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Tag: Rovio

Rovio pushes out a brand new game

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 7:10 AM on March 14, 2013

Just days after announcing its new cartoon series and touting 1.7 billion downloads of its Angry Birds games, the Finnish game maker has pushed out a brand new game called “The Croods”.

According to Rovio, “Meet the world’s first modern family: The Croods! These cavemen are breaking out of the Stone Age with the use of a new revolutionary tool: the IDEA! The Croods will hunt & gather their way through spectacular new landscapes as they tame amazing new creatures”.

The game is more like Bad Piggies and Amazing Alex than the Angry Birds series, because of the puzzle element to the play. It also has a different look to it.

Features:

  • Trap & tame 10 crazy Croodaceous creatures! You’ve never seen anything like the Girelephant or Molarbear! Think you can catch them all?
  • Create wacky inventions with Crood patriarch Grug to open and explore new areas!
  • Decorate your pre-historic world with the latest in caveman fashion accessories!
  • Get to know the whole family from the upcoming film from DreamWorks Animation!

The Croods is available for both iOS and Android. You can check out the trailer video below.

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Posted in Android, Gaming, iOS

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Rovio teases Angry Birds cartoons, announces 1.7 billion downloads

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 11:07 AM on March 11, 2013

We found out a few weeks ago that Rovio would be releasing Angry Birds cartoons. Now, today, the company added some more details to that news. According to a company announcement, “Rovio Entertainment is bringing its weekly Angry Birds Toons animated series to fans around the world, setting an industry first in launching a video distribution channel across all of its Angry Birds game titles on smartphones and tablets”.

The new animated videos will be available beginning the weekend of March 16-17 through a dedicated channel available in Rovio games. The Finnish game-maker will also make the cartoons available on select video-on-demand channel providers, Smart TVs and connected devices. An Angry Birds Toons channel will be available on all of Comcast’s video platforms in the US including Xfinity on Demand, online at Xfinity.com/tv and the Xfinity TV Player app.

The animated shorts will also be available on FOX8 in Australia, JEI TV in Korea, ANTV in Indonesia, Cartoon Network in India, MTV3 Juniori and MTV3 in Finland, the Children’s Channel in Israel, 1+1 networks in Ukraine, Gulli and Canal J in France, SUPER RTL in Germany, TV2 in Norway, Canal 13 in Chile and Gloob in Brazil

Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio stated that “We’ve long wanted to tell our fans the story of the Angry Birds and the Bad Piggies, to introduce their personalities and their world in detail”.

Along with the cartoon announcement, Rovio also let it be known that it has now surpassed 1.7 billion downloads of its games, meaning that more mobile users are likely playing them than not.

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Posted in Gaming

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What did you do Christmas Day? Apparently downloaded Angry Birds

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 9:28 AM on January 3, 2013

Rovio made an announcement today regarding the company’s holiday season success. We knew that the 2012 holiday shopping season was going to be a big one for mobile devices — smartphones and tablets were the IT thing to have under your tree on December 25th and Rovio perhaps has lended some credence to that perception.

The Finnish game maker started off by tooting its own horn, as companies tend to do — and should do. In this case though, we do know a bit of the history of how well Rovio’s games did this year, with both Angry Birds Space and Angry Birds Star Wars quickly rising up the download charts for both Android and iOS.

“Wow, what a year! We released four critically-acclaimed bestselling mobile games, developed two top-rated Facebook games, and reached more than a billion downloads – all before our 3rd “Birdday”! Angry Birds Star Wars and Bad Piggies in particular have dominated the app charts, with Angry Birds Star Wars holding the #1 position on the US iPhone chart ever since its release!”

The company went on to lay out its numbers.

“To top it all off, we had 30 million downloads during Christmas week (December 22-29) and, on Christmas Day, over 8 million downloads in 24 hours alone!”

