Humble are currently running two new bundles of interest to game developers.  The first is the Humble 8-Bit Pixel Game Dev Bundle and the second is Humble Book Bundle: Classic Video Games by Boss Fight Books.  They are also still currently running the Humble Microsoft.NET bundle if you are a C# developer in need of books… Humble sure do a lot of developer targeted bundles these days.

The first bundle, the 8-Bit Pixel bundle is a collection of game development ready graphics from the Game Dev Marketplace, containing 8/16bit style graphics and sounds.  You can read the Humble License here and the Game Dev Marketplace license here.  I will detail the contents of this bundle by tier below.

The second bundle is described as:

Boss Fight Books publishes nonfiction documentary-style books about classic video games like EarthBound, Metal Gear Solid, and Shadow of the Colossus! Collected here for the first time in one bundle, each ebook takes a critical, historical, and personal look at a single game.

All of the books are available in PDF, MOBI and EPUB formats.

Details of the 8-bit bundle by tier:

1$ Tier

Fantasy Enemy Creatures

Pixelart Game Backgrounds

Super Pixel Objects and Items

Food and Kitchenware Pixel Art Icons

Textures

Golden Coin, Rotate Sequence

World Map Pixel Art Tileset

Game Collectable Pack Pixelart

Will’s Magic Pixel Particle Effects

Deep Forest 16 Colour Tileset

Pixel House Set

8Bit Retro Game SFX

14$ Tier

Arcade Item Pack

Cyber Punk Shooter

Pixel Art Spaceships for SHMUP

Pixel Side-Scroller Spaceships

Pixel Art Bedroom Kit

Pixel Art Tileset Collection

Adenture Package

Pixel Font Pack

Fantasy Platformer Pixelart Props

Zombie Survival

Valiant Knight Pixel Art Character

25$ Tier

Pure 8Bit Magic

Pixel Art Farm Kit

8Bit SFX Pack

Zombie Package

Pixel Game Kit

Pixel Art Game Kit (separate from above)

Customizable Pixel Art Character Kit

Fantasy Medieval

Tiny RPG Dungeon

8Bit Tunes 8pack

Pixel Art Sci-Fi Space Station

Pixel Art Forest Kit

Fantasy Forest Pixel Art Tileset

Music Loops for 8Bit Games

Space Package

Simple Pirate Character

Zombie Characters

Simple Medieval Characters

When purchasing a humble bundle, you are able to decide how your money is allocated, between humble, publisher, charity and if you choose (and thanks if you do!) to support GFS.  Watch the video below for more details of the bundles.

GameDev News 2D Book

As part of a special mulitpart GDC 2019 Main Stage event last month, veteran game dev Laralyn McWilliams gave a stirring, concise talk about practical ways to stay upbeat and fulfilled during a career in the ever-changing game industry.

It was a fantastic talk that offered up practical tools and techniques to stay positive and creative in game development despite the bumps (and craters) in the road, drawn from the experiences of fellow developers with 15+ years in the business​.

And if you missed seeing it a few weeks ago, good news: McWilliams’ talk has been fast-tracked to the official GDC YouTube channel, where you can now watch it completely free!

In fact, the entire GDC 2019 Main Stage presentation is now online for free viewing via the 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.

This week Humble Bundle cofounders Jeffrey Rosen and John Graham confirmed they’re giving up their leadership roles at the company (CEO and COO, respectively) as former Kixeye exec Alan Patmore takes the reins.

This ends the pair’s nearly decade-long run steering the Humble Bundle. Graham and Rosen launched the business in 2010 as a (then revolutionary) bundle of games at a “pay what you want” price, with a cut going to charity, and since then they’ve raised well over $100 million for a smorgasbord of charitable causes.

In 2017 Humble Bundle was acquired by IGN, and at the time Graham told Gamasutra that “We want to stick to the fundamentals in the short term. We don’t want to disrupt anything we’re doing right already.”

This week, Graham told GamesIndustry that “after doing this for a while I’m in a place where I think it’s time for me to take a break.” Rosen added that the pair intend to stick around the company for a while, as advisors if nothing else, but claimed “we’re more startup kinda guys, and Humble Bundle has become huge. For our benefit and for Humble Bundle’s benefit, I think Alan is going to do a really good job.”

