South Korean publisher KRAFTON is probably best known for titles such as PUBG and The Callisto Protocol. Recently, however, in an effort to bolster their gaming portfolio, they’ve turned heads by saving studio Tango Gameworks from being shut down by Microsoft. With that goal in mind—to expand on their offerings—KRAFTON has been hard at work on inZoi: a life simulation game developed using Unreal Engine 5 and boasting a variety of creative tools. If this brings The Sims to mind, you’d be encouraged to know that the inZoi team is well aware of the comparison, the overall goal for their virtual world being to combine Sims and SimCity and add some innovative features to boot.

Having spent 5 hours playing an early build of the game, I found that what they’re trying to do rightfully sounds too good to be true. With some more polish and work on tightening its elaborate systems, inZoi might just rise up to its lofty ambitions and carve a place for itself within the genre. Nevertheless, on start-up, inZoi begins with the explanation that the player is working as a “trainee god” for an in-game tech giant.

“For now, despite some frustrations, inZoi is largely an enjoyable experience.”

According to the tutorials, referred to in-universe as the “onboarding”, being a said trainee god involves creating Zoi, the game’s name for the inhabitants of its digital world, and ensuring that they have good relationships with others and the environment. Failure to do so would result in “a meeting with the CEO”.

With this warning in mind, I began work on my Zoi in earnest, trying my hardest to make the perfect digital version of myself. The final result, I think, looks more like YouTuber hasanabi than me, but that’s not the fault of the character creation tool, which is genuinely amazing. Beyond getting the basics right, inZoi’s character creator is mindful of the details. This might not sound like a big deal at first, but put together, these small choices make for a customisable experience that already makes inZoi stand out from the rest.

This dedication to the minutiae can also be seen when it comes down to the city-building element. Whereas not as elaborate as something like SimCity, I was pleasantly surprised by what inZoi allowed me to do. To give just an extreme example, I decided that the main park in town should have a high density of cats, pandas and…crocodiles. To my great disappointment, the crocodiles, from what I could tell, had no effect gameplay-wise as they were simply content meandering here and there. In any case, after maybe 3 hours of fine-tuning, it was finally time for some action.

What took me by immediate surprise when taking control of my Zoi was that I was able to maneuver him as if he were a character in a third-person action-adventure game. I still had to issue other commands with a click of the mouse, but still, this added to my immersion. This being said, inZoi was dropping frames left and right and continued to do so during my time with it despite running it on a decent PC.

Another issue was the overall game logic, as all the Zoi I encountered were often making inexplicable decisions. My Zoi, when left to his own devices, was obsessed with deep cleaning his house even though it was brand new and squeaky clean.

To test the AI further, I decided to see how easy interactions with other Zoi were and, to my amusement, I was able to get the character I created married to someone he had just met and spent the last half of an in-game day (or about ten real-life minutes) complimenting. Now, I’m not necessarily opposed to love at first sight, but the ease with which I made this happen reminded me of the OG Sims, which reflects a bit badly on inZoi.

“Whereas not as elaborate as something like SimCity, I was pleasantly surprised by what inZoi allowed me to do.”

For now, despite some frustrations, inZoi is largely an enjoyable experience. The team over at KRAFTON have a lot of work left, yes, but what I’ve played so far is encouraging. My hope for the game, which is set to release in Early Access later this year, is that the developers remain committed to seeing through their ambitious vision. Time will tell if that will indeed be what happens.

inZoi is set to launch in Steam Early Access in 2024. Make sure to check out all things gamescom here on CGMagazine.

Mountaintop Studios and popular creator and former Counter-Strike and Valorant pro, Michael ‘shroud’ Grzesiek have brought a contender to the F2P multiplayer tactical FPS genre. Mountaintop hopes to make a big break with Spectre Divide, as they are an independent studio composed of veterans from Respawn, Epic Games, Riot Games, Bungie, and the like. Spectre Divide features a unique art style for the genre with sci-fi comic book art and the classic Japanese cel animation of the ’90s—a little reminiscent of Rollerdrome or the No More Heroes games. What is more distinct about this game is its gameplay gimmick.

At first glance, the concept of controlling two characters simultaneously does not seem like something that should work in a relatively fast-paced competitive shooter game. Yes, there is some time to strategize around the map and jump-peak or use utility to gain information. However, adding a new concept, like having a second body, appears to be a dynamic addition.

The function of what the devs call ‘Duality’ allows players to control their ‘Spectre’ or second body, as well as their main body. Players can swap between the two bodies. The coolest part is that players can open up their map to lay out their two bodies during the Buy Phase/Pre-round Phase—including having the bodies face a certain direction. Moving characters around via clicking the map looks so choppy and jarring, but once the pre-round timer is up, this function ceases.

Having the second body can be super helpful. If a player’s unused body is idle, it can still give information that an enemy is near or if an enemy is in sight through danger indicators. Additionally, the unused body goes into a crouch position, making it harder for enemies to spot when placed correctly. Or it can be great to have it crouched slightly, peeking as a decoy at strategic angles.

The unused body can also be moved through the ‘pucking’ action, with some delay depending on the distance. This is the primary function so when the main player dies, they are not stuck trying to run all the way from where they had their Spectre setup. Like the game’s name implies, it is relatively smart to divide the Spectre from the main body.

Spectre Divide has utility skills, which are very similar to various Hero skills in Overwatch or Agent utility in Valorant. Another important distinction with Spectre Divide is that there are no Champions, Heroes or Agents; there are Sponsors. Sponsors work in place of roles, such as Assault/ADC/Dualist or Support/Healer in other games. Having a good balance of Sponsors can easily make or break a victory in this game, with the various assortment of utility skills—including recon.

A big question many new players who came from other FPS games asked was what the spray/recoil patterns for each gun, aiming, and ADS aiming were like. For the first part, every fully automatic and semi-automatic gun had a random spray pattern. This is an interesting feature because it means it is not something someone can particularly get used to, like a Vandal spray pattern in Valorant or an AK-47 spray and recoil pattern in CS2 or CS:GO.

“Another important distinction with Spectre Divide is that there are no Champions, Heroes or Agents; there are Sponsors.”

It means that players should practice their ADS firing since the accuracy is pretty near to one-hundred percent. There is also no bullet punch when taking damage, so players do not have to worry about suddenly aiming at the sky when getting shot at. Single-tap or burst-fire skills are more important in Spectre Divide for the guns that require it, otherwise ADS-ing and spraying is the way to go. And like Apex Legends, running in this FPS tac-shooter is encouraged.

What irked me and my teammates the most is the fact that enemy colour highlights are insanely non-user-friendly. It took a few games for us to not accidentally shoot at one of our teammates or teammates’ idle body. Eventually we got used to it, but it was not as distinguished as other FPS games.

The things that will have many Spectre Divide players divided will probably be how overstimulating it can be to jump into a match at first, as well as how many guns they will have to know the names of. The Duster RX6 plays like a Desert Eagle or Sheriff; the M67 Reaver plays like an AK-47, dishing out great range and damage; and the Harpe and Prototype-OP play very much like a high-powered sniper in most FPS games. One shot to the head at any range, one kill, baby!

The gun buys are interesting in Spectre Divide, sort of a mashup of Call of Duty multiplayer default loadouts. Guns are bought in pairs and distributed to the player and the Spectre. Interestingly enough, when one of the characters one player controls dies but the other lives, there can be special economic buys for keeping the same pairing of guns in the next round.

Based on a lot of feedback from other players I talked to from games and my own teammates, I have gathered that this game comes off as something for those who already have put in some if not countless, hours into other FPS games. Spectre Divide is easily an amalgamation of games like Valorant, Apex Legends, Overwatch, Halo, amongst many more. This makes sense since a lot of Mountaintop Studios’ team used to work at the companies that made many of those titles.

There are a lot of fun mechanics to try and experiment with in Spectre Divide, such as using Ghostlink Collective’s Dupe ability while pucking away or using it and running with the decoy body. Another cool thing we found out was how Ryker Industries’ Wave Scan could scan the whole map if you throw it while pucking away.

“The ultimate judgment of Spectre Divide is how it may not be as inviting to newer FPS gamers.”

Hopefully by launch, there will be better aesthetic additions to the game—here is hoping there will be a way to do Fortnite-adjacent dances in the team lobby. The sprays and gun buddies could also be improved upon, but again, that may come with more time and players making memes and/or pro-player and community involvement to grow the fan base of Spectre Divide.

The ultimate judgment of Spectre Divide is how it may not be as inviting to newer FPS gamers. Even someone who is well-versed in other FPS titles will struggle a bit getting used to pucking around their Spectres, and learning more about the advantages and disadvantages of things like guns or Sponsors.

There are a lot of extra keybinds to learn and re-map, too, but the tutorial does a decent enough job explaining it all. The economy catch-up system is great, too, since two losses allow the losing team to get a free light shield. But it could be good for newer players ithe a sense that they can build the proper game sense tailored to this game versus carrying over irrelevant habits from other FPS games.

Spectre Divide will not be out on the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S consoles at launch, but devs have stated that they have “future plans for consoles.” There is also no release date for PC yet either.

I was particularly interested in Ravenswatch because Passtech Game’s Curse of the Dead Gods was something that caught me completely by surprise—initially hooking me with an art style evocative of Darkest Dungeon and then reeling me in with an incredibly deep and satisfying gameplay experience. 

Passtech established itself as a confident crafter of captivating roguelike experiences, so naturally, CGM jumped on the opportunity to get an early look at Ravenswatch. Despite the preview being hands-off, the game and world that was presented definitely got me ready to play. 

In Ravenswatch, players enter the world of Reverie, where horrific creatures known as Nightmares are spreading across the land. To stop them, the Witch of the Forest, Baba Yaga, forms the Ravenswatch—a group of folk heroes dedicated to battling the Nightmares and restoring peace.

“One of Ravenswatch’s key selling points is its cast of heroes, all drawn from mythological figures.”

One of Ravenswatch‘s key selling points is its cast of heroes, all drawn from mythological figures. While some characters are based on well-known figures, the team at Passtech wanted to ensure these heroes stood out on their own and included lesser-known mythological characters.

This includes characters such as Scarlet (Little Red Riding Hood), Beowulf and Alladin but extends to characters like The Pied Piper, Sun Wukong and Melusine—who the Lyon-based Passtech felt it especially appropriate to include as a character from French folklore. The team specifically stated they wanted to include a wide array of folklore from various cultures to create a diverse cast and open players up to these unique figures.

This idea was further explored when we were given a sneak peek at the character of Carmilla, who was revealed during Gamescom 2024. Passtech explained that including a vampire in their world was thematically fitting. Still, they specifically wanted to focus on a lesser-known character, as most people typically think of Dracula when it comes to famous vampires.

“While many games borrow heavily from successful predecessors in the genre, it’s refreshing to see a game take unique approaches and interesting risks.”

This not only adds to the game’s unique storybook feel but also allows each hero to fill a specific role based on their characterization. Scarlet, for instance, is a unique warrior who embodies both Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, capable of transforming into a lycanthropic form to deal massive damage. Conversely, Gepetto functions as an engineer, creating puppets to fight for him and assist in battle.

One of the more interesting aspects of Ravenswatch mentioned during the event is that, despite being a roguelike, the game will feature four different difficulty modes. I’ve long moved away from the notion that games, even roguelikes, should be punishingly difficult just for the sake of it—especially since roguelikes are often associated with games like Dark Souls, which emphasize extreme difficulty.

While I was initially hoping Ravenswatch would offer optional difficulty settings, Passtech clarified that players will start at the lower difficulty level, unlocking harder ones with each successful run. They’ve implemented this in a particularly clever way: only four characters are available at the start of the game, with a new one unlocking each time players defeat the final boss. This provides a tangible incentive to improve, as the game becomes more challenging as you learn and grow.

