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

[jonaz.dk]

Immortal Redneck is free on GOG for a limited time

https://www.gog.com/en/game/immortal_redneck

[jonaz.dk]

Steam page for NanoHive, a free top down shooter developed by (DK) Aalborg based Empty Box.





*Update web/desktop playable on itch
https://empty-box.itch.io/nanohive

And more on
https://www.emptybox.games/

[jonaz.dk]

Pigeon Gang from 2018!

Like Duck Hunt.. but in Randers!

In a small town in Denmark called Randers, a group of cruel biker pigeons
is causing trouble in town, especially around the local train station.

The local police force has called in expertise from the experienced hunter Frans Rasmussen, in an attempt to save the city and create peace for the inhabitants.



Free on itch
https://mis-dk.itch.io/pigeon-gang

[jonaz.dk]

Another round of CAVE in Viborg 29 - 30 September 2022.


BE INSPIRED
Experience some of the world’s greatest Concept Artists and Visual Explorers, as they talk about and do live demos of their methods and creative thinking at CAVE – a two day event for you to network with other concept artists. Experience artists behind illustrations to titles like Total War: Warhammer, MARV, Eternals and much more.

NETWORK WITH CREATIVE MINDS
Between the talks and Live demos, you get more than 1 hour lunch break to make sure you have time to network with some of the speakers and other attendees!

https://tilmeld.events/cave/conference

[jonaz.dk]

Latest free stuff on the Unreal Engine Marketplace



Free for the Month
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplac ... s?tag=4910

Permanently free
https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplac ... s?tag=4906

[jonaz.dk]

The Making of Rogue Legacy 2 | Noclip Documentary

[jonaz.dk]

Ray Marching, and making 3D Worlds with Math

[jonaz.dk]

Play a Pokemon-like neural net generated world in your browser by Ollin Boer Bohan.. Not really a game per se (yet) but these things evolves really fast. It's still very floaty and mushy.. but damn it's crazy! And this is just the early days... sooner or later I could imagine AI can generate pretty much anything imaginable and unimagineable in games, media and beyond to an excellent degree.

It begs some incredible large questions where it will lead humanity when most aspects of life can be done better by AI (As we call it now). Especially when combined with robotics or whatever synthetic sentient life forms that may arise. Perhaps if we are lucky(?) we can take the place as just some well looked after pets in the big AI zoo.



Project site
https://madebyoll.in/posts/game_emulation_via_dnn/

Direct webbrowser playable
https://madebyoll.in/posts/game_emulation_via_dnn/demo/

[jonaz.dk]

Blender 3.3 is out



https://www.blender.org/download/

[jonaz.dk]

DK project Youropa with it's 10'ish year development cycle (or so) and Steam release back in June 2018 is surprisingly coming to Nintendo Switch on October 6, 2022! Developed by and published by the (duo) frecle.
It seems like the game still has a small active player base. Let's see if it comes to more platforms in the future.

**Actually not completely surprising if you saw and remembered the 2019 annoucement... ahmm.. I think I missed it somehow!
But who gives.. it will be here soon!

From
https://nintendoeverything.com/youropa- ... n-october/

Youropa - Announcement Trailer - Nintendo Switch

[jonaz.dk]

Being a concept artist will be more of a challenge in the coming years.. the field is certainly being democratized before our very eyes.
Next up.. I guess 3D art is the step after that along with music, writing etc... after that probably programming and gamedesign. All these thigs are already being worked on. It's just a matter of time until they reach a sufficient point of quality.

Stable Diffusion: DALL-E 2 For Free, For Everyone!

[jonaz.dk]

What Happened to the Queen's Golden Wii?

[jonaz.dk]

Gerda: A flame in Winter launch party at Nokken was super awesome! Bow and arrows, pellet guns, leather training saber fighting, karaoke, hammmer nail game thing, smørrebrød, lots of super nice people and last but not least Kristian Ellingsøe playing the accordion song he wrote for the game. Also cookies, drinks and beers.
I left a bit early.. dont know if Jakob Hansens hardstyle theme of the game theme was also played. (Update: He forgot!!.. it is seriously awesome!!)

Full length here:

[jonaz.dk]

Pet Skull Games (Nikolaj Piet Pagh) now has a steam page for his small retro inspired game Ladder Larry.

[jonaz.dk]

Price increases for Unity Pro and Enterprise. Also includes a bit more value.

Clearly Unity is on the road towards (needed) profitability. Cutting internal projects, taking military contracts and price increases along the way. While also trying to expand into new areas.



https://blog.unity.com/news/pro-enterprise-new-pricing

Adding: I do think reality has hit the stock market after a soaring first year of flying high on the stock market. The Unity stock has come crashing down to about half the initial price.
The only remedy I see is to prove that Unity actually can be a profitable business. It have never been so in the past. So it's is certainly time to turn the boat around to turn investor confidence to something more positive. Hence the recent developments.
I do think it is possible! But not without a bit of sacrifice.
The question is how many developers they turn away in the process. Competiton is certainly not getting any softer. From both the low end and the high end. With Unity possibly getting stuck in the middle in the long run.
For studios already invested in the tool set, it is always a big descision to turn somewhere else.
But far from impossible and it has already happened a few times (Eg. Playdead, LogicArtist), I can only speak for my insights into the DK games industry.. but here most new major startups and bigger projects has gone with Unreal Engine for anything more highend and will employ positions in the few hundreds in a little while. Unity remains king of mobile and many smaller projects.

