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EA has today confirmed the name of the new Frostbite engine being developed solely for handhelds i.e Frostbite Go, that is described on its website by EA as a mobile division empowering game developers with Frostbite engine, the technology behind the popular Battlefield 3 game (via NeoGAF). Simply put, the company is putting together the technology to run Frostbite on platforms such as iOS and Android.

Used exclusively by EA teams and studios, our workflows and runtimes are highly configurable and cover all aspects of development including Audio, Animation, Cinematics, Scripting, Artificial Intelligence, Physics, Destruction, Rendering, Visual Effects, and more. Frostbite games are currently in development for current and future platforms including mobile devices.

Runtime in Frostbite supports a highly scalable model in order to appeal to the diverse array of platforms available on today’s market. Efficiency in both our runtime memory and runtime performance are both key factors to enabling code and data systems to deploy content to diverse targets from XBOX360 and PlayStation 4 to iOS and Android.

While it’s not yet clear which version of Frostbite the mobile engine will be based on, it is likely that the company will adapt the latest and greatest for Frostbite Go. Also, some Frostbite 3 games are set to arrive later this year, such as Battlefield 4, we might see Frostbite Go-created products hitting the app store at that same time.

EA Confirms ‘Frostbite Go’ Engine For Mobiles, Games Coming Soon is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

You know about GOG.com, right? It’s a digital download service for PC and Mac games that does one thing Steam and the Mac App Store
don’t do; it blows your mind with its collection of Mac OS Classic games, most of which are sold at ridiculously low prices. Well…low compared to what I paid for them in the ’90s.

These aren’t old games updated for new devices, mind you. Most are presented in their original pixelated glory, so you’re going to need to accept them for what they are. No, not accept
them…celebrate them! For these are the games that kept the Macintosh alive during the dark, dark ’90s until Aspyr showed up with Tomb Raider II and made us legitimate again.

Games such as:

Castles 1+2 - $5.99

Man, I lost so much time on Castles 2: Siege and Conquest back in the day. It was probably the first strategy game I…

Continue reading Three Mac OS Classic games you need to play on GOG.com – volume 1

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Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Gravity Hook HD ($0.99, Universal) is a high scoring arcade-style game that is more challenging than it may first appear. If there were such a genre for side-scrolling puzzle games, this game would define that genre. Except for one minor detail: it’s vertical.

In Gravity Hook, your robot shoots out a grappling hook towards an orb that you believe is stable enough to propel the robot upward. The problem is that the orb is not attached to anything. As the robot is pulled closer to the orb, the orb is getting pulled closer to the robot.  Gameplay is simple enough to get the hang of — just tap on the orb you want to attach the hook to and the robot shoots its hook at that orb. As the robot moves upward, more orbs become visible for you to grab on to. When you select a new orb, the robot releases the hook from the orb it is currently attached to and fires the hook to the new orb.

Sounds simple enough, but there is one slight catch. The closer the robot is to an orb when it gets attached, the faster the robot moves toward it. So fast, in fact, that the robot can use the momentum to fling itself up even higher. The opposite has its ill effects as well: the farther away the robot is from an orb when it gets attached, the slower the robot moves toward it. If the robot happens to be too far away at the time it gets attached, it will fall further away from the orb rather than get closer. You can, however, attempt to recover from choosing an object that was too far away by targeting a closer object. The problem is that your downward momentum is often times too much for the cable to handle. Extending the cable between the robot and the orb too much will cause it to snap. With no cable to cast out, the robot will fall, crashing downward and ending the game.

The orbs themselves have different properties as well. The farther up you go, the more complex the choices get. Toward the bottom of the game, the green orbs you grapple on to are quite benign and easy enough to get the hang of. The blue orbs on the other hand turn into mines as soon as you attach to them. When attached, a timer starts counting down. Detaching from the blue orbs stops the timer. If you stay attached too long and end up bumping into the blue orbs as you get pulled closer to them, the blue orb will explode and destroy the robot in the process.

