http://www.thelittlegamer.com the occasional casual games blog from the CEO of 3RD sense Mon, 12 May 2008 07:05:41 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The next Swords and Sandals installment is coming soonish. We've not yet announced a launch date, it's a big project and there is still a bit to go. For the fans though, here's a little teaser video. there are a few more on Youtube.com You'll notice that the biggest change to ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2008/05/12/swords-and-sandals-3-coming-soon/ Fizzy is now about 9 months old. There have been several upgrades to the site itself in that time, and plenty of new content, but this latest update is by far the most significant. Fizzy has now launched its developer portal. If you are a Casual Game developer (in Flash), ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2008/04/07/fizzycom-opens-doors-to-developers/ The new Fizzy Affiliate programme is up and running now and it's a little different from most. Instead of banners and buttons to place on your site, we'll give you games. That's right, over 30 cool games you can put on your site. We'll even host them, so all you ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2007/11/22/well-pay-you-to-place-our-games-on-your-site/ Surely not another casual games website! We think it's different enough to be worth a mention. I'll talk more over the next few days about how Fizzy is different, but right now I'd like to thank the team at 3RD sense for all the effort they have put into building the ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2007/06/22/fizzycom/ There seems to be an unending amount of comment about casual and online games and whether they should be free to play. On one side the users or the casual game player, who would like all of the games produced to be free and available for all and on the ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2007/06/15/to-free-or-not-to-free/ It's always a good thing when surveys are conducted about the casual games industry, especially when they highlight the positives of fun and games. Casual game company Worldwinner recently conducted a survey amongst 500 of its customers specifically asking about perceived benefits of playing casual games. What they found was that ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2007/06/01/casual-games-increased-productivity/ This morning another piece of Nintendo heaven arrived at my door. A box-fresh Wii complete with Wii Sports and the dodgy Wii-mote control strap. It's set to shake up my family's gaming habits by bringing us all together for some serious bonding. But that's not until Christmas ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/12/13/wii-wii-all-the-way-home/ A review of Argos' advergame on Adverblog with a revealing comment on the relative size of UK retailers: I have no idea who Argos is, and the site isn't innovative at all in graphics and interactivity, but it's based around toys from the '80s, and this is enough to grab my ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/12/11/their-walmart-argos/ A well crafted idea for Logitech: http://www.ballbalancer.com/ Smart but a little over-cooked game for Argos: http://www.goodgamegoodgame.com/ Whack-a-mole re-skin for the National Christmas Tree Association*: Attack of the Mutant Artificial Christmas Trees *only christmas trees can join. http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/12/08/quick-links-8-dec-06/ The more virals there are, the harder it is to get noticed. And as we get desensitized to the extremes of the funny, the fleshy or the foul items that crash into our inboxes our own criteria for what IS and what ISN'T worth forwarding on get ever more ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/12/07/meal-or-no-meal/ Business Review Weekly (BRW) is a high profile business magazine based in Australia. It is a conservative magazine, not a publication we would have expected to publish a profile piece on casual games and advergaming. Even when they interviewed 3RD sense for the article we weren't really sure the piece ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/11/30/sit-up-and-take-notice/ I got sent this by the creator of this game Roadie Runner. It's a frogger-type game for Make Roads Safe, a group that campaigns to reduce road deaths globally. There are 3 charming things about it: its simplicity, the graphics for the vehicles and the Dirty Pretty Things ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/11/16/roadie-runner/ A smart, well produced Sonic derivative for the School Food Trust - called Snack Dash. I find it a little too hard - but then again, I'm not 12 years old anymore. Aygo is a weeny car that Toyota make and this is a game about it. Big, Flat and Twisted ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/11/16/quick-links-16-nov-06/ This is an interesting list posted on e-consultancy but created by the folks at AzACreations. Apart from the slightly alarming thought that there are even 10 ways to make mistakes with viral marketing, this is a handy list for advergame creators: 1. Neglecting promotion and seeding Utilise mailing lists, press releases, ... http://www.thelittlegamer.com/2006/11/15/top-ten-viral-marketing-mistakes/