#ive been their number one shooter since 2019

[livsmessydoodles]

someone who gets it

[dritagator]

Homeworld 3 leak

Homeworld 3 leak full version#

Homeworld 3 leak full#

Homeworld 3 leak software#

Homeworld 3 leak trial#

Homeworld 3 leak software#

You can find all the best and cheapest online deals on Homeworld 3 CD keys, game codes, gift cards, and antivirus software from the verified CD key sellers on our store pages. Homeworld 3 is slated for a Q4 2022 release.īUY HOMEWORLD 3 CHEAP GAME KEY ON ALLKEYSHOPįor all the latest video game news, trailers, and best deals, make sure to bookmark us. Homeworld 3 was first announced back in 2019.A lot has happened since then, least of all to this game’s development like its weird fan investor scheme being lauded then cancelled but now. Homeworld 3 promises to combine large-scale and dynamic combat with precise storytelling to offer the most engaging title in the franchise. On top of that, you will also have all-new ship designs to play with and will manage your fleet as you take it with you from mission to mission. Line of sight is more important than ever, as Homeworld 3 fully simulates ballistics, meaning you will need to strategize and use the battlefield accordingly. These real-time strategy games are beloved by fans. In the campaign, it’s not all about the battles, as critical information will be shared between pilots and ship captains during fights. The Real-Time Strategy Game Homeworld 3 Was Just Announced At PAX West Blackbird Interactive Is Handling Development Jeremy Green 541 0 It has been quite a while since a new Homeworld game has come out. The game will feature multiple modes, including a deep campaign, 1v1 PvP, free-for-all and team battles, and a roguelike co-op mode. Megaliths are enormous and will give you the option of setting up ambushes or hit-and-run-style attacks against your enemies. Like the original and its sequel, Homeworld 3 is a real-time strategy game that will launch on Steam and Epic Games Store for Windows PC.īlackbird Interactive has moved to say that they plan to offer more tactical options in Homeworld 3, thanks to derelict spacecraft called Megaliths. Good luck getting invited to the next beta test, John Smith.The original Homeworld was released back in 1999 by Sierra Entertainment and Relic Entertainment. One of the leakers even said: “I really don’t know if I can even stream this.” Um. To the publisher, the leakers might as well have attached images that say “Private test build John Smith.” HW 1 ships had relatively simple geometry and bold angles due to engine limitations, but which also gave the ships a distinct minimalist look. A return to bold angles and flat surfaces. These watermarks indicate a specific build number, which is likely attached to a real name in Blizzard’s database somewhere. Unlike HW 2, whose larger ships which had largely conventional tubular hulls, HW 3 ships have interesting silhouettes from multiple angles. But it’s both appalling and hilarious to me that these leakers uploaded screenshots and videos that have watermarks all over them. A lot has happened since then, least of all to this game’s developmentlike its weird fan investor scheme being lauded then cancelledbut now.

Homeworld 3 leak full#

And we’re still at least months, if not a full year from Diablo IV’s release date. Homeworld 3 was first announced back in 2019. Beta tests are intended for the developers to make some final tweak.

Homeworld 3 leak full version#

The test build is currently a little over 67 GB, but this could change once the full version of the game comes out. They show a relatively no-frills character creator, the five classes (which have already been announced, including the returning Rogue and Sorcerer class from Diablo I and II), difficulty selectors, and the specs of the game.

Homeworld 3 leak trial#

This Gorgeous B&W 1950s B-Movie Shooter Doesn't Need Any ColorsĪnd, viola, Cameron Smith’s charisma is goneįirst Volunteers Set to Get Experimental Lyme Disease Vaccine in Large Clinical Trial ICU Nurse Charged In Fiery LA Car Crash That Killed 6 Held On $9 Million Bail Google Briefly Nuked the Internet Last Night However, that hasn’t stopped some testers, who uploaded screenshots and videos to the internet. This means that they’re legally bound not to share information from the build. The makers, Blackbird Interactive (founded by folks who worked on the original Homeworlds at Relic) announced earlier this year that they were joining the ranks of studios. Considering Homeworld 2 came out 19 years ago, yeah, a few months longer is nothing. The leaks were obtained from a beta test for friends and family of Blizzard, whom Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier says are under NDA. Homeworld 3 is due to launch in 2023 by the end of June, having recently been delayed.

