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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...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
“AI-Musement Park comprises a cornucopia of performances / talks / happenings /
documentary & discussion about AI, Intelligences, technocapitalism’s more than
pressing-ongoing urgencies.” -Eleanor Dare, Cambridge University & AI-Musement Park
R.U. Cyber.. R.U. Against NFTs? An original AI-Musement Park, PlayLa.bZ & MONDO 2000
History Project human and machine learning co-creation, taking the perspective of an AI that is
training itself on the R.U. Sirius & MONDO Vanilli ‘I’m Against NFT’s’ song lyrics, exploring a
surreal, mind melting and multi-dimensional 360 world of paradoxes and conflicting rules.
“Mondo Vanilli was originally intended to be a virtual reality band exploding all
assumptions about property and propriety in the 1990s. Today fabrication becomes de
rigueur as the connection to the real is intentionally confused by the banal political
tricksters of power and profitability… while storms pound our all-too-human bodies and
communities. I am thrilled to finally see MONDO Vanilli in it’s appropriate context.
Immersive. Come play in the simulacra one more time” -R.U. Sirius, MONDO 2000
R.U. Cyber.. R.U. Against NFTs? Is a satirical, irreverent block-chain busting commentary on
the propaganda relations fueled ‘Web 3’ hype around non-fungible tokens and the broader
issues that underpin our algorithmically massaged hyper-connected infinite scrolls and trolls
age. Challenging our assumptions about the nature of technology, creativity, and value,
reminding us that the digital world is shaped by powerful forces that determine what is valued
and what is not, and a click is not always for free.
Join Us! On Spring Solstice 2023 For “R.U. Cyber? :// Mondo 2000 History Project Salon”
at MozFest Virtual Plaza & Mozilla Hubs: AI-Musement Park 20th March / 8.30pm EU / GMT
R.U. Sirius is an American writer, editor, and media pioneer. Known for being one of key
psychedelic & cyberpunk movement figures. Best known as Mondo 2000 editor-in-chief and at
forefront of 1990s underground cyberculture movement.
Since 2010, MozFest has fueled the movement to ensure the internet benefits humanity, rather
than harms it. This year, your part in the story is critical to our community’s mission: a better,
healthier internet and more Trustworthy AI.
Co-founded by PsychFi, FreekMinds & Squire Studios we’re a next generation multipotentiality
multi-award-winning, multi-dimensional motion arts experience design laboratory, developing
DIY changemaking createch immersive experiences & software applications for social good
storycraft. Supporters & Friends: Mozilla Festival, Jisc: Digifest, Beyond Games, Tate Modern,
Furtherfield, Boomtown Festival, Sci-Fi-London, Ravensbourne University London, UAL, East
London Dance, NESTA, Modern Panic, ArtFutura, Kimatica, National Gallery X, Kings College
London, Looking Glass Factory, SubPac, Ecologi, The JUMP, BOM Labs, Mondo 2000
PR Contact: James E. Marks, Tel: 07921 523438 @: [email protected] Twitter: @GoGenieMo
The post Turn On, Tune In, Boot Up! For MozFest 2023: appeared first on Mondo 2000.
The semiconductor industry is converging on 3.5D as the next best option in advanced packaging, a hybrid approach that includes stacking logic chiplets and bonding them separately to a substrate shared by other components.
This assembly model satisfies the need for big increases in performance while sidestepping some of the thorniest issues in heterogeneous integration. It establishes a middle ground between 2.5D, which already is in widespread use inside of data centers, and full 3D-ICs, which the chip industry has been struggling to commercialize for the better part of a decade.
A 3.5D architecture offers several key advantages:
Chipmakers still point to fully integrated 3D-ICs as the best performing alternative to a planar SoC, but packing everything into a 3D configuration makes it harder to deal with physical effects. Thermal dissipation is probably the most difficult to contend with. Workloads can vary significantly, creating dynamic thermal gradients and trapping heat in unexpected places, which in turn reduce the lifespan and reliability of chips. On top of that, power and substrate noise become more problematic at each new node, as do concerns about electromagnetic interference.
“What the market has adopted first is high-performance chips, and those produce a lot of heat,” said Marc Swinnen, director of product marketing at Ansys. “They have gone for expensive cooling systems with a huge number of fans and heat sinks, and they have opted for silicon interposers, which arguably are some of the most expensive technologies for connecting chips together. But it also gives the highest performance and is very good for thermal because it matches the coefficient of thermal expansion. Thermal is one of the big reasons that’s been successful. In addition to that, you may want bigger systems with more stuff that you can’t fit on one chip. That’s just a reticle-size limitation. Another is heterogeneous integration, where you want multiple different processes, like an RF process or the I/O, which don’t need to be in 5nm.”
A 3.5D assembly also provides more flexibility to add additional processor cores, and higher yield because known good die can be manufactured and tested separately, a concept first pioneered by Xilinx in 2011 at 28nm.
3.5D is a loose amalgamation of all these approaches. It can include two to three chiplets stacked on top of each other, or even multiple stacks laid out horizontally.
“It’s limited vertical, and not just for thermal reasons,” said Bill Chen, fellow and senior technical advisor at ASE Group. “It’s also for performance reasons. But thermal is the limiting factor, and we’ve talked about many different materials to help with that — diamond and graphene — but that limitation is still there.”
This is why the most likely combination, at least initially, will be processors stacked on SRAM, which simplifies the cooling. The heat generated by high utilization of different processing elements can be removed with heat sinks or liquid cooling. And with one or more thinned out substrates, signals will travel shorter distances, which in turn uses less power to move data back and forth between processors and memory.
