At first glance, it’s not easy to tell what Auditorium HD is all about. Actually, I’ve glanced a few dozen times and I still have no idea. What the compelling trailer tries to demonstrate is the central objective of “transforming light into a symphony of sound,” as best described the game’s Senior Producer Alvin Muolic. It’s half puzzle, half rhythm game, yet entirely original.

Originally, Auditorium started as an indie title created by two guys, William Stallwood and Dain Saint. Thanks to a collaborative effort between Zoo Publishing, indiePub and Cipher Prime, an expanded version of the game will be available on the PSN starting next week for $9.99, packaged as Auditorium HD. The game includes 72 levels of the first PC release now dubbed Auditorium Classic, plus 78 brand new levels known as Auditorium Modern.

The game also fully supports PlayStation Move, and stereoscopic 3D, which is bound to throw you into a sensory overload, or mild seizure. For a look at what Auditorium HD is all about, view newly released gameplay footage above.

PSBlog

Related Posts

• 
  Auditorium HD (PSN) – Review
• 
  Auditorium HD Screens are a Treat for the Eyes
• 
  Snakebyte launching third-party PlayStation Move, related products

Over at BoingBoing, Brandon Boyer had a chance to pick the brains of a handful of indie game devs, including Adam Saltsman (Canabalt), Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption), Kyle Gray (Henry Hatsworth), Steph Thirion (Eliss), Simon Oliver (Rolando), and several others. Their takes on what the iPad means to them as game developers are short but enlightening, and tend to reinforce many initial reactions and observations about the device. For better or for worse, the iPad is essentially just a ginormous iPod Touch, which many devs seem to think is a step in the right direction – the multitouch capabilities have made for a positive gaming user experience, while the additional screen real estate of the iPad will open up new possibilities and help prevent the awkward situation of larger games being forced down onto a smaller screen. While many have panned the device’s lack of a camera for video chat, Phil Fish of Polytron echoed my thought precisely – the lack of a camera washes away any potential for augmented reality overlays in gaming, something that is impressive enough on an iPhone, but would be spectacular on the larger scale iPad. Even if you’re sick of the buzz surrounding the new device, the article is well worth a read to glean some insight on the potential implications of a new platform.

BoingBoing

Related Posts

• 
  Apple’s iPad hits store shelves
• Apple announces iPad, portable tablet device
• 
  Civilization Revolution arrives on iPad this weekend

Looks like the strategy of giving away development tools is working – Epic announced today that Unreal Development Kit broke 50,000 downloads in its first week. No surprise here – development is hard work, and it’s hard to plunk down the upfront cost for an environment like Unreal Engine if you have any doubts about whether or not it’ll work out for you. For professional studios, the licensing costs are likely an easy spend, but for independent developers the cost of entry can be a major barrier. Fortunately, it seems as though users are aware of the change and trying out tools they would not have had at their disposal otherwise. Hopefully at least some of those 50,000 downloads will be put toward realizing visions that otherwise would have been left to grow stale inside the mind.

Unreal Development Kit

Epic Games’ Unreal Development Kit Eclipses 50,000 Users in One Week

Users in over 100 Countries Embrace Free Unreal Engine 3 Toolset

CARY, N.C. (November 12, 2009) – Epic Games, Inc. announces the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free software release that provides uncompromised access to the award-winning Unreal Engine 3 toolset, has exceeded 50,000 users worldwide since its launch on Nov. 5. This rapid adoption of Unreal Engine 3 technology extends to approximately 130 countries and 4,500 cities across the globe.

Epic plans the imminent release of updates for the UDK beta version. UDK is available for download at www.udk.com, where product features, licensing terms, frequently asked questions, support resources and more are also available.

UDK is available to anyone interested in using 3D game engine technology, from game developers to students, hobbyists to researchers, and creators of architectural walkthroughs to digital filmmakers. Use of UDK is free for all schools and students, and anyone can release free UDK-powered games.

“We are very excited to see the uptake of UDK cross over the 50,000 mark in only one week, and we’re looking forward to seeing amazing games and applications come out of it,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “We’re also thrilled to finally be able to offer UDK free for schools and students so they can work with the same awesome Unreal Engine 3 tools used by many of the top game developers and publishers around the world.”

