All of your feline fantasies come true in ‘Catlateral Damage’
Life would be so much easier as a cat. Few humans recognize the potential for feline bliss better than Chris Chung, the creator of Catlateral Damage, a first-person cat simulator. As a kitty locked up in a house full of annoying human things, your goal is to knock down as many objects as possible, including books, lamps, groceries, toys and plants. After exploding in popularity in early 2014 and raising $62,000 on Kickstarter, Catlateral Damage is out today on Steam for a launch price of $9.
“I’m extremely surprised by the positive reception it’s been getting, especially considering that this is my first game and that it’s kind of a weird concept,” Chung says. “The biggest surprise might have been our Kickstarter and how many people wanted to put their cat in the game. We had to increase the number of tiers due to high demand, which was awesome.”
Chung created Catlateral Damage in August 2013 during the 7DFPS game jam, a weeklong program designed to reinvigorate the first-person shooter genre. Chung wasn’t about to make a military-style shooter — he wanted to play with perspective in his entry, and he found inspiration in his childhood cat, Nippy. Plus, he says, “I had a suspicion that the internet might love cats as much as I do.”
By July 2014, Chung had raised $20,000 more than he’d asked for on Kickstarter and Catlateral Damage was approved on Steam Greenlight. He was also the first developer to join a new “indie incubator” program run by Slam Bolt Scrappers studio Fire Hose Games. In the indie accelerator system, Chung received marketing, development, and financial support from Fire Hose — he was able to leave his job in QA and focus on Catlateral development full-time. Chung says that working with Fire Hose has been “amazing.”
“I really don’t think this game would have been successful without the support I’ve received from Fire Hose,” he says in an email. “They did a tremendous job helping with the Kickstarter, and when it came to development and marketing I know that they really multiplied my efforts. Of course we’ve had disagreements from time to time but I always had final say, so it was never a big deal. Plus, we play a lot of Smash Bros. at the office, which is purrfect for me.”
Chung’s success story reads like the checklists of many indie developers today: a game jam, Kickstarter, Steam Greenlight (or Early Access) and plenty of help from the community. And, of course, cats.
The top 15 gaming products you can buy
The approach of summer might mean it’s time to unfurl the Slip N Slide, but there’s only so much gaming you can do while flopping around in the water. Yes, you should get outside while the weather’s nice, but there are also worlds to explore back in the air-conditioned confines of your home. If that system needs a refresh, or you’re still in the process of cobbling together the ideal setup, we’ve got a list of some must-have gaming consoles, computers and accessories. Items like Astro’s A50 wireless headset help keep you in touch with your raiding party, while Antec’s Bias Lighting can improve your display’s aesthetics. We’ll have even more gaming gadgets for our buyer’s guide in coming months, but for now you can scroll through the gallery below or head to the full gaming section to see what you’re missing.
Castrol makes a driver burn rubber while wearing a VR headset
You’d think that blinding a professional driver with a custom Oculus Rift headset as they drift around a live track would be a crazy way to promote anything. And you’d be right. But, well, Castrol really wants you to know about its new EDGE Titanium Strong motor oil. So much so that it strapped a VR headset on racer Matt Powers and turned a Roush Stage 3 Mustang into a VR controller for its Virtual Drift Trial. From his perspective he’s navigating through an apocalyptic VR landscape with crumbling roads and tidal waves of volcanic rock. From ours, it’s as if he’s got a death wish like an extra from Mad Max: Fury Road.
Sure, the final product looks like an orgy of Adobe After Effects and Michael Bay’s action movie aesthetic. But after sitting through a brief demo of the VR experience on Samsung’s Gear VR, it’s pretty clear that Virtual Drift is more than just special effects. The VR demo put me in the passenger seat as Powers made his way around the track, constantly switching between the VR and real-world view. (You can get a similar experience with this 360-degree video clip.) Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to switch between the two views on the fly, but Castrol reps said they might have something like that in the works for later this year.
Castrol tapped technologists Adam Amaral (he’s the guy in the passenger seat) and Glenn Snyder to build a new experience to show off its Titanium Strong oil back in November. By December, they were committed to the idea of combining a real-world racing and VR experience. And come February, they were ready to film. That’s a pretty fast turnaround for any tech project, let alone one that has drivers drifting around tracks at high speeds while blind to the real world. “It’s a big trust exercise,” Snyder said.
To power the whole experience, Snyder and Amaral combined an Oculus Rift DK2 headset with a traditional racing helmet and built a server filled with NVIDIA GTX 980 video cards, which sat in the trunk of the car. They developed Virtual Drift in Unreal Engine 4, relying heavily on NVIDIA’s PhysX engine to get the physics just right. There were also a plethora of sensors all around the car feeding into the PhysX engine. Testing involved plenty of long nights in abandoned parking lots with a rented Mustang (just try explaining that to the cops).
At the end of the day, Castrol and crew ended up making a cool film trailer to sell their fancy new oil. But the only way they can show off the full extent of the Virtual Drift experience is by giving people a chance to see it in VR. Castrol says it plans to put it on the Oculus Store eventually (which is also accessible on the Gear VR), but for now you can check out the 360-degree video to get a taste.
Transform parts of your screen into Mario levels with Screentendo
You know what’s a good cure for office boredom? A Mac app that changes parts of your screen into a playable level straight out of Super Mario Bros. Thanks to Aaron Randall’s Screentendo desktop add-on, a similar process to that of taking a screenshot can have you playing a unique Mario level in seconds. In this case, game building is a two-step process that first determines the underlying structure of the image before generating those bricks on top. Randall admits that the app isn’t without flaws, and that it’s more of a proof-of-concept than anything else. For example, the image rendering works best on images with high contrast — like the Google logo captured in the video after the break.
