Certainly, some of you have wondered whether we will only be making ad games for the iPhone, since we haven’t announced anything new about our own iPhone games in a long time. The fact is that the development of ad games for the iPhone and iPod is currently a very lucrative business for us. But the best thing about that is that we can use it to finance the costly production of our own iPhone games. That means the better the ad games we develop do, the more we can invest in our own games. So you win either way. Free adv games for quick casual game fun and our top titles that get as much as possible out of the iPhone and offer hours of excitement.

The Best Mobile Game of 2008 soon for the iPhone and iPod touch

Rally Master Pro™ has really cleaned up in the last year. All of the games magazines gave our rally simulation top marks, and Pocket Gamer even rewarded our hard work with a Platinum Award. That makes Rally Master Pro™ the only racing game to date to receive the best possible evaluation from Pocket Gamer. According to the Pocket Gamer Analysis, which summarises the most important mobile gaming magazines, Rally Master Pro™ is even the Best Mobile Game of 2008. No question, of course we had to bring Rally Master Pro™ to the iPhone.  Starting in the autumn, every iPhone and iPod touch owner will be able to put the pedal to the metal and test their rally skills in sun, rain, and snow on 27 varied and detailed extreme courses.

Revved up rally graphics for the iPhone

Naturally, we have revised all of the 3D models and textures. The number of polygons has increased four-fold, and while the Java version of Rally Master Pro™ has to make do with five 256×256-pixel textures, which still is a huge amount for a Java game though, we have given the iPhone version 18 textures with 512×512 pixels and seven with 1024×1024 pixels - way more than we used in any other of our iPhone games before. Rally Master Pro™ comes to the iPhone with tracks of corresponding wealth of detail and variation.

The particle simulation has also been heavily tuned up. Depending on the track surface and weather, a variety of dust, spray, and even dirt particles will be generated for each individual tire. The various kinds of particles act quite differently. On dry, dusty tracks the car leaves a massive cloud of dust while racing through a forest on a rainy day you can literrally see the mud flying. To a certain level, we did that in the Java version too, but thanks to the computing power of the iPhone the particle simulation is way more advanced, here.

Dynamic lighting depending on weather and environment

The dynamic lighting for the rally cars in Rally Master Pro™ is completely new. Thanks to the high-powered 3D chips (OpenGL graphics acceleration) in the iPhone, we can light the vehicle in a variety of ways, depending on the weather: with lots of light and shadows when it’s sunny, diffuse when the sky is overcast, and correspondingly dim in rain and storm. But the environment also affects the lighting of the vehicle. Drive under bridges or through the shady area under trees and the car will be appropriately darkened. It isn’t necessarily an effect that you notice during the race too much, but it nevertheless provides a realistic game experience, and you can enjoy it all at leisure in the replay.

All screenshots have been taken from the Beta version and we are still working heavily on many things. However, to give you a first impression on how Rally Master Pro looks like on iPhone these should do.

To be continued…

Brawn GP has teamed up with Upstream, to create the Brawn GP Racing Game for Apple’s iPhone and iPod touch that includes a chance to win a luxurious Mercedes SL Roadster (US, CA and UK only). Of course, we are thrilled that FISHLABS has been chosen to develop the very first F1™ racing game for iPhone and iPod touch and now the game is live!

What’s in this Brawn GP iPhone game?

You get the chance to drive the Brawn GP F1™ car to qualify on four imaginary, international circuits. The game features a track located in the city of London. Players can drive by landmarks such as Big Ben and Buckingham Palace while doing a qualifying lap around Hyde Park. Three additional tracks inspired by the most famous and challenging elements on the world racing circuit, such as Road America’s Carousel, Silverstone’s Copse and Monaco’s hairpin, will be made available as free updates throughout the 2009 season. 

F1™ racing on iPhone - How does it feel?

Based on our advanced racing engine with 4-point-driving physics, Brawn GP Racing offers the most realistic high-speed racing experience available on iPhone and iPod touch. Well, we tried to give you a F1™ driving experience as close as possible but without being too realistic - if we had done a proper F1™ driving simulation game you probably wouldn’t be able to make a single lap without destroying the car ;-). So it is still about having both thrill and fun here.

