We hold our promises: The FISHLABS mobile games will be back in the public - this time we’re at the YOU 2008 in Berlin from October 24th to 26th!

Win Sony Ericsson mobile phones and FISHLABS mobile games packs

So here’s the deal - anyone who couldn’t be at our booth in Leipzig gets another chance, this time in Berlin. Once again you can win a Sony Ericsson W760i Walkman phones or a Sony Ericsson F305 gaming phone in our YOU 2008 contest. And even if you don’t win a phone, you won’t be left out on the fun - any participant without a win will receive a FISHLABS mobile games pack for free, which you can then install on your mobile phones. And we’re talking about full mobile games here, not simple demo versions.

The FISHLABS mobile games bus is back on the road

You’ll find our booth in Hall 23b with the booth number 213 - in our direct vicinity you’ll find Wikipedia, StarFM and the “Mädchenbus” - so it will be hard to miss us! As was the case on the Games Convention, we’ll present our mobile games as a real eye-cathcer: Anyone who knows our mobile games bus, will recognize it in an instant at the YOU and will know that FISHLABS is back!

Mobile games on the big screen

Our visitors at the Games Convention loved them: The FISHLABS mobile games on the big screens - never before have mobile games been on display in such sizes. The well-tried FISHLABS quality came to shine on those big screens and showed that we’re able to deliver high visual quality at low prices. So what are you waiting for? Visit us at the YOU 2008 in Berlin and experience the FISHLABS mobile games at first hand - it will be worth it!

The Games Convention is just around the corner, and our preparations are in high gear. This time, we will have three booths: you will find our promotion van right inside the entrance in the large glass hall, where our mobile games can be downloaded free to your phone via Bluetooth. Our promotion girls will then show you the way to our main booth G20 in Hall 5.

Sony Ericsson W760i Walkman mobile phone drawing

At our generous booth in Hall 5, you can not only get a first-hand impression of our upcoming games, we will be giving away a super-cool Sony Ericsson W760i Walkman mobile phone every 2 hours. In addition, we will be holding drawings for FISHLABS games packs, each with 5 full versions. That way, you can start playing right away. You should probably just relax on one of the many cube seats at our booth, because our games won’t let go of you so quickly.

First FISHLABS mobile game on Symbian with OpenGL ES

Our business partners will always be able to reach us at the GameCity Hamburg booth F11 in the Business Centre in Hall 2. There we will demonstrate another ‘world premiere’: Powerboat Challenge™ on the Symbian platform with full OpenGL ES hardware rendering. Even with four boats at once, full-throttle graphics, and all of the light, reflection, and water effects switched on, the native game runs at maximum visibility at an unbelievable 30 frames per second in full resolution and landscape format. That is mobile console gaming at its best!

Galaxy on Fire™ 2 gameplay video ready to go

Along with our current mobile games Powerboat Challenge™ and Rally Master Pro™, we will also be showing the release candidate for Gladiator and the first playable version of Galaxy on Fire™ 2, which you have been eagerly awaiting. For those of you who may not be able to travel to the GC, we have put together the very first gameplay video for Galaxy on Fire™ 2.

Of course, this video does not represent the final version of the game. Above all, we still have not fully implemented the head-up display and so we have left it out here. But you can already see what direction the gameplay is going: for example, you are no longer tied to one station, but can fly directly to nearby planets and their stations and move freely between star systems using jump gates.

You can also get an eyeful of the new graphics quality in the sequel in this video – and that even though these are not even the final graphics! You can expect not only gaming highlights, but also visuals that may be unique in the field of mobile games!

Take a close look, and you will discover even more gameplay features: for example, the option of taking control of the turrets yourself. Very handy when you are attacked from behind  or when flying past larger battleships, if you want to take out their guns with targeted fire. Or the new special weapons, such as EMP bursts, which incapacitate your opponents for a brief moment, so you can finish them off. And the nukes are nothing to sneeze at – they’re a real blast! Especially if you have to destroy a real monster ship or too many enemies are after you all at once.

