History of games

games were introduced as a commercial entertainment medium in 1971, becoming the basis for a new entertainment industry in the late 1970s/early 1980s in the United States, Japan, and Europe. After a disastrous industry collapse in 1983 and a subsequent rebirth two years later, the video game industry has experienced sustained growth for over two decades to become a $11 billion industry, which rivals the motion picture industry as the most profitable entertainment industry in the world.In 1949-1950, Charly Adama created a "Bouncing Ball" program for MIT's Whirlwind computer[2]. While the program was not yet interactive, it was a precursor to games soon to come.
In February 1951, Christopher Strachey tried to run a draughts programme he had written for the NPL Pilot ACE. The program exceeded the memory capacity of the machine and by October, Strachey had recoded his program for a machine at Manchester with a larger memory capacity

Southpeak’s Aubrey Norris talks about X-Blades

Ayumi is a bit of an unusual character. She certainly has a bit in common with Lara Croft, but accomplishes things in her own highly stylized way. And to see her in action is certainly a joyful thing to behold.
Southpeak is the publisher behind X-Blades, a title that combines the fantastic with an almost manga style and intense action. Ayumi is an adventurer who deals with danger with her unique bladed weapons that are also guns. The game itself, spanning many platforms, combines exploration elements with hack-and-slash combat. To see the game in motion is a thing of beauty.
Of course, with the release date closing in, GameZone wanted to know a bit more about this title, and Aubrey Norris, Product Marketing Manager for Southpeak Games, was willing to answer our questions.
Question: Ok, tell me why developers create a compelling female lead, put her into dangerous situations and then dress her for an outing at the beach?
Aubrey: I think the real question is; why not. This formula has proved successful in countless titles over the years. You might as well ask Eidos why they went with a voluptuous vixen rather than a no curves flat-chested heroine for the Tomb Raider series. Honestly, we wanted to make a game that gave players something attractive to look at while they hacked and slashed their way through the highly detailed worlds and hordes of enemies in X-Blades.

GameZone Talks it Up with Dan Vondrak about X-Men Origins: Wolverine

“…it was about being true to Wolverine’s character, and if that means lopping guys’ heads off or ramming claws into their chest, then that’s what it’s got to be.”
One of the most well-known and loved characters in comics, Wolverine has experienced a huge resurgence of popularity in recent years, largely due to his role in the X-Men film franchise, as played by Hugh Jackman. Now, the hero is getting his own origin story film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine with Jackman in the lead role.
Additionally, Activision and developer Raven software are hard at work developing a game based on the character and featuring plot elements from the film, as well as a sizable chunk of the film’s cast. However, the game is set to be not just another film game, as it sets out to give players the opportunity to play as Wolverine as never before. Players can take full advantage of his abilities and adamantium claws and attack enemies like a wild animal, ripping enemies limb from limb.
At a recent press event held for the game, GameZone got a chance to sit down with Dan Vondrak, Project Lead on the game, and ask him a few questions about the game’s development and how it relates to the upcoming film.

Human Rubberband

Most of the games and activities we cover at Strange Games require minimal equipment such as a ball or plastic bucket or, often, none at all. Human Rubberband™ is different in that to play you are going to have to buy one...but it allows you to play an amazing game. Human Rubberband™ was founded in 2008 in Reese, Utah and what they are selling is a gigantic rubber band, a massively scaled up version of the common desk accessory. The Human Rubberband™ is 50 inches wide with a diameter of 15 feet!.The game that you play with it is a cooperative game that requires four players. Each stands inside the band and position themselves so that they form the four corners of a square - the rubber band being at waist level. Now the action begins. One pair of opposing players run towards and past each other and then turn so that they back into the band. The resulting elasticity forces the other two players to perform a similar motion and so on....as long as you can keep it up you do it.The embedded video should make it perfectly clear, it's a little like a continuous rope bounce that you often see in wrestling bouts although without the final blow of a forearm smash.

