Brace Yourself Games appears to be releasing a physical copy of Crypt of the Necrodancer (at least in Europe) on the Nintendo Switch. There’ll apparently be two different versions available – a standard edition and a collector’s edition.

According to Nintendeal, the standard copy will be priced at €34.99 and the collector’s edition will set you back €54.99. The fancier version will come with a copy of the game, a steel book, instruction manual, original soundtrack, collector’s pin, bandana (how appropriate) and a cardboard slipcase. Here’s a look at all of the goodies on offer:

As you might recall, Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer is also receiving a physical release. It’ll include all of the game’s base content and DLC, and is releasing on 23rd October for $39.99. You can read more about it in our previous post.

Will you be picking up either Crypt of the NecroDancer titles in physical form on the Switch? Tell us down below.

When COVID-19 disrupted traditional classroom instruction and forced system and school leaders, IT professionals, educators, faculty, and students to pivot to remote learning, it also prompted re-examining education more broadly. We know from the whitepaper “The Class of 2030 and Life Ready Learning” that today’s students will need a high level of cognitive skills like problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity. And social-emotional skills have become even more important in remote and hybrid settings and require solutions that integrate pedagogy and technology accessibly and cohesively.

In “Education Reimagined: the Future of Learning,” the experts from New Pedagogies for Deep Learning suggest that there are three phases that learning institutions are navigating to move education systems to a successful and sustainable hybrid model: Disruption, Transition, and Reimagining.

By now, many schools and universities have worked their way through the initial disruption and have been adapting to online learning for several months. As the next school year begins, there is new data showing some best practices for supporting smooth transitions for students and teachers.

Today, we’re pleased to share a new whitepaper, “Disruptions and Opportunities: Lessons from the spring of 2020,” commissioned by Microsoft in collaboration with Manchester Street Research. The report surveyed 400 K-12 educators and 381 IT professionals in the United States to understand their perspectives about the transition experience, the technology used for remote learning, the quality of student engagement, the assessment of learning outcomes, and more. This research focused on K-12 teachers, IT professionals, and the added challenges of keeping younger students engaged in learning online. Some key insights from the study are:

Microsoft Teams encourages student engagement and facilitates learning assessment

One of the most challenging aspects for teachers when moving online was how their relationships with students changed when meeting only on screens. For remote learning to be effective and sustainable, technologies that encourage meaningful engagement and interaction, with features that help teachers evaluate student progress, are critical.  The study found that Microsoft Teams users were 29% more likely than those who didn’t use Teams to describe most of their students as highly engaged. Also, Teams users were on average 23% more likely than those who didn’t use Teams to say they feel confident in their ability to assess learning outcomes while teaching remotely.

Microsoft Teams provides a collaboration lifeline for teachers

Teachers who developed a community of support among colleagues reported that this support was critical for them in developing confidence in remote teaching and learning, trying new things, discovering best practices, and solving problems. Educators in the survey who used Microsoft technology, especially those who used Teams, were 42% more likely to collaborate with their peers than those who used Google Classroom.

A clear strategy integrating technology & pedagogy is critical in hybrid learning

Expecting teachers to select from a multitude of technologies burdens them with the added responsibility of learning and assessing different technology platforms. When leaders provide clarity and direction by selecting a single set of online learning technologies, rooted in the key pedagogical approaches, teachers can get up to speed faster and have more time to focus on teaching. The data shows that for remote learning, too many options can actually cause negative outcomes. One of the study respondents, K-12 teacher Yolanda M., noted that when it came to her students, “I have noticed the difficulty for a lot of the kids is all the different platforms that the teachers have in relaying information to them. That has been really difficult for students and for parents.”

Looking back at the last school year, it’s clear that transitioning to remote learning at scale was a monumental task. And it’s been most successful when pedagogy and technology are adapted to work together to encourage collaboration, engagement, and quality learning outcomes.

It’s inspiring to see the efforts of so many dedicated education leaders, teachers, and IT professionals as they define a new era of learning: one that’s open-walled, student-centered, and unlimited by time or space. As the next academic year gets underway, it’s clear that we’re still in a transitional period and that schools and education systems are still determining the best path forward. While there are still challenges to address, we can see that when pedagogy is coupled with scalable technology for online and hybrid learning, it can help drive enhanced learning outcomes, increase well-being, and create a more fulfilling experience for teachers and students.

For a deeper dive into the findings, visit Microsoft Education’s hybrid learning page and download the complete whitepaper.

This small update hopefully fixes the stability issue that was found when 1.16.20 dropped.  If you find any more bugs please help Mojang Studios by reporting them to bugs.mojang.com.

• Fixed stability issues discovered when interacting with Minecraft and the home screen while signed in to Microsoft Accounts (MCPE-95621)

Herzog Zwei might seem like any other Sega Ages release, but it’s actually the final game in this retro line. SEGA’s Yosuke Okunari confirmed this project had “come to an end” in a recent interview with the Japanese outlet Game Watch.

Although the series has finished, it doesn’t necessarily mean Sega is completely done with re-releases. In fact, Okunari says the team is currently working on the next project and hopes to continue re-releasing past titles on Switch that will “really satisfy” players. Here’s the full translation, courtesy of Oni_Dino:

“Considering SEGA Ages has ended, some may be wondering if we have plans to continue re-releasing past titles on Nintendo Switch – I want that to happen. I hope to bring something over that will really satisfy Switch players. So until then, we hope you’ll look forward to it.”

