Giving the detail we lavished on Hive, it should be easy to gather I am a boardgame fan. As such I found this talk really interesting -
Google Tech Tak on Board Game Design.

The speaker plays tournament Advanced Squad Leader. Hardcore. That game has been around since I found my first TSR book in a comic store. Given the huge amounts of time it takes to play, I wonder if some small portable device could speed this up some way?

I leave that as an excersize to the student however – Lotusland’s next two moves will be very unlike Hive except for their production quality.

This article in the New York times discusses growing up with new technology and children. They make an interesting point about how kids who have played with iPods basically expect every computer to be touchscreen.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/weekinreview/10stone.html?hpw

Hand a three year old your iPod touch and see what happens. It’s neat.

A little late for year end wrap up you say ? Bah I say! This post straddles the Occidental and Oriental New Years and speaks volumes of Lotusland Studios global reach (Also we have been super busy making more neat stuff).

Big news for December/January on the Hive front is that we are honoured to have been selected for the “What’s Hot” marquee in the “Games” section of the iTunes store. It feels really good to be recognized by Apple, and we hope to hold their attention and yours with our endeavours this year. Thanks!

We’re currently working hard on a kid’s game and by that we mean our target audience is less than five years old. These durable devices (cases and screen protectors too, please) are so usable and instantly understandable that they are an excellent first computer for very young people. Big potential for fun and education (and sales).

2009 saw us form the company and go from “we should make a game”, then defining our project by our partnership with John Yianni and Gen42 and finally making it not only to the finish line but to a featured spot in the store. Along the way we have built up our technology and skills on this platform, learned a lot about business, met some really great people and our customers number in the thousands. 2010 looks bright. A happy and prosperous New Years to you all.

PS: Our Christmas sale is extended until we are out of the ‘Hot’ section or Chinese New Years, whichever comes last. Get in on Hive @ 99 cents!

This weekend Lotusland Studios continues the ‘American Thanksgivver’ sale. Black Friday was a big day for Apple and the rest of the app store. Response to our 80% off sale has been very good, Hive has been flying off the shelf.

We’re sitting at 25 on the Canadian Board Games rating right now, which is exciting to usbecause that’s the first page of this category when you are viewing the app store from your device. Top 20 would be nice, to make that little sidebar in the iTunes as well.

Thanks to everyone who bought the game this weekend, and even more thanks to those who bought the game full price.

Good Luck to our friends @ Genius Factor Games and IUGO Mobile Entertainment with their Black Friday sales as well:

Gravity Well is 99 cents ( 50% off ) from Genius Factor Games.

Star Hogs is $2.99 ( 40% off ). I know everyone is crazy for Implode and A.D.D. right now, but I am still playing Star Hogs. Go buy this excellent game from IUGO ME.

Hive for the iPhone is on sale for 99 cents from now until Sundayish! There are some great games on sale in the store right now for 99 cents, and Lotusland Studios has decided to join in the fun.

We are Canadians, and not totally clear on the concept, so our sale begins now. In honour of our American friends and customers (who we might add likely spell honour without a ‘u’) we shall roast a turkey and have a crazy Hive sale. No waiting in long lines in the cold, or even waiting until Friday.

On a completely unrelated topic, has anyone here ever deep fried a turkey ? Whether you have or not, you owe it to yourself to watch Underwriter’s Lab’s saftey video on the topic:

Deep fry safely. And buy Hive while it’s on sale for 80% off. Only until SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone. Enjoy Hive!

http://brickroll.com/iphone-games/gravity-well/

Having spent a frustrating couple of weeks trying to get people to review my game, I have taken it upon myself to review the games of others. There’s a lot of games out there and it’s hard for the small developer to get the word out. I play a ton of games so it seems like a no brainer to review some of them.

The first game my baleful gaze fell upon was Gravity Well, by North Vancouver developers Genius Factor Games. It’s a fun maze game that I gave a 9/10. So I guess my gaze is not so baleful, really. The full review is at Brick Roll and after you read that, you may want check out the Genius Factor Games website.

