Animals – Coloring, Matching, Spelling & Learning Activities for Your Creative Baby or Toddler

On May 16, 2012, in Kids apps review, iPad, by Eugene
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Kandoobi Animals is a top rated 4-in-1 play and learning activity app. The app features 100+ original, charming and colorful animal, bug and reptile characters. Kids love Kandoobi!


★ Coloring – Choose from the 100+ page animal coloring book or blank pages.
★ Matching – Children pick the animal that matches the mystery shape.
★ Letters – A drag and drop letter matching game with animal pronunciations.
★ Scratch & Fill – Swipe the image and colors fill in the animal drawing.

Screenshot 1

Great for parent and child time and easy enough for toddlers to play on their own.

Screenshot 2

Download now and start having fun!

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Brain Games

On August 10, 2011, in Chengdu, Company, GameNext, by Thijs
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Before when I used to hear “brain games” I would not feel any excitement to actually play these kind of games. After all, a game has to be fun right?

By now I have changed my mind. At TribePlay we are currently working on an upcoming facebook brain game: BrainJewel. The story behind it is that you are an Egyptian archeologist and that you have to use your brain to level up and discover treasures. Earlier facebook brain games like “Who has the biggest brain” proved that brain games are very popular and can even be more fun if you can compare scores with your friends. This made us build in score comparison mechanisms in BrainJewel as well. And I can honestly say that I like brain games now.

The good thing about brain games is that you can really improve yourself and you will get smarter in playing these games by making more clever use of your mind capacity. Comparing with your friends is also great and really motivates to keep on training and reach higher scores. If that is not enough I recently read reports that playing brain games enhance brain capacity as well and improve memory among other things!

BrainJewel will officially be launched next week so stay tuned ;) Check out the Facebook fan page of BrainJewel to get the latest update on the release!

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Tetris Battle – A History of Success

On July 1, 2011, in Flash, GameNext, Insights, New Games, by Mitch
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Not having been a part of the development side of gaming for too long, I can’t say my experience speaks volumes of what may be a reality in this industry, however I hope to provide some insight on a game that has been sweeping the Facebook world since it was initially released – Tetris Battle.

Game developers do not often admit when the game from another developer is a good game for the purpose of beefing up their own games, although there is always an exception. I think it’s safe to say that Tetris Battle has made a big stake in the world of online social games. What was originally a game developed by a Russian programmer in 1984, this game has stood the test of time to this day. Naturally, the game has changed in the way it looks through the years, but the core game mechanics have largely remain unchanged. How often do you come across a game that has not only been largely popular, while still largely being the exact same game it was close to three decades ago (in a side-note, it appears that the 30 year anniversary will be coming up on June 6, 2014…if there isn’t already a Facebook event to celebrate this historic day, I suggest somebody get on that…I digress)? Tetris must have achieved some sort of award for this.

Tetris Battle

Tetris Battle - one of the most popular games among the TribePlay Crew


Such a simple addition, yet SO very exciting: the ability to send lines over to your opponent simply by completing lines on your own screen. Tetris Battle isn’t only successful simply because it is Tetris. This is such a popular game because it jumps onboard the minute-game bandwagon along with the likes of Bejeweled Blitz and Diamond Dash. These sorts of games are there for people to come and play when they have a few spare minutes and want to get some gaming in. Despite their target, they have actually gained a lot of traction among those gamers who will sit at a computer for hours playing the same exact game. I doubt these developers anticipated such success in this market, but the success is there, nonetheless. This is how Bejeweled has been such a successful game. It’s a game drastically different than Zynga’s wildly popular Farmville, yet it still has a hefty number of Daily and Monthly Active Users. To me, we have two defined markets in the online world: tycoon/city building games (like Farmville and Cityville), and these mad minute games like Tetris and Bejeweled (I just thought of that name, but I think it’s very fitting). With so few true markets, and such large developers dominating those markets, it’s going to take one heck of a game to come in and lay their own path.

Another area where Tetris Battle has succeeded is in its shopping section. Never before have I ever felt the urge to make a purchase on Facebook until I saw how many AWESOME tetrominoes and bombs and ghosts I could buy. You can even buy upgrades for the in-game mechanics! For example, the first thing I bought with my Tetris money was an increase in speed to the clearing of lines. This is a genius move by the team over at Tetris Online. There truly is an incentive to make purchases in this game, and I can only imagine how well this is working out for them now.

