Halfbrick CCO Luke Muscat talks about the banned prototype Tank Tactics and how its essentials caused quite the divisiveness in the company.

However, the studio behind Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride still use its spirit to “demonstrates the power and persuasion of game mechanics. Along with this, he’ll talk about the task designers have “to create mechanics that have a positive impact on players’ social behaviors.”

Jonathon Banks represents Telltale Games as he talks about The Walking Dead and its unconventional art style.

Banks will speak about going with a more graphic novel kind of design rather than the standard photo-realistic zombies, and also details how Telltale arrived at said style which ultimately satisfied any and all audiences.

Insomniac’s Joe Valenzuela takes the stage for the programming talk, explaining how the developer overcame obstacles for Outernauts, their first non-console and first free-to-play game programmed using Flash.

Check back with GDC for any new talks to be added in the days to come.

And now, a year later, it’s been released for the PS3, PSP and PS Vita via the PS Minis program. Is it good? Of course it is. It hasn’t changed one bit. But does it make sense? Not really. Does it have flaws? Yes, yes it does.

But let’s talk about what the game is exactly about first- you play Jetpack Joyride using just one button. The X button. You use it to power your machine gun powered jetpacks and hover above obstacles and lazers and enemies, and shoot them with your machine gun jetpack’s bullets as you go over them. It’s a simple enough concept, as it should be, but mastering it takes time, since the game speeds up as you move forward, to the point it becomes breakneck and you eventually, inevitably die.

It’s gratifying and fun, and maneuvering around the arenas and trying to make high scores and then consequently beat them is highly enjoyable, and due to this simple yet fun nature of the game, you can easily come back to it again and again. The extra objectives that the game gives you the option to tackle while playing- like hovering a specific amount of meters of collecting a specific number of coins- makes it even more fun.

But there’s an issue- there are no leaderboards. Sure, creating high scores and beating them is fun, and having no leaderboards isn’t an issue as long as you’re playing it on the same device with friends, but it takes away a lot of competitive edge and the game loses some replay value, thanks to this. Leaderboards seem like a logical and basic feature that a game such as Jetpack Joyride should have, and their omission is baffling.

There’s also the fact that the game is priced at $3.99. You could buy this game for free on your Android and iOS devices, and the visuals don’t appear as stretched on them as they do here (not that they matter in such a game), but here, you have to pay for what is arguably an inferior version.

And why exactly would you pay for a game that you can play for free on your mobile phone or your iPod? It makes no sense.

So yes, Jetpack Joyride on the PlayStation systems has a few issues, and I wouldn’t recommend buying it if you have an iOS or Android device. But it’s still an enjoyable experience that you can keep coming back to.

This game was reviewed on the PS3. 

Halfbrick, the studio behind Jetpack Joyride, have revealed some interesting details about the game. It has been downloaded over 14 million times.

The game also sold 1 million copies – the 14 million figure is because the game is free-to-play.

The way these F2P games make money is by offering an in-game store, and for Halfbrick this was a massive success. They revealed that their revenue had increased a lot due to this.

Chief marketing officer, Phil Larsen revealed this info to Joystiq at the DICE summit. He also said that a new update will be available soon, and it is the biggest one they’ve done.

“There’s an update coming in the next month. It’s the biggest one we’ve done so far,” he said.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

Thanks, Joystiq.

Fruit Ninja Kinect takes all the frenzied fruit-slicing action from the highly addictive hit mobile game and brings it full scale, allowing players to swing their arms and legs to attack fruit. With multiple local multiplayer modes, players can battle each other or team up to slice through an endless cascade of flying fruits while trying to avoid dangerous bombs.

Here is a new arcade game from Halbrick the geniuses who mad it so I could not lift my arms up the day after playing Fruit Ninja for the Xbox 360 Kinect.  Who new a cell phone app could be so much fun on a console.  Anyway next up is there Jetpack Joyride game which looks pretty cool and a little less straining on my arms with the lack of fruit slicing, but that is because it is for the iPhone.  Above is the third video dev diary ‘JJ and You’ and below is the first one ‘Simply Awesomeness’ which has a lot more gameplay.  As far as the second dev diary well… you can see it when the game gets released on consoles and /or PC.  Look for it September 1st on your nifty little iPhone.  Don’t forget September is Gears of War 3 Month, with so many giveaways, I think we have too much.