[shervonfakhimi]

The 2019 Summer League Standouts

Summer League is finally coming to a close. Just because many didn’t watch lackluster doesn’t mean that *I* didn’t. Yes, I got my fair share of live ball turnovers, travels, and bricks, but I do enjoy watching journeymen fight for one more chance and young players dipping their toes into the shark-infested NBA waters. With that being the case, there were a few players who caught my eyes and stood out during Summer League. Here’s who did and how they did it.

Lonnie Walker IV SG SA: Surprise surprise. The Spurs’ player development program has paid dividends. Lonnie Walker IV is just the latest example. It feels like he made it his personal mission to serve buckets to anybody who tried to defend both in the Utah and Vegas Summer League, and that he has. In 4 games, Walker IV averaged 24.75 points per game shooting 55% from the field. The 4-to-9 negative assist-turnover ratio can be improved upon, but he flashed three-level scoring ability (especially in the midrange game), fulfilling some of the Donovan Mitchell comparisons he got coming out of Miami. The Spurs suddenly have a deep backcourt with Dejounte Murray returning alongside Derrick White and DeMar DeRozan, and Lonnie looks ready to contribute alongside them.

Anfernee Simons PG/SG POR: You like buckets? Well, get a load of Anfernee Simons, because he got a lot of them in Vegas. He showed an ability to score efficiently at all three levels and flashed fancy yet lethal footwork and handle in the process, averaging 22 points per game in the desert while shooting 55% from the field and 64.7% from three-point range. After trading Evan Turner to Atlanta, the Blazers believe Simons is ready to step into their backup point guard spot off the bench. While a 5-12 assist-turnover ratio does not exactly exude confidence running a team, he clearly can help a team keep up on second units, something Portland could use to give Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum longer spells of rest. 

Mfiondu Kabengele C LAC / Terance Mann SG LAC: Until another Canadian rookie dominated in consecutive games, I thought Mfiondu Kabengele was the best rookie that played in Summer League. But it wasn’t just him. His former Florida State teammate Terance Mann looked very sharp as well. Kabengele showed his versatility as a brute in the paint routinely stuffing bigs like Moe Wagner right in their path then running the floor, splashing 3s (he shot 7-16 from deep in Summer League) and playing hard all the time. Mann, on the other hand, showed he’s more than just a ‘3-and-D’ guy. He is a more than able creator with the ball in his hands, whether through the pass or looking to score, to go along with his defense. Both of these guys are perfect fits within the Clippers culture of toughness and versatility. For a team that gave up 5(!!!!!) first round picks in the deal for Paul George to land both him and Kawhi Leonard, they’ll need more young players to help sustain this run they’re about to embark upon. These two look like they can contribute right away.

Zach Norvell Jr. SG LAL: Norvell does not have a very sexy game. He isn’t going to routinely break a defense down off the dribble but has shown he can do it, whether it be via drive and kick potential assists or buckets for himself. He has a quick release to get shots off from deep before contests come his way, as evidenced by his game-winner against the Warriors in Sacramento. He’s a willing defender who does well at fighting through screens and using his length to get deflections. He is a very solid, willing passer who routinely makes the extra pass to get his team great shots rather than take good shots Though he is only on a 2-way contract, he looks like the prototypical kind of role player to surround stars like LeBron James and Anthony Davis. I had him ranked 44th overall on my big board. That the Lakers got him as an undrafted free agent is a steal. 

Tyler Herro SG MIA: Kudos to Tyler Herro for being amongst the few lotteries picks to actually play. Not only did Herro play, but he played very well. Obviously, his range is limitless, but that hasn’t been all he’s shown. While not great at playing through contact, his playmaking in space really impressed me during his time playing in Sacramento and Vegas. He is way more than just a shooter; he can score or playmake off the dribble as well. Miami used him as a de facto point guard during Summer League to help let Herro work on his off the dribble game. While he probably won’t be asked to bring the ball up with the big club, these skills can really come in handy if he gets ran off the three-point line. He fits in well with Jimmy Butler and the other young players Miami has, who knows how to use shooters like Herro (just ask Ray Allen or Wayne Ellington). I thought Miami reached a little to take Herro. I stand corrected, for now at least.

Kyle Guy SG SAC: Basically, anything I said about Herro applies to Kyle Guy, just a lesser version. I thought Guy should’ve been drafted, at the very least. His play in Sacramento and Vegas backed that up for me. 