All in all, Tetris Battle is still the same game we saw nearly 30 years ago…just all jacked up on steroids and following a few plastic surgeries. At the end of the day, though, it was one heck of a game then, and it still is today. There is no denying the success of the Tetris franchise as it ventures into the world of social gaming.

Mitch joined us 6 weeks ago and he is currently doing an internship in Online Marketing for TribePlay. You can read more of his stories in his blog.

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Development Day

On June 28, 2011, in Chengdu, Company, by Bart
1

A couple of weeks ago, we deployed a portal website for Eccky. Before, children could play Eccky through the Hyves or Facebook platform. With the portal, children can access the game without any of these social logins. Also Facebook users, Hyves users and portal users will from now on share one world.

Preparation of the portal took quite some time, since we wanted to convert our existing database to a more friendly structure that would support multiple login interfaces for the user (Hyves, Facebook, etc.).

Database conversion itself takes time, and it should be monitored all the time. With Eccky, we don’t have the luxury of a live shadow environment where we could convert the database on the background and when it’s finished switch it to the live environment.

Below is a recap of our deployment and a fine example of Murphy’s Law.

Monday, May 30th
04:00 Enter the office and start the database conversion.
09:00 Every table except for two large tables is converted, that seems promising.
12:00 One of the large tables, the BuddyList, is still not converted. This seems suspicious.
14:00 The BuddyList is finished, however after a few tests, my suspicion seems right, the table has been corrupted during the conversion. I feel Murphy standing behind me.
16:00 To repair the BuddyList more disk space is needed, so we need to clean up old tables and old files. In the meantime we make an empty dummy table so testers can still continue to test.

Tuesday, May 31th
00:00 Start the repair of the BuddyList. This takes some time, so some of the colleagues take this opportunity to get creatively some rest.
03:00 The BuddyList is back in its old state, so testers can continue to test for a while.
04:00 Everybody goes home to return in a few hours to continue the deployment.
12:00 Back in the office, the BuddyList is still in its old state and the only thing not working in the game. Instead of trying to convert it again (and risk corrupting it again) we start building on a workaround
14:00 Following Murphy’s Law, www.eccky.com can’t be reached anymore. Our domain name server decided to stop working. We immediately switch to another domain server, but domain propagation around the world could take around 24 hours.
23:00 Everybody is going home to get some good rest for what is hopefully the last day of deployment.
Sleeping in the office
Wednesday, June 1st
00:00 (@home) I am not completely happy with the workaround for the BuddyList. I try one more solution to convert the BuddyList.
02:00 (@home) The new solution seems promising.
03:30 (@home) The BuddyList has been converted, and a few tests show that the data is all there. It seems that Murphy is packing his bags.
12:00 The IP change of www.eccky.com is now visible to us in China, we can continue to test on a “live” environment, and fix last minute bugs. However, www.eccky.com is still not reachable in the Netherlands.

Thursday, June 2nd
00:00 (18:00 Dutch time) Finally, www.eccky.com is now also working in the Netherlands. It’s time to go live!
00:10 Children in the Netherlands are trying to access our game, however a bug in the login process stops several children to login.
02:00 The login bug is fixed.
04:00 Some more small bugs are fixed, the game runs, everybody can go home to have a good sleep.

This was just a small recap of the deployment. During these days the whole team worked hard to fix any last minute bugs. I thank Fenix, Tobe, Sophie, Ethan, Fair and Gabriel for their efforts and spirit. To everybody, just check out http://www.eccky.com to see the result. It is a fine start!

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Dalaran Archive Tour of Decoding the Mysteries of Warcraft

On June 7, 2011, in Insights, New Games, Social Networks, by Ethan
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Previously I discussed the newly added social features of Battlenet for TribePlay Game Development in this article. Today I want to continue with a different topic.
The Background story and culture setting is an essential point in the Game Development process. So today I want to get a little bit deeper into the setting of World of Warcraft.

