Once upon a time, back in 2007, a lowly columnist was penning his latest April Techlife column titled, “chick chick BOOM – Baby Chick gaming warfare at its best“. The article spoke of a mysterious, fun game for the web browser. Then all of a sudden this highly addicting game vanished. Our lowly columnist was asked about this and in February of 2009 made a bold prediction, “…maybe they will release it one day as WiiWare for the Wii.”

As if this voice was heard whispering on the wind, a return voice whispered from Frankfurt, Germany where the game developer “tons of bits” came out from the shroud of silence to tell their tale of the resurrection of chick chick BOOM in multi-player for Wii Ware.

Techlife: How did the original chick chick BOOM get started?

Tons of Bits: Before chick chick BOOM we had developed another flash game called Mission in Snowdriftland, which had a great impact and positive response by the players. Mission in Snowdriftland was created as an advent calendar with 24 jump ‘n’ run levels for christmas. The idea of making a game for Easter was an obvious next step. chick chick BOOM was born.

TL: Sounds like it was hatched. How long did it take to plan and implement?

TOB: The whole project was realized in a pretty short time for a game of this complexity. From scratch to release it took approx. 8 weeks.

TL: What was your measure of success?

TOB: The constant positive feedback from the community. In the form of comments on the web but also as direct e-mails; or for instance fans writing a detailed article in Wikipedia.

TL: Why did it disappear?

TOB: It was planned as a limited easter event. We thought it wouldn’t feel right outside of this seasonal context if we would have kept it online.

TL: Is the new chick chick BOOM the same game?

TOB: The new chick chick BOOM has been completely redesigned and improved. The core idea “two chick teams fight each other in a whacky way” is the same, but the presentation and the game mechanics have been completely changed. The focus was on optimizing the game for the Wii, especially on the feature of simultaneous use of the Wii remotes for the multiplayer mode.

TL: What are the coolest new features?

TOB: There are 5 big improvements in the new chick chick BOOM:
1. Defense
A completely revised feature is how you defend your chicks. In the original chick chick BOOM you had defending gestures, now you defend by drawing a line into the arena. For instance, a falling weight can be blocked by drawing a horizontal line. If the weight collides with the line, it’s blocked and your chicks are safe. Another example is to block the bomb explosion with your line. You can use the line drawing feature also to sabotage the opponent’s line. Moreover, your chicks will collide with the line too, so this way you can keep them away from dangerous areas.

2. Attack Upgrades
For each attack you can activate one of two unique upgrades. For instance, you can upgrade your weight attack to a Sumo Chick, which not only looks extremely funny, but also will jump twice on enemy chicks.

3. Corncobman and Piñata

Two interesting elements have been added to the game: Corncobman and the Piñata. Corncobman appears from time to time behind the fence. The players can shoot his kernels off, which add health when collected by the chicks. The Piñata contains bonuses. You can shoot on it to pull it on the own side, when it falls on the ground it gets activated and you receive a bonus. The opponent can also shoot on Corncobman and the Piñata, so an additional fight for kernels and bonuses arise.

4. Multiplayer
Also a big improvement is the multiplayer option. You can play any combination of 2-4 players. There is also a coop mode available where 2 players can share one side. One is attacking, the other is defending, and both shooting at Corncobman and the Piñata. It is a highlight of the new versions when four people shoot at them simultaneously.

5. New arenas and unlockable teams hats
There are 3 different arenas available now: City, Ship, Haunted Wood – each with its own special attack (UFO, Sea Monster, Ghost).
Players can choose from 15 funny teams, 5 available by default and 10 more to unlock by specific actions/achievements.

TL: What’s the best part of the new game?

TOB: We made each new part of the game to be special. Though the multiplayer part of chick chick BOOM is a big strength with all possible variations from 2-4 players (e.g. coop, versus, 2 vs 1 etc). Of course when you are alone you can play also against the CPU.

TL: Why the hiatus for all these years?

TOB: A difficult part  of development is how to acquire the money for the project. We 100% self-financed this game. This way we stayed independent and were able to fine-tune the game to the point where we feel 100% satisfied, but on the other side it doubled the duration of the project.

TL: Do you have plans for any more chick chick BOOM adventures?

TOB: Certainly! The characters are sweet and have lot of potential to be put in lot of different settings. We have no concrete project started yet, but we are starting  to plan. It defnitely depends on the feedback of the players.

TL:  Any other platforms coming out?

TOB: No plans currently. chick chick BOOM wouldn’t work on other platforms with the same functions for two reasons. First, drawing lines and tracing the attack shapes works only with a pointing devices like the Wii Remote. Second, only the Wii has the capability of using four pointing devices simultaneously.