“Most likely, this is going to be logic over memory on a logic process,” said Javier DeLaCruz, fellow and senior director of Silicon Ops Engineering at Arm. “These are all contained within an SoC normally, but a portion of that is going to be SRAM, which does not scale very well from node to node. So having logic over memory and a logic process is really the winning solution, and that’s one of the better use cases for 3D because that’s what really shortens your connectivity. A processor generally doesn’t talk to another processor. They talk to each other through memory, so having the memory on a different floor with no latency between them is pretty attractive.”
The SRAM doesn’t necessarily have to be at the same node as the processors advanced node, which also helps with yield, and reliability. At a recent Samsung Foundry event, Taejoong Song, the company’s vice president of foundry business development, showed a roadmap of a 3.5D configuration using a 2nm chiplet stacked on a 4nm chiplet next year, and a 1.4nm chiplet on top of a 2nm chiplet in 2027.
Fig. 1: Samsung’s heterogeneous integration roadmap showing stacked DRAM (HBM), chiplets and co-packaged optics. Source: Samsung Foundry
Intel Foundry’s approach is similar in many ways. “Our 3.5D technology is implemented on a substrate with silicon bridges,” said Kevin O’Buckley, senior vice president and general manager of Foundry Services at Intel. “This is not an incredibly costly, low-yielding, multi-reticle form-factor silicon, or even RDL. We’re using thin silicon slices in a much more cost-efficient fashion to enable that die-to-die connectivity — even stacked die-to-die connectivity — through a silicon bridge. So you get the same advantages of silicon density, the same SI (signal integrity) performance of that bridge without having to put a giant monolithic interposer underneath the whole thing, which is both cost- and capacity-prohibitive. It’s working. It’s in the lab and it’s running.”
Fig. 2: Intel’s 3.5D model. Source: Intel
The strategy here is partly evolutionary — 3.5D has been in R&D for at least several years — and part revolutionary, because thinning out the interconnect layer, figuring out a way to handle these thinner interconnect layers, and how to bond them is still a work in progress. There is a potential for warping, cracking, or other latent defects, and dynamically configuring data paths to maximize throughput is an ongoing challenge. But there have been significant advances in thermal management on two- and three-chiplet stacks.
“There will be multiple solutions,” said C.P. Hung, vice president of corporate R&D at ASE. “For example, besides the device itself and an external heat sink, a lot of people will be adding immersion cooling or local liquid cooling. So for the packaging, you can probably also expect to see the implementation of a vapor chamber, which will add a good interface from the device itself to an external heat sink. With all these challenges, we also need to target a different pitch. For example, nowadays you see mass production with a 45 to 40 pitch. That is a typical bumping solution. We expect the industry to move to a 25 to 20 micron bump pitch. Then, to go further, we need hybrid bonding, which is a less than 10 micron pitch.”
Fig. 3: Today’s interposers support more than 100,000 I/Os at a 45m pitch. Source: ASE
Hybrid bonding solves another thorny problem, which is co-planarity across thousands of micro-bumps. “People are starting to realize that the densities we’re interconnecting require a level of flatness, which the guys who make traditional things to be bonded are having a hard time meeting with reasonable yield,” David Fromm, COO at Promex Industries. “That makes it hard to build them, and the thinking is, ‘So maybe we’ve got to do something else.’ You’re starting to see some of that.”
Taming the Hydra
Managing heat remains a challenge, even with all the latest advances and a 3.5D assembly, but the ability to isolate the thermal effects from other components is the best option available today, and possibly well into the future. Still, there are other issues to contend with. Even 2.5D isn’t easy, and a large percentage of the 2.5D implementations have been bespoke designs by large systems companies with very deep pockets.
One of the big remaining challenges is closing timing so that signals arrive at the right place at the right fraction of a second. This becomes harder as more elements are added into chips, and in a 3.5D or 3D-IC, this can be incredibly complex.
“Timing ultimately is the key,” said Sutirtha Kabir, R&D director at Synopsys. “It’s not guaranteed that at whatever your temperature is, you can use the same library for timing. So the question is how much thermal- and IR-aware timing do you have to do? These are big systems. You have to make sure your sign-off is converging. There are two things coming out. There are a bunch of multi-physics effects that are all clumped together. And yes, you could traditionally do one at a time as sign-off, but that isn’t going to work very well. You need to figure out how to solve these problems simultaneously. Ultimately, you’re doing one design. It’s not one for thermal, one for IR, one for timing. The second thing is the data is exploding. How do you efficiently handle the data, because you cannot wait for days and days of runtime and simulation and analysis?”
Physically assembling these devices isn’t easy, either. “The challenge here is really in the thermal, electrical, and mechanical connection of all these various die with different thicknesses and different coefficients of thermal expansion,” said Intel’s O’Buckley. “So with three die, you’ve got the die and an active base, and those are substantially thinned to enable them to come together. And then EMIB is in the substrate. There’s always intense thermal-mechanical qualification work done to manage not just the assembly, but to ensure in the final assembly — the second-level assembly when this is going through system-level card attach — that this thing stays together.”
And depending upon demands for speed, the interconnects and interconnect materials can change. “Hybrid bonding gives you, by far, the best signal and power density,” said Arm’s DeLaCruz. “And it gives you the best thermal conductivity, because you don’t have that underfill that you would otherwise have to put in between the die, which is a pretty significant barrier. This is likely where the industry will go. It’s just a matter of having the production base.”
