COVID-19 is everywhere. In this article, I want to express my deep gratitude for the doctors, nurses, and medical personnel working 70-hours or more per week to mitigate the adverse effects of the virus.

Here’s a pic of Finxter user Albrecht, a “retired” medical doctor supporting a COVID-19 test station in Germany:

I asked the Finxter community to show Albrecht some support and encourage him in his fight against COVID-19.

Encouragements

Because the response has been huge, I decided to write this short blog article to collect some of the responses.

God Bless You

Dear Albrecht,
This is Anugraha from India. I really appreciate what you are doing for us. I will pray to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that you be protected from the virus and that the people under your care and the care of doctors worldwide recover. I salute you and respect you. Men like you are the reason I want to become a doctor. God will honour you and bless you.

Anugraha

High Fives

HIGH Fives to all the people giving time to help their community!

The Southland’s News Leader

Thanks

Thanks to Albrecht from our side!

Wajid

Desire to Help

Hello Doctor,
I do believe that no amount of money would drive you to offer this service. It can only be in the desire to help humanity. I wish I could do the same, but I surely can’t.
Bravo!
Halliday Johnson
Finxter user

Medicine to Immunity

If you want to take my suggestion then first make the medicine to increase high immunity power of people then only the search for the Corona treatment…… thanks for taking advice from me …

Charchit

Thanks for Fighting

Dear Albrecht,

Thank you for being there to help us fight CoronaVirus.I am from India and appreciate your support.

Kind regards,

Anil Rajpal

Real Hero

Hey Albrecht,

Thank You very much. People like you are the real heroes of our world. We are very grateful and thankful of you all the doctors who are helping us to fight back this Virus. I know we are from continents still this feeling to fight and win over this virus is mutual. We are all praying for you. Thank you again, stay safe and stay strong. GOD Bless YOU

Praju

You Rock

To Albrecht –  I am so appreciative of your work. You rock!! Karen Calhoun.

Danke

Danke dir Albrecht

Joan

Stay Strong

Thank you for fighting against this covid-19 and risking your lives for others. Thank you for all the doctors and people who are contributing to save us thank you all… 
Stay safe. Stay strong.. Thank you.

Rutika

Thanks 4 All

Thanks Albrecht for all that you are doing!!!

Jim

Respect

Dear Albrecht
With great due respect, all the very best and may God bless you with the health and happiness and long life. Bravo to your friends and family. 
Regards, Rajender 

Go

Go Albrecht go!

Pierre

UK Should Do More

Hi from the UK,

my wishes go to Albrecht’s medical team. They are in luck—at least they have PPE (clothing) unlike NHS in UK who don’t as it is conveniently held up in a logistics mess up.
Meanwhile celebs in UK have been busy buying testing equipment at £385 each whereas our front line nurses and doctors don’t have access to such tests.
Other than that we are hoping that our UK government is mysteriously taken ill with some unknown illness as they are behaving in an appalling way to British Public.
Finally our schools are closing BUT not until next Monday
Wishing Europe all the best 
Oh we were once a part of that amazing place until a corrupt band took over our government and highjacked our press with such  wonderful newspapers full of intelligent writings such as Mail and Sun!!!
Keep up Pythoning!!
Regards Nigel

Hats Off

My heartfelt thanks and regards to all the Doctors. We are very grateful for your contributions especially during these unprecedented events.
May God bless You. 
Hats off to you all. 
Many Thanks.
Gia

With such a great support, I’m sure Albrecht is not going to stop soon.

Albrecht’s Response

Here’s an idea from Albrecht:

Great! I thank you so much!  

Interesting site dealing with the math structure of epidemy:   https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/health/corona-simulator-german/?utm_source=pocket-newtab  

How could we reproduce this in Python code?    

Albrecht

So how can you help fighting COVID-19?

• Participate in hackathons! Here’s an example from the German government initiated: https://wirvsvirushackathon.org/. Those hackathons start all over the world.
• Be creative with your Python skills! Consider Albrecht’s question: How could we reproduce [the mathematical side of the outbreak] in Python code? Start your new coding projects now that solve real-world problems that arise because of COVID-19.
• Code from home! (And reduce your physical contacts by half.) This mitigates the spread of the disease, keeps the health system intact, and helps the environment too.