FISHLABS on GCDC Mobile Games Panels

FISHLABS will not only be in the exhibition area of the Games Convention, but will also be taking part in three mobile games panels on Monday during the GCDC:

The State of the European Mobile Games Industry

Abstract: The European mobile games industry has developed its own quality and style that is unique in the world. Europe is also the home of Nokia, Gameloft and high profile international developers such as Ideaworks3D, Fishlabs and Digital Legends. Many European studios (Elkware, Iomo, Haiku, Sumea, etc.) have been bought by Japanese and American studios in the recent past and this is a trend that is likely to continue in the coming years.

Enough reasons to ask ourselves: can we grow the mobile entertainment business ourselves? Can we do our own research and development? How about Financing? Can we improve the European market commercially? Any best practices in the games or media industry?

On or Off Deck: Is there a future for mobile games distribution without the operators?

Abstract: 2008 started with the launch of NGage, the announcement of the Iphone SDK and Google’s Android program. Big companies seem to discover the potential of mobile game distribution, a potential that was already discovered by Jamba, Zed, Buongiorno and Sony Ericsson with Fun and Download. C4M sees a future in the Japanese distribution model based on free games, others are experimenting with distribution via e-mail, virtual item buying and in-game advertising.

This panel of experts will give you an insight in the present and the future of off deck distribution strategies.

Multi Platform Publishing Strategies

Abstract: To be announced.

It took a little longer than expected but right now we are flipping the switch: not only is Rally Master Pro™ finally coming out, we are also starting myFISHLABS, our new community for mobile gamers. And this community will really be something. For one thing, it is, of course, completely free. Register at our website and you can provide a variety of information about yourself. For example, along with your model of mobile phone, hobbies, and so on, you can also enter your favourite FISHLABS mobile games and thus easily find new friends who like the same games. You can send each other messages and even free SMS (we will launch this feature end of August when Games Convention kicks-off). Or go straight to the forum to discuss our mobile games with other gamers. You won’t even have to reregister for that, of course your myFISHLABS account applies to our forum, too.

Credits account for easy payment and big discounts on all mobile games

In addition, all members of myFISHLABS well receive a credits account, which can be used to pay for our mobile Java games quickly and conveniently. That not only makes paying a lot simpler, you will also get a discount of at least 20% on all our mobile Java games, and the more credits you buy, the bigger the discount – up to 50%! But it gets even better. For registering, we will give every new member 20,000 credits. For that, you can even get one of our mobile Java games for free! However, you need to be a little patient for another couple weeks as we will launch this feature end of August, as well.

Mobile Java games with on-line high scores

With myFISHLABS, we want to offer you a platform where you can measure yourself against like-minded gamers. In the future, all of our mobile Java games will have an on-line connection to our FISHLABS server (code name OCEAN™). You can use that to upload your current game stand, like high scores. Rally Master Pro™ is the first mobile Java game where we will offer this new function, and naturally the focus is on the best times for the individual courses. In other games, such as the announced Galaxy on Fire 2, you will be able to upload not just your current score, but entire saved games with all  the information imaginable –  but more on that later.

Finally, upgrades for mobile Java games, too

OCEAN™ can do much more.  For the first time, we can now update our mobile Java games and make additional content available. That has always been important to us, and with Rally Master Pro™ we will completely reinvent the downloading of courses. Naturally, we have made sure that the amount of data to be transferred is kept as small as possible, in order to keep the connection fees low. Thus, for example, all the graphics for the courses are already in the mobile Java game embedded. Only the course route will be downloaded, and that is only a few kilobytes.

Copy protection and try & buy for mobile Java games included

All of this has another pleasant side effect: this version of Rally Master Pro™ is optimally protected against piracy. Therefore, we can offer you the mobile Java game to download for free. The first two courses are free and you can pay for the next seven to the conclusion of the first rally with the free credits from registering for myFISHLABS.

Anyone who hasn’t registered and gets a pirated copy from the Internet can only play the first two courses of Rally Master Pro™. But we are sure that everyone will want to play the whole game and register at myFISHLABS!

However, some features are still in the test phase and we will launch myFISHLABS with all features by the end of July. But we didn’t want to keep you waiting any longer and we launch myFISHLABS with a limited feature set now, so you can download Rally Master Pro™ at no cost right away and play the first nine tracks for free.

So, head straight to myFISHLABS to register and then download our latest mobile Java game Rally Master Pro™ for free!