Genius Factor Games Inc.

Gravity Well recieves Village Games Best Handheld Phone or PDA Title

Mon, 18 Jan 2010 09:00:00 -0800

We’re hard at work on our upcoming releases for later this quarter and were elated to find out that Gravity Well recently was nominated and awarded the Best Handheld Phone or PDA Title by Village Gamer for their Annual Village Gamer Readers Choice Canadian Video Game Awards! :)

We're incredibly proud of Gravity Well, and are humbled that readers and game-players took the time to vote for our first release to be recognized. A update is in the works that includes additional features, music, an art refresh and more that we hope our fans will enjoy!

Although we haven't posted too much over the past few weeks, there is a great deal of exciting things going on behind the scenes (much of which I wish I could announce now) that has our team looking forward to the year ahead.

We wish you all the very best for an exciting, prosperous and fulfilling 2010!

For more timely and in-depth news on the gaming scene - check out Village Gamer.net!

Genius Factor Games and U are the Star Social Media World Record Attempt

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:36:53 -0800

Genius Factor Games, a Vancouver-based digital entertainment studio, will pursue a new record for Guinness Book of World Records at the Vancouver iPhone Forum for the creation of the "largest online photo mosaic" using iPhones™. Titled "U are the Star," conference participants at the Vancouver iPhone Forum will use their iPhones to take photos of themselves at the event and then submit to a live feed of user content to generate the mosaic. Then, using social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, users will then extend the "fun" and share the message around the world to continually renew the online photo mosaic experience.

"The Apple iPhone has proven itself to be a true game-changer making mobile, socially connected digital entertainment a reality to all. We're proud to be a part of this premiere event celebrating the iPhone community," said Ted Nugent, President of Genius Factor Games.

For more information check out: www.vancouveriphoneforum.com

Ghoulash Bash!

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:08:00 -0700

Come join Genius Factor Games at the Ghoulsash Bash, October 29 http://ghoulashbash.com/ and enter to win some video game mentoring time with our President, Ted Nugent, and Ross Young, Sr. Art Director. The producers of Ghoulash Bash have announced a change to ticket prices. Guests are now required to bring a donation of two essential food items to the venue, and no longer need to purchase a ticket for admission.

See you there!

Reflecting on Casual Games 2009

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:17:00 -0700

Genius Factor Games attended the Casual Connect 2009 conference in Seattle last week and we have had some time to reflect upon what the buzz was, what was talked about, and what made an impact on me and iPhone game development for Genius Factor Games.

As you may well know, Casual Connect is an annual event held in Seattle, Kyiv, and Hamburg / Amsterdam for those in the casual games industry. It was great to see so many games industry folks at the event and even more so to witness standing room only iPhone sessions; to write that the iPhone is a hot platform is an understatement!

The iPhone platform is still in its infancy and there is much growth and evolution to come. Whether it be via virtual goods and monetization, the time is now to start putting our "creative" thinking hats on and strive to be innovative in our game development. Not only to take advantage of the unique characteristics of the iPhone technology as a platform, but as well to reaching into the "social stream" via such channels as Facebook.

Ultimately, one of the best guidelines for creating a successful game whether it be social, casual, or console, is to make if FUN! Innovative and creative will always rise above and we can’t wait to realize these dreams!

Cheers - John

Genius Factor Games At Casual Connect

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:09:00 -0700

Genius Factor Games is currently holding court and having fun at the Casual Connect conference in sunny Seattle.As you well know, Casual Connect is an annual event held in Seattle, Kyiv, and Hamburg / Amsterdam for those in the casual games industry.There is so much going on here and lots of buzz around casual gaming, social gaming, iPhone games, and virtual goods and monetization! The excitement is high! Some quick highlights include:

Future will have more multi-device gaming ... Smartphone, Facebook, Bebo, etc. ... No longer the world of the console game in its splendid isolation.
If you want to be successful, then make iPhone games that are truly SOCIAL ... Games that you play with your friends and that are live; the game must evolve and change code on a regular basis; it is not uncommon to deploy a new build every two weeks based upon player feedback and analytics
The console is not king (it is NOT dead, but certainly not king anymore). Everything is becoming social and that is the future. The one panel here at the conference (PlayFish, Playdom, Zynga) all believe that the casual / social gaming industry will only get bigger and better ... A potential $1 billion dollar industry in a few short years.
People want fast, fun games, that are socialized ... But the key is making games that are fun ... If they are not fun, then no one will play them.

