Fighting games to fairy tales: The unlikely story of ‘Unravel’
Unravel is a thoughtful, heartwarming game that feels like mix of LittleBigPlanet, Limbo and Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, all wrapped up in a cozy sweater your grandmother just finished knitting. If it weren’t a digital-only title, its disc would probably smell like freshly baked gingerbread cookies and sunshine.
The game stars Yarny, a tiny creature made of red yarn who voyages into the Swedish wilderness to collect an old woman’s memories. Yarny uses his body’s thread to solve platforming puzzles, allowing him to cross rivers, leap over gulfs and fight off beastly bugs. More importantly, though, Unravel tells this grandmother’s story, offering snapshots of a life filled with family, love and heartache.
Unravel is a departure for developer Coldwood Interactive, whose releases include Ski-Doo Snow X Racing, Freakout, Move Fitness and The Fight: Lights Out. This shift didn’t happen by accident, according to creator Martin Sahlin: “Unravel was basically a reaction to those previous games, an effort to do something completely different.”
Coldwood decided to try something new after releasing one game in particular. Sahlin doesn’t call it out by name, but he describes a fighting title that “was flawed, but people still liked it.” That sounds a lot like 2013’s The Fight: Lights Out, which Joystiq described as “cloyingly basic” with frustrating motion controls — but it seems plenty of people played it anyway.
“The game reached hundreds of thousands of players,” Sahlin says. “I was looking at those numbers, and they made me feel bad: We’d had the attention of a massive audience, a chance few artists ever get, and we didn’t have anything meaningful to say. Our game was just a distraction, a time waster.”
Sahlin wasn’t ready to settle for shallow commercial success. Video games have just taken their first steps into the mainstream art world, pushing the boundaries of storytelling and audience interaction in fantastic, creative new ways. Sahlin is one small force driving the industry’s evolution, a traditional game developer who sees the potential for emotional resonance in pixels and code.
“I figured that whatever we made next, we had to speak from the heart,” Sahlin says. “It didn’t have to be world-changing, but it had to be sincere. It had to have meaning.”
Yarny’s threads represent love and the way it connects people with unbreakable, sometimes tangled, bonds. Sahlin actually created Yarny out of wire and spare thread while on a camping trip with his own family in the Swedish countryside.
“It’s full of symbolism,” Sahlin says. “It lets you go on a quest to do something good, it gives you a look at the world from a different perspective and it shows that even a tiny, fragile hero is still capable of great things.”
Unravel may be more fairy tale than fighter, but Sahlin wants it to appeal to every person, from traditional gaming fans to newcomers, when it hits PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on Feb. 9. “I hope they’ll find something useful and worthwhile in it, but whatever that thing is, I want it to be theirs. Hopefully it’s a happy, positive, uplifting thing.”
Amazon’s new game engine comes with Twitch baked in
Amazon might be known for selling you things, but its cloud services now have just as much of an impact. It already powers many of the most popular apps and websites on the planet, but it’s easy to forget that the company has an impressive online gaming presence thanks to Twitch. With its latest announcement, Amazon has decided to combine all of its strengths and unveiled Lumberyard, a new free gaming engine designed to let developers build A+ games and integrate all of its online services at the same time.
Amazon says Lumberyard is built around making games social. The company wants developers to focus on creating unique games that can support huge communities from the beginning, rather than getting bogged down with the complexities of building a custom engine or firefighting server issues. Once signed up, studios gain access to features that let them play around with character animation, camera frameworks, animation and particle editors, audio tools, weather effects and AI elements. Lumberyard is based on Crytek’s CryEngine and features Double Helix technology it acquired in 2014.
Sure, that sounds great for developers, but what does it mean for you? Because Lumberyard already has cloud elements built into its editor, developers can specify how many Amazon servers they want to use and let the company automatically scale everything to ensure you can connect to a multiplayer game during busy periods. Game makers can also include community news feeds, gifting platforms, leaderboards and in-game messaging with the click of button.
A screenshot from Alien Abode, a game created with Amazon Lumberyard.
Then there’s Twitch. While Amazon has been pretty quiet on the game-streaming front, the company now looks set to give the service a much needed boost. As with Lumberyard’s other online features, studios can now include Twitch features and enable mod support directly from their editor.