Those are certainly eye-popping figures and definitely point to the number of new devices. According to a different post from ad network Chitika, those devices may have been topped by Amazon’s Kindle Fire. Of course, Google had a lot of problems keeping its Nexus 7 in stock, which may have helped Amazon out. Chitika reports a drop for the iPad, but an ad network is only one small sub-set of the picture.

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Posted in Gaming, mobile

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Angry Birds celebrates 3rd birthday with new levels

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 8:37 AM on December 11, 2012

Rovio is celebrating the third birthday, or ‘Birdday’, of it’s ground-breaking Angry Birds game today. As part of the celebration the company released an update, bringing the app to version 3.0, and adding thirty new levels of pig-bashing fun. The game from the Finland-based company is certainly not showing it’s age, as it continues to hover near the top of mobile download charts.

There is a lot more to this update that just the new levels of play. Rovio also added the pink bird, which was introduced in the Angry Birds Seasons “Back to School” update, as well as full support for iPhone 5 handsets. The thirty new levels include 15 “Birdday Party” and 15 “Bad Piggies” themed levels.

Angry Birds was of course the first game in the now famous franchise, which has gone on to include Seasons, Rio, Space and, most recently, Star Wars.

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Angry Birds Star Wars Lands on Android, iOS, Windows Phone

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 2:18 PM on November 8, 2012

Angry Birds Star Wars

Depending on what time zone you live in you may or may not have been ready to grab a copy of Angry Birds Star Wars when it blasted onto mobile platforms and computers at 11pm PST last night, complete with an online launch event.  Rovio even held a live-streaming event for those who were awake at that hour, which I suppose was morning in Finland where Rovio is based.

From that Scandinavian country the company has reached out and dominated the mobile markets on Android and iOS devices and even is available now on Windows Phone and OSX and Windows computers.

The last big release from the Finnish game studio, Bad Piggies rocketed to number one on the download charts in under three hours, making it the most successful release in history, surpassing Angry Birds Space.  At the same time, the original Angry Birds game remains in the most popular download list in the Google Play Store.

You can grab a copy now.  There are both free and paid versions.  You will find some very different birds here thanks to the Star Wars branding. The game play, while similar to Angry Birds Space, is also a bit different thanks to the George Lucas (recently purchased by Disney) influence.

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Posted in Android, Gaming, iOS, osx, Windows

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Are You Game? Rovio and Kaiku to Release Angry Birds Visa Cards

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 5:34 AM on November 6, 2012

Rovio, the popular game-maker based in Finland, has produced some of the most popular mobile titles, including record-setting releases like the recent Bad Piggies, which shot to the number one position on the download charts at breakneck speed.  As if the mobile and PC games, as well as the merchandising available in retail stores across the U.S., weren’t enough, the company has now announced a partnership with KAIKU to bring Angry Birds to your wallet.

KAIKU, while not being a big name in the financial industry, has scored exclusive rights to issue pre-paid Visa cards with Angry Birds images on the card front. The company describes themselves as “A provider in the global prepaid industry, KAIKU offers smart products that combine a unique blend of style and innovation, while providing a convenient and affordable alternative to traditional money management solutions.”

“Rovio and KAIKU share a common philosophy in that we love to delight our fans with products that are affordable and packed with great features that fit today’s lifestyle,” stated Andrew Stalbow, Rovio’s EVP of Strategic Partnerships and General Manager of North America.

For fans of the game this may be just one more collectible you will want to grab but, with the power of the Visa name, the card will also be useful at millions of locations across the globe. The only catch here may be the “pre-paid” part. Many people are probably reluctant to send their hard-earned money to cover a bill for something they haven’t yet purchased.

If you are game, however, KAIKU is showing off four versions of the card, featuring Bad Piggies and several different designs of the famous birds themselves. They promise the cards will be available in early 2013. In the meantime, you can grab any of the four Angry Birds games already on the market and also look forward to the brand new Angry Birds Star Wars edition that is coming later this week. Also, a word of warning if you haven’t yet installed Bad Piggies — there are a lot of malware apps posing as the record setting game so be careful out there.

