Shiny Meltan will appear in Pokémon GO for a limited time

The Pokémon Company International, Niantic, Inc., and Nintendo announced today that a Shiny version of the Mythical Pokémon Meltan will appear in Pokémon GO for a limited time. Once obtained, this rare Pokémon can be transferred to Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! or Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Designed for players taking their first steps into the Pokémon video game world as well as for longtime fans wanting a new way to play Pokémon, Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! launched to critical acclaim on November 16, 2018, on the Nintendo Switch™ system.

Meltan is a rare Pokémon that appears when a Mystery Box is used in Pokémon GO. A Mystery Box can be obtained only by linking Pokémon GO with Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! or Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! Players who use their Mystery Box anytime Tuesday, February 5, through Monday, March 4, 2019, have a chance to catch Shiny Meltan in Pokémon GO. During this special event, the time that you have to wait before you can open the Mystery Box again will be reduced from seven to three days.

Pokémon: Let’s Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee! are available exclusively on Nintendo Switch. For more information, please visit http://pokemon.com/pokemonletsgo. For more information about Pokémon GO, please visit http://pokemon.com/go.

Mild Cartoon Violence

Steel Division 2 is Now Available for Pre-Purchase on Steam!

Steel Division 2 is a historically-accurate WW2 real-time strategy game set on the Eastern Front. Features 1:1-scale turn-based army management and real-time tactical battles with thousands of men at your order.

At FOSDEM last weekend, California-based Linux hacker board vendor Pine64 previewed an extensive lineup of open source hardware it intends to release in 2019. Surprisingly, only two of the products are single board computers.

The Linux-driven products will include a PinePhone development kit based on the Allwinner A64. There will be second, more consumer focused Pinebook laptop — a Rockchip RK3399 based, 14-inch Pinebook Pro — and an Allwinner A64-based, 10.1-inch PineTab tablet. Pine64 also plans to release an Allwinner S3L-driven IP camera system called the CUBE and a Roshambo Retro-Gaming case that supports Pine64’s Rock64 and RockPro64, as well as the Raspberry Pi.

The SBC entries are a Pine H64 Model B that will be replace the larger, but similarly Allwinner H6 based, Model A version and will add WiFi/Bluetooth. There will also be a third rev of the popular, RK3399 based Rock64 board that adds Power-over-Ethernet support.

The launch of the phone, laptop, tablet, and camera represents the most ambitious expansion to date by an SBC vendor to new open source hardware form factors. As we noted last month in our hacker board analysis piece, community-based SBC projects are increasingly specializing to survive in today’s Raspberry Pi dominated market. In a Feb. 1 Tom’s Hardware story, RPi Trading CEO Eben Upton confirmed our speculation that a next generation Raspberry Pi 4 that moves beyond 40nm fabrication will not likely ship until 2020. That offers a window of opportunity for other SBC vendors to innovate.

It’s a relatively short technical leap — but a larger marketing hurdle — to move from a specialized SBC to a finished consumer electronics or industrial device. Still, we can expect a few more vendors to follow Pine64’s lead in building on their SBCs, Linux board support packages, and hacker communities to launch more purpose-built consumer electronics and industrial gear.

Already, community projects have begun offering a more diverse set of enclosures and other accessories to turn their boards into mini-PCs, IoT gateways, routers, and signage systems. Meanwhile, established embedded board vendors are using their community-backed SBC platforms as a foundation for end-user products. Acer subsidiary Aaeon, for example, has spun off its UP boards into a variety of signage systems, automation controllers, and AI edge computing systems.

So far, most open source, Linux phone and tablet alternatives have emerged from open source software projects, such as Mozilla’s Firefox OS, the Ubuntu project’s Ubuntu Phone, and the Jolla phone. Most of these alternative mobile Linux projects have either failed, faded, or never took off.  

Some of the more recent Linux phone projects, such as the PiTalk and ZeroPhone, have been built around the Raspberry Pi platform. The PinePhone and PineTab would be even more open source given that the mainboards ship with full schematics.

