By AppleInsider Staff
Tuesday, September 04, 2018, 05:15 pm PT (08:15 pm ET)

Microsoft on Tuesday added call recording functionality to its Skype voice and video calling service, an oft-requested feature that will add platform value for a wide swath of users, from professionals to on-the-go podcasters.

With the latest version of Skype for iOS and Mac, users have the ability to capture and share calls for the first time since the ubiquitous chat service launched in 2003.

A cloud-based solution, recordings are initiated by clicking the “+” icon at the bottom of Skype’s user interface and selecting “Start recording.” A banner appears on the screens of all users in the voice or video chat, notifying them that the call is being recorded.

During video calls, all user video is recorded, as is content from shared screens. The latter feature could prove useful when collaborating with colleagues.

When a call concludes, recorded content is made available in all users’ chat timelines for 30 days. Participants can save the recording to local storage, including mobile devices where the clip will download as an MP4 file, or forward it to other Skype users.

Unfortunately for podcasters and audio professionals looking for a quality mobile recording solution, voice tracks appear to be combined automatically by Skype’s backend. Whether the service intends to offer split tracks in the future is unknown.

Interestingly, call recording is available on all platforms except for Microsoft’s own Windows 10, though Skype said support is due to arrive in the coming weeks.

Owners of iOS devices can download Skype for free from the App Store, while Mac users can get the app from Skype’s website.

This is the age of the Internet game: the always-online massively-multiplayer strategy game, the battle royale, the MOBA ladder, and the freemium shooter. But sometimes those just won’t do it for you. Maybe Grandma’s Wi-Fi isn’t up to the task. Maybe you have a bus ride that spends a lot of time in tunnels. Maybe you’re flying across an ocean.

Whatever the case may be, there comes a time when you need a strategy game that’s a real feast–but at a table set for one. Luckily, there are a large number of mobile games with great single-player experiences.

This is more of a ‘situational’ guide. We’re not trying to offer guidance on a whole genre here – we’re offering some of our top picks for offline strategy games on android and iOS. As such, you may recognise some of these entries from other guides we’ve done.

Games for the Airplane

Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions (iPhone|iPad & Android)

Lots of old console titles have been ported to mobile, but not many are worth the hassle. Final Fantasy Tactics is the exception. Brought over from the beautiful PSP port with an improved translation, gorgeous cel-shaded cutscenes, and new aspect ratio, the game still has the PlayStation original’s RPG-influenced tactics. Most importantly, FFT is the one console port that works brilliantly with touch controls. What makes FFT a great use of your offline time is its mammoth campaign with a rich, mature storyline. There’s gameplay here to fill a few months of commutes.

Likewise, the mobile port of XCOM is rightly lauded as one of the few PC-quality experiences to be had on a tablet. Not only did this standalone expansion of the original ground-breaking remake Enemy Unknown polish off all the rough edges of its original, it added great new wrinkles to the classic core gameplay. You still get a massive open-ended campaign with tactical turn-based missions, but now you have a much more interesting storyline that has your soldiers questioning whether they have gazed too long into the abyss to still be considered human.

For something in the same vein but more old-school, Aliens vs Humans is a clone/remake/homage to the original X-Com: UFO Defense. For gamers of a certain age, it will bring back fond memories (or nightmares) of staying up late into the morning, tentatively clicking End Turn and dreading the ominous message: Hidden Movement. Its globe-spanning campaign, base-building, and tactical missions are more open-ended, but just as compelling as the more recent X-COM reboot, as long as you don’t mind 2D graphics.

For a different sort of grand experience, try the venerable Battle for Wesnoth, an open-source project fifteen years in the making. It’s a grand strategy game with a Tolkienesque fantasy theme. There’s a massive variety of units in six highly distinct factions, plus different historical ages that change the balance. Its sixteen (!!) lengthy and story-based campaigns will keep you busy for a long long time. The complexity of the interface means this is one for the tablet, and the free Android version is a bit jankier than the more polished (and paid) iOS version.

Games for the Bus

Doorkickers makes a great bite-sized tactical treat. Each mission is a puzzle that you solve by drawing lines for your squad of police officers to follow. First you plan, then you can pause the game at any time to modify your strategy. The encounters are over as quickly as a real tactical breach would be, which means if you screwed up and got your officers fragged you can try again almost immediately. You can pass a mission with minimal requirements, but casualties and mistakes will carry over to the next level. While there’s not much story here, there is a gradual progression of unlockable gear and skills and new, more challenging missions. At the same time, you’re free to take on any one of several campaigns at the same time. Get stuck and you can just try a different one.

