http://www.orchidgames.com/graven
Wednesday, November 19, 2014
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Adult women are now the largest demographic in gaming By Aja Romano on August 25, 2014
http://www.dailydot.com/geek/adult-women-largest-gaming-demographic/
Congratulations, gamer girls—you're officially at the top of the food chain when it comes to games. A new study released by the Entertainment Software Association has revealed that adult women now occupy the largest demographic in the gaming industry. Women over 18 made up a whopping 36 percent of the gaming population, followed by adult men at 35 percent.
Teenage boys, who are often stereotyped as the biggest gamers, now lag far behind their older female counterparts, making up just 17 percent of the gaming demographic.
The picture that emerges from the study is one of expansion across the board. More people are playing more games of various genres across more platforms, with social games on mobile and casual games on PCs emerging as huge leaders.
According to the study, last year saw a significant boom in women over 50—their numbers jumped by a whopping 32 percent between 2012 and 2013. The study also revealed that 59 percent of Americans play games, with gaming consoles present in 51 percent of all U.S. households.
All of that means that stereotypes are breaking fast in the gaming industry, particularly the longheld stereotype of the adult woman as an outlier who sticks to mobile games and "social" games on Facebook while the more hardcore gamer, the "serious" (male) gamer, goes for console games.
Though this stereotype has long persisted, and even been used as a hiring tactic, the new data suggests there's little if any truth to it—especially not when you consider that the average adult woman has been gaming for 13 years.
Sorry, male gamers of Reddit and 4Chan, but Angry Birds only came out five years ago.
Unless you want to try to argue that women have just been playing Bejeweled for the last 13 years, the math just doesn't add up.
And while the total audience for mobile social games is now bigger than ever, the audience for computer and video games is now an even 50-50 split between male and female genders.
So what games have women been playing all these years, now that we know they haven't just been wasting time trying to get their Facebook friends to give them free lives on Candy Crush?
Casual computer games, mostly. The report ranks online and mobile puzzle games, board games, trivia games, and card games as coming in second to the boom in social games, which more than doubled in popularity between 2012 and 2013.
Meanwhile, action and first-person shooter games continue to be the top sellers in video games, with Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty ranking as the bestselling video games of 2013. For computer games, Starcraft II and The Sims franchise gobbled up the top 10 computer game titles, with Sims titles consuming eight of the top 12 computer game titles sold last year.
The study also took a close look at parental behavior regarding monitoring the gaming activity of their teens and children. The study indicated that parents seemed deeply engaged when it came to monitoring the kinds of games kids played. Additionally, 47 percent of adults who play games with their kids said they do it because they love gaming as much as their child does.
And it's easy to see why. While the study didn't assess the age or gender demographics of specific games, the titles of the bestsellers attest to the diversity of the games themselves: Pokemon X. Final Fantasy XIV. NBA 2K14. Bioshock Infinite. World of Warcraft. Just Dance 2014.
Whether you play Diablo or Pet Rescue, you can rest assured that you're in good company.
View the whole study online here.
H/T PBS; Photo via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY SA 3.0
Congratulations, gamer girls—you're officially at the top of the food chain when it comes to games. A new study released by the Entertainment Software Association has revealed that adult women now occupy the largest demographic in the gaming industry. Women over 18 made up a whopping 36 percent of the gaming population, followed by adult men at 35 percent.
Teenage boys, who are often stereotyped as the biggest gamers, now lag far behind their older female counterparts, making up just 17 percent of the gaming demographic.
The picture that emerges from the study is one of expansion across the board. More people are playing more games of various genres across more platforms, with social games on mobile and casual games on PCs emerging as huge leaders.
According to the study, last year saw a significant boom in women over 50—their numbers jumped by a whopping 32 percent between 2012 and 2013. The study also revealed that 59 percent of Americans play games, with gaming consoles present in 51 percent of all U.S. households.
