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Massive multiplayeronline games

verMedia

MMO´S

INTERVIEWMarkus Notch MAC or PC?

find out inside

top 10 designer gadgets

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verMediaPRODUCTION• ESAD CREDITING• Jorge OliveiraDESIGN• Jorge OliveiraPRINTING• OffsetGrafDIRECTOR• Jorge Oliveira

Made in Leiria

24/12/2011

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Well hi there!Welcome to the first issue of Overmedia. This multi platform media magazine is brought to you by Jorge Oliveira a graduation student at Escola Superior de Artes e Design Caldas da Rainha, ESAD CR for short.made entirely by him, and showcasing his interests in gaming, technology and computers, this magazine is for an audience who wishes to stay updated on the recent discoveries this new world has stored for us, as well as general information on whats hot and whats not.

With regards,Jorge Oliveira

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index

INTERVIEWnotch persson 8

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OPINIONpc vs mac

NEWS wiiangry birds

GADGETStop 10

REVIEWipad 2

ARTICLEmmo´s

PREVIEWwindows phone

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interview

MINECRAFT’S MILLIONS: Interview With Markus “Notch”Persson on the Indie Sandbox Building Blockbuster

NOTCH

When did you learn to program?

Notch: My father bought a Com-modore 128 when I was seven years old, and we started subscribing to a computer magazine. It was a huge one, newspaper format, and it had program listings in it that you could enter into your computer to get a silly little game or fun effect and things like that.I started entering them, and no-ticed that they broke or did differ-ent things if you changed what you entered. I don’t remember exact-ly how fast this process was, but I know I made my first own program when I was eight years old. It was an extremely basic text adventure game where you had to enter the correct sentences to move on to the next room (“open the door”, “kill the ninja”, that stuff).

Minecraft seems to have more in common, code wise, with an en-

terprise Java application than with a regular game. Maybe that’s just because you’re running an applica-tion server... But am I right here? It seems like this is quite differently designed than most games.

Notch: I don’t know if it does! Well, the distribution of the game is currently very web based, with links being passed around to join servers or load maps, but other than that it’s written pretty much the same way I write all my games. And it’s quite a few of them by now since I worked for king.com for over four years.But I do like to make my games less static than most regular games. I’m much more interesting in making working interactive worlds than just pretty sets you walk around in. And since my hobby games and Minecraft are designed on-the-fly rather than hav-ing a single fixed up front plan, I try to keep things as open as possible so I can easily add features that pop up.

Minecraft, the indie sandbox build-ing game has quickly gone from cult favorite to blockbuster. According to the developer’s stats, the game has nearly 900K registered users, over 253K of whom have paid about $13 each for the game, mostly in the space of several weeks. Developed by a four person team, this likely means a net profit that’s already in the millions, and a success that ma-jor developers would envy.

“I’ve sold 6400 copies so far. I try to keep everything open so people can see how the game is doing and so, even though I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good idea or not.”

I hear you’re planning on sticking with Minecraft for a while. Are you really hitting your stride with the game, or are you simply responding to the overwhelming interest?

Notch: I’m really comfortable with the game code by now (although there are some ugly hacks in there, as usual), and there’s a million things that can be added. My original plan to have this be a shorter project are mainly driven by my desire to make more games and not just get “stuck” creatively. But since Minecraft seems to be getting quite popular and peo-ple seem to encourage all the things I add (even things not part of the orig-inal plan, such as nighttime, seasons and infinite maps), I decided to stick with this for as long as it’s popular.

I will work on other games on the side, to preserve my creative san-ity, but it will be my primary focus for probably quite some time to come. Hopefully.

How many people have paid for the game? Is this a viable model for professional development?

Notch: I’ve sold 6400 copies so far.I try to keep everything open so people can see how the game is doing and so, even though I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good idea or not.During the nine months I’ve been selling the game, that averag-es out to about 24 copies sold per day. For the last two days, it’s sold 200 copies per day, though, which is just crazy.