A longtime game industry exec, Alan Patmore now serves as the EVP and general manager of Humble Bundle. He rose to prominence in the game industry after founding Surreal Software in 1995, and since the studio closed has served in leadership roles at Double Fine, Zynga, and Kixeye.

When playing a platformer, do you ever find yourself throwing caution to the wind and start racing through it masterfully like an unstoppable daredevil?

That feeling and playstyle are what I really wanted to tap into when I first started making games. Before Miles & Kilo, I created a game called Kid Tripp for mobile devices; my pitch for it was simply “an old-school, speedrunner-friendly platformer where you never stop running.” I spent a few years making it in my free time after school, and eventually released it in 2013. Fortunately, it was super well-received (much better than I was hoping for!), so I immediately got to work on a bigger and better sequel.

The first game starred a character named Miles Tripp. His original move-set was simple: he could jump, sprint, and throw rocks. For the sequel, one of my main goals was to introduce a bunch of fun new abilities so I’d be able to design more varied and exciting levels.

Early in development, the idea was to create a large cast of new characters and give each of them a unique ability (for example, one character could slide, another could wall-jump, and so on); but as development progressed I decided to combine all those different moves into my favorite two characters: Miles, the title character from the first game, and his mischievous dog, Kilo. This resulted in two characters with very different movesets that feel really exciting and fluid to play.

The core gameplay loop in Miles & Kilo is simple: You’ll run through a level (sometimes playing as Miles, other times as Kilo), learning the different patterns of traps and enemies until you eventually reach the goal. Levels are designed to be short (usually around 25-30 seconds when perfected), though many of the later, more difficult levels will require dozens of attempts to master. Once you complete the game, you’re encouraged to go back and run through the game again in the Time Attack mode, where your overall time, number of deaths, and score will be uploaded to the game’s leaderboards.

For completionists, we’ve also included a sizable list of achievements to tackle, as well as a grading system to measure your mastery of each of the game’s levels.

Four Horses Ltd. and I are super excited about bringing Miles & Kilo to you now on Xbox One and Windows 10. The game is quite a challenge, so we’d like to wish you good luck, and we look forward to seeing you on the leaderboards!

P.S. Keep an eye out for Miles & Kilo’s predecessor, Kid Tripp, launching on Microsoft platforms later this year!

Miles & Kilo is available now on the Microsoft Store for Xbox One and Windows 10 as an Xbox Play Anywhere title. Click here for more details.

Today’s Deal: Save 20% on Thea 2: The Shattering and 60% on Thea: The Awakening !*

Look for the deals each day on the front page of Steam. Or follow us on twitter or Facebook for instant notifications wherever you are!

*Offer ends Monday April 8th at 10AM Pacific Time

In this week’s snapshot we have a big pile of bugfixes. But honestly, why would you play this when the greatest game of all time was rediscovered just this very week?

A full summary of the content available in this snapshot can be found in the changelog on Minecraft.net.

• Cats can now spawn naturally in villages and not just upon world generation
• Knock knock. Who’s there? Not a pillager because they can no longer open doors…
• Lots of bug fixes!

