I’m not the only one who has compared the insanely addictive “TypeRacer” to educational typing tool Mavis Beacon. The creator of the game Alex Epshteyn told me so over e-mail.

Epshteyn is a 26-year-old programmer who created “TypeRacer” all on his own (play it here, if you missed it). He’s been programming games for years, including a multiplayer strategy game influenced by “Master of Orion” and a multiplayer take on “Desktop Tower Defense.”

All of his creative works play on the competitive nature of gamers. Epshteyn even likens “TypeRacer” to an emerging sport. “Typing is a skill that can be improved with practice and pitted against people, just like any athletic pursuit,” he said.

He’s not a hardcore gamer. Epshteyn hasn’t even played “Typing of the Dead”! For the developer of a typing game, that’s just criminal. But I’ll let it slide.

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When “Myst” came out in the ’90s, it was the best-selling PC title of its time.

So introducing the game to a whole new generation of gamers on a popular handheld platform would be a no-brainer, right?

Not exactly.

When industry veteran Manny Granillo decided to acquire the license and make a DS port of the game, he had trouble finding a publisher. “You’d be surprised,” Granillo told Multiplayer at a demo of the game last month. “The problem is you get doors closed from publishers because they’re so focused on ‘What’s my next quarter? Where’s my sequel to whatever game?’ They’re not seeing the bigger picture.”

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I’m not sure what the animal cruelty laws are in Norway, but I guess they don’t include covering a horse in ping pong balls.

A few weeks ago, I saw a demo of “Age of Conan,” the new MMORPG from Funcom.

With the game due out next month, we’ve heard lots of things about it already: how difficult it is to adapt the controls for the Xbox 360 controller, and whether or not the game features nipples.

But there was one fact during the demo that caught my attention: in order to capture realistic movement for the in-game horse mounts, they motion-captured real horses.

I had to see it to believe it.

So I asked for proof, and Funcom gladly sent it to me. From Product Director Jorgen Tharaldsen:

“In order to make [the horse movement] believable, we looked for someone who could help us to make it look as you would expect in a real-life situation, and we found this in a team of crazy British guys who lined up an entire stable and even a stadium for motion capture. As a thank you to the Brits, we naturally had to put the jolly old lance in the game when fighting mounted! I’m not sure if we are the first or only ones to do this, and it really doesn’t matter. What I do know is that riding a horse in ‘Conan’ looks mighty cool, and even realistic, so as far as we are concerned we reached our goals.”

Click onward to see more photos of the horse and rider in action, as well as the screenshots of the final results.

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Box art is important.

That’s why every week we here at Multiplayer are taking a look at recent releases and callin’ it like we see ‘em.

We’re just trying to help video game marketing departments and box art designers get the job done right.

This week’s lesson: be wary of Photoshop disasters…

“Okami” (Wii)
What the Box Tells Us: We can’t make this stuff up. The eagle-eyed folks on NeoGaf noticed something strange on the game’s cover — an IGN watermark near Ameratsu’s mouth. Two words: Clone stamp.
Love It or Leave It: Leave it.

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Usually when a PC game is ported over to the both the Xbox 360 and PS3, one developer works on the game for both platforms.

Not so in the case of “Enemy Territory: QUAKE Wars.”

Last month I saw a demo of “Enemy Territory: Quake Wars” on the Xbox 360. Ported from last year’s PC title, the Xbox 360 and the PS3 versions of the game will be out on May 27. Two different development teams worked on the ports — Nerve Software on the Xbox 360 and Underground Development (formerly Z-Axis) on the PS3.

Kevin Cloud, lead artist and co-owner of id Software told me about the main differences between the platforms and why id chose to use two different developers:

“Nerve has a lot of experience on the 360 but they don’t have a lot of experience on the PS3 development. For a team that would have to do both for a small company, we felt that it would be best to put the 360 development with a team that really knows the 360 and put the PS3 development with a team that knows the PS3 and that was Underground. We really wanted to give both consoles the best chances to succeed for their audiences and for their platforms, so we went that route.”

