The minds behind Pocket Legends, Spacetime Studios, are finally able to bring the PC MMO game they were hired to produce for NCSoft back a few years ago. When the project was abruptly cancelled last year, they used the world-class engine to produce Pocket Legends. When we sat down with founder Gary Gattis at GDC this past week, he described this as like putting a Ferrari engine into a Go Kart and seeing what they could do with it.

Pocket Legends, while a game with its own growing pains, has become a definite hit on the iOS scene, boasting a huge fantasy styled MMO that just works, and works well. The company has released updates and expansions consistently since the apps original launch.

Blackstar is their next big project for mobile devices, utilizing the original science fiction IP from the original contract with NCSoft (all legally and above board, so users need not fear it getting shut down). Blackstar is be a global, cross platform MMO with an epic storyline and an equally impressive art pedigree: some of the concept artists went on to work on TRON: The Movie. What we were able to play of the game showed us a similar control style as Pocket Legends, on both iOS and Android devices, with a planned PC client in the near future, if all goes according to plan. Spacetime Studios will launch the game as a free to play MMO with 15% of the planned gameplay ready for launch, which equates to three separate zones with rapid leveling systems, quests, and character customization. They plan to release the game in Q2 20011.

My own reaction to the game ranged from awe at the fully fleshed out science fiction universe, high end conceptual artwork, and a thrill at the potential of playing this thing on any device I might potentially own or come into contact during the day. The play build we saw was not production level by any means, but it ran smoothly, connected to the Blackstar servers across three different devices in the room, and controlled in a very familiar way, since I’ve played Pocket Legends since it first came out. I have only the best of hopes for this game, as it can only get better from here.

Enjoy the below screenshots and stay tuned right here for more details as we get them.

FREE!

Pocket Legends

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-08 :: Category: Games

The Witcher is an incredibly popular PC RPG franchise, and now Chillingo is hoping to bring that popularity to iOS. The company has announced a partnership with developer one2tribe which will see The Witcher Versus landing on the App Store in the near future. The game will be based on the browser-based title of the same name which was also developed by one2tribe.

According the the press release, players can plan to “Choose between the classes of Witcher, Sorceress or Frightener and jump right into the fray of battle. Fight, gain experience and develop your skills against other players. Embark on quests to prove bravery and battle enemies to unlock new weapons, amulets, and magical items. Players can compete against others playing the online browser and WAP versions of the game for an unparalleled MMO dueling experience.”

“The Witcher franchise is one of the industry’s most popular PC RPG games and we are proud to collaborate with one2tribe to bring this new version of the browser-based MMO dueling title to the iPhone and iPod touch,” said Joe Wee, Co-General Manager of Chillingo. “We aim to provide consumers with a variety of game genres to choose from and The Witcher: Versus shines as one of our best MMO titles to date.”

Neither Chillingo nor one2tribe have offered any details on pricing or a potential release date, and they also haven’t stated if there are any plans to create an iPad version of the game. We’ll make sure to keep an eye out for any new info as it becomes available.

The announcement should be welcome news to iPhone and iPod owners at the least, because if the same level of care goes into creating the mobile version as it does the computer and browser-based editions of the game then we’re in for a real treat. This is definitely a title to keep on your radar moving forward.

I’ll be honest: I think Pocket Legends is pretty darn cool. I reviewed the game back in its infancy, and since then it’s continued to expand. If you haven’t played it before, Pocket Legends is a true MMORPG, complete with PvP, boss fights, dungeons, and plenty of loot.

The newest update charges you with “preventing a disaster of galactic proportions” as aliens once again threaten the land of Pocket Legends. Of course, this is mostly pretense for giving players some welcome features: a higher level cap, boss-filled dungeons, two PvP maps, and more loot. Who doesn’t love loot?

Here’s the list of other recent updates:

Lost Expedition Base Camp: a new towne full of quests and loot
Leaderboards: compete for most kills, most deaths, K/D ratio, most gold
Loadouts that allow you to save and reload different configurations
Item sets (collections of items that give additional bonuses when equipped)
An additional inventory slot for wearing fancy helmets
UI updates including the ability to map all 12 of your skills at once
Exploding barrels to add to the carnage in PvP
Plus a whole lot more!

If you haven’t tried Pocket Legends yet, now’s as good a time as any; the game keeps growing, with updates pushed out almost every two days, and if you don’t mind its simplicity and occasional UI annoyances, Pocket Legends can be a real blast. It’s free to try (you don’t even need to register anymore!), so what are you waiting for?

