Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
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Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
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Hunt: Showdown 1896 - the huge new update that necessitated an engine upgrade and introduced all new UI - has just hit an all-new concurrent player peak of over 60,000.
Up until the 1896 update dropped on 15th August, the extraction shooter's simultaneous player record - set back in October 2023 - sat at a modest 42,000ish players.
Crytek is excited to announce the launch of Hunt Showdown 1896, now available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S! This new era of Hunt: Showdown introduces players to the wild, unforgiving landscapes of the American West, complete with an all-new Colorado biome, a terrifying Wild Target, the Scorched Earth Event, and a host…
The post Crytek Launches Hunt Showdown 1896 on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S! appeared first on Invision Game Community.
Crytek's sweaty and superlative survival boss-rush shooter Hunt: Showdown has been relaunched as Hunt: Showdown 1896, introducing a comprehensive technological update alongside a chronological leap forward to a new map in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. As is tradition for big 2.0-style updates, some players absolutely loathe it, with recent Steam user reviews dragging the consensus underwater.
Crytek's sweaty and superlative survival boss-rush shooter Hunt: Showdown has been relaunched as Hunt: Showdown 1896, introducing a comprehensive technological update alongside a chronological leap forward to a new map in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado. As is tradition for big 2.0-style updates, some players absolutely loathe it, with recent Steam user reviews dragging the consensus underwater.
Díky testům Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown se můžeme podívat na srovnání těchto masivně multiplayerových závodů s konkurencí. Jak si hra vede proti Forze Horizon 5 a The Crew Motorfest?
Obě videa se zaměřují na detaily, jako je grafika, fyzika a zvuky. V prvních dvou případech beta Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown za konkurencí zaostává. V chystané novince můžeme zapomenout také na poškození. Viditelné jsou akorát prasklá skla, zatímco ve Forze Horizon 5 a The Crew Motorfest vidíme větší promáčkliny a odřeniny karosérie.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown je lepší ve zvucích aut. Působí realističtějším dojmem. Tady je ale nutné připomenout, že ve hře jich bude mnohem méně než u konkurence. To hraje podstatnou roli. Kromě zvuků si autoři zaslouží pochvalu za zpracování interiérů, kdy vidíme jednotlivé kontrolky a ruka řidiče zatáhne ruční brzdu, zatímco ve Forze Horizon 5 a The Crew Motorfest se nic neděje.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown vyjde 12. září/septembra na PC, PlayStation 5 a Xbox Series X/S. 27. srpna/augusta proběhne druhá beta na konzolích, určena je pro předobjednávky jakékoliv edice hry.
Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
The post ‘Idol Showdown’ – A Ridiculous VTuber Fighting Game appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Steam store – Official website – Wikipedia entry
Some game genres are so rare, it’s a miracle when a new game releases in that style. I personally call this genre: stealth tactics. The actual genre is Real-Time Tactics, but I find that name doesn’t really cover this (sub)genre. If you have ever played games like: Commando’s, Desperados, Robin Hood – The Legend of Sherwood or Shadow Tactics… You know what sort of game I’m talking about. A game features a rag tag group of heroes. Each hero has unique abilities. They must get through big groups of enemies. They do this one by one to progress the group’s goals. The game I want to talk about today is called Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. This was the last game by the studio Mimimi. Is this game the swansong to close down this studio, or is it a game that’s better left forgotten? Before that, I invite you to leave a comment in the comment section down below. A comment with your thoughts and/or opinions on the game and/or the content of the article.
Promises of amazing treasure
In this game, you play as the crew of a special pirate ship named the Red Marley. Each main member of the crew has a black pearl in their chest, granting them unique supernatural abilities. These unique abilities come at a cost of being cursed to a sort of undead status.
The Red Marley’s captain fell in battle, and now the Inquisition is after the biggest treasure of the ship. Now, the Red Marley’s crew doesn’t want this to happen. So they do everything in their power to avoid this from happening.
The story in this game doesn’t take itself too seriously. The story is written like it’s a Saturday morning cartoon. A story arc can be contained in one or a handful of episodes, but always has an ending. While almost everything in the story ends well for the main cast, the story and writing never looses its charm. I felt like I was transported back into the time I woke up for the weekly Pokémon episode. I knew that the main problem of that week’s episode would resolve by the end. Still, I kept rooting for the heroes.
One of the biggest reasons I kept rooting for the main characters is because of the voice actors. Their performances are extremely well done. They bring a lot of personality and life to each character. They make the characters stand out like real, actual people. This script must have been immense, since the characters sometimes react on the actions you preform with other characters. There are 8 main characters, and more if you buy the DLC packs. If you start counting how many unique voice lines that bring to the table… And that’s the tip of the iceberg. The enemies for example, when they come together also have unique dialogue between them.
It’s possible to write an article by itself about the world building, story and voice acting in this game. I can also assure you that when I write this article, I’ll keep gushing about it all. A great example is how the save & load function fits into the story. It enhances the world of this game. Yes, you read that correctly. When you save, you store a memory in the Red Marley. When you load one of your saves, the Red Marley uses its powers to restore that memory. Your characters also respond to your saving and loading action and this brings even more charm to this game.
In these types of games, the replay value is quite high. Especially since you tackle all missions in various ways and each playthrough is going to be different. In this game, it’s taken even a step further. You can choose the order to revive your crew. You can also choose the order to finish the missions of that chapter. I can assure you that your playthrough will look nothing like mine.
The main quest is quite enjoyable to play through. I actually became really immersed in the world of this game. At the moment, I’m playing through the final missions of the game and the DLC missions. I’m having a blast. Thankfully, I can easily start a new playthrough of this game. Then I can experience it all of it over again and take a totally different route. And maybe I can do the little side quests and pirate tales as well. Since, that’s content, I haven’t gone into too much yet.
Your playthrough of this game will take you somewhere between 27 to 37 hours. That is, if you want to beat the main story and DLC’s. But, if you want to fully finish this game… Oh boy, then you’ll have a game that’s close to 80 hours on your hands. I already mentioned the crew tales. But there are also mini-challenges you can go for during the missions to earn badges. Let’s not forget the achievements you can earn. Well, most of the achievements are related to the main campaign.
Now, I have one complaint about the badges in this game. Earning some of these badges is extremely tricky. Sometimes, you don’t get all the information you expect to. For example, there is a badge on each map for using all the landing spots of that map. But guess what, there is no easy way to see if you already used a landing spot or not. It’s a shame that some badges work like that. Especially since some of these badges make you go out of your way to play in an unique way. A more challenging way to spice up your normal routine.
Apart from bragging trophies, these medals don’t really add up to much. But, I honestly don’t really mind that. Since, it’s fun to gather these medals and have some bonus challanges during my playthrough. It keeps me on my toes and it’s really enjoyable.
Mindblowing abilities
I’m still quite impressed at how balanced this game is. Each character has their own unique abilities. It’s best that you always have a character with an ability that can move guards from their position. If you don’t have that, the game will actually warn you. You are going to make it extremely challenging for yourself.
Personally, I’m playing through this game on the normal difficulty setting and your decisions actually matter. Before starting each mission, study the map well. Try to remember each map as well as you can. Since you are going to revisit each map at least once or twice. It’s extremely important to choose the correct landing position.
