PRODUCT OVERVIEW:

Golf Mania features over 90 holes of golfing mayhem that is easy to learn but tough to master.

With single and multiplayer gaming on classic grass courses and modern courses built upon incredible gravity defying glass towers, Golf Mania offers hours of gameplay for the whole family.

 
PRODUCT FEATURES:

• Ingenious Putting Challenge
  90 incredible holes set across 10 amazing courses
• Varied Course Elements
  Sand traps, water hazards, ice, animated obstacles and more
• Multiplayer Gaming
  Challenge family and friends to a round of golf
• Unlockable Rewards and Secrets
  Unlock new courses and numerous ball variations

MEDIA CONTACT:

Richard Hill-Whittall
rich@icongames.com

I firmly believe we (the games industry) could be a strong performer in the UK’s economic recovery, given the right care and attention to encourage growth and stability within the industry. In order to achieve this, we really do need people in the Conservative party who will champion the industry, promote it in a positive light and really help to raise awareness of the many positive aspects the industry offers to the UK.

We are one of the best in the World, but in the last few years we have dipped from third to sixth place in the global development rankings, and we continue to slide.

So, after lunch on New Year’s Day I thought I’d email my local Conservative MP, Zac Goldsmith, to ask for a meeting. I was quite surprised when he responded a few days later and agreed, so in preparation for the meeting I did a little more research and was rather dazed when I read his Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zac_Goldsmith), and dozens of other news pieces describing how charismatic and good looking he was (apparently 17th place in a list of the best looking men in Britain). As someone with a distinct lack of charisma, I’ve got to be honest and say I was more than a little daunted by the prospect of meeting Zac and trying to get him interested in the games industry!

I met with Zac on 27th January, and while it is fair to say I don’t think he has ever played a video game before, he listened as I presented a series of points (which I have included below). I also left him with a copy of TIGA’s rather good “Supporting Start-ups in the UK Games Development Sector” report, which outlines TIGA’s key policies, including those for Games Tax Relief.

I also sent him over a recent-ish NESTA report which covers many of the issues facing the UK games industry:

I’m currently pressing for a follow-up meeting in the hope that I can convince Zac on the merits of the industry and to lend his support. While I think I may have my work cut out to get him onside, I certain aim to do that – it really is a great industry, with a lot of potential which just needs more attention to keep it world class.

Meeting Points

• The games industry globally is expected to grow to $82.4billion by 2015, driven by the continuing transition to online and mobile distribution channels and a widening player demographic.

• The UK video games industry is the largest in Europe. In 2010 the UK game development sector contributed just under £1 billion to the UK’s Gross Domestic Product and generated £378 million in direct/indirect tax revenues to the UK Government.

• In 2010, the UK games industry employed 25,000 people including 9,000 highly skilled people in game development. In 2010, the UK had 441 games businesses.

• The UK games industry workforce shrunk by over 10 per cent between 2008 and 2011. 41 per cent of the jobs lost between 2009 and 2011 relocated overseas.

• The loss of jobs in British games studios has seen the Exchequer receive nearly £100m less direct and indirect tax revenues, while the sector’s contribution to UK GDP has fallen by nearly a quarter of a billion since 2008.

• Research published by NESTA in 2009 showed that the advent of Games Tax Relief would: incentivise global publishers to increase funding in UK studios; encourage independent development studios to seek new external, non-publisher funding; and encourage private investors to finance more projects in the games sector and to create new games finance vehicles.

• Game developers in countries including Canada, France, Singapore and the USA receive tax breaks for games production. Ireland is currently planning something along similar lines.

• The UK video game development sector is a sector with a pronounced tendency to export. A typical developer creates 45 per cent of their turnover through the export of games.

• The Government should look again at tax measures which will enable the UK video games sector to grow, such as Games Tax Relief, enhanced R&D tax credits, and measures to improve access to finance for early stage games development studios, including a Creative Content Fund. With the right Government support, the UK games development sector can contribute towards an export led recovery

• Access to affordable sources of finance is a constant challenge for creative media companies, and a significant barrier to growth and stability.

• Former staff of a single major studio (Bizarre Creations) closed by its global publisher owner (Activision) in 2011 indicate that up to 35 per cent of them left the UK, mostly to Canada, and that disproportionately senior staff went overseas versus those that stayed in the UK.

