Category: Game Releases

New game releases.

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Material Maker and Pixelorama Updated

Pixelorama and Material Maker are two very different programs that have an exceptional amount in common. One direct commonality is, they both received updates this week. In addition to new updates, Material Maker and Pixelorama are both open source game development related applications released under the MIT license and created using the Godot game engine.

Material Maker is a graph or node based procedural texture generation tool, perhaps the closest thing that exists to a free and open source Substance Designer alternative. Material Maker just released version 0.93 with new features including several new nodes and node improvements, support for custom meshes, an all new dynamic reference panel and more. The source code for Material Maker is available here.

Pixelorama is a pixel based art application with animation support. Pixelorama just released version 0.8.1 adding new tools for moving animation frames, a new purple theme, sprite generation improvements and more. The source code for Pixelorama is available here.

You can learn more about both releases in the video below or watch here on Odysee.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M24W5Ode5sg?feature=oembed&w=1500&h=844]
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Claim free in-game rewards in Summoners Glory: Eternal Fire this weekend

Summoners Glory: Eternal Fire, BHG team’s first ever game, launches this Sunday on October 18. Blending together the turn-based, hero collector, PVP, and MMORPG genres, Summoners Glory: Eternal Fire aims to immerse players in the world of Kairasia as they battle against Morganter, the Demon Lord.

Morganter’s reign of terror on the people of Ertos looked like it would be the end of civilisation as they knew it, but the Goddess of the Initial Fire stepped up just in time. Shining her light of hope on humanity, the heroes of Ertos felt the power of the Initial Fire. With the leadership of the Gods, the heroes of Ertos face Morganter for the final time. As a Phantom Master, it’s up to you to bring peace to Ertos once and for all.

In this dungeon crawler, you assemble a squad capable of toppling Morganter. There are hundreds of unique heroes scattered around the world called Phantoms. Defeating these powerful Phantoms may lead them to pledge their allegiance to you, so it’s worth battling these strong opponents once you have prepared for battle.

If you start playing Summoners Glory: Eternal Fire, be sure to enter code PocketTactics at the character creation screen to get some powerful in-game rewards. The items include experience buffs, summoning books, an SS Rank Phantom, and even gold. Don’t worry, this code doesn’t expire so feel free to use it at any point.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meNAwL9FfSc?modestbranding=1&rel=0&feature=oembed]

Summoners Glory: Eternal Fire will be arriving on Android and iOS devices at the end of the week. Players can pre-register their interest to play on the Google Play Store and App Store right now.

Want to play a different MMORPG while you wait for Summers Glory: Eternal Fire to launch? Check out our best mobile MMORPGs guide which highlights some of the best games available on Android and iOS.

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Unreal Engine 4.26 Water Simulation

Previously expected in Unreal Engine 4.26 Preview 1, the new experimental water simulation system from Fortnite has finally shipped in Unreal Engine 4.26 preview 3. The new water simulation system enables you to quick create realistic and highly configurable water simulations, including oceans, lakes and rivers. Of course the key word is experimental, this is a feature that is nowhere near ready for prime time.

You can see a quick preview of the water system in action in the video below. Given the fact that there currently exists no documentation and it seems several of the features are currently broken, the video by no means showcases all of the new fluid simulation systems capabilities. Currently the only information available on how to use the new system come in the 2 1/2 Epic Games livestream available here. While early on, the new system does seem incredibly promising. For now however, the UIWS, or Unified Interactive Water System from the September monthly UE4 giveaway is most likely a better choice.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTHcyOykGeQ?feature=oembed&w=1500&h=844]
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Cocos Creator 3.0 Tech Preview Released

The free Cocos Creator game engine just got a heavy duty upgrade today, with the release of Cocos Creator 3D technical preview. This release adds an all new 3D game engine to Cocos Creator, which was previously a 2D only game engine. The new underlying 3D engine has a complete PBR based rendering workflow based on real world lighting and camera models, with a modular design with support for terrain and physics out of the box.

Details from the Cocos Blog:

The technology behind games has grown exponentially since the birth of video games. Today with the creation of cloud computing, 5G networks, and faster mobile computers, the revolution to bring better 3D titles to your hands has become overwhelmingly apparent to game developers.

