Have you ever wanted to learn programming, but were too intimidated to give it a try? Were you turned off by the logic intricacies that programming requires? Well, here at Fishing Cactus, we are currently working on a Serious Game that will help you with that. The game is about Algo-bot, a cool little robot that’s here to teach you the basics of coding. So, grab your cup of coffee, here the story begins.
A few months ago, Technobeltasked us with making a game that would be used at their training center. So we set out to create a game that will help people grasp the essential skills of logic that the programming craft requires. And that’s how our little Algo-bot was born.
The Algo-bot world is one of leaking toxic containers, industrial crates and stubborn little robots. It takes place inside an unspecified power plant, in an unspecified future, with an unspecified number of hazardous things waiting for you. Fortunately, there is one thing that is specified: the gameplay!
We know how hard it can sometimes be to wrap one’s head around some of the concepts of programming (been there, done that, bought the t-shirt), so we made sure that you were appropriately supervised.
There are two characters in Algo-bot that will help you throughout the game: Tina, and the Director. Tina is the mechanical engineer of the power plant. She’s not afraid of getting her hands dirty, works hard, and likes to crack a good joke once in awhile. She’s there to help you learn the basics of the game and give you some tips when you get overwhelmed.
The director, as his name suggests, is the big boss of the power plant. He’s not funny. He’s stubborn and only concerned about one thing: efficiency in programming. He will remind you of that fact whenever an opportunity for optimization presents itself.
Next post, our designer will take you through the gameplay mechanics of Algo-bot right in this column. Come back for more later
Edit: The End of the World got delayed apparently. The Mayans must have mis-calculated the timeline; we know the feeling In celebration, we extend all promotions through Christmas!
Edit #2: Rumor has it that the World did end yesterday, but the government covered it up. Not sure what to believe anymore :-/
Christmas comes early this year as we’d like you to have at least a few days to enjoy our promoted titles before the End of the World, which apparently is scheduled by the Mayans for this Friday.
First of all, Swappin’: our iOS and Androidspelling game is now FREE to download! If you didn’t train your brain by playing it yet, this is your chance to die a bit cleverer. Wanna find out how it fares among other spelling games? Check out the AppAdvice quick review.
If you happen to be a French-speaking word-lover, you might also be interested in “Mots Croisés”, from our friends over at BigBen Interactive. It has also been dropped to FREE for the holidays season. Grab it now!
The last present is currently half-priced during the Holiday Season, also in partnership with BigBen. Judge Dee will bring you to medieval China in an iPad investigation game that is temporarily available for only US$ 3.99 (€ 3.59) instead of the usual US$ 7.99 (€ 5.99), for a limited time only!
Master Shee is calling you back to school and this time to teach you about the Docking Station incident.
This story related to the Lone Shee’s journey aboard his spaceship, the Capillata, looking for other members of his species all around the galaxy. And what a journey! Lone Shee took the opportunity to travel through the Warp. Many different worlds he visited and many beautiful Norns he managed to shelter in his spaceship. Some of them discovered, some of them created, each and every one of them extraordinary.
Lone Shee had a pleasing journey overall, except maybe for the lack of teas and cookies. However, he had never imagined that he’d find some Grendels in his own spaceship. But he did nonetheless! He wondered how they managed to get there and then begun to suspect that they knew about the Warp…
Helped by some incredibly scrappy Norns he knocked the intruders down but found they dropped something in the Capillata. While inspecting it, Lone Shee noticed a “B” marked on the surface of it and remembered a creepy old fairytale about some evil kind of Shee called Banshee. Could those things be some Banshee’s eggs? So, in the nick of time, he threw some eggs, through the Warp.
At last, landing on Sphericus, our mad scientist attempted his journey’s final act. He didn’t quite encounter what he was after though: staring at him with his ruby-red grindelish eyes, a Banshee welcomed him.
Oh, and one more thing… While touring space, Lone Shee crossed paths with weird species called Eyeball Invaders – Check that out over on Steam Greenlight (and do cast your vote! We need your help to make the cut. Lone Shee is ordering you to!)
