General game developing news and updates.
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Hello everyone!
It’s been quite a while since we shared the last piece of information about the X-Morph: Defense port for Nintendo Switch. We have an excuse for that, and it’s a good one – the game is almost ready! We spent the last couple of weeks working really hard to make the gaming experience on the Switch as smooth as possible. It has been an exciting process and we have also learned a lot from it. What follows is quite a detailed description of what’s been going on (there’s also a TL;DR version, just scroll down).
We made sure to transfer the whole X-Morph: Defense experience to the Nintendo Switch.
At first, we did not plan to develop X-Morph: Defense for the Nintendo Switch. Even though many people have been asking for it we just kept saying no. We were aware that porting the game to the Nintendo Switch would prove to be a challenge. Packing so much content and keeping the quality consistently high on mobile hardware is no easy feat. All the requests from players have stayed in the back of our minds and we finally decided to give it a try. So, in a sense, you have made it happen.
During the campaign, you will see all the levels, weapons and enemies known from the other versions.
X-Morph: Defense is quite a demanding game even for the latest consoles. The amount of visual effects and physics calculations keeps all the processing cores saturated with work at 100% most of the time. Nintendo Switch is a significantly less powerful device due to its portable nature. It meant we had to optimize many elements while keeping the experience largely unchanged. Therefore, we set some goals for ourselves. Stable performance, no gameplay changes, the same level of destruction, in both docked and handheld modes.
The new towers are available with the base game at launch.
Stable performance was the first one. Our aim was to achieve 30 frames per second both in handheld and docked mode. After we got the game up and running we began performance profiling to find problematic parts of the game. Through trial and error, we arrived at a stable 30FPS in 720p in handheld mode, without the visuals taking a big hit. Sure, we had to cut some props here and there and reduce some particle effects, but the game looks and plays great in handheld mode.
Our team has pushed the Switch hardware to its limits, EXOR never gives up on explosions!
As for the docked mode, we tried 1080p at first. An important fact here is that in 1080p the device has to render over twice as many pixels as in 720p. Unfortunately, the Switch does not become twice as fast in docked mode and the performance wasn’t satisfactory. Cutting objects from the game was out of the question since we didn’t want the handheld version to suffer. Therefore, we decided to reduce the resolution to 900p. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough, so we also reduced the size of the post-processing buffer responsible for HDR bloom. The difference in rendering quality is negligible, but it gave us an extra 2-millisecond boost in frame rendering time that allowed us to equalize the handheld and docked performance.
The gameplay is dynamic and responsive, as you have to constantly adapt to the types of enemies attacking your core.
The gameplay itself is exactly what you saw in other versions of X-Morph: Defense. The number of enemies has not been reduced, all the missions are the same and all the levels play out exactly as you would expect them to. We had to reduce the amount of debris left by the enemies, but we compensate for that with added score multipliers, counting both for the resource gathering and the final score. Some maps have undergone cosmetic changes to reduce the strain on the hardware, but these changes have no effect on the gameplay.
The destructible environment has always been one of the biggest advantages of the game. Keeping this feature and maintaining performance required some clever trickery.
The destructible environment was a big challenge. Buildings consisting of physical chunks require the device to render a huge amount of polygons and it was too much for Nintendo’s handheld. To combat that, we made custom, static versions of all physically simulated destructible objects in the game, which we swap for the dynamic versions once they are damaged. This saves up performance when it comes to the polygon count, but costs 90MB of system memory in our case. It is a lot. Nintendo Switch has a lot less memory on board than the PS4 or Xbox One. Just to get the game running we had to reduce memory usage by about 30%. Code optimization, texture size reduction, and sound compression got us there, but it was not a cakewalk. Memory fragmentation was one of the greatest issues, causing crashes and rendering the game unplayable. We fixed the stability by allocating static memory pools for the game components, such as sounds, particles, GUI, videos and save files. We eventually managed to stick to the limits.
Even though we had to cut down on some visual effects, the game still looks gorgeous.