Bashi Blocks Now Free for PC

Icon Games Entertainment, a leading indie games publisher and developer is delighted to announce that Bashi Blocks is now available for free on the PC.

Previously released on Nintendo WiiWare, PlayStation®Minis and iOS, Bashi Blocks features a unique built-in game editor offering unlimited level design possibilities; you can even structure your own game tournament and make your own game!

So go ahead Make your Own Levels, Make Your Own Game with the classic reaction gameplay of Bashi Blocks, freely available directly from the Icon Games website.

Bashi Blocks Features:

• Insanely addictive – 90 levels and 10 challenging boss stages
• Create your own levels and share them with the Bashi community
• Download levels created by other players
• Tournament mode allows you to create your own unique tournaments using game levels or your own levels
• A wealth of special achievements and secrets to unlock, including secret level backgrounds and game block sets

Spread the word and follow us http://twitter.com/icongamesent/

> Download Link

> Icon Official Website

> Bashi Blocks Press Kit (artwork, screenshots, …)

# # #

Bashi Blocks is available now on PC for free and can be downloaded from here:

(http://www.icongames.com/portfolioentry/bashi-blocks/)

For any additional information about Bashi Blocks please visit:  http://www.bashiblocks.com/ and for information on Icon Games Entertainment visit: http://www.icongames.com/

For any media inquiries, please contact email rich@icongames.com

About Icon Games Entertainment

Founded in 2004 in London, UK, Icon Games Entertainment is an independent game developer & digital publishing studio creating casually-oriented game titles with unique gameplay providing endless hours of fun for the whole family! Developing for a variety of platforms, including PSVita, 3DS, Wii, PSP, iPhone and PC, Icon Games Entertainment continues to work towards their goal of creating entertaining games with a focus on compelling gameplay & fun!

Publish Date: Monday 9th January 2012

TIGA, the trade association representing the UK games industry, today called on Nintendo to explain why it does not allow developers to publish the sales numbers of their self-published titles. TIGA made the comments following the news that Nintendo had refused to allow Icon Games Ltd to publish figures on the sales and free units downloaded for their WiiWare games.

Dr Richard Wilson, TIGA CEO, said:

Richard Hill-Whittall, Director of Icon Games Entertainment Ltd, said:

Yesterday Nintendo got in touch to ask us to remove the figures for the WiiWare titles from the blog. Apparently they don’t allow developers to publish the sales numbers of their self-published titles.

As to why, I can’t really be sure – are they scared to reveal how their online services perform or do they just dislike developers being able to run effective businesses? It is a tricky one – and incredibly unfair and damaging to indie developers publishing on Nintendo stores.

I don’t believe Nintendo are necessary alone in this policy, but I believe they are by far the most draconian in enforcing it. I have seen many different reports from developers for games on XBLA, PSN, Steam and so on with details of sales figures, but never anything for a Nintendo store.

So why do I believe this is such a negative, damaging policy? I shall explain…

Business & Financial Planning

Every traditional game publisher out there considers carefully their release plan; they consult sales data to see which titles perform the best, which genres are popular, which platform offers the greatest returns, and so on. This data helps to build a release and development strategy. Without the data they would not be able to make a considered decision and would have to hope for the best with each and every title they release. Not really a sound way to run a business!

Access to Finance

Imagine going into a Bank, VC, Business Angel or some other source of finance and saying – we’re planning this game(s) for Nintendo’s download service and we need to raise finance to help with the costs. The first thing they would ask would be to see detailed sales projections and market research. What do you do? Look down at your feet and mumble apologetically that Nintendo don’t allow any numbers to be shared so you really have no idea how well it will perform, but you hope it’ll do really good? Do you have any hope of raising finance – no, of course you don’t.

Job Security

Any decent studio owner wants to offer their employees a stable working environment; a job with prospects and opportunities for the future. Of course no-one can guarantee this, but without any form of realistic forecasting and planning the chances of offering job security are next to none.

Essentially Nintendo’s policy does its best to prevent often vulnerable indie studios from building and running stable businesses. It projects all of the risk back to the developer, stops them gaining access to funding to help grow their business and essentially makes self-publishing on Nintendo platforms a huge gamble.

And let’s not forget that Nintendo also don’t allow you to ever alter the price of your title, run any sort of promotion, offer demos or indeed use any of the other tools that publishers traditionally use to maximise sales and extend the longevity of revenue earned per title.

