Fantastic Fest has announced an exciting partnership with Day of the Devs. From September 20 to 22, 2024, Fantastic Games: Presented by Day of the Devs will be hosted by Fantastic Fest!

Fantastic Fest, the largest genre film festival in the U.S. specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and action, will partner with Day of the Devs, a non-profit that celebrates the creativity, diversity, and magic of video games, to host Fantastic Games: Presented by Day of the Devs. The partnership will feature many exciting video game showcases from September 20 to 22, 2024. 

Fantastic Games: Presented by Day of the Devs is a video game showcase that will be taking place during the 9th edition of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The showcase will feature 12 horror games the attendees can play, with some being playable for the first time. Fans of the exciting festival and horror games can purchase various badges now to access the festival and the video game showcase!  

Game developers interested in submitting their games for consideration to be part of the Day of the Devs showcase will have until today, August 5th, to apply through this form. Developers from diverse backgrounds are encouraged to apply, but only games or projects in the horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and action genres will be considered to fit this year’s Carnival themes. 

As the attendees enjoy the Fantastic Fest and play games at the Fantastic Games: Presented by Day of the Devs, the event will be sponsored by five gaming brands. The sponsorships included are:

• Blumhouse Games – Releasing Fear The Spotlight later this year.
• Devolver – Released the Hotline Miami series, Katana ZERO, Human Fall Flat, and many more. 
• Double Fine – Released the Psychonauts series, Headlander, Grim Fandango Remaster, and many more. 
• Iam8bit – Selling physical copies of games that are digital only such as The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe, Neon White, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, and many more. 
• Raw Fury – Released Regions of Ruin, Blue Prince, Zet Zillions, and many more. 

Are you looking forward to the Fantastic Fest and Fantastic Games Presented by Day of the Devs? If so, be sure to keep up to date with the Fantastic Fest and purchase your badges by visiting the website! 

Remember Braid? It was all the rage back in 2008 when it was originally released on other consoles, quickly making its mark as a unique indie platformer. Now, like so many titles before it, a special edition of this older game comes to the Switch. Let’s welcome Braid, Anniversary Edition to the fold.

The Switch’s success has given rise to many such re-releases. Don’t get me wrong, I think cross-pollination across platforms is great, giving classic titles another go at reaching an audience. For anyone who missed out on games like Braid the first time around, re-releases are terrific. Especially when as much effort is put into proceedings as with this edition.

Let’s start with the gameplay basics. Braid is a puzzle platformer that follows the adventures of a young man on a mission to rescue his beloved. Throughout his journey are rooms, each presenting a problem to solve. Typically, the goal is to access various jigsaw pieces dotted about the room. They’re often hard to reach, with a clever solution required to get you there.

Apart from the usual running and jumping, this little platformer adds a unique time mechanic. While death may occur frequently, whether from falling into a pit or landing on spikes, a quick tap of the rewind button lets you travel back through time to try again. Not only that, some objects respond differently to this reverse flow of time. This opens the way for some creative tricks to get you to those hard-to-reach jigsaw pieces. 

From the very beginning, it’s clear Braid was developed with care. While there are some head-scratching traps in there for sure, one of the goals of the original development was to create something that felt rewarding to solve. And it does. But that attention to detail extends beyond the puzzles. Everything has been curated to create something unique, especially in 2008. Even the game’s intro is unique; instead of the typical menu screen with options, the title screen is the game. You control things from the very beginning.

Let’s talk about the key differences between this edition and the original. One thing we don’t always see with revamped releases is the ability to switch between old and new graphics. Braid has you covered here, allowing players to quickly flick from classic to updated styles at the touch of a button. It’s seamless. It’s a treat for fans who remember the way things were, or for anyone with an interest in gaming history.

Speaking of visuals, they’re simply lovely. They were already nice back in 2008, but now they’re even better, with colorful backdrops that really pop. Character pixels have been enhanced, as have their animations. There’s much more detail in each room, too. In short, a good-looking game has been enhanced to become quite splendid.

Now, if you have played the original Braid, this leaves less room for a Switch purchase. If you were already a fan, perhaps the updated visuals are enough to tempt you. However, this Anniversary Edition offers a comprehensive amount of commentary to give you yet another excuse to double dip.

And I mean comprehensive. The developers have gone above and beyond, integrating hours of detailed audio while you’re playing. Yes, while you’re playing. There are special switches within the game that allow you to access commentary for the room you’re in. It accompanies you while you continue playing, akin to watching a director’s commentary during a movie. There’s hours worth of content, which is interesting to fans and, again, gaming enthusiasts who are interested in how it all came together at the time. It’s quite a work of art.

