Following on the heels of Google GDC reveal of the Stadia platform, both Unreal and Unity Technologies have announced their support for Stadia game development.  Stadia is a new server side platform for hosting and streaming games to any Chrome supported device.  Below are details from both game engine manufacturer.

First the Unreal Engine announcement from their blog:

“We’ve been building our support for Stadia to ensure that developers using Unreal Engine can hit the ground running and be successful on the platform,” said Arciel Rekman, Senior Platform Engineer at Epic Games. “Today we’re releasing a fully-featured integration with Stadia to help developers bring their games to an even broader spectrum of players.”

Designed with cross-platform support in mind, Unreal Engine leverages Stadia features through familiar interfaces, resulting in an easy setup, with visual quality and workflows that are consistent across all target devices.

Thanks to Unreal Engine’s cross-platform capabilities, developers can iterate on their game code locally on their Windows PC for Stadia, a Linux and Vulkan-based platform, before deploying to the cloud.

While Unity announced the following:

One of our core missions is democratizing game development. That means enabling developers to build for the platforms of their choice with accessible tools and workflows that make the process of creating easier.

Though we still have technical and engineering work ahead to ensure Unity developers have a smooth experience building for Stadia, here’s what our community needs to know.

What can I expect in building Unity games for Stadia?

Developers familiar with Unity today can expect recognizable tools and a very similar development process when building for Stadia.

What unique Stadia or Google features will be supported by Unity?

We expect to support all native features unique to Stadia that are required to publish your game and make use of platform capabilities. Stay tuned for more details on feature support later this year.

With either platform, before you can start developing for Stadia you need to be a registered Stadia developer, you can apply here.   You need to have a Employer Tax ID if American, and an email with a custom domain address (ie, not Hotmail or Gmail).  Once registered with Stadia, you can then confirm your credentials with Unreal here, while Unity developers have no additional steps to perform.  The Unity Stadia SDK is expected to ship toward the end of 2019.

GameDev News Unity Unreal

Today at GDC some of the folks from Wizards of the Coast gave a brief talk about how to build and support vibrant player communities around your game, using examples from their work stewarding long-lived games like Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons.

Together, Wizards of the Coast’s Aland Failde (VP of user acquisition and digital marketing) and Michelle Sutterfield (community manager) tried to share useful advice specifically for small- to mid-size devs (and influencers) who want community-building tips.

“From the beginning we’ve been about community and fellowship,” said Failde. “Historically, our big products have brought people around a table to play a game together.”

He reminded folks in the audience that while Wizards has been managing Magic for 25+ years and D&D for over 20, the company just last year released a big, free-to-play video game: Magic: The Gathering Arena.

The meat of the talk was how Wizards has expanded its community by growing the number of streamers and other influencers playing Arena, but Failde first took a minute to hype the company’s history of trying to support unique playstyles and communities.

“From the very beginning, we had a sort of homebrew culture develop among our players,” he said. “Homebrew has been around in the PC world for a long time, with modding cultures, and with our physical card game we saw that very early on.”

Failde thinks one of WotC’s smart community-building moves early on was to invest in tournaments and pro leagues, as well as more casual community events like Friday Night Magic, a formalized system for novice-to-intermediate players to play together at local game shops or other spaces.

Physical game shops have always been key to Wizards’ success, and Failde thinks that’s because they create unique “hubs” where players can check out new games, participate in special events, and (hopefully) offer unique cultures and vibes that make players feel welcome.

“A lot of the things that make game shops successful make influencers successful”

Now, he suggests that big Twitch streamers and YouTubers can offer something similar to their audiences, albeit at a distance: the feeling of being part of a community, and of sharing your passion for a game and its systems with a bunch of other people.

“A lot of the things that make game shops successful make influencers successful,” said Failde. “Having a variety of programming, having programming of different skill levels…and this sense of homebrew culture.”

Sutterfield then took the stage to talk a bit about how she chooses which influencers to work with on a game like Arena, and what other devs can learn from Wizards’ experience.

“When we look for influencers, we don’t just look for people with the most views on Twitch,” she said. “Those things are great and we still look for them, but…our deciding factor is, which influencers can we work with that will influence our community to be a better place? And to be more involved?”

“You need to care more about your streamers”

She says they look for passionate players, who are passionate not just about the game but about the brand and the community around it. Often this means working with what she calls “micro-influencers” — basically just up-and-coming streamers or other content creators who haven’t built a big audience yet.