Sure – releasing any game is a risk, but the more sales & user data you can access the more carefully you can formulate a development strategy. If you don’t have access to any data at all, it is impossible to run a business with any degree of forward planning or forecasting. Try running that past a business advisor or mentor – they would shake their head and strongly advise against it.

So, to conclude – Nintendo’s policy actively makes life as difficult as possible for the smaller studios, putting jobs and livelihoods at risk. Without transparency of digital sales data developers are perpetually in the dark. How long are indie studios supposed to put up with this sort of thing – is it too much to ask to be treated with respect and allowed to run a business in a professional manner?

Alas a lot of the bigger numbers were free downloads/free promotions, but even so – I was really pleased with the numbers.

I thought I’d share them – and as such they are included below broken down into the different formats – iOS, PSP & WiiWare. I didn’t include PC as the numbers really aren’t worth including (probably about 20 units total!).

iOS

WiiWare

PSP Minis/PSN

GRAND TOTAL: Approx 250,000

So there we have it – Worldwide there are over 250,000 copies of our games kicking around on various platforms.

I’d like to think that a good percentage of that number enjoyed playing them, and I want to say a big thank you from all of us at ICON to everyone who has played any of our games. Hope to see you again in 2012

It is fair to say we are small – really teeny tiny small – there is me, in-charge of art, design and audio and Steve, who is in charge of all engine related code and several of our past games gameplay code. Finally we have Lee who helps out with code on various projects and is also our chief (and only) internal game tester. Lee also puts together all of our game trailers, platform holder submissions and screen-shot packs for our games.

So – that is three development staff. We also have our one non-development staff member Claire – who handles finances, payroll and marketing. Right now Icon’s teeny tiny team is working on two PSP Mini titles and two PS Vita titles. Today is Boxing Day, and I’ve had the last two days off – already I am chomping at the bit ready to get back to work and carry on with the games we are working on. A mixture of enthusiasm and panic at how much work needs to be done.

Another thing on my mind is that we have just enough money to cover the bills in January – our last PSN invoice was for just €1684.45, which is a long way short of covering our bills for even one month. Gulp!

So here we are with no money and just 3 development staff and 4 games to finish ASAP. Why on earth am I even writing this diary? Perhaps because I drank too much wine today or maybe because I am so proud of what our tiny little team has done in the face of ever present financial adversity?

One thing I have found ever more apparent over the last couple of years is that WiiWare or Minis don’t really provide enough revenue alone to support a full-time team, even a small one like ours. This in turn has led to on-going severe cash-flow restrictions which make expansion, or indeed any form of cohesive future strategy, incredibly difficult. So the strategy is more often than not a grit your teeth and hope things go smoothly, while cutting corners as necessary to get stuff out the door. And with the lower revenue markets you need to get a lot of product out there. Oh – and we also had a rather unsuccessful foray onto iOS – now that is one scary marketplace! Kudos to those who have made it on iOS, long may it continue (although I doubt it will).

Compared to our past developments, Vita is different in many ways as I believe we have a more realistic prospect of earning a decent level of income from our titles than in the past. Unfortunately on-going Vita development has been difficult as we need to keep putting other titles out to keep some form of income coming in. It is also more than a little scary when we look at some of the products and well-funded teams out there who are working on Vita right now. Sometimes I wake up and think; sh*t – how the hell are we ever going to pull this off!?

Recently, however, development has come on in leaps and bounds. Now while it is true that we still have to submit our Stage Two concept approvals for both Vita titles to Sony, and as of now only one of the games is fully up and running on Vita (we do much of our development on PC), Steve has done such an incredible job with the Vita engine so far. It looks wonderful – finally after years of Wii & PSP development I have proper pixel shaders, normal maps, real-time shadows, bloom, reflections and other effects. At last I feel like a ‘proper’ 3D artist, at last able to utilise the latest shaders and effects to create the sort of environments and detail level that I have long dreamed of.

We have some really nice levels and visual polish in there now, but as it is only me on art I do find myself forever slightly panicked that we’ll be picked apart in reviews. But it does push you on, to add more detail, to not cut corners, to take the time to add the extra bits you perhaps neglect when you’re traditionally short on time and resources. I have lost count of the number of times I have analysed screen-shots from other Vita games; comparing detail, environments, texture fidelity, lighting and so on.

