This latest snapshot brings us some small changes and a few quality of life tweaks.  I was missing my Iron Golems, what about you?

• Patches of blackstone and gravel now generate in all Nether biomes, and patches of soul sand now generate in Soulsand Valleys
• Added “distance by strider” statistic

• Villagers can now spawn iron golems regardless of their profession status or latest working time
• Bastions are now a bit less common
• Lowered the amount that weeping and twisting vines grow when bonemealed
• You now need to use shears to get an item when breaking Nether Sprouts
• Tweaked spawning of mobs to more closely adhere to mob caps
• Biome distribution in the Nether has been tweaked

• Fish now have their own mob category and mob cap

• MC-87949 – The shield use statistic is not working
• MC-89956 – Levitation has no effect if gliding with elytra
• MC-116293 – Functioning clock and compass in recipe book
• MC-125613 – Datapack tag “stairs” does not use #wooden_stairs
• MC-145862 – Villagers try to sleep in occupied beds
• MC-152084 – Villagers occasionally stand up out of beds at night, then can never sleep in that bed again
• MC-152170 – When a villager takes the bed of another villager then the bed’s previous owner will not look for a new bed
• MC-157077 – Villagers will not sleep in beds at night
• MC-158542 – Iron Golems don’t stop spawning
• MC-160250 – Naturally generated villagers are not pathfinding towards their POI; POI detection range is too small
• MC-166764 – Villagers spawned on world generation have a lower follow range than villagers spawned by other means
• MC-170612 – Villagers spawned by meeting points have frozen AI and do not move when that chunk is freshly generated
• MC-172107 – Piglins and Hoglins don’t get zombified in the end
• MC-172524 – Letters of name tag render inconsistently when sneaking (within the same name tag)
• MC-172899 – Piglins with blocks (pumpkins) equipped on their heads show z-fighting
• MC-173015 – Crimson roots, Warped roots, and Nether sprouts are not randomly offset
• MC-173115 – Mobs can spawn inside of wither roses
• MC-174568 – Rail updates are 3-4x times laggier since 1.13
• MC-174909 – Endermen don’t teleport when on magma blocks
• MC-175251 – Fish are spawning in with extremely high numbers. Over 200 different entities of cod every five minutes
• MC-177839 – Blackstone and blackstone walls use the blackstone side face on the bottom, while blackstone stairs and slabs use the blackstone top face on the bottom
• MC-178487 – Saddles on untamed horses no longer render
• MC-179989 – Smithing Table and Anvil UI does not have “Inventory” title above player inventory
• MC-180064 – Piglins would rather use an unenchanted crossbow instead of an enchanted crossbow
• MC-180297 – Player name color in list appears too dark
• MC-180407 – Piglin bartering is limited to dropping a single item stack from the loot table
• MC-180410 – Enderman spawn rate seems very low on upgraded worlds
• MC-180575 – Dispensers now always plays “dispenser failed” when dispensing glowstone
• MC-181353 – Warped and Crimson Doors have no hinges
• MC-181418 – Entity names can no longer be colored
• MC-181424 – Fish (and other items from fishing) cannot be caught with a fishing rod
• MC-181461 – Enchantment glint doesn’t render on shields, tridents and elytra
• MC-181479 – Map marker labels do not render properly
• MC-181524 – Redstone does not visually connect when going up soul sand
• MC-181566 – Powered redstone dust only generates particles at the center of the block
• MC-181944 – Font of category/section text in creative mode item selection screen is much thicker than in 1.15.2
• MC-182595 – Parity issue: Blackstone doesn’t generate in ore veins in nether wastes

A brand new video game based on the hit Netflix series, Trollhunters: Tales of Arcadia, has been revealed for Nintendo Switch and other platforms. Trollhunters Defenders of Arcadia will release later this year.

The new game is being developed by Wayforward (Shantae, River City Girls), and is set to feature an all-star voice cast that includes original talent from the show – Emile Hirsch, Charlie Saxton, Lexi Medrano and David Bradley. Jim Molinets, SVP of Production at Universal Games and Digital Platforms, has shared the following in a press release:

“DreamWorks Trollhunters Defender of Arcadia will take players on an intriguing and authentic new adventure that showcases the series’ key pillars of friendship, loyalty and fantasy. Expanding on the bold and creative story that has delighted fans for years, the game brings to life the vivid world of Arcadia Oaks in fun and surprising ways.”