“When we use micro-influencers, we get so much more than just using top-tier influencers alone,” Sutterfield said, noting that a good mix of such “micro-influencers” can bring you just as much (if not more) attention as if you’d just talked to the people with big audiences — and the smaller streamers can often inject their own beneficial mix of personality and community.

According to Sutterfield, these smaller influencers can also be a boon for small- to mid-size developers because they’re often more invested in your game than a big-time streamer, so much so they may even (if you’re comfortable with it) be willing to stream it without being paid.

“I work with like thousands of streamers, you know, and building those relationships is very important because we can get so much more out of [our events],” Sutterfield added. “We had 400 streamers be part of [a recent early access event to promote new content], and none of them were paid. They did it because they love the game, they love the event, and they love the community.”

Sutterfield said she was able to create a Discord for these streamers and let them loose to share stories, network, and get excited about the game — and that in turn led to more excited streams.

Above all, Sutterfield’s advice for devs looking to build healthy relationships with streamers and influencers is to treat them like human beings, rather than paid marketing megaphones.

“If there’s one thing you should take away from this talk, it’s this: You need to care more about your streamers,” she said. “When you have happy streamers, you have those happy relationships, you will get so much more than you could ever imagine.”

But just to be thorough, she summed up her advice for fellow game makers in five points

• Understand your goals
• Find influencers that represent your brand values
• Feature influencers large and small, often together
• ‘Micro-influencers’ benefit most from your support
• Encourage community building

“The data shows it works,” she said, in closing. “We grew [Arena] over 400 percent in a year, in terms of unique streamers, and they grew with us.”

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PST today, members of the Xbox One Preview Alpha Skip Ahead Ring will begin receiving the latest 1910 Xbox One system update (19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_19H2HOLD_1910\18352.7001.190306-1920). This build has the same features and fixes as 1904 however we need valuable core recovery coverage and feedback as we skip ahead.

DETAILS:

• OS version released: 19H1_RELEASE_XBOX_DEV_19H2HOLD_1910\18352.7001.190306-1920
• Available: 2:00PM PST 3/11/19
• Mandatory Date/Time: 3:00 AM PST 3/12/19

Fixes:

Game-DVR

• We have resolved issue with UI and wording in GameDVR settings.

Groups

• We have resolved the issue with Groups not updating correctly after selecting the create group button.
• We have fixed the issue in which New Groups or existing groups did not show up in the Guide until you’ve visited My Games & Apps once after updating the console.

My Games and Apps

• MS Rewards App – Fixed the issue in which all promotions in all supported countries were not updating correctly.

Notifications

• We are have resolved the issue that notifications were not displaying on the console (such as achievement toasts).
• We have fixed the issue that would result in a Toast(notification) storm when installing Forza 7.

System

• Added a page action for My Home Xbox’s Learn More button
• Various narrator and localization fixes.

Known Issues:

Audio

• We are aware of issues of No Audio heard from Non-Spatial Audio games when using Dolby Atmos for Home Theater with the LG SJ9 soundbar.
• We are tracking the issue in which users with Dolby Atmos setups may have no sound or low sound (with snap, crackle and pop!) when coming out of Instant On.  Workaround : Reboot your Audio Video Receiver (AVR) to reenable the audio stream correctly as one option.  Also try changing your console Audio settings back to Dolby Digital to restore sound then reboot your AVR to confirm sounds then change the console back to Dolby Atmos in Audio settings.

Disney Adventures

• We are tracking an issue that this title is crashing on launch.

EA Access App

• We are tracking the following two issues with the EA Access app and the 1904 recovery:

1. Users are unable to purchase an EA Access subscription from inside the EA Access app.  When you select the icon to renew nothing happens.  Workaround: Purchase the renewal from www.xbox.com or from the Microsoft Store app.
2. Users are unable to get a game trial from inside the EA Access App.  When you select the Game trial icon nothing happens.  Workaround : Search for the trial in the Microsoft Store and install the trail from the game Product Display Page (PDP).

 Game Pass Mobile App

• Issue/Impact – After pushing a remote installation of a game from the Game Pass mobile app, customers will not see progress of the installation on in the mobile app and may not receive install notifications.  The game will still successfully install if there is sufficient available space on the console.
• Affected audience – must be in 1904 preview, must be a GP subscriber, must be using the GP mobile app, must be pushing game installations from the app.
• Workarounds – None.  A fix is coming in the next version of the mobile app in March.  Customers interested in getting early access to the fix can download the Game Pass Beta app.

