In case you forgot, a live-action video game film based on Capcom’s Mega Man series is still happening and some “big news” is apparently coming soon.

The directors – Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman – revealed this during a recent interview with IGN. Mattson Tomlin (who helped write the screenplay for the upcoming film The Batman – starring Robert Pattinson) will be helping out with the script for Mega Man. Here’s what Joost had to say about his involvement:

“We had such a great time working with Mattson on Project Power that we invited him in to help us out with Mega Man. We are super excited about it. I think we’re going to have some big news about it soon. I can’t say all that much right now, but it’s a project very near and dear to our hearts and we’re psyched.”

As for directors’ history with the blue bomber, Schulman said the first Nintendo game he ever played was Mega Man, and he liked how this particular video game icon was “an underdog hero”. As for the film itself, here are some of the themes it will feature:

“Both of us are deeply fascinated by robotics and the future of automation, for better and for worse. I think trying to combine that into one of our favorite historical video games is the ultimate challenge.”

When Capcom confirmed Mega Man was to be adapted into a live-action film, it said it wanted to appeal to video game players and action-movie fans, while capturing the true spirit of a Hollywood blockbuster.

This isn’t the only Capcom movie on the way. Monster Hunter is ready to go, but recently got delayed until 2021. Would a live-action Mega Man movie interest you, or will you be sticking to the video games? Leave a comment down below.

Most computer scientists, programmers, and hackers don’t even know the meaning of the word “Quine” in the context of programming. So, first things first:

What is a Quine?

Roughly speaking, a quine is a self-reproducing program: if you run it, it generates itself.

Here’s a great definition:

:quine: /kwi:n/ /n./ [from the name of the logician Willard van Orman Quine, via Douglas Hofstadter] A program that generates a copy of its own source text as its complete output. Devising the shortest possible quine in some given programming language is a common hackish amusement. (source)

The name “quine” was coined by Douglas Hofstadter, in his popular science book Gödel, Escher, Bach, in honor of philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), who made an extensive study of indirect self-reference, and in particular for the following paradox-producing expression, known as Quine’s paradox.

Wikipedia

The shortest possible quine is the following empty program:

The program is self-reproducing because the output of the program is the program itself. Go ahead and run it in your own shell!

Let’s dive into a collection of Python Quines to demonstrate how they work!

Python One-Liner Quine 1

Here’s a short one-liner Quine, I found at this resource:

s='s=%r;print(s%%s,sep="")';print(s%s,sep="")

• You may want to improve your string formatting skills to really understand this one-liner.
• The separator argument of the print function avoids printing a new-line character at the end.
• The %r format specifier automatically supplies single quotes.

Here’s the code in an interactive shell so that you can play with this Quine in your browser:

Exercise: Run the code. What’s the output? Can you explain why?

Python One-Liner Quine 2

Voxel Tools is an open source and free C++ module for the Godot game engine that adds Voxel terrain support.  You can create both blocky Minecraft style maps, or smoothed realistic maps.

Details of Voxel Tools features:

• Realtime editable, 3D based terrain (Unlike a heightmap based terrain, this allows for overhangs, tunnels, and user creation/destruction)
• Physics based collision and raycast support
• Infinite terrains made by paging sections in and out
• Voxel data is streamed from a variety of sources, which includes the ability to write your own generators
• Minecraft-style blocky voxel terrain, with multiple materials and baked ambient occlusion
• Smooth terrain using Transvoxel
• Levels of detail for smooth terrain
• Voxel storage using 8-bit channels for any general purpose

Since Voxel Tools are implemented as C++ modules (learn more about that topic here), you are required to recompile the Godot engine.  Thankfully however Voxel Tools ships with precompiled versions available for all platforms here.  The sample level used in the below video can be cloned from this repository and the documentation is available here.

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GameDev News Godot

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The delayed U.S. House Judiciary Committee has set a new date for its antitrust hearing with Apple CEO Tim Cook and other tech company chiefs, with the executives set to attend the hearing on July 29.

And we’ve come to the end of another busy week in the world of video games – a week filled with analysis of a technical titan from a previous generation, the third anniversary of Splatoon 2, some freshly showcased upcoming titles, and gaming chairs plastered with Mario’s face. Now, it’s finally time to sit back and chat about our weekend gaming plans.

Members of Nintendo Life have done just that below, and we’d love for you to join in via our poll and comment sections. Enjoy!

Liam Doolan, news reporter

This weekend I’m continuing my adventure in Paper Mario: The Origami King. I’ll admit, I wasn’t the biggest fan of the new battle system when I was first started playing it, but it’s grown on me since then. Hopefully, this is a Paper Mario game I can actually see through to the end this time around.

Apart from Nintendo’s latest release, I’m also planning to spend some time with the Devolver Digital title, Carrion. I don’t handle horror games all that well, but reverse horror – that’s no problem. I can’t believe how fun it is to be the amorphous creature everyone is running away from!

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

Package from the East means I will be spending this weekend with imports like Umihara Kawase BaZooKa!, Brigandine: The Legend of Runersia, the elusive retail edition of Sayonara Wild Hearts and the nostalgic Famicom Namcot Collection. But the eShop had a very strong week as well so expect DEX, Carrion, and Panzer Paladin to do the rounds as well.

Game of the week is Crysis Remastered. Not because it is a small miracle to have it running at all on an Nvidia Tegra-powered tablet but for the fact that I had never played any of the series entries before. Now excuse me, I have some soldiers to terrorize by throwing them this chicken I just picked up by the shoal.