Unlike many hacker board projects, the Pine64 products offer software tied to mainline Linux. This is easier to do with the Rockchip designs, but it’s been a slower road to mainline for Allwinner. Work by Armbian and others have now brought several Allwinner SoCs up to speed.

Working from established hardware and software platforms may offer a stronger foundation for launching mobile Android alternatives than a software-only project. “The idea, in principle, is to build convergent device-ecosystems (SBC, Module, Laptop/Tablet/ Phone / Other Devices) based on SOCs that we’ve already have developers engaged with and invested in,” says the Pine64 blog announcement.

Here’s a closer look at Pine64’s open hardware products for 2019:

PinePhone Development Kit — Based on the quad -A53 Allwinner A64 driven SoPine A64 module, the PinePhone will run mainline Linux and support alternative mobile platforms such as UBPorts, Maemo Leste, PostmarketOS, and Plasma Mobile. It can also run Unity 8 and KDE Plasma with Lima. This upgradable, modular phone kit will be available soon in limited quantity and will be spun off later this year or in 2020 into an end-user phone with a target price of $149.

The PinePhone kit includes 2GB LPDDR3, 32GB eMMC, and a small 1440 x 720-pixel LCD screen. There’s a 4G LTE module with Cat 4 150Mb downlink, a battery, and 2- and 5MP cameras. Other features include WiFi/BT, microSD, HDMI, MIPI I/O, sensors, and privacy hardware switches.

Pinebook Pro — Like many of the upcoming Pine64 products, the original Pinebooks are limited edition developer systems. The Pinebook Pro, however, is aimed at a broader audience that might be considering a Chromebook. This second-gen Pro laptop will not replace the $99 and up 11.6-inch version of the Pinebook. The original 14-inch version may receive an upgrade to make it more like the Pro.

The $199 Pinebook Pro advances from the quad-core, Cortex-A53 Allwinner H64 to a hexa-core -A53 and -A72 Rockchip RK3399. It supports mainline Linux and BSD.

The more advanced features include a higher-res 14-inch, 1080p screen, now with IPS, as well as twice the RAM (4GB LPDDR4). It also offers four times the storage at 64GB, with a 128GB option for registered developers. Other highlights include USB 3.0 and 2.0 ports, a USB Type-C port that supports DP-like 4K@60Hz video, a 10,000 mAh battery, and an improved 2-megapixel camera. There’s also an option for an M.2 slot that supports NVMe storage.

PineTab — The PineTab is like a slightly smaller, touchscreen-enabled version of the first-gen Pinebook, but with the keyboard optional instead of built-in. The magnetically attached keyboard has a trackpad and can fold up to act as a screen cover.

Like the original Pinebooks, the PineTab runs Linux or BSD on an Allwinner A64 with 2GB of LPDDR3 and 16GB eMMC. The 10-inch IPS touchscreen is limited to 720p resolution. Other features include WiFi/BT, USB, micro-USB, microSD, speaker, mic, and dual cameras.

Pine64 notes that touchscreen-ready Linux apps are currently in short supply. The PineTab will soon be available for $79, or $99 with the keyboard.

The CUBE — This “early concept” IP camera runs on the Allwinner S3L — a single-core, Cortex-A7 camera SoC. It ships with a MIPI-CSI connected, 8MP Sony iMX179 CMOS camera with an m12 mount for adding different lenses.

The CUBE offers 64MB or 128MB RAM, a WiFi/BT module, plus a 10/100 Ethernet port with Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) support. Other features include USB, microSD, and 32-pin GPIO. Target price: about $20.

Roshambo Retro-Gaming — This retro gaming case and accessory set from Pine64’s Chinese partner Roshambo will work with Pine64’s Rock64 SBC, which is based on the quad -A53 Rockchip RK3328, or its RK3399 based RockPro64. It can also accommodate a Raspberry Pi. The $30 Super Famicom inspired case will ship with an optional $13 gaming controller set. Other features include buttons, switches, a SATA slot, and cartridge-shaped 128GB ($25) or 256GB ($40) SSDs.

