Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp has been gracing our mobile screens for just over a year now, no doubt tiding over many of the series’ fans while we wait for the highly anticipated Switch game due later this year. It’s a solid experience for smartphones, and indeed for the franchise, but the game could have been something very different entirely.

During its development, Pocket Camp faced several issues. Originally, the game was planned to release in autumn of 2016, but was soon pushed back to a new expected launch date of March 2017. The month of March soon arrived without any footage or solid information, though, and it was once again delayed during an investors meeting.

Eventually, in October 2017, the game was finally revealed to be Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp and was to feature gameplay elements that were typical of the series. Had the game launched during its original schedule, however, things would have been very different, as discovered by video game researcher and archiver, Liam Robertson, in this DidYouKnowGaming? video.

Robertson explains that Nintendo was originally working on something internally known as Animal Crossing: Town Planner, which was described as a game in which players could build and manage their own towns from scratch, with other features such as light economy management elements also being included. Players would be able to visit the towns of their friends and trade items over the internet.

After being in development for a year it was reportedly falling short of Nintendo’s standards, being “too bare bones and simplistic”, and was eventually replaced with the ideas present in Pocket Camp. You can learn more about it in the full video below, which also explores how different Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Project Hammer, Splatoon, and Tokyo Mirage Sessions FE might have been under different circumstances.

Do you enjoy playing Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp? Are you glad that this early idea was scrapped, or would you have liked the game to be as it was originally intended? Feel free to share your thoughts with us below.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Here are just some of the many, many positions being advertised right now. If you’re a recruiter looking for talent, you can also post jobs here.

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Adult Swim Games is looking for an experienced Product Manager to join its team. The company is after a developer with demonstrated ability to partner with multiple internal and external stakeholders to deliver your product, ability to work in a fast-paced, dynamic and nimble environment which can pivot very quickly to reflect the changing needs of the company or industry, and a bachelors degree or commensurate work expereince to contribute to its product development, product definition, and product strategy efforts.

Location: North Hollywood, California

The team seeks a dev to lead Communications (PR, Social, Community) activities as pertaining to Game Mechanic Studios and their products. Working within the marketing team, this role is expected to lead external product communication for all Game Mechanic Studios products, including ideation, strategy and execution of: PR activities and social media and community engagement.

Location: San Diego, California

Psyonix, an independent video game developer located in downtown San Diego, is looking for an experienced UI Lead to oversee interface design and development on Rocket League! You will be working with our established team of UI artists and programmers to maintain and improve existing features as well as supervise the concept, design, and implementation of future features for Rocket league and Rocket League China.

Location: Online/Remote

CG Spectrum is looking for mentors with triple-A games experience to help develop an industry standard game design course and/or teach online. We offer casual and full-time positions at a competitive salary, alongside a flexible schedule and the ability to work from anywhere.

Location: Espoo, Finland

While working as a Technical Producer, you will be managing the technical aspects of the project and will help maintain the master schedule. Daily activities include planning, managing, documenting and tracking project schedules and workflows, managing trade-offs and eliminating blockers.

Valve has tweaked how the user review system works on Steam in an effort to combat review bombing, which has been an area of concern for some developers for quite some time.

While it’s not currently clear how effective Valve will be in identifying off-topic reviews (or whether it will help in solving the issue), this is good news for developers who may have been worried about their own titles.

Review bombing has been a serious issue for devs, with Devotion being the latest game to be hit. Valve had previously made changes to its user review system back in 2017 to tackle spamming.

As explained in a blog post, Steam will try to minimize the number of “off-topic review bombs” on the user score displayed at the top of a game’s store page by letting users opt-in through their account preferences to see all reviews counted.

How does Valve identify off-topic reviews? By using a tool they built, the goal is to “identify any anomalous review activity on all games on Steam in as close to real-time as possible,” and then notify “a team of people at Valve, who’ll then go and investigate.”

“Once our team has identified that the anomalous activity is an off-topic review bomb, we’ll mark the time period it encompasses and notify the developer. The reviews within that time period will then be removed from the Review Score calculation.”

But Steam users can still choose to have off-topic review bombs included in all the Review Scores they see, it just needs to be enabled with checkbox under their Steam Store options.

According to the post, the “off-topic” criteria refers to reviews “where the focus of those reviews is on a topic that we consider unrelated to the likelihood that future purchasers will be happy if they buy the game.”

Complaints about DRM and EULA changes are considered off-topic under this rule, with Valve defending its reasoning that “the ‘general’ Steam player doesn’t care as much about them, so the Review Score is more accurate if it doesn’t contain them.”

