FP client Puzzler Media sold to DC Thomson:

"ABN Amro Capital has lined up the sale of Puzzler Media, a magazine publisher that has capitalised on the craze for Sudoku number puzzles, for 85 million pounds."

"The sale of Puzzler Media to DC Thomson's John Leng & Co subsidiary will allow the company to develop Sudoku for mobile phones, interactive TV and the Internet, according to managing director Mel Lewis."

We're hard at work on the next round of work for Puzzler, with all sorts of fun things in the pipeline: new puzzle formats, new services, new distribution.

Do gamers really want photorealistic graphics?: "The problem of increasing programming and artist time is one that a vast section of the industry is going to have to address. As budgets and graphical expectations (from the greedy gaming public) rise out of control, publishers and developers are going to have to make a choice: graphics or gameplay."

The assumption that photorealism means a better game, or that 3D means a better game: deeply flawed, I reckon.

Designing for illiterate people is an interesting one. It's something we've been looking at out of the corner of our eyes, sidelong-ly rather than a full on stare. I draw your attention this paragraph, about I-Cue founder Marc Lewis: "Marc retains a 75 per cent interest in ICUE but intends to channel all his profits into a new trust to help children and adults improve their reading skills."

Cameras as input devices: "As I’ve written in the past, one of the wonderful aspects of mobile devices is the availability of alternate input devices such as voice and camera. A recent News.com article on camera phone search technology describes several companies using the camera as web input."

Of course, all the noise recently has been around barcodes (in their 2D and 3D variety), but that's not all that can be done here. We're putting out a proposal in this area at the moment with some lovely ideas in it - you know, the kind that when you hear them you break into a grin because they're so very sweet.

I'll write about it soon.

http://www.orangecone.com/KMWorld_05_Presentation.pdf: "I believe that the waterfall model is fundamentally broken, and there are lots of
problems, but it’s a hard habit to quit: it makes everything seem like it’s going
great and the project is meeting its milestones, when in in fact it’s going badly
in all ways other than the Gantt chart. This is, however, a deeply rooted
methodology and can’t be changed instantly. "