So, any downsides? Not really, though with the original gameplay remaining intact, it means any flaws come along for the ride. The only such issue I noticed was when I first played. As mentioned, there are many rooms to explore, however it’s not clear initially what you’re meant to do in them; the instructions are deliberately unclear. This makes for a slightly shaky start until you work out what’s going on. Once you get a feel for it, though, Braid truly shines.

Overall, Braid, Anniversary Edition is the definitive version of a terrific platformer. Not only has this classic title been enhanced with improved graphics, but a detailed commentary has been integrated into the game itself. The original developers put a lot of effort into building something unique in 2008. Now, they’ve enhanced their creation into something special and detailed.

The post Review: Braid, Anniversary Edition (Nintendo Switch) appeared first on Pure Nintendo.

A new report featuring quotes from anonymous developers who have worked with Apple Arcade claims the subscription gaming service has no real goals, barely communicates with studios, and treats teams poorly, making them jump through hoops and wait for months to get paid. One developer even claimed that working with…

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This year’s Day Of The Devs boasted an entire seven exclusives, plus a load of other nifty features and previews for exciting indies we already knew about, but are no less excited to be reminded of. It’s been over ten years now since Tim Schafer and the folks at Double Fine kicked off the non-profit initiative to help shine a spotlight on games what they thought were nice. No way! I love games what I think are nice! Here’s everything from Day Of The Devs 2024, dutifully arranged for your clicking pleasure.

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Are Tamagotchis a thing now again? I’m getting a sense they might be, but I’ll always associate them with the nineties. Ah, to return to a simpler time, where kids tripped each other up in the school hallways to steal toys , before Pokémon cards came along and everyone leveled up to stabbings. Sorry, Petal Runner devs, for opening a news article about your lovely wholesome game talking about stabbings. This gorgeous, fuschia-splashed, slice-of-life RPG is, if anything, the antidote to stabbings. In terms of game fatigue, anyway. It won’t cure tetanus, at least I don’t think so.

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Grid-based puzzler Grindstone was a favourite of Katharine’s, who found it to be her go-to during regularly scheduled moments of “cat-based paralysis”. I didn’t spent quite so many hours of feline enforced stasis with it, but I too was drawn in for a respectable time chunk. It’s those detail-stuffed visuals and caffeinated animations that tipped it for me, and it’s the same art that have me excited for Capybara’s follow-up. Battle Vision Network is an online puzzle battler that pits you head to head against real-life humans (boo those guys). The conceit here is its a televised space sport, in which you’ll steer the fate of its ongoing story arcs by winning or losing as your chosen team.

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A French game about mountain climbing? No, not that one. This is Cairn, not Jusant, and it’s actually a very different beast. Jusant could be tricky, but climbing was more the way you experienced its story. In survival climber Cairn, the ascent is the story. It seem to mainly be a story about how bad you are at climbing.

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The need to mitigate climate change is driving a need to electrify our infrastructure, vehicles, and appliances, which can then be charged and powered by renewable energy sources. The most visible and impactful electrification is now under way for electric vehicles (EVs). Beyond the transition to electric engines, several new features and technologies are driving the electrification of vehicles. The number of sensors in a vehicle is skyrocketing, driven by autonomous driving and other safety features, while a modern software-defined vehicle (SDV) is electrifying everything from air-conditioned seats to self-parking technology.

An important technology for EVs and SDVs is power modules. These are super high-voltage devices that convert one form of electricity to another (e.g., AC to DC), which is necessary to convert the vehicle battery energy to a current that can run the vehicles electrical system, including the drive train. These modules demand the highest power loads and are rated at 1000s of voltages – and the design of power devices, which are the fundamental electronic component of the power modules, is crucial, as a bad design can lead to catastrophe events.

Power devices, much more than other types of electrical devices, are designed for specific applications. In comparison, logic transistors can be used in everything from toasters to smartphones. Not only does the architecture of power devices change at higher voltages, different power ratings, or higher switching frequencies as needed, but the material can change as well.

New power requirements need wide-band gap materials

To meet new and future power demands for EVs, electric infrastructure, and other novel electrical systems, wide-band gap (WBG) materials are being developed and introduced. Silicon carbide (SiC) IGBTs are now available and being deployed, while gallium arsenide (GaN) HEMTs are a promising technology that is in the development stage.

