Publisher Team17 has today launched the post-apocalyptic disaster management game Sheltered on Nintendo Switch.

After a global apocalypse, you’re tasked with protecting four family members living in a deserted underground shelter. You’ll need to combat hunger, radiation, and mental exhaustion as you cling desperately to life in the cramped, cold, underground shelter. Of course, you’ll also need to brave the dangerous wasteland outside for vital supplies, leaving the protection your new home offers to provide for your family.

The game actually launched on other platforms just a couple of years ago; the Switch version will include the base game and the ‘Surrounded’ and ‘Stasis’ additional content packs. Surrounded offers a new chunk of gameplay in which the family is forced to split up (the father goes out in search of transport, whilst the mother and son barricade themselves inside and set traps to try and protect the supplies), while Stasis has you leaving your hostile home planet behind by building and launching a rocket.

You’ll find the game available from today on the Nintendo Switch eShop for £9.99 / $14.99 / €14.99. A 20% discount will be applied to purchases made during launch week.

Do you like the look of this one? Think you might give it a go? Let us know if you’ll be treating yourself to the game in the comments below.

As 4 million players have been writing their own survival story in State of Decay 2, they’ve been enjoying BAFTA award-winning and Billboard / MTV VMA nominated Danish composer’s Jesper Kyd soundtrack, which is available on iTunes, Spotify and Amazon. Starting today, for fans who want to experience Jesper’s soundtrack full of hope for survival and a better tomorrow in full, they can purchase the State of Decay 2 Special Edition – Double Vinyl for $39.99. In addition to the atmospheric guitar and analog synth score as heard in the game, the double vinyl also includes ten previously unreleased tracks.

To celebrate today’s release, we caught up with Jesper to ask him some questions gathered from the State of Decay 2 player community for a deeper look at the soundtrack.

Xbox Wire: Did you play a lot of State of Decay: YOSE?

Jesper Kyd: Yes, I did play a lot of State of Decay and YOSE and it really influenced the way I wrote the score for SOD2. It reaffirmed that exploration music is very important to setting the atmosphere of the game, especially between missions.

Xbox Wire: Do you plan to play State of Decay 2?

Jesper Kyd: Yes, when I can find the time I plan to play through the game to the end.

Xbox Wire: Did you record any live musicians for the score?

Jesper Kyd: We recorded a ton of live instruments for the score such as dobro guitar, acoustic guitar, electric guitars, live percussion of all sorts, solo violin, solo cello. The live instruments are an important part of making the world of State of Decay breathe and come alive. The broken down post-apocalyptic world we play through needs to be reinforced with the feel of rural Americana, we’re in the American heartland and live instruments is critical to accomplishing an authentic vibe.

Xbox Wire: What instruments did you use?  -What is your favorite?

Jesper Kyd: My favorite instrument is probably the dobro or steel guitar. It adds such a warm and atmospheric feel to the score, especially on tracks such as “Hills of my Hometown”. I also really like the fiddle, especially when it’s playing chords across the neck. Gives it a folky feel set on a country hillside vista.

Xbox Wire: How long does it take you to write a piece of music?

Jesper Kyd: It really depends on the length of the track and purpose of the music. Exploration tracks are usually the most challenging since you don’t have a clear idea of what the music needs to do at all times. Gameplay specific music is easier since the purpose is clear and established: tension moments often need tension music, suspenseful moments needs suspense, and so on. For these tracks the challenge then becomes to write something that feels fresh and surprising.

Xbox Wire: What was different about this score compared to the first game?

Jesper Kyd: Firstly, there’s a lot more music! I worked on the project for about 2 years, writing over 3 hours of music, some 105 cues in all. Also, I tried to bring out more of the human emotion of the situation you are experiencing. We wanted the music to help make the experience feel hopeful as you try to rebuild and expand your community.

Xbox Wire: What inspired you? 

Jesper Kyd: I was inspired by the game’s setting, themes of survival and hope for the community.

Xbox Wire: Did you have any influences?

Jesper Kyd: I rarely listen to other music when writing scores and I was careful not to listen to any relevant music. You don’t want a theme you are writing to sound similar to something you might be listening to. So my main influence was the game’s rural environment and post-apocalyptic story setting. The score is infused with rustic elements from the landscape in decay and so a lot of the recordings were processed with vintage gear.

Xbox Wire: If you weren’t doing this what would you be doing?

Jesper Kyd: I always wanted to become a film maker. If I wasn’t writing music I still think I would be creating stories and experiences in different ways, perhaps as a film maker.