With its dark comic book style, support for up to four-player co-op, and a development team actively tweaking the game based on player feedback, Ravenswatch is shaping up to be an excellent new addition to the roguelike genre. While many games borrow heavily from successful predecessors in the genre, it’s refreshing to see a game take unique approaches and interesting risks.

Ravenswatch will launch for PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on Sep 26th, 2024 but will see a later release on the Nintendo Switch.

Jackbox is back with the new Jackbox Naughty Pack. Jackbox has long been a go-to party game for anyone looking for a good laugh. Their games are interactive, thus letting the players fill out the provided material, which means that you can play the game over and over again with many different results. This is also true of the group that is playing. A combination of adults and kids produces a much different game than an adults-only game, and this is who Jackbox is playing to with their latest pack, the Jackbox Naughty Pack.

The Jackbox Naughty Pack is the company’s first pack directed solely to adults and has an M rating. The games themselves, despite having slightly different names geared towards the tone of the pack, are games that exist within the Jackbox universe already. The difference lies with the questions and prompts that move the game along. According to Creative Director and Product Manager at Jackbox Games Brooke Breit, “The tone of the questions inform the level of spicy answers.” Of the impact that the mature content has on the game, Breit added, “The tone feels very Jackbox. It is our voice but for a more mature-related game.”

One obvious question was raised during our preview event with Jackbox Games, “Isn’t any Jackbox game a mature game depending on the people playing it?” The CEO at Jackbox Games, Mike Bilder, sort of agreed, saying, “If you’ve played a game of Drawful without any kids around, it can get pretty blue. This is just us leaning into that.” He reiterated Breit’s comments on the questions and prompts, leading you into that tone of gameplay.

There are three games in the Jackbox Naughty Pack:

• Fakin’ It All Night Long, a game where one person (The Faker) is answering different questions than the rest of the players and needs to justify why their answer works for their question.
• Dirty Drawful, which is Jackbox’s Drawful, but dirty. You are given a prompt and your goal is to correctly guess other people’s prompts based on their drawing and ensure people vote for yours when your drawing comes up.
• Let Me Finish, which tests your skills as a talker when the game asks the tough questions, like “Where is the Mailbox’s butt?” You circle where you think it is and justify your choice to the other players. The winner of each round is the one with the most votes.

With games working with this subject matter, Jackbox Games wanted to be sure that their own staff assigned to the game was comfortable working with that material. “We made sure folks who were working on the title were comfortable working on the title,” said Bilder, who also noted that the sensitivity level of the work varied over different areas of the game’s development.

We had the opportunity to play a couple of sample rounds of the games during the preview and the same fun of your everyday Jackbox game is there with questions that sometimes make you say, “Wow, they went there?”

The Jackbox Naughty Pack releases on September 12 on Steam via the Jackbox Picker, Xbox, Playstation and the Nintendo Switch. Expect a full review to come in a few weeks, but prepare for a game that may give your dirty mind a run for its money.

Friends vs Friends is a chaotic shooter that introduces cards into the mix, creating custom decks to blast your enemies (and probably a few friends). Friends vs Friends is an action paced,...

The post ‘Friends vs Friends’ is a Card-Based Arena Shooter appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

Kingdom Eighties is an 80’s-inspired base-building game where you need to protect your town against greed while helping your friends and learning more about your family. You play as a young character...

The post ‘Kingdom Eighties’ Overcomes Danger by Building Bases With Childhood Buddies appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...

The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

On August 13, 2024 DREO, the manufacturer of many of my favorite air-moving devices, will move into the kitchen space by moving air into milk and the like to froth it. The official kickstarter date is the 13th of August and for pre-order start the 15th September on dreo.com and some retailers.

Armed with a touch screen, a heating element, and magnetic driven frothing blades the BaristaMaker makes the perfect froth for drink art, and generally adds to any regular coffee to punch it up a notch.

We received the BaristaMaker a few days ago and have incorporated it into our coffee rotation, which is only a few cups thus far so bear in mind this is not a review of how it performs over time.

We’ve thrown 2%, oat, and soy milk at the thing and in each case ended up with a fairly frothy foam. With the oat milk I had already poured it in on the milk frothing impeller and discovered you can hot swap without your fingers touching the oat milk. Magnetic impellers are something new to me and appear to make cleanup a breeze.

I do hope to have more of a review near release date, but I am attempting to not waste milk, oat milk, soy milk, etc. This means with my and my wife’s coffee intake we’re using it about three times a week. We have thus far just progressed into coffee art but nothing to write a blog about yet. I can make a couple of lines and Kim was able to make something resembling a shrub.

While our art skills need upped, I suspect this is entirely on us and not the foam quality produced by the DREO BaristaMaker. I’m enjoying our coffee drinks about 20% more as it stands, the froth combines with Kirkland’s Finest coffee and some simple syrup to produce something I would not have an issue paying for at a coffee shop.

Anyway, hopefully by the time it’s out I’ll have more of a review. Problem with not drinking huge amounts of coffee after my surgery and not wanting to waste milk have slowed said review down.

Below is the press release, and feel free to ask me any questions while I continue to use the BaristaMaker

DREO Unveils BaristaMaker: The Ultimate Smart Milk Frother for Perfect Latte Art 

Clifton, NJ – July 25, 2024 DREO, a leader in smart home innovation, proudly announces the launch of the DREO BaristaMaker, the most professional smart milk frother capable of creating latte art with all types of milk. This revolutionary device is set to take home coffee making to the next level, delivering barista-quality microfoam at the touch of a button.

With a unique blend of food science and barista mastery, DREO’s new milk frother allows coffee lovers to achieve the most exquisite frothy milk at home effortlessly. This new milk frother is the culmination of extensive research and a patented propeller technology meticulously designed to replicate the technique of professional baristas. After thousands of simulations mimicking the frothing process of expert baristas in their R&D kitchen, DREO has developed a milk frother capable of emulating the froth quality found in commercial coffee shops, surpassing the capabilities of most traditional, off-the-shelf home frothers with unmatched froth quality and texture.

DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter from 13th August and for pre-order from 15th September on dreo.com and trusted retailers including Amazon and select authorized partners.

Stunning Microfoam for Latte Art

DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother creates 0.5mm micro-bubbles, producing silky, shiny, dense microfoam similar to that found in coffeehouses. DREO has developed a patented impeller tip that precisely controls the direction of flow. Traditional disc tips may not always move the milk in the right direction, but BaristaMaker’s impeller blade ensures that the milk is consistently directed to the center for continuous mixing. As the milk is drawn to the center, DREO’s specially designed micro-level screen transforms normal-sized bubbles into rich, dense microfoam during the multi-stage frothing process.

DREO has also created a multi-stage milk frothing program that replicates each frothing step used by an expert barista with a high-pressure frothing wand. It starts by quickly heating the milk to the perfect temperature, creating the right balance of texture and flavor. Next, it mixes air into the milk to create larger bubbles by increasing the speed of rotation. Once enough foam has formed, it slows down the speed, directs the milk to the center using the impeller, and meticulously transforms these larger bubbles into dense, silky microfoam.

Compatibility with Plant-Based Milks

The popularity of plant-based milks has grown significantly in recent years due to dietary preferences, lactose intolerance, and environmental concerns. Recognizing this shift, DREO developed BaristaMaker to ensure it could produce perfect microfoam with both dairy and plant-based milks, bringing versatility and superior performance to a wide range of users. DREO’s food scientists carried out in-depth analysis of the protein and fat content of these milks from a range of different brands and developed a special algorithm that adapts to these different types of milk and delivers consistently high-quality frothing performance. Whether you’re a fan of almond milk, oat milk, soy milk, or coconut milk, this amazing machine can froth it all to perfection.

Versatile from Frothing to Stirring

BaristaMaker offers multiple frothing settings, allowing you to choose from microfoam, thick foam, and cold foam, depending on your preference and the type of beverage you are making. This versatility ensures that you can enjoy a wide variety of coffee styles at home. In addition to coffee, BaristaMaker is an excellent companion for powdered beverages such as matcha, hot chocolate, and other specialty drinks. Its frothing capabilities enhance the texture and flavor of these beverages, creating a rich and satisfying experience every time.

Designed with the User in Mind

BaristaMaker includes a professional stainless steel pitcher and is dishwasher safe. Its user-friendly features ensure that you can concentrate on enjoying your coffee without complicated settings or difficult cleaning procedures.

Endorsed by Media Enthusiasts and Barista World Champions

On the 16th of July, DREO hosted an exclusive media event in New York City, where media partners from top-tier media outlets got a hands-on experience with BaristaMaker. The media partners were impressed by its innovative features and intuitive design, as well as its ability to create micro-foam for latte art. And they’re looking forward to publishing dedicated reviews of this impressive machine!

DREO is proud to announce partnerships with three distinguished baristas: Anthony Douglas, the 2022 World Barista Champion; Dale Harris, the 2017 World Barista Champion; and Mikael Jasin, the 2024 World Barista Champion. These renowned experts will serve as ambassadors for BaristaMaker and the DREO brand, showcasing the technology and exceptional results of this groundbreaking product.

Anthony Douglas commented, “If I’m focusing purely on the quality that I get from the BaristaMaker it would have to be a 10 out of 10. It’s the best milk I’ve experienced and it’d be pretty hard to top.”

Availability and Exclusive Kickstarter Offer

“It is an invitation to elevate your coffee making experience and bring the art of perfectly frothed milk to the consumer. We believe that great frothed milk should be accessible to everyone and BaristaMaker is our way of making that possible. Going forward, DREO will continue to invest in and develop new technology within the coffee category and revolutionise the home beverage experience,” said Joshua Gunn, VP of Sales at DREO.

DREO BaristaMaker Milk Frother will be available on Kickstarter starting August 13th, with a Super Early Bird offer of up to 30% off the suggested retail price of $99. Don’t miss out—pre-orders will open to the wider public on September 15th. Plus, by joining the DREO community, you could win a grand prize valued at up to $3,200! Be part of the coffee revolution. Support us on Kickstarter and be among the first to experience the future of frothed milk!

DREO moving into the kitchen with the DREO BaristaMaker by Paul E King first appeared on Pocketables.

Koira is a relaxing, wholesome adventure game where fans get to explore a hand-drawn world at odds between light and shadow. Its goal is to allow players to become part of its winter landscape for a moment, unaware of the outside world and even the dichotomy itself as they awake in a forest with the sound of a dog barking in the distance. It's up to the player to save the dog and make it feel comfortable with them as they navigate the world together, going on a musical adventure where singing songs and bonding with the puppy opens new avenues. Game Rant was given a chance to experience Koira's unique text and dialogue-less world early ahead of the demo's release.

Riot Games has officially launched Valorant on Xbox Series X|S, marking the tactical shooter’s debut on console platforms in the United States, Canada, Europe, Japan, and Brazil. As of August 2, 2024, Xbox players can now experience the same intense, team-based gameplay that has captivated millions on PC.

Valorant on Xbox Series X|S brings the full competitive experience to the console, offering precise gunplay, a diverse roster of agents with unique abilities, and maps designed for strategic, round-based combat. However, to ensure that the game maintains its high standard for competitive integrity, cross-play between PC and console players is not available.

Despite this, Riot Games has ensured that both PC and console players will receive simultaneous updates, including patch balances, new agents, maps, and premium content, keeping the experience consistent across platforms.

Arnar Gylfason, Production Director of Valorant, expressed confidence in the console release: “We’ve received so much valuable feedback from players during Limited Beta, and feel confident to deliver on our gameplay promise for console players.”

For more information on VALORANT and how to get started on Xbox Series X|S, visit the official VALORANT website.

The post Valorant Now on Xbox appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.

Pepper Grinder has made its way to Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, bringing its unique blend of platforming and drilling action to a new audience. Originally released earlier this year on PC and Nintendo Switch, this fast-paced side-scroller is now available for Xbox players at $14.99.