TL:  Why the name?

TOB: tick…tick…BOOM + chicks -> any bells ringing?!

The story continues…

As the sun rises, a new day dawns upon the world. Our lowly columnist enjoyed chick chick BOOM, the web version,  and is looking to be reunited with his long-lost team of chicks to fight evil wherever it may be found.

From where in the world is Matt Lauer to Carmen Sandiego to Waldo this is an age old theme (at least to the mid 1980s.)  And now Google has their own twist on the classic called, “Where in the World?“.

Techlife readers come to learn, engage and discuss at our little corner of the world.  Be it a reader who stops me on the street, emails in a suggestion, or comments on an article in the online site we welcome the interaction.  We have heard from thousands of readers, and while not everyone gets featured in a column, sometimes they get a mention.

Today’s column harkens back to our early days, as our newest find we stumbled upon all on our own.  This little secret game is almost hidden, I would call it an easter egg, yet it is sitting there in the open.  We have always covered neat visual tools here at Techlife. From our review of Picasa in “Picture Perfect” to “Life Poster: A Picasa How-To” to our most recent “How to Create Online Tilt Shift Miniature Photos” we have covered various fun things to do with your photos.  Now we will explore other people’s photos.

Our adventure started one day when a reader sent us trip photos.  Are you a little surprised?  Don’t be.  We get lots of fun things from the great readers of Techlife. After viewing the photos, I noticed the tab, “Explore”  near the Picasa logo, next to “My Photos” and “Favorites.”

Hey I love to explore!

So I clicked, you are taken to a pseudo homepage with a few interesting sections, each of which could take hours of time to Explore.  There are 12 “Featured Photos” which sort of change if you hit refresh, though same stay.  Then there is “Recent Photos” which you can watch in a slideshow format.  There are also 40 of the most “Popular Tags”, which is a method for indicating what a picture contains is about.  Popular tags include, wedding, vacation, lake, house, birthday, beach, flowers, you get the idea.  Then in a small corner is our hidden gem.

Titled, “Where in the world?” and a button stating “Start Game” with this simple explanation, “Check out photos from around the world and guess where they were taken!”  As Sherlock Holmes said, “The game is afoot.”

In a great mashup of their own tools, Google has used Google Maps and Picasa along with Geotagging to create their game.  (Geotagging is a method for tagging a photo with location data, indicating where on the blue marble we inhabit a photo was shot.)  Play is simple, you guess where the photo they show you was taken by clicking on the map of the world.  Sometimes the photos contain clues, subtle or obvious.  Your score for that photo is determined by how close your guess was to the actual location of the photo.  The closer the better.  You get five different photos per round.

The game is strangely addicting.  Five clicks and you get a score.  Then you want to beat that score, then you convince yourself you will beat it the next round.  Then you do!  To celebrate let’s see if we can beat it one more time.  Okay an hour later, this is definitely my last game.  Hey look at that I got a high score!

My high score is 2,597 can you beat it?  Let me know.

The Dojo's Cubed Addict - Multiplayer Real Time game for Android, Mac, PC and Linux.

As we meet with client’s the hardest thing for them to wrap their arms around is that on the web, your business is instantly global.  “Awesome, bring it on.”  “Yeah, so, no big deal.”  These are some of the common answers we hear from client’s.  It is then we sit them down and using their enthusiasm or lack thereof, we coach them on doing business in a global economy.  It’s not always easy with i18n (shorthand for internationalization) and l10n (shorthand for localization) and social networking and web 2.0 and e-commerce.

Now imagine adding mobile customers to the mix.  That is exactly the challenge David Kainer of The Dojo experienced.  Provide his customers a gaming platform globally that easily works for all mobile devices and Linux, Mac and Windows computers (<=computer download link, start playing today) based customers.  He also added in multi-player real-time , and to top it all off…it is all FREE.

Techlife sat down with David, who from his Sydney office, works with the London office to learn about The Dojo.  How?  Why? How hard?  It’s all in there, and we even cover why he chose Google’s Android first over Apple’s iPhone. 

Techlife: What is The Dojo?

David Kainer: The Dojo is a global platform for uniting game players in interactive gaming, irrespective of platform. It’s aim is to provide great multi-player experiences on mobile and online and really begin to blur the boundaries between the two. Best of all – it’s free.

T: How did you come with the idea for The Dojo?  Was it based on something?

DK: Dojo Media’s production studio, Viva La Mobile, has 5 years of experience developing and running real-time multi-player mobile games. I think the culmination of that experience and knowledge, as well as recognizing the shortage of true interactive gaming in the mobile market, led to The Dojo.