How can I win a Mercedes SL?

As soon as you qualify on each track, you are ranked globally, and are awarded entries in the draw according to your rank – the faster you are, the more chances you have of winning. The contest will end at the precise time at which the winning car crosses the finish line in the last race of the season in Abu Dhabi on November 1, 2009. A draw will be held on November 12th and the grand winner, hopefully you, will receive a brand new Mercedes SL. The contest is available to US, Canada and UK residents only.

What a year for FISHLABS! All of our mobile games were showered with awards. German and international online magazines gave top marks by the score to Powerboat Challenge™, Rally Master Pro™, Gladiator – The Mobile Game, and Snowboard Hero™. As a result, FISHLABS led the international charts for the best mobile games in 2008. Not bad for a small company with just 30 employees. Naturally, we were tremendously pleased with all of this recognition and are very proud of it.

Unfortunately, none of this guarantees that high quality and innovation will earn back the expenses of the costly production of such mobile games on the open market, to say nothing of making a profit – the purpose of every professional company. There are a number of diverse reasons for this:

• Even high-quality mobile games are offered at a relatively low price
• Mobile network operators keep at least 50 % of the revenue
• Distributors help themselves to up to 25 % of the end-user price for the more or less simple task of passing on the mobile game
• Mobile games are marketed like ring tones – the name of a mobile game is the only distinguishing feature, the customer only learns about quality and innovation after the purchase
• There is no effective copy protection for mobile games. They are downloaded illegally over the Internet in huge numbers – there are roughly ten times as many illegal downloads of our mobile games as legal (and that is just those that we are aware of)

All of this would not be so serious if these problems had not been known for years. Unfortunately, almost nothing has changed in this regard, and we do not expect there to be fundamental changes in the market for mobile games in the future. Mind you, by this we only mean the market for mobile games which are sold by network operators and Internet portals.

New sales channels for mobile games

In 2009, FISHLABS will rigorously pursue other methods. Above all, we will, for the time being, not develop any new Java mobile games for sale via network operators and Internet portals.

With the long-awaited sequel to our best-known mobile game, the space shooter and trade simulator Galaxy on Fire™, we will rely entirely on the new marketing concept which we successfully introduced with Rally Master Pro™: Galaxy on Fire™ 2 will be available for free download directly from our website and a few selected partners. Anyone who wants to can download the game to their PC to save the mobile transmission costs. In any case, Galaxy on Fire™ 2 can be played for a few hours (!) absolutely free. Only in the later course of the game must the game be unlocked for 100,000 myFISHLABS credits. In western countries, the purchase of a myFISHLABS Credits Gold Package for 5.97 Euros is enough for this. We have also taken great care that myFISHLABS Credits are priced lower in emerging markets in accordance with their purchasing power and that the most important payment systems of each country are available. 

Copy protection for mobile games with extra benefits

In order to adequately protect Galaxy on Fire™ 2 against piracy after the free playing period, the mobile game uses an online connection to our OCEAN™ server to check whether the individual player is authorised to use the paid premium area of Galaxy on Fire™ 2. This check occurs only once per game session and the one-time 10 KB data transfer is minimal, in order to keep the cost to the player as low as possible. The game security data are kept in the phone’s memory until the game is ended. Thus, Galaxy on Fire™ 2 will even work in the underground, so long as there has been a brief connection to the OCEAN™ server beforehand.

Of course, honest users consider copy protection to be an imposition. Why should honest buyers have to accept difficulties or even extra costs for a product they have paid for in full? The answer is simple: because this product and other like it in the future will not exist if it is too easy to obtain a free (illegal) version and the manufacturer cannot make a profit from their product.

But our copy protection also has its good side: above all, download fees do not apply. Depending on the mobile phone contract, that could be up to 15 Euros for a large mobile game like Galaxy on Fire™ 2. Furthermore, we offer up to two cross upgrades. Thus, players can start playing Galaxy on Fire™ 2 on one mobile and keep playing even after changing to another model from a different manufacturer (!) for the second time. The saved games are stored on the OCEAN™ server with every authorisation and loaded as needed. Even without changing mobiles, this is a useful function, for example when your mobile receives a firmware update. And at the same time, all premium players are entered in the international high scores table.