 Home

• We are aware that the clock/time is missing from home and the dashboard.

 Plex App

• Sometimes users may encounter an issue when playing 4K content that the streaming will fail with the Plex App.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.

System

• Sometimes users may encounter a console restart when using Youtube or similar media apps. We are tracking a fix for this shortly.
• We are tracking that Home is failing to load/crashing with latest update.

Virtual Keyboard

• On Screen Keyboard in Hebrew  – We are aware that the onscreen keyboard in Hebrew the period or semi-colon no longer works. Workaround: A physical usb keyboard works.
• On Screen Keyboard covers group chat window  – We are aware that the onscreen keyboard in group chat covers that text entry window. Workaround: Touch typing is a skill.

It has been confirmed that the critically-acclaimed 2D platformer Cuphead is coming to Nintendo Switch.

The news was the headline of today’s Nindies Direct broadcast, which made a point of thanking Microsoft for making the port a possibility. Cuphead was previously a Microsoft exclusive.

Studio MDHR Co-Director Chad Moldenhauer seems pretty pleased:

It’s no secret that Cuphead is a direct descendent of retro action games like Contra on the NES, so it’s surreal to finally have one of our own games on a Nintendo system. We’re beyond thrilled to be able to bring Cuphead to a brand new audience on Nintendo Switch. Playing the game on a console with such a big focus on local co-op really reminds Jared andI of our days gaming together as kids.

Here’s some official PR:

Studio MDHR announced today via the Nintendo Switch Nindies Showcase Spring 2019 that Cuphead will land on the Nintendo eShop on April 18, 2019! What’s more, the game is available for pre-purchase starting today for: $19.99 USD, $25.99 CAD, £16.99, and 19,99€.

In addition to the game’s launch on Switch, a major, free content update will also make its way to all versions of Cuphead (Xbox One, PC, Mac) on the same day.

The new free content update will add both fun surprises and longtime requested features such as: playable Mugman in single-player, new fully animated cutscenes, never-before-seen art and fight intros, ten additional languages, a plethora of bug fixes, and plenty of secrets for players to discover. Read the full list below:

+ CHARACTER SELECTION! For the first time ever, select Mugman right from the start of your adventure in single player!
+ FULLY ANIMATED CINEMATICS! Now, all of the game’s cutscenes play out in fabulous locomotion!
+ FULLY LOCALIZED TEXT IN TEN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGES! In addition to English, we’re thrilled to be able to offer Cuphead in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Polish, Russian, Japanese, Korean, and Simplified Chinese. We know how long folks have been waiting for this, so we took special care in the quality of each translation, and curated fonts that felt just right for each audience. In fact, we even partnered with expert calligraphers to bring the Boss & Level title lettering to life in Korean, Chinese, and Japanese – drawing inspiration from the early cartoon works of each country!
+ OODLES OF BRAND NEW ANIMATION AND ART! Cuphead and Mugman have multiple fight intros! Legendary Chalice now grants Super Arts with a blast of magical energy! Mummies explode in a shower of confetti! Dozens of other dazzling additions and adjustments throughout the game!
+ Bug fixes and tweaks!
+ And more!

That’s not all, however – it has been confirmed that you’ll be able to unlock Xbox achievements in the Switch version of the game:

https://twitter.com/majornelson/status/1...3681752065

A rumour stating that Cuphead was Switch-bound circulated a short time ago; now we know this to be the case, could we see other Microsoft console exclusives make the jump to Nintendo’s machine?

The game launches on April 19th, and is available for pre-purchase now.

News | Bungie.net”> News | Bungie.net”>

Today, we are celebrating a year of adventures in Sea of Thieves! It’s been both humbling and awe-inspiring to see millions of players from all over the world set sail and create their own stories on the Sea of Thieves. On behalf of everyone at Rare, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who’s played and made Sea of Thieves what it is today.

While it’s been an amazing first year, we’re not done yet. With four major updates, nine time-limited events and more than thirty game updates, we’re still just getting started. We’re as excited about Sea of Thieves today as we were a year ago, and I’m pleased to be able to share with you a big reason why – The Anniversary Update, our biggest content update so far, will be coming free to all players on April 30.

