Eximion Game Studio

GEE and Kalydo bring MMO's to Social Networks

2009-11-19T00:49:00.001-08:00

Eindhoven, the Netherlands - 19 November 2009

Game Entertainment Europe, publisher of Online games and Eximion, developer of the Kalydo 3D browser game platform have signed an agreement to bring downloadable MMO games to Social Networks such as Facebook and Netlog.

Therefore, existing downloadable MMO games will be seamlessly ported so users can start and play these games in a Web browser. When ready the online games will be offered to millions of users in Social Networks using Kalydo. With this cooperation both companies follow the success of other Social Games like Restaurant City, Mafia Wars and Farm Ville, where users don’t have to register, download and install games. Also it is very easy to share the game and their game results with many of their friends.

The first game that will be launched is Hovorun (www.hovorun.com), a casual multi player racing game based in the Mario Kart theme. The planning is to launch the first browser version of this game to social networks such as Hyves and Netlog.

“For this cooperation GEE will focus on the selection of the best Online Games from the enormous offering of downloadable MMO games we have. We will localize and promote the games but we can leave the transformation to a browser based game and the distribution to the Social Networks to Eximion. An excellent combination.” according to Richard van Barneveld, CEO of Game Entertainment Europe.

“We want to show the world its now perfectly possible to run large MMO games from the browser. Combining smart engineering, bleeding edge technology such as cloud computing we bring these games to the browser, omitting the need of a large download and installation. Together with Game Entertainment Europe we make the first MMO games widely accessible to a huge group of people on the social networks.” says Doki Tops – CEO at Kalydo

About Kalydo (www.kalydo.com)
Eximion is the visionary company behind Kalydo, a powerful open platform for developing, publishing and monetizing console quality browser games. Working on the bleeding edge of innovation, Kalydo is 100% OpenSocial compatible, offers limitless scalability (Google App Engine) and is smartly streamlined to bring consumers a singularly top quality gaming experience without the need of a large installation.

With its seamless integration into the well-known social networks, Kalydo offers a direct stepping stone to a gigantic online audience, and by combining state of the art technology (including the use of cloud computing) and smart engineering, consumers will be able to play MMO games seamlessly in every browser on the planet.

Based in the Eindhoven, The Netherlands, Eximion has been nominated for several innovation awards such as the MKB Innovation Top 100 and the Fast Fifty of the Quote 500 magazine next to successfully partnering with Netlog (social network of 50+ million users) and Game Entertainment Europe. Plans for the future include cross-platform releases such as the Wii Ware and iPhone.
Follow Kalydo on twitter: www.twitter.com/kalydo

About Game Entertainment Europe (www.ge-eu.com)
Game Entertainment Europe is the leading Pan European publisher for MMO Games. To offer the best game experience all the games are localized for European territory. Game Entertainment Europe organizes promotion, hosting, billing, game mastering and support services. Game Entertainment Europe has earned its rank as one of Europe’s most popular free to play MMOG communities with more than 1.000.000 registered gamers on their game platform www.gamersoxygen.com . The company has offices in Switzerland, Amsterdam and Seoul. Game Entertainment Europe is shareholder in Games Factory Online (www.gamesfactoryonline.com), WZZRD game café’s (www.wzzrd.nl) and Lots Interactive, a game development studio from Korea.

Kalydo upgrades to 3.0 - Important notice

2009-10-30T05:31:00.003-07:00

We are upgrading the Kalydo Player, the software which runs our 3D browser games, to its new version 3.0 this month.

Everyone will be prompted to re-install the Kalydo Player upon playing a game. This is an automatic, mandatory update. The previous version will no longer work. After installing the new Kalydo Player you will be able to play all of our games again, now and in the future.

Downtime during the transition
During the upgrade it is possible we will experience a few hours of downtime. We apologize for the inconvenience.

New features in the Kalydo Player v3

The Kalydo Player has been improved with the following key features:

• Up to 3 times shorter loading times
• Better stability and browser support (IE 6, 7, 8, Firefox, Chrome)
• Improved options panel with full screen and audio options
• Extensive scalability with future MMO support
• Automated localisation support (more languages coming soon)

Faster loading times
The most noticable improvement is the extremely optimized loading times of the games. All the games on the Kalydo Platform now load up to 3 times faster than before.

Extensive scalability, security and the future
The Kalydo Platform is growing bigger and bigger and more games are coming your way. In the near future these new games will include multiplayer games and MMO games.

To support this type of games the Kalydo Player has been made ready to seamlessly provide these games in the web browser. Soon you will be able to play MMO’s directly from your web browser, without the need of a large download.

Questions ?

If you encounter any problems with the new Kalydo Player let us know. Please contact us at support@kalydo.com with all your questions.

Play Kalydo games free for a week

2009-09-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Hello Kalydo friends,

We are doing maintenance to the Kalydo platform. To compensate for the possible inconvenience we offer everyone to play our games for free from Thursday 10 to Friday 18 September.

Play for free now while you still can

Absolutely free? Yes! So invite your friends, grandparents, schoolmates and have a blast! We wish everyone a lot of fun and apologize for any problems you may have experienced.

Best wishes,

Kalydo team.

Kalydo presents 'GamePro' at Siggraph 2009

2009-08-03T01:37:00.000-07:00

We are rather proud to announce that one of our colleagues, Michiel Roza, is going to present at the renowned Siggraph convention this week. This wednesday, August 5, Michiel will be talking about GamePro, the Realtime Visual Performance Profiler he developed during his graduation at Eximion.

His innovative brainchild GamePro quickly turned into something much bigger than just another graduation project... Read on to find out more about this wonderful, techy and jazzy story!

About GamePro
GamePro is a visual performance and resource profiler for real-time applications.
The key unique feature is it's ability to quickly show performance bottlenecks in an application at any time interval.

For example: Causes of frame drops in games. During profiling GamePro only uses a minimal amount of resources so the real-time application is minimally affected; the application will still be as responsive as before.

The usual suspects and more
GamePro has various visualizations to show the abundance of information in an intuitive way. These visualizations also allow you to compare time frames as well as different application runs. Of course features you would expect in a profiler like finding bottlenecks, memory leaks and memory hogs are also included.

"I am really excited for this opportunity to present at Siggraph 2009. When I started my master, I never thought this could be the result. I'm sure people will like the results I will present!"

Michiel Roza - Engine Developer

Would like to know more about GamePro? Get in touch with our guys at m.roza @ eximion.com or visit www.dreamcreateplay.com to sign up for our buzzing developer corner!

-----------------------------------------

Attending Siggraph 2009? Here are the details:
Siggraph website

Michiel Roza and Mark Schroders
"A High-Performance Visual Profiler for Games"
Wednesday, 5 August | 8:30 AM - 10:15 AM | Auditorium A

Kalydo partnert met BBG Game Portal en betreedt Aziatische markt

2009-05-06T07:31:00.000-07:00

Fuzhou, Fujian, China, 22 april 2009

Fuhzou TM Websoft Inc., het bedrijf achter de BBG website, kondigt haar parnterschap aan met Kalydo. In de BBG website wordt het mogelijk de Kalydo games te spelen. Door de inzet van actieve branding in haar site zal BBG zorgdragen voor een verdere groei van Kalydo in de wereldwijde markt van on-line gaming.

