Angry Birds and FarmVille have become two of the biggest game franchises in the world. And recently their creators, Rovio and Zynga, have hit the news again, but not because of anymore major game announcements.
Games like Minecraft and Braid have proven that there is money to be made in the indie game marketplace, which means more and more designers are following suit, one being Zeboyd Games. The two-man indie design team released two excellent JRPG spoofs on the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) Marketplace in 2010: Breath of Death VII ($1) and Cthulhu Saves the World ($3). Both have been well-reviewed and spent time near the top of the XBLIG sales charts, but its success couldn't be rivaled by what wa...
Making a video game requires an incredible amount of work. It requires people skilled in many disciplines to work together for thousands of hours merging visual art, computer programming, game design, sound design, and music composition into a fun game. The Indie Stone is a Scottish indie development studio started, like so many others, by industry vets who were tired of corporate restrictions and wanted to make the crazy games they had always imagined.
World of Warcraft has been on top of the world for seven years. No other MMO has come close to challenging its dominance of the genre, and it has generated billions of dollars for Blizzard. They have spent a lot of money adding more and more content, to the extent where the full game with all the expansion packs takes up 65 GB of hard drive space. It is a beautiful game; well balanced, and a milestone in the history of the medium.
Always falling asleep behind the wheel? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates that there are over 56,000 sleep-related accidents each year, resulting in 40,000 injuries and 1,550 deaths annually in the United States. Don't want to be a statistic? Then you may want to try out ASP Technology's mobile application which aims to keep you awake when you're fatigued on the road.
When Apple‘s iTunes was introduced back in 2001, it rekindled my interest and purchasing of music. I was so excited by the program that I immediately started converting all my rather large collection of CDs into MP3 tracks. I then sold off my CDs and remaining vinyl albums, and used the money for additional iTunes purchases. iTunes made managing and listening music a wholly different experience. But in the last few years, iTunes has taken a back seat to streaming music services, which I find ...
Video game makers have never had great name recognition amongst the American public. Shigeru Miyamoto, Cliff Bleszinski, and Will Wright are names most Americans can't be bothered to remember, whatever their contribution to games have been. Most people are familiar with their work, but fail to recognize them by name or appearance.
There is no fan experience in professional sports quite like watching an NBA game live. Partly, this can be attributed to the combination of fluid teamwork and jaw-dropping athleticism the players exude in the form of size, speed, jumping ability, grace, and strength. What truly differentiates the NBA from the spectators' perspective, though, is the figurative nakedness of the players. While the NFL buries its athletes beneath pads and masks, the NBA presents its talent in shorts and a tank top.
The days of having to pay for video games are over. Generally, retail games are better because they're made with more effort and care than their free counterparts. But free browser-based game sites are insanely popular, specifically Kongregate, Armor Games, and the grandaddy of them all—NewGrounds. Despite not receiving funds directly from the players, they’ve become a profitable niche in the games industry. And that popularity has attracted more talent and money to the production of web game...
It's really a shame that it is so hard for people to make money on the internet these days. The dot com bubble has receded and scams are plentiful on the web. There are, however, a couple of legitimate ways to make a few extra bucks online, Amazon Mechanical Turk, or MTurk for short, is one of them. The idea of MTurk is to hook up programmers with people that do tasks that computers can not, these tasks are called HITs (Human Intelligence Task). These tasks include article creation, creative ...
Long-Term Strategies for FrontierVilleWhen you first start to play FrontierVille, after you’ve cleared a bunch of trees and brush and started to build a schoolhouse or a barn and you’ve added a few neighbors, you look up at the people around Level 90 or Level 100, and wonder how they play the game and how they got that far.There’s a book (or a series of four books) you may notice – FrontierVille Tycoon Guide – that promises to tell you the secrets of the high level players. You can buy it on ...
Living Life- everyone knows how to do that right? Right everyone does know how to live life, but not everyone knows how to live life to it's fullest. Living Life to its fullest can be hard, when there is all these other obstacles in your life. But with a little guidance, motivation, and self confidence anything you set your mind to can almost magically happen. Ok now that that has been said; your wondering how can I get more guidance, motivation and self confidence. Well to do that you must g...
