This week at Bungie, there’s a lot going on.

We’re already into week three of Season of the Undying. The Iron Banner is up and running and we have some new things lined up for next week. Master Nightmare hunts begin next week. These will be the most difficult Nightmare hunts to date, so equip your best weapons and gear.

That’s not all. The Exotic Quest for Leviathan’s Breath will also go live for all season pass owners. Rumor has it that Banshee knows something about where to start.

The Show Must Go On

The infamous Hunter known as Paul “The Big Show” Wight is stopping by our studio this weekend. He’s going to join us on stream to play some Destiny. That means that some of you will have a chance to win an Emblem. This will be a Bungie Bounty, but we are going to mix up the activities. We’ll play a few Strikes, some Vex Offensive, and then finish up with some Crucible so Big Show can pound some Warlocks into dust.

The usual rules for a Bungie Bounty apply: For Crucible, you will need to match into our game and be on the winning team. For everything PVE, you only need to match with us fight the good fight to earn the new Bungie Bounty emblem.

The last time we did a Bungie Bounty we played on Xbox. This time we will be playing on PS4.

Bungie Bounty

Platform – PS4

October 19 2PM – 4PM Pacific

PC, you are on deck. More on that later…

Shifting Sands

We have a few tweaks coming to the combat sandbox in update 2.6.1, which is currently being targeted to deploy on October 29. Here is the Destiny Dev Team to give you the details.

Super Energy Refunding Kills

Goals:

For a while now, Trample and Everlasting Flames have been an outlier, especially in PvP. We’ve previously done a pass to add diminishing returns to this but it’s proven to not be enough. In this update, we’ve tightened the curve a bit and split it out over PvE and PvP. This should allow Guardians to keep dunking on combatants for longer while being less oppressive against one another.

Additionally, for Striker, we’ve increased the cost of the light attack to make dashing across the map a little less forgiving. We still want this to be used as a way to run people down or dodge and be shifty, but this change should make it costly enough as to be prohibitive as a form of long distance travel. Finally, regeneration will no longer proc on melee kills while in super. The combination was just too strong and overly forgiving of strategic or positional mistakes.

Striker – Code of the Juggernaut (Bottom Path)

• Trample:
• Tuned the amount of Super energy returned per kill
• Reduced amount returned possible per kill from 15% to 13% (before diminishing returns)
• Reduced the low end of the diminishing returns from 5% to 3.25%
• Changed the kills for the diminishing returns by splitting them out between players and combatants
• Previously it was 15 kills. Now it is 14 combatant kills or 7 player kills (players count for 2X towards diminishing returns)
• Cost of light attack in super increased by 50% from 2% to 3%
• Regeneration on kill no longer procs on super kills

Dawnblade – Attunement of Flame (Bottom Path)

• Everlasting Flames: 
• Tuned the amount of Super energy returned per kill (handled differently than Striker as this attack in an AoE)
• Increased the low end of the diminishing returns from 0.75% to 0.95%
• Changed the kills for the diminishing returns by splitting them out between players and combatants
• Previously it was 30 kills. Now it is 21 combatant kills or 7 player kills (players count for 3X towards diminishing returns)

Quality of Life and Bug Fixes:

Sentinel – Code of the Protector (Top Path)

• Ward of Dawn:
• Armor of Light timer now correlates with the life of the Ward of Dawn
• Particle FX move more rapidly towards the end of the Ward of Dawn’s life

Nightstalker – Way of the Wraith (Middle Path)

• Shattering Strike: 
• Fixed a bug in which Shattering Strike activation window was reduced to 3 seconds along with Truesight
• Shattering strike last the proper 9 seconds once again

Shoulder Charge

We’ve removed a bug that allowed players to shoot immediately before activating shoulder charge, which allowed players to apply the 1-2 Punch damage buff to shoulder charge. This bug was caused by a quality of life change made for Tempest Strike. Before Shadowkeep, if player’s had the sprint button configured as “hold to sprint”, then they would need to be holding the sprint button while sliding in order to activate Tempest Strike. With the release of Shadowkeep, we added a small window of time where players could activate Tempest Strike after letting go of the sprint button. This change had unexpected effects on other melee abilities, so we have reverted this change until we can find a better fix for Tempest Strike.

We’re also aware of feedback about other abilities and gear not mentioned above. We have our eye on One Eyed Mask – expect a change in a future update.

Patch Note Preview

Along with the sandbox changes we already mentioned, we have a preview of some of the other patch notes coming up in update 2.6.1:

Steam

Fully Operational Art Station

As you immerse yourself in the world of Destiny, there is a lot of beauty to take in. The environments, the characters, the weapons, every little detail is lovingly crafted by talented artists who help bring this game to life. We wanted to showcase some items they have helped work on and give you some links to see more of their work below.

