Step right up, I said step right up folks and behold the wonder of the Oregon Trail. Yes sir, nostalgia is a powerful thing, I say a powerful thing ladies and gentlemen. Many people visited this here little corner of the internet when we posted that the mobile version of the game was released, so it's only fair to follow that up with the recently released gameplay video found after the break.
There may not be any sound with the video, but let the power of imagination fill in the sounds like when you had to play the original game with no sound in the classroom as a child. Yes sir, watching this video might spare you from a broken arm, dysentery and other afflictions (or try one of Mrs. Lovett's meat pies). Behold ...
Mobile games developer Gameloft has released its updated version of The Oregon Trail. The game costs $4 (or more, depending on your carrier) and introduces several new gameplay elements to the elementary school classic.
The game now includes five skill-based mini-games, side-missions and random events like bandits. Of course, everyone's favorite gameplay elements like hunting and random outbreaks of disease are still included. Oh yes, Mary will contract diphtheria. A demo is available on the Gameloft site to try before you buy.
Touchy-feely casual game news now, with Ubisoft revealing plans to bring its Games for Everyone range to everyone who has an iPhone or an iPod Touch. In an interview with CasualGaming.biz, Games For Everyone executive producer, Pauline Jacquey, explained that Ubisoft wanted to target a wider range of platforms, including those used for listening to music or yapping with friends.
"We don't want to keep it too narrow," said Jacquey. "We'll be making games not only on PC, PS3 and 360, but on iPhone and iPod touch as well. When it comes to the mobile industry, Ubisoft sister company Gameloft looks after that and I'm not in charge of it. They will be borrowing more from the Games For Everyone range."
She neglects to mention which games or brands we can expect to be iPhoned in, but an informed gamer will tell you that they'll probably have titles ending in "z." You know, Dogz, Hamsterz, Beyond Good & Evilz ... those types of thingz.
Mobile games developer Gameloft recently spoke with 1Up about its remake of the elementary school computer room classic, The Oregon Trail. Gameloft's VP of Production Julien Fournials says the game stays true to the core gameplay, but some of the micro-management is out to make it "more accessible to the casual player." Wow, we had no idea The Oregon Trail was a hardcore game?!
Fournials explains that buying specific items at the shop is out, along with other resource management, to keep players moving. New additions are mini-games, more decision making, events, alternate routes and being able to watch your party die off one by one. Yeah, but can we name the youngest kid after the elementary school bully (like we did back then) and starve him to death ... or better yet, have him die of cholera?
The two-year-old studio is located in Pune, in the west of India. Currently staffing 120 developers and testers, Ubisoft plans to balloon its size up to over 500, with a more modest goal of 200 employees by the year's end. Gameloft has a close relationship with Ubisoft, having developed mobile versions of a number of Ubisoft properties over the years, including Rainbow Six and Prince of Persia.
In companies' rush to capitalize on the industry's fascination with waggle, the Wii has become no stranger to games we'd sooner use to prop up the short leg of our coffee table than play. Much as it seems counterintuitive, novelty has not been par the course for the console so much as it has been quick cash-ins, though we continue to look to the Wii's digital download service WiiWare as the platform's saving grace.
It seems, however, that even WiiWare will not be immune to its share of shovelware, with mobile game developer-publisher Gameloft planning to use the service as a receptacle for cell phone games. We wouldn't mind so much if the company had originality on the brain, but its first effort, a Breakout clone going by the name of Block Breaker Deluxe, doesn't give us much hope. The download will be released in Japan in April before launching in other regions at a later date, giving us one to watch out for, if only to know what to avoid once WiiWare launches in North America on May 12.
Joining the ranks of Electronic Arts in game development for the iPhone, Gameloft and id Software have announced their commitment to Apple's portable. According to its press release, Gameloft intends to develop over 15 titles.
In a post on Slashdot, id's programming wizard John Carmack lauded Apple's 70% royalty deal and distribution deal. As for the SDK, Carmack said, "Just based on the blurbs, it looks very good -- a simulator plus debugging on the native device is the best of both worlds." Id also noted it had to put in an application for development like everyone else. Can we get an official version of Doom now?