The American dream has driven millions upon millions of people to come to a country filled with possibility and opportunity. Sometimes, you get caught up in the gears of enterprise and learn that the machinations of big business tend to run counter to that dream. But, sometimes, you start a company on an ideal and cling to that initial spark no matter what.

That’s what Carl Richell did when he created System76. That was more than a decade ago, when the company’s goal was to sell computer hardware running open source operating systems. System76 has been a bastion of hope for Linux and open source fans, as they’ve proved, year after year, that the dream can be fulfilled, that Linux can be sold on the desktop and laptop space.

The launch of the game-changing System76 Thelio only solidifies this open source dream. CEO Carl Richell oozes the open source ethos, and that ideology comes through, to perfection, in their latest offering, the Thelio desktop, a machine as beautiful in design as it is in execution. The Thelio was created, from the ground up, to offer as much open hardware as possible, while delivering a beast of a computer, housed in a chassis that is equal parts form and  function. Every detail (from the planetary alignment, marking the date System76 was formed, to the design of the fan output grill, and the ease with which the machine can be upgraded) has been executed to perfection. The Thelio is a hand-crafted computer that any user would be thrilled to own.

What Makes the Thelio So Special?

The easy answer to that question is “everything,” but that serves no purpose, especially for those considering dropping the coin for this desktop beauty. So wherein lies the answer? There are so many ways this new machine exceeds all other desktop computers I’ve seen (which is impressive, considering my daily driver for the last five years has been the—no longer available—System76 Leopard Extreme, which has been truly amazing).

While getting the grand tour of the new System76 headquarters, I was privy to the official Thelio “dog and pony show,” which solidified my assumptions about the company and what they have been and are doing. I was able to watch engineer Ian Santopietro demonstrate how they’ve designed the Thelio in such a way as to optimize air flow through the chassis, so the CPU is capable of running at its listed speed (see video).

Video 1: Air flow has been optimized for the Thelio.

With so many other desktop computers, the listed speed of a CPU is often negated by poorly designed cooling systems and airflows, rendering them incapable of running to spec. The Thelio blows this issue out of the water (or, better yet, out of the back cooling vent). Watching smoke flow through the device was impressive, especially considering how hush-quiet the machine was (with all cores being pushed to the max).

The ease at which the machine can be upgraded is equally impressive. With a hot-swappable drive-bay that is easily accessible, the Thelio is an upgraders dream come true. And with highly refined tolerances, you can trust that chassis will come apart and slip back together with ease. System76 has added a number of touches most other companies wouldn’t even consider. Take, for instance, the spare drive bolts housed conveniently inside the case (Figure 1). No more will you have to scramble to find that small bag of screws you tossed aside when you unboxed the computer. When you go to add a new drive, you have plenty of screws waiting to be used. A nice touch, for sure.

Those curious about the System76 open source claims for the Thelio can download the files for the chassis, as well as the Thelio Io Daughterboard (Figure 2, from GitHub).

The Io daughterboard offloads control of the cooling, the passing of data from the motherboard to the storage drives, the power switch, the USB system, and more. This means System76 is able to better control how these systems function (it also means users can benefit from the open source nature of that particular piece of hardware).

The Operating System

As with all of the System76 machines, you can purchase the Thelio with one of the following options:

• Ubuntu 18.10

• Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

• POP!_OS

I would suggest, however, purchasing the hardware with System76’s own POP!_OS, as it offers more control over, and has been optimized for, the Thelio. Although POP!_OS is designed with creators in mind (i.e. developers), one does not have to be a developer to use the OS. In fact, System76’s version of Linux is a general-purpose operating system, only with a few tweaks and inclusions for creators. No matter which operating system you choose, you can be sure to enjoy an unrivaled experience with the Thelio.

Conclusion

To say the Thelio is impressive is an understatement. This is a machine that could easily be mistaken for something produced by a much, much larger company. But make no mistake about it, few large companies put this level of care and heart into the design and execution of a computer desktop. If you’re looking to purchase one of the most impressive pieces of desktop hardware to date, look no further than System76’s new Thelio.

The trend of Gunman Clive games being affordably priced looks set to continue on the Switch, with Swedish indie developer Bertil Hörberg revealing the previously announced HD Collection (containing the first and second game) will arrive on Nintendo’s hybrid platform on 17th January for $3.99 / €3.99.

Hörberg made the announcement via Twitter, while joking how people should buy it, as the release date happens to be his Birthday. Here are the tweets:

As we previously noted, the collection was originally released on the Wii U in 2015. The first game and sequel were also made available on 3DS in 2012 and 2015. Both titles have drawn comparisons to the Mega Man series.

