Legacy Games Blog

New Ways to Get the Biggest Bang Out of Your Buck!

Hello  Friends!        

I  have some pretty exciting news to tell you about this week. We are constantly  trying to improve Legacy Games so that our customers have the best gaming experience possible. Our number one priority is to make sure that our members have as much choice as possible. Did you know that Legacy Games  adds 4 to 5 new games everyday? You can almost always  find new games on Legacy Games before anywhere else!

    So…the  big news of the week is that Legacy Games has  just launched our “You buy, you choose” program. We now give you, the customer, the option to choose from which of our many vendors you would like to purchase a game. You may be thinking “How does this benefit me?” Well, I’ll tell you.       

• You can buy a game on Legacy Games from any vendor that sells it, so if you already participate in a subscription program or game club from another game portal, you can still take advantage of the special pricing that they offer.
• You can search for games by vendor, so you know which games are available for purchase from each unique provider.
• Never miss out on any deal or special pricing, including offers from Big Fish Games, iWin, Playfirst, Real Arcade and more.

    These  benefits equal you saving money and time and allow you to get the most out your  buck. Take a spin around Legacy Games and see  how these improvements will make searching for games that much easier. You can  search for Big Fish Games, iWin, Playfirst, Real Arcade or you can just continue to play which ever games you want and if you decide to buy, it’s your choice who you buy them from.

    All  this talk about choice is making me want to choose to go play a game on Legacy Games. Why don’t you make the choice to join  me?        

Have  Fun!

Sophia,  aka Sofun
CFO* Chief Fun Officer
Legacy Games
Sofun@legacyinteractive.com
Start  Here for Fun and Friends

Hysterical History Lessons!!!

I have to admit, I was never very interested in history back in high school. It was only once in college that I started to see how the past is such a great predictor of future. Whether you're interested in a specific time period, have an passion for factoids, or just like a bit of romantic nostalgia about eras you never knew, it makes for some fun reading and gaming.

If you love sim games, like Virtual Villagers, you will be really impressed by Westward II: Heroes of the Frontier. It's a lot of fun to build up this tiny, wild west world, and manage the period-suitable crisis. It's a very involved simulation, but if you don't mind the learning curve (with a tutorial), it offers a lot more depth and game play hours than most casual games. You need to always balance your resources, and make sure to keep settlers happy or else they'll leave. The resources are pretty important for building luxuries that keep people happy, plus filling basic needs, so its a good idea to prioritize them.

If you don't mind a bit of fibbing – okay, let's call them generous history rewrites -- Hidden Mysteries - Civil War does a good job of setting up Civil War battlegrounds. It's a short and difficult hidden object game, but if you're a history buff with good eyesight, it has some interesting facts and visuals.

And speaking of hidden object games, it's also neat to check out Enigma. While its not the strongest hidden object game, it focuses entirely on masterpieces from the Renaissance through the 20th century. If art history is your thing, you'll find it easier than most, since most of the tasks involve removing items that don't belong in the paintings, and then adding back items which do belong. Cool beans.

We haven't even discussed the political simulation game Democracy, or the variety of hidden object games like Escape the Museum, The History Channel Lost Worlds, Curse of the Pharaoh: The Quest for Nefertiti, Hawaiian Explorer: Pearl Harbor, or Amazing Adventures: The Lost Tomb. If match 3 is more your thing, Ashley Jones and the Heart of Egypt is cute with a nifty theme.
Happy Gaming! Your history teacher would be proud.

Lisa

DOWNLOAD THESE HISTORICAL GAMES FROM LEGACY GAMES NOW>>

Crunch Time!

What? A new blogger you say? Yes, it’s true. I am pitching in by writing this week’s blog entry. It’s my job here at Legacy to oversee all of our game production. The best part about my job is that I get to be knee-deep in the development of multiple games at the same time. The worst part of my job is, well, that I am knee-deep in the development of multiple games at the same time. It certainly can be very challenging to be constantly juggling multiple tasks simultaneously. You don’t want to know how many sticky notes are on my desk at all times…

I thought I would give you folks a little insight into the different phases of a game’s development. The first stage is the Concept stage, which Don’s blog covered last week. This is when a short document is created that conveys the big-picture idea of the game in order to get approval (given the “green light”) to move forward by the publisher or developer.

