Last year, Nintendo said Labo was a title and platform that would be supported and sold for a prolonged period of time. Staying true to its word, earlier this week the company released a special VR update for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. This follows on from Labo VR updates for multiple other first-party Switch titles.

Now, to help spread the word about this magnificent cardboard tech, Nintendo has uploaded the second segment of its special video series with Labo director, Tsubasa Sakaguchi. In this brief three-minute video, you’ll hear Sakaguchi speak about how the concept for Labo came about and how VR was incorporated. Interestingly, basic VR research at Nintendo was already underway prior to Labo’s creation. Last, of all, you can find out what inspired the different gameplay concepts within the VR Kit.

And if you missed it, here’s part one:

View the full video above and tell us in the comments if you still enjoy playing Nintendo Labo and using the VR headset on a regular basis.

When fans of the blue blur got their first glimpse of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, there was mass outrage online about the design of the character. Following the backlash, director Jeff Fowler made the decision to delay the film and vowed to change the controversial design. The film is now due out on Valentine’s Day 2020.

Although this decision has been praised online, it doesn’t necessarily reflect everyone. Jim Carrey, who plays Dr. Robotnik in the upcoming film, was recently asked about how he felt about the delay of the movie and Sonic redesign during the Television Critics Association presentation for his new Showtime series, Kidding.

He’s not quite sure about the audience being involved in the creative process, but does think it could be a case of people jumping on the bandwagon and not really caring about it:

I don’t know quite how I feel about the audience being in on the creation of it. We’ll see what that entails because sometimes you find that the collective consciousness decides it wants something and then when it gets it, ‘I just wanted it, I didn’t care about it. I just jumped on the bandwagon,’

He added:

Ownership of anything is going out the window for all of us.

What do you think about Carrey’s comments? Tell us below.

– The optional unit query panel has been removed. We started fixing a couple bugs with it and felt that the feature needed large design changes to be usable by a bigger portion of players, as less than 1% of players have used it after we added the option for it.

“Now we can just focus on making the game without worrying about keeping the lights on.”

– The Glumberland team shares one of the reasons they signed on with Epic’s store.

Ooblets is the latest game to sign on as an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, and it’s a decision the development team candidly explained in a blog post on the game’s official site.

Epic Games Store exclusives, though often only exclusive to the storefront for a limited time, tend to draw a lot of ire online from people feverently against games signing deals with Epic for one reason or another.

But, while more and more games have signed on with the fledgling platform this year, not many have sat down to explain how and why the development team opted to go exclusive like Ooblets dev Glumberland has.

“So we had a big decision to make, and we didn’t take it lightly. Because Epic doesn’t yet have the same market share as their competitors, they offered us a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores,” explains the team.

“That takes a huge burden of uncertainty off of us because now we know that no matter what, the game won’t fail and we won’t be forced to move back in with our parents (but we do love and appreciate you, parents!).”

The rest of the blog post specifically addresses the two common complaints devs see after opting for an Epic Games Store deal, like the fledgling platform’s lack of features compared to Steam and the idea that exclusives are inherently anti-consumer.

On that second topic, Glumberland points out that the access to the Epic Games Store or other PC-based game platforms isn’t locked behind a subscription like exclusives on Netflix or Hulu, “it’s more like just having to press a button on your remote to change between free TV channels.”

“It’s also really disappointing to see folks threatening to pirate a game just because they can’t get it on the game launcher they’re used to,” continues the post. “Feeling like you’re owed the product of other people’s work on your terms or else you’ll steal it is the epitome of that word ‘entitlement’ that people use to discuss immature, toxic gamers.”

Starting today as a free content update, experienced Black Desert adventures can awaken the Ninja class in the newest update that lets you to play with new skills and abilities to deliver devastating damage, in addition to new world bosses that offer mighty weapon drops and a powerful piece of equipment to aid in your adventure.

To awaken the Ninja, you must first reach level 56 by completing quests and defeating enemies within the world of Black Desert. Then you’ll be given a quest that presents you with several challenges to overcome through heated battles. Once completed, the Ninja will gain the ability to equip the Sura, a powerful katana which slices through even the mightiest of foes with ease.

