18 Jul
by Ville | 4 Comments »
During the past few weeks and months we have been rolling out Shadow Cities in several new markets. Shadow Cities is now available in the US and most of the European territories. Whilst opening the game in more and more cities across the globe there has been a lot of interest in the new category of games we have introduced. I want to point out a specific one since I believe it really captures what Shadow Cities is all about.
This Saturday none else but New York Times’s Seth Schiesel in his front page article ”Brave New World That’s as Familiar as the Machine It Fights With” talks about Shadow Cities and what he thinks it represents.
“I have played the future of mobile gaming. It is called Shadow Cities.
If you have an iPhone, you simply must try this game. Shadow Cities isn’t just the future of mobile gaming. It may actually be the most interesting, innovative, provocative and far-reaching video game in the world right now, on any system.
That’s a strong, perhaps outrageous, statement. But it’s merited because Shadow Cities delivers a radically fresh sort of engagement. Shadow Cities fully employs the abilities of the modern smartphone in the service of an entertainment experience that feels almost impossibly exciting and new.
[...]
The game’s fundamental concept is so powerful and the possibilities down the road so fascinating that I just feel lucky to have discovered it so early in its development.
Play Shadow Cities. Take over your neighborhood. I’ll see you on the battlefield”
Big words, but I could not have put it better myself. This is very much what we set out to do even though in the early days we ourselves did not have a clear idea of what the future of mobile gaming might look like. But now we know. As Seth put it, It looks a lot like Shadow Cities. We think so too.
2 May
by Ville | No Comments »
The London Telegraph newspaper in partnership with TechCrunch listed just recently the most promising 100 top European tech companies. We are proud to have made it onto the list with other category defining companies. The Guardian also listed Shadow Cities on ‘The 20 mobile apps riding the new wave of location innovation’.
On a similar note, on 11 May, Nordic Game presents the fifth annual Nordic Game Awards in Malmö, Sweden. We’re very excited that Shadow Cities got nominated in the Best Nordic Handheld Game category. To celebrate that, our very own Markus Montola will be talking about location based game design at the eLBeS Summit during the Nordic Game Conference. If you’re around go and say Hi to Markus. See you in Malmö, Mages!
23 Feb
by Ville | 1 Comment »
We’re excited to announce that we have closed a € 1.9 million (roughly $ 2.5 million) in Series A from a truly great set of investors, namely Index Ventures, London Venture Partners and Initial Capital.
The single biggest reason we went with Index, LVP and Initial Capital was since they believed in our vision of creating a whole new category of games that will take the industry into a new direction just as passionately as we do. Already in the first meeting that we ever took with them they felt the same excitement about what we are doing as we have always felt in building Shadow Cities. We are excited to welcome Ben Holmes of Index Ventures, David Gardner of LVP and Petteri Koponen of Lifeline Ventures to our Board. You guys rock!
This will be on top of the Seed round we raised from Lifeline Ventures, Ilkka Paananen and Mikko Kodisoja in late 2010.
16 Feb
by Ville | No Comments »
We are growing! We are looking to hire experienced game developers to our team in Helsinki. We are also looking to hire an experienced System Administrator as well as a Community Manager to the US. To apply and see more, visit here.
11 Nov
by Ville | 3 Comments »
Shadow Cities has been out a total of two days and it has already hit #1 Top Grossing App and #1 Free App in the Finnish App Store. We are especially happy to see the Shadow Cities community growing and claiming the game of its own. Let us know what you think and we’ll do our best to get you more of that.
10 Nov
by Ville | 5 Comments »
We are a one happy and proud team when we can say that after a long few months Shadow Cities is now available on the Finnish App Store. Not only that, when we let the beast out yesterday it shot straight to #1 top grossing app in the Finnish App Store. If you don’t reside in Finland, worry not. We’ll open the game for the rest of the world in a few weeks. Hang in there.
But if you are in Finland, go get yours now (here!) and let us know what you think. See you around city!
9 Nov
by Ville | 3 Comments »
During the first Alpha test round that I played in Helsinki sometime late July 2010 I first experienced how a location aware game that is build on entire city neighborhoods results in very different experience than a game build on specific venues. Not only that, but also how bringing something magical extra on top of the familiar city can result in much more than I would ever think my city could be.
It was around 8pm in the evening when I got a text message from Tina: “If you want to save our cause, greens are assaulting the center! We need a trap there, stat!”. I immediately logged in to Shadow Cities to see if I could jump to the center through a Beacon. It seemed like this was not an option. There was no Beacons close enough the center that I could come in rescue and stop whatever the orange team was planning. What made the issue more urgent was that since it was the last day of the game and whoever had more Energy harvested at the end of the day won the whole Round.
I closed the application and sat there for a few seconds and then grabbed my bike and texted Tina back while rushing out with my bike:“Where should i resurface and attack? Am on my bike. You are my eyes. Guide and we’ll surprise attack”. Tina told me the most intense battle was fought at the east end of Esplanadi. I rode there and stopped my bike in front of restaurant Vespa on Eteläesplanadi. Just before I logged-in to surface right in the middle of the battle. I called Mikko to agree on a quick strategy. Mikko was coding at his home in Töölö and didn’t know that the Orange team had attacked the center. We agreed that I should above all else plant a Beacon there so he and others could jump to the center as I would surely get slaughtered quickly after I surface and ran out of Mana. This way we would have a channel to the center. This is exactly what happened, but Ursus had planted so many traps that I didn’t get the chance to plant our Beacon on the first try before I was out of Mana again. It started to rain slowly and I knew I could not leave the Esplanadia area before I had secured a Beacon for our team there, so I figured I might as well go to Vespa and get a beer while waiting for my Mana to build up. There I sat sipping my beer and eagerly staring at my phone in the corner table. After some intense 20 minutes I finally got the Beacon planted and quite successfully also fought back pushing the Greens back with the help of Mikko and Tina. I believe this was a crucial battle that defined the outcome of the round. We won and I could have not been happier. The next day I retold the story several times, laughed, went to possible different scenarios and couldn’t help but wonder where Ursus, the orange team player that hold Esplanadi, had been hiding. Our guess was that he must have been dining in one of the restaurants in the area.
It’s safe to say that this experience was very different from what I would have had with any of the current games out there. By focusing on an area instead of a specific venue the city as a whole came to life when you could strategize and plan your play based on where you lived, how fast you could make your way to other neighborhoods, where your allies lived, worked or commuted around on a normal day. Further, even the normally really boring routes and neighborhoods became interesting when they radiated something new and interesting. The normal daily behavior and commute was a great platform for game play. Soon the game play started to take cues from the locations and the emerging relationships around these locations by mixing the real and unreal. This was city I hadn’t know before, but it clearly rocked!
