Original programming on YouTube premieres next week
When the premium service launched in October, YouTube Red wasn’t just about removing advertisements and adding a couple features. YouTube Red is the first step towards a true video streaming service for Google, one like Netflix and Hulu, because access to original programming is included with a subscription. Today, YouTube announced four original series and movies, under the YouTube Red Originals banner, that are premiering next week.
The YouTube Red Originals come from top creators and media companies like PewDiePie and AwesomenessTV.
These are the YouTube Red Originals premiering on February 10:
- A Trip to Unicorn Island: From the team at Astronauts Wanted, this feature-length movie gives fans an extraordinary look inside the life and journey of Lilly Singh as she embarks on a challenging 26-city global tour where she has to remember to practice what she preaches: happiness is the only thing worth fighting for.
- Dance Camp: This feature film from AwesomenessTV weaves an amazing story of unlikely friendships, unleashing passions and discovering yourself all through the power of dance.
- Lazer Team: In this feature-length action-comedy from Rooster Teeth and Fullscreen Films, four small-town losers stumble upon an alien ship carrying a mysterious cargo, leading to a battle to save Earth from an all-powerful enemy.
- Scare PewDiePie: In this reality-adventure series from the creator and executive producers of “The Walking Dead” at Skybound Entertainment and Maker Studios, experience thrills, chills and laughter as PewDiePie encounters terrifying situations inspired by his favorite video games.
http://platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsAlthough YouTube Red is not available in all countries, the service is working to add more as quickly to expand its original programming’s exposure. More YouTube Red Originals will be debuting later this year, so YouTube definitely wants to get more countries involved.
Source: YouTubehttp://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
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Zombie vs. Gunman; a pleasant surprise in the vein of PvZ. [Review]
The Plants vs. Zombies formula is simple; protect your lanes from onrushing zombies using units of varying utility. Zombie vs. Gunman, at face value, is yet another game hoping to piggy-back on this blueprint. The setting is different – half, at least – with cartoony, era-ambiguous soldiers replacing the plants that’ve spawned half a dozen games.
The first thing that catches your eye – ear – is the music. Simple, ominous and brassy and sets the tone well. The menu screen (below) is well designed and minimalist, and would fit right in with any Triple-A title – except for the damned artwork. To be perfectly honest, it’s bad. It is. Every bit of the game is detailed and shaded – heck, there’s even lighting effects – but the quality of the actual linework, the style it’s drawn in, is objectively poor. It’s simple but not in a good way. Simple in the way that South Park is simple – works for a satirical comedy show, not so much for a game that, in every other way, takes itself seriously.
Look at that! The menu screams “Take me seriously!” but the art screams “Oh my God, they killed Kenny!” Not okay. A basic game of this particular branch of PvZ goes as follows:
- Zombies attack one or more of your “lanes.”
- You use Gold (which zombies inexplicably drop when they die) to summon soldiers in one of eight spaces along each of your lanes.
- The soldiers then dutifully march their way toward the zombies, stopping to fire once they’re within range.
- Kill zombies, tap to collect gold.
- Rinse.
- Repeat until they’re all dead (again).
There are a couple fun little quirks added to this game that aren’t present in Plants vs. Zombies, such as your soldiers running out of ammunition and literally needing to be poked in order to remember to reload. It adds a bit of babysitting to the game that wasn’t present in PvZ once you established your plants. Unlike PvZ, when you “recall” a unit from the field you are refunded the full cost of the unit an may re-deploy them immediately. Very handy for those times when the zombie hordes are bearing down on your frontline and you want to save them a very painful death.
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Zombie vs. Gunman also has an RPG element to it, in which you utilize “Medals” (which replace Stars from PvZ) to upgrade your units in various ways – Health, Range, Damage, Bullet Penetration, etc. These medals are accumulated through good performance in each level, though attaining a 3-medal rating is nigh impossible in the later levels – you must finish the mission while losing exactly zero soldiers. These medals can also be bought in the form of micro-transactions which are by no means required to complete the game, but do make it significantly easier.
The sound design is decent, not great. There are a couple sound effects lifted straight from other sources (the reload effect, for instance, is a DOOM favorite) and some of the fun sounds are drowned out by other, less important ones. There a few minor grievances here as well, such as the “Empty” sound and the “Reload” sound being 100% identical.
There are some random text errors, or perhaps mistranslations, that keep the game from feeling polished. This is a running theme throughout, with only the menus feeling truly complete. Sound effects and graphics both feel rough and in-progress.