Kendrick Nunn SG MIA / Duncan Robinson SF MIA: Two former undrafted free agents with drastically different games proved that they belong. Kendrick Nunn is a long, athletic, scoring wing who uses his length defensively as well. He gets busy offensively with his long strides, ability to play through contact and flashed an ability to score at all levels. Duncan Robinson may look nothing like an NBA player, yet he looks like exactly like an NBA player. Again, he is more than just a shooter. He repeatedly looked very comfortable putting the ball on the floor and finishing plays after getting run off the three-point line, whether on catch and shoot situations or running off screens or running the offense himself. He is comfortable shooting on the move and hitting contested shots, including this absurd shot on the move *over* the backboard. These two proved they belong in the league. The Heat guaranteed Duncan Robinson’s $1 million for next season, basically securing a roster spot for him on the team next season. We’ll see if Nunn gets the same guarantee as well. 

Nickeil Alexander-Walker PG NOLA / Jaxson Hayes C NOLA: Remember when I said Kabengele was the best rookie in Summer League until another Canadian came in and swooped that title away? Well, I wasn’t talking about RJ Barrett. No, I was referring to Nickeil Alexander-Walker. Since all we saw from Zion Williamson was him snatching the soul of Kevin Knox before injuring his knee, his teammate Nickeil stepped up and assured us a Pelican would dominate Summer League. We already knew his ability to and his feel was his best attribute coming out of Virginia Tech. While I knew he could score, I didn’t know he had advanced footwork and scoring ability like this lethal stepback. He has three-point range, but also can get inside the paint and either finish himself or find shooters scattered along the three-point line. He even has flashed some post game as well. He put everything together against the Miami Heat, bringing his team back and dominating in the process. He has the length to guard just about any guard or wing. He’s also the Pelicans’ third guard in line behind Jrue Holiday and Lonzo Ball. Good look scoring on them. We’re going to really look back at how Nickeil fell all the way to 17. He was dominant in Vegas. 

Jaxson Hayes, the eighth pick in the draft, played well in Summer League as well. He looked every bit the part of a Clint Capela/Jarrett Allen type of rim running, rim-protecting big. He also caught a body, the first of many. David Griffin looks to have nailed his first draft running the Pelicans, getting these two after trading the 4th pick acquired from the Lakers in the Anthony Davis trade. 

Daniel Gafford C CHI: What I said about Hayes applies to Gafford as well. Gafford’s numbers at Arkansas after inexplicably being used improperly compared very well to that of Jaxson Hayes’ during his time at Texas. The gap between the two should not have been 30 spots. Gafford has been a monster on the glass and putbacks and done a good job protecting the rim. He was a steal and a great backup for the Bulls behind Lauri Markkanen and Wendell Carter Jr. 

Bruce Brown PG/SG DET: Bruce Brown made his hay defensively his rookie year for the Detroit Pistons. He worked on his offensive repertoire during Summer League, repeatedly showing plus playmaking working as the point guard. He even messed around and dropped a triple-double. He earned himself an even bigger role heading into his sophomore season. 

Zhaire Smith SG PHI / Matisse Thybulle SF PHI: I’m lumping these two together because they both will likely have the same role next season for the gigantic Sixers. Any concern regarding whether Matisse Thybulle can defend in a man-to-man defense should be quelled. His defense translates. Zhaire Smith showed a scoring ability that will help him not be typecast as a one-dimensional offensive threat like Thybulle, who isn’t much of a threat with the ball in his hands. He is going to fly like Carol Danvers running with Ben Simmons in transition. Both Smith and Thybulle are long, tenacious defenders. Philly repeatedly got lit up by point guards last year. They now have three big guards to throw at them in these two and Josh Richardson, all likely having a size advantage. They also ran out of capable players in last year’s playoff run. These two should and likely will get minutes all throughout the year to prove they belong on that stage. Philadelphia is my favorite to boast the league’s best defense with Joel Embiid AND Al Horford protecting the middle. These guys will help on the outside. Good luck scoring against Philly next year.

[aurelliocheek]

RESHOOT R: Driven by Passion

Richard Löwenstein about why releasing for Amiga almost makes sense.

What is the driving force behind someone who is developing games from an almost dead genre on a hardware platform which seems to have died about 25 years ago? Because that’s what I did! I released a horizontal scrolling shoot’ em-up called RESHOOT R on Amiga end of May 2019.

