ROLANDO GETS NEW LEVELS, ROLANDO 2 GETS NEW HOME
Fresh from Rolando developer Hand Circus, two new secret levels have just gone live on the App Store with the game’s 1.2 update [App Store], including Torrid Twist, another of its Cameltry-like free-rotating puzzle challenges, and Excavation, an enormous traditional level that requires progressively more challenging bomb-play to free Rolandos trapped deep underground.
Also newly updated: the official home page for this summer’s forthcoming Rolando sequel, Quest for the Golden Orchid. Ngmoco are adding new information to the site every Monday until the game’s release, and this week they’ve started with two new characters, now given more distinct personalities than the first game’s cast.
Orchid, as you might be able to suss out from the image above, is shaping up as a properly British colonial adventure (as compared to the first’s storybook/fantasy underpinnings), with the captain of the HMS Plunderful, General Sir Richard Smythe, on his quest for the rare flower, accompanied (this week) by Lord Derby Disraeli, his treasure authority.
Though Hand Circus have long promised new mechanics for the sequel, it’s clear that some things will remain the same — even silhouetted, the outlines of the larger Rolando Royalty that you shepherded through the first remain. Henry Hatsworth not withstanding, good old fashioned 19th century sea-bound exploring is rich and unexplored thematic territory of its own, though, and very happily accepted here.
Rolando 2 home [ngmoco, Rolando App Store link]
Previously:
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
THE STARS WERE BRIGHT, ROLANDO: TWO IPHONE SEQUELS COMING JUNE, NOVEMBER
If any game were to become the iPhone’s real first platform franchise it couldn’t have happened to a better series than Hand Circus and ngmoco’s platformer Rolando. Though we already knew a sequel was in the works, the developer has officially announced its new title — Quest for the Golden Orchid — as well as a June release date.
ngmofo Neil Young also outlined the outlook for the series at his GDC Mobile kick-off keynote as recorded by toucharcade: between now and June the original Rolando will receive three more level packs in addition to its last, with another four level packs spacing out the time between Rolando 2‘s June release and the newly announced Rolando 3‘s November release.
Keep an eye on Hand Circus’s twitter feed as the dates roll nearer, where Simon Oliver has been teasing regularly about the sequel’s new engine, mechanics, and enemies.
Rolando home [ngmoco, iTunes link, Lite version]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
Ngmoco: Rolando sequel coming, Touch Pets Dogs announced – Offworld
Ngmoco release first free Rolando level pack – Offworld
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
How Rolando creator Simon Oliver caught the big fish – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
NGMOCO RELEASE FIRST FREE ROLANDO LEVEL PACK
If you haven’t already, be sure to check your iPhone updates for version 1.1 of ngmoco and Hand Circus’s Offworld favorite platformer Rolando [iTunes link, Lite version], which adds the promised rainbow road of five new secret levels on top of performance updates.
In its now hallowed tradition, ngmoco has also announced via twitter that the level pack is just the first in a series of additions to the game as Hand Circus continue work on Rolando 2.
Rolando home [ngmoco, iTunes link, Lite version]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
How Rolando creator Simon Oliver caught the big fish – Offworld
Ngmoco: Rolando sequel coming, Touch Pets Dogs announced – Offworld
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
Ready for their closeup: Mikko Walamies' Rolando art – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
HOW ROLANDO CREATOR SIMON OLIVER CAUGHT THE BIG FISH
Just spotted this video from the June 2008 ‘This Happened‘ London interaction design meetup, with 20 minutes of Hand Circus‘s Simon Oliver discussing his inspiration for his iPhone hit Rolando.
Oliver shows off the failed attempts that got him to the place where he could create the game, reveals how Ico/Shadow of the Colossus inspired its design, and gets big bonus points for referencing David Lynch’s excellent book Catching the Big Fish in showing where he gets his inspiration (here, physically, a swimming pool).
Simon Oliver at This Happened… [indirect thanks to Rolando artist Mikko Walamies for ‘liking’ the video]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
Ready for their closeup: Mikko Walamies' Rolando art – Offworld
HandCircus preparing more Rolando for the iPhone, Lite version …
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
NGMOCO: ROLANDO SEQUEL COMING, TOUCH PETS DOGS ANNOUNCED
Having sated the core gamer demographic with the tilt-enabled Qix-meets-Trauma Center Dr. Awesome, the laser-line dual-analog shooter Dropship, physics stacker Topple, and, of course, strategic roller Rolando, publisher ngmoco is taking a much more casual bent with its next slate of games.
But first, a quick diversion: via its Twitter feed we learn that in addition to a free level-pack update to Rolando (which has also finally seen the addition of a free Lite version [App Store link]), Hand Circus is hard at work with a proper sequel to the game.
But back to the casuals: in addition to the previously covered Topple sequel and letter-battler Word Fu (from Cambridge studio Demiurge, who previously have played supportive roles in the development of games like Mass Effect and BioShock), ngmoco has announced Touch Pets Dogs, a virtual pet sim from Stumptown Game Machine.