In the opening keynote of the Game Developers Conference mobile component (being the section dedicated to gaming on cell phones, not some wheeled stage rolling down the hills of San Francisco), Gameloft president and CEO Michel Guillemot tackled supposed "myths" surrounding the mobile gaming sector, drawing attention to several issues currently inhibiting the industry's growth. "It's not the stagnant, tiny market that some people predicted it to be," he noted in his "Fast Life, Fast Media" presentation. He insisted that the perceived slowdown in the market was only temporary and not too dissimilar from that seen in the rest of the industry towards the end of a console cycle.
With various handsets expected to be in the hands of 4 billion people by 2010, one of the market's primary challenges lies in distribution through the multitudes of mobile carriers. Problems listed by Guillemot include non-standardized data costs across various characters (i.e. how much does it cost to transfer the data to your phone?), as well as the sheer number of SKUs that accompany each game release. If Gameloft produces 5 games per month, with compatible versions for 1,000 handsets in 10 different languages, it ultimately releases 50,000 different SKUs.
Despite the considerably quantity of releases, Guillemot insisted that quality must be uniform across all SKUs -- "as perfect as possible," because a consumer is unlikely to try the same game on different handsets. The iPhone was singled out as a handset that, at least in its current form, actually has a negative impact on the mobile gaming industry. Since the phone doesn't support any games yet, Guillemot considers every additional iPhone consumer to be a loss in the mobile gaming audience as a whole. Still, he predicts that touch-screen gaming, coupled with advanced handsets and the standardization of distribution costs, will lead to a new growth spurt for the mobile gaming industry in the latter half of 2008.
Mobile games publisher Gameloft announced they posted €45.9 million ($62.9 million) in sales during the first half of their fiscal year. According to Gameloft, this is a 50% increase from last year, which means they are well on their way to hitting their €95 million ($130.3 million) objective when the games industry goes into overdrive sales for the end of Q3 and the Q4 holiday season.
The sales come from standard issue back titles and, in the same way Activision pulled ahead in the first half of this year, Gameloft saw significant revenue from movie/TV licensed games like Shrek the Third, Desperate Housewives and Lost. Yes hardcore gamers, you may curse the heavens for that if you wish.
Mobile game developer Gameloft is bringing its cell phone title based on ABC's Lost to the iPod for $4.99 / £3.99. Gameloft joins just five other developers -- Electronic Arts, Namco, Astraware, PopCap, Fresh Games -- who sell games on the iTunes music store, as Apple has kept the device a closed platform for development.
With so many unsolved mysteries, you'd think playing a game based on Lost would involve asking lots of questions while never getting around to the answer portion. (We kid 'cause we love.)
Gameloft is currently working on a cell phone title based on NBC's Heroes; a Lost game for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 is in development by Ubisoft.
At the time of this publication, the season finale for Lost is currently underway for Americans on the East coast. West coast readers should be advised that commenters might leave spoilers below.
OK purists, let's keep it together. For the XBLA release of Prince of Persia Classic, expected in early summer, Gameloft and Ubisoft have slapped a beautiful fresh coat of paint on the classic 1989 title. That may not make the purists so mad as the prince ditched his classic turban for his Sands of Time look. Yup, Prince of Persia Classic has the prince in his post-turban, but pre-emo (Warrior Within) look, so at least there's some consolation.
Allegedly everything else but the graphics will remain the same including level design, combat and -- oh gawd help us -- controls. For the youngin' in the room who never played the original, you haven't experienced pain until you've tried tackling the original Prince of Persia's unforgiving controls. Yes, it is truly painful, more painful than every time the faux-metal music played in Warrior Within. Still can't figure out what they were thinking there -- but it sold well!
A new Die Hard game is in development, and while those of you still waiting for a fitting sequel to the awesome Die Hard Trilogy(no, we refuse to count Viva Las Vegas) are still out of luck, it's good news for people using mass transit or killing idle bathroom minutes. That's right: Gameloft has announced they've nabbed the mobile game rights to Live Free or Die Hard, due out in theaters this summer. We know it may not be what you were hoping for, but take heart. Gameloft VP Gonzague de Vallois said that they're trying to capture the movie's "action, intrigue and humor" ... in their cell phone game. We'll give them action and (maybe) intrigue, but humor? Is it possible? Can pressing the "7" key make you chortle? We'll find out when the game is released before the movie's June 27 debut.
Yes, a video game based on NBC's series Heroes may be on the way, but don't expect to be picking up the "Have a Haitian Guy Erase Your Wife's Mind 20 Times" Achievement any time soon.
