There is a sale on Humble containing several applications of interest to game developers. The sale started today, June 24th and runs for 7 days. The following is a list of applications most interesting to game developers, as well as links to any prior coverage we have done on that topic if it’s available.
The links above contain affiliate tags, meaning any purchase helps GFS. All software will give you a Steam key. Keep in mind the Steam Summer Sale is coming soon, stay tuned as we will profile game development software featured in that sale once launched.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 06-25-2019, 09:00 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Video Game Deep Cuts: My Friend Pedro’s Elite Beat Agent
The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutras community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.
[Video Game Deep Cuts is a weekly newsletter from video game industry ‘watcher’ Simon Carless (GDC, Gamasutra co-runner), rounding up the best longread & standout articles & videos about games, every weekend.
This week’s roundup includes a look at breakout indie action game My Friend Pedro, a much-deserved history of the excellent Elite Beat Agents series, on Mordhau’s surprisingly hot debut, classic interviews/retrospectives around Tetris & Sam and Max, and loads more besides.
Given I was out of the country (in the UK) for most of the week, managed to make a comeback just long enough to put this one together. Luckily, there’s plenty of meat, including almost the last of the E3 leftovers – and something for everyone to enjoy. Hope there’s a story or two you dig in here!
The Developers of Monster Hunter Explain What It’s Like to Build Monsters(Patrick Klepek / VICE – ARTICLE) “Some of the people keeping Monster Hunter going are producer Ryozo Tsujimoto and executive director/art director Kaname Fujioka, both of whom I spent some time speaking to last week. Their answers were as humorous as they were interesting, shedding light on the game’s development process, the series’ distinct lack of spiders (there’s a good reason!), what it means to depict the suffering of animals in a game about hunting, and much more.”
The 16 best games of E3 2019(Alex Hern, Keith Stuart and Keza MacDonald / The Guardian – ARTICLE) “After a full week of glitzy announcements and hundreds of game teasers, the Guardian’s E3 correspondents pick their best of the show.”
Cultist Simulator mobile: the all-singing, all-dancing data dump(Lottie Bevan / Weather Factory – ARTICLE) “Gaining as big an audience as we could was more important than maximising revenue. This strategy was the main reason we signed a PC publishing deal with Humble Bundle. It also told us pretty clearly we should find a porting house and publisher to make a mobile version of Cultist Simulator while we focused on post-launch PC development. [SIMON’S NOTE: lots and lots of data here – also showcasing that premium mobile dev isn’t THAT lucrative, sadly.]”
A Parliamentary Committee ‘Grilled’ EA and Epic Reps – Badly(Rich Stanton / Kotaku UK – ARTICLE) “Today, representatives of Electronic Arts and Epic Games gave evidence to Parliament’s Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It was something of a spectacle, not least for exposing once again how woefully unprepared our politicians are for this conversation. It wasn’t that the four games industry representatives had the best answers in the world: indeed, at times, they were flailing.”
Sex, Tetris, and Charlie Chaplin: The Alexey Pajitnov interview(Colin Campbell / Polygon – ARTICLE) “It’s not a serious disagreement. I put it to Pajitnov that no single artist has generated more collective entertainment hours among the mass of humankind than himself. I mean, how long, dear reader, have you spent playing Tetris? And do you know many people who haven’t played it?”
How time-loop games offer escape from a world that is running out of time(Edwin Evans-Thirlwell / Eurogamer – ARTICLE) “It’s as if the industry were caught in a Groundhog Day scenario devoted to the creation of Groundhog Days. Last week’s E3 announcements alone gave us Luis Antonio’s 12 Minutes, in which players endlessly relive their deaths at the hands of a mysterious housebreaker, and Arkane’s Deathloop, in which two assassins vie for dominance of one and the same day on a swishly late-70s island base.”
2014 vs. 2018: The Shape of Financial Success Before and After the Indiepocalypse(GDC / YouTube – VIDEO) “In this 2019 GDC talk, independent developer Jason Rohrer digs into the financial data behind the “Indiepocalypse,” to help you figure out how NOT to waste the next four years of your life on the next high profile flop.”
