Team17 and One More Dream Studios’ emotive story of Kiara is set to deliver a timeless tale on PC and Nintendo Switch™ from today.
Tuesday, 28th July 2020 – Team17 and One More Dream Studios have today launched Ageless for PC and Nintendo Switch™. Set in a world of magic, Ageless is a puzzle platformer that follows the story of Kiara as she sets off on a journey of self-discovery. Armed with a magical bow that ages and de-ages flora and fauna to help her navigate the world around her, players join Kiara as she tries to uncover her truth in an emotive storyline.
Key Features:
Harness magic and manipulate life cycles: Use the power of Kiara’s magical bow to age and de-age flora and fauna and solve puzzles standing in her way
Overcome the intricate world: Puzzle solving and precision platforming gameplay combine to create a compelling world to explore
Uncover Kiara’s truth: Unpick and explore Ageless’ emotive storyline, and interact with various important characters with their own stories to tell.
Bala Vicknesh, Lead Developer, One More Dream Studios, said: “One More Dream Studios has been hard at work making sure Kiara’s story is as wonderful and impactful as it can be, and as much as it’s daunting showing her to the world, we’re ready for players to join her in her journey. We had a lot of fun making this game and toying around with the ageing mechanics that lie at the heart of the gameplay experience, so we hope players have just as much fun with it!”
Chris Chester, Producer, Team17, said: “Working on Ageless has been a wonderful experience for us at Team17, the game’s ageing and de-aging mechanic really helps distinguishes it from other puzzle platformers. Kiara’s emotional story of personal discovery is just the icing on the cake, and we’re happy to have teamed up with Bala and the team to make it all possible!”
A demo for Ageless can be downloaded from Steam, and to keep up to date with all the information on Ageless please like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, and join us on Discord.
About Team17 Group plc Founded in 1990, Team17 Group plc is a leading developer, video games label, and creative partner for developers around the world. Floated on AIM in 2018, Team17, with its extensive portfolio of over 100 titles, embodies the spirit of independent games. In addition to the award-winning Overcooked!, Yoku’s Island Express, and the iconic Worms, which celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2020, Team17 has helped bring critically acclaimed titles including Moving Out, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and The Escapists to gamers everywhere. Visit www.team17.com for more info.
Roblox Mobile Player Spending Hit $102.9 Million in May, a 175% Jump in a Year
As one of the most popular mobile games worldwide, Roblox has witnessed a surge in revenue amid the COVID-19 lockdowns. According to data gathered by SafeBettingSites.com, Roblox Mobile player spending hit $102.9 million in May, a 175% jump compared to the same month in 2019.
Over $1.5 bn in Lifetime Revenue
In May 2019, Roblox Mobile players worldwide spent $37.5 million on the game, revealed Statista and SensorTower data. In the next three months, this figure rose to $50.9 million. Thanks to in-app purchases and microtransactions, the app generated $79.3 million profit in December 2019, the highest value in the second half of the year.
However, with millions of Roblox fans spending more time indoors and online amid coronavirus lockdown, the famous kid-friendly creation hit a new record in 2020. Statistics show that in January, Roblox Mobile player spending amounted to $65.2 million. After a slight drop to $54.6 million in February, this figure jumped to $68.9 million in March.
The increasing trend continued in the next two months, with Roblox players spending nearly $103 million in May, a 55% increase since the beginning of the year. The Sensor Tower data also revealed the mobile version of the popular game hit over $1.5 bn in lifetime revenue.
The United States Leads in Roblox Player Spending
Statistics show that in June, Roblox mobile was the second top-grossing iPhone app worldwide, with $26.15 million in revenue. The kid-friendly creation platform also ranked as the sixth most popular Android game last month, with $28.28 million profit in Google Play Store. Statista data also revealed that Roblox was the most popular app among iPad users, who spent $30.34 million on the game last month.
Analyzed by geography, the United States represents the leading country with more than $1bn in lifetime player spending in May. Statistics show that Roblox Mobile was the top-grossing App Store app in the United States last month, with $21.9 million profit generated from iPhone users.
Android users spent $16.69 million on the popular game in June, ranking it as the third top-grossing Google Play Store app in the United States.