In its mobile gaming roundup, Gamesindustry.biz mentions that publisher Gameloft has picked up the rights to develop games based on the geek favorite for the very small screen. No details are available yet about which of the show's many characters will be playable in the cell phone game ... or if the story will be separate from the show's storyline or ... well, really no details are available about any of it, save that it will be based on Heroes.
It's well-worn territory for Gameloft, which has already given similar treatment to hot TV properties like Lostand Desperate Housewives. Looking at those rather unlikely choices, Heroes may just be their easiest adaptation to date.
Though light on details, what the announcement does provide is an opportunity for you junior marketers to come up with your own witty, cell-phone based play on one of Heroes' many infamous taglines.
Right now, we're leaning towards "Save the RAZR ... save the world."
You don't have to tell Nokia that the original N-Gage was not the success they had imagined. They already know. That won't stop them from giving it the ol' college try as Nokia plans on rolling out a new N-Gage by this September.
In a brief statement on the official N-Gage blog, Nokia makes mention of a September release amidst reassuring that more than two publishers are on board for the new platform.
At the moment, only EA Mobile and Gameloft have known commitments for the new N-Gage with both publishers having already released titles for the original device. With Gameloft holding the lucrative Totally Spies license, we can only cross our fingers and hope for a next generation N-Gage follow-up.
This ain't your Xbox's Rainbow Six, but Wired's GameLife was impressed by Gameloft's version of Rainbow Six Vegas for the mobile platform -- at least for the duration of a 10-minute play session. The first two stages featured some variety, including a sniper task (pictured) and then a casino assault. GameLife noted that the second stage worked particularly well because players simply control a cursor; it's essentially a point-n-click action game.
Gameloft has a lot of experience developing mobile games, including 11 previous Tom Clancy titles. Last summer, the company was named the 'Best Mobile Games Studio' at the Develop Conference & Expo.
Posts with tag gameloft
Touchy-feely casual game news now, with Ubisoft revealing plans to bring its Games for Everyone range to everyone who has an iPhone or an iPod Touch. In an interview with CasualGaming.biz, Games For Everyone executive producer, Pauline Jacquey, explained that Ubisoft wanted to target a wider range of platforms, including those used for listening to music or yapping with friends. 
In companies' rush to capitalize on the industry's fascination with waggle, the Wii has become no stranger to games we'd sooner use to prop up the short leg of our coffee table than play. Much as it seems counterintuitive, novelty has not been par the course for the console so much as it has been quick cash-ins, though we continue to look to the Wii's digital download service WiiWare as the platform's saving grace.
Mobile games publisher Gameloft announced they posted €45.9 million ($62.9 million) in sales during the first half of their fiscal year. According to Gameloft, this is a 50% increase from last year, which means they are well on their way to hitting their €95 million ($130.3 million) objective when the games industry goes into overdrive sales for the end of Q3 and the Q4 holiday season.
Mobile game developer Gameloft is bringing its cell phone title based on ABC's Lost to the iPod for $4.99 / £3.99. Gameloft joins just five other developers -- Electronic Arts, Namco, Astraware, PopCap, Fresh Games -- who sell games on the iTunes music store, as Apple has kept the device a closed platform for development.
A new Die Hard game is in development, and while those of you still waiting for a fitting sequel to the awesome Die Hard Trilogy (no, we refuse to count Viva Las Vegas) are still out of luck, it's good news for people using mass transit or killing idle bathroom minutes. That's right: Gameloft has announced they've nabbed the mobile game rights to Live Free or Die Hard, due out in theaters this summer.
Yes, a video game based on NBC's series Heroes may be on the way, but don't expect to be picking up the "Have a Haitian Guy Erase Your Wife's Mind 20 Times" Achievement any time soon.
You don't have to tell Nokia that the original N-Gage was not the success they had imagined. They already know. That won't stop them from giving it the ol' college try as Nokia plans on rolling out a new N-Gage by this September. 
This ain't your Xbox's Rainbow Six, but Wired's GameLife was impressed by Gameloft's version of Rainbow Six Vegas for the mobile platform -- at least for the duration of a 10-minute play session. The first two stages featured some variety, including a sniper task (pictured) and then a casino assault. GameLife noted that the second stage worked particularly well because players simply control a cursor; it's essentially a point-n-click action game.
_thumbnail.jpg "i am 8-bit: 2008")
