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Endless Frog Kids is a puzzle game centered around the mating habits of our green amphibian friends, mixed together with a cautionary tale that is told using charts and graphs. You need to have a Java-enabled browser and also an open mind to play, as the game might possibly offend some players with its innuendos and sexual undertones.

The current build features ten levels to solve in total. Continue reading

In Mountain Maniac you control a man with a hammer whose single aim is to destroy the town at the foot of a mountain for points. He does this by smashing boulders with his instrument of doom, sending them down the mountain Pachinko-style while crushing everything that stands in its way. Occasionally the police force or a yeti might try and stop him, but you can use the mallet to protect yourself by swinging it at them as well.

There is a certain percentage of town destruction that you must achieve to pass each level, and failure to do so equates to a loss of a precious life. An online high score submission feature is included as well, although players must first register for an adultswim user account before they can post their best achievements up on the site. Continue reading

[Our own Brandon Sheffield was at the recent 2009 G* show in Busan, South Korea, and has been filing stories from there on the neat Korean market. In this show rond-up, he looks at G* in-depth, discussing major Western draws like StarCraft II, NCSoft's 'next big thing' Blade and Soul, and the show's changed focus.]

This year, Western games are making decisive inroads into Korea. That's just one major takeaway from Gamasutra's recent visit to South Korea's G* (G-Star) event this year, where we got a close view of the differences between the Korean market and the rest of the world.

G* is South Korea’s answer to E3 or the Tokyo Game Show, a largely consumer-facing event with its own mini-conference and B2B section for those looking to make deals.

The show took place from November 26-29, including two weekdays that were somewhat more business oriented, and a weekend for consumers to gawk at the latest goods. We were on hand to get some sound bytes from notable developers, as well as a general lay of the land, and where the Korean and Western markets meet.

Background

I’ve been studying the Korean game market for some 10 years now, and the industry there has gone through no small set of changes. The native game industry in Korea was initially arcade-dominated, eventually moving to PC packaged games and the odd console title.

Now, everyone is finally discovering the Korean industry as a microtransaction-based online game powerhouse -– and it’s this business that G*, put on by Korean business promotion agency KOCCA, celebrates.

This is my third G*, but the first ever in Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city after Seoul, where the show usually takes place. Being in a new city for the first time, the city of Busan is much more inclined to embrace the show, with banners all around the convention area and beyond, and related partnerships, including the city’s own ICON game conference (which, in full disclosure, I did not attend).

The New Show

The show this year is smaller than previous years, but doesn’t actually feel that way, by virtue of taking place in a venue more appropriate for its size. Busan’s BEXCO is smaller than Seoul’s KINTEX, allowing the conference to comfortably fill the space without feeling buffered out, as last year’s show did.

Most of the big players were here in some form -- with smaller booths perhaps, but some of the booths in previous years were unnecessarily large, on the scale of N-Gage handheld-era Nokia at E3.

In the past, I’ve questioned the value of this show to the consumer -– a large number of the games on display are available for open beta or even regular play well before they hit the show floor.

While this is still true, it seems that the show is coming to terms with this, realizing that the value for attendees (remember that this is first and foremost a consumer-facing show) may be more in the pomp and circumstance than it is in the games.

Age of Conan had a huge booth, complete with models, lots of swag, and spinning bottles of free alcohol for happy attendees. Bags, baubles, posters, and more filled the eager hands of the largely middle and high school-age crowd.

The Games

The focus this year was on fewer larger titles, with a plethora of smaller offerings in between. It was a better balance than in previous years -– last year in particular felt like the NCsoft and Nexon show.

This year, some Western games made inroads, such as the aforementioned Age of Conan, and Warhammer Online, but the biggest Western draw was of course StarCraft II. Huge lines and excited crowds were the norm for the Blizzard booth, and in this case, it was the first time almost anyone could get their hands on the title. This is the sort of thing that really draws people in, so was a key victory for the conference.

A pseudo-Western draw was the newest installation of FIFA Online, and to a lesser extent, NBA Street Online. These two titles are developed by NeoWiz for EA Korea, sports games custom-fitted into the microtransaction model.

