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We got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell.

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

• Added new Note block sounds
• Fixed bugs
• Sprites for particles can now be configured in resource packs (though particle still controls how they will be used)

NOTE BLOCK

• 5 new Note block sounds have been added: Iron Xylophone, Cow Bell, Didgeridoo, Bit, and Banjo
• 1 previously existing, but unused, sound effect has now been made available: Pling
• The new Note block sounds can be heard by using Iron Blocks, Soul Sand, Pumpkins, Emerald Blocks, Hay Blocks, or Glowstone

To get snapshots, open your launcher and go to the “launch options” tab. Check the box saying “Enable snapshots” and save. To switch between the snapshot and normal version, you can find a new dropdown menu next to the “Play” button. Back up your world first or run the game on in a different folder (In the “launch options” page).

Please report any and all bugs you find in Minecraft to bugs.mojang.com.

Snapshots can corrupt your world, please backup and/or run them in a different folder from your main worlds. 

Share your thoughts on how 1.14 is shaping up in the comments below!

The more petals Lionel swept into his garbage bag, the more there seemed to be. His back, slightly crooked with age, burned in protest as he continued to stoop and work.

A man in a long coat stood watching him on the opposite side of the long hallway. Lionel figured he’d go away eventually, but the man stayed, idly flipping a green coin.

“Can I help you?” Lionel asked, growing annoyed.

“They make elders do this? Can’t the maintenance frames handle it?”

“Speeds things up. The petals get everywhere from the… whatever the kids call it.”

“Crimson Days.”

“That’s the one.”

“Come on! No one’s too old to celebrate Crimson Days.”

“My wife died the day the Tower fell.”

The man stared at the ceiling. Lionel continued to sweep.

“I got nothing to do today,” the man said. “Let me take care of this for you.”

“No, thanks.”

Lionel dumped another dustpan full of petals into his bag, then turned and walked right into the man’s outstretched hand: palm up, full of glowing, sapphire cubes.

“Lotta Glimmer,” Lionel said, eyeing the money and the man in turn.

“Yours. Let me finish this job for you.”

“You a Guardian?”

 “It’s complicated.”

Lionel stared down at the pure material potential sitting in the man’s hand.

“I’ll take your vest and hat, too,” said the man. “Please.”

**

The man took off his coat and put on Lionel’s orange vest. He put on Lionel’s hat and pulled it low, covering his eyes. As he walked, he passed a frame diligently sweeping the connecting antechamber, and paused to point back toward the petal-strewn hallway he’d just come from. “You missed a spot,” he said. The frame stared at him, then at the hallway. It marched towards its new objective.

The man continued his walk.

**

Warlock Aunor Mahal brushed past a maintenance worker in an orange vest emptying a trash can into a large plastic bag. The door to the Consensus closed heavily behind her.

The Vanguard and representatives from various City factions had gathered around a massive table. Cayde’s seat was empty.

“The Drifter poses no immediate threat to the population,” Zavala was saying to the Consensus as Aunor approached. “Therefore, we motion to grant him a more permanent lease—”

“My Order disagrees,” she cut in fiercely.

Zavala turned. With a slight incline of his head, he gestured from her to the rest of the group, “This is Warlock Aunor, representing the Praxic Order.”

“I have paperwork to file, so I’ll make this short,” she said. “If the Vanguard is willing, the Praxic Order would like to excise the Drifter from the City. Immediately. We’ll do it ourselves.”

Zavala turned to look at her. “The Praxic opinion is noted. But the City welcomes all Guardians—“

“He’s no Guardian.”

“The City welcomes all of humanity who are willing to stand in defense of the City.”

“Commander, with due respect, you asked the Order to have a voice in this discussion.” She looked Zavala in the eye, and swept her gaze around the table to address the Consensus and Ikora. “The Praxic Order has existed since the founding of the City to keep artifacts of the Darkness out of Guardian hands. In our opinion, the Drifter represents as great a threat to our people as Ghaul or the Taken King.”