In Pepper Grinder, you play as Pepper, a pirate stranded on a mysterious island after a freak storm wrecks her ship. The island is home to the Narlings, a group of treasure-stealing buccaneers who have made off with Pepper’s loot. Equipped with a powerful drill known as Grinder, Pepper sets off on a mission to reclaim her stolen treasure.

The game features challenging platforming sequences, lush pixel art, and clever environmental puzzles. The drill mechanic allows you to burrow through the earth, creating dynamic gameplay moments where you dive into the ground like a dolphin in water. Combined with chaotic combat and a thrilling soundtrack, Pepper Grinder offers an engaging and satisfying experience.

Whether you’re navigating tricky terrains, solving puzzles, or battling the Narlings, the game’s tight controls and vibrant design promise an adventure that keeps you on your toes.

The post Pepper Grinder Whirrs onto Xbox appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.

Warner Bros. Games has unveiled the official “Welcome Students” pre-order trailer for Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, giving fans their first look at the highly anticipated gameplay. The trailer highlights the game’s single-player Career Mode and Online Competitive Mode, showcasing the character creator and featuring iconic characters such as Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy. Additionally, fans get a glimpse of the Quidditch World Cup Stadium and other magical arenas set in well-known wizarding world locations.

Bloody Pre-Orders…

For those stupid enough to re-order the digital editions of Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store). The game is priced at £24.99 for the Digital Standard Edition and £34.99 for the Digital and Physical Deluxe Editions. Pre-ordering the game will reward players with the Firebolt Supreme Broom Skin.

Spend More Money on the Deluxe Edition

The Deluxe Edition includes the base game and several exclusive items:

Slytherin House Pack:

• Slytherin Stormrider Hurricane Broom Skin
• Slytherin Hogwarts Travel School Uniform
• Slytherin House Crest Emblem

Hufflepuff House Pack:

• Hufflepuff Stormrider Sandstorm Broom Skin
• Hufflepuff Hogwarts Travel School Uniform
• Hufflepuff House Crest Emblem

Ravenclaw House Pack:

• Ravenclaw Stormrider Cyclone Broom Skin
• Ravenclaw Hogwarts Travel School Uniform
• Ravenclaw House Crest Emblem

Gryffindor House Pack:

• Gryffindor Stormrider Firestorm Broom Skin
• Gryffindor Hogwarts Travel School Uniform
• Gryffindor House Crest Emblem

The Deluxe Edition also includes 2,000 gold to spend in-game, which can only be earned through gameplay progression.

When does it arrive?

Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions will be available on September 3, 2024, for PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC (Steam and Epic Games Store) in both Digital Standard and Deluxe Editions. The Physical Deluxe Edition will be available on November 8, 2024, for PlayStation®5, PlayStation®4, Xbox Series X, and Xbox One. The Nintendo Switch system edition is slated for a 2024 Holiday release. Players can check with their preferred retailers for pre-order availability for the Physical Deluxe Editions.

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Sweet Bandits Studios and Tripwire Presents have announced the launch of the Summer Splash update and a limited-time event for their multiplayer FPS game, DECEIVE INC. The update brings a variety of enhancements and features, while the accompanying event runs from July 25th to August 29th, offering players unique rewards and challenges.

Summer Splash Event & Rewards

The Summer Splash event introduces a unique storyline where players must thwart the Evenson twins’ scheme of smuggling prototype weapons disguised as water guns within their summer fashion collection. Players can collect new posters, prototype weapons, and weapon crates to earn points and unlock 15 levels of summer-themed cosmetics. A new catwalk feature on all maps allows players to strut their stuff as VIPs, earning massive point payoffs to accelerate their progress.

New Echelon Ranks

High-echelon levels now come with prestigious rewards. Players reaching rank 10 unlock a “Golden Echelon” agent skin, rank 30 offers a unique ink for weapons and gadgets, rank 50 provides a “Platinum Echelon” agent skin, and rank 100 rewards the dazzling “Diamond Echelon” skins. These exclusive skins and inks are available for all agents and signify dedication and hard work.

Enhanced Melee Combat

Responding to community feedback, the melee combat system has undergone significant improvements. The updates include under-the-hood reworks and visual enhancements to ensure melee combat is more consistent. Melee attacks are now stealthier, triggering responses only from NPCs or guards in the immediate vicinity, and rumble support has been added for melee attacks when using a controller.

New Celebration Features

Defeating opponents more than 10 levels higher will now reward players with bonus experience and a special celebratory message. Future updates will include additional celebration options to ensure every victory is recognised.

Retinal Scanners

A new feature, Retinal Scanners, offers an alternative method for accessing vaults. Players must gather intel to unlock the scanners, which become active after seven minutes. Any agent can deposit intel to contribute towards unlocking the scanner, with the price decreasing as the phase progresses. Once fully unlocked, only a VIP’s eyes can open the vault door, adding new strategic layers to the gameplay.

Bots 2.0

The capabilities of in-game bots have been significantly expanded, making them more active in accomplishing objectives. Bots can now trigger progress through each phase of a mission and even extract with the package.

Additional Improvements

The update includes server improvements, weapon visual alignment, bug fixes, and balancing changes. Full patch notes detailing all balance changes and bug fixes are available.

The post Dive Into DECEIVE INC.’s Summer Splash Update appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.

In an unusual partnership, Team17 Digital and the Los Angeles-based developer Sassy Chap Games have unveiled their upcoming sandbox dating simulator, date everything!. This innovative title is set to launch on Xbox Series X|S, offering a fresh and cheeky twist on the dating sim genre.

A Unique Dating Experience

Date everything! takes players into a world where everyday objects transform into potential romantic interests. From chatting up a refrigerator to courting a vacuum cleaner, the possibilities are as diverse as they are entertaining. Equipped with “Dateviator” glasses, players can interact with various household items to uncover their personalities and build relationships that culminate in love, friendship, or even animosity.

Diverse and Immersive Features

The game boasts a rich array of features designed to provide an engaging and varied experience:

• 100 Fully Voiced Characters: Each with distinct personalities and story arcs.
• Branching Dialogues: Multiple endings for each character, ensuring no two playthroughs are the same.
• Unique Soundtrack: Over 4 hours of music, with each character having their own theme.
• Hand-Drawn Art: Featuring 11,000+ images that bring the characters and world to life.
• Extensive Script: 1.2 million words and 70,000 voice lines ensure a deeply immersive narrative.
• Interactive 3D Overworld: Changes based on player choices, adding depth to the gameplay.

Star-Studded Voice Cast

Date everything! features a stellar voice cast including Felicia Day, Johnny Yong Bosch, and Grey DeLisle, among others. The game is brought to life by Sassy Chap Games, a studio founded by renowned voice actors Robbie Daymond, Ray Chase, Max Mittelman, and Amanda Hufford.

Developers’ Vision

Robbie Daymond, Co-Creative Lead and Voice of the Hangers, expressed his excitement about the project: “Going from voicing games to creating them was a huge leap. Thankfully we’ve got some of the best talent in the business to make date everything! truly unique. We’re wildly proud of our game and can’t wait for audiences to share in this adventure!”

Ray Chase, Lead Designer and Voice of the Wall, added: “It has been such an amazing journey to bring this audacious dream into reality. We’ve gotten to know these wonderfully unique characters for such a long time, and couldn’t be more excited to introduce you to a hundred or so of our friends…”

The post Date Everything! appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.

Executive producer and leather jacket aficionado Todd Howard has long wanted to make an Indiana Jones game. In partnering for it with MachineGames, who, given their work on the new, mostly critically acclaimed, batch of Wolfenstein shooters, have experience in Indy’s favourite pastime, punching Nazis, it would seem that Howard has picked the right people for the right job. And, yet, even after attending an hour-long digital event for what has been titled Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, I am still unsure that giving the reins to MachineGames was the best call to make. But, before I go more in detail with my impressions, let me give the rundown of what was presented to me.

Days before its showing at gamescom ONL 2024, I was fortunate enough to attend an online preview for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle led by game director Jerk Gustaffson and creative director Axel Torvenius. Half of this preview consisted of a gameplay presentation, which will also be shown on the show floor during gamescom, whereas the other was dedicated to a Q&A session with the two.

The presentation began with a montage of footage edited together from previous trailers, upon which Gustaffson and Torvenius revealed the first concept art created for the title. They said that they and their team knew from the get-go that they wanted the player to visit major sites like the Vatican and the Himalayas and that they wanted to include Gina Lombardi, a wholly original companion for Indy.

The overall goal behind Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, they continued, was to ‘strive to make the gameplay experience as authentic as possible and to make something that will evoke a sense of curiosity.’ As an example of how to best do so, they spoke about how the team at MachineGames looked at drawings and renditions of Thai landmarks such as Wat Si Sawai from around 1937 – the year that The Great Circle was set. Nevertheless, they also created their own points of interest, such as temples meant to host numerous well-guarded secrets.

“The overall goal behind Indiana Jones and the Great Circle was to ‘strive to make the gameplay experience as authentic as possible and to make something that will evoke a sense of curiosity.'”

Next, I was shown gameplay from the main chamber of, presumably, one of the said temples. At this unspecified point in the story, Indy had just gotten his hands on what I think was a statue of the Egyptian goddess of war, Sekhmet. He then proceeded to break this statue to acquire the next clue necessary for his adventure.

Upon doing so, however, the temple started to crumble, and the chamber he found himself in was rapidly filling up with quicksand. Following this turn of events, the HUD appeared on screen, showing Indy’s stamina bar and the icons for a whip and a pistol, the latter two being part of Indy’s trusty arsenal. Gustafsson and Torvenius had mentioned before that the whip could be used in both traversal and combat, but this was my first time seeing Indy use it to orchestrate a dashing escape.

The next scene I was made privy to flung me back to the beginning of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s story, which starts one fateful night in 1937. After falling asleep at his desk inside Marshall College in Boston, Indy was unceremoniously woken up by an intimidating man who proceeded to rob the museum college of a priceless relic. This event sets the stage for a grand conspiracy which features Indy’s main rival, one Emmerich Voss, a Nazi psychologist who is plundering sites around the globe in search of mysterious artifacts.

To help in the fight against Voss, MachineGames emphasized that players must employ Indy’s resourcefulness and, therefore, find clever ways to deploy each of the hero’s many tools. Take the camera, for one, which can be used to snap photos, which will, in turn, reveal clues and insights. These clues and insights are used to inform Indy’s personal journal, which is blank at the start of the game but will eventually contain the records of his adventure.

After demonstrating the journal and the camera, MachineGames returned to the whip, which they described as “the most important tool in Indy’s Arsenal.” The subsequent clip showed Indy in a temple picking up a nearby trident and then throwing it at a nearby cliff, creating a swing. With the trident firmly affixed to the cliff and his whip in hand, Indy was able to use the swing to cross a dangerous chasm.

In the next segment, it was time for a showing of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle’s combat system. The directing duo made it very clear here that the key to the game’s combat lies in deciding whether to ‘outsmart or overpower’ Indy’s enemies. This being said stealth is possible and perhaps the first option to consider in most cases. ‘What we’ve tried to do is make sure that you understand that there are stealth options,’ Gustafsson said when asked about approaches in combat. ‘It is stealth, the hand-to-hand and the whip that are the go-to’, he stated.

“The transition from Wolfenstein to Indiana Jones was described by MachineGames as a ‘big step’ and their ‘biggest project yet.'”

Fittingly, I then got to see a bit of stealth in a passage of play that had Indy infiltrate the Vatican. To do so, he wore a clerical outfit as his disguise and carefully evaded the gaze of patrolling guards. Moments later, in a different combat encounter entirely, I saw Indy pick up and throw bottles to distract his enemies, eventually subduing them while remaining completely unnoticed.