Hybrid bonding has been used for years for image sensors using wafer-on-wafer connections. “The tricky part is going into the logic space, where you’re moving from wafer-on-wafer to a die-on-wafer process, which is more complex,” DeLaCruz said. “While it currently would cost more, that’s a temporary problem because there’s not much of an installed base to support it and drive down the cost. There’s really no expensive material or equipment costs.”
Toward mass customization
All of this is leading toward the goal of choosing chiplets from a menu and then rapidly connecting them into some sort of architecture that is proven to work. That may not materialize for years. But commercial chiplets will show up in advanced designs over the next couple years, most likely in high-bandwidth memory with a customized processor in the stack, with more following that path in the future.
At least part of this will depend on how standardized the processes for designing, manufacturing, and testing become. “We’re seeing a lot of 2.5D from customers able to secure silicon interposers,” said Ruben Fuentes, vice president for the Design Center at Amkor Technology. “These customers want to place their chiplets on an interposer, then the full module is placed on a flip-chip substrate package. We also have customers who say they either don’t want to use a silicon interposer or cannot secure them. They prefer an RDL interconnect with S-SWIFT or with S-Connect, which serves as an interposer in very dense areas.”
But with at least a third of these leading designs only for internal use, and the remainder confined to large processor vendors, the rest of the market hasn’t caught up yet. Once it does, that will drive economies of scale and open the door to more complete assembly design kits, commercial chiplets, and more options for customization.
“Everybody is generally going in the same direction,” said Fuentes. “But not everything is the same height. HBMs are pre-packaged and are taller than ICs. HBMs could have 12 or 16 ICs stacked inside. It makes a difference from a co-planarity and thermal standpoint, and metal balancing on different layers. So now vendors are having a hard time processing all this data because suddenly you have these huge databases that are a lot bigger than the standard packaging databases. We’re seeing bridges, S-Connect, SWIFT, and then S-SWIFT. This is new territory, and we’re seeing a performance gap in the packaging tools. There’s work that needs to be done here, but software vendors have been very proactive in finding solutions. Additionally, these packages need to be routed. There is limited automated routing, so a good amount of interactive routing is still required, so it takes a lot of time.”
Fig. 4: Packaging roadmap showing bridge and hybrid bonding connections for modules and chiplets, respectively. Source: Amkor Technology
What’s missing
The key challenges ahead for 3.5D are proven reliability and customizability — requirements that are seemingly contradictory, and which are beyond the control of any single company. There are four major pieces to making all of this work.
EDA is the first important piece of the puzzle, and the challenge extends just beyond a single chip. “The IC designers have to think about a lot of things concurrently, like thermal, signal integrity, and power integrity,” said Keith Lanier, technical product management director at Synopsys. “But even beyond that, there’s a new paradigm in terms of how people need to work. Traditional packaging folks and IC designers need to work closely together to make these 3.5D designs successful.”
It’s not just about doing more with the same or fewer people. It’s doing more with different people, too. “It’s understanding the architecture definition, the functional requirements, constraints, and having those well-defined,” Lanier said. “But then it’s also feasibility, which includes partitioning and technology selection, and then prototyping and floor-planning. This is lots and lots of data that is required to be generated, and you need analysis-driven exploration, design, and implementation. And AI will be required to help designers and system design teams manage the sheer complexity of these 3.5D designs.”
Process/assembly design kits are a second critical piece, and this is likely to be split between the foundries and the OSATs. “If the customer wants a silicon interposer for a 2.5D package, it would be up to the foundry that’s going to manufacture the interposer to provide the PDK. We would provide the PDK for all of our products, such as S-SWIFT and S-Connect,” said Amkor’s Fuentes.
Setting realistic parameters is the third piece of the puzzle. While the type of processing elements and some of the analog functions may change — particularly those involving power and communication — most of the components will remain the same. That determines what can be pre-built and pre-tested, and the speed and ease of assembly.
“A lot of the standards that are being deployed, like UCIe interfaces and HBM interfaces are heading to where 20% is customization and 80% is on the shelf,” said Intel’s O’Buckley. “But we aren’t there today. At the scale that our customers are deploying these products, the economics of spending that extra time to optimize an implementation is a decimal point. It’s not leveraging 80/20 standards. We’ll get there. But most of these designs you can count on your fingers and toes because of the cost and scale required to do them. And until the infrastructure for standards-based chiplets gets mature, the barrier of entry for companies that want to do this without that scale is just too high. Still, it is going to happen.”
Ensuring processes are consistent is the fourth piece of the puzzle. The tools and the individual processes don’t need to change. “The customer has a ‘target’ for the outcome they want for a particular tool, which typically is a critical dimension measured by a metrology tool,” said David Park, vice president of marketing at Tignis. “As long as there is some ‘measurement’ that determines the goodness of some outcome, which typically is the result of a process step, we can either predict the bad outcome — and engineers have to take some corrective or preventive action — or we can optimize the recipe of that tool in real time to keep the result in the range they want.”
Park noted there is a recipe that controls the inputs. “The tool does whatever it is supposed to do,” he said. “Then you measure the output to see how far you deviated from the acceptable output.”
The challenge is that inside of a 3.5D system, what is considered acceptable output is still being defined. There are many processes with different tolerances. Defining what is consistent enough will require a broad understanding of how all the pieces work together under specific workloads, and where the potential weaknesses are that need to be adjusted.