The joys of summer are many! If you, like me, live in a place where the summer is short, you’re going to want to maximize your fun in the sun by doing as many awesome things as possible before the sun goes back to wherever the hell it hibernates during the cold and dark times. The most important ingredients for fun in the sun are friends and…well…the sun, so you can do almost anything with a group of exciting creative people, but here are my favorite el cheapo activities for summer.
If you have any little ones in your life (or you're simply a grown-up kid yourself), Just Bento has has posted Maki's Top 10 Bento Rules for Back-to-School. Rules listed below, click through for full explanations.
Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Video Game was released on Tuesday August 10th for the PS3 (Download only, $9.99). It will be released for the Xbox 360 on August 25th for 800 imaginary points. We spent a few hours yesterday on co-op and single player and here are our initial impressions.
What separates Metro 2033 from other FPS games? Life. There are underground towns, markets, children, music, and so much background chatter than sometimes you can't single out a particular conversation.
Get a little perspective on FarmVille hysteria, via FarmVille World, written by tenebrism: Did you know it only took five weeks to make FarmVille? That it currently has over 80,000,000 users? That FarmVille farmers outnumber real farmers in the United States by a ration of 80 to 1?
Did you know it only took five weeks to make FarmVille? That it currently has over 80,000,000 users? That FarmVille farmers outnumber real farmers in the United States by a ration of 80 to 1?
To sound proof a room you have many different options. If you don't have your dry wall up because you don't have your studio set up, put insulation right inside the wall before you put in the dry wall. It is important to sound proof your room because you don't want your neighbors to call the police and you don't want there to be echoes and feedback on your sound. You want your music to be crisp and high quality. The best insulation is fiberglass insulation. If you already have your wall up, y...
Avoid having to spend a lot of money on additional accessories for your American Girl doll. This video tutorial outlines the steps to make a juice box for your doll. You will need an empty juice box, unfold the tabs of the box, and then flatten the box out (so that it is no longer a box). Wash off both sides and scan this face down. On the computer, reduce the image size of your box and print it out. Wash the original straw and cut it to the size of your new box. Score this printout, which ma...
Learn how to go, stop, and control your speed on the ski slopes with this guide to learning the first skills for snowplough.
Hair loss is not a final destination. You can do something about it. Learn how to make your hair grow! If you're one of the millions who suffer from alopecia or hair thinning, learn your options.
Distorted and curled up shingles are often a sign of insufficient or complete lack of attic ventilation. Attic ventilation is crucial in keeping your home’s roof sound and your interior comfortable. Installing soffit vents will increase the airflow under your roof. This will extend the life of your roof and help alleviate ice dams and attic condensation in the winter. In addition, this will reduce your heat build-up in the summer and thus save you money on your air-conditioning bill.
Watch this video tutorial to learn how to place a bet on some horse or dog races. When it comes to betting on the horses or dogs, the process is very similar. The betting shop that you are in will have all the days’ races hanging from the walls which will show times, distances and show the form and odds of the horses that are running. Decide which horse you like the look of, get a blank betting slip, write the venue and time of the race at the top, then either the horses name or just it’s num...
Frank Scoblete discusses: What is craps? What are the overall odds in craps? Do certain bets on the craps table have better odds than others? Who is the shooter? What is the point? What are the pass and don't pass lines? What is the come line? What is the don't come line? What is the come out roll? Once the shooter has his point how long does he roll? What is the most basic betting strategy in craps? What is the "odds bet" or "backing up" my pass line bet? Is there a limit to how much I can "...
The battle between Pepsi and Coke has been a grueling one, with both sides securing their secret formulas for great tasting, addicting sodas behind lock and key.
