Game Level Design

Thursday 18th October/... NEXON, the ground-breaking development company behind the hugely successful online RPG, MapleStory Europe, is taking player interaction to a whole new level as it launches its first ever Maple Star contest. For three weeks, players will be able to strut their funky stuff and practice their best compliments and put-downs as they vote and take part in a Europe-wide contest that seeks to honour the very best dressed and most stylish characters in the game.

The Halloween-themed competition, which starts on October 18th (alongside the start of MapleStory’s month long Halloween celebrations) challenges players to create the most original and attention-grabbing character possible. Using MapleStory Europe’s rich character customisation system, together with the huge range of costume accessories available from MapleStory Europe’s unique Cash shop, players can let their imagination and design skills run riot as they battle to take the honours in online gaming’s first ever virtual fashion show.

Cute, cuddly and consumately designed - Sola Rola

Krisse is either getting dangerously loose with AAS MegaGame awards or has indeed found a second game in a fortnight to merit the high rating. Sola Rola, despite being built on J2ME, delivers at every turn, with smooth and believable 2D animation allied with great level design. Here's the Sola Rola review, make sure to click through at the end of the review to the video walkthrough, to see what Krisse means.

"As you may have noticed over the years, All About Symbian has tended to concentrate on native Symbian applications and games rather than stuff that runs through Java. Even though Symbian phones can run Java software, it usually looks much worse and has more restricted functionality than native apps, and this has traditionally been especially visible in gaming. While the best Symbian games look like they've wandered in from a PlayStation, Java games often seemed to resemble something from a Commodore 64.

Bitboys to Unveil Next-Generation Graphics Processor Product Line at ...

Bitboys, a provider of graphics hardware solutions, will unveil and demonstrate its new graphics processor product line for wireless and embedded devices at SIGGRAPH 2004, held at Los Angeles Convention Center from August 10-12.

Adding a host of new advanced and innovative features to its graphics processors, Bitboys moves a leap forward in developing graphics acceleration solutions for wireless and embedded devices. New processor features include high-quality full-screen anti-aliasing, hardware texture decompression, programmable geometry and pixel shaders, and support for hardware vector graphics rendering.