The Cocos engine started as a 2D game engine. In Cocos2d-x, we built the best open-source 2D engine in the world. We also tried to build 3D features upon the 2D-oriented architecture. But due to the lack of an editor and the challenge of growth on 3D features, it wasn’t very successful. That’s why we were determined to build an excellent editor tool: Cocos Creator. It was initially for 2D game development. But since 2017, we have already started to build a pure 3D engine for this tool. To push ourselves to give developers the best 3D development tool, we have re-designed the whole engine architecture and updated the editor’s core. On October 15th, 2019, we released Cocos Creator 3D, a dedicated experimental branch of China’s product. With a whole year’s effort, we have greatly improved the 3D engine architecture. We are finally merging the experimental 3D branch into the main Cocos Creator product to forge the awesome Cocos Creator 3.0, released later this year.

You can download Cocos Creator 3.0 preview for Windows and Mac now. Do be aware however there are a few caveats, especially for existing Cocos Creator developers:

  1. Projects built in Cocos Creator 1.X – 2.X will not work with this demo.
  2. Only 3D projects are available in this demo. Some 2D features like Spine, Tiled map, etc. are absent in this demo, but they will be included in the official 3.0 version.
  3. All projects built in the demo are exportable to 3.0 when it is released. So go crazy!
  4. We only recommend using TypeScript for future Cocos Creator 3.0 projects.

If you are interested in learning about Cocos Creator in general we have a tutorial series available on DevGa.me. You can see the new Cocos Creator 3.0 tech preview in action in the video below. A good place to start is the Cocos examples project available on GitHub. If you want to test Cocos Creator 3.0 using the same model as in the video, that model is available for free here on Sketchfab.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z42BdkMT3E?feature=oembed&w=1500&h=844]
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The Project Cars Go closed beta is live for the next two weeks

Project Cars Go, the one-touch racing game from Slightly Mad Studios, is now in closed beta for iOS and Android users. The closed beta period started on October 14 and will end on October 27, giving players plenty of time to test their racing skills against the toughest opponents the road has to offer.

Unlike Slightly Mad Studios’ console games Project Cars 1 & 2, which focused on being a fully fledged driving simulator, Project Cars Go aims to simplify the complex mechanics of racing while maintaining an aspect of realism. Project Cars Go allows players to take a spin in 50 licensed cars on 12 unique tracks, three of which are based on real-world races.

The one-touch racing mechanic in Project Cars Go allows players to drive with ease no matter where they are. Here’s what Ian Bell, CEO at Slightly Mad Studios has to say about this feature: “Condensing the key moments of what a driver does out on the track—brakes, entry-points, exit points—into a ‘One Touch’ mechanic was an interesting project for us at the studio, as we wanted to retain the authenticity of the Project CARS franchise but cater for what our fans want on a racer they can play on the go.”

Unfortunately, if you didn’t sign up to the closed beta then it looks like you won’t be playing Project Cars Go any time soon. Currently, there is no release date for the full game. In the meantime, check out this trailer, which debuts new gameplay.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwZIkswIr1w?modestbranding=1&rel=0&feature=oembed]

If you weren’t one of the selected players to join Project Cars Go closed beta, definitely check out our best mobile multiplayer games list, which features a number of racing games. There should be something you fancy on that list no matter what device you happen to own.

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Godot 4 Sneak Peek: Particle Systems

Recently discussed on the Godot website, several new features have been added to the Godot 4 GPU accelerated particle systems. New features include:

  • support for sub-emitters
  • new collision systems
    • box and sphere colliders
    • height map colliders for outdoor maps
    • SDF colliders for internal meshes
  • new particle attractors

While we are going to have to wait until Godot 4 to get our hands-on the new Godot 4 in a production environment, we can check out the new GPUParticles3D node in action by building from the nightly source. That is exactly what we did in the video below, check it out for a preview and a mini tutorial on using particles in Godot 4.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8wNi6MX9mc?feature=oembed&w=1500&h=844]
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Oculus Quest 2 Game Development Options

October 13th is the official launch date of the Oculus Quest 2, and with millions of Quests now in gamer’s hands, some are no doubt going to want to figure you how to develop games for them. This is a quick overview of the various different technical options and tools for developing games on the Oculus Quest 2.