You would think that the game will be a bit boring if you always bring the same crew into missions. But, the game rewards you using different characters for missions. You gain more vigor if you play with certain crew members during certain missions. If you earned enough vigor, you can upgrade one of the unique abilities of your characters. This upgrade will give you more and better tools in your arsenal. Now, these upgrades can make the game much easier. You can always turn off the upgrades while on the Red Marley.
In the introduction paragraph of this article, I quickly explained how this game works. So, let me tell you the gist of it. In this game, you go from mission to mission, completing various goals in each one. These goals can range for example from rescuing an informant or stealing an artifact. In each mission, there are various enemies patrolling the area. Your goal is to find the weakspots in their patrols and dispose of the enemies without getting spotted.
Now, getting spotted isn’t the end of the world in this game. Depending on where you are spotted, it’s possible to escape and hide somewhere. You just have to avoid taking damage, since your health is limited, and you can’t heal during the mission. If you aren’t careful, it’s easy to get swamped or overwhelmed with guards. Especially when a guard with a bell spots you, the traces you leave behind or sees a dead body. When this happens, you have a limited amount of time to kill that guard before the bell is rung. When the bell is rung, more guards will emerge from nearby barracks and swarm to the location.
On top of that, there are also some unique enemy types outside your regular patrol goons. The first type I want to talk are the Kindred. These annoying buggers bring something quite unique to the table in this genre. Kindred are always connected with each other. If you don’t kill these all at the same time, they will revive each other. But, this is only the start of your troubles.
You also have Prognosticar. And let me tell you, these are even more challenging. To defeat these enemies, you need to have two units ready. One unit needs to be spotted or attack the Prognosticar. Since as soon as that happens, your unit gets trapped. This trap will go on and damage your unit until the unit either dies or is rescued. When the Prognosticar is using his trap, he can be attacked and killed. But do it quick. The trap is damaging your unit. You are also stuck in place. This situation is dangerous.
It also matters if the mission is taking place during day or night. The big difference is that in the daytime, the enemies have a bigger field of view. During the nighttime, some enemies will carry a torch on their patrol. This gives more light to other units. They can spot you sneaking by if you aren’t careful. There are also various torches dotted around the map, and you can put them out. The enemies can’t stand torches that are put out and will go out of their way to light them again.
It’s also important to know if an enemy stops in their patrol to talk to another enemy. Since if you kill one of them, the other enemy will start looking for them. They will start running around and if you weren’t careful, will find your tracks and spot you.
Learning those little mechanics is essential in this game. Never forget the tools you have in this game! This ranges from the abilities of each character to how for example view cones work. There is something called view cone surfing. If you want to dash to another place past some enemies… Understand that a full color in the view cone means they will spot you right away. Stripped sections of the view cone will cause you to be unseen if you crawl by. Also, it takes a few moments of you being spotted and the alarm being raised. You can run quickly enough past an enemy. Alternatively, you can run from view cone to view cone. It’s possible to get past unseen.
If you are afraid that you will get overwhelmed by all the information of all the little mechanics, don’t worry. The difficulty curve in this game is perfect. This game also has solid character tutorials. Each character tutorial guides you through 2–3 rooms, teaching you the abilities of each ability and their unique use cases. At the end of each character tutorial, you get a puzzle room. Putting to the test if you can use that character correctly. During the game, you can always open your logbook from the pause menu, where all tutorials can be watched again.
This brings me to the abilities of your characters in this game. If you have played similar games, you’ll recognize certain abilities and others will be quite new and unique. Now, some of these abilities will have a unique spin to it. For example, your sniper only has one shot. But, when you retrieve your sniper bolt… Your sniper can shoot again.
There are also extremely unique mechanics, like your Canoness has very fun abilities. She can pick up dead bodies in her canon to launch them at enemies to knock them out. But, you can also pick up allies. You can fling them over a group of enemies. This will give them a better hiding spot. Or your Ship Doctor, she can create one hiding spot out of thin air. Or your navigator, she can stop time for one enemy, allowing you to easy sneak by. And your ship cook can throw a special doll. This doll allows him to teleport to that location. He does this as soon as you click the button. Oh, and if you place that doll on an enemy, it sticks to that enemy.
You might be annoyed that I somewhat spoiled things in the above paragraph. But I have only told the tip of the iceberg here. I have left out several characters in that little summary and they have mindblowing abilities as well. Each map is created in such a way that it doesn’t really matter which characters you take into battle. Since you can finish it using any of your characters.
The Swansong of Mimimi
When Klamath and I started streaming Commandos, I wanted to play a similar game. One I haven’t played through. Since I first started playing through Desperados III again, and that was beaten in a few days. Since, I really enjoyed Desperados III, I bought the next game from the studio.
As somebody who enjoyed Desperados III quite a lot, I was happy to see things return in this game. I can’t tell you how much I love the speed up button. While I wish you can adjust the speed of it… The slow wait can be annoying. Sometimes, you have to get an enemy right where you want them. On top of that, you also have the showdown mode. With the press of a button, you can stop time and plan out your units their next move. Once you press the enter key, either still in showdown mode or not, the actions will be executed. It still feels amazing when you execute a well timed attack to take out difficult set of enemies.
Something that’s extremely useful is how you can rotate the camera in this game. Sometimes an enemy walks behind a building or some rocks… So, if you can’t rotate the camera, you wonder from where you are taking damage. Also, the ability of outlining the enemies, ladders and hiding spots help with that as well. As you can see from my screenshots, I always play with that feature enabled.
Sadly, there are a few ladders that don’t get an outline. Most likely since the developers forgot to put a certain tag on them. I remember one in Angler’s Grave, at the top right. It’s not too far from one of the mission objectives, the informant. Thankfully, these very minor oversights rarely happen. Overall, this game is extremely solid and blast to play through.
The controls are extremely solid. I had to get used to one thing. To execute certain actions, I had to hold the left mouse button instead of just clicking. This sometimes tripped me up but a quick reload fixed that problem. I only have one minor complaint about the controls. Depending on the camera angle, there were rare moments where your character refused to go to a location. I suspect it has to do with where you click. Your unit always wants to look for the shortest way to reach where you click. Sadly, this trips something up in the pathfinding and your unti refuses to go to their destination. Thankfully, a quick camera movement can fix these moments. And also, I’m glad that these moments are quite rare.
Something that’s even more rare are some minor visual bugs that can happen sometimes. Sometimes an UI-element refuses to dissapear. I had that happen twice, when I shot an enemy holding down an exit rift with the Canoness. The stars indicated that the enemy was dizzy. They hovered above the enemy’s head after the rift opened. Even after I killed the enemy, these stars remained visible. There are sometimes minor visual bugs happening like that. Thankfully, they are extremely rare and sometimes are quite funny. One time, one of my units was standing perpendicular on a ladder when I stopped it going up the ladder. The only annoying bug was that I couldn’t retrieve two bodies. They lay in a remote part of Angler’s Grave. It was almost impossible to get rid of two bodies. Maybe, it’s possible. I don’t know, I honestly gave up and earned the badge of hiding bodies on a later revist.