T: What is your background?

DK: I come from a computer engineering background and have been involved in mobile software virtually my entire professional life. After a couple of years developing vehicle tracking software for wireless devices with a US corporation I threw my hat into the ring and co-founded Viva La Mobile in 2003 and now Dojo Media in 2008.

T: How many people does it take on the back-end to run?

DK: For the time being we run a pretty small team with some excellent developers and engineers. Of course as more people access The Dojo and hopefully become regular players we will increase our team as the system scales up.

T: Where are you located?

DK: Headquarters are in London and the development studio, where I am most of the time, is located in Sydney.

T: What was the hardest aspect of getting The Dojo up and running?

DK: Apart from the technical difficulty of creating robust real-time multi-player games for mobile, one of the trickier aspects was actually drawing the line on the features list and to actually commit to launching the beta.

Cubed Addict has a true international feel with global gamers playing head to head.

T: What surprised you about the audience so far?

DK: I think the global nature of the audience has really taken us aback. We first put Dojo Cubed Addict onto a few free mobile sites and we have since seen players from about 30 countries in the system. It seems that people from India to Russia to the UK and USA all enjoy a similar experience.

T: Have there been any problems yet?

DK: Yes for sure. The first edition of Cubed Addict was the best of 3 rounds per game and we found that sessions took too long and players often quit after the first round. So we re-released it with a game being a single multi-player round. Secondly the control scheme on the T-Mobile G1 leaves a little to be desired. This was a hangover from the porting process from Java mobiles, and we will address that in January 2009. On the whole The Dojo is in beta so we expect problems and feedback about usability is helping us to refine it.

T: Was Cubed Addict, originally just called Cubed and you added the addict after playing yourself?

DK: Actually you’re not far off the truth there. We originally launched a multi-player game called “Cubed” on an Australian carrier in 2005 and it was hugely successful and highly addictive. Cubed Addict is essentially the sequel to that title.

T: Why did you release an Android version before an iPhone version?

DK: We feel that timing wise we are right on target to hit the Android market while there it is new and exciting whereas with iPhone we are a little late. We plan to release an iPhone edition early 2009.

T: How many games is the target for The Dojo?

DK: We plan to launch another 3 titles next quarter and will continue to develop more. We will also introduce a 3rd party developer program if and when the numbers allow it. Our goal with game releases is quality over quantity.

T: Give us a preview of the upcoming games?

DK: Next game will be Badlands 2, a sequel to one of our earlier multi-player games. This is an action game where multiple players (the original had up to 4 but we may push this higher for Badlands 2) fight it out in various futuristic combat vehicles. Expect a large variety of weaponry and some very useful digi-good power-ups that you can get from the Dojo Shop.

T:  We recently covered London based Casual Collective’s Minions in a column, and really enjoy it.  Check it out, they may have gotten the idea from Badlands, but I can tell you anything like that on a  mobile will be amazing.  (I realize 5v5 is probably unlikely.)

DK: Will definitely check it out. The original Badlands was maxed at 4 players due to device limitations, but these days I think we may be able to get up to 8 players in a room, so 4v4 may be possible. No idea until we try!

T: Do you have a gaming at work rule?

DK: Lately we haven’t actually had much chance to play in the office since launching The Dojo has kept us highly busy!

T: Do you feel Dojo gaming is really a mobile experience with an added desktop version?

DK: Dojo is not solely about being mobile. It is about giving gamers a unified experience across both mobile and desktop. It’s the gamers’ choice how they choose to play.

T: Any plans for Wii, Playstation or Xbox versions?

DK: Not in the short term but if it makes sense in the longer term then we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

T: Finally – a hint for the readers – why in Cubed Addict when playing an opponent does the board start to rise upwards quickly?  Is there a trigger?  Why is the trigger not the same for both parties?  In fact I often see the trigger for my side go off and release and their’s stays nice and low.  Sync issue?

DK: Ah, this is one of those features that is designed to ‘mix it up’ a little. The trigger is simply a timer and the purpose is to disturb the status quo that can sometimes happen in the game and push both players to the limit. I think there may be a sync issue there. I have noticed that happen too sometimes. It can be very hard to iron out all issues like that with multi-player games, especially with packet-dropping devices like mobiles.

XGen Studio’s new release of Stick Arena Ballistick has been long awaited by the readers of Techlife.  How long?  We measure the wait in years and comments.  We have had nearly 2500 comments regarding the love for this new title.

The Casual Collective also re-launched their top hit Desktop Tower Defense 1.9 as well as a slew of new games including: Buggle Stars, Farragomate and Minons.  While not nearly as popular comment wise, there have been nearly 200 comments about the various games they offer.