“Go on, girl,” Executor Hideo said, steepling his fingers.

“She is no ‘girl,’” Ikora hissed.

Aunor ignored them both, continuing, “The Drifter has convinced the Guardian population to use the Taken as a weapon. To murder Guardians.”

“There have been no final deaths,” said Zavala.

“That we know of,” Aunor replied. “You’re allowing that man to normalize interaction with the Taken.”

Ikora and Zavala shared a look.

“The past few months, the Praxic Order has seen a historic number of Guardians go rogue.”

“’Rogue,’ ‘rogue,’ what is ‘rogue,’” Arach Jalaal said. “Everyone is a rogue now. It is fashionable to be a rogue.”

“You’ll see it in my report,” Aunor said. “Some have adopted the name ‘Dredgen.’ You want my professional opinion? Ideas are powerful things, and the Drifter has too many. Board that travesty he calls a ship and throw him out an airlock, before the City sees another Dark Age.”

The Vanguard and the Consensus looked at her in silence.

“I have paperwork to file,” she said again, turning around. “You know where my office is.” As she left, she saw that same maintenance worker had fallen asleep in the entrance way, hat over his eyes, leaning against a trash can. She narrowed her eyes.

Following the Taiwanese game rating reveal last week, it has now been officially confirmed that Attack On Titan 2: Final Battle is headed to Nintendo Switch.

The game follows the third season of the Attack on Titan anime adventure, with its story mode playing through selected characters’ points of view with major heroes active in Season 3 (who are playable for the first time). This boosts the total number of playable characters to more than 40.

If you fancy learning more, check out this description provided in a press release today:

“Attack on Titan 2: Final Battle will feature two new gameplay experiences: A frenetic anti-personnel combat feature using anti-personnel omni directional mobility gear and an all-new wall reclamation mode focused on recovering outside territories. Here, players will have an ability to choose a leader of their squad, pick out the members they want to include – even members who were never together in the original work, and set out to reclaim the lands from the Titans. Thunder Spears will also be equipped for battle for the first time, allowing the take down of the Armored Titan when a normal blade just won’t cut it.”

Final Battle will be made available for digital purchase as an Upgrade Pack to fans who already own Attack on Titan 2, and it will also be available for purchase as a special digital or physical bundle. You’ll be able to check out the action for yourself from 5th July.

Did you enjoy Attack on Titan 2 on Switch? Will you be checking out this new content? Tell us below.

Flatlandia is a miniaturized Heroes of Might & Magic, and that may be the first and only thing you need to know about it. What, still here? Fiiinnneeee: The Heroes formula of fantasy strategy combines a fixed, board-game-like strategic layer in which the player builds and customizes armies, and a tactical layer with powerful heroes that’s heavy on magic and special abilities. It’s a design that for some reason hasn’t really been duplicated, although the original series has spawned seven sequels.

Heroes of Flatlandia is a great homage to (or clone of, depending on your point of view) those games, simplified for mobile, for better or worse.

One way Flatlandia distinguishes itself is through its goofy chibi-by-way-of-Warcraft artistic style that is colorful and communicative. It’s a great game to look at, and the only thing I would change is to add the option to overlay a visible hex grid for those times when you need to be a little more precise.

There’s a fair variety of units, but more importantly, all units are quite distinct. Each one has its own special ability or two that make it a unique threat on the battlefield, all the way down to your basic starter units. The Elf faction’s cheap wolves are great blitz attackers to pick off weaker units since they always attack first and get bonus movement for the first two turns. The Undead’s basic gargoyles are great at blocking units in, since they turn to stone and get extra armor during the opponent’s turn. On top of the units you have two distinct heroes for each faction to choose, and they gain special abilities as they level up. You also gain spells that let you attack or buff/debuff.

The most important tactic is taken directly from Heroes of Might & Magic: stacking units. Your armies are limited to six distinct units, but you can stack up as many identical units as you like, making units that move as one but hit harder and last longer. An army with a lot of stacked units has a big advantage, and may be better avoided.