The Old Gods and Cthulhu Mythos
Welcome to Dalaran Archive, adventurers. I’m the curator here. I’ll tour you through, unearth and share the dust-laden mysteries, epic quests as well as the stories of legendary heroes and most notorious villains in the history of Azeroth. Humm…can’t wait? All right, let’s get started by going back to the beginning of days.

The Old God and Cthulhu Mythos

The Old God and Cthulhu Mythos


The Old Gods
“In the time before time, when the world was still in its infancy, a battle between a Titan and a being of unimaginable evil and power raged on this very soil. The prophecy is unclear about whether or not the Titan was vanquished … but it illustrates that a Titan fell.”

The Old Gods are mysterious, godlike and greatly malefic horrors which ruled in tyranny over the infant universe. Eventually, they were defeated and sequestered within the primordial world of Azeroth by the Titanic Pantheon. Only very few mortals have ever been aware of the Old Gods’ existence. Fewer, still, considered them anything more than ominous myths from before time began. The rumor of a dreadful and ancient past should forever stay forgotten by the mortal races.

The Connections between Cthulhu Mythos
The connections between the Old Gods of the Warcraft and the Great Old Ones from the Cthulhu Mythos are quite obvious. The ideas of aeons old hibernating beneath the earth, can bring madness upon those who delve too deeply into their secrets. These secrets have begun to be referenced in many fantasy worlds.

The similarities between the Old Ones and the Olds Gods are many. Both have the same octopus-like look: multiple tentacles, multiple eyes and multiple mouths. Both came from the abyss of the universe. Both once ruled the planet before being forced to sleep beneath the world. Their influence, alone, can drive most mortals into madness.

The naming theme of the Old Gods also references the Great Old Ones. The first Old God encountered in World of Warcraft in the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj was C’thun, whose name originates from the most famous of all the Great Old Ones, Cthulhu. Yogg-Saron, who is the ultimate boss of Ulduar located on Northrend in expansion Wrath of the Lichking, is likewise based on Yog-Sothoth, one of the more prevalent beings in the Cthulhu Mythos. The Old God N’Zoth (To appear in Cataclysm and the force behind the Emerald Nightmare) appears to be based on Zoth-Ommog. This comparison goes deeper with the third Old God to appear in game, Zoth-Ommog, who was the third son of Cthulhu and N’Zoth.

Next Episode: The Whispers of the Old Gods. Coming Soon…

Ethan He is Game Tester at TribePlay Game Development and a gamer by heart.

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Music and Sound Effects in Games and Pop Culture

On April 20, 2011, in Company, Flash, Technical, by Gregor
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Currently I am working on the background music and sound effects of one of our new projects. Sounds and music are really important in game design development, because they can create a emotional connection and push the player to continue to play. A good example is Diamond Dash from Wooga on Facebook, who borrowed heavily but successfully from Bejeweled Blitz. With their addicting game play and encouraging sound effects they became one of the fastest growing current Facebook games. Their secret is, that they use voiceovers with a addicting game play. You click the diamonds, get cheered up by a electronic sounding voice from the off. It is a really good combination, with an obvious positive result.

Diamond Dash
In Eccky, TribePlay is using a happy kind of childish music, with drums in the background. It is quite characteristic and fits in the cute style of Eccky. In the Eccky World you have a different kind of music, which is not that distinguishable. This is because most people spend their time chatting with other people and if the background music is too dominant, it can be annoying pretty fast. Mini Games use their own characteristic music, especially for a virtual world for kids this is important because they will easy recognize the music and connect it with the mini games. For kids it is important that things look, act, sound similar to understand the game play. So sounds and music are also about usability. The windows alert sound, a beep, the sound of clicking something, everyone knows the meaning and what to expect.

While researching on different kind of sounds and effects, I stumbled upon a couple of interesting things. Game music has obviously already made it into popular culture. The sound of SuperMario is indeed a classic, bands like Aphex Twin remixed the Tetris music and innovative DJs are using the 8bit Sound of a Gameboy to create techno music. Game sounds have become a legitimate form of art, with orchestra playing the StreetFighter soundtrack, and artists releasing albums of game music. Recently I read an interview with the composers of Prismatic Solid, an Xbox game. Sampling Masters AYA and MEGA just released an album with the Soundtrack to the game. Listen to it on YouTube, it is a great piece of work.