With Twitch ChatPlay, Amazon boasts that developers will be able to implement real-time features that let viewers vote on an in-game outcome, send gifts to their favorite streamers or increase a game’s difficulty based on a player’s viewer count. It could also pave the way for more “Twitch Plays..” games with its built-in support for chat channel commands. Twitch JoinIn, on the other hand, takes viewer interactivity one step further by letting fans instantly jump into a streamer’s game with single click.
Lumberyard currently allows developers to build PC and console games, but Amazon says mobile and VR support is coming soon. While the editor is free, the online retailer will make its money based on the number of active daily users a game has, which may help smaller projects get off the ground quicker and give gamers a wider array of titles to play.
Source: Amazon Lumberyard
Firewatch Photos will print and ship your in-game snapshots
In-game photo modes are cool and all, but beyond sharing your Driveclub or Arkham Knight snaps via social media, there isn’t much you can do with them. Well, in the PC version of Firewatch (out this week, and on PlayStation 4) you can go a step further and have them printed and mailed to you from the folks at developer Campo Santo and publisher Panic. There’s an in-game disposable camera, you see, and photographing artist Olly Moss’s gorgeous landscapes is highly recommended; $15 nets you a set of 4″ x 6″ prints and they’ll ship free “almost anywhere.” TechnoBuffalo notes that after finishing the game you’re presented with a link to an online store to place an order for your shots; that publication’s photos are embedded below.
The reason the feature isn’t available on PlayStation 4 yet? Firewatch Photos is a network service, and Panic’s Cabel Sasser tells Polygon that consoles need to be “extra vigilant” about network access. “We are actively investigating what it would take to make this happen on the PlayStation 4,” Sasser says. “Sony wants it and so do we!”
Polygon‘s piece also explores the origins of the mode and how deep the thought process was for the feature. A line of dialogue was rewritten and re-recorded to reflect the fiction’s photo processing store after the original bits of script was already in the can, for instance. What’s more, the idea of getting physical copies of the photos came up as an off-handed idea amongst the team.”When there’s an idea that immediately excites us both — like the idea behind Firewatch in the first place — it’s hard to stop us from doing it,” says Sasser. Sounds like PS4 support is a matter of “when,” not “if,” in this case.
Via: Polygon
Source: TechnoBuffalo
GameBattles enters the Play Store
If you’re into gaming, the new Android application GameBattles is worth checking out.
GameBattles is a new app in the Play Store for online gaming. The app lets users take each other on in modern-day games like Call of Duty, Halo, FIFA, and Madden. However, the list doesn’t end there. GameBattles has a whole community full of competitive players looking to get their game on! Users can even win real money for their video game talents.
Like all great gaming communities, GameBattles keeps track of all your stats including wins, loses, matches, and history. However, it should be noted that doing most of this will require manual submission. Users can also earn trophies and achievements making the experience even more fun.
Overall, it’s great to see the service make its way to mobile. The app works well with both smartphones and tables. The download is live right now and can be accessed by clicking on the link down below.
Come comment on this article: GameBattles enters the Play Store
Paint the town with Splash Cars on Android
Craneballs studios is following up their massively popular Overkill series with a quirky driving game. Splash Cars is something of a departure for this game development company, which is more well known for its action games like those in the Gun Master series. However, although Splash Cars starts out relaxing, upgrades and more challenging maps quickly escalate it into a twitch-happy whirlwind of frenetic, paint-splattered action.
You are… meh, it doesn’t really matter who you are. You’ve got a car, and you’re in a drab, boring neighborhood, and you’ve had enough of the pace of life around here. From the first tap, you slam your foot on the petal and never look back. As you cruise recklessly around the neighborhood, magic paint of some kind splashes in your wake, returning the grey landscape and pallid houses to their original vibrancy.
But, there are those who would consider such behavior dangerously non-conformist. Swing close enough to a cop, and they’ll engage in full pursuit. These officers of the law have been educated at the Los Santos Police Department Training Academy, so the only course of action they know to take when they witness someone committing a minor infraction is to ram their vehicles into the offender until it is completely destroyed.
See also: 10 best action games for Android!
What’s worse is that trundling dump trucks putter in and out of the map, spreading boring grey paint over your hard-won territory. However, if you can get close enough to splatter one of these foes, they’ll start seeing things your way and begin spreading your gospel of polychromatism for you.