The Fall and Rise of VR: The Struggle to Make Virtual Reality Get Real(Aric Jenkins / Fortune – ARTICLE) “Because for all the hype-filled promises, virtual reality remains, well, virtually absent from everyday American life. Oculus in 2018, for example, shipped just 354,000 units of its flagship VR headset, the Oculus Rift, according to estimates from SuperData, a gaming-focused research unit of Nielsen.”
Nite Two at E3 2019: Phil Spencer(GiantBomb / YouTube – VIDEO) “Microsoft’s Phil Spencer sits down with Jeff Gerstmann to talk shop! [SIMON’S NOTE: Haven’t featured GiantBomb much in this roundup, but somebody pointed out this was a great interview – check out their YouTube channel for a bunch of handy ‘quick looks’ at games, too.]”
From The Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk: The evolution of CD Projekt’s quest design(Bryant Francis / Gamasutra – ARTICLE) “The Witcher 3 is known for its great quest design, but developer CD Projekt Red promises to evolve this tried and true approach in its next game, Cyberpunk 2077. At E3 2019, quest director Mateusz Tomaskiewicz​ told us about what he’s learned directing the quests of Cyberpunk 2077, and the challenges of designing a more nonlinear RPG.”
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey Developers Say Breaking Series Traditions Made For A Better Game(Stephen Totilo / Kotaku – ARTICLE) “When I sat down with the makers of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey last week, I had to ask them about Alexios, Kassandra, and the state of the franchise’s playable modern-day sequences. I also had to ask them about the option to ride a flaming horse.”
‘My Friend Pedro’ is the stylish action game every Nintendo Switch owner needs(Adam Rosenberg / Mashable – ARTICLE) “DeadToast Entertainment’s new side-scrolling action game is all about finding creative ways to murder bad guys. You can activate slow-mo with a button press, and the more you do to make the most of your bullet time — by building your kill count, naturally — the longer you get to linger there. It’s a tough thing to describe using just words, honestly. [SIMON’S NOTE: also on PC, and it’s one of the notable titles of the year so far.]”
Sitting In On A Design Meeting For Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order(Kyle Hilliard / Game Informer – ARTICLE) “Andrew Reiner, Leo Vader, and I sat in the meeting interjecting as little as possible while the team discussed what was working with the level, what they wanted to change, and how they predicted players would react to the level’s layout and enemy encounters. It offered interesting insight into Respawn’s game design process, so Leo Vader and I decided to talk about the meeting and what we took away from it.”
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and the problem with its child soldier level(Emma Kent / Eurogamer – ARTICLE) “On Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s announcement day, I was excited. Not just for the usual reasons, but because this instalment promised to tackle some seriously mature topics. Articles were published describing a terrorist attack in London, civilian collateral damage, situations ripped “straight from the headlines” and a particularly challenging child soldier level.”
A candid conversation with EA’s Andrew Wilson at E3 2019(Mike Futter / GameDaily.biz – ARTICLE) “CEO Andrew Wilson sat down exclusively with GameDaily at E3 2019 to talk about EA’s mistakes, successes, what went wrong with Anthem (and how BioWare is prepared to fix it), and the future of his company and the industry.”
How Mordhau went from janky community project to the biggest melee brawler on PC(Samuel Horti / PC Gamer – ARTICLE) “Five years ago, long-time Chivalry: Medieval Warfare player Marko GrguroviÄÂ began building a prototype for a new melee game in Unity. He had no development experience, and neither did the team he quickly assembled around him, some as young as 17.”
History of Elite Beat Agents / Ouendan Series(DidYouKnowGaming? / YouTube – VIDEO) “Today on Game History Secrets, Liam looks at the history of Elite Beat Agents, which is known as the Ouendan series in Japan. The EBA series has thus far only released on the Nintendo DS system. [SIMON’S NOTE: includes interviews with INIS staff, which is great!]”
