As high concepts go, a text-based real-time strategy game might not sound like the most obvious of mash-ups. A Few Minutes of Glory may look like it dates back to the dawn of the computer age but it is still an intriguing proposition. First of all, you build a medieval army by gathering and spending resources. When you are confident that your army is strong enough, you send them into battle against the AI controlled opposing force. It may sound like Age of Empires without the graphics but each game only lasts for a maximum of four minutes, even less if you play in fast mode. The victor is the first side to earn ten glory points or to have the most glory when the time runs out.
There are four resource-generating buildings, which produce food, wood, gold and stone. Food is needed for basic military units, wood for ranged units, gold is required for advanced military units and stone can be used to construct defensive structures. You may also use wood to build new production buildings, the snag being that the cost increases with each new building. Each production building will produce one resource every second.
Players begin the game with access to five randomly determined military units. To construct one of these units simply tap the box next to it and pay the relevant resources. You will then need to deploy the new unit to either an offensive or defensive role. Constructing walls and towers can further enhance defensive capabilities. Units fall into one of three overriding categories; infantry, ranged and cavalry. There are a total of fifteen different units, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some of the more eclectic types include camels that are great at giving enemy cavalry the hump and monks who have the ability to convert enemy units.
Before battle commences the attacking force has the opportunity to ransack the local countryside for some additional resources. Next up is the combat screen, which displays a breakdown of the opposing forces. In each round of combat, units attack in order of their initiative values and will target a randomly determined enemy unit. The chances of success are calculated by comparing attack strength against the defending unit’s armour rating. There is a handy reference list of all of the units and their initiative attack and defensive values. If the attacking side wins then they are awarded two glory points, whilst a defensive victory only earns one point of glory. After a battle, the attacker has to wait around thirty seconds before they are allowed to initiate another assault, which gives their opponent a bit of time to recover. If either side is vastly outnumbered then they will get a substantial fury bonus added to their attacks. As further consolation, the production buildings of the losing side will be increased by one level because a fear of further defeat makes the population work even harder.
If the timer runs down to zero before either side has managed to earn ten glory points then a final mass battle takes place. The defensive and offensive units on both sides join together, with the winning side earning between two to six points of glory. The potential to earn so much glory in a single confrontation can swing the entire battle.
As the saying goes, one battle does not win a war. The ultimate goal in A Few Minutes of Glory is to win the war by being victorious in ten consecutive battles. After every successful fight, you will have access to a new power; these include resource building upgrades and improved units. Beware though, because a single defeat will bring your civilization crashing down and you will have to start all over again.
I have regularly settled down for a game of A Few Minutes of Glory, hoping that something would click. Unfortunately, I always came away feeling that I was missing something. On paper, the interplay between the abilities of the different units sounds intriguing. However, it often feels like you are poking around in the dark, throwing your limited choice of troops into battle without any real idea of how things are going to turn out. The presentation is so sparse that I could not shake the feeling that I was just toying with a spreadsheet. It is a criticism that has been leveled at the Football Manager games, but at least then the smart presentation and licensing agreements managed to hide this from the player’s view.
In a world of endless sequels and thinly disguised copycat releases, I admire the developer for trying to create something different. I like how the rules try and give a thematic reason for the design decisions. For instance, the inflationary cost of production buildings is explained in terms of the increasing scarcity of available land. I like the variety of units, the fast pace and the tough challenge (even the game’s developer cannot beat the AI on the hardest difficulty level).
Unfortunately, A Few Minutes of Glory feels like an intriguing concept transformed into a pretty dull game. It amounts to watching your resources increase and then clicking on boxes to purchase units. The decisions never feel interesting or involved and it soon becomes repetitive. The heart of A Few Minutes of Glory is the battles and these really need to be represented in a more satisfying way than just a scrolling list. The results flash by so quickly that it fails to build any sense of tension. I don’t expect fancy graphics; a little atmospheric flavour text describing the flow of battle would have done the job. As it stands, the battles feel very anticlimactic. Calculations are made, numbers flash across the screen and then you are told whether you have won or lost. It is then back to gathering more resources, buying more units and doing the whole thing all over again.