I invested roundabout 2,000 hours of a precious lifetime into developing. To understand the reasons behind this decision, let me rewind the calendar to the mid-1980s – a period where electronic gaming was, ­although in its infancy, already experiencing its first big transition. The first wave of consoles was being followed by more versatile programmable home computers, which lowered the entry-level for potential software architects massively. Everyone could now learn how to make games.

This is the time when my career in game development started. In 1985, at the age of 15, I finished developing Twinky goes ­hiking, the first of several successful ­commercial releases on the most classic of computer hardware platforms, the ­Commodore 64. Other titles like Persian Gulf Inferno followed. My career as a developer ended in 1991 when several loose contacts to magazine publishing houses strengthened and I was given the chance to become a member of the team of Amiga Joker, Germany’s leading games magazine by then.

Joining the editorial staff meant a great opportunity but also killed my game ­developer ambitions since both jobs are very time consuming, and I preferred to focus. Back then it was clear that I would not finish my most ambitious games project at that time: an elaborate shoot’ em-up for the Amiga-platform, an action game in the classic R-Type-style. It should have been a lighthouse project, a game more beautiful and faster than comparable products at the time.

RESHOOT R is designed to read map-files created with “Tiled“ and restart at the edited position immediately. That lowers turnaround times while designing and testing significantly.

A new market emerges Fast forward to the summer of 2015. When I cleared up my cellar, what emerged were several Amiga home computers I had ­retired by the end of the 90s. One of them contained the source code of my old shoot’ em-up-project, which I had buried in 1991. As fate would have it, at the same time I wrote some pieces about the flourishing market for new games releases on the ­8-bit-platform Commodore 64. Like vinyl and vintage cars, old games ­machines ­seemed to gain attention. Several indicators hinted for an emerging situation: mainly the growing number of retro related exhibitors at gamescom, and an increasing number of new games releases of professional quality not only on Commodore 64, but also on other platforms like Amstrad/Schneider CPC. My favourite vintage games platform – the Commodore Amiga – did not get its share of new releases though. That seemed strange because it used to be the most popular games platform in the very early 90s in Europe. It’s said to have sold about five million units in the EU-territory, still has loyal followers, and is very popular within the demo scene.

I assumed that it’s comparably elaborate to develop games for Amiga, so much so that a classic one man show – common constellation on ­older ­8-bit-systems – can hardly handle the job. The Amigas 16-bit-technology, though antique by modern standards, ­already ­enables quite sophisticated content. It takes trained specialists to take care of design, coding, pixels and music if the result was to be on par with the best games released in the heydays of the Amiga. Also, the Amiga was not very popular outside of ­Europe and therefore – unlike the Mega Drive – cannot confide on momentum from US- and Asia-based developers.

It felt like it was time to change that. I felt the fever for coding returning, decided to revive my old source code from 1991 and maybe develop it into the fully fleshed game I had envisioned about 25 years ago. Such a project is time consuming and not to be finished within a few hours. I ­calculated with an investment of three hours a day, four days a week, six months minimum. Such an enormous additional burden on the time account could not ­easily be ­reconciled with a regular job and a family. My approach: night shift. Get to bed at 10pm; wake myself at 2am; develop several hours undisturbed; return to bed and wake up with my family. Sounds crazy and it maybe is, but it works. But why, you may ask. The answer is simple. Passion. The implementation of a lifelong dream. I want to prove to myself that I can develop a high-quality Amiga game and maybe gain some attention and recognition. July 2015 marks the beginning of my project of heart.

RESHOOT R runs on the classic Amiga-models A1200, A4000 and CD32, as well as compatible emulators and recent Amiga-clones like Vampire V4.

Retro platform, modern tools Very quickly I realised that Amiga development no longer works like in 1991 for me. In recent years I managed a couple of ­iPhone developments and learned how to use modern software tools such as Xcode and Unity on Apple Mac. The Amiga can’t handle common features, like multiple monitor setup or version control. Therefore it was clear that I had to setup a cross-development system. My main tools:

iMac. The built-in Internet connection has to be mentioned, because in 1991 this was not yet available. Gathering and sharing information is so much simpler today!