Harry Potter: Wizards Unite Improves On What Makes Pokémon Go Great(Gita Jackson / Kotaku – ARTICLE) “Wizards Unite, developed by Niantic of Pokémon Go fame, is a different beast than Hogwarts Mystery, and this time, I feel enthralled by it. It’s a step above Hogwarts Mystery and the perplexing Fantastic Beastsmovies, and also seems like a refinement of the formula of Pokémon Go.”
Q&A: After the Microsoft acquisition, what’s next for Double Fine?(Bryant Francis / Gamasutra – ARTICLE) “San Francisco-based studio Double Fine made a big splash at E3 last week when Microsoft announced it was purchasing the makers of Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, Massive Chalice, and so many other games… At E3 this year, the company set up shop [and] on hand was Tim Schafer, who was down to talk about both the creative drive fueling Psychonauts 2, the Microsoft acquisition and what he thinks GamePass means for studios like his.”
Sam & Max Hit The Road(Jimmy Maher / Digital Antiquarian – ARTICLE) “Sam and Max first made their names as the stars of an indie comic book, and carried a certain indie sensibility with them when they strolled onto our monitor screens. The safe suburban world of gaming had never seen anything quite like this duo — boldly but also smartly written, aggressively confrontational, and absolutely hilarious as they wandered a landscape built out of junk media and decrepit Americana.”
A Gamer’s Secret Life and Tragic Death(The Atlantic / YouTube – VIDEO) “To his mother, David Hance was a shy, nerdy Puerto Rican kid from the Bronx who had an unhealthy obsession with video games. To everyone else, he was Allied—a world-class esports champion, whose boisterous live-streams garnered thousands of views. For years, Hance navigated these disparate identities with ease. But then, at age 24, he was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.”
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[REMINDER: you can sign up to receive this newsletter every weekend at tinyletter.com/vgdeepcuts – we crosspost to Gamasutra later, but get it first via newsletter! Story tips and comments can be emailed to [email protected]. MINI-DISCLOSURE: Simon is one of the organizers of GDC and Gamasutra & an advisor to indie publisher No More Robots, so you may sometimes see links from those entities in his picks. Or not!]
Welcome to Next Week on Xbox, where we cover all the new games coming soon to Xbox One! Every week the team at Xbox aims to deliver quality gaming content for you to enjoy on your favorite gaming console. To find out what’s coming soon to Xbox One, read on below and click on each of the game profiles for pre-order details (dates are subject to change).
Xbox One X Enhanced – An exploration-focused, side-scroller action RPG packing all the best features from the metroidvania genre into a single, content-packed game. Play as Miriam, an orphan scarred by an alchemist’s curse which slowly crystallizes her body. She must now battle her way through a demon-infested castle summoned by Gebel, her old friend whose body and mind has become more crystal than flesh.
Team up with Durnan, the proprietor of the famed Yawning Portal, to seek the truth behind the mysterious visions and forces beckoning citizens of the Forgotten Realms to the halls of Undermountain. Neverwinter: Undermountain introduces a new level 80 cap, a complete overhaul of class powers and feats, new Adventure Zones, a new Endgame dungeon, and much more!
Xbox One X Enhanced – A new single-player narrative featuring “Jurassic World” character Claire Dearing, voiced by Bryce Dallas Howard herself. Rich in content with seven new story missions with rewards, two new locations, three new dinosaurs, and new game features.
Xbox One X Enhanced – A surreal fantasy adventure with steampunk elements set in London in 1899, towards the end of the Victorian era. With an emphasis on culture and character, Another Sight focuses on the relationship between its two protagonists: Kit, a refreshingly intrepid teenager, and Hodge , a mysterious red-furred cat.
A quirky RPG for all audiences where you’ll recruit citizens of space for battle, traverse the cosmos in search of Earth’s missing pieces, and meet charismatic characters at every turn as you play as an Ambassador of Earth who must put the planet back together.
A fantasy RPG featuring beautiful 2D turn-based battles where you’ll become the master of the battlefield by using the characteristics of the three tribes, Fai, Ruta, and Eeth. The game offers a variety of achievements and elements, from weapon refining to harvesting items.