The number of tactical-level maps is quite limited, and furthermore the terrain doesn’t really affect tactics. Unit positioning doesn’t have a strong impact, except when assaulting walled cities. There are no zones of control around units, so you are free to waltz in between the front lines and take out less well-armored magic users. Cover is similarly of little effect since it is easy to walk around.

The AI is quite good, and puts up a significant challenge, especially on the tactical battlefield. It will zero in on your weakest units and exploit holes in your defenses ruthlessly. You will have to play carefully if you’re pitting two evenly-matched armies against one another and can expect heavy casualties. The AI is also quite efficient strategically: on three-player maps I found one of the AI players quickly eliminated the other and was often still strong enough to take me on. Unfortunately there is no online play, which is a big hole in a turn-based strategy game. There is however pass-and-play local multiplayer available as some consolation.

The biggest disappointment at the strategic level is how long it takes to contact the enemy. I think this is a consequence of the oversized maps, which give each player enough room to grow to full strength before they necessarily encounter each other, even on “small” maps. There are also only a couple three-player maps. This sort of slow-paced strategy game would be far more entertaining with three or even more players bumping into one another, racing to snag resources, and forming ad hoc alliances before stabbing each other in the back.

Instead, at the strategic level, you only have a few key decisions to make: the first is which resource to pursue next, based on the strength of the neutral units protecting it. Then you have to decide how to spend those resources to upgrade your army as fast as possible. Should you buy all the available units from your city? Or ignore them in favor of upgrading the city to produce stronger units? Essentially, the game is a race to see who can build a strong army the fastest, and then send it rampaging through their opponent’s territory. That said, the AI is good at doing this, which means the game is still quite a challenge, even if you spend most of it fighting neutral units.

Controls generally work well, although since everything is controlled with single taps you can sometimes send an army marching to join another army when all you meant to do was select the other army. A quick undo button on the main map and tactical screen would be a big help here.

In the end, Flatlandia is a limited, mobile-focused clone of Heroes of Might & Magic. It doesn’t have PC-level depth, but what is there is worth playing, especially with the challenging AI. The developer is active, and I would expect more maps, heroes and factions in the future, so this may be one to watch if ‘mobile HoMM’ isn’t an insta-buy.

Shigeru Miyamoto is right up there as one of Nintendo’s most famous and adored talents (likely sitting comfortably at the top of that list for many), and is arguably one of the most important and influential game developers of all time. The creator of Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and plenty more besides hardly needs any introduction, though, so let’s get to the good stuff.

Working alongside such an industry legend sounds like it would be exciting, inspiring, and probably a little bit terrifying, as expressed by Nintendo’s Shinya Takahashi and Hisashi Nogami in an interview with The Guardian. Miyamoto’s role at Nintendo has shifted in recent years – it’s been well documented that he now acts more as an advisor, rather than getting stuck in himself – and Takahashi provides an insight into how that plays out at Nintendo HQ.

“He is not involved in the minute details of development, but does oversee entire projects and identifies major issues: this part is bad, this part is bad, THIS part is bad … ” laughs Takahashi. “If he says something’s good, it’s rare, and you know it is. Although he’s been saying quite a few things are good, I should say. He’s actually a shy person – even when he thinks something is well done, he would not often say that to someone directly.”

If someone we respected to such a level told us that something we had been working on was “bad”, we’d probably break down in tears on the spot; while these Nintendo veterans are clearly much stronger than us, Miyamoto’s opinion still clearly means a lot to those working under his watchful eye. The interview goes on:

“I have never once been praised by Mr Miyamoto,” Nogami chimes in, deadpan.

“Perhaps not to your face, but behind your back he’s very pleased with you,” Takahashi laughs.

If you’re interested in hearing more, you can read the full interview right here.

Is Miyamoto one of your gaming industry idols? Imagine how different things would be without his work…

One-man developer Force Of Habit has revealed its latest project destined for Switch: a retro-style shooter called Neon Caves.

