Today on Headline
RePLAY: Angry Birds Space blastoffs
into release, a survey on where mobile games are mostly played and Tetsuya
Nomura reveals more Kingdom Hearts 3D details.
Angry Birds Space is now out on Android, iOS, PC and Mac to wreak
havoc on your free time everywhere with planetary bird bombardment!
To celebrate its
release, Rovio and T-Mobile has teamed up to construct a 300-foot slingshot,
Angry Bird included, atop the Seattle Space Needle— and hosting a party serving
Angry Bird cupcakes!
Rovio certainly knows
how to throw a launch party!
*Source: Joystiq
Are mobile games only
played outside the home, sans the bathroom? Social game site MocoSpace went out
to answer that question in a February survey that collected the responses of 15,000
players and the answer may surprise you: most mobile gaming is done at home.
- 96% play games at home.
- 64% play at work.
- 46% play during class.
- 25% play while at the gym.
Interestingly, when
participants were asked where at home they played, 53% played in bed while only
5% played in the bathroom.
“This report should
make every console gaming company nervous,” said MocoSpace CEO Justin Siegel, “Mobile
gaming is not a companion to consoles, but rather it's attacking them on their
home turf: the couch, the La-Z-Boy and even the bedroom.”
*Source: Kotaku
Kingdom Hearts 3D director, Tetsuya Nomura, returns in part 2 of Famitsu
magazine’s interview to discuss the upcoming title’s themes and new features.
There were two parts
to creating Kingdom Hearts 3D, Nomura
explains: colors and keywords.
“For Kingdom Hearts 3D, I started off
with an image of colors. I thought to myself, ‘Black and pink,’” said Nomura, “We
always chose a thematic image color, but this time, interestingly enough, that
was where we started.”
“In Birth by Sleep, ‘sleep’ was one of
the keywords we focused on, and we talked about what the main character Sora
must do,” continued Nomura. “We took the word ‘sleep’ and moved beyond it to
the realm of ‘dreams.’”
Nomura then moved onto
new features unseen in other Square-Enix titles, like the ability to skip
cutscenes and view them later. This feature particularly helps in the mobile department
where players might not have the time to watch a cutscene for a number of
reasons.
“This was due both to
a change we made with the non-interactive cutscenes in Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and
because we wanted to maintain a tempo of the game where the player could limit
the amount of time where they weren't in direct control,” explained Nomura.
Additionally, a memoir
feature was added, which allows players to view the overall plot of the entire Kingdom Hearts series in order to lower
the level of entry for new players.
“With so many games in
the series, a lot of unfamiliar players can get confused. This way, newer
players who might be nervous about starting from the latest game can jump right
in.”
*Source: Kotaku