But that made me wonder: Did id think there was a difference between PS3 and Xbox 360 users? Why was the PS3 version made to be more similar to the PC? Was cross-compatibility between the platforms ever an option?

Read on for Cloud’s answers to all these questions.

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I had a business breakfast with the head of EA’s “Sims” label, Nancy Smith, yesterday. While I ate pancakes, she told me about some of “The Sims” success, including the company’s announcement that it has now sold100 million copies of games in the series.

That’s impressive, but what I found even more extraordinary is that, in the world of the Sims, the next game in the series, “The Sims 3” is already out.

In the February-released expansion “Free Time,” an event happens within the first five minutes: Sims studio lead designer Rod Humble arrives at the player’s Sims house and delivers a large box. In it is a computer that plays “The Sims 3.”

The new game’s Wikipedia page explains this too. And a German site has video, though it doesn’t show the Sims 3 logo that Smith said appears during the event.

How did I miss this?

“The Sims 3″ — already virtually released…

Another week, another swath of games trying to impress us with their box art.

Recently Valve’s “The Orange Box” (whose cover people tolerated or hated) was split into three separate boxes. I take a look at all three covers as well as a few stragglers in our ongoing series of shallowly judging games only by their boxes.

“Portal” (PC)
What the Box Tells Us: Seriously, how long did it take to make this? I drew the exact same thing in three seconds. No matter how ugly a game’s cover is, I usually appreciate the amount of work that went into it. So in this case, “F” for effort, “Portal.” Geez.
Love It or Leave It? Leave it.

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As we established last week, April will be a slow month for games until the very end (”Mario” what? “Grand Theft” who?).

But bad or good, hyped or unheard of, no game box art is safe from our swift and shallow assessment. Even though most publishers like to skip releasing games near April Fools’ Day, we still marched on with our new feature in which we judge games by their cover art.

Here are the games that tread where no others dared to go — in more ways than one…

“Great War Nations: The Spartans” (PC)
What the Box Tells Us: Um, 300 anyone? Only instead of leading man Gerard Butler with his magnificent six-pack (yes, I’m a girl), we have a generic screaming Spartan with a ten-pack oddly located under his armpit. This ain’t Sparta — this is madness.
Love It or Leave It? Leave it.

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Yesterday I showed you how Denis Dyack justified “Too Human” being a trilogy.

Today, witness how BioWare’s founders answered when I asked why “Mass Effect” needed to be three parts.

This interview was conducted in February at the Game Developers Conference where the BioWare was promoting the PC version of “Mass Effect”…

Multiplayer: “Mass Effect” was announced as a trilogy. Creatively, how do you go about determining that you’re making a trilogy? On the completely cynical side, it could be that there was some marketing guy who decided, “We’re going to make one game. It’s going to be a hit. We’re going to have two sequels.” On the other side of the spectrum the idea would be: “This story cannot be told in one game; it can’t be told in 40 hours. It needs to be told in 120.”

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Ever wanted to translate your gaming skills into dollar bills?

Now’s your chance.

In the online multiplayer first-person shooter called “Kwari,” players go can head-to-head to win jackpots of cash.

Launched in early January in Europe, “Kwari” is a free downloadable game — but you have to spend money to make money. The ammo will cost you five bucks for 5,000 bullets, and that’s the only cut that publisher Kwari Limited gets. The money for the jackpots is pooled together from real money spent on in-game goods — weapons, health upgrades and self-inflicted injuries — and it stays strictly in-game. With Visa, Mastercard and PayPal on board, “Kwari” looks to set its sights beyond Europe.

Does this sound like gambling to you?

I caught up with Kwari Limited Marketing Director Al King at GDC last month to talk about the game. King expects we’ll be seeing “Kwari” in the U.S. in June, despite strict U.S. gambling laws, which vary from state to state. In 2006, the U.S. Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, which prohibits the transfer of funds from a financial institution to an Internet gambling site (excluding fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse racing). Kwari Limited took great steps to not run afoul of those laws. Read more…