Category: Game Releases

New game releases.

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The Pascal’s Wager giveaway is now over

May 22, 2020 The giveaway has now ended and we’ve dispatched the free code to the lucky winners. Check your email inbox to see if it’s you!

Pascal’s Wager achieved what we all thought was impossible: making Dark Souls or Bloodborne work on mobile. And it achieved it with aplomb, providing a visually-stunning portable experience that’s absolutely dripping with darkness. The enemies are tough, the environments encourage you to explore, and the combat is just the right level of tricky and fun to encourage you to keep pushing on.

We absolutely loved the RPG, which you can tell from reading our Pascal’s Wager review. We called it “A bravely ambitious game. Worth playing if you are not easily frustrated and prepared to use a separate controller.” Slight control hiccups aside, you should forgive your friends for mistaking it for Bloodborne on your phone.

To celebrate our love for Pascal’s Wager, we gave it away for free to our lucky readers. We had 25 iOS codes up for grabs, and we invited you to fill in a simple form below to get in with a chance of winning. Android folk: Pascal’s Wager isn’t out just yet on your platform, but it is coming. Sorry you miss out on this particular giveaway; we’ll make it up to you.

The giveaway is now closed, and we’ve sent the iOS codes out to the lucky winners via the email address you shared when you filled out the form. Please check your inbox to see if it was you!

If you were unlucky this time, you can go ahead and grab Pascal’s Wager from the App Store right now.

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You could be a beta tester for Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower

Perchang has announced that it is on the lookout for beta testers for the upcoming strategy game, Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower. Based on the popular Games Workshop board game of the same name, Silver Tower doesn’t take place in the classic Warhammer Fantasy setting, but instead uses the Mortal Realms of Age of Sigmar. In a similar vein to other Warhammer games like Vermintide or Chaosbane, Silver Tower revolves around a band of heroes from a variety of different races who make their home in the world.

Each of these heroes has a particular combat focus, so it’s safe to say that the Fyreslayer – the axe wielding Dwarf we see in the trailer – is a melee blender, whereas the armoured and shielded Stormcast will more likely trend towards tankiness.

The campaign sees you and your heroes face off against monsters from throughout the realms, as the Gaunt Summoner – who we guess is that guy with all the eyes – challenges you to a number of trials. Silver Tower will launch with over 100 stages to play, so you’ll have no problem finding foes to crush.

Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower has ten upgradable heroes, but we’re really excited to see how a Warhammer game using Age of Sigmar as a setting might change up the usual Warhammer hero roster of elf, human, wizard, and dwarf.

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Alongside the trials set by that Tzeentch-y looking dude with the eyes, there are challenges and trials to complete, and even full-on solo trials for those of you who actually want to punish yourselves – hey, who are we to judge?

If that all sounds good, you can register interest for the beta by popping an email over to [email protected] A member of the team will then get back to you providing beta details, then fingers crossed, you’ll be a Sigmarine stomping on daemon spawn in no time. Praise the emper- I mean Sigmar.

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NetEase announces RPG Harry Potter: Magic Awakened during its 520 conference

Netease has just announced Harry Potter: Magic Awakened during its 520 conference, happening today. It’s an upcoming RPG currently in development at Portkey Games, that sees you play as a brand new student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. You get sorted into a house by that dusty old hat, study in various different classes, and head off on adventures with your classmates.

Thought we can’t confirm right now, it appears that multiplayer plays a big part. We witnessed what appears to be other players wandering around your house dorm, and the few battle sequences, which take place during adventures, involve working with your friends (and, presumably, strangers) to battle off a wide variety of fantastic creatures.

You do so by playing cards, which represent various different spells, onto the battlefield. It’s kind of like Clash Royale in that respect. It also appears that there are a wide variety of spells to unlock, and you can check the details of any spells in your arsenal at any point by rifling through your spellbook.

When not studying or making a general nuisance of yourself, you can wander around popular wizarding world locations. We got a good look at Hogwarts, naturally, as well as the Forbidden Forest and Diagon Alley.

Harry Potter: Magic Awakened enters open beta on May 29 across iOS and Android, though only for users in China. There is no word about a western release yet, but given the sheer amount of spoken and written English on display in the trailer, we’d be very surprised if this didn’t launch across the world.

We’ll keep you posted as we learn more. In the meantime, go ahead and check out the official site to grab as much information as you can.

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Defold Engine Open Sourced

The Defold game engine is now open sourced under the Apache open source license.  The source code is now available on GitHub and Defold development is now controlled by the newly created Defold Foundation.

EDIT – The above contained an error.  The license is not Apache, it’s Apache derived.  This is unfortunate as Godot creator @reduzio points out:

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The alteration from the Apache licenses appears to be this limitation:

a) You do not sell or otherwise commercialise the Work or Derivative Works as a Game Engine Product

I can understand the desire for this limitation, but I do not think it is worth it.  Edit over, back to the announcement!

Details of the open sourcing:

We are happy to announce that as of May 2020 Defold, the ultimate cross platform game engine, has been transferred to the Defold Foundation and made available as a free and open project with a permissive license! We believe this move will bring transparency to the development process and we invite our community members to get involved.

We have covered Defold extensively in the past, including this more recent step by step tutorial using Defold 2.x as well as this older more comprehensive tutorial series.  You can learn more about the Defold Engine and the Defold Foundation in the video below.

