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Gazillion press release clarifies Netdevil layoff rumors
By Jef Reahard on Feb. 24th 2011
The NetDevil/LEGO Universe brouhaha that unfolded earlier this morning is
officially official thanks to a press release just published by Gazillion
Entertainment. Gazillion has formally agreed to sell its development stake in
the LEGO Universe MMO to the LEGO Group (the game’s publisher and custodian of
the world-famous toy brand).
Most of the LEGO devs, formerly employed by NetDevil (a Gazillion subsidiary),
have received employment offers from the LEGO Group and will continue iterating
on the game from the company’s Louisville, Colorado studio.
Gazillion is re-focusing its ongoing development efforts into browser games,
according to President and COO David Brevik. “The transition of members of our
team to the LEGO Group enables us to focus completely on internally-published,
free-to-play game businesses,” he said.
Massively.joystiq.com
-end of report-
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LEGO Universe Arrives on October 12
The LEGO Group and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment have announced that
LEGO Universe, the MMO based around the incredibly popular building game, will
be going live on October 12, allowing a select group of fans to join in the
experience before opening the game to all those interested a few days later, on
October 26. The LEGO-based MMO can be enjoyed on the PC and the Mac, with the
port created by the CiderTM Portability Engine from TransGaming.
All those who are interested in getting the game as soon as possible need to
pick it up in official LEGO Stores, at LEGOLAND or using the LEGO Online Shop.
On October 12, only those who use these buying options will be able to get into
the game with publishing partner Warner Bros. putting it up for sale two weeks
later.
Henrik Taudorf Lorensen, who is the vice president at the Digital division of
the LEGO Group, stated “Our vision is to provide LEGO fans of all ages with a
whole new quality play experience and creative platform, and LEGO Universe will
open up exciting new opportunities for fun and expression this October. The
dedicated LEGO fan community has contributed to the development of LEGO Universe
since the start of the project, and we show our appreciation with the early
Founders release.” The game is currently demoed at the E3 trade conference.
The LEGO Group was founded way back in 1932 and is still family owned, despite
the global success it has achieved. The main idea behind LEGO games is to
develop creative abilities in children who use them. The LEGO Universe MMO will
take the idea one step further by allowing players to build anything they can
imagine using the basic bricks of the game, while also taking part in an
adventure that pits them against forces of corruption that aim to warp the
beautiful universe they inhabit.
Softpedia.com
-end of report-
I hope to see a LEGO Universe APP for iPhone/iTouch/iPad in the near future.
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TT Games Re-Ups With LEGO®, Extends Deal To 2016
March 3, 2010
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has re-upped its deal with toy brick-maker LEGO
Systems, ensuring that WB’s TT Games can continue developing titles based on the
LEGO property until 2016.
TT Games, the group comprised of developer Traveller’s Tales, TT Fusion and TT
Games Publishing, has spearheaded games like LEGO Star Wars, LEGO Batman and
LEGO Indiana Jones --a portfolio WB says has sold nearly 50 million units
worldwide.
The next title under the ongoing partnership, LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4 is
set to launch this year, featuring the adventures of the popular wizard and his
classmates visualized in LEGO toy form.
“We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to continue the successful
partnership between this legendary company and the talented TT Games, which will
enable us to further expand our slate of widely recognized, family-friendly
games,” says Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group president Kevin Tsujihara.
LEGO Digital VP Henrik Lorensen praised the video games for inspiring kids to
play creatively with their physical LEGO bricks “more deeply.”
“We are very excited to continue to work with TT Games because they take a
distinctive approach to making games creative, social and non-violent, which
makes them a valuable part of the broader LEGO experience,” says Lorensen
Gamasutra.com
-end of report-
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LEGO® To Market Board Games In U.S. in 2010
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Danish toymaker LEGO Group plans to start selling board
games in the United States this summer as it extends its business beyond
colorful building blocks.
The company will announce 10 board games at the American International Toy Fair,
which begins Sunday in New York.
LEGO will also tout toys tied to movies like “Toy Story 3” and “Prince of
Persia,” as well as new videogames under the “Star Wars 3” and “Harry Potter”
licenses.
The company sees “tremendous potential” in its North American markets, Soren
Torp Laursen, president of LEGO Americas, told Reuters ahead of Toy Fair.
LEGO’s U.S. sales rose 30 percent in 2009 despite a wider pullback in consumer
spending. It commands about 4 percent of the nation’s toy market.
Priced between $9.99 and $34.99, the board games, which include “Ramses Pyramid”
and “Minotaurus,” will mostly hit store shelves in July. A few will be available
online from late March.
