This latest Beta brings those playing closer to what you would see and expect on the Java Edition of Minecraft.  Overall a lot of fixes are the main focus on this beta.  If you find more please be sure to report them to Mojang Studios!

Remember that only those on Xbox One / Windows 10 / and Android may participate in the Beta builds.  You will not be able to join Realms or non-beta players worlds and you will not be able to open worlds opened in the Beta in earlier/current stable builds of Bedrock.

Crashes and Stability

• Fixed several crashes that could occur during gameplay
• Fixed a crash when auto crafting 64 honey blocks from recipe book in survival MCPE-68604
• Fixed an issue that could occur if the player equipped any piece of netherite armor, used a clear command to clear it, and then equipped another piece of netherite armor of the same type
• Fixed a crash that could happen when a mob’s state changed
• Fixed navigation.walk to handle the case where it is used on a flying entity, so that the flying entity will not cause lag while it is touching the ground

General

• Updated Mojang Studios loading screens
• Nether biome distribution now better matches that in Minecraft: Java Edition
• Fixed issue where players on Xbox One may have errors accessing the Marketplace
• Improved reliability of loading characters MCPE-55968
• Fixed an instance where a character can be lost when offline
• Fixed an issue that prevented achievements from being unlocked offline after reconnecting
• Fix issue of incorrect player hand animations when using fishing rod in third person MCPE-63088
• Fixed the Xbox main menu getting stuck forever after cancelling the sync popup box MCPE-53266
• Secondary players in a splitscreen game will now animate properly when you look at them
• Suspending and resuming the game will no longer make a player’s model disappear MCPE-63119
• The second player’s hands in a split screen game will no longer disappear when you look at them with the first player MCPE-58806
• Nether Bricks texture has been updated
• Chiseled Netherbrick and Quartz Bricks textures are updated
• Crimson Trap Door is now called Crimson Trapdoor
• Warped Forest are now more rare compared to other Nether biomes
• When players enter Warped Forest, the previous music track now plays until it’s finished
• Bedrock Credits have been updated
• Fixed issue where experimental mode was not being enabled for clients when the server level has it enabled
• Optimised sound loading – “load_on_low_memory” is now deprecated in sound_definitions.json, as all audio can now play on low memory devices
• Fixed a world conversion issue that was causing some items in chunks to convert to Bedrock incorrectly