And for once, a true call to action for all iPhone game developers to, "Make iPhone games that are social!."

Well said, but well understood by the community? For Genius Factor Games, we believe so and are well up for the challenge! Cheers – John

Our Furry friends....

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 13:42:00 -0700

While we're hard at work on our next release and Gravity Well update, our good friends from the BC SPCA are having their first Virtual Launch Party celebrating their annual Paws for a Cause campaign running June through September. We are very proud supporters of the BC SCPA, and are excited to participate in this years campaign (even though its in a small capacity this year).

There announcement is reprinted below (with permission), I encourage you to sign up and participate in the big and exciting event!

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As you know, the Scotiabank and BC SPCA Paws for a Cause is the BC SPCA's signature campaign and the largest fundraising and awareness campaign in support of animals in BC. It runs from June through to September, culminating with local walks provincewide on Sunday, September 13 (some walk dates vary). All funds raised stay in local communities to help the animals.

This year, we're launching our Paws for a Cause campaign online for all of BC to participate! Join hundreds of animal-lovers for:

an eBay auction of fabulous items that you won't be able to keep your "paws" off of, including:
- two night accommodation gift certificate, courtesy of Coast Hotels and Resorts, valid at any Coast hotel in Canada (value $350), plus more than 20 other hotel packages;
- lunch with Craig Daniell, CEO of the BC SPCA (value: priceless!);
- Cactus Club Café gift certificate, courtesy of Cactus Club Café (value $100);
- four "Be Our Guest" Movie Passes, courtesy of Scotiabank Theatre, valid at all Cineplex Entertainment locations (value $50);
the opportunity to bid on a professional photo shoot to have your animal companion(s) star on the cover of the 2010 BC SPCA calendar;
our great new Paws for a Cause campaign video;
the online video premiere of A Year in Cruelty Investigations, a special video presentation from Shawn Eccles, BC SPCA chief animal protection officer;
a special VIP section for registered Crusaders only with celebrity video and discounted merchandise – click here to register;
a gallery of adoptable animals from across the province that you can help the BC SPCA find forever homes for;
a live chat with vibrant party atmosphere;
and more!

At the party, you'll also have a chance to win an 8GB iPod Touch, courtesy of Genius Factor Games!

RSVP online now and receive a reminder to party, as well as a full catalogue of all of the fantastic auction items that you'll have the chance to snatch up, on Thursday, June 25.

The celebrations kick off at 3pm on our website. By participating in this exciting and interactive virtual event, you'll be helping raise funds to care for animals at your local BC SPCA branch and raise awareness regarding the work the BC SPCA does to help animals in need provincewide.

What's Next?

Thu, 07 May 2009 01:51:45 -0700

After releasing your first title, what do you do? We here at Genius Factor feel a little like the athlete after the big game, when the reporter rushes up with the microphone and asks the big question: “Genius Factor, you’ve just completed Gravity Well – what are you going to do now???”

While “I’M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!” may seem like an appropriate response (and playing Gravity Well would certainly make the long lines go faster) – there is work to be done in our underground lair.

Long before Gravity Well was released, we began brainstorming about what we would work on next. As a group, we came up with a multitude of ideas – some crazy, some less crazy – and with lots of little flashes of genius included (we have to live up to our name, after all). So instead of rushing off to ride Space Mountain, we are going to stay right here and continue work on our next project(s) – and we can’t wait to share them with you.

So please, sit tight, and enjoy the ride with us as we continue work on our next big things. We plan to share as much of it as possible on this blog. It shouldn’t take us too long – and well, if the wait seems too long, we have some suggestions for what to play in the meantime.

Gravity Well, anyone?

Bryna

Our Time in the Sun

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 01:18:18 -0700

The Genius Factor crew has been incredibly pleased by the overwhelmingly positive response we’ve been receiving for Gravity Well. We knew we loved it, and now we know you love it. Please don’t stop telling your friends, co-workers, pet-sitters and the lady at the newspaper stand about us – we need all the exposure we can get!

If you have already purchased Gravity Well, we thank you for your support and encourage you to submit a rating on our work in the App-Store. Your feedback is important to us and informs our future development!