Extensive UDK technical documentation is available at the Unreal Developer Network (udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitHome.html), and community members can share ideas, show off projects and learn from UDK developers like Psyonix and The Prometheus Team at www.udk.com/forums.

3D Buzz (www.3dbuzz.com), the leading provider of Unreal Engine 3 training, will soon release dozens of free video tutorials specific to UDK to complement the company’s existing Unreal Engine 3 video training modules. Over 100 Unreal Technology videos are viewable at the 3D Buzz web site free of charge.

“Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3” and “Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3” are the recommended textbooks for learning Unreal Engine 3 tools and technology. 3D Buzz authored both reference texts, published by Sams, and each come bundled with a free, downloadable copy of “Unreal Tournament 3” for PC.

Individuals and companies wishing to develop software for commercial purposes should refer to licensing terms at www.udk.com/licensing. Commercial terms have been structured to make it easy for independent developers, start-up firms and seasoned professionals to use UDK with minimal financial barrier from concept to deployment.

Related Posts

• More free dev tools – Unreal Development Kit launched
• Unreal Engine 3 in development for the Wii
• Affordable facial animation from FacePro comes to Unreal Engine

Hot on the heels of Unity being released freely to the world, Epic has announced the launch of Unreal Development Kit (UDK), powered by Unreal Engine 3. Alongside the free release of UDK, Epic is pushing two games that demonstrate its abilities – Whizzle, the first game built from the ground up with UDK; and The Ball, a port of an Unreal Tournament 3 mod. In case anyone didn’t already know that Unreal Engine is an amazingly powerful environment, the screenshots from the aforementioned two games look pretty incredible.

UDK itself includes all the things one would expect it to, including a full editing environment, and the necessary engines to control rendering, shading, lighting, physics, artificial intelligence, and more. Contrary to Unity’s approach, UDK does bring with it some paid licensing requirements – use is free for educational purposes and for software that generates less than $5000. Once you hit the $5000 point, however, you need to start paying out 25% royalties to Epic. This approach seems pretty solid – get your foot in the door for free, and if your project becomes successful, pay your dues. UDK is available for download now.

Unreal Development Kit

Epic Games Announces Unreal Development Kit, Powered by Unreal Engine 3

Industry Leading 3D Game Engine Toolset Now Available for Free

CARY, N.C. (November 5, 2009) – Epic Games, Inc. announces the launch of the Unreal Development Kit (UDK), a free edition of Unreal Engine 3 that provides community access to the award-winning toolset like never before. This software release is available to anyone interested in using 3D game engine technology, including game developers, students, hobbyists, researchers, creators of 3D visualizations and simulations, and digital filmmakers. Anyone can start working with the industry-leading Unreal Engine 3 toolset by downloading UDK at www.udk.com, where detailed product features, technical documentation, commercial licensing terms, support resources and more are also available.

An unprecedented milestone in game development, the release of UDK awards free access to the same world-class tools and technology used by many of the world’s best video game developers and publishers. Unreal Engine 3 is a constantly evolving game engine, and UDK contains all the most recently added features and technological enhancements, including many that have yet to be seen in an Unreal Engine game. Furthermore, Epic Games will release ongoing, upgraded builds of UDK for free.

There is no charge for noncommercial or educational use of UDK. Over 100 academic campuses currently use Unreal Technology as part of teaching game development-related courses, and colleges with plans to incorporate UDK into their curricula include the University of Pennsylvania, North Carolina State University, The Art Institute system of schools, Drexel University, Westwood College, DeVry University and Atlantic College, with many others to be announced.

Individuals and companies wishing to develop software for commercial purposes should refer to licensing terms at www.udk.com/licensing. Commercial terms have been structured to make it easy for independent developers, start-up firms and seasoned professionals to use UDK with minimal financial barrier from concept to deployment. UDK is currently for PC use only, although console support is under consideration. Developers approved to make games for Xbox 360® and PLAYSTATION®3 may inquire for more information by emailing udklicensing@epicgames.com.