The Nintendo Direct Mini earlier this week revealed a lot of upcoming third-party titles for Switch. 2K, in particular, announced three of its major franchises were en route to the hybrid system. This had a lot of people buzzing until the huge download requirements for the physical versions were uncovered.

At the time of this announcement, a 2K press release said the total size of the XCOM 2: Collection would “not exceed 24 GB” and now a page listing for the upcoming release on the EB Games Canada website says a download of “at least 24 GB” will be required. Slightly different wording, but hey – it still mentions 24 GB.

Game requires download of at least 24 GB. microSD card recommended (sold separately). Storage requirements may change, visit xcom.com for details.

As stated in the official PR, the XCOM Collection for Switch is being released on an 8 GB cartridge, containing two base missions – with the rest of the content requiring a download.

You can read about how much space you’ll need to set aside for the Bioshock: The Collection and Borderlands Legendary Collection in our previous post.

Would you consider a physical game that potentially requires a 24GB download? Tell us below.

It’s all well and good to want to save and enrich the environment, but is gardening really good fodder for a deck-building card game? Most such games we’ve experienced are about legendary battles between blade and magick, not cultivating plum trees. But keep an open mind and you’ll find plenty to enjoy in the digital version of John D. Clair’s Mystic Vale.

An inherent problem with digital card games is that an impersonal tutorial naturally lacks the ability to answer your questions in the same manner as, you know, chatting with a physical, extant human being. So your first pass through Mystic Vale’s tutorial may find you glazing over at the onslaught of information. That’s not to say it’s a particularly complex game, but the way it teaches you how to play is non-ideal. While the presentation of the game area is fundamentally well done once you know what everything means, it’ll take you a few games and re-reads of the rules to properly understand how everything fits together. Once you do, though, there’s a lot of fun to be had.

In an interesting twist, this is a deck-building game where not only must you build said deck, but you’ll also piece together your cards in thirds, each “slot” on each card potentially conferring you bonuses in each phase of the game. You’ll begin by drawing cards in the “Planting” phase, being careful not to draw too many and reveal too many Decay symbols – that’ll cost you your turn. Following this – in the “Harvest” phase – you’ll purchase Advancements to slot into your hand, with the ultimate aim of acquiring Victory points by crafting desirable cards from the selection of Advancements. You’ll also gain Spirit Symbols that you can spend to acquire Vale cards which grant longer-term bonuses to help turn the tide in your favour. As your cards are shuffled back into the deck and come back around, you’ll be able to bolt more and more Advancements on them until they’re truly formidable. After the pool of Victory Points have all been distributed to the players, the game is over. The Points are totted up and whoever holds the most, naturally, is the victor.

Clearly, it’s not the easiest game to describe, yet once it clicks with you it’s pretty simple. The important part here is how well it works on the Switch, and on that front it’s good news. As well as the expected (and easy to set up) hot seat and local multiplayer, Mystic Vale supports online play with iOS, Android and Steam players, which is an excellent feature. It works excellently on Switch both docked and undocked, with the UI easy to navigate so you’ll never find the controls get in the way of your strategy. As well as traditional controls, you can also play with the touchscreen, which works brilliantly and ended up being our preferred means of input.

Mystic Vale looks as good as it needs to, with no clutter to speak of and all the information you need to inform your decisions only ever a swipe away. It’s not a complex game but it is an involved one in which you’ll make a lot of choices and take a lot of gambles. We’d say that the biggest compliment we can give Mystic Vale is that after just a few games we were looking online for the physical version to get our friends involved. It’s a quick play (games generally won’t stretch past 20-30 minutes) and it’s a lot of fun to spend time with. A polished, playable way to spend any allotment of time.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Melbourne, Australia

We’re looking for somebody to help us create and maintain an online infrastructure that supports millions of concurrent players in a secure, stable, highly performant and reliable manner.