“One of the problems here is as these densities get higher and the copper pillars get smaller, the amount of space you need between the pillar and the substrate have to be highly controlled,” said Dick Otte, president and CEO of Promex. “There’s a conflict — not so much with how you fabricate the chip, because it usually has the copper pillars on it — but with the substrate. A lot of the substrate technologies are not inherently flat. It’s the same issue with glass. You’ve got a really nice flat piece of glass. The first thing you’re going to do is put down a layer of metal and you’re going to pattern it. And then you put down a layer of dielectric, and suddenly you’ve got a lump where the conductor goes. And now, where do you put the contact points? So you always have the one plan which is going to be the contact point where all the pillars come in. But what if I only need one layer and I don’t need three?”
Conclusion
For the past decade, the chip industry has been trying to figure out a way to balance faster processing, domain-specific designs, limited reticle size, and the enormous cost of scaling an SoC. After investigating nearly every possible packaging approach, interconnect, power delivery method, substrate and dielectric material, 3.5D has emerged as the front runner — at least for now.
This approach provides the chip industry with a common thread on which to begin developing assembly design kits, commercial chiplets, and to fill in the missing tools and services throughout the supply chain. Whether this ultimately becomes a springboard for full 3D-ICs, or a platform on which to use 3D stacking more effectively, remains to be seen. But for the foreseeable future, large chipmakers have converged on a path forward to provide orders of magnitude performance improvements and a way to contain costs. The rest of the industry will be working to smooth out that path for years to come.
Related Reading
Intel Vs. Samsung Vs. TSMC
Foundry competition heats up in three dimensions and with novel technologies as planar scaling benefits diminish.
3D Metrology Meets Its Match In 3D Chips And Packages
Next-generation tools take on precision challenges in three dimensions.
Design Flow Challenged By 3D-IC Process, Thermal Variation
Rethinking traditional workflows by shifting left can help solve persistent problems caused by process and thermal variations.
Floor-Planning Evolves Into The Chiplet Era
Automatically mitigating thermal issues becomes a top priority in heterogeneous designs.
The post 3.5D: The Great Compromise appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.
Sigilfarer reimagines the deck-building experience, allowing players to forge their own fate through a customizable dice system. In this game, your party is represented by a set of dice, with each face shaped by the equipment you choose.
Sigilfarer is scheduled for release in the first half of 2025. Stay tuned for more updates and prepare to embark on an epic journey where every roll of the dice shapes your destiny. For more information, please visit Anshar Publishing Steam Page or contact us via [email protected].
Step into a New Realm with YGGDRA Re:birth SEA YGGDRA Re:birth SEA marks Mindlink Games' inaugural venture into the mobile gaming space. Set in a breathtaking fantasy universe, the game offers players a chance to explore an intricately designed world brimming with myth, magic, and adventure. With its rich narrative and engaging gameplay mechanics, YGGDRA Re:birth SEA promises to deliver a memorable experience for fans of fantasy and adventure.
Pre-Registration Event: Secure Exclusive Rewards
Mindlink Games is celebrating the upcoming release of YGGDRA Re:birth SEA with a special pre-registration event. By signing up, players can secure a range of exclusive in-game rewards, including rare items, unique characters, and special abilities that will enhance their gameplay experience from the start.
Why Pre-Register?
- Tons of Freebies and Amazing Rewards: Get special in-game items and bonuses for free when you sign up before launch. You can even get a chance to win a ROG Phone 8 Pro!
- Stay Informed: Receive updates and news directly from Mindlink Games about the game’s release and features.
How to Pre-Register
To pre-register, visit the official YGGDRA Re:birth SEA website at https://yggdrasea.com/.
Simply follow the easy steps to sign up and be among the first to experience the game when it launches.
Upcoming Releases
In addition to YGGDRA Re:birth SEA, Mindlink Games has an exciting year ahead with plans to release an action-packed FPS game and a captivating new RPG. These upcoming titles promise to expand Mindlink Games' portfolio and offer even more thrilling experiences for gamers.
About Mindlink Games
Mindlink Games is an innovative developer and publisher dedicated to creating immersive and engaging gaming experiences. YGGDRA Re:birth SEA represents the studio's first foray into the mobile gaming market, with future releases set to continue delivering high-quality and exciting content.
Join the Adventure
Don’t miss out on the chance to be part of YGGDRA Re:birth SEA's epic adventure.
Pre-register today to secure your exclusive rewards and get ready for a new fantasy journey like no other.
For more information, visit Mindlink Games’ website and YGGDRA Re:birth SEA's pre-registration page.
Join us on a journey as we witness a daughter's growth, shaped by the choices you make as her father. While you'll guide her path with study schedules and part-time jobs, it's the unexpected encounters that will truly define her.
About “Princess Maker 2”
“Princess Maker 2” is a childrearing simulation game in which the player experiences being the father to a daughter granted to them by the stars.
They raise the girl for eight years, from ages ten to eighteen. Your daughter grows up to be an adult through various experiences in the game. The girl’s dream is to become a princess, but a wide variety of opportunities await depending on how you raise her. What kind of dream will you make come true for this girl?
Redrawing the graphics
This title is based on “Princess Maker 2: Refine,” released in 2004. Especially important graphics were redrawn by Takami Akai in a style similar to the PC-98 version. The graphics are drawn in high resolution befitting modern game systems, with a commitment to quality in the details.
Addition of an opening animation
An opening animation by Yonago Gainax has been added to the game. The animation, drawn by a team led by Takami Akai, envisions the future the player will have as the “father” with their “daughter”.
