Bridging the Online/Console Gap

From a recent press release on Wired Sussex and GamesIndustry.biz:

Following the success of its entrance into the console games business in 2010, FuturLab announced today that a separate division, comprising veteran games industry professionals and junior hires, is to focus solely on developing new IP for current and emerging entertainment platforms.

From James Marsden, FuturLab’s Managing Director:
“We sit in a unique place in the entertainment industry, bridging the ever-closing gap between online, mobile and traditional console entertainment.

After years of experience building games quickly and efficiently for the relatively short timescales and small budgets available for advergaming, we have learned to focus on creating great core mechanics as the first priority.

With our new hires and recent successes, we also benefit from experience in the console game space, where games are built as products in their own right, and not just as marketing devices. We therefore know how to build addictive games that stand alone, irrespective of any campaign they might sit within.

We believe this combination sets us apart from the competition, bringing our expertise and knowledge from ‘proper’ game development, to the quick turnaround schedules and budgets of online Flash development.”

FuturLab entered the console space in 2010 with Coconut Dodge. The game was a cult hit, earning a Metacritic rating of 81, and named PSN Game of the Year by PSNStores.com, subsequently being picked up by EA and published for iOS platforms in 2011.

A Novel Prologue

Once upon a time, we pitched a game to Sony, which tickled their fancy, and resulted in us becoming registered PlayStation 3 developers. They didn’t fund our £4m game though, because we had no experience.

Fair enough we thought!

A few years later, we pitched the game again, in a different form, for a different platform. Once again Sony were intrigued, inviting us to several meetings with various departments to explain the ideas – but ultimately didn’t sign it up. Most probably because it was too ambitious, and all we had to our name was a lil’ crab on beach!

So now, I’ve decided to write the ideas down as a novel. Hopefully I’ll be able to sell it, get some interest in it, and then, in a massively convoluted pitch process, get some genuine interest in making the damn thing :)

Anyway, here’s a short excerpt, hope you like it!

It hung in the air, edges shimmering with a billion colours as it caught the light of the room, but this thing was black as night.

Professor Paul Drayton now watched alone. His colleagues had tried to flee, screaming in horror at the carnage brought upon this operation. It had been another day of protocol, and should have been innocent.

Of course, they had not followed protocol. Repetition takes its toll on even the most practiced and disciplined minds, and they’d let their professionalism slip in a moment of excitement, a chance to see something new; something that would break from repetition so brilliantly that it was irresistible not to act. They should have waited, calculated – followed protocol.

Instead they were weakened by emotion, and forgot there was no undo button.

It now seemed to stare at him, a floor to ceiling slice of shimmering black, slightly bowed along its length as a feline pupil might look under blinding sunlight. This thing, after causing untold destruction during the last two minutes, had now appeared to stabilise.

Paul dared not move. At first he was frozen in wonder, watching it dart around like a waveform razor blade. But as the devastation unfolded, he’d noticed that movement invited the horrifying attention of the thing, and now he was frozen in fear.

His eyes were dry, nagging for moisture. He had to blink. Flashing his eyes closed for a moment brought stabs of pain he couldn’t show. It remained motionless, save for its glimmering colour.

He looked around, keeping his head perfectly still. The room had been altered beyond possibility. Load bearing structures revealed large fractures of displacement, shifted in all directions by blocks of space that should have rendered them useless, but somehow their integrity held. Electronic equipment was bent and twisted, but remained operational. Inorganic matter had somehow survived this onslaught with core purpose intact. But Paul’s colleagues, some of the most respected scientific minds on Earth, were not as fortunate. The grey matter that once held their genius now laid splattered and hanging from torn surfaces. A result of bodies being pulled in impossible ways.

Keeping terribly still, Paul blinked again, holding his eyes shut. As the gravity of their mistake fell upon him, he made an instinctive wish, hoping the thing would not be there when he looked; he hoped it would have vanished like a bad dream in the warm light of morning.

