I've just got back from a trip to Lapland, where Nokia was talking about its new N-Gage mobile games platform, and showing off some of the upcoming titles. The most relevant from this blog's point of view was Creebies, which is (kind of) a 3D Neopets-like mix of creature-rearing and mini-games, with elements of Animal Crossing's home-decorating and item collecting features.
It’s not finished yet, but is already looking like a polished product, with a zooming and rotating 3D view of proceedings, and some characterful Creebie characters. The game is actually the work of UK developer Gameware, which has previously worked on the Creatures virtual pet franchise on PC.
There’s a virtual currency - ‘spondoolies’ - and a big range of items to buy that either transform your creature’s home, or actually alter his vital statistics (basically strength, intelligence and sociability). However, it’s the connected elements that are really interesting.
Players will be able to send their Creebies to an online zone to compete against each other in mini-games, and socialise too (it’s one of the first connected virtual pet games where they can actually breed, as far as I know). Nokia says the game is targeting women and non-gamers as well as the expected hardcore audience - it’ll be intriguing to see if it succeeds in that.
0 comments