This one’s press release describes it as “an experimental offshoot” of Toast Time: Smash Up!, a multiplayer brawler which launched on Switch towards the end of last year. This new release (we say ‘new’ – it actually launched on the OUYA back in 2014) is designed using the same movement mechanics that were present in that game, but changes things up to use them in a brand new, arcade-action twitch gameplay environment.

The game has you exploring the titular Neon Caves, a fragile ecosystem lost to the world for centuries. Recently rediscovered by your research team, you’ll need to use your ship’s anchor ability and elite implements to stabilise the cave while keeping the hostile inhabitants at bay.

Game Features:
– Endless arcade-action gameplay. How long can you survive?
– 9 unique enemy types: including historically accurate giant crustaceans!
– 4 awesome power-ups: rapid fre, bombs, invincibility and ghost ship!
– 28 Achievements
– Nintendo Switch exclusive Online Leaderboards

Neon Caves will be available to pre-purchase on the Switch eShop from 15th March in Europe and 20th March in North America, with its final release date scheduled for just a week later on the 27th. You can pick it up for just $3.99 / £3.99 / €3.99, and this price will actually be discounted by 25% during the pre-purchase period.

What do you think? Will this be going on your Switch wishlist? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Microsoft is built on the belief of empowering people and organizations to achieve more – it is the DNA of our company. Today we are announcing a new initiative, Microsoft Game Stack, in which we commit to bringing together Microsoft tools and services that will empower game developers like yourself, whether you’re an indie developer just starting out or a AAA studio, to achieve more.

This is the start of a new journey, and today we are only taking the first steps. We believe Microsoft is uniquely suited to deliver on that commitment. Our company has a long legacy in games – and in building developer-focused platforms.

There are 2 billion gamers in the world today, playing a broad range of games, on a broad range of devices. There is as much focus on video streaming, watching, and sharing within a community as there is on playing or competing. As game creators, you strive every day to continuously engage your players, to spark their imaginations, and inspire them, regardless of where they are, or what device they’re using. Today, we’re introducing Microsoft Game Stack, to help you do exactly that.

What Exactly is Microsoft Game Stack?

Game Stack brings together all of our game-development platforms, tools, and services—such as Azure, PlayFab, DirectX, Visual Studio, Xbox Live, App Center, and Havok—into a robust ecosystem that any game developer can use. The goal of Game Stack is to help you easily discover the tools and services you need to create and operate your game.

The cloud plays a critical role in Game Stack, and Azure fills this vital need. Azure provides the building blocks like compute and storage, as well as cloud-native services from machine learning and AI, to push notifications and mixed reality spatial anchors. Azure is already available in 54 regions globally, including China, and continues to invest in building highly secure and sustainable cloud infrastructure and additional services for game developers. Azure’s global scale is what will give Project xCloud streaming technology the scale to deliver a great gaming experience for players worldwide, regardless of their device and location.

Already with Azure, companies like Rare, Ubisoft and Wizards of the Coast are hosting multiplayer game servers, safely and securely storing player data, analyzing game telemetry, protecting their games from DDOS attacks, and training AI to create more immersive gameplay.

While Azure is part of Game Stack, it’s important to call out that Game Stack is cloud, network, and device agnostic. And we’re not stopping here.

What’s New?

The next piece of Game Stack is PlayFab, a complete backend service for building and operating live games. A year ago, we welcomed PlayFab into Microsoft through an acquisition. Today we’re excited to announce we are bringing PlayFab into the Azure family. Together, Azure and PlayFab are a powerful combination: Azure brings reliability, global scale, and enterprise-level security; PlayFab provides Game Stack with managed game-development services, real-time analytics, and LiveOps capabilities. Last fall, we saw what these two platforms can do together with PlayFab Multiplayer Servers, which allows you to safely launch and scale up multiplayer games by dynamically hosting your servers with Azure cloud compute.