Three colossal world bosses have been introduced as well, providing a challenge for any Ninjas interested in testing their newfound skills. To help prepare you to take on each fierce titan, see the tips below:

• Karanda
  Leader of a fearsome group of harpies in Karanda Ridge. Karanda will stop at nothing to protect the nest and will fight players to the bitter end. Defeating this formidable boss will unlock the Dandelion weapon box, which contains an Awakening Weapon.
• Quint
  A massive troll that turns to stone (protection from attacks). Invulnerable while standing, adventurers must attack its legs to bring him to the floor. Once it’s brought down, player attacks can inflict incredible damage.
• Muraka
  Residing in the depths of the Mansha forest, it has disrupted the once peaceful region and left destruction in its wake. While slow moving, watch out for its powerful attacks, which can take down even the most skilled players.

Adventurers that have hit level 61 and 62 can now receive Black Desert’s newest equipment items: the Capotia accessories. Available as rings or earrings, these items offer increased attack damage.

With Black Desert available with Xbox Game Pass, now’s the perfect time for veteran players to experience today’s new content.

Black Desert is available now for Xbox One on the Microsoft Store and with Xbox Game Pass. Click here for additional information and purchase details.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is Now Available on Steam!

Wolfenstein: Youngblood is the first modern co-op Wolfenstein adventure. Team up with a friend or play solo as one of BJ Blazkowicz’s twin daughters and wield a powerful arsenal of new weapons, gadgets, and abilities to liberate Paris from the Nazis.

News | Bungie.net”> News | Bungie.net”>

PlayStation Xbox Live Battle.net

Next up in our Super Nindie Maker 2 series, we’re lucky enough to have a bumper offering from Playtonic Games. Following on from the opening gambit courtesy of Shovel Knight designer Mike Herbster, the developers behind Yooka-Laylee and its upcoming 2.5D sequel Yooka-Laylee and The Impossible Lair have cooked up a crop of no fewer than four Super Mario Maker 2 courses for your enjoyment.

Kindly taking time from their hectic schedule readying the next chapter of Yooka and Laylee’s adventures, these levels have been crafted by Hamish Lockwood (Designer), Daley Johnson (Engagement Director), Karl Roe (Programmer) and Matt Griffin (Audio Designer). Proceeding in that order, we’ll begin with Hamish’s pun-tastic offering, ‘A Crate Job’…

Hamish Lockwood (Designer) – Username: PlaytonicH

What was the thought process behind the creation of your level?

I started this level the same way I normally would at work – by experimenting with some mechanics to find a gameplay theme I think will give me a lot of mileage. This is the first level I’ve made in Mario Maker 2 but I have about half a dozen “sketch” levels/ideas that didn’t work out before I found one I liked enough.

It’s interesting – I found the crates and doors combo surprisingly limiting after working with them for a while. You can’t have too many crates (I suspect because they’re physics objects?) and you can only have 4 pairs of doors per scene. It turns out there were just enough to make what I wanted but like I say, it was a surprisingly strict challenge! But this sort of thing encourages creative thinking so it’s quite fun to work around it.

Anyway once I got going I created a series of rooms/puzzles that slowly increased in challenge or introduced a new idea. For example:

1. The first room makes you move crates out of the way.
2. The second room makes you move crates but to a specific location.
3. The third room forces you to learn to break open the crates to find things inside.
4. The fourth room is a celebration of that (it’s fun to break a lot of crates at once!) but there’s also a tempting risk/reward challenge if you choose.
5. The fifth room used to be more challenging but I required the checkpoints elsewhere so I removed the hazards so it didn’t feel unfair or frustrating.
6. Let’s come back to the sixth room…!
7. The seventh room is the final “big puzzle” that tests what you’ve learned so far, but introduces a couple of new elements. I actually didn’t think it was clear enough that you can throw crates through pipes and have them land somewhere convenient. So I went back and made an extra room – room six!
8. The sixth room was designed to force the player to learn throwing crates through pipes.
9. The eighth room is a reward room, but it also highlights the players goal in the seventh room. You can see all those coins early which makes you want to enter the correct door in the “big puzzle room.”
10. The final room is a very easy flag challenge with a secret coin at the top!

