Category: Indie Stuff (Page 4 of 7)

Now That’s A Dupe!

November 15, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Wanna know what it’s like to live in the Star Trek universe, where anything and everything you possibly could hope to ask for is one replicator function away? Then perhaps this Second Life script is for you!

Copybot is able to perfectly reproduce objects, along with their textures. The statue or piece of furniture one worked so hard to create in hopes of selling it can be recreated flawlessly by Copybot. Recreated flawlessy but not identically – the creator field will be different, the version produced by the Copybot proram will show the name of the account the Copybot program used to log in with, not the person who actually created the object design.

David Allen’s Triumphant Return

November 12, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Remember David Allen? He’s back.

Why Werewolf Doesn’t Work Online

October 30, 2006 / Damion Schubert

MMOG Nation notes that Teppy has decided to add a special event to A Tale In the Desert III: the game of Werewolf. For the uninitiated, Werewolf is a large, 15+ person game where a small number of werewolves (2-3) randomly whack villagers while the villagers randomly lynch people until they (hopefully) nail all the wolves. Note, the game is also called Mafia and has no relation to any Whitewolf property at all). Continue reading

Second Life Hits Bogus Milestone!

October 25, 2006 / Damion Schubert

I’ve got to hand it to Second Life. They know how to keep the buzz going. Even despite their recent problems with grey goo and credit card problems, they manage to keep their presence up. Second Life recently announced their millionth login. Of course, that stat isn’t all too meaningful, given that SL is free to play, and has little relation to how popular the game is on a given night. According to their front page, they have 11,ooo people playing right now, giving them a concurrency of about 1%. That would be pretty awful for a standard subscription-based game, but again, the free model changes all the rules.

What’s more intriguing are the number of other corporations that have bought into the idea that Second Life is the place to be: Coolzor has the rundown of companies that have bought in. The list includes Reuters, CNet, Adidas, Reebok, American Apparel, and some advertising agencies. Again, that’s to reach 10K users. People over on Terranova seem interested mostly in talking about Second Life as a creative genesis, but to be honest, Coolzor’s tour of Second Life makes me really happy with the men in tights games – at least in WoW, no one’s going to try to sell me shoes.

Original comments thread is here.

TimeGate Gets In The Game

October 9, 2006 / Damion Schubert

You know those guys that did the pretty cool Kohan series? Well, they’re making an MMO.

Emergent Game Technologies, makers of the Gamebryo engine and comprehensive Emergent Elements suite, and TimeGate Studios (Axis and Allies, Kohan) have announced a new agreement to provide TimeGate with the full Elements suite for use in developing a yet-unannounced forthcoming MMO title.

It better be as cool as Kohan.

Harmonix Gets Money Hats

September 22, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Everyone knows what a Guitar Hero advocate I am. I’ve been so much of an advocate of the game here on my blog that… well, that *I* think I should have gotten a copy of their beta.

At any rate, Harmonix’ hard work has paid off – they’ve sold the company for $175 Million dollars to MTV. Congratulations to everyone over there. It’s great to see a little company triumph based on good design, innovative implementation and truth to their core vision.

Someone Set Second Life Up The Bomb

September 11, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Lost amidst all the news from AGC: Slashdot favorite and Wired darling Second Life was hacked last week, resulting in the compromise of customer names and addresses, as well as encrypted passwords and credit card information. Something to, uh, keep in mind if you’ve given them your credit card information.

It’s a PR nightmare – Second Life is forcing everyone to choose new passwords, which means the entire population will know about it, which is undoubtedly going to cause a wave of no-confidence cancellations. It also could end up proving financially disastrous – lawsuits are likely, inevitable if the credit card information ends up decrypted.

More on Hero Engine

September 1, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Wanna know more about the company building the tech behind what I’m working on? RPG Vault has the interview.

Wanna Make Games?

August 15, 2006 / Damion Schubert

Call it a minor revolution: while Sony is desperately fighting a battle to keep players from building homebrew environments on their PSP, XBox is flying into the teeth of the dragon. They’ve announced today that they plan to ship a consumer version of the tools needed to make XBox 360 games.

“It’s our first step of creating a YouTube for video games,” Moore said, referring to the wildly popular free online video sharing Web site. “It will give you everything you need to bring your game to life on Xbox 360.”

Spend Your Free Time In Prison

August 11, 2006 / Damion Schubert

This is for everyone who claims they want any fiction that isn’t hackneyed men-in-tights fantasy: a prison-based MMO.

Your first day in a crazy, maximum security prison is about to start! Forget swords and wizardry! This new online game is about FUN on the present-time!

The game is played exclusively over the Internet with other real players from all over the world.

Make your way from just a rookie to gang leader or boss, meet new friends and get a life while becoming stronger to gain real respect!

Players unite, collaborate & fight creating their own gangs and ranks within the prison confinements.

Games are, at their core, wish fulfillment. There’s a joke in here about girl prison movies somewhere, but I’m really too lazy to think of it right now.