The controls are deceptively simple. There is a turn left button and a turn right button. That’s it. No breaks, no slowing down – your character has his foot on the accelerator until the vehicle runs out of gas or is destroyed. Fortunately, there are jerry cans of gasoline scattered about most maps, giving you precious additional energy to continue your paint slinging. Collect coins and buy new vehicles and upgrades to face the challenges of increasingly dense and complex maps.
The game is free to play with some in-app purchases. If running from the cops while pouring paint from a moving vehicle sounds like your kind of party, click the button below to download it from the Google Play Store.
Get it in the Play Store!
Next: 10 best 3D games for Android
Clash of Clans creators release Clash Royale (Update: coming in March)
Original post (1/4): Clash of Clans has been one of the largest mobile games to date, but it wasn’t enough for the crack development team Supercell to rest on the laurels of their previous success. Today, Supercell launched a soft release of their new card-based, direct competition game Clash Royale.
Clash of Clans allured players with a number of effective gameplay components. First, there’s a sense of creativity that goes into designing a base. Strategy also plays a role, as it’s important to be able to assess and attack bases intelligently. Group dynamics got into the mix with the titular clans pitting themselves against each other, and the set-it-and-forget-it nature of much of the gameplay let even players with a busy schedule get in on the action.
See also: 70 best Android games
However, as games like Hearthstone have demonstrated, there’s clearly a market for one-on-one, live multiplayer with card-based mechanics. Clash Royale seeks to bring users the same feel of creativity by letting players assemble their own deck filled with Clash of Clans characters and elements, but with all the immediacy and engagement of a card dueling game.
Now, this isn’t so much a sequel to Clash of Clans as it is a completely different game of its own. Clash Royale looks like it might even have a radically different demographic than its forerunner, and Supercell reports that the team working on the project is totally different than the one that is still actively developing Clash of Clans. So far, Clash Royale has only been released on iOS, but there is no doubt that we’ll see it hitting the Android operating system some time in the near future.
What are your thoughts on Clash Royale? The primary complaint leveled at Clash of Clans is that some claim it falls in the “pay to win” camp of mobile gaming. Will the same criticisms be leveled at Clash Royale? Let us know in the comments below!
Best Android games [2016]
Are you in search of better games for your Android device? Maybe you want to switch up your rotation or simply discover what’s out there. Whatever the case, we’ve got you covered with a list of our favorite 20 Best Games for Android. We’ve taken a look at these twenty different games, gauging and comparing to find the best ones possible to show and recommend to you. We believe these truly are the best games for Android right now, so we hope you’ll find this list helpful!
Hearthstone
Hearthstone is Blizzard Entertainment’s first collectible card game based on its hit Warcraft franchise. In Hearthstone, players accrue cards different types of cards for each available class to take to the battlefield and best their opponents. Players can purchase card packs with real money, but many basic cards can be earned for free by leveling up, completing campaign missions, and finish challenges. Hearthstone has become a highly competitive game where many players are facing off for grand prizes of thousands of dollars, but it can also be played as a casual game as well. Grab a cup of coffee, the tablet, and sit back in the recliner and watch this game unfold!
Angry Birds 2
Angry Birds, the game we all know and love, is back and better than ever! Defeat bad piggies in all new terrain with brand new birds and power ups like never before. You now get to choose the bird you fling, but you better hope it’s the right one! In Angry Birds 2, players will need to pick the best bird for the level they’re facing. If you pick the wrong bird and can’t fully complete the level, you might not get all three starts.
Players can also challenge your friends in the Arena, and even overtake boss piggies, adding a whole new element of entertainment to Angry Birds 2!
Clash of Clans
Clash of Clans is a dynamic game that gets better as you play it, and you can play with your friends, or even people in other countries! In Clash of Clans, pillage and destroy your enemies’ villages while they’re away. Build your base and upgrade your barbarians to better protect your own army, and defend yourself against the evil forces of others. And be careful, don’t look away for too long—your friends might try to steal from or demolish your village while you’re away!
Monument Valley
Monument Valley is a simple, yet complex game where you have to guide lost, mute Princess Ida through towers and windmills, castles and mazes, and so much more. If you’re not sure about Monument Valley, don’t worry—you’ll catch on quick! The design is sleek and beautiful, but diverse and colorful in unique ways we haven’t seen with other games. Will you be Princess Ida’s next trusted guide?