The very first thing you are going to want to do is visit the Oculus Quest Developer Portal, the central repository and jumping off point for Oculus VR development. You are also eventually going to have to register to get your developer keys, which are required to deploy your completed game onto a headset. We will cover this in a later tutorial. For now let’s look at some of the options available for Quest 2 game development.

Native Development

Oculus release a set of low level C++ development tools for creating your own game or application basically from scratch. Native development is ultimately Android NDK development and requires Android Studio to be installed, as well as the Oculus Mobile SDK. There are a number of C++ code samples to get you started. Only take this option if you are an experienced coder and want to work at a very low level.

Unity Game Engine

The Unity game engine is perhaps the most commonly used game engine for VR development today. The Quest 2 is fully supported and you get a huge amount of starter content and tutorials to get you going. Oculus have getting started with Unity guides available here.

Unreal Engine

After the Unity game engine, Unreal is probably the next most commonly used game engines for VR development. Like Unity, Oculus have getting started materials for Unreal Engine available as well. If you are having trouble deciding between Unreal and Unity, check out this video comparing the two.

Godot Engine

The open source Godot game engine is another option for Oculus Quest development. There is a Oculus Mobile plugin available here as well as the Quest specific Quest Toolkit for Godot, which ships with tons of examples to get you up and started.

Other Engines

CryEngine can be used for Quest 2 development, as evidence by The Climb. Unfortunately CryEngine mobile and VR support is only available in a private beta currently. Additionally the Lumberyard game engine supports VR development, but currently only desktop platforms. You can run Rift and Vive games on the Quest, but using Lumberyard you can’t currently do native development.

WebVR

One of the easiest and quickest to get up and running is creating browser based VR games that can be run on the Quest 2. Here one of the easiest options is A-Frame where you can create 3D worlds using simple HTML-esque markup. Three.JS is the technology A-Frame is built upon and is another option, while the higher level PlayCanvas game engine has VR support as well.

You can learn more about the Oculus Quest 2 and the development options available in the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vM3CaqC_rY?feature=oembed&w=1500&h=844]
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Apple announces iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, and iPhone 12 Pro

The iPhone 12 rumour mill has finally ground to a halt, as Apple has finally announced the hotly-anticipated new model. Unsurprising to no one, 5G is the big ticket feature this time around. Also making a return is the angular, block-y style of the iPhone 5, albeit with the lovely curved edges made popular with the iPhone 6.

The result is arguably the most attractive iPhone yet. It’s also a slightly smaller device than last year’s iPhone 11, thanks to slightly smaller bezels. It’s still not quite as bezel-less as the latest Samsung devices though, and that massive camera and speaker placement at the top is still present. There’s always next year though, right?

Other new features include a stronger screen, which Apple refers to as a “ceramic shield”, that’s more resistant to scratches and breaking, and the Super Retina XDR display first seen in the iPhone 11 Pro back in 2019 makes an appearance in the base models this year. Apple is still banging on about the 5G support as we write this.

Apple also unveiled the new A14 Bionic chip, which, as is no surprise, is the fastest mobile processor yet. Apple riffed off a bunch of tech-speak about why it was so fast, but we didn’t really understand much of it. All you really need to know is that it’s around 50% faster than the nearest competitors, and supports 50% better graphics performance.

Also announced is the iPhone 12 Mini, which, as the name suggests, shrinks the iPhone down into a just over 5″ format, down from the 6″ iPhone 12. Aside from that, it’s an identical phone to the base model.

And, finally, in a move that surprises absolutely no one, Apple has announced the iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. Much like last year’s models, these focus primarily on providing a powerful series of cameras. The Pro model also includes a new telephoto lens, which is a bit of a beast.

You can watch the livestream below:

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR0g-1hnQPA?modestbranding=1&rel=0&feature=oembed]

If you’re as interested in iOS games as we are, be sure to see our list of all the Apple Arcade games that are currently available. We also reviewed Apple Arcade’s newest addition, The Survivalists.

Though, if you’re a little more service agnostic, we also have a list of the best iOS games for you to peruse. We hope you enjoy the event!