This month’s archive looks at a great game we designed back in 2003!

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 thought we’d have a little look at game we produced in January for Katapult Studios for Skillforce’s ‘Virtual Walk To The Pole‘ website.

This really positive project helps kids to follow in the footsteps of the Walking With The Wounded expedition to the north pole.  Some 120 schools across the UK participated over 12 weeks with a series of weekly challenges.   Using stepometers, the kids aimed to walk 10,000 steps each per day, tracked against the real expedition, with scores awarded to see which school would get to the top of the leader board.

The kids also got to play our mini game, Polar Bear Rescue which you can play by clicking here!

We thoroughly enjoyed being involved with such a superb cause and you can find out why by clicking here for more information.

Each month, we like to say ‘hi’ to a member of our excellent team.  This month, we focus our attention on Nelson.  No first name, no surname, just Nelson.

Special Skills?
Being able to clearly communicate the vision of your ideas is key.  Many projects often start with a blank sheet. With Video Games, quite literally your imagination is the only limit, but you still need a format and a process to deliver those ideas as a reality. Having a great team is essential to this, otherwise those ideas will only ever be an idea. Oh, and you need to play video games – lots and lots of video games!

What do you think the year ahead holds in store for the industry?
It’s a fascinating time for the video game industry as ‘new’ markets grow in leaps and bounds. The ‘big budget’ video game industry surpassed movie Industry revenues a few years ago, but the recent surge in casual games (such as on mobile devices), makes it an exciting time to be involved in creating new ways for people to play. Keep an eye on the latest offering from Nintendo, the ‘Wii U’, something that will undoubtedly open new paths, and question and challenge others.

Your favourite game of all time?
Too many to choose from! Having had every computer/console since the Spectrum 48k, it’s just too tough to pick one!

Your top tip for success?
Honesty, courage, humility – Be honest in everything you do (Karma is watching after all). Have the courage to push yourself, yet speak up when you need help. Learn from your mistakes.

A great insight into a great team member!  Until next month!

We’ve developed a number of apps in the past, notably games, including the Peppa Pig series which was really successful.  However, as of late we’ve seen a lot of demand for business-orientated apps.  As we all know, smartphones and mobile devices are rapidly becoming a primary method of accessing information on the web.

So in response to this, we’ve luanched our dedicated app division, FirstApp, and it’s focused purely on building the next generation of smartphone business applications that will bring the full benefits of mobile communications to forward thinking businesses and their customers.

We are of the opinion that having an ‘app’ shouldn’t be the ’sole preserve’ of large corporate businesses.  Our vision is to empower all types of businesses to choose, configure and deploy their own custom app using our web-based ‘app’ delivery platform.

Already gathering momentum, FirstApp has three corporate apps in development and once these are nearer completion, we’ll give you more information. But until then, for more information on developing your own app’, please get in touch!

Welcome back to our blog and we have heaps of new and exciting news to convey!

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!

To read the latest Strawdog Studios Newsletter, please click here!

News includes:
Our recent move
Our latest Peppa Pig release on the iPad
FirstApp, our smartphone app wing

and much more…read!

Many years ago, not long after Strawdog started up, we had an idea on a piece of paper for a game that had cubes, grids, pellets and powerballs, but we weren’t sure how it would work as a game, or what to call it. To remedy that, we made a short movie clip (something we do all the time now) with all our ideas chucked into the pot to simulate how the game might look.

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!

We’ve some truly outstanding team members here at Strawdog Studios who all contribute a great deal of expertise, time and effort.  That’s what makes our games as good as they are!  

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!

Strawdog Studios has recently partnered up with Turbulenz, a superb platform that will enable us to publish and sell all of our games in a browser format, opening us up to a much wider online gaming market.

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 off to GDC, the Games Developers Conference in San Fran!  Running from 28th Feb to March 4th we’ll be demonstarting our latest technology and portfolio.  We’re really open to meetings and so if you’d like to book a slot with us, please get in touch!

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!