as3gaming

Electric 3D Engine - Electric Oyster

Saw an interesting demo of another 3D flash engine, Electric 3D, over at Electric Oyster.  Not open source or available to developers, but still a neat demo.  Check it out:

http://www.electricoyster.com/electric3d/index.html

Late to the Party - Away3D 2.0:Green Planet

Wow, just wow!  Check out this demo, entitled Green Plante, from the Away3D group to show off their 2.0 release.

GamesIndustry.biz launches LinkedIn for Gaming

GamesIndustry.biz just announced that they’ve opened up a Network for game industry professionals in what appears to be a LinkedIn-type site. Right now it’s only open to people that they verify are in the industry.

I predict we see more of the “web 2.0″ type applications targetted to gaming developers in the near future. (We here at as3gaming are working on one of our own, StatForge, the google analytics of games)

From the site:

It’s not what you know, but who you know.

The GamesIndustry.biz Network is the business networking tool that allows games industry professionals to connect with each other. It’s the community that enables you to find out who you need to know and then make contact with them.

Unlike other social networks, it’s not just about talking to your existing contacts. It’s an opportunity to get in touch with new people across the globe to create genuine business opportunities. The general public cannot see what is happening within the network and you can be sure that the contacts you make will be relevant to your business - the business of games.

Via the events section, you will be able to make the most of hectic trade shows by finding out who else is attending and arrange to meet them.

GamesIndustry.biz will also be organising regular social events via the network - so make sure you are signed up so you don’t miss out.

Passively Multiplayer Online Game, PMOG

I’m a big believer that the gaming platform of choice for many people in the near future (as in the next couple of years) is going to be the browser. For me that means actionscript and flash, but here’s an interesting take on browser based gaming: PMOG.

From the site:

PMOG is the Passively Multiplayer Online Game. To play, you’ll need to Get Firefox and Add Our Extension.

This game allows you to leave traps or gifts on any web page. You can also take missions across the internet, discovering new content while leveling up.

Techcrunch has coverage here.

Portal: The Flash Version: The PC Version

Just read on the joystiq that the group, We Create Stuff, that made the insanely fun flash version of Portal is releasing its levels on the PC. Check it out here.

As a huge fan of the real Portal and a huge fan of the flash Portal, this definitely means Good Things™®©

Kongregate’s New Funding

Kongregate has been getting a lot of press lately, see Crunchbase for in-depth info. In case you’re unfamiliar with Kongregate, it’s a casual flash gaming hub and social network with a pretty neat achievement/ranking system. But, probably the best thing about it is they allow developers to submit their games to the site and share revenue.

More recently in the news they’ve announced a new round of financing from Bezos Expeditions - Jeff Bezos’ (of Amazon fame) venture arm. Kongregate says they didn’t need the money because they’re still sitting on a pile of cash, but hey, if Jeff Bezos wants to throw money at you, you better damn well take it!

What does this mean for actionscript 3 game developers? Good Things™ for sure. Amazon has focused it’s considerable resources on catering to developers of all sorts - just look at their growing list of Web Services for research and web application developers. Now that Bezos has turned his eye (how ever small a portion of it) to gaming it’s not inconceivable to start seeing some services from amazon catered directly to us.

Regardless if you love or hate Kongregate, or if you just don’t care, their making some strides that’ll help the entire developer community down the line

Yahoo Maps jumps ship

Ted over at the great flex oriented blog, On Flex, writes that Yahoo Maps has jumped ship from the Flex platform to the industry-norm AJAX. What does this have to with actionscript gaming? Everything.

Yahoo Maps is (was) a flex app used by millions of people daily. I would venture to guess that it was the most visited flex app on the net. Not only was it very popular, but it was interactive and graphical… sound familiar? If high-quality, multiuser, and instant gaming ever comes to the net I’m willing to bet the farm that the platform is going to be Flex/Flash. Ubisoft appears to be pioneering that area but if more publishers and studios are going to bring A-class gaming to the browser through flash, they probably want to see that the big web players like Yahoo, Google, MSN, etc. are using flash for their interactive apps.

I think that Yahoo moving their maps to AJAX is a blow to Adobe, and Ted’s tone in his post confirms that. The saddest part, as Ted mentions, is that it appears that the move wasn’t technology related.

“Currently there is not a single Flex developer left from the original Yahoo Maps team and they are all now working at high level Flex positions at ESRIA, Disney Internet Group, Fidelity, Metaliq, and Ribbit. Flex 2.0’s success in 2007 lead to a developer shortage and the Yahoo Maps team was gutted of its Flex talent given market conditions.”

But, with a big game publisher or studio really care what intentions Yahoo had? Am I reading too much into this? Personally, it’s not going to change my mind about which platform to develop for.

Duels.com

I used to be a huge WoW player. In fact, it’s a wonder I ever graduated from college as my last year and half there were spent almost exclusively playing it. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those guys that blames gaming for all my hardships… I just blame McDonalds. Anyways, I don’t have nearly the time I used to while I was in college to play an MMO like WoW, or Vanguard, or LOTRO but boy do I miss how much fun they were.

Since I spend most of my time in front of a computer nowadays, and more specifically in front of a browser or 3 (damn you ie6), I was just thinking today that it would be awesome if I could bottle all that enjoyment of playing a persistent world in the browser… you know - the leveling, skill advancement, questing, and competition that so many people pay 15 bucks a month for.

As if the gaming gods were answering my call, the next thing that popped into my RSS reader was this post on Techcrunch about Duel. Woah, where have I been? How have I never heard of Duels.com? I mean, Arrington’s description of the game pretty much sums up exactly what I’ve been looking for:

“…a World of Warcraft-like game that lets users create characters, add weapons and spells, and duel each other. It’s asynchronous, meaning one player can fight another without both having to be online.”

Anyways, needless to say, I’ve spent the last hour or so checking out their forum, wiki and even creating my own avatar.

I won’t go into all their features here… heck I’m still on the first quest. Yeah, you heard me right, there are quests. If you’re like me and looking for some fantasy gaming action that combines the awesomeness of a persistent MMO/CCG without the time and attention commitment, check it out: