Trailer: Summoner Wars for iOS
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 11th, 2012I can’t stress it any more: iOS is the platform of choice if you’re a fan of modern (and classic) board games.
Summoner Wars is a fast-playing, action-packed 2-4 player card game. Players take on the role of Summoners: powerful beings who harness the power of mysterious Summoning Stones to lead their race to conquest on the war-torn planet of Itharia. These Summoners wield terrible magic on the battlefield, freezing their foes in place, draining their enemies of power, and even bringing rains of fire down from the heavens. But most notoriously, they summon their great race’s hordes of warriors to the battlefield, to clash in the never-ending struggle for supremacy. A Summoner is both mage and general, and must combine their wizardly might with clever tactics to defeat the enemy Summoner on the opposite side of the battle. [BoardGameGeek]
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Ascension: Storm of Souls Released for iOS
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 11th, 2012
For fans of Ascension, this needs no explanation. But for the uninitiated, Ascension is one of the world’s most popular deck building games created by by Justin Gary and the third expansion second expansion is due out as an in-app purchase, estimated to launch next week.
If you’re looking for a new game for your iPad or iPhone that can be enjoyed competitively or casually, Ascension would be one of my top recommendations for a number of reasons: if you were a fan of Magic the Gathering, do know that pro-tour players led by Justin Gary developed Ascension as a more cost-effective alternative because you don’t shell out money for individual cards. Everything is bought in a sealed deck and you know exactly what cards you’re getting.
Casually, Ascension on the iOS platform is well-made and intuitive. If you’re coming from the left into this genre, the tutorial can get you learned and competitive in minutes. The app has dropped price from USD $4.99 to USD $0.99 so that’s more than enough reason to grab a copy. The first expansion, Ascension: Return of the Fallen can be bought via an in-app purchase as well. Storm of Souls will follow the same in-app format.
Download Links:
Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer USD $0.99
Both Ascension: Return of the Fallen and Storm of Souls are available as in-app purchases. For current Ascension owners, there is an update available on the App Store that allows you to purchase the expansion and adds a number of little features to the core game.
SMART Communications has the Samsung Galaxy S3
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 10th, 2012
Confirmed: Tweets were going around the circles of SMART employees. #SMARTGalaxyS3 is in fact real. But it’s different when you see it on SMART’s official Twitter account.
Lots of clues leading up to the announcement. Jean Ong (@jeanong75) of SMART posted this little beauty 2 days ago on Instagram:
… which was then RT’d by the rest of the team.
Then of course @louieang8 had to post more photos.
Exclusive to SMART? Crazy. Apparently the other “telco” has it too. But based on track record, they’re more of a marketing company these days than a telco. Telcos are supposed to have signal. You know where to go.
Confirmed: Nokia launches Lumia 610 and 900 on 5.18.12
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 10th, 2012
Confirmed! Microsoft and Nokia will be launching the Lumia 610 and 900 in Philippine shores this coming May 18th. Though the teaser poster doesn’t say it, we’ve uncovered the smoke and mirrors with a quick message to Nokia’s Nikka Abes and she did confirm that both the 610 and 900 will be officially launched here, although the former 610 is already out in stores.
I featured the Lumia 900 a few days ago with a one-on-one with Nikka at the Nokia office.
Coming Soon: More. Regular. Giveaways. Yay.
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 8th, 2012Hey geeks! If it’s one thing I’m pleased to announce for 2012, I’ve partnered with distributors to to give away more gadgets to locals who follow this blog. Thanks to you, more than 6 years of writing thousands of posts (thankfully not a lot of them were ramblings!) have given me that oomph to get out there and ask for more things to raffle off. A key learning was that although contests were great for everyone, they were sporadic and unscheduled. A partnership with key distributors would make these contests come more often PLUS they will be first to market c/o A BUGGED LIFE (YAY!!). A lot of the stuff I’ll be giving away will be available first here.
So right now, all i have to say is .. stay tuned! Add me up on Twitter (@jayvee) and Instagram (@jayveef) and yeah on Facebook too… I still don’t have a fan page, I feel weird about creating one to be honest so everything goes through my personal account. ANYWAY, the first wave of giveaways will be announced soon.
Oh look at that PowerMat.. it charges your gadgets without wires through magnetic induction! So geeky.
An Interview with Erick Garayblas, Creator of Streetfood Tycoon
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 7th, 2012It was really great catching up with Erick Garayblas (@egarayblas) last week over coffee. We talked about the success of Streetfood Tycoon and how his life as a mobile game developer has evolved with the rise of the Apple App Store. We talked about a ton of things so here’s a more organized version of the interview.
** Ed’s note: Not mentioned in the written interview is how Erick was able to have his ‘kwek-kweks’ in many baskets. He noted how he’s shifted from an ad-driven business model (free to play but ad supported) which earned him a ton of money a month into in-app purchases which, although earns less, is more stable as the latter relies on Google’s Adsense platform which can be subject to a lot of technicalities.