R.B.I. Baseball 19 released Tuesday – earlier than ever before – providing Xbox One baseball fans around the world a fun, fast-paced, authentic Major League Baseball experience several weeks before Opening Day. Players can play as their favorite MLB team, hit dingers in every MLB ballpark, win the World Series and compete against your favorite Player 2 in local or online multiplayer mode. Curious to see what the latest installment looks like? Watch the brand new gameplay trailer above featuring “We Can Do This All Day” by Banzai.

In this year’s edition of R.B.I. Baseball, fans can expect more MLB authenticity through newly added animations, more gear options including more variety with bats, elbow guards and compression sleeves that are specific to every player, every official 2019 uniform and some new twists to make for an even more exciting experience. The dev team have added two-way players that fans can take advantage of to optimize their franchise, more MLB Legends and brand-new Legends Teams.

Future managers will be excited to see a ton of expansions to our rosters. Our “New Player” option allows fans to easily see the new MLB players that can be added to their player pool. Not to mention players can expect weekly roster & stats updates throughout the regular season starting on Opening Day.

In addition, players will be pleased to see that we completely expanded our Home Run Derby mode. In 2018, when the Home Run Derby mode was first introduced, players were limited to only playing as one the 8 Home Run Derby contestants and the All-Star Game ballpark for that year. In R.B.I. 19 players can now pick any MLB player, ballpark and customize their bracket for the ultimate Home Run Derby showdown!

New to the game? Need some pointers? Here are a couple to get you started.

For starters, its baseball – don’t swing at bad pitches and you can check your swing by quickly tapping the swing button if an easy to hit pitch ends up being a curve ball! Down and Swing, with the proper timing will yield more home runs. Up and swing will result in more grounders.

For pitching, hitting Up and the Pitch button will yield a slower pitch, that depending on the pitcher the ball may hit the ground right in front of the plate. Don’t be scared to throw that heat by holding Down and the Pitch Button to yield a fastball.

What are you waiting for? Get your copy today! For more information about R.B.I. Baseball 19, follow @RBIGAME on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

R.B.I. Baseball 19 is available now on Xbox One via the Microsoft Store. Click here for purchase details.

This week at Bungie, we launched Season of the Drifter.

The Drifter has moved down to the annex. His new operation is online and ready for players. Gambit was just the beginning. Gambit Prime is the new hotness.

Winning a match of Gambit Prime is just the start of your new journey to max Power. For Annual Pass owners, the Reckoning is the featured PvE activity for this season. To reach your full potential as a Gambit Prime teammate, follow the loop between the two challenges. Take your Gambit Prime rewards and four-person fireteam into the Reckoning to earn new armor that will unlock powerful new perks, making you even more deadly when you return to Gambit Prime. Here is a taste of what the Reckoning has to offer.

Top Tier

Tier 1 of the Reckoning was your first step. From here, the challenges and the rewards escalate! Tier 2 goes live tomorrow and ups the difficulty, adding additional objectives, areas, and a new boss to the battle. Next Friday, we’ll up the ante one more time.

Tier 3 is considered endgame content, requiring Power level 680 to enter and meant to offer a worthy challenge to all you powerful Guardians as you gear up to max Power this season. The activity is set to 690 so bring your best gear. We recommend forming up a fireteam for coordination, but matchmaking is still available to you.

Next week, we also have the Thorn quest kicking off on March 12. A mysterious spot in the EDZ holds a clue. Seek it out to start your journey in search of the Hand Cannon shrouded in darkness. At the same time you set off in search of Thorn, the Allegiance quest will become available. This offers you a choice: Stand with the Vanguard or cast your lot with the Drifter. The choice is made per character, so if you have multiple characters, they can each choose their own path.

Come Get Us

We have three more streams lined up for you. We will be doing three Gambit Prime Bungie Bounties over the next three weeks featuring all three platforms, starting with Xbox.

March 13, 10 AM Pacific: Xbox Bungie Bounty

March 20, 10 AM Pacific: PS4 Bungie Bounty

April 3, 10 AM Pacific: PC Bungie Bounty

The rules are the same. Seek us out during the two hours the bounty is live, and defeat us in Gambit Prime. Do that, and everyone on your team will receive the Sign of Mutual Combat emblem.

Guardians’ Guardians

The Player Support team is always working diligently behind the scenes. They are making sure you have the info you need to have the best Destiny 2 experience.

This is their report.

Season of the Drifter Support

This week, Season of the Drifter kicked off in Destiny 2. For those who want to be in the know, listed below are support resources that players can use to discover vital information about this new season.

Players looking for info not provided in the links above should search our support archive on help.bungie.net.

