You may have noticed that a couple of months ago we launched a new brand called Tagplay, along with a cool new logo (right). The label was set up distinct from Tag Games to allow us to separate the two main activities of the studio, namely self-publishing our own games and developing titles for others. Tag Games carries on as usual working with some of the biggest partners on the planet such as Square-Enix, BBC Worldwide, Endemol, Namco Bandai and many more, whilst all of our own content will be published by Tagplay.
The first game from Tagplay marks our baby steps into social and freemium gaming. Funpark Friends is going to be an awesome free to play game in which the player must build the theme park of their dreams. It’s due for global release on 1st October of this year and we’ve very excited about the opportunity to grow the game over time with weekly and monthly content updates planned. It may start off small, but this is one game that has the potential to become huge! The design team are just bursting at the seams trying to stop coming up with cool game-play ideas and so we know if you have as much fun playing the game as we’ve had making it you’ll be in for a treat!
Funpark Friends will introduce a number of quirky social features allowing players to share the game experience with their friends. One problem with so called social games on mobile is that very few of them are actually all that social. We’ve tried to avoid this kind of response, after all no-one visits theme parks alone! What point is there in taming the wildest of rollercoasters if your friends aren’t there to experience it with you? This won’t be a problem in FPF. You can find out more about Funpark Friends by “Liking” us on Facebook to keep up with the latest info.
In many ways Funpark Friends marks a major shift in the studio as we gear up for games as a service rather than a product. The fundamental way in which we approach the design and development of games has had to change and the personnel and skills needed has expanded as well! So there are a number of new faces to the Tag team including talented Server Engineers Drew and Stephen, Product Evangelist Simon and HTML5 expert Steven. These guys are working hard alongside the game development team to ensure that Funpark Friends is not only the most fun social game on mobile, but also the most stable, reliable and scalable!
This is just the start for Tagplay. These are exciting times to be making indie mobile games and we can’t wait to really get to grips with making elegant social games that you can play at home, on the go or on the can!
Follow Tagplay on Twitter for all the latest on our exciting original games.
Join in the Funpark competition on TouchArcade and get your ride design in the game PLUS win a $100 iTunes voucher.
We are delighted to report that Tag Games has been included in this years “Top 50 Mobile Innovators” awards. This prestigious list is sponsored by O2 Blue Via, published by mobileentertainment.biz and showcases the best the UK has to offer in mobile entertainment innovation.
Taking our hard earned place alongside such illustrious companies as Wapple, Grapple, IdeaWorks3D and usTwo shows that Tag can duke it out with the very best in the industry!
The award entry states:
“This Scots gaming studio has a burgeoning global reputation that has seen it gather an enviable roster of global partners. They include Channel 4, Namco Bandai, Square Enix and more. The BBC chose Tag to create its Dr Who app, while Endemol hired Tag to make Red Ball Challenge, which was based on the hit TV show Total Wipeout.”
High praise indeed for our fully deserving team!
Managing director Paul Farley commented “This is the second time that Tag have made the Mobile Entertainment/O2 Top 50 Innovators in mobile list and yet again it is an honour to be included. This industry recognition of the contribution Tag makes to innovation in our industry comes at an important time as we end the first phase of an extensive period of research and development. We hope that this signifies the start of another successful phase in the development of the Tag group”
We are pleased to announce that Tag Games is 5 years old this week. It’s been a rollercoaster ride for sure, yet despite the ups and down of independant game development and publishing we’ve never been in better shape for the challenges and opportunities ahead. We’ve come along way from humble beginnings in a small cottage in Fife and our first game Dead Water, to an expanding studio with cross platfrom, social, connected and game analytics capability. Not to mention the vast creative capacity and general greatness of our team!
We’re excited because we know the best is yet to come from Tag, this year is a big one for us as we look forward to the release of some of the biggest and most ambitious work for hire and own IP projects we’ve ever undertaken. Thanks must go to all our friends, family, players, users, customers, current clients, future clients and everyone else that has in some way been a part of the story so far. We look forward to the next exciting chapter with anticipation!
