Nitrome News

Icebreaker Update 9: New Logo!

Wed, 22 May 2013 18:10:47 BST

Those of you following closely will have noticed that Icebreaker - A Viking Voyage has revived a new logo since the projects beginning. The new logo is the result of a few weeks experimenting between ourselves and Rovio. The aim was not to change the feel of the logo but to make it easier to read and more usable across all the marketing that was needed.

Icebreaker Update 9: New Logo: Click Here!

Friday Update!

Fri, 17 May 2013 18:12:46 BST

Hey Nitromians,

It’s been a REALLY busy but exciting week over at Nitrome HQ. As some of you may have noticed our new Icebreaker Rovio Stars trailer is going down with a big splash.

We are really thrilled with such a positive response. We even managed to get onto NBC news =D

http://www.nbcnews.com/video/in-game/51883811#51883811

We have loads more Icebreaker updates coming next week. So make sure you check out the latest frequent updates on our new and improved Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage website.

http://icebreaker-game.com/updates.html#!update8

The latest update fills you in on the latest batch of characters that you find on your journey through the world of Icebreaker (more to come soon!)

If you want to help us out, please spread the word of Icebreaker by clicking the ‘share’ and ‘like’ buttons on the latest trailer and updates.

Have a great weekend.

p.s We know we missed it this week but we have a great Pixelove game planned for its usual Monday slot :)

Icebreaker Update: Rovio Stars?

Wed, 15 May 2013 16:27:31 BST

So you read our huge news about having Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage published by Rovio Stars?

Update#7: Rovio Stars?

When we started Icebreaker we had no intention of using a publisher. We were not looking for a publisher and even though we had interest from several of the biggest publishers during its development it wasn't really what we wanted.

So what changed? Well nothing really... but there are exceptions to every rule. In the paid app market Rovio is king, they have taken their Angry Birds game and made it a phenomenon and every game they have released has gone on to be very successful. We have a huge respect for what they have built up and they are possibly the only party on the App store that we would and did jump at working with.

The App Store is all about exposure, games are cheap so you need lots and lots... and LOTS of people to know about your game in order to get up the charts. It's only once you chart that anyone outside your fan base will ever hear about you!

As of last December Rovio has a user base of 200 million monthly active users... that's seriously huge! To give you an idea of how huge, that's more than Twitter has! By comparison Nitrome has around 5 million monthly active users, something we’re proud of but not all of those will even own a phone and well… you see the difference!

So what about compromising the game? Well that’s the other great thing… we don't! The game was fairly feature complete before Rovio got involved and they were impressed with what we had done. Everything that we changed after that point enhanced the game and we fully appreciated and agreed with their feedback.

Because of Rovio the game has been tested to death. Not only is it about as bug free as we could possibly make a game it also had a lot of user testing. We got lots of great feedback from this and we were able to adjust areas that people were getting confused or to make some elements more enjoyable.

Also thanks Rovio were thrilled to announce that Icebreaker is not only in English but also at launch supports French, German, Spanish and Italian!

Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage features an in depth dialogue throughout the game conveying a deep and often humorous tale. It is a feature we spent a lot of time on in the game and one of the features that we believe elevates the game above what you would typically find in a puzzle game on the App Store.

Rovio have helped us with the branding and we worked closely to create a new video and art to be used to promote the game. If you haven’t seen the video yet what are you waiting for? Go view it now!

The other major benefit of working with Rovio is that they know better than anyone else on the App Store how to take a hit brand to the next level. There is everything now from the familiar Angry Birds plush toys, to a cartoon series and feature film on the way.

Now don't get too excited, you may not ever see such things from the Icebreaker universe. But if we do have a hit on our hands, then Rovio will help us make the most of it in a way we never could have done on our own!

Icebreaker: New Video!

Wed, 15 May 2013 14:31:08 BST

Alongside the very exciting announcement that were working with the Angry Birds power house that is Rovio comes a brand new video. We closely worked with Rovio on this and as the previous video was very gameplay focused we felt a different direction was needed this time out.

New Icebreaker Trailer: Click Here!

We never could have achieved such cinema quality 3d on our own or done such cool voice acting! We're more than pleased with the results and think it echoes the offbeat humour of the game rather well!