Benefits of UDK include the following:

• Immediate access to Unreal Engine 3, the critically acclaimed 3D game engine technology for cross-platform game development.
• Easy content creation with the Unreal Editor, a fully integrated suite of top-tier development tools, which comes complete with:
o Unreal Content Browser, a revolutionary tool for browsing, searching and organizing game assets with collaborative metadata tagging system.
o UnrealScript object-oriented programming language and Unreal Kismet, a visual scripting system that enables rapid prototyping on the fly.
o Unreal Matinee, a powerful tool with movie director-class controls for building in-game cinematics and gorgeous cut scenes.
o Unreal Cascade, an advanced particle physics and environmental effects editor that aids the creation of fire, fog, explosions and other visuals.
o NVIDIA® PhysX®-powered physics system with Unreal PhAT visual modeling tool for creating character and object physics rigs.
o Unreal Lightmass, a global illumination system that dramatically lights and shadows with minimal effort required by artists and designers.
o AnimSet Viewer and AnimTree Editor, which give animators precise control over every muscle and bone movement.
• Time saved thanks to technology integrations with leading game development middleware tools including SpeedTree®, Bink Video®, and FaceFX®.
• Output of standalone applications: Games created with UDK run entirely on their own with no additional software required. This means anyone can make UDK content and distribute it for free.

“I’m excited about the possibilities the Unreal Development Kit opens to those who are looking to get into the game business but don’t otherwise have the means to acquire world-class technology and tools like ours,” said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. “UDK is Unreal Engine 3, which has been used to create games in a wide range of genres, as well as military simulations, 3D architectural walkthroughs, animated movies and more. Users are only limited by their imaginations. Go ahead make something Unreal!”

Psyonix Studios (www.psyonix.com), a game studio based in San Diego, Calif., created the first proof-of-concept game using UDK in less than two months using a two-man team of one artist and one programmer. “Whizzle” is a downloadable vertical scroller in which players swim through underwater levels as an adorable sea creature that collects items and frees allies from captivity. To read more about “Whizzle,” view the developer diary video, or download technical documentation, visit www.udk.com/showcase-whizzle.html.

Until now, noncommercial access to the Unreal Engine 3 toolset has been available only through the PC versions of games such as Epic’s “Unreal Tournament 3” and “Gears of War” games. Users made new game experiences, called modifications or “mods,” by changing existing game assets or creating original content through the Unreal Editor tools that ship with every game copy. Many of these mods have been showcased through the $1 Million Intel Make Something Unreal Contest (www.makesomethingunreal.com), which awards over $1 million in cash and prizes to aspiring game developers. While mods require running the original game for interaction with user-created content, UDK provides a standalone experience every time, meaning a smaller digital footprint and no additional software requirements.

“The Ball,” an award-winning “Unreal Tournament 3” mod by Toltec Studios (www.toltecstudios.com), is available now as a free UDK-powered download at www.udk.com/showcase-the-ball.html. Anyone authoring mods for Epic’s PC games can port their original content over to UDK.

Support for UDK includes over 200 pages of newly unlocked documentation at the Unreal Developer Network (udn.epicgames.com), dedicated forums (www.udk.com/forums), as well as other resources available through the UDK web site, www.udk.com. 3D Buzz also hosts hundreds of free video tutorials for using Unreal Engine 3 technology at www.3dbuzz.com.

Furthermore, Sams Publishing and 3D Buzz recently published two definitive guides for learning the Unreal Engine toolset, “Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume I: Introduction to Level Design with Unreal Engine 3” and “Mastering Unreal Technology, Volume II: Advanced Level Design Concepts with Unreal Engine 3.” Both books are bundled with a free, downloadable copy of “Unreal Tournament 3” for PC.

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

Related Posts

• Epic’s free Unreal Development Kit sees great success in first week
• Unreal Engine 3 in development for the Wii
• Affordable facial animation from FacePro comes to Unreal Engine

Coinciding with their Unite Conference, Unity Technologies released version 2.6 of their multi-platform game engine, also named Unity. The new release brings with it a slew of new features, the biggest being a major pricing change – the formerly $200 package known as Unity Indie is now free and simply called Unity. This breaks down a major hurdle facing some developers – especially those who get into the development game at a very young age. Gamasutra interviewed Unity’s CEO David Helgason at Unite, revealing that compared to Unity Pro (which was and still is a $1500 package), Unity Indie never significantly impacted revenue. That, combined with a desire to ‘democratize’ their software, led to dropping the $200 cost of entry. Unity also announced that they’re bringing their engine over to Xbox 360. All things considered, we may be seeing a fresh influx of indie games on a variety of platforms in the foreseeable future.