The games promise to test memory and logical skills of children as they compete
to reach a certain destination.
“We are pretty sure we are sitting on a formula that will be worthwhile for the
retailers to support,” Laursen said, citing the success of a test launch of the
games in Britain and Germany.
AGAINST THE TIDE?
Even as many U.S. retailers look for growth overseas, Laursen said LEGO was
confident of its bet on the United States. A search for value and a sense of
nostalgia drove parents to classic toys in the economic downturn.
“The consumer is clearly voting in our favor right now,” he said. “We are
getting to the stage now when parents of today’s kids grew up with LEGO
themselves. The impact of them having an emotional attachment cannot be
underestimated.”
LEGO, whose name originates from the Danish words for “play well,” started as a
small carpenter’s workshop in Billund, Denmark, about 80 years ago.
Laursen noted that LEGO saw more growth in toys priced above $30 in 2009,
underscoring parents’ willingness to invest in trusted names.
The company can also afford to experiment and take some risks in 2010, Laursen
said. It recently ramped up its Mexico manufacturing operations to cope with
rising demand.
And unlike past years, when LEGO relied heavily on Hollywood-related properties
to boost its business, its core lines of building sets like “LEGO City” and
“Power Miners” performed well in 2009.
Asked about his long-term goals for the U.S. business, Laursen said: “I am not
going to retire before we have 10 percent market share. That’s a reasonable
ambition ... I am 46 and I have no immediate plans to retire.”
(Reporting by Dhanya Skariachan; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)
Reuters.com
-end of report-
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LEGO® Signs 3-Year Deal With Unity Technologies
Unity Technologies announced today that it had signed a three-year deal with the
LEGO Group, according to which the plastic brick company will standardize on
Unity-authored materials for 3D content on LEGO.com.
Unity has has been used for a variety of full-fledged virtual worlds and MMOs,
including Cartoon Network’s FusionFall and the upcoming Marvel MMO, but the
press release makes no mention of the upcoming LEGO Universe. LEGO Universe
will be sold via download or on disc at retail, though FusionFall(1) did the
same.
It sounds like Unity might have more to do with the casual games on LEGO.com
than the Universe--it’s already the platform for two LEGO games--but the
browser-based Unity client could offer a lightweight window to the massive
world.
“We’ve invested a great deal of time evaluating technology for the next phase of
www.LEGO.com,” said Claus Toftegaard Matthiesen, Technology Manager of the LEGO
Group. “We believe that Unity’s flexibility, strength and power will give us
scope to create world leading content for our consumers and are looking forward
to the cooperation.”
Virtual World News
Unity Technologies
(1) Fusion Fall is part of Cartoon Network.
-end of report-
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From Blog website: www.brettspiel.co.uk By Brett J. Gilbert
July 12, 2009
LEGO Board Games: Interview with Cephas Howard
In which I am lucky enough to get the scoop on the new LEGO board games from
Cephas Howard, the lead designer of all 10 games, and discover more about the
games’ genesis and his own game design philosophy.
When I requested (in a fit of rhetorical whimsy!) that ‘the real Cephas Howard
stand up and make himself known’ I did not for one moment expect him to do so. I
am therefore profoundly grateful to Cephas for getting in touch with me after
reading my earlier posts, and for subsequently being so open and generous in
sharing his experiences and insights, thereby allowing us all a glimpse of the
remarkable development program undertaken at LEGO.
Cephas is a British game designer who, for the past three years, has been
leading a mammoth design effort at LEGO. The initial tranche of 10 games are
available online now in the UK LEGO shop; they will soon be available more
widely in UK and Europe, and will see a widespread international release in
2010. LEGO is a global toy brand and their bold move into the board game market
is notable for many reasons. But who is Cephas, and how did he come to be
spearheading such a remarkable endeavour?
Cephas describes a childhood experience of designing games to play with family
and friends that I think will be familiar to many adult game designers, although
even at that age his approach seems preternaturally rigourous: repeatedly
playing and evolving the games with his two brothers before sharing them with
their friends. However, few children grow up actively wanting to be game
designers, even if the ‘bug’ is never lost, and though he continued to maintain
notebooks of game ideas (a practice I would definitely recommend!) he otherwise
pursued a professional design career within the publishing industry.
