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T’is the season of failed festivals, although the latest on the list arguably isn’t quite on par with the high-profile Fyre fiasco.

An unofficial event – billed as ‘the Fortnite event of the year’ by the organisers and promising rock climbing, go karts, laser tag, plus the requisite dose of the most popular Battle Royale game on the planet – left many attendees unhappy due to long queues, poor planning and staff shortages. Stations to sit and play the free-to-play game were present and correct, but there weren’t nearly enough to satisfy the 2,500 fans who turned up to share their enthusiasm for battling royally.

While Kotaku drew comparisons between this and the multi-million dollar fraud-fest that recently inspired Hulu and Netflix specials, we doubt attendees to this Norwich-based weekend event had similar expectations to those paying thousands of dollars to party with influencers on Pablo Escobar’s private Caribbean island.

It seems Fortnite Live attendees expected more, though. Staged at Norfolk showground, tickets started at £12 – going up by another £20 for ‘unlimited access’ – but visitors soon got miffed when it became clear that the organisers simply weren’t prepared for the number of attendees.

BBC News spoke to one Oliver Phillips who called the event “pretty rubbish […] the sort of thing you see at a school fete.” Mr Phillips also described the ‘cave experience’ as a “trailer, no bigger than a car, with a tunnel going through it”. Let’s see what he means:

© Justine Petersen/Facebook

Hmm. To be fair, a video update from the organisers – which has since been removed – showed an indoor area that was actually better than we expected after reading reports, but queues are never going to go down well, especially if you’ve forked out for the deluxe ‘unlimited access wristband’ and end up waiting in line to play a game you can play at home instantly, and for free.

The company that organised the event apparently has others planned for the future, so hopefully they’ll be better prepared next time.

Were expectations simply too high or was this an avoidable state of affairs? Did you attend the event? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

This interview is part of our Road to the IGF series. You can find the rest by clicking here.

after HOURS has players sharing a tiny space with Lilith, a young woman suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) due to childhood molestation. Through sharing her space and thoughts, players will get to witness the break between the objective reality and the hurtful realities the disorder creates.

Gamasutra sat down with Bahiyya Khan, designer of the Best Student Game-nominated after HOURS, to talk about using discomfort and pressure to draw out empathy and understanding, using FMV and animation to recreate the dual realities of BPD, and the challenges of exploring (and reliving) difficult topics like molestation. 

Who is Bahiyya Khan?

Existentially? Who can say? Some things that I do know is that my name is Bahiyya Khan and I’m the game designer and writer for after HOURS. I play Lilith, the protagonist in the game, and since it’s a full motion video game,  I co-directed it. I also provided my own teenage poetry for the game, which is very cool to me.

Breaking from what games “should” be

When I was in my final year of high school, I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I mean, I knew I wanted to be in a band and write, but I have brown parents so hahaha yeah. I ended up studying game design at university because I figured I could make games about being in a band.

I only *really* started making games three years into my four-year degree. I mean, I made games for school, but I was so unhappy in my degree for the first two years that I just didn’t give a shit about what I was making. Half the time my best friend was carrying me through my degree cause I was just so sad and felt like an outcast. Once I stopped caring about all the things that everyone told me a game “should” be,  that’s when I began making games that I cared about and actually had fun doing it.

Using rage to help others

I had to make a year-long game for my honors project at varsity. A year is a long time, so I knew that I wanted to make something important. Unfortunately, at the time, there was a rise in violence against women and children in South Africa. Friends and family I’d known my whole life had also come out to me about being raped or molested. I’ve also experienced a disgusting amount of sexual assault and fuck man, I was fucking furious about it all. That’s when I decided to make my honors game about it. I wanted to direct my rage into something that could potentially help people.

In terms of the Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) aspect, I have it and it is my desire to kick its arse in the pit. A lot of people that have BPD have been sexually abused in childhood or just have had unstable childhoods, so it made sense to me to show that Lilith has developed this disorder because she was abused. I was also so sick of people with BPD being demonized, whether by The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) or just experiences I had in my own life.