Today Rabbit & Bear Studios kicked off their Kickstarter for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes as planned and in under twenty four hours the former Suikoden developer’s game has not only reached its $500,000 goal for PC funding but has already broken the one million mark necessary to bring the game to consoles. This means that the team will receive funding once the Kickstarter concludes on August 28th and that they are aiming to have the RPG released sometime in fall 2022 for the PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo family of consoles.
The full information for the game can be found on the Kickstarter page but for a bit of a rundown, players will be able to use a traditional six character battle system featuring 2D sprites and gorgeous 3D backgrounds following a story with a 100 characters intricately intertwined. The story will begin in one corner of Allraan, a tapestry of nations with diverse cultures and values. By dint of sword, and by way of magical objects known as “rune-lenses,” the land’s history has been shaped by the alliances and aggressions of the humans, beastmen, elves, and desert people who live there.
The Galdean Empire has edged out other nations and discovered a technology that amplifies the rune-lenses’ magic. Now, the Empire is scouring the continent for an artifact that will expand their power even further. It is on one such expedition that Seign Kesling, a young and gifted imperial officer, and Nowa, a boy from a remote village, meet each other and become friends. However, a twist of fate will soon drag them into the fires of war, and force them both to reexamine everything they believe to be right and true.
There were numerous series that saw their life begin during the mid-2000s and one of these happened to be Destroy All Humans! which, despite having four releases over the course of that decade, ended up becoming something more akin to a cult classic action game that has been left in the dust for twelve years. Now here we are in 2020, a solid fifteen years after the original game was released with THQ Nordic and Black Forest Games teaming up to bring Destroy All Humans! back to modern consoles with a remake that is more akin to a remaster of the first game.
Story
Set in the idyllic 1950s or 1960s the military accidentally manages to blow a spaceship out of the air while trying to test a rocket of their own. An alien creature manages to crawl out of the flying saucer before collapsing and being captured by the government, but that isn’t where the player will be. Instead players are placed into the space-boots of Cryptosporidium-137, better known simply as Crypto, a Furon that is now being tasked with not only possibly retrieving its earlier number, but also with harvesting human brain stems for their DNA. In perfect schlocky sci-fi fashion, it turns out that Furon DNA was placed into humanity long ago and now the only way to keep the Furons from going extinct is to extract this DNA.
Destroy All Humans! plays its story in a humorous fashion with the aliens seeing Earth more as their stomping ground than anything else, so expect plenty of dark humor here, and takes full advantage of the numerous sci-fi cliches that fans of the genre have come to expect. While mostly straightforward, the plot does begin to get a bit more twisted as players progress through the main story and encounter a shadow organization and see that their actions are continuously covered up as either random coincidences, acts of Communism, or other scares that were prevalent during the ‘50s and ‘60s.
What really drives the story presentation here happens to be the performances of the main two aliens in the game, Crypto and Orthopox, even if they seem more like they are from completely different games at times and haven’t aged the best, but more on that later. Pox is voiced by the same actor who voiced Invader Zim back in the day and anyone who has seen that show will immediately hear that character during any interaction thanks to the over-the-top performance and humor involved while Crypto is played mostly straight and has tons of action one-liners that work well when juxtaposed against Pox and simply how overpowered he can be compared to the humans he is taking on.
Gameplay
One of the most immediate changes that returning fans of the games will notice is that the gameplay mechanics in Destroy All Humans! have been entirely modernized, making the game feel like a modern day action title, albeit one that is a bit too easy. Crypto feels like an overpowering force right out of the gate simply due to the fact that he is already equipped with an easily controllable jetpack, telekinesis to throw everything from chickens and people to entire vehicles around, the ability to simply pop the brains out of humans, and of course a wide array of alien weaponry starting with a powerful lightning gun that requires little aim.
What makes this even more powerful is the fact that most of these abilities can be used in tandem with one another, where previously things were much more limiting. The enemy AI players battle against isn’t the best unfortunately though they will quickly begin to swarm Crypto once he begins targeting the human populace enough, bringing everything from standard police to mysterious men in black to try and put down the alien menace. While players have plenty of weapons of their own to take advantage of, including a signature “anal probe” style weapon that is more of a joke than anything else, the ability to fly around in Crypto’s UFO is always an option.
