#i know mojang is a company is owned by microsoft

[prismarine-biologist]

that glow squid post haunts me. i genuinely love glow squids but it reads like a dream stan thing in retrospect and i did also like the other choices i just disliked people not having any vision for what glow ink could do

[andiatas]

Prince Carl Philip & Princess Sofia launch game in Minecraft

After two years of hard work, the Prince Couple launches their own world in the computer game Minecraft. The game aims to encourage children to read and write, mainly children with dyslexia, but everyone can benefit from it.

- This gives me goosebumps, I think it's so cool, says Prince Carl Philip.

Photo: Ida Åkesson/SPA

With several big bangs and lots of confetti in the air, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia launched a whole new world in Minecraft Education at the gaming company Mojang's headquarters. Dexi Ville is a game that will increase children's and young people's curiosity about words, letters and reading.

- I had somehow hoped this game had existed when I was your age. I needed something that had awakened my desire to read and my curiosity about words, says Prince Carl Philip from the stage and turns to a school class in the audience.

- Because it is not easy, and I think you know that too, to feel the desire to read when the letters jump around or that it takes a very long time to find the willingness and peace to start reading, says the prince.

Faced many prejudices about dyslexia

The prince says that he has encountered and had to deal with many of the misconceptions and prejudices that people have about dyslexia and what it means for individuals who have dyslexia.

The idea for the game was raised during a meeting at the Royal Palace. Dexi Ville is a development of the prince couple's foundation's method game, "The Big Adventure," which they worked on extensively a few years ago.

- We put so much energy and effort into that game, and it turned out to be a great initiative, but nobody found it. So it was obvious that we had to find someone we could ally with, someone who already has the children and the target group, says Kim Waller, secretary general at the Prince Couple's Foundation.

Photo: Ida Åkesson/SPA

Got to play with the kids

The latest PISA report shows that Swedish children's reading skills are declining sharply. Kim Waller emphasizes the importance of supplementing traditional teaching with more methods.

A while later, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia get to test Dexi Ville together with some children. A block is broken, and Prince Carl Philip quickly builds a new wall. He sits concentrated in front of a computer screen and plays Minecraft.

- This is super fun, and you're super good at this, he says to a young guy who plays with him.

This is Dexi Ville

Name: Dexi Ville – the Wordcraft Adventure Target group: all children between the ages of 8 and 10. The game is currently available in Swedish and English. Developer: Prinsparets Stiftelse, together with Minecraft Education and Shapescape. Microsoft and Nordea are enabling partners. The purpose of the game: to promote increased reading habit, expanded vocabulary and reading fluency, increased curiosity and reading comprehension. Where to find the game: It is available to all Minecraft Education license holders.

Translation and editing for clarity done by me of an article by Jenny Alexandersson, Royal Reporter at Aftonbladet. The article was published on May 30, 2024.

[definitelyjunehomestuck]

i know i said that i hate the mob vote, but all the people that are tryna rally against mojang or boycott it (mostly just people on tiktok that i've heard about through friends) are idiots. mob votes are a MARKETING SCHEME. regardless of the fallacy of abstaining from any sort of vote, they're not gonna stop the mob vote because it isn't about your choice in the vote, it's about free advertising. also i'm sure microsoft, the company that owns mojang and likely calls all the shots when it comes to marketing, loves that all the vitriol that comes with this free advertising is being directed at everyone that isn't them. just do the mature thing and either cast your vote or don't, and shut the hell up about it. if you're as sick of the mob votes as i am you'll stop making it such an effective marketing strategy

[buggernaut-kal]

Do I wanna be salty about Minecraft on my blog? Yes, yes I do.

Saw there’s a new round of mob votes and I feel the need to point out a pattern I’ve noticed in these past few votes:

• Option 1) A cool thing that adds some depth and/or has some decent use

• Option 2) A cool thing that adds some depth and/or has some decent use

• Option 3) A feature that looks brokenly powerful or insanely cool based on presentation, but after the presentation is clarified to not be that cool or busted

And option 3 wins. Consistently, this happens. I’m salty at Mojang/Minecraft/Microsoft for even misrepresenting a feature to begin with, but more importantly what is stopping them from just… ya know… putting all of them in the game? Minecraft isn’t a little indie startup anymore, it’s THE best selling video game of all time AND it’s owned by Microsoft, multi-billion dollar company Microsoft. There’s no way you can claim a “lack of resources” to implement these features unless your management is intentionally keeping teams smaller and deadlines shorter. It just baffles me.

[eyepool]

I wrote the End Poem for Minecraft, the most popular video game of all time. I never signed a contract giving Mojang the rights to the End Poem, and so Microsoft (who bought Minecraft from Mojang) also don't own it. I do. Rather than sue the company or fight with my old friend, who founded the company and has since gone off in the deep end, I am dedicating the poem to the public domain.

I found this an engrossing (true) story, and I’ve never even finished Minecraft. I didn’t even know Minecraft had an ending, much less an inspirational story/poem that played at the end.

[miaclemeverett]

Mourning Technoblade: Fans Grieve a Minecraft Star They Never Met

The expert gamer built a following of millions of mostly young players on YouTube, without revealing his name or face.

Late last month, more than 10.4 million subscribers to a YouTube channel received a notification that usually brought good news: Technoblade, an expert Minecraft player, had posted a new video.

For fans, each new video held the promise of Technoblade’s warm humor, whether he was winning a tournament or going on an inexplicable quest to produce more potatoes than anyone else in a Minecraft minigame.

But when fans clicked play on this latest video, called “so long nerds,” it was immediately obvious something was wrong. Instead of showing Minecraft gameplay, a man identifying himself as Technoblade’s father appeared. He announced that his son, whose first name was Alex, had died after being diagnosed with cancer.

The video has been viewed more than 72.9 million times since it was published on June 30 as the fans who used to look forward to Technoblade’s notifications try to process the death of someone they have known only through a screen.

Social media is flooded with fan art, tributes and links to grief resources. Memorials have been erected within Minecraft, including a digital book that had been signed by more than 377,000 people.

The grief has ricocheted offline, including into the home of Noelle, 13, and her sister Ilana, 11, who had recently told their aunt to name her baby Technoblade.

In a video call from their home near Toronto, Noelle said she learned that Alex had died on her last day of school.

“I was just a mess,” she said. “I was just sitting in my room crying. I didn’t know what to do.”

Ilana, who dressed up as Technoblade’s avatar, a pig in a crown, for Halloween, said, “I don’t like to bring up the topic when I am just sitting with others.”

