Archive for February, 2007

Only Saturday or Sunday - preorder Runes of Avalon now

Saturday, February 24th, 2007

That’s right - preorder period is ending. Only today and tomorrow you can preorder Runes of Avalon. On Monday we will launch. If you want to get unique version of this game, that’s the best time to do it.

www.RunesOfAvalon.com - official website

Runes of Avalon
Runes of Avalon

Pagebull - visual search engine

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

I was viewing my webstats yeasterday and found an entry from an odd site: Pagebull. After clicking on the link and entering the search query (Runes of Avalon of course) I was brought to totally new experience. So what is Pagebull?

PagebullIt is the first web search service to offer a full visual search experience. While other search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft present search results in text form, Pagebull shows images of the pages in the search results. Classic text results are available on demand, too. This way, a user can quickly evaluate the search results without the need to manually visit each result link.

Not only you get snapshots of websites in search results - you also get search term highlighted. And it works very fast. Check it out!

Pagebull

The Ponys update

Tuesday, February 20th, 2007

It’s been a while since I posted updates on the Ponys game. One of the reasons is that we’ve been fully concentrated on finishing Runes of Avalon. The other reason is that there was not much going on with it. But since mid january we have a new guy in a team that moves this project forward day by day. Our plan is to finish this game by March 31st. This is an ambitious task, but then - we love challanges :D

Here’s a little screenie from the game. Make sure to view it full size (click on the image). It’s raining man! It doesn’t look so lovely on a static picture, but so far it’s the only thing I can show you at the moment. There’s planty of stuff for your ponys to do - not only you can feed them, but you can let them play many games, build your own farm, decide whether you want to make a party, go to a race, start up in a beauty contest and much more…

ponys game

The battle for Avalon

Thursday, February 15th, 2007

It’s comming. Day by day. Runes of Avalon… and Evelyne, the Apprentice to Merlin. Can she defeat Morganna? Can she learn rune magic quick enough to protect all the living? Who will she meet on her path?

Evelyne, the Aprrentice - Runes of Avalon

Years ago, Morganna made a bid for power and only Merlin was strong enough to oppose her. They fought their magical battle on ground and in the sky, and soon the land around them burned and the air became acrid with smoke. In the end Morganna was defeated, but not without cost. The Field of Gold-known for its lush and productive lands?were destroyed and left a rocky, barren wasteland that would never recover.

Battle for Avalon - Runes of Avalon

Morganna, though defeated and wounded, escaped. Using magic as a cover, she nursed her wounds and grew stronger in secret.

Now, she is healed, dangerous and hungry for revenge.

Morganna - Runes of Avalon

Watch our website closely. New match-3 with a twist of Tetris. Runes of Avalon are coming very soon.

Runes of Avalon - 9 days and counting…

Sunday, February 4th, 2007

We’re getting more and more excited with each day that gets us closer to the release of Runes of Avalon. That’s just 9 days. You don’t want to wait that long? You can pre-order it now! Make sure to watch the trailer on our website.

What the Runes are?

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

Runes of Avalon puzzle game makes a great use of the Runes. But what are they? Do they really exist? What the Runes are?

Runes are an ancient Germanic alphabet, used for writing, divination and magick. They were used throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland from about 100 B.C.E. to 1600 C.E. Runic inscriptions of great age have even been found in North America, supporting stories that the Vikings arrived in the Americas long before Columbus.

There are many sources where you can read about the runes. The major runic alphabets are called futharks based upon the first six symbols. The oldest runic alphabet is called Elder Futhark. Here is a piece of text about origins of the runes from Wikipedia:

The origins of the runic scripts are uncertain. Many characters of the elder futhark bear a close resemblance to characters from the Latin alphabet. Other candidates are the 5th to 1st century BC Northern Italic alphabets, Lepontic, Rhaetic and Venetic, all closely related to each other and themselves descended from the Old Italic alphabet. These scripts bear a remarkable resemblance to the Futhark in many regards.

I took a quote from another great source of knowlegde about runes:

The runes might be read from left to right or from right to left, even on the same artifact. Translation of runic inscriptions is therefore extremely difficult, and complicated by the fact that rune masters sometimes wrote cryptic puzzles or in secret script.

Runic alphabet - the Older Futhark

In Elder Futhark the runes are broken into three sections or groups of eight, called aett (aettir, plural). This helps one to remember their order, and later, has significance in magical uses.

Each rune has a name and it’s meaning. For example, Fehu, first symbol in runic alphabet, stands for wealth: possessions won or earned, earned income, luck. Abundance, financial strength in the present or near future. Sign of hope and plenty, success and happiness. For this fact runes are widely used for divination.

Here are some runes used in the Runes of Avalon game.

Runes fell into disuse as the Roman alphabets became the preferred script of most of Europe, but their forms and meanings were preserved in inscriptions and manuscripts.

If you want to know more about the runes check out following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runic_alphabet
http://www.sunnyway.com/runes/

If you fall in love with the Runes, just like we did, then make sure to play Runes of Avalon game.