In such a big game it’s to be expected that sometimes things can go wrong. But it surprises me how little goes wrong and how polished the overall game is. Scrolling through the patch notes of this game, I noticed that the developers fixed many issues. They also added a lot of new content to the game. The last update to the game was even a modding tool for this game. These mods go from chaging your character models to adding new maps. I think I’ll play around with the mods after I have fully beaten the game. I’m extremely close, since I’m in the final missions of the game.
Now, earlier I talked about the UI. The UI is quite easy and helpful. There are several unique icons to inform you where certain things are. For example, where you left the paper doll when using the ship cook. There is only one thing in the UI I dislike. And that’s the list of save games. You get a little screenshot of the location of the save and a time stamp. And that’s it. You can’t give a special name or note to them. So if you are looking for a certain save… you either need to make notes OR just go through all them until you het it.
It’s the only real complaint I can give about this game. There is just a lot that this game does right. Like how you can scroll to zoom in or out. When you scroll again at the max zoom level, you see a live map. This map shows where all the enemies are. The only minor complaint I have about the map is that ammo chests aren’t marked on there. Also, quick note on the ammo chests… Almost every character has the same visual for their gun. Now, if another visual appears above the ammo chest, it doesn’t matter. The ammo chests are never character specific.
Visually, this game looks breathtaking. The attention to detail in this world gets a big thumbs up from me. The world really feels alive and somewhat real. The little animation details for example when an enemy stops at a prison cell to talk to inmates… This is just amazing. The immersion level is even higher with that.
The soundtrack is very catchy and a joy to listen to. It made certain moments in the game even more thrilling. The music has been created by Filippo Beck Peccoz, he also created the music for Desperados III. The soundtrack really fits the game like a glove. I’m so glad I bought the soundtrack DLC,. Now I can add the music to my music library to play while I’m at my dayjob.
This brings me to the sound design of this game. The sound design of this game is amazing. I’m playing this game with a good headset and I don’t think this game is playable without sound effects. A great example is, when you get spotted. You not only get a great visual hint of a yellow line turning red of the enemy spotting you… You also get some sound effects informing you that things are about to go down. On top of that, the sound effects add so much extra impact on taking down enemies. This makes it even more rewarding when you finally take down that one pesky enemy.
One thing I haven’t talked about yet is how flexible this game is. I have touched upon that by talking about how you can only choose three out of 8 characters per mission. And you are encouraged to experiment with different combinations. Now, when you open the options menu, you’ll be blown away. You can change almost everything. The controls like the shortcuts for abilities can be tweaked to your liking. You have quite a lot of control to tweak the volumes, the controls, the visuals… Even tweak certain game mechanics to your liking. Don’t like the save reminder? You can turn that off.
There is still another thing that boggles my mind that was added in this game. You can create a custom difficulty. The only complaint I have there is that the UI fails to explain the differences. I find it challenging to understand all the settings. You get a short explaination about the setting, and then you have a slider you can set. But, what’s the difference between 1 and 2 on the slider? That’s something the UI doesn’t really tell.
When I was writing this article, I kept looking at my notes and thought: “Oh, I forgot about that.”. There are just so many things in this game. The fact that in some missions, you must kill enemies in unique ways. In one mission, you have to lure enemies to a certain location. You need to do this 4 times. You do this instead of killing them. It’s a breath of fresh air. You’d think that having only a handful of maps would make this game boring and repetitive, but no. The maps are not only large but also used in extremely interesting ways. Revisits of a map make it easier to start, but each area is used in a mission. So, there is still a lot of challenge in the revisits.
Oh, there is one more thing. The question if you should buy the DLC’s or not. Let me just tell you this, I bought the game on sale with the DLC’s included. I’m so happy I did! Since the additional content in the DLC’s adds so much more to this game. They come highly recommended.
Now, I have left out a few things for you all to find while playing this game. This article is already getting quite long. I want to leave some things as a surprise for people interested in playing this game. I think it’s high time to wrap up this review and give my conclusion and final thoughts on this game.
Conclusion of this treasure hunt
The negatives:
-Unable to add notes to quick saves.
-Some minor (visual) glitches can happen. Thankfully, they are rare and rarely/never gamebreaking.
-The UI of custom difficulty could have been executed better.
The positives:
+ A masterclass in it’s genre in terms of gameplay.
+ Extremely flexible with options.
+ A modding tool.
+ A love-able cartoony story.
+ Amazing voice over work.
+ Superb soundtrack.
+ …
Final thoughts:
When I started playing Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew, I had extremely high expectations. Mimimi blew me away with the amazing Desperados III. With this swansong of a game, they not only met my expectations, they blew them out of the water. This game showcases the achievements of passionate people. These individuals are dedicated to creating the game they love.
It didn’t take long before I fell in love with the cast of this game. The charm drew me into the world of this game. Apart from some minor things, it’s hard to find things to critique about this game. The only thing I can critique are small bugs that barely impact the gameplay of this game. This game really feels like a finished product and it’s a thrill ride from start to finish.
If you really want to find things this game does wrong… You’ll either need to be extremely nitpicky or just have the game not clicking with you. If you find this game too easy or too difficult, just tweak the setttings to your playstyle and voila.
If you enjoy games like Commandos or Desperados… You’d do yourself a disservice to not check out this game. Give the demo of this game a try, and see what you think. I wouldn’t be surprised that this game sinks it’s hook into you like it did with me.
It’s a shame to see that this game studio closes. Thank you to everybody who worked on this amazing title and I hope to meet your work in other games. This final game you all created together is a real piece of art. It’s a masterclass in game development and shows how well you know the community for games like this. I’m so happy that this game exists. Since it wouldn’t surprise me that I’ll play through this game several times now.
Before I ramble on and on about this game, I think it’s high time I wrap up this article. Otherwise, I’ll keep praising this game to high heavens and back. So, with that said, I have said close to everything I wanted to say about this game. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article, but until then… Have a great rest of your day and take care!
Score: 100/100
Back in 2017, a developer from France contacted me about their new point-and-click sci-fi game in the works called Ama’s Lullaby. But, it’s more than a point-and-click game, it’s also a hacking game. Now, this developer works on this game in his free time after his day job and with a small budget. Sometimes these passion projects die due to lack of time, money, motivation and/or just interest. But it looks like Ama’s Lullaby isn’t going to be one of those projects. Earlier this year, a demo of the game got released. Now, I asked the developer if he was interested in streaming this demo with us, and he did. Here is a link to part 1 & part 2. Sadly, due to overheating of Klamath’s computer, it had to be cut into two parts and the ending was quite abrupt. Now, this stream is almost a month ago, and I still wanted to write an article about this game. So, what do I think of the demo? Am I still as impressed when I saw it during the livestream, or is my opinion going to change when I’m not back seating and playing it myself? Let’s find out in this article.
Hacking The Point-And-Click Genre
The story of this demo is quite simple. Ama enters the police station and gets new tasks to aid the space colony she is in. Overall, the story is told more naturally compared to other games. Mostly, we get an opening where the main story of the game is teased, but not in this game. During interactions with the others, we get little glimpses into the world and story. Now, this is a tricky thing to pull off, since either you have to force the player to interact with everybody or risk that some players miss potentially important information. On the other hand, info dumping on the player isn’t always the best solution.
