Annapurna Interactive has revealed that Florence, described as an “interactive storybook”, is launching on Nintendo Switch next week.

The game has players experiencing every moment of Florence and Krish’s relationship through a series of gameplay vignettes, following the couple as they grow together, drift apart, and everything in between. It originally launched on iOS and Android devices, snapping up an Apple Design Award and a BAFTA for Best Mobile Game in the process.

Here’s an official description taken from the game’s Google Play page:

At 25, Florence Yeoh feels a little stuck. Her life is an endless routine of work, sleep, and spending too much time on social media. Then one day, she meets a cello player named Krish who changes everything about how she sees the world.

Experience every beat of Florence and Krish’s relationship through a series of bespoke gameplay vignettes – from flirting to fighting, from helping each other grow… to growing apart.

Drawing inspiration from ‘slice of life’ graphic novels and webcomics, Florence is intimate, raw and personal.

The game’s set to launch on 13th February for $5.99. You’ll be able to download it directly from the Nintendo Switch eShop.

Do you like the look of this one? Think you might give it a go? Let us know in the comments below.

The Nintendo Switch has offered a number of previous Wii U exclusives an opportunity to rise beyond the less-than-stellar last generation platform, and PlatinumGames is looking to give The Wonderful 101 its own second chance through a (rapidly funded) Kickstarter campaign.

PlatinumGames has already landed some former Wii U games on the Switch, namely the former-Wii U exclusive Bayonetta 2 and its multiplatform predecessor, though Nintendo was brought on to publish those titles. This time around, PlatinumGames is soliciting funds to bring The Wonderful 101 to Switch with Nintendo’s blessing as a self-published game, and potentially other platforms as well if certain stretch goals are met.

Platinum itself recently grabbed an investment from Tencent to further its self-publishing goals, though the studio notes its plans for The Wonderful 101 ”precede that agreement, and capital received from the investment will not be used to fund the development costs associated with the project.”

The campaign has already exceeded its initial ask of $50,000 for development of a Switch version of the game and surpassed the $250,000 stretch goal for a Steam release as well. If the Kickstarter manages to surpass $500,000 at some point in the next 31 days, a PlayStation 4 version will also be in the cards, with more stretch goals to be announced as the campaign goes on.

“Although PlatinumGames has been able to grow over the years thanks to the players and our fans, we still haven’t been able to fully realize our long-time dream of self-publishing our own IPs,” explains the campaign’s FAQ. “With your support, we hope not only to bring The Wonderful 101 to a wider audience on a variety of platforms, but also to add some content that will enhance the experience even more! This campaign is your chance to empower us to pursue self-publishing and take our destinies into our own hands.”

Atsushi Inaba is a co-founder of Platinum Games (The Wonderful 101, Bayonetta, Transformers: Devastation.) His job is to oversee all of the company’s games “from the moment a project is kicked off until completion,” he said, by way of introducing himself in his GDC session.

He started with a surprising definition of what an “action game” is.

When it comes to the game design, they’re passive, he says. “It’s a set of actions responding to output. You might be wondering what ‘output’ means,” said Inaba. “Output refers to situation such as the enemy appearing right in front of you, or you being attacked.”

“For example, attacking an enemy because it appeared in front of me, or dodging a bullet because the enemy attacking you, these actions are reactive moves taken against the output. Something happened, and you reacted to it.”

“And although the impression one gets from the term ‘action games’ sounds like a genre where you are proactively doing something at will, it actually is not — there’s something that happens first and you must react to it in a certain window of time.”

They’re inherently reactive; horror and adventure games, where the player explores the world, put the player in the active role, conversely: “They are fundamentally the opposite,” he said.

There’s a challenge for the developer, though: “If these actions go on for a long time or the window is so short, the game becomes more difficult.” Inaba said that Platinum is very careful about this sort of thing — and also about game pacing, a topic he discussed at length.