All of that means that stereotypes are breaking fast in the gaming industry, particularly the longheld stereotype of the adult woman as an outlier who sticks to mobile games and "social" games on Facebook while the more hardcore gamer, the "serious" (male) gamer, goes for console games.
Though this stereotype has long persisted, and even been used as a hiring tactic, the new data suggests there's little if any truth to it—especially not when you consider that the average adult woman has been gaming for 13 years.
Sorry, male gamers of Reddit and 4Chan, but Angry Birds only came out five years ago.
Unless you want to try to argue that women have just been playing Bejeweled for the last 13 years, the math just doesn't add up.
And while the total audience for mobile social games is now bigger than ever, the audience for computer and video games is now an even 50-50 split between male and female genders.
Screengrab via The ESA
So what games have women been playing all these years, now that we know they haven't just been wasting time trying to get their Facebook friends to give them free lives on Candy Crush?
Casual computer games, mostly. The report ranks online and mobile puzzle games, board games, trivia games, and card games as coming in second to the boom in social games, which more than doubled in popularity between 2012 and 2013.
Meanwhile, action and first-person shooter games continue to be the top sellers in video games, with Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty ranking as the bestselling video games of 2013. For computer games, Starcraft II and The Sims franchise gobbled up the top 10 computer game titles, with Sims titles consuming eight of the top 12 computer game titles sold last year.
The study also took a close look at parental behavior regarding monitoring the gaming activity of their teens and children. The study indicated that parents seemed deeply engaged when it came to monitoring the kinds of games kids played. Additionally, 47 percent of adults who play games with their kids said they do it because they love gaming as much as their child does.
And it's easy to see why. While the study didn't assess the age or gender demographics of specific games, the titles of the bestsellers attest to the diversity of the games themselves: Pokemon X. Final Fantasy XIV. NBA 2K14. Bioshock Infinite. World of Warcraft. Just Dance 2014.
Whether you play Diablo or Pet Rescue, you can rest assured that you're in good company.
View the whole study online here.
H/T PBS; Photo via Wikimedia Commons; CC BY SA 3.0
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Mysterious Island Game by Sex and Games / script by Neale Sourna
Game
Script by Neale Sourna [a paid gig / job]
Sunday, June 15, 2014
Game Writing equals Narrative Design
http://www.thefictionengine.com/articles-on-game-narrative.cfm/article/writingequalsdesign
"...there isn’t a line between the design and the writing, especially if you’re doing a narrative-driven game. A lot of what you might call the game design is actually writing in a sense – writing isn’t just words, it’s creating the characters and the world and the actions that might make sense in that world." - Sam Barlow
I grabbed that quote from the following article where Sam Barlow, Rhianna Pratchett and Ragnar Tornquist discuss the closure of Irrational and what it means to AAA storytelling.
As to Sam Barlow's comment about Writing and Design in video games, I was initially in wholesale agreement with him. In fact, it's kind of bizarre that we have to call ourselves Writers AND Narrative Designers. What really is the difference?
Game Writing equals Narrative Design
"...there isn’t a line between the design and the writing, especially if you’re doing a narrative-driven game. A lot of what you might call the game design is actually writing in a sense – writing isn’t just words, it’s creating the characters and the world and the actions that might make sense in that world." - Sam Barlow
I grabbed that quote from the following article where Sam Barlow, Rhianna Pratchett and Ragnar Tornquist discuss the closure of Irrational and what it means to AAA storytelling.
As to Sam Barlow's comment about Writing and Design in video games, I was initially in wholesale agreement with him. In fact, it's kind of bizarre that we have to call ourselves Writers AND Narrative Designers. What really is the difference?
Were I to write I fantasy novel, I'd write 'design documents' about
the world, it's people, their culture, politics and economics. I'd
describe the terrain and climate, the cityscapes and landscapes. I'd
produce character profiles. I'd plan out the narrative in a series of
story beats. Then, and only then, would I get stuck into the writing of
the actual words that the reader will consume.