De BBG website heeft zich ten doel gesteld haar Engels sprekende klanten wereldwijd het beste aanbod van on-line games ter beschikking te stellen. Naast de reeds populaire games als RuneScape, Moondo en Gladiatus zullen de games van Kalydo verder bijdragen aan een kwalitatief hoog aanbod. De BBG site is inmiddels geranked als een van de top on-line gaming sites van 2009.

“We zijn verheugd met de integratie van Kalydo in onze portal. Kalydo biedt unieke on-line games met console kwaliteit, die bijdragen aan een verdere kwantitatieve en kwalitatieve groei van onze BBG site en activiteiten”. Carolyn Chen – PR Respresentative BBG Site.

“We zijn content met het partnerschap met BBG. Naast onze nationale bereikbaarheid biedt BBG ons een wereldwijd platform aan in het Engelstalig segment. Dit past uitstekend is onze groeistrategie die Kalydo zich enige maanden geleden ten doel heeft gesteld. Kalydo verwacht in 2009 soortgelijke partnerschaps met nationale en internationale partijen te realiseren”. Doki Tops - CEO Eximion BV.

Eximion is het moederbedrijf achter Kalydo, het open platform voor het ontwikkelen en publiceren van on-line web games. De combinatie van on-line beschikbaarheid en console kwaliteit games en play biedt consumenten en uitgevers ongekende mogelijkheden in de snel groeiende markt van on-line gaming.

Voor meer informatie kunt u zich wenden tot:

Doki Tops - CEO
d.tops at eximion.com
http://www.eximion.com
http://www.kalydo.com

Playcomet fan of Kalydo games

2009-05-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

More and more people are picking up Kalydo games. We like to thank the wonderful Playcomet game portal for including our games. We really love their site, it looks great and is really userfriendly.

Do you have a great game website and would like to include our game catalogue? Check out our press portal and grab the Trailers, Screenshots and info package. Thank you for your interest!

Kalydo City - Geek Comic episode 1- 2009

2009-03-09T06:57:00.000-07:00

Episode 1 of a epic thrilling story of supsense, romance and game geeks.

Wiebe can not come to the Ardens trip

2009-03-05T00:22:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow our whole team is going for a nerdz-weekend-out to the Ardens to have a good time. Everybody is exited to come and the whole thing was arranged by Michiel very well.... well.... but now we've heard Wiebe can not come with us... What you say?!

Yes, because of some other supposedly more important stint at his school, Wiebe has informed us he will not join the party. This led to a flaming mailbomb exploding at our office and subsequently a reaction from Wiebe himself...

So Wiebe reacted personally to reflect his feelings. Last thing heard was a handwritten message in Dutch saying:

Translation: "Message to my loving friends. I am dillusional and lost. I AM going to leave you now, cruel world."

Ofcourse this is all very disturbing... We are not waiting longer and have requested psych treatment for Wiebe. If you want to leave a message please do. We are all concerned.

First third party projects on Kalydo

2009-02-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

Normally you read news here about our games on the Kalydo platform. But did you know Kalydo is actually an 'open' platform? This means that other companies or hobbyists are free to develop their own games for it. Want to see what other people are doing with our game platform?

Check it out at Kalydo Publish!

These are the first in a series of external projects on the Kalydo platform. We are also working together with a number of (Dutch and foreign) game developers who are looking to publish a game at Kalydo and integration into the largest social community of Europe is allmost a fact. Stay tuned for more info.

STARATA
The first project is Starata , a classic topdown 2D arcade shooter. This game was made by Maarten Tops, who also teaches how to use our game engine in the game classes at the NHTV in Breda. We think its a very cool game and hope to see more people doing their own in the future!

Check Starata out at Kalydo Publish!

NURSE MATH
The second demo is called Nurse Math. This serious application was built by a group students from the NHTV in Breda. The goal of the game is to help nurses get better at math. Lack of math skills results in a large number of wrong doses of medications in hospitals each year. This game is intended to solve that in a fun way.

Check it out at Kalydo Publish!

Enjoy playing with these demo's. Others included are 'Ship Demo' and 'Circuitboard'. Descriptions are on the right side of the screen. Press ESC to bring op the options menu inclding Fullscreen and audio Mute.

Hey this looks intersting. Can I work with Kalydo too?
Want to know more about the Kalydo platform? Check out our developer community called Kalydo World or visit www.dreamcreateplay.com

We love to hear from you. Thanks.

BBG site features Kalydo games

2009-02-13T05:23:00.000-08:00

BBGSite, a wonderful community site that covers everything worthwhile happening in casual game land, now features the first Kalydo games. So start voting everyone and check out this cool and very active website! Its great!

The games they cover from Kalydo:

Cube - Gardens of Zen
Konstrukt Invasion
Oggo's Odyssey

Goofball 360 game updated

2009-02-10T06:39:00.001-08:00

Goofball 360 has been updated. Your feedback was mostly about the score system and the use of itemz. Rob (game tech director) talks about the changes that are made to the game.

Scoring system and rounds

"A lot of people complained about the way the scoring system works. In particular the seperate rounds didn't work out really well. This has been changed now." Rob van Gulik

Scores are now added up between rounds, resulting in one whooping total score. So the bonus round really adds to your chances of success. This does mean that you are able to get bigger highscores, resulting in a new upper deck in the highscore tables.

More chance on Itemz
One of the things we have also improved is the chance of getting the right Itemz. The current version of the game is a little light on the amount of Itemz, so we adressed this.

"It used to be hard to make a good Combo because there were so few Itemz. In the new version of the game this is solved. The better you perform the bigger your chances are to get more Itemz. This really raises the potential for big highscores so get gaming again :D" Rob van Gulik

New Goofball 360 levels
We are happy to announce Goofball 360 will receive even more updates soon. Our art department is designing and building a set of new levels to add to the collection. What will the style of the levels be? Keep an eye out for news and you will be the first to know!

---------------------------

All updates

Game Engine change log version 1.12.19:
05-02-2009: Tiling textures imported from collada format
05-02-2009: Temporarily disabled DirectX selection due to bad compatibility
04-02-2009: Added disable of aero on vista when going into fullscreen and enable when going out of fullscreen
03-02-2009; fix rendering of meshes with textures without having texture coordinates
03-02-2009; fix collision detection

Konstrukt Invasion:
02-02-2009: Possible crash during Gyata and Dutoga boss fight.

Goofball 360:
02-02-2009: Fixed a problem that occurred while saving the game progress

Cube beta starts today

2009-01-28T07:59:00.001-08:00

The Cube - Gardens of Zen beta starts today. Play this wonderful game and let us know what you think about it. We will take all your feedback and errors into account to create the final version of the game...

Wait no longer and play this kickass game now!

HELP I can not play the game!
To play Cube, your Kalydo account needs to have beta access. A lot of people have already requested this. Do you want to help test this game as well? Great! Send us a message and we will give your account beta access too.

*Note: This might take up to two days but most of the time its faster. :D

Goal of the beta
The beta phase is the final step in creating a game. To make Cube into the best experience we can, your help is vital. There could be errors which need fixing or gameplay issues. Then there's all those ideas you might have for small improvements. We love to hear about all of them!

Our website offers you a simple way to get in touch with us. The Feedback tab is very handy to send us your comments.

Thank you for playing!

The Kalydo Team.

