News! Tech! Tools! Talks! Games! And Stuff Worth Sharing!

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 05 Jan 2020, 14:18

A sneak peak at Samsungs AI driven project NEON.
The future implications are quite interesting.




Oh yeah this also made the rounds a little while ago. AI base face generation. Press F5 to get a new generated face. I'm not sure what license applies to the images?! But I guess they could be very useful for random faces for eg. character portraits in a game. Or at least great reference. If that would be a specific need in a title. The level of photo-realism is quite astounding. Some weird artifacts shows up from time to time. But it's really a solid algorithm.
https://www.thispersondoesnotexist.com/

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 06 Jan 2020, 08:46

Polaroid Effect. Pretty cool mechanic!


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 06 Jan 2020, 20:31

The Making of STAR WARS Jedi: Fallen Order - Documentary


We Happy Few - The Cost of Joy Documentary

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 07 Jan 2020, 01:43

Exploring the tech and design of Noita


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 07 Jan 2020, 14:18

Switch-like PC gaming portable 'Concept UFO' from Alienware.


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 08 Jan 2020, 09:57

IGF finalist nominations for Mutazione from Die Gute Fabrik in serveral categories.
- Seumas McNally Grand Prize
- Excellence in Visual Art
- Excellence in Audio
- Excellence in Narrative

Also DK related student games was mentioned.
- Forgotten (Mutiny Games)
- BORE DOME (Goblin rage)
- Honorable mentions for best student game Du Rejser (You Travel) (by Victor Selnæs Breum + Katinka).
https://igf.com/finalists-and-winners

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 09 Jan 2020, 11:24

Sexy stuff!
GPU-Based Run-Time Procedural Placement in Horizon: Zero Dawn

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 09 Jan 2020, 23:27

An oldie!
The making of Another World

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 10 Jan 2020, 00:03

Right before Christmas Napnok Games announced their toy/game concept Temari is on it's way. In the wake of launching Frantics and Chimparty as PlayStation PlayLink titles. With moderate success. Cutting the staff in Copenhagen and creative director partner Lau Korsgaard leaving the company.

A unique and original concept. But also hugely complex and ambitious. Been in development for understandably, quite a while now.

It IS an interesting and extraordinarily risky space they are trying to enter with a (possibly too complex concept and technical side? offering on a new IP). With potential huge financial gains to bag if successful. But isn't that always the trick.

The good news is that there are no dominant force at the moment offering anything in that space is seems. Besides Nintendo Amiibo. Not locally at least. So that's a theoretical opening. All the priors success stories has seemed to vanish from the shelves in Denmark. Skylanders, LEGO dimensions, Disney Infinity (pulled after 3 generations). Ubisofts StarLink was pulled quite quickly. The kiddo loved them in his earlier years! With a huge (now dust collecting) collection to prove it. ;)
I guess Nintendo's Amiibo concept didn't really explode over here. But more serves as a steady thing for collectors. It's still being supported to a moderate degree on the various Nintendo platforms.

A note on Ubisofts Starlink. They did an (I guess optional) but still HUGE design flaw. Kiddo played it on the Xbox One. And in order to play is 'as inteded' You would have connect a gigantic spaceship with attachments sitting on top of your controller. So you would literally sit with a large chunk of plastic on top of your controller. Which would end up just being too tiring to physically hold for longer durations.
I can't believe Ubisoft let this design though. Some simple USB wire connection would have been the way to go. Or optimally wireless.
Also they went EXTREMELY narrow with their target audience. Targeting the older end of the spectrum and going for a niche scifi audience. With the primary focus being on cool looking space ships. On a broad scale I don't thing space ships can compete with characters in connecting with an audience. There was also character figures in StarLink. But it was never the main focus unlike Skylanders etc.
Temari seems to have a mechanical side with some strange unreadable contraptions. The characters seems to be some sort of class/team based something in 2 color schemes. They all look pretty samey. So that's another risk factor. They will have to spend a lot of energy on just telling what the concept and appeal actually is. Before they can sell it. As it is not immediately apparent.

The physical portal on LEGO Dimensions was such a weak build (the cosmetic LEGO pieces). That it would fall apart just by touching it ever so slightly. Not optimal. But was otherwise functional.