Godus
In Godus, your role is the creator, the God. Mold and shape the landscape so that your people will thrive. Watch as centuries go by and humanity further develops, worshipping you and fighting their way through life. You have the power to bring goodness or destruction upon your people through an array of different powers and “blessings.” Choose wisely!
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes is a game where you collect characters to build a strong team of galactic warriors fit to fight against the most powerful of enemies. Level up your characters and enhance their abilities by upgrading and unlocking new powers, choose from the Light or Dark Side, and scope out stunning landscapes! Players can go up against the AI to unlock new and old Star Wars characters on both the Dark and Light side. Once unlocked, you can then create a new squad to keep battling the AI or take the fight to other players in an attempt to overtake them in the multiplayer ladder!
Crossy Road
In Crossy Road, you start out as a chicken, and you have to cross the roads, streams, and train tracks to get to your destination. Collect coins on your way, and later you can purchase different characters! With each new character, your terrain will change and you’ll have a new set of challenges to conquer. Can you cross the road?
Candy Crush Saga
Candy Crush Saga is equipped with an excessive amount of levels and candy for your gaming pleasure! With each level comes a new objective, like collecting all of the gummy bears, or maybe just discovering a new power-up. Whatever the case, Candy Crush Saga will keep you coming back for more!
Zombie Catchers
Zombie Catchers is an adventure game, doing exactly that—catching zombies! If Earth will ever be safe again, it’s up to you. In this riveting app, arm yourself with weapons and exciting new gadgets. Prepare your lab and your pockets for your new zombie-catching business. The world’s fate lies in your hands. It’s your time to shine!
Pocket Troops
Pocket Troop is a hilarious turn-based game where you fight to get back your troop from the evil professor. Equip, level, and upgrade your team to make them stronger than ever before. By doing this and finishing side-missions, you can advance the story and eventually make your way to save your teammates. Choose from different attacks to find which one is best for the problem at hand. Collect weapons, obtain new skills, and carefully strategize your next plan of action against the enemy!
Smash Hit
Smash Hit is a spectacular, fast-moving game where you have to quickly destroy the obstacles in front of you. You’ll get a specific amount of metal balls, and you have to strategically shatter your way through the course before an obstacle runs into you. As the courses continue, they’ll get faster and faster, which makes this a race against the clock.The design and simplicity of this game will make it your go-to app when you’re in need of some R&R.
Triple Town
Triple town is a calm and fun game of elimination. Maximize the space of your town to earn the most coins by turning grass to bushes, bushes to trees, trees to houses, and houses to mansions! Beware of the bears and ninja bears that will take up needed space in your village, make sure to play the daily challenge every day, and save up for upgraded objects. One of my favorite parts about this game is that for the game itself, it isn’t timed! Begin your town before you leave for work and finish up the round when you get home at night.
Auralux
Auralux is an immersive strategy game that will keep you on your toes. With a ton of different levels to choose from, you can conquer the galaxy. In Auralux, you play as the blue constellations, and the goal is to overtake all the other constellations and planets in the universe before they overtake you. It’s a game of speed, precision, and even patience. Will you own the galaxy?
Fruit Ninja
Slash fruit to beat your high score in Fruit Ninja. Earn enough points to buy new blades and backdrops by playing in either Original or Festival Mode, which includes various different challenges and minigames that switch things up enough to keep it fun! Fruit Ninja also keeps up with the holidays, so make sure you’re always checking back for an awesome new updates.
Temple Run 2
In Temple Run 2, you will run, zip line, jump, and duck your way across the temple away from the cursed idol. There are endless new challenges, new outfits, and you can even ride the luge. See how far you can run from the cursed idol before it gets to you, and don’t forget to dodge those obstacles!
Ruzzle
Ruzzle is one of the best word games out there for word-lovers. Challenge your friends to a game, and see if you can beat your experience, accuracy, swipe distance, and word length each time! See how many words you can manage in such a short amount of time. During Christmas, even Santa Claus will challenge you to a game. The best part? As you learn to spot hidden words, you’ll only get better with time!
