Bobblebrook, a relative newcomer to the Vienna, Austria games development scene, has launched as of May 1st! Consisting of childhood friends Philipp Seifried and Markus Mundjar, Bobblebrook aims to release new and innovate Flash games every four to six weeks, focusing on unusual ideas and concepts. So far, they have three games launched, “A Good Hunch”, featuring two time-traveling goats in a platform environment, “Twizzle”, a puzzler based on pushing a sphere through various circular orbigs and “Drifts”, a re-imagining of a previous game released several years ago by the duo.

Read the full press release after the jump or Go play at Bobblebrook

Read more of ”Bobblebrook, a new Viennesse casual games developer launches, welcome to the neighborhood!“

As an experiment in realtime poetry, The Graveyard can’t necessarily be classified as a game, but most certainly a work of art. In the game, you are an older lady, visiting a graveyard, who’s grave though is up to you to find out. You can explore the graveyard or even sit on a bench and experience the environment, creating an immersive, if not slightly depressing, tone for realtime visual exploration.

Experience The Graveyard: The Graveyard

That was quick! If rumors are to be believed, less than a year after the opening of 10tacle Vienna the studio has already been scuttled.

For now the 10tacle Vienna site is still up, with a link directing to the 10tacle mothership and an ominous “coming soon” message. It appears we’re sadly scratching one more games studio out of the Vienna industry, good luck to all of those affected by this.

If anyone can confirm / dispel these rumors, has more info on the closure, or as to what 10t Vienna was working on, feel free to leave a comment below.

Update 1: The as-yet unconfirmed closure of 10t Vienna could have a lot to do with 10tacle’s financial problems, recently outlined in their restructuring press release from last week, where they announced a 25% reduction in marketing and non-product development staff. Read it after the jump along with a screencap of 10tacle’s 3 month share chart.

Read more of ”10tacle Vienna shut(ting) down? How is the rest of 10tacle holding up? (Update 2)“

Created as a Master of Science thesis by a Computer Science student in Umeå University, Phun is an amazing little educational game giving players a rich physics playground where they can easily build and tear apart environments, creating havoc upon squiggly line blocks, water, bits and so much more. Great for teaching a young class about the concepts of physics or just a fun little toy to waste your time at work. Originally posted by our nerdy cousins over at Bunch of Nerds.

Download it at Phun.at

Our condolences go out to the family of a gaming legend. Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons passed away this morning in his Lake Geneva, Wisconsin home at the age of 69. The rapidly deteriorating Gygax created the legendary role playing game in 1974, along with partner Dav Arneson, spawning years of medieval themed video games, books and movies. Final arrangement are currently being made. (Via CNN)

The PSP is warming up to me again with many of the newer games that are appearing from Asia. From Loco Roco now to Patapon, a lovely, hyper-stylish title where you take on the role of God to the Patapon. You lead their charges fighting evil invaders via drum-based patterns and watch as little black squigglies attack and kill out of control red squirmies which sometimes resemble dragons, sometimes not. Now Sony, what is going on with Limbo!!!?!?!

Perception announced a few days ago that it has begun legal proceedings in a Sydney, Australia court against Austrian publisher JoWooD, seeking compensation for damages in excess of EUR 8,000,000 ($11,878,759) it received during 2005’s very public breakdown in relations between the two companies over the mis-managed development of Stargate SG1. Though the license for the Stargate title has defaulted and reverted back to its original owners, both companies are still going at it apparently, with no end in sight. Interesting is that this time around the proceedings are taking place in Australia, it doesn’t look good for JoWooD, with Perception holding the home-field advantage. Can JoWooD survive losing this suit? My money is on no.

Press release after the jump..

Read more of ”Perception sues JoWooD over Stargate fiasco, claims damages in excess of 8 Million Euro“

SunAge, the real-time strategy title being developed by Vienna, Austria’s Vertex4 for over a decade, has finally gone gold and is starting to ship throughout Europe. Copies should hit the streets on November 30th in the EU territories, with a North American release following in early 2008. We can’t begin to talk about what a milestone this is. We first heard of SunAge years ago when the title was still being developed independently, without publish Lighthouse Interactive’s involvement. Highly recommended for those who can’t wait for the next StarCraft and need to get their RTS on.

Lighthouse Interactive and developer Vertex4 today announced that their dynamic sci-fi real-time strategy game SunAge has gone gold and is now shipping to major retail stores in parts of Europe. The street date is November 30, 2007. SunAge is an energetic RTS game that offers a unique experience, bringing modern innovation to the isometric style of real-time strategy. This PC CD-ROM game is Windows Vista compatible.

Gamers across the UK, Scandinavia, Benelux and Italy can start looking for the game on store shelves at the end of this month. SunAge will also be available at various direct download websites*. Other European territories, including: Germany and France, will begin shipping SunAge to retailers in Q1 2008. In North America, SunAge will begin shipping to retail stores at the end of January 2008.

Erik Schreuder, CEO of Lighthouse Interactive said, “SunAge was one of the first games Lighthouse signed when it first opened its doors for business in 2005. Since then, the game has evolved from an indie developed game into a mature and refreshing new take on the RTS genre. It introduces some great new features and we’re convinced this will appeal to many strategy fans. We’re really excited to announce that SunAge has gone gold and it’s thrilling to see that it lives up to its promise.”

“After a lot of dedication and hard work, I am extremely proud to see that we have achieved our goal as a team. SunAge is now available for fellow strategy fans to enjoy,” said Roman Pfneudl, CEO of Vertex4. “The game has become so much more than I anticipated. The RTS community has supported us during the development process and made this experience even greater. We think SunAge has a lot to offer gamers who love to play real-time strategy games as much as we do. We hope you will enjoy it and we promise to keep on supporting the game!”

SunAge is the modern day answer for RTS fans who want the best possible overview on their troops, while trying to outsmart opponents in frantic battles where strategy and tactics are more important than ever. If you are a core real-time strategy gamer, SunAge is for you!

Toyata goes Viral, by placing a Toyota truck into World of Warcraft and overdubbing it with a humorous homage to Leeroy Jenkins. I wonder though, how many level 70 mages would drive a Tundra 4×4?

A 10 year old school boy in Moscow jumped to his death after his parents banned him from playing computer games. The boy, Andrei Smirnov (?) ended his life after receiving his punishment for bad conduct and poor performance at school. Local Russian experts naturally are expressing concern over the unhealthy dependence of children on computers and games in particular.