To quote PlayFab’s co-founder James Gwertzman, “Modern game creators are less like movie directors, and more like cruise directors. Long-term success requires engaging players in a continuous cycle of creation, experimentation, and operation. It’s no longer possible to just ship your game and move on.” This is why a year ago, we welcomed PlayFab into Microsoft through an acquisition. PlayFab supports all major devices, from iOS and Android, to PC and Web, to Xbox, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo Switch; and all major game engines, including Unity and Unreal. PlayFab will also continue to support all major clouds going forward.

Today we’re also excited to announce five new PlayFab services, in private preview today (contact us to join the preview):

PlayFab Matchmaking

Powerful matchmaking for multiplayer games, adapted from Xbox Live matchmaking, but now available to all games and all devices.

In public preview today:

PlayFab Party

Voice and chat services, adapted from Xbox Party Chat, but now available to all games and for all devices. Party leverages Azure Cognitive Services for real-time translation and transcription to make games accessible to more players.

PlayFab Game Insights

Combines robust real-time game telemetry with game data from multiple other sources to measure your game’s performance and create actionable insights. Powered by Azure Data Explorer, Game Insights will offer connectors to existing first- and third-party data sources including Xbox Live.

PlayFab Pub Sub

Subscribe your game client to messages pushed from PlayFab’s servers via a persistent connection, powered by Azure SignalR. This enables scenarios such as real-time content updates, matchmaking notifications, and simple multiplayer gameplay.

PlayFab User Generated Content

Engage your community by allowing players to create and safely share user generated content with other players. This technology was originally built to support the Minecraft marketplace.

Growing the Xbox Live Community

Another major component of Game Stack is Xbox Live. Over the past 16 years, Xbox Live has become one of the most vibrant and engaged gaming communities in the world. It is also a safe and inclusive network that has broken down boundaries in how gamers connect across devices.

Today, we’re excited for Xbox Live to become part of Microsoft Game Stack, providing identity and community services. Under Game Stack, Xbox Live will expand its cross-platform capabilities, as we introduce a new SDK that brings this community to iOS and Android devices.

Mobile developers will now be able to reach some of the most highly engaged and passionate gamers on the planet with Xbox Live. These are just a few of the benefits for mobile developers:

Trusted Game Identity

With the new Xbox Live SDK, developers can focus on creating great games and leverage Microsoft‘s trusted identity network to support log-in, privacy, online safety and child accounts.

Frictionless Integration

New a la carte service offerings and no Xbox Live certification pass give mobile developers flexibility in how they build and update their games. Developers just use the services that best fit their needs.

Vibrant Gaming Community

Reach Xbox Live’s growing community and connect gamers across a multitude of platforms. Find creative ways to enable achievements, Gamerscore, and “hero” stats, which have their own out-of-game experience, to keep gamers engaged.

Other Game Stack Components

Other components of Game Stack include Visual Studio, Mixer, DirectX, Azure App Center, Visual Studio, and Visual Studio Code, and Havok. In the coming months, as we work to improve and grow Game Stack, you’ll see deeper connections between these services as we unify them to work more seamlessly together.

As an example of how this integration is already underway, today we’re bringing together PlayFab and these Game Stack components:

App Center

Crash log data from App Center is now connected to PlayFab, allowing you to better understand and respond to problems in your game in real-time by tying crash logs back to individual player profiles.

Visual Studio Code

With PlayFab’s new plug-in for Visual Studio Code, editing and updating Cloud Script just got a lot easier.

Create Your World Today & Achieve More

As we expand our focus to the cloud, the nature of the platform may be changing, but our commitment to empower game developers like yourself is unwavering, and we’re looking forward to the journey ahead with Microsoft Game Stack. Our teams are inspired and excited by the possibilities as we start to pull together all these great services and technologies. Please be sure to share your feedback with us as we go, so we can help you achieve more. If you’re at GDC, stop by the Microsoft booth in the South Hall of the Moscone Center to try out many of the new services, and to learn more about the exciting opportunities ahead.

Thanx,

Kareem