Armor Two Point Zero

One of the new systems rolled out along with Shadowkeep is the new Armor 2.0 system. We have been monitoring the feedback around the system. Today, the Destiny Dev Team has some goals for Armor 2.0 and some upcoming changes that are coming.

Hi everyone! We wanted to check in and talk a little about Armor 2.0, its goals, your reactions, and upcoming additions and tweaks to the system.

The most frequent questions and feedback come from the energy affinity system, which determines which mods can be socketed into which armor pieces. We wanted to kick this discussion off with a little bit more information on the reasons why the energy system came about, and what it’s intended to accomplish. The armor energy system has the three following primary goals:

1. Give players the freedom to experiment with builds, while also requiring players to make creative choices when putting together those builds. The biggest reason why mods became unlocks instead of consumables is to encourage players to experiment with perk combinations. The energy type and cost of a mod asks players to consider which mods they value most for a particular build, sometimes requiring them to make choices or come up with creative combinations of armor energies across all five equipped armor pieces.

2. Give players the ability to balance mods above and beyond pure effectiveness. When mods have no restrictions on their use (as was the case prior to Armor 2.0), each mod is only evaluated on its strength and usefulness (or access, in the case of consumables). Giving mods an energy cost gives us a knob to turn that gives weaker mods value and stronger mods a drawback. Giving mods an energy type allows us to limit the scope of combinations within a single armor piece (making their use cases easier to predict and balance for), and also gives us room for other perks and mods (for example, artifact mods) that break these restrictions. This means the perks and mods that break the rules can be compelling choices, without them having to also be significantly stronger to be appealing.

3. Relieve information overload pressure on the mod UI. Early playtests, which did not have the energy system, had all mods for a particular slot visible each time you moved your cursor over them. This resulted in a huge amount of information overload, and also made it hard to quickly find, and change out, mods that you were seeking. Cutting down on the number of mods visible for a particular armor piece makes it easier to process this information.

There’s a lot more to it than that, but those are the most notable points.

When it comes to deciding which weapons were associated with which affinity, there were three main criteria used to choose where to put them:

1. Ammo Type: Each energy type needed to have a good mix of primary, special, and power ammo weapons.

2. Range: Each energy type needed to have a good mix of short, middle, and long-range weapons.

3. Thematics: Each energy type should have weapons that are similar thematically, when possible, and feel like the kinds of weapons that match other mechanics associated with that energy type.

We have seen feedback suggesting that, instead of locking mods into an energy type, the affinity should simply be a discount on the energy cost of the mod. That’s actually what the broad-category mods (such as Rifle Loader, Precision Weapon Targeting, etc.) are meant to represent: a higher cost for gaining the benefit with a weapon not normally associated with that energy type. So, instead of having to display every mod for that slot when you move your cursor over the socket, you see only the two to three broad-category mods in that socket, plus the ones with energy types associated with it.

Of course, not every mod type got a broad-category version, notably the mod types that affect the ammo economy. That’s because any mods that tinker with the ammo economy have a lot of caveats and exceptions, mostly due to weapons that use ammo types not normally associated with that weapon archetype, such as Eriana’s Vow, the Mountaintop, Whisper of the Worm, and so forth.

We needed a bit more time to build the broad category versions of these mods and test them thoroughly, but at the start of next season there will be broad-category mods for both the ammo finder and ammo scavenger categories, and they will be automatically unlocked for all players (no need to hunt them down!). This should help round out your builds more easily, and give you more options for tinkering with your ammo no matter what armor energy type you use. We’re also working on some broad category ammo capacity mods, but those need some more work before they’re ready for primetime.

Another big change coming up is the loosening of stacking restrictions on Armor 2.0 mods. Starting next season, the restrictions on having multiple mods of the same type in a single piece of armor will be removed (with a few exceptions). So, you’ll be able to run two Hand Cannon Loader mods, or two Shotgun Ammo Finder mods, and so forth. The only exceptions to this stacking come from mods that provide no benefit when stacked, such as Fastball and Traction. We needed a little more time to make sure that stacking mods wouldn’t cause any major technical issues, and think that stacking mods of the same type gives more flexibility in crafting your build, provided you have the armor energy to spend in socketing them in.

One thing to be aware of with mod stacking: In most cases, stacking up identical mods will provide diminishing returns on their effectiveness. For example, two Hand Cannon Loader mods don’t provide twice the benefit; instead, they provide about 1.5x the benefit of one Hand Cannon Loader mod. However, this puts them on equal footing with the enhanced mods. So, two Hand Cannon Loader mods provide the equivalent benefit of a single Enhanced Hand Cannon Loader. We’re also going to be lowering the energy costs of some of the armor mods to better reflect the value of an enhanced mod.