Moving on from the Vatican, the final piece of footage I got to see was of Indy engaged in a series of fights inside and around the Great Pyramid of Giza. These fights showcased that not only is Indy able to throw combos and whip his enemies, but also that he is capable of using whatever he finds in the environment: sticks, bricks, barrels, etc., to gain the upper hand.

Something that I haven’t mentioned yet, and that changed the tide of a fight that I was shown, is the fact that Indy also has an array of unlockable abilities. The one ability MachineGames showcased was called “True Grit”, which essentially allowed Indy to restore a modicum of health and continue the fight, even though his health bar has just previously been depleted.

MachineGames elaborated that “True Grit” and other abilities can be unlocked using “adventure points,” which the player can earn by taking part in activities such as snapping camera photos and completing optional missions. Gustaffson and Torvenius were coy about giving more details about these optional missions other than suggesting that some locations are more open than others, which would allow players to deviate from the golden path.

The Giza scenario concluded the gameplay portion of the presentation, which was followed by a series of questions from fellow journalists and me. To quickly summarize some of the more salient points covered here, I’ll suffice to write that Gustaffsson and Torvenius spoke about the transition from Wolfenstein as being a “big step” for MachineGames and that The Great Circle, which they confirmed is still slated for this year, is ‘by far the biggest’ project for them yet.

Lastly, and more interestingly to me, when asked whether they ever considered making Indiana Jones and the Great Circle in the third person, Gustafsson responded that ‘first person was the obvious choice for us’ and that it represented something ‘very important for us and for the way we make games in general.’

This last quote by Gustafsson strongly indicates to me that MachineGames is sticking to their guns and to what they do best, which would be rather commendable if it didn’t make me nervous for Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This is because, ultimately, I’m not convinced that an unabashedly MachineGames title is a right fit for a franchise like Indiana Jones. To be clear, everything I’ve been shown at this digital event suggests that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will be a great entry in the studio’s portfolio, but I am unsure whether or not it will prove to be the kind of game that the typical Indiana Jones fan expects.

“As of right now, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle seems like a gamble, especially at a time when both the storied franchise and Xbox Studios are looking for a surefire hit.”

Speaking for myself, when I think about Indiana Jones video games, I think first and foremost about Emperor’s Tomb, which was created with an entirely different set of guiding principles than Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I suppose, then, that the million-dollar question here is: will players, myself included, accept a different kind of Indy experience? Even after a lengthy preview, I’m still not sure that the answer is a definitive yes. As of right now, Indiana Jones and The Great Circle seems like a gamble, especially at a time when both the storied franchise and Xbox Studies are looking for a surefire hit.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set to release on Dec 9, 2024 on Xbox Series X|S, Windows and Steam. Available day one for Game Pass subscribers. A Playstation release was also announced today, for spring 2025.

If you’re like me, you have watched a challenge gameshow and thought, “I could do that!” Gameshows like Ninja Warrior, Takeda’s Castle, or Spike TV’s Most Extreme Elimination Challenge instantly come to mind as these types of entertainment, with obstacles ranging from the absurd to incredibly challenging stunts, and some even doubling as true feats of strength and daring. That’s exactly what Amazon Games and Glowmade have in store for fans in King of Meat.

King of Meat drags contestants to the world of Loregok, where the biggest obsession is the obstacle-laden game show, King of Meat, and it’s up to you, the contestant, to stay interesting enough to keep the crowd raging. This game show is brought to audiences everywhere by Amazon and Glowmade. It puts a spotlight on the entertainment aspect of the show, allowing fans to build their very own dungeon challenges, compete in countless arenas, and win glory in front of the masses of Loregok. Think SmashTV, but with a lot more smashing.

“In King of Meat it’s up to you to be as interesting as possible for the masses of Loregok or die trying.”

In King of Meat it’s up to you to be as interesting as possible for the masses of Loregok or die trying. Afterall, combatants are revered as celebrities here, and entertainment is paramount to everything everyone does. King of Meat doesn’t appear as a gameshow as much as a religion for Loregok. Everyone here is a carnivore and equally ravenous. After exploring a bit of the hub world (AKA The Iron Law Plaza), three combatants and I — dressed in equally as zany costumes, I sported a particularly angry Eagle head — dove straight into the Meat.

In King of Meat, starting a match or challenge run is simple, and a small loading screen reminiscent of a Gears of War multiplayer map voting appears. On this screen, members of your troupe get a choice to vote for the next challenge arena your party is going up against, and popularity numbers are shown. These can range from challenging platforming sequences to battling many creatures that swarm the battlefield and everything in between. Aside from the boundaries that keep contestants caged in the fray, there are (almost) no rules in King of Meat, but having a good time is paramount for the audience.

The dungeon selection screen is incredibly varied and is populated by Glowmade creations. But the game developers have something else entirely in store for players: you will be able to build your own challenge dungeon runs. Although I did not get a chance to explore the building component of King of Meat, Glowmade has some members on board from Lionshead Studios, and drawing a bridge between the challenge dungeon builder components and the now cancelled Fable Legends announced in 2013 was easy.

That title provided gameplay where a villain (also controlled by the player) plays the style of 1 vs. 4. You want to make a fun experience as a Dungeon Master of sorts (the builder IS the villain in King of Meat), and like a solid Super Mario Maker level, you want the celebrity contestants to fall to your challenging wit. This is reality TV at its finest.

As a celebrity contestant in King of Meat, the name of the game is to line your pockets with treasure while making it to the end without losing all your team’s lives. That’s right, teamwork does make the dream work in Loregok. Your four team members have to share four communal lives, and if all lives are lost, it results in failure and boos, and worst of all, no glory. Dungeons are loaded with hazards ranging from skillful sequences to fundamentally destructive. After we chose a dungeon that looked particularly heinous, our courageous party members dove in with reckless abandon for glory.

This Komstruct Koliseum (the fancy name for arenas) was filled with levers and exploding barrels. While traipsing the landscape, pulling the levers and exploding boxes jammed in the level’s gears were key to moving forward through the dungeon. The Koliseum, this time around, featured many spiky floors, spinning platforms, timed barrel explosives and enemies attempting to shorten your life. One thing is for certain, King of Meat goes heavy on the chaos. While each stage was incredibly varied, Glowmade’s dungeon designs in this pre-alpha stage are inspired and fun to tackle. King of Meat was created by people who wanted to play King of Meat, and it shows.

“One thing is certain: Amazon Games and Glowmade have created a unique title with King of Meat.”

Speaking of, the entire world of Loregok is fleshed out excellently. Propaganda akin to the Fallout series litters the landscape in hopes celebrities would buy their products. In between game sessions, characterized loading screens pushing products like “Mom’s Spit” (minus the Hawk Tuah) to shine armour are shown, giving an extra layer of immersion in King of Meat.

One of these products, a meat phoenix contraption, operates as the title’s respawn mechanism. When you think of the phoenix, you probably think of it as glamorous or beautiful. This phoenix type is gross and sheathed in what one would imagine being born from a sardine tin would feel like. Everything in King of Meat is filled with character, and the developers are not afraid to go off the deep end.  

Our fearless party continued to venture forth through the dungeon and happened upon a broken wall. In King of Meat secrets also litter the landscape like the wall chicken in Castlevania. Hitting walls does sometimes yield results and treasure beyond. The third person point of view in King of Meat is precisely what the doctor ordered and is the best option for this level of chaos.

Combatants have the typical fare of light and heavy attacks, with a sprint button and special attacks. When breaking items, defeating enemies in unique ways, or collecting treasure, a meter at the top of the screen acts as a multiplier. You can go from 1x which is like ‘Great’ all the way to 5x which says “YAAASSSS”. These multipliers allow you to earn more treasure per run, and dying or getting hit reduces the multiplier.

All these moving pieces combined amount to great chaotic fun. Going through each dungeon with a team of strangers assures you will leave with three new friends. Swarms of skeletons and challenging sequences will create a strong bond among celebrities, and during dungeon runs, we quickly found that deploying a gross burp called “Glory Attack” can send each other flying. While that was not its intention, constantly messing teammates up was a joy, adding another layer of unintentional fun to the mix. King of Meat doesn’t have a script, but it sure makes contestants think outside the box to have fun.

Another glory attack had a horse leg stomp out of seemingly nowhere, to which I thought out loud, “I’m glad that horse is on our side.” Glowmade appears to want fun and chaos to happen first and everything else second. Combatants are dolled out in customizable clothing options, ranging from the aforementioned giant eagle head to big robot arm gloves, meaning contestants will likely not look the same with the amount of character creation screen options.

The treasure you earn in the dungeon can provide you with a loaded coin purse to purchase more outfits for your avatar, assuring that your time spent entertaining the masses is well spent on zany outfits. Glowmade implores you to make an absolute abomination, and I answered the call.

One thing is certain: Amazon Games and Glowmade have created a unique title with King of Meat. The fun first—everything else second approach is readily apparent, as the developers appear to have made King of Meat with the notion of wanting to play exactly that. King of Meat is dripping with chaotic fun and antics that would make any TV producer glee with joy, and Glowmade may have a winner on their hands. Just make sure to bring sanitizer.

Seven years is a long time to wait after a cliffhanger ending, but as Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 ably proves, it takes a good long time to make a game, these days. Warhorse Studios found great success with the first game, selling millions of copies to allow them to grow both in their ambitions and as a studio. Picking up right where the last game ended, the adventure that awaits Sir Hans and Henry is bigger, more deadly, and will take you from the countryside and into the big city.

Spending several hours with the game, we got to experience the opening region and the events that kick this new narrative arc into gear, before jumping ahead to the big city and some of the politicking and possibilities that this region provides. There’s a pretty stark contrast between the two, most notably in terms of the environment that you’re exploring, but also in terms of pacing.

Dubbed ‘Bohemian Paradise’, the opening area is full of lush greenery and small villages surrounding the hilltop Trosky Castle, but we had only a glimpse of this amidst the narrative upheaval that greets Henry and his lord Sir Hans. They have been entrusted with delivering a message of peace to Lord Bergow, though as they get close, they’re greeted with suspicion and hostility from guards on patrol. There’s bandits in the area and they’re immediately suspicious of you, not least because of the respective allegiances in the war between King Wenceslas and the upstart King Sigismund.

That initial interaction starts to define who your version of Henry is. This is a fresh start from the first game, and Warhorse Studios describe it as a new arc – KCD was Henry becoming a man, while KCD 2 will be him becoming a warrior, but still seeking revenge for the murder of his parents, like he’s starring in a Shenmue game. Seeking to back Sir Hans up and express the honourable nature of our mission, I put my foot in it while trying to navigate the conversation with the guard’s captain, until Sir Hans steps back in and resolves the issue – of course, I doubt you can really start a fight at this point, but it lets you emphasise whether Henry will be a smooth-talking envoy or a strong, battling soldier that will fight to resolve issues, rather than talk too much.

You never make it to the castle, though, those aforementioned bandits ambushing your group and sending Sir Hans and Henry fleeing through the woods with just a pair of britches to hide their modesty. Thankfully the old lady who eventually takes them in, all battered, bruised and bleeding, doesn’t mind their lack of clothing, but once you actually reach Trosky, reality bites hard at Sir Hans, the brattier side to his summery character driving a wedge between the two. Also, you’ve got to go and find your dog, who went missing after the ambush.

It’s a compelling opening hour or so, giving a rather linear introduction to this game, providing you with some fighting practice, a bit of stealth, and revisiting a few of the key plot points via flashbacks, so you can enjoy this and understand Henry’s origins without having played the first game. However, it’s not a true representation of the more than 80 hours that will follow. That will be much more open and free for you to explore as you see fit, with gameplay and quest design that builds upon the style of the original. It’s when we leap ahead to explore Kuttenberg (now known as Kutná Hora in Czech) that we get to see this side of the game play out.

One of the most important cities within Bohemia at the time, Kuttenberg’s reputation was largely built on the silver mines that gave it so much wealth. This was a major economic centre because of it, with a minting press clanging away to produce currency, and people drawn to the area because of this.

