ScottishGames.biz

SG.biz - A Message From Your Editor

Morning chums,  a quic update to let you know that Scottishgames.biz is currently undergoing something of an update?  Upgrade?  Some kind of change anyway.

For the last three years, we've been using Typepad and had domain registration/redirection through 1and1.co.uk.

However, recent changes mean that those two specific service providers are not as compatible as they should be, so we're currently exploring new providers like Ning and Tumblr - and maybe Google sites, as alternatives.

Plus 1and1 are going to get kicked so far into touch, they may end up biting the back of their own heads.  Seriously, don't use them...

So, there may a little up and down, or general changes to the site.  However, if you could bear with us, we promise that normal service, such as it is, will be resumed as soon as possible.

In the meantime, love you all dearly, BB [editor]

Ruffian Expands Design Team

Ruffian is expanding, with the appointment of two new members to it's design team.  Steve Iannetta and Ed Campbell have joined the company as Lead and Senior Designer respectively.

Gaz Liddon, studio head is quite delighted...

“We’re delighted to have these guys on board. These days most games are technically competent and look great but it’s a lot rarer for them to play well. We only want to make the very best games and you can only achieve that through great design. Steve and Ed joining is another step towards that goal.”

You can read the full story over on Ruffian's website.

Pocket Gamer Would Like To See Firebrand On N-Gage

Another day, another Scottish developer quietly picking up plaudits...
 
Pocket Gamer outlined it's list of the five development studios it would like to see creating games for Nokia's N-Gage platform.

Glasgow's Firebrand Studios is on the list because of their:

unique ability to squeeze memorably robust and fully featured racing games onto what might be considered unsuitable, underpowered hardware.

As Pocket gamer points out, the N-gage still lacks a genuinely awesome racer (and since we can no longer use our beloved copy of Glimmerati), so Firebrand, the ball would seem to be in your court...

Ruffian's First Interview!

Ruffian Games' Billy 'Billy' Thomson, goes on the record with Edge Online, to tell the site about the new studio and his views on the games market in today's financially unstable climate.

Edge circles around the question of content very gingerly.  They ask about online gaming and content, but you can practically hear the question "JUST TELL US WHAT YOU'RE BLOODY WORKING ON!" in the background.

Thanks to his long association with talented PR people, Billy handles this with aplomb and gives away nothing.

Definitely worth a look.  You can have a gander here.

Tag Boss On iPhone...

Paul Farley, Tag's casually glamorous managing director spoke to Casualgaming.biz earlier this week about the disruptive potential of the Apple iPhone App Store, compared to the 'WAP decks' of the main mobile networks...

"Apple have single handedly turned the system on its head by allowing content producers to circumnavigate the entire value chain and go to their customers direct for the first time and pay them a fair revenue share in the process. In doing so they have solved many of the key barriers to market growth in this industry. Depending on who you listen to between 30 and 50 per cent of iPhone users are downloading games – that’s a huge increase on the 3-4 per cent that are downloading Java and BREW games."

Amen!  If you're an iPhone owner, a developer who's even remotely interested in the potential of the massive (and growing) iPhone audience, the interview is well worth a read.

You can find it all here.

New, Softer, Stronger, LONGER EIF Announced

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival is back for 2009 and it's promising to be longer and stronger than ever before.

This year's event will take place from the 10th - 16th of August in 'Edinburgh's City Centre'.

Dare to be Digital's Protoply event will be part of the lineup, as will the trade conference.  The event is already calling for content for the conference AND screenings.

Chris Deering makes a return as chairman and had the following to say:

EIF Chairman, Chris Deering said: “Edinburgh is electric with creative energy at during the Festival, which enhances the spirit of networking that attendees always cite as their reason for returning to EIF each year. The Content Committee is organizing the most creative and enlightening line-up of Conference Sessions in EIF history, looking at new frontiers in game design, and new mobile game devices as well as the expanding role of community in on-line gaming. There will be some amazing demonstrations as part of the ever popular and unique EIF Screenings and the some new business issues discussed in panels. Edinburgh attracts "thinkers" and the "vision seekers" from all facets of the interactive industry and stimulates ingenuity, which is critical in the new 'post bubble' age”.

We're not sure what 'Post Bubble' is exactly, but it sounds like a great idea for an exciting new iPhone game!

If you have an awesome idea for Edinburgh, get in touch with the snappily named edinburghinteractivefestival.com.

Dynamo: New Series Gets IGF Nomination

Dynamo Games' latest title: Football Tycoon is to be the first in a whole series of sports games from the mobile company, according to a press release we received this week.