Rock64 Rev 3 — Pine64 says it will continue to focus primarily on SBCs, although the only 2019 products it is disclosing are updates to existing designs. The Rock64 Rev 3 improves upon Pine64’s RK3399-based RPi lookalike, which it says has been its most successful board yet. New features include PoE, RTC, improved RPi 2 GPIO compatibility, and support for high-speed microSD cards. Pricing stays the same.

Pine H64 Model B — The Pine H64 Model B will replace the currently unavailable Pine H64 Model A, which shipped in limited quantities. The board trims down to a Rock64 (and Raspberry Pi) footprint, enabling use of existing cases, and adds WiFi/BT. It sells for $25 (1GB LPDDR3 RAM), $35 (2GB), and $45 (3GB).

Hamster has confirmed that the already-promised Puzzle Bobble 2 is heading to Nintendo Switch very, very soon. So soon, in fact, that you’ll be able to get your hands on it tomorrow. We already gave that away in the title, didn’t we? Ah well.

Puzzle Bobble 2 is a tile-matching game first released by Taito in 1995. Originally appearing in arcades, the game eventually made it to home consoles under the new name of Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition in Europe and North America, appearing on the likes of N64, PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Here’s a quick description from the game’s PR:

“Puzzle Bobble 2 is an action puzzle game released by Taito in 1995 as the second sequel of PUZZLE BOBBLE. Bub and Bob, the bubble spitting dragons from the action game are back again to take on new challenges! Skillfully bounce bubbles off the walls, make chains, and erase them! Aim for even greater chains with the new Star Bubbles and Metal Bubbles!”

As mentioned above, you’ll be able to pick this one up on Switch tomorrow for $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29.

Do you have any fond memories of playing this one back in the ’90s? Will you be snapping it up on Switch tomorrow? Tell us below.

COPR is a collection of personal repositories for software that isn’t carried in Fedora. Some software doesn’t conform to standards that allow easy packaging. Or it may not meet other Fedora standards, despite being free and open source. COPR can offer these projects outside the Fedora set of packages. Software in COPR isn’t supported by Fedora infrastructure or signed by the project. However, it can be a neat way to try new or experimental software.

Here’s a set of new and interesting projects in COPR.

CryFS

CryFS is a cryptographic filesystem. It is designed for use with cloud storage, mainly Dropbox, although it works with other storage providers as well. CryFS encrypts not only the files in the filesystem, but also metadata, file sizes and directory structure.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides CryFS for Fedora 28 and 29, and for EPEL 7. To install CryFS, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable fcsm/cryfs
sudo dnf install cryfs

Cheat

Cheat is a utility for viewing various cheatsheets in command-line, aiming to help remind usage of programs that are used only occasionally. For many Linux utilities, cheat provides cheatsheets containing condensed information from man pages, focusing mainly on the most used examples. In addition to the built-in cheatsheets, cheat allows you to edit the existing ones or creating new ones from scratch.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides cheat for Fedora 28, 29 and Rawhide, and for EPEL 7. To install cheat, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable tkorbar/cheat
sudo dnf install cheat

Setconf

Setconf is a simple program for making changes in configuration files, serving as an alternative for sed. The only thing setconf does is that it finds the key in the specified file and changes its value. Setconf provides only a few options to change its behavior — for example, uncommenting the line that is being changed.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides setconf for Fedora 27, 28 and 29. To install setconf, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable jamacku/setconf
sudo dnf install setconf

Reddit Terminal Viewer

Reddit Terminal Viewer, or rtv, is an interface for browsing Reddit from terminal. It provides the basic functionality of Reddit, so you can log in to your account, view subreddits, comment, upvote and discover new topics. Rtv currently doesn’t, however, support Reddit tags.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides Reddit Terminal Viewer for Fedora 29 and Rawhide. To install Reddit Terminal Viewer, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable tc01/rtv
sudo dnf install rtv

Mobile card games are a dime a dozen. When the genre is plagued with so many different versions of what equates to the same game, it becomes difficult to tell why you’d want to pick up one of the newcomers that seem to spring up every day on the App Store and Google Play Store.