They both started watching Alex’s videos in late 2020. They liked his lighthearted banter with other Minecraft players and how he would monologue about the absurdity of routine parts of life, like using, and losing, a box to carry soap to a communal shower in college.

Coping With Grief and Loss

Living through the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. But the ways in which we experience and deal with the pain can largely differ.

What Experts Say: Psychotherapists say that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived through, in whatever form it may take.

How to Help: Experiencing a sudden loss can be particularly traumatic. Here are some ways to offer your support to someone grieving.

A New Diagnosis: Prolonged grief disorder, a new entry in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, applies to those who continue to struggle long after a loss.

The Biology of Grief: Grief isn’t only a psychological experience. It can affect the body too, but much about the effects remains a mystery.

Alex spoke over screen recordings of himself playing Minecraft, the immensely popular video game developed by Mojang Studios in which players can create their own world piece by piece and compete against others online. The game developer was later bought by Microsoft.

The guided gameplay had garnered such a following that the company made a tribute to Technoblade on its launch page after he died. Mojang Studios said Technoblade “became synonymous with a source of good” in an emailed statement.

Among Technoblade’s most beloved game adventures was his whimsical quest to make more potatoes than anyone else in Minecraft, a feat first documented in The Great Potato War video, which had 35.8 million views.

In the video, Alex makes several references to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” as he tries to topple the top potato producer at the time, a player who uses the moniker im_a_squid_kid. After Technoblade sees that his competition has created a rendering of the Mona Lisa in his Minecraft lair, he declares that im_a_squid_kid is not just “a potato madman, but a potato supervillain.”

Shielding an offline identity

In Alex’s videos, he talked about going to college (and dropping out to play Minecraft full time) and made occasional references to his family, but there was a clear boundary between Alex, the son and brother, and Technoblade. His family has sought to maintain that privacy since his death and declined to be interviewed.

Alex announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer in an August 2021 video threaded with jokes in which he also mentioned that he was 22 at the time. He did not specify what type of cancer he had, but his followers assumed that he had sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that is found in bone and soft tissues, because he created a fund-raiser for the Sarcoma Foundation of America on his YouTube page. He had raised more than $500,000 for the organization before the “so long nerds” video was published.

The foundation, which created a special donation page for Technoblade, said that an estimated 17,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with sarcoma in 2022, and more than 7,200 people will die from the disease.

After Alex died, his fans encouraged eligible people to donate blood to help cancer patients.

Riley, a 21-year-old in Connecticut, routinely donates blood in honor of a friend who died of sarcoma, and she made her most recent donation in Technoblade’s honor. She said his death was all the more difficult because of her earlier loss. “I was bawling like a baby for a couple hours,” she said. (Riley spoke on the condition that her last name not be used because she has faced online harassment.)

She has played Minecraft for about 10 years, but she did not discover Technoblade until the early days of the pandemic when she was working grueling shifts at a grocery store. “There was not a lot of joy in my life being an essential worker,” she said.

She liked Technoblade’s humor and introduced his videos to some of her co-workers, who were reminded of his famous potato war at work. “We were stocking potatoes one night and we just started laughing,” she said.

Technoblade inspired Riley to start broadcasting videos of herself playing video games, or streaming, under the name Notable_Crayon. It has been a great way to unwind, she said, but it has also shown her why someone as popular as Technoblade would protect his offline identity.

Occasionally people will figure out Riley’s full name and send her “creepy” messages, she said. She also has a friend who was the victim of swatting, false reports of crimes in progress intended to draw armed police to the victim’s home. Her friend was not hurt, but others have been harmed, with one man killed by the police and another dying of a heart attack.

In the “so long nerds” video, Alex’s father read a letter that he said his son wrote about eight hours before he died. In the letter, Alex acknowledged the consequences of sharing personal information online and revealed that he and a sibling had successfully convinced online fans that his first name was Dave by using the name in a 2016 video, which was later deleted.

Alex said the prank resulted in “thousands of creepy online dudes trying to get overly personal, going, ‘Oh hey, Dave, how’s it going?’”

Navigating the loss of an online friend

For some fans, the mystery of Alex’s identity has added a confusing layer to the muddle of grief.

Richard England, a vicar at Crofton Parish on the south coast of Britain, said that his teenagers were both devastated by Alex’s death and that they had a few conversations about how not knowing Technoblade’s offline identity affected their grieving.

“Through this new online, offline world we have, many of them will feel like they will know Technoblade and other members of those online communities better than they know kids in their own school,” Mr. England, 47, said. “They will have spent just as much time with them.”

In Canada, Noelle and Ilana’s mother, Janice, admitted she was skeptical at first about the idea that you could have fun watching videos of someone else playing video games. But she said the girls had educated her about the Minecraft world and its personalities, which she now appreciates.

Janice, 52, was well suited to handle her children’s grief about Technoblade because she said she previously worked with children in grief as a child life specialist, a role that helps children and families cope with stress they experience because of health problems, hospitalization and bereavement.

She said that adults tend to want to protect children from uncomfortable feelings, but that it was important to give them space to express, or not express, how they were feeling about Technoblade.

“If we help our children through grief when they experience it,” she said, “then they will be better able to cope with it when they are older and have other situations in their lives that would cause them to be grieving.”

In the video call with her daughters, Janice said her sister in Maryland had called after Technoblade died, because her son was also a big fan. The boy had decided to raise money for the sarcoma foundation, Janice said, prompting Ilana to turn toward her mother and ask: “Is there a way I can help him with that?”

[postplus-protest]

referencing the ask about wattpad owning tumblr:

i thought wattpad was bought by webtoon? unless im wrong and theyre both owned by the same company???

also the fact that wattpad was a good site before it was bought, referencing the ads and the way it worked in general. its a lot laggier now, you get ads after every chapter, reporting people is an entire hassle and you cant report someone if the event didnt happen to you, i dont remember a wattpad premium before but then again i dont remember a lot of that time

sort of the same thing happened with microsoft’s purchase of mojang (and therefore minecraft) — minecraft before the purchase was really simplistic and easy but now its just. i dunno, more complicated. i do like the game still but i dont like the changes

i know this is a tumblr thing and not a wattpad or minecraft one but i just wanted to point out that companies change so much when they buy things that its sad

ANYWAY to make this ask actually productive rather than wasting your time

,,,,actually i forgot what i was going to say (thank you adhd /s) so uh. here have this giant ramble :')

I love posts like these! It helps give context to things that change after buyouts!

[terrascookiejar-archive]

What about other official discords? I know Minecraft and New horizons has one. How come they are better handling it than CR despite with possible more massive fan base?

