Mobile gaming has hit an all time high…

As more phones are available with big screens, faster processors and better graphics, mobile gaming has really taken off.  Small game devices such as Gameboy and Nintendo DS have to really get creative if they wish to compete in this space.  On 19 April, Vodacom launched a new role playing game called Legends of Echo.  The ratings and reviews have been so positive that I wanted to let you know about this great game.  Please note that even though it was launched by Vodacom, it is available on any network.  Simply visit http://legendsofecho.mobi on your mobile phone to download the application.

LoE mobile site

For more information, I refer to the article and interview below:

News 24.com carried this story on 19 April 2010:

T0day, Vodacom launch their massively multiplayer online game for mobile (MMOM), called Legends of Echo. Nic Haralambous, cool dude and project leader for LoE, tells you everything you need about the free-to-join RPG in an exciting interview with News24 Games.

Nic Haralambous

Describe how Legends of Echo (LoE) works, as simply as you can.

Legends of Echo uses Vodacom’s location based services to locate users in the real world and place them in a fantasy world. Once in the Echo players can drop their home bases, find allies, locate enemies, build weapons, trade items and build up their legend points through battles and other activities in the Echo.  All of this is done through the users mobile phones.

Tell us a bit more about the story. Why are these okes battling each other?

The battles take place in a fantasy world called Echo. This world is only accessible through your mobile phone and is a world that exists on top of the map of South Africa.  There are five bloodlines in LoE; Water, Fire, Earth, Air and Industry. Players choose one of the bloodlines and out of the remaining four, two are your allies and two are your enemies. Each bloodline has its own currency called Elements and each bloodline requires Elements from other bloodlines to do certain things in the Echo. You then move through the Echo and create relationships with other players to benefit your game.  They are battling, in the end, to become a legend of Echo.

Player vs. Player battles are turn-based. Older gamers may be reminded of the Heroes of Might & Magic combat system

LoE incorporates real-world locations. What does that add to a fantasy gaming experience?

I think this makes the game more tangible. Players can visit real-world locations that they are familiar with and see them as they’ve never seen them before. It also allows players to communicate with one another more effectively using the locations they are in, or their friends are in or near.

Do you have levels and loot, like most other RPGs? And trading?

There are levels in LoE, however these are mostly used to allow other players to see how long and hard you’ve been playing LoE. Everyone enters the game on Level 6. The more you do (trade, battle, chat, build weapons etc) the better you get and move closer towards a level 1 player. There is definitely a focus on loot or items in LoE. The more Elements (currency) that a player has, the easier it is to do various activities in the Echo. Trading and bartering is a big part of LoE. Players can choose to barter and trade their items and weapons with other players in the hope of building up alliances and gaining better weapons or more Elements.

Here’s the big one: what are we paying to play this?

There is no subscription fee required to play or download LoE. Standard data rates do apply when playing the game but other than that as a cost there is no point in the game where you will be forced to pay for anything. There is a currency model built in to the game that allows players to spend airtime in the Echo Marketplace. Here they can buy Elements, weapons and items if they choose to.

Life at the top can be monotonous. How will you keep the game interesting in the long term, for players who stick around and level up all the way?

There is a reward system that we have built in to the game and we will be rewarding players for various achievements throughout the game from day 1 in the Echo. We will also be rewarding players for activity, if they play often but don’t necessarily win very often we’ll still provide them with incentives to keep playing.

The world itself is also quite dynamic. We have created an in-game newspaper, The Echo Enquirer. The newspaper will allow us to provide players with updates about the Echo, which bloodlines are taking over which areas in the Echo and who is at the top of the rankings throughout the game.

There is also an interesting cross-section between a player’s individual need to succeed and the bloodline that a player has chose. The domination map illustrates to players which bloodlines dominate which provinces in South Africa.

LoE has several built-in social networking features, including chat and personal message boards.

We have to ask: why is Vodacom doing a mobile MMO?

With The Grid going from strength to strength right now we looked at the available technology and wanted to create a commercially viable and extremely innovative product off the back of that technology. The key for us is innovation and pushing the boundaries of the mobile medium, social networking and gaming and coming up with the most innovative product we could. The product we emerged with is Legends of Echo.

Any tips for new adventurers? And who should our readers look for if they want to battle you?

It might be a mistake for me to give away my LoE nickname, I’d never get any sleep! In the way of tips I’d say exploration is imperative, scan near you and see what you can find. Be sure to read the Echo Enquirer everyday and be sure to build relationships with other players in the game, you’ll need them down the line.

