Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol by Jadestone wins IMG award for gameplay excellence
Stockholm, Sweden, 19 Feb 2008
Swedish developer Jadestone won recognition from the International Mobile Game Awards jury at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona last week. The soon to be released mobile game Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, developed for Nokia by Jadestone, was the winner of the Best Gameplay award.
Dirk Dagger and the Fallen Idol, a game developed for the Nokia N-Gage platform, represents a loving reinvention of the adventure game genre for the mobile format. Players will get to know private eye Dirk Dagger, the main character of a mysterious crime story steeped in the tradition of noir movies. The meandering investigations of our favorite detective take players on a humorous journey through the backalleys of New Heaven and into the sinister sets of a deranged movie mogul.
Robert Henryson, CEO of Jadestone, comments: "Jadestone has been in the forefront of mobile development since 2002, often pushing the limits of technology together with Nokia. With Dirk Dagger, we've radically increased our focus on ease of use and playablility. We're very happy today to see that we have the results to show for it. We always had great expectations for the game, but we now can't wait for its release in the market."
For the Jadestone development team, the project has been exiting not only because they are fans of the adventure genre, but also because it was an opportunity to work with Nokia on a leading edge technical platform. Nokia wanted a showcase for the innovative use of phone specific features and the team responded by building the whole navigation experience around the clever use of the built-in camera.
Even on a PC, adventure games can be too hard for some players. So a major challenge was to reduce the complexities of the adventure genre to make it enjoyable on a mobile. That meant simplifying complex interface designs, removing obstacles and enabling the game to work well even for very brief play sessions. By making rigorous playtesting an integral part of the development process, the team managed to strike a good balance between simplicity and challenge.
Contacts
For more information, please contact:
Robert Henrysson
robert.henrysson@jadestone.se
Tel: +46 8 24 05 01
About Jadestone
Jadestone is a leading developer of fully managed online game solutions. From great games to secure backend, Jadestone delivers quality services to both players and distribution partners. Jadestone's expanding portfolio of products include Championship Manager Online - the football management game; the acclaimed GamArena skill games network; and several innovative mobile games. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company is privately owned and funded. For more information about Jadestone and its products, please go to www.jadestone.se.