The only gameplay feature we had to cut is the co-op mode. Our split-screen mode requires the device to render almost twice as many elements as in the single-player mode. It doesn’t mean that all calculations are done twice – the physics, AI, or pathfinding require only a single operation. Our experience from working with other platforms shows that split-screen requires about 30% more processing power. Such a number exists under the assumption that we have some spare CPU cores and we can use them to parallelize some calculations. We do not have this luxury on the Switch – we use 100% of resources at all times. It means we would have to cut down on some features and do a lot of extra work. This is why we decided to leave the split-screen out from the game for now. We do not rule it out in the future, but can’t promise anything at this point.
The red-hot rivers of lava on Iceland are one of the most eye-catching features in X-Morph: Defense.
We know that download sizes are a big concern in the Switch community. Through numerous optimizations, we have reduced the package size from over 4GB to just a little bit over 1.6GB. Among other things, we have used OGG Vorbis compression on our audio files and removed the 4K-ready textures, as they would never be utilized anyway. Moreover, this is the first release of the game on the Switch, meaning we do not need to keep older versions of the maps just to keep save files compatible. This way you will be able to have X-Morph: Defense installed alongside other games, without worrying about the free space on your device.
The boss fights remain as epic as ever.
X-Morph: Defense will be available together with all the updates that were previously released on other platforms. It means that you will be able to enjoy the survival mode, additional tower types and all the little changes that happened over the course of the game’s lifetime. All the pieces of premium DLC will be available for purchase day one. We also do not raise the cost of the game – it will be around the $20 price point, with currency-specific adjustments.
Tricking your enemies into taking a suboptimal route is very important. The control scheme remained unchanged, so you have perfect control over the battlefield.
Last, but not the least important is the release date. We wanted the game to be released before the end of 2018. The reality has verified our plans, but the delay is not that big. X-Morph: defense will become available on Nintendo eShop in very early 2019. We are also looking into releasing a physical edition of the game – we will share more info about this as soon as everything is 100% confirmed.
And finally – TL;DR:
Developing the Nintendo Switch version has been a challenge, pointing out problems we did not know about and allowing us to optimize the game beyond what we imagined. All the optimizations will also find their way onto other platforms with future patches. This way our fans can enjoy improved performance on all devices. We hope you’ll have as much fun playing it as we had working on it.
Let us know if you have any further questions!
EXOR Studios
In a video that aired during The Game Awards, Nintendo revealed that Joker from the critically acclaimed Persona 5 game will be coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate for Nintendo Switch as a playable DLC fighter. Joker is included in the first of five planned DLC packs, each containing one playable fighter, one new stage and a handful of music tracks. Each pack can be purchased for $5.99 each, but players can also purchase the Fighter’s Pass for $24.99, giving them access to all five DLC packs as they release.
The Persona games are a spinoff of the popular Shin Megami Tensei franchise, which has a long and storied history in the world of video games – with many of the games appearing on Nintendo systems. Sporting an iconic mask and a variety of weapons, Joker is the main character of Persona 5, a beloved game that won Best Role-Playing Game and was nominated for Game of the Year at last year’s The Game Awards.
The digital version of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate launches in Nintendo eShop at 9 p.m. PT tonight (Dec. 6), with the physical version hitting stores on Dec. 7. In this massive video game crossover event, every fighter in Super Smash Bros. history is back, and they’re joined by newcomers like Daisy from the Super Mario series, Chrom from Fire Emblem, Inkling from Splatoon, Ridley and Dark Samus from Metroid, Ken from Street Fighter, Simon and Richter Belmont from Castlevania, King K. Rool from the Donkey Kong series, Isabelle from Animal Crossing, Incineroar from Pokémon, and, soon, Joker from Persona 5. Anyone who purchases and registers a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate game with My Nintendo by Jan. 31, 2019, will receive Piranha Plant as a free playable fighter. With a smashing amount of content, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is the biggest Super Smash Bros. game ever. For more information about Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, visit https://www.smashbros.com/.
“The Game Awards coupled with the launch of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate marks one of the video game industry’s biggest nights, so it’s the ideal place to share news about one of the most anticipated games of the year,” said Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aime, who announced the Joker news to The Game Awards audience. “Even as we celebrate the best that our industry has to offer, we’re looking ahead to more excitement and surprises in 2019.”
Additional Nintendo Switch announcements made during The Game Awards include:
A handful of games that are playable on Nintendo Switch won awards at the show, including Overcooked! 2 for Best Family Game, CELESTE for Best Independent Game, Dead Cells for Best Action Game, The Messenger for Best Debut Indie Game and Fortnite for Best Ongoing Game. For a full list of The Game Awards winners, visit https://thegameawards.com/.
