Daemonical, Asymmetrical Horror Game Enters Into Early Access On Steam
Daemonical, Asymmetrical Horror Game Enters Into Early Access On Steam | #IndieGame #HorrorGame
Croatian development studio Fearem and publisher Gamifier recently announced that Daemonical, the asymmetrical multiplayer horror game, is currently available in Early Access on Steam for $14.99. The game is similar to titles like Friday The 13th: The Game and Dead By Daylight. Except the big difference between Daemonicaland the other two games is that players are encouraged to work together…
Daemonical, Asymmetric Horror Game Private Alpha Test Gets Underway May 9th
Daemonical, Asymmetric Horror Game Private Alpha Test Gets Underway May 9th | #HorrorGame #Horror #IndieHorror
Croatian developer Fearem announced that the private alpha test for Daemonical will get underway starting May 9th. This will allow the developers to gain some basic insight and feedback on the multiplayer infrastructure and server setup for the asymmetric horror game. (more…)
Daemonical, Asymmetrical Horror Game Is Themed Around Multiplayer Paranoia
Daemonical, Asymmetrical Horror Game Is Themed Around Multiplayer Paranoia | #IndieGame #IndieHorror #IndieDev #EarlyAccess #Horror
Fearem and Gamifier announced that the asymmetric horror game, Daemonical, is set for release this May. The game will enter into Early Access, where the developers plan on spending the next year working on the content and evolving the gameplay. (more…)
Last week I attended an interesting meet up with a number of fellow gamification enthusiasts. Located in a bit of an excluded warehouse in Amsterdam, which mostly serves as something of an art gallery, a handful of speakers were invited to give a talk on gamification.
The first introductory talk by Valerie Alloix, programmer and developer, was purposed to cover some of the basics of gamification, with a focus on the theories behind it. Familiar names such as Karl Kapp, Richard Bartle, Amy Jo Kim and Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi passed by, covering theories like flow, player types and progression loops. Examples such as Stackoverflow, Linkedin and Nike+ passed the revenue as well. Unfortunately though the allotted time was a tad short and Valerie was slightly too enthusiastic and attempted to cover too much, resulting in only touching the surface of some potential interesting subjects and not offer real sustainable insights. However, the names mentioned above always offer appealing perspectives on matters relating to gamification. I would steer away from Richard Bartle though. Although his player types of killers, achievers, socializers and explorers have proven to be a valuable drive for discussion, it has been taken out of its original context (MUDs) far too often and applied to instances which aren't fit for this specific taxonomy, such as gamification. I would indeed much rather prefer to refer to Amy Jo Kim’s engagement styles of express, compete, explore and collaborate with their respective verbs which imply some form of activity (such as build, challenge, comment or collect).
We are already familiar with the second speaker, Horst Streck, who we encountered previously at Games for Health 2012. His presentation served a solid and enticing entry-level talk on what gamification actually entails. And I say “entry-level” because his introduced views offer a basic perspective on what gamification is, which is excellent, because the first talk by Valerie wasn't exactly as introductory as it could have been (being somewhat bombarded with theories does not help that cause). Horst was able to fill that gap quite nicely. Without relying on extensive and detailed definitions of gamification he simply refers to gamification as making something fun by adding game elements. Of course, there is the dreaded fun-word, because it’s not all about creating fun experiences; meaning or engagement can happen without fun as a necessity. But it does serve the purpose of, if we’re talking in engagement terms, to onboard the audience in the warehouse and give them an initial cue on what to look out for. This was further supported with entertaining examples such as Hijack, a project by Meat Pack, or a video on what games we play in daily life by Follow the Foot.
Horst also displayed his gamification inspired methodology “Plus 4” to approach problems and offer a solution by applying it to a case: museum visits. The proposed problem was to make museum visits more enticing. To tackle this challenge Horst explains that you first need to understand the current nature of museum visits and what both the museum and the visitor wishes to gain from it. Not to go in-depth on the solution that Horst proposes (augmented reality), I would actually like to stress the importance as a best practice to first understand the case that you are approaching, which Horst refers to as “involve to create”. This initial understanding of the case hinges back on that there is no set practice of gamification to tackle all challenges. Every context is unique and has its own characteristics, set of issues and players. To further build on this context with gamification you first need to know this context. Make it your own, experience it, talk to people and then discuss and explore options.
The talks following this were done by Ekim Tan, responsible for an exciting project called Play The City which I suggest checking out, Hayo Wagenaar, creative director of IJsfontein, an Amsterdam based creative agency, and Antoinette Beijen who is working on Mijn Tikkit which is a webportal for kids to find fun games relating to museums. In the end it was a successful evening where gamification enthusiasts were able to talk about what they are passionate about and bring gamification to the attention of a wider audience.
There was not really a core take-away from all the presentations, but if anything the event further exemplified the rising prowess of gamification and how it is stabilizing into a recognized practice and approach.