Once a budget and schedule have been agreed upon, the Pre-production phase can begin. That’s when someone (usually a game designer) needs to flesh out that concept document into a full-fledged game design document. The goal is to create a detailed description of all the gameplay elements that will be understandable by everyone who reads the document. Design documents are “living documents” since the design of the game is constantly being updated as the game is being developed. Artists can then work on concept art to determine what the look and style of the game will be.  Programmers usually begin by creating a functional prototype that demonstrates one or more features of the game, usually with placeholder art.

When the Production phase begins, the entire team is in full motion.  Programmers start to write real code for the game. Artists work on creating the bits and pieces (game assets) that will be needed, such as characters, backgrounds, objects, buttons, other interface elements, animations, and much, much more. A sound engineer creates the sound effects, and a musician composes the game music. Actors may be hired to record voice-overs. Game development projects are usually required to meet milestones, which are predetermined interim project goals. Achieving these milestones requires meeting specific deadlines for phases of the project. It usually takes a lot of hard work to meet the deadlines, since some tasks often take longer than what was originally planned. Alpha (partly done), Beta (mostly done) and Gold Master (completely done) are common milestones that must be met when developing a game.

During the Beta phase is when the game needs a lot of testing by members of the QA team (Quality Assurance). The testers are the ones that play the game over and over, looking for things in the game that don’t work as they should.  Typos, missing graphics, broken features, freezes and other glitches are common “bugs” found during this phase. Descriptions of the bugs are entered in a database so that they can be tracked and verified that they really have been fixed when the programmers say they have been. It’s during this final push toward reaching a “Gold Master” is when the team often puts in a lot of overtime to finish the game. The long hours of “crunch mode” can be very tiring, but it makes actually finishing the game feel very rewarding for everyone involved.

The team working on “The Lost Cases of Sherlock Holmes” is definitely in crunch mode now, performing the final testing and bug fixes to the game to give it that final polish. We look forward to sharing the game with you very soon, and hope you enjoy playing the game as much as we have enjoyed creating it, every step of the way.

Craig Brannon

Play Against Yourself...Family Feud III: Dream Home!

Ooooooh, its a game show! Gosh, I used to love watching these whenever I was home sick from school as a kid. My Grandmother is addicted to the Game Show channel, and still gets a kick out of watching the old re-runs. South Africa isn't too big on game shows, and the ones we have are pretty slow. It's all about reality tv these days. But anyway, I am really into Family Feud III: Dream Home. It's got some kinks, but on the whole its really cute if you like to play in short spurts.

The “Family Feud” section of the game is just like the classic game show. You are asked trivia questions, and must guess at the responses of people surveyed. So....its technically not trivia, but more like trying to guess how other people think. Your opponent is the score of the “average” player, so there's no AI or anything like that. You more or less play against yourself in single player mode. If you have a higher score than average after round 4, you get to move on to the fast money round. Fast Money is probably the best part of the game, imo, where you have two chances to get over 200 points. You are asked a bunch of questions, and can guess only one answer each time. You want to try and get the number one answer, or at least pretty high up. If you win, you get a bunch of money to spend on your dream home, but even losing will give you some decorating cash.

The “dream home” section is a cute idea, though it never really ties in with the game show. You basically buy items, and click to add them to your dream home. You can't move them around, and your décor is limited to only one or two color schemes per room, so its not as deep as I would have liked. I love decorating rooms in the Sims, but that's because there are so many choices. It was a good attempt, though it didn't work as well in the game.

One thing to note – the announcer sounds eerily like Ray Combs, the original host who passed away years ago. I wonder if its a relative? My biggest complaint was that the game's dictionary wasn't as deep, and so sometimes typing in synonyms won't work (ex. I typed “food” and failed because the answer it wanted was “snacks”). This can also work in your favor, accepting answers that don't really match. Despite some of the flaws mentioned above, the games are short (maybe 5-10 minutes total), so its a good one to play during tea breaks. I've played for hours and haven't hit any repeat surveys yet.

Lisa

DOWNLOAD FAMILY FEUD III: DREAM HOME HERE>>

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Greetings, Funsters!

It’s that time of year again – my favorite time of the year.  New Idea season!  This is the time of year where we start coming up with new ideas for next year’s games.  It’s a time when all we little producers and game designers put our heads together to brainstorm and argue, to pitch our ideas and shoot down each others’.  And we’ve got a great crop of new ideas – which, of course, I’m not allowed to talk about just yet.

I know…I’m such a tease!