Kalydo upgrades to OpenID

2009-01-22T07:11:00.000-08:00

Eindhoven, The Netherlands - Januari 22, 2009

The new and upcoming Kalydo game platform moves up to the frontlines of 2.0 web standards with the integration of OpenID. This universal internet identity has seen an immense growth the past year, and is now embraced by all major players such as Microsoft, AOL, Google, Facebook and Yahoo. Integration of OpenID is Kalydo's first step towards its higher goal: complete integration into the large OpenSocial platforms.

Kalydo, the new gaming platform developed by Dutch company Eximion, brings beautiful console quality games to the browser. The OpenID technology makes it possible for gamers to login simply using one of their existing online IDs. There's no need to register. Simply use your Google, Yahoo, AOL or Facebook personalia to login. Logging into the best online games has never been easier.

Great games made easy
Strongpoint of the Kalydo game platform is that it enables consumers to play top quality 3D games in their browser. No need for a big download or installation. The one-time only installation of the Kalydo plugin is all you need. On top of this everything is perfectly tailored towards today's mainstream PCs and laptops. So don't worry, these games will work fine on your newly bought Netbook. You don't need a monster PC to enjoy the games at Kalydo.

Kalydo gearing up for the next step
After a succesful beta period to prove the stability of the platform and and a strong presentation at the Leipzig GC past year, Kalydo is now making big leaps forward. A positive response from game developers, community portals and online publishers fueled the rapid development of OpenSocial integration.

Answering the increasing interest
To meet the growing demand of information on its products and services, Kalydo has launched a special portal page. On their http://portal.kalydo.com interested parties can navigate to the relevant areas of interest with ease. Being in the market now for partnerships, Kalydo is happy to hear from you.

More information:

www.kalydo.com Your Virtual Console
portal.kalydo.com Kalydo central - Information hub on everything "Kalydo"
OpenId - The universal online ID

Cube - new game coming to Kalydo

2009-01-16T04:10:00.001-08:00

Puzzling zen in the world of cube

A brand new game is coming to Kalydo soon. Find out everything about this wonderful puzzle game in the Gardens of Zen.

"Guide the young hero Cub on his quest through the Gardens of Zen. Meet Sensei and his Cinjas and various mystical creatures who guide your way to ultimate wisdom. This is a magical journey through the four seasons of the cube world"

Featuring 100 levels of puzzling zen, four wonderful seasons, memorable characters and the answers to life. Watch the sneak preview now on www.cubethegame.com

Be the first to play this game
Cube is going into beta soon. This means we will invite a number of people to playtest it. We are looking forward to hear from our most active players.

Would you like to play Cube and help us test it? Send us a message with:

CUBE BETA ON and your USERNAME.

We will grant you 'beta access'. You will be notified when the game is available to play. Note* You have to be registed at Kalydo to participate in the beta.

Interview w. Michiel Roza - 3D motion planning

2009-01-12T08:43:00.000-08:00

Today I sat down with one of our programmers Michiel Roza. He joined our team a few months ago and is currently working on the Kalydo game engine.

To get to know a little more about his work I asked him a few questions. Let's see what Michiel had to say:

Michiel, what is your background?

I am a Master of Computer Science which I got at the Eindhoven University of Technology in August of last year. I then started working at Eximion (the company behind Kalydo) in September.

My hobbies include programming, going to the theatre and driving / tuning my old VW Beetle.

How did you find out about Eximion / Kalydo?

My tutor at the university gave me various suggestions as to where I could do my graduation project. Among these were Philips Medical and Eximion BV. I'm a real technology geek, and love to play video games, so doing my final project at a company that builds technology and games sounded very attractive.

For my graduation project I worked on building a performance profiler. This is a piece of software which is able to detect performance issues in our technology/games. The novelty here is that my software can do it in realtime (eg. while playing a game). Most profilers use a lot of CPU power so they can not work realtime. After profiling our programmers can fix certain issues and as a result our games run as smooth as ever, even on older computers and video cards.

What are you currently working on?

Currently, I am working on artificial intelligence (or AI in short). AI is the technology which make's computer controlled characters in the game look intelligent. They act and react to what happens to them, making it a pivotal part of the game experience.

In game terms these AI controlled characters are often called "Bots". Here you see a bot following a path (white line on the ground).

I just finished working on path planning, which enables these Bots to decide and follow a path. Currently, I am working on improving our steering behaviors, so that the Bots behave more intelligently. For example they use Behaviours to react to their surroundings according to a set of rules...

Ok, sounds cool. Tell us some more

Basically, the programmer tells the steering behavior system what the Bot should do. For instance, the Bot may be fleeing or the bot may want to pick up a power-up to restore its health.

I'm currently implementing flocking behaviors so bots react to other bots that are near eachother. The result is a behaviour resembling a flock of sheep or seagulls. This can be quite fun whenever a group of monsters wander around a forest, and flock together. This kind of behavior is also used in many movies where a large group of people or monsters is on screen.

A famous example is the blockbuster movie trilogy The Lord of the Rings, whith its massive battle scenes. The software they created to do this was, funny enough, called "Massive" :D Pretty cool huh?

Picture from the Lord of the Rings movie courtesy of New Line Cinema

What's difficult about building an AI sytem?>

Well, the system has many, many aspects. It needs to ensure that the Bot is able to reach its goals, but avoid obstacles along the way. AI is trying to imitate intelligence, so when they bump into the walls often they don't look intelligent to the player. These kind of flaws reduce the believability of the behavior of the characters.

Wow! Sounds tough! What do you like about working on this?

I mostly like the visual results. Its great to see flocks of creatures wandering around or space ships swirling around asteroids, shooting at the player. And to think it is my code that makes those bots intelligent! Err, well... look intelligent that is. Don't worry, they will not rebel and try to take over your computer!

This screenshot shows a lot of spaceships flocking and following a path to their destination, avoiding asteroids while they go.

Would you like to tell us your favorite Kalydo game?

My favorite game right now is Mojo Drift, and because of that, I am constantly try to improve my score. I love to smack the other players with all the variouz itemz and going through the hoops, while enjoying the beautiful surroundings. I think the night races (which you unlock at certain points) look really cool, and gives an extra dimension to the gaming experience.

As a Kalydo engine developer, I have the privilege to see games that are still being developed. Recently, I played the game called Cube, a puzzle game where the player is (you guessed it!) a cube solving very cubical puzzles. I think that when it is released, it will replace Mojo Drift as my favorite game, because it is very innovative, and a real challenge for the mind.

What keeps you awake at night?

Usually not too much (which is a good thing, right?) but sometimes, when I am working on something I have a hard time solving, I might wake up at night with a solution. At that point I just have to get up and boot my computer to try it out.

What keeps you awake at day ;) ?

A large amount of coffee ;)

Thank you Michiel!

No problem!

Next time we will talk to Micha, who is working on our Physics system.

Mojo Drift game review

2009-01-07T07:44:00.000-08:00

Game review by Ben van Asselt

Fun games in your browser??
"Hey Ben, want to play fun games in your browser?" they asked me.

Hell yeah!! I was invited by the people at Kalydo to try their games so I tried it during the Holidays.