A new game development related Humble Bundle, the Humble Fantasy GameDev Bundle has just gone live. This bundle consists of thousands of art assets mostly with a fantasy RPG theme. As always with Humble Bundles, a portion of your proceeds go to the creator, a portion go to the Humble team, a portion goes to charity and a portion can go to support this channel.
Humble Bundles are always split into pricing tiers, although in this case the content is heavily loaded toward the top price tier of $20 USD. If you buy the top tier, you get all of the assets below it. The Fantasy GameDev bundle consists of:
1$ Tier
Potion Icons
Game Chest
SpellBook Page 01
Wooden UI
Fantasy Badges
RPG Weapons Icons
17.31$ Tier
TCG Card Design
Armor Icon Pack
Sci-Fi Skill Icon Pack
Engineering Craft Icons
Loot Icons
Fishing Icons
Flat Skills Icons
Survival Armor Icons
Resources Flat Icons
Mobs Avatar Icons
Character Avatar Icons
Magic Badges
20$ Tier
Fantasy Icon Megapack
SpellBook Megapack
TCG Cards Pack
Action RPG Loot
Action RPG Armor
Fantasy Animate Avatars
RPG Class Badges
Western Icons
GUI Megapack
Monster Avatar Icons
Fantasy Characters
Fairytale Icons Megapack
The bundle is available here while you can see the contents of the Bundle in the video below. Unfortunately the license is not clearly stated, however the Humble team made the following tweet:
The 2019 Game Developers Conference will feature an exhibition called Alt.Ctrl.GDC dedicated to games that use alternative control schemes and interactions.
Gamasutra will be talking to the developers of each of the games that have been selected for the showcase.
Coal Rush creates competition out of running a train, having players scoop coal, change tracks, and scare wildlife off the tracks with its locomotive controls
Gamasutra had a chat with Alec Bergström, Producer on Coal Rush, to hear about the challenges that came from designing the game’s huge controller, the difficulties in keeping things from getting too taxing with such a physically-demanding game, and capturing the appeal of being a train conductor in the Wild West.
The conductors
My name is Alec Bergström. I was the producer and scrum master for the project. I also worked on the physical build with our lead designer, Simon Ågren.
We’re students at Uppsala University Campus Gotland, and we’re studying game design currently, so in Team Moon Moon we have only created one other digital game. We are now in our second year of our Bachelor’s Degree, and we are working on two more digital games this spring. Most likely in separate teams this time, though.
Creating an engaging arcade game out of a train
As a project at Uppsala University Campus Gotland, we were to create a concept for an arcade game, and then create said concept as a full game. The actual idea itself was a result of brainstorming, where we wanted to come up with a game that would make people really engaged in what they were doing. We also wanted it to gather people who weren’t playing and make them as engaged in the gameplay. Coal Rush was the result of one of the brainstorming sessions we had at the beginning of the project, and went through a ton of iterative cycles to develop into the final idea and booth.
A locomotive controller
It’s quite straightforward, really. The different controllers are based on classic actions you would associate with trains, or steam locomotives. The Shovel is used to shovel coal from the coal pile to the furnaces, which is done at a quick pace constantly to remain at a high speed. The Lever is used in the way you would imagine, just pulling it. It changes the direction of track intersections to either make you or your opponent switch tracks. As for the Horn, it is pulled down and will scare any animals on the tracks away from your horn.
Train-building equipment
Coal Rush is made entirely in Unity, except for graphics and animations, which were made in Adobe Photoshop.
The first complete physical build was made with plywood and wooden beams. It stood on 6 wooden pallets, 3m high, 2.5 meters deep, and 2.5 meters wide. The new iteration for GDC will be different, as we will need to downsize in order to afford shipping it across the Atlantic, and will most likely stand at 2x2x2m and be made from lighter materials such as MDF.