Ever dreamt of being a big shot producer or a powerful entertainment mogul? This is your chance to get started.
We have listed our next hit project on Gambitious, and everybody is welcome to invest in it and actually own a piece of the revenue share! Think of it as an evolved Kickstarter: by investing, you get more than a few perks and collectible gifts; you essentially become a stakeholder in the venture. Gambitious is basically like an online stock exchange for game properties.
The game project we have selected for this, titled Piratoons, is in very early stages of development and has been identified as having strong franchise potential.
Now sit back and relax, Mr. Big, here’s our mind-blowing pitch for you:
«Steer your ship along the tropical coastlines, upgrade it with new powerful and magical artifacts, recruit the most greedy pirate crew and engage in exciting real-time Match-3 battles to prove your skills and gather hefty amounts of doubloons! Set sail for the search of the legendary Pelican Tooth, meet a great cast of wacky cartoon pirates, trade extraordinary goods, capture, protect and build harbors. Piratoons lets you experience the warmth of the Caribbean Sea, its lush colors, seducing rhythms and extraordinary stories.»
Mind blown away? Feels like this is something you want to help making happen? Smells like a profitable opportunity? Then hop on board and let’s go quest for those hidden treasures together! Oh, and if you’re broke and want to help us get our games made anyway, you can still vote for Eyeball Invaders over at Steam Greenlight completely free of charge
It started as a collective effort … Pretty soon Nature prevailed.
Eyeballs Invaders have landed on a mysterious planet and they need to get as many energy orbs as they can to build themselves a new spaceship. Only one tiny problem: there’s not enough room on the replacement shuttle for all of them. Let the massacre begins, cause in the end, only one will survive and go home!
The Eyeball Invaders is a free to play fast-paced multi-player action game for PC, Mac and Linux in which each player takes control of one of many different eyeball-like character and jumps his way through 5 wonderful planets and 150 tricky levels.
Discover The Eyeball Invaders world through an exciting single player adventure mode or tackle the challenges with your friends! The game will let you challenge up to seven other players over five hectic modes of play, for some local eight-player brawling madness! And if you prefer playing online, go through the steam community and game integrated lobbies to find yourself more challengers!
Control your jump power and leap left or right to catch the Orbs in the glimpse of an eye. Stick to the walls and use them as launching platforms to jump even further! Watchwords: jump, stick and brawl! Feels like something you’d like to play? Then do something about it and head over to Steam Community, where we’re waiting for your votes to get Greenlit!
We know that most of you are already fan of Creatures from the start, but we think it’s time to wear the clothes of Master Shee and start doing some history lesson for whom of you who have never heard of this awesome game before. So, what is Creature 4 or C4? No, it’s not an explosive, even if its content really caused an explosion of fan all over the world and the years. If it’s called “4”, it obviously means that before there was a “3”, a “2” and a “1”.
So let’s start from the beginning!
Creatures 1 was released in 1996 and it was about two strange “creatures” (it couldn’t be other way!) or species called Norns and Grendels. Norns were created to entertain and serve tea and biscuits to the Shee, the ancient inhabitants of Albia, the world in the shape of a coin where the game takes place.
And in the beginning there was Adam… erf, no, sorry, Ron. Yep, you understood well. The first Norn was called “Ron”. The real history of his name have nothing really mythical, except that Ian Saunter, the development director, once did a demonstration using that name for the character and the demonstration went so well that he kept using it praying the success repeated itself and apparently it did!
Grendels, instead, are a failed genetic experiment made by the Shee and the most feared enemy of the Norns. They depend from a Queen for reproduction, the Grendel Mother, who never actually “moves”, she’s just a tube in a tree. The first Grendel was a descendant of Cain, who was the first naturally-born child of Ron and Eve, obviously!
And speaking of “entities” which made history, one of the over-mentioned men in the biblical adventure of Creature is surely Steve Grand, the responsible for the architecture and programming of the artificial life game engine.
It’s kinda strange writing my own presentation and publishing it. It’s like asking yourself the questions and giving the answers at the same time , but… that’s how it is, so I won’t hesitate any longer.