This is another great tactical game that works well with a touch interface. Set in a futuristic city with cyborg commandos that can be controlled remotely, Frozen Synapse breaks turns out of a real-time battle by pausing every few seconds for both sides to issue new orders. The orders play out simultaneously, so the core mechanic is predicting what your opponent is going to do next.

While Frozen Synapse is extra great with a human partner to second-guess, it also has a very cool single-player campaign with a pretty interesting post-cyberpunk story-line. This also features quite a variety of mission types, smart AI, and satisfying progression. On iOS, you’ll also be able to get the original, with hip minimalist graphics. On Android, you’ve got the Prime remake, which is essentially the same game but with more realistic visuals.

This mission-based RTS will take a little more commitment, but the rewards are worth it. From veteran developers Ironhide, creators of the mega-hit Kingdom Rush, is a polished, neon-colored gem of a mobile strategy game. It’s your basic space marines vs aliens set against highly improbable but beautiful alien landscapes. Your commander has MOBA-like hero abilities that will help you face a variety of mission types and enemies, and the game can get pretty tough later in the campaign.

For a less bubbly and more grimdark take on the same theme, there’s this tactical-RPG with clear Warhammer 40k influences. For those who prefer to take their time, Templar Battleforce has turn-based missions in a linear order, with time in-between to customize your space knights to your heart’s content. The storyline is serviceable enough, and the graphics are utilitarian, but there’s deep strategy to be had here. Don’t forget, there is a free version on Android that is supported by ads.

What would your favourite offline strategy games be for mobile? Let us know in the comments!

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

---

AI Development: The Strings we Pull

Hello everyone, this is Liam McDonald. I’m one of the Developers at Failbetter Games. I’m taking a brief moment to share some of the exciting combat redesign work I’ve been doing with Paul Arendt. We’ve been looking over all the enemies (Agents) in Sunless Skies to update them with some of the new features that are being introduced in the latest build. We’ve just completed the fleshiest part of that work. So cast your eyes downward for a look at how exactly we go about bringing horror to your screens.

Terminology for this article:

Player – The player, that’s you!
Agent – Any monster/enemy/NPC.

Actor – An umbrella term: the Player is an Actor, an Agent is also an Actor.

I’m also going to nod quickly in the direction of a crucial bit of underlying tech, the Node Graph. The Node Graph specifies the points in a scene where an actor can move – areas without terrain, basically. The logic which controls how Agents move around our world begins with the selection of a Node; we determine what Node to select by weighting all of the Nodes near the Agent. I’m going to look at how we manipulate the rules behind the Node weighting in order to achieve our design goals.

Below is a screenshot of our Combat Scene where we do a lot of our testing – you can see the Node Graph in all its glory.

 

The full design of any Agent is lot to unpack, but I’m going to cover these main topics: Area Denial, Tells, Wrath, Passions, Provocations and Tactics.

I am not going to discuss Movement. We have a wide range of parameters available to control Agent Movement and it is an important part of the look and feel of an Agent. However it is too complicated to get into in this blog. Ultimately, the goal behind our manipulation of the Movement Parameters is to produce an agent that can perform the manoeuvers we’ve assigned it and that has fluid movement appropriate to their nature. For this blog, Movement can be considered a tool that helps improve the quality of the other areas I’ll be discussing.

The screenshot below which contains the Movement Parameters.

 

The Strings of Design

This is a concept that helps convey how a designer works to achieve their vision. The ‘Strings of Design’ can be individually adjusted by a designer to pull a design into shape. Each string is an individual piece of tech work or a game feature. I’ve already mentioned some of these strings above: Movement Parameters, Passions, Tactics. But we can also use some more common strings, such as Agent Health, Weapon Damage and Wrath (aggro). So, let’s go through these Sunless Skies strings to see how they’re used to improve combat in game!