Gamasutra Interview, Unity 2.6

Unity Technologies Launches Version 2.6 of Its Platform and Makes Unity Freely Available

SAN FRANCISCO, CA – October 28, 2009

Today at the Unite Conference, Unity Technologies, the leading provider of the multi-platform game development platform for Web, PC, Mac, Wii and iPhone, announced that version 2.6 of its Unity Platform is available and that the feature-packed Unity (formerly known as Unity Indie and priced at $199) is now available at no cost at http://unity3d.com/unity/download to make it possible for all developers to get access to the best development platform available. Unity Pro will continue to be priced at $1,499 per license.

Since 2005, Unity Technologies has provided the most powerful and easiest to use multi-platform game development suite of products used by more than 10,000 developers worldwide. The Unity platform is currently used in world class games such as Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online by Electronic Arts, the Quest for R2D2 by LEGO® and FusionFall by Cartoon Networks. Earlier this year, Unity for iPhone was released and to date, more than 325 games are using the Unity engine to power their iPhone games, including Zombieville USA, one of the top 10 iPhone games measured by units sold.

“Unity Technologies has always believed that the best technology and products should be made available to all developers. We want to accelerate the availability of high quality interactive content,“ said David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies. “With the explosive growth in new platforms and performance improvement in our Unity suite of products, we believe that there are no technical hurdles remaining for high quality interactive content everywhere. Now we are removing financial hurdles as well. Unity is mature enough and easy enough to use that it can be the entry point for those developers taking their first steps with the technology.”

With the newest release of the Unity Platform, Unity has taken further steps towards fitting into large-scale production environments. Unity now has full support for external versioning tools such as Subversion, Perforce or any other VCS out there. Full integration with Visual Studio has also been added — Unity can automatically sync a VS project to source code so that all of the scripts are in the solution and IntelliSense is configured.

In order to cement Unity Pro’s position as a high-end development environment, Unity Technologies has also added a number of upgrades to the graphics system; offscreen effects supports full anti aliasing and has added a built-in screen space ambient occlusion effect.

A key focus of Unity Technologies is to enable its customers to make better online games, so the company has added a number of performance optimizations as well as fully threaded background streaming of assets. This allows Unity games to launch faster and run smoother – something that is used to full potential in Tiger Woods PGA Tour Online. This latest game from Electronic Arts is available at http://tigerwoodsonline.ea.com/

Visit unity3d.com to see the entire list of new features and improvements!

To find out more about Unity visit the website or come to the Unite conference where the new 2.6 version is being demonstrated.

Related Posts

• Indie game developers asked what the iPad means to them
• Miyamoto says America is better for indie developers
• Nintendo shunning indie developers?

Well, good ol’ Bob Peloni, sole creator of Bob’s Game who has locked himself in his room to protest Nintendo not selling him a DS development kit, is just under a fifth of the way through his hundred-day voluntary incarceration. Solitary confinement can’t be good for anyone’s psyche, as evidenced by a recent site update:

About a week ago I was contacted by a representative of a hacker-for-hire organization. They said that someone was attempting to hire them to take my site down, but they refused the job because they support me. My site is now being DDoS’d from a known commercial botnet and my servers are being scanned by another known hacker-for-hire group. 

This is very serious. Someone at Nintendo wants to silence me. I wonder who it is? 

Bob has since updated the… update… to insist that he’s joking. Is he also joking when he threatens to release his game as a homebrew “killer app” that, at least he claims, would cause a boom in flash cart sales:

If I cannot legitimately publish my game, the only option left to fulfill this goal is to release a KILLER APP for a DS “homebrew device.” There has never been a true KILLER APP released for this kind of device, especially as a launch title for a brand new console. “bob’s game” is being translated into many languages, including Japanese, and will be released worldwide. Unfortunately, this has the potential to significantly cut into Nintendo’s bottom line. 

Of course, Nintendo would have to be crazy to ignore such a promising game, right?

