To date, all nGame content has been developed in-house, and their games have consistently led the new wireless gaming industry in terms of imagination and technical innovation. The existing range of around 30 games has been hugely popular with both operators and consumers, and is carried on over 20 carriers worldwide. This agreement with The Games Kitchen and the launch of the developer program allows nGame to begin expanding its content portfolio far faster than simply relying on internal development. Other developers will be announced in the coming weeks.

nGame provides developers like The Games Kitchen with the tools to rapidly develop games for the most popular mobile internet and DiTV devices. Open network APIs allow content providers to easily integrate content developed with or without the nGame content authoring suite into nGames games platform for deployment on the carriers network. nGames broad distribution, covering some 20 operators worldwide, allows developers to profitably reach the widest possible audience, thus maximising their revenues from their titles. For operators, nGame aggregates the most compelling mobile internet and DiTV games, and integrates them quickly and seamlessly into the their portal infrastructure running on the nGame games platform.

The Games Kitchen has exactly the pedigree we demand of our developers to maintain the very high standards we have set in our existing content range, said nGame Head of Content, Matt Kelland. This will be the first of many such projects, enabling us to widen our content range quickly over the coming months and to build on our success to date. The demand from operators for innovative wireless and TV content is now greater than we can satisfy ourselves, so weve been looking towards other development studios to complement what were already offering. Its also great to work with new designers and new programmers who bring in fresh approaches and ideas.

The initial project, as yet undisclosed, will see the first external use of nGames eagerly awaited Games Development Kit (nGDK). Featured in a recent Edge codeshop article, this technology uses a specially designed programming language, Sin, which is capable of high-speed development of multi-platform and multi-player content. Although the nGDK has been used internally by nGame Productions for all its development in the last three years, Technical Director Dave Lloyd was keen to get this tool right before letting it out of the door. Having a lot of development experience myself, I know the pain that poor development tools can cause, so I wanted to be certain that ours would work well!

Creative Director of The Games Kitchen, David MacQueen, said: We are looking forward to working with nGame and sharing the experiences of both companies in wireless gaming development. Their nGDK is one of the most advanced development tools for the mobile internet, and is sure to speed development considerably. It removes many of the technical hurdles of providing a service to literally thousands of players, allowing us to concentrate on what were good at making great games!".

For further information about nGame, please contact Rick Owen
Tel: 01223 707707 Fax: 01223 707709

Notes for editors:

About nGame

Headquartered in Cambridge UK and Redwood City CA, nGame provides a unique global technological delivery platform for a massive new content marketplace - interactive entertainment for mobile phones and digital interactive television.

Channel: Since June 2000, nGame has built a global network of content distribution agreements with major digital TV and cellular carriers and the key independent portals. These give nGame potential access to over 150 million consumers including coverage on six out of the eight largest US mobile operators, and now, two out of the three largest Canadian operators. nGame also has significant presence in the UK, mainland Europe, and Australia.

Productions: nGames internal content studio, nGame Productions, has produced the flagship content that has been used to build up the distribution network, define revenue models and prove the content hosting architecture and content authoring suite. nGame regards this studio as a centre of excellence for its developer community and this is reflected in their receipt of a prestigious BAFTA award nomination for Merchant Princes the first ever for a mobile phone game.

Content Hosting Infrastructure: nGames content hosting infrastructure is based on the companys CGS/2 connected games server platform that currently provides content delivery to users in the USA, Canada, UK, Europe and Australia. This architecture allows nGame to host and deliver content to carrier grade service levels. As of 1st July 2001, nGame has served over 4.5 million game sessions to more than 1,500,000 unique users.

Content Authoring Suite: The nGame Development Kit (nGDK) is an advanced authoring tool for the creation of multi-platform (WML, HTML, SMS, J2ME, Brew, Liberate etc) multi-player interactive entertainment content. At its heart lies the unique Sin programming language, a specialized tool for the cost-effective creation of advanced entertainment properties. The nGDK is currently the subject of multiple US patent filings.

More information about nGame and their current games can be found at http://www.ngame.com http://www.alifex.com and http://www.dataclash.com

About The Games Kitchen Ltd.

The Games Kitchen (http://www.gameskitchen.com), with offices in Livingston, Scotland and Fairfield, CT, is one of the worlds leading developers of games for wireless devices. Founded in 1998 by two university friends, David Thomson and David MacQueen, The Games Kitchen has delivered over 20 web, WAP, Java, phone handset, and PalmOS games.

The Games Kitchen constantly strives to extend the capabilities of wireless devices and was the first company to animate games played on WAP-enabled devices with its hit title, Wireless Pets(tm)

The Games Kitchen is currently developing games for WAP, SMS, J2ME, PalmOS, phone handsets, and other technologies. The company is involved in 3G trials, and investigates all new viable wireless technologies.