Today on Twitter, Pixel Vision 8 – a highly configurable and fully featured virtual console, announced that it would be free, including the pro tools during the current health crisis.

From the Pixel Vision twitter:

Pixel Vision 8 is available here, simply register an account and you can download Pixel Vision as well as all of the premium pro features.  You can learn more about PV8 and see it in action in the video below.  If you check out Pixel Vision 8, be sure to stop by Twitter and thank developer Jesse Freeman for his generosity during these trying times!

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GameDev News 2D Engine

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So, here we are. From completing my final Weekender last Friday, to what is going to be one of my last posts as Editor of Pocket Tactics. Since the handover is still scheduled to happen this week, I thought now would be a good opportunity to do my official ‘goodbye’.

Depending on how things go, I may still be around filling in with various news posts etc. but consider this my last official update. It’s been a blast!

I think about my very first post here quite a lot, as it’s probably one of the worst first impressions I think I could have ever made. Hopefully I’ve gotten a bit better since then, and at the very least I’ve aimed to try and maintain Pocket Tactics’ unique viewpoint on the mobile games market. Premium games in this space are not what they once were, but as long as there are still developers who want to make mobile titles with friendly business models, I’d like to think Pocket Tactics will always be here to shine the spotlight.

In case you’re reading this and you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, I’d suggest reading this post first before you continue – it will explain a bit more about the changes expected to happen this week.

When the time comes, the following things will happen:

• The version of Pocket Tactics you’re viewing right now will disappear, and be replaced by a new-look website (it looks particularly good on mobile now).
• Much of the content, including this post, will disappear and be replaced by the selection of articles that were migrated as well as some filler stories Glen and Sean have been writing in the background up till this point.
• You will no longer need to ‘log-in’ to the website, however you will still need to login to the forums. Your previous details will still work.
• You will no longer be able to comment on individual articles, but I will be creating new areas in the forum to facilitate discussion.
• Last but not least, I will be transferring all social and related channels over to Glen.

These won’t happen in any specific order – things will need checking and monitoring, there may be some last minute tweaks, etc. but the plan is for the handover to be done and dusted within a day. Depending on what timezone you’re in, you might wake up to a brand new website waiting for you!

Pocket Tactics Archive

A quick note on the idea of ‘archiving’ or otherwise preserving Pocket Tactics, as I know some people have asked about this already. One intrepid user from our Discord crowd decided to download the entire site archive as it was on March 16th, 2020 and send it to me. The file is like 2.8 GB or something and I honestly have no idea what to do with it. But, take solace in the fact that it’s at least preserved in some form. There are currently no plans to make it usable in terms of putting it up on another live website.

It’s been a pleasure serving as PT’s Editor these past four years. I know I’m leaving you in good hands with Glen and Sean, but remember they are not me, just as I am not Dave or Owen. Their Pocket Tactics is going to be different from what’s come before, and we all need to give them time to present that vision to the world.

At the moment, there’s a report going around that suggests Nintendo will remaster most of Mario’s back-catalogue to celebrate the iconic plumber’s 35th anniversary this year. If you read our original story about it, you’ll already know this news surfaced on VGC, and was then backed up by Eurogamer.

In short, both outlets claim many of Mario’s 3D adventures will be making a return in 2020, alongside a new Paper Mario game. If you’re still not convinced, well now VentureBeat’s staff writer Jeff Grubb has chimed in. For the record, he’s the same guy who said we’d be getting two Nintendo presentations on certain dates this month, and we did. In addition to this, he’s now reached out to his own source about the latest report. Here’s what he found out:

For the remasters, our source is telling us that Nintendo is pursuing something like a Super Mario All-Stars 2 for the 3D Mario games. This would include Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and then Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2. It’s likely that 3D World may get its own, separate Deluxe-style release. While it’s possible the older 3D Mario games could come in a single compilation, it’s also likely that Nintendo will release them individually as it did with its Zelda remasters.

The Paper Mario game, meanwhile, represents a return to that franchise’s roots. This means something closer to the Nintendo 64 and Gamecube games, which are beloved. And leaving behind the baggage of the more forgettable entries on 3DS and Wii U.

Finally, expect Nintendo to fill out the Mario celebrations in other ways as well. This could mean even more Mario games on the Nintendo Switch Online subscription service, for example.

Again, it sounds too good to be true, but now that Jeff Grubb has relayed what he’s heard from his own source, we’re starting to believe. To add to this, a few months ago, the well-known Nintendo leaker Sabi said the Paper Mario series would return to form in 2020.

GamesBeat went to the extent of reaching out to Nintendo, and while it had nothing to say about the rumoured Direct-style event to celebrate’s Mario 35th anniversary this year, it hasn’t provided an official response to the main chunk of the original report just yet.

What do you make of all of this so far? What Mario games would you like to see make a comeback? Tell us below.

