Noodlecake Labs was launched back in 2015 as an outlet for our developers to release small experimental games. Be it game jam games, side projects or titles that are missing that special something for a full release. Games like this come and go all the time and we felt like we needed an avenue to release them to the world. In fact Flappy Golf, one of our most successful games, was a game like this and almost never released because it was just a silly game jam title.

Labs titles are smaller in scope and more experimental in gameplay. Peg Ballet for the Apple TV was the first official title from Labs and was a prototype project for the Apple TV. Since then, our developers have amassed a collection of quirky one off projects that we plan to start to release in the coming year. But we are not keeping this as an internal project only. We are accepting applications just like our regular publishing channel for developers of all skill levels to submit projects to this new label. Many of our dev friends have games like this that are all excited to have an avenue to finally bring them out on.

And our new game, King Chomp! which is available now is leading the charge. To better understand King Chomp! it is time to pull back the curtain on what we have been up to over the past year.

In May of 2011 we updated the original Super Stickman Golf with a real time, race style multiplayer mode. It was something we thought was fun but had no idea that it would be such a pivotal part of our history. A group of judges at e3 that year started playing the game on a bus they were being shuttled around in. Suddenly our little indie golf game was getting major press coverage from the worlds biggest gaming sites.

Things snowballed into what they are today, but we feel that the heart of our success as a first party studio was that focus on multiplayer gaming. However it hasn’t been without its problems. Hackers, cheaters, cross platform development limitations, networking issues and more have plagued our games since the start. We knew if we wanted to do multiplayer right, we would need to build something ourselves.

Similar to our porting technology that we created to allow us to bring iOS games to Android we are excited to finally announce “NC Game”, the cloud based multiplayer framework we have been developing for the past year.

Many of the issues outlined above stem from the games using the same code on each device communicating via a p2p system. This new framework however, is developed to run games entirely in the cloud. It is modelled after high end frameworks that run games like Titan Fall 2, Call of Duty, Rocket League and more. It is fully custom built by Noodlecake in C++ for our games and is impossible to hack using what is referred to as “server authoritative multiplayer”. What that means is the server is running the “true” game and the clients or players are just sending their inputs to that server.

With this framework in place, we can build and deploy a server authoritative game in less than 10 minutes to the cloud. This framework will be powering the next generation of Noodlecake first party games and will allow for less lag, less bugs, no hackers/cheaters and true cross platform gaming. From mobile to browser, the system can adapt however we choose.

To really start testing this system properly, we need players and King Chomp!, a four player battle royal, is the first game built on this system. It is a simple, io style game that uses a battle royal or “last man standing” gameplay mechanic. It is available right now on iOS and Android to try out.

Trailer – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPwGsDnebrI

In King Chomp! you play as creatures that most resemble Fizzgig from the Dark Crystal. Players are matched and battle it out to eat or “chomp” their competition. Red eats Green, Green eats Blue and Blue eats Red. That old classic formula. There are moving color nodes around the map that change what color you are and fireflies you can eat for well timed speed bursts. Players have 3 lives each and the last one standing wins.

There is a global tournament that runs for 4 days and the top players will be awarded crowns for that period. The game is entirely free with no ads, no iap or anything. As mentioned above, it is from our Labs series of games and is a test bed for our frameworks. And is super fun to play with friends to boot!

iOS – https://itunes.apple.com/app/king-chomp/id1296339207?ls=1&mt=8

Google Play – https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.noodlecake.elemelee

Presskit: http://www.noodlecake.com/games/king-chomp/

If you have any questions about our NC Game framework, King Chomp! or Noodlecake Labs please don’t hesitate fire us an email at press@noodlecake.com