“I try to spend a lot of time on the official IRC channel for in-stant contact with the most hard core of the players. It eats up a

lot of time, but I think it’s worth it!”

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The sales curve has always been ex-tremely tightly connected to the de-velopment speed. The more I work on the game and talk about new fea-tures, the more it sells. I also have a “day job” which I spend two days per week on, both for security, and for preventing me from becoming a total shut-in. As for being a vi-able model, I don’t know. What is? I definitely think you can get a long way by being fair to your custom-ers and having a close relationship with them, and selling “pre-releases” while developing the game is a great way to both fund development and to gauge how well the things you’ve added so far works (both technically and commercially).

Is this the first time you have worked with procedurally generated content?

Notch: I’ve been interested in procedurally generated content

for a long time. Games like Dag-gerfall, Frontier (Elite 2), and roguelikes are very fascinating to me, they seem to hint at something bigger than just what the develop-er thought up. There’s a certain el-egance in telling the computer how to make a world to show to the player rather than to tell the com-puter what world to show. When I was working on Wurm Online, I was in charge of making the maps, and intentionally used a very pseu-do-random method for making them where not even I knew ex-actly what the maps looked like in detail. With the Java4k competi-tions, I found it easier to do pro-cedural graphics and content rath-er than to try to squeeze a lot of graphics into the file, and I prac-ticed it a lot there. Ironically, my “big” games are mostly procedur-ally generated these days, while my two latest Java4k games both have pre-designed graphics and levels.

“The most impressive thing I’ve seen technically was when people figured out how to make(...) computers that could add two numbers.”

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There are already custom clients for your game, written by the commu-nity. How do you feel about them?

Notch: I find them demotivating. I’m a strong believer in the user’s right to play around with and modi-fy games they’ve bought, so I’m not going to do anything about them. But a lot of them have the potential of encouraging or enabling piracy, or making griefing easier in multi-player.

What’s the strangest thing you’ve seen built in a Minecraft server?

Notch: I don’t know if I’ve really seen anything that strikes me as strange. I’ve seen a lot of impres-sive stuff, both creatively and tech-nically, and there’s a lot of weird abstract stuff, but nothing that re-ally feels strange to me. I like it when people replicate things in the

game, like the Riksdagshuset replica ecrider made for me this Christ-mas. The most impressive thing I’ve seen technically was when people figured out how to make single use logic gates out of sand and water in Minecraft. People made real work-ing (single use) computers that could add two numbers. Very im-pressive!

What is your coding routine like? Late nights? Coffee addict?

Notch: I don’t think I have a rou-tine yet! Many months into the proj-ect, and I’ll still changing my sched-ule a lot. It mostly depends on how interesting the problem I’m working on is. If I run into something tricky and interesting, I can stay up very late and try to get it working, but other than that I think my hours are mostly sane. I don’t drink a lot of coffee at home, but I am a sucker for espresso.

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PC MACvs

Since PCs and Macs hit the market, the debate has existed

over which is best. Depending upon who you're talking to the PC vs. Mac debate is often even hot-ter than politics or religion. While you have many who are die hard Microsoft PC users, another group exists that are just as dedicated to Apple's Mac. A final group exists in the undecided computer cat-egory.

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opinion

CostFor many users, cost is key. You want to get the absolute most for your money. In years past, PCs dominated the budget friendly market, with Macs ranging anywhere from $100 to $500 more than a comparable PC. Now this price gap has lessened significantly. However, you will notice a few key features that Macs tend to lack in order to provide a lower price:

Memory Most PCs have anywhere from 2GB to 8GB of RAM in laptops and desktops, while Macs usually have only 1GB to 4GB. Keep in mind, this is for standard models, not custom orders.