Throughout my experience with this game, I had a recurring thought – Zombie vs. Gunman is one strong animator/graphic artist away from being a very good game. A professional sound designer wouldn’t hurt either, nor would a proper translator, but the game really suffers in the graphics area.
Wish List:
- More unique upgrades for the units.
- More than three unit slots to begin with.
- Better graphics/animations.
- Better sound design.
- Play Games integration.
- Professional translations.
What I liked:
- Fresh-ish take on PvZ’s proven formula.
- Lots of nifty little details.
- UI design is quite well done.
- RPG-style progression.
What I didn’t like:
- Steep, steep difficulty curve.
- Graphics and sound design feel unfinished.
- Minor translation errors.
- The name. Seriously. Zombies vs. Soldiers or something would be better.
Google Play Store – Zombie vs. Gunman
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Nintendo reveals new details on its first mobile app
After months of speculation, Nintendo have unveiled its launch plans for its first ever mobile app, Miitomo.
The app, which will be available on Android, will allow users to create Mii avatar characters and use them to communicate with friends.
In Miitomo, users can issue and answer questions like “What song has been stuck in your head lately?”, “Do you believe in aliens?” or even more hilarious ones like “If you saw a nose hair sticking out of your friend’s nose, what would you do?”
“Miitomo is a uniquely entertaining mobile experience that only Nintendo can deliver… users will be able to interact with their friends in an entirely new way that transforms communication into a form of play.“
Nintendo will also launch a new rewards program to accompany the app, My Nintendo.
The company promises My Nintendo to be more than a ‘traditional’ rewards program, but did not elaborate on what rewards will be offered and how.
Miitomo will launch in March in 17 territories, including North America, Western Europe, Japan and Australia, however pre-registration will open on February 17 via the Nintendo Account service.
Those who pre-register will receive an unspecified special bonus from Nintendo.
In addition to Miitomo, Nintendo plans to release at least four more mobile apps by March 2017.
What do you make of their first foray into smartphones? Will we ever see a Mario game on our Android devices? Have your say in the comments below!
Source: Nintendo/Polygon
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23andMe says being a morning person is in your genes
Are you the sort of person who wakes up with the Sun? You might not just have a go-getter attitude to thank for it. The genetics firm 23andMe has published a study which suggests that variances in 15 regions of the human genome (including seven that influence circadian rhythms) affect the likelihood that you’re a morning person. No one area instantly flicks the switch, but it adds up — the more your genes skew a certain way, the more likely you are to think that 6AM is a perfectly reasonable time to hop out of bed.
The data also gives insights into who’s likely to have those genes. Most people (56 percent) don’t call themselves morning people, but those who had the morning DNA traits tended to be women, or else over 60. That fortunate group was also less likely to need more than 8 hours of sleep, or suffer from conditions like depression and insomnia.
23andMe is quick to acknowledge that this isn’t the most comprehensive research. Ultimately, it was matching up the voluntary responses of 90,000 customers with their gene studies. While the team did toss out questionable responses, it can’t vouch for the accuracy of everyone’s responses. Also, it didn’t account for the external factors that might influence answers, such as health, location or the time of year.
If the results hold up, though, they could lead to a big breakthrough in medicine. Doctors would know the most effective time of day to administer treatments, and could suggest more effective daily schedules. That could cause some social chaos (do you really want to get to bed hours before your friends?), but it beats being tired and bleary-eyed.
Source: Nature
YouTube’s first original programming will arrive on February 10th
A big part of last fall’s YouTube Red launch was the promise of original content for those subscribers shelling out $10 every month. We still have no idea if YouTube’s first slate of originals will be any good, but at least we know when we can find out. On February 10th, three films and one series will make their debut; all of the content will come from YouTube creators who’ve already racked up millions of subscribers and views.
Perhaps most notable is PewDiePie, whose “reality-adventure” series Scare PewDiePie will surely continue his mastery of YouTube. The three movies will come from Astronauts Wanted and Lilly Singh, AwesomenessTV and Rooster Teeth and run the gamut from the action / buddy / alien comedy Lazer Team to the presumably inspiring documentary A Trip To Unicorn Island, which covers Singh’s 30-city world tour.
Three of these titles were announced back in November, while the fourth (Dance Camp, from AwesomenessTV) was added to the total of 10 projects that YouTube had already announced. That means there are still seven more programs and movies with release dates coming, including a project from CollegeHumor. If you want to keep up with the original content from YouTube Red that’s coming soon, there’s naturally a YouTube channel you should subscribe to — it looks like it’ll feature behind-the-scenes content for all original programming as well as the full shows and films.
