March 3rd, 2010

Dear friends,

Maestro! Green Groove for iPhone/iPod touch is Gold for Apple :)

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Maestro! Green Groove

Maestro! Green Groove

For those of you who know the DS version of Maestro!, « Green Groove » is the first world you have played. It is a world of chlorophyll, spiders and fruit, in which classical music is Bollywoodized by the delightful Yubaba, Smith & Fortune.

In the iPod/iPhone version, the 3 melodies you will find and enjoy are:

  • the 5th Symphony from Beethoven,
  • the New World Symphony from Dvorak
  • and a new unreleased music special for the Green Groove Edition: a Nocturne of Chopin that has been distorted into a great chip tune indi version.

In the Green Groove Version, you will go through 3 different parts of the jungle, with various graphics and increasingly difficult levels that add up to a total of 9 levels and their tutorials. Staccato has called in sick on iPhone, but he told me he’ll be back soon.maestro_1

If you plug in your headset/mic on your iPhone, you will be able to sing out to help Presto top the required B+ grade. The Voxler technology will help recognize your singing, humming and whistling and give you points for the good parts. No worries if you sing like a frog, you won’t be penalized ;)

The Level Design has been entirely adapted for a Finger gameplay, thus changing the challenge we propose and creating a new player experience. We’d love to know your impressions ;)

maestro_2Maestro! Green Groove iPhone/iPod Touch will be sold for 0,79€ or 0,99$ from march 6 2010 on.

This version’s publisher is Bulkypix, and we expect the very best from this new partnership we have started with them. Pastagames is not intending to become a video game publisher, we are a game studio and it takes more time than we have already! Neko is our privileged partner for consoles and handheld consoles and we wish to create the same trust and relation with Bulkypix on Smartphone devices.

That’s our first steps in the dematerialized distribution and we are more than happy about it :D

Edit(03/08/2010):

Maestro! Green Groove is now available, and you can buy it here!

P.S. we will post here a few reviews of the iPhone iPod version:

Posted in Distribution, Videos | 1 Comment »

Distribution UK and Europe (Online)

January 8th, 2010

fabienDear friends,

Our distributor’s efforts to make sure the game is available in the UK have finally paid off!  Yippee!!!

We happily announce that you can now purchase Maestro ! Jump in Music DS online (shipping possible in most of Europe) at:

logo_zavvi
Buy Maestro! Jump in Music at zavvi.com
logo_thehut
Buy Maestro! Jump in Music at thehut.com
logo_gamesbasement
Buy Maestro! Jump in Music at gamesbasement.co.uk
logo_asda
Buy Maestro! Jump in Music at ASDA

…and that’s good news for all of us! Take a look at the prices, there is a surprise for you ;)

Fabien

Posted in Distribution | 18 Comments »

03 Pixel! Pastagames & Arkedo are coloured in blue!

December 21st, 2009

herveDear friends,

jaquette_pixelAfter Maestro! Jump in Music’s long production phase, Hervé Barbaresi, our Artistic Supervisor, had the idea of make a game with:

  • a cat,
  • big fat pixels,
  • platforms,
  • and pixels inside the pixels!

When one of us has a project so close to their heart, we fight to make it happen; and when we do, we take some friends on the road with us. The one and only Arkedo, our neighbours and soul mates, have accepted that we ride along in their wonderful “Arkedo Series” on the Indie Games section of the Xbox Live. There was “01 Jump!” then “02 Swap!” so we gladly present “03 Pixel!”.

Maïwenn Rapine from Arkedo has handled the programming, Hervé did the rest. The rest of us sneaked around, tested and smiled…

pixel_3We would love to see this Indie Games section take off for it is a great way for small studios like ourselves to share our games with you.

The development environment is technically mature and impressive, no need for development kits nor expensive tools. If you have and Xbox 360, you plug it in, you work from your usual computer, and when you’re done, boom, you deploy and simply play on with the Xbox pad on your HD TV! Amazing stuff, really!

