Today Unity Technologies purchased the rights to the visual scripting solution Bolt 1 & 2 from Ludiq.  The asset is already under the Unity name on the asset store and community and development efforts will be shift to Unity Montreal going forward.

Details from the Ludiq blog:

Ludiq is proud to announce that its flagship visual scripting solution Bolt has been acquired by Unity Technologies. This acquisition will empower Unity developers worldwide with a production-ready visual authoring tool that helps artists, designers and programmers collaborate on their game or application. Thanks to Unity’s involvement, Bolt will benefit from a wealth of resources and experience in middleware development, while its users can continue to rely on the same level of quality support and trusted new releases they had come to expect.

As the lead developer of Bolt to this day, I am thrilled about the potential of putting this tool in the hands of more creators and allowing them to concretize their ideas in a visual way. Bolt started as a solo endeavor nearly four years ago, and over time, our team and community grew to welcome thousands of visual thinkers. Today, passing the torch to Unity means Bolt will enter an exciting new phase of its life. While letting go of a project you love is never easy, I have met the amazing people at Unity who will carry it forward and I am confident that Bolt is in the best of hands.

We are working closely with Unity Montreal to ensure a seamless transition. Support for Bolt 1 will continue uninterrupted and development of Bolt 2 is progressing on track. We want to make sure there are no sudden or unexpected changes for existing users. In the meantime, we want to address any question or concern you may have.

It is important to realize that Unity have just acquired Bolt, not the entire company for other technologies such as Peek.  There are more details of the acquisition over on the Unity forums.  With Bolt 2 currently in development and offered as a free upgrade by Ludiq, people are obviously concerned if this is still the case, rest assured it is.

Ludiq pledged to make Bolt 2 free for users of Bolt. Will Unity honor this pledge?

Yes. Bolt 2 will be free for current Bolt users as well as those who purchase Bolt on the Asset Store before 11:59:59 pm PST on May 31, 2020. Bolt users will receive an individual license for Bolt 2 when it becomes available.

You can learn more about the acquisition in the video below.

GameDev News Unity

Creative Assembly has revealed gameplay footage for its card-battler, Total War: Elysium. The famed developer of the Total War series announced the game last year, at the same time as a partnership with NetEase, a prominent network and game services provider in China. The partnership is part of Creative Assembly’s plan to expand into the Chinese market.

Total War: Elysium is a historical deck builder, drawing famous generals and iconic figures into card-based battle. The game takes place in Elysium, a Civ-esque city drawing together the greatest military leaders from throughout history. We’ve seen some of these generals already, including Sun Ren and Cao Cao from the Three Kingdoms period, but others we haven’t seen before. One general wears what appears to be French regency dress, and another clad in furs and armour, could potentially be Boudica. All the heroes  have individual abilities to give them a unique battle advantage.

Creative Assembly also announced a closed beta test for Elysium to go alongside the new reveal, which you can sign up for on the Total War: Elysium website. We don’t currently know when the beta will take place.

However, the trailer gives us an initial look at how the card-battler might play.

Elysium is the first Total War game made for mobile since Total War Battles: Kingdom, a free-to-play town builder and RTS strategy game. What we’ve seen so far fits with the expectations of a deck builder, but what they do with the number and variety of generals is another matter. Could this be a Total War gacha? Who knows.

But sign up for the beta, and you’ll see for yourself. If you’re looking also for other deck builders on mobile, be sure to check out our list of the best mobile card games.

Cast your mind back to May 2013. Wherever you were, whatever you were doing, chances are that a certain mobile game called Flappy Bird entered your life at some point after its launch. Its insanely addictive nature and the ensuing mania ultimately resulted in its removal from mobile stores, but there’s no denying that its simple gameplay has influenced countless other tap-py titles in the time since. One of these is Fledgling Heroes, a game that takes the core concept of Flappy Bird and greatly expands on it to create an experience that youngsters in particular will absolutely love.

The game sees you take on the role of several feathered creatures, including Biscuit the parrot, Penny the penguin, and more. Each bird has its own method of traversal, so Biscuit, for example, is quite adept at flying, whereas Penny can shoot through water with ease. The levels themselves are tailored with this in mind; your chosen bird will automatically start moving through the environment from left to right, but you’ll need to tap ‘A’ to flap its wings in order to manoeuvre around objects and enemies. Initially, this felt like a complete copy of Flappy Bird, but after a while the game introduces more mechanics, such as boost points that fire you across the stage, and the ability to hold down ‘A’ to glide, giving you much more control over your altitude.

As well as coming across obstacles such as mines, sharks, jellyfish, and lizard pirates, you’ll also find golden feathers scattered throughout the stages. You’ll want to try and collect as many of these as you can, as they’re vital to unlocking levels further down the line. Each level also contains certain challenges which grant you with feathers upon completion, such as taking out a set amount of enemies, gliding for a minimum amount of time, and collecting coins. There’s a great deal of replay value here if you really want to find every collectible, and thankfully most of the levels are short enough that it never really feels like much of a chore.

In addition to the main game, you can also create your own levels and edit the look of your characters. The character editor is basic at best, and consists of simply filling in sections of their bodies with colour, but the level editor is much more robust. You can choose whether to create a basic level, an endless level, or a boss level, and adding assets can be done either with the touchscreen or the analogue stick. You can also, of course, browse a selection of levels created by other players, and much like Super Mario Maker 2, some of these are fiendishly difficult and make the main campaign look like a bit of a cakewalk.