The same can be said of Silent Abyss: Fate of Heroes. Why would anyone want to spend a buck or so on yet another action-oriented card game with zero discernible story to speak of? That’s easy: Despite its shortcomings, it’s actually an extremely fun and gripping game that puts up an addictive challenge. It may be rough around the edges, but it certainly scratches that itch that games like Slay the Spire inspire.

It’s easy to assume that, when starting up Silent Abyss, you’ve wasted your cash on a game that didn’t even bother correcting its numerous English spelling mistakes or offer meaningful tutorial levels, just throwing you in and tossing you to the wolves. And while you’d be right on one level, as its production values are quite low in this regard, you’d be ill-advised to simply write it off. Silent Abyss has a lot to offer, but you’ve got to be willing to work for it.

We mean that – there is no hand-holding beyond brief explanations in the heat of battle. You’d better make full use of the tutorial screens, because they disappear shortly after, leaving you to try and work out what’s going on and accidentally winning a round by playing similarly to other card games you know and play.

Starting a new game will find you tasked with choosing two heroes from pre-set options at the beginning of the game: a Mage, Knight, or Warrior, each with their own decks of cards and unique stats, including HP. You choose two, as you’ll play with two different hands per turn. This can be jarring at first, but you get used to it quickly since it means double the moves and getting bored far less often. Each turn consists of dragging a card from your decks to the enemies or your heroes, buffing and debuffing with spells and abilities as necessary, setting traps for the next turn, or dealing devastating damage so you can emerge victorious. That’s the goal, after all.

One interesting aspect of this particular title, however, is that instead of being relegated to being able to play only one offensive or defensive card, you can continue playing additional attack cards, abilities, and defense cards until you run out of mana. That means if you want to play five or six cards among your two characters, that’s sometimes entirely possible. It does make matches go by quickly but can also be quite confusing if you’re used to more rigid and traditional rules of play.

As you continue on throughout the game, there are additional heroes to unlock, including the Warlock, Assassin, and Archer. Each come packing their own unique skillsets, but they’re all mostly the same until you start earning additional cards and better ways to customize them. You’ll begin to learn which cards work for you and which don’t make as much sense in your deck as you become acquainted with your playstyle.

Each new game is split into a series of short levels. As you make your way through each level, you’ll branch off into different paths. Some include treasure in the form of new cards, runes, or gold. You can imbue certain cards with runes, which can add additional effects such as the Burning status effect, or even something that siphons health with a successful attack. You’ll also nab the reward at the end of the path. You can opt to go the easier route for an easier chance at spoils, but you’ll have to deal with tougher enemies, and you may be looking at starting over again because of it, because you’ll have died. Again and again, sometimes, until you really get the hang of things.

Dying isn’t a problem, though. When you die and have to start over, you earn all that experience that levels up you team. This will unlock additional starting cards and accessories beyond pre-sets so you can truly customize each character’s role beyond their starting point. It’s all quite simplistic, and there isn’t a lot to explore here that you probably haven’t seen before already in other, bigger games with more ambition, It’s addictive to keep playing and see how you end up doing, but there’s no real pull toward the end beyond the simple desire to just play.

In fact, that’s Silent Abyss‘s biggest problem: there’s no real reason to keep playing beyond personal satisfaction. It’s mostly bereft of story and relies on the player’s desire to become stronger to reinforce the gameplay loop. This may work for some people, but we found it a bit lacklustre and indicative of the game’s lower quality than other titles in the genre. It could use some overall polish, resolving broken English here and there, adding more flavor text, and even more cards to liven things up.

As it stands, Silent Abyss is a fun, simple card battler with roguelike elements for a buck. Sure, it’s cheap, a little rough, and devoid of some of the niceties of other games in the genre. But if you’re looking for something nice and easy to keep you occupied when you’ve got a few minutes at a time, Silent Abyss is a choice it’s not difficult to recommend. Should it receive a healthy dose of TLC from its developer in the future, it could become a great contender for the heavy-hitters in card battlers on mobile devices.