FREE!

Pocket Legends

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-08 :: Category: Games

It’s really quite amazing how powerful the iPhone has become since the original model came out. In many respects it is a more powerful handheld game device than the current generation of dedicated gaming handhelds, even outdoing the specs of Nintendo’s latest incarnation, the DSi 3D (albeit not with the awesome 3D tech).

Spacetime Studios (Pocket Legends), realizing the vast gaming potential of the iOS, is expanding (and soon licensing) the Spacetime 3D MMO game engine to support different devices interacting on the same server. The devices aren’t limited to the iPhone/Android sphere though – they plan to make it possible for mobile users to play simultaneously with PC users.

“The Spacetime Engine offers seamless global multiplayer gameplay to anyone with an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch over 3G, Edge, and wireless networks. We plan to add Android and PC users to the mix.” said Anthony L. Sommers, co-founder and CTO of Spacetime Studios. “In the near future, it will be possible to be on the bus in California with your iPhone, playing with someone in a park in France on their Android device, and both be playing in the same server set with someone in South Korea on their PC.”

The Spacetime 3D Engine should be available for developers sometime in 2011, and Pocket Legends should be getting the multi platform treatment soon. Beware though, the world is now one day closer to being able to play World of Warcraft-like games on the go. Our collective productivity is in trouble.

FREE!

Pocket Legends

+ Universal App - Designed for iPhone and iPad
Released: 2010-04-08 :: Category: Games

CipSoft, a German developer, recently announced that they’re bringing their MMORPG, TibiaME, to the iPhone. On the surface, this isn’t too interesting—TibiaME is an old-school 2D RPG, and it’s not exactly mainstream…

However, TibiaME has quite the history: launched in 2003, it’s been thriving on other mobile platforms like Symbian and Java. While its iPhone launch is in September, TibiaME can already tout 50,000 players. Nice! MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) thrive based in part on their player bases, and having a large one like that from the get-go is great.

As for TibiaME’s other features, well, there are plenty. Firstly, it’s free to play (though an in-app purchase will purportedly upgrade you to Premium). Secondly, it’s persistent and real-time. To me, those are the most significant…but let’s look at the (partial) list provided by the developer.

2 different character classes (warrior and wizard) with their own individual skills and powers
12 huge islands with different themes like ice, desert or jungle
Many cities with shops, depots, trade and guild halls
150+ fierce monsters like cyclops, orcs, trolls, dragons or even vampires
200+ challenging and funny quests like “Overcome the monster phobia” or “Stop the mad magician”
12 episodic and 2 major content updates per year featuring new areas, quests and monsters

Classic fantasy RPG, real-time, mobile, with plenty of content? Yes, please.

The iPhone has seen other MMO RPGs before, such as IMO: World of Magic and Pocket Legends, but none have had the advantage of an initial player base. Besides that, TibiaME looks like an interesting, classic-style RPG, and I’m looking forward to playing it when it comes out. Don’t be put off by the screenshots; they’re from the mobile phone versions of the game. Purportedly, the iPhone app will benefit from an overhauled client and graphics.

TibiaME makes its iPhone debut in September 2010.

Update 5/1/2010: gokbert is our winner — check your email and respond and we’ll send you the iTunes gift card code.

We Rule from ngmoco:) is one of the more popular community trading games. A genre of game most popularized by Farmville. This type of game revolves around building things and trading goods and services with other players. In We Rule one of the best ways to gain experience points and in-game currency is to sell and buy services with other players. Both buyers and sellers gain in these transactions.

To sell services, you just need to build buildings that sell goods and services. This is basically any of the buildings other than farms and homes. Users can then come to your kingdom and order from those buildings just by touching them. This is the same way that you can order services from other kingdoms. Visit other kingdoms and look for open signs to see what’s available.

So let’s use this post as a place to share each our Plus+ Network usernames so that we can start trading with each other. The idea being that we build a community within the We Rule community all trading with each other to build our XP as fast as possible. I’ll start, I’m jeff148apps.

Add your Plus+ Network username below, in the comments. We can then all add each other as friends and start building up experience points and gold. To make it a little more enticing, we’ll pick a random user from below for a $15 iTunes Gift card so you can buy more mojo in the game. We’ll give away the gift card next weekend.

Also, make sure you have the latest version installed. Ngmoco recently fixed some bugs related to open businesses that should make things easier for us all.