We get asked a lot by clients if we can incorporate a competition into a branded Flash game. This isn’t a problem in itself and obviously many clients want to use a competition as a way of increasing interest in their game. What is a problem however is running competitions where prizes are given based on the highest scores and this is usually what they want to do. It doesn’t help that clearly inexperienced developers are doing just that for their clients, so other people assume it’s ok.  Read more...

I know some would say we’re just conditioned to expect a mouse and keyboard combo, or a gamepad when playing games and it just requires thinking outside the box. But there’s no doubt about it, a lack of any sort of meaningful input device on mobile devices is a huge barrier to game design. We’re only offered a very basic, imprecise input device. This basically boils controls down to prodding or swiping with a finger or tilting the device, making it difficult to implement many of the traditional genres we know and love.  Read more...

It’s been an interesting few weeks at The Motion Monkey. We’ve been busy experimenting with a few things over the past few weeks, so I thought I’d post a quick update.  Read more...

If you believe everything you read, you’d be certain mobile devices have already replaced PCs and players are abandoning Flash games in droves. Now I’ve never been a believer in the notion that mobile devices will replace PCs, they both have their own different uses and will exist side-by-side, stats on visitors to the sites we run confirm the fact that mobile traffic still only makes up a tiny percentage. But that’s something for another post.  Read more...

It’s been a few weeks now since we asked for feedback on what you’d like to see in Fyoozd 2. I’d just like to take the opportunity to say thanks for the awesome response. The feedback filled up far quicker than I ever imagined it would, which just goes to confirm that there’s definitely demand for a sequel. It also confirmed some of the things we already intended to change/improve in the sequel, as well as load of other useful info we hadn’t thought about.  Read more...

I’ve talked before about choosing what works, instead of being blinded by whatever is perceived as the current trend. Now I’m not saying don’t get native mobile versions of your branded game produced. If your budget allows, go for it. But don’t rely on mobile, use it as a secondary source of exposure to reach a wider audience, only if you have the extra money to spend. Flash for the web should still be the cornerstone of your marketing activities with branded games.  Read more...

The dust has settled somewhat on the fierce HTML5 vs Flash debate and the “Flash is dead”, “Flash is evil” rhetoric seems to have died down a tad. Along with some big players realising (what we developers knew all along) that HTML5 isn’t the Flash killer it was made out to be and probably never will be. But was it ever justified?  Read more...

I know I’ve been pretty vocal about how much I despise the very idea of using HTML5 instead of Flash. And lo and behold I’ve just tried to check out yet another HTML5 game, only to be faced with a menu that didn’t work when I clicked it, then a black screen when I finally thought I’d got it to work.  Read more...

With it’s increase in popularity, more and more companies are seeing the opportunity to offer advergaming services. Advergames are a unique medium, in that they straddle two very different disciplines. Game design/development and graphic/web design. Because of this advergame developers need to have experience of both, but the problem is few actually do.  Read more...

If you’re thinking of getting a branded game produced as part of a marketing campaign, it’s tempting to believe all the nonsense that the tech media are spouting lately about Flash being dead. You want to use current technology, not old tech. So you want to ditch Flash in favour of HTML5 or native mobile apps? That’s where the future lies, right? The problem is, if you think like this you could be making a BIG mistake.  Read more...