When Paul opened his eyes, it was gone. In a mind already saturated with fear, Paul felt more – his whole being now stricken. From somewhere in the depths of memory, a thought bubbled up:

Encountering a deadly spider may seem terrifying, but be wary of looking away for just a moment. If you look back and find it has disappeared, you will feel true terror – of the known and the unknown united in torment.

Game Music & SFX

I took my portable keyboard and laptop home at Christmas and began working on this tune (Protect) for our space shooter game. I finished it 5 months later after studying classic tunes like Airwolf and The Desert Rocks (Turrican 2). Since then I’ve been creating variations on the theme (Search being one of them), and some sound effects.

They’re not complete yet, but they sound good in the game, so just need a bit of pro mastering and some production tricks to give them a bit of flavour, and they’ll be good to go!

Please have a listen and see what you think.

Game Music & SFX by recurv


The adorable Virus TI Polar, used to create 90% of the above.

Video Review for Coconut Dodge on iPad

“Little bit of a noggin’ buster there…”

Thanks for the review CrazyMike, we like you :)

Help make Coconut Dodge big in Japan!

We’ve just finished localising Coconut Dodge for release in Japan!

It looks like it was always meant to be…

We need help
None of us can read, write or speak Japanese, and so we are looking for someone to help us promote the game in Japan and share a percentage of the sales revenue!

The PSP is still doing serious business in Japan (even outselling Nintendo’s shiny new 3DS!), so there is potential for the game to do really well, but it has no chance without someone making a big song and dance about it.

Specifically, we’re looking for people to do the following:

1) Post up videos and articles about the game and the PlayStation Home items on Japanese gaming websites.

2) Submit game promo codes to Japanese games press.

3) Hang around on games forums answering questions about the game, including the Official PlayStation Forums.

4) Help us think up and execute wacky ideas to help give the game the attention it deserves. As an example, we did a ton of interviews and articles, and shot this video which helped a lot!

Can you help?
We’re not looking for professional marketing specialists necessarily, but someone who can write well in both English and Japanese, someone who likes the game, and someone who can act as FuturLab’s ambassador for the game in the SCEJ territory!

Can anyone help?

If you’re interested, please get in touch directly with me: james@futurlab.co.uk

Thanks for reading!

Tips on mastering Mazes 6 and 13

The iOS version of Coconut Dodge contains two mazes in Maze Master mode that are not included in the PSP version, Mazes 6 and 13.

These mazes require Clawrence to keep a ball bounced centrally on screen whilst zipping left and right to collect treasure.

The trick is to keep the ball as central as possible before the mazes appear. If you need to correct the ball bounce, do it by tiny amounts either side to avoid sending it hurtling off screen. A good way to practice is to try and guess where the ball will land, and position Clawrence so the first bounce sends the ball straight up in the air.

You’ll need to be able to do this every time so that you can zip in and out of the gaps and return to where you need to be to keep the ball central, so practice this in the main mode as there are more balls around.

Hope that helps, happy dodging!

Coconut Dodge on iOS AppStore

We’d like to say a big thank you to the people at EA that helped us along the way: James Wright, James Dillon, Ed Rumley, Cristian Radulescu, Catalin Pica, Adrian Mocanu, Daniel Smaranda, Cristian Sadean, Surendar Modugu and George Ivanel.

We’d also like to thank John Steels for enduring the art asset production!

Most of all, we’d like to thank Andy Kerridge at Kadikoy Media for being _stupendously_ brilliant, caring so much about making the iOS port the definitive version.

EA is bringing Coconut Dodge to the AppStore!

Coconut Dodge items in PS Home next week!

Why not visit PlayStation Home next Thursday and secure yourself an Invincibility Viking Helmet!

Or a Classy Coconut Hat?

Perhaps some ‘well-bling-mate’ Giant Ruby earrings!?

Or even a bonkers crab head with sparkle pants?

FuturLab Ident

Welcome to our sexy new ident courtesy of John Ray via Wired Sussex and the Sussex Internship Programme :)

John worked for a couple of weeks investigating visual styles as an appropriate ident for our games. We think he’s done a great job, and is now working on something a bit longer for us…

Thanks John!

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