Anno 1701 coming to the DS

txa1265

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From here:

Anno 1701 on the Nintendo DS. Developed by Keen Games, the title will launch in Europe and Australasia in Q2 2007.

"We are looking forward to building a strong relationship with the team at SUNFLOWERS to expand and develop the gaming experience that ANNO 1701 offers," said Thierry Braille, vice president and general manager, Buena Vista Games EMEA. "With BVG's expertise in publishing a broad portfolio of video games for the entire family and titles for the Nintendo DS, ANNO 1701 is an optimal addition to our portfolio because it appeals to both males and females alike, and also attracts younger as well as older gamers."

"ANNO 1701 stands for great quality and extraordinary gameplay," said Wilhelm Hamrozi, CEO SUNFLOWERS. "When expanding the property onto other platforms, we don't simply port the game design, but we develop new concepts that satisfy the familiar high standards in terms of quality and gameplay appropriate to the platform", he continued. "We are delighted about this collaboration and view Buena Vista Games as the ideal partner to begin a sensible expansion of our ANNO brand onto other platforms", Hamrozi concluded.

The Anno 1701 world is based on the PC title by Sunflowers. This is the very first venture onto the DS for the popular empire-building title. Set between the 17th and 18th centuries, the game is based on creating, building and developing civilisations. If you want to check out some screens of the game, you can check out a batch that were released a few months back by clicking 'Game Page' at the top of this news page.

I loved the PC game - and I know many of you guys have been following the series for quite a while, so I figured I'd share!
 
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I didn´t realize this was news when I saw it a few months ago. ;)

Anno 1701 is officially the best selling PC game in Germany 2006. It´s still on the number 1 chart position after two months, sometimes interrupted for a week by another game. With WoW around the corner it will soon drop a place but still continue to sell well.

Keen Games is the new studio founded by the leads of the former JoWooD studio Neon Games. Their last game, the jump & run Legend of Kay received very good reviews but was a commercial flop for reasons we all know. ;)
 
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To tell the truth, I never had much liking for the Anno series, but in similar news, I only recently discovered that Disciples 2, Warlords and Jagged Alliance (unsure exactly which one) are all coming for the NDS as well.
 
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Jagged Alliance is #2 as well. Those are all supposedly coming sometime this year ...loads of strategy coming - I mentioned Anno only because I know many here are big fans of that series.
 
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The thing that bugsme is that sooo many games for handhelds are games I'sd like to play on the PC.

But no, the publishers won't never ever ever release them fopr the PC, simply because they don't look like flashy, eye-candy-looking 3D graphics.

I still love to play Commander Keen, simply because it's huge fun, and I don't feel bothered by the non-3D-graphics at all. I believe "marketing experts" of bigger publishers would call me mad for that.

Instead I call *them* mad, because they don't want to publish anything that has not 3D.
 
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The thing that bugsme is that sooo many games for handhelds are games I'sd like to play on the PC.
Um ... isn't every game mentioned in this thread a PC game?

Instead I call *them* mad, because they don't want to publish anything that has not 3D.
Thing is, re-releasing these things for PC in their 2D state wouldn't sell ... but on a GBA or even DS screen they get tremendous flexibility and don't have to totally redo the graphics.

Look at Age of Empires: Age of Kings for the DS - they turned it from RTS to TBS and integrated touch screen and other elements, and it was brilliant! Not perfect, but a really good game that was completely independent of the PC and yet felt like playing a PC game.
 
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Um ... isn't every game mentioned in this thread a PC game?

Star Wars : Flight of the Falcon isn't a PC game, for example.
 
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Star Wars : Flight of the Falcon isn't a PC game, for example.

THANK INNOS for that! :D

But that was the first time that game came up in the thread - or are you just talking about the general trend of releasing games for GBA / DS / PSP that could be good on the PC?
 
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Yes, rather that. I mean that I would simply like games that are exclusives on handhelds on the PC, too. And I wouldn't mind the graphics at all, as long as there is fun in it. ;)
 
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In the news today:

Ubisoft wants to buy Sunflowers!
Sunflowers agrees this is a good idea. Anno 1701 is Germany´s most successful strategy franchise with more then 5M units sold. Also part of the deal is Sunflowers´ 30% stake in Anno 1701 developer Related Designs.
After the acquisition Ubi will have a dominant position on the German strategy market because they also own the other strong brand, The Settlers, though the Blue Byte deal a couple of years ago.








Ubi´s investment is a sign that the big publishers perceive a clear upward trend in the quality delivered by German developers.
 
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And this might mean a huge quality drop in German games for the future.
Look at what they did with The Settlers.
The Settlers II & III were great strategy games. Look at what hapenned with the fifth installment.
 
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That´s also what I think might happen. Ubi will push them towards a faster development cycle and maybe additional platforms. Which will reduce the time available to refine things.
 
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Ubisoft wants to buy Sunflowers!
Even more than "wants"

Today Ubisoft, one of the world's largest video game publishers announced that it has concluded an agreement to acquire SunFlowers, owner of the Anno brand, one of the most successful strategy games with five million units sold worldwide and one of the best-selling games in the German market

So who knows ... sometimes these things are good, other times not so good ...
 
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Yes, the German newsbit I found first was not precise enough.

Latest update:
The Sunflowers founders will take the money and open a new company to work on MMOs. Part of the development team will follow. Ubi wants to talk to the remaining staff (without clarification on whether the topic is "stay" or "leave" ;) ).

Source
 
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Cool new interview at PocketGamer.uk:

Finally, what personally most pleases you most about Anno 1701?

It has to be the fact we squeezed a game with nearly the same feature-set as the PC version into such a small cartridge. To do this we really had to flip every byte twice, but by the end we have a full Anno 1701, which offers the same entertainment as when you play the PC version.
 
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Jagged alliance 2 going to NDS? It will be great to be able to play JA2 on the go, though I imagine it will be cut down significantly in terms of content.
 
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Jagged alliance 2 going to NDS? It will be great to be able to play JA2 on the go, though I imagine it will be cut down significantly in terms of content.

I wouldn't assume too much in terms of content - the DS is quite capable of holding 40+ hour games ... but we have no idea what this will all look like. The Settlers game is due in June, and from there we can assess the potential for the Warlords & JA2 games.
 
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