iGame Radio

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A Casual Connect 2011 Game Chat Series. Playrix Entertainment entered the video game market about 4 years ago with Mac and Windows games from Eastern Europe with a family friendly and magical touch. Now they want to flex their game development muscles and try something new. Dasha Kobzeva, head of marketing and PR, sits down with Omaha Sternberg and talks about what these new ideas are.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• A Casual Connect 2011 Game Chat Series. Glu Mobile was one of the first big mobile gaming companies in North America to restructure from a premium mobile gaming structure to a freemium one. Omaha Sternberg talks with Mike Breslin, Vice President of Marketing at Glu Mobile, about why this happened and what impact it had on their company and games.

Telltale Games has announced the final episode of Back to the Future: The Game for iPad and the final hours of freedom for the first episode on the iTunes app store.

Back to the Future: Episode 5 — OUTATIME will be released on the iTunes App Store for iPad Thursday, July 21, for $6.99. The episode wraps up the series in which Marty McFly races against the clock to repair the timeline, and movie legend Michael J. Fox joins the cast in a special guest appearance playing two characters.

At the same time, Back to the Future: Episode 1 — It’s About Time for iPad is on its last legs of freedom. Episode 1 has been available for free, but in time for the release of Episode 5, the first episode will revert to a paid version. Though Telltale has not stated how much the episode will cost, there is every indication it will be the same as other episodes…$6.99.

Not everyone at Casual Connect has decided to party. Z2Live announced the decision to take their party money and use it for something else…water.

Z2Live sent around a “party invitation” announcing that rather than throw a big event, they had taken the money to effect real-world change. They had bought a water well through charity: water under their Play2Change initiative.

Charity: water is a non-profit organization that brings clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. in their first four years, they completed 3,962 water projects which brought clean water to nearly 1.8 million people. Z2Live stated that this particular water well would bring clean water to 400 people.

With the Play2Change Initiative, Z2Live says they use the power of games to make real and significant change in the world. Like bringing clean water to people who need it.

Kyy Games is proud to announce Cabals: The Card Game, an upcoming online collectible card game (CCG) for iOS, Android and browsers. It re-invents the genre with a gameboard that brings a whole new tactical dimension into the game.

Belle Époque has come crashing down, and conflict and tensions are rising all over the world. In the middle of the turmoil, a different struggle for power begins. It’s a war fought in the shadows. A war of opposing ideologies, over influence and a chance to shape the future of the humankind. It’s a war between Cabals, secret societies dedicated to harnessing the esoteric powers to their own ends. They set the mystical leaders of old, primal Russia against undead soldiers, and the alchemical creations seeking to dominate the nature against the awakened Sidhe.

Cabals: The Card Game will be available for free. Players will have a choice of faction in the beginning, which gives them 1 of 4 premade decks to play with. Players can then choose whether they wish to play the single player mode and collect trophies (cards) playing against AI, or go straight to multiplayer.

There will also be an in-game card shop to purchase cards with real money, either in premade decks, booster packs, or single cards, as well as special bonuses for collected sets. Players will be paired according to their rating, which is based on their winning and losing against other players, as well as their skills and deck types.

Cabals: The Card Game launches in the late Summer 2011. The gameboard will be released during the beta.

A lot of games have released this past week, so we wanted to catch as many as possible. First up is My Pet Zombie by RipTide Games. There are a lot of My Pet , but now your pet is a zombie. You can dress them up, change their hairstyles and facial features, and watch them dance. There’s even a minigame inside the game that lets you earn “cursed coinage” to buy more cool stuff for your pet zombie. If you ignore your zombie for too long, he’ll get depressed and shamble back to the graze. The game is free, with in-app purchases.

Alawar has released its first internally produced game, Shake Spears. It’s an arcade-action game presenting knightly competitions across 20 cities in 4 worlds. Players use strategy to take out opponents in each battle, upgrading personal skills, armor, and weapons in between, as well as purchase magic artifacts to overtake the enemies. The game is available for iPhone and iPod Touch for $0.99, and iPad for $1.99.

Finally, Crescent Moon has released Pocket RPG for iPad, a Chibi-influenced dungeon crawler. You can choose from three different classes to explore 3D environments with dual-stick controls and random dungeon generation. The game is available from the iTunes app store for $2.99.