But I thought I’d share with you how we try to think about new ideas.  Every game designer has a different way of coming up with their ideas, and I’m certainly not going to try and tell you how to be creative.  But these are some of the things that I try to go through when I’m trying to think up a new game.

WHAT:  First off, I try to think of what the action of the game will be – WHAT the player will be doing in the game.  It needs to be an activity that either people actually do in their day to day lives (serve food, cook, dress) or something they would like to do (shoot at things, travel, solve crimes, decorate houses).  The first type can provide familiarity, and the fun of doing something you are accustomed to doing in a fun or funny new way.  These tend to be more zen, relaxing games that people tend to like to play to unwind and not think too much or strategize about.  The other type provides more escapism, but also tend to require more attention and immersion.  This accounts for about 10% of the fun of the game play, but a very vital 10%: people are unlikely to try a game where the game world doesn’t seem interesting to them.

EXAMPLE:  We narrow down all our ideas and decide to make a game about apple picking.

HOW:  Once you know what you’ll be doing in the game, then you need to think about HOW you’ll do it.  This aspect of design is what we tend to think of as “gameplay.”  Are you going to have a character on screen that will run to pick up whatever you click on?  Will you see through the eyes of a character that you’re playing and “steer” them by using the game controls?  Do you shoot things, carry things, spin things, jump off trampolines, or sing seductively to lure sailors off their ships?  This can be the hardest and most time consuming step as, in my mind, I’d estimate this accounts for about 30% of the fun of playing a game.

EXAMPLE: We decide that in our apple picking game, players will control a giant worm that moves between trees picking apples as we click on them and deposits the apples in baskets when he’s carrying as many as he can.

WHY:  Rarely will the basic elements of the WHAT and the HOW make your game all that interesting.   This is where the question “WHY is this interesting” must be asked.  Now that you have your concept and an understanding of how the game will be played, you add new elements to it to increase the challenge and the amusement level.  This usually involves variations that you can throw into game play that slightly modify the normal way you play the game.  So for a game where you run around and shoot at things, you add new types of guns the player can use, items they can ricochet shots off of, or new types of enemies that need to be dealt with in new ways.  These twists on game play, though they may seem minor, actually define your game play – What would Diner Dash be without the baby-chairs, the spills and those bozos talking on cell phones all the time?  Would all these brick breaking games be as fun without bombs, bigger balls and super-breaker-balls?  Almost every match 3 game is defined by their twists on the “Bejeweled” game.  These twists on game play represent at least 30% of the fun of playing a game.

EXAMPLE:  Our apple picking game will now have short trees that the worm can climb to gather apples and tall trees that he will need to push a trampoline under to jump up and grab the apples.  Some apples will be infested with tiny humans that the worm will need to pick before they spread to the other apples on the tree.

WHO:  Around this point in the game design process, I stop and wonder about WHO this game will appeal to.  Are there enough apple pickers out there who’ll be interested in trying out my game?  Will a giant worm bouncing off trampolines and picking apples infested with tiny humans be cute and funny enough to attract enough people to sample it?  This is the point to stop and assess if your game play design matches who you think will download your game, to see if your WHAT, HOW and WHY all work together well enough.  If not, time to revise. 

If your game idea seems to pass all the tests, now’s a good time to consider what sort of art style would best fit the game.  You tend not to get too deep into it during this point of design, but what  the “look” of the game will be (bright, cartoony, dark, gothic, scary, 50s, pastel, or any other fun adjectives you want to throw at it) needs to have some definition.  The art and sound design of the game represent at least 30% of the fun of playing a game.

EXAMPLE:  The worm may be a little weird, but we feel strongly that the image of the worm gathering apples and tiny little people being the pests will actually be charming and help to bring in people to try out the game.  With that in mind, we decide to move forward.  We decide to use the charming art of our amazing in-house artist, Lindsay, as inspiration: bright, cartoon-like, and cute.

WHEN: Last, but not least, you need to take a look at the time frame you have available.  Can you complete this game idea in time within the allocated budget?  If not, you have to trim and simplify some of your ideas.  This is always painful, but is almost always necessary, in my mind.  Usually the first elements to go come from the “WHY” section as these twists on game play are usually the hardest part of the game to implement.

That’s my approach to coming up with a game concept.  This is only the start of the work, though, as you then need to move on to the Game Design Document, basically a much more detailed description of the WHAT and WHY steps that all of the members of the development team would use as the game bible.  The length of a game design document varies depending on the length of the game, and can range from 15 or 20 pages to well over 200.