Known Issue Callout: Weekly Bounty Resets

In Update 2.2.0, a change was erroneously made which impacted the availability of several sources for powerful rewards in Destiny 2. Specifically, weekly bounties from vendors have not yet reset for some players who completed them last week.

Among these sources, the vendors most notably impacted are Ada-1 and Petra Venj, who each offer routine powerful rewards through their weekly bounties. It’s also worth noting that players who are unable to complete these bounties for Ada-1 cannot receive Ballistics Logs to forge her weapon frames.

Currently, we are working to resolve this issue in an upcoming hotfix. In the meantime, players should expect these sources to reset every Sunday, starting at the daily reset on March 10. As always, we’ll be sure to sound off with more information when it is available.

Destiny 2 Season of the Drifter Known Issues

Whether you’re a bona fide Dredgen or you’re still climbing your way up the ranks in Gambit, we’ve got the details you need on the latest known issues in Destiny 2.

• Korean and Polish Crashes: After the launch of Update 2.2.0, some players using the Korean and Polish language options encountered crashes when interacting with the Drifter. Players encountering this issue should log out and log back in to trigger an update that will resolve this issue.
• Gambit Maps: To mitigate an issue where Blockers were not spawning, Kell’s Grave and Cathedral of Scars have been disabled in the Gambit playlist. These maps will be re-enabled when this issue is resolved.
• Drifter’s Weapon Pursuits: We’re investigating an issue where the pursuits for Malfeasance and Breakneck are not progressing as expected in Gambit and Gambit Prime.
• “Acting Bad, Looking Good” Quest: We are investigating an issue where the “Acting Bad, Looking Good” Quest is not completing when players wear a full Ancient Apocalypse armor set and win a Gambit match.
• “Dark Age Arsenal” Triumph: We are investigating an issue where the “Dark Age Arsenal” Triumph is not unlocking when players win a classic Gambit match with a Gambit weapon equipped in every slot.
• Clan XP and Rewards: We are investigating an issue that is preventing Gambit Prime and the Reckoning from granting Clan XP upon activity completion.
• “The Best Offense” Triumph: We are investigating an issue where the Triumph “The Best Offense,” which awards Oxygen SR3, isn’t counting the correct number of Orbs of Light generated in strike activities.
• Offering to the Oracle: We are investigating player reports describing the Offering to the Oracle no longer being in their inventories after Update 2.2.0.
• Powerful Reward Levels: We are investigating reports describing that powerful rewards are dropping at lower than expected levels.
• Stronghold Titan Exotic: We’re investigating an issue where the “Clenched Fist” perk is not activating on the Stronghold Exotic Titan gauntlets when players use Black Talon.
• Crown of Tempests: We are investigating an issue where Arc Warlock melee ability kills may not trigger Conduction Tines on Crown of Tempests.
• The Vow Infusion: We are investigating an issue where the Vow cannot be infused above 650 Power.
• PC Performance: We are investigating an issue impacting Destiny 2’s performance on PC after the latest Windows 10 Update.
• Primevals Disappearing: We are investigating an issue where Primevals are despawning in Gambit Prime, resulting in ties or incomplete matches.
• Practice Makes Perfect: We are investigating an issue where the Hunter Gunslinger perk Practice Makes Perfect may not be activating as expected on consoles.
• Radiant Matrix Duplication: We’re investigating an issue where players may sometimes receive two copies of the Radiant Matrix, resulting in one always occupying a slot in the player’s inventory or postmaster.
• “Invading with Style” Bounty: Players should be aware that the Drifter’s “Invading with Style” daily bounty must be completed by getting double kills in the Crucible, not Gambit. This is the intended behavior for this bounty.
• Loaded Question Ornament: We are investigating an issue where the Powerful Statement ornament tooltip for Loaded Question says, “Requires: Annual Pass,” when it should be accessible for all players.
• Gender Callouts in Gambit: We are investigating an issue where dialogue from the Drifter does not recognize the Guardian’s gender.
• Gambit Medals: We are investigating an issue where classic Gambit medals earned in Gambit Prime are not appearing in the UI. Please note that these medals are still being awarded appropriately.
• “Well Well Well” Medal: We are investigating an issue where the “Well Well Well” Medal in Gambit activities does not have a name when it appears on screen.
• Gambit Invader Kills: We are investigating an issue where Gambit activities may mistakenly report that players’ motes are lost when they defeat an enemy invader.
• Season 5 Clan Banner: We are investigating an issue where the Season 5 clan banner has no title or description in its tooltip.
• Ghost Holograms: We are investigating an issue where Legendary Ghost Holograms which display subclass-based colors always appear red when applied to the Kill-Tracker Ghost.
• Heroic Story Mission Stats: We are investigating an issue where the post-game screen is not displaying all relevant information after completing daily Heroic story missions.
• “Clan Up” Triumph: We are investigating an issue where the “Clan Up” Triumph is unlocking for players outside of Gambit Private matches.