Now, in this space colony, there is an AI that makes a lot of decisions. It turns out that Ama and her dad have created that AI and the software to interact with it. She is one of the ambassadors of the human race. But it doesn’t take too long before strange things start to happen, and you notice that not everything is what you think it is.
The dialogues in this game appear above the character’s their head. When it’s cursive, you know it’s a thought. Not only that, you have simple sound effects that appear to put some additional power to the dialogues and to quickly differentiate between thoughts and spoken dialogues. Currently, there are plans to fully voice act this game, but if those plans fall through, I’d recommend to the developer to have different sound effects for the dialogues for different emotions.
Now, the game cold opens with an old school terminal as a main menu. This might be a bit jarring for new players who aren’t used to working with the command line. Personally, as somebody who knows how a command line works, I really love this touch. Since, this interface is also present in a lot of puzzles in the game. It fits the atmosphere and style of the game as a glove. To be honest, I think that with some minor polishing, it would be perfect.
There are a few things I would change. First, I’d get rid of the case-sensitive commands. The main reason is that a lot of people have the default keybinding for the Steam overlay with is… Shift+Tab. Since I love using autocomplete, it got pretty frustrating when I was holding my shift button and tabbed to autocomplete and my Steam overlay popped up.
A second thing I’d change is to allow the user to enlarge the font of terminal. The reason for that is because it doesn’t really scale pretty well with people who are using larger monitors.
Now, since this game is still in development and this is just the demo… I can totally excuse that there are features not present. Like pushing the up arrow to get the last command, or the help feature not always working correctly in all menus. For example, if you are in the options menu and use “QUALITY HELP”, you get information but if you first write “QUALITY” to see the options you can input and then “QUALITY HELP”… It bugs out and doesn’t give you help at all. Another small bug I noticed is that for some reason, the enter button on my numpad didn’t enter but always selected the whole text. But hey, during the stream the developer said that some of these things are on the list to get fixed for the full game.
Cyberpunk Sci-fi
I was impressed with the visuals of the game when we were playing this game on stream. While I haven’t played the Blade Runner games yet, I have seen a lot of people talk about it and know the visual style of the game. This game really mimics that style extremely well. You really feel like you are in a sci-fi world with some older technology than we have compared to our own technology.
Also, something I really love in this demo is that everything is one big space. You don’t really have “screens” in this game, like in a Broken Sword game for example. No, the camera swings and follows Ama as if she was in a movie. This sells the illusion of the area even more. While I’d have loved to see the details the developer put in every scene more up close sometimes, the more zoomed out look gives you a better overview on the scene. It almost feels like you are watching Ama through security camera’s or a drone camera in a way.
The biggest thing that I want to point out in terms of the visuals is Ama herself. The game goes for a more dark and dimly light environment and with a main character that’s wearing black clothes, it’s extremely easy to lose Ama in the scenery. It wouldn’t surprise me if they gave our main character in Blade Runner a brown coat for that reason, so you can more quickly see the main character without breaking the visual style of the game. But, overall, this is almost a nitpick. Since, it didn’t happen a lot that I lost Ama in the scene. It mostly happened when I was replaying parts of the demo while writing this article.
Now, I want to talk about the command line. The tutorial in this game on how a command line works is actually well done. I love how it doesn’t hold the players hands and tries to force them to input the right thing. It really lets you experiment with it and learn how it works. All the while, a small guide on how things work is displayed on the top of your screen.
This whole command line mechanic in this game is a breath of fresh air. It’s impressive how true to reality the whole command line is. While it uses some creative liberties here and there to make it fit into the game world, overall, it might be a real command line interface that’s open in the game.
In this demo, you have a few tasks to complete. Most of these tasks involve fixing various things. One task is highly dependent on the command line. This was quite easy for me since, like I said, I know how to use a command line. Visually, it’s a bit tricky during the tutorials in the network view since it’s not really clear/easy on how you can scroll up or down while in the network view. Using the mouse mostly scrolls around the network map. I think an easier way to scroll up and down in the terminal could be useful there. Also, when you have to input a command that’s longer than the terminal screen, I’d start a second line. Since, that’s how real life works. Or move the whole thing, and not let the username stay.
Final thoughts and future wishes
Overall, the demo is quite short. If you don’t know what you are doing and exploring everything, it will take you mostly two hours to complete. But if you know what to do, you can finish this in 10 minutes. Yet, the impression I got from the stream hasn’t changed. This game has quite a lot of potential but it needs some polish here and there.
There are some minor things like some objects not being solid and Ama being able to run through them, but there are also more major issues. The elevator bug the developer Marc mentioned during the stream, happened to me. Ama didn’t go up with the elevator and she was stuck. I think it was related to another bug I encountered where the head of IT got stuck in an animation loop. Somehow it was like Ama was near him while Ama was walking in other parts of the station. I don’t know what exactly triggered that, and I have replayed the demo trice to try and get it back into that bugged state, but I was unable to find the cause and I was unable to replicate it.
Currently, there is one way to save the game. There are several terminals in this demo where you can save your game. You only have one save slot. There is also no manual saving of the game. So, remember that. You can also only load from the main menu.
Reviewing a demo is always tricky to do. Especially if the game is still in development, since you never know for sure how the final game is going to look like. Yet, this demo is extremely promising. The puzzles where a lot of fun and after playing the demo, I had the same feeling that Klamath had at the end of the stream. I want to play more or similar games like this.
I could start talking about how the sound effects are amazing but there isn’t enough music yet. But, at one hand, the lack of music really sells the atmosphere of the game a lot more but on the other hand, the music during the terminal sections is really enjoyable. But, I’m sure that in the full game we shall see more music.
Just like I’m convinced that when the full game releases and the players find bugs, they will get fixed. While I was talking with Marc during the stream, I really felt the passion for creating this game and how he wants to make it the best experience it can be for his players. So, if you are interested in this game after reading this article in any way shape or form, I highly recommend that you give this game a chance, play the demo for yourself and give the developer feedback via his Discord or any other of his official channels.
I can’t wait to see and play the final game. Various things got revealed and talked about during the stream and I have to say, it was an amazing experience and conversation. I was already interested in seeing this game when it was on KickStarter but now that I have played the demo, I think we are on a winner here. This game will put an interesting twist on the point-and-click genre and will be interesting to anyone who enjoys adventure games with a sci-fi influence or just enjoy more unique puzzle games.
I want to thank Marc for reaching out to me and talking about his unique project. You can be sure that when the full version releases… me and Klamath will play through it and most likely stream it. And I’ll write a more in-depth article on the final product. Since, I might have not talked quite in-depth in this article but I want to hold off my final opinions when the game is fully released.
If you have read my article, played the demo and/or watched our stream, I’m curious, what did you think about this game? Feel free to talk about it in the comments. Am I overhyping the game or overlooking flaws? Or is there something you’d love to see in the full game?
And with that said, I have said everything about the game I want to say for now. I want to thank you for reading this article and I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. I hope to be able to welcome you in another article but until then, have a great rest of your day and take care.
IN THIS VIDEO: Arrived at Riften and upon entering one of the guards wanted something but got nothing.
The Shakedown Riften's Gate
As the gates of Riften loomed before me, their towering presence a stark reminder of the city’s storied past, I was greeted not by the welcoming smiles of merchants or the playful banter of children, but by the stern visage of a city guard. His armor gleamed dully in the fading light, and his hand, outstretched with an air of expectancy, spoke of a tradition as old as the city itself.