The gray orbs are chained to one another and will quickly break free. Once free from the other gray orbs, they begin to plummet toward the ground. Staying attached to them for too long and the robot will be pulled to the ground with them. And the red orbs, lets just say you need to avoid those at all costs. With all of the objects the idea is basically the same, don’t stay too attached to any one object for too long.  Use your momentum to propel the robot upward to the next collection of orbs.

There is a classic play mode as well. I found the classic mode to be much more challenging than the normal play mode. So you might want to get the hang of things in the HD version before you try out the classic eight-bit version. The first rendition of the game was originally inspired by a program that was use to teach students how to type if you can imagine that.  Whichever version you feel more comfortable playing, this is the weekend to grab hold of Gravity Hook.

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Rovio this morning has announced the launch of Rovio Account, a new service to allow its gamers to sync game progress across devices:

Rovio Account lets you store your game progress and continue playing on another device.

Some of you may have noticed a new feature in your Rovio games called Rovio Account. Our fans have been asking for a way to play their game on different phones or tablets without losing their progress when changing the device. This is exactly what Rovio Account lets you do!

Users will be required to register with an email address to save their data with Rovio Account. You will be able to combine your progress from several devices such as scores and stars and merge them into your cloud save.

Currently, Rovio Account is only available in The Croods game worldwide, plus the classic Angry Birds game on iOS in Finland and Poland. The new feature will gradually make its way into more countries in the future.

Rovio Announces ‘Rovio Account’ to Sync Games Across Devices is a post from: iPhone in Canada Blog – Canada's #1 iPhone Resource

This June will mark the third time I’ve attended E3 on behalf of AppleTell. The first time was E3 2011, when I mostly went to assist GamerTell with their Nintendo coverage, and to dig up whatever OS X or iOS material I could find. Most of my
requests to demo the Apple stuff was met by blank stares, patronizing laughter or some rep who’d obviously just been awakened from a nap that started sometime around the final days of the Apple
IIGS.

Last year at E3 2012, a few more OS X games could be found, but it was the iOS games that had exploded across the show floor. Two days and one man were barely enough to cover them all, especially
considering I’d still agreed to help with Nintendo news.

This year, I may have to pull some of the GamerTell staff…

Continue reading E3 2013: Mac games at a gaming expo? Absurd!

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Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Star Command ($2.99, Universal) is a mission-based space game where you are responsible for the safety and well-being of your ship and its crew. However, as captain, your primary objective is to stay alive. This is a game where the ship goes down with its captain.

From the very start, you spend a series of colored tokens to add different types rooms and crew members to your ship. The more rooms you have, the more crew you will need to operate these rooms. Each colored token represents a different capability.  Red represents tactical for your weapons room and security team.  Next is blue; it represents science, this is for your medical team.  Finally there is yellow, which represents engineering.  Striking a balance between the three is essential as the game progresses.  With no in-app purchases to bankroll a fully manned ship, you must earn your tokens as you travel through the galaxy by completing a series of missions.

The ship you start with is basically empty. You need to add weapons, engineering, and medical rooms. Each room will cost you three tokens. Hiring crew members is your responsibility as well. Crew members can only be added on earth and will cost you one token each.  When it come to weapons on board the ship, each crew member wearing a red uniform is equipped with a standard issue laser pistol.  Once your ship is built and your crew is on board, you are ready to take on your first mission.

Throughout the game you will encounter alien battles both in space with ship-versus-ship combat, as well as on the board with crew-to-crew combat. In ship-to-ship combat you can only use the weapons and defenses from rooms that have crew members assigned to them. You only fire your weapons when they are fully charged. Once charged, each weapon has its own mini game you need to play in order to get the weapon to fire and hit its target. These mini games only take a few seconds to play and look like something you would expect to see on the console of a weapon’s targeting system.  As the battle progresses, your attention is focused on when the enemy is about to fire, what levels the enemy’s shields and hull integrity are at, and how long it takes your ship’s weapons to fully charge.  There are enough things going on all at once to keep you on edge.