Of course for a Facebook game you can not create a similar sophisticated soundtrack, but still the music should obviously not be underestimated. After the first Demo of our new game is available I will let you know and you can judge and comment yourself. For now I will continue my journey through the world of game music and sound effects…

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Branded Games

On April 8, 2011, in Company, New Games, by Thijs
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When we first started TribePlay it was our plan to focus fully on branded games. By working at Spil Games Asia I noticed the enormous reach flash games can have and that combined with my general interest in branding and advertising made for a logical combination.

Due to projects like Eccky our focus shifted a little bit but we still kept an interest in this area. Although the industry is growing there are still quite some problems to overcome. Most of the time Branded Games are not about good game-play but more about the Brand itself scaring away customers. I guess it is important to find the right balance between these things when you are in this business.

Recently we were lucky enough to get approached by AirFrance China to make a branded game for them that promotes their travel destinations around the world. On top of that people can win a prize by playing the game.

It is launched today on the AirFrance China homepage, very exciting. Hope to do more of them in the future!

Air France The World At Your Fingertips

Guess where the landmark is located

The Game: Air France – The World at your Fingertips! Play now and win fabulous prizes: a return ticket to Paris and electronic gadgets!

The Blog post originally appeared in Thijs Bosma’s Blog

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Social Network features in Battlenet for China

On March 29, 2011, in New Games, Social Networks, by Ethan
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It’s a blockbuster for every single Blizzfan in China that Starcraft 2: Wing of Liberty is going to launch a Open Beta Test on March 29,2001 for free, namely today. Brood war is considered to be one of the most popular RTS games in China during the past decade. Due to the reason you probably all know, SC2 was launched in U.S. and regions of rest of the world a couple months ahead of China. Though a handful of feverish fans have tasted SC2 by landing severs of overseas, the terrible lag is really an unbearable torture. Late better than never, finally, we’ll unveil this phenomenon in front of our doorway.

Today I focus a bit on the brand new Battlenet. Battlenet was a system founded more than a decade ago when Blizz released Diablo. Since then Battlenet serves as a critical important player verses player feature in each blizzard game launched after. For years, Battlenet has just served as a platform of multiplayer games connection which merely shows the win and lost records plus a basic chat channel but not including a social network function. As year goes by, social network plays a more and more important role in game industry than ever. Let’s check out what kind of storm Blizz had brought into the new generation of Battlenet.

Starcraft
Always Connected
The new Battlenet and SC2 are designed to be seamlessly connected. That means even if you’re playing solo you will still view the latest news, receive game and content updates, and be able to see your friends’ status and chat with them. But this new interconnectivity between the game and the service goes even deeper than that. Now, each player will create a SC2 Battlenet character. This character serves as your single persistent identity across the service. Everything you do in the game will be saved to your character profile for you and your friends to see.

Always Competitive
One of the biggest improvements that the new Battlenet service brings to SC2 is smarter and more accurate matchmaking. While the legacy Battlenet service had good matchmaking, the standard experience for new players was usually a series of crushing defeats against seasoned Battlenet veterans until they either left or developed the skills necessary to thrive in Battlenet’s competitive environment. As a rookie, you won’t experience the embarrassment of being banned as you ever did in first generation of Battlenet.

Always communicated
Battlenet’s social networking and communication capabilities will be some of the service’s biggest new features. This new social backbone for the entire service will seamlessly integrate friends lists, matchmaking, messaging, and more. Text and voice chat are now seamlessly interwoven into and out of the game, enabling communication whether you are in Battlenet or in-game playing SC2. And as is the case with previous Blizz titles, you can form friendships with other characters on Battlenet while preserving your anonymity.

Ethan He is Game Tester at TribePlay and passionate gamer.

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A console gaming perspective on social gaming

On March 24, 2011, in GameNext, New Games, Social Networks, by Bart
2

I have been a console gamer since I received my first console, a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), from my dad. It was the start of a life of long days with little sleep, gallons of cola, wires, NTSC / PAL problems and an empty wallet.

