Is coding dying? Rovio has a mid-core game in soft launch, and the 5 trends dictating mobile evolution in 2016

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• 5 Seriously doubles down on Best Fiends IP with sequel Best Fiends: Forever

  

  Seriously might not be talking about its upcoming sequel to the wildly successful Best Fiends, but it's already out there in the world.

  It's even published under the company's own name, flying in the face of conventions established by other big name mobile developers working on new titles.

  Best Fiends: Forever, so called because it involves you rewinding time over and over to make the game endless, is currently available in Australia, Canada, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, and Sweden.

  It also moves away from its puzzle game roots, instead taking the form of an RPG-clicker that has you collecting a team of minions to physically battle the slugs, with players joining in by tapping on the slugs themselves to deal more damage.

  
  

• 4 GameSalad CEO Stephen Nichols on the slow death of coding

  

  There's a huge number of game engines out there that just about anyone can get their hands on and start creating games with, if they so desire.

  As such, GameSalad CEO, Stephen Nichols, is now firmly of the opinion that coding is largely on its way out, particularly since you can't learn how to do it as quickly as you can learn how to use a more user-friendly development tool.

  His main point of contention is coding academies, which to teach you how to be a great programmer in just a few weeks.

  About these, Nichols says "unless you have some kind of undeveloped coding genius, you cannot learn to code in a matter of weeks."

  
  

• 3 3 years, two people, 1 vision: the making of Pirate Power

  

  We'd been keeping track of Pirate Power in our soft launch list for quite a while before it launched worldwide, and, given how long it was taking, we wondered if it would ever actually launch.

  But when it launched, and we got in touch with developer Godzilab to find out more about how the game was made, it became clearer why it took so long - it was largely made by just two people.

  As Godzilab co-founder Jerome Lanquetot put it, "Everybody is working remotely so staying motivated and working rigorously on Pirate Power for 3 years was definitely a challenge but we made it."

  
  

• 2 Rovio has a mid-core game in soft launch that looks a bit like Japanese hit Monster Strike

  

  At White Nights Helisinki 2016, Rovio let slip that it is working on a mid-core title, currently in soft-launch, but showed only an icon and some retention data.

  Working on that miniscule amount of information, we managed to uncover the title, now believed to be Deminions Unleashed, published under the name of Dark Matter Gaming.

  It's a mix of RPG and pinball which looks a lot like Monster Strike, and has you firing monsters around a level, bouncing off enemies to destroy them.

  It's currently available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Finland, Hong Kong, Israel, the Philippines, and Singapore, but with so little information from Rovio, it's impossible to say when it might make its way to the rest of the world.

  
  

• 1 The 5 trends that will dictate mobile gaming's evolution in 2016

  

  2016 may now be in full swing as we head into March, but that doesn't mean we can't keep taking a stab at what trends we're likely to see throughout the rest of the year.

  It certainly hasn't stopped Fyber's VP Developer Relations, David Diaz, who's outlined five trends that he expects to see in 2016.

  Among them are growing production costs for mobile games, some of the bigger players being acquired by larger companies, and the contunual growth of VR.

  Of the latter, Diaz states that "we should expect to see new ad formats available for developers across virtual and augmented reality relatively soon."