Just when you thought game titles couldn’t get more casual than Uno and Zuma, this comes along and shakes things up.
Falling squarely into the “no, no really!” category is this press release announcing the upcoming Etch-A-Sketch video game coming to PC, Mac, and possibly even the Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Nintendo Wii. India-based Game Shastra has worked for years as testing/service house for the gaming industry, and they are now partnering up with casual game maker Freeze Tag to create these games based on the popular magnetic drawing toy from Ohio Art.
How fun would an Etch-A-Sketch game really be? And really, how much fun was the real thing back in the day? Hopefully the game would be more fun than the free Etchy.com, which lets you emulate the fun of the toy in your own web browser. The real question is how will this be better than Pictochat?
Maybe they could include some kind of picture sharing or cooperative drawing features. Then we could all share and co-edit crude, perverted genitalia pictures. That could work.
Hit the jump to see the full release.
Game Shastra, India’s largest game services provider has signed a Master Game Development Agreement with Freeze Tag, a California based casual game publisher and developer. Game Shastra will develop and Freeze Tag will publish “Etch A Sketch(R),” a new game inspired by the classic toy from The Ohio Art Company. Under the terms of the agreement, Game Shastra will develop PC, Web, and Mac versions of the game, as well as any future versions for platforms such as Xbox 360 Live Arcade and Nintendo Wii.
Craig Holland, CEO of Freeze Tag says, “We have worked with many offshore developers, and Game Shastra is the first company that has truly ‘exported’ US game development expertise and management to its offshore operation, while still maintaining a US onshore staff in key developer roles. Game Shastra’s talented and experienced management team and competitive pricing were attractive features, but the main reason we picked Game Shastra to develop our high-value licenses was simply the opportunity to work with a really great game development team.”
Prakash Ahuja, CEO, of Game Shastra, says “We think Freeze Tag as a publisher has great vision for identifying good titles. It has chosen some very exciting and unique licenses that we hope to develop jointly under this partnership.” Ahuja continues, “This agreement with Freeze Tag reiterates our position as a leading global game services provider for both Core and Casual games.”
Game Shastra’s worldwide customer base has been expanding rapidly as it offers richer, faster and more efficient game services to game publishers globally. “At Game Shastra we provide a very flexible project environment for our customers for game development, game art and game testing in a single location which is very difficult to pull off on-shore, besides offering competitive development costs leading to shorter development timelines and higher quality products,” Bjorn Book-Larsson, CTO and VP of Game Development, Game Shastra, said. “Our presence in Los Angeles provides quick response to our customers, and keeps us tightly integrated throughout the entire project.”