Happy 5th Birthday to us!
As part of the Tag birthday celebrations we’ve been running the first ever Tag Hack Day. Five brave teams worked for 24 hours to create a finished game and earn the right to be crowned Tag’s Hack Champions of 2011! It was a close contest with all of the teams demonstrating a large degree of creativity, skill and commitment. Much fun was had, but Hack has a serious side as we learnt again the value of rapid prototyping and iteration in the game development process. It was also great to see our own moFlow and moConnect game engines/platforms going head to head against Unity and bespoke solutions and holding its own! Now that we’ve had a taste of the Hack experience we’ll be going back for more later in the year. Now it’s time for some drinks. Cheers for the good times and the bad, Heres to another five years of fun and games!
After 24 gruelling hours of coding, drawing, designing and eating junk foods our teams are done. We’re all off to grab some lunch before the judging begins later this afternoon. Well done to all the teams for their sterling effort, awesome creativity and sense of humour – even in the face of disaster! We’ll be back with the results of Tag Hack 2011 later. Until then here’s some movies of the finished games. Do get in touch and let us know which is your favourite and why. Who knows if there is enough interest we may well finish some of them off and release them.
Super Rescue Buoy by Thunderdeth
Cantankerous by Bath Toaster
Rescue Robots by TEAM
Flaming Eamon by The Roger Moore Adventure Club
Immunoglobluin by Lowest Visible Sandwich Layer
For those of you interested in the voting system:
Everyone at Tag has ten points to assign in each of four categories (fun, technical excellence, artist excellence, commercial potential), people can’t assign points to their own team. The team with the most points wins. Simples!
We are into the final couple of hours of Tag Hack 2011 here at Tag towers. It’s a seriously hot day here in Dundee. The office would be warm enough without the teams needing to sweat it out in the pressure cooker environment of a Hack day. Thoughts are starting to drift to lunch, the glory of the award ceremony and the beer garden thereafter, but in the final hours the winners and losers will be decided. Now is the time for heroes to emerge from the depths of sleep deprevation. Who will rise to the challenge? Who will stand proud? Who will fund air conditioning for Tag HQ? Stay tuned folks!
Proof that Dundee IS the sunniest city in Scotland
Here’s a quick update on the state of play. Our next post will feature final video from each of the games so it’s now or never for the five teams battling to become Tag Hack 2011 Champions!
ThunderDeth – Super Rescue Buoy
It’s been a tough time for team Thunderdeth. Having never used moFlow they started with a major disadvantage that they have struggled to overcome. “If only we were where we are now 12 hours ago” we overheard. We’ll folks it’s too late now! The team are confident of getting a controlable game character in before the deadline but seem to have already accepted defeat in terms of having game rules implemented. Still they have some nice art…
Nice splash screen but will there be a game?
The Rodger Moore Adventure Club – Flaming Eamon
TRMAC were also slow starters finding their decision to use Box2D a challenge given they had never used it before. It does seem to be a theme that the teams that have done best to this point are working with technology and tools they are familiar with. Maybe something for everyone to remember next time. If there is a next time. All the game art is complete and given Jim rarely works in 2D he seems pretty pleased with the results. Team lead Joe is working hard on the bike controls and physics and along with the other coder Ian are confident they will have something cool by deadline – if a little smaller in scale than what they originally planned.
Looking good baby, looking good!
TEAM – Rescue Robots
One team that don’t seem to be running out of time are team TEAM. “We’re now adding a lot of stuff that we didn’t think we’d get in” they told us. Starting out with the plan to create a simple game with similar rules to Chu Chu Rocket they are now adding more complex game rules such as objects that change the robots colour combined with colour coded gates. “It’s just as important to find the right route as it is to get to the exit” team lead Stan told us. Sounds like they’ve found their USP folks. Having four coders on team has certainly helped get them this far, but will the game be fun to play? Let’s wait and see.