Our Big Icebreaker News - Rovio Stars!

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:17:16 BST

May 14th, 2013 -- Espoo, Finland -- Rovio Entertainment announced the launch of its new mobile game publishing initiative, Rovio Stars, which will feature the best new games from talented and innovative developers. This is the entertainment company’s first foray into including third party titles in its game line-up.

“Rovio Entertainment has positioned itself as one of the powerhouses of mobile entertainment, so moving into publishing is a logical step for us at this point”, said Rovio’s EVP of Games Jami Laes. “We want to help our fans find quality entertainment among the more than 100,000 games available in app stores. That’s where Rovio Stars comes in.”

“In the course of our work, we run into so many fantastic upcoming titles -- games with memorable characters and entertaining gameplay that are also just really fun to play!” said Kalle Kaivola, Director of Development. “These are the sorts of titles we’re interested in. We want to help the developers to give these games that last coat of polish, publish the games and find their audience. We’re focusing on a small, select number of games, and each Rovio Stars launch will be an event of its own.”

The first game to be published under the Rovio Stars program will be Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage by Nitrome Ltd., followed by Tiny Thief by 5 Ants. Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage follows the adventure of a lone Viking, combining a unique ice slicing mechanic with an offbeat humour. Tiny Thief is a beautiful medieval adventure featuring stealth-based puzzles.

“Being involved with Rovio Stars means that we have one of the best marketing teams behind us, as well as visibility to their vast audience. To a small indie studio like Nitrome this is all the backing we could hope for!” said Mat Annal, Managing Director of Nitrome Ltd.

Check out the brand new Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage trailer here: http://rov.io/icebreakertrailer

Developers who are interested in Rovio Stars can find more information at: www.rovio.com/developers

For more information and general media inquiries please contact media@rovio.com

For more information on Icebreaker: A Viking Voyage, and Tiny Thief:

www.rovio.com

www.icebreaker-game.com

www.tinythief.com

About Rovio Entertainment

Rovio is an industry-changing entertainment media company headquartered in Finland, and the creator of the globally successful Angry Birds franchise. Angry Birds, a casual puzzle game, became an international phenomenon within a few months of its release, and is now the number one paid app of all time. Angry Birds has expanded rapidly in entertainment, publishing, and licensing to become a beloved international brand. www.rovio.com

About Nitrome Ltd

Nitrome is an award winning games studio based in London UK, who develop mobile, PC and browser games. With over 100 games to date, the Nitrome website reaches tens of millions of loyal fans each month and individually titles have reached over 100 million plays across the internet. www.nitrome.com

About 5 Ants

Barcelona-based 5 Ants Studio aims to create imaginative and unique games for all ages. Tiny Thief is the culmination of our most enthusiastic work, a delicious adventure you will never forget. Intrigued? Visit 5ants.com

Friday Update!

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:05:04 BST

Hi Nitromians,

We are still not sure about Friday Updates, check this link if you’re not sure what we are talking about.

So this isn't us committing to Friday Updates again, but we might go back to doing them, so this is a sporadic one while we make up our mind!

I know we haven’t mentioned anything still with regards to Icebreaker that we promised you recently. Rest assured it is still going full steam ahead at the moment, it’s getting very close to being finished and we are working to give you some more info soon, including some huge, huge, HUGE news that we have been holding off on that we hope is going to make you all very excited!

Have a great weekend and stay tuned for more soon!

Website Update

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 17:58:07 BST

Well, as you may know from our April update article, we are getting very close now to the accounts launch as we’re almost ready to enter into the main testing phase of the project. This means that we will be using accounts internally at Nitrome Towers and taking down notes on any problems that we come across.

So what’s next?

Until recently, due to the amount of man power it would have took to simulate the usage of accounts beyond a single user, I’ve pretty much been holding private messaging conversations and comments between two, three and sometimes four user accounts by myself. This meant I was opening multiple browsers and logging in to different accounts simultaneously. Needless to say, this type of testing is best carried out when a single person is locked down to using a single user account, as this better mirrors real world usage.