Will you be picking up this collection on release? Have you played it before? Let us know in the comments.

In today’s big-money gaming space, it can sometimes seem like there are enough A.I. companions looming on the hilltops to fill a whole army of second bananas, with The Last of Us’s Ellie rubbing shoulders with the likes of Elizabeth and even a certain two-tailed fox.

But while a robust companion like God of War’s bow-toting boy wonder Atreus can fill out a playspace and engage even the most laconic of players during dips in the action, building out such a scintillating sidekick can take an almighty amount of time, money, and patience.

Just ask Cory Barlog, the director of Santa Monica Studio’s raucously-acclaimed reboot, who describes Atreus as one of the game’s most controversial features – to the point where his harrowed producers kept pestering him to rethink his ambitious conception of the character, up to and including canning the youngster entirely.

“I was told multiple times, ‘scale it back, change it so he’s simpler,” says Barlog.

Kicking the addiction to revenge stories

“They wanted him to hit marks in the world and just talk, to get it done quicker, so we could ship this thing. At one point, I was even told to consider cutting him out of the game, and I laughed and said, ‘okay.’ But they replied, no, ‘very seriously consider this, we don’t have the production bandwidth for this.’ And I had to entertain what the game would be like without him. I had a very, very passive-aggressive pitch for that one, that, clearly, didn’t go over very well. Subtlety isn’t my thing. It’s like saying, ‘can we make Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, but without Sundance? I managed to convince them that he was necessary.”

 

“I was even told to consider cutting him out of the game, and I laughed and said, ‘okay.’ But they replied, no, ‘very seriously consider this, we don’t have the production bandwidth for this.’”

As Barlog recalls, from the very beginning of God of War’s sprawling five-year development cycle, he knew that following the slightly muted reception of the 2013 interquel Ascension, that Santa Monica Studio couldn’t stitch together another tale of Kratos slicing and dicing his way through another pantheon, fueled by nothing but his searing well of vengeance. He describes the franchise’s habitual overuse of forced betrayals and endless quests for revenge as an “addiction,” one that they planned to use Atreus as a springboard to overcome.

“We couldn’t just make another ‘angry Kratos’ game,” says Barlog. “We wanted a character who could reject Kratos’s orders, who could prod and provide a foil for Kratos to actually talk and communicate, not just during cinematics, but through gameplay as well.”

Early on, some on the design team balked at the concept of granting the famously-misanthropic Kratos another child, knowing full-well the sheer amount of grunt-work that the fresh face would bring to the project, both in terms of narrative and technical execution.

The team visited their fellow Sony studio Naughty Dog to talk to their AI programmers, and it was only at that point that Barlog fully understood the morass of issues that Santa Monica would have to trudge their way through to make Atreus a reality – one bugfix at a time.

For example, initially, Barlog wanted to allow players to swim through the shimmering waters of the reboot’s Lake of Nine, but his lead gameplay programmer shut down that fancy before it even got off the drawing board.

“He said 2D navigation was gonna be hard enough – if we incorporate 3D navigation, it just becomes ridiculous,” Barlog says. “We could do it, of course, but we’d have to get rid of so much stuff to justify that dev time. And that’s how we ended up with the boat, which was one of the game’s least popular features internally, until we finally implemented the storytime [conversations between Kratos and Atreus] less than nine months from the finish line.”

Barlog describes the process of creating a lifelike companion like Atreus as a tremendous amount of legwork, with the boy’s humanity slowly trickling in as features were implemented – he went from not speaking at all to only speaking in combat barks, for example. In Barlog’s words, the process is essentially just endless layering, almost like an ostentatious birthday cake that you have to wait five years to finally wolf down.

“It’s coming up with systems and their conditions,” he says. “If an enemy is coming to the right, he says this, if the enemy is the last in the grouping of enemies, he says that, if the enemy is approaching from behind – it just becomes massive, and exhaustive. And that’s just combat, never mind the climbing, or exploration. It’s never going to be limited by the space on the disk, or anything like that. It’s all about the time you invest, how many different behaviors and reactions you can put in for him. That was a big part of the ‘boy button,’ which was first suggested by [designer] Eric Williams. When you have a context-specific button like that, it has to do a lot of work, since you don’t have squad commands. Instead, you press the kid button, and the kid does something. Well, obviously, we have to allow for all that. Just more layering.”

 

“We couldn’t just make another ‘angry Kratos’ game.”

Throughout all this, however, Barlog points to one thing as the lynchpin keeping the wheels on the cart, what he refers to as the project’s “secret sauce” – the simple fact of God of War’s five-year dev cycle, which he says allowed for a level of handcrafted charm that truly allowed Atreus to shine.

