playfish is somewhat diligent in producing new items each week. There are also 3 different categories of mystery boxes which may give special items not found in the shops to the pets.

These are but brief description of the game. While this is essentially a social casual game with minimal depth, it is nonetheless a somewhat addictive game. Log in at the forum to see what other fans think about it, and get a pet yourself to try it!

See also:
- Pet Society - New Gardens Function

Fullmetal Alchemist 2 - April 2009

Read the news that Fullmetal Alchemist 2 will debut in Japan on 5th April 2009.

There is some doubt whether this is a re-make or is it a sequel, with story carrying on from the movie. Nonetheless you can take a look at the trailer from this website: http://www.hagaren.jp/special/trailer.html

There is also a second version of the trailer circulating around in the Internet but I've not obtain a copy yet. The 1st run of Fullmetal Alchemist is great, and hopefully this would be a sequel and not re-make.

Blooming of the free browser based online games

Those who have played MUD (pure text based multi-user dungeon) games in the past would know that there were a large number of different MUDs to choose from. When online games with graphical interfaces became popular, there were inclinations of free games with large thick clients, i.e. you have to download a large files (typically in the hundreds of megabytes) before you can play the game. In part this is due to lack of high speed connectivity since graphics and video will consume a large Internet bandwidth. In part the advance of gaming interfaces with ever more realisetic graphics for PC games, demand that other online games provide a minimal degree of good graphics.

Today, despite the increase in bandwidth, there seems to be a trend of a blooming free browser based online games. A simple search would have reveal many. Other than Travian (browser based strategy game), which I covered quite extensively in other blog posts, let me give a few other examples.

Thos who prefer Role-playing games with character stats to manage, we have Domain of Heroes. This is truly a simple RPG game; nothing complicated about skills or character stats. Items and quests are fairly straight forward. There is a good story plot, but the overall simplicity may not attract a large group of gamers. Domain of Heroes is part of the examples of newly created browser based games on the Internet. Revenue is earned by advertising and also user purchase of 'wishes' that allow for other in games activity, e.g. creation of guilds.

Not everything is new in these fields of browser based games. A different example would be Nile Online. Those who have played Children of Nile (e.g. me!) would find this game particularly interesting because it is sort of the same game, i.e. playing Children of the Nile together with hundreds of other players. Trading becomes important, and yes, Nile Online allows for trading of the 'bread' (in game currency) with resources. Would there be a trend of translating existing popular PC based games (e.g. Children of the Nile) into multiplayer persistent online games? Perhaps... there are a large potential and attractiveness for such games because the learning curve o play the online version would be much shorter.

Another category of free browser based games would be those provided via social networking sites. An example is Elven Blood that one could access via Facebook. The interface, gameplay and other mechanics are simple, and there is the added advantage of you playing with those among your own social network. The drawback is that you have to invite more people in order to explore certain part of the game realm. Nonehteless, the fact the game provides certain interface with your own social network is enough to draw more casual players into the game.

These are but examples of a few free browser based online games, and I'm sure there are many other categories of such games.

Gold farmers will be taxed?

It is interesting how the world of gold farming has evolved. Sometime back in August 2008, there was a report of an academic analysis of gold farming and I must say the report gave a pretty decent coverage of the entire gold farming industry, from the historical development to the breakdown of the different industry elements.

Subsequently in October 2008, there were some journalists in Singapore who decided to give the whole gold farm / transaction a try (i.e. purchase gold), and they provided a good account of the whole incident.

In a short span of a few months, i.e. 17 December 2008, an article (Straits Times) about gold farming taxes appeared in the news. Lolz. The article reported that the Korean National Tax Service had declared that gold farmers who earn more than 12 million won in 6 months would have to register as a business, declare their earnings and pay income tax. Apparently there are also gold farmers in Singapore, who earn income of about S$2,000 a month.

Wow! I wonder what next? A global conference for gold farmers? Legal debates about the legalities with gold farmers defending themselves in public against the anit-farmers? Would paying tax legalise and legitimise gold farming? Hmm interesting development of a semi-legitimate sub-industry.