Filed under: Gaming
Via: VentureBeat
Source: Aaron Randall
‘Ultra Street Fighter IV’ for PlayStation 4 has big issues
Turns out the PS4 port of Street Fighter IV isn’t all that Ultra. Sony secured a next-gen exclusive for the fighting game and its sequel, but its release has been marred by complaints. The internet is awash with reports of severe slowdown in menus, moves not working as they’re supposed to, sound glitches and bizarre visual bugs. Although we haven’t noticed some of the more egregious issues, the game does appear to have some input lag, which is a massive problem for a title that is all about timing. The entire thing feels like you’re playing online with a weak connection right now.
Ultra Street Fighter IV‘s botched launch is yet another example of companies offering up incomplete games for purchase. As we’ve highlighted before, several high-profile releases have been seriously compromised by bugs. Most recently, Xbox One users have complained about a glitch in Witcher 3 that prevents the game from saving. Like the developer of that game, Capcom is sure to patch the Street Fighter issues soon enough, but that’s really no excuse for releasing a game in an unfinished state.
Source: NeoGAF, nsb5024 (YouTube)
‘Evolve’ simplifies the hunt with free deathmatch arena mode
Evolve isn’t a typical multiplayer shooter. The game pits four hunters against a quickly mutating monster, with the first task usually being to find and trap the player-controlled goliath. The experience can be a little bewildering for newcomers, so developer Turtle Rock Studios is throwing in a free Arena Mode that keeps everything simple. In a best-of-three match, the hunters and monster are dropped in a small, pre-determined dome with only one goal; take down your opponent(s). The monster starts at stage two with 50 percent armour, reducing the need to devour local wildlife, and when a hunter dies they’re out until the next round. It’s a bare-bones take on the Evolve formula, stripping away some of what makes the game unique. Still, if you’re interested in shorter rounds where you can easily hone your combat skills, Arena Mode could be a welcome change on planet Shear.
Filed under: Gaming
Source: Evolve
Oculus VR bought a firm that reconstructs 3D scenes in real time
I’m willing to bet that one of the best things about having Facebook in your back pocket is that your pocketbook is likely bottomless. How’s that? Well, Oculus has acquired yet another company on its path to a retail model. This time it’s Surreal Vision, a firm focused on “3D scene reconstruction” according to a recent post on the VR outfit’s blog. “Great scene reconstruction will enable a new level of presence and telepresence, allowing you to move around the real world and interact with real-world objects from within VR,” the post reads. So! This acquisition should help out quite a bit when it comes to building out the social spaces and experiences Oculus has been crowing about since Zuckerberg and Co. made their $2 billion purchase.
“We’re developing breakthrough techniques to capture, interpret, manage, analyse, and finally reproject in real-time a model of reality back to the user in a way that feels real, creating a new, mixed reality that brings together the virtual and real worlds,” it continues. We’d typically be skeptical of such lofty claims, but considering one of the Surreal gents also reconstructed scenes in real time with a paltry Xbox 360 Kinect those promises seem a little less like moonshots.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, Facebook
Source: Oculus blog
Nintendo asks you to pay what you want for indie games
Nintendo’s been going through some serious growing pains on its path to the modern era of console gaming but with this latest step it’s actually beating Microsoft and Sony to the punch for once. The Japanese gaming company is running a Humble Bundle. Not a Nintendo homegrown version of a Humble Bundle, but a real McCoy on Humble’s website. Pretty crazy right? Especially considering these are all indies. Up for grabs are digital codes for games on the 3DS handheld and Wii U alike, including Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition for the latter and Whoah Dave! for the former.
Those follow Humble’s pay-what-you-want model (so long as it’s at least $1), but if you drop more than the average donation you’ll snag The Fall, OlliOlli and Moon Chronicles Episode 1. Should you feel even more generous, a donation of $10 or more adds Stealth Inc. 2 and SteamWorld Dig to the party. Now, if only Nintendo would jump on this whole mobile gaming fad it’d have its bases covered. Wait…
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Nintendo
Source: Humble Bundle
PlayStation Plus gets an answer to Xbox Live’s subscriber-only sales
Sony has long been willing to discount certain PlayStation games if you’re a Plus subscriber, but it hasn’t offered the certainty of Xbox Live’s Deals With Gold. You don’t know that you’re going to get a steady stream of bargains, especially not for newer titles. That doubt should disappear after today, though. Sony has launched PlayStation Plus Specials, a sale program that gives you a break on games and add-ons that are still relatively fresh. How fresh? To start, you’re getting 20 percent off Bloodborne in the US — a sweet deal for a big PS4 hack-and-slash that’s only a couple of months old. It’s too soon to tell whether these offers will be as tempting down the line, but it’s also hard to object to getting more savings for your money.
Source: PlayStation Blog
‘Mad Max’ the game has crazy cars, murder and a story
The “Savage Road” story trailer suggests that there’s a deeper tale behind all of the desert-drenched road rage and creative killing in the Mad Max video game. Apparently, that story is about a dude looking for a car, finding a car, kissing a lady and then destroying all of the evil men he can reach on four wheels. It’s a slightly different narrative than the one in this year’s film, Mad Max: Fury Road, and plot isn’t the only way these two products diverge. We played a portion of Mad Max last week and found it to be fun as a car game but lacking in intrigue as a brawler: “In its translation to an open-world video game, Mad Max: Fury Road’s unique charm’s been traded in for monotony.” Still, a video full of rampaging, spiky vehicles and bloodthirsty desert overlords gets our blood pumping every time. Watch the story trailer below. Mad Max is due on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC on September 1st, with pre-orders open now.
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