Mind Twist

A new game has been announced by Richard Garfield (picture above), creator of Magic: The Gathering. Garfield is working with Mind Control Software, developer of many popular flash games such as Arrrrrr!.
Not much has been said about the game so far but we do know that it will be playable on Facebook,on the iPhone and other platforms after release. The sales model will be micro transition based e.g. you can play for free but you can buy items that will help you from a cash shop.
In a interview with Gamasutra Garfield said the game would be "fairly fast, have a good amount of luck, a good amount of strategy, and something that feels more like a paper game but was still made with a computer".
The game will involve card game like army battles lasting about 10minutes a game and you will be able to use prebuilt army "decks" just like a prebuilt Magic deck to battle with. There won't be deck customisation.
I am looking forward to trying this game out as I love Garfield's previous work so much, not only that but he will be bringing it to the casual masses on Facebook. Perhaps the first in-depth Facebook game I can enjoy playing?

To find out more about the game go to its website or this Gamasutra article.

Aion: The Tower Of Eternity

If you are not familiar with this title then you must check it out. Aion is an MMORPG from NCsoft over in Korea.
Aion is very reminiscent of eastern MMOs such as Lineage II and Priston Tale II in terms of features and graphics, but is very westernised in terms of leveling. Instead of the classic grindfest that we have come to know from games like Lineage, Aion presents the user with a large number of easily assessable quests with built-in quest helper that makes the quests quick and enjoyable. My favorite thing about this system is that it tells you the objective and a very nicely written quest text. If you are struggling you can even press names or items within the text to get extra information on where you might find the person or item. This feature means that you never need to go to a third party quest website to get help and it doesn't ruin the quest, it just nudges you in the right direction.
While Aion mirrors Lineage II is such things as large scale PvP castle sieges, in which is pits legions (guilds/clans) two clans against each other over the occupation of a fortress, it also takes ideas from Guild Wars. This is noticeable in the style of legion cloak that legions can purchase for their members and the way the graphics are executed.

What this game does is it takes what all those free to play games wanted to do with their tiny budgets and actually does them. Instead of crumby slow point and click controls you can run around with WASD and jump with space, nothings sluggish it all just works.
You may have guessed by this point that while this game is good, it doesn't do much thats new. The only truly original feature is the wings that your character gets when it hits level 10. In Aion there are no mounts or vehicles, instead in some areas your character can sprout wings and flight around for a set time before getting tired and dropping out of the sky. The lore behind your wings is very cool and this feature brings so much to the game. On a PvE level the wings can be used as transport or to complete aerial quests. In PvP this means that duals and larger scale fights will include plenty of time in the sky. This means that melee classes must learn to flt well if they want to keep up with a tactical ranger zipping around and barrel rolling to keep you at a safe distance. Most instant and melee skills can be used in flight but longer casts can't. This gives flight very different tactical advantages to different classes.
While testing the game I have been playing a Cleric. The Cleric is advancement on the priest class that you can pick on character creation. The cleric is the closest thing Aion has to a dedicated healer class. I tell you this because I have been amazed how much damage my character does. All classes are made to be able solo PvE content as well have a use in PvP solo to mass PvP. What this means for the cleric is that even though it's the healer for end game raids, it is also fine to level and also does well in duels. I have dueled alot of people at level 13 and almost every one of my duels i have won without the need to heal. The same thing works for "Templar"; the tanking class. The templar's defence abilities cause it to be the best in PvP against heavy nuking cloth wearing classes.
In conclusion, if you love MMORPGs or are getting bored of your current one or you just love large scale PvP then Aion is a must. Aion is available on Steam but i would urge you to shop around because i bought it for cheaper from Amazon. If you order it before Monday the 27th of July they will send you a beta key so you can test the game on the weekend of the 31st.

Back in Derby!

So I have moved into my new house and have started working on some new stuff. Exciting times.

For now I'll dump you with a bunch of work that I promised you after my grades were out, so here we go. I'm not gonna give you the grade I got for the work; I am just posting it so you can get an idea of what the work on the course is like. I will tell you though that I didn't fail anything and everything here is higher than a D.

You are free to use bits or all of this work as long as you reference me (also an email would be nice).

This is my Algorithms and Data structures work. This is the code for a binary tree based address book program, also included is a small report and the tests I ran.

This is my game design document that I made for the Game Design Module.

This is a piece I did for the Computing Environment Module. This is the only bit of the module I enjoyed doing.

This is my Software Development II project. In this piece of work we had to take our lectures information card storing program and write a plug in so that it handled two more types of information.

Hope you can make use of these. All the best if you are doing similar pieces of work.