Me and my brother Matt have always shared a love of competitive multiplayer games… even though only one of us can win them. Our first games were multiplayer, and we just kept going. Marooners started life as a Global Game Jam entry, which won the National Jury and Audience Award in the Netherlands.

Marooners has a classic formula: chase treasure and beat up your friends in a dangerous environment. But we spiced it up by switching to a different mini-game unpredictably so that you need to stay on your toes (or stand on your opponent’s).

We’ve packed Marooners with 25 different mini-games and arenas, set in locations from frozen snowfields to lily-pad covered lakes and burning pools of lava. Some of the most fun we had in development was creating these settings and seeing them come to life! We obviously took a lot of inspiration from various famous adventure movies (why yes, we do have a game mode where you must flee ahead of a huge boulder), but much of it is original and simply inspired by our own observations of the natural world. Our light-hearted cartoon style made it easy for us to try all kinds of different decorations and mini-games.

This love of variety also led to us creating several characters to choose from, along with an incredible 70+ weapons to discover. As well as all the typical stuff like swords, clubs, and axes we also let our imaginations run wild to come up with anything that might be amusing to harass your friends with. And so, we’ve got toilet brushes, flags, balloons, toothbrushes, and even broccoli! To make sure you can really create a unique character we also added the option to pick colors for your clothing and weapons.

We even found a solution to that old problem of gathering enough friends on your couch for a full game! You can mix local and online players, so that you can play with three friends on your couch and find more online: the best of both worlds! Or you can just add in some bots to make up the numbers – they enjoy any game mode and are 99% guaranteed not to rage-quit.

We’re looking forward to seeing you online!

Mario’s been in countless fantastic games over the years, but to say our favourite portly plumber has a spotless record is an outright lie. Usually at the hands of another studio, Mario’s been the figurehead of some truly awful video games over the years.

That doesn’t mean they can’t be enjoyed for what they are, of course, but needless to say in one way or another we really wish the titles featured in the video above had never been made.

Don’t worry, Hotel Mario features heavily.

Though support hasn’t always been top notch, Ubisoft has been pretty good about bringing its games to Nintendo audiences in the past, and that trend has been continuing with the Switch. The launch of Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle was an incredible win for the company, mixing the famous plumber and his friends with a new gameplay style that pleased a lot of fans. Evidently, the game sold extremely well, too, as it’s placed Ubisoft at the forefront of third party successes on the Switch.

In its third quarter financial results briefing today, Ubisoft revealed that Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has been the highest selling third-party game on the Switch, which consequently puts the publisher in the overall lead on the Switch in terms of third party sales. Hopefully, this proves to be encourage Ubisoft and other major developers to start taking more risks on the Switch; it’d be nice if that top spot started to change hands frequently.

What do you think? Did you enjoy Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle? Do you think it’ll get a sequel? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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Minecraft News

• Microsoft have announced there’s a new head of Minecraft, Helen Chiang, who replaces Matt Booty after he was promoted to head of Microsoft Studios. Helen was previously head of operations for Minecraft, and has said “Above all else, Chiang wants to ensure that the Minecraft studio is a place where the creative staff can really work their magic.” in this interview with POPSUGAR.
• Minecraft developer LadyAgnes‏ shared a preview of what’s coming in the Update Aquatic, “Found something… odd?… on the beach today!” — look closely in the water and you might see something else too!
• Another Minecraft: Java Edition 1.13 Snapshot came out this week, “This weeks snapshot brings some performance boosts for data pack loading & command execution.” — and a new horse model.
• Minecraft will be in London in February, “Wanna hear about the year ahead for Minecraft? Wanna explode robots in exchange for prizes? Then you’ll wanna be at the UK’s most excellent PC gaming expo on February 17-18th, in London! The Big Smoke! […] Minecraft’s very own Lead Creative Designer, Jens is giving a talk on Minecraft – what it takes to add new stuff to it, and what we have planned for the year ahead.”
• Minecraft shared a video on Twitter of 2017’s best Minecraft features, check it out below.

Updates make you happy! And when you’re happy, we’re happy. With that in mind, here’s one of our chirpiest videos yet, featuring just some of 2017’s new features. (Not represented: devs drowning in code… but, er, still very happy! Honest!) pic.twitter.com/DcggnGAtHE

— Minecraft (@Minecraft) January 19, 2018