How can I say this to make them understand? THE GAME IS TREMENDOUSLY GOOD. IT’S EXTRAORDINARY! IT MIGHT SELL A MILLION COPIES. I’VE BARELY SHOWN ANYTHING AT ALL FOR A REASON. I’M NOT GOING TO SPOIL IT TO PROVE IT TO YOU. YOU WILL FIND OUT WHEN IT’S RELEASED. I AM TELLING THE TRUTH! IT’S GREAT! ARE YOU HONESTLY GOING TO FORCE ME TO RELEASE IT FOR FLASHCARTS? ARE YOU INSANE?! THE GAME IS ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC!

I don’t know how fun the game is, but I know watching watching Bob is certainly entertaining.

Bob’s Game

Related Posts

• Bobwatch 2009: Bob Peloni denied Authorized Developer status by Nintendo
• Bobwatch 2009: Best. Developer. Ever.
• Spore actually pushed back from 2008 to 2009

Have you heard of Bob’s Game? It’s an indie game being developed by Bob Pelloni. Well, Bob hasn’t had a lot of luck getting his hands on a DS development kit for his game. He claims that he applied for one way back in February, and was supposed to hear back within two months. It’s now December and he hasn’t heard anything. I’m not sure how many emails he’s sent, or phone calls he’s made, but he has decided that the next logical step is to lock himself in a room for a hundred days. He has no TV and no internet access. Just a lot of… green. So what’s the problem? Why hasn’t Nintendo sold him a development kit yet? Well, according to Bob:

Someone at Nintendo doesn’t like this project, because it blurs the line between homebrew and commercial. In the past, if you wanted to make games you got a job for EA- and worked on drawing a part of a shoe. I wanted to make the whole thing, so I did. What’s wrong with that?

Yeah, we all know how much Nintendo hates indie developers.

You can see Bob’s webcam feed on his website, as well as a few gameplay videos for Bob’s Game. If you want to show your support, you can follow a link on Bob’s site to send an email to Nintendo. He needs your help. That much green can’t possibly be good for the human mind.

Bob’s Game

Related Posts

• Sonic RPG still in development at BioWare
• New WiiWare game pops up as in development
• Guillemot talks Nintendo platform development

The award-winning indie hit World of Goo is finally getting its PAL WiiWare release this coming Friday. It will hit the service in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand for 1500 Wii Points. Europeans should be happy, since there almost wasn’t a WiiWare release at all in Europe.

There’s not much more I can say about this game that I haven’t already said before. It’s amazing. Buy it.

2D Boy

Related Posts

• World of Goo will be released via WiiWare in Europe after all
• WiiWare Spoiler: Hudson confirms two WiiWare games for Europe
• Art Style WiiWare games headed for Europe

If you’ve been paying attention, you probably know by now that World of Goo is an indie game made by a two-man team called 2D Boy. The original concept is by Kyle Gabler, the ‘first’ half of 2D Boy, who quit his job at EA to create games his own way. After partnering up with Ron Carmel, they worked out of coffee shops, going forever deeper in debt, to eventually release World of Goo. The end result? Money. How much money? Well, they won’t say, but Gabler is dropping a hint.

When we started this indie thing it was a risk. We didn’t know if we’d make money. We were working off of savings and if everybody hated our game we would be crushed financially and emotionally. But we can finally say that, two years after leaving our jobs, we are better off financially and emotionally than we would have been had we stayed at the same company where we were working.

After playing World of Goo, I want these guys to become billionaires. They deserve it.

MSNBC
via 61 Frames Per Second

Related Posts

• World of Goo official soundtrack can be yours for the low, low price of free
• Nintendo bringing World of Goo to Japan
• World of Goo will be released via WiiWare in Europe after all

Among the flood of information from the Tokyo Game Show, there’s at least one tidbit you may have missed. Cave Story is getting a WiiWare port. Fans of indie games know Cave Story as a prime example of what just one game designer, working alone, can accomplish. Originally released in 2004, it maintains a strong cult following to this day.

No release date has been set, but the game is promised to feature “new, exclusive content and features” for the WiiWare version.

Siliconera
via 61 Frames Per Second 

Related Posts

• Cave Story delayed
• Sane people facepalm at Cave Story controversy
• Cave Story could come as early as late April