One last bit of news on Armor 2.0. When we created the system, we wanted to include armor mods in Collections, so you can see how many you have gathered, and where they can be acquired. This also presented a good opportunity to do some housekeeping on the Collections tab in general, but, unfortunately, proved to be a little more time-intensive than we’d hoped, so the changes didn’t come alongside Shadowkeep. Good news, though! In the 2.6.1 patch, coming later this month, armor mods will be visible in your Collections, allowing you to browse through all the possibilities and see which ones you have already collected. Additionally, starting next season, the armor mod Collections will get a UI upgrade, allowing them to display armor energy type and cost on the icon, just like they do in your armor socket.

Fashion Week

It’s fashion week. In a previous update we showed you The Levante Prize, a fancy new emblem we will be giving out to fashion-focused Guardians.

Do you think you have an eye for style? Submit a picture of your best dressed Guardian on Bungie.net or in a reply to our Fashion Week tweet. We will choose our favorites and feature them in next week’s TWAB. Please include a link to your Bungie.net profile with your submission to help us out with granting your emblem if you win.

Since fashion is never finished, we will plan on doing this regularly, hopefully once a month.

Cyber Sleuths

We’ve been tracking bugs and already deployed a few fixes since Shadowkeep launched earlier this month. Player Support has the latest.

This is their report.

Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.6.0.4

This week, we deployed Destiny 2 Hotfix 2.6.0.4 to players on all platforms. This hotfix resolved several issues to emerge in the player experience since launch. Here are some highlights:

• Fixed an issue where the Servitor spawning in the Gofannon Forge could crash the game.
• Fixed an issue where Nightmare Hunts Time Trial Master triumph would not progress correctly.
• Fixed an issue where Nightfall: The Ordeal would not drop a powerful reward for players who had already completed the Vanguard Strikes Challenge.
• Fixed an issue that provoked the temporary deactivation of rally banners and the “Tire Game” in the Sanctuary vendor space on the Moon.

As with all updates and hotfixes, players should follow @BungieHelp on Twitter or monitor our support feed on help.bungie.net for the latest details as soon as they are available.

PC Migration

Since launch, we’ve been investigating player reports regarding a subset of issues which may cause PC Migration to fail for PC players importing their accounts from Battle.net.

While investigations are ongoing, we’ve deployed several fixes to Bungie.net over the past two weeks which are expected to resolve a number of issues encountered by players. If your account has failed to migrate, to include the transfer of characters, Silver, and/or licenses, we encourage you to try again. As a reminder, once PC Migration has been initiated, it cannot be undone.

Aside from issues being investigated in the migration process, we’ve also observed reports from players who’ve linked the wrong Battle.net or Steam accounts to their Bungie.net profile, resulting in migration either to or from an undesired account.

Players who linked and migrated from a different Battle.net account than desired can perform migration again. To do so, players must link their intended Battle.net account to a new Steam account through Bungie.net and perform a new migration.

Players who link and migrate to a different Steam account than desired must log in to that account on Steam in order to access their characters, Silver, and licenses. Once migration is initiated, these cannot be transferred to another Steam account.

Players encountering process issues with PC Migration may opt to assist us in our efforts to aggregate information. Player who wish to do so should submit a response to our contact form. Please note that this form is designed to gather information about PC Move issues, and that each ticket may not receive a personalized response.

As a final note, we’ve also observed confusion from players believing that their Forsaken licenses did not transfer from Battle.net to Steam, because the Forsaken campaign was not available from Amanda Holiday. Unlike the Red War, Curse of Osiris, and Warmind campaigns included in New Light, which are received from Amanda Holiday in the Tower Hangar, the Forsaken campaign begins with players launching directly into the first mission from the Tangled Shore destination map.

Destiny 2 Known Issues

Destiny Player Support monitors player reports on our local #Help forum and tallies the latest issues into our Known Issues thread. Listed below is a selection of recent issues that have been reported by players:

• The Black Armory Key Mold cannot be obtained by players who did not receive it before Season 8.
• Players who have the “Invitation from the Emperor” and “Golden Hero” quests on multiple characters can’t unlock the Tribute Hall.
• Warlocks wagering Weak Motes in Reckoning are receiving Titan armor.

As always, players who encounter issues are encouraged to report them to our #Help forum.

Prime Time

It’s time for Movie of the Week. This is where we pick a few of our favorite community videos of the week and share them out for all to see. The winners will receive a special emblem. If you are chosen as a winner, please post links to your Bungie.net profile in the description of the video and let us know what platform your active account is.