Here’s the Techlife Take…

Social

Both offer a community with forums, pre-game chat and in-game chat making the games very social.  XGen’s users tend to be a bit younger and more bloodthirsty by the nature of the games offered.  The Casual Collective’s games skew a bit more global for our experience often with competition in a few countries at one time.  Conversation and in-game enjoyment from comments clearly is Casual Collective.  XGen could probably fix one important thing here by just offering a team server, since a lot of repetitive and annoying conversation revolves around constant requests for team play.  Winner: The Casual Collective

Gameplay

The Casual Collective and XGen Studios both offer a variety of games on their site to keep you addicted busy.  I find myself playing only Stick Arena Ballistick despite liking a few others on XGen’s site.  The Casual Collective has a good mix of games most of which are fun, but having to wait for multi-play instead of jumping right in (except in Farragomate) loses something.  The Casual Collective’s waiting room and game style require everyone start at the same time.  Winner: XGen Studios

Graphics

Both XGen and The Casual Collective design and built free flash games.  The nature of these games is that you don’t have a multi-million dollar budget, and that gameplay is more important than graphics.  This is not a gaming console or PC game.  So these games bring style points to the table.  XGen offers a nice array of cartoon violence combined with various weapons and player customizations.  The Casual Collective has recently created a Mii style avatar, that doesn’t show up in the games yet. Each of their games has a cuteness factor appealing slightly more to a broad audience.  Winner: The Casual Collective

Hacking and Internet Connections

Stick Arena Ballistick has cut the hacking from 100% in the old version to about 2% in the new version.  I have encountered a few people who hack and they still ruin it for everyone, but in general everyone seems on a level playing field.  The Casual Collective has no good system for when a player loses a connection or stops playing (like when your boss stops by).  This also ruins the gameplay for everyone.  There is no winner for these issues, only losers.  Losers: Gamers

Bonus Round

Both companies are in business to make money with a combination of advertising supported games and upgrades.  The ads in XGen’s case are well integrated and hopefully drive some traffic to pay for the free games.  The Casual Collective also have a nice way of making the ads a part of the site.  The XGen Lab Pass offers various upgrades to the user’s character as well as unlocking various aspects of Stick Arena Ballistick including more weapons and maps.  The Casual Collective upgrade allows a user to upgrade various game features depending on the game.  The winner here is all gamers if these two companies can stay afloat and continue to make entertaining worlds for all of us.

What do you think?  Which games do you like the best? Did we miss a game you love?  Let us know.

While first arriving on scene in 2004, Chris Hilgert’s funny flash games based on Yeti’s and penguins have grown over the years to include a whole collection, called Yeti Sports. They include the following:

• Pingu Throw (Yeti Baseball)
• Orca Slap
• Seal Bounce
• Albatross Overload
• Flamingo Drive
• Big Wave
• Snowboard Free Ride
• Jungle Swing
• Final Spit
• Icicle Climbing
• Tournament
• Stage Diving

Yeti Sports Commentary on YouTube
These games are similar to the mini-games people see on the Wii, and one day could show up as part of a WiiWare collection. Each one has a single point, and simple controls. We lost *cough* a day or so playing testing these games for our loyal readers. So get that furry yeti to toss, hit, surf, spit and more on the penguins. It is just plain fun.

Note: The final item on their site, Yeti Puzzle Kick is apparently a broken or old link. But they did make a few extra games for Fox’s Ice Age 2: The Meltdown which are pretty fun too.

Make sure to post your high scores in the various games in the comments.

Techlife readers are really amazing. You send in some of the best things on the web. Once again loyal reader Dan found a gem, with Alan Becker‘s Animator vs. Animation movie. It follows the story of a small Flash animated stick figure as he wreaks havoc on the flash desktop of his maker.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch Animator vs. Animation on Techlife TV

Being the inquisitive bunch we did a bit more research and found that this gem is really part of of a larger collection of work by the talented Mr. Becker. After the success of Animator vs. Animation, Alan built Animator vs Animation II. In this story, the animator does the unthinkable and risks his entire computer to a stick figure’s wrath.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Watch Animator vs. Animation II on Techlife TV

Alan’s wild success was recognized by the world,  and he teamed with Charles Yeh and Atom Films to create Animator vs. Animation: The Game, which is a blast. (pun intended). And then the duo modded it a bit and created Animator vs. Animation: The Game SE (Special Edition).

There are a lot of small touches Alan added to these animations, be sure to keep your eyes on areas like the backgrounds and text labels to catch all the attention to detail. I enjoyed Animator vs. Animation, as you can see the care and effort Alan put into his first masterpiece in the genre. Animator vs. Animation II is great second effort with some out of the box thinking and a real ending. I hope Alan is plotting Animator vs. Animation III, I’ll be watching.

