Blizzard Entertainment has announced its first global writing contest. Participants are asked to submit by April 12 a 3,000 to 10,000 word story set in company's the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universes. The grand prize winner will win a trip meet the Blizzard writing staff at Blizzard HQ in California, as well as a Frostmourne sword.

Blizzard Entertainment is proud to present its first global writing contest. If you enjoy the Blizzard Entertainment universes and have the drive to pen fantasy fiction in them, here’s your chance to shine.

Whether you conjure stories in your free time or write for a living, you’re encouraged to participate. This contest is open to entrants from around the world, and will be judged by Blizzard Entertainment’s own writers and masters of lore.

To enter, submit a 3,000 to 10,000 word story written in English and set in the Warcraft, StarCraft, or Diablo universe by April 12 and earn your chance to visit the Blizzard Entertainment headquarters and meet the writers and staff behind the lore seen in the games and books.

See below for additional prizing details, or check out the official rules for more information.

Award Categories:
Grand Prize:
Trip to Blizzard Entertainment headquarters in Southern California to meet and eat with the Blizzard writing staff, and a Frostmourne sword

Runner Up:
Seven runners-up will receive prize packages consisting of signed copies of the Diablo Archive, Warcraft Archive, StarCraft Archive, and the Warcraft War of the Ancients Archive.

Blizzard Creative Writing Contest

Blizzard Entertainment

Click to enlarge

Soldak Entertainment has added a three new entries to the Characters page for Kivi's Underworld. The list showcases some of the 20 playable characters in the company's action RPG title. The page currently shows thirteen of the playable characters and will be updated with more in the future.

There are over 20 different, playable characters in Kivi's Underworld. We are going to slowly reveal some of them here.

SPOILER ALERT: you only know about Kivi the Warrior at the beginning of the game, so reading about any of the characters below might be minor spoilers.

Kivi's Underworld Character Page

Soldak Entertainment

Kivi's Underworld

Click to enlarge

Appletell has posted a new review of Multiwinia: Survival of the Flattest, the recently release real time strategy title from Introversion Software and Ambrosia Software. Returning to the unique world of Darwinia, the game allows players to choose from six game modes on over 40 maps as they battle for stick figure supremacy. Appletell gave the game a score of 5 out of 5.

From the review:

Multiwinia features various modes of play: Domination (wipe our your enemy), King of the Hill (capture command points to win), Capture the Statue (drag huge monoliths back to your base for points), Assault (take or defend a position against oncoming hordes), Blitzkreig (destroy multiple enemies), and Rocket Riot (an interesting variation: protect an escape rocket in order to get out of the war zone). There are, of course, multiple maps to play each game on, and what would a video game be without Power Ups.

Every so often a crate will drop from the sky, and the first team to capture and “open” the box (and the more troops you have on the box, the faster it opens), will get a random bonus, all of which are particularly lethal: from simple troop upgrades to vehicles (such as the armored troop character) to another which harvests recently killed Darwinians and respawns them at your base. Some of them are particularly freaky; how’d you like to drop a giant hill of killer ants right next to your enemy’s generator, or a killer forest that attacks anyone who enters it. If that’s not enough for you, you might get to cause a meteor storm or a full-on nuclear strike.

Despite its simple graphic style—a throwback to the days of Tron right down to the “Recognizer”—Multiwinia’s simple, glowing shapes are oddly beautiful and downright hypnotic at times, making it all to easy to distract you from the explosive battles going on. As the name spells out, it’s a strictly multiplayer game, ditching the puzzle-combat structure of the original for straight-out battles. After practicing against the computer to learn just how complicated a real time strategy game made of stick men can be, you can play your friends online.

Appletell: Multiwinia Review

Ambrosia Software

Introversion Software

Multiwinia

uDevGames is scheduled today to announce the winners of the uDevGames 2008 contest. The competition challenges developers to create a viable game in three months. The 20 game entries were subject to public and peer voting, which ended on March 12. Entries were scored for “Best Overall Game," as well as in six additional categories: Gameplay, Graphics, Audio, Story, Presentation and Originality. The winners will divide a prize pool of over $20,000 donated by the sponsors of uDevGames 2008.



uDevGames was established by iDevGames with three underlying objectives in mind: create, educate, and succeed. The goal is to motivate developers to create fun games for the Mac platform, and then to release the games under an OSI open source license.

uDevGames actively helps to educate Mac developers, and aspiring new developers to the Mac platform, in technologies such as OpenGL and Objective-C. In addition, the contest helps spotlight developers that create unique and exciting games for the Mac, as well as help introduce the best and brightest talent to game publishers.

“We kicked off uDevGames in 2001, and for the next three years, it made a fantastic impact on the Mac gaming scene. uDevGames has served as a springboard for many of our past developers into the world of professional game development. By leveraging their experience in the contest, whether they win or not, this year’s developers will no doubt contribute positively to the Mac and iPhone platforms,” said Carlos Camacho, Editor-in-Chief, iDevGames.

UPDATE: And The Winners Are...

Best overall Game
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta
Constellation - Matthew Woods
uDeadGame - William Griffin

Gameplay
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta
Constellation - Matthew Woods
Maneuv'It - DGuy

Graphics
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta
Surrounded By Death - Matt Hergaarden
ChasmBowling - Ben Mildren

Audio
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta
Maneuv'It - DGuy
ChasmBowling - Ben Mildren & Simoebic Dysentery - Joe Flores

Story
Boston: Mouse in the Sewer - Lincoln Green
Gw0rp - Stephen Johnson
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta

Presentation
Laserface Jones vs Doomsday Odious - Justin Ficarrotta
Constellation - Matthew Woods
Maneuv'It - DGuy

Originality
Simoebic Dysentery - Joe Flores
ChasmBowling - Ben Mildren
Gw0rp - Stephen Johnson

uDevGames

iDevGames

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