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Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

The Pocket Geek

18 Jan 2008

Fuel Industries, an agency specializing in branded entertainment, was hired by QNX Software Systems to help out with the launch of a product directed to a very specific community (embedded software developers). So Fuel Industries came up with something a little different and developed a Flash game called The Pocket Geek to get the Foundry27 forum some more tracking.

Besides the fact the design looks really neat, I’m very fond of the ‘action-figure’ approach. It’s makes a geek-in-the-box look so adorable and cute, I think this could be a super cool direct marketing gadget to send out to agencies. Collect ‘em all, and rule the world!

The gameplay is nice, goes smooth but is a little more complicated than you might suspect at first glance. Keeping a geek productive, not hungry and happy at the same time requires tact. The IQ tests in between are funny :) The goal is to have your project finished by the end of the week. Challenging. Perfect for a Friday afternoon.

Extra stuff:

Thanks for the pointer, Nick Iannitti.

 

Japanize Yourself

06 Dec 2007

A fun thing (it’s been aaaages since I posted one of these) to kill some time: what would your name be if it was ‘Japanized’ :)

Thanks for the pointer, Ben

 
7 Comments

Posted in Fun, Games, Humor

 

Axe GameKillers Revisited

01 Nov 2007

It’s been a while since I’ve heard of Axe/Lynx. Seems they just got back in the game a bit with their new online timewaster tied into its “Gamekillers” show on MTV (a show that follows unsuspecting guys on dates with beautiful girls and pits them against a variety of characters engineered to test their game). There are people out there whose sole mission is to cause you to blow your cool and lose the girl. They are the Gamekillers, and Gamekillers the Game is your chance to get back at them.

The game, playable online now at www.GameKillersTheGame.com, is retro-arcade shooter. The cool thing about it is that you can superimpose the pictures of your friends’ faces (or of the guy who killed your game last night) onto the enemies, so you can get back at the guys who killed your game.

It also includes a built-in leaderboard so you can show off your mad Gamekiller-blasting skillz. It may not be the most challenging videogame, but for the sake of pure entertainment you should definitely check it out. Have a go with a pic of a friend and umm… shoot it into pixel heaven. It’s definitely not the strongest game, but you’ve got to adore the light classical music that plays while you’re trying to survive.

Previous GameKiller post on Coolz0r [March 2006]

 

Visual Studio In-Game Advertising

30 May 2007

Microsoft Belux has been looking to find the new ways for reaching developers that they never reach through the “traditional” channels, such as own or 3rd party e-mailing, magazine ads, banners, blogs, etc… They’ve been looking for an advertising system that would be in such a way so that it would really appeal to developers. Together with the guys from McCann Belgium, an ad agency, they came up with an alternative way that they’ve never tried before (at least in Belgium). They’ve decided to do “in-game advertising” for the Defy All Challenges Visual Studio product marketing campaign. If you want to know how that looks like, check out the images below:

Game 1

Game 2

Game 3

Game 4

Game 5

Game 6

Game 8

Game 9

Game 10

Game 11

Game 12

Game 13

Game 14

Game 15

Game 16

Game 17

Game 18

Game 19

Game 20

The ads are running in the following games: Anarchy Online, Quake Wars, Need For Speed, Trackmania United, Toca Race Car, Splinter Cell 4, Crackdown, Ghost Recon AW, Rainbow Six, True Crime NY and Def Jam.

Since I have front row tickets to this campaign, I’ll try to post about the results as well, if I can. I’m very interested in seeing if this approach works.

 

Coolz0r On TV

12 Jan 2007

Last tuesday I was on national television to give a bit of a demo of Second Life, the virtual world. It was quite the experience to have a director, a reporter/researcher, a camera guy and a sound guy in a cosy room at my house. Friday night they’ve spent about three hours here, and Saturday they were back from 2pm til 7pm. All this time they were asking question, filming and waiting for Second Life to load. All these hours of film resulted in a clip of about 8 minutes, and in that clip two fellow bloggers (and marketeer-friends) were also interviewed. I think it was a nice demo, and I’m glad they didn’t cut it down to ‘dating and sex’, because there’s a lot more to Second Life than just that. I’m too lazy to get it subtitled at the moment, because I’ve had a busy week and it’s a clip with a lot of talking. I’ll break it down in a few phrases for you.

First there’s an intro with some fast facts about second life, then the journalists demonstrate how they’ve created the first Belgian reporter in Second Life. Then I take over and show off my property a bit, while talking about the stuff you can do in the virtual world. Then Clo Willaerts, the marketing manager from Skynet talks about communities and places SL in the world of people like a pub or ‘the movies’, on the third place in the people’s lives. (school/work, home & and a third leisure spot). Bert Van Wassenhove, Manager of “One Agency”, talks about SL as a channel to reach out to consumers, and then there’s a piece about pr0n and escorts and some footage of clubs and fun things to do.

“Koppen” (translated: Heads), the program that featured this documentary, has a reach of app. 850.000 pairs of eyeballs. Not bad at all for a first time appearance on TV. It’s not really a big deal, but rather more of a nice experience.
Monday at noon, a reporter from StudioBrussel, a popular radio station, is coming to my work at Microsoft for an interview for her show as well. It’ll be aired on Tuesday, but I don’t know the time yet.

The clip above is take from Robin’s Marketingblog.eu, but since he uploaded it to YouTube and I don’t blog YouTube clips… I uploaded it to DailyMotion.

 
6 Comments

Posted in Games

 

So You Think You’re A Gamer

11 Jan 2007

Here’s a funny little quiz that tests your average knowledge of computer and video games. If you think you’re up to the challenge, go ahead and try this one. If you’re a geek or a fragcat and you’re looking for a quiz about gaming to test your friends’ knowledge… this piece of work by Daan Van den Eeden is a very good starter. Let’s see how far you get.

Take the quiz! (thanks Dave)

 
1 Comment

Posted in Games, Geek

 

Gears Of War Guerrilla

21 Nov 2006

Nice work for the Gears Of War video game, a third-person tactical action/horror game that has been developed by Epic Games exclusively for Microsoft Game Studios. A beauty of a game, totally rocking. To set the mood, in the streets of Bastille war perimeters have been maintained and a real army truck has been upgraded to an experiental ’studio’ were interestees could get the look and feel of the game. Nice, simple and effective. I can’t wait to play this game. I’ve read so many good comments about it. I just have to try this.

Gears Of War Outdoor 1

Gears Of War Outdoor 2

See the game trailer
Via Marketing Alternatif

 

Australian Navy Recruits Game-Style

08 Nov 2006

The Australian Navy has launched a site which allows you to discover all about life Royal Australian Navy on board. As pointed out by the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Defence Force’s key recruiting demographic spends less time in front of the TV, and prefers to go online or play video games, that’s why as a recruiting tool they have launched a site which very much looks like a videogame. The American army has already walked this path before with their America’s Army online game. Seems now the Aussies have taken that same road, be it a little less sophisticated. Still, nice work by Visual Jazz.

Australian Navy Recruitment Game

Experience this game | Via Adverblog