• MC-2518 – No -breaking sound or- particle effect for some tools and all armor
• MC-10369 – Server side particle spawning does not create particles for client
• MC-66206 – Beacon color change delayed if the beam passes through water, cobweb, leaves
• MC-90594 – Player can stop sneaking/gliding without space to stand up
• MC-113898 – Water below lily pads is replaced by wooden planks village paths
• MC-121105 – Beacon beam color update is slow when too far away from the beacon block
• MC-121148 – Polar bears are required in “Monster hunter” advancement, but are not completely hostile
• MC-125774 – The player keeps its 1 block height of swimming animation when going out of water
• MC-127238 – Beacon colors don’t update as frequently anymore
• MC-129863 – “Crawling” underneath glass/grass paths/other transparent blocks causes bugs
• MC-131116 – Re-entering water while in a crawling state can cause the player to visually stand up
• MC-133042 – Block of grass that grew from dirt under snow is not snowy
• MC-137595 – Podzol generates below other blocks
• MC-137734 – Bamboo can generate on melon
• MC-138751 – “Fullscreen Resolution” setting cannot be adjusted
• MC-138795 – Tamed cats with CatType:0 become wild ocelots upon upgrading to 1.14 snapshots
• MC-139427 – Glass appears dark next to full blocks
• MC-139429 – The ‘b’ in “Jigsaw block” is lowercase
• MC-139478 – Buffet Floating Islands worlds generate dirt instead of grass
• MC-139706 – Pillager-Outposts doesn’t spawn in Superflat-Worlds
• MC-139756 – Village has a pillager outpost
• MC-139841 – Using /locate to find pillager outposts in a superflat world freezes the game
• MC-140307 – Curses on the second item are lost when repairing in a grindstone
• MC-140331 – New village structures can overlap each other
• MC-140355 – Vex attacks Witch
• MC-141986 – Stronghold can generate above surface
• MC-142256 – Lighting/worldgenerator issue: black patches and dark spots appearing in the world
• MC-142692 – World loading progress becomes black after 100%
• MC-142735 – Incorrect/Different ‘/data modify’ behavior
• MC-143092 – “Left click” or “Q” in a recipe of slab in an stonecutter results in loss of items
• MC-143131 – Soul sand doesn’t conduct redstone
• MC-143280 – Stonecutter result slot doesn’t allow fast clicks
• MC-143403 – Items can glitch through solid blocks
• MC-144314 – Fox hitbox is shifted
• MC-144537 – Loading screen appears while changing mipmap levels
• MC-144610 – Spawn chunks are lazy chunks
• MC-144678 – Entities don’t interact with the world far from the player
• MC-144685 – Ender dragon will shoot at players in creative
• MC-145002 – When trying to join a world, the loading screen gets stuck at 100%
• MC-145262 – Entities get stuck in the void when render distance is below 12
• MC-145438 – Arrows and tridents spawned with /summon in a world spawn point too far from (0,0) causes game performance to plummet
• MC-145675 – Ringing bell doesn’t render hand swing animation
• MC-145686 – java.util.NoSuchElementException ticking entity crash when a workstation is destroyed immediately after a villager within a 1-block radius has taken the job matching the workstation
• MC-145705 – Placing a block next to a bell causes the block to appear then instantly disappear
• MC-145716 – Pillager outpost watchtower fails to generate
• MC-145737 – Clicking bell with non-placable item carried play twice sound
• MC-145772 – Large amount of free work sites can cause lag when introducing new villagers
• MC-145798 – Pressing space/enter in book and quill changes page
• MC-145862 – Villagers try to sleep in occupied beds
• MC-145890 – Tab overrides command block suggestions while turned off
• MC-145971 – Chat message text box can be unfocused
• MC-146067 – You can trade with sleeping villagers
• MC-146168 – Pressing enter in the name or seed field on the create world dialog no longer creates the world
• MC-146215 – Error executing task on Client: Playing level event
• MC-146225 – Lava buckets empty with no effect when placed on ladders
• MC-146248 – Cut Sandstone & Cut Red Sandstone cannot be shift-clicked on the stonecutter
• MC-146254 – Loom bottom uses loom top texture
• MC-146272 – Double screen bounce with new sneak/crouch changes
• MC-146288 – Mobs bodies rotate almost instantly to the direction they’re looking
• MC-146293 – Some planks in village bridges appear one block too high
• MC-146297 – Sounds can be heard very far away
• MC-146316 – Ender dragon disappears after being spawned with /summon
• MC-146331 – Mobs heads can’t turn left/right while they’re moving
• MC-146332 – Player can stop sneaking while standing in a 1.5 blocks tall space
• MC-146519 – Game freezes while villager looks for point of interest over void
• MC-146520 – Player can’t move a minecart in any direction except forward
• MC-146521 – Villagers move while trading
• MC-146614 – Oak saplings can appear in chests in savanna villages
• MC-146776 – Typo in Difficulty lock (Difficulity lock)
• MC-146784 – When you right click on the bell with a snow in the hand the block of grass turns white without snow on top
• MC-146789 – Grass turns to dirt when there is snow above it
• MC-146792 – Vindicators and ravagers don’t attack players, villagers and iron golems during raids
• MC-146804 – Not able to right click for more options in crafting menu
• MC-146810 – Villagers stay in houses forever when I ring the bell
• MC-146840 – When signing a book and quill, the next arrow button is visible
• MC-146863 – Shakespearean English’s name occludes its own selection box
• MC-146876 – Vindicators display wooden axes when they spawn in raids
• MC-146927 – Cannot place a bell when aiming at the side of a block it cannot be placed on
• MC-146932 – Pillagers, ravagers and vindicators on raids ignore players
• MC-147003 – Villager’s don’t randomly look at other mobs anymore
• MC-147041 – Fletcher dropping uncraftable tipped arrows for gift (hero of the village loot table)
• MC-147060 – Client freezes if a nearby player swims in water while flying with elytra
• MC-147061 – Kelp gets destroyed all at the same time when the bottom block is broken, unlike sugar cane, bamboo, and cactus
• MC-147152 – Invalid move player packet received / teleporting player to NaN crashes worldsave

Yuzo Koshiro is something of a legend with gamers of a certain age. He’s responsible for some of the most iconic soundtracks of the 16-bit era, composing the tunes that made games like Revenge of Shinobi, Streets of Rage and ActRaiser so memorable.