Remember that Nintendo Switch features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about other features, visit https://www.nintendo.com/switch/.
Games Shown
In 2014, developers Sebastian Mayer and Garret Randell set out to Kickstart a challenging theme park simulator that would succeed franchises like RollerCoaster Tycoon called Parkitect. While they found an audience on the crowdfunding platform, they were surprised when they hit Steam Early Access how much community support they’d find for their game, guiding them to a successful 1.0 release a few weeks ago.
Over on the GDC Twitch channel today, Mayer and Randell stopped by to discuss their work on Parkitect, the guiding philosophy behind their game design and explanations for why management sim games work so well despite being so dang hard. Despite some technical difficulties, the pair were able to offer a lot of insight for indies looking to build a home for themselves in niche genres.
If you’re a game developer in need of insight about venturing into classic game genres, you can now watch the full conversation with Mayer and Randell in the video above! You can also follow the GDC Twitch channel for more developer interviews, GDC Talks and the 2019 Game Developers Choice and IGF Award ceremonies.
The Game Awards highlights some of the biggest games of the year, and Nintendo is inviting fans to join in on the celebrations with big discounts on some fan-favorite games. From now until Dec. 10 at 8:59 a.m. PT, Nintendo is offering up to 50 percent off select Nintendo Switch digital titles, including games that have been nominated for awards and more.
Fans can visit Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch or Nintendo.com/tga now for discounts on digital versions of the Super Mario Odyssey game, which won “Best Family Game” at The Game Awards 2017; Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus, which won “Best Action Game” at The Game Awards 2017; Diablo III: Eternal Collection, which recently launched for the Nintendo Switch system in November; and the critically acclaimed role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Other digital games featured in the sale that are nominated for awards at tonight’s The Game Awards include CELESTE (nominated for “Game of the Year” and “Best Independent Game,” among others), Dead Cells (nominated for “Best Action Game,” among others), Starlink: Battle for Atlas Digital Edition (nominated for “Best Family Game”) and Mega Man 11 (nominated for “Best Action Game”).
“Nintendo is joining The Game Awards today in celebrating creative and technical excellence in the video game industry,” said Doug Bowser, Nintendo of America’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “With discounts on several digital games in Nintendo eShop from Nintendo and our publishing partners around the world, many of which are nominated for awards in this year’s show, we are excited to be giving fans the opportunity to enjoy these celebrated games at a great value.”
All games included in the sale will be available for purchase in Nintendo eShop on Nintendo Switch or directly at https://www.nintendo.com/tga. My Nintendo members will also earn Gold Points on qualifying purchases. Visit https://www.youtube.com/thegameawards to tune into The Game Awards, which streams live tonight beginning at 5:30 p.m. PT.
If you’re heading to stores this holiday, you can also pick up some additional deals on physical products. Nintendo’s holiday deals include a yellow-and-red Nintendo 2DS system with the Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS game pre-installed at a suggested retail price of only $79.99. Nintendo also recently launched a set of two Joy-Con Wheel accessories. To check out Nintendo’s interactive holiday gift guide, visit https://happyholidays.nintendo.com/.
Remember that Nintendo Switch and Nintendo 3DS family of systems feature parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about other features, visit https://www.nintendo.com/switch/.
Games Shown:
The Nintendo Switch video game system is about to get a lot more heroic. MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: The Black Order is heading exclusively to the Nintendo Switch system for Super Hero gaming action at home or on the go. The new game, which arrives nearly 10 years after the previous installment in the series, is being developed by KOEI TECMO GAMES/Team NINJA and published by Nintendo. Nintendo made the announcement with a trailer shown during The Game Awards in Los Angeles.
MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: The Black Order brings together Super Heroes and Super Villains from across the Marvel Universe to battle for the limitless power of the Infinity Gauntlet, one Stone at a time. This unprecedented team of characters must use their unique superpowers to defeat the mad cosmic tyrant Thanos and his ruthless warmasters, The Black Order. The game will feature an original story and a playable cast of dozens of Marvel Super Heroes, including the Avengers, the X-Men, and—for the first time in series history—the Guardians of the Galaxy.