 

Tells

When an Agent is about to attack, we wanted there to be signalling, so that a player has time to react. We refer to that signalling as a ‘Tell’. During the combat redesign we added a large number of Tells to the Agents’ attacks. We’ll be adding even more in the future. Here are just a few:

Area of Denial

We don’t want combat to feel static – it should be fluid,encouraging constant assessment of your position, taking into account your opponents’ movement and behaviour. To create this need for the player to move, we’ve created areas of denial – areas in which it would be undesirable for a player to remain. These are created through a combination of the Agent’s ability to reposition itself relative to the player and the agent’s choice of attacks.

Here is a first draft of the Scorn Fluke’s attack. When the player is in close proximity, it has the ability to fire a projectile that will explode causing blast damage. We’ve created an Area of Denial ring.

It can be seen in action here:

Wrath

Wrath is a simple numerical value. It measures how Wrathful an agent is towards another Actor in the game. Agents are capable of gaining Wrath toward any other Actor – the player or other Agents. We do prevent Agents of the same type attacking each other. When an Agent exceeds the Wrath threshold with regards to an Actor, that Actor becomes the Agent’s opponent. Here is the Wrath Indicator in action:

Passions

When an Agent has no opponent, their movement will be dictated by a Passion, selected from their list of Passions. When an Agent is spawned, the Node they were spawned on is stored as their ‘Home Node’. We have designed two sets of Passions: the first allows an Agent to Wander a certain distance around their home area – if they exceed this distance, they return to the Home Node. The second set of Passions move the Agent towards the player – if this exceeds a set distance, they return to their Home Node before trying to move towards the player again. Below shows the Wander passion in effect:

Provocations

Provocations are the sets of rules which can add or subtract Wrath from an Agent. There are many ways we can implement a provocation. For instance, we can have Agents that gain Wrath rapidly when the player is in close proximity. Or we can have Agents who only gain Wrath if the player’s headlight is on them.

Another powerful aspect of Provocations is the ability to have them check against certain Player states or belongings. Chorister Bees may usually be quite peaceful, but if you happen to be carrying their Nectar…

Tactics

Once an Agent has an opponent, they will stop using Passions for their movement and start using Tactics. Provocations will still add or subtract Wrath when the right conditions are met. So, if you are able to flee from the Agent, Wrath will go down until you are no longer their opponent. But while the Agent has an opponent, its movement will rely on the Tactics.

We score all Tactics using their Base Weight and a Multiplier. This Weighting dictates how likely a Tactic is to be selected. We use the Multipliers to increase the likelihood of a specific Tactic being chosen. If we wanted to create a Tactic that allows the firing of the Agent’s Primary Weapon – perhaps a shotgun – when the Agent is close to the player, we’d add a large Multiplier to the Primary Weapon when the distance to the player is small.

Next up is Node Weighting, which governs where the Agent is trying to go when they are executing a Tactic. The Agent needs to select a Node from our Node Graph, so we have to score the Nodes so that the Agent can decide which they should pick. In the screenshot of the Close Range Flank Tactic, above, we’re saying that Nodes which are at a particular angle from the opponent (in this case behind the opponent) are weighted at, let’s say, 8. We also weight Nodes within 300-100 units from the opponent at 6. So if a Node is both behind the opponent and between 100-300 from them, it’ll benefit from the weighting of both conditions and therefore will be the most likely to be selected. The result of these weightings helps us to achieve the flanking behaviour that this Tactic is named after.

Finally, we have some optional parameters. We can, for example, have a completion condition. Maybe I want a Tactic to finish when the Agent gets within 400 units from the opponent, so that it can transition to a Ramming attack. We can also add a Timeout. Perhaps a Tactic is hard to achieve when the player is always moving. In this case, we want the Agent to try to achieve it for x seconds, then to move on to another Tactic.

Player Facing will force the Agent to constantly try to face the Player while executing its Tactic. Finally, we have check boxes which turn on Aura Abilities and Weapon Fire. These mean that it is possible for those to execute while the Agent is performing this Close Range Flank Tactic.

Chaining Tactics allows us to layer the complexity of the design. We may want to have a Tactic where an Agent starts by using ‘Approach Player’, then, after completing this, it goes straight into ‘Ram Player’. After the Ram completes, we may want it to then ‘Create Distance From Player’. The design might dictate that the Agent is only able to Ram when it follows that particular chain of Tactics. Other times it makes more sense to have many Tactics available and let the Agent select between them to create a more unpredictable flow to the fight. Which approach is best depends largely on the behaviour we’re trying to achieve and the movement abilities of the specific Agent.