Power density vs. switching frequency of power devices based on different materials.

Continuing with our EV example, SiC inverters can generally increase the potential range by approximately 10%, even after accounting for other design considerations. In addition, increasing the drive train voltage from 400V range to 800V can reduce the charging speeds by half. These voltages are only possible to realize with wide-band gap materials like SiC-based power devices. Tesla introduced SiC MOSFETs into its Model S back in 2018. Since then, numerous automotive manufacturers have also adopted SiC in their EVs, including Hyundai and BMW, for example.

GaN still has many design hurdles to overcame to improve reliability and decrease cost – but if it can be made affordable, perhaps the next realization of EVs will allow for charging in seconds with ranges of thousands of miles.

Simulating power devices

Because of the huge number of design parameters, simulation is important in the design of power devices. One crucial part for device design is the calculation of the breakdown voltage – the voltage at which the device can essentially melt, or catch fire, but will never operate again. These simulations need to be highly physics-based and capture the mechanisms by which electrons can be released or absorbed by the crystal lattice of these materials. The increasing band gaps in WBG materials like SiC and GaN increase the breakdown voltage. In addition, these materials have a smaller effective electron mass (i.e., the mass of an electron in a material dictates how fast it will move in an electric field) – which makes the switching frequency in devices based on these WBG materials faster.

A critical area of all electronics design is variability and reliability. Device performance needs to be stable and last a long time. A key factor for variability and reliability is defects in the crystal lattice. These defects, or traps, act as charge centers that can drastically impact how well a device works. Simulation can also help to identify the types of traps, providing a mechanistic understanding of how the traps will impact the device physics. Recently, Synopsys issued a paper using first-principles quantum solutions to characterize specific traps in SiC with QuantumATK.

Going forward, wind energy, solar, home appliances, and even the electric grid itself are going to need new devices with different structures and materials. The future is extremely exciting for power devices, which can be found in our EVs and will soon power a huge range of applications across our society.

The post Enabling New Applications With SiC IGBT And GaN HEMT For Power Module Design appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

The need to mitigate climate change is driving a need to electrify our infrastructure, vehicles, and appliances, which can then be charged and powered by renewable energy sources. The most visible and impactful electrification is now under way for electric vehicles (EVs). Beyond the transition to electric engines, several new features and technologies are driving the electrification of vehicles. The number of sensors in a vehicle is skyrocketing, driven by autonomous driving and other safety features, while a modern software-defined vehicle (SDV) is electrifying everything from air-conditioned seats to self-parking technology.

An important technology for EVs and SDVs is power modules. These are super high-voltage devices that convert one form of electricity to another (e.g., AC to DC), which is necessary to convert the vehicle battery energy to a current that can run the vehicles electrical system, including the drive train. These modules demand the highest power loads and are rated at 1000s of voltages – and the design of power devices, which are the fundamental electronic component of the power modules, is crucial, as a bad design can lead to catastrophe events.

Power devices, much more than other types of electrical devices, are designed for specific applications. In comparison, logic transistors can be used in everything from toasters to smartphones. Not only does the architecture of power devices change at higher voltages, different power ratings, or higher switching frequencies as needed, but the material can change as well.

New power requirements need wide-band gap materials

To meet new and future power demands for EVs, electric infrastructure, and other novel electrical systems, wide-band gap (WBG) materials are being developed and introduced. Silicon carbide (SiC) IGBTs are now available and being deployed, while gallium arsenide (GaN) HEMTs are a promising technology that is in the development stage.

Power density vs. switching frequency of power devices based on different materials.

Continuing with our EV example, SiC inverters can generally increase the potential range by approximately 10%, even after accounting for other design considerations. In addition, increasing the drive train voltage from 400V range to 800V can reduce the charging speeds by half. These voltages are only possible to realize with wide-band gap materials like SiC-based power devices. Tesla introduced SiC MOSFETs into its Model S back in 2018. Since then, numerous automotive manufacturers have also adopted SiC in their EVs, including Hyundai and BMW, for example.

GaN still has many design hurdles to overcame to improve reliability and decrease cost – but if it can be made affordable, perhaps the next realization of EVs will allow for charging in seconds with ranges of thousands of miles.