The Skylanders portal just worked. A solid piece of USB connected plastic. No bullshit! And cool kids friendly characters in solid builds.
Though the wire on the portal was sort of short (LEGO Dimension was even shorter) and you would have to get up walk back and forth every time you would have to switch characters. Depending on your setup. And there was some annoying screens popping up all the time when switching characters. But it was a pretty solid approach.

Another global factor concepts like these face is even harder to get around. "Kids don't toy for very long anymore". They all have such a short window of age to capture these kids interest. It's maybe around 5-8 years old? For these toy lines mentioned.
And after that, the physical toys impact on kids lives fades off really really quickly. And those dreaded video games and video streaming has taken up most the kids time and interest.
Temari looks like it's aiming for the older end of the spectrum which would increase the risk factor.

NapNok has huge challenges ahead and will need one heck of a partner with super deep pockets (and balls of steel) for marketing, manufacturing and distribution muscle to pull it off. And a product that works just PERFECTLY for the kids on all fronts. Potential partner companies does indeed exist. But it's a small hand. And none of their names was on the packing shots just yet.

With the right partner things could possibly turn very interesting. But the product and appeal to the target audience has to be spot on.

All in all it's a really tall order. I will remain sceptical until proven wrong. Which I hope I will.

Best of luck to NapNok!


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 11 Jan 2020, 13:36

The excellent little pixel platformer VVVVVV goes open source on GitHub. Played it years ago and had a great experience.
To the very least it's a great PR move from Terry Cavanagh on his part. Open source is always appreciated.

https://github.com/TerryCavanagh/VVVVVV


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 11 Jan 2020, 14:13

So the release of Lightmatter from Tunnel Vision Games in Aalborg is just around the corner. 15th of January.
Played an early version years ago. Obviously rough around the edges in it's early stage. But it showed some early promise. Also I didn't bore- or rage- quit the demo. So that's a good sign! :D

It has also been quite the journey of a multi year development cycle for the Aalborg team. From student project in 2013 to starting a company in 2016. And releasing in 2020.
And there has been leaps and bounds of work happening on the project since. And it certainly looks and sounds a lot more tasty now. Including the voice talent of David Bateson. Hitman's voice actor.

Drop by their thread here.
viewtopic.php?f=10&t=4552

Just dropped by their announcement trailer. Almost 2 million views! Holy shit guys! That sounds promising! I hope it will translate into sales. I guess that's where some of the publisher money went into marketing.

First person puzzlers with novel mechanics is a sort of proven niche category with a few hits. And doesn't seem to be over-saturated. The good thing is the genre is always open for new entries and not 'occupied' by never ending service games.
But nothing is to be taken for granted on Steam. Eg. DK First person puzzle game, Aporia: Beyond The Valley from Investigate North did not go so well back in 2017. But the team soldiers on, on a new project in a new company, First Class Trouble by Invisible Walls. So that's great!

But with almost 2 million views on youtube and a very high like to dislike ratio. Things are absolutely looking positive from an external viewpoint without knowing the internal wishlisting numbers.
The danger is that it is a one-off single player game at it's core it seems. Play it through once (if you don't quit on a difficulty spike or gets distracted by other games) and very possibly never touch it again.
And there will be an initial sales spike. And a few spikes when it hits the steam sales. As opposed to more service and community driven games with a steady stream of updates and community interaction. It's not so much a game for streamers with endless gameplay. But a few might pick it up. So from the very conception it will be a super hard challenge to make an enduring success. But that's the game for these more story driven games.
One might assume there are some post launch expansion plans?! And more ports on the drawing board.

But I hope the qualities combined with marketing efforts of the game will pull it up to a high enough level that Tunnel Vision will be able to push on though and make awesome games in the future. I see it at least has the potential for a long slow burning success if the quality is up to snuff. The trick is surviving long enough to reap the potential fruits.
Also something I noticed is their lengthy beta testing period. It should serve them well in ironing out all the kinks. So they will have an utmost polished and player welcoming experience. Leading to lots of positive reviews if all goes well. Releasing a sub optimal one-shot product can be catastrophic. So that's great vibe it seems.
I'm sure the game will open some doors regardless how things turns out. But let's see where it goes. One can only speculate. Hoping it will be amazingly well received and have an amazing launch to kickstart it.