When the game is complete, submit it to the game community, your peers may validate it, and you’re online!!! Concerning 03 Pixel, it took exactly 22 hours. Trust me, when you have worked on other devices with other kinds of submissions… the simplicity feels as odd as it’s welcome!

pixel_1Ok then, what’s the catch?

  • Extreme piracy? Nop.
  • Restricted access for developers? Nop.
  • Slow, complicated, cannot make good games with the technology? Nop.

So we jumped in, and will certainly jump in again! We’ll make other game according to how much income we get from the games already out.

pixel_2This is a solution we are trying after the enormous trouble we have had with the distribution of Maestro! Jump in Music, we will try others until we find good ones…

It is with great pleasure than we now can say, for a mere 240 Microsoft points, and with a few thumb flicks, you can get 03 Pixel! wherever you are from!

You can even try it before buying. For only 8 minutes… more than enough to hook you ;) You can get it from your PC or MAC, and play in 5 minutes on your Xbox 360.

Do you speak FRENCH, or ENGLISH?

DSCN1265We believe that this game will please you as much as it pleased us! Within the first few hours, 03 Pixel! is one of the best-rated (by players) games, next to 01 Jump! and 02 Swap!

We’d love to know what you think of it!

Edit (22/12/2009): 240 Microsoft points, not 230 :)

jaquette_pixel

Posted in Pixel! | 6 Comments »

Pirates! and the winner is rom 4454!

November 21st, 2009

fabienDear friends,

Maestro! Jump in Music is now available for download on the web on various pirates pages all around the world.

What does that mean to us?

Pirates_FlagOn the first hand, we’re happy that a lot of people who would never have played it actually get hands on… I have found a Brasilian Forum where players were expecting the game and are now playing and comparing scores, craving on the levels… and that’s nice to see.

This distribution thing is a total paradox! We are communicating on the game in all possible ways, youtube, twitter, facebook, traditional magazines, general newspapers… and the shop 100 meters from the studio didn’t even know the game was in their stock… what can we do?

We have spent 3 years making this game, fighting to actually get it out in the shops, invested the few dollars and dimes we have saved up, convinced our friends from Neko to jump in with us, had BigBen distribute the game over Europe… and all this for merely 3 weeks of commercial exposure.

A lot of people believe that when a NDS game is sold, the money goes to Nintendo and they already have enough money! but it isn’t true!!!

Nintendo didn’t invest a kopek in the game, and if it is not sold enough, it is Pastagames, Neko & Bigben who will pay the bill.

The consequences are simple, we are forced to keep making games for others, Baby games, teddy bear and pony games to survive, and we won’t be able to create new and original games for players to enjoy.

I’m not there to get you to cry, just to tell you to buy the game is you like it, if you want our little studio to keep making games we (and hopefully you) love ;)

And if you aren’t so keen on buying a game you already have downloaded, remember that the money you’ll spend will be for our next game and not for Maestro. We are very excited to create it and to share it with you :D

Fabien, and all the Pastateam

Edit (11/26/2009) : In order to make it less boring, I added to the original post images of pirates taken from 3 different sites, and forgot to ask any authorization and/or add a link back to the original sites. That was plain stupid, I do apologize for that. I took the images away, and replaced it by one of our own.

Posted in Nota Bene | 64 Comments »

FNAC: Maestro! is a “Chrismas pick” & “Gift of the year”

November 13th, 2009

fabienDear friends,

MaestroFNACWhat a surprise! It is with great pleasure that we have seen our game chosen for these special selections on the  FNAC.com page.

Next to:

  • Professor Layton,
  • Scribblenauts,
  • Raving Rabbids,
  • & Little Big Planet.

Nice neighbours, don’t you think?

Once we get them to display the correct cover, we’ll be fine :D

Posted in Non classé | 1 Comment »

French release: Where, when?

November 9th, 2009

fabienDear friends,

MaestroFNACMaestro! Jump in Music for Nintendo DS is finally out!

It seems that the shops actually received the game on the 7th rather than on the 6th, and that the Chritsmas period arrivals overwhelming them, they are taking a bit more time to fill out the shops’ shelves with it.