Gameplay

• Dyeing shulker boxes no longer causes items to vanish MCPE-64164
• Fixed incorrect spawn position when set on top of a pressure plate MCPE-65487
• Fixed issue where taking Arrows, Fireworks, or Nautilus shells into the offhand will break the offhand UI slot MCPE-64227
• Fixed an issue where lava would drop uncooked food MCPE-74767
• Added fallback to world spawn if the Respawn Anchor spawn is obstructed
• “You home bed was missing or obstructed” message shows again
• “Respawn point set” message is now displayed for the Respawn Anchor in all cases MCPE-73159
• Respawn Anchors can be charged without setting respawn point and without exploding outside the Nether MCPE-69044
• The Respawn Anchor can now have blocks placed against if it contains no charge
• Villagers will now harvest crops regardless of what crop amounts they have in their inventory MCPE-67694
• XP orbs shoot in random directions once again MCPE-58715
• It’s now impossible to use beds if there is no room for the player to stand next to or on top of the bed when they wake up MCPE-42881
• It’s now impossible to interact with Piglins who are admiring golden items MCPE-69861
• Respawn anchors no longer destroy blocks when detonated underwater
• Respawn Anchor now plays an appropriate sound when it depletes MCPE-69265
• Lodestone Compass is now supported in commands  MCPE-68994
• Barrier blocks no longer generate in Bastion Remnants
• Chests in Bastion Remnants now always generate with loot  MCPE-69003
• Mobs no longer consume one of two Swords of the same material dropped in the same place
• Fixed Smithing table sound not playing while being used  MCPE-69066
• Respawn Anchor charging sound no longer plays in Basalt Delta biome  MCPE-69189
• Lodestone and compass now play an appropriate sound
• Twisting Vines Block is now called Twisting Vines
• ‘Oooh, shiny!’ achievement now unlock when distracting a Piglin with a Gold Ingot by right-clicking
• Twisting Vines and Weeping Vines are now destroyed, and popped as items, immediately when flooded
• Mined Nether Sprouts no longer produce an invalid item that could not be used MCPE-74339
• Moving blocks now have the correct collision box MCPE-62419
• Fire now properly converts to Soul Fire on Soul Sand and Soul Soil when Fire ticking is turned off  MCPE-69823
• Campfires can now be crafted with charcoal MCPE-70862
• Using Quartz Block in a stonecutter now produces Quartz Slabs instead of Smooth Quartz slabs MCPE-57925
• Dispenser now uses 1 glowstone when filling Respawn Anchor  MCPE-72686
• Silk touch enchant now works on Respawn Anchor
• Silk touch enchant and setBlock command now works on Crimson button, Warped button, Crimson hyphae, Stripped crimson hyphae, Warped hyphae, Stripped warped hyphae, Weeping vines, Twisting vines, Blackstone pressure plate, Polished blackstone button
• Chains can now be pushed by Pistons without breaking
• Soul Torches can now also be crafted with charcoal MCPE-70585
• Warped Fungus on a Stick can now be enchanted similar to Carrot on a Stick MCPE-70948
• Striders now take falling damage MCPE-70886
• Baby Strider sitting on an adult Strider now freeze when its parent is on land MCPE-71413
• Striders movement speed has been adjusted to closer match Minecraft Java Edition
• Netherite items will not catch fire because they are fire resistant
• Large Basalt Columns can no longer be over 10 blocks tall
• Basalt Deltas now have the correct blocks generating in the biome
• Blackstone Buttons, Pressure Plates, Slabs and Walls now have the right appearance on Maps
• Respawn Anchor can now only be mined by Diamond or Netherite Pickaxe MCPE-72102
• Mobs now prefer Stone Sword over Gold Sword (except for Piglins!)
• Twisting Vines and Weeping Vines now emit correct sounds when broken
• Chain now plays correct sound when placed
• Lodestone now requires a Pickaxe to be mined
• Many doors had their texture updated
• Warped Stem and Crimson Stem now have the same mining time as Oak Log
• Warped Planks or Crimson Plank slabs no longer appear as default in recipes for some items
• Player no longer spawns on a block after relaunching the world while falling
• Fixed an issue that could cause the player to respawn underwater
• Netherite shovel can now be used to extinguish campfires MCPE-65730
• Soul soul can be mined more quickly with shovels now MCPE-65382
• Crimson and Warped Hyphae (including stripped) can now be crafted into planks in Bedrock MCPE-73099
• Weeping Vines can now be grown using bone meal with dispensers MCPE-65660

Mobs

• Fixed an issue where chickens on slabs wouldn’t take damage from lava MCPE-74990
• Hoglins should now always be pacified after fleeing from Warped Fungus
• Mobs can now pathfind on Soul Sand blocks
• Piglins can now outrun Hoglins
• Hoglins will retaliate against crossbow wielding Piglins less frequently
• Villagers no longer drop items they pick up
• Using Pickblock on Zoglin now gives Zoglin spawn egg
• Netherite helmet now renders properly on Piglins
• Hoglins and Zoglins are now more resistant to knockback
• Piglins now make a retreating sound while fleeing from Soul Fire Torches, Soul Fire Lanterns and Soul Fire
• Piglins and Hoglins behavior while fleeing has been improved
• Zoglin and Zombified Piglin no longer drown in lava
• Changed many mobs’ behavior while drowning in lava
• Aggravated Piglins no longer barter
• Gold Ingot now always properly render in Piglins hand during bartering
• Mobs should no longer consume items they pick up
• Piglin now become angry when Trapped Chests are destroyed
• Hoglins no longer flee from Zoglins
• The Zombified Piglin texture has been updated
• Mobs that can equip helmet armor can now also equip Turtle Shell
• Fixed an issue where tamed pets would occasionally disappear after transferring to or from the nether
• Angry Bees are now slower MCPE-53689

Blocks

• Iron Bars and Glass Panes now connect to Walls MCPE-73989
• Hyphae blocks can now be crafted into their respective planks MCPE-73099
• Moving blocks now have the correct collision box  MCPE-62419