You need “unique selling points” — as in Bayonetta, it’s Witch Time, the game’s slowed-down time mode. A pro designer should be able to come up with three good ideas, Inaba said.

Then there are features which expand the game, such as character unlocks. “It opens things up in a very lateral way.”

Then there’s depth: “It’s not easy to give an example. A combo system is one,” Inaba said. These are gameplay systems that require mastery to engage with fully.

“Core gamers aren’t the only ones who play action games so it’s necessary to make sure players of different levels can enjoy your game,” Inaba cautioned. “It’s important to widen the entry point of your game, but you also have to make sure that those who play straight through the path enjoy the experience.” Depth, he said, is equally important.

Designers tend to want to create skills and abilities for characters and build a game around those, but this “does not come first,” Inaba said.

As action games are passive, the most important question for a designer is: “What kinds of situations do I want the player to face, and what are they going to do?”

“You need the ability to imagine them in your head,” said Inaba. “First come up with that unexpected situation, then an unexpected or surprise ability or power to get through the situation. … You need to be able to imagine that flow from the beginning to end.”

To that end, Platinum Games does not use much in the way of design documents: “It’s fundamentally impossible to write a concept or design document on the unique selling points for action games,” he said.

He also recommends roping in team members off the design team, like programmers or artists, to come up with game ideas: “We just tell them, ‘To make it fun and interesting, surprise us. Tell us your ideas. Show us what you got.’ … To enjoy and appreciate one’s individuality and these ideas that come from different sections is part of the fun of making a game on a team.”

Functional design becomes a real danger when working on sequels: “The majority of people will unconsciously use this as a basis. Taking an element that was well received in a previous game and upgrading it, or giving it a boost, is a no-brainer.”

“However that’s not how it works. As I said earlier, the priority should be on designing the situations first. If a functionality is designed to capitalize on that situation, then that’s great. It’s really easy to fall into a trap on a series.”

And if you rely too much on players knowing the mechanics of the first game, “you run a risk of becoming niche.”

“Games are supposed to be fun. That is the basis of the game,” said Inaba. But many games force replay value (with padding, or grinding, or unlocking.)

“What is the replay value in action games? It’s really about improving the player’s skills. I’m not talking about unlocking skills in game, but actually improving his or her skills,” he said.

But even with that in mind, always remember the players who will only play the game one time on the basic difficulty level: “it’s important for those players to have the best experience,” too, he said.

“We create situations where we take those players to levels beyond their own expectations,” Inaba said. “Therefore we need stages or gimmicks, or combat situations made just for those opportunities. It’s really a luxury for action games, they need to be fun and enjoyable even if you play it only once.”

Platinum’s games have distinct and memorable main characters — none so much as Bayonetta. “The purer the action game, the higher the need for a really original and unique main character,” said Inaba.

“This is the correct order” to design a character in, said Inaba, referring to the above slide. “In other words, the core of what you want the players to experience and the character art design are in a very long, linear relationship.”

When it comes to story, meanwhile, all you need is a basic motivation. Inaba said that a premise as simple as that of Super Mario Bros. — “Peach is kidnapped, go rescue her” — is ideal.

Of course, Platinum’s Bayonetta and The Wonderful 101, in particular, are very story-heavy games. When creating an action game’s story, then, “The approach becomes how to connect the previous situation to the next situation. Which means you aren’t able to create an action game by writing the whole story first,” Inaba said.

He gave the example of Mad World, one of the company’s earlier games (for the Wii.) It’s an incredibly violent game, and engaging in violence is the motivation for the player; but “it would make the player disgusted toward themselves and toward the game” if it stopped there, Inaba said. The story of the game — as a justification for its setting, “this crazy world where the only choice is to be violent” — was developed in parallel with the game design itself.

Since Inaba oversees all of Platinum’s games, he emphasized something he calls “high-level design” — a zoomed-out view of the games: “it’s really about the overall flow and progression on a larger scale. What we want the players to experience as a whole.”

