Battalion recaptures the core of classic competitive shooters & refines the ‘classic’ FPS feel for the next generation. Focusing on 5v5 infantry combat, where precise flick shots with your Kar98, covering fire with your Thompson and fluid movement are key to clutching every round for your team.
In Railway Empire, you will create an elaborate and wide-ranging rail network, purchase over 40 different trains modelled in extraordinary detail, and buy or build railway stations, maintenance buildings, factories and tourist attractions to keep your travel network ahead of the competition. You'll also need to hire and manage your workforce if you want to ensure an efficient train service, whilst also develop over 300 technologies ranging from mechanical improvements to the trains themselves to workplace infrastructures and advanced amenities as you progress through five eras of technological innovations.
Sairento VR is a mission-driven, VR action role-playing game set in a reimagined Japan in the near future. In Sairento, you play as a member of the Silent Ones - a righteous but covert organization of seemingly ordinary people who practice the long forsaken code and martial arts of the ancient samurais and ninjas. You are tasked with uncovering the sinister secret behind other members of the Silent Ones turning into crazed nano-infected shells of their former self and in the process, fight your way through multitudes of your past comrades.
In the midst of an unending war for dominance between two super-powers, Special Intelligence Agent Stocke is assigned to a routine escort mission that goes horribly awry.
Choose between different factions, with their own set of expendable soldiers, mechas, and weapons. Protect your brain, mine gold, and destroy the enemy cortex in his bunker complex!
The 2018 Game Developer’s 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.
Windgolf offers players a relaxing round of mini golf, only instead of using a putter, they’ll be blowing on the ball. By breathing into two different tubes and rotating a screen to get a better orientation on the ball, they’ll be able to slowly guide the ball to the hole. Not that taking their eyes off the ball to blow it in the right direction makes that easy.
With this new take on minigolf being playable at GDC’s Alt.Ctrl.GDC exhibit, Gamasutra reached out to developer Pepijn Willekens to learn about the creation of this wind-based golf game, and some of the challenges that came up using such an imprecise input like breath.
What’s your name, and what was your role on this project?
I’m Pepijn Willekens (@PepijnWillekens). I developed all parts of Windgolf. I did the programming, electronics, 3D, gamedesign, etc. I did get some carpentry help from Thomas Devillé though (Who runs a business building custom made wooden arcade cabinets called Devillé Arcade).
How do you describe your innovative controller to someone who’s completely unfamiliar with it?
In Windgolf, you play minigolf, but instead of having a club, you control the wind by blowing into the machine, which creates wind in the game. You are like a god of nature that only cares about getting a ball into a hole ?
What’s your background in making games?
I am currently in my graduation year of a Bachelor in Multimedia Technology. Over the past years I became more involved in the Belgian game industry. I co-organised an international indie game festival called Screenshake 2017, co-organised a Global Game Jam location for 3 years, and co-organised monthly game developer meetups for the past 1.5 years. I haven’t released any commercial games yet, but I’m currently (also) working on a mobile puzzle game called Boa Bonanza.
What development tools did you use to build Windgolf?
Windgolf uses Arduino for the sensors, which sends this data to Unity over USB.
What physical materials did you use to make it?
The arcade is build out of wood. For the blow sensors, I used 2 small speakers that I use as if they were microphones. So, you actually blow directly on the speakers’ membrane which creates a tiny electrical signal. I amplify this so the Arduino can read it.
For the rotation, I currently use a rotary encoder, but I am planning to change this into a gyroscope or accelerometer. I am also looking into taking some parts from a watercooker to be able to power the upper rotating part of the arcade. The game itself runs on a laptop with an external screen.
How much time have you spent working on the game?
I estimate that the prototype that is visible in the video is made in approximately 12 days, spread out of 2.5 months. The game will have progressed a lot by the time I show it in the GDC expo, though.
How did you come up with the concept?
Windgolf started off as a school assignment where we had to “combine sound and Arduino and Unity”. I loved this assignment, so I went way further with the project that the school assignment required.
What difficulties did you face in combining blowing and a moving screen to create challenging puzzles?
Windgolf is a rather clumsy game to play, because rotating around is quite a physical effort compared to other games where you look around by moving your mouse or joystick. The players reflexes are much slower. You have to look away from the screen to blow, after which you realize that the ball wil roll just next to the hole, and you have to get to the other side of it in time. The game is aimed for an expo context, so people are free to try to control the arcade in a combined effort ?
Windgolf allows players to change their perspective by moving the screen as well. What drew you to add this element on top of blowing on the ball?
I imagine the arcade as a sort of window into another world. If you would want to blow a ball in real life in one direction, and after that in another, you would also have to move around the ball to position yourself first.
Was harnessing breath a difficult thing to do as a gameplay mechanic? How did you get it just right?
Blowing isn’t the most precise input method, but in Windgolf, your precision in rotation is more important than how hard you blow. So, it’s more a matter of giving player a clear sense of what is happening.
How do you think standard interfaces and controllers will change over the next five or ten years?
I think that haptic feedback in controllers will be given much more attention. Nothing is as satisfying as moving your finger over the pads of Vive/Steam controllers, or feeling the virtual balls roll in your Nintendo switch controllers (in 1-2-Switch). Game developers have been mastering the art of wobbling and squeezing characters, shaking screens, and all sorts of audio-visual feedback, but being to decide what the player feels when they make their his input to a game allows for a direct way of teaching your player how they interact with it. It allows for more experimentation through standard interfaces. Imagine that the touchscreens of future phones would offer the same feedback of the Vive/Steam controller pads.