The Anniversary Update is a game changer that takes Sea of Thieves to a whole new level. Packed full of new content that’s guaranteed to have something for everyone, tune into a series of live streams on Mixer, Twitch and YouTube where we’ll share more details, insights and glimpses from behind the scenes on the run-up to April 30:

Join the party

To say thank you to our wonderful community for their support over the past year, we have a range of goodies on offer to help everyone celebrate. These are all available now, so go get ‘em!

• New Mercenary Voyages offering medleys in The Shores of Plenty and Devil’s Roar, together with a new Reaper’s Run voyage, commendations and cosmetics. There’s also a special Gilded Mercenary Voyage of Legends for Pirate Legends
• Captain Bones’ Original Pirate Cutlass has been added to the weapons chest for any player who played in Year One
• Any player who attained Pirate Legends status during Year One will receive a Golden Legendary Tankard, a Golden Legendary Hurdy Gurdy, a Golden Legendary Blunderbuss together with Golden Legendary ship customisations including a sail, hull and figurehead
• All players will be able to purchase the Golden Sailor Hat and Golden Sailor Cannons from any Outpost shop for just 320 gold between today and the launch of the Anniversary Update
• A range of Sea of Thieves themed Gamerpics you can use to personalise your Xbox Live page
• No pirate birthday would be complete without a sing-song, so we’re pleased to announce that we are releasing We Shall Sail Together free through digital outlets (Spotify, Deezer, Google Play, iTunes, Amazon Music and Tidal). Make sure you have a listen to get you in the pirate spirit!

Thank you again to all the players who have joined us on this journey with Xbox Game Pass, Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. We couldn’t be more excited to bring you the Anniversary Update on April 30 and to share more details soon. See you on the seas!

New to Sea of Thieves? Join the adventure with Xbox Game Pass or on Xbox One and Windows 10 PC. If you haven’t tried Xbox Game Pass yet, join today and get your first month for $1. Prospective pirates can learn more at xbox.com/seaofthieves or visit the Sea of Thieves website at SeaofThieves.com to embark on an epic journey with one of gaming’s most welcoming communities.

The digital arm of Portal Games has been very quiet over recent years. In fact, it was way back in 2010 when they released their first and still rather brilliant port of strategy board game Neuroshima Hex. Now Portal Games are back with Tides of Time, a micro-card drafting game that follows in the footsteps of Love Letter. However, this time around instead of a multiplayer game of courtly intrigue and bluffing, we have a two-player empire-building face-off, which plays like a simplified version of 7 Wonders.

With a deck of only eighteen cards to work with, players compete through three ages to develop the most prosperous civilisation. At the start of each era, both players are dealt a hand of five cards. These cards represent the various buildings and monuments that can be constructed. Each card will belong to one of five suits, and most of them will also have a point-scoring objective. Players select a single card and drag it into their play area; there are no resource costs to worry about since all buildings are constructed for free. The players will then exchange hands and from then on, it’s rinse and repeat until neither player has any cards left to play.

The monuments that the players managed to construct are then evaluated. Scoring will usually depend on having the most of a particular suit or require you to collect different sets. The Sky Pillars monument, for instance, belongs to the temple suit but scores points for each pair of cards that belong to the garden and library suits. Whereas the Golden Ziggurat is part of the garden suit but scores points if the player who built it has the majority of monuments that belong to the palace suit. Some buildings have special abilities like The Roof of the World, which doubles the value of the player’s most numerous suit. At the end of the first two eras, players must elect one of their buildings as a relic from the past, which means that it will remain in play until the end of the game. They then choose a second building to remove from the game. Finally, each player will draw two new cards and then the next age will commence. The player with the most points at the end of the third era wins.

The first thing that strikes you about Tides of Time is the wonderful graphics. The large cards are adorned with some beautiful and evocative artwork. This is complemented by some eye-pleasing graphics used to depict the buildings when they are placed into the play area. Another nice touch is the way that at the end of each era the monuments crumble into dust. Trails of lights attempt to help you see at a glance which buildings trigger scoring opportunities. However, I didn’t find this feature especially helpful. A better option is to check the icons along the right hand side of the screen, which record all of the cards that you have played along with their respective suits and scoring potentials.