I’ve also got to say how good SCEE have been to work with; they are very supportive and deal with any concerns in a very positive way. No other platform holder comes close to this and it makes it a completely different (in a very good way) experience. They listen, help where they can and treat you with professional respect – certainly from our dealings with platform holders in the past this has been unique and very welcome.

So as 2011 draws to a close and we’re fast running out of time to complete the games to keep money coming in, I wonder what 2012 will hold for us. One thing is for sure – I’d like to think this will be the year where we have a little more financial stability. Seat of your pants development is exciting – but also frustrating as you know you could achieve so much more with a little more financial breathing space and a few more resources.

We are going to do it though, and I know our Vita games will be good – our best yet. So regardless of size, even the smallest of studios can achieve big things.

After releasing Part 1 of the dev diary, I read a comment over on PSPMinis.com:

“I imagined a cute little, well, Marble Boy, in Vertigo type levels with Toy Story like designs. A little marble out to save Marble Girl. Maybe Marble Girl is his sister, or maybe his girlfriend. Her being his sister would have brought a lot of charm to the game.”

I read that and thought – damn; I haven’t quite got the visual design right. So I went back to the drawing board – it WAS too much like Vertigo, and lacked colour or personality. On the plus side though that is the main story – Marble Boy does indeed need to save Marble Girl, and rescue the baby Marblelings.

I was and am really happy with the GUI design, which I think has a really nice level of vibrancy and character.

So with this in mind, the plan was that all textures and skies needed re-doing and the camera angle had to be changed. The current camera angle was too far out, the marble too tiny and it didn’t allow for larger more detailed levels.

Visual Design Rethink

The first thing I was keen to do was to use software such as Vue ( http://www.e-onsoftware.com/ ) to create new sky boxes, but I didn’t want a rendered look – more a cartoon style high saturation finish.

Now Photoshop does include some filters to convert images to a more artistic/cartoon look, but they just weren’t up to the job. After some extensive Google-fu I found a set of plugins for Photoshop that seemed perfect – the Topaz plugins from Topaz Labs. After a series of trials they were able to do exactly what I hoped, create lovely colourful non-realistic images from the source renders.

The skies and backgrounds are key to the whole look of each world so I really wanted to get them vivid & bright, and make the worlds all look interesting with each having a very unique personality. I’ve included a few test images below by way of an example of the new look.

New Sky Technique

Example Skies

Next up were the textures – I wanted them much more colourful, but also simpler – akin to something like Super Mario. Again a fair bit of experimentation followed and trials with different software. In the end using a combination of synthetic texture generation software and the Topaz filters gave me exactly the look I was hoping for. I didn’t want to use any photo reference textures as they always retain that realistic look.

Brick Test Textures

So right now I am busy experimenting with and creating a batch of new textures and themes for the various Marble Boy worlds – so far the first five worlds are done, so nearly there!

Camera Changes

As mentioned in Part 1, Steve Howard is in charge of the game engine and tends to handle more complex physics and camera issues. So over to Steve to detail the changes…

Cameras are a bit of a subjective subject, and quite often I would check in a camera that to me looked perfectly fine only to be greeted with a ‘what on earth have you done Steve?’
There also happens to be a lot of maths involved!

The Marble Boy camera has evolved through a number of variations. It 1st started life as the Vertigo camera, however as we now have a world which tilts it had to be adapted, and as mentioned in Part 1 the level doesn’t actually tilt, it is the camera that tilts to take make it look like it does.

The 1st incarnation was relatively easy as the levels were small enough to fit within the camera view and the camera didn’t need to move or pan, so the camera was just locked in place and only tilted for the level tilt illusion.

However the levels started to grow and a fixed camera could no longer handle the task. The simple fix was just to change it so that instead of being given the world centre the camera was given the position of the marble. This seemed to initially work, but it soon became apparent that there was a nasty judder every time the ball collided.

The solution was to add some dampening to the camera code and this seemed to solve that problem for a while everyone seemed happy. Ultimately though it was decided that the marble needed to stay centre-ish of the screen at all times to avoid the problem where you would lose track of the marble. So I took out the dampening, adjusted some parameters did a quick test and checked in the fix…

And I got a ‘what on earth have you done Steve?’ (I think it was a little fruitier then that, but my memory has managed to edit out the more painful bits).

It seems that in certain circumstances very strange things would happen to the camera and the marble could end up all over the screen. What was actually happening was that the marble was being nicely centred, and then the level tilt illusion was being applied, resulting in the marble being rotated around, and even off, the screen… oops…

So I took the tilt into account when centring the marble and voila…. it didn’t work!