So, I wanted to show that we’re not evil people. We’re hurting and trying our best and we read “Catch 22” a lot and like The Front Bottoms enough to stick their lyrics on our bedroom walls.

The tools to create after HOURS

Initially, I prototyped the game in Twine. I did that to kind of guide the way I wanted the game to flow. I also mapped out the game on paper. I just drew out how I wanted the bedroom to look and what I wanted players to be able to interact with. The game was then filmed using a Sony a7s ii camera and #MadeWithUnity.

Very importantly, we also used our hands and brains and hearts. Lest the general public forget that video games are made by people.

On choosing to explore the challenging topics of after HOURS

I’m a woman that lives in South Africa. We have one of the highest rape rates in the world. I needed to talk about it. I wanted survivors and people with BPD to feel less alone. To not feel like they’re insane for feeling the emotions that they do. That they are valid and are more than what has happened to them or their illness.

The difficulties of developing a game about heart-wrenching topics

A lot of the development process was the worst! Wow, it was really bad. So, in the beginning, I was working in Twine, whatever, that wasn’t too emotionally taxing ‘cos I’d just sort of done vague plot points.  When I had to get into the character of Lilith, that’s when things started getting bad. I have BPD, so a lot of Lilith’s reactions are very close to my own, and performing something on camera that I hate going through in my actual life was really weird and uncomfortable.

The molestation aspect of the game ruined me. It actually ruined my life and I’m still trying to recover from it. Immersing yourself in content like that for concentrated periods of time… I just couldn’t stop thinking about how ugly it is that it exists. I was losing my mind trying to come up with solutions to end all the pain for people. I couldn’t live with the knowledge that I had. I became obsessed with reading articles about children that had been molested because I felt like I wanted these kids to not just be another statistic but for someone out there to know their names. All the scenes in the game where I’m crying and tearing down my room, I really was that angry.

Sometimes I’d be unable to do my bit of work on the game because I was so depressed and that would, in turn, set everyone back and just make the whole process really pressurized and awful and it was a really bad cycle.

Leaving the player with no room to relax

My intention wasn’t for the player to passively consume her story. I knew that I wanted them to play the game with bated breath and give them no room to relax – to sort of mirror some of what Lilith goes through. I wanted them to have access to the voices in her head so that they could contrast that against what was “objectively” happening and think about the dissonance in Lilith’s reality and how scary it is not being able to trust your perception of things.

I wanted players to interact with her thought processes when sending texts to her boyfriend or friend and then not give them agency in choosing certain options to show them how often Borderline people feel like they have no agency in their lives, and are being dragged by the hair by the evil bastard in their brains.

Using FMV & hand-drawn animations to create a split reality

I’m pop-punk trash and watch a lot of music videos, and one of my favorite bands, All Time Low (pls notice me), released this music video for their song Nice2KnoU which combined hand-drawn animations over film, and I thought that looked dope as hell. Then I was like, “Shit! This will be perfect for after HOURS!” because the way I feel as a person with Borderline is that a lot of the time, the reality that I experience is different to everyone else’s. It’s a more wounded and intense reality. That’s when I decided to use animation in the game to show that sort of split in reality – what is objectively going on and what is going on for Lilith.

I feel like I often inhabit a different reality as opposed to everyone else, and while this is true for all human beings, I feel like mine is different in a much more intense way. I thought adding the animations were a useful tool in depicting this. They also help with letting the players know when Lilith is triggered by something or experiencing a particularly strong emotion by the repeated trope of her eyes being scratched out or an animated snake going into her head and symbolically poisoning her mind.

Drawing out empathy with after HOURS

I want to make people uncomfortable. I feel like a lot of the time, people watch their friends or whoever experiencing depression in a rather passive way. They don’t see who you are when you’re alone. They can’t see into your mind or see what you see. And while no one can ever really inhabit your reality and experience your depression or what it’s like to be molested, I want players to get as close as they could to empathizing with those realities in a 20-minute video game.

“Despite interest in the topic by parents and policy-makers, the research has not demonstrated that there is cause for concern.”

– Oxford Internet Institute Director of Research and lead researcher Andrew Przybylski details the findings of the study.