Little people
Game Screen Back Plate
Bath Toaster – Cantankerous
The first thing you’ll notice is that TagTanks is no more. The team finally have a name that they all, pretty much, agree on. Cantankerous it is then. These guys have had an air of smug confidence from the start and with time drawing to a close it looks like its justified. The low dependance on art has worked out well and artist Stewart even had time to return home to the sticks for a good nights sleep before rejoining the team this morning. Facebook functionality is in and all that remains are the implementation of the game rule logic across multi-player. Project lead Tom’s iPhone 4 has stopped working, but we have a feeling this team won’t let that stand in their way.
Ballsy, but could impact on voting behaviour...
It's no lie - they do have tanks
Lowest Visible Sandwhich Layer – Immunoglobulin
Team LVSL have had flexibility at the heart of their approach from the get go. These guys don’t just have a plan B they have a plan Z! It’s been a good call as quickly they realised their original vision was just a touch too ambitions. Coder Stuart was brutally honest “It’s been much harder than we expected really. We had to cut stuff back and Faye (artist) still can’t pronounce the name of the game” The scaled back Immunoglobulin is looking rather fetching all the same and all that remains with all features complete is to merge the various project branches and polish what they have. They aren’t home and dry yet and we’ve overheard they have issues with audio which team lead Kevin will be furious about, so let’s see how this one pans out.
Checks always look good. Except on small screens. Doh!
It’s the morning after the night before and the sun is shining on our hackers here at Tag HQ. The teams have thinned out somewhat during the night but most of team TEAM and team Bath Toaster are here along with a few other stragglers. We’re expecting the teams to be back up to full strength by 9am so we have an opportunity to put TagTanks and Rescue Robots in the spotlight while their competitors are sleeping.
Rescue Robots
The night shift has gone well for team TEAM. The latest work shows a full game screen with close to final character and background art in and working. They may have had the benefit of four coders on the team, but considering they started from scratch it’s already an impressive achievement. The guys are now working on getting the HUD (heads up display) working and adding levels, front end and audio.
TagTanks
They still don’t have a name, but as you can see their game is really coming along well. TagTanks now has working multi-player and the team are now working on the Facebook integration and adding art polish to the game. The video shows play taking place across iPad and iPhone, plus there was rumour of an Android build as well to really show off the power of our internal game tech moFlow. We’ll wait and see if the game is any good, but right now it’s been a fine nights work.
Super Rescue Buoy
It’s been a tough night for the Thunderdeth team and we are yet to see anything resembling a game emerge from their area of the office. The art however is looking good as can be seen in this short video.
Will report on the rest of the teams once they are back in the zone. The 2pm GMT deadline is looming large and there’s still along way to go!
It”s beyond 2am, we’re now past the half way mark and the office is still buzzing with hacking, jacking and all round high jinks. We’ve lost a few team members to their beds but a number of brave souls battle on into the night. Before your sleepy bloggers head for home and the promise of a comfy bed we managed to capture some video of the games in action for the first time. Progress has slowed on most of the projects, a couple have yet to reach “1st playable” status which is a little worrying for those teams, so the next hour or two will be vital before the effects of tiredness really kick in. Here’s those videos:
Immunoglobulin – 1st Playable
Rescue Robots – 1st Playable
TagTanks – 1st Playable
Flaming Eamon – Art Production
See you in a few hours post corn flakes and post a decent sleep!
As midnight draws close it’s time to visit the final team. Last but not least it’s team “Thunderdeth” and their game called Super Rescue Buoy…
Super Rescue Buoy in a nutshell
They have a nice play on words in their game title, some of the cutest characters to ever need rescuing and a giant octopus boss. Team Thunderdeth are showing they know how to push the right buttons when it comes to appealing game concepts! In Super Rescue Buoy the player takes on the role of a life guard and part time college quarterback hero, your job is to rescue the cute little people before they find a sticky end courtesy of the octopus boss. The team were keen to keep the game concept simple to give themselves the best chance of delivering a game come the end of the day but they are also attempting to include some unique and rather cool sounding control mechanisms. If the sound of “swipe to throw with aftertouch” has you dreaming of Sensi Soccer then you’re not alone. We’re excited to play this one and even if the game sucks at least they’ll have created some delightfully weird characters that may find a home in some of our other titles.