Movie of the Week: Interview with Shaxx

Honorable Mention: Just Trying to Kill Some Bugs Sir

<3 Cozmo

Another week has gone by and we’re busy trampling bugs here at the Mojang office. Apart from that we’re now letting everyone take part of our obfuscation maps which should make your life easier if you’re interested in creating mods for Minecraft: Java Edition.

You can find the full news post on Minecraft.net:

• Obfuscation maps are now published with all future releases of the game
• Added features found in other Minecraft editions
• Honey bottles are now less filling
• Fixed bugs

MODDING

In an effort to help make modding the game easier, we have decided to publish our game obfuscation maps with all future releases of the game, starting today. This means that anyone who is interested may deobfuscate the game and find their way around the code without needing to spend a few months figuring out what’s what. It is our hope that mod authors and mod framework authors use these files to augment their updating processes that they have today. These mappings will always be available, instantly and immediately as part of every newly released version. This does not, however, change the existing restrictions on what you may or may not do with our game code or assets. The links to the obfuscation mappings are included as part of the version manifest json, and may be automatically pulled for any given version.

Prefixed to every obfuscation map is the following legal disclaimer:

© 2019 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This information is provided “as-is” and you bear the risk of using it. This information does not provide you with any legal rights to any intellectual property in any Microsoft product. You may copy and use this information for your internal, reference purposes. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, with respect to the information provided here.

PARITY

Things from other editions of Minecraft have arrived to Java Edition!

• Trying to sleep in a bed during daytime will now set the player’s spawn location to that bed
• Bells will now ring if powered with a redstone signal
• The doInsomnia game rule can now be switched off to prevent phantoms from spawning during nighttime
• The doImmediateRespawn game rule can now be switched on to have players respawn immediately without showing the death screen
• The drowningDamage, fallDamage and fireDamage game rules can now be used to prevent certain sources of damage
• Sponges now dry out when placed in the Nether
• Fireworks dispensed from a dispenser now travel in the direction they were fired

• MC-117914 – Entities crossing dimensions through nether portal causes tremendous lag
• MC-140507 – Overloading a chunk with data will cause it to revert to its old state
• MC-158677 – Ender dragon freezes the server if there’s no end stone in the end
• MC-158978 – “Create New World” button in the world creation menu is enabled after returning from the world customize menu, allowing world names to be left blank
• MC-159359 – Dispensers ignore honey level when collecting honey from hives/nests
• MC-159370 – Bees suffocate when against a solid block ceiling
• MC-159383 – Copying a bee nest/hive with NBT duplicates the bees inside of it as well, causing multiple bees with the same UUID to exist in the same world at the same time
• MC-159385 – Bees are not affected by Bane of Arthropods enchantment
• MC-159395 – Honey level of bee hives does not increase, as opposed to bee nests
• MC-159419 – Custom beehive item can be used to spawn any entity, including command blocks
• MC-159424 – Hostile bees will not sting you if you have a flower in your hand
• MC-159441 – Bees stay leashed when leaving a bee hive, despite having dropped their lead when entering it, thus duplicating the lead
• MC-159508 – Ctrl + Pick block on beehives and nests does not copy their honey levels
• MC-159515 – Bees don’t sleep at night
• MC-159518 – Bees stop their animations when standing still, even when still in the air
• MC-159558 – Bees attempt to sting the player even after they’ve already stung the player
• MC-159560 – Semi-transparent pixels on bee textures
• MC-159584 – When a bee nest/hive with a bee inside is destroyed on Creative, the bees inside disappear
• MC-159743 – Bee textures have inconsistent amounts of nectar
• MC-159880 – Bee duplicate passenger entities when entering and leaving hives
• MC-160008 – Drinking honey bottles doesn’t immediately make sound
• MC-160254 – Bees do not pollinate on lilac, rose bush and peony

UPDATE:

Dinnerdone has confirmed that the mappings for 1.14.4 will also be released as discussed on Twitter:

I’ve been pushing for this for a while, so I’m really happy that we were finally able to release the obfuscation mappings public. @SeargeDP had a great idea to release the 1.14.4 mappings as comparison, so those are going out right now.

— Nathan Adams (@Dinnerbone) September 4, 2019

Seven years ago, Paradox Interactive redefined grand strategy, emergent storytelling, and alternate history in one incredible game: Crusader Kings II. Today, seven years of expansions, surprises, and amazing stories later, we announced a worthy heir to the throne at PDXCON 2019: Crusader Kings III is coming in 2020. We can’t wait to share a new generation of grand strategy with players everywhere, and we have even more good news: if you’re on Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) it’ll be included in your subscription.