Hard drive spaceMacs typically have smaller hard drives than PCs. This could be because some Mac files and appli-cations are slightly smaller than their PC coun-terparts. On average, you will still see price gaps of several hundred dollars between comparable Macs and PCs. For computing on a budget, PCs win. There are a few things to take into consider-ation that may actually make Macs more cost ef-fective:

Stability Everyone knows PCs crash, but Microsoft has made their operating systems more reliable. How-ever, Mac hardware and software tends to be more stable and less likely to crash randomly than PCs.

CompatibilityUnlike with a PC, a Mac can also run Windows. If you want to have a combination Mac and PC, a Mac is your best option. Availability

Macs are exclusive to Apple. This means for the most part, prices and features are the same no matter where you shop. This limits Mac availabil-ity. However with the new Apple stores, it’s even easier to buy Mac’s and Mac accessories. Any up-grades or repairs can only be done by an autho-rized Apple support center. This exclusivity is one of the things that helps makes Macs more stable. PCs, on the other hand, are available from a wide range of retailers and manufacturers. This means more customization, a wider price range for all budgets and repairs and upgrades available at most electronics retailers and manufacturers. It also makes it easier for the home user to perform upgrades and repairs themselves as parts are easy to find.

SoftwareThe final Mac vs. PC comparison comes down to software. For the most part, the two are neck and neck. Microsoft has even released Microsoft Office specifically for Mac, proving Apple and Microsoft can get along. All and all, Macs are more software compatible as PCs only support Windows friend-ly software. Both systems support most open-source software. Software for both systems is user friendly and easy to learn.In the end, the choice comes down to personal preference. Due to price and availability, PCs tend to be the winner, while Macs remain the choice for the more elite or anti-Microsoft computer users.

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Wi iho?

In 2005, Nintendo unveiled the Wii at the Elec-tronic Entertainment Expo - but it showed the console without its controller.In 2011, Nintendo has come to Los Angeles and shown a controller, but not a console. Kind of.

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news

SO LET'S BE CLEAR: Wii U is a new console capable of HD resolutions, and having considerably more graph-ical power than Wii.But you'd be forgiven for not picking this up, because in its playable demos, Nintendo has chosen to highlight a few novel interactions and gameplay possibilities of the controller rather than Wii U's grunt. Several demos feature familiar Miis and Mario char-acters running around simple, colour-ful environments - albeit in crisp HD.At a preview event immediately after the Nintendo conference, you could just glimpse Wii U's sleek, curved re-modelling of the Wii base unit design through glass letterboxes in locked cabinets. (Presumably these were empty shells accompanied by hid-den dev kits.) Meanwhile, the only graphically intensive demo, a Legend of Zelda themed 'HD Experience', was interactive but not actually play-able. The message was clear: we'll get to this part later.Today's star, then, is the part of Wii U you can pick up. Good job it's abso-lutely sensational.

The Wii U controller is Nin-tendo hardware design at

its absolute best. It displays in-novation, lateral thinking, su-preme ergonomics and a finish that, while not luxurious, makes you happy the instant you pick it up.It actually has more in com-mon with the DS than the Wii remote, and not just because it presents you with a second gameplay screen. It's rich with unexpected features and offers a subtly different way of relating to games, rather than a single high-concept gimmick.And with its full suite of physi-cal controls, its touch screen and its impressively sensitive gyroscope, it offers precision and control feedback the Wii remote simply does not. Also, crucially, it ensures Wii U is fully compatible with standard gam-ing control layouts and inter-faces.It's big, but very light and ex-tremely comfortable to hold.

A pronounced ridge across the back makes it easy to grip and it has that classic Nintendo rugged-plastic feel, with a matte surface. It's friendly rather than slick, and feels reassuringly fa-miliar - the similarity now being with tablet devices, phones and portable consoles rather than a TV remote. The size is per-fect for a device that will never leave the home; although we don't know what's inside it, or what its range is, we do know that the controller is useless without the base unit.Large trig-gers on the back, bumpers and the twin analogue sliders are all perfectly positioned and pleas-ingly tactile. The d-pad and face buttons are a little more out of the way. The decision to go for 3DS-style 'circle pad' sliders with a flat profile rather than proper analogue sticks seems odd initially; but it's probably to make them more discreet, and to be fair they don't seem to give away anything in precision.