Well I’m not 100% sure. But I have a feeling those discords being ran by official sources managed to have a plan and keep things organized from the start. They probably had a strict process for choosing moderators, or hired their own moderation team whose job it is to keep things in line. Multiple people combing multiple channels and being there to hear things out when things go wrong.

The thing is, Cookie Run Official Discord didn’t start like this.

It’s a well known fact that the Discord was started without anyone on the Devsis Team really fully understanding discord. Originally there were NO moderators at all, aside from these “test mods” that seemed to be floating around, and it was essentially like a wild west where Dev Sis kind of assumed they’d just, figure it out over time? There’s no clear cut rules, they’re constantly changing. There’s no consistent moderation. They are in and out. So that means there’s no communication, so when Moderators come in that DO promise and try to change things, they very quickly realize that they aren’t getting the help they need higher up the ladder and yet are somehow expected to just keep things in check with a vague and broken system that DevSis assumed could build itself.  So often times those good mods leave in frustration, because like a bad job with poor communication you can only handle so much of that. In the end they bit off way more than they could ever hope to chew and... yet still kinda ignore/assume the issues will solve itself and they’ll just... figure it out later?

I know it’s not entirely Devsis and MicMac’s faults. But considering how MicMac responded kind of half-heartedly to CookieRunUpdate’s very blatant harassment by a past moderator... it gives off the impression that they don’t really care that their Discord is a shit show and would rather just ignore the issue until it “resolves itself”

Either because they don’t care/want money, or they don’t have the capacity to handle any of it.

That might not be their intent but that’s completely how they come off.

Edit: Additionally with Minecraft and New Horizons. THOSE companies, Mojang/Microsoft and Nintendo, is that they have a strong company base in the United States and Canada. And if something were to go wrong there they could very easily be sued there. So there’s a stronger pull for preventing things from happening to the best of their ability. 

Litigation is always a threat when it comes to america  as a continent, and even if it’s conjecture it’ll be a messy prospect to deal with any kind of lawsuit so they’d rather avoid it at all costs by properly staffing their forums with reliable moderators, having a system and rules clearly displayed, and taking proper courses of action legally to handle things as needed.

The thing with Cookie Run and DevSis? They’re based in South Korea. I don’t know Korean Laws! I’m assuming most of my english-speaking followers don’t either. 

The only time Devsis really took action over anything was when there was an uproar caused by the publisher of the comics for adding a Cookie Hitler to the plot of Adventure Masterpiece. I’m assuming only because it would cause a significant uproar in Korea- (For those who don’t know, Korea used to be the victim of fascist and abusive dictatorship when Japan had control of the country years and years ago. Plus considering the current state of North Korea, they generally aren’t exactly ones who take too kindly to any depiction of fascism in any facet, even if they are the villain.)

Since MicMac had to give a public statement about how this was not something under his control since the Publisher writes and makes the comics and they only license the Cookie Run brand name out to them. Subsequently the Publisher had to pull the issue and stop running it, so even though it’s still listed in korean online storefronts it’s limited and not in print. 

Yet that’s the thing. The Cookie Run Official Discord is run most mostly the Western Fanbase as far as I can tell, and if someone wanted to sue DevSisters for maybe putting their children in danger... well that would be harder than filing a lawsuit against Microsoft or Nintendo.

There’s no Devsisters of America. or Canada. They’re all based in Korea. So they probably have the safety net of knowing that if anyone outside the country could even have a chance of filing a lawsuit perhaps due to the Pedophilia issue, they’d have to be exceptionally powerful. Like Someone with a lot of power and legal prowess. 

The fact of the matter is, DevSisters ignored the Burning Sun issue, DevSisters ignores the harassment their fans inflict on each other on a regular basis, DevSisters will ignore pedophilic behavior because they either don’t want to deal with it or don’t have to worry about facing consequences.

You need to remember DevSisters is not a small indie group making video games as a passion project, DevSisters is a CORPORATION. Corporations aren’t your friends. They aren’t here to protect you. They aren’t looking out for you. Their only job is to make money and at the end of the day unless something threatens that, they aren’t going to do anything about it.

[stirpicus]

A lot of people are saying that telltale is back. Okay I’m 65% sure that it’s either a lie or idk. It’s confusing. Plus I saw a video on YouTube by BigBSt4tz that MCSM Season 3 thing and that totally like blew my mind but kinda not at the And time. I don’t know what to believe Eric.. telltale coming back or it’s not.. I never heard of the LCG entertainment!

It is, and it isn’t. Lemme try and run through it a little bit using a different example —

All of the Marvel Comics Characters are the Intellectual Property (or “IP”) of Marvel. Marvel can do whatever they want with those characters because they own them - Back in the 90s and 00s, Marvel didn’t have a film studio, so they weren’t able to make movies. Instead, they’d license their characters (Their “IP”) out to film companies like Sony or Universal or whoever - Which means those companies would pay them money in exchange for getting to use their character in a movie. Marvel would get money up front for loaning out their character, and the film company was taking a risk hoping that the movie would make more money than it cost to borrow that character for the movie. It was a risk for Marvel to take because there was the danger of bad movies being made with their characters BUT the company was in serious financial trouble, so it was a gamble that they made to stay in business. If, god forbid, Marvel had gone out of business in the way that Telltale had, they would have probably been forced to sell the rights to their characters entirely to stay in business.

And there’s where we run into the conundrum. Almost all of the games that Telltale made were using licensed IP - Meaning every game Telltale made, they would pay money to other companies to borrow their characters or worlds. Minecraft, Borderlands, Wolf Among Us, Walking Dead... Those are all people who Telltale had to pay in exchange for making games. 

So when Telltale went out of business, basically all they had were those borrowed characters and worlds and it created a really sticky legal situation. The owners of the Walking Dead, Skybound, just scooped up Walking Dead and decided to keep making the games - Super simple because they owned those characters and basically just said “Cool we’ll finish this now.” But the other legal situations are way trickier. Companies had sold Telltale a license to make a game... not other companies.

So Telltale is coming back... kind of. In truth, some new people have basically bought the name “Telltale” and a pile of the leftover licenses to keep selling the old games and (hopefully) make new ones. But which licenses do they actually have... that’s the big question. Minecraft: Story Mode probably won’t happen, because that’s all wrapped up with Netflix and Microsoft/Mojang now. Game of Thrones probably won’t happen because I’d guess that license is expired. Walking Dead definitely won’t happen, because that’s over at Skybound now... What this “new” Telltale seems to have are the DC licenses (Batman & Wolf Among Us) and the two things that Telltale made that were original IPs (Meaning they were Telltale’s own original characters): The rather obscure titles “Puzzle Agent” and “Hector: Badge of Carnage.”