Researchers at the University of Oxford’s Oxford Internet Institute have published the findings of a study into the relationship between aggressive behavior in teens and violent video games, finding that, in short, no link exists.

The study’s subject itself isn’t new ground by any means, but Oxford researchers say that their case has a few notable differences from past studies that, according to the University, make it “one of the most definitive to date.”

The paper, which can be found in its entirety on Royal Society Open Science, collected data from a representative sample of British 14- and 15-year-olds as well as from their caretakers, totaling 2,008 participants in all. Both parties answered a series of questions provided by researchers, with the teenaged participants answering a questionnaire on their personality and video game habits while caretakers answered the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Games were also classified according to PAL or ESRB ratings, rather than participant-defined content descriptions.

“Following a preregistered analysis plan, multiple regression analyses tested the hypothesis that recent violent game play is linearly and positively related to carer assessments of aggressive behavior,” reads the paper. “Results did not support this prediction, nor did they support the idea that the relationship between these factors follows a nonlinear parabolic function. There was no evidence for a critical tipping point relating violent game engagement to aggressive behavior.”

Researchers also note that, unlike other studies on the subject, they opted to publicly preregister their hypothesis, methods, and analysis technique before starting in on the research itself in order to prevent personal bias from playing a part in the findings. 

“Our findings suggest that researcher biases might have influenced previous studies on this topic, and have distorted our understanding of the effects of video games,” co-author Dr. Netta Weinstein told Oxford. 

Today is an exciting day for MLB fans. Not only are pitchers and catchers reporting for Spring Training, but R.B.I. Baseball 19 will launch March 5 on Xbox One and is available for pre-order on the Microsoft Store. Baseball is back, Spring is right around the corner, and we’re even closer to Opening Day! We’re also excited to unveil the R.B.I. 19 intro video with music featuring “Warrior” by Evaride that you can watch above.

In case you missed the news over the last few weeks, we revealed Houston Astros third-baseman Alex Bregman as our cover star & Toronto Blue Jays second baseman and shortstop Lourdes Gurriel Jr. as our Canadian cover star.

With R.B.I. Baseball 19, fans can enjoy new additions and improvements across all aspects of the game with a genuine MLB experience, heightened authenticity, and incredible depth including the ability to manage your MLB franchise across multiple seasons, hundreds of new animations, updated player models, every official 2019 uniform, more player gear, improved ball physics, and enhanced environments!

For more information on R.B.I. Baseball 19, follow @RBIGAME on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

R.B.I. Baseball 19 is available for pre-order today on Xbox One via the Microsoft Store. It will launch on Xbox One March 5. Click here for more details.

Footage of the crack/fissure that just formed near Tomato Temple! #Fortnite
(via @Armer10F) pic.twitter.com/eOjFudt7BY

— Fortnite News - fnbr.news (@FortniteBR) February 14, 2019

Now this looks interesting. Half racing game, half demented physics puzzler, Fromto is a turn-based racer. Players construct the track in build rounds and then challenge each other with ever trickier designs and alterations. It appears that you all race the same track, so while it’s all very adding ridiculous obstacles and jumps, you’ll have to negotiate it yourself before long. So, there’s a balance to be struck between being an utter git and making something completable. Sounds perfect for some local competitive multiplayer on Switch, then!

The game is from Studio Erikson and that childish art style comes from the developer’s children. Now, before you get too concerned or begin imagining labour practices that might not be be entirely surprising coming from some of the larger companies, this is a family team and the game takes partial inspiration from both the father’s childhood drawings and those of his kids in the present day.

The team’s official blurb gives more details on the background:

Fromto is a very unique 2D racing game (1-4P) from the Netherlands, coming to PC and Switch in Q2. Its special as it was made by a contemporary artist called Erik Habets together his two little kids Niki (5) and Joep (2). They are creating many of the assets for the game and you can clearly see their influence in some crazy gameplay features. This all began when Erik found an old black and white drawing, made by himself at a similar age.

The result is the chaotic racer/builder you see in the launch trailer, and we think it looks very fun indeed. We’ll find out when the game releases in that nebulous ‘Q2 2019’ period.