Stephen King once likened writing a novel to digging out a dinosaur skeleton. You chip and brush away, revealing the dinosaur bone by bone. Only when you've finished do you know exactly what sort of dinosaur you have. I tried that once, with my first novel. Needless to say, it remains unpublished. Sorry Steve. Guess I'm not that kind of writer.
I can't just make shit up and expect it all to turn out fine and dandy. I had to laugh when in Alan Wake Alice surprises Alan with a desk set up nicely with typewriter and a fresh ream of paper. He freaks out.
I'd freak out too. What am I supposed to do with that? Just sit down and churn out a masterpiece like an infinitely typing monkey?
I have to plan, map out, structure, formulate the story first.
Moving on from that first disaster of a novel, that's how I do all of my writing now. I plan out the world, character and story arcs first. Then I write the scripts. But guess what?
That's exactly what most writers have been doing for centuries now.
So why, when it comes to the Video Games industry, do we feel the need to suddenly call ourselves 'Narrative Designers'?
Because it sounds more technical?
More credible?
More professional?
Because it's the only way that we can get across across how much more there is to our job than just writing dialogue and flavour text?
"Writing isn't just words..." says Sam Barlow.
On this Sam and I disagree. Writing IS just words. Whether they're going into a script or a development doc, those words are still how we tell our stories.
Stephen King once likened writing a novel to digging out a dinosaur skeleton. You chip and brush away, revealing the dinosaur bone by bone. Only when you've finished do you know exactly what sort of dinosaur you have. I tried that once, with my first novel. Needless to say, it remains unpublished. Sorry Steve. Guess I'm not that kind of writer.
I can't just make shit up and expect it all to turn out fine and dandy. I had to laugh when in Alan Wake Alice surprises Alan with a desk set up nicely with typewriter and a fresh ream of paper. He freaks out.
I'd freak out too. What am I supposed to do with that? Just sit down and churn out a masterpiece like an infinitely typing monkey?
I have to plan, map out, structure, formulate the story first.
Moving on from that first disaster of a novel, that's how I do all of my writing now. I plan out the world, character and story arcs first. Then I write the scripts. But guess what?
That's exactly what most writers have been doing for centuries now.
So why, when it comes to the Video Games industry, do we feel the need to suddenly call ourselves 'Narrative Designers'?
Because it sounds more technical?
More credible?
More professional?
Because it's the only way that we can get across across how much more there is to our job than just writing dialogue and flavour text?
"Writing isn't just words..." says Sam Barlow.
On this Sam and I disagree. Writing IS just words. Whether they're going into a script or a development doc, those words are still how we tell our stories.
Thursday, June 5, 2014
Game Heartwild Solitaire: Book Two on your tablets and phones! Game Novel Story by Neale Sourna
http://www.orchidgames.com/?ref=2
http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire_book_two/gallery
Oh, hello there! :)
This is Darek from Orchid Games, again, bringing good news, again. So, have you been waiting to play...
...Heartwild Solitaire: Book Two on your tablets and phones?
Then I'm happy to report that we have just released the game and it's now running free and careless on the green meadows of App Store and Google Play. Catch it if you can! ;)
Here are the direct links to help you:
* For iPhone and iPad: App Store link
* For Android: Google Play link
Note that the game has a free demo (first two chapters [WRITTEN BY NEALE SOURNA www.neale-sourna.com]) after which, if you want to keep playing, you will be asked to buy an unlock for the whole game.
I have one favor to ask you: when you download the game for iOS or Android and play a little, please make sure to leave a rating in the store. This will help other players to discover the game and it will also make us very happy. Thanks a lot in advance!
What about PC and Mac?
We have a great new version ready for desktop machines too. Just like with the first game, this one is updated with a twice as sharp HD graphics, presented in widescreen format. It also comes packaged with 55 extra levels, that were previously a separate download. If you've already purchased the PC/Mac version in the past, then your old activation code will unlock this new version (no need to pay again).