Disappointingly, while Touch Pets is already being brushed off as “just” a Nintendogs clone (as Rolando was with Loco Roco), it’s well worth pointing out that Stumptown head Andrew Stern was well ahead of the pack as one of the designers behind PF.Magic’s original Petz series: specifically, the 1995 release of Dogz and Catz (a franchise now in the hands of Ubisoft).
Stern was also the man behind 2005’s groundbreaking interactive story Façade — which saw players take a third-wheel dinner-date role in the midst of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf’-level marital tension. As it turns out, the AI development for Façade is a key part of what Stern is expanding upon for Touch Pets, as he explained to Gamasutra in an excellent recent interview, and promises to make interactions with the pets richer than competing pet sims, certainly those already on the iPhone.
That, in addition to its integrated social scene (players can meet with friend’s dogs, and the game generates a story-like “Dog Feed”) makes this, however casually aimed, another of my most anticipated iPhone titles.
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
ngmoco shows off iPhone's Dr. Awesome, Dropship – Offworld
Ngmoco promise Word-Fu, more Topple by mid-February – Offworld
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
HandCircus preparing more Rolando for the iPhone, Lite version …
Ready for their closeup: Mikko Walamies’ Rolando art – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
READY FOR THEIR CLOSEUP: MIKKO WALAMIES’ ROLANDO ART
Officially added to illustrator Mikko Walamies’ online portfolio: his designs for Hand Circus’s killer iPhone app Rolando, which means gorgeous high-res zoomed out maps (suitable for wall-papering), and closeups of the game’s cast, including my favorite tongue-biter of them all.
Walamies’ apparel and print sections also house some gorgeous designs.
Game Design: Rolando [MW82]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
HandCircus preparing more Rolando for the iPhone, Lite version …
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Mikko Walamies, Offworld Originals, Rolando
HANDCIRCUS PREPARING MORE ROLANDO FOR THE IPHONE, LITE VERSION INBOUND
More brilliant iPhone news for the day: in a new interview with excellent UK portable site Pocket Gamer, HandCircus developer Simon Oliver has told the site that 2009 will see the return of Rolando, one of Offworld’s top 20 games of the past year, and certainly amongst the top tier of games for the platform, as well as more original works:
I can’t say too much about this now, but you’ll see some more activity on the Rolando front in 2009, and I’ve got a couple of new game ideas bubbling away at concept stage right now. I look forward to sharing them with you later on in the year!
Oliver says he’s still got “a ton of ideas waiting to get explored” with the game that didn’t make it into its debut, and if you haven’t played that debut yet, it’s time to do so now [iTunes link] (or, for the frugal, have a go with the free Lite version that publisher ngmoco has just announced is “coming v.soon“).
More Rolando coming in 2009 [Pocket Gamer, Rolando home]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
Rolando gets papered – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
ROLANDO GETS PAPERED
Fresh off the digital press: Rolando illustrator Mikko Walamies has created a handful of new iPhone wallpapers for Hand Circus, the most charming of which (at right) I believe might just be striking enough to finally unseat Kitsune Noir’s Mcbess paper I’ve been rocking since April.
Rolando Wallpapers [Hand Circus, via Twitter]
Previously:
Touch me I'm slick: ngmoco/Hand Circus's Rolando – Offworld
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked – Offworld
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Mikko Walamies, Offworld Originals, Rolando
TOUCH ME I’M SLICK: NGMOCO/HAND CIRCUS’S ROLANDO
If I didn’t think it’d be unfair to all parties involved, I’d simply title this one “why Rolando isn’t LocoRoco,” say my peace and be done — but it would be, so I won’t. But I will say, since it’s the laziest comparison and being used as a pejorative, that it clearly isn’t, and here’s why:
Yes, both games feature tilt mechanics (a feature better suited to the iPhone, for obvious reasons). And yes, as such, both feature balls, an understandable choice since those are the types of things that roll on inclines (and a design choice made for this type of game since someone first dropped a marble inside a wooden labyrinth).
And both, true, have chosen bold, high-contrast artwork that cutely personifies the movable objects. This is for a number of reasons: the more adorable the object, the more emotional connection, and the more we care whether or not it haphazardly rolls into spikes. The higher the contrast, the easier it is to follow the action, especially when you’re literally twisting and moving the screen in front of your face. (more…)
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Mikko Walamies, Offworld Originals, Rolando, Touch Me I'm Slick
TOMORROW, ROLANDOS ROLL ON IPHONE
Tomorrow finally marks the day that ngmoco releases Hand Circus’s long-awaited puzzle-platformer Rolando, and the publisher has marked the occasion with one final gameplay trailer, as well as a new special Rolando themed downloadable level for Dropship, its dual-‘analog’ vectorbeam shooter (that I’ve yet to mention here, but will in the future).
I’ve spent the past couple days with Rolando, and will be giving the Offworld view tomorrow.
Rolando home [ngmoco]
See more posts about: Hand Circus, Offworld Originals, Rolando