Knowing how your daughter is doing is the first step in raising her
This title is a social simulation, so it is very important to always be aware of your daughter's status and use this to raise her.
In “Regeneration”, parameters for assessing your daughter's status are always available, so you can check on her at a glance. Check what you should do for your daughter’s future, and raise her carefully.
Message from Takami Akai
I am deeply grateful to see that “Princess Maker 2”, which came out 30 years ago, is still so beloved by so many fans that we can release a new version. This time I was finally able to redo the graphics, which I had always wanted to do. Please enjoy the newly redrawn vacations and endings.
About Takami Akai
Born 1961. While still enrolled at Osaka University of Arts, he made his debut with the DAICON III Opening Animation. As one of the founding members of GAINAX Co., Ltd., he has worked on anime and tokusatsu shows, as well as games and events. His most noteworthy works include the "Princess Maker" series, Gurren Lagann, and Dai Tokusatsu Negiman.
Bliss Brain Corporation is a Japanese game publisher. Bliss Brain revives high quality games for the modern day and distributes them to the world in downloadable format. Currently, they offer "Princess Maker 2 Refine", "Princess Maker ~Faery Tales Come True~", and "Princess Maker 5" for download on Steam. "Wonder Boy Collection" (not yet released in Japan) will be released for the first time on PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Bliss Brain plans to release more new games in the future.
For details, visit https://blissbrain.co.jp.
About Yonago GAINAX
Takami Akai started this entertainment company in 2014, in his hometown of Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture. It does business based on the theme of contributing to the local community. With a small team of just 10 members, it works on unique jobs, including anime, games, and events.
For details, visit https://yonago-gainax.co.jp/.
Already this distinguished and deeply planned/researched creation has been finely tuned and skillfully worked on over this extended period to ensure a game of depth, challenge and not least quality. It has already won, or been nominated for, a number of awards!
Opening up to a new world of Challenge
Developer’s Silvine strategy game adds another dimension to a genre that is sometimes overlooked as being formulaic, very simple in design, presentation and procedural play. Artifice: War Tactics is a turn-based strategy roguelike game with a unique asymmetric combat system. In this game, enemies set up attack zones, while your champions can actively evade and disrupt strategy using their traits, abilities, or items.
Studio Quote - Technology/Inspirational
Neeraj Kumar, Founder. Silvine, ”Our studio specialises in both design and technology. Creating an art-heavy game has been a challenge for us, one we have successfully negotiated! We conducted extensive research, made iterations, and received a lot of help from colleagues with specialised expertise. Our inspiration stems from games like XCOM, Into the Breach, and Darkest Dungeon.”
Unleash your tactical prowess in a mediaeval fantasy world where survival depends on thwarting enemy ambushes with an array of champions at your disposal. Defeat powerful bosses to conquer strongholds and lead your army to victory!
Chaos ensued as civil war broke out in every kingdom, demanding its rulers to bow down to Theosus, or face the wrath of the people. In the end, not many remained to challenge Theosus as he became Ozaria’s sovereign. Years later, Sirion, the keeper of the relic, reached out to the mortals of this realm to rally against the tyranny. He gathered all the rebels to form the Conclave and entrusted the last of the stone fragments to them. You are the leader of this Conclave, and even though your chances of success are slim, it is up to you now to overthrow this false god.
Gameplay - visually cool, challengingly perfect!
Presentation and action is via the asymmetric grid combat system where you can execute an impressive array of combinations and synergies. Every action carries consequences. The animation and special effects that accompany each move add real impact to the game’s authenticity and overall ambience, just one of many impressive features.
Setting up to play, each turn base move follows a number of sequences/choices at the player's control. Observe enemy positions and deduce where they’re most likely to set up an ambush. Anticipate where the enemy is most likely to move during the following turn to position your champions. Position your champions strategically. Set attack zones and engage your enemies to create chain reactions of combos, maximising your victory and striking as many enemies as possible. A user-friendly interface gives lots of information about the enemies’ powers and move positions and there are various key presses that will bring up further helpful information. After only a short period of time and your first success Artifice becomes very intuitive.
Look out!
The biome hazards come in four types: Sandworm, frost wraith, Poison Ivy, and Floating Rune. They can be both dangerous and useful. If you are able to hit the enemies while they are next to them, they also attack the enemies. On the other hand, if you end up taking a hit while next to them, you might end up losing a shard (life), which will make the battle more difficult. Using them wisely is important for a master tactician.
Features & Facts
About Silvine Game Studios
Founded by Neeraj Kumar, Aubhik Nath, Ekta Verma, and Vishal Mohan, Silvine Game Studios is an indie developer based in Chennai, India. After their success with Asura: Vengeance Edition, the team reunited to create Artifice: War Tactics. Learn more at Silvine Game Studios.
At Opening Night Live at gamescom 2024, the Marvel Rivals release date and Captain America and Winter Soldier gameplay appeared. The game will launch on the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on December 6, 2024.
Here is the new Marvel Rivals release date, Captain America, and Winter Soldier gamescom 2024 trailer. It begins with Wakanda being mentioned and Black Panther shown. From there, we get to see more of Captain America and Winter Soldier. First, Bucky gameplay comes up. After that, Steve takes the stage. The video closes with the confirmed release date for the title.
The trailer also included a number of promises and commitments at the end of it. Netease noted that the game will launch with every playable character unlocked. People won’t need to pay to unlock them or earn them via playing. It will also be free-to-play. The publisher noted this will apply past launch as well.