On choosing which interactions to put into Coal Rush
We had shoveling coal as the only input in the beginning, but realized the player needed more to do. The lever and horn were just the first few things that came to mind that made sense. However, when it came to making the choice of which functions to include, we had to consider both the theme of the game and how much they contributed to the user experience. The shoveling of the coal would make the game quite hectic, which in a competitive scenario was something we really wanted. The lever and horn would become great tools of enhancing that competitive feeling by not only having control of your own train, but the game world around you so as to mess with your opponent.
Seeking that physical play experience
We wanted the player experience to be centered around the physical. When we thought of an arcade hall, we thought of the more physical games you can play, where you actually had tools to use rather than a joystick and some buttons. We wanted Coal Rush to fit firmly into that category, and so prioritizing the physical properties was, to us, the obvious choice.
As for how we designed it, we had quite a clear concept in terms of the aesthetics we wanted the player to feel, but we weren’t quite sure if it would be fun for the player. The amount of playtests we had helped us narrow down what made it a good experience for the player, and we pushed to create that. Quite honestly, the design of the game was not decided early on, but it only started with an idea that sounded good and narrowed down to be good through player feedback. All design decisions we made were evaluated on whether we perceived it to be thematically accurate, and whether it conformed to the aesthetics we wanted.
On making their train game competitive
It started with a “what if?” when we decided to implement the lever as a function. The simple idea was that the lever would change all tracks on the game screen. Once we realized the possibility to change the track for the opponent would enhance the competitive nature of the game, we decided that the horn should do this as well. The obstacles and animals spawn in parts of the level and so you are not always able to mess things up for your opponent, but when the possibility is there, we found that players really enjoy looking for it.
The challenges of Coal Rush‘s colossal controller
We wanted to create a steam locomotive that the player would stand in. Due to material restrictions, we were unfortunately not able to completely make it into this, but we think we created quite an industrial vibe.
The first difficulty that comes to mind is where we could even build it. It was eventually built on a team member’s front lawn at their parents’ house, which we are extremely thankful for! At the convention at the Gotland Game Conference, we also had to move the booth from the assigned spot, as we couldn’t fit the booth there.
In terms of development difficulties, we had some trouble creating such a large booth with regards to finding the correct materials without making the booth feel ridiculously oversized or cramped.
Taking care when designing a physically demanding game
I think it creates a different aspect of gaming, as you receive physical feedback instead of visual. The challenge is making it fun and pushing the player without making it too tough or exhausting. It took a while to refine the game to where a game session was just the right time so the players could feel like they worked without being exhausted.
The appeal of becoming a train conductor
It’s not so much the profession itself that has the draw, but the theme of the wild west and the physical nature of the job makes for a great way to promote a competitive spirit! Capturing the appeal of the wild west theme, for us, was done by our graphics team, so big hats off to them for the great thematic backgrounds and models. The physical nature of the job was captured well, I think, by emulating the things you would think are done in a steam locomotive, but I guess the switching tracks is a bit of a stretch!
Free Play Days: NBA 2K19 and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Here’s this weekend’s all-star lineup for Free Play Days! Xbox Live Gold members can celebrate all-star weekend with NBA 2K19 and play Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege in-between matches of the Six Invitational for free. The Free Play Days event begins Thursday, February 14 at 12:01 a.m. PT and runs through to Sunday, February 17 at 11:59 p.m. PT. You can find and install the games here. To download on console, click on the Gold member area on the home dashboard on your Xbox One.
The games are also available at a discount (see below) so you can continue playing while keeping your Gamerscore and achievements earned in-game.