Kuttenberg has been recreated in fantastic detail here, with Warhorse getting a lot of support from the city to help them build something authentic to the period. Leaning upon historical references and records, they’re able to peel back the centuries and restore buildings and structures back to what they would have been like – a walking tour through the city lets us see the comparison between the modern and preserved streets and structures, and how they look in the game, as well as educated guesses like an astronomical clock that they know was there, but have modelled after the world famous clock in Prague. While you might have a mental image of a world filled with muddy browns, Kuttenberg’s wealth was shown through colour, artistic construction and finery.

And naturally, with a large population centre, politics come to the fore and create conflict. Menhardt the master swordsman – a Fechter – has come from Frankfurt with a license from the king to found a brotherhood and spread his artistry in combat. But as he arrives in Kuttenberg, he finds another brotherhood from Prague has established itself, and the city council siding with them. All Menhardt wants – you’ll gather from his mixed English and German dialogue (in that Hollywood way that people never actually speak in when using foreign languages) – is the opportunity to fight and prove that he should be allowed to establish a brotherhood, but as they refuse to fight him, he hatches a plan with Henry to steal the Kuttenberg Sword from the local brotherhood and place it at the town hall to open them up to challenges.

There’s bound to be a bunch of ways to pull this off, but by far the easiest and most obvious is to sneak into the brotherhood’s house at night and steal the sword – people have routines through a 24-hour cycle, so you can skip forward to get to the point in time that you need. Nighttime is dictated by rules like needing to walk with a lamp or torch, so that you are above suspicion of being a thief, but you’ll encounter locked doors that need careful (and most importantly quiet) picking with a tricky, but enjoyable minigame, that can alert the people inside. Thankfully, if you are caught, then there’s still a way to trigger the duel and competition, just with the odds in the tournament being stacked against Menhardt and his brotherhood that you can join up to.

There’s been some significant improvements to the combat in Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, though it’s building on the same foundations as the original game. You still have the five-pointed star reticule when fighting an opponent, giving you the ability to attack and block from either side, from above, jab down the middle or attack from below – these upward swings are now combined instead of being separate directions. I found it a little easier to grasp the basics in this game than with the first, learning a bit better how to parry and open an opponent’s guard, or to string together a flurry of blows. Don’t get cocky, though, because this is still a tricky style of combat to master.

Is there that much of a difference between Menhardt’s German school of combat and the Prague brotherhood? I couldn’t really say, but with their success and growth over the past seven years, Warhorse has grown the animation team from basically a single person, to having someone dedicated to each weapon and combat style. There should be greater distinction and nuance between them, letting your specialise.

But maybe you don’t want to be up close and personal? Fighting from afar will be perfectly viable, and maybe even preferred when the pitched battles can be much larger and more grand than before. You’ll see full-blown castle assaults, man the ramparts with a crossbow in hand, as opposed to a bow and arrow, and KCD2 will feature the earliest of firearms, including boom sticks that are basically a tube on a stick that you shove gunpowder and a bullet down, before making it go… well… boom!

There’s plenty more aspects to the game, all building upon the original, such as the public perception of Henry which shifts depending on your actions – so if you’re a thief, you’ll be branded as such and treated as one – or the in-depth alchemy system that has you physically mixing healing remedies. Oh, and of course there’s a fun game to sink your time into, though in this case it’s a historically accurate game of dice. It’s actually surprisingly addictive – well, I had to keep playing if I wanted my dog to have a sausage for dinner! – as you roll a bunch of dice and try to find pairs and runs with which you can score points and then keep rolling, but you importantly need to know when to quit, otherwise you’ll end up with no points for a round.

Put it all together and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is shaping up to be a real showcase for how much Warhorse Studios has grown, evolving their take on the historical setting and their approach to role playing games in general.

Our hands on time with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 came thanks to a press trip to Kutná Hora, the modern day Kuttenberg, with travel and accommodation provided by Warhorse and Plaion.

There’s a fair bit of trepidation for what Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will actually be like as a game, in particular with the first person view switching to third person at times, and the blend of combat, puzzling, exploration and other gameplay ideas. It’s ironic that, with Tomb Raider and Uncharted having been compared countless times back to the classic Indiana Jones films, now an Indiana Jones game cannot escape their shadow.

MachineGames are charting their own course, though, taking inspiration from their own history, going back to the founding group’s history at Starbreeze Studios and the similar perspective shifting of Chronicles of Riddick. When viewed in that light, and seeing more and more slices of gameplay, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle starts to make more sense.

Of course, there’s one area that MachineGames doesn’t really have much say in. At Gamescom 2024, the studio has finally confirmed that yes, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to PlayStation 5 after all, despite Microsoft’s best efforts to dodge the leaks and rumours. It’s still coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC first – it’s out in December there, as opposed to Spring 2025 for PS5 owners – but it’s another capitulation in the console rivalry.

Gamescom is also where we visitors can watch a gameplay theatre presentation, which we were privy to (with some exclusive extras) before hand.

Indy might have a roguish tendency to pull a fast one with a pistol, but he’s always been a brawler more than a shooter, and that’s what he seems to be here, mixing together punches, whip strikes and occasional pistol shots. You’ll be able to make use of the environment, whether that’s using a knockout combo to finish a bruising enemy, shoving them down a level in a dig site, or grabbing a rolling pin from a nearby table to clonk them on the head.

All of this will take place in first person, keeping you rooted within the character, but there’s then shifts to third person when climbing or swinging across gaps on Indy’s whip.

I can’t help but wonder if the game might be better to stay in first person the entire time. We’ve had games like Mirror’s Edge which have integrated fast and fluid parkour with a first-person view, and I’m not entirely sold on the value that switching to the third person for a few seconds offers. Especially when stealth, which might benefit from shifting to the third person to give better spatial awareness, and sliding down a slope don’t make the switch. I hope it comes together for the full game.

Indy’s adventure will challenge him with more than just platforming and fighting. Taking place in 1937, between Raiders and The Last Crusade, we have peak Indiana Jones and a fresh Nazi threat to undermine. The story will see Indy piecing together some kind of fanciful archaeological shenanigans surrounding a great circle of temples and historical sites that rings the globe, landing himself in a race against Emmerich Voss. Along the way, he’ll team up with investigative reporter Gina Lombardi, who has her own reasons for trotting across the globe.

And globe-trotting is what they’ll do, with the journey taking them to the Vatican in Rome, the Sukhothai temples, Egyptian pyramids, the Himalayas and more – all created with reference material from the period, when places like the Sukhothai temples were still completely overgrown. All manner of ancient traps and puzzles await within these, and there’s some fun nods back to iconic moments in the film, such as Indy lifting a big statue from a plinth and initially being pleased that nothing bad happens… until sand starts pouring into the floor, forcing a struggle to get to a hatch high up in the wall. Alternatively, it could be Gina that triggers the bad things to happen.

Some of the puzzling will be immediately familiar from action adventures, such as directing beams of light with mirrors, and whipping at weakened stone in the environment to let loose a stream of water, but other puzzles have more of a point & click adventure feel – pour a bottle of wine into an offering plate before a statue and see a number revealed in red, giving you the answer for levers in another room.

Sometimes the puzzles will rely on using a camera to take photos of points of interest to reveal a clue or the next step, and those photos will fill out a journal, creating a record of your journey so far, collating information and thoughts on the adventure, and more. It’s a neat nod back to The Last Crusade, and can be seen as a naturalistic hints system.

Throughout all of this you’ll earn Adventure Points, which feed into the Adventure Books that you can find and unlock abilities with. These can include things like ‘True Grit’, which gives Indy another chance after losing a fight, just so long as you can crawl across the floor and pick up his hat.

Stealth and subterfuge will also play a significant part. On the one hand, sneaking allows you to choose when and how to start a fight, luring enemies away with distractions and then taking them out quickly and/or quietly to even up the odds. Other areas might need you to blend in, donning various disguises like you’re Agent 47 and then trying not to stand out and get noticed when walking through closed-off areas.

These disguises will generally be determined by the flow of the story – dress up as a clergyman to get behind the scenes at the Vatican, for example – but this isn’t a purely linear adventure. There will also be broader environments and places for you to explore and side quests that can take you off the beaten path a little. You will be able to journey back and forth to revisit previous places, potentially put disguises back on if you need them, and discover more Adventure Books and Points.

While MachineGames aren’t putting a figure on the length of this game, they are confidently stating that it’s longer than any game they’ve done before.

A few years on from the two-case collection of Famicom Detective Club remakes, Nintendo is following up on the promise and potential of this visual novel series with the first fully new entry in 27 years. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club is coming out at the end of this month, putting our youthful sleuths through the wringer of another traumatic murder case.

From today and through to the game’s launch on 29th August, Nintendo is teasing out the first few chapters of the game with a free demo, and we’ve sampled the prologue and first chapter of the game a little ahead of time.

It’s another day at Utsugi Decetive Agency, with our 19 year old protagonist (who you get to name) continuing on as an assistant detective at the agency. Barely have you said hello to Utsugi when the phone rings with the police calling you to a strange and unsettling crime scene.

A body has been found that morning, a teenager still in middle school… but they were found with a paper bag on their head, marked with a smiling face.

This quickly grows into the revelation that this could be tied to a decades old case that Utsugi was aware of and the urban legend of Emio – The Smiling Man, a person with a bag on their head who finds crying girls and tells them quite specifically that they’re going to give them a smile that lasts forever. But is this the same killer? A copycat? Something else entirely?

If you’ve played the remade Famicom Detective Club duology, or even the more jovial Ace Attorney series, you’ll immediately find your footing with the visual novel-style gameplay of this game.

The early conversations and interactions through the Prologue and Chapter 1 gradually set out the scope of what you’ll have to do. Most of the time you’ll select ‘Ask/Listen’ and potentially a sub-topic to engage in conversation with someone, but sometimes the conversation might dry up, nudging you to ‘Look/Examine’ the person or the environment to prise out new clues, or to ‘Think’ and have your internal dialogue nudge you down another path. Thankfully you are generally prompted by highlighted words when you need to think or if there’s something new to ask about, though you might end up still simply tapping through all the options to try and find the one with new info.

There’s further options, to call over to another person, dip into your journal with all the collated details on people, and more, though the opening chapter only touches on this lightly.

One thing that does return for the chapter conclusion is the case review, a sit down chat with Ayumi to go over the facts and latest discoveries and try to draw some conclusions. It’s basically a mini quiz to see if you’ve been paying even a modicum of attention, though you can also point out suspects that could be a bit of a punt.

Emio – The Smiling man seems to take a few incremental steps forward in terms of the game presentation. The art style is very much in keeping with the 2021 remakes, but I feel like there’s a shade more animation to characters in their idle states, their hair waving gently in a breeze, and the like. Animation to go along with dialogue is snappy and to the point, fading between motions to quickly relate a motion, but without dragging thing out. Helpful when the game’s voice work is Japanese only, so you  can skip through dialogue as fast as you can read.

But while this is a more serious kind of mystery than an Ace Attorney, that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for some unusual and memorable characters. In particular detectives Kuze and Kamihara are polar opposites to one another, Kuze being very intense and by-the-book, while Kamihara is a rather unserious character in some ways, deliberately a bit mean, it seems.

This is really just the very beginning of the case, and I can read barely anything into how it’s going to progress at this point, but I’ve no doubt that there will be plenty of twists and turns, more murders, and a gradually emerging gallery of suspects.

Chapter 2 will be available within the demo later this week on 23rd August, before the third chapter is added on 28th August ahead of the full launch. I’m already keen to peel back more of the mystery in the coming days.

C-Smash VRS was easily one of the best games from the PlayStation VR 2’s launch window. Taking the cult classic arcade and Dreamcast game Cosmic Smash, it shifted the perspective, giving us a minimalist blend of Breakout and real-life Squash for a compelling VR sports game.