In crew-to-crew combat, enemy aliens teleport onto your ship and start tearing it apart from the inside. You will have to hunt them down and destroy them before they kill all of your crew. Situating your security team a safe distance from the intruders, you find that you are constantly adjusting their position to keep them from getting overrun. You also need to reposition your teams when more aliens teleport onto your ship. If you are fortunate enough to have a medical room staffed with the necessary personnel, you will also start rotating your security teams in and out of the infirmary as they get hurt. When moving your crew around to fight the alien invaders, be sure not to leave one of the ship’s critical weapons rooms understaffed, or else you will leave your ship more vulnerable to attack.

The rooms on your ship can be upgraded, as can the crew members. At the end of each victory, you will be awarded tokens, which can be used to hire more crew members, add new rooms, or upgrade existing rooms. Also at the end of each victorious battle, each crew member that played a role in the battle will earn experience points based on what action they took in the battle.

There is a lot going on with each battle. While you are managing each crew member individually, you are also keeping track of each weapon to see when they are fully charged and ready to fire. At the same time you are also need to pay attention to the enemy’s weapon system in order to try to dodge an attack at just the right time.  Leaving a fully charged weapon sit idle too long, missing an opportunity to dodge an attack, or allowing just one crew member lose too many health points in a shootout could be the difference between winning or losing the battle.  If you feel like you are up to the challenge this weekend then consider joining Star Command as captain of your own ship.

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Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Girls Like Robots ($2.99, Universal) is a puzzle game where the pieces of the puzzle each have their own likes and dislikes. In this game, the nerds like robots too, but that is not the problem. The problem is that the girls do not like the nerds.

Oddly enough, the nerds don’t like other nerds either. About the only puzzle piece that can tolerate a nerd is a robot. It is these very basic social rules that lay the foundation of the game. The playing board is laid out in a grid of squares, with each piece occupying a square on the grid.  Each puzzle piece can be happy, mad or indifferent.  The score you earn is based on how many puzzle pieces on the board you make happy. When every piece on the board is happy you earn the maximum points allowed for that board.

From these simple beginnings a truly complex series of challenges await. Of course the size and dimensions of each board can change. But with certain levels there are already immovable pieces placed on the board that you have to contend with. Once a piece is played you cannot move it. There is an undo that allows you to keep undoing your previous moves one at a time. Or if you prefer, you can reset the entire board and start all over again.

As the levels progress, additional player pieces are introduced. Each new piece has its own set of likes and dislikes. There are even girls who like bugs in this game. What makes the game interesting is that each player piece has a personality, and a part to play in the storyline.  If you ever forget who likes who, you can always tap and hold on each player piece to see a cheat sheet outlining its interests. There is also a heart on the screen that you can press to see how the pieces you have already played on the board like each other. Green indicates a positive relationship and red a negative one.

Some levels play out like a game of solitaire where you decide which piece is played where and when. In the earlier levels you can even see the count of pieces you have remaining. And, a s things progress, some levels present you with the exact order the pieces must be played in what can best be described as a sort of Tetris-style of gameplay. On these levels, you only know what piece is coming next.  There are levels where the pieces are moving, and you must box in these pieces in order to keep them from moving about.  These variations are what make each new level a challenge to complete.

There are three different acts to play out as well as a series of bonus levels. Each act is unlocked as you complete earlier acts. Within the acts there are over 100 levels with their own  unique story to tell, which helps explain the rules for completing that level. For instance, you may be responsible for keeping a space next to June in the cafeteria so that Ben can sit next to her.  Ben wants to ask June to go with him to the upcoming school dance.  Or you may need to situate a robot between Ben and the other girls, as Ben has become quite excited to get to the dance.

