Self Aware Games has been a mainstay in the webOS App Catalog since the early days with their popular game Word Ace. That eventually led to the release of Card Ace: Hold ‘Em and Card Ace: Blackjack. Now they’re bringing it all back around with their latest release, the all-inclusive Card Ace: Casino.

Card Ace: Casino takes the popular social aspects of the previous Self Aware Games titles and kicks it up a notch. Players now have the option to choose to play games with their friends, instead of having to rely on just picking a blind size and getting paired up with random players.

Additionally, players can invite their friends from across games. You want to play Hold ‘Em, but your friend is playing Word Ace? Now all it takes to get them into the game is a single tap to send an invite. That cross-game invite still extends across all platforms, meaning your friend can be playing any of these games on Facebook, their iOS device, Android phone, etc.

There are plenty of other updates to the games in Card Ace: Casino, including the extension of Sit & Go tournaments from Hold ‘Em and the addition of drag and drop cards in Word Ace. Card Ace: Casino will be available soon for free from the App Catalog. In the meantime, head on past the break to check out some screenshots.

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The App Catalog has been live in various forms for a little over a year now, and Palm has continued to add both features and applications during that time it’s gone from a measly handful of offerings to a marketplace offering over 3,000 applications, including immersive 3D titles like NOVA and Need for Speed, and the inbuilt search algorithms and overall app discovery have improved considerably.

But even with these accomplishments, Palm’s online marketplace lags behind competing offerings – namely the Android Market and the App Store - in certain key areas and needs to rapidly add functionality to bring it up to par. We’ve caught a glimpse or two of where the App Catalog may be going, and here are three features we think Palm should be sure to implement in the next version.  What features would you like to see?

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While Gameloft and EA are busy churning out fancy PDK games, the folks at Self Aware Games are working within the confines of the Mojo SDK to make fun and interesting games. On webOS they’ve already released Word Ace and Card Ace: Texas Hold ‘Em, and recently the App Catalog welcomed a third member of the Ace family: Blackjack.

Card Ace: Blackjack leverages the fun online competition that is the signature of the Ace-series of games. With one account you can also play in Word Ace and Texas Hold ‘Em, with your winnings, stats, and friends carrying over between the games. And you’re not limited to playing against just webOS users – the Ace family of games is also available in the iPhone App Store and Word Ace even launched on Facebook late last year. Blackjack on your phone is fun, but playing against (and taunting) other players makes it that much better. Card Ace: Blackjack is available now for free from the App Catalog.

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Recently updated to version 1.1.0, Self Aware Games’ popular games Word Ace and Card Ace: Hold ‘Em now both come packaged with the ability to buy gifts for other players. In this first roll-out players can purchase drinks, ranging from a simple cup of coffee to the ridiculously extravagant diamond martini. Of course, those are all good for opponents that you like, but what of those you can’t stand? Seeing as these are Self Aware apps, the sense of humor remains intact with the option to send your sworn enemy a bottle of poison.

Word Ace and Card Ace have both also gained the ability to rate players with thumbs ups and thumbs downs. Clearly giving a thumb up is a good thing and will publicly reflect well on players, but a lot of thumbs down will garner the attention of the staff. And as developer Seppo Helava said, players that get their attention “won’t like what happens.” [insert evil laughter here]

And that’s not all. Since the games were released both Card Aces and Word Ace have been free to use. While you can buy chips and now gifts in game, if you so desire you can show the love with an in-game donation.

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Easily one of the most popular and original games for webOS, Word Ace’s developers at Self Aware Games have made the jump into the physical realm. If you’ll take a trip back in time with us, Word Ace’s development actually began in the physical form, so the folks at Self Aware Games knew that the game would work as cards. So they made cards.

A limited-run of 102-card Word Ace decks has been produced and they’re available to you, the eager buying public. Each Word Ace deck also comes with an instructional leaflet that’s been hand numbered and signed by the development team. Interested? A single deck will run you $24.99 – hop on over to the Self Aware Games website for more instruction. And check out that crazy awesome card back, would ya?

[via: The MX Web]

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There’s more video being officially released by Sprint of it’s 2009 Open Developers Conference.  We’ve already seen a video of Rick Boatright from the webOS Internals group presenting on the second day of the event, and now the entirety of Palm’s presentation on the first day is available online.  A word of caution: the following is likely to put some to sleep, but I don’t think that I’m alone in thinking that it’s pretty damn cool to see some of the core people from Palm its webOS development team really drill down into what makes their product tick.

