A series of tweets made by FuturLab, the studio behind 2D shoot-em-up game Velocity 2X, details the struggle of trying to find a publisher to sign a sequel despite millions of players having enjoyed the first game.

The studio mentions its already working on “the bells and whistles sequel” to Velocity 2X, titled Velocity Supernova, but notes that the upcoming Switch port is presumably the last hope it can convince publishers to back the sequel. 

The first tweet describes how Velocity 2X was met with success with the PlayStation 4 and Vita versions, which were then released for free through PlayStation Plus. FuturLab tweets this was “great for downloads (well into the millions)” but the presence of a large player-base wasn’t enough for publishers, who “want to see actual unit sales.”

The physical version of Velocity 2X for PS4 and Vita was published by Badland Games, but FuturLab describes it as a “very public disaster”, saying “we will likely never see another dime from it.”

The Steam version, published by Activision’s Sierra label, launched during the same weekend as Windows 10, which introduced a game-breaking bug for Nvidia graphics cards that “took us a year to fix”. As a result, the game did not do well on Steam.

3. #Velocity2X on Steam was published by Sierra/Activision on the same weekend as Windows 10 arrived, creating a game-breaking bug for NVidia cards that took us a year to fix. It therefore flopped on Steam.

— FuturLab @ Gamescom (@FuturLab) August 20, 2018

For the Switch version, FuturLab is collaborating with Curve Studios, and while FuturLab admits it could have self-published on the console, it hopes that a success on Switch will convince Curve to sign and publish Velocity Supernova.

Although Curve has not announced a release date for Velocity 2X for the Switch, FuturLab emphasizes that this is “probably your last chance to see a fully deserving sequel happen.”

Newsbrief: Two years after the perk was introduced to Amazon Prime members, Amazon has announced that it will be discontinuing its 20 percent preorder discount on physical copies of video games on August 28. 

It’s a pretty big change for Amazon, with the decision coming only a few months after Best Buy shuttered Gamers Club Unlocked, a competing service which also provided a 20 percent discount on games.

The change is essentially a reduction in value for Amazon customers, since there no longer seems to be any guarantee of saving money. The $10 store credit offer is still less than the estimated $12 shaved off from a regularly priced $60 game.

According to the retailer’s updated terms and conditions, Prime members will instead receive store credit as an incentive to preorder video games through Amazon, but only preorders of “select video games” will come with the $10 store credit promotion.

Starting at 2:00 p.m. PDT today, members of the Xbox One Preview Alpha – Skip Ahead and Preview Alpha rings will begin receiving the latest Xbox One system update (1810.180810-1920). Learn more about the new features in development for 1810 here, and read on for a list of fixes and known issues in this 1810 system update.

Important Build Notes

Avatars

We’ve received feedback that the integration of Avatars on console has been a bit confusing due to the use of phrases like “Avatars on Home” and “Avatars on Dashboard,” so we wanted to clear up a few things. Currently, Avatars are visible to Xbox Insiders in the Alpha Skip Ahead and Alpha Rings in the following places: the Avatar Editor, activity feed, leaderboards, and the Profile.

We posted an Avatar Q&A here https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2018/08/08/avatars-on-the-xbox-one-dashboard-qa/

My Games and Apps

You will notice a User Interface (UI) change to the filters in My Games and Apps.  Please provide your feedback as we flight this new UI.

FIXES:

Audio

• We have fixed the issues with audio that some users with Bitstream HDMI audio or optical out experienced hearing no audio at all or intermittent audio.

My Games and Apps

• Fixed an issue when some games and apps would not install even if the console had enough storage.

System Performance

• Various Performance and bug fixes.

Virtual Keyboard

• We have fixed the issue in which some users were reporting that the Virtual Keyboard was showing only Numbers in Just Dance 2018.

 KNOWN ISSUES:

Audio

• We are aware that some users are experiencing issues with headsets with the mic not working. Please file feedback when you see this.

 Avatars

• It can take up to 10 seconds to view an Avatar on the profile screen the first time after your console has flashed.

Console performance

• We are aware that some users encounter performance issues when coming out of instant on.  Please take the console update and then after it has landed on home, wait and be patient as some fixes are implemented.  You should then see subsequent boots being a lot faster. Please file feedback if you continue to see issues.

Microsoft Edge

• Microsoft Edge crashes for some users at random times.
• The cursor may disappear when exiting and re-entering the app
  
  • Workaround: Press Y when re-entering the app to make the cursor re-appear

Oneguide

• Sometimes users may encounter stuttering when launching straight into Oneguide after the console is turned on from Instant on.  Please file feedback when you see this.
• Here is a workaround to resolve temporarily:
  
  1. Navigate Home via the Guide
  2. Quit OneGuide manually from the Home screen
  3. Wait 15-30 secs
  4. Launch any other streaming app (Netflix, HBOGO, YouTube)
  5. One launched, play a video
  6. Once video begins playing (it should play normally) exit the app and relaunch OneGuide

Profile Color

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

Streaming Apps

• Streaming apps such as Crunchyroll and The NFL app are crashing as reported by some users.  Please file feedback if you continue to see issue.