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WorldDomination!Angry Birds is dominating the best-selling-applications charts for Apple's iPhone.

Not since the invention of bacon and eggs has the collision of fowl

and swine tasted so good.

A game called Angry Birds is dominat-ing the best-selling-applications charts for Apple's iPhone with a simple, whimsical premise: Players turn differ-ent species of scowling birds into pro-jectiles with which to crush a collection of grunting pigs scattered around vari-ous ramshackle structures. More than 12 million copies of Angry Birds have been sold since it went on sale late last year, most of them 99-cent downloads for iPhones and iPod touches, accord-ing to Rovio Mobile Ltd., the Finnish company that created the game.

A number of famous people are said to be fans of Angry Birds, a popular mobile game that is one of many in a growing category of casual games for phones. Nick Wingfield explains.

Why do smart people love seemingly mindless games? Angry Birds is one of the latest to join the pantheon of "casual

games" that have appealed to a mass au-dience with a blend of addictive game play, memorable design and deft mar-keting. The games are designed to be played in short bursts, sometimes called "entertainment snacking" by industry ex-ecutives, and there is no stigma attached to adults pulling out their mobile phones and playing in most places. Games like Angry Birds incorporate cute, warm graphics, amusing sound effects and a re-ward system to make players feel good. A scientific study from 2008 found that casual games provide a "cognitive dis-traction" that could significantly improve players' moods and stress levels.

Casual games are defined by the ease with which they can be picked up, in-cluding by players bewildered by more complex "hardcore games" for PCs and consoles, with their intricate story lines and controls. The category spans early sensations like Tetris, the Russian-made puzzle game for PCs and consoles from the 1980s, to Bejeweled, a decade-old shape-matching game that is still in wide use in mobile devices.

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“A number of famous people are said to be fans of Angry Birds”

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Angry Birds has attracted an unusually high-brow roster of fans. U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron has said he plays the game on his iPad, according to Andy Payne, chairman of a Brit-ish games-industry trade group, who spoke to Mr. Cameron at a group din-ner in September. (A spokeswoman for the prime minister didn't return a request for comment.) The author Salman Rushdie in a recent radio in-terview called himself "something of a master at Angry Birds." And come-dian Conan O'Brien posted a YouTube video recently to promote his new talk show, in which he boasts that he's on level four of Angry Birds.

Angry Birds falls into a category known in the industry as "physics-based games," in which basic actions like fall-ing and ricocheting provide the under-lying challenge and fun of a game. Play-ers use their fingers on the iPhone or iPad's touch-sensing screens to adjust the tension and angle of a slingshot loaded with a bird, with the goal of maximizing the damage the avian mis-siles cause to the pigs.

Mikael Hed, chief executive of Angry

Birds-developer Rovio, says the game's success is "really the sum of all of its parts," including the edgy-but-cute characters, amusing sound effects and simple rules. Rovio started in early 2009 with a rough idea of the protagonists it wanted to feature—a cast of stern-looking birds. It decided to make the game's villains a group of sickly-looking green pigs, in homage to the swine-flu pandemic then grabbing headlines. The reason the birds are so angry with the pigs, according to the back story of the game, is that the pigs swiped the birds' eggs to cook them up.

Rovio spent about $100,000 on the original Angry Birds and has invested more in new game levels that it offers, free, through updates to the game, a Rovio spokesman says.

Fueled by word of mouth, the game landed on the best-seller chart for Ap-ple's App Store for Finland late last year. In February, when Apple made Angry Birds a staff pick in the U.K. App Store, sales exploded, Mr. Hed says. A cou-ple of months later, the game became a best-selling paid app in the U.S. App Store, he says.

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Our editors have compiled a list of the "Top 10 Coolest De-signer Gadgets" that we've come across in recent time for your enjoyment. Which ones are your favorites?