During his glittering career he’s worked on loads of other games too of course, but his connection with the Mega Drive has arguably made him a figure of affection for many players; those same players will no doubt be over the moon to learn that he’s involved with the Mega Drive Mini, a micro-console that’s launching this September.

The stars really are aligning with this new console, and it should hopefully put to rest all of the bad memories we have of those ghastly Sega clones that have been clogging up store shelves for the past decade. With M2 handling the emulation and the one and only Yuzo Koshiro doing the menu music, this could be a real rival to the NES and SNES Classic Editions.

Now we just need to know what the remaining games are…

It began more than 20 years ago, in the days before sensors monitored soil health, before smart shelves managed product levels, before artificial intelligence and IoT-enabled cameras reduced violent crime.

Before the term “Internet of Things” had been coined, Microsoft Windows was there—but not just on our PCs. It was quietly running on the smallest, embedded devices—the precursors to the intelligent, connected devices of today.

In fact, Windows IoT is more than two decades in the making, and now, Windows IoT is helping businesses of all sizes achieve digital transformation and delight customers with secure, modern experiences that bridge the physical and digital worlds.

Read on to discover how Windows IoT has evolved into one of the most trusted IoT platforms—and learn about the groundbreaking capabilities that are coming soon.

Windows IoT Core: a history of innovation

Since the 1990s, we’ve been innovating our popular Windows OS to meet the needs of device manufacturers, providing a familiar, cost-effective, and secure platform. We were already optimizing Windows for small, single-purpose embedded devices ranging from toys to telephones through our Windows CE and Windows NT Embedded products. Over the years, we have continued to build on this groundbreaking work.

Back when Windows IoT Core was introduced, it was the first time you could run the Windows OS on tiny computers, such as the Raspberry Pi. Designed for device makers, our initial focus was on development kits and building a community of Windows IoT developers. From there, we expanded to meet the needs of commercial customers who wanted long-term support, including a high-quality development environment.

Today, Windows 10 IoT Core is a mature product that enables manufacturers to go to market quickly with small-footprint devices that are secure, low cost, and built for the intelligent edge. Windows IoT Core provides a royalty-free OS for prototyping, developing and testing IoT devices.

Providing security and maintenance for a multitude of devices in the field can be extremely challenging, so one of the biggest additions we’ve made recently is Windows 10 IoT Core Services. Windows 10 IoT Core Services ensures long-term OS support and services for managing device updates and device health. Benefits include reduced operating costs with over-the air-updates for OS, apps, and drivers—plus 10 years of OS system support and enhanced security.

Additionally, with the release of Windows 10 IoT Core on NXP i.MX 6, 7 and now 8M series of application processors, we have support for industrial grade silicon. Meanwhile, we continue to work behind the scenes on products that haven’t been announced yet.

The evolution of Windows IoT Enterprise

For customers wanting the full power of Windows 10, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise provides a locked down, full version of Windows 10 that delivers enterprise manageability and security to IoT solutions across multiple industries. It shares all the benefits of the worldwide Windows ecosystem, including the same familiar application compatibility, development and management tools as client PCs and laptops.

Licensed for fixed-purpose, smart devices, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise features advanced capabilities that make it much easier to configure and lock down mission critical devices. This means that developers can spend more time creating outstanding solutions, without worrying about the nuts and bolts.

Like Windows 10 IoT Core Services, Windows 10 IoT Enterprise includes long-term support. With the critical nature of security, being able to get security updates over the course of ten years without having significant changes in the OS is of enormous value.

Both Windows 10 IoT Core and Windows 10 IoT Enterprise offer easy integration with the Microsoft Azure platform, simplifying scale and device management, as well as the implementation of advanced features like hardware-assisted machine learning inferencing and containers.