For the running list of all Destiny 2 known issues, players are encouraged to visit our Destiny 2 Known Issues support page.

As always, players who encounter issues should report to the #Help forum. There, DPS, volunteer moderators, and other players can help answer questions.

When reporting a gameplay issue, providing screenshots, captured video, or repro steps will help Destiny Player Support investigate your report.

Movies?

How many Movies of the Week have there been? It’s got to be like over 20 by now. Someone should go count them. Anyway here are this week’s winners.

Movie of the Week: Guitar Medley

Honorable Mention: Last Rites

I’m going to be out of the office next week. I’ll keep an eye on things from home, but Dylan will be your main contact for all things community. Look for us both out in Gambit Prime and the Reckoning this week.

<3 Cozmo

If you like efficiency and minimalism, and are looking for a new window manager for your Linux desktop, you should try dwm — dynamic window manager. Written in under 2000 standard lines of code, dwm is extremely fast yet powerful and highly customizable window manager.

You can dynamically choose between tiling, monocle and floating layouts, organize your windows into multiple workspaces using tags, and quickly navigate through using keyboard shortcuts. This article helps you get started using dwm.

Installation

To install dwm on Fedora, run:

$ sudo dnf install dwm dwm-user

The dwm package installs the window manager itself, and the dwm-user package significantly simplifies configuration which will be explained later in this article.

Additionally, to be able to lock the screen when needed, we’ll also install slock — a simple X display locker.

$ sudo dnf install slock

However, you can use a different one based on your personal preference.

Quick start

To start dwm, choose the dwm-user option on the login screen.

After you log in, you’ll see a very simple desktop. In fact, the only thing there will be a bar at the top listing our nine tags that represent workspaces and a []= symbol that represents the layout of your windows.

Launching applications

Before looking into the layouts, first launch some applications so you can play with the layouts as you go. Apps can be started by pressing Alt+p and typing the name of the app followed by Enter. There’s also a shortcut Alt+Shift+Enter for opening a terminal.

Now that some apps are running, have a look at the layouts.

Layouts

There are three layouts available by default: the tiling layout, the monocle layout, and the floating layout.

The tiling layout, represented by []= on the bar, organizes windows into two main areas: master on the left, and stack on the right. You can activate the tiling layout by pressing Alt+t.

The idea behind the tiling layout is that you have your primary window in the master area while still seeing the other ones in the stack. You can quickly switch between them as needed.

To swap windows between the two areas, hover your mouse over one in the stack area and press Alt+Enter to swap it with the one in the master area.

The monocle layout, represented by [N] on the top bar, makes your primary window take the whole screen. You can switch to it by pressing Alt+m.

Finally, the floating layout lets you move and resize your windows freely. The shortcut for it is Alt+f and the symbol on the top bar is ><>.

Workspaces and tags

Each window is assigned to a tag (1-9) listed at the top bar. To view a specific tag, either click on its number using your mouse or press Alt+1..9. You can even view multiple tags at once by clicking on their number using the secondary mouse button.

Windows can be moved between different tags by highlighting them using your mouse, and pressing Alt+Shift+1..9. 

Configuration

To make dwm as minimalistic as possible, it doesn’t use typical configuration files. Instead, you modify a C header file representing the configuration, and recompile it. But don’t worry, in Fedora it’s as simple as just editing one file in your home directory and everything else happens in the background thanks to the dwm-user package provided by the maintainer in Fedora.

First, you need to copy the file into your home directory using a command similar to the following:

$ mkdir ~/.dwm
$ cp /usr/src/dwm-VERSION-RELEASE/config.def.h ~/.dwm/config.h

You can get the exact path by running man dwm-start.

Second, just edit the ~/.dwm/config.h file. As an example, let’s configure a new shortcut to lock the screen by pressing Alt+Shift+L.

