I recently provided a short presentation on Unity at the local IGDA chapter’s Unity Special event. My topic was “Tips & Tricks” and the presentation contained a mixture of different issues and solutions developers should know and take into account when developing games with the tool.
The slides can be downloaded here.
It’s been a while since our company blog saw any action. Sorry about that! The excuse is: we’ve been so busy with Rimelands that there hasn’t really been any company stuff to report. But it so happens that now there is!
We have a new member in the team: Mika Nurmikolu, who’ll be taking responsibility in business and community management.
It’s also his responsibility to make sure we don’t forget to post new updates every now and then, both here and in the brand new Rimelands blog. In general, all the company related information will be here, whereas strictly Rimelands stuff will be situated in the blog. The possible game design / development related stuff will probably end up here too.
So, that’s about it. Don’t forget to check out the new Rimelands website with info on the PC and Mac version of the game and whatnot – the development is in full gear now, so we will be updating it quite regularly!
The site for our upcoming RPG, Rimelands: Hammer of Thor is now open here!
Check it out for screenshots, stories and more info about the game!
Ville of Horrorshow Arcade made a cool concept of what a Diceworks bartop arcade would look like.
Hopefully some day this could be real!
Diceworks is finally available!
Go get it!
We have (finally) submitted Diceworks to Apple!
Finalizing the game took a bit longer than we initally anticipated, but we are very pleased with the results. The game now includes three game modes, one played against a time limit and one against a turn limit in addition to the vanilla Diceworks. The basic mode will be available as an unlimited demo shortly before the release of the game. And the release date is 21st of August, of course.
Oh, there are also new screenshots available on the Diceworks page!
Here’s a sample (hint: it’s cool)
Yes, it’s a topical subject. And since it’s a sensitive subject, please bear in mind that these are my personal opinions.
With the recent Pirate Bay sentences, there’s a lot of talk and even rejoicing about it. But, in my opinion, the rejoicing is in vain, even if the Pirate Bay is closed (which I seriously doubt), there will be other sites. The sentences will not generate a single sale for anyone, and the only people making even a penny out of it will be the lawyers and – maybe a bit surprisingly – the Swedish Pirate Party, which saw a great elevation in the number of supporters within the last few days.
It should already be clear to anyone that DRM has close to no effect on piratism, although it does piss off legitimate customers to a great degree. I’ve opted not to buy some games due to the nasty pieces of DRM they include (although I’ve not pirated the games either, but the effect is the same: a lost sale). The only really effective way is online authentication, but that is mostly applicable for online multiplayer games. Every method of DRM can and will be cracked, so piratism is unavoidable and we just need to learn to live with it.
Since the piratism is pretty much a lost cause, some companies have begun to attack perfectly legit forms of business, such as rentals and used games sales. That’s, if anything, a good way to show how desperate you are.
But, for any pirate who seems himself (or herself) as a glimmer pillar of virtue, or a Robin Hood fighting against the oppression of Great Evil Media Mega Corporations, you’re kidding yourself. While pirates are the reason DRM exists, every pirated copy of a game without a DRM scheme is a shot in your own leg. It’s proving them right.
And, as a possible consequence, you’re killing the open source community.
Does that sound strange? Well, think about it. If no one pirated Photoshop, how many users of Gimp would there be? Or Blender, or Open Office? If there were no pirated copies of Windows, what would the Windows/Linux ratio look like? Yes, the usual reason for not choosing Linux is that there aren’t many games or [the software of your choice] for it, but if everyone who can’t afford or chooses not to pay for a legitimate copy of Windows, how many Linux PCs would there be? And with that ratio, how many ports of software that are currently available only for Windows or Mac?
Think about it.
And as for company policy, we believe that the best way to sell our games is to respect our customers. Even though we’re aware that piracy does exist on iPhone, it’s still much easier to pay for a product than to jailbreak the device and find the cracked versions. Also, we will have free demo versions (that are not time limited or show an annoying “Buy this game” pop up every ten seconds) available on this website, so anyone in doubt whether our games are worth your hard earned dollars, euros, or gold coins can freely try them out.
Up next, some info on our first game, so stay tuned :)
This is the first post,
where we say “Hello, world”.
The first, in a line of many, to discuss games; in business, in design, in joy, in sorrow.
A post to hide the awkward strip of text, that used to say, “Not Found”. Since it is a hideous lie. All is found, all is here.
Now, and in the future.