With three main worlds to get through, Fledgling Heroes isn’t a very long game, but it is a lot of fun while it lasts. If you’re after a meatier experience, or even one that perhaps isn’t quite as cute as this, you might want to look elsewhere. For everyone else, Flappy Bird may well have struck gold when it was released 7 years ago, but Fledgling Heroes rises head and shoulders above it.

Nintendo’s legal eagles have reportedly begun targeting sites hosting compiled versions of the Super Mario 64 PC port which was made available on the internet last week.

According to a follow-up story by Torrent Freak, after the initial VGC report, links to download the executable version have started to disappear from various file-hosting websites.

The action – at least in part – has been taken by the US-based law firm, Wildwood Law Group LLC. The firm has supposedly worked with Nintendo in the past to “suppress the availability” of modding tools and related products.

TorrentFreak was able to get hold of one of the complaints filed with Google (via LumenDatabase). Here’s exactly what it said:

The copyrighted work is Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game, including the audio-visual work, software, and fictional character depictions covered by U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA[REDACTED].

The reported file contains an unauthorized derivative work based on Nintendo’s copyrighted work.

Nintendo has also been targeting YouTube channels for uploading footage of the PC port – with many videos receiving copyright claims.

Despite the legal measures taken so far, there are still some cases where Nintendo’s law firm has filed complaints and had no luck getting download links removed. If we hear any more developments, we’ll be sure to let you know.

© Nintendo Life

With yet another week down, this time bringing with it a newly-found Animal Crossing glitch, a super gorgeous Super Mario 64 PC port, and all sorts of interesting stats from Nintendo’s fiscal year earnings report, it’s finally time to sit back and enjoy the weekend.

Members of Team Nintendo Life have gathered together to discuss our weekend plans, and we’d love for you to join in via our poll and comment sections below. Enjoy!

Alex Olney, senior video producer

It’s a lovely long bank holiday weekend in the rather infected United Kingdom, and in absence of being able to do anything outside of these four walls, some friends and I will be mashing out some games on Realm Royale. Bit of an odd choice, granted, but one of my friends is a tight git and there aren’t many other (vaguely) Halo-like experiences on Switch right now.

After all the shooting and drinking and the weekend begins proper, I’ll be having a right ruddy good time with Lonely Mountains: Downhill, so I’ll no doubt bash a bit of that out as well, not to mention some patented Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for good measure.

Aside from that, phwoar, I’m really not sure. I’ve been working on creating a classically-styled world in Super Mario Maker 2 which I’m keen to crack on with, but at the same time Animal Crossing is so just bloody there.

Ryan Craddock, news editor

Yesterday, I finally paid off the last-but-one loan in Animal Crossing: New Horizons, meaning I can finally start to properly organise the rooms in my house. I have fairly big plans for the bigger rooms, but seeing the prices of some of the items I want to put in them is rather terrifying. It doesn’t help that I’m not playing the game quite as much as I was at launch, either, as I’m starting to save a little less money in-game with each passing week.

As I mentioned last week, I’ve also been spending a little more time trying to beat Resident Evil 4 on Wii. Every time I feel like I must be near the end, another huge chunk of the map opens up. It really does feel like I’m nearing the end this time, though, so hopefully I’ll soon be able to check this one off my embarrassingly long list of shame.

PJ O’Reilly, reviewer

This weekend I’m gonna be continuing to mess around with two absolute crackers that I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing on Switch over the past week, Awesome Studio’s Fury Unleashed and Blue Manchu’s Void Bastards. They’re both roguelikes that really couldn’t be more different in terms of mechanics and tone – one’s a bright and anarchic Dead Cells style platformer, the other a wonderfully unique and grimy first-person space shooter – but they do share a cool comic book aesthetic that’s deployed to excellent effect in both games.

Elsewhere I’ll be continuing to experiment with the latest Super Mario Maker 2 update, dying repeatedly at the hands of my son’s bewildering creations and finally actually getting to grips with Deadly Premonition Origins, a game I’ve been meaning to play for absolutely ages. Have a good weekend, everyone, and stay safe.

Gavin Lane, features editor

I’ve heard very good things about Void Bastards and wouldn’t mind checking that out this weekend, but I got Galak-Z: The Void on sale a couple of weeks back and it’s still sitting untouched on my Switch. I’ve also got the excellent Streets of Rage 4 to finish, plus a dozen other things I should dip into before splashing more cash on the eShop. Plus, I’ll need to swing by the Able Sisters’ shop to make sure I don’t miss out the latest fashion. I’m on the bleeding edge of the fashion scene, me – the toast of Milan! Paris! And er, other places where they wear… clothes.

Oh, it’s been a long week, okay? Have a good one, everyone.

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

Now that I have the world’s biggest live gig stage it is time to build a wrestling ring in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Streets of Rage 4 continues to entertain but I can’t ignore a slew of great content being dropped on the eShop: Gun Crazy, ITTA, 80’s Overdrive, Slayin 2, Void Bastards, Lonely Mountains: Downhill, Fury Unleashed, Jay & Silent Bob: Mall Brawl and Task Force Kampas. Not all fun and games, mind. I am also working on the often requested review of Space Invaders: Invincible Collection for you fine folks.

My game of the week is Trials of Mana. The real trial was actually getting a copy of the game, but I eventually managed to secure one from Germany. Fear not, Ich spreche sehr gut Deutsch.

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…

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: San Francisco, CA; Mountain View, CA; Tokyo, Japan; Remote

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.