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Giovannoni TimesphereAt $150, the Giovannoni Time-sphere is a nifty alarm clock that is capable of projecting the time onto any surface via a wireless orb. While sitting on the base, the wireless orb is charged through induction and once it is completely charged feel free to place it wherever.

BenQ Wall ScannerBenQ has unveiled a new type of scanner which can be hung on a wall (2cm - 9cm wide)to scan large posters or other images.The front cover can be replaced by a mirror for cosmetic “touchups” at the office or by a whiteboard for use as a notepad.

iShirtWant a new way to carry your iPod Shuffle? Check out the iShirt, it's equipped with a magnetic clamp system to ensure your iPod Shuffle stays firmly attached even during vigorous activity. People who use pacemakers should never wear this shirt.

Ericsson Black DiamondDesigned by Jaren Goh, the Black Di-amond handset is encased in a layer of polycarbonate and illuminated by OLED technology to create a "bor-derless screen" effect. It features a 4.0-megapixel camera and a host of other multimedia applications. No word yet on availability.

Seiko Bluetooth WatchThis Seiko watch not only tells time, it notifies you when a call or text message is received - on your phone - via Bluetooth. It also dis-plays the battery level and network signal strength. SII in Japan has done a prototype of their bluetooth watch for mobile phone users.

Transparent ToasterThis innovative "Transparent Toaster" concept uses special heating glass to warm a single slice of bread. It looks cool, but unfor-tunately, the glass doesn't reach a high enough temperature - at this time - to actually toast the bread.

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top 10designer

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SoundArt Canvas SpeakersIf you want to combine art and technology into one device, Sound-Art has the answer in its stylish can-vas speakers. Featuring one or two canvas speakers, a subwoofer, and your choice of canvas print. One potential drawback, it costs $3700.

iPod Nano TunebuckleApple's iPod Nano is so small that it easily fits into a special compart-ment found on the Tunebuckle. This buckle will protect your Nano from scratches and has an opening for your headphones. It's made from "high grade metals and leather" and comes in white or black colors.

The Mini DeskMade by MiniStatements, the "Mini Desk" looks good enough to drive. The entire desk is constructed from what looks like a real Mini with its top chopped off, interior gutted, and left door panel removed. Style doesn't come cheap, it retails at a whopping $4,400.

Here's how it works: the score shown on the left and right sides correspond to the time of day -- a continuous random game of Pong is played by the clock every 24 hours.

Pong Clock

In the old school Pong © TV game you could put the paddles in such a position, that the ball kept bouncing forever. Quite hypnotic, and it became the inspiration for this time-killer clock.

While this game of Pong randomly plays, the so called 'players' score the time. The left player scores the hours, and the right player scores the minutes, creating an unusual timepiece, ideal for those Friday afternoon moments.

The Pong Clock displays the time, but you can also switch to game mode. This allows you to play a game of Pong © against the clock with the use of two buttons on the back !

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article

Its aMMOWORLDAn In-Depth Background About MMOs

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SINCE the start of the world-wide-web,

online games have been keeping a large number of men and women amused across the world. Regardless of what type of game you're keen on - the internet has you covered. From Bingo to Checkers, you will find hundreds of chances to connect with others and play 24 hours a day. Recently, a new type of online plea-sure has become just about the most addicting and entertaining games of the year. For many, MMORPG and MUD games have taken over the community. For those who do not know, MMORPG actually stands for Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games. In less complicated terms, this means that hundreds of people role play and are in a position to virtually communicate with one another. Fortunately, you can find

lots of various kinds of MMORPG online games out there. Several vir-tual role playing worlds include the capability to not only take on other gamers in various countries, but to additionally personally become fa-miliar with them. For several game addicts, it really is a totally distinct world, one which is a lot more re-laxing and exciting than the one that they reside in. Typically, these kinds of role playing worlds tend to re-semble a fairytale, including dragons and princesses.Whilst these kinds of online games are widely well-known today, they in fact have been in existence for quite some time. In the early 70's, a couple of gameaholics named Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw produced a role playing game through early multi user domains. Many of these games were used by a Telnet service.