Unfortunately, he couldn’t say if M2 would be involved in any future projects. Tsuyoshi Matsuoka (on behalf of M2) said the emulation expert still had “a lot of other titles” it wanted to port. Personally, Matsuoka wants to see Sega’s “entire history of interactive games” make a return.

The Sega Ages line has a total of 19 games and its final release – Herzog Zwei – will arrive in Japan on 27th August.

Now that we know this project has wrapped up, what other past titles would you like to see the company re-release next? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

@SmashBrosJP

Nintendo loves cross-promoting its games nowadays and this weekend in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, it’ll be hosting a Paper Mario: The Origami King event featuring three brand new spirits.

These paper-thin spirits include Olivia, Origami Princess Peach, and King Olly. The fight starts this Friday on 28th August and runs for a total of five days – so there’s plenty of time to grab all three spirits. Here’s the official announcement:

Will you be participating in this upcoming event? Have you played Paper: The Origami King? Tell us down below.

[In the latest in a series of Gamasutra-exclusive bonus material originally to be included in Bill Loguidice and Matt Barton’s new book Vintage Games: An Insider Look at the History of Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario, and the Most Influential Games of All Time, the duo presents a history of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, the game that popularized a niche genre and sparked a host of imitators in the early part of this decade.]

Screenshot from Atari’s 720 Degrees arcade game.

Extreme sports video games have a long and storied history, culminating with the first Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater in 1999, which ramped the genre to superstar status. As we’ve seen, nearly every game in this series has predecessors, and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater is no different.

Games like 720 Degrees, a 1986 arcade skateboarding game from Atari, and Skate or Die!, a 1987 multiplatform home release from Electronic Arts, made scores of gamers happy, but it was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater that would take the genre successfully into the realm of 3D[1], offering unparalleled levels of control and fluid motion so critical to such games, in turn spawning a whole slew of me-too products that wanted to outperform and be more extreme than skateboarding icon Tony Hawk himself.

Screenshot from Skate or Die!, Commodore 64 version.

Of course, extreme sports — also referred to as action or adventure sports — are not limited to the skateboard. The term can represent any over-the-top or dangerous sporting activity, which is particularly at home in the world of video games.

From the early Olympic sports video games, culminating with Epyx’s multiplatform California Games (1987), which featured skateboarding, freestyle footbag, surfing, roller skating, flying disc, and BMX minigames, to the classic NBA Jam (1993) and NFL Blitz (1997) series of highly stylized and simplified arcade sports video games, there has been no shortage of compelling, action-packed alternatives to traditional sports gaming.

What Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, which has now generated $1 billion in sales across the course of the series,  added was an extraordinary level of realism to the over-the-top antics that resonated with many players who were turned off by the overly competitive nature of the previous games. By making it about technique over style, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater expanded its audience to far more players than any other game of its type before.

Screenshot from the surfing event in California Games, Commodore 64 version.

Box back for the Sony PlayStation version of Midway’s NBA Jam Tournament Edition (1994).

Screenshot from the arcade version of Midway’s NFL Blitz (1997), which put a more violent twist on the over-the-top antics of the successful NBA Jam formula.

[1] Sega’s hit Top Skater (aka, Top Skater Sega Skateboarding) arcade game from 1997, which featured a skateboard controller and railings as part of its oversized cabinet, was one of the first 3D skateboarding simulations, but was as much about racing as it was about performing stylish tricks.

Despite the eventual release of mostly mediocre home skateboarding controllers thanks to the popularity of games like Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Top Skater never received a home port. 

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Renton, Washington

At Wizards of the Coast, we connect people around the world through play and imagination. From our genre defining games like Magic: The Gathering® and Dungeons & Dragons® to our growing multiverse, we continue to innovate and build new ways to foster friendship and connection. That’s where you come in!

Are you a veteran software designer with experience developing and supporting a live game service?

The Magic: The Gathering Arena team is looking for an experienced engineer to help manage and direct the engineering team who builds and maintains our game client in Unity. In close collaboration with designers, artists, and other engineers, you’ll be one of the main drivers of designs and decisions within the team.

What you’ll do

• Directly manage, guide and supervise a team of software developers while contributing to the entire project
• Design and implement solutions for Magic: The Gathering Arena in alignment with architectural designs and program needs
• Provide consultation on sophisticated projects as a top level contributor/specialist
• Communicate and iterate on technical designs and decisions with the team and help troubleshoot and resolve technical problems as they arise on production environments
• Use your experience to grasp issues quickly and make critical judgments in the absence of complete information
• Work with a variety of other departments to build technical requirements

What you bring

• Bachelor’s degree in computer science or 5 years of experience in professional software development.
• 6 years of total job experience
• Experience leading and mentoring effective teams.
• Experience with front-end software development.
• Proven understanding and experience working on client/server architectures.
• Strong coding, debugging and problem-solving skills and the ability to write readable, maintainable code.
• Strong communication and teamwork with diverse groups of people in various roles.
• Software development experience with multiple platforms (Windows, iOS, Android, etc.)
• Sound knowledge of software engineering, software engineering methodologies, and the impact of early decisions on later development stages of software projects.

We are an equal opportunity / affirmative action employer

The above is intended to describe the general content of and the requirements for satisfactory performance in this position. It is not to be construed as an exhaustive statement of the duties, responsibilities, or requirements of the position.

We will ensure that individuals with disabilities are provided reasonable accommodation to participate in the job application or interview process, to perform essential job functions, and to receive other benefits and privileges of employment.

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

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