Cybarian The Tme Travelling Warrior is a classically inspired arcade action game, with a mixture of modern and retro gaming inspirations, an union of old-school 2D platformers and side-scrolling beat em’ ups in an animated, retro styled pixel art.
Explore alternate dimensions, fight interdimensional criminals, and solve crimes in this thrilling action platformer! Developed by 13AM Games, the studio behind award-winning Runbow, Double Cross is an exciting action adventure game that has players take on the role of Zahra, whose job it is to maintain peace and order between all dimensions.
Xbox One X Enhanced – Go fur-throttle with Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. It’s the authentic CTR experience plus a whole lot more, now fully remastered and revved up to the max with all the original game modes, characters, tracks, power-ups, weapons and controls. Additional karts, tracks, and arenas from Crash Nitro Kart- Race.
Captain Cat travels the seven seas in his boat, using his anchor as a hook to fish for the delights and treasures hiding at the bottom of the sea. But navigating the depths of unknown waters is never easy, as there are many mysterious dangers to face along the way. Can Captain Cat overcome them to catch enough fish to satisfy his hunger?
Neptune, stricken with amnesia, awakes in a mysterious world where 2D reigns supreme. With a little help from her friends, Neptune embark on a journey to regain her memory, save the world, and 3D games as we know it.
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 06-25-2019, 09:00 AM - Forum: Minecraft
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Minecraft Java Edition 1.14.3
Mojang has released 1.14.3. This release includes many bug fixes and some feature changes to make your lives easier… or harder depending on what they are.
A full summary of the content available in this snapshot can be found in the changelog on Minecraft.net.
Items can now be repaired by crafting them together again
Reverted the enchanting system to how it was before 1.14
Torches, lanterns and pressure plates can now be placed on glass panes and iron bars
Lanterns can now be attached below iron bars and glass panes
Saturation is no longer required for the “How did we get here?” advancement
You can now turn off raids with ‘/gamerule disableRaids true’
Patrol changes:
Vindicators are no longer part of patrols
Doubled the minimum time to spawn from 5 + (up to 1) minutes to 10 + (up to 1) minutes
Patrols no longer spawns if the block light level disallows monster spawning
Patrols are now allowed to spawn in any biome except mushroom biomes
Villagers that are panicking now have a bigger chance of spawning Iron Golems, assuming they can occasionally work and sleep
“Last slept” and “last worked” is now saved properly for Villagers
Farmers now spend more time farming when they are working
Farmers can now always give away food even if other villagers don’t need it
Improved performance
Fixed bugs
MC-47699 – Blazes are able to see a player through blocks
Posted by: xSicKxBot - 06-25-2019, 04:29 AM - Forum: Lounge
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Anthem's Struggles Explained By EA CEO
BioWare's Anthem released in February this year, and it wasn't a huge critical success. Part of the reason why the game struggled, according to EA CEO Andrew Wilson, is because it attempts to appeal to two different audiences. He talks about the game's struggles and opportunities for future growth and success in a new interview.
"We brought together these two groups of players who were making this emotional value calculation on two different vectors," Wilson told GameDaily. "One was traditional BioWare story-driven content, and the other was this action-adventure type content. About the 30 or 40 hour mark they really had to come together and start working in on the elder game. At that point everyone kind of went, 'Oh, hang a minute.' Now the calculation is off.
"It's off because I've got a friend who sits in this other category of player. They want to play the game a certain way. I want to play the game a certain way. The promise was we can play together, and that's not working very well. Oh, by the way I'm used to 100 hours of BioWare story, and that's not what I got,'" Wilson explained. "Or, 'I expected that this game would have meaningfully advanced the action component that we'd seen in games like Destiny before, and I don't feel like it has.'"
While Anthem might have struggled out of the gate, Wilson said EA is committed to supporting the game in the long-run. In fact, he mentioned that Anthem could have a "7-10 year cycle." Wilson said EA feels good about investing in Anthem in the long-run because the game has a strong foundation to build on.
