Epic Games, the makers of Unreal Engine and Fortnite, just acquired Houseparty a multi person video chat based social network.  Houseparty is available in application form for both the AppStore and Google Play.  The reason for the acquisition isn’t entirely clear, but couldn’t have been cheap as Houseparty was fairly well funded.

Some details were released on a Medium post by Houseparty:

Today is a big day for us at Houseparty because we’re joining the Epic Games family!

Houseparty is the synchronous social platform that lets you connect face-to-face with the people you care about most. By teaming up with Epic, creator of Fortnite and Unreal Engine, we’ll be able to help even more people connect with their friends, family, and peers.

“Joining Epic is a great step forward in achieving our mission of bringing empathy to online communication,” said Sima Sistani, Co-founder and CEO of Houseparty. “We have a common vision to make human interaction easier and more enjoyable, and always with respect for user privacy.”

“Houseparty brings people together, creating positive social interactions in real time,” said Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic Games. “By teaming up, we can build even more fun, shared experiences than what could be achieved alone.”

So, why would a gaming company like Unreal Engine by a social video chat platform?  My best guess is to support their upcoming cross platform online services initiative although that is entirely speculation at this point.  If you are an existing Houseparty user, according to the FAQ in the linked Medium article, your life should remain unchanged in the near future at least.

GameDev News Unreal

Ubisoft’s freshly announced Story Creator Mode has launched into an open beta and lets Assassin’s Creed Odyssey players create and share their own quests for the game, complete with their own custom stories and written dialogue.

Revealed during the pre-show for Ubisoft’s E3 press conference, the Story Creator Mode allows players to create in-game quests with a variety of objectives.

“We know our community is quite creative and I think whether you’re into art or writing or just very curious about how games work, Story Creator Mode can appeal to you,” explains associate producer Anthony Straub in the mode’s launch trailer

The web-based tool lets players use character models from the main game and assign them new roles and dialogue by using tools based on the ones Ubisoft itself used in the development of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. Different individual quests can be linked together as one larger story, and those are then sharable online and playable on any version of Odyssey, no matter the platform used by its creator or player.

Alongside the announcement of the Story Creator Mode, Ubisoft revealed that the educational Discovery Mode from Assassin’s Creed Origins will be launching for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey as well. Discovery Tour: Ancient Greece cuts out the combat and instead offers a guided tour filled with information on Ancient Greek philosophy, war, daily life, mythology, and architecture as a free update this fall

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: Los Angeles, California

We are looking for an exceptional UI/UX Artist who can design & build beautiful and intuitive interfaces for an upcoming game focused on female fashion. This role is based in our brand new game studio in Los Angeles.

RESPONSIBILITIES

• Design intuitive interfaces that convey complex information in a format that is easily digestible to a casual user.
• Partner with product leaders, game designers, and engineers to identify and convey critical info needed for player engagement
• Conceptualize, design UI architecture, create wireframes and prototype cohesive UI
• Set a standard and provide guidelines for excellent mobile game UI
• Create and implement assets

REQUIREMENTS

• 4+ years experience working on mobile free-to-play game required
• Ability to quickly prototype and wireframe
• Market awareness for current mobile game design trends and aesthetics, plus a sense for contemporary visual design sensibilities that is demonstrated in your portfolio
• Graphic design experience
• Unity experience integrating UI assets and screens
• Ability to make complex information easily digestible
• Strong verbal and written communication skills
• Passion for working in a dynamic, fast-paced environment
• Ability to meet deadlines
• Understands game production design process and methodology.
• Won’t settle for mediocrity.

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.

Today, I’ve got a question for you. Can a platformer be nonviolent, while having a deep story, adventure, dynamic platforming, and more? That’s one of the game design questions we answered when working on the upcoming Even the Ocean.

Even the Ocean is a platformer adventure where you play as Aliph, a government worker who repairs power plants. You’ll travel across the countryside, meet diverse people, and attempt to restore the world’s balance of light and dark energy. In the power plants, you’ll use obstacles and hazards to shift Aliph’s energy levels and movement physics.

Central to Even the Ocean is the two-way energy bar. This bar shows Aliph’s alignment between dark and light energy. By touching energy-charged obstacles, she’ll shift her alignment — dark means she’ll run faster; light means she’ll jump higher. Absorb too much energy of one type… and Aliph will die.  Every level contains multiple ways to overcome its challenges. A dark-energy laser might be a hazard at some alignments, but it might be a huge benefit at other alignments.

I hope you’ll play the game to discover all the different ways we use the two-way energy bar! But, you may be wondering… “Wow, that art… looks pretty good… what’s the deal with that?”

Good question!