You can download it here: http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire_book_two/download
Important note for PC and Mac: unfortunately we've had to change the way the game keeps its player profiles, so you will have to start playing from the beginning, your old progress will not carry over. But hey, it's a chance to start from scratch and hit the best score! :)
If you have any questions, just reply to this email and I'll be happy to help.
Until next time,
Darek Rusin
Orchid Games
Copyright © 2014 Orchid Games, All rights reserved.
http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire_book_two/gallery
Oh, hello there! :)
This is Darek from Orchid Games, again, bringing good news, again. So, have you been waiting to play...
...Heartwild Solitaire: Book Two on your tablets and phones?
Then I'm happy to report that we have just released the game and it's now running free and careless on the green meadows of App Store and Google Play. Catch it if you can! ;)
Here are the direct links to help you:
* For iPhone and iPad: App Store link
* For Android: Google Play link
Note that the game has a free demo (first two chapters [WRITTEN BY NEALE SOURNA www.neale-sourna.com]) after which, if you want to keep playing, you will be asked to buy an unlock for the whole game.
I have one favor to ask you: when you download the game for iOS or Android and play a little, please make sure to leave a rating in the store. This will help other players to discover the game and it will also make us very happy. Thanks a lot in advance!
What about PC and Mac?
We have a great new version ready for desktop machines too. Just like with the first game, this one is updated with a twice as sharp HD graphics, presented in widescreen format. It also comes packaged with 55 extra levels, that were previously a separate download. If you've already purchased the PC/Mac version in the past, then your old activation code will unlock this new version (no need to pay again).
You can download it here: http://www.orchidgames.com/heartwild_solitaire_book_two/download
Important note for PC and Mac: unfortunately we've had to change the way the game keeps its player profiles, so you will have to start playing from the beginning, your old progress will not carry over. But hey, it's a chance to start from scratch and hit the best score! :)
If you have any questions, just reply to this email and I'll be happy to help.
Until next time,
Darek Rusin
Orchid Games
Copyright © 2014 Orchid Games, All rights reserved.
Sunday, May 25, 2014
The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game [RPG] at Evilhat.com
http://www.evilhat.com/home/dresden-files-rpg/
The Game | Backstory | Your Story | Our World | Paranet Papers
Everyone
wants to be Harry Dresden. Except maybe Harry Dresden. And people who
haven’t read Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books, in which case, get thee
hence to a bookstore!
Assuming you’ve done this already, the Dresden Files RPG is the perfect solution to the eternal wait for the next book in the series.
This licensed product is made up of two core books: Volume One: Your Story, and Volume Two: Our World.
Your Story provides all the game mechanics and systemy bits you need to get started using the popular Fate RPG system.
Our World gives you everything you need to populate your game with awesome things from the books.
Meet with your favorite characters for a pint at Mac’s or take a trip through the Nevernever to save the world. Don’t forget your blasting rod.
We’ll take an extra pint of Mac’s brew and a Whopper to celebrate the following Dresden Files RPG awards:
The Game | Backstory | Your Story | Our World | Paranet Papers
Dice | Downloads | News
Everyone
wants to be Harry Dresden. Except maybe Harry Dresden. And people who
haven’t read Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files books, in which case, get thee
hence to a bookstore! Assuming you’ve done this already, the Dresden Files RPG is the perfect solution to the eternal wait for the next book in the series.
This licensed product is made up of two core books: Volume One: Your Story, and Volume Two: Our World.
Your Story provides all the game mechanics and systemy bits you need to get started using the popular Fate RPG system.
Our World gives you everything you need to populate your game with awesome things from the books.
Meet with your favorite characters for a pint at Mac’s or take a trip through the Nevernever to save the world. Don’t forget your blasting rod.
