MilMo on the Move

We're extremely happy to be able to finally launch MilMo in Brazil, fully translated into Portuguese. Our Brazilian publisher, Mentez, has been great to work with and we're sure they will treat MilMo to a fantastic launch. The game is now available on Brazil's largest social network, Orkut and on www.milmo.com.br/ (ofcourse, neither of this will affect MilMo on Facebook or milmogame.com).

MilMo has been popular among Brazilian players from the very beginning. At first we found this a bit peculiar, but soon we found that some of the games that inspired MilMo are very popular in Brazil (for example Maplestory and Super Mario Bros). We also found that Brazil has a strong gaming culture, a fairly modern computer fleet, very computer-literate players and some 70 000 Internet cafés!

Now on to some news in MilMo Update 22!

The Flea Circus and the Kitchen

First off, we have two new and awesome levels for you, which unfolds more of the Mice & Maniax storyline and its dark mysteries. The strange and wonderful Flea Circus is finally open to the public (prepare for classic platform game craziness). Beyond it, we venture further into the mad scientist's house and try to survive the hellish Kitchen. Of course, all of this means new NPCs, creatures and tons of quests!

The Open Gift Dialog and some new Premium Items

This Holiday season the team has had great fun developing the long awaited Gift feature! In the Premium Shop, you can now click "Gift" on an item to get it for one of your friends. The recipient will get to open your present with a fun animation. Accompanying this feature is a batch of new cool premium items in the shop; weapons, holiday hats, samurai helmets, space marine outfits: you name it!

We're also launching the Winterfest Event on Seastar Resort and Kraken Island. It comes with a whole range of new Winter Medals. Collect them all and win the glorious Snow Gun!

Winterfest on Seastar Resort, and the new Profile Window

Another great new addition is the Profile Window, where you can view the details of any player. It displays information on title, membership, personal message, mood and any collected medals, tokens and reward items.

If you are playing on Facebook, you will notice that with this release, MilMo is officially switching from June Coins to Facebook Credits. Credits is the new official currency on Facebook (see how many you have in the top right corner of your browser). They are very easy to get a hold of, and they work in any game (!) on Facebook, including MilMo.

Vouchers can be upgraded to greater and greater value

With the Facebook Credits came an interesting design challenge. As we weren't allowed to give away Facebook's Credits, we couldn't convert your June Coins into Credits, and we couldn't give away Credits as Star Token awards for members. Because of this, we have come up with a new Voucher system that is part solution, part new gameplay system. A voucher is a small ticket that exists in four values: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Bronze can be upgraded to Silver, Silver to Gold and so on. Star Tokens now award you Vouchers and your existing June Coins have been exchanged for Vouchers. To make sure we introduce the new system with a bang, we've given you Vouchers worth four times the amount of the June Coins you had!

Have Fun,

Calle

 
Today's post is made by Calle Lundgren, game designer and project manager at Junebud. Calle has been making games for everything from the C64 to the PS3. He has also had time to help found a successful band and to start up Junebud! He has a hand in everything that goes on at the company - especially MilMo. 

Channels of Communication

Since we decided to bring back Junebud's Twitter to life two weeks ago, I want to say a few words about communication. How do we, the people at Junebud, communicate with our players when we want to share news?

In the beginning there was only the homepage. Most people go to the homepage of a company if they want to find out if the servers are down, if there's a sale coming up or an update around the corner. A nice, informative and clean homepage is a great place to start. Under the category “News” you will find all the latest news and happenings within the MilMo Universe.

Next up, we've got the Forum. One big difference between the Forum and the homepage is the ability for the players to give feedback. The other difference is space. As you might have noticed we get more detailed about new updates on the Forum. Usually the post on MilMo's homepage links directly to the Forum post about what's new. This is our way of keeping away walls of texts from MilMo's homepage.

OK, so the Forum and the homepage are our two main ways of getting the news to our players. On top of that we've added the newsletter feature. The MilMo Newsletter is delivered once a month, more or less. We create these colorful, informative newsletters when we feel like we have some big news to share with you. For example: we released one when we first introduced the Shop. Managing newsletters is a delicate balance. No one likes spam, but we want our players to know whats going on. It's always a bit scary to press “send”, knowing that thousands of players will get the letter. If you messed something up, there's no way of undoing it.

Speaking about spam, that brings me to Facebook. Of course MilMo's got its very own Facebook page. Today, most companies are expected to have a site on Facebook. Facebook is the place where we share our news as briefs. It's the art of copy writing. We post status updates about once a week, so no spam. As for the Forum, players and visitors have the ability to give feedback. We might not answer all of the feedback (that would be impossible), but you can rest assured we're always lurking in the background, reading.

So, what's Twitter all about? Click here to find out

Another great source of information is Junebud's dev-blog and Twitter. Since you are reading this it's safe to assume you already found your way to the blog. This is a place for you to tell us about our thoughts when creating MilMo. What inspires us and what to expect in the future!
If you don't want to sign up for the official newsletter, Junebud's Twitter is a great option. Our Twitter is updated every time something happens to the game. Wheather it be an update or a competition, a server crash or a new, fun event, we'll post it. The reason we chose to bring back our Twitter was a suggestion from our players. They missed a way of immediately knowing when the game is updated.

The point of hawing multiple ways of communicating with our players is to make it easy for you to find your own way of staying in touch with MilMo developments. If you don't have Facebook you can always follow us on Twitter. And if you feel Twitter is not your cup of tea, then feel free to visit our homepage or forum instead to keep up with the news!

Stay tuned,

Sara

P.S If you want a sneak peak of what's going on behind the scenes of MilMo, you find my own Twitter right here.

Sara is the Community Manager at Junebud. She also works with Quality Assurance (QA) and social media. She's got a bachelor's degree in game design, but likes the social part better than tweaking numbers. She usually spends her time moderating the forum, testing the game and planning new events.