Seeing Captain America and Winter Soldier in Marvel Rivals marks two additional series staples. Others showed up as of late in the past few weeks and months. For example, a more obscure character named Jeff the Land Shark will be a part of it.
Marvel Rivals release date falls on December 6, 2024, and people will find it on the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC via Epic Games Store and Steam.
The post Marvel Rivals Release Date Set, Captain America and Winter Soldier Shown appeared first on Siliconera.
GameFromScratch.com
Godot 4.3 Released
The first major release of the Godot Game Engine of 2024 (Godot 4.2 was released in November 2023), Godot 4.3 is jam packed with new features. In fact, this release contains almost 3,500 commits since 4.2, with contributions from over 500 contributors! Highlight new features of the Godot 4.3 release […]
The post Godot 4.3 Released appeared first on GameFromScratch.com.
Enlarge (credit: Getty | Thomas Trutschel)
With the country experiencing a relatively large summer wave of COVID-19, the Food and Drug Administration is considering signing off on this year's strain-matched COVID-19 vaccines as soon as this week, according to a report by CNN that cited unnamed officials familiar with the matter.
Last year, the FDA gave the green light for the 2023–2024 COVID shots on September 11, close to the peak of SARS-CoV-2 transmission in that year's summer wave. This year, the summer wave began earlier and, by some metrics, is peaking at much higher levels than in previous years.
Currently, wastewater detection of SARS-CoV-2 shows "very high" virus levels in 32 states and the District of Columbia. An additional 11 states are listed as having "high" levels. Looking at trends, the southern and western regions of the country are currently reporting SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater that rival the 2022–2023 and 2023–2024 winter waves, which both peaked at the very end of December.
It’s time for Gamescom, friendos. Geoff Keighley is back to host another big video game showcase, and this time it’s the Opening Night Live presentation before Gamescom. The German event is taking place from August 21 to 25 in Cologne, but before fans, press, and developers explore the showfloor, we get to see a big…
Soutěžní multiplayerový titul 6v6 Marvel Rivals od společnosti NetEase Games má konečně datum vydání, a to 6. prosince pro konzole Xbox Series X/S, PS5 a PC. K dispozici je také nový trailer, který ukazuje Kapitána Ameriku a Winter Soldiera v akci.
Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, se dostane na stranu padouchů. Vlastní pistoli, ze které může střílet na střední vzdálenost, ale také dokáže protivníky přitáhnout k sobě kovovou rukou, vrhnout se vpřed a zasadit jim ránu. Jeho ultimátum promění paži v chapadlovitou obludu, s níž skáče a mlátí protivníky.
Steve Rogers, legendární Kapitán Amerika, se může do bitvy vrhnout se štítem, který blokuje poškození a posílá je zpět. Rogers může štítem také házet, odrážet se mezi nepřáteli a shazovat ho shora. Nejzábavnější kousek zahrnuje odraz Iron Manovy ultimátky, čímž ho okamžitě zabije.
To samozřejmě není všechno, protože společnost NetEase potvrdila, že všichni hrdinové budou při spuštění a „později“ odemknuti a hratelní zdarma. Plán pro sezóny po spuštění zatím neprozradila, takže zůstaňte naladěni na další aktualizace.
Článek Marvel Rivals vyjde v 6. prosince, Kapitán Amerika a Winter Soldier odhaleni se nejdříve objevil na GAME PRESS.
During today's Gamescom Opening Night Live, developer and publisher NetEase confirmed that upcoming Free to Play Hero Shooter Marvel Rivals officially has a release date. Marvel Rivals will release on December 6, 2024 on Steam, Epic Game Store, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The Overwatch-inspired superhero team-based PvP shooter allows players to choose from a roster of Marvel Heroes and jump into 6v6 combat across a handful of landmark battlefields from the Marvel cinematic universe.
Marvel Rivals recently had a rather successful playtest, creating a lot of buzz around the fact that there is finally a potential competitor to Overwatch. Our very own Eric Van Allen got some playtime with the hero shooter and felt that while it wasn't necessarily revolutionary, it could put some pressure on Overwatch.
All heroes will be unlocked and free-to-play "at launch and beyond" which is certainly great news for fans looking forward to dabbling in some Marvel madness.
Those interested in Marvel Rivals can jump in when it launches on December 6, 2024 on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.
The post Marvel Rivals release date confirmed for December appeared first on Destructoid.
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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...
The post Trailer Tuesday – Untitled Tavern Override appeared first on Indie Games Plus.
| Episode Number | Release Date |
|---|---|
| 1 | July 5, 2023 |
| 2 | July 12, 2023 |
| 3 | July 19, 2023 |
| 4 | July 26, 2023 |
| 5 | August 2, 2023 |
| 6 | August 9, 2023 |
| 7 | August 16, 2023 |
| 8 | August 23, 2023 |
| 9 | August 30, 2023 |
| 10 | September 6, 2023 |
| 11 | September 13, 2023 |
| 12 | September 20, 2023 |
What is My Happy Marriage about?
One of my favorite activities in Minecraft is going deep inside the caves and just exploring them. A few years ago, the developers behind Cave Digger reached out to me and asked me to review their game. Not too long after, the sequel got released and looked like it would be a VR exclusive. Until I noticed that it appeared on the Nintendo Switch eShop. So, I thought, maybe it also released on Steam, since after playing the Switch version, I felt like this game was better played with keyboard and mouse. Now, a non VR version is on Steam now… But is it worth it? Well, after playing the first sections of this game, I want to talk about it. The latest update was on May 28th, 2024 when writing this article. Now, before we dive right into it, I want to invite to you leave a comment in the comment section with your thoughts and/or opinions on this game and/or the content of this article.