When you can’t go outside what should you do? Play video games, of course! Our lovely senior video producer Alex Olney has been indoors a little more regularly than usual as of late, and to help pass the time he’s decided to put together a video of the best Nintendo Switch games to play in this situation.

Games like ARMS, Fitness Boxing and Ring Fit Adventure will give you plenty of exercise, Animal Crossing: New Horizons allows you to escape from the harsh realities, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate is a great pick, simply because of how long it takes to complete the game and then there’s the very social The Jackbox Party Pack.

If you’re looking for something with exploration in it, how about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Complete Edition? Then there are various other games like Super Mario Party, Two Point Hospital and Overcooked – another experience best with friends. And to finish off the list, we have Untitled Goose Game.

So, there you go – if you’re bunkering down indoors for a prolonged period of time, these are some of the games that will keep you entertained, help get your mind off things, provide a healthy dose of interaction and various other lifestyle and wellbeing benefits. What did you think of this list? Would you add anything else to it? Leave a comment down below.

Bienvenido a Box Art Brawl, our weekly look back at the same game’s retro box art from around the world with a cheeky vote attached.

To coincide with the release of Animal Crossing: New Horizons we took a look at the first game in the series last week. Despite the North American and European variants being very similar, the minor differences elevated the North American version way above the rest with a comfortable 59% of the vote. Japan mopped up just 7% leaving Europe in the middle with the remainder.

After the lovely and contemplative relaxation of Animal Crossing, we’re taking to the streets (digital ones, we hasten to add) with Streets of Rage 3 this week. Yes, we broke the mould with a non-Nintendo system game back in Box Art Brawl #32 with Sonic the Hedgehog, with the proviso that the game has appeared on a Nintendo platform. This week’s game is available on Switch as part of the rather excellent Sega Mega Drive Classics collection (which, crucially, includes the Japanese version, AKA the one you should play).

To be honest we’re just whetting our appetites for the upcoming Streets of Rage 4 with this selection, and with many people across the globe currently under a lockdown of some sort thanks to COVID-19, what better way to release some of that pent up tension with an underappreciated beat ’em up, eh?

Let’s get down to it, then. Round 1…

North America

We begin in North America with Axel, Blaze, Dr. Zan and unlockable character Roo practising their moves on a dock as the sun sets (or rises?) behind the city in the background. Skate, or Sammy if you prefer, is entirely absent for some reason and the positioning of the four characters is a little odd. Your eye is drawn to Zan’s electrified cyborg arm, and while he and Blaze are rendered pretty well, poor Axel has seen much better days.

Midway through his patented Grand Upper punch, the veteran brawler’s mug is enough to distract you from the odd proportions of his body. His hands and feet are enormous and the poor chap has taken some heavy blows to the face. This is the third game, we suppose.

We like how Zan’s hand breaks over the red Genesis strip down the left side, although we’re less enthused with Roo’s foot doing the same. There are some strange perspective issues here that become more evident the longer you look, but it’s got plenty of energy.

Japan

All the characters look more or less as you’d imagine them from the in-game sprites on the Japanese cover, with Axel looking suitably ripped and Blaze reminding us of her, er, formative influence on us as a young gamer. Ahem.

Sammy is present and correct and Zan’s massive cyborg body presents the cast as they all stand in front of a blazing… something. We see robotic hands reaching out behind the kick-ass Japanese title. It’s evocative, dynamic, colourful and beautifully painted. In fact, the only fault we can find with it is Axel’s shirt. What’s going on with that? Is it cling film? Is his white t-shirt just soaking wet with sweat after giving dozens of goons a sound beating? It almost looks like he has smeared lard over his chest in the form of a vest.

Europe

Taking a leaf from the North American book when it comes to omitting characters, Dr. Gilbert Zan takes centre stage on the European blue box, although with less obviously cyborg appendages. Killer ‘stache, though. We assume Blaze has just had her head crushed and twisted by an unseen enemy thanks to its unnatural angle and curiously small size compared to the rest of her body.

The city with the ominous lightning storm looks nice, the water looks nice, the logo is cool and we don’t mind the big blue strip with prominent placement of the Mega Drive and SEGA logos, either. It is still lacking something, though, and despite any good points it may have, we can’t stop scrutinising Blaze’s head.

Them’s your picks this week. Click your favourite below and hit the ‘Vote’ button to register your choice:

We hope you’re all keeping safe and sound wherever you are. Happy gaming and we’ll see you next week for another round.

I stumbled across this question when browsing through StackOverflow and it got me thinking: what’s the best way to count the number of elements in a list that match a certain condition? Can you generalize this way to both general conditions (e.g. x>3) and regular expressions (e.g. 'a.*')?

Short answer: you can count the number of elements x that match a certain condition(x) by using the one-liner expression sum(condition(x) for x in lst). This creates a generator expression that returns True for each element that satisfies the condition and False otherwise. Since the True and False values are represented by integer 1 and 0 values, you get the number of matching elements by summing over the iterable.

