The new and improved Nonoba have finally launched. There are a lot of changes, so be sure to check out the news section for more info about some of the biggest new features.

Enjoy!

Go ninja go ninja go!

Although Aether is pretty darn sweet too, and World of Goo, and…gaah there are so many of them…just check ‘em out will ya!

This is very basic stuff, so if you’ve already tried the API and perhaps also made your first game, this will probably be old news for you.
But for everybody else out there, hopefully this will help get you started :o)

just click here to watch it!

cheers!

There’s some really interesting reading going on over there, and the previous blogs are also available if you hunger for more…

Not that I haven’t spent sleepless nights pondering gameplay-issues and whatnot, but in the end the process of making a singleplayer game is more straight forward. You’ve only got one player to consider, probably/maybe a story of some kind (preferably where you get to rescue some fine lookin’ dames), 3 lives and you’re off. (This does not apply to puzzles but I will get into that in another post.)

But when it comes to making a great multiplayer game you’ve got a whole bunch of other issues to address. As Marc mentioned in the previous article, there are some good pointers to follow when your starting out on your multiplayer adventure. For example: don’t limit your game to just two players. We’re talking MULTIplayer here… Two people games can be great, but as Marc said: you increase the risk of games ending early because one of the players quit. A great multiplayer game will allow people to join and leave while the game is running without breaking or restarting the game. Not all types of games can handle adding a new user in the middle of the gameplay, but this is simply solved by letting the user spectate while we wait for the next round. This is the method we used for Nonoba Racer for instance

And what about story? Should there be a story? Does it matter or is it pure gaming pleasure we’re after?

I’ve been thinking about porting some of the games I’ve made in the past to multiplayer versions, but for the most part I come up short. Mostly, I think, because they are in fact singleplayer games. The idea behind the games just isn’t broad enough or is to focused on single player to work as multiplayer games. And when I try to add on stuff like bonuses and time-limits and whatnot, the original clean and simple gameplay gets lost in the mix, and the game just isn’t funny anymore…

The conclusion is simple; the mechanics that make a single player game fun is not necessary the mechanics that work in a multiplayer game. It’s still all about game play, but a multiplayer game does not necessary need a story line. The goal of multiplayer is as much about socializing as it is about playing the game. For example a game like UNO. It is rather boring if played against a computer, but becomes an addictive pastime if you add other people to the mix.

Nonoba Racer & Multiplayer Snake is for me, two very good examples of great multiplayer games. More than two players at a time, fast paced and a classic and simple gameplay…

Still I am not an expert, but is tasked to collect and write about these concepts.

Therefore dear reader, if you got a great article or your own ideas about what works please comment below and I will be collecting everything to be on the new Nonoba Multiplayer Resource site!

Over Christmas I will be working on tutorials to get people started with Nonoba’s MP API. So stay tuned!

Last but not least I enjoyed reading  this article about casual gaming. I am sure you will enjoy it as well.

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been working in the games/animation -industry for about 8 years now, primarily developing flash games, but i’ve also been involved with a lot of animation & gameplay-development.

I’m a huge Nintendo-fan, mostly because they are such connoisseurs in gui-design and gameplay. And just like Henrik, I too got that lovely NES when all of my friends where playing their C64′s

I’ll be keeping myself busy with creating new content for Nonoba, and if there’s anything you’d like to see/read about (new features, articles, tutorials, question and so on and so forth…..), feel free to drop me a line (fredrik(at)nonoba.com), or just post your requests here on the blog

So I’ll be hanging around here on the blog and over at the Nonoba site a lot in the time to come, so I’m looking forward to hearing from ya…

word!

The game is a perfect example of how new players can join in at anytime, and even though you can die pretty fast, you are back into the game really fast as well.

The graphics are nice and clean without any extravagant details that take focus away from the actual game.

I also think it is great with the way the scoreboard comes up after each game and the big letters saying whether you won or lost. There is also a great feature with being able to skip a round if you don’t hit space to join in when it starts.

I think that a lot of the features in this game are great and many developers could learn from this simple but cool game if they want to make their own multiplayer game.

Good job ptgames!

• The most played game during each week wins $500.
• The most played game during each month, that uses one of our APIs, wins $2,500.
• The best multiplayer game created using our Multiplayer API wins $15,000.

More info on the contest can be found at: http://www.nonoba.com/developers/contests

More info on our APIs can be found at: http://www.nonoba.com/developers

The deadline for entering into the big Multiplayer kick-off competition is on November 1st 2008, so the quicker you develeop and upload a multiplayer game, the bigger the chance is that it will get a lot of plays and attention, which increases your chances of winning!

You can find some good tips on creating multiplayer games here on this blog at: http://blog.nonoba.com/2008/10/14/tips-for-designing-multiplayer-games/

If you have any questions, please contact us, and we will try to help you as fast as possible.

Good luck!