Risk of Staleness
In this game, we play as an unnamed miner who is throwing into the deep end, when his digger broke. You arrive at a mysterious valley. In this valley, a hardy explorer once did his research. But why? Which secrets are in these valleys and the accompanying mines? That’s for our miner to figure out. Now, the story is being told by various comic book pages you can uncover and, according to the Steam store page, has multiple endings. I’m quite curious where it’s going to go.
So far, I haven’t gotten too deep into the story. But, from what I can read on the Steam store page, I think it has potential. I have my doubts on how the multiple endings will work. Since comic books mostly have one ending, right? Unless, it all depends on which page(s) you find or in which order or where. That’s something I’ll discover when I’m deeper into the game.
If this game is like the original game, the story overall will take a backseat for the gameplay. And after 5 hours in, that’s the case. The original game didn’t have a lot of story to begin with, but more story in a game like this can be interesting.
There is one voice actor in this game. He does a pretty fine job and brings some life to the atmosphere. I replayed a bit of the first game and I have to be honest, I appreciate the small voice lines during the exploration. Even when you quickly hear every different line, it’s a nice break since they aren’t spammed and don’t appear that often.
One of the biggest changes in this game is that the cave this time around is randomly generated each time you enter. So, this game becomes a rouge like to a degree. But, you can always exit via the lifts to safety. Since, dying in the caves means that at least half of your obtained loot is dropped. The atmosphere this time around is very cohesive. This game presents itself as a sci-fi western game, and it really feels like that. Something I really like in this game is that it doesn’t go overboard in the sci-fi genre and stays grounded. The technology could realistically exist today, apart from the unique enemies in the cave, that is.
With the story taking more of a backseat, it’s quite important that the gameplay loop is enjoyable. The gameplay loop is simple, you have to explore the caves with 4 chosen tools. The three slots above the entrance give you a hint on which tools you will need to bring to gather the most loot. You take the lift down and gather loot, while fighting enemies and avoiding pitfalls to survive. The goal is also to find the other elevator that takes you down to the next level to gather even more valuable ores to bring to the top. You have to fill in the ores you gathered into the grinder to buy upgrades to your tools and environment to progress.
The big risk with this kind of gameplay loop is that this is just a different numbers game. What I mean by that is that, apart from maybe the visuals changing, the core concept is always the same. This risks that the game becomes stale and repetitive. It’s possible that it is just a “me thing”, but I enjoy games like this more when there are some variations on the gameplay or some different puzzles. Thankfully, this game has that. There are a lot of things you can upgrade and improve to make each run feel rewarding, and each type of cave you can visit has different enemies types and unique lay-outs to keep you on your toes. In a way, I dare to compare the idea a bit to Cult of the Lamb in a degree.
The music in this game is also a blast. It fits the atmosphere of each area like a glove. My favorite track is the track that plays in the lake caves. It sounds like you image a typical track like that to sound. And it gets more intense while you are fighting enemies down there. Now, the silent moments when the music doesn’t play feel a bit long, but I always know that there is more music coming and that it fits the atmosphere perfectly and draws me more into the game. Sadly enough, this isn’t the only problem with this game, and I’d like to talk about them.
No feedback
This game has an addictive gameplay loop, and I’m really curious how the multiplayer works. I haven’t tested the multiplayer in this game, but it looks like fun. Now, this game can be played solo perfectly fine.
Now, I don’t know if VRKiwi took the VR version as a base for the non VR version, since I have the impression, that is the case. I especially notice that with the controls in this game. It feels a bit floaty, like you aren’t really connected to the ground. It also feels a bit stiff, like you have to move your mouse like you would a VR headset. You really have to play with the settings until you hit that sweetspot that feels right for you. For me, I had to lower the sensitivity to 80, amongst other things. I highly recommend that you tweak the settings to your liking, since on the Nintendo Switch version, I had to lower the sensitivity to 40 before it felt right.
Still, the character control doesn’t feel right. At first, I thought it was because the controls felt floaty… But, after some testing, I think I found a few other problems with the character control that might cause it to not feel quite right. First, the jump in this game is just silly. You can’t really rely on it, since it doesn’t always trigger when you hit the spacebar, and it’s just a pathetic jump. You can’t even jump out of ankle high water sometimes.
Secondly, there are no sound effects for walking on most floors. You feel like you are floating, and it’s jarring when you suddenly hear a sound effect when you walk over a table or a railway. Thirdly, climbing on ropes amongst other things is just insanely picky. There is also no real feedback or sound to show you grabbed the rope. Fourthly, the scroll order between tools is extremely weird. You get numbers on the wheel counter clock wise. But you go down, right, left, up. Which still confuses me after 6 hours of playing this game.
And finally, some things are extremely picky. For example, there are safe riddles you can solve down in the caves. But to rotate the letter wheels to make pick the right letter is more difficult to do. All of these things give you a feeling that you aren’t always in control of your character and that you don’t get the feedback as a player on what’s happening. Making you unsure what’s happening and doubt if you are doing the right thing.
Prompts like “Use W/S to use the crank” should be “Hold W/S to use the crank”. Since, you need to hold the key instead of pressing it. Small things like that could also improve this game and it’s controls quite a lot. Overall, the controls are good, but they lack feedback to the player sometimes. Either with sound effects or with some visual effects. Like with the hammer, you barely have any sound effects when you use it, and it has some wind up animation, making you unsure if you are using it or not.