Passions, Provocations and Tactics play the largest role in the AI behaviour of an Agent. Here’s an example of a completed set, using the Douser Engine:

 

Those are just some of the strings we pull to determine an Agent’s behaviour. But how do we decide what behaviour to choose for an Agent? It starts with our Agent’s Personality – we have wealth of information from Sunless Skies’ narrative. If we need more information, we can speak directly to the writers to get a better sense of the Agent we’re designing. Then we boil this information down to touch stones that we can work with. Here’s the Scrive Spinster:

Personality: grieving, bitter, lonely, wants to be left alone – unless the player has works from the Scrives’ library, because they frantically want those back.

Movement ideas: these are teasers who will attempt to keep the player at medium distance, so that they are at the mercy of their high damage, ranged attack. Movement should feel floaty and ethereal.

We can quickly translate that into behaviour that we know we can effect with our design strings. Here’s what that personality might be broken down into:

Passions: Should roam, quietly and alone.
Nodes: The Scrive doesn’t want to go face to face. It will also favour keeping distance between it and the player.

Provocation: If provoked it will attack. If it senses that you are carrying works from their library, it will attack.

Tactic: Because it doesn’t want to face the player, if the player forces that situation, the Scrive should become aggressive and attack more frantically.

This is step one of the design. We lay out the core pillars that should be present in order to translate the narrative ideas into the Agent’s behaviour. When we’re happy with that base, we keep layering, keep pulling the design strings to add complexity to the design until we reach a point where we know that the initial ideas are strongly present in both the movement and attacks.

 

Here’s a look at how that face to face retaliation panned out:

Hopefully this has been a useful insight into part of our design process. I also hope that you’re itching to jump into Sunless Skies and experience all this new combat work. We look forward to hearing your feedback :).

Follow Liam on twitter @wgoodspeed, and follow development @failbettergames. Sunless Skies is available on Steam and GOG.

Rocket League provided more details for the Rocket Pass today, a limited-time progression system available to players starting September 5 and running through November 26.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as Psyonix mentioned last month that it would be retooling Rocket League’s progression system through the introduction of the limited-time passes.

The new business model is likely a response to the Battle Pass popularized by games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but it’s always interesting to see how different devs approach earning revenue.

As detailed on Rocket League’s website, tier progression begins by playing matches online to earn free rewards, with an option to purchase the premium pass for extra rewards and cosmetic upgrades for every tier.

While there isn’t any mention of how much the premium pass will cost, it’s worth noting that players will get more rewards if they choose to pay for it.

After Rocket Pass ends, players will be able to keep their free and premium rewards they’ve earned. When the next Rocket Pass begins, all players start back at tier 1.

To learn more about Rocket Pass and how the tiered progression works, click here.  

A new report published by Japanese news outlet IT Media has found that Nintendo ranks as the sixth most desirable company among aspiring undergraduates in the country – a rise from last year when the company was the ninth most popular.

The idea of working at Nintendo sounds like a dream come true – making games, playing games, and a theoretical employee discount being just some of the perks – and despite there being a lack of knowledge surrounding how things are carried out behind the scenes, a job there is very high on the list of up and coming Japanese students. Importantly, this report asked students which company they’d like to work for before actually job-hunting; they’ll no doubt come crashing down a peg or two when they realise how few opportunities come about with the gaming giant.

As for the rest of the list? Well, Nintendo was narrowly beaten by Amazon Japan at number five, Google came in at number four, ‘Government Official’ was third, Apple Japan came in second, and ‘Local Government Employee’ was number one. Taking away those highly sought after governmental positions, however, only Apple, Google, and Amazon were found to be more popular – not bad going considering the size and scale of those companies.

Sony also came in at ninth, although – with the company having multiple business ventures in the worlds of electronics, music, film, and more – it’s hard to pinpoint exactly how much of this interest comes from the video game side of the business.

Do you think working at Nintendo would be a dream job? Or do you think you’d still get tired of the ol’ 9 to 5? Let us know with a comment down below.

Two Point Hospital is Now Available on Steam and is 10% off!*

Design stunning hospitals, cure peculiar illnesses and manage troublesome staff as you spread your budding healthcare organisation across Two Point County.

*Offer ends September 5 at 10AM Pacific Time