Crusader Kings III is the sequel to an all-time favorite title from Paradox Development Studio, offering players a realm of medieval conquest, intrigue, and high drama. If you’re new to Crusader Kings, you’re about to discover a world where you can live out your own medieval saga as the leader (and the heirs of that leader) of a grand dynasty. You can determine your own fate — conquer your way across Europe, establish your rule over matters of religion, culture, or simply ensure that your rivals meet with a series of “coincidental” misfortunes. If you’re a long-time veteran of our series, then I think you will be both satisfied and surprised with what we have in store for you in this true, worthy sequel.

It’s an exciting honor to have finally revealed the project we’ve been working on, live on stage at PDXCON 2019 in Berlin, no less! What’s more, we were joined on stage by our friends at Microsoft to reveal that we’re sharing this new journey with PC players worldwide through Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta). Crusader Kings III will be available day one with Xbox Game Pass! If you’ve ever wanted to give our unique brand of grand strategy a try, there’s never been a better opportunity.

Making a sequel that Crusader Kings fans will be satisfied with has been quite a journey. Over the years, CK2 has had several expansions with more content than I can possibly list here. From its humble beginning, we’ve seen the game explode in popularity and take on new challenges, conquering new territories just like an in-game dynasty! Our players have shared countless stories of the treachery, drama, and heartbreak they’ve experienced within Crusader Kings over the years, and with an all-new generation waiting in the wings, I can’t wait to hear about the guile, cunning, and strategy our fans (new and old alike) will attempt. Maybe some of them will even succeed, if they can outsmart the ambitious threats from other kingdoms and from their own councils.

We’re going to have a lot more to share about Crusader Kings III in the coming months, so stay tuned to Xbox Wire and look for us on Xbox Game Pass for PC (Beta) in 2020!

In this video of the popular Microtalks session at GDC 2019, a series of expert speakers get 20 slides apiece (each of which is displayed for 16 seconds before auto-advancing) to help them share a piece of game design wisdom — in 5 minutes 20 seconds or less!

It’s always a fun, fast-paced learning experience, and each of the GDC 2019 Microtalks presenters (including Douglas Wilson, Katherine Isbister, Jennifer Scheurle, Lauren Scott, Nicky Case, Matthew S. Burns, Mohini Freya Dutta, Ryan Smith, and Marcus Montgomery) shared a unique bit of insight alongside session MC Richard LeMarchand.

It’s well worth watching (or rewatching), and now you can with ease because the GDC 2019 Microtalks are now free to watch via 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.

In a crowded sea of games this year, developer Ben Esposito launched Donut County, a quirky, personal game filled with hand-crafted puzzles where players control a hole in the ground that sucks up a fictional Southern California county.

Esposito spent six years of his life making this wonderful game, and he learned a lot along the way. We sat down with Esposito on the Gamasutra Twitch channel and picked his brain — here’s what he had to say.

Edited for length and clarity.

I knew I wanted the game to be about erasure because it’s a game where you play as a hole in the ground, and you erase all the things that are in a place.

Because I knew early on — you play as a hole in the ground but the hole’s not a character, the hole is just a concept right? So the real character of the game is the stuff you put into it, so the stuff has to be really important. Then literally what’s happening in every single level is you’re erasing someone’s home, essentially.

 

“I can tell this story from the perspective of an idiot tech gentrifier person.”

I wanted to keep the game pretty human scale because I think your connection to those objects and the way you expect them to behave… I knew it was a game about erasure, but i didn’t know what the real story was.

So coming back around to “ok, well, how do I do a story about erasure that I can build off of my personal experience?” I know my personal experience is moving to LA to work on video games and seeing neighborhoods change as a result of a bunch of tech workers moving into a specific area. So an area like Venice Beach, which was like totally taken over by Facebook, Google, and etc., boxing the existing residents out and raising the rent and, you know, stuff like that.

I was kind of aware I was part of this process, and seeing this neighborhood change I was like, “Oh cool, I love LA and this is something that is just happening around me, and it’s something that I’m kind of complicit in. I can tell this story from the perspective of an idiot tech gentrifier person.” And that’s where the raccoon BK came from; he’s like a cartoon version of my character type, so to speak.

I ended up with more adventure game-style puzzles than strictly systemic puzzles.

There is a version of this game where it’s a puzzle game and it’s got way more systemic rules and you treat it more like a Sokoban or something where it’s like, “Okay, I have these types of objects and I have to get this over here, and these are my constraints around it.”

But I think in terms of getting you to be immersed in the logic, the silly logic of Donut County, the puzzles need to have their own consistency that you learn over time. The way the game is silly and the way the game has really stupid rules, I thought that was the most fun way to explore the puzzles — to introduce you to new concepts that told you a little bit about the feel of the world.