That is one of the biggest flaws in this game. The lack of feedback on your actions. Things like not knowing how many bullets are still left in your revolver or a sound effect when you hit an actual enemy. I think if there is one thing I’d use the built-in feedback tool is to report various cases/moments when I expect feedback from the game, like a sound effect or visual effect. Maybe they appear in the form of rumble effects… But, I’m not playing this game with a controller.
When you read this section of the article, I wouldn’t blame you if you think that this game isn’t good. Small bugs like the text of “Press R to reload” when your gun isn’t equipped or the bullets not leaving from the gun but from the player model don’t improve things either. Yet, I find myself looking past these problems since the core gameplay still works. I find myself getting used to the jank in this game and finding a very rough diamond. If the developers keep up with their promise of improving this game, I think that more action feedback will bring a lot to the game and maybe fixing the small bugs like in this paragraph as well.
Things like the animation of the shovel looking weird sometimes. The animation looks like the arms go through each other after a dig. Speaking of the shovel, the last dig is annoying since you have to move a pixel or two for it to count and give you your goodies. But the bug I’d love to see fixed most is the freeze for several seconds when you pick up something new or get a new codec entry. The game locks up like it’s about the crash, but it doesn’t.
What’s next for us?
Usually, I’m not really picky when it comes to the visuals of a game. As long as a game looks consistent, I’m quite happy. It needs to have a certain style so that you can quickly identify what’s what and enjoy the game.
Yet, for this game, I do have some things that I not really like in terms of the visuals. Firstly, the contrast of some ores and the floor isn’t clear enough. Sometimes I was passing up on ores since I wasn’t able to notice them on the ground.
There are also a lot of objects to give more details to the cave, but you can barely interact with them. I’d love to see lilly pads in lakes to move a bit when you walk past them or something more than just being able to clip through them. As well, a sound effect when you hit a wall you can’t mine. You get shouted at when you use the wrong or a too weak tool on something, so when not for the rest?
I think the biggest mistake that the visuals make is that it has an identity crisis. What I mean by that is that it isn’t a cohesive style. There is a lot of shell shading going on, but there is also a lot of details that give off a more realistic vibe. Some textures aren’t detailed enough and strechted too wide giving wrong impression the rest of the visuals that look more modern. The floor textures sometimes suffer most from this issue.
Looking back at this article, I think I’m being very critical for this game. I have played a lot worse and broken games for 15€. But, in this game you even have customisation options for your character and thee developers are extremely open for feedback. This game has a lot going for it. Fun achievements to hunt for, bosses at the end of runs and an amazing auto save system.
Apart from improving the character controls and adding some feedback on actions, I think this game is pretty decent. Yes, there is some polish missing like not having a tooltip with the lever at the cave entrance on what that lever does. I personally feel less conflicted about this game compared to the original. The growth in this title is immense and brings me a lot of hope for either some amazing updates, DLC or a new entry in the series.
The basis of for an amazing title is here and if you look past it’s short comings, this game is a blast to play. Maybe it’s a bit too repetitive for some and can be more fun in short bursts. But, when this game sinks it’s hooks into you, it really clicks. There is some polishing left to do and for a rather new VR focused developer, this is amazing. It’s their second non VR game and it shows a lot of promise.
The game is a perfect relaxing game to wind down, since it isn’t too difficult. The game is rather forgiving. I wouldn’t be surprised that I play this game after work to wind down and try and finish it slowly. Then again, while I’m writing this, I have summer holidays and I wouldn’t be surprised that I finish most of this game during my summer break.
Like I said earlier, I feel less conflicted about this game compared to the previous title. This game has a lot more going for it compared to the original. It’s less repetitive and it has a lot more going for it. It has it’s problems, yes. But, if you enjoy games like Minecraft, Steamworld Dig or Cave Digger, give the demo of this game a chance. The demo gives a very good idea on what you can expect from this game and if you enjoy it, buy the game. I’m enjoying myself quite a lot with this game and I’m happy that I have chosen the PC version over the Switch version since I feel like it just plays better. But maybe, if I get used to the Switch controls, I might enjoy it on Switch as well.
With that said, I have said everything I wanted to say about this game for now. Maybe when I finish this game, I might write a full review with the final thoughts and opinions on this game. But for now, I think the best conclusion for this game is that it’s an amazing step up from the original and besides some unpolished things… It’s a great game and comes recommend from me.
So, it’s time to wrap up this article with my usual outro. 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.
My Famicase Exhibition, the gallery of imagined games displayed as Famicom cartridges, will come to the USA for the first time in 18 years tomorrow. Traditionally hosted by Tokyo game shop Meteor, the annual exhibit will open with a special Los Angeles show at the Capsule Corner gashapon booth and art gallery (located in the Hive Gallery & Studios).
“253 original cartridge designs will be on display from artists, illustrators, designers and creators from over 29 countries! … Visitors of MY FAMICASE EXHIBITION - LA will have an opportunity to cast their vote for USA’s favorite Famicom design as is tradition in the Japanese exhibit.”
The exhibit runs from July 1 to 24, with an opening reception for the first three days that you can RSVP for here. Capsule Corner will also feature works by Froyo Tam, Mel Haasch, and Nelson Wu at its gallery.
If you can’t make it to LA this July, you can view the Famicom cartridge designs virtually at Meteor’s site, or purchase a print catalog collecting all 253 entries through Capsule Corner’s online shop. There’s a killer commemorative sticker (sized at 4"x3.5", shown above) illustrated by Billie Snippet that you can pick up, too!
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