Since a few weeks you have probably noticed (and I definitely hope so, otherwise I’ll need to wake you up a bit more, I guess!) our blog has finally become more active. Yea, well, there’s someone behind it, and that someone is me! Nice to meet you, Fishing Cactus fans, I’m your new PR Manager. Bruno has great plans for me (I hear an evil “MOUHAHAHA” behind me)…
As someone remarked on our commentaries to our previous post , the Creatures 4 website has reopened its doors! So today we’re gonna tour you through the website features to make sure n00bs are not left behind!
If you’ve never heard of Creatures, in the “What is Creatures 4” section you will have all your questions answered. The next step is to sign up, if you haven’t done so already! You can log in through Facebook and become fan of the Creatures 4 Facebook Page or follow the game on Twitter. To never miss a thing about your favorite game and always be the first in the know, subscribe to the Creatures 4 Newsletter!
With your brand new account you can interact with the community on the Creatures 4 forum, which is of course where you will hang out most of the time from now on. And if you want to make new buddies you definitely need to introduce yourself in the dedicated section, where thousands of fans are waiting exactly as you are!
If you grow tired of chatting you will find an awesome Goodies section where you can download all the screenshots and wallpapers you want, learn what’s new about Creatures 4 and if you’re up for some history lesson, in The Creatures Series section your curiosity will finally rest.
I guess that’s all for this quick introduction to the Creatures 4 website, but if you have more questions you can always check the FAQ!
Have you ever dreamt of imposing your hands to make things move like the Mini Darth Vader does in the famous Volkswagen commercial? Imagine being able to do just that with the power of your bare fingertips! In our new free game Slash Monsters, you slash your way through 6 challenging worlds and 36 adrenaline-pumping levels!
Slash Monsters is a free marine action game in cartoon-style coming out by the end of this month. All kinds of mutant monsters are lurking deep under the sea to invade the Planet!
Your final goal will be to save the sweet starfishes from some nasty pink mutant octopi that are after them. Octopi are not their only enemy: jellyfishes, worms and sea urchins want to wipe out these helpless creatures! Can you slash them all before it’s too late?
Many awesome combos will help you earn more pearls and unlock new achievements. But that’s not it: you can also compete with your friends on who is the most lethal slayer!
More info will be shared soon, so stay tuned to hear more about Slash Monsters and how to save the ocean from the deep sea invaders!
Hey folks, our new iOS and Android game is now available on both the AppStore and Google Play, it is called IndestructoTank and will blow you away by its pure arcade experience!
The plot? Quite simple: as the pilot of an indestructible tank, you have certain responsibilities – Kicking Butts!
In IndestructoTank you use the enemies’ weapons against them as you catapult yourself through the air and destroy the enemy air force! Upgrade enemies count to max your combo but watch out for your fuel as an empty tank means an inevitable explosion! Just take a look at the trailer.
Fishing Cactus creates games for mobiles (F2P, Freemium mostly now) and digital consoles as well as Advergames and Serious Games (Kinect most notably).
- Working on Creatures 4
- Working on AAA iPhone project
- Finalizing 2 iPhone F2P projects
- Reach Beta for our Browser game
- Improving our pipeline and processes
Have you ever wanted to learn programming, but were too intimidated to give it a try? Were you turned off by the logic intricacies that programming requires? Well, here at Fishing Cactus, we are currently working on a Serious Game that will help you with that. The game is about Algo-bot, a cool little robot that’s here to teach you the basics of coding. So, grab your cup of coffee, here the story begins.
There are two characters in Algo-bot that will help you throughout the game: Tina, and the Director. Tina is the mechanical engineer of the power plant. She’s not afraid of getting her hands dirty, works hard, and likes to crack a good joke once in awhile. She’s there to help you learn the basics of the game and give you some tips when you get overwhelmed.
The director, as his name suggests, is the big boss of the power plant. He’s not funny. He’s stubborn and only concerned about one thing: efficiency in programming. He will remind you of that fact whenever an opportunity for optimization presents itself.