Controlling the flying saucer is an easy task as players can control their altitude with ease while blasting away at anything humanity can throw at them with a giant death ray and a variety of other unlockable weapons. There are also a number of stealth sections that players will be required to play through from time to time and these require the use of the “Holobob” to disguise Crypto as another human. These stealth sections are unique feeling the first time around but unfortunately don’t really feature a lot of variety and can feel quite repetitive even through the game’s fairly short story length.
Players will find that the campaign is spread across six different map locations that feature a variety of missions that players can complete and as mentioned before, they range from action to stealth missions. Each mission often features sub-objectives that reward the player with extra DNA for performing unique kills or various other tasks. Once these missions are completed players can return to each area to either farm DNA from enemies, explore these maps in sandbox format to see more of what they have to offer, or take part in a few side-activities like races and abductions in a chance to earn more DNA.
DNA obtained from missions and enemies can be used by Pox to power up both Crypto as well as his flying saucer. These power ups often add various improvements to Crypto’s weaponry as well as his health, which is protected by a shield that is depleted anytime he receives damage or touches water. It is worth noting that while the game may not be the most difficult at times, players will not want to slouch on their upgrades as there are a number of difficulty spikes that can occur in a few missions, especially at the end, that will catch many players off-guard if they have been steamrolling through the best humanity has had to offer with no upgrades.
Those who played the original release of Destroy All Humans! will also notice that a brand new mission has also been included in this game as the development team has included a previously cut mission as part of the story now. This little addition is a nice touch that fits right into the story and, in retrospect, feels a bit odd to be removed from the original release.
Visuals & Audio
When designing Destroy All Humans! the development team appears to have tried to stay as close to the original designs as possible while improving them to modern day standards, allowing for the game to look quite good with Crypto’s design really standing out as impressive in nature as well as the numerous cutscenes that appear throughout the game. The designs for the humans are a bit more cartoonish looking this time around, likely for the best given the way players plow through them, but suffer a bit from there being too few models to work with, making way too many humans appear similar to one another in the six different stages in the game. As for these stages, they are unique enough in design if a bit sparse in some spaces but work well, especially when players zip around in Crypto’s UFO.
There is something to be said for authenticity but also something to be said for trying to keep things up to a certain standard. While most of the graphics and gameplay mechanics have been improved, the voice work has been taken entirely from the 2005 release of the game and while this does allow for the great performances of the two main characters to stay untouched (in case they couldn’t return to reprise their roles) the aged sound clips sound rough at times and often bits of dialogue are constantly repeated during combat so players will quickly get tired of hearing the same phrases over and over again.
Overall
When handling a game that many loved from over fifteen years ago, it can be difficult to judge just how much should be changed and Black Forest Games’ handling of Destroy All Humans! was a light-handed one. While modernizing the control scheme and updating the graphics to close to modern standards have seen the action game revitalized for many, it also is one that can often feel a bit too simple at times and although the comedic writing is great when it comes to its main characters, it doesn’t move beyond that.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
Los Angeles, July 27, 2020 – SEGA today announces a new event in Fist of The North Star LEGENDS ReVIVE, featuring two characters from the iconic fighting game Virtua Fighter. For the very first time, Hokuto Shinken and Hakkyoku-Ken will meet.
The collaboration with Virtua Fighter will start from July 30, 2020 (JST) and will run until August 12, 2020 (JST) included. Check out the trailer here!
Akira Yuki and Pai Chan from Virtua Fighter will appear in Fist of The North Star LEGENDS ReVIVE as Ultra Rare (UR) characters. Akira Yuki appears not once, but twice as a Super Rare (SR) character in the style of his first Virtua Fighter appearance and can be claimed as a log-in bonus for free. For more information about this collaboration you can visit https://hokuto-revive.sega.com/en/vf/
The sequel to the acclaimed original is built in Unreal Engine for current and next-generation hardware
Oslo, Norway – July 27th, 2020 – Independent developer Snowcastle Games today announced that Earthlock 2 is in development for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Snowcastle Games have released a teaser trailer for the game, running entirely in-engine on Unreal. To celebrate the first reveal of Earthlock 2, Snowcastle Games have also discounted the original game, Earthlock, by 80% on Steam, the Nintendo Switch eShop and the Xbox Games Store to €4.99 EUR / £4.49 GBP / $5.98 USD.