We’ll take an extra pint of Mac’s brew and a Whopper to celebrate the following Dresden Files RPG awards:
- 2011 Gold ENnies: Best Writing, Best Rules, Best New Game and Best Game
- 2011 Silver ENnies: Best Production Values and Product of the Year
- 2010 Golden Geek Game of the Year
- 2010 Golden Geek Best Art/Presentation (for Volume One)
- 2011 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game
- 2011 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Supplement (for Volume Two)
Saturday, May 24, 2014
Whispering Willows Game written by Kyle Holmquist Writer / Narrative Designer at Night Light Interactive
Whispering Willows – Standard Edition
$15.00
Young Elena Elkhorn embarks on a harrowing journey to find her
missing father and discover the secrets of the Willows Mansion. Aiding
her journey is a unique amulet, she received from her father, which
allows her to astral project her spirit into a ghostly-realm and
communicate with the dead.
Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solve the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.
Game Features
Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solve the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.
Game Features
- Stunning Visuals and Mysteries Galore: Experience an eerie soundtrack as you overcome a myriad of puzzles and tricks in a stunning 2D graphics world.
- Strong Narrative: Revel in the strong narrative, diverse characters and unique environments as you learn of the haunting history of the Willows Mansion.
- The Choices: Whispering Willows is available on OUYA, PC, MAC and Linux.
Special Edition:
Includes the full game.
========================
Whispering Willows
$14.99
Full game, cross-platform & DRM-free. Solve puzzles to uncover the secrets of the Willows Mansion and help save Elena's father.
Select one of the payment options below to complete your purchase.
Whispering Willows – Special Edition
$25.00
Young Elena Elkhorn embarks on a harrowing journey to find her
missing father and discover the secrets of the Willows Mansion. Aiding
her journey is a unique amulet, she received from her father, which
allows her to astral project her spirit into a ghostly-realm and
communicate with the dead.
Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solve the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.
Game Features
Play as Elena to find her missing father, use your astral projection to solve the mansion’s tricks and puzzles, help the lingering souls and discover so much more in Whispering Willows.
Game Features
- Stunning Visuals and Mysteries Galore: Experience an eerie soundtrack as you overcome a myriad of puzzles and tricks in a stunning 2D graphics world.
- Strong Narrative: Revel in the strong narrative, diverse characters and unique environments as you learn of the haunting history of the Willows Mansion.
- The Choices: Whispering Willows is available on OUYA, PC, MAC and Linux.
Special Edition:
Includes the full game with the haunting game soundtrack, the digital art book with beautiful high resolution images and behind the scenes information.
========================
Whispering Willows: Special Edition
$25.00
Full game, cross-platform & DRM-free. Solve puzzles to uncover the secrets of the Willows Mansion and help save Elena's father.
Select one of the payment options below to complete your purchase.
========================
Monday, May 19, 2014
Announcing UNET – New Unity Multiplayer Technology May 12, 2014 in Company News and Info, Technology by Erik Juhl
http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/05/12/announcing-unet-new-unity-multiplayer-technology/
A few weeks ago, at
our Unite Asia conferences, we announced that we are developing new
multiplayer tools, technologies and services for Unity developers. The
internal project name for this is UNET which simply stands for Unity
Networking. But our vision goes well beyond simple networking.
As you
all know, the Unity vision is to Democratize Game Development. The Unity
Networking team wants to specifically Democratize Multiplayer Game
Development. We want all game developers to be able to build multiplayer
games for any type of game with any number of players.
Before joining Unity, members of the
networking team worked mainly on MMOs such as Ultima Online, Lord of the
Rings Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, Marvel Heroes, Need for
Speed Online and World of Warcraft. We have a lot of passion for and a
ton of experience with making multiplayer games, technology and
infrastructure.
The Unity vision was known to each of us and was always
very appealing.
When the chance to do something truly great like
specializing the Unity vision with multiplayer came up, it was
impossible to decline. So we all left our former jobs and joined Unity
to make this vision happen.
Right now, we’re working hard to deliver
these tools, technology and services so anyone can make their own dreams
of a multiplayer game a reality.