About half a year ago I got the chance to make a living of my passion, by joining TribePlay as a lead developer. This job opened a new world of gaming to me, the world of social gaming. Different definitions about what social gaming is circulate on the internet. At this moment social games are the games that can be played on a social network. Although the industry is still in its baby shoes compared to the console gaming industry, the userbase of it already outgrows the console gamers. Everybody has a Facebook account. There are 100,000,000 players playing every month on Facebook alone. Farmville has more unique players (80 million) in a month then all the sales of biggest selling console game of all time, Wii Sports (75 million copies). Everyone, including me, wonders: “Where is this industry going to be in five years”?
Atari 2600

Neil Vidyarthi, posted an interesting perspective (3 Ways the Social Gaming boom Is Imitating The Atari Gaming Boom) that the social gaming boom is imitating the gaming boom of the Atari 2600, which is considered as the godfather of modern console gaming. He was able to draw a few parallels between that era and the current era.

• The most popular games are inspired by traditional games
• No centralized review publications
• Graphics are dramatically improving with each game

Graphics were and will always be important in games, and it is always a race by developers to see how much visual firepower they can generate with the current technologies. I think this race really has started now for the social games. In the newest generation of games fully animated cutscenes, real-time Flash gameplay and more can be found.
However, for console games, the graphics attract the players, but the gameplay keeps the players and sells the game. Every console generation has its little gems (like REZ (Dreamcast), Katamari Damacy (PS2, see video), Patapon (PSP)) games that offer the player a unique and creative gameplay experience, although they might lack the visual display. I think gameplay will become more important for social games to compete on, especially if more and more centralized review publications of these games will show up on the web.

I have not seen this social-game gem yet, but as a player, I look forward to play this social-game gem, and as a developer, I hope it will say “created by TribePlay” :-)
Bart, Lead Java developer

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Competition among Facebook games

On March 11, 2011, in Company, GameNext, Social Networks, by Gregor
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Recently we at TribePlay thought a lot about how the Facebook gaming market will develop. Obviously the competition is getting stronger and stronger. There are hundred of emerging games on Facebook and at the same time hundreds that are going down. Among the top 85 game and app developers, 79 % are currently developing Facebook games or social apps, according to a study from Viximo.
The competition on Facebook games is really intense, advertisement is costly and not really effective through the nature of a Social Networks. When you have a look at the top developers, you of course have Zynga, who dominates the market, and you have a couple of developers who all have MAU of around 20 to 30 Million. Luckily we have a diverse portfolio to be not too depended on Facebook.

Tadhg Kelly wrote a terrific article in which he uses the term “Red Ocean” for the Facebook social game market, a term which describes a highly competitive market with everyone chasing the same kind of costumers using the same kind of methods. I found his point of view really interesting. Kelly says that most Facebook developers do not differ in categories like Gameplay, Play Area, Financial Model, Branding, Cross Promotion, Reward-Drivers. From developers like Zynga and EA to Indie developers, everyone tends to use the same techniques from development to marketing. Also he is criticizes the lack of innovation of most Facebook games. I remember last year there has already been a some discussion on this topic.
So it seems that game developers still haven’t learned from their past mistakes and everyone keeps on copying each others games. Of course there are some innovative games coming up from time to time, but you must admit that for the majority of games and developers Kelly’s points are true.
What are the reasons for this? Because everyone is doing it? Or are it the consumers, who do not demand different games? In the end I guess it is both, but still there must be a way to create innovative, fun games, with humorous elements, which can get a solid fan base and create decent revenue. We at TribePlay try to balance these elements. Of course we are also creating casual games, that are targeted at a broader audience and have only an impact within a certain time frame. But with innovative Virtual Worlds like Eccky I believe, TribePlay also created more “sustainable” and user friendly games. Virtual Worlds are much more expendable and communicative than classic social games. One can add new features, new mini-games and let the players decide what they want to do. I believe in the long run, social games will have to expand their features, as I wrote it in my previous piece. To compete in these “Red Ocean” of social Facebook games, you have to come up with new approaches. Game developers have to get back to its roots, and think of creative ways again to create games. In the end the users will reward it, if is a balance between their needs(distraction for a short period of time) and the fun part of gaming. Do not be frightened by Zynga, when doing so… :)

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