The Earthlock series is set on the planet of Umbra, which has stopped spinning on its axis, meaning half of the world is completely shrouded in darkness, while the other half is constantly baked in sunlight. Along the border in the middle, there is an area that gets the best of both worlds. The game’s story centres around a group of friends who must set out to find and rescue their missing family members.
The original Earthlock was a very classic turn-based late 90s JRPG-style experience, but with the success of the first game giving the team ample opportunity to grow, Earthlock 2 will take the franchise to the next level. Earthlock 2 will be an open-world action RPG with complex interlocking systems that work together to offer players extensive freedom to customise their own experience. There is a lot more about the game to share, but for now please enjoy this first tease of the game and one of the key gameplay possibilities that Earthlock 2 will explore:
“We are so pleased to finally offer up this first tease of what players can come to expect in Earthlock 2,” said Bendik Stang, Game Director & Co-founder of Snowcastle Games. “We really want our next title to offer players a huge amount of replayability, customisation and depth, with incredible emergent gameplay possibilities. It’s been an exciting endeavour for us and we can’t wait to reveal more about the game in the future, please stay tuned!”
World of Warships: Legends Marks Anniversary in Major Update
First Anniversary Events, French Destroyers in Early Access, German Battleship Campaign in the July Update
World of Warships: Legends gears up for its first anniversary with a line of French Destroyers in early access, a new campaign to summon the Norse god Odin, and two seasons of ranked battles! This Anniversary update also brings back items from past events over the year, including rare commanders. Whether they are starting in Legends for the first time, returning, or have sailed from the beginning, players are sure to find something to appreciate in this installment.
Legends was fully released in August 2019, so this month’s update will be full of First Anniversary events. Most notably, there’s a new “Legendary Birthday” project in the Bureau. This relatively short project will take players through the past year’s updates, including themed rewards for each one. On top of that, each week of the update will have special missions and offers bringing back exclusive equipment and commanders from Legends’ biggest updates. If players missed one of these events, they can catch up or collect some of these items during this update.
The ever-growing ship roster is set to get a whole new ship branch! The French navy destroyers are making their speedy way into early access. These are some of the most fast-paced destroyers in the game–defined by their unique lack of Smoke Generator consumables. However, they make up for this in spades thanks to their cruiser-like firepower, blistering speed, and, at higher tiers, Main-Battery Reload Booster consumables. Pile on some decent torpedoes, and daring captains will have some very formidable destroyers coming to the seas.
Bringing in all the powers of a Norse god, the new “Valhalla Rising” campaign features the Tier VII Premium German battleship Odin. This ship is a powerful surface raider-style battleship, armed with punchy 12-inch (305 mm) guns and equipped with torpedoes in a similar manner to the Tier VI battleship Scharnhorst. This campaign has 100 levels and 5 weeks of missions, plenty to battle through but perfect for this thunderous warship.
After a hiatus, Ranked Battles are back! After changes to reward calculations last update, these 7 vs 7 battles will be even more interesting. For the first two weeks of the update, players will battle it out in Tier V ships to reach the top ranks, with plenty of rewards along the way. After a week break, the second sprint will begin featuring Tier VI ships and even more rewards for the captains who reach the top.
The Anniversary update comes along with a bunch of coinciding events and changes. First, the US Navy Light Cruisers are exiting early access, meaning the Tier VII Cleveland is now researchable. This is a very well-armed ship with twelve excellent, rapid-firing 6-inch (152 mm) guns. Next, more and more players will be finishing their Legendary tier ships and taking them into battle throughout the update. Finally, a few notable features are being added, including three new maps, Spotter Planes for Battleships, and a rework of the Quick-Command wheel–bringing along the all-important Ship Horns!
It’s a jam-packed update to World of Warships: Legends, be sure to check it out and Turn the Tide!