FIFA had an especially large crowd -– and a crowd is what it was, not a line, as nobody seemed prepared for the rush -- so the kids just crowded on in to get a look (though all of them had undoubtedly played it before).

Of course, not everyone is pleased with Western games tackling the Asian market. Korea is already crowded with native online games of various shapes and sizes, and more competition in a crowded market makes some people nervous. But they say competition is a good thing in the end -– the cream rises to the top.

On the Korean side, the biggest draw was unquestionably Blade and Soul, NCsoft’s Next Big Thing after Aion (which also had a significant presence), with art direction from famed illustrator Hyung-Tae Kim (Magna Carta).

Blade and Soul wasn’t playable at the show, but attendees queued up for 45 minutes on the business days, to say nothing of the weekend. The console-esque big budget RPG looks very casual-friendly, with its action-oriented gameplay, simple interface, and gorgeous art.

The rival big title -- more notable because it was actually playable -- was TERA, from the unfortunately-named Bluehole Studio, which a designer friend said was the single most impressive game he played at the show, and also gathered large crowds. The game had an open beta in early August, but this is the first time any foreign visitors could touch it.

As per usual, the show devoted a small portion of its space to console and arcade games, this time putting these two much smaller areas of the Korean game industry next to each other in the back of the hall. Most console games were already released, and thus were not a fantastic draw. On the arcade side, the most intriguing games were two lightgun offerings from RASSEN -- Vulcan M, sporting a ridiculously huge cabinet mounted with a minigun, and a duck hunting game that had two projection screens stitched together, and overkill automatic weaponry. As could be expected though, the majority of players were simply getting some freeplay time in on Jubeat.

Impressions

Overall, G* seems to be coming to terms with its size. It’s a smaller show than it has been, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It seems more focused now, and in Busan, has a clientele that may be more interested. The weekend crowds didn't quite meet the throbbing pulse of humanity that one sees at the Tokyo Game Show, but the number of people in attendance was still impressive.

The business area seems a good place to get some meetings done, away from the hustle and bustle of the show floor, but not so far away that a wandering licensing scout (or journalist) couldn’t wander through and make appointments with whomever they pleased.

Though there were a lot fewer game developers in attendance than previous years, due to the event being in Busan (the vast majority of Korean game development is done in Seoul, on the other side of the country), some in-the-trenches folks said to me that this year looked like the one they’d actually want to see.

From the makers of the excellent DinoRun comes another exploration of mayhem in Atari drapings, laced with sweat and 8-bit MIDI. Mountain Maniac has you playing an estranged dwarf hammering out boulders from a mountain top to destroy a city below. Its like Pachinko meets Rampage with a suitably pissed off Scandavian midget going where no Southpark character has gone before. The joy of watching the boulder fall, the comedy of emergent timing as it crushes a bald eagle, narrowly misses the sasquatch and destroys a major bank, it almost makes you forgot that you can influence the boulder's path. I'm not sure which is better, having more control or having more looney tunes comedy as people's homes and lives are ruined by sheer physics.

Taper your beard and get antisocial, this game is simple, pure, fresh and fun. Its also a great example of how game investing should be done, pick out a talented team that has already distinguished themselves in doing something that has unique gameplay, not just good production values. Then you let them do pretty much whatever they want, and you get some crazy gem like this. Nice work PixelJam, and complimentary to that, nice work Adult Swim's portfolio manager!

Igneous has been described on the forums as “what 3d Sonic should have been” and I can see why – it moves fast and it looks really good. Going Down in Flames, the four-man development team from Digipen, have done a great job loading the game up with special effects. It’s impressive how much is going on at any given moment… especially since you’ll be flying by at a high clip.

I gotta say, though, I prefer Sonic’s 90’s ‘tude to the tiki totem’s lack of personality. And at four levels, the game is relatively short (the first level is more or less a no-level). Still… it moves fast and it looks really good!