The roll of the die
The opportunity at LEGO arose at a time when Cephas was actively looking to
self-publish two of his own games. He had quotes from manufacturers, he had a
website, he had business cards; and then he saw an advertisement for the job at
LEGO and events took an entirely unexpected turn. He says that he had always
dreamed of working for LEGO as a boy and, as an adult, continued to admire the
brand and the toys. Here, then, was his chance. He applied for the position and
— to quote Cephas — ‘lo and behold’ landed the job based on his past portfolio,
his enthusiasm and ideas, and what was perhaps a true meeting of minds with his
future bosses.
And then the real work began, and for Cephas the ‘real battle’ was to convince
LEGO to launch with many games, not just one. This is clearly a battle he
convincingly won, and now, three years after Cephas designed his first LEGO
game, the trademark ‘buildable’ dice and the entire range of 10 games is finally
available for the public to play.
‘One of the aspects I believe is necessary for getting your games launched is to
have a belief in yourself and your ideas, and the ability to convince others and
make believers of them also.’
CEPHAS HOWARD
Many designers might have been humbled by both the scale of the project and the
fact that the envisioned product range was something genuinely new to LEGO and
therefore not without significant commercial risk. Cephas, however, gives the
impression of a man both utterly undaunted by such concerns and incredibly eager
to get going. In his first year alone he developed around 30 game ideas.
The deliberate focus of the launch range of games were children in the age range
6–10 years old, and from the outset the games were constantly being evolved and
playtested with groups of children from Germany, the UK and the US. Cephas’
express hope is to encourage children familiar with LEGO but who do not have the
‘game bug’ to play, and that within the first 10 games there is a range of
experiences that contains ‘something for everyone’, including the grown-ups.
Cephas describes LEGO itself as a great prototyping tool: fast, flexible and
endlessly rebuildable. Most of his game ideas came to him without a preconceived
‘theme’, and were the result of exercises in investigating possible game
mechanisms and different uses of LEGO bricks. These ideas could be quickly
playtested in-house before being presented to the playtest groups. Only later in
the process did he begin to try out possible ‘stories’ that could be applied to
the games to create a sense of narrative play for the children.
Although Cephas has been the lead designer on the games it is clear that a large
team of developers and designers within LEGO have been at his side, and that he
and his team have wisely sought counsel from some carefully chosen experts. Of
all the games, the flagship title Ramses Pyramid is alone in featuring a
well-known designer’s name on the box: that of Reiner Knizia, who is very
possibly the best known game designer at work today.
‘It was great getting to playtest my game ideas with Reiner and just tap into
his huge vault of experience. He is a great character and a fantastic games
designer.’
CEPHAS HOWARD
Cephas worked with Knizia on both Ramses Pyramid and Lunar Command specifically,
but Knizia also acted as a consultant on the project as a whole and continues to
work with LEGO on future games.
Cephas also has praise for Bernie DeKoven’s book ‘The Well-Played Game’. “I have
also been inspired by the thinking of DeKoven, and his idea of the ‘well-played
game’. He suggests you should be able to break or change the rules of a game if
this is necessary to play it well together.”
Build – Play – Change
The concept of a breakable, changeable, rebuildable game is the central conceit
of the entire range. LEGO’s tagline for the games is ‘Build - Play - Change’ and
the game rules themselves contain an explicit challenge to players to do just
that. The players are actively encouraged to change the board or the dice, to
break the rules; to not just play the game, but to play with the game.
‘We give you the express permission to change the game we have designed.’
CEPHAS HOWARD
“First you build your game,” says Cephas. “This creates a bond and a greater
sense of ownership, immersion and understanding of the game for the kids. It
also gives them the confidence to change it later on.”
“Next you play. The games all have good, solid game experiences that can be
played over and over, and allow kids to have fun with their friends and family
while doing so.” Cephas points out that truly social play is something that LEGO
has not always offered, but that these games allow parents to be genuinely
involved in LEGO play with their children.
“Then you change. Now if gets interesting!” Cephas explains that each game
provides new ideas for gameplay, including not just advanced rules but also the
challenge to children to get creative, albeit with the wise suggestion to try
out one idea at a time so that they can see what works and hopefully learn why.
“The dice we designed sums all of this up in itself,” says Cephas. “You build
it, play with it, and can change it. And it creates the element of chance in all
our games which means that any player has a chance of winning a strategic game.”
The dice is the one physical element common to all the games and its image is
used across their packaging and as an icon for LEGO’s marketing of the new
products. The notion of designing a ‘buildable’ dice for a line of new LEGO
games may seem obvious, but the project began with the assumption that any dice
used would be wooden. It was Cephas’ suggestion that just such a buildable dice
was needed, although he freely admits that many people were involved in creating
the final design, which took the company 16 months to perfect.