Simulating power devices

Because of the huge number of design parameters, simulation is important in the design of power devices. One crucial part for device design is the calculation of the breakdown voltage – the voltage at which the device can essentially melt, or catch fire, but will never operate again. These simulations need to be highly physics-based and capture the mechanisms by which electrons can be released or absorbed by the crystal lattice of these materials. The increasing band gaps in WBG materials like SiC and GaN increase the breakdown voltage. In addition, these materials have a smaller effective electron mass (i.e., the mass of an electron in a material dictates how fast it will move in an electric field) – which makes the switching frequency in devices based on these WBG materials faster.

A critical area of all electronics design is variability and reliability. Device performance needs to be stable and last a long time. A key factor for variability and reliability is defects in the crystal lattice. These defects, or traps, act as charge centers that can drastically impact how well a device works. Simulation can also help to identify the types of traps, providing a mechanistic understanding of how the traps will impact the device physics. Recently, Synopsys issued a paper using first-principles quantum solutions to characterize specific traps in SiC with QuantumATK.

Going forward, wind energy, solar, home appliances, and even the electric grid itself are going to need new devices with different structures and materials. The future is extremely exciting for power devices, which can be found in our EVs and will soon power a huge range of applications across our society.

The post Enabling New Applications With SiC IGBT And GaN HEMT For Power Module Design appeared first on Semiconductor Engineering.

Third-person shooter sensation Helldivers 2 reached an extraordinary 409,337 concurrent players over the weekend. That makes it the fifth most popular game on Steam, a fact made all the more impressive when you factor in that three of those five games are free, compared to Helldivers 2's $40 pricetag.

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As 2024's big bad—Late Stage Capitalism—continues its grim rampage, some developers are looking to more innovative approaches to avoid the publishing industry’s self-sabotaging need for impossibly endless growth. Stormgate creator Frost Giant—a studio created by former StarCraft 2 devs—is following up on its recent…

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E-bikes are today a growing component of the global transition away from fossil fuels—possibly more than the car-and-truck-focused sustainability crowd appreciates. E-bikes’ rapid growth in recent years stems in part from their simple solution to the range issue that big, hulking cars typically don’t offer. E-bikes are powered by relatively small batteries that can be wrangled by the average person who can handle a carton of milk.

Because of that form factor, battery swapping for e-bikes is a quick and simple method for staying powered up, whereas for a traditional four-wheeled EV, swaps are a more involved process for doing the equivalent of filling a gas tank.

The Japanese conglomerate Yamaha Motor Co., best known for its motorcycles and motorboats, is now looking to expand into this growing marketplace, too. At the end of last year, Yamaha announced it’d formed a subsidiary called Enyring. The new entity, which is slated to kick off operations in Germany and the Netherlands in early 2025, says they’ll partner with manufacturers for maximum compatibility among models and types of e-bike. Also crucial to Yamaha’s plan is that the batteries will not be owned, but rented, by the e-bike owners. The rental contract will entitle a battery user to unlimited swaps as long as their account with Yamaha remains in good standing. And Yamaha says it already has plans in place for breaking down the cells so they can be recycled.

“Today, noisy, polluting, two-stroke gasoline engines are still ubiquitous across Asia,” says Sam Abuelsamid, Principal Research Analyst for Mobility Ecosystems at Guidehouse Insights “Converting those to electric power will go a long way toward helping countries reach their greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets. Battery swapping also addresses the infrastructure issues that come along with the growing presence of two- and three-wheeled vehicles.”

Abuelsamid notes that as this energy-replenishing modality becomes the norm, companies like Yamaha, China’s Nio, and Taiwan’s Gogoro (the latter two with hundreds of battery-swapping stations and self-service swapping kiosks already in operation) will raise the bar on quality control for these small EV batteries for their own economic self-interest.

“It makes sense to build better batteries with good battery management systems and software for enhanced thermal control,” says Abuelsamid. “Higher-quality batteries, handled in an ecosystem where corporate facilities manage the recharging process better than someone would at home, increases the chances that a battery will handle maybe 1,000 charge cycles before it no longer holds enough charge and needs to be recycled.” And longer life means more profitability for a company offering batteries-as-a-service.

The vast e-bike marketplace

In 2022, two- and three-wheeled vehicles accounted for 49 percent of global EV sales. And according to a recent report from Rethink Energy, there are an estimated 292 million e-bikes and e-trikes currently in service. By comparison, the International Energy Agency says there are now about 26 million electric cars on the world’s roads.