1. How did Streetfood Tycoon come to be? What’s your thought process in designing a game?
Streetfood Tycoon came from my penchant for playing simulation and business-related games. I’m a huge fan of Lemonade Tycoon and Sim Tower. I “borrowed” a few mechanics from these two games and presented them in my own unique way w/in the game. I normally don’t follow a “thought process”, I just browse through my list of ideas (which come from dreams, reading books/comics, playing “other” games and talking to friends), try to mix them up, create a prototype and see how it goes from there. A lot of prototypes get shelved while the good ones become full blown games.
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Under the Hood: HP Z1 All in One Workstation
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 4th, 2012The HP Z1 is an engineering marvel. In the same way that space-saver apartments are awe-inspiring, the Z1 is wireless (as in everything is snap on!) solution to the workstation that saves a ton of space inside and out. This cuts corners when it comes to maintenance allowing your IT guy easy access to remove and replace hardware by just snapping modules in and out.
I’ve never been in love with a workstation before; a workstation you’d actually find in a call center floor or your run off the mill IT department. But that’s just how amazing this thing is. Treating the desktop workstation like a car, you can easily pop up the hood and see the insides laid neatly on the 27 inch flat screen’s behind. Everything is removable — from the motherboard to the fans and heatsink, the NVIDIA Quadro video card (optional), Intel Xeon Processor, and the hard drives. Even the wireless USB receiver is located inside the hood allowing you to use the mouse and keyboard without any wires.
The HP Z1 Workstation isn’t just available on bulk order for the enterprise market but will also be made available over the counter for consumers who want a desktop solution that even mom can take apart. It retails in the PHP 80,000.00 and thereabouts.
BlackBerry 10 and what RIM should be doing instead
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at May 3rd, 2012Oh wow, look it’s the new iPhone! Wait, it’s Blackberry 10 pala!
It’s no secret that the once darling smartphone manufacturer Research in Motion has been losing ground to more elegant operating systems Android, iOS and yes even Windows Phone. It doesn’t seem apparent if you live in the Philippines, but globally RIM is skidding into a downward slope, with tipping points including the huge service outage of their BBM service in the USA last October 2011. Because 3rd party developers and iOS have created their own platform-specific BBM-like services, RIM is slowly losing its edge in technology.
RIM lost significant market share worldwide to Apple’s iPhone and to smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, which caused a decline in profit and share value. On December 16, 2011 RIM shares fell to their lowest price since January 2004 and the stock dropped 77 percent in 2011 alone. By March 2012 shares were worth less than $14, from a height of over $140 in 2008. The BlackBerry PlayBook, launched in 2011 as a business-oriented alternative to the Apple iPad, was a critical and commercial failure. Meanwhile, chief executive Thorsten Heins reaffirmed RIM’s business focus, explaining that consumer-friendly features like entertainment applications are not important to the company’s core customers. [source]
One thing RIM still does have is their amazing push email service which has been unmatched in compressing data through the airwaves. In simpler terms, if I were BlackBerry, instead of trying to develop a new mobile OS and licensing it to other manufacturers (which is a dumb strategy), I would focus my efforts on licensing their push email server to all other platforms.
The new Blackberry 10 look great but we’re done with the era of features because these come a dime a dozen. We’re in the era of ecosystems and right now, RIM is trailing behind three other application marketplaces. Will the newly redesigned OS hamper conversions of legacy Blackberry applications as well?
Zombie Friendster is back to play your games
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 30th, 2012
So Friendster is back from the dead and they’re here to make you play online games.
Truth is, this is old news as the pioneering social network announced their shift from social networking into social gaming as late as last year. It’s only this 2012 that they’re making a huge marketing push bringing things like the “biggest gaming event” to SM North EDSA. I have some friends from the Level-Up eGames merger who will emotionally contest this claim.
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Wise words from my idol, James Cameron
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 28th, 2012
‘Running with Sardines’ a piece I wrote for Rappler.com
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at April 25th, 2012
Bianca Grey of Rappler asked me for a piece on my most memorable travels around the country. Hands down, it was the Sardine Run of Pescador Island in Moalboal, Cebu.
MOALBOAL, Cebu City – From afar, it looked like we were floating into an underwater valley that vanished into the blue.
But then I remembered we were diving around a very small island with no other rock formations visible from above. It was impossible to have something this huge and this dense underwater with no manifestation from the surface. Then, as we got closer to these formations, our eyes adjusted and all of a sudden, the wall on the left didn’t look like a wall at all. Because walls don’t stay still. It was shifting, turning, and sparkling against the sunlight with parts of it breaking away for a split second and then coming back.
‘Running with Sardines’ by Jayvee Fernandez