We can’t wait to see how Galaxy on Fire™ 2 and the new sales concept are received in the market. Even if data flat rates have not yet been widely established and we will probably lose some users in the short-term, online connectivity in mobile games is the future and FISHLABS is always one of the leaders!

With that in mind, game on and a successful 2009!

Fishlabs has done it again and brought home yet another Airgamer award, this time with Powerboat Challenge™. Our latest mobile game earned 93% from the testers at the leading German online magazine for mobile games. We now also have a hit in the sports mobile games category among the top 5 mobile games.

Besides the extraordinarily high-quality graphics and the excellent playability, the folks at Airgamer particularly liked the enormous game depth which Powerboat Challenge has to offer. Airgamer’s summary says, ‘Wet streaks of lightning in 3D with a wealth of variety and an outstanding look!’

The evaluation in detail:

• Graphics: very good
• Sound: very good
• Controls: very good

Pro

• Detailed 3D graphics
• Extensive career mode
• Racy feeling of speed
• Precise controls
• Numerous upgrades

Length of game enjoyment: long

Difficulty level: easy to hard

Dominik Hirsch, mobile phone game tester at Airgamer summarises:

‘Exclusively good marks are rare, but Fishlabs has earned this. The graphics set a new (Java) standard for mobile phones. This is primarily due to the very authentic water depiction and the brilliant feeling of speed. But even in scope and variety, the watery frenzy never compromises, and the style system, boosts, and upgrades will give you the need for speed and gaming!

There’s power in there!’

We have nothing to add to that and would like to thank the folks at Airgamer for this terrific evaluation. You can read the complete test at the following link:
http://www.airgamer.de/handyspiele/test/zeige/powerboat-challenge.html

What a day for us - The German Developer Award 2007 goes to FISHLABS: Blades & Magic is the best mobile phone game of the year! Again, we have been proven to be the leading developer of premium 3D mobile games. This is another terrific accolade for our entire team and is the crowning conclusion to a very successful 2007.

As the only 3D mobile game, the action role-playing game Blades & Magic won over the jury, consisting of 30 industry-experts, and beat out the competition. This is also an important signal to the entire mobile games industry that complex 3D games are also able to thrill so-called core gamers on mobile phones.

Achim Quinke, Project Manager of Gamecity Hamburg, is also excited about the Award: “The award impressively underscores Hamburg’s leading role in the field of mobile games. With the Hamburg prototype sponsorship and our numerous services, we will be able to support innovative game developers even more strongly in the future.”

Blades & Magic is a graphically opulent, 3D action-RPG with up to 10 hours of playing time,which sets new standards for mobile phone games. In the role of Bryn, a young warrior of the Grimblade clan, the player must survive numerous quests and learn powerful spells and abilities in order to be able to use them wisely in battle in the lifelike world of Blades & Magic. The fantastic story of Good and Evil gives players the choice of making their way as a fearless fighter or a powerful mage in order to free the land of Auronia from the demon lord Balrazhul.

Get to the dedicated mobile game site of Blades & Magic

Submerge into plenty hours of 3D gaming fun. You might expect to to do that in front of your PC or your gaming console. However, FISHLABS gives you the game to do that on your mobile phone! The 3D action game DEEP: Submarine Odyssey is so innovative it was nominated for the Sony Ericsson Content Award. The submarine adventure created by FISHLABS made it to the top 5 mobile games!

DEEP – Thrilling 3D Action on Your Mobile Phone

With Deep we took the basic premise of our highly acclaimed Galaxy on Fire several steps further to create a never before seen amount of freedom in mobile gaming. The goal was to create a mobile game that gives players the feeling that they can do whatever they want to at any time they please. Be it fishing, hunting down pirates, producing and trading goods, upgrading one’s ship or continuing the main story line. The world of Deep was designed to keep players captivated and motivated for hours and hours.

Get to the dedicated mobile game site of DEEP