“I think several developers who look at what we’re doing think we’re a little crazy,” says Barlog. “That we could do things an easier way, or just automate, but because we have the incredible amount of support from Sony, we can afford to do something that takes five years to do like this.”

He describes the development process as “an ever-shrinking box” that producers and creatives alike have to maneuver in, even as the calendar on the wall flips away and the walls close in around you. “It’s the sweat equity of having one person focus on one problem for years,” he says. “For most people, that’s a luxury you don’t have.”

Still, for those who don’t have a deep-pocketed platform holder to fund their impossibly-ambitious mass market dreams, Barlog has some familiar advice: keep it simple. He points to indie darling Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons as an example of a smaller studio offering a novel solution to a long-held problem – and soaking up a deluge of revenue in the process.

To those who would emulate Atreus, he gestures to one of his own inspirations, perhaps the most lauded companion of all, the ethereal princess Yorda from Fumito Ueda’s landmark Ico, which he describes as “the perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics.

“If it’s not an infinite time, infinite money situation – if you’re not Gabe Newell,” he jokes, “I would ask ‘why do you want it? What are you going to do with it? What do you want to say?’ And then stand on the shoulders of those who came before you.”

More than anything, Barlog says that creating Atreus was a labor of love, made possible by raw technological prowess and massive, massive amounts of work. And, as he recalls, some had interesting ways of showing their dedication. 

“Hayato Yoshidome, the technical designer who basically handled the son from the beginning, has a tiny little portrait of Atreus at his desk. It’s bedazzled, and it’s always looking at Hayato, and it’s almost like he’s saying, ‘do me right, Dad,’” Barlog says. 

“Even late in development, we had to keep that up, because there’d be so many times with Atreus would glitch out. In the most emotionally-tense scene of the entire game, when Atreus is laying down, in a really vulnerable state, all of the sudden his combat banters trigger, and his face twitches, and he says, ‘sure are a lot of Draugr around here!’ It’s the most arresting thing, because you’re getting into the scene, and it’s really working, and then he starts to talk. And we would laugh, because that’s just the process.”

Organizers of the 2019 Game Developers Conference are excited to confirm that the popular GDC Pitch event will return next year as part of the GDC Play showcase of emerging and independent developers! 

If you’ve never seen it before, know that GDC Pitch is a special event designed to help select participants practice their pitching skills with experienced professionals — as well as a live audience of GDC attendees!

It’s a valuable experience for both presenters and spectators, since a great pitch can secure the future of your studio, or ensure your game has the resources to reach the players who will appreciate it most.

Here’s how it works: Game developers who register to exhibit their game in GDC Play 2019 by February 13th may be selected to receive pitching advice and coaching, then pitch their game an opinionated panel of investors and publishers in front of an audience. No pressure!

10 selected teams will each be offered pitch prep and training, then get 5 minutes to pitch, followed by questions, advice, and feedback from the judges. The judges will declare a “Best Pitch” on each day, and award each a complimentary All Access pass to GDC 2020.

GDC Play, which is still open to potential exhibitors, is a special area of the San Francisco show that showcases emerging and independent developers with a series of tables and meeting rooms. It will take place from Wednesday, March 18th through Friday, March 22nd at GDC 2019.

Once again, as part of the ‘Best in Play’ awards program all GDC Play exhibitors will be judged on their in-development or complete games by a panel of veteran GDC organizers and Gamasutra editors.

The top 8 will be named ‘Best in Play’ winners, and all 8 winners will receive 2 All Access Passes to the 2020 Game Developers Conference. Special ‘Best in Play’ designations will be attached to the honorees’ GDC Play tables at GDC 2019, where their games will be playable to all GDC attendees.

Bring your team to GDC! Register a group of 10 or more and save 10 percent on conference passes. Learn more here.​

For more details on GDC 2019 visit the show’s official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.

Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent company Informa

For immediate release

Members of the Xbox One Preview Delta and Omega should be receiving a new 1811 Xbox One system update (181206–1740) starting now. Read on for fixes in this 1811 latest system update. 

Fixes:

Mouse

• Additional fixes to improve the responsiveness of mouse performance to reduce lag.

System

• Fixes to improve system performance.

Known Issues:

Audio

• We are tracking audio issues in which some games have audio that cuts in and out
• Audio settings reverting to a previous settings after taking an update. Workaround is to please turn on your Audio Receiver prior to turning your Xbox One and the settings will not revert.

Profile Color

• Sometimes users may encounter the incorrect Profile color when powering on the console.