So, while Telltale is “back,” it remains to be seen what that actually means. I’m trying to be cautiously optimistic. We’ll see. I hope this explanation of intellectual property law made things less, not more, confusing!

[gameting]

“If you haven’t heard of this game already then that’s okay, but if there’s room under that rock what’s the rent like?”

Minecraft Review - Perfectly crafted

Originally created by Markus Persson in 2009, published by his own company funded by the game's huge success Mojang in 2011, and bought out by Microsoft in 2014, the original Minecraft is a far cry from the most current release. Having been in constant development for a decade it's safe to say that Minecraft has only grown mightier as the years have gone by.

The charming pixelated sandbox has gained a following akin to other gargantuan franchises like Star Wars or Disney, striking a flame with the first Minecraft convention dubbed 'Minecon' in 2010. The game itself is very much a love child of the now billionaire Markus' favourite games of the time, and what started out as a passion project has since become a staple of the gaming world.

Story: As a completely open world experience the 'story' of Minecraft is entirely in the players hands; Want to spend the next three weeks farming? Go for it! Want to focus on finding that sweet spot to build your next house? Build away! Wanna murder some tall purple-black dudes who steal your stuff and then use their eyes to find and jump into a portal to then fight a massive dragon? Yeah, me too! The story of Minecraft is non-existent; it's a truly open 'sandbox' experience where the player has total freedom.

As time has gone by however there have been updates that add end goals, such as the aforementioned dragon, but there's no “Nice one for completing the game!” screen so to speak. So what is there to do in Minceraft if there's no story, no tension, no drama or purpose? Well...

Gameplay: The gameplay can be stripped down to four basic functions: kill, eat, build, sleep. At least that's what the alpha version could have been described as. Now, however, you can ride pigs, plant wheat, breed animals, fly, enchant weapons, fish, that's right I did say fly, kill under water zombie dudes, ride horses, keep cats, ride carts, and of course mine AND craft.

It isn't very telling from the list, but there is a lot to do in Minecraft that I haven't even mentioned. So much so that if you leave the game for a few months you could come back to entirely new items and features that seemed inconceivable in the past. I mean the fact that you can fly now? I don't even know how to do that I just saw a friend do it and I've already poured the last week into trying to find out how.

I mentioned that you can enchant weapons, but you can also enchant yourself, albeit temporarily, through the use of potions. Get some glass, make a bottle, and you're one step closer to being able to see better in the dark, jump really high, do more damage or even swim faster under water. The amount of stuff to do in Minecraft can be dizzying, but part of the fun is trying to figure out how to do everything as hard as you can before turning to the wiki.

There are of course baddies in the game outside of dragons and block stealing weirdos; zombies, creepers (the green thing that go boom), skeleton archers, drowned (wet zombies), slimes, blazes (hot shooty boys), spiders, baby zombies and drowned (the worst), Ghast (big white screamy memey shooty boys) and of course other players, the latter of which is one of the best ways to experience the game.

The world in which you inhabit in any video game is just as important as the baddies you slay. Some games push you down linear corridors, some games even tie you to a single path and all you can really do is aim and shoot, and while some games give you large sprawling maps for you to explore at your leisure, in Minecraft, well, the world is made of “chunks” as we pros call it, and it never ends. No, really, it never ends, the game world is procedurally generated, which means you can pick a direction and keep going until you find the perfect mountain to make your home.

There are also a variety of landscapes in the game: taiga (snowy bois), deserts, giant mushrooms, dark woods, regular woods, birch woods, mountain ranges, swamps, igloos, flat plains, and sometimes it's just a lot of water. Whatever your favourite flavour of the real world is, Minecraft has it, and with the ability to pick your seed (the combination of numbers generated when a world is made) you can customise the world you inhabit.

The following of Minecraft also came with game altering mods that can add new blocks, features, animals, bad dudes, good dudes, currency, heck you can even mod in completely different game modes which have since become easily accessible outside of the modding community.

All of this is wrapped up in an easy to learn control scheme with hit, not hit, jump, other not hit, crouch, move around and change your characters perspective between first and third person.

Graphics: Imagine really cool pixel art. Just loads of squares dude.

Sound: The sound design in Minecraft is just so good. Open a door? Mm chunky door sound. Walking on some snow? Crunchy snow sound. The sound effects for items in the game are top notch, but the game really shines with the sounds of the enemies, specifically the creepers. Casually mining and you hear that hissing sound? Well, you were mining.

The music in the game is, as it always has been, gorgeous. Subtle tones that chime in from time to time, gentle piano as the rain starts to fall, ominous noises that can only be described as “bwam” while exploring the depths of the world, all of it works together to create a cohesive sound scape that peacefully fits to whatever you're mining, crafting or slaying. Every thing sounds as it should, and the music has a mind of it's own so it never feels noisy or excessive.

Personal experience: My first real experience with Minecraft was after I 'legally' downloaded it with 'money' on 'my' computer in my own home with my 'hands' on a 'keyboard.' It was an early alpha build and I remember running away from zombies and the hissy green boys by hiding in a mountain. I figured, y'know, wait until day, hang out, then dig my way back to the real world. Only, I'd forgotten which way was out, I wasn't paying attention and ended up spending half an hour punching my way out of an endless wall of dirt.

Between then and now I'm only slightly better at building a 9x9 wooden house, and the green boys don't scare me (as much) any more. Minecraft has been a game that I've left and returned to multiple times, and now as I write this review I find myself playing online with a friend and more invested than ever; when do we fly I ask, I don't know maybe after the dragon my friend replies, and we continue to routinely murder the same bloodline of cows until we're both wearing pink boots and hats. I'd say play it with friends, but sometimes going it alone is just as fun.

Score /10: To be honest I was going into this review with a number in mind, but now that I've finished it I have to say I'm going to keep the number: it's a 10/10. From the timeless gameplay, to the addictive nature of mining and crafting, and figuring out how the hell to fly, I find myself captivated by the simplistic depth of Minecraft, the allure of dying all my sheep the same colour and making all my tools shiny. Definitely leaving my Minecraft world in my will/10.