“Welcome to Riften, traveler,” he intoned, his voice betraying a hint of weariness. “The roads are fraught with danger, and the city’s peace is a precious commodity. A small offering to ensure your safety within these walls would not go amiss.” The implication was clear: this was no mere suggestion, but a thinly veiled demand for a toll.
Yet, as I stood before this sentinel of stone and steel, I felt a resolve stir within me. I had journeyed far, through valleys shrouded in mist and over mountains crowned with snow, and not once had I yielded to the whims of those who sought to profit from my passage. With a polite shake of my head, I offered the guard nothing but a smile, a silent rebuke to his unsanctioned toll.
The guard’s eyes narrowed, a flicker of surprise—or was it respect?—passing fleetingly across his features. He stepped aside, albeit reluctantly, and I passed through the gates of Riften unburdened by tribute. The guard remained at his post, his hand still empty, a silent witness to the fact that not all who wander are lost, and not all who resist are without cause.
Within the city’s embrace, I found a tapestry of life rich with color and complexity. The market square buzzed with the energy of commerce, the docks whispered of secrets and smugglers, and the alleys echoed with the footsteps of those who moved in the shadows. Riften was a city of layers, each one peeling back to reveal a new story, a new challenge.
As night descended upon the city, wrapping its cloak of stars tightly around the sleeping buildings, I reflected on the day’s encounter. The guard had sought to take something from me, but in the end, he had received nothing. It was a small victory, perhaps, but one that spoke volumes of the journey I had undertaken—a journey not just of distance, but of principle.
For in the grand tapestry of Skyrim, every thread has its place, every weave its purpose. And as I settled into the rhythm of Riften’s heartbeat, I knew that my own thread, though once solitary and unassuming, was now interwoven with the vibrant, enduring fabric of this city. And so, with a heart unburdened and a spirit unchained, I embraced the adventures that awaited, under the watchful gaze of the guard who wanted something but got nothing.
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Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
The post ‘Idol Showdown’ – A Ridiculous VTuber Fighting Game appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Join Shin chan and Shiro on a mysterious new adventure when Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town launches on Nintendo Switch and Steam on October 24, 2024. Check out the Shin chan: Shiro and the Coal Town trailer to see a cast of characters, some activities you can engage in, and more from this upcoming adventure game.
If keeping the beat is the most important thing in the game, then you build the game around keeping the beat. There are many different ways to approach the problem, but if I were building such a system myself, I would start with a system to handle a data-driven beat (e.g. this level/song sets the beat to X, that level/song sets the beat to Y) and then build all of my visuals and gameplay on top of that. The key component to making this work would likely be an animation system that could scale animations faster or slower in order to match the timing of the music.
On the data side, this would mean all animations would be built so they could be sped up by dropping frames, or slowed down by holding certain frames for additional length. All animations would also need to be the same length (or a multiple of a standard length), so that I can ensure the animations will fit into a standard musical measure. If I wanted to have a variety of attack animations and hit reactions, I would probably also establish a set of rules that each attacking and hit reaction animation must always be the same number of frames. I could further standardize each attack and hit reaction active frame happening on the same frame each time.
The code side would then play my animations to those musical measures along the beat. It would do so by scaling the animations longer or shorter based on the beat. The system could add or cut animation frames so that each animation can play in sync with the music. Once I've got the animation system integrated with the beat-keeping system, I can then ensure each animation should start playing on the appropriate frame to keep the beat. As long as the animations are scaled to the musical measure and the music keeps the same beat for its entire duration, the animations should always sync to the beat of the music.
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Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
The post ‘Idol Showdown’ – A Ridiculous VTuber Fighting Game appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
It’s been a few days since the Dragon Age Veilguard gameplay video was released. I posted a challenge for aspiring developers to identify as many specific features and systems as they could spot. My expertise is in gameplay, so that’s where I will be focusing. Expertise on visuals like lighting, rendering, shaders, etc. should be directed elsewhere.
0:22 - In-Game Cinematic with moving cameras
0:30 - Seamless cinematic transfer to gameplay, quest tracking UI element, different walking speeds
0:36 - Interactable element with UI
0:43 - Camera movement - orbital motion, but likely not detachable
0:53 - Party member movement, including waiting for the player as part of an escort sequence
2:08 - Uninteractable NPC actors perform animations
2:13 - Scriptable terrain changes/destruction
2:18 - Scriptable interactions with multiple actors
2:29 - Uninterrupted conversations when transitioning from gameplay to in-game cinematic
2:39 - Context-specific traversal method with special traversal animation (balancing across a thin beam)
2:50 - Small sequence that is likely unloading the last area and loading in data for the next environment. Likely also locks players off from returning to the previous area.
3:22 - Conversation wheel with “personality” icons and paraphrased words
3:39 - Dynamic inventory in game cinematics, show player’s items
3:46 - Scripted Player equipment change during cinematic
4:04 - Quest variables (e.g. player background) result in different NPC response
4:27 - Combat UI including current target (four red dots), Combat log
4:30 - Player can jump
4:33 - UI Melee danger indicator for incoming attacks - silver for enemy attacking, gold for shortly impending damage
4:35 - Player can dash/dodge
4:39 - Event log - Items/Loot notification
4:42 - Shooting UI including hit/miss indicator (red reticle), time scaling, arrow charging (rounded purple bar above arrow count), arrow refill cooldown
5:03 - Some kind of special charge/jumping attack
5:09 - XP gain UI, Quest objective completion UI, Quest objective map indicator UI
5:12 - Auto sheath weapons
5:15 - Potion use/Health recovery
5:18 - Recover potions from the environment
5:40 - Quest objective indicator change on approach
5:49 - Ranged attack danger indicator
5:51 - Defensive action (player reflects damage back on ranged attacker)
6:06 - Enemies can be knocked off edges when fatal
6:10 - Destructible objects in combat, can be scripted
6:16 - Some kind of “special” dodge skill with VFX, likely a rogue class skill
6:51 - Second context-specific traversal method (sliding down a slope) also likely a second “can’t go back” type of lockoff
7:01 - Action/Command UI (party/self ability commands)
7:06 - Specific skill used, skill cooldown, enemy debuffed + UI (weakened), resource used (purple bar at bottom of screen)
7:07 - Quick use button mapping, likely for controller face buttons
7:09 - Resource bar refills on its own and on attack damage
10:47 - Different kinds of health bars (likely magical shield and armor)
11:59 - Boss UI with both magical shield and armor bars. Not sure what the number 4 there indicates
12:15 - Telegraphed danger zones projected onto the floor
12:22 - Quick recover timing event
14:45 - Conversation option for branching cinematic
14:51 - Follower approval UI event log
18:49 - Destructible object with health bar and UI highlighting
Each of these elements is something that would need to be designed and implemented by someone on the gameplay team working with UI, engineering, and art. See anything I missed? Which did you get?
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Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown's first story DLC got a two-second trailer during Ubisoft Forward on Monday, confirming its name and its coming release this September. Here's a more specific release date that'll matter more to some of you: The Lost Crown itself will come to Steam on August 8th.
Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown's first story DLC got a two-second trailer during Ubisoft Forward on Monday, confirming its name and its coming release this September. Here's a more specific release date that'll matter more to some of you: The Lost Crown itself will come to Steam on August 8th.
Ubisoft je připraven na Steamu vydat další svou hru. Tentokrát katalog rozšíří Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Povedená akční plošinovka ve stylu metroidvanie na platformu od Valve dorazí 8. 8. letošního roku.
Jako všechny jiné hry od Ubisoftu, tak i Prince of Persia na Steamu vyžaduje aplikaci Ubisoft Connect. Nedávno do hry dorazila třetí aktualizace s novým obsahem. Na září pak francouzská společnost slibuje příběhové rozšíření The Mask of Darkness.
Prince of Persia: Sands of Time's troubled remake has resurfaced during tonight's Ubisoft Forward showcase with the news it'll finally be arriving in 2026, some six years after it was initially revealed. More happily, Price of Persia: The Lost Crown and The Rogue Prince of Persia both have new updates launching today.
Ubisoft revealed it was remaking Sands of Time back in September 2020, when it was originally due to launch the following January. However, following a less than positive reception to its debut trailer, Ubisoft announced the first of several delays for the project, eventually moving it from original developers Ubisoft Pune and Mumbai to Ubisoft Montreal.
When we last heard from the remake at the end of 2023, Ubisoft announced it had "passed an important internal milestone", but things didn't sound especially far along given the publisher had revealed the rebooted project was still in the "conception" phase in May. A year on, it seems the Sands of Time remake still isn't a state that Ubisoft is confident to show; its re-appearance during tonight's showcase was anticlimactic to say the least, taking the form of a 30-second teaser trailer showing... a candle. We did, at least, get an updated release window, with Ubisoft confirming the remake is now targeting a 2026 launch.
Čekání na remake Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time bude dlouhé. Na Ubisoft Forward jsme se dočkali nic neříkajícího teaser traileru, který oznámil, že hra vyjde až v roce 2026. To je u příležitosti 30. výročí legendární značky málo. Fanouškům pochopitelně nestačí oznámené novinky do Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown a The Rogue Prince of Persia.
Ono to zas není tak překvapivé vzhledem k posledním informacím o nutnosti začít od začátku. Jak víme, remake se z indických studií Bombaj a Pune přesunul domů do kanadského Montrealu, kde už sice nejsou původní tvůrci, ale najdeme tam zkušené vývojáře. Těm pomáhají kolegové z Ubisoft Toronto.
Předělávka byla původně představena na začátku školního roku 2020/2021, ale místo nadšení schytala kritiku za grafiku a animace. V prosinci téhož roku byla o dva měsíce odložena, aby vývojáři měli čas potřebný ke splnění očekávání fanoušků. Všem ale bylo jasné, že dva měsíce jsou pro „jedinečné vizuální zpracování“, jak ho nazval Ubisoft, málo. To se také potvrdilo a po několika dalších odkladech jsme se v květnu 2022 dozvěděli, že se problematický projekt z Indie stěhuje do Kanady, kde dle všeho měli začít od úplného začátku.
It's a good thing I'm a big fan of Prince Of Persia: The Lost Crown, because it's only that underyling fandom that's making me write this post about the upcoming story DLC. The tease during this evening's Ubisoft Forward did nothing for me, other than confirm a name, Mask Of Darkness, and a release window in September.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown has the Divine Trials update available for free. A new story DLC, Mask of Darkness, is coming September 2024.
Tons of new gameplay for Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Shadows.
The Ubisoft Forward 2024 is a wrap, and it brought a ton of new gameplay for the pair of open world games coming later this year: Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin's Creed Shadows. Plus, Ubisoft revealed Anno 117: Pax Romana and told us the Prince of Persia: The Sands of …
Test Drive Unlimited launched on Xbox 360 in 2006. At the time, it revolutionized the open-world multiplayer racing genre. Set on the island of Oahu in Hawaii, the map offered a variety of landscapes, roads, and locations to explore. A focus on multiplayer aspects made a significant impact: for the first time, players experienced exploring an open world together, driving their favorite cars.
For 13 years, racers have eagerly awaited the return of a franchise that captivated a generation of passionate fans. But this isn’t about tapping into nostalgia, the teams at Nacon and Kylotonn are rekindling the excitement that made the Test Drive games so iconic over a decade ago. It’s a tribute to everything that made the series legendary while (excuse the pun) reinventing the wheel with the introduction of new features and improvements to enrapture a new (and old) generation of petrolheads.
We’re excited to reveal here that Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is set to launch on September 12, 2024 and that pre-orders are live on Xbox Series X|S.
It was Test Drive Unlimited 2 that built on the foundations laid by its predecessor, adding a dynamic weather system and a day-night cycle. The addition of a new island, Ibiza, included expansion to social interactions, with new ways for players to interact and connect, and where friendships were formed over friendly competition. The social aspect enhanced immersion, turning the second installment into a true lifestyle-oriented racing game.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is a new frontier for massively multiplayer online open-world racing games. We’ve fully replicated the island of Hong Kong, recreated at a 1:1 scale. This technical feat took the team three years to achieve. It’s also far more than a neon-lit cityscape, brimming with unique places to explore. Yes, you’ll drift around small alleys and race along highways, but there are also various mountains, beaches and other places to take your driving off-road.
Rediscover the iconic elements that made Test Drive Unlimited iconic in Solar Crown. While exploring a vast open world, shopping in real dealerships, putting your own touch on your vehicles and avatar via extensive customization options and competing against players across the world. Just like the original games, these features can be enjoyed solo or with other players. The open world, dealerships, garages, races, and clan HQs are all interconnected social hubs, where players meet through their avatars and cars.
Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown is much more than a return after 13 years; it’s the highly anticipated sequel to a franchise that marked an entire generation of players. It’s a love letter to the franchise’s rich DNA, while introducing a new map, and providing a high-quality visual and auditory experience.
Pre-order Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown now and experience the ultimate lifestyle & racing adventure starting September 12, 2024.
The post After 13 Years, Test Drive Unlimited Makes its Grand Return appeared first on Xbox Wire.
Five of the Best is a weekly series for supporters of Eurogamer. It's a series that highlights some of the features in games that are often overlooked. It's also about having your say, so don't be shy, use the comments below and join in!
Oh and if you want to read more, you can - you can find our entire Five of the Best archive elsewhere on the site.
Which was the first game to have a dash move in it? The earliest I can think of is the Mega Man series. But was that a slide or a dash? Because although they serve similar functions, I think they're distinct things. It's tricky! Today of course, dashes are synonymous with action games, and even other kinds of games, and it's probably more common to play games with them than without them. Dashes have become a fundamental part of our gaming lexicon. But the question is, which dashes have been the most memorable - which dashes are the best?
We already know that a full-blown sequel to swampy extraction shooter Hunt: Showdown probably isn’t on the cards right now, but developers Crytek appear to be lining up the next major update for the 2019 PvPvE cryptid-slayer as almost a whole new game regardless.
This year’s rather wonderful Prince of Persia Metroid-like The Lost Crown has dropped the second of its free post-launch updates, adding a new boss rush mode, some unlockable costumes for surviving said mode, an extra way to fast-travel and more.