Office Ball Games: CUPS

An e-mail reaches Blister Towers from the creator of the website/book Office Ball Games. If you visit the website, which I sincerely hope you do, you can download a pdf book which has in depth and hilarious instructions of how to play Office Ball Games. These fall under six broad categories: Cups, Catchy, Counters, Hops, Hopsy and Golfsy. All involve the use of a stress ball and the office kitchen with many games involving trying to fire the ball past your opponent after a required number of bounces off kitchen tables, chairs and other fixtures and fittings.The game of Cups is particularly inspired, it is a little like a combination of lacrosse and squash but played in a small office kitchen. Cups is an ideal game for two players. Each has an empty coffee cup. Player one places a stress ball in his cup then fires it against the wall (above waist height) and in the direction of his opponent. The opposing player must catch the ball after it has bounced off at least the one wall and before it hits any horizontal surface (including, as the guide says, toasted sandwich makers). If successfully caught then play continues in a similar manner. If the ball is missed then a point goes to the serving player. The website gives details on a variety of Cup grips to impart different spins on the ball and the use of psychedelically patterned cups to confuse opponents and gain advantage.

Game Development

The cost of developing a competitive commercial MMORPG title often exceeds $10 million.[33] These projects require multiple disciplines within game design and development such as 3D modeling, 2D art, animation, user interfaces, client/server engineering, database architecture, and network infrastructure.[34]
The front-end (or client) component of a commercial, modern MMORPG features 3D graphics. As with other modern 3D games, the front-end requires expertise with implementing 3D engines, real-time shader techniques and physics simulation. The actual visual content (areas, creatures, characters, weapons, spaceships and so forth) is developed by artists who typically begin with two-dimensional concept art, and later convert these concepts into animated 3D scenes, models and texture maps.[35]
Developing an MMOG server requires expertise with client/server architecture, network protocols, security, and relational database design. MMORPGs include reliable systems for a number of vital tasks. The server must be able to handle and verify a large number of connections, prevent cheating, and apply changes (bug fixes or added content) to the game. A system for recording the game's data at regular intervals, without stopping the game, is also important.[36]
Maintenance requires sufficient servers and bandwidth, and a dedicated support staff. Insufficient resources for maintenance lead to lag and frustration for the players, and can severely damage the reputation of a game, especially at launch. Care must also be taken to ensure that player population remains at an acceptable level by adding or removing servers ("shards"). Peer-to-peer MMORPGs could theoretically work cheaply and efficiently in regulating server load, but practical issues such as asymmetrical network bandwidth and CPU-hungry rendering engines make them a difficult proposition. Additionally, they would probably become vulnerable to other problems including new possibilities for cheating. The hosted infrastructure for a commercial-grade MMORPG requires the deployment of hundreds (or even thousands) of servers. Developing an affordable infrastructure for an online game requires developers to scale to large numbers of players with less hardware and network investment.[37]
In addition, the development team will need to have expertise with the fundamentals of game design: world-building, lore and game mechanics,[38] as well as what makes games fun.

Progression

In nearly all MMORPGs, the development of the player's character is a primary goal.[3] Many MMORPGs feature a character progression system in which players earn experience points for their actions and use those points to reach character "levels", which makes them better at whatever they do.[3] Traditionally, combat with monsters and completing quests for NPCs, either alone or in groups, are the primary ways to earn experience points. The accumulation of wealth (including combat-useful items) is also a way to progress in many titles, and again, this is traditionally best accomplished via combat. The cycle produced by these conditions, combat leading to new items allowing for more combat with no change in gameplay, is sometimes pejoratively referred to as the level treadmill,[3] or 'grinding'. The role-playing game Progress Quest was created as a parody of this trend.
Also, traditional in the genre is the eventual demand on players to team up with others in order to progress at the optimal rate. This sometimes forces players to change their real-world schedules in order to "keep up" within the game-world.