NBA 2K19
Whether you’re on Team Giannis or Team LeBron, make the most of NBA All-Star Weekend and hit the court! In this critically acclaimed basketball video game, unlock special moves with the new Takeover feature, create your very own MyPLAYER card in MyTEAM, or run the neighborhood with live events on the block. With an all-new narrative in MyCAREER, fans can go from neighborhood legend to global phenomenon and live out their NBA dreams.
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege
Jump in to this intense, tactical shooter where explosive action awaits you! Work as a team and put your strategies and tactics to work against the opposition. In combat, you will have access to an array of weapons, gadgets, and operators to defeat your enemies and their surrounding environment. With Rainbow Six Siege, expect an evolving experience with new content, maps, balancing changes, and more.
This weekend, you can also tune in to Mixer to watch the third annual Six Invitational, the most prestigious tournament in the Siege esports calendar, streaming live from Montreal at https://mixer.com/rainbow6. Programming highlights include:
The Grand Final of the tournament on Sunday
Live broadcast premiere of the Rainbow Six esports documentary: “To Win It All: The Road to the Six Invitational”
Full reveal of Operation Burnt Horizon, the next season of new content set in Australia
Don’t miss out on this weekend’s great games! Learn more about Free Play Days here and stay tuned to Xbox Wire to find out about future Free Play Days and all the latest news on Xbox.
STEINS;GATE ELITE follows a rag-tag band of tech-savvy young students who discover the means of changing the past via e-mail using a modified microwave.
New Overwatch Paris Map And Update Now Live On PS4, Xbox One, And PC
Paris, the newest map for Blizzard's popular hero shooter, Overwatch, is now live across PS4, Xbox One, and PC. The map arrives as part of a new patch that also fixes numerous bugs and other issues in the game.
Paris is the fifth Assault map to hit the game. It's set in the titular French city and features narrow streets, corridors, and storefronts to funnel players into firefights. It also encompasses a variety of areas, most notably the Cabaret Luna, the Pâtisserie Galand, and the sprawling Maison Marat located in the heart of the city.
The Paris map made its debut in Overwatch earlier this month on the PC test servers, but this marks the first time it is available on all platforms. If you want to take a closer look at it before hopping in, you can watch us play a round on the new map in the video above.
In addition to Paris, the new Overwatch patch implements a long list of general and character-specific bug fixes across platforms. Among other things, Blizzard has patched out a bug that allowed Symmetra's teleporter to reach "unintended" areas, as well as one that prevented an enemy from being hit by Reinhardt's Earthshatter if they were pinned by his charge. You can find the full patch notes on Blizzard's website.
Overwatch's annual Lunar New Year event recently wrapped up on February 18, and as usual, it introduced a variety of seasonal skins. Blizzard also made some big buffs and nerfs to certain characters as part of that update, notably Brigitte and D.Va; the former's Rally was capped at a maximum duration of 30 seconds, while the latter's Defense Matrix cooldown was increased from 1 second to 2 seconds.
New Book Delves Into The History Of Star Fox And F-Zero
Star Fox and F-Zero. Hearing those two names – assuming you’re of a certain age – will probably force you to come out in fits of nostalgia, your mind flooded by memories of the good old days when the SNES and N64 were the hottest tickets in town.
Today, neither franchise really seems to be at the forefront of the Nintendo’s mind; sure, we had Star Fox Zero not so long ago and there are rumours of a racing game showcasing Fox and his buddies, but surely such an esteemed series deserves better – and as for being part of an (admittedly good) Ubisoft toys-to-life game?Tut. And don’t get us started on the state of the F-Zero series…
Before we get too angry, it’s worth pointing out that those lovely people over at Hardcore Gaming 101 have produced any of their excellent ‘Digest’ books which is focused on – you guessed – Star Fox and F-Zero.
This fourth HG101 Digest covers a lot of ground; it lists every game in both series, as well as the history of British developer Argonaut Software (which looks at titles like Starglider and the Game Boy title, X) and a study of similar on-rails shooters. It’s packed with screenshots, art and loads and loads of lovely, and comes with supplemental bonus features focusing on Castlevania fan games and anime, Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap remake and 11 (more) best video games of all time. Phew!