[nftdawnio]

The makers of Minecraft said Wednesday morning that they would change the game's user guidelines to make it impossible for fans to add non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to the game. This was bad news for several trading communities. Under Minecraft's current user rules, administrators can charge users for access to their own Minecraft servers, but there are a few more rules that must be followed. This includes making sure that paid users have real, paid versions of the game and that everyone pays the same amount for access. https://twitter.com/Minecraft/status/1549842815185813504 Mojang, the Swedish company that makes Minecraft and is a subsidiary of Microsoft, plans to change these rules so that NFTs can't be used or traded in the game. Mojang wrote on the official Minecraft blog under the name "Staff" that "blockchain technologies are not allowed to be integrated into our client and server applications. Also, Minecraft in-game content like worlds, skins, persona items, or other mods cannot be used by blockchain technology to create a scarce digital asset." The reason given for the change doesn't name any specific companies, but it does say that third-party companies have launched Minecraft-integrated NFT implementations that turned the game into a "play-to-earn" version where players could earn Minecraft-themed NFTs by doing things in or out of the game. "Each of these uses of NFTs and other blockchain technologies creates digital ownership based on scarcity and exclusion," the post says. "This is not in line with Minecraft's values of creative inclusion and playing together." NFTs don't include everyone in our community and make a divide between those who have and those who don't. Concerns have also been raised about how unreliable third-party NFTs are, how the technology relies on asset managers who could suddenly go out of business and take a user's NFTs with them, and how NFTs tend to get involved in what are basically pump-and-dump schemes. Mojang also said that it has no plans "right now" to add its own blockchain technology to Minecraft, but that it will keep an eye on how the technology develops. No one knows yet how the rule change will affect the official Minecraft NFTs that came out last year as a joint project with Enjin. Mojang's change to the rules will affect NFT Worlds, which calls itself a "metaverse platform." It used to host many metaverse projects, like a customized Minecraft server where users could buy virtual plots of land as NFTs to use in-game. Its official response to the Minecraft NFT ban, which was posted on its Discord server, is to look into other options. These options could include moving its tech to a different crafting game that is similar to Minecraft or selling its way of coding to other game developers as a service. The company has no plans to leave the area and is "committed to finding a solution." To be fair, I think this was bound to happen. People in the NFT/crypto world don't seem to want to accept that an NFT based on someone else's intellectual property will still be seen as breaking intellectual property law because it's basically unlicensed securities trading. This was also true of the Magic: The Gathering-themed mtgDAO project from earlier this year. https://nftdawn.io/mojang-bans-nft-and-blockchain-integration-in-minecraft/?feed_id=1162&_unique_id=62d8fb0f840f2

[raxtenten]

My Analysis on Microsoft buying ZeniMax:

Ok, so this is gonna be absolutely long intensive post about Microsoft acquiring ZeniMax Media because I absolutely just stunned about what this could mean/implicate.  Let’s start with the acquisition itself:

THIS IS THE THIRD LARGEST ACQUISTION THAT MICROSOFT HAS MADE! IT IS THE LARGEST AQUISITION FOR MICROSOFT IN THE GAMING INDUSTRY!  (Also, did not know that Microsoft owned LinkedIn and Github which is mindblowing to me because along with owning Skype and Mojang that is ridiculous in the amount of power they own in online services, apps, and just in general technology)

This acquisition is huge because it really shows how much Microsoft is trying to own the gaming industry.  Microsoft owns Xbox and is huge in PC gaming as well because the fact that most people use their operating system.  Them buying ZeniMax Media (the parent company of Bethesda) is a lot because they own a ton of gaming studios, not just Bethesda.  Here is a list of studios/other companies they own:

Not only does Microsoft own Bethesda, they own a lot of other studios as well.  For example, in 2018, they went on a huge buying spree.  At E3, they announced that they had bought Playground Games (they do the Forza series), Ninja Theory (Hellblade), Undead Labs (State of Decay), and Compulsion Games (We Happy Few).  Later that year, they announced that they bought Obsidian Entertainment (Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds) and inXile Entertainment (Wasteland series and The Bard’s Tale).

So why is Microsoft buying all these studios?

Xbox/Xbox Game Pass

Xbox Game Pass is the Netflix of gaming.  This is big money and has the same idea of what Netflix is doing.  You don’t have to buy games anymore because they are a part of Game Pass (you can still buy them at a discount with Game Pass membership), but its the same idea as Netflix where they will put up a game and have it up for months/years, but you don’t have to pay $60-70 for the game when maybe you don’t have that extra money per month based on your income.  But you can afford to pay $10 a month to access a bunch of games, but you don’t permanently own them.  I GUARANTEE THEY ARE MAKING BANK OFF OF XBOX GAME PASS! Just look at Netflix and other streaming services’ profits and you get the picture of what kind of money they earn from Game Pass.

What do they need to expand their library/profit?

More Game Studios.  They need these to be exclusive to Xbox so that they can put it on Game Pass.  It’s probably way easier to outright own a studio than trying to negotiate with a third-party studio to have their game appear on Xbox Game Pass.  It makes me wonder how much these studios make when having their game on Game Pass vs selling it. 

I also think that it’s interesting that Microsoft seems to buying out companies catering to the younger generation.  Everyone heard recently that Microsoft was interested in buying Tik Tok.  Remember when they bought Skype and Mojang, services/games that were primarily used by the younger generation at the time.  It might just be that new technology attracts younger people because they are more readily to adopt it, and Microsoft also jumps at the opportunity to adopt new technology because it is big money.   But what if these are correlated? Since younger generations are more tech focused, they determine which tech industries boom; Microsoft is looking at them (the youth) to what companies it should buy out so that they can make big bank.  Hence why Microsoft is wedging itself into the gaming industry.

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A few account into a babble with the makers of Minecraft Dungeons and I started to balloon I was talking to one of the best affecting bold developers in the world.

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Minecraft is played by able-bodied over 100 actor bodies every month. It’s a bold that exists everywhere, on every platform, and it is alike acclimated to advise accouchement in schools globally. It is calmly Microsoft’s bigger amateur IP, and has remained accordant and accepted for added than a decade. Yet it’s additionally one of the aboriginal indie games, amenable for every above amateur administrator ablution an indie characterization to “find the abutting Minecraft.”

But Mojang is not an indie anymore — not by any stretch. It’s a ample flat endemic by one of the world’s bigger corporations, but in the 25-person development aggregation abaft Minecraft Dungeons, the indie spirit seems to alive on.

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“[Indie] is how we started,” says Mans Olson, bold administrator on Minecraft Dungeons. “A lot of us accept that accomplishments on the team. Not everyone, but there’s still absolutely a lot of that cerebration activity on. We accept a lot of multi-disciplined people.”