Like the idea of creating a monster your mates can’t conquer before showing them how it’s done? Let us know if this looks up your alley in the comments.

When we first clapped eyes on Yoshi’s Crafted World, we’d be lying if we said our first thoughts weren’t something along the lines of ‘oh look, another Yoshi game’. That’s not to say we didn’t like what we saw, but the Yoshi series has always played things a little bit safe in the past, and at first glance, beyond the art style, one might say the same about this crafty addition to the Switch’s library. Well, now we’ve actually played it – and gone beyond the single level available in the free demo – what do we have to say now?

First off, let’s get the obvious out of the way; the game’s adorable as heck. If you point to anything on-screen that isn’t alive, you can be certain it’s made to look like a child’s arts and crafts project in a way that’s simultaneously realistic and unrealistic. If you don’t know what we’re on about, have a look at some of the screenshots scattered around this article.

It’s an aesthetic that works, and works by the bucketload. If you can stand there and state in earnest that you don’t find at least something charming about the way this game looks, we reserve the right to stand in a similar spot and call you a heartless fiend. The tiny little details from the Shy Guys waving tiny paper butterflies on sticks, to a train being made out of a cola can, it all smacks of creativity, and gives the levels we tried a great sense of consistency.

But enough about the looks, anyone with eyes already knows what a visual treat it is; how does the ruddy thing play? Well, it’s a Yoshi game. It feels almost exactly like Yoshi’s Woolly World for the most part, but it’s in the finer details where things start to change. For one thing, our favourite green dinosaur (or should that be Yoshi?) from the Mario franchise isn’t restricted to just going left and right; in a style similar to a handful of levels in Yoshi’s Story, he can go forwards and backwards through the oft-forgotten Z axis, where the levels allow it.

You’re not allowed to run entirely free, however; you’re only allowed to move along predetermined paths that are clearly indicated underfoot. It sounds restricting at first, but considering every 2D platformer has the same linearity of movement, it’s actually quite refreshing to suddenly go up rather than constantly right.

Eggs now behave quite differently as well; you have free control over the aiming reticule and can aim at quite literally anything you can see onscreen that isn’t the HUD or yourself. Enemies in the backdrop? Throw an egg at them. Coins in the foreground? Throw an egg at them. An inconsequential piece of indestructible scenery to your immediate left? Throw an egg at it, although that won’t do much. Where this benefits the game most is in the hidden collectables, as previous games relied on borderline obscure corners housing invisible winged clouds, but Crafted World adding a whole new dimension (literally) allows hidden items to be hidden in much less convoluted and obtuse manners, but still concealed enough to make finding them a fun little challenge.

We also got to have a go at the ‘flipside’ of a level, where the camera pans around Yoshi 180 degrees so you can see the back of everything as you search for lost Poochy Pups. It’s nice to see the courses from a different angle, and it can help you find collectables you may have missed before, but it’s definitely taken much more of a back seat compared to how it was shown off in earlier presentations of the game. So much so that a previously promoted mechanic whereby two Yoshis ground-pound simultaneously to flip the perspective on command is no longer present. Yoshi’s Flipping Island this certainly isn’t.

Speaking of co-op, we had a pop at that as well. We didn’t get much of a chance to play it for any great length of time, but from what we played it felt quite different. In Woolly World, for example, it could often feel like your co-op partner was either just getting in the way, storming off ahead of you, or lagging behind. We can’t quite say how or why, but in Crafted World it feels a lot more balanced, and you’re able to help each other out a lot more effectively. Naturally, you can still swallow your partner and spit them out into danger; there’s all the sabotage you’d like, so if that’s more your jam, worry not.

All in all, Yoshi’s Crafted World looks like it’s shaping up to be a fine game indeed. The new mechanics are fun and add a bit of a new spin on things, the aesthetic is wonderful, and whilst all of it doesn’t amount to anything revolutionary, it’s still very entertaining and there’s plenty to enjoy for fans of the series. It may well end up being ‘just another Yoshi game’, but if it gets all that right, that’s more than alright with us.

Yoshi’s Crafted World lands on the Nintendo Switch on 29th March.