Here’s a list of key features for you:

KEY FEATURES:
● All-Star Voice Talent – Featuring all-new content recorded for the game from the stars of the Netflix series including:
○ Emile Hirsch as Jim Lake Jr.
○ David Bradley as Merlin
○ Charlie Saxton as Toby
○ Lexi Medrano as Claire

● An original story – Jump into the world of Trollhunters as Jim Lake Jr. and prepare to stop the Time-pocalypse

● Encounter familiar faces – Journey through unique worlds as favorite characters from the hit series

● Become the hero of Arcadia – Level up armor and abilities to become more powerful than ever, and get a helping hand from beloved characters in local co-op mode

The game is scheduled to launch on all current platforms on 25th September. The final instalment of the Tales of Arcadia trilogy, Wizards, is also set to air later this year on Netflix.

There’s no denying the incredible impact Japanese developers have made on the shoot ’em up genre, from the foundation laid down by Space Invaders right up to more recent examples, such as the superb Rolling Gunner. The influence of Japanese design can be felt keenly in the western-developed Jet Lancer, although its 360-degree levels mean that it also owes a debt to titles like Devolver Digital’s WW2 aerial combat title Luftrausers.

You control an experimental fighter jet which looks a lot like the craft from Hudson’s seminal Soldier Blade, striking from your mobile carrier which serves as a hub from which you can obtain mission briefings, upgrade elements of your jet and determine your unique loadout for each sortie. When not in combat you can freely explore the 3D game world, moving your aircraft carrier around between locations (assuming you have the part required to get there, of course).

Missions range from simple destruction to defending friendly targets or stealing data from transmission towers. Every now and then you’ll face off against a boss enemy, and these titanic battles prove to be Jet Lancer’s undisputed highlight; not only are these massive foes impressive from a visual perspective, but they also require unique tactics and deft movement to defeat.

Thankfully, Jet Lancer controls brilliantly. Your thrust and afterburners are mapped to the shoulder triggers, and you can unleash special charge attacks with the smaller shoulder buttons. Standard shots and a handy dodge manoeuvre are mapped to the face buttons, which means you can perform multiple commands simultaneously without getting your fingers in a muddle. The setup does take a while to become accustomed to, but thankfully the developers have included accessibility features, such as the ability to have your main guns fire automatically so you don’t have to worry about them (although, it’s worth noting you are rated on your accuracy, so to get the best score you’ll want to switch to manual control).

In fact, Jet Lancer goes above and beyond when it comes to these accessibility features, offering the opportunity to disable elements like screen shake and even allowing you to make the ship totally invincible. Some might decry this as cheapening the experience, but in reality, it means that anyone can get the most enjoyment out of the game – after all, you don’t have to use the feature if you don’t need to.

Jet Lancer’s pixel-heavy presentation avoids being too samey and the music is uniformly excellent; the only downside is that the visuals are quite plain in places which might put some players off. This is a common issue with these 2D aerial combat titles, as there’s the need to keep craft small and background detail sparse so the player can see what’s happening during heated moments.

While Jet Lancer does become slightly repetitive in places, the tight controls, enjoyable action and massive, massive explosions all combine to create a shooter which is well worth a look – especially if you’re a fan of this particular genre.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

[Like slogging through the mud in a busted-up truck? Snowrunner’s your game!]

And here’s another installment of Video Game Deep Cuts on Substack, in our 932nd week of self-isolation. That’s about right, huh? At least our digital video games & interesting articles/videos still seem to arriving promptly. Bon appetit!

– Simon, curator

The Current: New Games To Consider

• Levelhead (Xbox Game Pass, PC, Switch, iOS, Android) is a ‘leaving Early Access’ super-fun ‘platformer maker’ game from the Crashlands devs.

• Wintermoor Tactics Club (PC, Switch) is a strategy RPG & visual novel combo about high school D&D shenanigans. (Trailer.)

• Old World (PC Early Access @ Epic Games Store) is Soren Johnson (Civ IV/Offworld Trading Company)’s latest intriguing 4x strategy game.

• Snowrunner (PC, PS4, Xbox) is the latest in the Spintires series, involving lots of slow, low-gear heavy vehicle maneuvering in rough terrain. It’s weird/good!

• Someday You’ll Return (PC, pictured) is an atmospheric first-person psychological horror game which has great visuals, but mixed reviews to date.

The Culture: Game Culture & Deep Dives

The Past: Game History

The Other Goodness

Hope you liked this particular set of links – and see you next week!
Simon.

Longtime industry veterans David Brevik and Bill Wang have set up shop as Skystone Games, aiming to both develop and publish multiplatform games for a global audience under the new label.

On the publishing side, the duo says that Skystone Games aims to support talented developers from around the world through publisher-developer relationships built to be supportive and collaborative.

“We envision Skystone Games as a global developer and publisher of multiplatform video games, with the aim to provide creative guidance and global publishing services. In this way, we help talented designers make better quality games and market to a global audience,” reads a statement from Wang, now Skystone’s CEO.