At the time of writing, despite being a premium game Silent Abyss comes with two IAPs:

• Unlock Hero – Warlock ($0.99)
• Unlock Hero – Archer ($0.99)

These are shortcuts to two of the unlock-able classes.

Hamster has confirmed that the already-promised Puzzle Bobble 2 is heading to Nintendo Switch very, very soon. So soon, in fact, that you’ll be able to get your hands on it tomorrow. We already gave that away in the title, didn’t we? Ah well.

Puzzle Bobble 2 is a tile-matching game first released by Taito in 1995. Originally appearing in arcades, the game eventually made it to home consoles under the new name of Bust-A-Move 2 Arcade Edition in Europe and North America, appearing on the likes of N64, PlayStation and Sega Saturn. Here’s a quick description from the game’s PR:

“Puzzle Bobble 2 is an action puzzle game released by Taito in 1995 as the second sequel of PUZZLE BOBBLE. Bub and Bob, the bubble spitting dragons from the action game are back again to take on new challenges! Skillfully bounce bubbles off the walls, make chains, and erase them! Aim for even greater chains with the new Star Bubbles and Metal Bubbles!”

As mentioned above, you’ll be able to pick this one up on Switch tomorrow for $7.99 / €6.99 / £6.29.

Do you have any fond memories of playing this one back in the ’90s? Will you be snapping it up on Switch tomorrow? Tell us below.

COPR is a collection of personal repositories for software that isn’t carried in Fedora. Some software doesn’t conform to standards that allow easy packaging. Or it may not meet other Fedora standards, despite being free and open source. COPR can offer these projects outside the Fedora set of packages. Software in COPR isn’t supported by Fedora infrastructure or signed by the project. However, it can be a neat way to try new or experimental software.

Here’s a set of new and interesting projects in COPR.

CryFS

CryFS is a cryptographic filesystem. It is designed for use with cloud storage, mainly Dropbox, although it works with other storage providers as well. CryFS encrypts not only the files in the filesystem, but also metadata, file sizes and directory structure.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides CryFS for Fedora 28 and 29, and for EPEL 7. To install CryFS, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable fcsm/cryfs
sudo dnf install cryfs

Cheat

Cheat is a utility for viewing various cheatsheets in command-line, aiming to help remind usage of programs that are used only occasionally. For many Linux utilities, cheat provides cheatsheets containing condensed information from man pages, focusing mainly on the most used examples. In addition to the built-in cheatsheets, cheat allows you to edit the existing ones or creating new ones from scratch.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides cheat for Fedora 28, 29 and Rawhide, and for EPEL 7. To install cheat, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable tkorbar/cheat
sudo dnf install cheat

Setconf

Setconf is a simple program for making changes in configuration files, serving as an alternative for sed. The only thing setconf does is that it finds the key in the specified file and changes its value. Setconf provides only a few options to change its behavior — for example, uncommenting the line that is being changed.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides setconf for Fedora 27, 28 and 29. To install setconf, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable jamacku/setconf
sudo dnf install setconf

Reddit Terminal Viewer

Reddit Terminal Viewer, or rtv, is an interface for browsing Reddit from terminal. It provides the basic functionality of Reddit, so you can log in to your account, view subreddits, comment, upvote and discover new topics. Rtv currently doesn’t, however, support Reddit tags.

Installation instructions

The repo currently provides Reddit Terminal Viewer for Fedora 29 and Rawhide. To install Reddit Terminal Viewer, use these commands:

sudo dnf copr enable tc01/rtv
sudo dnf install rtv

Mobile card games are a dime a dozen. When the genre is plagued with so many different versions of what equates to the same game, it becomes difficult to tell why you’d want to pick up one of the newcomers that seem to spring up every day on the App Store and Google Play Store.

The same can be said of Silent Abyss: Fate of Heroes. Why would anyone want to spend a buck or so on yet another action-oriented card game with zero discernible story to speak of? That’s easy: Despite its shortcomings, it’s actually an extremely fun and gripping game that puts up an addictive challenge. It may be rough around the edges, but it certainly scratches that itch that games like Slay the Spire inspire.

