Three Melons' Blog

LEGO Star Wars: The making of, part II

Here's a short video showing how the game was made:

And here some pics of the melons at work.

Enjoy!

LEGO Star Wars: The making of

Since the backstage is one of the juiciest parts of every project, we're going to give you some inside scoop. So here's the first of a series of interviews to the team behind our recently launched game, LEGO Star Wars: the quest for R2-D2. This time, the interviewee is Diego Ruiz, Lead Engineer, leading the developing of 3d games, at the studio. If you'd like to know more, just leave a comment or twit your question.
Happy Reading!

•Can you tell us a little bit about the game?
 The storyline is focused on finding R2D2. He is lost in some unknown place and it is important to find him because he contains secret blueprints to build a powerful secret starship. Both sides, the Republicans and Separatists, are interested in finding him before the other group and get those blueprints for themselves. It is a sort of competition between the two sides.

The game allows the player to play in the side he wants. Taking the role of Anakin Skywalker for the light side and the role of Asajj Ventress for the dark side.  The full game includes two more characters and a lot of different levels.

• What makes the game fun in your opinion?
A game is fun, in my opinion, when there is a good balance between the elements that compose it. This balance should make the game challenging but not frustrating, inviting the player to try one more time.
With Lego Clone Wars we tried to create a good balance between combat and exploration. Rewarding the player when he has a good performance in the mission accomplishing and allowing – in the full game - to unlock additional game features such as new characters, possible actions, etc.

• What did it feel like to work with the Star Wars IP?
Working with the Star Wars license was really very special. First of all, it’s one of the best known and respected IPs of all times. Moreover, all of us are fans of the Star Wars universe; we have seen all the movies, the animated series and have played almost all games of the saga. It really was a dream come true.

•What technology did you use to develop the game? Why?
To develop Lego Clone Wars we used Unity3D, the tool that is – in my opinion – the best product to create multiplatform 3d games ever made.
Unity3d allows us to concentrate in the gameplay mechanics instead of the technical stuff. At the same time it includes an excellent balance between productivity and performance of the game in runtime. Its set of features is really almost perfect.

•Can you describe the gameplay and mechanics of the game?
The general objective is very simple: try to find R2D2. In order to accomplish this mission the player should play many levels, sorting in his way different kinds of enemies and traps, fighting inside spaceships or in planets and choosing from different characters.
The full game includes a massive multi player feature. You will choose the side where you want to play. Each level – of the 15 different unique levels - is going to be owned by the team that conquers it more times. Each time you play, you will be fighting for your team!

•What methodology did you use to organize the work? how did it help?

At Three Melons we use Scrum but with some “plugins” that we add, in order to enhance it. We know that it is very important to use and follow a good methodology. Scrum has a lot of benefits that improve the communication of the team and let us correct miscalculations as soon as they are identified. It was key aspect for the project.

LEGO Star Wars teaser game is online!

We are very proud an extremely excited to announce that the first teaser of our latest game, LEGO Star Wars is now online (here)!!!

A little bit about the game: It's a story-based role playing game, packed with action, humor and rich visuals.
It begins when, lost in space, R2-D2 starts emitting a distress call without knowing that his signal contains the blueprints to build a powerful secret starship.
Whoever can amplify that signal will get both the droid location and this unique new weapon!
Players can choose to join either side of the Clone Wars conflict and fight their way to victory.
If you're wondering if Anakin Skywalker, Obi Wan Kenobi and Count Dooku will be in it, the answer is yes! You'll also get to show off your light saber skills.
The full game will consist of fifteen levels to be released throughout the year, which will include an asynchronous multiplayer option and a few other special features....So stay tuned!!!
You'll also find out the latest updates to the game on twitter.

 

Cool Slides on Gaming Trends

Jéromé Sudan from AdvertisingPawn created a great set of slides for his presentation on Video Gaming Trends:

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: marketing advertising)

Full article here: http://www.advertisingpawn.com/video-gaming-trends/

LEGO Indiana Jones - Exploding

One of the most rewarding things that can happen to us is to launch a product that gamers love.

We are happy to announce that the LEGO Indiana Jones Game we created was played (and replayed) by 5.000.000 unique players (9.600.000 times) and spent 7:16 minutes on average each time. WOW!

Now we want more...

LEGO.com Indiana Jones Games

We are very proud to announce that the LEGO.com Indiana Jones Game is live and ready to be played. The game is has beautiful, an easy to learn but hard to master gameplay and Indy as the main star!

We have rolled out the first two levels and are in production to wrap up the remaining two for mid-February.

Enjoy!

Thank you Movistar!

We won a prize in the Festival Iberoamericano de Publicidad (FIAP) in the Interactive Games category for the game we created for Movistar in the MSN Mobile campaign: http://www.fiaponline.net/FIAP2/home.asp

I wanted to thank Manuel and the rest of the people in Movistar for the opportunity and wanted to congratulate our team and the people involved in the project for the award.

Now, let's get back to creating great games... bye!

Coca-Cola Games Launched

Coca-Cola has just launched three Advergames created by Three Melons. You can play them at http://www.eligetudiversion.com/. Game instructions are in Spanish so here's a mini explanation:

CoCa-CoLa is a single player soccer keep in up game that you play using your mouse. You can travel to 7 different scenarios around the world. In Ey, Coca-Cola! you incarnate a famous "Cocacolero" that needs to distribute Coca-Colas without dropping them. In Happy People you need to deliver happiness with the Coca-Cola minivan to different zones of a gray city. Look for the indicators and get there using the keyboard to drive.

Got Milk Advergame

Enjoy the following game for the Got Milk? campaign: http://www.gettheglass.com/

What an amazing art!

40 minutes playing

We are amazed with the average playtime on the Sony Muteki advergame: www.muteki.com.ar. People are spending on average 40 minutes playing... that's 8000% more than the time spent "watching" a TV 30 second spot... :)