Originally for the Playstation 2, it was something that we used to showcase our “supern” design and development skills .  ‘Bugs of War’ is a game we’ve been enthusiastic about right from its conception and we’re actually currently starting another round of pre-production with the aim of bringing the game to market next year.

So here’s what the game’s all about: “The Bugs Are Coming” – FACT!  Starting off as insects, our game subjects’ DNA has been re-engineered to create the world’s first biological control and eradication team.  Their small size means they can reach the heart of any outbreak and destroy it with shocking efficiency.  And the aim; to wipe out the enemy hordes!  Brilliant1

Why not take a look at the visual demo of ‘Bugs of War’ via the Strawdog YouTube channel, here!

We’ve expanded and moved!  No longer are we at the lovely iD Centre.  We’ve moved to the other side of our fair city of Derby and now reside in the penthouse of Friar Gate Studios, a superb haven for creative businesses.

Our Peppa Pig game, “Peppa’s Party” hit the iPad and we’re elated to see it take the #1 paid apps slot!  We also launched Peppa Pig “Theme Park Fun”  in March on the DS, which went down a real storm, gaining some great reviews.  Luckily, it came out in time for the grand opening of “Peppa Pig World” at Paultons Park.  We were lucky enough to receive free tickets and had a really great time.

To learn more about a number of exciting ;rojects we have in the pipeline, why not check out our latest newsletter which you can read here!

The rest, as they say, is history – this little cube game idea soon became “Cuball”, then renamed to “Ora”, and was finally released on Xbox 360 Live Arcade, PlayStation3, Wii, iPhone, iPad and the Samsung App Store as “Geon”!

You can enjoy this clip of our prototype movie, as well as other Geon promos on our YouTube channel – Click Here!

This month we say hi to James Curran, Lead Artist and Animator since 2005.  Most of James’ work recently has been focused on our Peppa Pig games for iPhone and the Nintendo DS ‘Theme Park Fun’, for which he produced all of the art and animation.

We asked James a few questions on his work, opinions and views…

What are your special skills? Most of my work is done in After Effects and we developed a script to export art and animation from AE for use in our games. Initially, this was just used for user interface design, but was later developed to allow art for entire games to be created in After Effects, as with Peppa Pig.

What do you think the year ahead holds in store for the industry? Digital downloads will continue to grow as more platforms are released this year, such as the Nintendo 3DS, Sony NGP, and Xperia Play. I think browser-based gaming will also be a big development over the next year giving people instant access to gaming, making it more accessible to a wider audience.

Your favourite game of all time? Super Mario World. I grew up playing platformers and this is still my favourite! Be a perfectionist. If you think something can be improved, then always take the time to improve it. If you aren’t happy with your work then other people probably won’t be either!

Your top tip for success?

A top Strawdog team member for sure.  Thanks James!

Turbulenz is suitable for casual and AAA games.  It requires no binary download and no install.  The best bits are that gamers play directly in the browser and games can be sold virtually anywhere on the web!

We’re really chuffed to be working with Turbulenz and looking forward to taking our already successful arcade style game Space Ark directly to a potential audience of 500 million gamers!

For more information and to talk to a member of our friendly team, click here.

We’re also celebrating a very momentus past year which saw us self publish our successful multi-level Xbox 360 Live Arcade game; Space Ark. We released Geon on the iPad and our two Peppa Pig P2 Games; Happy Mrs Chicken and Polly Parrot, currently top the UK kids’ AppStore charts!

“All told, Wet is a man who vomits on you on the bus and doesn’t even say sorry.”

Obviously as a developer I feel for the guys who worked to make the game. I know only too well how many factors outside of the developers control can result in a game failing to meet its design goals. Having said that, gamers do need to know and if you are going to put yourself/your game out there you need to take the resulting knocks.

I don’t think I have enjoyed a review quite as much since the 1992 release of Domark’s AV8B Harrier Assault for Amiga (developed by Simis). After all these years most of it is long forgotten but the line in the review which bemoaned the slow frame rate is forever burned into my mind…

“If i chopped my legs off and nailed the stumps to the floor, I could still run round the block faster than this game.”

We should have a new game play video showing the latest progress any day now.

In addition to meeting with Microsoft I am visit an old friend Colin Gordon, who runs Valcon Games (ever so slightly smaller than Microsoft) in Redmond, Washington.

Of  course some of these users may have actually wanted to assign one star – after all they are uninstalling the app so it probably isn’t their favorite game of all time. Hoever many were almost certainly just hitting a button to accept the default as the quickest way to get through the process. Now, according to reports the version 3.0 update has the default set to no stars and the user must select a rating from one to five stars.

Users are still being prompted to rate the game while uninstalling it, which is far from ideal. It would be much better to prompt for a review after they have played the game 5 or ten times – or to not prompt at all. Leaving it to people who feel strongly about a to go and rate it. Still at least now there is a better chance that users will pause for thought and select a more meaningful rating instead of just accepting the default one star.

“…..Microsoft also revealed that, in response to user feedback, it would add user ratings to both community games and much of the Xbox Live marketplace content, including Xbox Live Arcade and game add-ons. Ultimately, the company will add the ability for users to sort content by rating.”

A more in-depth filtering and recommendation system would be a big plus but user ratings are at least a step in the right direction.

The full piece is at http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24008