Also I would totally love to go the release party... if it was in Copenhagen! ;) Probably won't have the time to make it to Aalborg. But thanks for the invite regardless! @Wikzo Appreciated!

Best of luck with the launch and beyond!





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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 13 Jan 2020, 13:02

Years out in real time. But damn! The potential for realistic cooking simulations in games of the future just got a nudge up. Imagine a VR version with perfect hand and finger tracking in reasonable volumetric resolution. :) Also whenever it becomes feasible. VR will have evolved to an amazing degree.

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 13 Jan 2020, 21:00

Indie spotting

The Pedestrian



Free demo here
https://www.skookum-arts.com/

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 13 Jan 2020, 22:40

The Feature That Almost Sank Disco Elysium | Audio Logs


The Untold Story Behind the Design of Transistor - Documentary


How Baba is You works

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 13 Jan 2020, 23:44

Open Source (But super cheap at €16 exludinc VAT). Armor Paint 0.7 features. Live link to UE4 and Unity and more.


Looks like it won't be 'too long' before Substance Painter gets a run for it's money. If Blender doesn't get there first.
https://armorpaint.org/

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 14 Jan 2020, 22:20

Create Halo's Blood Gulch Bunker in UE4


Maya Plugins for Modeling


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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 03 Feb 2020, 15:15

And still a few days left for registering with spilprisen for this years award show. Last day is Thursday the 6th of February.

https://spilprisen.dk/om-spilprisen/tilmelding/

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 03 Feb 2020, 20:26

So Flash has been phasing out recently. And will very soon not be supported at all by modern browsers.
Flashpoint (currently version 7.1). Is a worthy games preservation effort. Basically it's a Steam-like launcher for Flash Games without all the bells and whistles.
Currently at 38.000 supported tiles in it's full download.



Download Flashpoint and games here.
https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/
!! (My anti-virus did alert me and quarantined a file upon installing. I really hope it's a false positive. I'm not the only one having anti virus software notifying me on this software. Be careful out there) !!

Maybe soon we'll see the Internet Archive supporting Flash games at some point? Otherwise they have a plentiful selection of games from vintage arcade, PC and console systems.
https://archive.org/details/consolelivingroom
https://archive.org/details/internetarc ... ads&page=2

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 04 Feb 2020, 10:11

Cursed Problems in Game Design

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Unread post by Jesper Kondrup » 04 Feb 2020, 12:46

"Dansk spil har solgt for 100 millioner kroner - og det er ikke engang færdigt endnu"

Super godt gået! Det lyder fuldstændig vildt og 95% positive anmeldelser på steam, damn :D
https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/kultur/gaming ... digt-endnu

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 06 Feb 2020, 15:28

Darkfire Heroes from Wargaming Copenhagen is now out on iOS. Apparantly it's been out on Android since last year.



Web
https://sites.google.com/view/darkfireheroes/home

Droid
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... roes&hl=en

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 07 Feb 2020, 11:53

https://modl.ai/news/modl.ai-leading-new-wave-in-AI
modl.ai, the Danish start-up at the forefront of a rising paradigm shift in artificial intelligence has closed US$1.7M in seed financing led by Danish-based PreSeed Ventures, Saltagen Ventures (Hong Kong), and Norwegian Propagator Ventures along with other investors including Pool Global Partners (Toronto, San Francisco), and SEED Capital (Copenhagen).

Founded by a team of world leading experts in games, psychometrics and artificial intelligence, modl.ai will enable game developers to efficiently test games in minutes rather than days or weeks by deploying AI-driven player persona archetypes that mimic human behavior. While beating humans at games with superhuman ability has long been an AI benchmark, mimicking behavior is the next frontier. Applied to games, it enables developers to reduce the cost and time required for game testing and content development.


I can't imagine they have built a system that can test for all the things needed to test for in game productions.
But I guess could be just useful for some very specific game types for automated testing scenarios. A supplement to human testing for balancing etc.


https://modl.ai/

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 07 Feb 2020, 12:12

DK startup spotting

No real info yet! But something single player is brewing at Goblin Galaxy. A small band of ex-NapNok people.
www.goblingalaxy.com

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Unread post by jonaz.dk » 07 Feb 2020, 12:37

Also DK developed PandaBall was released on PS4 december last year. Forgot to mention. :blush




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