The new game features the same kind of action-RPG gameplay that made the franchise such a hit over a decade ago. In MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3: The Black Order, up to four players can drop in for co-op battles in a variety of ways: They can play online*, link up offline via local wireless or pass a Joy-Con controller to a friend to join the team. With another pair of Joy-Con (sold separately), four players can team up on one system. In addition to the series’ traditional perspective, the new entry will let players select a dynamic, zoomed-in heroic view, allowing for a more immersive play style for single-player or multiplayer when using multiple systems.
“As longtime fans of the franchise, we could not be prouder and more excited to bring back ULTIMATE ALLIANCE with its biggest game yet,” said Mike Jones, Vice President & Executive Producer, Marvel Games. “MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE is all about teaming up with your friends and creating your own ‘dream team’ of Super Heroes to go on adventures across the Marvel Universe, and Nintendo Switch is perfect for delivering on that promise of cooperative gameplay and shared experiences.”
“The MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE games have been beloved by fans for more than a decade, and this new installment on Nintendo Switch will deliver even more of the thrills and heroics that the franchise is known for,” said Doug Bowser, Nintendo of America’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “Thanks to our partnership with Marvel, the fate of the Marvel Universe will literally be in the hands of Nintendo Switch players, whether they’re at home or on the go.”
Additional details about the game will be announced in the future. Remember that Nintendo Switch features parental controls that let adults manage the content their children can access. For more information about other features, visit https://www.nintendo.com/switch/.
*Nintendo Switch Online membership (sold separately) and Nintendo Account required for online play. Not available in all countries. Internet access required for online features. Terms apply. nintendo.com/switch-online
© 2018 MARVEL
Season 7 has arrived with the smash of a mysterious iceberg! Winter has brought many changes to the Fortnite map for you to explore. Ziplines are a new way to help you travel to and from high terrain. For you chill and thrill seekers, the new Frosty Flights location and Expedition outposts are outfitted with the new Stormwing planes so you can take to the skies. There are tons of new areas to venture to and secrets to uncover, so stay frosty.
Battle Pass
A new season also means a brand-new Battle Pass:
Please note that due to the holiday break this winter, Season 7 will be extended by two weeks and end on February 28. There will still be new updates coming out during that break period bringing new items and challenges. You can plan on more holiday cheer to hit before the New Year as well!
If would like to download the game for free, please visit https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/fortnite-switch.
Violence
Users Interact
In-Game Purchases
In this GDC 2017 session, Happy Brain Science’s Scott Crabtree discusses how to better manage cultures of conflict in a company in order to create more productive, less stressful work environments.
Crabtree explains how developers can reflect on how they relate to conflict, what their studio’s culture around conflict is, and how conflict might be useful in certain situations.
It was an insightful talk that’s definitely worth watching, so developers shouldn’t miss the opportunity to do so now that it’s freely available on the official GDC YouTube channel!
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying 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 or VRDC 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 company Informa
Today’s Deal:
Save 50% on Spintires: MudRunner!*
Save 15% on the new DLC Spintires: MudRunner – American Wilds Expansion!*
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05 Dec 2018
Update: Feral have also just confirmed that the game will release on iPad on December 18th. An iPhone/Universal release is confirmed for 2019. There’s also a snazzy new trailer we’ve embedded for your enjoyment.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1roVBx5TRN8?controls=0]
Original Story: Feral Interactive, as well as bringing us excellent mobile ports of Rome: Total War, have also managed to win the rights to bring Tropico to mobile.
Tropico for iPad was announced earlier this year and will officially be a modified version of Tropico 3, and will see you put in charge of an up-and-coming banana republic as el president. You’ll need to develop your economy, keep your citizens in-line, and court the major powers for favours and influence.
“But Pocket Tactics, I really want to know whether my device will run it or not,” said some people, sometimes.
Luckily for you citizen, Feral have published a handy infographic to illustrate what devices are officially supported:
The official summary on the game’s website is:
Tropico will run on any iPad Pro, any iPad released since 2017, and requires iOS 12 or later. You will also need 3GB of free space to install the game.
So it seems even a nine-year old PC game still needs some serious hardware to run.
There’s been no word on when Tropico will release, but we’ll keep you posted.