Brek hard at work on the level design of Super Rescue Buoy
Early Progress
When we first spoke to the team they described their early progress as “awesome”, but this time round they were a little more subdued. All that early work on framework and tools is likely to pay off as we head into the early hours though and with a solid base to build on and a relatively simple concept they look like they’ll pull through. Like many of the teams Thunderdeth are using Tag’s own multi-platform mobile game engine moFlow for their project. Unfortunately for Thunderdeth none of their code team have used moFlow before today. Will this be a major disadvantage? Tune in later to find out. For now feast your eyes on much cuteness.
These little guys need rescuing. You know you want to! Go on, go on, go on...
The boss octopuss. Don't mess with this guy!
Progression of the octopus. 1st pass left, 2nd pass right
What’s next on the blog? Hopefully some video. Or sleep. Perhaps both?
Only two teams left in our pre-midnight updates. We move onto the delightfully named “Rodger Moore Adventure Club” and a saucy game of bikes, stunts and getting into bed with a lovely lady…
Flaming Eamon in a nutshell
Games on iPhone with ragdoll physics have done really well. There is something special when you get a combination of ragdoll physics, an appealing 2D art style and good level design and this is what team RMAC are looking to achieve with their rather glorious tribute to Evil Knievel “Flaming Eamon”. We’ll clarify this later on but it seems the game provides a snapshot into the life of a dare devil motocross rider Eamon. We also assume the aim of the game is to reach the bed of the rather scary looking dame in the concept sketches below and NOT end up in flames. One of our favourite games of last year was the PSN title Joe Danger and if this comes anywhere near the fun of that little gem we’re in for a real treat.
RMAC artist Jim goes all Evil J Knievel – ragdolls are hip baby
Early Progress
Progress has been slow for the RMAC but the guys on this team are used to delivering when the chips are down. We have no doubt that come the final whistle tomorrow there will be a great little game on show. The concept art is taking shape nicely with strange character art, animals, lush backgrounds and shiny stuff. It also looks as if the lads have thrown in some double entendres – Rodger Moore would be proud!
Next up it’s those crazy cats team “TEAM” and their futuristic project Rescue Robots.
Rescue Robots in a nutshell
We really like “Team”, not just because they are weird and think it’s funny to name their team “team” but because they love Sega’s Chu Chu Rocket. Who doesn’t? It really was a slice of awesome action/puzzle gaming goodness when it was released for the Dreamcast in the 90′s. It’s a shame it didn’t get the commerical success that it really did deserve, but not to worry Stan leader of team “Team” has taken a heavy dose of Chu Chu style inspiration into their title Rescue Robots. The moment we saw the first sprites moving around on Drew’s screen we instantely saw the resemblance to Sega’s classic. That’s not to say that Team have lifted the game lock, stock and barrel – they haven’t, but when your influences are so strong (and great) why not wear your heart on your sleeve. We’ll be watching closely to see what new innovations they plug into this proven mix.
As night falls at Tag HQ, Dundee, the intensity of Tag Hack 2011 is there for everyone to see
Early Progress
It’s been a couple of hours since we spoke with the Team team but even then they were making great progress across all aspects of the game. The player control system was in, sprites and basic behaviour were being rendered in the game view and Martin the team’s artist was nailing a simple rendered 3D style that was already translating well to the top down 2D final view of the game. The robot main character is bringing back memories of Dire Straits Money for Nothing music video – let’s wait and see if these guys get their chicks for free…
Lead character for Rescue Robots
1st pass at the tiled background
It's alive! Rescue Robots in action for the 1st time