Here’s the crucial takeaway: Constant excitement becomes numbing. Players will get tired if games continually ramp up. “Let’s think about what to do to avoid that situation,” he said. The good news is that if you carefully tune the intensity of the game at a high level, you will get a much more favortable result.

In the slide above, Stage 1 is tuned to a “6” for intensity, but because the game has just begun, the player perceives it as a “7.” But Stage 2 ratchets down the intensity to a 4 — and it feels that way to the player. For Stage 3, it’s just as intense as Stage 1, but the player is used to the game now, so it doesn’t feel quite as intense. But ramping up again for Stage 4, you get an interesting effect: The player finds it more intense.

This is an “oversimplification” for the purposes of a GDC talk, Inaba admitted, but it gets the point across.

Here’s the thing: If you just do a linear ramp, you’ll end up with this:

A stage flow that’s less than the sum of its total, and which feels stagnant to the player. “It can easily turn out to be a disaster” if you try to continuously ramp up a game’s intensity without knowing what you’re doing, he said.

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Update – Sat 1st Feb, 2020 15:45 GMT: Following on from yesterday’s teaser, an anonymous source (via 4Chan), is claiming there will be an announcement for a Nintendo Switch, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 version of The Wonderful 101, and it will be crowdfunded via Kickstarter.

GameXplain has now added to this – stating how it was able to confirm “some details” via its own source. This includes the supposed confirmation of a Switch and PlayStation 4 release, along with a Kickstarter launch. It’s also done some digging around and discovered a Platinum Games Kickstarter page, but can’t actually confirm whether it’s real or fake at this point in time.

We’ll add to this by saying we’ve had a similar confirmation from our own source, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Original article – Fri 31st Jan, 2020 11:35 GMT: We all know that Nintendo fans love a bit of PlatinumGames, and if there’s one title that they’d love to see come to Switch, it’s The Wonderful 101.

The Wii U version was critically acclaimed but sold poorly, so it’s ripe for rediscovery on Nintendo’s latest console – and PlatinumGames has been pretty cute about the chances of that happening in the past.

Now, it would seem that the studio is laying down some pretty major hints about the game coming to Switch – check out the following tweet, and pay close attention to the time and date on Hideki Kamiya’s screen, as well as the console he has sat on his desk:

This isn’t the first time that the studio has teased Switch owners with some Wonderful 101-style goodness – perhaps it’s just a joke? Or, maybe there’s more to it? PlatinumGames has recently gained investment from Chinese media giant Tencent and has stated that it has some big news coming early this year – could this be it?

Ya'll watched 2 billion — yes *billion* — hours of Sandler on Netflix. Now the Sandman is making four more movies at Netflix.

— Netflix Film (@NetflixFilm) January 31, 2020

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By William Gallagher
Saturday, February 01, 2020, 01:35 pm PT (04:35 pm ET)

Senator Lindsey Graham is pressing for new laws that would combat online child abuse, but do so by removing all end-to-end encryption and giving law enforcement open access to private data.

Back in 2015, Tim Cook told the “Wall Street Journal” that encryption would become an increasing concern for citizens

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is behind a draft bipartisan bill called the ‘Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies Act of 2019” or EARN IT. Its stated aims are to “develop recommended best practices… regarding the prevention of online child exploitation.” However, the methods Graham proposes would effectively ban all end-to-end encryption.

“The absolute worst-case scenario could easily become reality,” think tank TechFreedom president Berin Szoka told Bloomberg. “DOJ could effectively ban end-to-end encryption.”

The act would introduce a National Commission on Online Child Exploitation Prevention “and for other purposes.” Senator Graham’s draft bill proposes a structure for the Commission, which would comprise 15 people including the US Attorney General.

The greater part of Senator Graham’s proposals outline creating and enforcing age limits for online material, plus a rating system to categorize images by severity.

At no point does the draft bill mention encryption, however its requirements cannot be complied with if end-to-end encryption is used. Companies with any public or private online discussion areas, such as Whatsapp and Facebook, would be required to divulge user details to law enforcement.