The style was informed by the type of illustration stuff that I’m familiar with and in terms of the silhouettes and broad shapes, informed all the characters and things like that.

But it’s also efficient, because I knew that if I was going to model almost everything in the entire game, I needed a process that scales. Although stuff is modeled in Maya, because that’s what I was familiar with, people are doing really similar work in Blender, and you could do it in anything.

Ben Esposito

My rule was no textures, so everything has to be built with flat colors. The meshes are cut up, just so. So if you see the rocks with those dark red streaks along them, that’s actually just cut into the mesh, that’s not a texture. And that was my approach to everything: if I want that vector quality of this game to scale to any resolution, I have to build it into every single mesh, and so I had a rule of like no more than four colors per object, unless it’s like a really large object.

So I built this in Unity, and if you’re familiar with Unity, i mean a lot of game engines work with the same type of material system, but the way i did this was I modeled most of them in black and white just using four different materials. I would kind of have a light one, a dark one, a middle one, and an accent. Then I would bring them into the engine, and since they were made with separate materials which are each their own asset, I would color the scenes in Unity. I’d have the thing open and then I’d just be tweaking the individual colors one by one until I had the right feel for the scene. So that was my process.

Unfortunately, each material is a draw call so it’s not that efficient. I could have gone in and like baked them all into textures or vertex colors after the fact, but the shaders are simple, it’s just showing a color, so I think it was fine. It could be optimized further, but I just liked the convenience of being able to tune in the actual engine.

The Unfinished Swan [on which Esposito was a level designer] is a short game that is very experimental and has novel mechanics that we tried to use in interesting ways, up until the point where we felt like we’d explored them and then we move on to the next concept.

So I think my process for working on this game [Donut County] was probably informed by the type of work we were doing on that game because I was coming from a place of “ok, I want to explore a novel mechanic and I want to tell a story.” That puts a lot of constraints on what you can do. That’s usually the reason why you end up with something that’s like pretty short and tight.

A donut without a hole is called a NUT.

Also, The Unfinished Swan was a really interesting game we tried to make really accessible to non-gamers, but there was a limit for how much we could do that because it was a first-person control scheme…We were thinking we were making something very, very accessible to gamers that maybe don’t even play FPSes, but it still had a limit to how accessible it really could be because a lot of people aren’t able to both move and look independently on each stick, because it’s a lot to ask for.

So the controls [for Donut County] were kind of a reaction to that and [the question], “ok how can I take it a step further and build a game where it doesn’t rely on any gaming knowledge in order to get started playing?” So that’s why there’s only a tap or a click or one-button and a movement, and that’s it — and you almost never need the tap anyways except to advance the dialogue.

So I built it with that constraint because I wanted to push the accessibility even further — so my grandpa can play the game! He’s 91 and he was like, “wow I was really impressed that I got 30 minutes into it.” You know his approval isn’t always easy to get, so that was a big deal.

Probably the biggest reason I went with a publisher [Annapurna Interactive], the most important reason to me, was that I knew that with my limited amount of time and energy remaining to work on the game, I wouldn’t be able to make a splash in the way that I think the game needed to succeed.

I could have put it on Steam by myself, and then hope that it goes viral and people tweet about it and stuff. I had a feeling that people would dig it, but I didn’t think that that [earlier] version of the game — [the one] that was a bit smaller and that was only on one platform and that was not marketed to any significant extent — I think the game had more potential than that.

 

“If me from the past showed me this game I’d be like, ‘dude, you don’t even know how much time this is going to take for you to finish. You think you have it figured out but you haven’t even started.'”

And so working with a publisher was really, really nice for that reason. They brought it to a bunch of conventions, they also helped negotiate deals with console, they had a relationship with the App Store. So those kinds of soft connections and them taking care of that stuff for me helped really expand the impact of the game.

I think that was really, really worth it, and also just having someone else to put some external pressure on the process in terms of like, “hey, why don’t we launch on this date, stop noodling on things.” That stuff was extremely, extremely valuable. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have have known when it was ok to stop working on the game. It helped for a lot of reasons like that.

So much time passes when you make a game. In my case, the 2013 me who started working on this game full-time is a different person than I am now. I don’t think that I’m going to stop growing and changing, so this was a really good idea for me to make when I was however old I was in 2013. It was exactly what I should’ve been doing then, and it was exactly what I wanted to do then, and it’s different now.

I can look back on it and say “I can’t recommend anyone else do this,” but I wouldn’t have done it any differently — I had to learn that stuff for myself. The reason I just can’t suggest it is because it might not have turned out good. There’s a chance that things might not have worked out the way they did. I don’t even think I would give myself the advice to keep going.