I have chosen to play Mojo Drift and tell you about it. You can play this game now at www.kalydo.com

Game description
In this underwater game you have to race against other characters in different environments. Every level has its own difficulties and options. The trick is to push the others from the track or throw things against their heads. The problem is that the other characters will try to do the same with you! You control your character with the arrow keys and two additional keys for turbo and throwing things.

Game flow
The game is well explained between the different levels by giving new information of the possibilities. When you have finished a track with a good result you will unlock the next level. Fortunately it is not difficult to do so and you won’t get frustrated in unlocking the levels.

I am aware that the internet connection speed is an important factor for playing a smooth game. In my case the game was super smooth and fast. There where no load stops or other disturbances.

Graphics & Sound
The graphics are really cool. Imagine a colourful happy environment in one of the three first Star wars movies with weird characters that could have raced the Pod Race. I think that the artists did a very good job.

The sound is simple and effective. There is music on the background and action sounds during the game. I have seen a lot of race games but this one is very funny and you can play it where ever you want. MOJO DRIFT makes you laugh and happy.

About Kalydo
It is an awesome concept. Just download the Kalydo player, install it on your PC/laptop, login and play! You’ll get 500 eCoins for free and these can be used to try out the different games (two new ones coming soon).

While you are playing you spend your eCoins. If you like a game you can buy more eCoins with your mobile phone by text message. When you have played a game many times, you will earn ownership. Once you completely own the game it is free to play! That’s cool!

Conclusion
Ok, the game is not very original but the idea of playing this kind of quality games in your browser is cool. It is simple to control and gives you (as a player) a lot of fun. I am really looking forward to see and play more Kalydo games!!

Game review by Ben van Asselt - Ben is an Executive at one of the leading national institutes for physically and mentally challenged people.

Want to discuss this article or do a game review yourself? Leave a comment.

Merry Xmas - new game sneak peek

2008-12-24T01:13:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

We have given everyone who has registered at Kalydo free 300 eCoins. Merry Xmas and happy gaming!

But that's not all...

Below is the first sneak peek of a new game that is currently in development. Its a puzzle/arcade game set against an "Oriental" backdrop. The visual style and gameplay is very unique and early playtests have proved that this game is truly addictive...

We wish you happy gaming and holidays. See you all next year!

Kalydo rocks on netbooks

2008-12-18T07:53:00.003-08:00

Joining in on the discussion about Gaming on Netbooks, which has fired up all around the Cloud, we decided to get one today. Our very own Myth Buster team (Roel, Micha and Michiel) put our newly bought netbook to the test to see how it handles our Kalydo Powered games...

Step 1: Unpacking the goodies

Right, so Doki (Doki Tops - CEO) got us an Acer Aspire One to test our games on. After unpacking the box (resulting in happily smiling Nerdz(tm) all around) we put together the netbook.

Jeez! It is indeed very small... Well then, lets fire it up. A smooth, seamless installation procedure follows, no surprises there. A rough 10 minutes later we are ready for action...

"Our newly bought Aspire netbook, ready for action"

So the simple question remains:

Step 2: The Test

So we are ready to go and visit www.kalydo.com, to register a new user and beceome Kalydo Powered (installing our ActiveX plugin). After receiving our 500 free eCoins we are ready to start gaming and we click on our game of choice: Oggo's Odyssey. It quickly loads up, benefiting from the netbook's excellent connectivity and after merely 15 seconds we are presented with the game's welcome screen...

"One of our games running proudly (and smoothly) on the Aspire."

What can we say? It works like a charm! Where a lot of new laptops and pc's suffer from outdated video drivers out of the box, this Aspire loads our 3D games perfectly. We did not do anything special, just turned on the device, visited our website and clicked on a game.

Michiel says:

"I only turned off some of the toolbars to get some more screenspace, which is limited of course. Other than that there was nothing I need to configure."
Michiel Roza - Programmer at Kaldyo

Conclusion

We are very positive about the netbooks because they are small, while still delivering modest firepower. Indeed, these small notebooks are not suitable to play your next gen shooter title in full galore... but that's not what its all about right? When you are looking for a charming, easy to carry, capable laptop and enjoy a quality game once in a while, these netbooks are great for you.

Kalydo brings top quality 3D games to the webbrowser. This way everyone can enjoy a great game for a reasonable price. Other initiatives like Steam and casual game portals might all benefit from this new trend in hardware. In opposition to all the criticism we think its perfect and see great opportunities for gaming on these netbooks...

Chris van der Linden is Creative Director at Kalydo.

References:

Netbooks Will Push Games to the Cloud - by Bruce Everiss

Netbook sales overtake iPhone numbers - from Ars Technica

Acer Aspire One review - Youtube

Kalydo hits the big screen

2008-12-07T05:24:00.001-08:00

Luuk (one of our newly hired programmers) sent me a cool picture today. Our webgames have never looked better I must say! His big ass plasma screen is perfect to showcase our Fullscreen option that comes standard at Kalydo now...

a Kalydo webgame in action

The past few months the guys on the engine development have knocked out a serious amounts of work. Next to fullscreen for our web-based 3D games they have optimized the performance once again. This ensures our games run smoothly on 5 year old pc's and laptops. The AI system is getting a major overhaul, physics is being worked on full gear and a new LOD system is in the pipeline. Want to know more about our free to use development kit? Check out www.dreamcreateplay.com

Interested in seeing all this in action? Check out our games at www.kalydo.com, get yourself an account for free, receive your eCoin starter package and get gaming! The games run directly from your browser, with no fuss at all!

We wish you happy gaming!

Starting Eximion - part 2 postmortem

2008-12-04T01:10:00.000-08:00

This article was originally published by Chris on his personal weblog on October 2007

1. Introduction

Previously on this channel you've seen how a group of enthusiastic game nerds got together and decided to start a company. While you might think us mad we are most definitely not :) One of the key factors to the success thus far has been a very professional mindset and determination. The first year of development was very heavy, one of the most demanding phases in our lives for sure.

2. Stepping up to the challenge

During the first year of development we focused mainly on getting our ideas on paper. Next to our daytime jobs everyone gathered in the Eximion HQ in the evenings to do programming, documentation, conceptual design and writing business plans. With our plans in place to create the next gen in shooters like Doom3 we started building away. At a certain point our 3d renderer for example was able to dish out stuff that looked identical to Doom3. Our dreams and ambitions were huge as was our raw talent. But we had yet to discover certain aspects of reality that would change our course.

"At a certain point our 3d renderer was able to dish out stuff that looked identical to Doom3. But we had yet to discover certain aspects of reality that would change our course."

It was also a very stressful period were little was certain. We worked during evenings and had very little contact with the outside world. Friends and family mostly ridiculed our ideas and dreams and did not take it very seriously. Generally there was a feeling of being away from the normal world, living a life next to your normal lives. When I decided to quit my job as professional photographer before we even managed to get funded everyone pronounced me 'crazy'...

However it became very clear that to make Eximion succeed a few people would need to step up to the challenge. Starting a game company was something that needed drastic means. Soon after I set the example, Doki and our other company owners Mark and Rob started cutting their work at their daytime jobs. They too made plans to quit and move to Eximion full time, with still no money to pay anyone of us.

"When I decided to quit my job as professional photographer before we even managed to get funded everyone pronounced me 'crazy'..."

Everyone made a huge commitment often putting friendships, girlfriends and family relations under pressure. Sacrifices were made all around in order to be able to spend more and more time on Eximion.