Mans Olson, bold director

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Art administrator Daniel Bjorkefors adds: “It’s ambagious sometimes. I am an art director, but I am additionally accomplishing all the UI and design, and sometimes I’m not abiding if I’m art administrator or not. Anybody is affairs in. We’ve had addition actualize an absolute akin and art absolute it, so I didn’t accept to blow it. That’

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[calsbctthingy]

Week 4 - so brandbox is dead... now we turn to Agar.io???

This week has been an interesting one… We looked at BrandBox and the idea behind it and how we would achieve it. While we both really like it, we thought it might have been a little bit ambitious for the time frame we had left…

Keeping our purpose and questions the same we sat down and discussed ways we could use the same premise but on a standard computer screen/TV/projector. Fox then came up with the idea of using an Agar.io model. Agar.io is a mobile/web based game where you’re placed on the screen as a single cell surrounded by floating blobs and a set amount of players from around the world – you then drag your cell around the screen collecting floating blobs to grow in size and eventually the power to overtake/absorb the other players in the board (Hindy, 2015).

Fox started working on that over the next day and I then went around the room and conducted another survey. This time I played with a different way to visualise the data, taking visual cues from Agar.io I decided to make a survey where the participants would instead place a dot relative to the brand they’ve chosen so e.g. if someone had chosen coke originally, the next person to choose coke would place their dot somewhere close-by to the other.

I got a lot of great feedback from the cohort about how it was a really nice way of showing data and one which they hadn’t really seen before. It was also a useful way for Fox and I to visualise brand dominance within the classroom. From this, Fox decided that he wanted to change what we were doing (again but I’m not mad). He had been working on a program for his programming assignment which was a simulation of the solar system and used the idea of colonies/swarm of planet and space debris – We then discussed using this instead. The way it would work is that the there would be brands placed around the screen in random placement, when the user clicks on a brand, a dot will appear and begin to orbit the brand, however if the brand is subsidiary instead of orbiting around itself, it’ll orbit around the parent brand. So effectively we’re making a custom data-visualisation platform for the purposes of this project. The thing I’m most excited about is that it is real time which means the data is recorded and added as the user interacts with it which is awesome.

From here, I decided to research some more into brand loyalty and perception. One piece of research I found focused on looking at variety offered and how if a brand has more of a variety of products in their range, the consumer perceives that as a better brand and therefore is more likely to purchase their products – In most cases, approx. 85% of participants in the study chose the brand with the larger variety (Berger, Draganska, & Simonson, 2007). This is an interesting idea, however what would happened if the consumer was pitched with a selection of products, all originating from the same company but under different brands? Do they consciously know that they’re all made by the same people or do they base their decision on the merits of the brands they know? I think this is something we want to try and highlight. Remove the facade these subsidiaries/sub-brands have and make our users question if they know what they’re supporting… The one recurring example we’ve been using is between Coke and L&P – Do consumers buy L&P, aside from the taste, on the merits that it’s a kiwi brand or icon and they think they’re supporting a kiwi based company? Or are they actively aware they’re giving profit to a large multi-national corporation?

Next step for me was to begin to collate a list of brands we wanted to include. We wanted to use brands that are more notable so with that we chose the following – Bold indicates the main/parent brand

Coke Sprite L&P Lift Powerade Pump water Fanta

Pepsi V Just Juice Mountain Dew Fresh Up Disney Marvel Studios Pixar Lucasfilms Netflix

Spotify

Sony

Apple Beats

Microsoft Mojang Skype Nokia Windows

Amazon Twitch

Google (Alphabet) YouTube

All data regarding these brands was pulled from Wikipedia and cross referenced with the parent company websites. We understand that some of these brands (e.g. Google and Pepsi) are actually owned themselves by parent companies but for the purposes of this project and to make it more easily recognisable we treated them as the parent.

While I was doing this, Fox managed to get our program working with user input. Now when you click on one of the larger ellipses, a dot will begin to orbit so that was an exciting day. It was a small step forward but a very promising one as it meant we were only a few days away from actually having a fully fleshed out and working version of our visualisation.

With Showcase next week we also reserved our space officially – we got the prime spot in my opinion, the main projector. The best thing about this spot is that as people walk through the front door or through the corridor between 1103 and 1101/2, ours will be the first thing they see so hopefully we get some good attention heaps of people playing around with our data-vis.

One more thing I decided I wanted to play with as well was how we could implement different inputs. I investigated the possibility of a MakeyMakey, Arduino Circuit Keyboard and Leap Motion. I only had access to a Leap Motion so that’s what I tested first – A Leap Motion is a hand tracking device that uses infrared cameras to track hand and finger movements, and can reproduce the effect of a touchscreen, but in thin air. I brought this into class and had a play around but after testing the software – which was only compatible with an outdated SDK, we decided it would hinder rather than enhance the experience. Using the Leap was fun, but the speed of tracking and the angles it tracked at meant it was hard for the user to easily control the cursor on screen and to mimic a touch. With the MakeyMakey/Arduino Circuit Keyboard, the idea was to have packaging from the products that were displayed on screen. Then when the user touches the packaging, this would simulate a keypress – Each product would be coded with it’s own key e.g. C for Coke, P for Pepsi, A for Apple – This would then add an orbiting dot to the correlating brand. We didn’t think this would be suitable as it although there’d be a tactile element, we’d need to work out the user experience and how we’d make a correlation by what the product packaging and the changes on the screen. This is something we didn’t really have time for this late in the project.

Berger, J., Draganska, M., & Simonson, I. (2007, July-August). The Influence of Product Variety on Brand Perception and. Marketing Science, 26(4), 460-472. doi:10.1287/mksc.1060.0253

Hindy, J. (2015, August 5). Hands-on with Agar.io: what the heck is it? Why is it so popular? Retrieved from Android Authority: https://www.androidauthority.com/hands-on-with-agar-io-631445/

[waynekelton]

Upcoming iOS & Android Games 2019

The mobile gamer can look back at 2018 with an affectionate and misty eye, secure in the knowledge that gaming on mobile devices gets more diverse, sophisticated and polished with each year. In this respect, 2019 has also proven to be a banner year on this front and it shows no signs of stopping now.

Roughly speaking, the most exciting upcoming games can be split into three groups: the name-brand mega hits-in-waiting, boardgame adaptations, and indie projects. Read on to see what the who’s who of mobile gaming are cooking up for this year’s treats.

Upcoming Mobile Games 2020

Commandos 2, which was originally in the main list below, has slipped to 2020 on mobile. It's still due out on PC this year but speaking to the devs at GamesCom, they're probably not going to even start testing on mobile until the New Year so we've still got some time to wait yet.

Homeworld Mobile was announced at the same time as Homeworld 3. We're only guessing at a 2020 release here, but it's within the realms of possibility.