Poté, co společnost Nacon vypustila speciální oznámení hry Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown, zveřejnila nový trailer, který odhaluje datum vydání. Hra vyjde 12. září pro konzole Xbox Series X/S, PS5 a PC. Níže se podívejte na nejnovější gameplay, který ukazuje různé lokality na ostrově Hongkong a různá dostupná auta.
Hra Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown měla od svého oznámení v červenci 2020 řadu odkladů. Závodní titul plánovaný na září 2022 byl poté odložen na rok 2023 a následně na začátek roku 2024. Ačkoli společnost Nacon tvrdila, že bude spuštěn před dubnem, nestalo se tak a nyní jsme se dočkali. Předobjednávky jsou nyní k dispozici pro všechny platformy, přičemž maloobchodní cena je stanovena na 59,99 dolarů.
Hra Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown se odehrává v rekonstrukci ostrova Hongkong v měřítku 1:1 s více než 600 kilometry silnic a obsahuje 14 čtvrtí. Hráči se mohou přidat k jedné ze dvou frakcí – Streets a Sharps – z nichž každá má unikátní velitelství, kosmetiku a další. Vedle rychlostních pastí a dalších výzev jsou k dispozici vrakoviště, kde hráči mohou sbírat součástky a sestavovat „ikonická auta“. Zůstaňte naladěni na další aktualizace a doufejme, že i další hratelnost v měsících předcházejících vydání.
Článek Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown startuje 12. září se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.
Téměř dvouminutový trailer oznámil datum vydání několikrát odložené hry Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown. Open-world závody se budou na PC, PlayStationu 5 a Xboxu Series X/S hlásit po letních prázdninách.
Ostrov Hongkong se hráčům otevře 12. 9. 2024. Hráči, kteří se rozhodnou Test Drive Unlimited Solar Crown předobjednat v dražších edicích, tak si zahrají dříve a získají také přístup do bety, která zatím nemá stanoven termín.
The games industry is in a worrying state of flux right now. Beloved and storied studios are being shut down left, right and centre; others are having their teams gutted from the inside out. It's hard to know which games and teams will even still be around next month, let alone in a year's time, and it must be daunting in the extreme for new, independent developers trying to make their debut games.
But XCOM and Marvel's Midnight Suns designer Jake Solomon is used to dealing with chance and probabilities. During his 23-year career at Firaxis, Solomon helped transform the turn-based tactics genre into what it is today, teaching us just how dramatic a well-timed overwatch shot could be, as well as how to howl in agony as our gunners repeatedly missed a 99%, point-blank hit chance window. Now, he's taking an even bigger step into the unknown, as today he's not only unveiling his brand-new independent games company, Midsummer Studios, but he's also given us a tease of what he's working on: a next-generation life sim where players "can't help but write an interesting story" as they steer their characters through the ups and downs of modern life.
Well, perhaps it's not too much of a step into the unknown, as Solomon reveals to me that his new base of operations for Midsummer is actually the very same place where he first cut his teeth as a games designer. "This building we're in, these are actually the old Firaxis offices," he says. "This is where me and a bunch of people [at Midsummer] started our careers, and a lot of people at Midsummer are people that have worked with me for a long time." And his first hire? The son of his former mentor, Sid Meier.
It was Digital Foundry's John Linneman who first made me see the truth. The truth, in this case, being that Crackdown, the deliriously great open-world blaster, is not a platform game so much as it's a climbing game. Crackdown casts you as a supercop in a city in which you can race up skyscrapers as easily as if you're tooling down the street in a sportscar. Crackdown is all about the window-ledge grip, followed by the boost, followed by the grip and so on until you hit the troposphere. When you scan the side of a building in Crackdown's Pacific City, you're not really looking for platforms, but handholds.
Funny it should take me so long to realise this. I've always been a fan of climbing - not doing it, although I have dabbled, skill-lessly, in my youth, but following it, reading about it, dreaming about it. I have friends who are climbers and I am always full of questions. I've read the complete works of people like Alex Honnold and Chris Bonington. Bonington was my mum's childhood - and adulthood - hero, incidentally. I'm named after him, and on my desk at home I have a postcard of him as a young man, wearing a dark, surprisingly formal jacket, up somewhere high, and with a thick cord of ropes over his shoulder. It's a picture of pure adventure. What a disappointment to him I must be.
At that desk, though, I do quite a bit of climbing. I climbed through Crackdown, without realising it, and recently I climbed through Jusant. With the release of a new climbing game this week, I've been thinking about how it all fits together. Climbing feels, of all activities, uniquely physical to me, because it's about rock and about hands and about clasping. It's about connections, points of contact, cleaving to a part of the natural world and holding on tight. How do games do that?
Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
The post ‘Idol Showdown’ – A Ridiculous VTuber Fighting Game appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
It was Digital Foundry's John Linneman who first made me see the truth. The truth, in this case, being that Crackdown, the deliriously great open-world blaster, is not a platform game so much as it's a climbing game. Crackdown casts you as a supercop in a city in which you can race up skyscrapers as easily as if you're tooling down the street in a sportscar. Crackdown is all about the window-ledge grip, followed by the boost, followed by the grip and so on until you hit the troposphere. When you scan the side of a building in Crackdown's Pacific City, you're not really looking for platforms, but handholds.
Funny it should take me so long to realise this. I've always been a fan of climbing - not doing it, although I have dabbled, skill-lessly, in my youth, but following it, reading about it, dreaming about it. I have friends who are climbers and I am always full of questions. I've read the complete works of people like Alex Honnold and Chris Bonington. Bonington was my mum's childhood - and adulthood - hero, incidentally. I'm named after him, and on my desk at home I have a postcard of him as a young man, wearing a dark, surprisingly formal jacket, up somewhere high, and with a thick cord of ropes over his shoulder. It's a picture of pure adventure. What a disappointment to him I must be.
At that desk, though, I do quite a bit of climbing. I climbed through Crackdown, without realising it, and recently I climbed through Jusant. With the release of a new climbing game this week, I've been thinking about how it all fits together. Climbing feels, of all activities, uniquely physical to me, because it's about rock and about hands and about clasping. It's about connections, points of contact, cleaving to a part of the natural world and holding on tight. How do games do that?
As we approach the end of another fantastic year filled with gaming adventures on Kongregate.com, our team decided to take a moment to share some of our favorite games that have kept us entertained throughout the year.
"I'm hooked on Where's My Water 2 for its mind-bending puzzles, and those adorable rubber ducks! I even keep a few rubber ducks at home for some 'rubber duck debugging' when I need to tackle a problem."
2. Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre
"For my desktop gaming fix, I can't get enough of Burrito Bison Launcha Libre. Yes, it might feel a bit mean squishing those gummy bears, but there's something oddly satisfying about it. Sometimes, you just need a stress-relieving game to cap off the day, right?"
“Burrito Bison: Launcha Libre on mobile, I love it for the hidden recipes and it always helps to pass time during long flights!”
"My go-to mobile game is Bit Heroes Quest. It's got the perfect blend of simplicity and fun, making it a delightful experience every time I dive into it. Check it out for epic quests and endless excitement!"
"Having been a Kongregate gamer since childhood, Realm Grinder on Steam holds a special place in my heart. It's the most interesting and well-balanced idle game I've played. The 'lore' and discovering new mechanics while ascending keep me coming back for more!"