3. Selling your ideas

Making games cost money. From the start Doki and me we're partners in crime when it came to selling our ideas. We had to start looking for investors, banks etc. to see if they were interested. I don't know how many business events and networking drinks I've been too, it was madness. On the way back we were mostly tired and drunk and fell asleep in the train. The good thing was that many people were interested in our game ideas. We pitched mostly with a good story and good plan, sometimes coupled with some images on a laptop. After a while the first people started to call back wanting another meeting. One of these parties was Lunatech Ventures from Rotterdam. It was an instant click so to speak and we are still happy to have them as partner.

"On the way back from networking drinks we were mostly tired and drunk and fell asleep in the train. After a while though the first people started to call back wanting another meeting."

What we also discovered was that since we are located in the Netherlands didn't really help getting funding for big risky game projects. It's not America here and it became apparent that we needed to adjust our plans, or fail to find suitable funding. Together with business and mental coach Bram Alkema our lead Doki started to look into other options for us. We looked at our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and came to a solid new concept: Next Gen Webgames. This would couple our desire to do cutting edge games and technology, but do it with shorter development cycles with lower risks. Also the trend to do things online helped us get confidence in the new approach.

When we altered our plans and fine tuned the whole Next Gen Webgame format the amount of interest we received from financial parties just exploded. There was no doubt, this was a definite course to go and everybody in the team liked it very much.

4.Doing it the professional way

Another thing we did very carefully next to just working very hard was logging our hours. Everyone on the team, voluntary or not had to log their hours they put into the project. We used DotProject for this and after a year we had a rough 13.000 manhours recorded on tasks such as Engine, Conceptual Design, Audio Design and Management. This hardcore approach made a very good impression on financial partners which were happy to see our professional approach. Next to our hour logs we also did solid technical documentation for our projects and set up test protocols for the software. Within little over a year we had a hard working and very professional guerrilla game development team. In the end the logs of hours also mildly helped us value our company to possible financial partners, even though we did not actually make any profits by that time. It was good to be able to show that we had indeed put a lot of work into a lot of projects already.

"Within little over a year we had a hard working and very professional guerrilla game development team. We had a rough 13.000 manhours logged."

Today we have replaced the DotProject open source software for our own Kalydo project management tool, which fits our rapid agile development workflow a lot better. But undoubtedly it's a good way of starting, record everything you do, write proper documentation, don't just start out blindly.

5. The bridge between Hardcore and Casual

We set out to do the next Doom3 and ended up creating a new way of webgaming: Next Gen Webgaming. What were the reasons for our change of plan? What made us go from Hardcore to Casual? What exactly is Casual anyway and aren't we doing something that bridges the gap between those two? In the next chapter of these articles I'll tell you more about our innovative concepts and why we decide to do it and why others have since announced to move in a similar way.

Thank you for reading. Happy game developing!
Missed out on part one? Click here

Starting Eximion - part 1 postmortem

2008-12-04T01:06:00.001-08:00

This article was originally published by Chris on his personal weblog on Aug 2007

1. Introduction

Back in 2004 one of my best friends came up to me and asked me to do some images for a game design document he was writing.

I turned Doki down saying "nah dude you know what? I'm done with this whole gaming business. I'm tired of these shooters, kill some monsters and die stuff".

Little did I know that a few months later I was well on my way of becoming the company's Art Director and co-founder, together with Doki Tops, Rob van Gulik and Mark Schroders.

2. Before the plunge

Prior to contacting me for the conceptual designs we had both been working shortly on an american game project called "Prince of Thunder". Doki and I, with both quite some experience in building content for shooters we're on board the project and asked to do levels and textures. Doki at the time was some kind of level guru mastermind and our Tribal CTF project amazed everybody on the level design planet.

Cool note: Level designer "Sock" who we worked with during the Tribal CTF period has ended up working on Prey and other top titles. Quite a few people we were involved with ended up in some pretty cool places in the industry.

Shortly after I was sort of tasked by the project leader to lead the artists on the team. The team was a huge group of scattered souls, some experienced some not and I was suddenly asked to make sense of it all. Doki and me kindly said "no thanks" and we left the project because we didn't want to rip up an excisting project so dramatically which we were intending to.

I remember Doki saying to me "listen if these guys can get funding with little real content going, a leaderless group of people, why on earth shouldn't we be able to?"

A good point if you ask me and since then Doki Tops has more than backed up his statement because he not only got funding to officially start Eximion, but has also proven to be an able leader.

3. The initial plan

Now we enter the murky pub meetings, messy student houses, bedroom conversations period. Sit tight!

Doki knew some 'guys' that were working on a game engine. Some of them he knew already, others he didn't. Our concern was that you don't just build a game engine and make it "work". Doki was not immediately convinced and had seen so many small amateur teams whip up engines only to have their projects die a silent death in a years time. It takes some real longterm commitment to take something that works to a something that sells and attracts people.

I guess with the idea of having me on his team (after turning him down at first I was soon attracted to the whole gaming vibe again) and a positive chat with the programming guys including Mark and Rob, Doki saw some sound possibilities.

With the words "Ok I wanna do this but only if we setup a company and make this into our living. I'm not going to waste time on some hobby project".

And with that basically we went on and never stopped until this very day. The initial plan was (seeing our background experience) to go out and make a really cool 3D first person shooter, with graphics to rival Doom3 and Unreal somethousand. It just seemed the natural thing to do. Again little did I know what I would be making a small year lateron...

4. Nice memories

This is really the early beginnings and it's amazing how 'murky' the memory about it has become. Some things truly stand out though and these are:

- The short but passionate involvement of Roel Verbroekken (www.zylom.com) and his "rock 'n roll bedroom" room in the house where Eximion is still located. Complete with weeks old pizza boxes, guitars and game consoles.

- Eddy (again from Zylom) who has ever been enthusiastic about us and visited occasionally during that starting period. He advised us to "put stuff down on paper" quickly before any money was involved. Priceless tip at that time and we stuck to it.

- Everybody still had a different job at that time so we worked during the evenings. One thing Doki arranged was fixed working hours, logged projects and a professional mindset. This was quite exceptional to keep more that 15 volunteers working at strict hours for free over a period that would become allmost two years. The spirit we created during this period has influenced the company's mindset and soul greatly and we are proud of that.

5. End of part 1.

In the next part I will tell more about the first year of development and the big changes that were ahead.

Anatomy of a game

2008-11-24T02:24:00.000-08:00

When you play a game you normally don't think about the amount of work that goes into it. If it looks and plays good you tend to just accept it as a given. But every single detail you see and hear has got to be designed and built from scratch. To give you an idea of what it takes to put a game together I thought it would be nice to take a screenshot and 'analyze' it.

Lets have a look at our latest game Oggo's Odyssey (to be released on Kalydo soon) and see what is actually 'on the screen'. Below is the screenshot and a numbered overlay for a few of the key assets in there.

So what's in there? Lets have a look!

1: HUD

Most games use a HUD (Heads Up Display) to communicate things to the player. Usually it shows your Score, Time left and other important things. Easy enough right?

Well... the HUD can be pretty difficult to design sometimes. You need to convey important information to the player but you also don't want to clutter the screen... Afterall it is about the game itself. Creating a nice and userfriendly HUD overlay is a challenge and a lot of times we try different layouts before settling for the final version.