FOSS like Gotdot has yet to make a mark in Denmark in that area. But in time I think we could see something like that take the "lowend" platforms with storm like Blender is doing on 3D applications and not only lowend in Blenders case. Depending on how Unity plays their cards and maturity of such engines this could happen sooner or later.

[jonaz.dk]

A bit of rumor brewing around Valves upcoming standalone VR headset' Deckard'. At the right price it could really be something if everything checks out. Let's see where it goes!

[jonaz.dk]

So finally a bit of a more official annoncement of the Copenhagen based THQ Nordic Studio, Campfire Cabal.

https://www.thqnordic.com/article/relig ... HL4w8CT7ZA

There is even a teaser.. looks like their first project could be Expeditions: Rome - DLC/Expansion related.. maybe even a sequel?
I was hoping for new new IP (And I think they were too) but it makes sense from a THQ business perspective. Rome has done really well in sales and reception. No need to drop the ball on that and they did buy the IP. Though the team carrying the project forward will be semi newish to the project, so lets hope they can carry the torch high. There is still a lot of the old LogicArtists on the team in the aftermath of the creation of Dynasty Studios.
...Could also be it's just the assets they had lying around from the Rome project, connecting the new studio with the Expeditions IP and they are working on something new but still in the Expeditions series?! We'll see in time!

[jonaz.dk]

Small indie DK project 'Dead Again' by "sanojian & repsej"
The zombie shooter plays on desktop browser and mobile.


Play for free-free here:
https://js13kgames.com/entries/dead-again

[jonaz.dk]

DK Project spotting 'Road to Valhalla' by Runerock Studios

So we had a new tester starting at work a little while ago. Turns out he is part of a smaller indie project 'Road to Valhalla'. A 3D instadeath platformer.



More on:
https://www.runerock.dk/

Played the very early prototype some months old.. the level design could use a few iterations.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1TthNGQ ... ogD7s/view


While we are waiting for the release of Road to Valhalla I can recommend Glyph from Bolverk Games.. it's really good game if you are into these speed running platformy games! (95.79% positive reviews)
Steam sales is far too low for a game of this quality. But I think they had good sales on Switch.

[jonaz.dk]

Growing Games: Levelling up – business basics for gamedev startups
Okt 12 2022

Are you ready to start your own game studio?

If you have just started your own game company, or if you are considering doing it, this is the workshop for you.

We’ve planned an afternoon filled with all the most essential knowledge for game studio startups. The formal process of setting up a company, contracts and paperwork, early funding and essential tips from some of the CEOs who have already run the gauntlet, and survived.


More info and sign up
https://www.visiondenmark.dk/events/gro ... ss-basics/

[jonaz.dk]

Just announced!
The next installment in the "Bombshelly" 'Fury' series. Phantom Fury.
Basicly looking like Iron Fury 2 with a bit of a later retro vibe.. Looks cool!

Developed by Slipgate Ironworks. Published by 3DRealms
Launching in 2023

Phantom Fury - Reveal Trailer




Revealed at (currently live) Realms Deep 2022

[jonaz.dk]

And another Slipgate Ironworks developed project has been announced, Combustion.

[jonaz.dk]

Slipgate Ironsworks is certainly keeping busy!

Another game listed as co-develoed with 2B Games, RTS game Warpaws.

Not sure how much Slipgate is involved though. To some degree!

[jonaz.dk]

While we are at it!
(I think I never got around to post about these projects?!)

More Slipgate Ironworks related projects includes Kingpin: Reloaded and Sin: Reloaded.
Slipgate seem to play a larger role on Kingpin: Reloadad than on Sin: Reloaded. Seen from an outside perspective.

Both were annouced a couple of year ago being in development.

Also 3DRealms published Wrath is still in Early Access since 2019.
And Slipgate developed Graven since May 2021.

That's A LOT of projects going on, including Tempest Rising. Perhaps just too many projects to really deliver solid focused quality games?! I know there are even more unannouced (big) things. The early access projects is now on mixed reviews. So it's not the best indicator. I hope it will not bite them too much in the ass. But I do have a concern about Slipgate just doing waaaay too many projects to actually handle with the love that they need. As passionate as they might be.. let not your passion run amok. Also it's a bit hard to see what team is working on what from the outside. Lots of teams internationally and many remote positions. At the end of the day there is a lot of coordination and people to handle. So it's a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes excellent quality sometimes less depending on circumstances.
Financially I have no concerns at the moment for the company. Things are looking pretty sweet!

Kingpin: Reloaded



Sin: Reloaded

[jonaz.dk]

Devlog 1 update from The Wayward Realms!
From DK born creator Julian Lafay. Technical father of The Elder Scrolls series.

After some initial challenges is does indeed look like to project is more than talk and mediocre teaser trailers.
So that's great!
I assume they have found some funding for the project.

Adding: Also interestingly it also sound on paper like a lot of what new DK startup Raw Power Games is working towards. Both using UE5 using lots of AI and procedual systems.
The race is on!