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Learn You Some Python By No Starch Bundle

Humble are running a new bundle of interest to game developers, the Learn You Some Python by No Starch Press bundle.  This is a collection of Python ebooks including a few specifically about game development.  Be aware though, a very similar bundle Python Programming ran about a year ago with many of the same titles.  As with all Humble Bundles, it is organized into tiers:

1$ Tier

  • Teach Your Kids to Code
  • Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python
  • Black Hat Python
  • Gray Hat Python

8$ Tier

  • Mission Python: Code a Space Adventure Game
  • Python For Kids
  • Cracking Codes with Python
  • Python Playground
  • Math Adventures with Python

15$ Tier

  • Python Crash Course
  • Automating the Boring Stuff with Python
  • Python Flash Cards
  • Serious Python
  • Impractical Python Projects

As with all Humble Bundles, you decide how your money is allocated, between Humble, charity, the publisher and (thanks so much if you do!) to support GFS using this link.  You can learn more about the bundle in the video below.

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League of Legends: Wild Rift launches an Alpha test in Brazil and the Philippines next month

Riot Games has announced that the mobile version of the crazy-popular MOBA, League of Legends, will enter alpha testing in Brazil and the Philippines next month. Though we don’t know exactly when, this is the first of many League of Legends: Wild Rift tests in select regions, with the aim of launching by the end of the year. We don’t know a whole lot about Wild Rift yet, but we do know from developer diaries that the game will focus on streamlining the classic League experience for mobile, while also tweaking the control systems, and how champions operate.

This news comes after last month’s error on the Google Play store, where the option became available to click the install button for League of Legends: Wild Rift. There was, of course, no game to install, but it came to light that the confusion was caused by the developer accidentally allowing players to join an early access test which didn’t exist yet.

Alongside the Alpha news, we also got a few more details about game’s requirements: it supports devices with 1.5GB RAM and 32 bit Android processors, and for iOS, it’s iPhone 6 and up.

It also looks like all of your favourite champions will feature in the mobile version:

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Wild Rift aims to revitalise the classic League experience, while bringing the game to an even wider audience on mobile. As the League devs commented:

“We’re aiming to make the game available to as many devices as we can while not compromising on Wild Rift’s core gameplay.”

League on mobile sounds pretty great to us, and if you agree, you can pre-register for Android on Google Play. You can also keep appraised of any updates on the Wild Rift website, or here on Pocket Tactics. We’re your friendly neighborhood mobile journalists.

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ENVE–2D Animation Software

ENVE, or Enve is Not a Video Editor, is a new in development 2D animation software, completely free and open source.  Even in this early state, Enve is remarkably capable animation tool, with a full suite of drawing tools for both vector and result art, including MyPaint brush integration.

ENVE is described as:

Enve is a new open-source 2D animation software for Linux and Windows. You can use enve to create vector animations, raster animations, and even use sound and video files. Enve was created with flexibility and expandability in mind.

The source code is available on GitHub under the GPLv3 license with binaries available for Windows and Linux.  You can check out a complete review of ENVE in action in the video below.

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Dead by Daylight Mobile celebrates three million downloads by letting you play as LeatherFace

Behaviour Interactive has announced that Dead by Daylight Mobile, the port of its horror hack n’ slash survival game, has been downloaded three million times on Android and iOS. If you consider that it launched just under a month ago, this is a very impressive feat. Behaviour is celebrating this achievement by giving mobile players a new killer to use; The Cannibal. This chainsaw wielding mad-man, also known as LeatherFace, became famous for appearing in the 1974 film, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

In Dead by Daylight Mobile he comes equipped with three perks; Knock Out, Barbecue & Chilli, and Franklin’s Demise. He’s also decked out with his iconic chainsaw, and a trusty sledgehammer – just in case you want a change of pace when murdering.

For those who don’t know, Dead by Daylight is a bit of a who’s who of iconic horror killers. You are dropped into a map with other players and have to evade a killer – controlled by another player – while completing a series of tasks in order to escape without getting murdered. It’s wonderful, albeit terrifying fun.

Behaviour made a variety of smart changes to Dead by Daylight to optimise it for mobile, including a visual cue for heartbeats, to put less focus on the game’s audio aspects.

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Alongside LeatherFace, a new update introduces a revamped XP system, linking it to individual characters, and a new outfit, the Treacherous Waters Collection. All of this will drop alongside quality of life changes and bug fixes.

Dead by Daylight Mobile was pretty well received, generally praised as a good port of the original; check out Glen’s Dead by Daylight Mobile review if you don’t believe us. If you’re a horror fan, or feel like hunting your friends like animals, you can find Dead by Deadlight on Google Play, or the App Store.

Also if you want some advice on how best to out-fox bloodthirsty opponents, see our Dead by Daylight Mobile guide. We also have tonnes of advice on which killers and survivors to pick in our painstakingly detailed list of Dead by Daylight Mobile characters.

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Humble Launch Indie Publisher Humble Games

Humble, famous for the Humble Bundle deals, have just launched an indie game developer focused publisher Humble Games.  Humble have already worked with a number of developers to bring games such as Void Bastards and Slay the Spire to market.  In celebration of the Humble Games launch, they are also running a “Make Your Own Bundle sale” featuring games they have published.

Reasons to publish with Humble Games include:

BRAND

Humble Bundle has done right by millions of gamers and thousands of industry partners – Humble Games is no different.

IP OWNERSHIP

Our Humble terms allow you to own your IP.

MARKETING

We will help you market your game with a dedicated team of experienced publishing marketers.

12M CUSTOMERS

As part of the Humble family, Humble Games will help you connect with customers across Bundles, Store, and Choice.

FINANCING

We give you money upfront so you don’t need to starve to finish your game.

CREATIVE CONTROL

We look for developers and games we believe in. We want you to be able to build the game of your dreams.

PRODUCTION

You’ll receive a dedicated producer to help you with all technical milestones, processes, and challenges you may encounter.

CROSS PLATFORM

We will help you succeed not just on the Humble Store, but on Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, and more.

If you are interested in applying, the form is available here.  You can learn more in the video below.

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