"Managing armies and conquering quests in The King's League: Odyssey on Kongregate has been a wonderful experience. The stunning art and the satisfaction of building my own army add a unique touch to this game."
6. Age of War
"Age of War is my nostalgic favorite from 2010, and it still holds a special place in my gaming heart. It's that timeless classic that never gets old, and it brings back memories of my early gaming days."
"Don't forget about Toss the Turtle! Those who remember the adventures from 2010 will understand how much fun it is. It's a classic that deserves a mention!"
8. Shoot & Sow
"Getting deep into Shoot & Sow has been a blast. It's small, easy to understand, and provides that perfect blend of fun and challenge. Sometimes, simplicity is the key to a great gaming experience!"
"Discovering my favorite Kongregate game at the end of the year was a pleasant surprise. I had been playing Bit Heroes Quest for so long when I finally tried out Animation Throwdown. The CCG mechanics, strategic deck-building, and the addition of characters from different cartoons make it a thoroughly entertaining experience."
As we bid farewell to another incredible year of gaming, we want to express our gratitude to the entire Kongregate community for making it a memorable journey. Here's to more gaming adventures in the coming year!
What's your favorite Kongregate game?
As the year draws to a close, we're thrilled to offer our players a special gift—a retrospective of our gaming adventures on Kongregate.com. Join us as we celebrate the top titles and share some delightful stats.
The top most-played games on Kongregate.com this year are:
Our Kongpanion Theodore was the most earned Kongpanion of 2023.
The most common badge earned this year was the Common Bit Battler from Bit Heroes Quest.
The top 3 game genres were Action, Shooter, and Puzzle games.
https://youtube.com/shorts/xbbnCQGw_uA?feature=share
https://youtube.com/shorts/81eJzzbflng?feature=share
The longest gameplay on Kongregate.com this year was over 24 hours - a full day of gaming! Was it you?
Thank you to everyone who contributed by playing and developing our favorite games this year. You’ve made Kongregate.com a vibrant gaming community. Here's to more adventures in the coming year!
It was Digital Foundry's John Linneman who first made me see the truth. The truth, in this case, being that Crackdown, the deliriously great open-world blaster, is not a platform game so much as it's a climbing game. Crackdown casts you as a supercop in a city in which you can race up skyscrapers as easily as if you're tooling down the street in a sportscar. Crackdown is all about the window-ledge grip, followed by the boost, followed by the grip and so on until you hit the troposphere. When you scan the side of a building in Crackdown's Pacific City, you're not really looking for platforms, but handholds.
Funny it should take me so long to realise this. I've always been a fan of climbing - not doing it, although I have dabbled, skill-lessly, in my youth, but following it, reading about it, dreaming about it. I have friends who are climbers and I am always full of questions. I've read the complete works of people like Alex Honnold and Chris Bonington. Bonington was my mum's childhood - and adulthood - hero, incidentally. I'm named after him, and on my desk at home I have a postcard of him as a young man, wearing a dark, surprisingly formal jacket, up somewhere high, and with a thick cord of ropes over his shoulder. It's a picture of pure adventure. What a disappointment to him I must be.
At that desk, though, I do quite a bit of climbing. I climbed through Crackdown, without realising it, and recently I climbed through Jusant. With the release of a new climbing game this week, I've been thinking about how it all fits together. Climbing feels, of all activities, uniquely physical to me, because it's about rock and about hands and about clasping. It's about connections, points of contact, cleaving to a part of the natural world and holding on tight. How do games do that?
Idol Showdown sees you throwing animals, running folks over with trucks, and hopping into a shopping cart to wreck your opponents in its wild one-on-one fights. This game is a fan-made title...
The post ‘Idol Showdown’ – A Ridiculous VTuber Fighting Game appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
Trailer Tuesday listens to problems over tea, plays a tense card game against an eerie creature, and quits a job by beating down your-ex colleagues. A TAVERN FOR TEA “A...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
In early 2018, the tech industry was shocked by the discovery of hardware microarchitecture vulnerabilities that bypassed decades of work put into software and application security. Meltdown and Spectre exploited performance features in modern application processors to leak sensitive information about victim programs to an adversary. This leakage occurs through the hardware itself, meaning that malicious software can extract secret information from users even if software protections are in place because the leakages happen below the view of software in hardware. Since these so-called transient execution vulnerabilities were first publicly disclosed, dozens of variants have been identified that all share a set of common root cause weaknesses, but the specifics of that commonality were not well understood broadly by the security community.
In early 2020, Intel Corporation, MITRE, Cycuity, and others set off to establish a set of common weaknesses for hardware to enable a more proactive approach to hardware security to reduce the risk of a hardware vulnerability in the future. The initial set of weaknesses, in the form of Common Weakness Enumerations (CWE), were broad and covered weaknesses beyond just transient execution vulnerabilities like Meltdown and Spectre. While this initial set of CWEs was extremely effective at covering the root causes across the entire hardware vulnerability landscape, the precise and specific coverage of transient execution vulnerabilities was still lacking. This was primarily because of the sheer complexity, volume, and cleverness of each of these vulnerabilities.
In the fall of 2022, technical leads from AMD, Arm, Intel (special kudos to Intel for initiating and leading the effort), Cycuity, and Riscure came together to dig into the details of publicly disclosed transient execution vulnerabilities to really understand their root cause and come up with a set of precise, yet comprehensive, root cause weaknesses expressed as CWEs to help the industry not only understand the root cause for these microarchitecture vulnerabilities but to help prevent future, unknown vulnerabilities from being discovered. The recent announcement of the four transient execution weaknesses was a result of this collaborative effort over the last year.
To come up with these root cause weaknesses, we researched every known publicly disclosed microarchitecture vulnerability (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures [CVEs]) to understand the exact characteristics of the vulnerabilities and what the root causes were. As a result of this, the following common weaknesses were discovered, with a brief summary provided in layman terms from my perspective:
CWE-1421: Exposure of Sensitive Information in Shared Microarchitectural Structures during Transient Execution
CWE-1422: Exposure of Sensitive Information caused by Incorrect Data Forwarding during Transient Execution
CWE-1423: Exposure of Sensitive Information caused by Shared Microarchitectural Predictor State that Influences Transient Execution
CWE-1420: Exposure of Sensitive Information during Transient Execution
Within each of the CWEs listed above, you can find details about observed examples, or vulnerabilities, which are a result of these weaknesses. Some vulnerabilities, Spectre-V1, for example, requires the presence of CWE-1421, CWE-1422, and CWE-1423. While others, like Meltdown, only require CWE-1422 and CWE-1423.
Since detecting these weaknesses can be a daunting task, each of the CWEs outline a set of detection methods. One detection method that is highlighted in each CWE entry is the use of information flow to track the flow of information in the microarchitecture to ensure data is being handled securely. Information flow can be used for each of the CWEs as follows:
Our Radix products use information flow at their core and we have already shown success in demonstrating Radix’s ability to detect Meltdown and Spectre. We look forward to continuing to work with the industry and our customers and partners to further advance the state of hardware security and reduce the risk of vulnerabilities being discovered in the future.
The post Microarchitecture Vulnerabilities: Uncovering The Root Cause Weaknesses appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.
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