Drox Operative 2 puts players in the middle of a 4X game as one of the many mercenaries that inevitably dot the landscape. As a member of the Drox Operatives, the focus is purely on ensuring the continuing survival of the Drox Operative guild at all costs, whether ensuring the victory through a willing partner, negotiating peace throughout the galaxy, or other less direct means to victory. The game is currently in alpha on Steam Early Access, with a full release expected in nine months time.
The writing in Drox Operative 2 is decent so far. The world’s lore is a combination of older, more established races that are properly fleshed out along with newer randomly generated young races. The writing is on par with other 4X titles in terms of length. Diplomatic discussions make up the bulk of the dialogue, and it tends to be short and to the point.
Drox Operative 2’s gameplay is unique. It captures the essence of the 4X experience without any of the complex kingdom management. Instead, players use a combination of more small-scale activities to achieve their objectives, whether it is coaxing two empires to declare war on each other by spreading nasty rumours or just destroying an empire outright. There are a variety of win and loss conditions, some from 4X titles and some specific to Drox Operative 2. They are flexible enough that every playstyle should find some way to win, with some extra options to prevent the game from getting too repetitive. There is a lot of potential replayability. Ships along with their equipment and experience are carried over between playthroughs. Additionally, there are a variety of different races to try, each with their own set of bonuses and abilities. For the more experienced players, there are a large set of mutators like permanent death to make the game more challenging.
Combat is on the simpler side as the game is a top down shooter. Weapons are generally point and shoot, with some being projectile-based and others being hit-scan. Ship speed and weapon are limited by energy, so players will constantly be juggling around which weapons they can afford to fire and for how long in longer engagements. The combat tactics aren’t too complicated, as I found it generally boiled down to building a ship to engage the enemy headfirst or kite them around.
While there are plenty of combat heavy paths to victory, economics and diplomacy are just as important in Drox Operative 2. Since players aren’t managing a kingdom themselves, they will have lots of opportunities to serve as the mediator in disputes or be the puppet master. Covert methods of diplomacy generally keep players out of the line of fire, but it does have a monetary cost as action prices go up along with the rate of success. While credits are reasonable easy to attain in the game, spending too much money is a loss condition.
The victory options that do not involve the AI factions are probably the most intriguing of the bunch. Representing the survival of the guild through sheer force, players need to establish themselves or the guild as too brutal, rich, or skilled to be trifled with. These are often the most challenging, as these often require players to not rely heavily on allied organizations.
The RPG mechanics in the game aren’t too deep. Character progression is strictly limited to stats that allow higher quality equipment to be used, improve ship quality, and often boosts to secondary stats. The bulk of the mechanics lay in the equipment system. Each gear type has a specific goal in mind, allowing for meaningful builds. Min/max nerds will have plenty to tune as they balance stats and maximize firepower while staying underneath the ship’s power cap.
The user experience is a bit of a mixed bag. The tutorials are the traditional 4X help prompts versus a true tutorial. The ship controls work well as the developers have kept the standard top down control scheme and mixed in elements of action RPG and space sim control schemes for weapons and items. The UI on the other hand is where Drox Operative 2 struggles. While an old looking UI could be a stylistic choice, an old clunky UI is just frustrating to deal with. To put things nicely, some actions are a very tactile experience. Buying and selling things at merchants requires a lot of dragging and dropping instead of the more modernized hot keys. Swapping around equipment on the hot bar is a pain. The mouse cursor is located on the centre of a dragged icon, making it difficult to move items around. The map is not intuitive to navigate. Switching between map views is awkward as it is a single button to swap between views. Two separate buttons stacked on top of each other would feel easier to use.
The audio/visual experience is decent so far. The graphics and the UI look a bit dated, but it gives the game an old school 4X charm. The sound effects are the standard sci-fi affair. The soundtrack is good, but the direction feels a little scattered. Some tracks sound more like modernized chiptunes and the rest are traditional orchestral scores.
Drox Operative 2 is shaping up to be a solid niche title with some very smart gameplay mechanics. The game might be the perfect entry point for players new to the 4X genre looking for a taste without the commitment of learning an actual 4X game. The developers still have a long laundry list of things to do in the next nine months as the user experience still needs a lot of work. However, the core mechanics are already on solid ground, so it is an excellent start to the public alpha.