Already Skystone has signed two games, Undying (Vanimals) and Spaceline Crew (Coffeenauts) due out in the near future.

“One of the biggest joys in this industry is uncovering hidden gems – projects that are absolutely special, but don’t ever really get the attention they deserve. That’s a problem we want to help solve,”  reads a statement from Brevil, now president at Skystone. “Our team has a proven track record of doing just that, and we want to shine a spotlight on the sort of talent that deserves to be recognized in a very crowded and competitive world.”

Problem: Say you have a list of lists (nested list) and you want to find the maximum of this list. It’s not trivial to compare lists—what’s the maximum among lists after all? To define the maximum among the inner lists, you may want to consider different objectives.

1. The first element of each inner list.
2. The i-th element of each inner list.
3. The sum of inner list elements.
4. The maximum of inner list elements.
5. The minimum of inner list elements.

Example: Given list of lists [[1, 1, 1], [0, 2, 0], [3, 3, -1]]. Which is the maximum element?

1. The first element of each inner list. The maximum is [3, 3, -1].
2. The i-th element of each inner list (i = 2). The maximum is [1, 1, 1].
3. The sum of inner list elements. The maximum is [3, 3, -1].
4. The maximum of inner list elements. The maximum is [3, 3, -1].
5. The minimum of inner list elements. The maximum is [3, 3, -1].

So how do you accomplish this?

Solution: Use the max() function with key argument.

Syntax: The max() function is a built-in function in Python (Python versions 2.x and 3.x). Here’s the syntax:

max(iterable, key=None)

Arguments:

Let’s study the solution code for our different versions of calculating the maximum “list” of a list of lists (nested list).

lst = [[1, 1, 1], [0, 2, 0], [3, 3, -1]] # Maximum using first element

print(max(lst, key=lambda x: x[0]))

# [3, 3, -1] # Maximum using third element

print(max(lst, key=lambda x: x[2]))

# [1, 1, 1] # Maximum using sum()

print(max(lst, key=sum))

# [3, 3, -1] # Maximum using max

print(max(lst, key=max))

# [3, 3, -1] # Maximum using min

print(max(lst, key=min))

# [1, 1, 1]

Try it yourself in our interactive code shell:

Related articles:

• Python List Methods [Overview]
• Python List sort() – The Ultimate Guide
• Python Lists – Everything You Need to Know to Get Started
• Key with Maximum Value in Dict

Where to Go From Here?

Enough theory, let’s get some practice!

To become successful in coding, you need to get out there and solve real problems for real people. That’s how you can become a six-figure earner easily. And that’s how you polish the skills you really need in practice. After all, what’s the use of learning theory that nobody ever needs?

Practice projects is how you sharpen your saw in coding!

Do you want to become a code master by focusing on practical code projects that actually earn you money and solve problems for people?

Then become a Python freelance developer! It’s the best way of approaching the task of improving your Python skills—even if you are a complete beginner.

Join my free webinar “How to Build Your High-Income Skill Python” and watch how I grew my coding business online and how you can, too—from the comfort of your own home.

Join the free webinar now!

Natsume Inc. and Rising Star Games have announced Harvest Moon: One World for Nintendo Switch, “a brand-new way of exploring Harvest Moon for seasoned players and new generations alike”.

Set to launch this autumn, the game will have fledgling farmers exploring an entire world full of “new and familiar faces, unique villages, and adventurous challenges”, all while managing their growing farm. The new title is being developed with an all-new engine and graphics.

Hiro Maekawa, President and CEO of Natsume, has shared the following in a press release:

“Harvest Moon: One World features a brand-new way of exploring Harvest Moon that seasoned players and new generations will both enjoy. Over the decades, Harvest Moon has evolved but has always retained the traditional, family-friendly farming fun that the franchise is known for. The new engine and new graphics will upgrade this experience for 2020. We are so excited to share more about the features of Harvest Moon: One World in the coming months.”

No screenshots or trailers have been released just yet (we only have the graphic above to go on so far), but we do have our first details of the game in the form of this official blurb:

Can you imagine a world without tomatoes, strawberries, or even cabbage? In the latest entry in the Harvest Moon series, that’s the situation players will find themselves in. Only an old book gives hints of what once was… Buoyed by a mysterious discovery, players will find themselves setting out on an adventure that spans not only their hometown but the whole world! What kind of people and places await? From the gorgeous beaches of Halo Halo to the snowy mountains of Salmiakki, there’s literally an entire world to explore.

Back in January, Natsume president Hiro Maekawa teased a number of “exciting new projects”. It certainly seems like this must be one of them.

Are you a Harvest Moon fan? Excited to see how this new game might take shape? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.