Author: sick skills

Studio MDHR’s hand-drawn throwback Cuphead has sold over 1 million copies, just two short weeks after its release.

While the quick pace at which Cuphead reached 1 million sold is noteworthy in itself, it’s especially impressive considering the game only launched on Xbox One and PC.

In a short blog post, Studio MDHR co-founders Chad and Jared Moldenhauer announced the milestone and took a moment to thank fans for the success of their visually distinctive run-and-gun platformer and talk briefly about the game itself.

“We have worked tirelessly over the past few years to deliver a game that remained true to our vision and we are both humbled and excited that so many people from around the world are playing Cuphead,” reads the post. “It truly makes it all worth it.”

The game itself was announced back in 2014 and quickly drew no small amount of attention with its 1930’s styled animation. As members of the development team have explained, the look is replicated by hand-drawing each and every frame of animation for the game, including backgrounds, characters, and effects. 

Media giant IGN announced today that it has acquired Humble Bundle, the company best known for selling packs of indie games at pay-what-you-want prices. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This is potentially a big deal for game developers, since Humble has expanded beyond its bundling business to publish games, pay devs to make games for its subscription-based monthly game club, maintain a subscription-based online game trove, and operate an online game storefront.

However, a press release confirming the deal also noted that Humble will continue to operate independently in the wake of the acquisition, with no significant business or staffing changes. It will have some degree of support from IGN (which is itself owned by digital media giant J2 Global), specifically in terms of accelerating growth and raising more money for charity.

Humble grew out of a bundle of indie games sold to raise money for charity in 2010, and in the seven years since it has raised over $100 million for charity. In a conversation today with Gamasutra, Humble cofounder John Graham and IGN executive VP Mitch Galbraith reiterated that IGN does not intend to change the way Humble does business.

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Galbraith, who explained that IGN started looking to make a deal like this nearly a year ago. “The idea is just to feed them with the resources they need to keep doing what they’re doing.”

“We want to stick to the fundamentals in the short term. We don’t want to disrupt anything we’re doing right already,” added Graham. “Because of the shared vision and overlap of our customer bases, there’s going to be a lot of opportunities.”

Many indie devs feel like they’re under pressure to make high-quality art that rivals that of big-budget studios — with the smallest team size and budget possible.

At GDC 2017 The Molasses Flood’s Gwen Frey, self-described sole animator and over-tasked generalist on The Flame in The Flood, discussed how to rapidly generate triple-A quadruped locomotion as an indie dev.

It was a video-heavy talk that focused on animation authoring and state blending for quadruped characters. According to Frey, these characters have unique foot sliding challenges and traditional solutions result in either poor fidelity motion or a bloated animator workload.

Frey shared some techniques for illustrating high-quality quadruped locomotion without the need for transition animations, using two different quadruped characters as examples – a boar with a rigid spine, and a large, gangling wolf with a procedural spine. 

It was a fascinating talk, one that you can now watch for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel!

In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its new YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.

Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Americas

Japan is a nation synonymous with video games, and the country is home to some of the biggest games companies in the world. 

Sony, Nintendo, Capcom, Square Enix, Bandai Namco: the list goes on and on, but despite being so ingrained in video game history, the region’s approach to preservation is surprisingly nonchalant. 

According to a recent Kotaku feature, the cultural differences present in Japan mean people simply aren’t concerned with keeping or cataloguing things. It’s nothing personal, just a different way of life. 

“In Japan, you don’t keep things,” explains French national Joseph Redon, one of the driving forces behind the country’s Game Preservation Society. 

“It’s a cultural difference, you see. Today, we have a typhoon. I felt an earthquake just a few minutes ago. You didn’t? Very small. But this country is a rock above the sea. It’s full of calamities. 

“The way of thinking, the way of living, the way things last, the cycle of their lives here is very different. You build a house in Japan, thirty years after, you need to destroy it and make a new one.”

As the name suggests, the Games Preservation Society is a grassroots initiative that aims to do exactly that: preserve and catalogue Japan’s video game heritage. The fledgling organisation was only founded in 2011, and is headquartered in a quiet suburb of Tokyo.

The challenge facing Redon and the society’s other members is astronomical. The Frenchman claims “almost nothing is left,” but he’s prepared to play the long game in the hopes of pulling many a forgotten digital heirloom back from the brink. 

Be sure to check out the full Kotaku article to find out how the Games Preservation Society plans to save Japan’s games. It’s well worth your time.