Three Melons' Blog

Great news! We are part of the Playdom team!

Hello everyone! We've been quiet for a while, but to make up for the silence these few months we are back with awesome news.

We are thrilled to announce that as of today we are now part of Playdom, the leading social gaming company, based in Mountain View, California.

This deal is a huge opportunity for all of us and a step forward in the product development strategy we began with the launch of Bola. We are also very proud because we feel it's a big milestone for the Argentinean video game industry that continues its path of fast growth.

We can't wait to start creating more great, fun and engaging games together with them.
For more details on the acquisition you can read the press release here.

PS: Play Bola! ;)

Play BOLA! Juega BOLA! Joga BOLA!

Today is a very exciting day because the beta of Bola, our first social game on Facebook, is finally open, and available for everyone to play at http://apps.facebook.com/bolasocialsoccer/
Bola is an easy-to-play online football game where you can manage your team, play matches and challenge your friends.
With Bola you will get instant action by playing matches and challenging your friends to play against you to see who's the best. You will also have to grow your team from birth (choosing its name and colors) to glory, by achieving the biggest fan base. In order to have more fans you will have to buy items to pimp your stadium and get performance boosters for your players . You can also sign deals with brands to sponsor your team. And you will do all this by sharing your experience with all your Facebook friends (won't you love to put your friends' photo inside a chicken suit and post it on their profile when you beat them bad?).
We will be adding new features constantly so if you have any suggestions we'd love to hear them on the community we've set up for all Bola players: http://getsatisfaction.com/bola
And if you want to follow all the latest updates follow Bola on Facebook: http://bit.ly/7xrP6 Kand Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/playbola
Enough reading....PLAY BOLA!

 

Unite 2009: LEGO Star Wars Post Mortem

During the last days of October we participated in the Unite 2009 Conference in San Francisco. The event was hosted by Unity 3D and it was a meeting point for developers, artists and publishers who wanted to learn more about this technology and share thoughts and experiences of their use of Unity 3D.
Patricio Jutard, Technology Orchestrator at Three Melons, and Diego Ruiz, Lead Engineer, were there and gave a technical session in which they provided a post-mortem review of our game LEGO Star Wars: the quest for R2-D2.
We were also very happy to learn that the LEGO Star Wars game was runner up at the Unity Awards!
Looking forward to the Unite Conference 2010!

Expo de Videojuegos Argentinos 2009

El 4 y 5 de diciembre se va a realizar la 7ma Exposición de Videojuegos Argentina (EVA), en la Universidad de Belgrano.
La EVA es el lugar donde todos los participantes de la industria de videojuegos en Argentina se reúnen para intercambiar experiencias, dar capacitaciones y promover la industria.
Este año, además de los mas de 40 oradores locales, va a haber invitados internacionales como Nick Fortugno que va a dar un workshop sobre Game Design e Ian Bogost, que va  hablar sobre nuevos usos para los videojuegos.
Y Three Melons también va a estar presente! Pauline Morrison Fell y Alejandro Espinola, nuestros Melon Scrum Masters van a estar hablando sobre el desarrollo de videojuegos con metodologías ágiles. Acá se puede ver el cronograma completo de workshops y charlas.
Para mas información acerca de la EVA se puede visitar el website del evento, o seguir los updates via Twitter.

And the winner is...

We've been having some exciting days here at Three Melons!
Last week at the Unite Conference, our LEGO Star Wars game was announced runner up Unity 3D game.
And if that wasn't cool enough, this week we won the Gold prize in the Online Game Category at the Ojo de Iberoamerica Award, for our LEGO Indiana Jones game (which has already been played by over 20 million people!)
We're very proud and thankful to the millions of players!

Make sure to check out LEGO Indiana Jones and LEGO Star Wars. Enjoy!

Three Melons at Agiles 2009

Today, the new Agiles conference is beginning in Florianopolis, Brasil. The conference aims to be a meeting point for IT professionals interested in software development-related topics using agile methodologies.

At Three Melons we use the Scrum methodology in our game development because we like the people focus approach and flexibility it encourages. 

This Friday Pauline Morrison Fell, Melon Scrum Master, will be at Agiles talking about her experience at Three Melons working in the development of videogames, using an agile methodology with cross-functional teams.
To see more information about her talk and the event, go here!

LEGO Star Wars is online!

Today is the day! Finally the full LEGO Star wars game is online at http://starwars.lego.com  
For those who are not part of the 5 million unique users who have played the teaser, here's some info about LEGO Star Wars, the quest for R2-D2:

The game begins when, lost in space, R2-D2 starts emitting a distress call without knowing that his signal contains the blueprints to build a powerful secret starship.
Whoever can amplify that signal will get both the droid location and this unique new weapon! The war between Separatists and Republicans is imminent!

(BTW: you can choose which side of the Clone Wars conflict you want to fight for).

The game was developed using Unity 3D and features over 20 hours of gameplay, for free, from your browser.... pretty cool right?

For the full press release and in game images you can go here.
Or you can see some videos here.

Leave a comment and tell us what you think about the game!
Enjoy.

Code Camp Buenos Aires 2009

El próximo sábado 26 de septiembre se va a estar realizando la nueva edición de Code Camp, en la Universidad de Palermo.
El evento va a contar con decenas de oradores y conferencias durante todo el día. Nosotros vamos a estar hablando sobre desarrollo de juegos multiplataforma con Unity3D.
Acá se puede ver la agenda completa.
Esperamos verlos ahí!

Videogames Going to College

We are extremely proud to announce that we just signed an agreement with ITBA University (Buenos Aires Technological Institute) to start teaching "Introduction to the development of video games".

The class will be a part of the Computing Engineering degree course.
We are very happy that we are able to introduce video games into the Argentinean academic scene, and think it's a big step towards the promotion of the local video games industry.

You can get some more info (in Spanish) here.

Seminario: Calidad de Software y Desarrollo Agil

 

El 9/6 de 14:30 a 19:00 se va a desarrollar en el Auditorio de la Universidad de Belgrano (Lavalle 485, CABA), el seminario gratuito "Calidad de Software y Desarrollo Ágil" organizado en forma conjunta por la Universidad de Belgrano, el IRAM y Ágiles.
Nos invitaron a participar como caso de éxito, y Pauline Morrison Fell, Melon Scrum Master, va a estar hablando sobre cómo certificamos nuestros procesos bajo la Norma ISO, sin perder la agilidad propia de la metodología Scrum.
Para ver la agenda completa del evento, click aca!