Disclaimer: If you make my apple picking game, you owe me 10% of all profits.  Losses you cover on your own.

Anyway, that’s it for this week inside gaming from the frenzied elves at Legacy.  Until next time, Funsters!

Donald Marshall

Not a Game But a Cooking SIMULATION!...Cooking Academy!

My husband groaned when he saw me shaping gyzoa in Cooking Academy. “Not another cooking game. Don't you cook enough?” One of my hobbies is baking, and I'm also interested in Asian and Italian cooking, especially low carb stuff, so he's got a point. I'm also a big fan of Cooking Mama on the Wii. “But its not just a cooking game!” I told him. “It's a cooking SIMULATION. Besides, its giving me good ideas for dinner.” He still doesn't get it. Then again, he's not much of a cook. When we first got married, he tried to surprise me by making up my favorite dish – eggplant parmigiana. Except his version was made with feta cheese. Points for trying.

Cooking Academy runs you through appetizers, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and desserts. You must pass exams in between levels, and you're graded on each recipe. You can replay recipes for better scores, so I challenge you to get all As (I'm still getting B+ on the truffles). You make foods much like you do in Cooking Mama, using the mouse as your ultimate kitchen tool. You trace lines to mix dough, add ingredients as instructed, stir and chop all manner of veggies, and bake and fry items just long enough so they're done but not burnt. It's sort of a blend of time management with an assortment of mini games.

The recipes are pretty true to life, and while you won't get exact proportions, it does give you some idea of how the actual foods are made. There's a ton of different foods to cook up too, from the common (spaghetti, burgers, and ice cream) to the exotic (crème brulee and gyzoa). Cooking Academy fills a niche for pc cooking games that some of the other cooking games just haven't managed to do. Hot Dish was fun and challenging, but extremely tough, and Family Restaurant was cute but not as deep or exciting. Cooking Academy really does the job right, with enough challenge to be tough, but still accessible to beat.

LISA

DOWNLOAD COOKING ACADEMY HERE>>

Another Ryan Blog!

Good afternoon faithful Legacy Producer Blog readers!  It is me, Ryan, back with another insider look at game production for you.

Here’s  an inside scoop: What many of you may not know about Legacy Interactive is that we producers are often also the designers of the games we make. It’s true! That’s one of the benefits of our work here, we make what we want. But that also means that we often have to wear two hats. Well, lately it’s been a designer hat kind of job for me.

While I still can’t say yet what new game I’m working on, I can say is that we’re making a game for one of my favorite big name crime/drama TV shows, so that narrows it down, right? I can also say that we’re doing some really cool, refreshing reimagining of what can be done with crime/mystery adventure games.  Our goal is to make a souped-up casual game that tells a real story, has great gameplay and packs some big name power behind it.

One of the things we like to focus on at Legacy is real storytelling. We think that we provide meaningful gameplay and stories that make sense. That’s one of my favorite things about our upcoming Sherlock game. Sure, it’s a hidden object game, and everyone knows that they’re not known for making the most sense but  Jon has put in a lot of work to make sure each hidden object item you find actually has something to do with the story. I know, revolutionary, right?

I’ve also been focusing on meaningful storytelling. It is my belief that to make a game that is satisfying to the player, every component of it needs to tell a story. Every successful game from Pac-Man to Street Fighter has told a story in some way. Pac-man’s story is about a little yellow mouth, desperate to find enough dot-food to survive, evades the wrath of four cruel, dot hoarding ghosts hell-bent on capturing and murdering our hero. It’s a simple story, but there is a beginning, middle and end for each level you play. For our upcoming Zoo Vet DS game, I tried to think of each time you treated an animal as its own mini-episode that could stand outside of the greater story of “Zoo Vet” if it needed to.  I doubt if most players will notice, but I’m sure you guys would if we didn’t think that way.

For adventure games there is a double burden.  Obviously, there is a story being told, that is the point of an adventure game, but there should also be stories within stories.  As designers and writers we need to think about how each mini-game and each scene tells its own story. What are you trying to accomplish with this mini-game? Can this scene stand on its own? For our new mystery crime game we’re doing just that. We’ve got the real writers from the show working with our dedicated and sleep deprived design team to put together something that will hopefully give you the feeling that you’re actually in the show catching the criminals.