Well, you see, Even the Ocean is roughly divided into two types of areas. Outdoors areas and power plant areas. The first picture in this post was a riverside outdoors area and the photo beliw is a power plant area.

The town areas are more organic, more natural feeling. They have hills, slopes, forests, water, and more. So, our artist Marina Kittaka used a special pixelized, painterly style to create these flowing hills and backgrounds. We wanted to create a feeling of being outdoors and hiking. Please take many screenshots and be sure to use the dedicated sit button and enjoy the sights.

As for the power plant areas? They’re far blockier and more geometrical. That’s because we wanted to emphasize the man-made-ness of those levels, and also, it’s easier to create platforming levels that are blocky and square shaped. You might also notice that those areas are made up of a patchwork of tile-based graphics, just like older games. This allowed us to make the levels art faster.

Now, the art we’ve shown here is just a mere taste. The game has a rich, character and dialogue-driven story, which will take you to many wondrous places. I hope that this post will enrich your experience and time with the game!

And, by the way! Even the Ocean is one of the first indie games to feature an extensive accessibility and gameplay options menu. You can turn on blocks to make levels easier, toggle the platform physics – even play the game without story or without platforming levels! Please utilize these options to make the experience as fun for you as possible!

Anyways, thanks to the support of prolific Ratalaika Games, we’re happy to be bringing Even the Ocean to Xbox One.

I hope this post has piqued your interest in the game. Please look forward to playing Even the Ocean later this year! Until next time… Chief Happiness Officer Sean Han Tani out. (Be sure to check out our other game, Anodyne, also on Xbox One!)

DOOM Eternal is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam!

As the DOOM Slayer, you return to find Earth has suffered a demonic invasion. Raze Hell and discover the Slayer’s origins and his enduring mission to rip and tear…until it is done.

Experience the ultimate combination of speed and power as you battle your way across dimensions with the next leap in push-forward, first-person combat.

Konami – which holds the rights to the PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16 brand via its ownership of the now-defunct Hudson Soft – has lifted the lid on yet another retro-themed micro-console.

This time, it’s NEC / Hudson’s legendary PC Engine, the system which took Japan by a storm in the late ’80s and came to the US in the (slightly less successful) form of the TurboGrafx-16.

The console will come in three designs. The Japanese market will get the original white PC Engine, while Europe will get the Core Grafx revision (which was basically just a different case colour with AV output rather than RF). In the US, players will get the TurboGrafx-16 case design, which was larger to appeal to American sensibilities.

Games confirmed so far are:

It has also been confirmed that the Japanese version will have Dracula X: Rondo of Blood, a regional exclusive which was only released on CD-ROM.

There’s no pricing info or even a solid release date, but we’ll update this post the moment we know.

REDMOND, Wash. — June 12, 2019 — Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday announced that its board of directors declared a quarterly dividend of $0.46 per share. The dividend is payable Sept. 12, 2019, to shareholders of record on Aug. 15, 2019. The ex-dividend date will be Aug. 14, 2019.

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) enables digital transformation for the era of an intelligent cloud and an intelligent edge. Its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

For more information, financial analysts and investors only:

Investor Relations, Microsoft, (425) 706-4400

For more information, press only:

Microsoft Media Relations, WE Communications, (425) 638-7777, rrt@we-worldwide.com

Note to editors: For more information, news and perspectives from Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft News Center at https://news.microsoft.com. Web links, telephone numbers, and titles were correct at time of publication, but may since have changed. Shareholder and financial information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/investor.

If it wasn’t already official enough, it’s now 100% confirmed – Bowser is Nintendo of America’s president and there’s no turning back. If you caught Nintendo’s E3 2019 Direct presentation, you most-definitely saw Doug Bowser – Reggie’s replacement – appear in his first Direct as the head of the American subsidiary.

If you did miss it, you can probably guess what went down. Instead of the human Bowser, Mario’s arch-enemy actually appeared alongside Nintendo’s Yoshiaki Koizumi. It was quite hilarious, as predictable as it might have been. Not long after this, the real Bowser eventually walked out and owned the spotlight while informing the other one about the mix-up. Here’s a recap:

It’s hard to believe, but it seems like Doug has already won over the majority of Nintendo’s fans and it’s all because his surname is Bowser. Honestly, this is all it took for people to trust the guy who’s been troubling Mario for more than 30 years? Maybe every company should appoint a president who has a surname of relevance.

Regardless of this, we think Doug did a fantastic job in his first presentation as Nintendo of America’s president. It’s also got us wondering how Nintendo will keep this joke alive. Maybe Baby Bowser will appear in a future Direct? We guess we’ll find out!

What did you think of this joke? Do you feel safe with Bowser in control of the American sector? Tell us below.