2: Player Character

The Player Character is the hero of the game. Needless to say a lot of time is invested in bringing this character to life. Being the centerpiece of the game it uses the specialty of all the people involved: conceptual design, modeling, texturing, animation, sound and programming.

3: Monsters

What's a good game without monsters? Exactly! And more monsters is even better!

In Oggo's Odyssey you'll see baddiez in various appearances. To tone down the ammount of work we used the same functionality for some of the monsters but changed the way they looked. This is a smart way of cutting down development time while still getting a lot of cool monsters in the game.

For example the animator is able to re-use some of his animation clips, the programmer can recycle some of his code and so on. The artists make sure the creature looks fresh and new and the audio designer comes up with new sounds for the monster.

4: NPC

Next to the main character the player can control there are often NPC's (Non Player Characters) in a game. Just as the hero character these NPC's take a lot of time as well. They need a lot of artwork, animation, sound and programming to bring them to life.

The Mimu character here is just ony a head model and thats all you will see of her in the game. She gives you tips and tricks during the game. Which brings up another thing.... all the dialogue in the game has to be thought up and often translated into various languages. A lot of work!

5: Level Decoration

Every game takes place in an environment. A spooky old buidling, space, a jungle or in our case... underwater :D The environment is very important because it gives you a place to 'play' in. Because environments tend to be big and detailed they take up a lot of work. In fact, most of the time when a game is already nearing completion, the artists are still hard at work finishing up all the levels.

For this game we designed circular 'donut' pieces as a base to start from. The basic donut was then dressed up with all sorts of things like plants, flowers, rocks, monsters, lightbeams and more... All these little details make the world really come to life. Especially in an exotic world like in Oggo's Odyssey it takes up all the creativity of the artists to come up with the fantastic designs.

6: Items

Since games have become a pop culture certain things have become very iconic for the genre. One of these things are 'items' which usually stand out from the environment by the way they look. The reason for this is to let the player now he/she can interact with it. Ever noticed the old Tom & Jerry cartoons where some things in the picture stood out from the painted background? Somehow you allways knew that it was going to move or be interacted with... And thats a bit how it works in games. Items are the coins you need to collect, the powerups you can pick up and so on...

So there you go! Now you know a little bit more about what it takes to put a game together. If you want to know more about Oggo's Odyssey and watch the trailer visit the website:

www.oggosodyssey.com
www.oggosavontuur.nl (Dutch)

Want to discuss this? Leave a comment!

Robo Rescue - a first look

2008-11-11T06:49:00.000-08:00

A brand new game called Robo Rescue is coming to Kalydo. The game was initially called Robo Brickx, but the game evolved so much during development it was renamed to Robo Rescue. In this article we'll take a look at the creation of this game.

The game concept
Robo Rescue is about a robot character who needs to save his friend from the clutches of Evil Robo, the villain. The game is a blend between action and puzzle, where the player sometimes needs to solve simple tricks to finish a level. The action is based on rolling around with your spherical shaped character, requiring skill and timing.

The initial game concept was focussed heavily on the use of Arkanoid like bricks in the levels. However this was abandoned early on so the name was changed to Robo Rescue to hint at the story plot.

The design phase
The conceptual design for the Robo characters was done by our new talent Kirsten.

"It was nice I didn't have to do the concept art and production at the same time. Kirsten came up with very effective designs so I let him take care of it." Chris van der Linden - Creative Director

We spent some time early on thinking of ways we could dress up the characters, yet have them be as simple as possible. Somehow the characters looked better with 'less' about them. They are very striking and people seem to remember them easily.

In the game menu the player can customize his character by selecting Male or Female and a collection of different 'skins'.

Game production
The production of the game was taken care of by an entirely new team so we had to cleverly call our shots and carefully select the things to build. We chose to build a level editor to speed up the level production, which we decided we didn't want to 'generate' as we did for Konstrukt Invasion and Oggo's Odyssey. Maikel, also a new talent, did the programming for both the editor and the game. While learning our development flow we were also pushing the enveloppe in a few places so it was no small feat.

"This game was initially a small prototype I built in a week. It changed a lot but its what got us started" Maikel van Gulik - Game Programmer

A lot of the development effort went into creating a lot of obstacles for all the levels. These include accelleration pads, wind blowers, bouncers, teleporters and ufo's. There are quite a lot of them and they are loads of fun.

More information
More information including a trailer video will be available soon at www.robo-rescue.com. We are looking forward to see this game on Kalydo and hear what you have to say. Can't wait? Feel free to leave a comment here!

Oggo's Odyssey announced

2008-10-07T07:14:00.001-07:00

Eindhoven, 26 September 2008

Kalydo and Eximion Game studio announce a new game titled “Oggo's Odyssey”. This spectacular new game will be launched in beta on the Kalydo game platform soon. Oggo's Odyssey is the first title that will also be published in Dutch (Netherlands).

For more information and a trailer visit: www.oggosodyssey.com

Story
The father spirit of Nauticz needs your help. All the treasure of Nauticz has been lost and you are tasked to find it back. Travel to never seen before places of Nauticz and bring back the lost fortune. Will you become a True Hero and defeat the evil Arcadiz? Read More

Development
This flagship title for the revolutionary game platform Kalydo was developed by Eximion Game Studio, who has previously done Septennia: Konstrukt Invasion, Goofball 360 and Mojo Drift. Read More

Not a Kalydo member yet?
We are accepting more beta testers. If you like to try out our console quality games in your browser sign up for free at Kalydo. Let us know what you think! More games will become available as we go.

Eximion nerd party

2008-09-25T02:50:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Yesterday we had a small party to relax a bit and enjoy the stuff we've achieved lately. A lot of things are coming together so we thought it was time to hang out a bit whith some of the guys.

This year is very important to us because it will see the release of many new projects we've been working on. The Kalydo platform which is now in Beta is coming to fruitition. You will see more and more news on this as we go.

Furthermore we have finished four games and are halfway two new ones which are looking truly amazing. We will announce these new games in the near future. All games will have their own custom website where you can see and read everything about them.

Now, its back to work for us again! Keep an eye out for some seriously cool stuff on www.kalydo.com!

GC Leipzig coverage - Day 3

2008-08-23T00:57:00.001-07:00

******* LIVE FROM LEIPZIG ********

Hello again,

Yesterday was (surprise) again a very busy and good day for us. We had some very interesting talks. Also between the very busy schedule we found some time to attend the game public part of the convention. Afterwards we went into town to relax a bit. Generally our days have been 11 hours on the conventions floor, which is very exhausting.

GC Leipzig coverage - Day 2

2008-08-22T00:23:00.001-07:00

********** LIVE FROM LEIPZIG **************

Hello again,

Another day at the GC in Leipzig has passed. With a bit of a quiet start, the remainder of the day turned out to be very busy and worthwhile. We met a lot of interesting people again, had some excellent chats and a good time.

Here are some pictures of day 2:

So there you go. It was a good day at the convention. We got a lot of compliments on our professional looking booth. Well check back tomorrow.

Kind regards,

Rob, Mark, Doki, Chris and Bernadette.