You’ll be using a wide combination of the latest AWS, Google Cloud and web technologies (Lambda/Cloud Functions using C# and JavaScript, Node.js, Terraform/Serverless, Cognito/Firebase, DynamoDB/Bigtable, Docker/Kubernetes etc) to allow us to dynamically scale a fleet of containerized, .NET Core based game servers. Perhaps you already have experience with many of these technologies, or perhaps you’ve got a proven track record in taking on similarly complex challenges.

Ideally, you’ll be Melbourne based and already hold a Visa allowing you to work in Australia. We’ll consider a remote position for the right candidate, if you’re willing to be available with crossover during Australian business hours.

REQUIRED

• Strong programming and debugging skills in C# or C++
• Computer Science degree or demonstrably equivalent skills
• Comfort with multi-threaded programming and scalable, distributed systems
• Skills in, or willingness to learn JavaScript and TypeScript
• Experience with networked systems

DESIRABLE

• Experience with a wide range of AWS, Google Cloud or Azure technologies
• Comfort and experience with programming for the web
• Track record of having worked on critical infrastructure at scale
• Experience in adapting to new technologies
• Strong linear algebra and 3D math skills
• Demos and code samples are always fantastic to see
• Experience as a full stack developer using AWS or Google Cloud
• Experience with SQL and NoSQL databases
• Experience with serverless, infrastructure as code
• Comfort or familiarity with Unity

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

As the spread of COVID-19 continues to impact the game industry, Sony has tentatively made clear that they still intend to release the PlayStation 5 in late 2020.

A report over in Bloomberg detailing the company’s financial woes includes a brief comment about the planned PlayStation 5 launch. Per Bloomberg, a Sony representative said the company “doesn’t see a notable impact” on the platform’s planned launch for holiday 2020.

Worth noting however, is that this comment follows a lengthy breakdown of how the virus’ impact has reduced its production capabilities and is causing the company to adjust its profit projections. The report indicates that the company’s Chinese factories are coming back online (but face supply shortages), while its Malaysian and United Kingdom facilities are currently closed for business.

It’s hard to see how the spread of COVID-19 won’t impact Sony’s game business in some capacity. Earlier today, Sony announced it would be throttling PSN download speeds to help reduce impact on broadband networks. 

You don’t need to learn the move Future Sight to know that the Psychic Spectacular has started in some regions around the world. ? Prepare for when the event starts in your region on March 27 at 8 a.m. local time. pic.twitter.com/FsVY3tCEbT

— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) March 27, 2020

Buildbox, the recently made free no-code game engine, just released Buildbox 3.2 beta.  This beta takes a huge step forward in 3D usefulness with the abity to import and use animated FBX 3D models.  This is of course a beta release, so expect bugs and do not use in a production environment.

Details of the release from the Buildbox forums:

3D Animation Support

• FBX files containing 3D model skeletons and animations are now supported in Buildbox.
• New Brainboxes available for 3D animated assets:
  
  • Animated Platformer
  • Keyboard Controls
  • Mobile Controls
  • Keyboard Camera Controls
• New Content Nodes available for 3D animated assets:
  
  • Sub Scene
  • Keyframe Animation

Worlds

• 2D Worlds
  
  • To rotate an object 45 degrees, select the rotate tool, hold shift and drag an axis handle.
• 3D Worlds
  
  • Ground object that covers an entire scene and provides a solid platform for dynamic assets.

Textures

• Unused textures are removed when Buildbox opens a project.
• Alpha channel support
  
  • Enabled transparency in textures
  • The texture area without the transparency can cast shadows onto other objects.

UI Changes

• Color coded axis fields
• Tabs and home button in the Navigation bar, along with navigation control arrows.

Nodes

• Health node now contains Starting Health and Max Health attributes.
• Script nodes now have a purple self reference output, and each input and output can now be color coded.
• Move and Rotate nodes now contain a set of range attribute fields.
• The following nodes are now available in the asset Node Map.
  
  • Sub Scene
  • Keyframe Animation
  • Rotate Towards
  • Speedometer
  • Self Attribute

Ad Monetization

• Facebook Analytics in the SDK tab of the Project Settings window.

The Mac and Windows binaries are available at this link, however you need to have a registered Buildbox account and serial number to install the 3.2 beta.  You can learn more about the beta in the video below.

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