Graphical

• Fixed low light emitting block items not matching the placed blocks brightness
• Fixed mobs in mob spawners not being visible MCPE-56879
• Maps in item frames no longer have lines through them MCPE-46154
• Fixed maps missing textures after reloading world MCPE-54228
• Fixed issue where lighting wasn’t refreshed when going through portals back into overworld MCPE-338144
• Fixed the excessive hand bob motion caused by playing an animation on the hand and camera together MCPE-54072
• Items held by mobs should now render correctly
• Lodestone Compass now renders properly in the inventory

User Interface

• Tweaked Server Tab navigation
• Creative Recipe Books show item groupings again
• Added a background to title and subtitle text with adjustable opacity Opacity can be changed in the “Accessibility” tab in the Settings menu
• Added a background to the actionbar text used in the /title command The same background is also applied to the item text above the hotbar
• Smithing Table UI has been updated

Commands

• Fixed a bug where bees and other new mobs were missing a non-“minecraft:” version for /summon commands. You should be able to spawn vanilla mobs without it! MCPE-58557
• Added new overload for /replaceitem with an option for destroy (the old behavior) or keep (the command will return an error if an item occupies that slot)
• Fixed issue where the clear command would not clear damaged tools
• /setblock command fails on the new blocks if attempted with non-default state MCPE-65395
• /setblock command now works for more block states

Add-Ons and Scripting

• Fixed knockback issue that stopped crates in “Rescue Mission Lava Town” Marketplace pack from moving when hit
• Added a new loop mode to animations: now instead of omitting “loop” to have it stop playing when finished, or setting “loop”: true to have it loop when finished, you can now say “loop”: “hold_on_last_frame” to keep applying the last frame of animation
• A content error will now show up if a Range json node is defined as an array with a single value
• A content error will now show up if you use more than one Move Control Component, Jump Control Component, or Navigation Component
• Functions with a mix of invalid and valid commands will only execute the valid ones with command version 1.15 and below In these cases, the function name will not show up in the auto-suggestion list but can still be executed if typed out
• Starting on 1.16, functions with any invalid commands (for example incorrect selector syntax) will no longer register and cannot be called
• When setting the json variables “attack_interval_min” and “attack_interval_max”, the component will now correctly throw a content error if the max is less than the min MCPE-63542
• Fixed issue where sounds would sometimes have incorrect settings applied to them leading to 2D sounds to play as 3D and vice versa
• Fixed issue that was cutting off playing sound incorrectly, though can still easily occur if audio is loaded up that takes up a lot of memory
• Comments in JSON arrays no longer cause an error MCPE-40873

Update (Mon 8th Jun, 2020 15:30 BST): Team17’s run ‘n’ gun roguelike Neon Abyss has now received a solid release date for Nintendo Switch and other platforms. Confirmed in the new trailer above, the game is set to launch on 14th July.

You can find more details on this one in our original article below.

Original Article (Mon 30th Mar, 2020 14:00 BST): Team17 and Veewo Games have revealed that Neon Abyss, a fast-paced action-platformer previously announced for Steam, will also come to Nintendo Switch this year.

The game has players fighting their way through procedurally generated dungeons, tasked by Hades with dispatching the New Gods in a “colourful and fast-paced blend of run ‘n’ gun gameplay and roguelite mechanics”.

We have a list of key features for you if you’d like to know more, as well as a brand new trailer which you should have hopefully spotted already above.

Key Features:
– Roguelite: Death is not the end. When players die, they come back more powerful than before, lasting longer with each incarnation
– Pets: Hatch and evolve pets along your journey to give you additional firepower and perks
– Unlimited item synergies: Random item drops throughout the levels will give players the chance to stack passive effects to devastating effect, and with an almost limitless number of combinations, every run will be unique
– Mini-games: In-between slaying gods, mini-games such as piano performances, meditation challenges, dance competitions and more will give players the chance to not only kick back and relax for a second, but provide extra loot too

If you’re keen, a time-limited demo is currently available on Steam – interestingly, the harder the difficulty you select, the longer the demo lets you play.

Liking the look of this one? Let us know if you’ll be adding Neon Abyss to your Switch wishlist with a comment below.