The game is going live today (Monday, 19 April, 2010). Are you nervous? What kind of reception would you consider a success?

No, I wouldn’t say that I am nervous. There is a nervous excitement present and an anticipation after so many months of work, but no nerves and very little fear. It’s difficult to predict the success of a product but our goal is to have users download the game, get in to their roles and play as often as they can. I’d consider that a success.

The Samsung S800 Jet is a small device jam packed with features! If you are looking for a fun, yet smart phone that gives tremendous value for money, this is definitely a contender!

For a once of purchase of around R3500 or R350 per month on contract, you can get the Jet.  It competes directly with the new HTC Smart (which retails at R2500) but has some really great features.

Looking under the hood:

• Triband
• HSDPA (high speed Internet)
• AMOLED resistive touchscreen with 16M colours
• Sensor for auto-rotate
• Excellent media player
• 5MP camera with autofocus, flash, geo-tagging, face recognition and more.
• Video recording (and editing!)
• Secondary camera for video calling
• The onboard memory is 8GB and you can purchase additional memory using microSD up to 16GB.
• Wi-fi and Bluetooth connectivity
• FM Stereo radio – with radio recording.
• GPS with support

Not only is this a really good looking phone but as far as features are concerned, it offers unrivalled value for money.

Press Release:

Tuesday, 20 April 2010 – Verb Innovations launches My Mobile Watchdog™ software in South Africa – Cellphone Parental Control software to protect young children. My Mobile Watchdog is aimed at concerned parents of children between the ages of 6 and 14 who make use of cellphones.

The growing number of young children involved in practices of “sexting” and “cyber bullying” is alarming, as well as the use of social media applications by sexual predators to make contact with our children online has drastically amplified the need to monitor our children’s cellphone communications. Parents currently control what their children can view on satellite television and the internet accessed via the home PC, however until now there has been no effective way to monitor the “mobile generation’s” first choice of cyber communication.

My Mobile Watchdog will be able to monitor incoming and outgoing:

1. SMS (Enables parents to view the sms message and the number.)
2. MMS (Enables parents to view the picture, read the message and number.)
3. Phone Calls (Enables parents to view the call duration and number.)
4. Emails (Enables parents to view sent and received emails.)

My Mobile Watchdog will enable parents to block applications (social networking sites)  as well as block the web. Parents can choose to be notified via text message or email for all suspicious activities on their child’s phone. In addition My Mobile Watchdog is able to coordinate a child’s cellphone calendar allowing a parent to remotely notify them about changes in afternoon activities or pick-up arrangements (as an example).

Gareth Miller, director of My Mobile Watchdog distributor Verb innovations, said that parents purchase cellphones for their young children due to concerns over their safety in South Africa. Often the choice and brand of phone are a consequence of peer pressure as cellphones have become the new status symbol among children. “Many cellphones in the hands of our children today have internet access without parental control, as well as the capability to run social media applications that give strangers access to our children via chat rooms etc.”

My Mobile Watchdog, developed by eAgency has been in operation in the United States since 2007 and has also recently launched in Australia. Mr Miller said that his initial idea was to develop software to combat  the problems that many affected parents have experienced due to their children’s innocent use of cellphones in South Africa. However after months of research he decided to contact eAgency as he believed this company was the market leader in parental control applications aimed at cellphones.

“My Mobile Watchdog has the benefit of being a dual implementation solution: it can be downloaded as an application on most smartphones or as a more wide-reaching network installation thereby providing many more parents the ability to protect their children.”

Cellphones are becoming “smart” at an alarming pace and it is estimated that smartphone sales will eclipse PC’s by 2012. Parents need to be aware of the capabilities of cellphones as the tools required for effective parenting have changed dramatically over the past five years. Mr Miller urges all parents to take a concerned interest in their child’s cellphone usage as these communication devices are set to become their predominant means of interacting in cyber space.

For further information about My Mobile Watchdog’s launch in South Africa please send an email to contactus@mymobilewatchdog.co.za or visit the website www.mymobilewatchdog.co.za

I recently installed the BlackBerry OS 5 beta onto my Curve and am loving it even thought I feel the interface could be tidied up a bit.  Yesterday, to my absolute glee, RIM announced that they will be launching BlackBerry OS 6.0 in the third quarter of this year.  For those of you, who like I, can’t wait to see what’s coming, here’s a sneak preview…

Press release:

Flycell Grows International Presence by Bringing the Largest Online Catalog of Mobile Content to South Africa

JOHANNESBURG and NEW YORK – APRIL 28, 2010 – Flycell, Inc. (www.flycell.com), a leading mobile and online entertainment content company, today announced availability of a new edition of its portal created especially for the South African market. South Africa is the tenth country to gain its own version of the award-winning mobile content service.  The website, now live at www.flycell.co.za, features some of the best and most exciting mobile entertainment content.

