Archive for the ‘Game Design’ Category

Game Jam Belgium 2011

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Global game jam

Another 48h GAME JAM in Belgium!

For all of you artists and programmers who missed the Global Game Jam in Antwerp end of January, we’ve got great news!!

C-MINE the new site in Genk with ambitions to promote the creative industry is offering their under-construction location in Genk for the next Belgian Jam!

When? Very soon! 6-7-8 th of MAY
The Game Jam starts at 17h00 on Friday and end on Sunday at 17h00.
This time we’ve even got some real prizes to win!

Win a UNITY3D iphone or android indy license!
Interested? Register here!

Stay tuned… More info coming soon!

Call for speakers…
Are you a game industry expert or do you think you have something interesting to say to the Belgian gaming community?
You might be the person we are looking for to motivate our participants at the start of the event on friday…contact them

Safety Measures, how to learn about Safety and Security in a Serious game

Monday, February 28th, 2011

Hi There,

We have this crazy idea that learning about your safety and the of the ones who surround you on your place of work should be fun.

What we don’t like:

- 2 hour video on VHS from the 80′s with an awful voice telling you what to do when the building is on fire

- Super 8 hour boring traning were you have to listen to the same guy from 10 years ago with his powerpoint 98 slides

- Text Quizzes that test your safety skills and give your good grades because you studied well

What we Love

-Video Games

-Natural interfaces (Kinect, PS Move, sound recognition)…

-Serious games that use the latest technology to make your life safer

-Active experience in which you play with your friends, gain points, get better

-A game in which you are the center of the experience, a place where you can make mistake and see the result of them

 

That’s why we are working on Safety Measures, the most Unique Security and safety Serious game, letting you play with your colleagues to make your workplace safer whilst having fun doing it.

 

We are looking for industrial partners who want to join the adventure and be the first in the world to integrate the most innovative Safety Serious game to date.

Are you the one? Drop us an email: contact@fishingcactus.com

Shift Extended lands on EU & US PSN stores

Thursday, January 20th, 2011

Shift Extended PSP minisShift Extended, a brand new version tailored for the minis and, of course, based on the successful Shift series, is now available on both EU and US PSN stores (available on both PSP and PS3 in the minis). It is available for 3.99$ / 3.99€.

It features unique set of levels (160 in total) as well as never seen game mechanics in the Shift series. If you don’t have an iPhone, are addicted to platform games and you have a PS3 or a PSP, this is a must buy! :)

Zallag, our publisher on this game did a great communication job and posted several trailers around the web. Here is the second one!

Fishing Cactus presents R.O.G.E.R, the first Medical Kinect Serious game

Thursday, October 7th, 2010

Together with the support of the Microsoft Innovation Center and a cluster of 4 therapists, we have created a prototype Serious game dedicated to patients who suffer from a lack of logic and organizational skills
(typically post-stroke patients, Alzheimer, hemi-negligent patients,…)

We have been getting a lot of press and attention about this project since we are pretty much the only studio in Belgium and maybe Europe who master the technology to build this game, the reason is that we have used Kinect Technology, a controller less movement recognition camera.

This allows our game to be piloted by any generation, and especially non digital natives who have never used a game controller or keyboard and mouse (very good indeed since most patients with those symptoms fall under this category).

The scenario for this prototype is simple, we have created a photo-realist environment running directly on the X360 composed of a bedroom, bathroom and a dressing. Each room has a certain amount of inventory spaces in which representations of objects are placed.

The therapists can task the patient to do his luggage for a specific destination (the mountains, the sea, a city-trip,…) and can observe how the patient reacts to the environment and the type of objects he gathers in his luggage. It helps the therapists to analyse and observe if patients are disorganized and see where they have lost their common sense and focus on those points in therapy. Of course we create several pertubating elements to make them lose focus (phone ringing, radio and so on).

The game is evolving and the 2 year goal from here is to have a very innovative and collaborative project.

Fighters Uncaged Kinect trailer

Wednesday, October 6th, 2010

Fighters Uncaged KinectSome of you already figured out (check last posts if not) but Fishing Cactus has been quite involved in the development of Fighters Uncaged, a Ubisoft title developed by AMA Studios (Fishing Cactus closely collaborated with the AMA team).

Fighters Uncaged is planned as a launch title for Kinect next November so be prepared for an overwhelming number of posts on the blog as the release date is getting closer.

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Shift 2 level contest

Tuesday, August 31st, 2010

Shift iPhoneAs some already guessed, Armor Games and Fishing Cactus are bringing Shift 2 to the iPhone, and we need your help. We are looking for users to create and submit levels for ‘Shift 2′ that we can feature in the game.

If we end up featuring your level in Shift 2 (iPhone) you’ll get your full name in the credits as well as a free copy of the game in the app store.

The rules for the contest are as follows:

1. E-mail your level codes to support@fishingcactus.com
2. Make sure you include your full name to be listed in the credits
3. Lastly, submit an e-mail address that is easiest to reach you so the game can be sent to the winners.

Armor Games & Fishing Cactus wishes all contestants the best of luck! To get started, click here. Follow us on Twitter to know in real-time what we think about the levels submitted!

Behind the Level Design of Shift 2

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Yes, you heard me, that’s what I’m talking about. The Level Design process of Shift 2 levels.

Who knows? We might have something related in developement…

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AiGameDev Conference 2010: EVE Online Characters

Monday, July 19th, 2010

UPDATE: post is now under the right author name.

During the AiGameDev Conference 2010 at Paris Claudio Pedica, a researcher at CADIA Labs, Reykjavik University, currently collaborating with CCP Games presented us their new social interaction system in a talk titled Human Territoriality for EVE Online’s Socially Smart Characters.

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Virtual Characters AI at Paris AiGameDev Conference

Monday, July 5th, 2010

Last week, part of our team had the chance to attend the AI game dev conference in Paris. This world renowned conference is mostly the result of AiGameDev.com Alex and Petra Champandard’s hard work. Big thanks to them then! Everyone on the team that attended the conference will discuss the conference talks in the coming week or so, but let me tell that these covered a very large breadth of topics ranging from high level inspirational design panels to down to the nuts and bolts of making AI characters behave smarter and more interestingly.

Hey, that's us!

On my part, I’ll spend this post writing about the conference keynote that I found to be both interesting and inspirational; this talk by Bruce Blumberg was titled “Intimate Conversations with Interactive Animated Characters”.

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Roll Out Featured on Pocketgamer.co.uk

Thursday, May 27th, 2010

We are pleased to annouce that Roll Out

( One of our latest games developed with Artik Entertainment)

has been featured  on the Mobile gaming specialists website Pocket Gamer.

To see the Article visit:

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Roll+Out/news.asp?c=20957