GC Leipzig Coverage - Day 1

2008-08-21T00:25:00.001-07:00

****** LIVE FROM LEIPZIG GERMANY *********

Hello everyone,

We had a great first day, it was busy and we had a lot of great talks.
Below are a few pictures of the first day, you can see our booth looks totally "Kalydo" styled which we think is great :D

We hope everyone is having a nice time playing our games. When we get back from Leipzig we will launch a new game in beta: Mojo Drift.

Another day at the convention starts now and we are good to go. Today promises to be even more exciting than yesterday.

Kind regards,

Chris, Mark, Rob, Doki and Bernadette.

GCDC Leipzig - Arrival

2008-08-19T07:15:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

We've arrived at the GCDC in Leipzig after a 7 hour drive. Before we could leave Eindhoven at night a few police officers intended to know what all the stuff in our van was for. They apparantly suspected some illegal activity. When we were cleared to go we set out for Leipzig...

We have just spent the afternoon setting up our booth, which looks very nice. Below are some pictures showing the process.

We will keep you up to date here live from Leipzig, Germany.
In the meantime you can play our games which are in beta now: www.kalydo.com

Happy gaming!

Kalydo at the GCDC

2008-08-18T01:59:00.000-07:00

Hello,

Kalydo will be attending the GCDC in Leipzig this week. You can find us in Hall 2 stand E41. If you are interested in what we have to offer we are happy to talk to you.

Developers can visit our developer corner now at: www.dreamcreateplay.com

You are welcome to download and try our product for free. Like what you see? Just drop us a line.

We are looking for game developers who are interested in publishing their games on the Kalydo platform. For more information see the Partner Program link on our website.

Kalydo at the Red Bull Air Race in Rotterdam

2008-07-21T11:25:00.000-07:00

Last weekend Kalydo visited the Red Bull Air Race in Rotterdam. Why you ask? Because we were a featured advertiser at this prestigious event. With a small team, dressed up in stylish Kalydo promo clothing we traveled to Rotterdam. The weather was poor, the atmosphere was great...

To promote our revolutionary new game platform Kalydo we advertised with a snappy 15 second commercial. Being aired on more than thirthy big screens together with established brands such as LG was pretty cool. It is a testament to how well things are going for us at the moment. We look forward to more beautiful things to come.

With our beta period about to initiate with a several thousands of exclusive players we are also gearing up for the next big event: the GCDC in Leipzig next month.

We will attend this huge gaming event to showcase our platform to other developers, marketeers and other enthusiasts. If you are a game developer, tech developer or marketeer you will certainly want to come visit our booth. We have a set of interesting opportunities for you. We are located at the Holland Pavillion, Hall 2, Booth E 41.

Photos from our new office

2008-06-30T04:42:00.000-07:00

Hello,

We have uploaded the first photos from our new office. Check out the photo stream (from Flickr) on the bottom right to check them out. Click one of them for a description and higher resolution.

Right now we are gearing up for our visit to the Leipzig GCDC and launching our Kalydo beta. We are still looking for more playtesters so if you want to play console quality games in your browser sign up now!

regards

Eximion

Leaving our old office

2008-06-18T08:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we disconnected our pc's, packed our bags and turned off the lights. A period of three years of garage game development came to and end. It was our last day at our student house-turned into-office. With a feeling of slight nostalgia we said goodbye to our old (somewhat smelly) dugout and hello to our new shiny office space...

Below are some pictures, no words needed :D

Everybody is extremely happy with the new location. Its major kickass :D We will post some images of our new penthouse soon.

last hours at the Jan van der Noot

Doki cuddling his teddy, Chris says stuff rocks

Loading our stuff into the van

checking the van

move out the computers

stacking the computers into the van

making games takes a lot of computers

a last look at the o-so cosy old office

Very first Haven (working title) screenshots

2008-06-12T06:33:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

While our exclusive Kalydo beta is filling up with players I thought it would be a good time to show a first glimpse of a new game we're building at Eximion. This game is currently called Haven, which is a working title.

Haven (working title)
Its still very early on in development so I will not give away too much. The overarching concept is that the world of Light is overtaken by the Dark. The Dark has sucked up all the light and shrouded the entire (esoteric/abstract) world in darkness. Now you will play as the Being of Light, your mission: Defeat the Dark and restore the Light back to the world.

Stark abstract look
Haven is designed to bring an interesting new look to a genre thats as old as gaming itself: Arcade Shooter. We've chosen to go for a very stark, almost black and white abstract look. While the creatures still have some recognizable resemblances to what we know, the world itself is very abstract.

Dramatic epic action in your browser
Using a combination of atmospheric special effects and epic, dramatic music we try to make Haven into a large, emotionally moving experience.

Remember that all this is happening in your web browser. What?! Thats right baby, go to www.kalydo.com, sign up for our exlcusive beta and check out what kind of game pimpage we have brought to your IE or Firefox.

Groovy!

:D

Chris

Kalydo launched - Sign up for the exclusive beta

2008-06-10T01:46:00.000-07:00

EXIMION LAUNCHES KALYDO – YOUR VIRTUAL CONSOLE

Play a stunning 3D game in your browser, anywhere any time. Spectacular games that load quick and easy, on any PC. Sign up now for the beta and be the first to play. There is only room for 5000 players during the first phase. Sign up now at www.kalydo.com.

The brand new Kalydo technology allows gamers to play stunning 3D games in their browser. After installation of the Kalydo player people can play all Kalydo Powered games online. Players can continue playing, any time and anywhere in the world. Your game progress and achievements are automatically saved online (persistent webgaming).

As a beta player you will be an active participant in the last and most important phase of the game and platform development process: testing. This is an excellent opportunity to contribute to the final development of the games and play the games before they are released.

Sign up now exclusively
Interested in being a part of this exclusive beta? The first beta phase will include the launch of two smashing games: Konstrukt Invasion and Goofball 360. The beta only has room for 5000 players, so be quick and register now at www.kalydo.com.

The innovative Kalydo game platform is being developed by Eximion from Eindhoven The Netherlands. Recently both IT2 Capital Partners and TechnoStars have invested in this upcoming company. Together with our current technical partner Lunatech they are going to join us in the exploitation and further development of the platform. Resellers, referrers, developers and marketeers that are interested in a partnership are welcome to contact us.

For more info and registration go to: www.kalydo.com

We would like to thank everybody who has helped us the past years for their continuous support and trust.

Regards,

Eximion Team

Kalydo - beta going live soon!

2008-05-27T08:05:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

We are happy to announce the beta of our game platform Kalydo will go live soon. Bookmark our website if you want to be a part of this exciting new game platform!

Kalydo is your virtual game console. Play anytime anywhere.
Persistent online-gaming ensures you keep your achievements and profile. Continue playing whenever you like. Get a console quality game in your browser within seconds wherever you are.

You can sign-up for this exclusive beta very soon now. Be one of the first to play a console quality game in your browser! Keep an eye out for news on www.kalydo.com

Those of you who have been with us from the start will be positively surprised. Not only have our games received an extreme makeover, there have been improvements on all levels. We really hope you enjoy the effort we have taken to make this into an exciting gaming experience. We believe that the extra time we have invested in improving our platform and games will be very worthwhile.

Thank you for being with us all this time. See you soon at Kalydo!

Kind regards,

Eximion team.

New office space - We are hiring

2008-05-21T00:04:00.001-07:00

Hello friends,

With a little bit of nostalgia we look back now at a period of three years which we have spent here in our office/house. This house (where it all started) will soon be replaced with a shiny new office space. Yes, we are moving to a brand new office space in the center of town and we are really looking forward to it.

