Ngmoco (Next Generation MObile COmpany) is famed for its iPhone and iPad games, with hits such as Rolando and Star Defence, and is now looking to expand into the Android arena more aggressively. Their past success has seen them raise nearly $40m in funding to date and their string of hits shows no sign of slowing. Arrington says ngmoco have yet to respond to questions about the DeNA interest but his sources are saying a $400m deal could be in the pipeline.
DeNA itself is no stranger to takeovers, recently buying out two companies. Gameview, a mobile gaming studio and Astro Ape, a social game outfit have recently seen the Japanese company throw money at them. Could ngmoco be next? The kind of numbers thrown around are remarkable for a company only founded just over 2 years ago, once again showing mobile is where the money is these days.
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Ngmoco the developers who brought you the castle building game We Rule and the follow on farming game We Farm have released their newest game We City for iPhone.
They have carried on the theme from their previous games, this game is all about building your own city and earning cash as you go. Creating a place you can only dream about and then share and swap ideas with your friends.
As always you start off with their usual easy tutorial. So if you have never played one of their games before you will still have no problems picking this one up. The tutorial starts by showing you how to build your first house, business, college and how to place orders with your friends. These are the main things you need to know and once you do you are off!
You need to earn cash to buy more items and build up your city. So you can do this in various ways. Building a few homes for your citizens will earn you a small amount so initially the game encourages you to do just that.
Next is to set up a few factories. In your factory you build or make items to be sold, so where in We Farm and We Rule you have crops growing this is what you have ‘growing’ instead. The items you can make to sell all depend on what level you are at within the game, so at first you can make pototo chips, clothes, action figures and other items like boats and motor cycles. These all take time to supply and are all in real time. So if it says it will take twelve hours it really will take twelve hours! So you do need to pop back now and then to check if they are ready to ship.
Another source of income is to have a college. There you can conduct research and study. When you have a college keep an eye out for the lightbulb symbol. Tap it and it increases your research to unlock special buildings for things like courthouses and museums.
There are also shops and fast food restaurants to be built in your city and this is where your Plus+ friends can visit your city and place orders. This then earns both of you cash. As you go higher in the game levels you will unlock different businesses. There are also clothes shops, gas stations, fire stations, basically anything that you would normally find in a busy city.
You can also decorate your city to make it look how ever you want it to. There are trees and flowers to use, or build your own paths and roads with tiny little traffic lights placed at crossroads. Then there is the little things like payphones, street lamps and ice cream vans. You can even purchase a car to go with your house.
The more things you buy, build and sell, it will earn you cash and also xp which is experience points. These points are what enable you to move up a level. The more your earn in xp the more you will unlock for your city. You can also expand it at set levels throughout the game.
Every time you place a building or decoration it brings with it citizens for your city. Now you can’t do anything with them but they do make the city look busy and on the move.
If you find things are moving a little slow for you, you can use what is called zap to speed the game up. For example if you want to be able to send your friend their order of drinks straight away, click on the store, it will tell you how much zap you need to speed it up then just tap use zap.
You are given zap to start off with and then you earn some as you reach each new level. If you require any more you will have to purchase that via the apps in-app purchase feature. This is the same as We Rule and We Farm and is something you do not actually need to buy to play the game fully it is just there incase you want to play at a faster pace.
The graphics and sounds are very similar to the other games. The factories make some great noises when producing your goods to ship. If you tap on the people they mumble a few words, although half the time you can’t understand what they are saying!
If you make an error placing a factory or house some where do not worry. There is also the option to rebuild, in another words move, your items. This can take time as sometimes you might tap on the wrong item so it does require a small amout of patience.
The game is currerently available in Canada only but will be coming worldwide soon. In the mean time if you are playing We City feel free to add your Plus+ name below to maximize your business sales!
Price: Free (View in iTunes)
Category: Games
Released:Sep 20, 2010
Reviewed Version:1.0
1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
Size: 32.7 MB
Language:English
Seller:ngmoco, Inc.
© 2010 ngmoco, Inc.
Requirements:Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.
We recently posted that ngmoco has released their new game called We Doodle for iPhone and iPad. A sketching game that you play with friends all over the world. It is only available in Canada at the moment but we managed to get our hands on a copy to play.
We Doodle from ngmoco is actually an update to the already popular game Charadium a game where you or your opponents draw a picture and you have to guess what the picture is. With We Doodle you can play Live games with players from around the world or you can play the Turn based game. This part is the new addition to the game.