You've all probably heard about Apple's attempts to thwart iPhone 4 users from opening up their own devices, thanks to their sly maneuvers in switching out everyone's screws with those funky pentalobular screws. But one thing Apple will never learn— they will never have complete control. Where there's a will, there's a way. And if someone wants to fix their own iPhone or modify it slightly, they're going to do it, regardless of what screws bind it together.
Is your tiny city apartment or super modest house starting to feel a bit too cramped for comfort? While most of us don't have the luxury of hiring an architect to add on more kitchen space, or the money to live in a more spacious apartment, there are a number of simple things we can do with what we have to create the illusion of more indoor space within our walls.
Well I'm so surprised.
From Infowars: “Of course, at this stage Mr. Paul is little more than a distraction to Mr. Romney, and the two candidates are said to be quite fond of each other. Until now, Mr. Santorum had also been pinning some of his hopes on Texas, which, with its 155 delegates, has the most delegates of any contest to date,” writes Gerry Mullany.
There are many websites that let you watch videos, but that don't let you download it for later viewing. Even if there is a download option, most of the time it requires you to pay some amount of money. Luckily for Mozilla Firefox users, there is a way to download the videos you stream for free.
You might be sitting there thinking that I'm crazy, but the truth is you're only partially right. You can get free text messaging for life, all for a cheap, one-time fee. But, how can that be possible? An exploit in AT&T's prepaid GoPhones is the culprit behind this sweet, oh-so rare opportunity for exploitation. The exploit grants a lifetime of free texting, assuming that the company stays afloat from now until the end of time.
When it comes to coffee, some people just like perfection. Most would agree that the best cup of coffee comes from home, after roasting your own green coffee beans. But not everybody has the time or money to have complete control over their coffee's flavor. Roasting via stovetop or oven produces mélange (not quite perfection), and home roasters can be pricey.
The genius of the U.S Constitution is that it spreads the power of government both within the national government and between the federal government and state governments.
This week saw the release of Gears of War 3's most extensive DLC to date: RAAM's Shadow. Having played the first hour or so of the single-player component, I have to say that it is very good. The story serves as a prequel to the first game in the series, taking place right after Emergence Day. While it's a little pricey at 1200 MSP (or $15 in actual money), the amount of content you get in RAAM's Shadow makes up for the initial investment. It's also one of the best Xbox 360-exclusive DLCs out...
Laptops are almost a necessity in today's society. It doesn't help that a laptop that can actually increase your work productivity will put at least a $1,500 dent in your wallet. I'm sure you have searched around to try to find factory direct deals, or (shiver) even looked at used laptops, but that isn't the way to go. You need something that actually has a warranty, and good performance, but at the same time, doesn't require you to sell a kidney. This can cause quite a dilemma, as it can tak...
eBooks are an amazing thing, especially with Amazon's Kindle. What's irrtating about eBooks as that you have an infinite selection of books at your fingertips, but they all cost so much! Well, as always, Null Byte has a trick up our sleeves for nabbing free ebooks from Google.
Video games and movies have a history of interaction dogged by failure. Video game movies and movie video games both tend to be terrible. There has never been a good feature film based on a video game franchise. Even documentaries about games, which should be rife given the rapid rise of games on the cultural stage over the last thirty years, have been few and far between. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is by far the best, and for several years now has been the only really stirring f...
If you liked the idea of cutting duplicate keys from a personal 3D printer, then you might be interested to know that researchers at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria have successfully designed the smallest 3D printer to date. The prototype device is smaller than a shoebox and weighs only 3.3 pounds. It uses stereolithography compared to the RepRap's extruding molten plastic, and it's not a self-replicating machine and costs a bit more, at nearly $1,800 each. But compare that to ...
It's not uncommon for nature to inspire technology and innovative products. Airplanes were inspired by birds, Velcro by burrs and dog fur, bullet trains by owls and kingfishers, and gecko tape by... well, you can probably figure that one out. And one of the deadliest fish ever to swim the oceans has also influenced its share of merchandise; Sharks made humans faster in the water with Fastswim Suits, and now they've helped make one of the most rugged smartphone cases in the world—SharkEye's Ru...