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Posted in Gaming

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Rovio Releases Most In-Depth Angry Birds Space Trailer Yet

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 7:53 PM on November 5, 2012

In just a few days, on November 8th, Rovio will launch what will perhaps be their most ambitious game so far – a mashup of Angry Birds and Star Wars, the Lucas Films franchise recently purchased by Disney.  They have been relentlessly teasing the new game over the past month, starting with simple video clips of the original 1977 movie and then moving on to reveal bits and pieces of the gameplay and characters.

Today, the Finnish game maker revealed the most detailed trailer yet, showing more of the actual characters and gameplay.  The company also announced a live launch event scheduled for 11pm PST on November 7th, which will be broadcast live at http://rov.io/abswlive.  A few lucky fans will even get to join Rovio live on camera  for the big launch.  The game will be available on iOS and Android, with Windows Phone coming shortly.

“Join Rovio and Lucasfilm executives, game developers and artists for a special Angry Birds Star Wars game-launch Hangout live this Wednesday, November 7, at 11pm PST. Rovio and Lucasfilm teams will take you behind-the-scenes of the new collaboration, including an inside look on how the game was developed.”

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Rovio Releases C-3PO, R2-D2 Trailer for Angry Birds Space

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 6:09 AM on November 1, 2012

Rovio began talking about their latest Angry Birds game several weeks ago.  Since then they have slowly teased the game out, first with a video that provided little clue of what was in store, then with one that finally displayed some game play and featured Luke and Leia.  Today the Finnish game studio has pushed out their latest offering and this one shows off more game play, but features C-3PO and R2-D2 birds.

We are exactly one week from launch and we can probably expect a few more trailers to pop up during those coming days.  The game, to probably nobody’s surprise, will greatly resemble Angry Birds Space, but only have themed birds and planets.  The game will initially launch on iOS and Android, but a version will be coming shortly for Windows Phone and also Windows 8.

The Star Wars franchise is certainly in need of a boost these days, especially when a site like Tech Crunch labels it as “falling apart”.  Perhaps it’s recent purchase by Disney and the Angry Birds juggernaut will be able to save it.

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Posted in Gaming, mobile

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Rovio to Release Amazing Alex July 12, Posts Launch Trailer

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 9:38 AM on July 10, 2012

Rovio, the popular Finnish game studio behind the Angry Birds franchise, announced their next game release, Angry Alex, a while back.  They even included a teaser in a recent Angry Birds level update.  Today the company announced that the game will officially launch this Thursday, July 12th.

Amazing Alex will be immediately available in both the iTunes Store and Google Play Store, and “More platform versions will be announced in the near future”.  To get users excited about the launch, Rovio has already created both Twitter and Facebook pages and there is an  Amazing Alex Game Hub.  In addition, Rovio posted a one minute launch trailer to both their site and YouTube, which can find embedded below.

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Rovio Teases Next Game, Amazing Alex

Posted by Alan Buckingham at 10:23 AM on June 28, 2012

Rovio has been on a roll recently.  They have launched the fastest selling mobile game in history with Angry Birds Space and also updated both Space and Seasons with new levels, as well as adding a Facebook version of the original Angry Birds game.  Now they are pimping their next game, “Amazing Alex” with a new trailer and a couple of wallpapers for your computer.

Game play is essentially a series of Rube Goldberg machines that you create to solve problems and accomplish common tasks like cleaning Alex’s room.  The game also allows the users to create their own levels.  ”Got a great idea for a level? Design intriguing new levels using 35 interactive objects and share them — with friends or with the whole world! With other fans constantly creating and uploading new levels, there are always new challenges to check out!”

Rovio isn’t giving many details, only stating that the game is “coming soon”.  They also aren’t talking price, but many versions of the Angry Birds series have been free.  You can check out the trailer below and head over to Rovio to grab the wallpapers.

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Posted in Gaming, mobile

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