The Turn based game is where you play the same game but in your own time at your own pace, you can play this with a random selection of players or you can choose friends from your own Plus+ account list.
To play you first need to choose which mode you want to play. For ‘Play Live’ you select that button by tapping on it and then it will take you into a game. It may be a new game or it may actually be a game that as already started. For the Turn based game you select which friends you want to play against then wait until everyone is ready.
When it is your turn to draw, a word in green will appear, if you think you can draw it you tap the word and start showing off your artistic skills! Then the other players just type in words they think you are drawing. You keep doing this until one of them gets it correct within a time limit. When you are the player watching the picture being drawn you do the same, just type what you see.
The area you use to type the answer can also be used to chat with the other players. Although in game you won’t have much time as you are busy trying to type the answer quickly and correctly. You have 60 seconds for the word to be guessed before the time runs out.
When you draw your picture you can change the colors, the brush size and there are some stencils you can use. There is also a button to trash the picture if the other players are not guessing it and you need to restart it again.
Other new features in We Doodle are the daily goals to achieve which gives you xp points. You need these points to level up. The type of goals are for example, to draw correctly 5 times or Win a live game. When you achieve the goal you get the points added to your scores. The same goes when you are playing, you get points for guessing correctly and for others guessing your pictures correctly.
Within the game you earn gold coins and these can be used to buy items from the art shop. It can be for all different tools like bigger brushes or canvas paper there are also more stencils to buy. If you don’t win enough coins you can purchase them via an in-app purchase. You can play the game well with out these extras though so it isn’t something you have to purchase. It is just another way for you to improve the enjoyment.
Another great feature is that you can play with people of your own language. The game supports 9 different languages each with a huge language dictionary. There is now a hint feature to help players when they are stuck for the answer and you can also purchase hints to help you.
The game played very well and the Live games were fast and seemed to have no problems with loading or freezing. You do need an internet connection to play the game, I played via wifi. I did notice that if you passed on a word the next player sometimes got it so you knew straight away what the answer was. I don’t think this is supposed to happen as it didn’t happen all the time. With the game being new there is bound to be a few teething problems but I was impressed how well it is up and running.
The Turn based games are a lot quieter than the Live games, it seems this feature isn’t that popular yet but again I think is just because it is new and only available in one country at the moment.
The game is lots of fun and at times quite a giggle when you see some of the pictures that are drawn. The new features to buy items and make your drawings fun and realistic are an added bonus. Once more people join the game I feel it will make the game busier and the turn based feature will probably become more popular.
Price: Free (App Store)
Category: Games
Released:Sep 14, 2010
Reviewed Version:1.0
1.0 (iOS 4.0 Tested)
15.5 MB
Languages:English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish
Seller:ngmoco, Inc.
© 2010 ngmoco inc.
Requirements:Compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 3.0 or later.
We Doodle is an online multiplayer drawing and word-guessing game similar to Charadium for iPhone.
Join your friends drawing and guessing online in We Doodle. Enjoy turn-based play, which allows you and your friends to play at your own pace! Or play live games against players around the world!
We Doodle is a free game and is expected to be available worldwide very soon. Check back soon for a detailed review. If you have a Canadian app store account then head over to App Store to download the game for free and let us know what you think.
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GodFinger is another social interactive game from Ngmoco and soon to be released worldwide. Already it is a hugely popular game but at present it is only available in Canada. Similar to how We Rule recently launched after beta testing in Canada it will now be be GodFingers turn. So to help you along your way when you finally get your hands on the game, if you haven’t already, here is a detailed walkthrough of the actual game.
When you first launch the game you are greeted with an easy to follow tutorial and you can’t really go wrong. It will set you a number of tasks to follow and these will help you understand the gameplay. You are God on your own little planet. You can move the planet round and round from left to right and zoom in and out to get a clearer view with your finger. On your planet you have followers and initially you are only given a few. To get these followers to worship you and start doing work for you, you need to amaze them first with your wonder, another words your power. To do this you use what is called ‘mana’ and mana is what you will need to do any powerful wonders in your world. Now when you get a new follower above their head will be a picture of what they want. For example it might be a sun. So then you have to find the sun and put it above their head, press and hold it a short while then drag down and it will shine over your follower. They will be very very impressed and then they are happy to worship and work for you. You do this with each new follower you get. You get new followers when you reach certain levels in the game.
I mentioned about needing mana to do your powered wonders well these wonders are as I said before to make the sun shine but also to produce rain and lightening from clouds. You need to power these weather elements up to power your farms you want your followers to work on.