Preview Alpha Insiders can expect another new update today, complete with brand new fixes. This update (1802.180129-1625) will begin rolling out at 10.00 p.m. PST and will become mandatory shortly after that. Read on to learn more about the fixes and known issues related to this build.
New Features:
Installation Progress in Guide
In-progress installations are now visible from a tile at the bottom of the Guide. When selected, this tile opens a new interface showing items in the queue and their status, and allowing some basic functions like pausing or cancelling the installation.
Fixes:
Profile
Fixed an issue which caused some elements in Profile to appear misaligned.
Home and Dashboard
Resolved an issue which sometimes caused unexpected crashes.
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous fixes and improvements.
Known Issues:
Games Installation
Games that are installed fail to launch. Workaround: If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.
Display
We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.
Tournaments
The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.
Avatars on Home
Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.
The shmup has been a gaming staple for decades, and it has found something of a welcome new home on Nintendo Switch with many a retro port and and a fair few modern throwbacks nestling in the warmth of its hybrid bosom. Revived indie twin-stick affair Black Hole falls comfortably into the latter, but does its bullet hell in space gimmick offer anything new in a genre that’s long been stuck inside its own vacuum?
The short answer is no, but it’s still an enjoyable attempt to capture the ‘pick up and play’ ethos that made the shoot ’em up such a classic to begin with. Once designed for defunct platform Ouya and the Android-based ForgeTV, this modern shooter feels instantly at home on Switch. The use of HD Rumble makes every collision with an asteroid or an enemy projectile that bit more tactile, and it runs buttery smooth in both handheld and tabletop modes, with barely any drop in frames.
There’s also support for touchscreen controls, but they’re unresponsive at best and are ultimately deemed pointless when you’ve got two perfectly good (and, more importantly, responsive) analog sticks right next to them. The same applies to the game’s use of motion-based controls – you’ve got to applaud the developer for attempting to include so many control schemes in one package, but none them feel responsive enough to justify their existence.
With a more traditional set of sticks, Black Hole’s big twist on the classic shmup setup is the presence of the titular gravitational phenomenon, which adds a rotational force that constantly drags you and other items on screen around if left unattended. It’s a neat little concept, one that requires you to evade asteroids and collect glowing space crystals while fighting an ever-present resistance. Those little pickups – handily broken up into different colours – each come with a different reward. Green ones replenish your health wheel, blue ones offer a short window of shield, white ones increase your overall score and yellow ones can be spent on upgrades for your ship between levels.
It’s a rewarding combination of long-term and short-term payoff as you try to rack up that final score and rise up the leaderboard while attempting to grab as many yellow ones to increase your spending choices. Being able to upgrade everything from the spread of your fire, to armour, speed and secondary weapons adds a strong incentive to chase down this collectible currency, while risking losing it all within the chaos of asteroids that blow apart into debris and the myriad enemies that attack in waves.
The upgrade system does mean the three ships you can choose from all feel quite samey during the first two or three levels, but thankfully that early slog soon falls away once you invest in the right places. There is a caveat though – these upgrades only last as long as your set of lives, so should you burn through them all every upgrade will be lost. It might seem harsh, but levels can be blasted through so quickly that the feedback loop of shooting through levels to upgrade never feels overtly unfair if you have to start over.
The inclusion of a speedrun mode will appeal to those who can’t play any game without a clock running somewhere, while the addition of a handy Colourblind mode is a welcoming touch. Much like Portal-esque puzzle shooter ChromaGun, it’s comforting to see developers making concessions for players who wouldn’t normally be able to distinguish between on-screen colours. The use of letters instead of colours can sometimes be a little difficult to make out in handheld mode, but it’s an empowering feature nonetheless.
Considering the fixed-screen nature of Black Hole, the lack of any co-op support is a glaring omission. With the valuable use of stardust crystals and the overall high score chasing nature of the game, it seems bizarre not to include some sort of co-op or competitive mode where two or more players enter the fray. Each level would be no less chaotic in action, so it’s genuinely baffling to limit its own remit to single-player only. With 40 levels to play through, there’s plenty for that one player to enjoy, but this shmup could have added another dimensional string to its bow with support for multiplayer.
Conclusion
Black Hole’s intense shmup action feels far more suited to Nintendo Switch than its previous platforms, and the gravitational mechanic makes for a cool twist on a well-worn formula. It’s a solid little shooter for one player to blast through with twin-sticks at the ready, it’s just a shame there’s no support for local couchplay to go along with its litany of customisable options.
Design Your Own Cardboard Creations With Nintendo Labo’s Toy-Con Garage
Nintendo Labo turned plenty of heads when it was unveiled back in January, and whether you’re sold on the premise or not, there’s no denying it’s peak Nintendo. There was, however, some concern that users were going to be limited to the Toy-Con templates designed by Nintendo. Well, Nintendo has firmly quashed those fears with the unveiling of the Toy-Con Garage.
The in-built software feature works like a basic programming tool, enabling you to take the functions of the Toy-Con and combine and tweak them to suit whatever idea is floating about in your imagination. It’s just the kind of open-ended creativity we’ve seen from Ninty countless times before, and as long as you’re able to provide the right cardboard parts, there’s no limit to what could potentially make. We saw the feature back at our first-hands on event with Nintendo Labo and it’s left us really impressed with its scope.
But what do you think of Labo’s newly revealed open-ended structure? Is this a great way to get younger Nintendo users into programming? Let us know!
