WiiCade.com recently accomplished another achievement in the Flash development scene for the Nintendo Wii by releasing a software that allows Flash developers to interact with Flash movies using the buttons of the Wii game remote. Flash developers were previously only able to make use of motion sensing features of the Wii-mote and had no access to the buttons or the tilt sensing features (which remains inaccessible). This new software shall open up many new opportunities for independent developers for creating Flash games and applications for the Wii. You can learn more about the Wii-mote button API and download it for free at WiiCade.com.

[via Joystiq]

Knowledge Oasis Muscat held its annual gaming conference eGames on the 10th and 11th of December with a focus this year on mobile gaming and serious gaming (gaming for training and educational purposes). The sessions of the conference were delivered by expert speakers from Sun Microsystems, Ericsson, Yahoo!, and various international game development firms, British educational institutes and Omani mobile operators.

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Microsoft released earlier this week the full version of its game development tool XNA Game Studio Express. The free tool created for game students and hobbyists could be used to create games for the Windows and the Xbox 360 platforms. The kit is based on the Visual C# 2005 Express Edition and Microsoft’s .NET Compact Framework and currently works only on Windows XP. Microsoft also launched the XNA Creators Club as a companion to its game creation tool as subscription based community to share developed games and access special asset libraries. You can learn more about XNA Game Studio Express and the XNA Creators Club from the following link.

Oman Mobile launched its second mobile game on the 10th of December at a special launch event held at the Crowne Plaza Muscat. The authentic Omani game titled “Shaking Funjan” was developed in Holland upon a game concept selected through a competition organised by Oman Mobile and the Sultan Qaboos University for high education students in Oman. The quality of the game was ensured by hiring Mobile2win, a random Indian company that makes trademark-infringing silly mobile games such as Lord of the Drinks, Toilet Trainer, and Spinny Alley.

Nobody knows how Shaking Funjan really plays like, the game was not demoed at the event and the official website does not mention anything about its gameplay. There is no online demo, there is no offline demo. You have to actually purchase the game to learn about how it plays. To download the game, you will have to first pay 1 Rial Omani and then pay 3 Baizas for each kb (and just in case you didn’t know, that’s a bit, not a byte) you download, there is no actual or approximate size mentioned on the website, it could be 10 kilobytes, 100 kilobytes, or just about anything.

You can learn more on how to waste 1 Rial (plus download charges) on the game with the most ridiculous main character name via this link.

KOM recently announced a 15% discount on the conference delegate fees for registrations before the 22nd of November. The eGames gaming conference is due to take place on the 10th and 11th of December and it shall be focused on mobile gaming and serious gaming. More details could be found here.

A recent update at eGames states that the conference will feature a workshop on promoting virtual reality as a marketing opportunity by taking Second Life as an example. The workshop will be delivered by the Director of the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University and Gavin Dudeney of The Consultants-E. You can learn more details about this upcoming workshop from this link.

The gulf’s annual gaming conference will be held this year at the Crown Plaza in Muscat on the 10th and 11th of December 2006. The event hosted by the Knowledge Oasis Muscat is directed towards Middle East-based companies and professionals involved in producing interactive entertainment software and hardware for video game consoles, handheld devices, personal computers and the Internet. The conference will be preceded by a free whole-day gaming workshop that will cover storyboarding, character design and development, animation, narrative storytelling and visual effects. The workshop will be limited to a 100 attendees that will have to reserve their seats by emailing mulkie@kom.om. You can learn more about the upcoming eGames conference by visiting their blog.

Microsoft released yesterday XNA Studio Express Beta, the new game development kit for Windows directed towards game enthusiasts, students, and independent developers which could be used to make PC and Xbox 360 games. A $99 annual subscription fee would be required to be able to make playable Xbox 360 games through the XNA Creators Club. You can learn more about the XNA platform and download the new beta from Microsoft Game Technologies Center.

Microsoft announced today at a game event held in Seattle a new game development platform named XNA. Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express is a game development kit made for studios and amateurs to create PC and Xbox 360 games on Windows XP. A beta version of the program is going to be available for free this August to let users create games for the Windows platform, however, a $100 community subscription fee would be required to be able to make games for the Xbox 360. This move from Microsoft makes the Xbox 360 the only game console platform accessible to amateurs game developers as game console development kits are usually only available for game studios at extortionate prices. Microsoft also said that more than ten universities will include the new XNA platform in the courses of their game development schools. You can learn more about XNA Game Studio Express from its official webpage.

[via Joystiq]

We know that a great number of 3D designers developed their interest for graphics through their love for videogames. Gamespot wrote a lengthy article on how to become a game designer and what the experience is like. You can read the article at this link.

[via The Design Weblog]