It’s easy to assume that, when starting up Silent Abyss, you’ve wasted your cash on a game that didn’t even bother correcting its numerous English spelling mistakes or offer meaningful tutorial levels, just throwing you in and tossing you to the wolves. And while you’d be right on one level, as its production values are quite low in this regard, you’d be ill-advised to simply write it off. Silent Abyss has a lot to offer, but you’ve got to be willing to work for it.

We mean that – there is no hand-holding beyond brief explanations in the heat of battle. You’d better make full use of the tutorial screens, because they disappear shortly after, leaving you to try and work out what’s going on and accidentally winning a round by playing similarly to other card games you know and play.

Starting a new game will find you tasked with choosing two heroes from pre-set options at the beginning of the game: a Mage, Knight, or Warrior, each with their own decks of cards and unique stats, including HP. You choose two, as you’ll play with two different hands per turn. This can be jarring at first, but you get used to it quickly since it means double the moves and getting bored far less often. Each turn consists of dragging a card from your decks to the enemies or your heroes, buffing and debuffing with spells and abilities as necessary, setting traps for the next turn, or dealing devastating damage so you can emerge victorious. That’s the goal, after all.

One interesting aspect of this particular title, however, is that instead of being relegated to being able to play only one offensive or defensive card, you can continue playing additional attack cards, abilities, and defense cards until you run out of mana. That means if you want to play five or six cards among your two characters, that’s sometimes entirely possible. It does make matches go by quickly but can also be quite confusing if you’re used to more rigid and traditional rules of play.

As you continue on throughout the game, there are additional heroes to unlock, including the Warlock, Assassin, and Archer. Each come packing their own unique skillsets, but they’re all mostly the same until you start earning additional cards and better ways to customize them. You’ll begin to learn which cards work for you and which don’t make as much sense in your deck as you become acquainted with your playstyle.

Each new game is split into a series of short levels. As you make your way through each level, you’ll branch off into different paths. Some include treasure in the form of new cards, runes, or gold. You can imbue certain cards with runes, which can add additional effects such as the Burning status effect, or even something that siphons health with a successful attack. You’ll also nab the reward at the end of the path. You can opt to go the easier route for an easier chance at spoils, but you’ll have to deal with tougher enemies, and you may be looking at starting over again because of it, because you’ll have died. Again and again, sometimes, until you really get the hang of things.

Dying isn’t a problem, though. When you die and have to start over, you earn all that experience that levels up you team. This will unlock additional starting cards and accessories beyond pre-sets so you can truly customize each character’s role beyond their starting point. It’s all quite simplistic, and there isn’t a lot to explore here that you probably haven’t seen before already in other, bigger games with more ambition, It’s addictive to keep playing and see how you end up doing, but there’s no real pull toward the end beyond the simple desire to just play.

In fact, that’s Silent Abyss‘s biggest problem: there’s no real reason to keep playing beyond personal satisfaction. It’s mostly bereft of story and relies on the player’s desire to become stronger to reinforce the gameplay loop. This may work for some people, but we found it a bit lacklustre and indicative of the game’s lower quality than other titles in the genre. It could use some overall polish, resolving broken English here and there, adding more flavor text, and even more cards to liven things up.

As it stands, Silent Abyss is a fun, simple card battler with roguelike elements for a buck. Sure, it’s cheap, a little rough, and devoid of some of the niceties of other games in the genre. But if you’re looking for something nice and easy to keep you occupied when you’ve got a few minutes at a time, Silent Abyss is a choice it’s not difficult to recommend. Should it receive a healthy dose of TLC from its developer in the future, it could become a great contender for the heavy-hitters in card battlers on mobile devices.

At the time of writing, despite being a premium game Silent Abyss comes with two IAPs:

• Unlock Hero – Warlock ($0.99)
• Unlock Hero – Archer ($0.99)

These are shortcuts to two of the unlock-able classes.