In the end I tracked it down to a slight flaw in the way the engine code handled some of its transforms. Something I’d wanted to fix for years, but due to scheduling constraints had never found the time to. So after a quick major overall of the engine I got the fix I wanted and finally a working camera! Which so far people seem to be happy with… So far…

Level Design

The levels have evolved and become far larger and more elaborate than originally planned – I’ve moved away from the original wooden labyrinth concept to more epic levels full of varied obstacles and trials.

I’ve also tried to make the levels jam packed full of the elements that make them the most fun to play, such as:

• Tubes
• Jumps
• Funnels
• Rails
• Tunnels

My aim is to make sure that there is plenty of fun stuff in there all through, no matter how difficult the levels become. With Vertigo I felt that some of the later levels were just too tough and punishing, which killed some of the fun.

It was a chance to speak to MPs and discuss the difficulties faced by start-up games studios, which in principal is a brilliant idea and a fantastic opportunity. TIGA are doing a stand-up job promoting the games industry in Parliament, but after today’s event I really do wonder if the government is actually interested!

First off it appeared as though several of the invited MPs didn’t turn up, given the name badges left on the table as we went through to lunch. Those that did turn up seemed far from interested – on the opposite side of the table a few seats up from me was an MP (who I shall leave nameless) who spent the entire time he was there looking incredibly fed-up and bored. He really did look like he believed he had drawn the short straw, and he looked at his phone the entire time. Even the host, Tom Watson, was heavily involved with his phone and left during the first course.

A little while after Tom Watson left, the angry looking MP also left, leaving just one MP standing who diligently stayed until the end. My overriding impression was that the government, and indeed MPs from all parties, are particularly uninterested in game start-ups and indeed the industry as a whole.

If the MPs attending today’s event are anything to go by, it is little wonder tax breaks are getting no-where fast and very little positive comes out of Parliament for the UK games industry.

I am however very grateful to TIGA for planning the event and the hard work and effort they put into promoting the industry; it seems they have a very steep hill to climb!

Speaking as a developer who also self-publishes, I have yet to experience a more ‘closed’ marketplace than Steam (except perhaps XBLA).

Steam is operated slightly like a strange mystical organisation – I have spoken to lots of developers many of whom have the similar stories to tell; Steam never responds to them, they don’t open discussions with developers, Steam will find you if they want your product, and so on.

Incredibly I’ve even heard comments from developers that they try to enter the IGF with the main aim to try and help their chances of getting onto Steam!

If you are lucky enough to get a response (many don’t) the evaluation process is completely closed, and if they reject your title you get an email which basically states “Unfortunately, we don’t comment on our decision making process”. No further clarification of any sort will be given, and even if you ask if you could make changes or add additional features you will still get no useful response. This is the ultimate example of a closed distribution platform; we don’t want your game on Steam and no, we won’t tell you why or discuss future developments.

Some of Gabe’s choice quotes include:

On the platform side, it’s sort of ominous that the world seems to be moving away from open platforms… They build a shiny sparkling thing that attracts users and then they control people’s access to those things.

Well Gabe – Steam is a really nice shiny PC distribution channel; and you control the access far more than platform holders control their platforms.

Every PC developer I have spoken to about Steam says the same thing – Steam sales are many times more than those of even the next biggest portal. If you don’t get onto Steam your PC sales potential will be significantly reduced.

I consider Apple to be very closed. Let’s say you have a book business and you are charging 5 to 7 per cent gross margins. You can’t exist in an Apple world because they want 30 per cent and they don’t care that you only have 7 per cent to play with.

But Gabe – if I am lucky enough to get onto Steam then you want 30-40% of all my revenue!

He then went on to say that if Valve were to build a hardware platform it would be open to other distributors, in the interests of healthy competition.

Are you sure Gabe? Really? I’m sorry to say but I don’t really believe that based on how you run Steam!

Apparently Gabe is calling on the industry to open its closed games platforms, adding that the current insular approach is hurting business and stifling creativity.

Well that is exactly what Steam is doing – its doors are closed to many PC developers, and it hurts those developer’s businesses and absolutely stifles creativity by restricting access to a huge section of PC games buyers.

So I would respectfully like to ask Gabe to look at getting his own house in order before weighing in and trying to tackle other inequalities in the industry. Lead by example!