Or you could cut out the middle man and go

right to iTunes and buy gravity well.

iPhone: The Board Gamer’s Paradise – Scott Stein over at CNET gives HIVE a great review and looks at the growing trend of board games going mobile. Check it out!

Latest Reviews…

The good folks over at  Purple Pawn take a closer look at HIVE.

Brickroll gives HIVE an 8/10.  Woo!

Shout-outs from both The Spiel (Episode 90) and Gamers With Jobs (Episode 160)

ALSO…  check out a sneak preview of our developer interview at  DDGameWorld!

Fusion Forum 2009

On November 5 and 12th, I attended New Media BC’s “Fusion Forum“, which was a technology industry event focused on how to get funding. Carrie forwarded me a link to the event, Mark Longo from Clark Wilson (where she works) was speaking at this conference and she thought it would be a worthwhile thing for me to check out. I signed up a day or two before the event, having heard of it late, as a non presenting company. My plan – find an iPhone project while learning about this “pitch to investors” thing.

The first day featured some excellent speakers, and really this was the high point of the event for me. I learned a lot from them, and from talking to the other guys who were also running technology corporations. Plenty of keywords went into the notebook – IRAP, Telefilm, Launch Party. While the focus of the conference, getting big funding, is something Lotusland is not really ready for yet it was an excellent introduction to this sort of Vancouver tech entrepreneur scene. Everybody else was busy readying their presentation in the afternoon; the forum was primarily a competition for these companies to present to these investor panels. Having come a bit late to the game, I just showed people my video game and worked on my business card trading skills.

The second day featured a keynote from the founder of Flickr, and then the game companies who had made it through the first day pitched. Nobody had a plan so straightforward as “this is the console game we are going to make, it will cost $2 million and we think we can sell $22 million worth of game”. Instead it was really focused on kid’s games, and more of this community social networking web 3.0 business. The high point for me was ClickToy Interactive, producers of ‘The Meadow’. They really seem to get games for small kids – the kids want to do something, anything, and then see something happen. This is awesome to them. I mean kids below 5, like Kubo. You have to be under five or over thirty to appreciate ‘The Meadow’ I think – luckily this is a large demographic.  Click Toy has managed to get their games into Zellers. I am pretty interested in finding out how they did that. I appreciate companies whose plan is to make something people like and sell it to them, instead of more oblique plays of generating revenue.

I was surprised that there was not more gore or action in the game pitches. Prototype sells like crazy. Left for Dead sells like crazy. Basically, violence and special effects sell like crazy. But maybe people *invest* like crazy in games for children, or maybe I underestimate the market for fuzzy rabbits. Let’s not forget that there are 60 million Farmville users.

I always enjoy lunch, and I lucked into good company with my canny seating sense. I met the Director of Business Development for IUGO Mobile Entertainment, and we had a good conversation. It was nice to talk to someone about things like pricing and getting reviews who was actually doing it, and successfully. I also talked with Denise Dufont, a film maker doing a documentary (and perhaps a video game) about Juan de Fuca.

IUGO ME made the Toybot Diary series, which I thought was a good early game that took on the problem of platforming without a Dpad . I accidentally called ‘Star Hogs’ ‘Space Hogs’, but I think I can be forgiven for this gaffe. Gentle reader, if you like blowing stuff up in games like artillery for the Apple II, or Scorched Earth, or iShoot, depending on your generation, pick ‘Star Hogs’ up – to be on the safe side search for ‘Hogs’ on the store if you forget. I am looking forward to seeing her speak at the iPhone Conference Nov. 24. Business development, PR, Marketing, all this stuff is a very new job for me and I must learn very very quickly. Or else.

Mentioned in this article -
Fusion Forum 2009 – http://thefusionforum.com/
Clicktoy Interactive – http://www.clicktoy.com/
IUGO mobile entertainment – http://www.iugome.com/
That game with the hogs – http://itunes.com/apps/starhogs/

iPhone Forum – http://www.newmediabc.com/events.php?event=228

and while I am throwing around links, go buy Hive : http://itunes.com/apps/hive/ . It’s nice. You like.