If me from the past showed me this game I’d be like, “dude, you don’t even know how much time this is going to take for you to finish. You think you have it figured out but you haven’t even started.” So I think [the game’s development] is a representation of me in the sense of this is me growing up, this is me over six years working on a project, improving my skills, but also changing my sensibilities and my approach to design.

You can kind of see the game changes near the end. Some of that is a reaction to the work I was doing at the beginning and the way the industry has been changing, stuff like that. I feel like it’s me but it’s not like I wrote it all down on paper and I stuck to that and I adhered to that. It’s more that this is what I was able to produce and it represents me at all those different points of my life.

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Unity have just released a new resource for game developers, the FPS Microgame.  It consists of two parts, a project available for download on the Asset Store and a set of courses available on the Unity Learn platform.  The project is structured around teaching game development buy modding an existing game.

The courses are structured around extending the game in the following manner:

• Add new power-ups and enemies – add loot items (such as a jet pack) and new weapons (like a sniper rifle), make weaponized projectiles (like chocolate chip cookies), create custom enemies, and boost your player’s lifespan with health (or cookie) packs.
• Design your own levels – reconfigure the battle arena, build new levels with easy-to-use snap-in assets, set constraints for enemies’ movements, and customize the game’s look with props and level art.
• Mod the look – change the sky, create your own title screen and menus, and give your game a unique splash of color.
• Test, tune, and optimize – adjust hit points and damage, modify player mechanics like speed and jump strength, optimize your game’s performance, and create a WebGL build to share your game online

More details are available on the Unity blog.  You can learn more about the template and see it in action in the video below.

GameDev News Unity

By Andrew Smith 29 Oct 2019

Anyone who has joined an online game knows chat can be a fun, engaging, and useful tool in teaming up, but it can also be an intimidating, cumbersome mechanism to utilize when there are many things on screen vying for your attention. Sometimes you want to turn chat off, mute certain players, or it may be too difficult to read what others are typing in a busy game. The simple concept of making in-game chat more customizable can dramatically improve your game experience. That’s exactly what a Microsoft Garage intern team set out to do for their winter 2018 Garage internship project in Vancouver: they built features to make Minecraft accessible to more audiences, like the autism community.

“We focused on features that would help people with autism especially, but anybody who plays the game in the future would also benefit.” Michaela Olsakova was a Software Engineer intern during her Garage internship. Stemming from the initial project pitch by the project sponsors, the Minecraft Education team, the philosophy of inclusive design was at the core of the project idea. “Even though we designed for one customer profile, there are multiple other customers who would find value.”

The interns handed their project off to their sponsors on the Minecraft Education team last year and the features were added to Minecraft: Education Edition. Now the team is ready to release the project’s chat-features to the Bedrock version of Minecraft as a suite of chat settings allowing players to customize font, line spacing, font size, and chat colors for all chat and player mentions. These new additions complement existing accessibility features like speech-to-text chat, making Minecraft an even more collaborative and socially connective environment with over 112 million players per month across all versions of the platform.

Arnaud Paré-Vogt, Henry Li, Joy Zhang, Michaela Olsakova, Rose Hirigoyen, Riad Gahlouz, Charmaine Lee

“At the beginning of our internship, we attended a conference on inclusive design, it was always at the center of everything we did.” Riad Gahlouz was a Software Engineer intern. He explained how the idea of accessibility for the autism community resonated deeply with him. “I have a few family friends that are on the autism spectrum. I’ve always been inclined to help them achieve stuff, things that may seem simple for others but can be difficult for them.” That, coupled with a childhood dream to work on Minecraft, sealed the deal for Riad when it came time for the Garage intern team to give their input about which projects to work on. “When I saw the pitch from the Minecraft Education sponsors, I thought this is the perfect match. I got Arnaud interested in the project and then everyone else kind of followed.”

Arnaud Pare-Vogt was a Software Engineer intern on the project. He shared a simple but important message that guided their approach to accessibility. “Having accessibility features doesn’t have to impact the difficulty of the game.” While working on the project, Arnaud and team encountered the misconception that making games more accessible meant making them easier. The interns demonstrated that simply was not true and that these features are independent from what makes a game difficult. “Designing a game for inclusivity and accessibility doesn’t mean you have to make it easy.”

Rose Hirigoyen was a Software Engineer and quality co-champion along with Riad on the project. “This project taught us to really learn about the customer first – in our case it was meeting and talking with people of varying abilities, understanding how it feels for them when they’re gaming, what challenges they face, and what we can do to help not just in Minecraft but in general, to have a deeper understanding of their experience.”