You will start with buying a small farm and at first you will have to build it over a short period of real time you do this by placing a follower at the farm and he will automatically start building away. When this is done you will need a white cloud to power it up, again by pressing your finger down for a short time on it and then releasing and dragging down whilst you do. This rain powers up your farm for a short while. If you actually press the farm it shows the power level for it so you can tell when it needs powering up again. Your follower will then automatically start working and producing you gold coins. The farm will tell you how many workers can work at the same time so just place how ever many you need.
Your followers are the same as your farms though they too will run out of energy. To recharge them back up you need to either sit them at a camp fire, fountain, tent or tavern. All of these will eventually over time replace their energy levels back up. You will only start with a camp fire and fountain though the other items will have to be purchased with your gold coins you earn.
Now everything you do on your planet takes real time. If it says your farm takes 2 hours to build it will take 2 hours in real time. Some take 4 days to build and you just have to wait or use Awe.
Going into slightly more detail now with regards to the mana and awe, you only have so much of each to start with. At the beginning you start with 10 mana and every time you use a wonder to power up it uses one mana. If you run out you have three options. You can sit and wait it out and it will tell you at the bottom of the screen how long it will be until you have another produced. You can send a few followers to your shrine and they then dance round it and worship you and that produces mana. The final option is to use Awe to buy some more. At first you are given 10 Awe but once this is gone you will have to buy it will real money as an in-app purchase. Awe is used to speed things up, regenerate followers back to life and to buy mana. To be honest though mana is replaced quite quickly and I really wouldn’t bother buying any with your awe, I would save that for when you really need it.
The final currency you need to know about is the gold coins you earn. These are given when you earn them whilst working and you use these to buy farms, taverns, and tents. Whilst you earn gold coins you also earn xp (experience points) and these help you get to your next level. Each level produces diferent things,more space on your planet, a follower or even an evil skeleton. If you do get a skeleton by the way, zap him quick with the lightening cloud before he kills a follower! Another way to earn extra gold is to change your follower into a mystic and this means turning your unnamed follower into a named follower from one of your plus+ friends. They will then earn extra gold for you and your plus friend you allocated. Your friends can do the same for you also.
One other thing I should mention is that your followers can die. If they are exhausted and you still get them to work they could pass away. Or if you accidentally or even on purpose zap them with lightening they will die. So then you would need to use your awe to bring them out of their grave.
So thats the main game play, there are a few things to consider when playing and that is what items you should purchase to help your game. There is really no right or wrong answer, you learn as you go along what works best for you. There are different kinds of tents to buy some hold 2 followers some 3, you can use taverns to refesh them and they also produce gold. The farms also come in different shapes and sizes and as you probably guessed the bigger and better they are the more gold coins you will have to pay. The things that have worked for me are,
The game can be played very well with-out purchasing in-app upgrades. I think the only time you may need to is if you kill someone and bring them back to life. Once you have used all your 10 awe if they died you need awe to bring them back so once you run out that really is the only time you would need to spend real money. Saying that though there is no rule that says you must bring any follower back so you could just leave them if you really wanted to. Cruel but true!
So there you have it, now off you go and show your followers whos God! Don’t forget to share your tips and plus+ gamername below.
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Ngmoco never fail to produce outstanding games for the iPhone and iPod touch. Previously they have had Eliminate and Touch Pets Dogs and most recently Godfinger. Godfinger at the moment is only available in Canada, it’s a way of ‘beta testing’ the game before releasing it to the rest of the world.
The game play is simple, you are the God and have a planet of your own with followers. These followers worship the ground you walk on. You can work them day and night, let them rest or have them running around a shrine worshipping you. Basically anything you want because you are in full control of them.
How to play the game is fairly straight forward. You have a little planet on your screen you rotate with your finger. You pick up your followers and get them to work on your farms, create new buildings for you or sit at the local tavern for a much deserved rest. A popular feature to this game is the social factor and the game offers great social interactive features with Plus+ network.
The game still needs a lot of tweaks, push notifications are coming through very quickly and far too often. Negative comments about the game are already starting to emerge. Many feel the game is time consuming and that you need to play it far too much to keep on top of things within the game. However, I feel this is not the case. I have had it now two days and I don’t have that much time on my hands. It is all about understanding the game and managing your playing time. Once you get to grips with that you can dip in and out of the game through-out the day. Another big complaint and one that is very common for Ngmoco games is the cost. The game is free to purchase but then you have in-app purchases as well. When you first begin the game you get ‘awe’ and ‘mana’ to start you off.