Fancy picking up a copy? Then head over to Amazon and lay down some cash.
Please note that some of the links on this page are affiliate links. If you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale which helps support the site. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
VR Game Elevator…to the Moon! Is Coming Soon To Switch
Previously released on VR platforms, Elevator…to the Moon! Turbo Champion’s Edition is a sci-fi comedy set in an elevator that – true to its title – goes to the moon, and it arrives this March on Switch courtesy of Roccat Game Studio and Arcade Distillery.
This elevator belongs to the ‘President of the World’, a particularly demanding individual who wishes for you to repair the malfunctioning contraption. Of course, it’s your choice whether you listen to the Arnold Schwarzenegger-soundalike or ignore his screaming; through the course of the game he’ll give you increasingly unreasonable orders which you’re free to follow or not.
Here are some more details from the blurb:
You are a space cadet, rudely commanded by the President of the World to “Liberate” a Moon Elevator, evoking the wrath of the world’s most powerful AI. Will you crack under pressure trying to hold this broken Space Elevator together?
Obey! The ridiculous demands of President of the World, Doug-Slater Roccmeier, solving head scratching puzzles or…
Disobey! And cause hilarious havoc, or find your own sweet spot. Each way of playing has its own advantages and outcomes as you navigate through a plot with more twists and turns than a twisty-turny thing! It’s up to you, intrepid elevator person, to blaze your own altitudinal path…to the moon!
The Switch edition of this VR original gets some new motion-based pointer controls, and a bonus mini-game, entitled ‘Bat Batty Bats’. Ahem. It looks to be a pretty surreal ride, and we dearly hope that we’re told to GET TO DA CHOPPER! at some point.
We’re intrigued to see how this VR experience translates to the handheld – with whispers that Nintendo are planning moves into the VR space, possibly via a low-tech Labo route, perhaps we’ll be seeing more VR originals coming to Switch in the not-to-distant future.
So, you’re trapped in a lift with only the President for company – what do you do? Let us know in the comments.
STMicroelectronics announced its first Cortex-A SoC and first Linux- and Android-driven processor. The STM32MP1 SoC intends to ease the transition for developers moving from its STM32 microprocessor unit (MCU) family to more complex embedded systems. Availability was a bit unclear, but it appears ST is sampling the SoCs at the very least.
Aimed at industrial, consumer, smart home, health, and wellness applications, the STM32MP1 features dual, 650MHz Cortex-A7 cores running a new “mainlined, open-sourced” OpenSTLinux distro with Yocto Project and OpenEmbedded underpinnings. There’s also a 209MHz Cortex-M4 chip with an FPU, MPU, and DSP instructions. The Cortex-M4 is supported by an enhanced version of ST’s STM32Cube development tools and supports the Cortex-A7 cores in addition to the M4 (see below).
Like most of NXP’s recent embedded SoCs, including the single- or -dual Cortex-A7 i.MX7 and its newer, Cortex-A53 i.MX8M and i.MX8M Mini, the STM32MP1 is a hybrid Cortex-A/M design intended in ST’s words to “perform fast processing and real-time tasks on a single chip.” Hybrid Cortex-A7/M4 SoCs are also available from Renesas, Marvell, and MediaTek, which has developed a custom-built MT3620 SoC as the hardware foundation for Microsoft’s Azure Sphere IoT framework.
As the market leader in MCUs, ST has made a larger leap from its comfort zone than these other semiconductor vendors. NXP is also a leading MCU vendor, but it’s been crafting Linux-powered Cortex-A SoCs since long before it changed it named from Freescale. The SM32MP1 launch continues a trend of MCU technology companies reaching out to the Linux community, such as Arm’s new Mbed Linux distro and Pelion IoT Platform, which orchestrates Cortex-M and Cortex-A devices under a single IoT platform.