Virtual Keyboard

• We are aware that some characters in when using the Virtual Keyboard in conjunction with a chat pad.  Workaround : Disconnect the chatpad.

When Planet Alpha launches on Nintendo Switch on 4th September, Team17 will have released a whopping 100 games for our enjoyment. To celebrate this milestone, the studio has released a new video which looks back over some of the famous titles that have helped it to become one of the UK’s most well-known names in gaming.

Founded in 1990, the Wakefield-based Team17 started life as a publisher working with the likes of Housemarque on Super Stardust and Epic on Silverball. It soon became famous for the Worms series – a mascot of which stands proudly at the studio’s main reception to greet unsuspecting guests – which launched in 1995 and has spawned a huge number of titles since including Worms W.M.D. on Switch.

In 2013, Team17 set up its global games label, helping bring hit games to the market including The Escapists and Overcooked series, Yooka-Laylee and many more. It’s been a long journey, but one that has put lots of great games into our hands, including a very healthy selection on the Switch over the last year or so.

Debbie Bestwick MBE, CEO of Team17, has released the following statement:

“The 100th game marks an incredible milestone for Team17 as we move closer towards our 30th year in this diverse and creative industry. Team17 started life as an indie publisher in 1990; the release of Planet Alpha in 2018 is a poignant moment for us all in that we have come full circle in bringing our expertise, perspective and values from our time as an independent developer to games publishing in this exciting modern era of indie games.

“I’d like to pay tribute to employees of Team17, both past and present, as we celebrate the release of a multitude of titles across many game systems from 16-bit and beyond and in countries far and wide. I’m appreciative, humbled and honoured to work with talented developers in bringing their wonderful creations to fans everywhere. We’re just as passionate and excited for the next 100 games!” 

Do you have a favourite game from the studio, either new or old? Perhaps today would be a great day to fire up a couple of your favourites and join in with the celebrations. Congrats, Team17!

DEATHGARDEN™ is Now Available on Steam Early Access!

Set in the near future, DEATHGARDEN™ revolves around a spectacular real blood sport that became the most popular entertainment on the planet. Players choose to team up as one of the five agile Runners or to embody the Hunter, a heavily armed competitor whose mission is to kill the Runners.

LF Networking (LFN), launched on January 1st of this year, has already made a significant impact in the open source networking ecosystem gaining over 100 members in the just the first 100 days. Critically, LFN has also continues to attract support and participation from many of the world’s top network operators, including six new members announced in May: KT, KDDI, SK Telecom, Sprint, Swisscom; and Deutsche Telekom announced just last month. In fact, member companies of LFN now represent more than 60% of the world’s mobile subscribers. Open source is becoming the de facto way to develop software and it’s the technical collaboration at the project level that makes it so powerful.

Similar to the demos in the LFN Booth at ONS North America, the LFN Booth at ONS Europe will once again showcase the top, community-led, technical demos from the LFN family of projects. We have increased the number of demo stations from 8 to 10, and for the first time, are showcasing demos from the big data analytics project PNDA, and demos that include the newly added LFN Project, Tungsten Fabric (formerly OpenContrail). Technology from founding LFN Projects FD.io, ONAP, OPNFV, and OpenDaylight will also be represented, along with adjacent projects like Acumos, Kubernetes, OpenCI, Open Compute Project, and OpenStack.

Read more at The Linux Foundation

Skype in the Classroom has always been one of my favorite resources for engaging students in real-life, relevant learning experiences. I recently learned that using Skype in the Classroom has become even easier for teachers with the addition of FREE activity plans! These are activity plans written by educators for educators.

5 Reasons to get excited about the launch of these helpful new resources:

Teachers always have a long to-do list. Want to engage your students with a Skype in the Classroom experience but short on time? These activity plans will help make it happen! The plans are free and easy to download in just a few seconds. Each one includes objectives (GREAT to share with parents and administrators), activities to activate background knowledge, research, brainstorming, preparing students for the call, assessment, reflection and more.

• Easy to adapt

Each activity plan can be followed step-by-step or easily adjusted to best fit your students’ needs. Once you download, each plan is fully editable, making any adjustments quick, seamless and easy. This is also a great way to save any changes after the Skype experience, so you will be able to remember how you adapted the lesson for the next time you use it with students.

• Aligned to ISTE Standards

Not only are objectives listed for each activity, they are also aligned to ISTE standards. This is a nice way to keep the big picture in mind. It’s a valuable resource to share with students, parents, administrators and colleagues.

• Help other teachers

Do you know other teachers who are curious about using Skype in the Classroom with their students but are unsure how or where to start? This handy resource will give them a step-by-step guide, including question prompts, research and assessment ideas, and more.

• Deep(er) learning

Each activity plan includes ideas to launch the lesson, research, prepare students, reflect and assess. These ideas help teachers plan intentionally for each aspect of the learning experience and provide a framework of ideas for before, during and after the Skype experience.

Whether you are looking to launch a new school year with an exciting Skype call, planning for Skype experiences throughout the year, dreaming of Skype-a-Thon connections, or whatever your Skype in the Classroom goals may be, be sure to check out and download the free activity plans to support and enhance the experience for you and your students.