But shouldn’t everyone be allowed to smash cosmically? Not just the relative few with fancy hats? Enter C-Smash VRS: New Dimension, a fresh launch and free update coming at the end of September that will bring back flat-screen play and arcade delights alongside all the VR goodness of before.

New Dimension feeds a lot more of the original Cosmic Smash back into C-Smash VRS, specifically with the shift back to a third-person camera – there’s both a dynamic tracking cam and a pulled-back fixed camera – and seeing your avatar race back and forth as you position yourself to slap the ball back down the arena.

Going hands-on back-to-back with a classic arcade cabinet, there’s a very familiar feel between them, with the way that your avatar is animated in running, jumping and hitting, the ease and accessibility of timing shots, and more. However, New Dimension has added a few extra flourishes and moves on top of that. Whether they’re new moves or old, it’s pretty cool to see your character pulling off wall jumps, seeing the spinning flourish of a power shot, or a last ditch dive to reach a ball that’s heading outside of your hitting sweet spot.

Every mode from C-Smash VRS is available to play in New Dimension, whether it’s the Journey mode through strings of action puzzle stages, the endless Infinity mode, co-op or head-to-head multiplayer. Through all of the multiplayer modes, one of the key factors to New Dimension is that this bridges the divide between VR and flat-screen play.

This isn’t quite the first time that this has been done in VR gaming, since we have cross-play in digital board games like Demeo, or more significantly with racing games like Gran Turismo 7 and flight games. However, C-Smash VRS: New Dimension is possibly the first time that we’re dealing with two completely different styles of motion and control.

GT7 or Star Wars Squadrons might give VR players a greater awareness of their surroundings, but you’re still fundamentally fixed in the cockpit and have the limits of your vehicle. New Dimension has VR players with a first-person view and full motion tracking of your arms going up against the abstracted arcade action of the flat-screen game.

It’s a really fascinating problem, but one that RapidEyeMovers and Wolf & Wood are very close to getting just right. We went through the gamut of head-to-head multiplayer options, myself playing on TV in London against Wolf & Wood’s Ryan Bousfield up in Newcastle, and had some good fun and close matches, despite the completely different controls.

A few things stood out the more that I played, though. Depending on your preferences, C-Smash VRS is perhaps a bit too lenient with allowing you to press the hit button well before the ball gets back to you. You do want to try to position yourself and time the button press to get the best power and control, but there’s a lot of give here and your avatar can almost always make that diving hit to dribble the ball back down the court.

At the same time, there’s more advanced moves that have much, much less margin for error. A jump shot is very easy to end up with whiffing at clean air, and cool as it looks, so can a wall jump shot. When playing against another person who’s actively aiming for the edges of your reach, these are pretty important to master, and hopefully the final product can bring these two extremes a bit closer together.

VR versus TV play works wonderfully well and feels like it should be well balanced. A VR player will need to have better natural hand-eye coordination than a TV player, especially when trying to pinpoint a shot at a small target, but that physical control gives a higher ceiling for play.

Coming out on 26th September, C-Smash VRS: New Dimension is set to be all things to fans of hitting balls with rackets. This is probably the game that fans of the original would have hoped for, a modern successor with a bunch more modes, block types and power ups, but with familiar gameplay and feel. And you can always still pop a VR headset on as well, now hopefully with more people to play with online.

There is always an intriguing risk when it comes to adapting an existing movie or TV show into video game. Indiana Jones and the Great Circle takes an even greater risk with developer MachineGames introducing its own standalone story in the Lucasfilm saga. It certainly captures the cinematic feel of the movies, but it still has question marks regarding gameplay.

My recent Indiana Jones and the Great Circle preview for Gamescom 2024 was notably strictly hands-off. I had the chance to check out 30 minutes of particularly edited gameplay footage across different areas with narration. Since this was totally hands-off, it is hard to say exactly how this first-person action adventure game will play.

That said, I walked away from the hands-off preview impressed by the visuals and spectacular presentation of the Great Circle, but uncertain about its gameplay. If there is one element I am certain about this game, it is the sheer scale and diversity of the various missions players will experience. In the short time, I saw clips of adventures in Vatican City, the Himalayan’s, and Egypt. Every location looks stunning in-engine and grandiose.

If these sections are anything to go by, these iconic and beautiful locales will also have the adventurous nature of the movies as well. Indiana Jones, played by Troy Baker, encountered plenty of traps and thrilling scripted sequences. These were extremely fun to watch, especially from the fascinating first-person perspective.

However, when it comes to the actual gameplay, especially in movement and combat, I am less thrilled. The movement, at times, seemed clunky and a bit too slow. This could be due to the slower nature of the edited footage, emphasizing the detail of the environments. However, I’m not confident in this, mainly because of the combat.

Fights seem to generally happen in a one-on-one nature, at least from what I saw. There are ranged weaponry and fighting, but I mostly saw up close and personal gameplay. Jones would swap blows with enemies but the animations seemed a bit too slow. I wasn’t particularly excited by the slow pace of the fights. There is a chance the actual end result will be smoother or be faster, but I’m not impressed with that part yet.

Even still, I admire the exploration aspect of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. This is where the first-person perspective really shines from my short hands-off demo. MachineGames put a lot of thought into recreating these 1930s settings and, fortunately, it shows. Missions often have large open areas to explore, with merchants and even optional side missions to complete. Seeing the hustle, bustle, and many NPCs roaming around a market had me interested in spending time there. In some ways, these locations remind me of the historical adherence and detail of an Assassin’s Creed title.

This extends the player’s time with the gameplay beyond the typical scripted dungeon delving and crypt exploring main missions. Everything about these massive scripted sequences evoke feelings of watching the movies. I especially enjoyed the pit Jones fell into towards the end of the demo. This led to a creepier moment with scorpions and other creatures in the dark, which teased some thrilling sequences in the title. While I do have some concerns about linearity and lack of player input in these moments, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle feels incredibly cinematic.

This movie-like quality and feel comes down to the story and characters. I only have bits and pieces of the story so far, but Troy Baker nails the voice of Indiana Jones as best as one can without getting Harrison Ford himself. In the end, this makes Indiana Jones and the Great Circle seem like a faithful cinematic game adaptation of the beloved movies. While it remains to be seen if it plays as well as it looks, there is some hope for Indiana Jones fans.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will release for Xbox Series X/S and PC on December 9, 2024 and in Spring 2025 for PS5.

The post Preview: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Feels Rightfully Cinematic appeared first on Siliconera.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle has all the Indy trademarks you’d expect: action, adventure, the archaeologist’s iconic whip and fedora, and a long list of Nazi chuckleheads begging for a knuckle sandwich. The game will have tombs to raid, ancient mysteries to solve, and artifacts to collect. 

Check out Polygon’s Gamescom 2024 hub page for all our coverage of the world’s biggest games event.

But Wolfenstein developer MachineGames’ take on Indiana Jones seems to have something incredibly difficult to capture without having direct access to Harrison Ford: charm.

At Gamescom this week, MachineGames and publisher Bethesda Softworks are showing off new gameplay from their upcoming Indiana Jones video game, which Polygon got to see in advance. Two moments stood out to me from watching that new gameplay because of their impressive ability to capture Indy’s character and charisma:

1. In one scene, we saw Indiana Jones try to infiltrate a seminary, dressed as a clergyman, in order to obtain some religious artifacts as part of a stealth mission. Indy will be able to wear disguises at certain points in Indiana Jones and the Great Circle‘s story, calling back to some of the better moments in the films (e.g., Jones trying to pass as a Nazi officer in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Jones trying to pass as a ticket taker in The Last Crusade). MachineGames promises to let players choose stealth or direct confrontation in The Great Circle, and I’m looking forward to sneaking around as Indy masquerading (sometimes awkwardly) as someone else.
2. At some point, Indy can unlock an ability called True Grit, which will basically let him revive himself after being knocked down. In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, this is visually represented by Indy picking up his fedora off the ground and dusting himself off. I imagine doing this often — waiting for a Nazi soldier who thinks he’s just gotten the best of me, watching him turn around, then tapping him on the shoulder and handing him a knockout punch.

These may seem like small elements in an incredibly ambitious game — MachineGames calls The Great Circle “by far the biggest game we’ve done” — but they matter for a character with a giant, scene-consuming personality like Indiana Jones.

Even in first-person moments, you can feel Indy’s charm radiating, especially during the excitement that comes from a well-earned discovery. This is a game of puzzle-solving and unlocking mysteries, and Indy will have two instruments that aid him in that regard during his adventure: a journal full of notes, maps, and clues that fills out over time, and a camera with which he can snap photos of important discoveries (which will in turn lead to more discoveries). MachineGames calls the camera “one of the key gameplay mechanics” in The Great Circle. Players will find “clever, unexpected uses” for all of Indy’s tools, the developer says, including that camera and his iconic whip.

The whip can be used in combat to attack and disarm foes, and for traversal. Expect lots of climbing and swinging (which is shown in third-person view, unlike the rest of the game), as well as opportunities to lash Nazi soldiers with the whip. There’s gunplay, of course, but much of the one-on-one combat moments we saw were some combination of whip and fistfighting. Indy can block, parry, and dole out combinations of punches, all of which hit with the meaty thwack heard in the Indiana Jones movies. MachineGames says that pacifists can bypass some of these encounters by carefully using stealth and the environment to sneak around Indy’s enemies.

The story of Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is set between the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, and features a familiar structure: Adolf Hitler’s forces, led by Nazi psychologist Emmerich Voss, are chasing artifacts of great power, and only Indy can stop them. Jones teams up with an Italian journalist named Gina Lombardi, who has a personal stake in their journey. In the gameplay shown at Gamescom, we saw Indy and Gina exploring tombs together, defying deadly traps and solving ancient puzzles — and maybe celebrating a victory a little too early, as what appeared to be a successful attempt at snatching a prized relic triggered an even deadlier trap.

MachineGames appears to be placing a great emphasis on The Great Circle‘s puzzles, which it says are “designed to fit seamlessly in the world.” The ones we were shown appeared to be pretty simple, tasking the player with surveying the environment and studying Indy’s journal for leads. One involved breaking parts of the environment to access a hidden room, and then using switches to unlock a mechanism. The puzzle in which Gina was involved seemed more complex, but she quickly — maybe too quickly — offered a helping hint about how to solve it.

I doubt Indiana Jones and the Great Circle will live and die by its puzzles. Instead, the more memorable moments of escaping certain death, sneaking through Nazi-infested compounds, and enjoying the thrill of discovery, both with and as Indiana Jones, seem like where MachineGames’ game will shine. After seeing more of Indy’s new game, I’m optimistic the Wolfenstein studio can pull it off.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is coming to Windows PC and Xbox Series X on Dec. 9. A PlayStation 5 version is slated for release in spring 2025.

The survivors in the upcoming Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster - itself an update of the 2016 HD version of the 2006 zombie open-mall action game - are still idiots. I’m starting to regret giving Burt a gun, honestly. Every time he bumps into a magazine rack he starts screaming like someone’s eating his face, and the little circle above his name turns red to indicate he’s in danger. That’s a mannequin, Burt. They can’t hurt you. They’re actually known for not being able to move.

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The survivors in the upcoming Dead Rising Deluxe Remaster - itself an update of the 2016 HD version of the 2006 zombie open-mall action game - are still idiots. I’m starting to regret giving Burt a gun, honestly. Every time he bumps into a magazine rack he starts screaming like someone’s eating his face, and the little circle above his name turns red to indicate he’s in danger. That’s a mannequin, Burt. They can’t hurt you. They’re actually known for not being able to move.

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Demon’s Mirror is an upcoming roguelike game from developer Be-Rad Entertainment. “Great! Another roguelike game!” you might exclaim in exasperation. Don’t worry, though, because Demon’s Mirror offers an additional twist, one that sees the genre combined with deckbuilding reminiscent of Slay the Spire and match-3 or, in this case, chain-3 gameplay, akin to Puzzle Quest.