Main tests

The main tests will consist of the all of us trying to mess around with the user accounts to see if any of our calculated mischief gets past our moderation system. We’ll also try registering (with both Facebook Connect and Nitrome sign up processes) and using our accounts like the average community user to test for usability issues. The main reason we take such attention to detail on these types of tests is because we want the accounts to feel as natural and intuitive to use as possible (and we also want to have some fun with them too!).

Abusing the report button

Some of you have already expressed concern (on our Facebook feedback from last month’s accounts article) in regards to the way that the reporting badges may be obtained via abusive means (i.e. users may create dual accounts or users might spam the report button on every comment/user they see).

Well, you will be happy to know that we share the same concerns as our fans on this subject and feel that although there are no real foolproof ways to completely eliminate cheaters, we will do the best we can without hindering good community users that are interacting with the system as intended. We’ll be making use of a variety of measures to avoid account abuse as much as possible. This phase actually became a task in itself!

There are many mechanisms that are already in use by existing web communities to stem the flow of bad user activity. Things like CAPTCHA, IP based bans, duplicated email address checks, user assisted moderation, up/down voting of user generated material etc. For each of these effective methods, there is usually some way of defeating them. The more tests we use to insure that genuine user activity is carried out, the more we might negatively affect the user experience flow for genuine users.

So, with usability in mind, our “anti-bad guy” measures that we intend to deploy are going to be mainly frictionless for the end user. By frictionless we mean they should not interfere with user experience whilst browsing the Nitrome site in any way.

We know cheating can take place in pretty much every online community in which there is something of worth to gain (such as badges and avatars in our case). We will diligently enforce the community rules as best we can. As we said in the previous post, the accounts are going to be considered to be in beta as we monitor the use and miss-use of the website. The more we understand about the community trouble makers, the better we can implement preventative systems.

Collecting new avatars

As well as having a lot of awesome avatars to choose from when you first create an account, there are also going to be some even more awesome locked avatars that won’t be accessible straight from the start.

Your Avatar acts as the graphical identifier for your user account. Along with your username, it will be one of the first things somebody sees. Some avatars are going to be more difficult to collect than others.

You will be able to unlock avatars primarily by finding them as objects in certain Nitrome games. You’ll need to check out the descriptions for avatars on the selection page for ways to unlock them. Some of the avatar descriptions may be written in a slightly more cryptic fashion than others which may, in-turn, involve you thinking about the unlock message and making educated guesses as to where you want to start the hunt for them!

We really feel confident that the harder to collect avatars will make for fun challenges for our community!

We hope you are all as excited as we are!

Also, as a quick teaser, we thought that we’d include the profile page with updates since the last post

Screenshot Before: Click Here!
Screenshot After: Click Here!

Friday Update!

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 17:55:01 BST

It's Friday!

We hope that you all enjoy playing with the extra content in B.C. Bow Contest which is now free to unlock as you play!

We realise that we have been a bit light on news this week, but we plan on being busier in the blog next week.

Why not join us then as we will be letting you know more information about how the website accounts are coming along and more on Test Subject Complete!

Until then, have a great weekend!

Play B.C. Bow Contest: Click Here!

Friday Update!

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 17:48:02 GMT

It's Friday Update time!

We hope you are all enjoying our latest game Super Stock Take!

We are happy to see that it's received a great response from everyone so thanks for playing!

Why not join us next week as we will be bringing you more Nitrome goodness!

Play Super Stock Take: Click Here!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Friday Update!

Fri, 15 Mar 2013 17:39:10 GMT

Who's got that Friday (update) feeling?

Just in case you may have missed it, we've added a 3rd Developer Diary entry into our Icebreaker update page and we have also updated the progress bar to 95%!

Developer Diary #3: Click Here!

We know that we didn't get time to release our latest game this week, but fear not! We are working on bringing you Super Stock Take next week, so until then, we hope that you all have a great weekend!

Friday Update!

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 17:44:22 GMT

It's Friday, woohoo!

We feel like it's been a super busy week here at Nitrome, and this may have shown a little in our articles, with the Super Stock Take preview, website preview and more besides.

So why not join us next week as we bring you more Nitrome related goodness and hopefully, with our fingers crossed, we may get to release Super Stock Take!