By Mikey Campbell
Tuesday, August 21, 2018, 05:19 pm PT (08:19 pm ET)

Apple CEO Tim Cook gifted 23,215 shares of directly owned company stock to an unidentified charity this week, an amount worth nearly $5 million at the end of trading on Tuesday.

Cook’s charitable donation was recorded in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing today. As no shares were sold, a reporting price was not applied to the transfer.

Apple stock finished the day at $215.04, meaning Cook’s gift, if converted today, would be worth $4,992,154.

While the destination of Cook’s donation is unknown — corporate leaders are obliged to disclose movement of owned shares, but are not required to publicly report a charitable transaction’s recipient — the executive has made similar gifts in the past. In 2015, Cook transferred 50,000 shares of owned company stock to an unspecified organization.

Including an acquisition of 166 shares on Jan. 31, the last effective day of Apple’s 2017 Amended Employee Stock Purchase Plan period, the CEO now 878,425 shares of beneficially owned Apple stock.

This week’s contribution is the latest in a string of donations from the Apple chief. In 2014, Cook donated a “substantial sum” to the Human Rights Campaign’s Project One America, which focuses on promoting LGBT rights in the U.S. South. That same year, he gave $291,791 to Pennsylvania’s Steel Valley School District, funds that were later used to purchase iPads for students and teachers.

In addition to direct donations, Cook has raised funds for the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights by auctioning off one-on-one lunches through online service CharityBuzz. One such auction brought in $330,000 in 2014.

Despite amassing vast wealth as Apple’s top executive, Cook leads a relatively simple life that stand in contrast with other tech leaders who spend their fortunes on homes, yachts and planes. Indeed, Apple in 2017 mandated Cook use private jets for future travel, citing new security protocols.

Cook in 2015 said he plans to give a bulk of his money away to charity in what he called a “systematic approach” to philanthropy.

Mobile puzzle games are a dime a dozen. Many take the path of least resistance, despite the genre being one of the most open to innovation and new concepts. That’s why One More Button stands out despite its simplicity. It takes familiar mechanics and turns them on their head to make for a fun, easy-to-understand, and challenging

One More Button is the sequel to the mobile title No More Buttons, a hand-drawn platform-based puzzler with an intriguing control scheme. It’s more of the same interesting design, and could nearly be called the same game, just an extension of the original. With that said, it’s a great twist on typical ‘move this there, now stand here’ formulate that all-too-often permeates on-the-go puzzlers.

The premise is extremely simple. You play a small yellow creature with one eye looking to reach a level’s end goal. There’s only one problem: There are small bright yellow blocks in your way with lots of different arrows on them. They represent the directions your character can move in. The game doesn’t make this explicitly clear at the beginning, so before you start tapping around trying to figure things out, it can be a bit confusing if you didn’t play the first title.

You’ll notice that there’s no on-screen controls to move your character, and you can’t just tap where you want it to go. That’s because there aren’t any traditional controls. Each maze-like level instead finds you tapping on those yellow blocks with arrows on them, because those are also the controls. Pressing on one of the blocks with a right arrow will move your character right, and so on. It’s an interesting deconstruction of puzzle controls that tie up the very way you control the game as part of each stage as a whole, and it’s a refreshing change of pace because of it.

The goal of each level is obviously to reach the exit the end, marked with a block with a lock on it. This is achieved by pushing around the arrows themselves onto special areas on the map with the outline of where the buttons should go or figuring out how to push the blocks away and into areas where they aren’t blocking your path. It’s quite simple to get accustomed to early on as you’re getting your bearings, but then the game throws quite a few curveballs into the mix to keep you on your toes.

Once you’ve become adept at clearing out paths with its rather unorthodox control scheme, it’s time to tackle special unlockable areas and blocks that require you to flip them around, as you won’t be able to slide them on their designated spaces if they’re pointing in the wrong direction. Luckily, tapping on a button offers precise moves, if a bit frustrating since you’re always going to be searching where the other directional controls are with each puzzle setup. But this setup completely deconstructs the way typical mobile games approach control, which is the most admirable part of the whole thing, and something you’ll come to appreciate as you play.

If you make a mistake, unfortunately, you’ll have to simply restart the entire level. There is no undo button for your last move, so if you find that you’ve pushed a block all the way it can go to the bottom of the screen accidentally, it’s stuck there. It’s prudent to try and remember the moves you’ve made because of this, which can be a bit frustrating in later levels. There’s no real strategic reason to exclude a ‘rewind’ step, so it’s strange that the only option is to erase all progress.

While there are also plenty of levels and mazes to solve, each level isn’t very large, and only takes a few minutes to complete. This isn’t so much a negative, but a hope for longer, more complex mazes in any future content instalments or sequels. Since you’ll have to restart levels several times using the ‘undo’ feature, you’ll be spending plenty of time in each one, anyway.

One More Button is a fun experiment in changing the way players approach and think about puzzle games as well as the way they’re controlled. It’s not absolutely perfect in its execution and could use a bit polish for any future iterations, but it’s a fun diversion for a few minutes at a time while waiting at the doctor’s office or on your commute.