Rose explained how sensory overload, when a person might experience sounds, visual signals, or colors that can be extremely overwhelming, can dramatically affect their ability to play. “Usually the chat was one big, white wall of text. When you see that, it can be hard to read, hard to make out the different people that are speaking. We wanted to give options like making the text bigger, and adding spacing and color, so when you’re playing with friends it will be easier to communicate with them.” Not only text, but colors, objects, shapes, and patterns are all potential culprits.

As part of making Minecraft more accessible and enjoyable, people like Melissa Boone, a Research Manager at Xbox, explores how to design better game experiences. Melissa was one of three social and behavioral scientists who provided customer research guidance to the interns. She has been closely involved with the Minecraft team for several years, watching people playing games and talking with players to uncover what they love as well as what can be improved.

“Minecraft is one of those teams that’s super progressive and inclusive, with one of the most diverse game audiences out there. We want to continue that tradition.”

“Everyone was excited for the opportunity to bring more accessibility into the game.” Melissa guided the interns on how to conduct user research studies, including how to recruit people for the study, having the right kind of audience to participate, determining what questions to ask, and how to have productive conversations. “Because there is a large existing community of Minecraft players with autism, it made a lot of sense to focus the project efforts there and meet the players where they are.” User research was a key component that informed what features should be built. “It was pretty cool to have the opportunity to teach the interns the research process so they could conduct actual studies themselves, analyze the results and uncover insights. It’s a skill they can use in other contexts no matter what they’re working on.”

Stéphane Morichere-Matte is Principal Program Manager for The Garage and runs the Vancouver Garage Internship. Over the years, a customer-focused approach remains an important pillar for each project, and as a result, he has cultivated relationships with diverse groups and communities all over Canada. “Our interns were very fortunate to be hosted by the Pacific Family Autism Network, where we got to work with the community to find out how to make games more inclusive. The game enhancements are not very difficult to do, but it can make such a positive impact.”

Communication can be difficult for people on the autism spectrum, which is why the interns decided to focus on developing chat features. “While visiting the Pacific Family Autism Network, we witnessed a lot of people who bonded over these games,” Program Manager intern Charmaine Lee explained. “People are making meaningful connections through gaming, so it’s very rewarding when they have a game experience that fits their needs.”

Another thriving Minecraft community of players of all ages is found on Autcraft, a whitelisted Minecraft Java Edition server. Teachers also have been using Minecraft to support special education classes and engage students in custom lesson plans with Minecraft: Education Edition.

Henry Li, the Designer intern on the project, recounted how it was his first internship experience and one that he won’t soon forget. “I worked with these really talented interns, my peers, on one of the biggest IP’s in the world. It was an honor to work on such a hugely impactful project.” The practice of embracing new ideas and continually learning was something he acquired along the journey. “A lot of the growth mindset I absorbed from everyone around me. Each day you get to learn something new and there’s plenty of things to do. In those four months I learned so much. Once you have a growth mindset, your life will be different.” The interns pushed each other’s limits and accelerated productivity, helping each other grow, learn from failure, and celebrate the moments of success. “Even though the pressure you have is from your peers – everyone has dependencies and ownership of the project, we get to decide what to do and what to work on – it’s having that great teamwork that helps foster growth.”

Echoing this sentiment was Michaela. “Somehow we all got really lucky and had the most amazing team to work on this. You succeed together and fail together. I think that’s rare. I’ll never forget it.”

Each day, gaming is becoming more accessible to people from all walks of life. The Xbox Adaptive Controller, games like Ear Hockey, and game-dev tools like Responsive Spatial Audio for Immersive Gaming, are only a few of the ways Microsoft is practicing thoughtful, human-centric design for technology that connects people. The interns can now add Minecraft accessible chat-features to the expanding list, with high hopes that everyone can benefit from easier to read, customizable chat, tailored by you, to enhance your Minecraft experience.

Fedora 31 Workstation is the latest release of our free, leading-edge operating system. You can download it from the official website here right now. There are several new and noteworthy changes in Fedora 31 Workstation. Read more details below.

Fedora 30 Workstation includes the latest release of GNOME Desktop Environment for users of all types. GNOME 3.34 in Fedora 31 Workstation includes many updates and improvements, including:

Refreshed Background Chooser

Choosing your desktop background in Fedora Workstation is now easier. The newly redesigned background chooser allows you to quickly and easily see and change both your desktop and lock screen backgrounds

Custom Application Folders

Fedora 31 Workstation now allows you to easily create application folders in the Overview. Keep your application listing clutter free and well organized with this new feature:

Do you want the full details of everything in GNOME 3.34? Visit the release notes for even more details.