Speaking of exposure – we are very excited to have a great piece coming out about our team in the morning’s Vancouver Sun Newspaper. There’s also a great picture (taken by Ted, our fearless leader) of most of the team playing the game – at a bus stop (just like we hope all you commuters are doing!)

You can check it out online here:

Or if you are in Vancouver, it will be in print tomorrow morning (Tuesday, April 21st) in your local Vancouver Sun! Please pick it up, and let us know what you think!

We were also informed today that we have been listed in the “Best Rolling Ball Games” on the iTunes Store. Huzzah!

First Reviews are in!

Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:29:25 -0700

We're quite excited to start seeing some reviews on Gravity Well. The overall feedback has been positive, and its great to see people enjoy the game we worked so hard on.

Check out our first review from the guys over at iPhone Applications Review:

http://iphoneapps-review.com/2009/04/game-review-gravity-well/

We are hard at work on the next update to Gravity well, slated to be pushed out before the end of the month. We love to hear what you think game, so please don't hesitate to let us know your thoughts and feedback.

Cheers!

Farrah

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls – Gravity Well has arrived!!!

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 00:44:00 -0700

Today, the Genius Factor Games team received the best present we could ask for – our first title has been approved by Apple. Gravity Well is now available for purchase on the iTunes store!

Our official press release can be found here.

But for those of you who just want the broad strokes, here they are:

Gravity Well is available now for your Apple iPod or iPod Touch
Gravity Well is a fun cross between mini golf and pinball (with some puzzle elements)
Gravity Well is only $3.99 (where else can you get hours of fun for $3.99?)
Gravity Well is awesome, and you need it in your life. Like, immediately.

Also, if $3.99 seems like too much of a gamble to you, know that it’s a good one – a portion of all proceeds from Gravity Well go to support several good causes (The Heart and Stroke Foundation, The Canadian Cancer Society and the BC SPCA).

If you need us, we’ll be madly playing Gravity Well under our desks. Or while raising our glasses in a celebratory toast! (Yes, we can toast and play – we’re talented like that).

To purchase your own personal copy of Gravity Well, go here.

Also, to purchase your own personal copy of the fabulous Gravity Well soundtrack, created by the Humble Brothers (you are going to want this in your life too, believe us), go here.

- bryna

Patience really is a virtue, right?!

Tue, 07 Apr 2009 21:36:00 -0700

Waiting. We over at Genius Factor Games are patiently waiting for a word from Apple.

Not A word. THE word. The most beautiful word to us in the world, right now. Yes, bigger than peace.. or love.. or just about any other word you can think of. There is a better word. A lovely word. Or to quote Tony from West Side Story: “say it loud, and there’s music playing… say it softly, it’s almost like praying.

And the magic word is… APPROVED. We are patiently waiting to hear… or read… that one word from Steve Jobs’ minions. Any minute now.

In the meantime, we’ll keep rolling along. After all, we understand that time inevitably passes. Some things are absolute. Like gravity.

Right?

- bryna

Final Countdown

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:33:12 -0700

The excitement has definitely been building at Genius Factor Games these last few weeks. We are so close to releasing our first title that we can almost taste it.

The anticipation (and yes, sometimes frustration) is palpable.

We are determined, as a group, to put out the best first title possible. We’re aware that this game represents our first foray into mobile gaming, our first effort as a group, and the culmination of our efforts over the past few months. And we want our beautiful little baby to grow up healthy and strong. With all ten fingers and toes, of course (functional, not crashing, and with no major features broken) – but we want more than that. We want our little one to be one of the best. A child prodigy, even.

We want a game that any parents… er…. game developers… would be proud to call their own. And to such an end, we are in the final cycles… minutes, even – of polishing and perfecting our creation. In such intense times, it becomes increasingly important to be able to step back and take a look at the big picture. It’s much too easy to get stuck on that one last thing that suddenly seems like it will make or break the game (“if we don’t change the font for the credits screen, it will be a disaster”) and forget what truly makes your title fun in the first place.

So while we are trying to polish all the bits and pieces, we’re trying very hard to stop, take a breath, and make sure that our title is… at its core… incredibly FUN. Addictive, even.

Of course, we won’t know for sure until we get it in your hands and hear what you have to say about it. We hope you are as excited as we are.

So what is this mini masterpiece, you ask? Well, we can’t tell you just yet. Very soon though, we promise. We can say that our game is rolling towards the finish line very quickly. And sometimes slowly. Depending on how many steps you can take to get it there. Kind of like a golf score. We can also say that it allows you to bend space and time. Okay, not really time – just space. And it will give you one heck of a soundtrack along the way.