Valve has announced that the Steam Summer Game Festival has been delayed from June 9th to June 16th. The festival, which was originally set to run through the 14th, will now run through the 22nd.

This news came to Gamasutra by way of an e-mail from Valve, which contained exactly one line. “The Steam Game Festival has been rescheduled for Tuesday, June 16th thru June 22nd.” That’s it, that’s the e-mail.

The delay of the Summer Game Festival itself isn’t surprising. Every other event that was set to replace the usual E3 preview ensemble has announced its postponement, most of them crediting the current Black Lives Matter protests, and a need to prioritize justice over video game hype.

However, Valve has not given such a reason. Nor has Valve made any statement about the Black Lives Matter protests. The latter fact would normally not be cause for such extreme concern if so many other developers had not already spoken out and made donations to organizations working to advance racial justice.

Valve also has faced criticism for the propogation of hate groups and a lax approach to moderating racial slurs on Steam. Team Fortress 2 players have apparently been facing a flood of racist in-game bots in the last two months as well.

It’s a little unusual to see Valve’s tight-lipedness suddenly be applied to a cause that has found support among game developers big and small.

GI.Biz’s Rebekah Valentine has spoken to some developers included in the Festival, who’ve said they’re in favor of the delay but only found out in the same window that the press did.

Gamasutra has reached out to Valve for further comment. We will update this story when it responds.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Mountain View, CA

Game Closure is on the hunt for backend / systems engineers to help us build the services and infrastructure that power our social games that are played by millions of people every day on Facebook, Viber, Line and other messaging platforms. We are a growing team with offices in Mountain View and San Francisco, California, Tokyo, Japan and some possibilities for remote work. If you want to join us to make great games on our cutting edge technology and truly make an impact, then we want to talk to you!

As a Systems Engineer at Game Closure, you will play a pivotal role in creating a platform to revolutionize the instant games development industry. Our engineers are generally amazing at something and great at everything else. We write scalable backend systems, cross-compilers, JavaScript / TypeScript game APIs and tools, and whatever else it takes. No matter what you work on each day, you will work with the best engineers in the world; we have top talent in every part of our stack.

The Role:

• Be a key member of a high performing software engineering team.
• Architect and code sophisticated client/server systems for instant gaming.
• Play a critical role in day-to-day coding, performance profiling, optimization, and general troubleshooting.
• Collaborate with design, engineering, and production teams to devise optimal engineering solutions to game requirements.
• Learn from and mentor other engineers on your team.
• Take ownership of your projects to make them the best they can possibly be.
• Provide valuable input on the company’s long-term engineering roadmap and help identify areas of opportunity for improvement.
• Define the cutting edge of social gaming!

Desired Skills:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science or related field, or equivalent experience.
• 3+ years of professional software engineering experience.
• Experience writing clean, testable, high-quality code and designing highly scalable systems in production.
• Solid familiarity with deployment on cloud environments (AWS, GCP, Azure, etc.).
• Strong Computer Science fundamentals in software systems design, algorithms, and data structures.
• Ability to interact with peers in a constructive and productive style.
• Familiarity with git, svn, or other VCS.
• Good communication skills and the ability to work effectively on shared projects with designers, artists, testers, product managers, and other developers.
• Strong team player with a positive attitude.

Bonus:

• Expert knowledge of NodeJS and ES6 / TypeScript.
• DevOps experience — setting up CI/CD environments, orchestrating deployments, creating monitoring dashboards, anything that makes the development process easier, more enjoyable and more accountable.
• Experience in game development and shipped titles.

GC Perks:

• Medical, Dental, & Vision: Top quality insurance options with 100% of premiums covered
• Social Events: Weekly team dinners, quarterly team excursions, game nights, karaoke, and more
• Commuter Pass + Free Parking: Your commute and parking to the office is on us!
• PTO: Unlimited vacation policy
• Meals: Free daily lunches, well stocked kitchen, healthy snacks and drinks
• Pet-Friendly Office: Bring your pets to work to foster a friendlier and happier workplace
• Fitness: Free onsite yoga classes

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

Cesium, the makers of Cesium Ion and the open source CesiumJS open world data technologies have just announced they received an Epic Megagrant.  This will enable them to create Cesium for Unreal Engine, a free and open source add-on for Unreal Engine that will enable developers to use their 3D Tile world data in games and applications developed directly in UE.

