Tag Archives: Games

Zynga.com Open For Playing Top Games

5 Mar

zynga

Zynga.com’s games platform is now live in beta mode — and you can find it here.

The platform is launching with just five Zynga games: CityVille, CastleVille, Hidden Chronicles, Words With Friends and Zynga Poker. When entering any of these games from the platform, the user is prompted to connect with Facebook. A quick tutorial walks new players through platform features regardless of which game a new user enters.

We took a quick test drive of CastleVille and found our kingdom exactly as we left it on Facebook. We observe that the game loaded approximately in the same amount of time it takes to launch CastleVille on Facebook (from the point of clicking “Play” to the point where we’re actually playing the game). Also of note, the right-hand chat and live feed bar that distinguishes gameplay between the two platforms is also apparently not viewable in full screen mode on Zynga.com.

via Zynga games platform is now live in beta.

HTML5 Makes For Faster Game Play, But Where?

5 Mar

car

HTML5 is the new lingua franca of the internet, but games that are written in the format tend to run too slow.

The platforms that run HTML5 faster are likely to have an advantage in running a whole new wave of applications and games. So Spaceport.io, the cross-platform mobile game development tool maker, ran a study to find out whether iOS (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) is faster than Android at running HTML5 games. Hands-down, iOS won.

If HTML5 games run sufficiently fast, then a lot of benefits accrue. For instance, a game could be written in HTML5 for one platform and then work perfectly fine in another.

iOS performed three times better at running HTML5 games than Android, according to the new study. Spaceport.io created a benchmark dubbed PerfMarks to test performance at running HTML5 code.

The benchmark tested a device’s ability to animate image movement — a key measure of game performance. The report measures the number of moving images on a screen at 30 frames per second (FPS), a frame rate which provides a near-native user experience.

Repeated tests show that iOS performed far better at running animations than Android. The newest iPhone 4S scored 252 PerfMarks and the iPad 2 score 327. That compares to just 53 for the iPhone 3GS from 2009. By comparison, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone scored 147 and the Kindle Fire scored only 25.

via Apple’s iOS runs HTML5 games three times faster than Android | VentureBeat.

FarmVille Gets Real With Hasbro

10 Feb

FarmVille Gets Real With Hasbro

Zynga has partnered with Hasbro to develop a wide range of toy and gaming experiences based on Zynga’s most popular Facebook games and characters.

In other words, we could see a board game of FarmVille, Words With Friends or CityVille in the not too distant future. In addition, we could potentially see action figures based on some of its game characters.

Merchandising around videogames is not new, and has recently spread like wildfire to mobile and social gaming with rising stars like Rovio’s Angry Birds or ZeptoLab’s Cut the Rope.

In a press release, Zynga says Hasbro has obtained the license to develop and distribute a wide range of product lines based on Zynga’s game brands, but does not get into too many details.

It also says the deal covers opportunities for co-branded merchandise featuring a combination of both Hasbro and Zynga brands, it said. Could we see a co-branded Words With Friends Scrabble game?

Hasbro already has a long-standing relationship with Electronic Arts, which publishes such titles as Scrabble and Monopoly across many platforms.

via Zynga Inks Deal With Hasbro to Bring FarmVille Into the Real World – Tricia Duryee – Commerce – AllThingsD.

Xbox Boss Starts New Game Company

5 Feb

Xbox

Seamus Blackley, the co-creator of the Xbox, passionately believes that gameplay will triumph in the game business. That is why he and his new startup are relying on a team of famous designers from Atari to make a series of games for the Apple iPhone and iPad.

The idea that he and his partner, chief executive Van Burnham, have dreamed up is to use the creators of the best arcade experiences from the golden age of Atari in the 1970s and 1980s to create games for the “new arcade” on iOS devices.

“We are looking at the new arcade, and 99 cents on the iPhone is the new quarter,” Blackley (pictured above), president of the startup Innovative Leisure, said in an exclusive interview with VentureBeat. “People are playing on all these new devices and are finding the joy of the arcade games.”

via Xbox co-creator Seamus Blackley launches mobile-game startup with Atari arcade veterans | VentureBeat.

Confirmed: New Wii U To Be Released Later This Year

26 Jan

Confirmed: New Wii U To Be Released Later This Year

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata has told reporters that the Wii U will launch in the US, Japan, Europe, and Australia for the end of 2012. While the system was previously pegged for a 2012 release, this is the first time we’ve got confirmation that it’ll make it in time for the holiday season in all major markets. The 3DS launched last year in February in Japan and March elsewhere, meaning it likely got off to a slower start than if it had been available before Christmas. The announcement also means we are likely to see much more finalized details of the Wii U’s software lineup at E3 in June — so far, hands-on time with the console has been limited to tech demos.

via Wii U to launch in US, Japan, Europe and Australia by end of 2012 | The Verge.

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