In addition the games demanded the design of a completely new LEGO ‘microfig’
that would occupy a single LEGO ‘stud’ when placed onto a gameboard. Given the
importance of this component, its design, like that of the dice, was iterated
extensively before the final production microfig was born.
Climbing the mountain
There is a story to be told about the genesis and evolution of each of the
games, but to illustrate some of the ways in which individual games changed
Cephas chose the example of Lava Dragon. The game is a ‘simple’ race game: the
first player to reach the top of the mountain and command the dragon wins; along
the way players try to block their opponents or even push them off the mountain
with the special ‘lava stick’.
The game began as an Alpine adventure (photos 1 and 2). The very first prototype
was not even a game, rather just a model used to illustrate the concept to the
first group of kids the team showed it to.
“When I first test games they are very basic looking,” says Cephas. “Just a few
bricks and a dice. The principle is to test the game idea; if that works then we
start to dress and theme the game in stages, testing as we go, evolving the
built set and the rules at the same time.”
Unseen in the photos, but part of the game from the beginning, is the dice. The
game’s innovative core mechanism is that the coloured panels on the dice (which
correspond to the player colours) are added to the dice during the game and so
the dice configures differently each time. Players roll the dice in turn, but
all of the players can move on any roll if their colour comes up. “You might end
up moving with every roll,” expains Cephas. “No more waiting for your turn to be
engaged in the game.”
As the game developed the setting was changed from an Alpine setting to a
volcanic one (photo 3), and the game’s ‘trophy’ became a dragon (photo 4).
Cephas explains that the so-called ‘lava stick’ both inspired and arose from
this transition: “It gave the possibity to eject a player from the mountain back
to the bottom in a very physical and rewarding manner. The players’ men really
pop off nicely!”
The wisdom of children
Cephas describes an exhaustive program of playtesting the entire range of games.
The team held weekly playtest sessions with groups of children, introducing new
ideas to them at very early stages, often before any formal rules had been
written. These groups included new children each week, so that each time even
the experience of playing a board game using LEGO would be new.
“Playtesting with your friends is never enough,” observes Cephas. “You must have
total strangers play your games and be brutally honest about them. Kids are good
like that. They tell it like it is. Then listen to what they say and make
changes. I don’t mean do exactly what they say, merely listen to what they are
saying and why they are saying it. Usually you, the designer, will be able to
fix any problems much better than they will, but you might never spot those
problems if they didn’t point them out.”
‘Accept that some games just don’t work and can’t be saved; be prepared to let
them go and move on.’
CEPHAS HOWARD
Cephas suggests that most game designs are unpublishable, principally because,
in his opinion, the game designer designed the game that he wanted to play and
did not give enough thought to what others would enjoy. “Don’t design it for
yourself, design it for others to enjoy. This might actually mean you no longer
really enjoy playing the game you designed, but as long as everyone else does
then you have succeeded. Remember, if you are publishing it then it is work, it
is a business; it is no longer about you nor about trying to design the perfect
game for you.”
‘From the second you decide to publish a game it is no longer truly yours.’
CEPHAS HOWARD
Cephas highlights that the purpose of the playtesting sessions was never to
simply ‘rubber stamp’ an already established game idea but to allow those ideas
to evolve and improve as much as possible before they were made available to the
public. Which, of course, is not intended to be the end of a process, but just
the beginning.
“We believe it is truly bringing the LEGO experience to games in a way we’ve
never done before,” says Cephas, whose personal wish is to see the games
continue to evolve in the hands of everyone who buys them. “I am just trying to
give them a solid starting point. Designing, refining and experimenting with
games should be every bit as much fun as playing them.” And from everything
Cephas has told me, it sounds as if he has indeed had a great deal of fun. Lucky
him!
As for LEGO the die may now be well and truly cast, but given the care and
creativity with which these games have been designed success seems assured;
luck, I think, won’t come into it.
(There are images on the website)
LEGO Board Games: Interview with Cephas Howard
-end of report-
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I had been working on a project for MegaCon... I’ve had the idea to do a
table-sized version of “Battleship”. I wanted it to be sort of microscale, but
at the same time, I wanted a player’s board to be half a table. As I was
building the boards, I included islands and with the redish-brown border, it
started to look like a treasure map. During one of our planning meetings for
MegaCon, Simon suggested doing a pirate
themed version of Battleship.
Since a 1x4 (squares) ship would look too big, I decided to do 2 2x2 (squares)
fortresses and the largest should would be around a 1x3 (squares). There were
also 2 1x1 (squares) boats... to be honest, the game could have used another 1x3
(squares) ship, but I was crunched for time.