This is of course a pretty big
undertaking, but, like I said, we have all done this before, and we are
all very driven to do it again (because it’s really, really cool!). The
way we have tackled this is to divide our overall goal into phases
which should be familiar to Unity developers.
We take the approach of
releasing a Phase 1, getting feedback from our users, adding that
feedback to our work to make the next phase even better and repeating
that cycle.
For UNET, Phase 1 is what we
call the Multiplayer Foundation – more on that in a bit. Phase 2 is
where we build on Phase 1 to introduce server authoritative gaming with
what we call the Simulation Server, we’ll blog about this later.
Finally, Phase 3 is where we want to introduce the ability to coordinate
multiple Simulation Servers through a Master Simulation Server.
As
usual, exact dates for this are not possible and of course things can
change, especially after gathering feedback from our users. But we can
say that Phase 1 will be part of the 5.x release cycle and Phase 2 is in
R&D right now.
So what do we mean by the Multiplayer Foundation for Phase 1? The main features are as follows:
-
High performance transport layer based on UDP to support all game types
-
Low Level API (LLAPI) provides complete control through a socket like interface
-
High Level API (HLAPI) provides simple and secure client/server network model
-
Matchmaker Service provides basic functionality for creating rooms and helping players find others to play with
-
Relay Server solves connectivity problems for players trying to connect to each other behind firewalls
We had some inherent
limitations with our legacy system that we needed to address and with
our greater goal in mind it became clear that we needed to start from
scratch. Since our goal is to support all game types and any number of
connections, we started with a new high performance transport layer
based on UDP.
While it’s true that a lot of games are done quite well
with TCP, fast action games will need to use UDP as TCP holds the most
recently received packets if they arrive out of order.
From this new transport layer
we built two new APIs. We have a new High Level API (HLAPI) which
introduces a simple and secure client/server networking model. If you’re
not a network engineer and you want to easily make a multiplayer game,
the HLAPI will interest you.
We also wanted to address feedback we’d
received on our old system: some users needed to have a lower level
access for greater control. So we also have the Low Level API (LLAPI)
which provides a more socket-like interface to the transport layer. If
you are a network engineer and want to define a custom network model or
just fine tune your network performance, then the LLAPI will interest
you.
The Matchmaker service is used
to configure rooms for your multiplayer game and get your players to
find each other. And finally the Relay Server makes sure your players
can always connect to each other.
We know from our prior
experiences that making multiplayer games involves a lot of pain. So
the Multiplayer Foundation is a new set of easy to use professional
networking technology, tools and infrastructure for making multiplayer
games without this pain.
To even get started, I think it is fair to say
that making a multiplayer game requires a fair bit of knowledge of
networking and protocols. You either overcome the painfully steep
learning curve yourself or find a network engineer to join you.
Once
you’ve gotten past that, you then have to solve the problem of getting
your players to find each other. And once you’ve solved that problem,
you now have to deal with getting players to be able to actually connect
with each other, which can be troublesome when they are behind
firewalls with NAT.
But then if you’ve solved all of that you’ve
created a bunch of associated infrastructure which wasn’t game
development and probably wasn’t fun. And now you have to worry about
dynamically scaling your infrastructure which usually takes a bit of
prior experience to get right.
Our Phase 1 addresses each of these pain
points.
The HLAPI eliminates the need for a deep knowledge of
networking. But the LLAPI is there if you are a network engineer and you
want to do things your own way.
The Matchmaker solves your problem of
getting your players to find each other.
The Relay Server solves your
problem of getting players to be able to connect to each other.
And we
also solved your problem of the associated infrastructure and
dynamically scaling it.
The Matchmaker and Relay Server live in Unity’s
Multiplayer Cloud. So not only do the physical servers scale up and down
based on demand, but the processes scale up and down as well.
We are very excited about UNET
and are eager to share more details. Over the next few weeks we’ll
follow up with more blogs from the rest of the team. We would love to
hear what you think, and we can’t wait to see what you all make with
this in the future.
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