TIGdb: Igneous

Farbs, developer of the must-play ROM Check Fail, brought this game to IGF China and took no prisoners. It was an award well-earned, as this is pure awesomeness distilled into a Flash shmup. ROM Check Fail remixed 8-bit classics in a novel way, and his latest outing also splices in other influences. Captain Forever takes the shmup core and melds it with RPG progression and modular Lego construction. The end result is an interesting beast of a game that places emphasis on player-generated content. Even if you don't dig Asteroids or R-Type you should definitely give this a go.

When I was little my friends and I would build crazy Lego ships and commence to do 'battle' with them. Whenever a piece got blown off we'd add it to our own ship, and after a while we'd all have wholly different creations than we started with. Captain Forever works kind of like that, but is a lot more nuanced and structured.

The graphics are basic but have a nice glow effect to them, and even has the cool touch of being able to see a 'reflection' of yourself in-game (provided you have a webcam, of course). You start out small, a one-block dude with limited capabilities. You're soon given a handful of ship parts, boosters, and guns that you graft on in real time with the mouse. You're given free reign on how you arrange these parts, but make sure you factor symmetry into your equation. If you try to recreate those lopsided spacecraft of your youth you'll end up with an unmaneuverable ship. After your initial building phase, waves of enemies appear at random. Destroy them, and you can salvage any unscathed equipment and attach it to your vessel. The game has an open-ended structure, so you continue fighting and rebuilding until you die or create an unstoppable juggernaut.

What's cool is that this is a lot more methodical than your standard shooter fare. Ship construction plays a huge role as you have to factor in speed, defense, and firepower. Like Legos, you're limited only by your imagination and can build a ridiculous assortments of ships. Until you construct something that would put the Millennium Falcon to shame you'll always have something to add, so you have the RPG dopamine-drip of constantly upgrading yourself. Since this is all real-time, the benefits are immediate; I'd rather take a kickass gun over a +1 to my Dexterity any day.

Combat is slower-paced than your typical shooter, but this is a godsend given how much you have to factor into each fight. You have to assess your opponent's weaknesses and take advantage of them, and also have to be careful of what you destroy. You can shoot off an enemy's boosters to make them immobile or disintegrate their weapons to render them impotent, but whatever you demolish won't be available for your own benefit. Likewise, whenever you sustain damage you have to rebuild mid-firefight to stay afloat (aspace?). Being forced to rebuild under all this pressure adds a good deal of tension to the experience. Overall, this seems like the best implementation of user-created content (sans mods, of course) to date. Fuck Spore and Little Big Planet.

If Captain Forever is the Lego set you threw the tantrum for at Wal-Mart, Successor is the gargantuan set you begged for come Christmas time. A better analogy for us computer geeks would be that Successor is to Left 4 Dead 2 as Forever is to L4D1. Every aspect of ship design is further expanded, and possible strategies (for you and enemy combatants) increase exponentially. Battering rams, bubble shields, and variations on all the core pieces add tons of depth to ship construction and playstyles. If you enjoy the first title, you should by all means pay the $20 for the sequel. I know it's cliche to say that I had to tear myself away from the game to write the review, but dammit it's true. I spent four nonstop hours with CS and I fully intend to jump back in as soon as I'm done typing. What's even cooler is that when you purchase Successor you buy into all of the further sequels, the first of which is already in development. Here's to hoping for multiplayer somewhere down the line. Now get moving, you have a ship to build.

To promote Manitoba's media professionals and advertise the province as a creative hotspot, local industry association New Media Manitoba commissioned production company BlinkWorks to shoot a series of story-based profiles on eight studios in the area.

"The main goal was to create an exposure tool for these companies and the industry on a whole," explains BlinkWorks James Swirsky. "In this arena of New Media, Winnipeg has some really exciting stuff going on, but not nearly enough people know it. That sentiment was the basis for this project."

The studio interviewed local companies from a variety of industries -- video games, software development, animation, comics, web sites, advertising, etc. The video above is an interview with Alec Holowka, founder of Infinite Ammo (Marian, Paper Moon). I've included a profile with another game outfit, Complex Games, after the break.

New Media Manitoba will debut the full 45-minute production at a sold-out Digital Media Showcase event tonight at Winnipeg's IMAX Portage Place Downtown. You can watch more of the profiles on BlinkWorks's Vimeo page.