Details of the MegaGrant win on the Cesium blog:

I can’t think of anything that better exemplifies Cesium’s belief in combining geospatial and 3D computer graphics than the support of Epic Games and the Epic MegaGrants program to build Cesium for Unreal Engine.

This marks the first time a full-scale, high-precision 3D globe is plugged into a leading game engine, opening a world of possibilities for Unreal’s users. Together we will advance training & simulation, architecture, games, AR/VR, autonomous driving, and other industries by enabling 3D Tiles to be streamed into Unreal for accurate visualization of real-world locations captured by satellites and drones—using the same 3D geospatial knowledge that has gone into CesiumJS for nearly a decade.

You can learn more about Cesium, the MegaGrant program and more in the video below.

GameDev News Unreal

A previous Fedora Magazine article covered tracking your time and tasks. Another introduced some mind mapping tools. There you learned that mind mapping is a visual technique for structuring and organizing thoughts and ideas. This article covers another mind mapping app you can use in Fedora: Freeplane.

Freeplane is a free and open source software application that supports thinking, sharing information and getting things done. Freeplane runs on any operating system that has a current version of Java installed.

Installing Freeplane

Freeplane is not currently packaged in the Fedora repositories, so you will need to install it from the project’s website.

1. Go to the project’s Sourceforge site and click Download to download the file
2. Open a terminal and extract the file (note that the version you download may be different): unzip freeplane_bin-1.8.5.zip
3. Move the extracted contents to the /opt directory: sudo mv freeplane-1.8.5 /opt/freeplane

The configuration file is located in: ~/.config/freeplane. You can launch Freeplane by running /opt/freeplane/freeplane.sh from a terminal, but if you want to launch it from the desktop environment you can create a desktop file.

Open your favorite text editor and save the contents below to ~/.local/share/applications/freeplane.desktop.

[Desktop Entry]

Version=1.0

Name=Freeplane

Icon=/opt/freeplane/freeplane.svg Exec=/opt/freeplane/freeplane.sh

Terminal=false

Icon=freeplane

Type=Application

MimeType=text/x-troff-mm; Categories=Office;

GenericName=Freeplane

Comment=A free tool to organise your information

Keywords=Mindmaps; Knowledge management; Brainstorming;

Next, update the desktop file database with update-desktop-database ~/.local/share/applications

Now you can launch Freeplane from your desktop environment.

Using Freeplane

At its first startup, Freeplane’s main window includes an example mind map with links to documentation about all the different things you can do with Freeplane.

Start your First Mind Mapping

You have a choice of templates when you create a new mind map. The standard template works for most cases. Start typing the idea and your text will replace the center text.

Press the Insert key to add a branch (or node) off the center with a blank field where you can fill in something associated with the idea. Press Insert again to add another node connected to the first one.

Press Enter on a node to add a node parallel to that one.

All keyboard shortcuts are in the Freeplane documentation.

Freeplane Plug-ins

Plug-ins can be used to extend and customize the use of the app. Two important ones are:

1. Freeplane GTD+: A generic task management add-on, with a special focus in supporting the Getting Things Done (GTD) methodology
2. Study Planner: helps organize learning

To install a new add-on to Freeplane, find the add-on you want on the Freemind add-ons directory.

• Download the desired add-on
• In Freeplane, select Tools > Add-ons
• Click the Search button
• Find and select the file you just downloaded
• Click Install
• Depending on the add-on, you may have additional questions to answer
• Restart Freeplane to use the new add-on

Integrating mind mapping in your everyday life

Mind mapping is a very powerful method that can be of great assistance in many aspects of life.

• Learning Linux or any certification
• Learning a computer language
• Learning a human language
• Even earning a degree

Whatever the objective this will always help to keep the ideas together and organized.

Personally I’m earning a few Linux Professional Institute certifications. The image below shows a mind map I am creating as I go through the systemd materials.

Conclusion

Now you have a start on how you can use Freeplane. Freeplane gives you all the tools you’ll need to create great, vibrant, and useful mind maps. Share how you use it in the comments.