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

I plan to kick back and enjoy some laid-back games that require minimal effort on my part – at least, until Saturday afternoon. This week, I’ve been mainly focused on Paper Mario: The Origami King and Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town. Both are easy to jump in and out of, but enjoyable nonetheless. Paper Mario especially was a pleasant surprise with its beautiful graphics, hilarious writing, and unique battle system. Friends of Mineral town is a fairly nostalgic play for me, as the original game on Game Boy Advance was easily one of my favorites growing up.

And then – with the absence of any real Olympics to watch – I’ll be joining some friends in a Ring Fit Adventure Olympics livestream, where I’ll likely come in last place in everything and die of exhaustion! But it’ll be fun nonetheless (come watch if you’re in need of some entertainment, I’m sure I’ll do something ridiculous and lose it all for my team).

Gavin Lane, features editor

After splashing on Konami’s Castlevania, Contra and Arcade Classics Anniversary Collections (hey, they were 75% off!), I’ll be going on another Retro binge this weekend. After playing my Game Boy on holiday, I’m eager to play Belmont’s Revenge on Switch.

I also got properly stuck into Cuphead for the first time last week, so I’ll continue playing that. I’ve also been unlocking characters in Streets of Rage 4 with two players. What a fine, fine pair of games – real lookers, too. And I’m sure I’ll drop in on the Bug-Off in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, too. Gotta get me that Nook Miles stamp.

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars is considered to be one of the greatest Nintendo games of all time, so how would you feel about its spiritual successor being funded on Kickstarter?

This is exactly what the Mexican-based team Dragon Vein Studios plans to do with its timed-battle RPG, Another Crusade.

The game is greatly inspired by Super Mario RPG, we are actually trying to become its spiritual successor. If you ever dreamed of a sequel to it, we too share that dream, that’s why we are making this game.

In order to be released on the Nintendo Switch, this Kickstarter project needs to reach its stretch goal of $44,250 USD within the next 27 days. At the time of writing, it’s raised just $2907. The initial launch is planned for Q4 2021.

Would you be up for a spiritual sequel to Super Mario RPG? Leave a comment down below.

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For those of us in the games industry, we’ve always understood the incredible power of gaming. Over the past few months we’ve seen gaming become a part of our social fabric in ways we could never have imagined. It’s clear, now more than ever,​​ the crucial role gaming can play in our lives.

​Today we announced we are bringing Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud together at no additional cost for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate members – unleashing the power of gaming by making it more accessible than ever before. This September, in supported countries, gamers will be able to play more than 100 Xbox Game Pass titles on their phones or tablets, from the cloud, as a part of their Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership. This is one of many creator focused breakthrough innovations we will unveil, and a product of our multibillion-dollar investment in gaming tools and technology that benefit both players and developers.

As the Head of Gaming Ecosystem at Microsoft, my team is focused on empowering game creators to conceive, build, launch, and manage games – using any and all of Microsoft’s software and services, from Azure to Xbox  – to reach any player and every device. When we created Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud, our goal was to put the amazing titles from game creators all over the world into the hands of more players across more devices. We see a future where players can play console-quality games on any of their devices.

As an industry, we are moving from a world of device-centricity to a place where players, their friends, and their content becomes the center focus.  This shift creates incredible challenge and opportunity for game makers. As players increasingly demand that their gaming experience span devices, creators must have the platform, tools, and services to deliver that experience. The days of having to manage a multitude of builds, game instances and communities across device types and brands will be relegated to the past – unlocking access to more players, opening up revenue opportunities, and expanding gaming communities.

Our commitment has always been to listen carefully to what players and game creators want from the future of gaming. And, as Microsoft and Xbox’s Gaming Ecosystem team, we are on a mission to empower game creators to realize their dreams – by building the platform, tools and services that help make that future a reality. Today’s announcement is another step towards that promise, creating a path for console developers to reach millions of new players globally, on mobile.

Over the next few months, we will continue to share updates and information on our journey with Xbox Game Pass and Project xCloud. Next Thursday, July 23^rd, please join us for the Xbox Games Showcase and at 10:00am PT on August 3^rd, we’ll share more updates on game development at Microsoft through Game Stack Live.

You can read more about today’s announcement, plus the commitments Team Xbox is making to all gamers, on our Xbox Wire blog post​.

Andrée Cossette, managing director of Ubisoft Québec, is departing the studio in the midst of a wave of allegations of abuse emerging from across Ubisoft’s many studios.

Cossette’s departure is oddly timed. For her part, a post on social media seems to indicate that the exit isn’t tied to the numerous allegations about life at Ubisoft, but rather a normal departure after 22 years with the company.

The truth seems far more complex. It’s worth reiterating that across the numerous stories we’ve reported on Ubisoft, the pattern of abuse not only encompasses employees who treated other Ubisoft developers like sexual objects or emotional punching bags, but a culture in management that allowed abuse to take place as long as the games shipped on time.

Among other issues, Ubisoft Québec is one studio where developers fought “tooth and claw” to get playable female characters like Evie implemented in their games while facing intense pushback from Ubisoft leadership. It’s a far less egregious offense than the abuse of employees, but it’s one notable incident that allegedly took place under Cossette’s watch.

Ubisoft has released a statement stating that Cossette’s departure is not timed to the allegations. By their account, it’s perfectly normal for studio leadership to leave the company in the midst of an international crisis.