Inside the STM32MP1
The STM32MP1 is equipped with 32KB instruction and data caches, as well as a 256KB L2 cache. ST also supplies an optional Vivante 3D GPU with support for OpenGL ES 2.0 and 24-bit parallel RGB displays at up to WXGA (1280×800) at 60fps.
The SoC supports a 2-lane MIPI-DSI interface running at 1Gbps and offers native support for Linux and application frameworks such as Android Qt and Crank Software’s Storyboard GUI. While the GPU is pretty run-of-the-mill for Cortex-A7 SoCs it’s a giant leap from the perspective of MCU developers trying to bring up modern HMI displays.
Three SoC models are available: one with 3D GPU, MIPI-DSI, and 2x CAN FD interfaces, as well as one with 2x CAN FD only and one without the GPU and CAN I/O.
The STM32MP1 is touted for its rolling 10-year longevity support and heterogeneous architecture, which lets developers halt the Cortex-A7 and run only on the Cortex-M4 to reduce power consumption by 25 percent. From this mode, “going to Standby further cuts power by 2.5k times — while still supporting the resumption of Linux execution in 1 to 3 seconds, depending on the application,” says ST. The SoC includes a PMIC and other power circuitry such as buck and boost converters.
For security, the SoC provides Arm TrustZone, cryptography, hash, secure boot, anti-tamper pins, and a real-time clock. RAM support includes 32/16-bit, 533MHz DDR3, DDR3L, LPDDR2, LPDDR3. Flash support includes SD, eMMC, NAND, and NOR.
Peripherals include Cortex-A7 linked GbE, 3x USB 2.0, I2C, and multiple UART and SPI links. Analog I/O connected to the Cortex-M4 include 2x 16-bit ADCs, 2x 12-bit DACs, 29x timers, 3x watchdogs, LDOs, and up to 176 GPIOs.
OpenSTLinux, STM32Cube, and starter kits
The new OpenSTLinux distribution “has already been reviewed and accepted by the “Linux community: Linux Foundation, Yocto project, and Linaro,” says ST. The Linux BSP includes mainline kernel, drivers, boot chain, and Linaro’s OP-TEE (Trusted Execution Environment) security stack. It also includes Wayland/Weston, Gstreamer, and ALSA libraries.
Three Linux software development packages are available: a quick Starter package with STM32CubeMP1 samples; a Dev package with a Yocto Project SDK that lets you add your own Linux code; and an OpenEmbedded based Distrib package that also lets you create your own OpenSTLinux-based Linux distro. ST has collaborated with Timesys on the Linux BSPs and with Witekio to port Android to STM32MP1.
STM32 developers can “easily find their marks” by using the familiar STM32Cube toolset to control both the Cortex-M4 and Cortex-A7 chips. The toolset includes GCC-based STM32CubeProgrammer and STM32CubeMX IDEs, which “include the DRAM interface tuning tool for easy configuration of the DRAM sub-system,” says ST.
Finally, ST is supporting its chip with a four development boards: the entry level STM32MP157A-DK1 and STM32MP157C-EV1 and the higher end STM32MP157A-EV1 and STM32MP157C-EV1. All the boards offer GPIO connectors for the Raspberry Pi and Arduino Uno V3.
The DK1/DK2 boards are equipped with 4GB DDR3L, as well as USB Type-C, USB Type-A OTG, HDMI, and MIPI-DSI. You also get GbE and WiFi/Bluetooth, and a 4-inch, VGA capacitive touch panel, among other features.
The more advanced A-EV1 and C-EV1 boards support up to 8GB DDR3L, 32GB eMMCv5.0. a microSD slot, and SPI and NAND flash. They provide most of the features of the DK boards, as well as CAN, camera support, SAI, SPDIF, digital mics, analog audio, and much more. They also supply 4x USB host ports and a micro-USB port. A 5.5-inch 720×1280 touchscreen is available.