Considering we’ve installed the slock package mentioned earlier in this post, we need to add the following two lines into the file to make it work:

Under the /* commands */ comment, add:

static const char *slockcmd[] = { "slock", NULL };

And the following line into static Key keys[]:

{ MODKEY|ShiftMask, XK_l, spawn, {.v = slockcmd } },

In the end, it should look like as follows: (added lines are highlighted)

...
 /* commands */
 static char dmenumon[2] = "0"; /* component of dmenucmd, manipulated in spawn() */
 static const char *dmenucmd[] = { "dmenu_run", "-m", dmenumon, "-fn", dmenufont, "-nb", normbgcolor, "-nf", normfgcolor, "-sb", selbgcolor, "-sf", selfgcolor, NULL };
 static const char *termcmd[]  = { "st", NULL };
 static const char *slockcmd[] = { "slock", NULL };
 
 static Key keys[] = {
 /* modifier                     key        function        argument */
 { MODKEY|ShiftMask,             XK_l,      spawn,          {.v = slockcmd } },
 { MODKEY,                       XK_p,      spawn,          {.v = dmenucmd } },
 { MODKEY|ShiftMask,             XK_Return, spawn,          {.v = termcmd } },
 ... 

Save the file.

Finally, just log out by pressing Alt+Shift+q and log in again. The scripts provided by the dwm-user package will recognize that you have changed the config.h file in your home directory and recompile dwm on login. And becuse dwm is so tiny, it’s fast enough you won’t even notice it.

You can try locking your screen now by pressing Alt+Shift+L, and then logging back in again by typing your password and pressing enter.

Conclusion

If you like minimalism and want a very fast yet powerful window manager, dwm might be just what you’ve been looking for. However, it probably isn’t for beginners. There might be a lot of additional configuration you’ll need to do in order to make it just as you like it.

To learn more about dwm, see the project’s homepage at https://dwm.suckless.org/.

In space, no-one can hear you puzzle. They can’t hear you scream, either, as you draw up a new hand of cards, only to find the critical command you need to execute isn’t among them. Nor can they hear you swear as your latest run ends in ignominious failure. Again.

This is Assembly, a new digital adaptation of a card game from independent publisher Wren Games. The original could be played co-op or solo but on mobile you’ll only get the latter option. Good job there’s still plenty in this cunning puzzle game to entertain you.

The premise is that you’re on a malfunctioning satellite and need to use its glitchy systems to assemble an escape craft. In practice, it means you’re looking at a ring of twelve room cards. To win, you’ll need to get the matching module token in each room and lock it into place. The catch – of course, there’s a catch – is that when you deploy a module you get a random one and it’s placed in a random room.

Deploying modules is one of the commands you can issue each turn. A hand of three command cards you hold, drawn from a small deck, limits your choices of actions. You draw up after playing a command card but it’s a bitter bonus as cycling the command decks is also the game’s timer. Run through it three times and you’re dead. Other commands at your disposal involve moving those randomly-placed modules around. The simplest one swaps the position of any two. The others all rotate the ring of room cards either left, right or in the direction of your choice.

The random placement of modules and of drawn commands is the key that makes this simplistic setup blossom into a strategy/puzzle game. It sets up a fascinating tension. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and deploy a module where it needs to be, or where you can easily move or swap it. More often you’ll have more work to do to get it where it needs to be. The question is: how much randomness are you willing to risk?

For example, you want to push out modules if you’ve got the right cards for it. But on each reshuffle of the command deck, all the room blueprint cards swap around randomly. So there’s no point in moving them round close to when the timer expires. But the same command card that adds modules to the game also locks them in place. So push your luck too much and you won’t have the commands needed to benefit from any luck you might happen to attract.

Instead, it’s all about keeping a balance while praying to the RNG gods to give you a break. You’ll need to assess the card deck, timer, and module position and decide whether it’s worth swapping or moving cards around. You also have other choices at your disposal for emergencies. You can discard your whole hand to choose any command. And you’re also given a role, a one-off special power. Noah the Systems Engineer, for example, can lock three modules instead of the usual one.

Wren Games is a small studio who built this app themselves and it shows in the presentation. It’s functional but effective. There are a couple of annoying interface niggles, like having to dismiss the tutorial boxes every game. Sometimes the game allows you to select, but not carry out, illegal plays. The worst is the rotation dialog box whose unhelpful arrows make it look like rooms are rotating when in fact it’s modules that rotate. These are minor irritations but compounded by a lack of an undo button. Such frustrations are quite minor, though, when each game only takes around five minutes.

Despite this, Assembly does a surprising job of launching you into deep space. The ice-cold orchestral soundtrack and starfield background help a lot. But the theme meshes well with the straightforward mechanics. That makes it a tasty choice for bite-sized puzzling. Much of the joy comes from figuring out strategies to reliably beat the game, of course. Once you get there a choice of difficulty levels and the random factors provides decent replay value. It’s got all the pieces needed to assemble a satisfying conundrum to set yourself.