Hothead Games has released the anticipated Kard Combat for iOS. Developed in conjunction with co-designer Richard Garfield, creator of the Magic: The Gathering card game, Kard Combat seeks to create a Magic style strategy card game for the iOS. The game launches with multiplayer as an Openfeint Free Game of The Day through July 20th. All downloaders will receive one of the most powerful cards in the deck and a +1 Life Shard. After July 20th, the game will be a free download with limited access, or full access with a $0.99 in-app purchase.

The Fish Dies in the End has been updated with major improvements, including some powerups that can change the gameplay a bit. The original was a survival game that had you guiding your fish through the waters and trying to avoid all other fish. The powerups change it from a mere game of luck (how long until there are too many enemies) and add a lot more strategy to the game. The Clock power-up slows the enemies down; the Helmet provides protection against one hit; and the Radioactive Worm mutates the fish into a much stronger beast. There are performance improvements, enemy placement enhancements, and more.

A-Tono has released Guardians: the Last Day of the Citadel for the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone. The developer says that the core gameplay was designed around the classical single player side-scrolling genre, but the trailer shows some significant updating to the style as well as some awesome 3D graphics. The game is supposed to have a flat learning curve to begin with, but promises a richer experience as you get deeper into play. Guardians is available for $4.99 from the iTunes store.

TopWare Interactive has announced the release of the Two Worlds II: Velvet GOTY Edition this October 18th. The TWII: Velvet GOTY Edition comes bundled with the Pirates of the Flying Fortress expansion as well as a limited edition collector’s box

Wrapped in either black velvet for the Windows/Mac version, or red velvet for the console versions, and highlighted with metal corners made to look like antique brass, this retail box also includes a bold relief of the TWII logo composed of the same real metal at the top of the box.

Along with the multi-lingual version of TWII, this collector’s item also comes with all of the up-to-date upgrades, another bonus disc containing artwork, wallpaper, videos, an extended soundtrack and two additional PvP multiplayer maps.. Additional extras include a huge double-sided world map and a valuable pirate head pin collectable which will also be available in-game. This exclusive item will boost the player’s parameters if hefted to armor.

This limited collector’s edition will be available for Windows, Mac, Xbox 360 and PS3 come October 18th.

 

What’s inside this episode:

• Host Omaha Sternberg and co-host Corey Tamas talk about the week’s news in Mac and iOS gaming. First up, Omaha and Corey talk about the recent purchase of PopCap by EA. Omaha has a great wedding gift for PopCap…listen to find out what.
• The freemium freakout of traditional games continues. What games are next, and why are games traditionally sold at retail or with monthly subscriptions suddenly going freemium?
• Mac OSX Lion will break compatibility with older games that haven’t been upgraded to Universal status. Why, and what can you do about it?
• If you are in your 40′s and play games, do you think you’re weird? NBC’s Today Show thinks so. Find out what Corey and Omaha think.
• Whoa! What happened over at EVE Online?? We tease through the debacle to get to the meat of the issue.
• The uDevGames contest is live! Omaha gives a quick update about the contest.
• Omaha and Corey talk about games that they’ve played in the past week, and Omaha reveals the poll results from last week.

Music Notes:

• Digital Droo produced our theme music here at iGame Radio.
• Michael Hu-wong featured music from Fizzball.
• Tom McLeod featured music from Cooties, available from the iTunes App Store.

CreaVures by Muse Games has been officially selected as an Indie Showcase Finalist at the upcoming Develop in Brighton Conference in the United Kingdom.

Now in its sixth year, the Develop in Brighton Conference has over 80 quality sessions given by international development experts and around 1300 developers getting together to share ideas and experiences, learn from each other, and network. The Indie Dev Day, which includes the Indie Showcase Finalists, is a new event included this year.

CreaVures is a platform puzzle game with amazing black light visuals that is fun for all ages. Utilize the abilities of each cute, whimsical CreaVure to solve interesting puzzles. Roll, glide, climb, and swing your way through each level of the magical forest.

Muse Games recently released an update for CreaVures that adds new cut scenes, music tracks, new and improved user interface, and support for 5 additional European languages – German, Spanish, Italian, French, and Dutch. Additionally, Muse Games is offering 50% off CreaVures on the Mac App Store and the Muse Games website for the next two weeks.