We are looking for players that really want to help us put together a Fantasy Browser RPG Game with a real difference. Check out our website for more details. http://ilkor.com

ilkor.com is live!!!



It's a pretty big milestone for us and we're very excited. It's taken almost 6 months of hard work to get to this point.

Please go and check out the website and let me have your feedback. We know the site isn't perfect, its far from that. It is just the beginning, we still have a long way to go, but we will get there, I promise.

We've decided to share this news with only a small number of people while we iron out the major creases during the month of July. We're expecting to discover various issues that will need to be fixed and we also plan on expanding on the game content.

Please spread the word and if the game interests you, we'd be honoured if you signed up for the beta playtest. I know it is far in the future (11 months!), but between now and then you will be sent updates and once we get into the New Year I am certain we'll have some exciting surprises up our sleeves to share with you.

I'm looking forward to receiving feedback. With your constructive comments we hope to have the website polished before the end of July and we can then get back to focusing on the game engine.

Btw, ilkor.com has been written to be progressively enhanced, which basically means the site should run in all browsers (desktop and mobile) with or without javascript enabled.

Cheers,

Sean.

Welcome to the eight issue of the Norberg bulletin. In this issue we will discuss Rising Empires more generally. What is the setting and what setup can we expect for a starting empire? We will also discuss how the game will be played. If you believe this is a game for you we are also looking for beta testers. Details can be found at the end of the bulletin.

The bulletin can be downloaded at:
Norberg bulletin - June issue

A couple of days ago, the United States Supreme Court struck down a California law that restricted the sale or rental of violent video games to minors. Here is a link to that ruling in PDF format, for any who might be interested in reading it for themselves.

http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/10pdf/08-1448.pdf

The lead opinion is only 18 pages long, which is not a lot, actually, as far as judicial opinions are concerned.

It's a good opinion, I think, although it isn't one of the more colorful ones. Fortunately, it is not completely colorless.

On page # 8, the opinion states:

California’s argument would fare better if there were a longstanding tradition in this country of specially restricting children’s access to depictions of violence, but there is none. Certainly the books we give children to read—or read to them when they are younger—contain no shortage of gore. Grimm’s Fairy Tales, for example, are grim in-deed. As her just deserts for trying to poison Snow White, the wicked queen is made to dance in red hot slippers “till she fell dead on the floor, a sad example of envy and jealousy.” The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales 198 (2006 ed.). Cinderella’s evil stepsisters have their eyes pecked out by doves. Id., at 95. And Hansel and Gretel (children!) kill their captor by baking her in an oven. Id., at 54.

The opinion touches on previous forms of entertainment that were feared to have a corrupting influence on children, ranging from dime novels to moving pictures to comic books to television to music lyrics.

On the specific point of the interactive aspect of violent video games, the Court said:

California claims that video games present special problems because they are “interactive,” in that the player participates in the violent action on screen and determines its outcome. The latter feature is nothing new: Since at least the publication of The Adventures of You: Sugar-cane Island in 1969, young readers of choose-your-own-adventure stories have been able to make decisions that determine the plot by following instructions about which page to turn to. Cf. Interactive Digital Software Assn. v. St. Louis County, 329 F. 3d 954, 957–958 (CA8 2003). As for the argument that video games enable participation in the violent action, that seems to us more a matter of degree than of kind. As Judge Posner has observed, all literature is interactive. “[T]he better it is, the more interactive. Literature when it is successful draws the reader into the story, makes him identify with the characters, invites him to judge them and quarrel with them, to experience their joys and sufferings as the reader’s own.” American Amusement Machine Assn. v. Kendrick, 244 F. 3d 572, 577 (CA7 2001) (striking down a similar restriction on violent video games).

As far as the California law's assisting of parental authority is concerned, the Court elaborated:

And finally, the Act’s purported aid to parental authority is vastly over inclusive. Not all of the children who are forbidden to purchase violent video games on their own have parents who care whether they purchase violent video games. While some of the legislation’s effect may indeed be in support of what some parents of the restricted children actually want, its entire effect is only in support of what the State thinks parents ought to want. This is not the narrow tailoring to “assisting parents” that restriction of First Amendment rights requires.

Justice Scalia's best instance of colorful phraseology rears its head at the very end of the opinion, wherein he writes for the Court:

And as a means of assisting concerned parents it is seriously overinclusive because it abridges the First Amendment rights of young people whose parents (and aunts and uncles) think violent video games are a harm-less pastime. And the overbreadth in achieving one goal is not cured by the underbreadth in achieving the other. Legislation such as this, which is neither fish nor fowl, cannot survive strict scrutiny.

glad to run into this place. I really use to love PBM games and all the games where you had to dig up some paper and a writing utensil. It always seemed like a lot of them would turn up on line... wait did they?

Hey guys,

For the latest goings on with development on Ilkor: Dark Rising go across to our blog and read all about it: http://gadgames.com/blog/category/ilkor-dark-rising/

Cheers,

Sean.

Hi guys,

I've just posted a new article on our blog about Ilkor's Character Avatars.

I think it's a very interesting article. Please pop over to Gad Games and check it out.

Cheers,

Sean.

Hi there,

nice to found this site. I am from www.pbem-spiele.de, german biggest pbem-portal. We run several games. Mostly on our own, several in cooperation, mostly for free. Some games like CONTINENTAL RAILS and RSW (Starweb, www.rswgame.com) are multilingual. Our next Starweb-Game looking for more player: https://rswgame.com/en/signup?gameId=world5a

We are looking for many old games and bring them back to live, like the old DARKNESS OF SILVERFALLS. We translate the rules and the game into german, programming a nice client and all looks pretty nice:

http://www.pbem-spiele.de/index.php?id=150

http://www.pbem-spiele.de/index.php?id=3...=40&uid=29

If anyone have good hints for old games they are worth to reactivate and can give me a contact, let me know.

Welcome to the seventh issue of the Norberg bulletin! This time we’ll look more closely into some of the features of Rising Empires. How can we introduce clans in a turn-based civilisation building game? Rising Empires is intended for Android smart phones but will also be possible to play on a PC.

At the same time we also launch our new Rising Empires forum.

The bulletin can be found at:
http://www.risingempires.com/forums/view...p?f=5&t=15