Tides of Time is a simple game and the interface only has to manage the manipulation of a hand of cards. It does this reasonably successfully, although if you do not drag a card directly upwards to the play area, there is the chance that you will actually place a neighbouring card by mistake. All is not lost though since a simple tap of the undo button will take back your last move. I think there is a problem with the screen formatting, as sometimes you cannot see the full image of the cards when they are close to the edge of the screen without carefully dragging them to a more central position. The game also forces you to play out the last round of each era, although you have no choice other than to play your remaining card, this could have been handled automatically. Options are limited; you can play a quick match against one of three AI opponents or take on a human challenger in hot seat mode. I managed to beat the first two AI opponents on my initial attempt, thankfully, the third one put up more of a challenge. At the moment, there are no online options.

It is really only the special power cards that make Tides of Time anything more than a really simple set collection game. You have the high scoring but risky Maze of the Damned, which requires ownership of a card of each of the five different suits – no easy task, even in the third era when you already have two cards already in play. In contrast, The Eye of The North scores points for each suit that you do not have. The Kings Nest doesn’t score any points directly but does allow the owner to win all ties for suits. Whilst The Molehill scores points for each of your suit majorities as long as they consist of just one single card. Unfortunately, even with these welcome nuances, the game still suffers from a lack of variety.

All eighteen cards are going to show up every time you play, indeed you will end up seeing many of the same ones turning up time and again in the space of a single game. By the second turn of each era you will be aware of all of the cards in play and the game begins to feel more like a test of memory than skill. The drafting can also often feel more like a negative way of putting an end to your opponent’s plans rather than actively improving your own position. This can be especially true when one player is trying to preserve an advantage. It can feel like the second leg of a football match in which the team with the advantage is happy to grind out a dour draw.

As a quick playing micro-game this digital version works much better than Love Letter, whose lifeblood is so dependant upon the social interaction between players. I really like how the game handles the advancement through the different eras. Many buildings fall only to rise again, others persevere as relics and some crumble never to be seen again. Deciding which cards to transform into relics and which ones to destroy creates the most interesting decision points. However, the Tides of Time’s lack of variety means that you soon feel like you have seen all that the game has to offer. There is nothing inherently wrong with Tides of Time, it just feels artificially constrained by its microgame pretentions. This lack of substance, alongside the limited options, results in a game more likely to crumble to dust rather than become a lasting landmark.

As you may already be aware, Hollow Knight developer Team Cherry is currently hard at work on a sequel called Hollow Knight: Silksong. We know that Switch will be the only console to receive the game at launch, but other details are still pretty slim at present.

Changing that slightly, though, the team has provided a quick update on the game, showing off some of the characters we can expect to see in the final product (we’ve got images and descriptions of each for you below).

Lace
A lithe fencer wielding a gilded pin, the traditional weapon of Pharloom. Lace is a dangerous foe, cloaked in mystery, who’ll delight at causing Hornet’s swift, skewered demise.

Shakra
Fierce and intimidating, Shakra is a warrior seeking her master, who vanished under strange circumstances. Shakra’s clan are skilled fighters who can handle their own in the kingdom’s wilds. Usefully for Hornet, each member of the clan also hones a Craft-Skill and Shakra’s mastery of cartography will prove invaluable on Hornet’s adventure.

Trobbio
Master of the Stage, the Brush and the Voice, the flamboyant butterfly Trobbio seeks fame and adoration throughout Pharloom.

Sherma
An optimistic pilgrim on a spiritual journey. Sherma’s path may often cross with Hornet’s own, but his lack of combat and acrobatic prowess can land him in desperate need of aid.

Garmond and Zaza
A rambunctious older bug and his noble steed, on a quest to discover a new home. Garmond may be the chattier of the two, but Zaza could be the real brains of the pair.

That’s not all, though, as the team has also shared a quick message to thank fans for their support regarding the new game announcement.

“A very sincere thank you to all of you and your response to Silksong’s surprise-announce. Keeping a secret like that for 2 years is crazy tough! And the enthusiasm and passion from the community and fans is the world’s best reward. We’re right now working double-hard to make Hornet’s big adventure the giant, sprawling, surprising journey, you deserve.”

If you missed the news, Hollow Knight is being treated to a gorgeous Collector’s Edition. If you’re yet to try this one out, or if you’re a huge fan of the game, it’s definitely worth a look.

Looking forward to this Hollow Knight sequel? Tell us below.