The reason for the move is quite simple: The company has grown quite rapidly, the team has expanded so it doesn't fit in the current space anymore. Furthermore we are seeing an increase of partnerships and visits. The old house is just not suitable to welcome guests to anymore. We will be moving into our new office space next month.

We are hiring:

To help us build the kick ass games we do and strenghten our web presence we are looking for:

Web developer

We are looking for a talented web developer who has experience with PHP, MYSQL etc. to work on our advanced backend systems. Visit our website for more info and apply directly!

Game developer

We are looking for a talented game developer who has experience with game design and developing games. Our games are developed using the LUA scripting language which can be learned very easily. Visit our website for more info and apply directly!

These vacancies are all fulltime in-house positions and available directly. We prefer candidates who speak Dutch (Nederlands). If you are not from the Netherlands but think you got what it takes feel free to apply! We would love to hear from you.

Regards,

The Eximion team.

Programmeer een game en win een baan !

2008-05-02T02:39:00.000-07:00

Eindhoven - 1 Mei 2008

EXIMION GAME STUDIO LANCEERT PROGRAMMEER WEDSTRIJD

Win jij je nieuwe kickass baan als game programmeur? Doe dan mee aan de wedstrijd en maak kans op een baan in de games industrie!

De opracht is simpel. Maak met de game technologie van Eximion een game.
Laat zien wat jij voor wicked skillz in huis hebt. Stuur je inzending op voor desluitings datum. De beste inzendingen maken kans op een sollicitatie gesprek.

Deelname is gratis en iedereen kan meedoen. Buitenlandse kandidaten zijn welkom mits zij de Nederlandse taal beheersen.

De wedstrijd loopt van 1 Mei tm 1 September 2008. Voor meer info en deelname ga je naar www.dreamcreateplay.com.

Eximion looking for partners

2008-04-07T01:17:00.000-07:00

Now that we have settled with our new investment partners and our first games are wrapped up for Beta launch we are ready for the next step. Starting today we are opening our doors to third party game developers. Our game technology (and publishing channel) will gradually become available to you as we progress. And that's not all. Our tech is free. Absolutely free? Yes...

We will be launching the Beta of our Kalydo game platform anytime soon now. If you are a development studio looking to publish your games in new exciting ways this is your chance! Not only game developers are invited to contact us, but resellers, marketeers and other creative/business partners are welcome.

From this moment on news regarding the Kalydo platform will become available through this weblog and of course www.kalydo.com itself. If you are already interested and don't want to wait for our Beta launch just drop us a line.

Visit us at the GCDC Leipzig 2008
Eximion will be attending the GCDC in Leipzig this year. Those who wish to talk to us in person and experience our products hands-on are welcome to visit our booth.

We are looking forward hearing from you!

IT2 CAPITAL PARTNERS EN TECHNOSTARS INVESTEREN IN EXIMION

2008-03-17T01:03:00.000-07:00

IT2 CAPITAL PARTNERS EN TECHNOSTARS INVESTEREN IN EXIMION

Technostartersfonds Zuid Nederland B.V. (TechnoStars) en IT2 Capital Partners (IT2) hebben ieder een belang genomen in het aandelenkapitaal van Eximion B.V. uit Eindhoven. Voor TechnoStars is dit de 7e participatie sinds de start van het fonds in oktober 2006. Voor IT2 is het de 5e participatie sinds februari 2007.

Eximion is een jonge onderneming die zicht richt op het ontwikkelen van 3D online gaming technologie. Deze technologie wordt ter beschikking gesteld aan externe makers van online games en wordt tevens door Eximion zelf gebruikt om haar eigen online 3D gaming site te exploiteren. De technologie omvat zowel de functionaliteit om nieuwe 3D online games van ongeëvenaarde kwaliteit te maken als de mogelijkheden om de games online te exploiteren inclusief verwerking van betalingsverkeer en administratie.

Het management van Eximion bestaat uit 4 jonge ondernemers met grote passie voor gaming en diepgaande kennis van alle aspecten van gaming technologie en vormgeving. Het management is samen mede-oprichter Lunatech Ventures eveneens aandeelhouder in Eximion.

Eximion verwacht in de eerste helft van 2008 met haar gaming website online te gaan en later dit jaar haar gaming technologie platform op de markt te brengen.

originele bericht

Digging through the archives

2008-03-10T12:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes its a lot of fun digging through the old archives. Since its conception roughly three years ago, Eximion has evolved a lot as a company. During our startup period we worked passionately on a design for a fullblown shooter game with the working title "Triad" which was based on a Quake 3 TC called "Tribal CTF" which Doki, Rob and I worked on before starting Eximion... Still with me? ;)

The project "Triad" designs have since shaped into "Septennia" which uses a lot of the designs originally done for our 'big game'. We are currently finishing the first game based on the Septennia game setting. Depending on its success creative IP will see sequel games to expand its story/universe. Too keep an eye on our games (which are going Beta anytime soon now) just sign up for the Newsletter at our site.

While our game format is different now because of our modern business model (webgame hybrid between casual/hardcore) the artwork is still a strong focal point. The fact that Eximion didn't chose to travel the classic 'AAA game/publisher' route it doesn't mean we don't spend a lot of time on solid artwork. Even for our 'small' games we do well over 250 pieces of concept art. On average our game development cycles include a budget 100 hours of conceptual design.

Rock Titan

Weapon Sheet

Architectural Design

Weapon Sheet

Some of the designs I did allmost 3-4 years ago for the original bigger game concept still please me today. I think that in the future, as Eximion and its games grow, there is still hope for these incredibly evocative images to turn into digital reality. Anyway, now you can enjoy some of these images just in case they end up staying in our backlog. Feel free to leave a comment if you please!

Kind regards,

Chris

Eximion opens new blog

2008-03-04T01:04:00.000-08:00

Hello dear gamers!

Thank you for coming over to our new blog. A lot is happening behind the scenes of Eximion lately (new investment, new games etc) and this is the place where you can read it all.

Since our startup roughly three years ago we have had several different websites, none of them were ever really finished so we decided to change our online representation.

Our main website is now very basic (www.eximion.com) so we can focus on finishing our first games and technology. Our website will be expanded in the future on a step-by-step basis.

We have decided to use this blog from a third party because it saves us a lot of time. Our custom built blog was cool but a lot of work for us to maintain. At the end of the day its all about getting the latest information to you. So here you go!

Happy reading and kind regards,

Eximion

Swooping Buzinezz

2008-03-04T01:03:00.000-08:00

I thought this screenshot belows was interesting looking. Its for one of our games in development called 'Oggos Odyssey' set in the Nauticz game world. In this game you play a young hero called Oggo who goes on a treasure hunting adventure.

You are able to do special moves (called Swoops) to avoid obstaclez, collect treasure and more. The image shows a little bit about how we technically achieved these swoops. They are done partially in Maya, we put a number of locators to create a path and we dress up the model/scenery around it. Afterwards this is converted to an animation file which our game code translates in to fluent moves for the player character. Pretty neat stuff !

If you want to sign up for our newsletter please go to www.eximion.com and sign up. Its free, just give it a go if you want to to see kickass 3D games in your browser!

regards

Chris