That’s enough for now. If you all are good, maybe next time I’ll let you in on the name of this top secret project!

Ryan

A New "Old School" Remake...Jack's Bouncy Qubes!

I got to thinking about nostalgia after I heard rumors of an original Star Trek make over. Got to admit, I wasn't too keen on some of the casting (Kirk looks sooooo young), but I think its because the originals did such a great job that its hard to swallow a different interpretation of the classic. I'll be watching though, and hope its a good tribute to the classic.

The same sort of thing can be said for games. If you were lucky enough to be a gamer in the early days, you already know that while the graphics required a lot of imagination, the stories were really fun and most games were just as (if not more so) addictive. I've always found it fun to look at the remakes, even if not all live up to the original.

Some of the new “old school” remakes out recently include Jack's Bouncy Qubes, an obvious play on Q-bert. You jump and hop around the board, changing the color of cubes underneath Jack's furry purple feet. In addition to bouncing on cubes and dodging foes, Jack's Bouncy Qubes brings in a new twist of the casual game match 3 variety. You want to try and match cubes by color with adjacent cubes.

My biggest complaint is that if you lose, you must start all the way from the beginning. No man! Let me tell you – that is a real pain if you've worked your way up to a tough board and really want to win. Despite this, if you want some Q-bert nostalgia, it is fun for a few hours. Plus, chances are you can beat your kids with your more experienced Q-bert skills.

Lisa

DOWNLOAD JACK'S BOUNCY QUBES HERE>>

Animals Get Bored Too!

Hello All!

It’s my turn to fill you in on the inside happenings at Legacy so I hope you are ready to read about my favorite subject, animals! I love animals, especially cuddly friendly ones…but really, who doesn’t? Who can resist a soft, fuzzy buddy that is there to greet you after a hard day at work or school? A friendly animal friend is one thing, but what about the kitten that is timid because she is not used to people? What about the puppy that nips when he gets too excited? What about the pet bird that picks out his feathers and bites anything that moves?  Are they still worthy of our love and attention? Pet Pals Animal Rescue tells us “YES”.

Did you know that animals get bored just like people do? While doing research for Pet Pals Animal Rescue, I stumbled across many articles on parrots and how they develop similar behavioral problems when neglected. Parrots are very social animals and some species mate for life, meaning that they are simply wired not to live alone. When a parrot is given proper food, water and shelter but is not given social interaction, it becomes mentally ill. A bored, neglected parrot will clean itself excessively to the point where it actually pulls out its own feathers. As I read more, I found that dogs and cats also develop destructive behaviors when neglected. Just like children, dogs and cats have been known to engage in destructive behaviors around the house to get attention. As pet owners, people must realize that food, water, shelter and medical care is not enough to ensure a happy, healthy pet. 

In Pet Pals Animal Rescue, there will be an “enrichment” portion of the game where you (as the player) get to help rehabilitate, socialize and train animals that come into the shelter. I thought this would be important to add to the game not only to break up the hard science with a little fun, but also to teach players that animals need second chances just like people do. A kitten that hides from people and lashes out when approached isn’t necessarily a mean cat, she is just frightened.

 Animals that lash out at people out of fear need socialization. Socialization is just a fancy word for “fun times with animals”. The goal of a socialization session is that the animal has a positive experience with people. With more socialization, a timid animal can learn from repeated positive experiences that people are not to be feared and soon their guarded, defensive behavior changes to trust and affection. Pet Pals Animal Rescue’s version of the socialization process will feature traditional games that animals and people love to play together.

Physical exercise is a basic need for any species of pet. Mental exercise is actually required by some species of pet to keep them mentally healthy, this is provided through training. For example, dogs tend to get aggressive and destructive when they do not receive mental or physical exercise. A puppy that nips just needs a little training where negative actions like nipping are discouraged and positive behaviors (like tricks) are encouraged.  Despite popular belief, cats can be trained; they just don’t require it like some other pets do. In Pet Pals Animal Rescue, the player will have the opportunity to train cats, dogs and parrots. The training not only makes the animals more adoptable, it exercises their minds and makes them happier overall. Because training is interaction, a well trained animal will not be lonely or bored. A well trained animal is a happy animal. When you are playing Pet Pals Animal Rescue, it is your responsibility that animals leave the shelter healthy, both mentally and physically. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but come on…do it for the animals!

Until next time!

-Natascha Thomas

(Producer)