Mana is quite easy to build up over time in the game but requires patience and you don’t really need to buy it. Awe on the other hand once that runs out if you do want more you will have to purchase it. I so far have not and I don’t think I would for a while but I can see at some point I may have to purchase it to help me along in the game. This though isn’t all that expensive in my opinion but one that many have complained about already in gaming forums.
GodFinger is a well designed game and the graphics are amazing. It’s all easy to play and understand. You are still going to get the full gaming experience even if you don’t spend a penny of your own money. Of course Ngmoco have placed buttons around the game to tempt you into the in-app purchases but its not a requirement of the actual game. You can still do everything it will just take longer, it requires time management and patience on your part.
I think Ngmoco are offering everybody a great gaming experience and yes it is evident they also have support their business model, and I think many other iPhone game developers will soon follow this ‘freemium’ model.
Do you like ‘freemium’ games? Let us know what you think about such games in the comments section below.
]]> https://touchreviews.net/ngmoco-playing-god-godfinger-iphone/feed/ 0Their aim from the outset was to produce the definitive iPhone FPS which boasts all the features gamers expect from a console or PC equivalent. With a small team of 3 coders and a project timescale of 5 months they had their work cutout for them. Their first target was the networking code…
The biggest headache with any networked multiplayer game is the dreaded spectre of “lag”. When they looked at commercial solutions for an engine it turns out that the Quake 3 engine with it’s roots in dial up connections proved the best all round solution simply because it was designed to cope with connection speeds similar to that of today’s 3G. As the devs said, “a dialup connection from 1999 looks a lot like a 3G connection today.”
On top of all that the Quake engine gave them graphics and lighting systems, map editors and animation controllers. With all of this available to them “out of the box” the team could focus more resources on the iPhone / App specific infrastructure of menus, lobbies, in-app purchases etc.
Other interesting titbits they spoke about included matchmaking and messaging software libraries they employed, in-house testing on OS X, how many servers Eliminate uses, and how they listened to player outcries on multiplayer issues they encountered.
For those interested, a more in depth piece on the talk is here
Ngmoco are set to launch more new games at GDC this week, and we’ll keep you posted on those..
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Eliminate Pro and Touch Pets Dogs iPhone
When Apple introduced In app purchase as a part of iPhone OS 3.0, developers were allowed to offer in app paid upgrades instead of offering different applications for new functionality.
In app purchase was mainly targeted at developers offering some kind of subscription service or new level packs for games. Developers who wanted to take advantage of this functionality were forced to charge for their applications as a free app could not feature paid upgrades.
On October 15, 2009 Apple extended in app purchase feature to developers offering free app store applications and since then we have witnessed major iPhone game developers taking advantage of this new functionality.
ngmoco:) was one of the first established game publishers to offer their highly anticipated games Eliminate Pro and Touch Pets Dogs absolutely free on App Store while incorporating the in app purchase concept.
Eliminate Pro iPhone
Eliminate Pro requires you to have enough energy points to play the game and as you play more often you earn credits. Each time you enter a match your energy drains and can recharge only once a day. If you run out of energy the game allows you still play but no credit points are earned. The credits earned can further be used to buy armor or weapons. To continue winning more credits you will have to win more matches by continually upgrading and staying competitive, which creates an irresistible urge to buy power cells that cost anywhere between $.99 upto $39.99!
Touch Pets Dogs iPhone
Touch Pets Dogs is based on the similar concept but, here instead of buying power cells you have to buy dog food for your pet so that its mood meter stays platinum and you can earn more puppy bucks. You can use the puppy bucks in Pet Store Departments to buy toys, shirts, accessories, career tools, passes and more. If you run out of dog food and your pet is low on energy it will go to sleep, which means you would not be able to play the game or fulfill its career. In order to complete your goals for the puppy and to avoid the long wait you can buy dog food for real money from App Store.
Eliminate Pro climbed the Top Free Apps to take number one position in ten days while Touch Pets Dogs has already reached 52 position in just two days. The strategy adopted by ngmoco:) is very clear, they offered their premium titles which heavily depend on social networking for free and were successful in creating a competitive environment which compels the user to buy upgrades.
No official figures related to the number of users actually buying paid upgrades have been made available yet however, reaching the Top Free Apps category in less than 10 days clearly spells success for ngmoco:)
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