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In a long and actually quite interesting interview with Seppo Helava of Self Aware Games, Pre 101 has given us an in-depth look at the development of Word Ace and how the company operates. As it would turn out, the genesis of Word Ace came about in a physical form, with the four-member staff of Self Aware getting together and playing Word Ace with real cards (well, index cards) and tokens, as pictured above. Essentially, they decided that if this wasn’t a game they’d play in the real world, it wasn’t a game they’d want to play on their phone. To them, the game is about to social experience of having fun with your friends, thus why the chat and custom emoticon status are such integral parts of Word Ace. As Helava said, “Winning wasn’t winning without the ability to mock your opponents.”

Word Ace was coded first for the iPhone (which Self Aware staff had experience with) while they learned the ins and outs of the Mojo SDK and the Pre. Once the iPhone version was up and running, the webOS client for the game was built and they were able to address problems specific to the platform.

Self Aware isn’t resting on its laurels, however. They are hard at work implementing new features in Word Ace (like the ability to purchase more tokens) as well as new games. Helava did reveal that they are working on a straight online multi-player Texas Hold ‘Em game that will integrate many of the social features they developed for Word Ace. But that’s not all, as he said of webOS and the Pre:

“Obviously, it’s a feature-rich platform. Coupling things like background processing with the Pre’s hardware keyboard, GPS, touchscreen, and persistent connectivity – the possibilities are ridiculous! I can’t say anything about it at this point, but we’d laid out some long-term goals for Self Aware, and webOS’s features enable us to realize some of those goals in a way that can’t be done on any other platform.”

Needless to say, we’re now anxiously awaiting the next release from Self Aware! Check out the rest of the fascinating and entertaining interview with Self Aware Games’ Seppo Helava over at Pre 101.

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This app review brought to you by forum member Mononoko.  Check out our Forum Review details here!

With six new apps that recently hit the App Catalog, Word Ace joined the ranks of webOS games. It can be clearly seen that this app by Self Aware Games is definitely the best official game out there. It is a great concept, looks sleek, and has great features and tracking. It is a sure pick up for any Pre owner, gamer or not.

Ed Note: You might even find yourself facing ACG4444, the Self Aware Games-declared Word Ace Champion (and PreCentral member) as of this writing! If you want to play Mononoko, hit up code 1835. Feel free to post your own friend codes in this thread.

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Our friend Marco went out to the preDevCamp at Palm HQ in Sunnyvale, California, and lucky us, he took a video camera and blogged it up (mad props to you, mate!). Aside from some delicious-looking pizza, we also got a look at a few applications that were developed/refined during the programming sessions.

First up is an app that pulls dream summaries posted online down to the device, refreshing with the accelerometer shake API. Next was a video poker app, followed by Word Ace, by Self-Aware Games, described as a combination of Texas Hold’em and Scrabble. Word Ace was demonstrated working on multiple platforms and playing together in peace and harmony on two Pres and an iPhone. Once released, Word Ace looks to be a very in-depth application, with profile support, awards, and more. Another attendee coded up a simple little accelerometer app that bounces a tiny Palm logo around the screen as you tilt the phone. The developer behind Twee was also in attendance and demonstrated the slick CSS3 animations used in his application.

Lastly there’s Marco, who showed off his amazingly slick scientific calculator, inspired by those classic 1980’s scientific calculators. The app supports haptic feedback (it vibrates with each virtual button press) and includes a very useful in-calculator unit converter. The latest version of Marco’s Scientific RPN Calculator app is available in the PreCentral.net Homebrew Apps center and will land in the App Catalog as soon as Palm opens it up.

Tony Peric of PreThinking was also at the preDevCamp at Palm HQ and provided a liveblog of the event. Interesting notes include an application development checklist and Palm’s preferred UI development tool (Adobe Fireworks). Palm even gave away a copy of Adobe CS4 to one lucky attendee.

Oh, and by the way – the preDevCamp Developer Challenge is on!  They’ve published the official rules and we’re publishing the apps they’re creating — all right here at this special homebrew apps page.  Be sure to rate the apps you see there – the top app will garner a Palm Pre for its developer.  Meanwhile, developers from preDevCamp have until this Saturday, August 15th, midnight Pacific time to submit their apps – be sure to contact us to learn how to submit!

Were you at preDevCamp? Sound off in the comments a let us know how it went where you were!

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