Bringing it all together with Azure IoT Edge

Azure IoT Edge extends cloud intelligence and analytics to edge devices, providing a secure and easy way for developers to move cloud and custom workloads to the edge and tap the power of Windows 10 IoT. Azure IoT Edge enables seamless deployment of AI and advanced analytics capabilities, and the Azure IoT Device Agent for Windows makes it easy for operators to remotely configure, update and monitor edge devices.

IoT Edge modules, implemented as Docker-compatible containers, enables management of device updates and the deployment of business logic at the edge. Multiple modules can be configured to communicate with each other, and custom modules can be developed to provide insights offline and at the edge. Again, 10 years of ongoing support, security and patch management add to the ROI as well as customer confidence.

The future of Windows IoT

In late February, we announced the availability of Windows Server IoT 2019, which can securely handle the largest edge computing workloads. Windows Server IoT 2019 brings the power of high-availability and high-performance storage and networking to the edge, addressing latency and connectivity requirements and enabling customers to maintain data on-premises while securely storing and analyzing large amounts of data.

Additionally, we’ve got some thrilling product advancements lined up over the course of the next 12 to 18 months, focusing on end-to-end security, simplicity and cost-effectiveness. We are working with OEMs to bring existing devices onto a new, modern OS—and helping them connect to the cloud. Microsoft is making substantial investments in cloud connectivity and using the power of Windows to accelerate our customers’ journeys to the cloud and the intelligent edge.

From a developer perspective, we are focused on efficiency and making Windows a great place for machine learning through innovations like AI at the edgeWinML allows developers to harness the capabilities of any Windows 10 device to use pre-trained machine learning models—both custom and off-the-shelf—making it immensely powerful and ideally suited to intelligent edge devices. WinML accelerates the evaluation of deep learning models on Direct X12-capable devices. It also evaluates on local hardware, enabling low latency and high performance for quick results.

A great example of the benefits WinML brings to IoT solutions is IoT-PREDICT. This predictive maintenance solution from ActionPoint runs on Windows 10 IoT Enterprise and uses machine learning, as well as data analytics and advanced capabilities, to help manufacturers reduce equipment downtime, save money and drive operational efficiency.

Windows Embedded and now Windows IoT have provided device builders and developers innovative products that offer security, simplicity and flexibility, backed-up with commercial grade support, including 10 years of support with our Long Term Servicing Channel. Windows IoT is accelerating digital transformation and enabling customers to build secure, connected products and modern experiences that delight customers.

We’re proud of how we have helped reshape the business landscape through IoT and the intelligent edge. And we’re thrilled about the road ahead. Stay tuned to see how we continue to lead global IoT innovation.

Meanwhile, be sure to tune into the IoT in Action on-demand webinar, Windows IoT: Business Transformation, to discover how Windows 10 IoT can help you get up and running quickly. You’ll learn how, with a platform that spans cloud, OS and devices, Microsoft IoT technology is uniquely positioned to simplify the IoT journey.

You can also watch the Windows IoT in Manufacturing webinar to hear how our partners are empowering device manufacturers to build secure, connected enterprise and consumer devices with Windows 10 IoT. Watch and discover how you can create trusted, connected solutions that improve business and customer experiences – regardless of company size, technical expertise, budget, or industry.

Microsoft Azure Security Center—the central hub for monitoring and protecting against related incidents within Azure—has released new capabilities. The following features—announced at Hannover Messe 2019—are now generally available for the Azure Security Center:

• Advanced Threat Protection for Azure Storage—Layer of protection that helps customers detect and respond to potential threats on their storage account as they occur—without having to be an expert in security.
• Regulatory compliance dashboard—Helps Security Center customers streamline their compliance process by providing insight into their compliance posture for a set of supported standards and regulations.
• Support for Virtual Machine Scale Sets (VMSS)—Easily monitor the security posture of your VMSS with security recommendations.
• Dedicated Hardware Security Module (HSM) service, now available in U.K., Canada, and Australia—Provides cryptographic key storage in Azure and meets the most stringent customer security and compliance requirements.
• Azure disk encryption support for VMSS—Now Azure disk encryption can be enabled for Windows and Linux VMSS in Azure public regions—enabling customers to help protect and safeguard the VMSS data at rest using industry standard encryption technology.

In addition, support for virtual machine sets are now generally available as part of the Azure Security Center. To learn more, read our Azure blog.