Try it yourself with the interactive code shell:

In case, the browser interpreter doesn’t show up in your browser, here’s the raw Python code:

## FRAMEWORK FOR CONDITIONAL COUNT ## # Define any condition here

def condition(x): return x > 10 # Create the list

lst = [10, 11, 42, 1, 2, 3] # Count the number of matching elements

print(sum(condition(x) for x in lst))

# What's the output?

Related articles:

• Python List Methods
• Python List Count()

Python List Count With Condition

How can you count elements under a certain condition in Python? For example, what if you want to count all even values in a list? Or all prime numbers? Or all strings that start with a certain character? There are multiple ways to accomplish this, let’s discuss them one by one.

Say, you have a condition for each element x. Let’s make it a function with the name condition(x). You can define any condition you want—just put it in your function. For example this condition returns True for all elements that are greater than the integer 10:

def condition(x): return x > 10 print(condition(10))

# False print(condition(2))

# False print(condition(11))

# True

But you can also define more complicated conditions such as checking if they are prime numbers.

Python List Count If

How can you count the elements of the list IF the condition is met?

The answer is to use a simple generator expression sum(condition(x) for x in lst):

>>> def condition(x): return x>10 >>> lst = [10, 11, 42, 1, 2, 3]

>>> sum(condition(x) for x in lst)

2

The result indicates that there are two elements that are larger than 10. You used a generator expression that returns an iterator of Booleans. Note that the Boolean True is represented by the integer value 1 and the Boolean False is represented by the integer value 0. That’s why you can simply calculate the sum over all Booleans to obtain the number of elements for which the condition holds.

Python List Count Greater / Smaller Than

If you want to determine the number of elements that are greater than or smaller than a specified value, just modify the condition in this example:

>>> def condition(x): return x>10 >>> lst = [10, 11, 42, 1, 2, 3]

>>> sum(condition(x) for x in lst)

2

For example, to find the number of elements smaller than 5, use the condition x<5 in the generator expression:

>>> lst = [10, 11, 42, 1, 2, 3]

>>> sum(x<5 for x in lst)

3

Python List Count Zero / Non-Zero

To count the number of zeros in a given list, use the list.count(0) method call.

To count the number of non-zeros in a given list, you should use conditional counting as discussed before:

def condition(x): return x!=0 lst = [10, 11, 42, 1, 2, 0, 0, 0]

print(sum(condition(x) for x in lst))

# 5

Python List Count Lambda + Map

An alternative is to use a combination of the map and the lambda function.

Related articles:

• [Full Tutorial] Map Function: manipulates each element in an iterable.
• [Full Tutorial] Lambda Function: creates an anonymous function.

Here’s the code:

>>> sum(map(lambda x: x%2==0, [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]))

2

You count the number of even integers in the list.

• The lambda function returns a truth value for a given element x.
• The map function transforms each list element into a Boolean value (1 or 0).
• The sum function sums up the “1”s.

The result is the number of elements for which the condition evaluates to True.

Python List Count Regex / Count Matches

Given a list of strings. How can you check how many list elements match a certain regex pattern? (If you need a refresher on Python regular expressions, check out my ultimate guide on this blog – it’s really ultimate!)

• List lst of string elements
• Pattern p to be matched against the strings in the list.

Solution: Use the concept of generator expressions with the ternary operator.

Related articles:

• Master ternary operator.
• Master list comprehension.

Here’s the code:

>>> import re

>>> p = 'a...e'

>>> lst = ['annie', 'alice', 'apex']

>>> sum(1 if re.match(p, x) else 0 for x in lst)

2

Python List Count Wildcard

Do you want to count all string occurrences of a given prefix (e.g. prefix "Sus" for strings "Susie", "Susy", "Susi")?

Solution: Again you can use the concept of generator expressions with the ternary operator.

Related articles:

• Master ternary operator.
• Master list comprehension.

Here’s the code for this one using the wildcard operator in a pattern to count all occurrences of this pattern in the list.

>>> import re

>>> lst = ['Susi', 'Ann', 'Susanne', 'Susy']

>>> pattern = 'Sus.*'

>>> frequency = sum(1 if re.match(pattern, x) else 0 for x in lst)

>>> print(frequency)

3

The generator expression produces a bunch of 1s and 0s—the former if the list element starts with prefix 'Sus' and the latter if it doesn’t. By summing over all elements, you get the number of matches of the wildcard operator.

Where to Go From Here?

You’ve learned how you can get the number of elements that match a certain condition. It can be a Boolean condition or even a regular expression—the framework stays the same.

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Then join my Python freelancer program and take your first steps towards six figures and attainment of your practical code projects in no time!

Are you still unsure? Watch the free software dev online webinar first. It’s fun and you don’t have to have any preknowledge!