According to analysis firm Markets and Markets, battery swapping was a US $1.7 billion industry in 2022. Industry revenues are expected to reach $11.8 billion by 2027. Yamaha is by no means a battery-swapping pioneer, but its entry into that space signals a powerful retort to skeptics who still believe that battery swapping will never be as commonplace as pulling up to a charging facility and plugging in. (However, attempts to reach Yamaha spokespeople for their comment on the Enyring spinoff proved unsuccessful.)

The enticing growth in the compact EV market has been spurred by the near ubiquitous use of e-bikes and electric scooters by couriers for delivery services that drop take-out food and groceries at online shoppers’ doors. Plus, for daily commutes, e-bikes are proving increasingly attractive as eco-friendly alternatives to fossil-fueled vehicles. Battery-swapping ventures like Yamaha’s will also put salve on pain points related to the rapidly growing presence of compact EVs. Among these are: a shortage of places where batteries can be charged; the length of time (now measured in hours) charging usually takes; human error when charging that could cause destructive, and perhaps deadly, battery fires; and uncertainty about what to do with a battery when it is spent and is no longer useful as an energy storage unit for propulsion.

Just as important is what battery swapping will do to solve another of plug-in electric vehicles’ bugbears. IEEE Spectrum reported on the issues surrounding battery charging and the lingering belief that EV batteries are fire hazards. Though empirical evidence shows that EVs, by and large, are much less likely than vehicles with internal combustion engines to catch fire, that hasn’t stopped some municipal governments from placing strict limits on the places where EV batteries can be plugged in. But with battery swapping growing in popularity, who would ultimately need to?

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, approximately 15 percent of net anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions come from the transportation sector. To meet global climate targets, we must devise ways to get people and goods from point A to point B without burning fossil fuels.

In this month’s special report on the greening of transportation, we examine a moonshot idea for powering electric vehicles, the biggest change in aviation since the jet engine, and cargo ships with a battle-tested mode of generation.

Internal combustion engines (ICEs) in cars and vans accounted for almost half of all carbon dioxide emissions attributable to the transportation sector in 2022, according to Statista. And the world is waking up to the staggering challenges of going electric, as Contributing Editor Robert N. Charette pointed out last year in the IEEE Spectrum series “The EV Transition Explained.”

During his reporting for that series, Charette ran across a startup called Influit Energy that is trying to commercialize a new type of flow battery. Flow batteries are typically used in stationary applications like power-grid storage,but as Charette notes in our cover story, “Can Flow Batteries Finally Beat Lithium?” Influit’s battery circulates an energy-dense nanoelectrofuel to store 15 to 25 times as much energy as a similarly sized conventional flow battery. The Influit battery also compares favorably to lithium-based batteries in terms of safety and stability, and it could provide the range of an ICE vehicle. Cars and trucks with these kinds of batteries could fill up with the nanoelectrofuel at the pump, perhaps taking advantage of the existing infrastructure built for gas-guzzlers.

“We are in the early stages of a key transition: Electrification could be the first fundamental change in airplane propulsion systems since the advent of the jet engine.”–Amy Jankovsky, Christine Andrews, and Bill Rogers

The second article in our report looks at how recent innovations in power electronics, electric motors, and batteries for the car industry are beginning to find applications in airplane design. In one effort, GE Aerospace and Boeing’s Aurora Flight Sciences are working together on a hybrid-electric propulsion system for a 150-to-180-seat airplane. The project, described by Amy Jankovsky, Christine Andrews, and Bill Rogers in “Fly the Hybrid Skies,” started in 2021 and aims to modify a Saab 340 aircraft using two GE CT7 engines combined with electric propulsion units for a megawatt-class system. As the authors note, “We are in the early stages of a key transition: Electrification could be the first fundamental change in airplane propulsion systems since the advent of the jet engine.”

The maritime industry needs a similar fundamental advance, reports Prachi Patel in “Merchant Shipping’s Nuclear Option.” Almost all of the world’s commercial fleets still run on diesel fuel. The industry needs to move much faster if it’s to reach the target of net-zero emissions by 2050 set by the United Nations’ International Maritime Organization.

One way to meet this goal is to go nuclear. Some 160 nuclear-powered vessels ply the high seas today, though almost all are navy ships and submarines. Next-generation small modular reactors (SMRs) could be a game changer for commercial cargo ships. Patel describes several efforts around the world to adapt SMRs to the marine environment. In theory, the small reactors should be safer and simpler to operate than conventional nuclear reactors.

It’s easy to look at the challenges posed by climate change and sigh. Or cry. The engineers you’ll find in this issue don’t have time for despair. They’re too busy working the problem.