To be honest I think I could have cut the fifth room and I definitely think the big puzzle room is messily designed. These things would normally be addressed if making levels for a real game… But that’s the nice thing about Mario Maker – I can stop whenever I feel like it, haha!

How have your design experiences helped or hindered you in this process?

Making levels is my job so obviously that experience has helped! After making a bunch of levels you acquire a mental list of do’s and don’t’s which I think can help to speed things up. Just small things like “don’t use too many ingredients”, “don’t let the player get killed after respawning”, “don’t ask the player to kill themselves if the puzzle becomes unsolvable”, etc.

It can be quite hard to forget these things and as a result I found myself wanting to spend loads of time on this level. It took about a week or so and in the end, even though I’m not perfectly happy with it, I decided it was good enough. This isn’t the best attitude to have as a level designer but I didn’t want to spend months on a single level like I might if it were for a professional game!

Is there a stage from a 2D Mario game that’s a particular favourite of yours? What makes it so memorable?

If I think back to the most memorable levels for me in 2D Mario games I think of things like the Kuribo’s Shoe level in Mario Bros. 3, the Giant Land in Mario Bros. 3, or the first level in World 7 (I had to look it up) in Mario Bros. 3 where you scale up a level made entirely of pipes. These levels all have a really cool, strong theme (the shoe item, the giant enemies, the visual theme) that makes them extra memorable for me. I think levels become memorable if you can easily finish the sentence “This is the level where you…”

Also pretty much anything in Yoshi’s Island – I don’t know how they made something so good, so long ago!

Is there any feature you’d love to see added to Super Mario Maker 2?

I spoke of the limitations I worked around but I do understand why those are the way they are. I also really appreciate how Nintendo seemed to prioritise accessibility in this game. I think the way they implemented the locked cameras (by drawing a straight line) is very clever, although unfortunately I found I wasn’t able to lock the cameras on all my rooms, mostly due to the flag at the end. You can’t really have a line drawn through that! I would love a more robust camera system but that then moves away from keeping the game accessible because with more functionality comes more complexity. So I personally would like that, but at the same time I don’t think it’s a good fit for the game! So I suppose I’ll instead request the skinny Mario costume to make a return!

Next up we have Daley Johnson, Engagement Director at Playtonic with her level ‘Treetop Arcade’…

Pokémon might not actually exist, but that doesn’t mean trainers far and wide can’t enjoy real-size versions of these lovable creatures in plush form. The Pokémon Center website is currently taking pre-orders for a “jumbo-size” Mareep Poké Plush that matches the electric sheep’s height listed in the Pokédex.

This super-soft and woolly plush is “about 24 inches tall and 40 inches long” and is a Pokémon Center Original design. As for the price, it’ll set you back a whopping $500 USD and takes 5-7 business days to ship. Pre-orders are open until 1st September 2019 and the item will be sent out to customers in January 2020. Unfortunately, it’s only available within the US.

Here are some more details and photos from the website:

Just as big as it says in the Pokédex! This jumbo-size Poké Plush is a full 2 feet tall and more than 3 feet long, and it really gives you options! Will you count Mareep in the bedroom? Maybe put it under a glass tabletop? Possibly keep it near a rocking chair to maximize fluffy enjoyment during quiet times?

It’s your decision, and no matter where this Mareep winds up, it will be among the fluffiest and cuddliest plush you own! Make Mareep yours and give your home a bit of extra warmth and character with this Center Original!

• Recommended Age: 4+
• Item Dimensions: 23.62 x 44.88 x 22.83 IN
• Country Of Origin: Made in China
• Materials: All new material / polyester / polypropylene / expanded polystyrene

Is this the Pokémon plush you’ve always dreamed of? Would you be willing to exchange $500 for this plush version of Mareep? Leave a comment below.

Click Here!