A new and ambitious RPG from Rabbit & Bear Studios, a development team featuring the key creators from the Suikoden franchise, has been revealed by the name of Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes for a planned release of sometime in fall 2022. To create this game the company is looking to start a Kickstarter on July 27th seeking $500,000 USD in funding for a PC release with a single, yet to be announced, stretch goal that will bring the game to the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and the Nintendo Switch at the same time if met.
The story for Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes will be handled by Yoshitaka Murayama who wrote the story on the first two games as well as Suikoden Tactics and Suikoden Tierkreis‘ Osamu Komuta who will be working on system design and direction while the character designer from the first and fourth game, Junko Kawano, will be handling character designs.
An English and Japanese website has launched for the game and a number of screenshots plus seven of the game’s playable characters have been revealed so far and can be found below.
Together with the new trailer Milestone also revealed the RIDE 4 retail Special Edition for PlayStation®4 and Xbox One..
Sydney, Australia, July 25th – Milestone have unveiled a new trailer of RIDE 4, latest chapter of its beloved franchise dedicated to all two-wheel lovers that will be released on October 8th,that gives a glimpse of the cutting-edge level of visual fidelity the game reached in both bike and tracks modelling.
The new trailer, created using exclusively the game engine, shows some incredible bike details that have been perfectly reproduced from their real-life counterparts. Even the cockpit is a perfect reproduction of the real thing, both in terms of design and dynamic elements. The data on the dashboard changes in real-time, speed, temperature, traction control…even the oil bottle vibrates according to the movements of the bike!
All bike models in RIDE 4 have been created from the ground up using the most advanced technologies and the original CAD and 3D scans of real models, to bring to life authentic and lifelike replicas of the most iconic motorcycles, even the rarest and most exclusive ones.
Together with the new trailer Milestone also revealed the RIDE 4 retail Special Edition for PlayStation®4 and Xbox One, that will feature a Steelbookdedicated to the iconic Yamaha R1 2020 and allows access to the Season Pass, that will include 65 new bikes, 2 new tracks and 150 new events!
Together with its a cutting-edge level of visual fidelity that brings to life authentic and lifelike replicas of the most iconic motorcycles, RIDE 4 features a unique gameplay experience, with a completely renewed Career mode. Players will face fast-paced challenges all over the world that culminate with ultimate Championships with the most powerful Sportbikes, including a brand-new Endurance mode, the hardest challenge that only the best virtual riders can face. This new game mode allowed Milestone to boost the level of realism and authenticity with dynamic lighting and weather conditions, and Pit Stops for tires and fuel management. When the competition gets tough, strategy becomes crucial to succeed!
Already available for pre-orders, RIDE 4 will be released on October 8th, 2020 for PlayStation®4, Xbox One and Windows PC/STEAM.
Founded in Milan in 1996, Milestone S.r.l. is one of the leading and longest established racing game developer in the world. The 200+ people team is responsible for hit series like MotoGP™, MXGP and Monster Energy Supercross – The Official Videogame, as well as own IPs RIDE and Gravel. For more information please visit www.milestone.it
About Yamaha Motor
Founded by Mr. Genichi Kawakami in Iwata, Japan in 1955, Yamaha Motor is one of the largest manufacturers of leisure products such as Motorcycles, Scooters, Outboard Engine, WaveRunners, Boats, Snowmobiles, ATVs among others and also manufactures Industrial Machinery and Robots and Automobiles Engines for the B2B market. Yamaha Motor has over 50,000 employees worldwide and its products are sold in over 180 countries. Yamaha Motor Europe is the regional headquarter in Europe responsible for coordinating the marketing and sales activities of the Yamaha Motor products in the European marketplace. Over 1,600 employees work at Yamaha Motor Europe.
About the Bridgestone Group
The Bridgestone Group, headquartered in Tokyo, is the world’s largest tire and rubber company. In addition to tires for use in a wide variety of applications, it also manufactures a broad range of diversified products, which include industrial rubber and chemical products and sporting goods. Its products are sold in over 150 nations and territories around the world.