A press release, we note, sent from their new PR practitioner - and very professional it was too.  Not quite Indoctrigreat, but very creditable...

Dynamo is also cook-a-hoop to tell the world that Football Tycoon is also the ONLY java game to receive a nomination in this year's Independent Games Festival Mobile Awards.

From the press release...

Available early Summer 2009, Football Tycoon follows a similar format as the popular Rollercoaster Tycoon series, while adding a unique twist to the standard football game genre. Moving away from traditional management simulator gameplay, players step into the shoes of a wealthy business owner and live out their dream of running a football club. From hiring managers, controlling finances, developing your stadium and orchestrating intense media campaigns, the game gives players an unprecedented degree of freedom.

The title boasts two expansive single player modes;  The rags to riches 'Grass Roots', which tasks players with taking a small team to the top of the Tycoon Owner Rich List within 30 years and 'Scenario Mode', which allows owners to tackle a variety of challenges, such as taking over a small club and pulling them out of administration.

How gamers achieve these goals is entirely up to them. Will you give some of your hard-earned cash back to the local community or save the spoils to fund your fight to the Premiership and elite European competitions?  The shift away from traditional management simulator gameplay, an unmatched wealth of player options and a rich, detailed visual style makes for a winning hat-trick.

Brian McNicoll said: "That Football Tycoon has already been short-listed for an industry award is testament to the creativity of our team and their ability to consistently produce fun, innovative titles for the thriving mobile market."

"We will also be creating versions for Baseball, American Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey, Golf, F1, NASCAR, Cricket & tennis. We are also looking to take the series to different handheld platforms such as BREW, iPhone, Android, Nintendo DS and as such, we are on the lookout for potential distribution partners to take these games to market."

Dynamo will be manning at stand at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.  If you'd like to catch up with them, then get in touch with the company via their website.

These Guys Sound GREAT!

The next piece from Keith Stuart's whistlestop tour of Dundee has just gone live.  Today's piece covers Denki and the mysterious new projects they have underway:

Very few game developers have a philosophy about design, a philosophy that's clearly and completely applied in everything they do. You get companies like Ubisoft, which have rigid and rigorous approvals processes, ensuring a certain amount of innovation, but you really have to look to Japanese veterans like Nintendo or Treasure, to see a truly over-arching creative theory at work.

Or you can look to Denki, the small Dundee-based studio that's spent the last couple of years firing out brilliant casual games for Sky's interactive TV service. By the end of 2008, the team - all 20 of them - had released 180 titles, most in the last two years. Sure, these aren't PS3 first-person shooters, they're usually cute puzzlers with cool ideas and solid interfaces. But 180. 20 people. The mind boggles.

It's both amazing and great.

Check it out.

[Disclaimer: ur ed. now worx 4 denki]

Do you Tweet?

Twitter is like Facebook was about this time last year.  Everyone's there, darling.  You simply MUST join in.

Actually it IS a fun and useful tool and we'd highly recommend it for everyone.  There's a whole host of tools which let you check, post and update from your PC and of course mobile access is as simple as texting.

A growing number of companies, publications, organisations and individuals are now using Twitter for personal and business purposes.

It would probably be a good idea to gather them all in one place and ensure that everyone who's remotely interested in the games business in Scotland, can find the most fascinating and useful people.

We're already friends with Stephen Fry (it's mandatory to follow him when you join), Jamie Oliver (true), Wil Wheaton (acting ensign Wesley Crusher) and media luminaries like Stuart Dredge, Keith Stuart and Aleks Krotoski.

If you - or your company - Twitter.  Post a comment or drop us an e-mail and we'll round them all up at some point soon.

Here are a few to get you going...

Tag Games
Denki
Brian Baglow

Realtime On The Telly

Thanks to industry website, Spong, we've just discovered a link to Realtime Worlds' appearance on STV last week.  For those of you outside the wilds of Scotland, that's Scottish Television.  Before you ask, yes, it is all documentaries about sheep.  In Gaelic.

However, the station broke with tradition last week and their flagship news programme (Scheapsch Dhu!) ran a piece on the the long-term wellbeing of Scotland's games sector and tax breaks for developers.

Not only do you get a peek inside the plush HQ of RTW, but you get to see more than two hundred people, spending millions of pounds, to create an international standard computer game.

No sign of APB, sadly, but STV's graphics department have really pushed the boat out with a side-scrolling platformer used to illustrate the concepts of 'crunch', 'tax breaks' and 'game over'.