If you love adult coloring books, you’ll enjoy ‘Hidden Folks’
Hidden Folks is a deceptive game. It appears simplistic, featuring black-and-white line drawings of industrial plants, dense cities, and forests populated by campers and critters. But, its black lines hide multitudes of secrets: It’s an interactive hidden-object game with intricate, animated environments that players on iOS, Apple TV and Steam will soon be able to explore. Players interact with certain aspects of these scenes, tapping to open a garage door and reveal a hidden person inside, or discovering secret words in a tiny letter factory.
The stark aesthetic of Hidden Folks makes it seem like a giant, digital, adult coloring book. Because of this association, it seems like an inherently soothing experience. That’s on purpose, according to veteran independent game designer Adriaan de Jongh.
“The game won’t feature any timers or quick gameplay; you’ll be presented with massive illustrations, animated and wiggling and interactive and whatnot, and you can take your time exploring what’s happening,” he says. “We want this to be the sort of game that you pick up, play for a while… find another character, and then leave the rest of the discovering up to another play session. Slow paced, no pressure, and a lot of things to do that will wait for you.”
It’s been a busy year for de Jongh. His independent studio, Game Oven, shut down in early 2015 after releasing a slew of innovative and acclaimed titles, including mobile ballet simulator Bounden and foreplay fodder Fingle. De Jongh didn’t skip a beat after his studio’s closure — he continued to prototype new games, participate in jams, give talks and judge the Independent Games Festival.
“And on top of all that, 2016 began like crazy when I was selected for Forbes‘ 30 under 30, after which the Dutch media world woke up and practically turned me into a Dutch celebrity,” de Jongh says, laughing. “I’m really glad to be working with Sylvain Tegroeg now for Hidden Folks, and I don’t think that would have happened if I were still part of Game Oven.”
All’s well that ends well — but de Jongh is just getting started.
Hidden Folks will launch this year across iOS, tvOS and Steam (PC and Mac) for an undetermined price. De Jongh is happily working on this game and setting plenty of other development goals for himself in 2016. He doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“Man, I absolutely love making games,” he says.
Announcing Hidden Folks, a searching game like Where’s Waldo, but black & white, animated, interactive! Video/facts: https://t.co/0RDPhK1V1t
— Adriaan (@AdriaandeJongh) February 3, 2016
Source: Hidden Folks
Google experiments with e-books designed for your phone
E-books are just digital recreations of what you can get on paper. Wouldn’t it be better if they took advantage of internet-connected mobile devices to tell new stories? Google, at least, wants to give this a shot. It just launched Editions At Play, an experiment in making e-books that rely on the dynamic qualities of the mobile web to do what you can’t in print. One book (Reif Larsen’s Entrances & Exits, above) sets stories inside Google Street View locations that you can explore. Others create portals full of animation and sound, degrade the text alongside a character’s mind or let you flip between two sides of the same tale.
Don’t expect a big Edition At Play library, at least not at first. Only two short books are available right now, with two more due this spring. Google is even soliciting ideas to help get the concept off the ground. You won’t see these internet-savvy titles taking over regular e-book stores any time soon. Still, this is promising stuff — it shows how literature can stay relevant in an era when you can easily read on your phone instead of pulling out a paperback.
Source: Editions At Play, Google Australia Blog
LG will unveil the G5 on February 21st
It’s no secret that LG has something planned for Mobile World Congress this month (it mentioned an event weeks ago), but the Korean tech giant is now making it clear as to what’s up. It’s posting teasers confirming a G5 unveiling just ahead of MWC, on February 21st. Yes, that’s the same day that Samsung announces the Galaxy S7 — unlike last year, LG isn’t waiting until sometime after the big mobile trade show to debut its latest flagship smartphone.
The company is shy on details right now, although history suggests that it’ll dribble out facts to whet your appetite. That isn’t stopping the rumor mill, though. Historically reliable leaker Evan Blass (aka @evleaks) hears that the G5 may borrow a few pages from the V10, including a secondary display, a fingerprint reader and a dual-lens camera (this time, on the back). You might also get a speedier Snapdragon 820 processor, an “all-metal” enclosure and a “Magic Slot” that alters your phone’s functionality through modules. If this is accurate, the G5 definitely won’t be a me-too device.
#LGG5, February 21st. #MWC16 pic.twitter.com/yvQU3FZ2kq
— LG USA Mobile (@LGUSAMobile) February 3, 2016
Source: LG USA Mobile (Twitter 1), (2)
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