I had a chance to check out a hands-off preview of Demon’s Mirror. I joined Brad Johnson, the founder of Be-Rad Entertainment, as well as folks from publisher Good Shepherd Entertainment. While I only saw a brief glimpse of the characters and mechanics, I was still very much intrigued by tactical intricacies.

Demon’s Mirror features three heroes who have been trapped in a dark realm. Only two were available in the demo, Wulf and Draga, though it was easy to see their unique perks and card abilities. For instance, Wulf gets a free chain point, whereas Draga can lower the cost of chaining and cards by a point. Sounds a bit confusing? Well, then, I’ll go ahead and explain the mechanics…

As mentioned earlier, Demon’s Mirror combines deckbuilding and chain-3 gameplay. During your character’s turn, you can use action points to either chain tiles on the board or play the cards in your hand. Chaining essentially means drawing a line across multiple symbols of the same type, such as swords to deal damage, shields to block damage, or essence (i.e. green orbs) to buff cards. There’s even another resource called willpower (i.e. purple gems), which gives three potential effects to choose from.

“Demon’s Mirror offers an additional twist, one that sees the genre combined with deckbuilding reminiscent of Slay the Spire…”

Naturally, the more symbols and the longer the line you chain, the stronger the effect. This is where your tactical acumen comes into play since you need to ascertain whether it’s better to deal damage to a foe, empower your next action, or block an oncoming hit. Another cool tidbit is that there’s an accessibility setting that automatically shows you the longest line you can trace, in case that’s the action you want to do during that turn.

As for the card-based gameplay in Demon’s Mirror, those in your hand are refreshed each turn, allowing you to make use of various abilities and quirks. For instance, one card might deal flat damage to all enemies, while another has a bigger boost against a single target. The most useful, as I’ve seen, is the card that swaps tiles that are next to each other. It’s another layer of strategy for those who really want to create the longest chain on the board.

Similarly, the foes you battle can place their own enemy tiles, which automatically deal damage to your character after a few turns. When this occurs, you have to prioritize destroying that tile or at least prepare to take the brunt of the hit. As you plan your moves, you also have to consider your chosen character’s unique perks as they relate to the action economy.

“…with each run in Demon’s Mirror, you could find yourself completing objectives or tallies, allowing you to unlock modifiers for future attempts.”

I asked Be-Rad Entertainment founder Brad Johnson how he conceptualized Demon’s Mirror, especially since it combined the three genres of roguelike, deckbuilder, and match-3/chain-3. According to Johnson, it was a challenge to try and balance all three genres. However, the team did obtain a lot of feedback after doing two beta tests, the second of which had over a hundred testers. I was told that the team is confident that Demon’s Mirror will be “more accessible, fun, and balanced” due to the preparations that they’ve made.

I should also mention the roguelike aspect since your journey in Demon’s Mirror requires you to clear three zones. Each zone’s map has icons representing enemies, elites, bosses, shops, campsites, and even random events. (Regrettably, I’ve been told that there are no multi-stage event sequences or secret outcomes as of this moment.)

With each attempt, your character’s cards are randomized from a pool of those that you’ve unlocked. Likewise, the icons on the map will have randomized positions, too, which means the path you take to your goal will be different. Lastly, with each run in Demon’s Mirror, you could find yourself completing objectives or tallies, allowing you to unlock modifiers for future attempts.

All in all, Demon’s Mirror is shaping up to be a promising title that offers a unique mishmash of mechanics from different genres. The game will be available soon on Steam. We’ll keep you posted once a definite release date has been announced.

I’ll be honest when I was given the option to preview Beyond Galaxyland I kind of assumed it was going to be a vastly different game than what I got. With a name like that, I figured it was going to be some sci-fi-themed Roller Coaster Tycoon—which would be awesome by the way. Once I looked into it further, I got an interesting and fairly unique turn-based RPG.

Beyond Galaxyland is the second game developed by Sam Enright and bears a lot of similarities to his previous title, The Greater Good. Enright has clearly found a solid foundation to build from and I definitely won’t fault the guy for developing from a familiar place—if you can do something well, then do it. However, there’s definitely a lot more going into Beyond Galaxyland. 

When talking about the game, Enright said, “I’m a huge fan of classic turn-based RPGs from the mid and late 1990s and some of my favourites, such as Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VII, have provided me a galaxy’s worth of inspiration when developing Beyond Galaxyland.” He continued, “I wanted to make a game that felt uniquely cinematic while being within a familiar genre. I hope when gamers play it they’ll appreciate how Beyond Galaxyland’s pacing will often feel closer to a movie than a videogame.”

“…worlds in Beyond Galaxyland are expansive and richly detailed.”

And that feeling is definitely present within the game. From how it starts with a bit of a mysterious misdirection to how it proceeds, the way the story unfolds in a way that’s slow-paced but high-drama. The story begins properly with a teenager named Doug getting whisked away to Galaxyland: an idyllic menagerie of planets run by the supposedly benevolent DreamCore. 

Despite being told that Earth was destroyed by a cataclysmic force known as “The End,” Doug is determined to return home, and before long, he is whisked away on a sci-fi adventure—flying between the various planets of Galaxyland, meeting new friends and allies, and potentially learning the truth behind The End and Dreamcore’s true intentions. This is rounded out by a unique cast of characters that run the gamut from mysterious and alien to downright adorable—like Boom Boom, the semi-sentient Guinea Pig.

Enright’s inspirations really stand out in the combat in Beyond Galaxyland, which is a unique blend of action turn-based and active turn-based with a few clever twists to shake things up. The basics are fairly common—players wait for their turn with different status effects potentially affecting speed, and attacking and defending require players to make some precise button inputs—it combines familiar elements of classic turn-based RPGs but finds a multitude of ways to stand out on its own. 

“Enright’s inspirations really stand out in the combat in Beyond Galaxyland…”

For starters, players have the ability to scan enemies while exploring each world in order to get an advantage during combat—allowing them to see enemy health and elemental weaknesses. Furthermore, players are given a pool of Ability Points, which can be used for each character’s unique Special Attacks, but there’s a bit of a twist. Standard attacks have a certain number of uses, which can be sacrificed for more Ability Points, while missing an opponent during a standard attack will actually drain ability points. 

It adds a unique layer to the combat I can’t say I’ve seen before and makes each fight feel much more tense and tactical. On top of this, Enright adds Pokémon to the combat, both in theme and application. Doug has the ability to capture weak creatures—literally using a drone that almost resembles a Pokéball—which can then be summoned during combat for unique elemental attacks. Summons can be levelled with repeated use and more battles, so there’s an incentive to experiment and go into every battle as prepared as possible. 

But what genuinely surprised me was how the game looks and plays. Despite having several worlds that require exploration, Beyond Galaxyland moves along a two-dimensional plane—while allowing players to jump between foreground and background. Despite this restriction, worlds in Beyond Galaxyland are expansive and richly detailed. This is helped in large part by the visuals, which land somewhere in the middle between the hyperdetailed 16-bit style of games like Blasphemous or Narita Boy, and old 90’s MS-DOS games like King’s Quest. 

Beyond Galaxyland looks primed to be a breakout hit when it releases later this year. Sam Enright has clearly put his whole heart into this, and it shows—especially after releasing a demo during Steam Next Fest and implementing changes based on player feedback. This is a passion project with an emphasis on passion and I get the feeling more players than I will agree. 

Like many others, my exposure to the long-running and legendary Warhammer series has been primarily through its videogame adaptations that have graced PC and consoles over the years. In fact, the original Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine was my first experience with the franchise back when I played it on the PlayStation 3 in 2011.

With the imminent release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 more than a decade later, the sequel has a lot to prove in terms of modernizing its tried-and-tested approach to a third-person shooter.

Thankfully, from my 4-5 hours with the preview build of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, I can safely say that fans of the original, or even fans of just over-the-top action shooters, are in for a treat. Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 elevates things up to 11, bringing with it what appears to be a solid story campaign on top of a fun multiplayer mission mode, reminiscent of Warhammer 40,000: Darktide’s mission-based structure.

For the uninitiated, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 once again places players back into the mud and blood-caked boots of Captain Titus of the Ultramarines unit, this time tasked against fighting a splinter scourge of Tyranids. In the preview demo I was given access to, I got to play the opening mission of the campaign alongside two others, as Space Marine 2 allows for full co-op action.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 features six distinct classes to pick from during missions. Campaign levels instead assign the party leader to play as Titus, who in-game is classified as an Assault unit, which, as far as gameplay mechanics are concerned, gives the player access to a heavy Thunder Hammer melee weapon, a booster pack which allows for a devasting ground pound special attack, along with a decent amount of verticality thanks to being able to jump around and get to higher elevation quickly.

The other five classes become available when playing the mission mode present in Space Marine 2, which unlocks after completing the first campaign level This ends with a fun boss encounter against the Chaos Sorcerer — a Psyker-adjacent powered-up magic caster that highlights Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2’s potential for enemy variety.

“Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 elevates things up to 11.”

Progressing through the campaign unlocks access to the main area of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, which allows the player to customize their own Ultramarine unit, choosing from the six available classes, gradually unlocking new modifiers and cosmetics, along with character-specific skills that help distinguish each character class.

If you’ve played Warhammer 40,000: Darktide before, the approach to missions and the multiplayer lobby in Space Marine 2 will feel very familiar to returning players. Outside of the Assault class, Space Marine 2 features the Tactical, Vanguard, Bulwark, Sniper and Heavy classes to pick from. Starting with the Tactical unit, players can expect a similar feeling range of melee prowess to the Assault class, replacing the hammer with a chainsword alongside the Auspex Scan ability, which highlights enemies hidden in the environment and temporarily makes them susceptible to bonus damage.

“…at least during this small, early look at Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, I can safely say that the variety in abilities and weapon loadouts feel good and work excellently together.

Conversely, the Vanguard is a bulkier unit equipped with a combat knife that dishes out chip damage when combined with the Grapnel Launcher ability, which can launch the player towards a target, quickly closing the gap, allowing to get in those extra hits hasten the proc for finishing moves.

The heaviest two units present in the game, however, would be the Bulwark and the aptly named Heavy Unit. The Bulward features a large shield capable of mowing through hordes of enemies, along with the Chapter Banner unique ability that casts an AoE buff, restoring all player shields. In contrast, the Heavy unit, instead, features a powerful shotgun-like Heavy Bolter weapon along with the Iron Halo ability, a bubble shield that protects against ranged attacks.

Finally, the Sniper unit features, as the name may suggest, a solid range-focused Bolt Sniper Rifle, the combat knife and the ability to go invisible for you and your squad before attacking, making it viable to single-out and stagger larger enemies before mopping up the minions.

Although not as drastically different in how the classes feel, when compared to something like Darktide, at least during this small, early look at Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, I can safely say that the variety in abilities and weapon loadouts feel good and work excellently together. They create a sense of synergy between you and your squad mates, particularly during boss encounters, which can really test your mettle.

“The core gameplay loop in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will feel familiar to third-person shooter fans…”

The core gameplay loop in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 will feel familiar to third-person shooter fans and, of course, to those who played the first entry into the series. Thankfully, outside of a gigantic leap in graphic fidelity, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 fixes one of the most significant issues of the first game: taking damage during prolonged animations, such as when performing an execution move.

Speaking of execution moves, this was one of the most satisfying elements for me during my time with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, to the point where I found myself trying to cherry-pick kills from my friends in the hopes of getting that sweet, sweet execution to proc. In fact, I hope the addition of team-based executions is something that may be in the game once it finally sees release in September.

Overall, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is shaping up to be a solid entry into the rich world of the Warhammer franchise and a worthy sequel to the 2011 original. It is worth keeping on your radar for both fans of the source material and TPS fanatics.