"If we believed that at the very core the world wasn't compelling people, if we believed at the very core that the characters weren't compelling for people, or the Javelin suits weren't compelling, or traversing the world and participating in the world wasn't compelling then provided we hadn't made promises to our players... we might not invest further," Wilson said. "IP lives for generations, and runs in these seven to ten year cycles. So, if I think about Anthem on a seven to ten year cycle, it may not have had the start that many of us wanted, including our players. I feel like that team is really going to get there with something special and something great, because they've demonstrated that they can."
The full interview at GameDaily is in-depth and wide-ranging, touching on a number of other subjects including loot boxes, layoffs, and a wider look at the future of EA. Go read it.
At E3 this year, Anthem lead producer Ben Irving said he believes Anthem has a "very bright future."
"We've learned a lot these last few months, we really want to make the game better, we believe Anthem can be a really amazing game," he explained. "We know we have some work to do, we just want to work with the community and build it together and make it the game that everyone wants it to be."
iOS 13 could add support for Hong Kong’s Octopus transit card
By Mikey Campbell Monday, June 24, 2019, 07:06 pm PT (10:06 pm ET)
Lines of code discovered on a public Apple services content server reference iOS 13 support for Hong Kong’s Octopus, suggesting the widely used touchless payment system could arrive on iPhone this fall.
Smart Octopus in Samsung Pay
Spotted by Japan-centric Apple blog Ata Distance, a code snippet in Apple’s JSON backbone for Wallet now displays supported credentials for Octopus card on iPhones running iOS 13. The transit and retail payment card is also available via Express Card NFC technology.
Apple Watch is not yet supported, with Apple’s server showing a minimum supported watchOS value of “999.0,” though that could change as the company continues work on watchOS 6.
Launched in 1997, Octopus card was the second contactless “smart card” to hit the consumer market and is considered a forebear of modern reloadable electronic payment solutions. Initially marketed as a physical tap-to-pay card, Octopus expanded to smartphones with Smart Octopus for Samsung Pay in 2017.
Since it is based on the FeliCa standard, Smart Octopus is technically compatible with iPhone 7 and newer Apple devices, though an exclusivity agreement has so far kept the payment platform restricted to Samsung handsets. That could change this fall with the launch of iOS 13.
Initially developed by Sony as an RFID chip solution, FeliCa was later hybridized for cellphone use with the cooperation of Japan’s leading cellular provider NTT Docomo. That version, called Mobile FeliCa, served as the basis of Apple’s NFC Type-F implementation in iPhone and Apple Watch, and ultimately Apple Pay integration with Japan’s Suica mobile transit card system in 2016.
According to Ata Distance, Octopus’ Apple Pay device profile is identical to that of Suica, meaning users can generate and manage new cards without leaving the Wallet app on Japanese market iPhone 7 and 7 Plus models, and all iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XS and XS Plus and iPhone XR variants.
11 years have passed since the last series installment, and it is now time for SAMURAI SHODOWN to return in a brand-new game featuring high-end visuals and gameplay. Faithfully reproducing the game mechanics and atmosphere that contributed to the success of the series, SAMURAI SHODOWN includes a feature that learns from players game actions and patterns in order to create CPU-controlled ?ghost? characters. With a story set one year before the very first installment, a diverse cast of returning and new characters cross paths in order to fulfill their destinies. [SNK]
There was once a primitive form of entertainment software that ruled the world: 2D games.
In one of infinite dimensions, the world of Gamindustri exists...
a world where 2D games reign supreme.
An organization fiercely devoted to these games rules over this vibrant world.
They are known as Bombyx Mori and their devotion comes with a heavy price.
Citizens of Gamindustri are forced to offer 2D games to Bombyx Mori as taxes.
Those who dare to use new technologies or create games that don't meet
their standards risk being banished to the Trial Grounds.
It is in this Gamindustri, a dark world with no real future in sight, that a girl wakes from her sleep.
Her name is Neptune, and with a strange book in hand, she sets off on the journey of a Hero.