The 2x2 round bricks indicated hits or misses by your opponent (on the main
board), the 1x1 bricks and 1/4 baseplate was used to track your shots... next
time I think I’d build the 1/4 baseplate into the main board & not have it as a
separate score sheet.
For the most part, the game was functional, but took a little longer to find
those last 2 1x2 boats. Had to use the Medieval Market Village box as a screen
between the two sides (didn’t have time to build one out of LEGO). And many of
the kids who sat down to play didn’t understand the rules, or didn’t have the
attention-span to play. But for the most part, people liked the idea and it was
fun to play despite all the craziness going on all around us.
Enjoy,
--Mike.
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| | trying to get back into building mode, i put together a game from my past. i don’t remember how to play it, despite the hours spent playing it while procrastinating during university. i’ll dig out the rules and try it out.
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| | the case is double built, with a fairly stable hinge set-up, once again assisted by fellow lug member jason allemann, but the handle is less substantial. forsaking holding power for looks, it can be lifted by the handle for a brief second or two.
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| | the die are not lego-built, they are from the actual backgammon game i own, making the colour choices all too obvious. while only 15 stones are needed for each opponent, i included 16 of each because one is bound to lose a stone or two along the way.
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the game is on! enjoy.
-§ deborah higdon-leblond §-
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In lugnet.general, Kelly McKiernan wrote:
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Looks like the Dark Knight will be the next LEGO video game from TT Games,
according to this
article I just ran across. Speculation was the next game would be Indiana
Jones, but apparently not. I’m looking forward to Batman - should be fun,
given the quality of the company’s other games, including LEGO Star Wars (I
and II) and Bionicle Heroes.
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More info here.
ROSCO
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...with LEGO Island the game. (I’ll pass on the comments that I need help
personally. That’s another post in another place.) This is not to be confused
with LEGO Island 2, or LEGO Island Extreme stunts.
Specifically, I need a set of directions on how to play the game. I have a disc,
rescued from oblivion, but with no ideas on how to move I am slowly thinking of
returning the disc to a fate worse than death. (Well, okay. I’ll keep it as a
curiosity, if nothing else.)
If anyone out there can lend a hand, please post here and I’ll contact you.
Play Well and Prosper!
Matthew
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Welcome to the LEGO Star Wars II “Christmas Hack”!
Play LEGO Star Wars II in “Santa” mode with these cheat codes:
Santa Hat and red clothes: CL4U5H
White beard: TYH319
(Click for gallery when moderated)
From the publisher:
“Happy Christmas from TT Games. To all the fans of LEGO Star Wars II, here is a
seasonal gift to bring some of the holiday spirit to your Christmas gaming!”
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Hello all.
I would like to introduce you to my strategic game for the Exo-Force line.
The game includes stat templates for the Battlemachines, full set of rules, game
demo and the web-site includes a small MOC page. The game is free-ware.
Check it out: http://www.123hjemmeside.dk/EXO-DICE
Enjoy.
Regards
Exo-Champ
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In lugnet.games, Kelly McKiernan wrote:
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this one is certainly worth it.
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Especially the bits like Luke’s new hand jumping around with a mind of its own
during a cut scene. My son and I have been enjoying it quite a bit (gameplay and
humor). We haven’t “finished” the storyline yet, and it’s clear that the
free-play option will present a lot more interesting aspects.
--
Brian Davis
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In lugnet.games, Jordan Bradford wrote:
Yes, and it’s well-deserved... I got it the day it came out, and have spent an
inordinate number of hours with a PS2 controller in hand. I don’t play a ton of
video games these days (due to my addictive nature), but this one is certainly
worth it.
Kelly
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Looks like the Dark Knight will be the next LEGO video game from TT Games,
according to this
article I just ran across. Speculation was the next game would be Indiana
Jones, but apparently not. I’m looking forward to Batman - should be fun, given
the quality of the company’s other games, including LEGO Star Wars (I and II)
and Bionicle Heroes.
Kelly
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A game modification for Homeworld 2, BrickSpace lets you fight as the Classic
Space, Blacktron, or Ice Planet fleet. The Preview Release lets you select any
of the three fleets and gives you a selection of ships to play around with.
Enemy AI is currently not implemented, though they put up quite a fight when
attacked! Make sure to check out Adrian Drake’s Tribunal, a glimpse of what’s
to come in BrickSpace’s future!
http://www.brickspace.net/files/brickspace_two.zip
-Stefan-
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