Henry Cavill and fellow Warhammer enthusiasts will be eating well with the abundance of new Warhammer projects on the horizon, including Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2. Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks has graced my Steam library with a fresh take on the vehicular combat genre that seldom gets enough love.

Based on the 2018 boardgame, Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, like other videogame adaptations of the storied franchise, successfully transforms the tabletop experience into a fun and familiar-feeling online experience that feels like a mashup of games, including the beloved Twisted Metal series and even cult classics such as Cel Damage, presented in an unmistakably Warhammer coat of paint, complete with the wear and tear of a well-loved set of miniatures.

Now, if you’re unfamiliar with the Warhammer franchise, or if you’re like me and mostly know it through its videogame releases, fear not, as Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks holds up entirely on its 4 wheels thanks to a solid gameplay loop and distinct and easy-to-control vehicles.

In its current iteration, Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks features two game modes, Deff Rally and Kill Konvoy, spread across six maps, including Krump Canyon, Rok Rush, Mob Mountain and Burna Valley. Frozen Dakka and the Ded’ard Desert make up the remaining final maps, exclusive to the Kill Konvoy game type.

“Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks holds up entirely on its 4 wheels thanks to a solid gameplay loop and distinct and easy-to-control vehicles.”

Starting with the latter, Kill Konvoy tasks players in protecting their Stompa, a behemoth of a tank-like payload given to both teams. The object of the game requires either side to find a bomb that spawns somewhere on the map, pick it up and then crash into the opponent’s Stompa, kamikaze style. In other words, Kill Konvoy feels like what would happen if Rocket League was set in a Mad Max-inspired post-apocalyptic setting.

Conversely, Deff Rally emphasizes racing more, with players scrambling towards various control points. When successfully taken, these points prompt the next leg of the race, slowly racking up points towards the end of the round. Naturally, this sets up some fun moments of tension between both sides as they collide and clash for control on the rather expansive and open-ended maps.

In terms of vehicle variety, Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks currently features four racers to choose from: the Boomdakka Snazzwagon, the Kustom Boosta Blasta, the Looted Wagon, and finally, the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy.

“Overall, the vehicle variety in Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is solid, particularly for a free-to-play title.”

Starting with the Boomdakka Snazzwagon, which can be considered your best all-arounder type of vehicle, this two-seater comes complete with a chaingun turret, making it perfect for DPS and fast manoeuvrability during races. Next up is the Kustom Boosta Blasta, similar to the former in terms of manoeuvrability; what sets this car apart is its arsenal, which features a live orc that can be thrown in an arc as a powerful mini-nuke, plus a powerful primary shot, making it feel like a shotgun on wheels.

The Looted Wagon is your big, hulky, tank class of vehicle. While significantly slower than the other cars, the Looted Wagon makes a great last line of defence when trying to claim control or protect your Stompa in a game of Kill Konvoy. Finally, to round things out, the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy, the only real support-styled vehicle, can heal teammates in an AoE when nearby, making it worthwhile to have around when in the heat of battle or securing points on the map.

Overall, the vehicle variety in Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is solid, particularly for a free-to-play title. Every racer feels fun to control, with weapons that pack a punch and are satisfying to use against the opposing team. If you’re familiar with the source material, you’ll definitely appreciate the attention to detail Caged Element has put into adapting the board game for the screen.

Additionally, like most free-to-play affairs, Speed Freeks features a healthy amount of premium cosmetics that can be purchased with real money to deck your racers of choice further. It should also be noted that completing races will grant you EXP, which can, in turn, be used to level up and earn some free goodies, making it a fair and fun balance for all.

If there was one point of concern or criticism I have towards Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks, it would be its map variety. Although the game features a good number of various sandboxes to play in, most, if not all, maps feel fairly similar as far as mechanics and stage hazards go, something I hope evolves as the game matures.

Ultimately, Warhammer 40,000: Speed Freeks is coming together nicely, making it a worthwhile vehicular combat experience worth checking out for fans of not only the source material but also for those who miss the niche and woefully underappreciated genre of car-based carnage.

Friends vs Friends is a chaotic shooter that introduces cards into the mix, creating custom decks to blast your enemies (and probably a few friends). Friends vs Friends is an action paced,...

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Kingdom Eighties is an 80’s-inspired base-building game where you need to protect your town against greed while helping your friends and learning more about your family. You play as a young character...

The post ‘Kingdom Eighties’ Overcomes Danger by Building Bases With Childhood Buddies appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

Moonstone Island is a slice of life adventure game where you can fly to dozens of islands to gather local oddball creatures, grow gardens, and romance the locals. Moonstone Island is a...

The post ‘Moonstone Island’ is a Creature-Collecting Life Sim appeared first on Indie Games Plus.

We’ve seen a recent trend of Hotline Miami-inspired games that use fast-paced first-person shooters with short levels, unique visuals, and interesting game mechanics such as Anger Foot and Mullet Jack. […]

The post Harness Your Inner Warrior: The Electrifying Challenge Of ‘I Am Your Beast’ first appeared on Two Average Gamers.

The post Harness Your Inner Warrior: The Electrifying Challenge Of ‘I Am Your Beast’ appeared first on Two Average Gamers.

Ravenage Games and Frozen Line are excited to announce the release of Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow, a deeply emotional puzzle platformer now available on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. Players can experience this captivating adventure starting July 25, 2024.

In Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow, players step into the shoes of Griffin, a young boy navigating the distorted landscapes of his memories. Accompanied by his loyal teddy bear, Birly, Griffin embarks on a poignant journey through his subconscious, confronting life’s challenges head-on. This unique experience intertwines gameplay with a touching narrative, exploring themes of resilience, redemption, and the bittersweet beauty of letting go.

Key Features

• Emotional Narrative: Follow Griffin’s journey as he encounters key figures from his past, such as his father, now a giant knight with an unextinguishable sword, and his mother, a loving yet fragile spring of blossoming flowers. These characters are integral to both the story and the gameplay, where players must confront and overcome these manifestations to progress.
• Stunning Visuals: Immerse yourself in beautifully crafted environments, including craggy caves, floating castles, fairy tale forests, and rolling plains. The visual design, combined with enchanting music, creates a unified and immersive experience.
• Deep Gameplay: Solve puzzles and explore Griffin’s subconscious, collecting moths of memory that add layers to the narrative and provide insights into Griffin’s life, aiding his journey toward closure.
• Compelling Companionship: Birly, the resolute teddy bear, offers guidance and solace, making Griffin’s journey through his subconscious both challenging and comforting.

Experience the Power of Human Endurance

Since its announcement, anticipation for Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow has been building, promising a heartwarming story, stunning visuals, and engaging gameplay. It stands out as a title that not only challenges players but also deeply resonates with them on an emotional level.

Join Griffin on his unforgettable journey, uncover the secrets of his past, and experience the incredible power of human endurance and ultimate redemption in this beautiful puzzle platformer powered by Unreal Engine 4.

Daydream: Forgotten Sorrow is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch for $19.99.

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Klabater and Weather Factory recently announced the release date for Cultist Simulator on Xbox and other consoles. Following its success on PC and Nintendo Switch, this double-BAFTA-nominated Lovecraftian card game is set to launch on August 8th, 2024, bringing its unique narrative experience to a broader audience.

Enter the World of Hidden Gods and Secret Histories

Set in a 1920s-themed world, Cultist Simulator allows players to assume the role of a seeker after unholy mysteries. Whether you seek knowledge, power, beauty, revenge, or the enigmatic colors beneath the skin of the world, your journey is filled with choices that shape your destiny. As a roguelike narrative card game, every decision influences not just the narrative but the very world around you.

Players will:

• Explore Forbidden Knowledge: Become a scholar of unseen arts, search dreams for sanity-twisting rituals, craft tools, and summon spirits.
• Build a Cult: Indoctrinate innocents and seize your place as the herald of a new age.
• Shape Your Fate: Each choice transforms you and the story, leading to various outcomes.

Cultist Simulator will be available in three distinct editions:

1. Cultist Simulator: Initiate Edition
   • Base game with the first three DLCs: The Dancer, The Priest, and The Ghoul.
2. Cultist Simulator: The Exile DLC
   • A major expansion that shatters and remakes all the rules.
3. Cultist Simulator: Anthology Edition
   • The complete edition, comprising the base game and all DLCs.

Prepare to dream furiously and dive into the depths of hidden gods and secret histories when Cultist Simulator launches on August 8th, 2024, for Xbox and PlayStation consoles.

The post Cultist Simulator appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.

Tate Multimedia and Trialforge Studio are thrilled to announce the release of a playable demo for Deathbound, the innovative single-player, party-based soulslike game. Available now on Steam and PlayStation 5, players can dive into the dynamic world of Deathbound ahead of its full launch on August 8, 2024, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S.

Welcome to the World of Ziêminal

Deathbound transports players to Ziêminal, a harsh and decaying world where Faith and Science are at odds. In this unforgiving landscape, players will utilize an innovative 4-hero party system to fight against appalling creatures and formidable enemies. By absorbing the Essence of fallen warriors, players can harness unique skills, combat styles, and backstories, offering a diverse range of abilities.

Key Features of Deathbound

• The Essence: Absorb the skills, memories, and identities of fallen warriors. Seamlessly switch between these warriors to utilize their unique combat styles and abilities.
• Party System: Form alliances with fallen warriors, creating a robust party system that allows for dynamic combat and diverse playstyles. Aligning warriors with shared beliefs unlocks powerful buffs, while pairing opposing factions creates discord and unique combat effects.
• Dynamic Morphing: Unleash devastating Morphstrikes by combining the powers of absorbed warriors. Use different attack styles to execute powerful combinations and finishing blows.
• Brutal World: Explore the city of Akratya, a place rich in lore and danger, blending a technological past with a medieval present. The imposing architecture and the ongoing grand crusade add to the city’s atmosphere of impending doom.
• Unforgiving Monsters and Bosses: Face enemies designed to push players to their limits, each embodying the five stages of grief. These challenging encounters demand the full attention of any brave soul.

Explore Ziêminal Now

With the demo now available, players can get a taste of the intense and immersive gameplay that Deathbound offers. Prepare to dominate the battlefield by dynamically switching between fallen warriors and adapting your tactics on the fly. Experience the unique blend of narrative depth and challenging combat that sets Deathbound apart in the soulslike genre.

SEO Title and Description

Title: Deathbound – The First Team Soulslike Coming Soon

Description: Play the Deathbound demo now on Steam and PlayStation 5. Experience the first party-based soulslike game, launching on August 8 for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S.

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GSC Game World has announced a new release date for their highly anticipated title, stalker 2: heart of Chernobyl. Originally scheduled for release on September 5, 2024, the game will now launch on November 20, 2024. This delay aims to allow the developers additional time to address and fix any remaining issues.

Developer Insights and Upcoming Showcase

Yevhen Grygorovych, Game Director at GSC Game World, expressed gratitude towards fans for their continued patience, stating that the extra two months will enable the team to deliver a more polished product. In the meantime, players can look forward to the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Developer Deep Dive, premiering on August 12, 2024, in collaboration with Xbox. This event promises to be the most comprehensive update on the game to date, featuring:

• Behind-the-scenes interviews with the development team
• Exclusive new footage showcasing the game’s world, various locations, gameplay, and cutscenes
• A full walkthrough of one of the story quests

What to Expect from stalker 2: heart of chornobyl

As the latest instalment in the renowned stalker series, heart of chornobyl combines first-person shooter mechanics with immersive sim elements and horror. The game promises an expansive scale, cutting-edge graphics, and a rich, atmospheric experience that will draw players into its intense, post-apocalyptic world.

The post New Release Date Announced for STALKER 2: Heart of Chornobyl appeared first on Gaming Debugged | Gaming Site Covering Xbox, Indies, News, Features and Gaming Tech.