You will find it in these shops:

  • Game
  • FNAC
  • Casino
  • Carrefour
  • Boulanger

for those of you who are looking for it and not finding it in your local shop, you can always buy it online. For now, you can only find it there: FNAC.com, but there will soon be other online retailers.

Enjoy \o/

Posted in Nota Bene | 6 Comments »

CONTEST: Maestro! Jump un Music

October 27th, 2009

fabienDear friends,

To celebrate Maestro’s official DS release on November 6th, BigBen invites you to take part in a contest and win some stuff.

All you need do is become a Fan on the Maestro Facebook page:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maestro-Jump-In-Music/133237515818

For each slice of 100 fans, a draw will determine the winner of a boxed game!

For each slice of 1000 fans, a draw will determine the winner of a DS Lite to win!

Enough said!

Enjoy

Posted in Non classé | 4 Comments »

Official Nintendo Magazine says

October 21st, 2009

fabienDear friends,

You can find here a twitpic of the English Nintendo Magazine, with a nice comment:

A screen we’ve taken from Maestro! Jump In Music, our new favourite DS game of the moment.

Honey to our ears :D

Screenshot de Maestro! par lOfficial Nintendo Magazine UK
Screenshot from Maestro! Official Nintendo Magazine UK

Posted in Press | No Comments »

Release Date: Maestro! Jump in Music for Nintendo DS on November 6 2009

October 21st, 2009

fabienDear friends,

It is done!

The game cards are printed, the booklet and cover are approved by Nintendo…

Once BigBen has put all these together in the boxes, the games will be sent in shops!

This brings us to November 6th! You’ll see pink birdies everywhere in your local shops. You can even start pre-ordering if you want ;p

For now, the game will be released in France, Italy, Spain, Belgium and Switzerland.

We’re trying to find distribution solutions for England and maybe Germany. We’ll keep you posted about that. And as soon as the game will be buyable online, we’ll give you a direct link on the Maestro online page.

Youhoooooo!!!

Posted in Nota Bene | No Comments »

Tracklist: Maestro! Jump in Music

October 8th, 2009

Dear friends,

Maestro! is divided into 6 worlds. EAch of which has unique instruments, specific musical colours, its own graphical touch. EAch world also has its own music and melodies, to make it simple 2 classical tracks, 1 pop hit, and 1 traditionnal tune.

You’ll enjoy ench track 3 times throughout the game, once in Easy mode, in a short and light version (1 minutes, only the pic of the iceberg notes). Once in Normal mode in a full lenght version (3 to 4 minutes) with a wider subset of the original notes. And once in Hard mode, in full lenght also, but this time with all the notes!

Here is the game’s tracklist, looks odd listed down this way? wait and see how goofy it is in the game :D

  • Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony no. 5
  • Antonin Dvorak – New World Symphony
  • Madness – Our House
  • Traditional Japanese Song – Sakura Sakura
  • Johann Sebastian Bach – Little Fugue
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart –  Eine kleine Nachtmusik
  • Perren, Mizell and al.– ABC
  • Traditional French Song -  Vent Frais, Vent du Matin
  • Eduardo Di Capua – O Sole Mio
  • The Animals – The House Of The Rising Sun
  • Antonio Vivaldi – The Four Seasons
  • Traditional English Song – Greensleeves
  • Erik Satie– Gymnopédie n.1
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Nut Cracker
  • Screamin’ Jay Hawkins – I Put A Spell On You
  • Traditional Russian Song – Otchi chornye (Black Eyes)
  • Johannes Brahms –  Hungarian Dance
  • Edvard Grieg  – Peer Gynt
  • Leonard Bernstein –  The Magnificent Seven
  • Traditional Song, Cover Version by Carmen de Bizet – L’Amour Est Un Oiseau Rebelle
  • M. Gore, D. Pitchford – FAME
  • Ennio Morricone – The Good, The Bad And The Ugly
  • Isaac Albeniz – Asturias
  • Traditional American Song – When the Saints Go Marching In

The sound track was composed by the talented band: Yubaba Smith & Fortune.

Maestro! Jump in Music received the Milthon for the best sound track at the 2009 Paris Game Festival.

enjoy

Posted in Musique | 3 Comments »

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