•Aion is one of the most beautiful MMOs on the market.

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By means of this client, users were able to play as many role playing games as they would like. Due to this fact, more games started to appear ev-erywhere. The very first mainstream product ended up being sold to the public in 1984. The game, Islands of Kesmai, was extremely expensive, plus the graphics were anything but strik-ing. Nonetheless, as the market grew, many diverse services popped up. For instance, Meridian 59 was launched in 1996 and produced an enormous fol-lowing. Even as it was among the list of first online games, it actually allowed users to pay a membership fee, rather than pay by the hour. This change in gaming made countless people change to this type of MMORPG. Due to its uniqueness along with customer sat-isfaction, this network actually even now is out there now and has more users than ever.Since the early 1990's,

MMOR swamping the internet. How-ever, in the new millennium, technol-ogy has taken a giant leap in the video gaming industry.With achievements like Final Fantasy XI and Lineage II, users are able to not merely see the game through the character's eyes, but get a complete experience with the world. It truly is astounding for a game lover to be able to battle dragons and other charac-ters with various other role playing us-ers. With the consistent evolution of games and the internet, it is not impos-sible for this specific industry to climb even higher and grow to be even more successful. Soon these types of role playing games will become virtual real-ity havens; places intended for people to meet other users and characters on a totally different level. The opportu-nities are certainly unlimited for every kind of MMORPG.

In the ever advancing realm of PC gaming, one particular genre of game has quite recently taken the market by storm. That genre is Massively Mul-tiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). What began with very simple text-based adventures called MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) has since escalated into a worldwide phe-nomenon consisting of millions of players across hundreds of games and netting billions of dollars every year... and there is no sign of slowing. Today, games like World of Warcraft and EverQuest have dominated the mar-ket. Boasting powerful 3D graphics, persistent worlds that are truly epic in scale and a vast community of players that never sleeps, these games, and many others like them, have secured a solid foothold in the video game in-dustry. The origins of these games are sur-prisingly humble. All of today's exist-ing MMORPGs can trace their roots back to the mid -1970s and the first breed of true multiplayer online games known simply as MUDs or Multi-User Dungeons. A typical MUD is solely text-based with no graphical compo-nent at all; instead they use text to describe a particular room, treasure, event, or NPC. Players could input the actions they would like to perform based on a list of key phrases and commands (i.e. Attack, Move, Exam-ine, etc.). Colossal Cave Adventure, Zork, and the very first MUD, MUD1 (now known as British Legends), are among some of the most popular ti-tles of these games. Despite their age, lack of any graphics and often confus-ing interfaces, some of these games are still being played today, albeit with far less participation.

SOME HISTORY CLASS ?•Lineage II

Guild Wars II

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Meet the NUMBER ONE

Good or Evil?

WoW The Most Played Game In The World ever created. Developed by Bliz-zard Entertainment, World of Warcraft has almost twelve million monthly sub-scriptions and is now the largest MMORPG in the world-signed, keeping the Guinness World Record for the most popular MMORPG by subscribers.In World of Warcraft or WoW, players create a character in a fantasy game world, traveling around the country, fighting monsters, completing quests and interacting with other players or non-player characters (NPC) in the game. When creating your character, players choose a realm or server to play in. Each realm is a duplicate of the game world. With so many realms players helps to spread across many servers. A server would not be able to handle twelve mil-lion players!