Alan’s inspiration likely comes from the original Stick Art films. Stick art animations have been around for a long time, and are often violent and a bit comedic. What’s your favorite? Post the link below.

People everywhere are excited for MLB’s Opening Day. It is a day when everyone has a clean slate. Everyone has an even shot (at least the media gives that impression.)

We all know the owners and players are in this to get paid. Well once again, loyal reader Dan writes in with an Opening Day gem to give Techlife readers their shot at a payday. (Pete Rose, this one’s for you!) I was a bit skeptical at first, but it’s free money and fun too. Nearly as good as fun at the old ballpark.

CentSports is a new kind of social gaming site where you risk nothing but can win real money. First off the site gifts you $.10 to bet on sports. Lose that and get another gift of $.10 and so on. (Yep, they are unlimited in their generosity.) Start winning and you can cash out as soon as you reach $10. Sound to good to be true? Sounds more like spam you might get, right? Trust Techlife it isn’t. It is actually a lot of fun

Do you like hardwoods, frozen ponds or field of dreams? CentSports has NCAA, the NCAA Tournament, the NIT Tourney plus the full slate of NBA games. They also have NHL hockey and starting today they have baseball’s MLB all ready for Opening Day action. They are planning on adding soccer and bringing back boxing and tennis. (Apparently those pesky tennis players will retire mid-match which screws up the betting a little.)

As a person with little knowledge of sports betting it is a lot of fun to learn on someone else’s dime (pun intended). They have all the standard bets including point spread, money line, over/under and let you parlay or combine these bets to get higher payouts.

The best part is the social aspect of the site. You can see what others bet, invite friends, publicly chat about each bet made and send private notes too.

How can CentSports fund the payouts? Advertising. They have a unique feature after placing a bet you will get the chance to see an ad which can give you bonus cash if you win. (Hint: Always hold out for near the top tier of the bonus.) There are other ads scattered around the site as well.

Overall: If you like sports and are too chicken to try using your own money, you can’t lose. Literally! CentSports is sports gambling for the rest of us. No skill required.

I hope you try it out and see if you can beat me, I was up to nearly $2. Let us know in the comments what your user name is and we can add you to our friend list on the site.

Click here to view the embedded video.

It’s been a while since Techlife has brought us another in the series of Friends of Line Rider. Can you tell we missed the little guy? Today we find ourselves enjoying Line Rider Zada v1.3.

A modded Line Rider version with everything that is missing in the first Line Rider. Use the eraser, speedups and zoom for a better Line Rider experience.that is Zada!

Line Rider Zada is really quite the fun afternoon and perfect for adults and kids alike.

Techlife has just learned that XGen Studios is now a developer for the WiiWare program.  Might Stick Arena or Stick Arena Ballistick be released for the Wii one day? We were pretty shocked too. Nintendo has a developer program with the Wii, known as WiiWare for smaller developers to build content for the platform. Combined with all we know about Stick Arena‘s long awaited title, it appears a multi-platform release might be in the works at some point. While we can’t confirm this, a recent press release from XGen says:

XGen Studios is developing an original title for Nintendo’s upcoming WiiWareâ„¢ service…

It goes on to say:

…inspired by an existing cult classic from the studio, and will allow up to 4 simultaneous players while leveraging the unique capabilities of the Wii Remoteâ„¢…

and

…classic game play enjoyed by Millions is coming to your living room in the form of a new title with compelling additions…

and finally

…jump-in, jump-out casual style appeals to a broad audience for both quick and extended play sessions…

Reading between the lines it would appear that we are in a for a treat. The real question is will the 6.3 million Wii owners be able to interact with the PC gamers, I would think they won’t. But your username might port between the two, allowing a character to travel with you. Imagine playing Stick Arena Ballistick on your Wii online and on your PC online.  Once we all are playing Ballistick on the PC, imagine having a party and Grandma slices Uncle Charlie, only to find herself on the end of a barrage of gunfire.  Brings a whole new meaning to “The war at home.”

And in other Stick Arena Ballistick News…there is an impatient group of loyal Techlife readers who have logged over 700 comments about how excited they are for Ballistick. For all of them, I want to give them a heads up, an exciting announcement is coming shortly. We are targetting next week on Techlife and TechlifeTV the news. As a teaser, we have confirmed that there are 6 new weapons for Ballistick. For a bit of fun, we are going to release their initials…

• CG
• LS
• TH
• FT
• CS
• RG

Got any guesses? Let the comments begin!

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