Eve Echoes - the EVE Online spin-off is going to go into Open Beta in December, which means we're look at a general release in 2020.

Teamfight Tactics Mobile - Valve's take on Auto Chess is confirmed to be coming to mobile.

Legends of Runeterra - Valve's (incredibly belated) answer to Hearthstone. Yay, another CCG...

League of Legends: Wild Rift - A mobile variant of Legaue of Legends for mobile devices.

Runescape Mobile - current in Early Access on Google Play if you're a PC Subscriber. I don't imagine a full roll-out will be till 2020 but you never know.

Space Grunts 2 (Turn-based Strategy/Roguelike)

The original Space Grunts was one of our favourite games back in 2016 - an excellent combination of turn-based strategy with roguelike elements. Now OrangePixel are looking to try and recapture some of that magic with a sequel. Space Grunts 2 brings back that typical turn-based flair with procedural generation, but is now adding a card-based battle and inventory system to shake things up a bit. It's currently in Steam Early Access on PC, but some kind of iOS release is expected before the end of the year. You should check out OrangePixel's official YouTube channel for regular dev-logs on how the game is progressing.

Black Desert Mobile (MMORPG)

Black Desert Online is a popular free-to-play MMORPG that's become something of a quiet sensation in the now-desolate realm of PC MMORPGs. With the war officially 'over' and World of Warcraft still king, you wouldn't think they'd be room for another big MMO, but here we are. Black Desert Online is a freemium game that actually balances its free content and premium pricing options really well. It's also got a lot going for it in terms of quest content, crafting and customisation, not to mention a wide array of interesting classes.

Now the developers want to bring the game to mobile, which is due to happen in December. We imagine the graphics are going to be reduced to faciliate play on tablet and phones, but other than that it's not 100% clear what the differences will be at the moment. We know 'MMORPG' has its own rather negative connotations on mobile devices, but there's a reason this is so popular on PC so if you've been looking for something like WOW on your handheld device, this is as good place as any to start.

Company of Heroes (WW2 Tactical RTS)

We don't deserve Feral Interactive, quite frankly. In a sea of games fighting and struggling against the whims of mobile gamers and business models, here's a company that decided to just get really good at porting things to iOS, and at the same time decided to get really chummy with companies like SEGA. This is the company that's brought us Rome: Total War and Tropico to tablets and phones... and now they're bringing us that most sacred of strategy games, Company of Heroes.

The gold standard of squad-based real-time tactical strategy gaming, and they're just casually bringing it to your handheld device likes it's no big deal. We don't know much about it, at this point, other than it's due in the 'Fall'. It's only coming to iPad to start with, as is their tradition with most of their ports. It will also be premium, with no IAPs, and just include the base game content for starters.

Football Manager 2020 Touch & Mobile (Sport Management/Sim)

Another year, another round of Football Manager games. The FM 2020 series is going to be launching on PC and Mobile all at the same time, with the mobile offerings once again being split into Football Manager 2020 Mobile, which is a stripped down version of the game that works on phones, and Football Manager 2020 Touch which is the PC version ported to tablets. Not much more to say on this one, other than the release is planned for November, currently. 

Minecraft Earth (AR)

It seems 2019 is the year people finally try and jump on to the Pokemon GO craze. It's only been three year! Minecraft Earth is Microsoft & Mojang's answer to the likes of Ingress Prime and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Different from the existing Minecraft experience on mobile, this AR-fuelled game comes with a number of key concepts. First and foremost, people can explore the world in real-life, checking into locations on their phone much like how Pokestops work. These locations net them resources which can be used in the building mode, which is reported to be just as free-form as the original game. Finally, those constructions can then be placed in the real-world, so anyone with their phone can explore and interact with them.

This looks like a pretty decent marriage of Pokemon GO-style AR and a popular IP. Say what you want about Microsoft, none of their various Minecraft versions have felt like cynical cash-ins, so it'll be interesting to see how this one turns out. It's currently running a closed beta test that is rolling out to more and more people over time, but we're not sure when a full release is planned yet.

Phantom Doctrine (Turn-based Strategy)

Phantom Doctrine ... mobile version, are you ready for the change.#indiegame #gamedev #mobile #PhantomDoctrine pic.twitter.com/fKM4RAVqkN

— CreativeForge Games (@CFGmain) June 7, 2019

 Another one a few of us here are really looking forward to. Phantom Doctrine was an attempt to make an XCOM-like game set during the Cold War. You run an international spy agency and you must train up your agents, develop their cover and embed them in locations, as well as engaging in other acts of espionage and intrigue. There's a 'base/strategic' part, and then a turn-based tactical part. What stops this from just being a token nod towards Bond-style espionage is that most turn-based tactical battles can start off peacefully, and even end without a shot being fired provided you do your job well enough.

It's pretty good, although it was a bit glitchy when it first launched, but provided how well XCOM fits on tablet and mobile, I have no doubt the mobile version of Phantom Doctrine is going to be right up our alley. Considering there was no word of an actual release window, perhaps a 2019 release is a bit ambitious but what the heck, we're excited!

Tom Clancy's Elite Squad (Collectable RPG/Battler Thing)

Not sure if this is turn-based or real-time thing - there's not much information beyond the E3 2019 trailer. Ubisoft will be offering players the chance to assemble a 5-person squad with characters from across their franchises, where you need to collect and upgrade characters and fight in 5v5 battles against either the AI or other players. There's going to be a single-player story + guild vs. guild warfare.

No release date, but pre-registration is already live so I'm expecting at least a beta or something this year, with perhaps the full release early next year if not by Christmas. I stand by what I said when we originally reported on this though - I think Ubisoft are missing a trick by not making this an Auto Chess game.

Game of Thrones: Beyond the Wall (As Above)

Behavoir Interactive (them what made Fallout Shelter) had their own announcement as this year's E3. In the same vein as Ubisoft's Elite Squad, BE are working with HBO on Beyond the Wall, another RPG/Strategy/Squad Battler thing. Usually, separate new games sharing the same basic DNA signifies an emerging trend but, again, I think the guys have completely missed the fact that Auto Chess is happening.

Still, all the parts are there to make this a potentially compelling experience - you've got to recruit people into the Night's Watch, go on rangings beyond the Wall and defend said Wall from wildlings. This trying to cash-in on the recently finished television show, there will be some magical based mumbo-jumbo reason to recruit, or collect, famous people from the TV series as well (this game is officially set half a decade before Book 1, so you can imagine there'll be a bit creative license going on here). Pre-registration is live on both iOS & Android, so hopefully we'll learn more about this soon.