Mass multiplayer online role play-ing games, have taken the world by storm over the last 21 years. These types of games have become more strategic and graphical since they first began in 1973 with Dungeons and Dragons. When home comput-ers were made available and afford-able to individuals the MMORPG’s began taking over the gaming indus-try. MMORPG’s offer player’s dif-ferent options, for example an indi-vidual can choose their race such as druid, elven, vampire, dwarf, or hu-man, they can choose their class such as archer warrior, or mage, and they can choose their character’s look and personality making them unique. Also within the game individuals can have relationships through their characters with other characters.Games such as Ultima Online and World of Warcraft, are a few popular

titles in the MMORPG industry. Indi-viduals can become addicted to these games because their characters can be everything they want their physi-cal selves to be. Individuals become emotionally attached to their charac-ters, they can have limitless amounts of friends, choose their characters personality, and they can be rich, popular, and even envied by other players. In most cases an individual’s character is who the individual really wants to be, which makes their char-acters life more fulfilling than their own in the real world.

The negative effects of MMORPG’s are players tend to have no social life outside the game. Individuals that play these games often lose track of time and forget to eat becom-ing malnutrition, or they have their food delivered and eat while playing

their game, which can cause obesi-ty. Individuals also tend to lose large amounts of sleep, playing 48-72 hours before stopping. Individuals that play MMORPGs tend to be more aggres-sive. They become angry or irritable when they can’t play their game. In-dividuals that are addicted to these games find themselves having rela-tionship difficulties problems at work, or school, because of the fact that all they want to do is play their game.

The benefits of playing MMORPG’s are it is easy to make friends no mat-ter where their actual location is. In-dividuals can have friends in Asia, Eu-rope, or Australia and they can all ply together within the same game at the same time. But is this benefit enough to override the bad? The opinions vary from person to person. The choice is yours to decide.

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The Browser MMO phenomenonWithout a doubt, Internet brought computer games to a whole new level. With them, playing ceased to be a one-person activity and gamers were given a way to communicate, share their common passion for that game and of course, play together.Internet also revolution-ized communications. With the help of browsers, peo-ple from around the world had almost instant access to nearly anything, texts, movies, pictures, news and basically any other source of information. Everything went just fine until, one day,

someone had the brilliant idea of merging those two, thus creating the first brows-er based online game... and the rest is history.With a timid start, but helped by the evolution of technology (especially Flash and Java), browser based MMOs evolved from simple numbers and text interfaces to high quality 3D web ap-plications gaining more and more popularity. Further in this article, we're going to analyze the reasons behind it, how it all began and what may await us in the future.The first generation of browser games was based

on dynamic HTML (or DHT-ML) which had the capabil-ity of creating drop-down menus and rollover images. The first game to work in a browser was Earth: 2025, a turn-based strategy game launched way back in 1996. It used the popular tick sys-tem in which a turn passed after a set amount of time. After that, more and more games appeared and new technologies were devel-oped. In 1999, maybe the best browser MMORPG, Runescape, which even to-day has millions of players, was launched together with Utopia, MMORTS and Hat-

trick, a football team simu-lator. From there on, the number of games as well as the number of players kept on rising, with browser games today being an im-portant part of the gaming industry.There are some reasons why what was considered to be a geeky kind of game, managed to become so popular. First of all is acces-sibility. Basically, a browser supported game can be played from any computer with an internet connection (even ancient dial-up) and a working browser. You are no longer tied to a down-

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loadable client, operating system or hardware config-uration. You can play your game from home, work, school or traveling. It is an ideal type of game for peo-ple constantly on the move who can't always use their home computer but still want to play. This kind of people also don't have too much time on their hands so browser games are a perfect fit as most of them only require a few clicks a day, for a casual player at least. Of course there will always be hardcore players who stay on-line day and night watching their village

or character and trying to use the best strategy in or-der to be the best, but both types can live together and, unlike other games, even cooperate.But what kind of people plays browser games? Well, most of them are oriented towards the casual players, persons who usually use a computer at work and only want to relax a few min-utes from time to time or want to have something else to do besides creating or editing documents. The secretary that usually plays Zuma will like games like FarmVille, while the guy

that spends his time playing Solitaire and MineSweeper would enjoy a more ag-gressive game like Tribal-Wars, for example. As you can see, they don’t fit the hardcore gamer type you are used to. Their experi-ence with computer games is limited. But they usually are familiar with the Inter-net, so bro wsers are an ideal place to hook them up. Quite simple in the be-ginning but with many stra-tegical alternatives, these games are usually easy to learn and are n00b friendly, perfect for any beginner.Game companies are right

to approach this new mar-ket. The main reason is the numbers. There are many more people that only oc-casionally play on the PC than those who do it regu-larly. The bigger the mar-ket the more the chances to earn money with your game. Also, casual players are more willing to pay for certain advantages either because they cannot afford to spend too much time with the game or because they are easier to convince, while experienced players are more reluctant to these strategies and more careful with their money.