Just hold tight while we polish it… just a teeny… tiny… bit more.

Are we there yet?

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:27:17 -0700

Ah, the lovely road to final.

You have your game concepted, designed and prototyped, have built all your in-game assets and audio and began play testing. Ideally everything is feature-complete and ready to start final QA pass prior to releasing your ground-breaking creation to the masses.

For the uninitiated, finishing a project and getting it out the door isn’t that far from the feeling you get as halfway through your commute to the office, you start thinking, “did I leave the oven on?”

If you’re taking your first title through production, it’s a constant cycle of testing, verifying, fixing, debugging and list-checking. Repeat.

If you’re on your 50th title, it is still a constant cycle of testing, verifying, fixing, debugging and list-checking. Repeat

It is by far one of the less glamorous but very necessary steps of game and software development. Get it wrong, sales can suffer, bad reviews from the media and worse, you could be ignored by your target customers.

Get it right, and generally speaking, life is good.

At GFG, although many of us have shipped a number of titles and even under a variety of companies and team environments, we’re still working through the process of defining exactly what the QA process means for us.

In our case, we have a fairly small team, short production cycles, and at this stage no dedicated QA department. We currently handle most of the play-testing ourselves and encourage feedback through short focus-group-like rounds for gameplay tweaks.

As we go through our final play-testing phase with our premiere title (to be announced within the next week or so) we are starting to implement some formal QA workflows into our development cycle. There are quite a few solutions out there from entirely manual “paper-processes” which are largely free but labour-intensive to enterprise-level packages that are way beyond our current operating budget.

However, as we are still going through the final stages of our bootstrapping phase, keeping costs as low as possible is paramount so we delayed the purchase of a solution until we felt absolutely necessary. Once our QA process on the product started, we realized we needed better support to manage the amount of information flowing back and forth within the team. We had assumed that with the small team in close-quarters and relatively small scope that we could easily handle the workload of a paper-system until we had some revenue to cover non-critical purchases.

This lead to increased time spent just meeting and coordinating the effort of taking the product to completion, was prone to miscommunication and added 24-48 hours turnaround time to iterating (ON) a build.

Flash forward a few weeks to adding Axosoft’s OnTime to the mix, and within a day or two, we had nearly up-to-the minute and dependable stats on the health of the project, but most importantly, each developer has control and ownership OF all aspects (features, defects and tasks) of elements we track during our production cycle. Our velocity improved ten-fold after implementing OnTime and it quickly allowed us to focus on quality improvements that were stretch-goals earlier in the project.

Don’t underestimate the power of integrating powerful and project tracking tools early, even when the cost seems prohibitive. They also need to be thought-out and easy for the team to integrate without introducing a significant hassle to their workflow (which is typically not the case for roll-your-own solutions.) :)

Genius Factor Games Goes Live

Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:07:00 -0800

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to say our first public "hello" as we begin transitioning from a small garage start-up to an operating studio.

The goal of GFG is to create fun, innovative and exciting games that will hit the spot for all digital entertainment lovers. Be it on the go, at home, you name it - we deliver games with the best pickup and play experience in 5 minutes or less, and have significant replay value to come back for more. Our first game is coming together quickly and will be announced later this month and is slated for release early this spring.

Forged in 2008, Genius Factor Games is made up of a growing team of specialists who have collectively been in the video game and entertainment business for decades, shipping many titles that have been record-breaking titles in the industry for console and other platforms. We've banded together to build a company that will change the face of game development, giving it our own unique stamp and pioneering the business in ways that we expect others will follow.

To us, this means building the games that we would love to play ourselves, having fun doing it and being able to give back to the community in the process. Out of the gate, Genius Factor Games is already a proud supporter of the BC SPCA, the Heart & Stroke Foundation of BC/Yukon, and the Canadian Cancer Society.

In this blog, we invite you to share in the story of our journey from start up to successful publisher. We'll take you behind the scenes of our development process, challenges in the business, technical approaches and technology solutions, and anything you'll find interesting. Hopefully you'll be entertained in the process too!

We aim high and dream big - I'm quite sure it'll be a ride worth following. :)

Ted Nugent
President & Founder,
Genius Factor Games Inc.