NY Gaming December 2009 Meetup Coverage

The NY Gaming Meetup on Tuesday gathered many enthusiasts and professionals together for a night of demos, drinks and conversation-starting art. Held once a month at Gallery Bar in Manhattan, the event includes a half-hour of presentations, followed by an opportunity to socialize with the speakers afterwards. Representatives from Arkadium, Miharo Games, Uppercut Animation and Livestream as well as many other local companies routinely show up to demo their latest games and services.

The line-up began with Steve Mead, Michael Lipinski and Dayna Gonzalez who explained the process of developing and animating Batman Brawl for DC Comics. According to the team, they wanted to create a boxing game with lifelike animation. Batman Brawl allows players to take the role of characters like Batman and the Green Arrow as they punch the face off their opponents. 

Rakesh Raju was up next to promote two Flash-based games his team transferred to the iPhone and Facebook. Route-Rageous, a create-the-correct-route puzzle obtained for Progressive, is playable on Facebook and features slogans advertising services each time players crash the car. Raju said his team also tied the game into the newsfeed. The Friskies Cat Food iPhone Game is a seek-and-find adventure littered with bags of cat food and brand logos. Raju said they added the ability to zoom and pan in the game.

Next was NY Gaming Meetup Veteran Orchun Koroglu from Miharo Games. Elliptical Twist is Miharo’s third game for PC, and according to Koroglu, they wanted to make an action game that was easy to play. There are only two controls, left and right, that rotate a turret around an elliptical battlefield. The circling gun must shoot down large rocks and other enemies with bombs, lasers and plasma. Koroglu said the game runs on the Unity engine.

Finally, Patrick O’Shaughnessey, took out his webcam and showed us how to maneuver through the Five Lives of Criss Angel, a 3D puzzle promoting the five-part television of the same name where players must manipulate the icon through the wires contained in a small box. Similar to the “Wacky Wire Game” at the carnival, players must guide the ball through the wires by rotating the paper square in their hands. The webcam detects the movement and alters the position of the cube on the screen.