Lightwood Games have announced that the award-winning entry they created
at the UK's first GameHack event will continue to be developed.
The two-person team won prizes for "Most Innovative Idea" and "Best Use
of Mobile" at the hackathon event, held at Pinewood Studios on April
28th-29th. GameHack challenged participants to design and develop an
original game in just 24 hours.
Lightwood's submission extends a simple "lights out" game concept in a
unique way, using multiple iOS devices connected via Bluetooth to spread
the playing area onto several screens. Up to 16 iPhones, iPads and
iPod touches can be laid out in any combination to form a sprawling
multi-touch playing surface.
Two to four players then compete to be the first to touch all the lights
in their own assigned colour. Gameplay is a real-world social
experience, which often involves intertwining limbs and digits with
nearby opponents as you battle to reach lights in the far corners.
The app will be released as "Plasma Party" and a version has now been submitted to Apple for review.
"We were absolutely stunned by the number of 'wow' comments our app
provoked at GameHack", said Lightwood's Chris Newman. "I'm truly
flattered to have our effort recognised not only by the judges but also
by fellow developers, many of whom spoke to us to insist that we must
release this game. {{ It felt like we'd have an angry mob on the
doorstep if we didn't carry on developing it! }}".
The first release of the app will be functionally identical to the
version shown at GameHack, minus a few bugs that slipped through due to
the competition's time constraint.
The Lightwood Games team are already working on an update to the game,
which will include new game modes as well as the ability to use
connected devices as a large, customisable, scrolling message board.
They're also looking beyond this game.
"We have quite a few ideas that can be implemented in a similar way to
Plasma Party", said Newman. "We are also talking to other developers
about the possibility of creating an SDK using this technique so that
anyone can produce their own multi-screen games using our code."
GameHack was organised by TIGA, the trade association representing the
UK games industry, and BlueVia, the global developer platform from
Telefonica. For winning "Best Use of Mobile", Lightwood received a £500
electronics voucher courtesy of BlueVia. The "Most Innovative Idea"
award was sponsored by TechHub, with the prize being a year's membership
to their community in London.
Resources:
Demo video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toNHyJwne3U
Screenshot gallery: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.362269160487760.753...
Product page: http://www.lightwoodgames.com/plasmaparty.php
Developer's Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/lightwoodgames
GameHack information: http://www.tiga.org/news/press-releases/winners-of-gamehack-...
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