ScottishGames.biz

Music! Fashion! Digital Goldfish Reach For The Stars

Mobile developer Digital Goldfish has released it's latest title, Reach For The Stars.  The game's just been reviewed by the Mobile Game FAQs team and it comes out sounding pretty damn good, scoring a highly respectable 80%.  A Silver Award no less.

The game is a sim-management style title, with added mini-games, crunchy bits and sprinkles.  You create your very own musician/singer.  After some practice, you have to start earning some cash and set out on the road to fame, glory, groupies and perhaps, one day, a chance to have a very public mental breakdown, die bloated and alone - your drug-ravaged corpse lying undiscovered in a bathroom, or even fading into increasingly embarassing obscurity, ending up hosting a pro-celeb dancing/singing reality programme on TV.

It's the rock and roll dream.

We jest.  The game makes a nice change from the normal dog-based management sim style of games and DG have managed to make the whole money/practice/touring cycle, fun and engaging - from local bars through to world tours and sold out stadiums galore.

The game is being published by Dundee's Tag Games, who are handling the distribution and marketing for the title.  This is a big step for Tag as well, placing them up alongside publishers such as Gameloft, Apple and EA.  Or at least moving in that sort of direction.

You can find the review up on MGF and we'll post a link to retailers as soon as we get them...

Finally, Digital Goldfish's David Hamilton, is the proud owner of a 'Dundee: Land o' games' t-shirt, bought directly from the SG.biz Shoppie.  Swish!

Christmas Roundup - Digital Goldfish

Have you been a good little boy this year?  It's a question Santa has to ask to ensure you get the right present and not a lump of coal.  Judging by the current results of the SG.biz poll (for those of you reading the newsletter, RSS feed or who are just not paying attention, we feature an incisive poll on the site every couple of weeks), if you're a good boy in the games industry this year, you're after either an Xbox 360 or - surprisingly - a GP2X F200.

David Hamilton, one of the duo behind Digital Goldfish HAS, despite appearances, been a good boy this year. He has.  If you read the interview on Pocket Gamer and (god forbid) saw the accompanying picture, you might imagine that David being good would involve multiple pints of Stella and a couple of hours of pulling doughnuts in Tesco's car park.  But no.  You'd be wrong.  David is one of the new breed of games entrepreneurs in Scotland.  DG's female-friendly, inclusive titles promise to put them in front of an enthusiastic audience once they hit the market.

Very sweetly, alongside his replies to the Christmas Roundup, David also sent us his Christmas list and asked us to pass it onto Santa, as the DG office has no chimney.  Don't worry, David.  Your letter went 'up the lum' in plenty of time and we're certain Santa will have a shiny red bicycle somewhere in his sack next Tuesday morning...

1) What are your three highlights from 2007?

• Making my first screen debut in the much loved Scottish Fluff Piece, even though it was scary seing my mug on a cinema screen at the premiere at the Edinburgh Games Festival
• Getting a Barcelona match in when at 3GSM and seeing Ronaldinho scoring a brace which included one of his trademark free kicks
• Dundee United winning the Cup....Ok its not happened yet but were in the Semis!

2) Three less pleasing moments/events from 2007?

• Moving into our new studio.....never again will I offer to help the removal men, I just about lost my toe!
• Scotland not qualifying for the EURO 2008 championships.....it was a brave effort though!
• Manhunt 2 being banned in the UK!

3) Three things you're either looking forward to, or would like to see in 2008?

• Standardisation on mobile phones...... I like to dream!
• Dundee United back in Europe where they belong!
• Brian Baglow making his first appearance in an action movie!

[Note: Great answer, David, though slightly sycophantic.  FYI Brian Baglow will be appearing in Die Hard 5.6: Locked In A Box Of Wolves in mid-2009]

4) What two gifts would you most like to see in your stocking come Christmas?

• Manhunt 2 on the Wii! Mowahhh  that was meant to be a scary laugh like im going to be a murderer, I wasnt blowing a kiss!
• Spongebob Squarepants mr potato head -  Have you seen these things? They are ace, my brother brought my niece one back from Florida and I've had several failed attempts to "borrow" it from her!

5)  What should we look forward to from DG in the next 12 months?

• A game to market! Haha, nah we have loads of exciting new projects in the pipeline that were itching to get started on. We like to aim for the style of games where you work your way up from nothing to top of the scale without me giving too much away! We also have a few licensed titles were in discussions with just now that we're excited about but again can't say too much at this point.

DG on PG

No, not the tea, famous for it's hilarious chimp-based adverts, but t he mobile gaming site Pocket Gamer.  They've posted the next article/interview from Jon Jordan's recent trip to Dundee.

Digital Goldfish are the next company in the spotlight.  David Hamilton - easily the tallest man  in the Scottish games industry - is the man answering the questions about Baby Grow, Reach For The Starz and the future for the men behind the Goldfish.

David has already e-mailed to excuse himself for the dodgy picture, pointing out it was taken the day after everyone went out for drinks with Jon...

Here's the first part of the interview, to encourage and inspire you to click through and read more...

Pocket Gamer: Can you explain how Digital Goldfish came about?

David Hamilton: I had to do a project for my degree and I'd just got a Samsung T100, so I thought I'd do a mobile virtual baby game. I did it, passed my degree and then started applying for jobs, but didn't really get anywhere.

You can read the rest of the interview here.