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review

Apple made the iPad 2 thinner, lighter, and more powerful than the first-gener-ation tablet. The iPad 2 also has front- and rear-facing cameras, which enable FaceTime video chat, and at least one high-profile launch app iPad 2 exclusive in iMovie.

While the iPad upgrades qualify as something more than a fresh coat of paint, the functional differences be-tween the first generation iPad and iPad 2 are minimal. The iPad 2 is essen-tially the same device that reinvented the tablet market in 2010.

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Yet, the reality with the iPad 2 is that Apple has taken

an iterative approach. In many ways, the iPad 2 is a crowd pleaser because it does not rock the boat.

At 241mm tall, 186mm wide, and 8.6mm thick, the iPad 2 is just a hair smaller than the original iPad and it's thinner than the iPhone 4. It has a curved edge that makes it look a bit more 'space age' and, surprisingly, easier to grasp because you can curve your fingers more easily around the bezel.

The most dramatic change is the

weight. At 680 grams, the iPad 2 is 80g lighter than the first iPad. That is about the same weight as a juicy red apple (curious, eh?). Yet, in using the device, it feels strangely lighter than it really is.

Apple has made a second-gen iPad that feels lighter and more nimble, and its newfound mobility means it has lost the annoying heft of the orig-inal model.

Meanwhile, the Motorola Xoom, at 730 grams, now feels like the tank that it is. (More about that later, be-cause we do prefer the speedy pro-

cessor on the Xoom that handles 3D maps and games.)One other observation about the de-sign: compared to the iPhone 4, the iPad 2 feels a bit more like a plas-tic plate (the back is actually metal) as though it really needs a protec-tive case. Part of the reason for this 'cheap plastic' impression is that the device is one-third thinner than the original and 15 per cent lighter.

Overall, the design is a stunner – it's brilliant. The aesthetics are much improved, although not everything about the iPad 2 is so equally impres-sive.

Apple's new tablet is the best of its kind, but is it re-ally good enough?

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preview

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango in-depth preview

Make no mistake, Microsoft isn't playing coy in the smartphone market any longer. The folks in Red-

mond are making a significant jump forward in the mobile arena, announcing that the upcoming version of Windows Phone, codenamed "Mango," will be heading to a device near you in time for the holidays. As its competitors have raised the bar of expectations to a much higher level, Mi-crosoft followed suit by adding at least 500 features to its mobile investment, which the company hopes will plug all of the gaping holes the first two versions left open.

We received a Samsung Focus preloaded with the most recent developer build (read: not even close to the mar-ket release version) and we had a few good days to put it through its paces. It's still far from completion, as there were several key features that we couldn't test out; some weren't fully implemented, and others involved third-par-ty apps that won't be updated until closer to launch. Yet we don't want to call this build half-baked -- in fact, it was surprisingly smooth for software that still has at least four months to go before it's available for public consumption.

At the risk of sounding ridiculously obvious, we're mighty interested in seeing the final result when all is said and done this holiday season. As a disclaimer, we can't guar-antee that the stuff we cover here will actually look or act the same when it's ready to peek out and make its official introduction in Q4; as often happens, features and UI en-hancements are subject to be changed by the Windows Phone team as Mango gets closer and closer to release. Let's get straight to brass tacks, since there's a lot of de-tails to dive into.

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NEXT ISSUEBecause an image is worth a thousand words

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