Pop the Lock
Pop the Lock is an addicting game of, well, popping the lock! Beat each level by cracking the “code” without missing a beat. Every ten levels, you get a change of scenery, too! And if you miss one part of the sequence, you’ve got to start over at that level. This will be your go-to game in the waiting room, at the airport, and even on lunch break.
Coin Drop
With Coin Drop’s extensive content, including 75 different levels, this game is massive. Drop coins to jail the evil pirate coins, and earn extra points by hitting all of the pins. Earn new coin skins, advance your score, and save the world from pirate pennies! With their simple tutorial, this game is easy and quick to catch on to.
The Room Three
The Room Three is a mysterious puzzle game with ominous sound effects. You will work your way through the story by unlocking the next clue. You’ll find notes from “The Craftsman,” leading you to the following objective. As you find new items and discover hidden passageways, you never know what you will find, or what will find you, next. This is a great game for anyone who loves puzzles and is up for a challenge!
Minecraft: Story Mode
The popularity of Minecraft hasn’t died down, and we don’t think it will anytime soon. Adults and kids alike have been able to enjoy this fun, block-based game on the go, but never like this! In Minecraft: Story Mode, be the hero as you tackle adventures not for the faint of heart. Ward off enemies and save your friends from destruction, including the evil Ender Dragon. If you’re a big fan of story, Telltale Games has done a phenomenal job bringing a rich and expansive story to the game in the form of Minecraft: Story Mode. It won’t disappoint you!
Closing
Whatever games you decide on, remember to have fun, and always be on the lookout for what’s coming next! With so many tools at their fingertips, developers are releasing new games for Android all the time, and so often for free, or even just a dollar.
Do you have a favorite Android game? Be sure to let us know what it is and what it’s all about in the comments below!
Come comment on this article: Best Android games [2016]
You can now buy MSI’s eye-tracking laptop
MSI has revealed that people can now pick up the flagship GT72S laptop for the princely sum of $2,599.99. Unlike other high-end gaming devices, this one has a trick up its sleeve: Tobii’s eye-tracking sensor technology. We’ve previously showed you prototypes of the kit, but after six months in the labs, it’s now ready for prime time. As before, the device’s extra sensors will let your eyes interact with the game as long as there’s support for it. So far, titles like Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate, Assassin’s Creed: Rogue and Elite: Dangerous are all able to take advantage of the GT72S’ extra hardware.
There’s also a new feature that the pair are talking up — the ability to share the position of your eyes as an overlay onto any streams that you share online. If you use a platform like XSplit Gamecaster, then you’d better just be careful not to spend too much time staring at something you shouldn’t since other people will be watching. In addition, Tobii is boasting that its technology will be able to see what you’re peeping at in “any room under any lighting conditions,” making it perfect for that late-night deathmatch. Oh, and you can use eye tracking-based passwords and use other Windows utilities, should that take your fancy.
Source: Newegg
Humble Bundle is funding its own games
Now that the Humble Bundle crew has a monthly indie game subscription service, you might be wondering: how is it going to keep you coming back for more? By offering exclusive games, that’s how. The outfit tells Destructoid that it’s funding small titles, to be called Humble Originals, that you’ll get first through a Humble Monthly subscription. The first example is Mighty Rabbit Studios’ Elephant in the Room (above), included in the February offer. They won’t necessarily be permanent exclusives, but you may have to wait a while if you’re bent on buying games one at a time.
That policy isn’t going to thrill you if you believe that indie games shouldn’t be confined to specific services. However, it could make sense for tiny studios eager to get noticed. After a modest start this fall, Humble Monthly has over 70,000 subscribers — that’s a lot of people who could spread the buzz about a game that might otherwise fly underneath the radar. Even if you don’t fork over the $12 per month to get early access, you may find yourself playing more unexpected hits.
Via: Develop
Source: Destructoid
Facebook Messenger has a hidden chess game
It’s no secret that you can use Facebook Messenger for a whole lot more than just chatting with pals, but there’s still a surprise or two in store. Social networkers have discovered that Messenger has a hidden chess game (quietly available for a least a month before now) that you invoke by typing “@fbchess play” when you’re in a conversation. Just don’t expect an intuitive interface — you have to use text commands for everything, so you’d better brush up on your standard chess notation. If you can live with that, though, it’s a free and easy way to improve your strategic thinking when you’re not busy sending stickers.
Via: Lifehacker, Mashable
Source: Reddit
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