“[Best practices] shall include… coordinating with law enforcement agencies and other industry participants to preserve, remove from view, and report material relating to child exploitation or child sexual abuse,” says the draft bill.

“[Also] retention of evidence and attribution or user identification data relating to child exploitation or child sexual abuse, including such retention by subcontractors,” it continues.

Senator Graham’s proposals explicitly state that the result will be changes to the Communications Decency Act of 1934, which currently allows online services to shield themselves from lawsuits over such materials.

Neither Apple nor any online companies have publicly responded to the proposals yet. However, Apple has and continues to be a strong and vocal proponent of the necessity for end-to-end encryption and the dangers of removing it.

There is currently no date for when the draft bill will proceed further toward legislation.

However, it comes after FBI officials have reportedly been concerned over US Attorney General William Barr’s pressures to weaken or remove end-to-end encryption.

Most recently, Apple’s senior director of global privacy, Jane Horvath, spoke at CES in January about the company’s position on weakening encryption to help combat crime.

“Building back doors into encryption is not the way we are going to solve those issues,” she said.

A few weeks ago, the “prolific” leaker Sabi – who has a strong track record – said a new Paper Mario game and 2D Metroid title would be released this year. Just days ago, the same individual claimed The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel was taking longer than anticipated, and now they’re saying the major and “more likely” Nintendo release for this holiday season has “tires” in it.

Below are the most recent cryptic tweets by Sabi, based on source information:

When you put tires and Nintendo together, there’s really only one major game series that comes to mind – Mario Kart. It’s somewhat hard to believe, though, when considering the fact Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is one of the main evergreen titles on the hybrid system. This week it was also confirmed to be the best-selling Switch title (as of December 2019), having shifted 22.96 million units worldwide since it was released in 2017.

To be fair, Sabi’s tweet a few days ago said the game could be associated with a major franchise “you probably don’t expect” – so it could be almost anything, provided it has tires.

Following on from all of this, Sabi posted an image of the Ancient Mii Soldier Costume that was made available in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate this week, and then made mention of The Wonderful 101, which has been making headlines a lot lately.

Muffled words about Platinum and W101 in the distance

As previously mentioned, Sabi leaked a number of major stories prior to E3 last year, and even received a cease and desist from a lawyer representing Nintendo, to prevent any further damage.

What do you think about this latest rumour? As always, take it with a grain of salt and tell us what you think below.

Article Updated – Sat 1st Feb, 2020 12:00 GMT: Nintendo’s been drip-feeding us information about Animal Crossing: New Horizons for some time now, and the latest information about this upcoming release comes from its Aussie web page, on the official Nintendo Australia website.

While we already know the game will support up to eight players and four residents simultaneously, a rather sizable chunk of writing at the bottom of this page touches on the finer details about the user limits online and per console. Within the paragraph is a special note (as highlighted below). As you can see, you’ll be limited to one island per console, irrespective of the number of user accounts or copies of the game you have.

*Up to 8 players with registered accounts on a Nintendo Switch console can live on one shared island, and up to four residents of one island can play simultaneously on one console. Please note: only one island can exist per Nintendo Switch console, irrespective of the number of user accounts registered to or copies of the game used on one console. One Nintendo Switch and one copy of the game is required for each unique island. Alternatively, up to eight people can play together on one island via local wireless or online play. Local wireless play requires one console and one copy of the software per player. Internet connection required during online play. To use online services, you must create a Nintendo Account and accept the related agreement. The Nintendo Account Privacy Policy applies. Some online services may not be available in all countries. Online play requires paid online membership.

Of course, as disappointing as this might be to hear, this isn’t exactly new. Past entries have also had limitations like this. For example, the GameCube release restricted four local players to a single town. In the Switch release, you won’t even be able to bypass this restriction with an SD card swap, either, as save data is stored internally (thanks, Games Radar).

How do you feel about this restriction? Share your thoughts in the comments below.