South Africans love their mobile phones.  A March 2010 study by the research firm Synovate found that 84 percent of South Africans “cannot live without their cell phones.”  The study also found that 71 percent of South African mobile phone users play mobile games and 66 percent listen to music on their phones.  These statistics are particularly significant since less than 10 percent of South Africans use landlines whereas nearly 80 percent use mobile phones.  These conditions make South Africa a perfect market for the mobile entertainment and content provided by Flycell.

Flycell now brings South African consumers today’s hottest ringtones as well as exciting new wallpapers, games, applications and other mobile media from today’s most popular mobile publishers.  The new Flycell website serves as a one-stop-shop for South Africa’s mobile subscribers, offering them everything they need to personalize their cell phones with the latest in mobile media and entertainment, all in one easy-to-use online portal.  Flycell’s service works on virtually every mobile phone and with every carrier throughout South Africa.

Flycell delivers mobile entertainment and personalization on the fly to customers all across the globe.  Whether it is ringtones, wallpapers, applications or games, everything people in South Africa need for their personalized mobile lifestyle is available on the Flycell website, www.flycell.co.za.

About Flycell
Flycell, Inc. is a leading mobile and online media and entertainment destination. Flycell lets people from all walks of life personalize their phones with the mobile content that reflects their own unique tastes in entertainment, sports, games and more. The company partners with media companies and mobile network operators globally that utilize Flycell’s cutting edge multimedia applications and services. Headquartered in New York, N.Y. and launched in 2004, Flycell is a wholly-owned subsidiary of wireless services company Acotel Group (MIL: ACO).

Flycell.co.za

When Google launched their own mobile phone, the Nexus One, featuring the Android operating system, they had the entire industry talking. For the first time, the search and software giant was entering the “hardware” industry and competing directly with the mobile networks by selling their phone direct to the public via their online stores.  This was a very “rebellious” move as mobile handsets are traditionally sold via the mobile networks after passing strict regulatory and standard control measures.  Phones are usually supplied with an airtime contract, where the cost of the phone is subsidised by the mobile network.

Well it seems that Google has decided to change their strategy and is now going to allow their phone to be sold via the mobile networks, with Vodafone being the first partner in Europe to market the Nexus One.  Reviews of the phone (manufactured by HTC for Google) have been mixed and sales have not met expectations.  It is estimated that only 150 000 handsets have been sold in the first quarter (compare that to Apple’s sales of 1 million iPhones in the first 74 days!).  Many customers have complained of a serious lack of after-sales service and support.  This could be the reason that Google has decided to follow the traditional route to market.

The HTC Legend (see my blog post on the new HTC devices) has been dubbed the “Nexus Two” as it is very similar to the Nexus One but offers far better performance and more features.  In my opinion, if you’ve wanted a Nexus One but couldn’t buy it in your region – consider it a blessing and rather go for the HTC Legend instead!

Patrick Pichette, CFO of Google confirmed that the company is still very actively supporting the Android operating system and mentioned that Android is already powering 34 devices; more than 60 000 Android phones are sold and activated every day and the Android application store has 38 000 applications.

Google's Nexus One

HTC Legend

Last week I did a post about Skype on the BlackBerry using iSkoot. Well this time, I’d like to tell you about Nimbuzz.  I have been a Nimbuzz user for about 3 years now and it is truly a great application.

If, like me, you enjoy IM (instant messaging), you are probably familiar with the most popular IM programs such as MSN, Skype, GTalk, etc.   Since some of your friends use one program and others use a different one, you probably have to log into more than one application to be available to chat to all your buddies. Nimbuzz makes life much easier for you by aggregating all your IM programs into one. So you only have to use one program but will see ALL your buddies!

Nimbuzz is quickly becoming one of the best IM programs available, because it is FREE, easy to use and offers versions for Windows PC, Apple Mac and mobile phones.  Nimbuzz for iPhone is available via iTunes and for all other devices, you can go here…

To download Nimbuzz for your PC or laptop please visit http://www.nimbuzz.com

Great application!