Final Fantasy (Tactical RPG)

We're lumping two Final Fantasy games into one entry because there's not much to say on them at the moment. At E3 it was announced that Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicle's Remaster will also be hitting tablets and smartphones. We're expecting that to drop in the Winter. Here's the trailer:

Meanwhile, Final Fantasy: Brave Exvius is getting a tactical RPG spin-off, War of the Visions. We're not 100% on details or release window yet, but it's also got a trailer:

Out of the Park GO! (Sports/Management)

While not the all-father of sports sims that is Football Manager, the OOTP Baseball series holds just a firm a place in baseball fans hearts. The mobile incarnation of OOTP has been a series of games called MLB Manager, the most recent of which we reviewed last year. It seems the developer is starting from scratch for the next iteration, even re-branding it to become OOTP GO! Here's what they have to say about it:

OOTP Go! will be free to play, which includes full access to Perfect Team and the ability to create and play fictional solo leagues. The current MLB rosters are a $4.99 in-app purchase, international leagues will be $1.99 each and historical MLB seasons will be (as usual) $0.99 (plus there will be bundles available for a reduced price).

Last thing we heard a public beta for it was due to start soon, so we'll be amazed if it still manages to release this year. Coming to both iOS & Android.

Dire Wolf Digital (Board Game)

This isn't the name of a game, but the name of a company that announced this year they're making a bucket-load of digital board game adaptations. Because we only have the announcement text to go on, we've decided to keep the new games all in one place until we know more. The company recently released their first offering from the list, Raiders of the North Sea, at the end of July. We're not sure if they'll be able to release many more before the year is out, but here's the remaining ports they have on their slate:

Mage Knights – It's worth noting this is the first step in a bigger agreement with WizKids, so it's likely we'll be seeing more announcements this year.

Wings of Glory – A popular table-top aerial skirmish game.

Yellow & Yangtze – a Reiner Knizia tile placement game of civilization building.

Sagrada – A dice drafting game about creating works of art.

Root – the recent Kickstarter sensation about asymmetrical warfare in the woods.

We'll update as we learn more.

Diablo Immortal (Action RPG)

Diablo Immortal will draw some side-eye and mockery, having been already made notorious because of its horribly mistimed announcement. (Yes, we have phones, but read the room, Activision-Blizzard). Even more puzzlingly, the game is being created in partnership with NetEase, a Chinese developer whose resume already includes ‘Eternal Realm’ (无尽神域) itself essentially a Diablo clone. Weird stuff: the official license merging with a pretender to the throne to make a hybrid project together. Concerns about endless grind or re-skinning of Eternal Realm are well-founded, but while most of us will be as judge-y as possible we’ll also probably still give the final product a try. Good action RPGs live or die by loot, character progression and above all, delicate-yet-accurate controls, so it will be interesting to see if Diablo Immortal will be a good game as well as the inevitable cash cow.

We thought we'd have heard something about this game by now following its announcement last year. The silence doesn't mean the project is cancelled, of course, but it could mean this will slip to the 2020 list.

Terraforming Mars (Boardgame)

Terraforming Mars sounds like a noble goal for all of humanity. In reality, the game is a push-and-pull competition for corporations to garner by prestige by...terraforming Mars. Three categories: oxygen, temperature and ocean coverage dictate the endgame, but to get there, players will reshape the red planet into a bright blue hope. It’s a Euro though-and-though: precisely balanced, intricately co-dependent and inevitably point-based. But the close match between theme and mechanic makes this game deeply satisfying and intuitive to learn and explain, and the action selection mechanic is uniquely innovative and inspired. Just when I think boardgame design is tapped out, something truly exceptional rises to the top.

A limited beta was in progress on mobile, but then the developer went bankrupt. Last we heard Asmodee Digital have retained the rights and assets to the mobile version so hopefully they'll be able to get a new developer on board sharpish. Whether we see this by the end of the year though is anyone's guess.

Impossible Bottles (Rhythm/Action)

Various robots move about in their bottles and raging about like a bull in a china shop. Each level presents one of these Impossible Bottles for the player to fix by manipulating the environment and repairing the situation, or at the very least soothing its sole occupant. A scientist built these robots as part of a perpetual motion machine for unlimited energy, but they don’t quite work as is. The secret to fixing everything is music, or in gameplay terms: rhythm.

One-touch gameplay and lush, fantastic art: it was slated with a mid-year release which obviously hasn't happened yet, and we've yet to hear anything else about it.

Heaven’s Vault (Interactive Fiction)

We're not sure what's going on with Inkle's of 80 Days interactive fiction fame) newest game Heaven’s Vault. It's currently available on Steam and Playstation, and a Switch version is planned for 2020. As for mobile? Who knows. I've been worrying that the Switch is stealing some mobile ports, although you never know - Apple Arcade might change that now.

An archaeologist-slash-xenolinguist explores the dusty remains of an alien civilization on an unknown planet, with a vivid backdrop of sienna sand and celestial blue. There’s some pretty nifty procedural tricks behind the code-breaking and translation, and while its approach to storytelling is a little less handcrafted, it has the potential to have even more surprises and replayability than the globe-trotting 80 Days.

Other Missing Games From 2018

As a reminder, here is a quick list of some other games we were expecting last year, but never turned up on mobile:

Exodus: Proxima Centauri (Boardgame)

Epic Card Game (Card Game)

Lord of the Rings Living Card Game (Card Game) (Out now on PC)

Monster Slayers (Card Game) 

EVE: War of Ascension (MMO) (Possibly replaced by EVE: Echoes?)

Best iOS & Android Games of 2019 (So Far)

There's already been some excellent releases this year, and not all of them were expected/on this list. If you haven't already, check these games out:

Bad North (RTS)

Pacific Fire (War Game)

Aeon's End (Card Game)

Raiders of the North Sea (Board Game)

Santorini (Board Game)

Astrologaster (??)

Tharsis (Turn-Based Strategy)

Shards of Infinity (Card Game)

Fort Sumter (Boardgame)

Dungeon Warfare 2 (RTS)

Cultist Simulator (Card Game/Sim)

Necrodancer AMPLIFIED (Roguelike)

The Castles of Burgundy (Boardgame)

Star Traders: Frontiers (RPG)

Legends of Andor (Boardgame)

Evolution: The Video Game (Boardgame)

The Escapists 2: Pocket Breakout (Simulation)

Seen any other games coming out this year you're excited about? Let us know in the comments.

Upcoming iOS & Android Games 2019 published first on https://touchgen.tumblr.com/