With each level played, there is a thermometer that rates the total happiness of all of the pieces on the board. The more pieces that are happy, the higher the thermometer rises. Once all of the pieces are played, a final score is tallied and you are awarded from one to three happiness points. These points are collected in your Bag of Happiness.  The bonus levels — or challenges as they are called — are unlocked when you earn enough happiness points in your Bag of Happiness.

As you get familiar with each of the characters in the game, you begin to look forward to learning what comes next in the story.  As challenging as the puzzles can become, the story continues to string them all together into the three acts of a play.  Each obstacle, additional character or new aspect to the game can be associated directly with a twist in the main plot of the story.

So this weekend you should set aside time to come to understand exactly why Girls Like Robots better than Nerds.

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Games for the Weekend is a weekly feature aimed at helping you avoid doing something constructive with your downtime. Each Friday we’ll be recommending a game for Mac, iPhone or iPad that we think is awesome. Here is one cool enough to keep you busy during this weekend.

Repulze ($2.99 Universal) is more than a racing game with insanely fast courses, upgradable hovercraft and challenging obstacles — and those hovercraft are equipped with weapons.  In what plays out as a roller derby style of fighting, you can either race ahead and avoid the fight entirely, or lag behind and take your opponents out one at a time.

There are three different control settings to choose from. The first set of controls are easy enough to understand: tap right to go right and tap left to go left. There is also a tilt-to-steer setting that uses the device’s accelerometer and a back-and-forth slider control that is accessed in the center of the screen. Going right or left is the easy part, what takes a little getting used to is the fast-paced graphics and knowing exactly when and how far to go to the right or to the left in order to maximize your speed potential.

Each course will take a few passes to learn where the obstacles and various power-ups are located. Along the tracks are energy gates that you pass through in order to gain energy during the race.  These energy gates are color-coded indicating their polarity. Your hovercraft switches between red and green energy polarity throughout the race.  When your hovercraft requires red energy, it is important that you avoid the green energy gates. If you happen to hit the wrong color energy gate, your speed will decrease. Hitting three consecutive power gates of the same color earns you a booster. This adds to the challenge of each as achieving some of the more demanding record times requires you to earn every possible booster in the race, without hitting the wrong color power gate even once.

There are three different phases to choose from when you start the game. Phase One is considered the boot camp level. There are nine gravity-defying tracks and six hovercraft to choose from. Here your biggest challenge is to avoid hitting the walls while going as fast as you can. This is a great place to start as you can get familiar with the various hovercraft and get into the groove of the game’s racing style.  In Phase Two the game introduces Wildcard Gates and Toolkits. Wildcard Gates instantly grant you a power booster and change your hovercraft polarity. Toolkits are collected and spent to power up your hovercraft. In Phase Two additional vehicles are on the track as well.  Phase Two is basically an advanced version of Phase One, with new tracks to explore.

Phase Three is where your hovercraft gains weapons and the additional vehicles on the track are hostile. With plasma canons and rocket batteries your hovercraft becomes an instrument of destruction. There are no additional controls to learn as your weapons have an automatic targeting system. You just need to control your hovercraft and keep it steady long enough for the targeting system to lock on to its target.  You are also warned when an enemy hovercraft has you in its sights.  Your screen starts flashing red, alarms go off, and if you don’t respond quickly to the threat, you may get incinerated.

As you win more races, you will increase in rank and earn badges.  Your rank determines which hovercraft you can use and your badges unlock additional tracks.  Each hovercraft is upgradable as well. You spend the Toolkits you collect.  The power ripper power up is the only power-up available in Phase One and Two, as they are not battle courses.  In Phase Three, you have access to the Plasma Canon and Rocket Battery power-ups.

The graphics are extremely smooth for a racing game that moves so fast.  The gravity-defying tracks that the hovercraft races on really add depth to how you approach each track.  Keeping your hovercraft from bumping into the walls while at the same time earning the much-needed energy gates makes each course a real challenge to master.  This weekend is a good time to brush up on your hovercraft skills, and take on the challenge of battling other hovercraft in the futuristic world that is Repulze.

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