So until next week Nitromians, have a great weekend! :D

Friday Update

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 17:36:20 GMT

We've got that Friday feeling, which must mean only one thing - update time!

Thanks to everyone that is currently helping us out in trying to greenlight our Flightless project - we really appreciate it!

We're also glad to see that you are all excited for our next Test Subject release which is coming soon!

Why not join us next week as we will be bringing you more, including info on the accounts!

Until then have a great weekend everyone! :D

Friday Update!

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 17:44:38 GMT

Time for a Friday update!

We hope you are all having fun playing through our original Bad Ice Cream with a Touchy Device!

We realise that last week's Friday Update, although being very cool and featuring a preview image of our upcoming Test Subject Complete game, wasn't in the form of our usual Friday Updates!

We hope that didn't startle you too much ;)

Why not join us next week as we will be bringing you more news on Test Subject Complete and more besides!

Until then, have a great weekend everyone!

Friday Update

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 17:27:50 GMT

We hope that you are all enjoying the Evil pack that's been made freely available in our Twin Shot 2 update!

How many "cheats n treats" have you managed to unlock so far?

Also, you can now play Twin Shot 2 in four player mode with the Touchy App!

Have fun and we'll see you all next week for more Nitrome goodness.

Until then have a great weekend!

Friday Update!

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 17:18:33 GMT

Well, it looks like another Friday - time for an update!

Remember Touchy has a half-price SALE, so grab it while it lasts! Only a few copies left now!

Next week we have a little surprise instore for you all. Twinshot 2 will be revamped to clean up the mochicoin system (or rather, the lack of, as it's been discontinued).

This means you'll all be able to play the additional 50-level evil pack and the cheats n treats in your favourite 2-player action platformer!

And guess what? As a little treat for you Touchy supporters, you will be able to play Twinshot 2 four player as well!

We can't wait!

Until then, have a great weekend!

Get Touchy: Click Here!

Swindler: Best Physics Game 2012

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 10:09:08 GMT

Hi Nitromians!

We are very excited to let you all know that Swindler has been voted as Best of 2012 in the physics category over on Jay is Games! Woohoo!

A massive thank you goes out to everyone that voted for Swindler and everyone that enjoy our games.

You can control Swindler for free with our Touchy App on your iOS and android devices!

Play Swindler: Click Here!
Jay Is Games: Click Here!
Get Touchy: Click Here!

We really appreciate your continued support!

Friday Update

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:43:23 GMT

Hi Nitromians!

We hope that you are all enjoying our latest game Plunger which is compatible with the cool Nitrome Touchy App!

Stay tuned, as we'll be bringing you more Nitrome goodness next week!

Until then, have a great weekend!

Play Plunger: Click Here!
Touchy App: Click Here!

Friday Update

Fri, 18 Jan 2013 17:25:26 GMT

Hey Nitromians, It's been snowing here in London, yay!

Why not join us next week as we'll be bringing you more news, another pixel love and... *drumroll*

...A BRAND NEW GAME!

That's right! We haven't told you anything about this one yet, but we can tell you that it is not a sequel and it's not an icon game!

Until next week, have a great weekend!

Friday Update

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 17:00:30 GMT

With the weekend on the way, its time for a quick round-up post!

We hope that you've all enjoyed our latest in-depth update that we put together for you regarding Icebreaker for iOS!

There are some pretty cool pieces of concept art in the update and we feel it gives some insight into the kind of work involved and makes for an interesting read!

We also have Nitrome Touchy 4 player support for Bad Ice-Cream 2!

Join us next week as we bring you more Nitrome related goodness! :D

Until then, have a great weekend everyone!

Friday Update!

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 17:35:47 GMT

First Friday update of 2013, woohoo!

We hope you have all enjoyed the holidays as much as we did!

On Monday we'll be back with the first Pixel Love of the year. By the way, it was a slight oversight on our part that we didn't consider the Christmas break. Sorry about that :)

We are almost done with Bad Ice-Cream 2 with 4-player Touchy support, so expect that early next week too!

With only two days in the office this week we are not exactly sure yet what else we are going to bring you, but expect some sort of update in regards to one or more of our bigger projects.

Until then, have a great weekend everyone!