Xcode. Mainly works a comfortable code editor with version control, code completion and text highlighting; features not yet invented in 1991

FS-UAE Amiga Emulator. Almost 100 percent compatible to the real hardware. Extraordinary built-in debugging capabilities

ASM Pro. Classic tool running on Amiga. Translates source code into pure and fast machine language. Switched to VASM-cross-development tool recently

Tiled: A very common map editor for all kinds of 2D-games. Allows comfortable placement of tiles and objects in separate layers. Code on Amiga read and interprets Tiles’ XML-data-exports for use in RESHOOT

Commodore Amiga 1200. Real retro hardware used to test code regularly. File transfer between iMac and Amiga works with SD card which both systems can read and write

Another integral part of the development environment is a virtual hard drive partition, which the iMac and Amiga both can access to share source code and data files. Some few self-written keyboard macros automate the interaction of Xcode on the Mac and the tools on the Amiga emulator. One press of the F1-key stores source code, activates FS-UAE, loads source code into ASM Pro, compiles and executes. This takes about one second. On the real retro hardware this would take approximately 30 seconds. Turnaround times of 1991 and 2019 cannot be compared.

RESHOOT R is available as digital download, in two CD-ROM-editions and even on classic 3.5 “disc shown here. Prices go from 29 to 54 Euros. Go to www.amigashop.org.

After establishing a working development environment, it took me some time to get back into thinking in Assembler ­language. To me, Assembler is still the ­purest form of coding because of it’s logical approach and direct access to the hardware. It’s fast, too. Much faster than anything if one knows how to handle it. The price for speed: Compared to C++ or C#, Assembler code looks rather abstract and unreadable, because it mainly consists of commands which provide memory access, logical operators and branches to control program flow. I should add that a dedicated game development environment comparable to Unity actually exists on Amiga, albeit much simpler. Also, like today’s ­modern operating systems, the Amiga OS provides libraries which handle visual, aural and input/output operations. But on classic hardware, processor cycles and memory are very precious. The ­Amiga libraries slow code down considerably, game development environments alike. Almost no reasonable games on the Amiga makes use of such features.

For my game it was ine­vitable to draw and move pixels as fast and memory-efficient as possible. I, therefore, did what most Amiga coders did in the heydays of the machine: switch off the OS and write custom code which fits the game like a glove. That’s what you need to do, if you want maximum performance on a 14 MHz machine with 2 MB of memory. These are the specs of the Amiga 1200, which is my favourite iteration of the Amiga-family and therefore became my target platform. I love this machine because of its elegant case containing considerably more processing power than the earlier Amiga models 500, 1000 and 2000. It was released just a few years prior to Commodore demise and therefore – like its console-cousin CD32 – did not manage to gain the same market share as the Amiga 500. Because of their versatility, the ­Amiga 1200, 4000 and CD32 seem to be on the rise now though. Prices for used models currently go through the roof.

The 2019 release RESHOOT R shows its creators have learned their lesson. It sets its focus on smooth gameplay with just some minor modern modifications. This resulted in very favourable reviews from Youtubers and the specialist press.

Don’t innovate too much At this stage, it occurred to me that – while I grew back into the code – I could ­modernise the game design. Why not incorporate new elements not seen before on Amiga? One idea was to add twitch gameplay with an endless structure. I imagined a kind of endless reaction test, fast and fluid as the Amiga classic Silkworm, mixed with ­elements of Japanese bullet-hell-shooters. The player’s survival would not be divided into many short chapters. Instead, there should be only one level and even a ­single life. Once the player’s spaceship hits an invader or a bullet: Game Over, score billing and new attempt. Just like Flappy Bird. That would be an interesting new alternative to Apydia, R-Type, Thunderforce IV, Last ­Resort and other classic horizontal shooters from the 80s and 90s that I found so intense and exciting.

It took me one year to finish ­developing RESHOOT – a game which I had started to work in the early 90s and which got its release in August 2016. It was not the high-quality shoot’ em-up I had in my brain at first. But it was proof that I can finish such a project. That seemed sufficient, especially as so many comparable projects fail to reach the finish line. RESHOOT was released physically on CD-ROM, simply because I wanted to feel the satisfaction of being able to touch the fruits of my labour with my hands. Within one year of development I learned a lot. So much so that, even before sending the ISO-image to the ­CD-ROM duplication facility, I started to work on a follow-up project. This was going to be the lighthouse project I had originally envisioned. I already had given birth to its name: RESHOOT R. The intention of the “R “mainly was to ignite discussions within the community about its meaning. I decided to invite the community to become involved in the development. Let people join the process, that means a serious investment of time and energy, but it’s important to gain attention. Also, this way I gathered feedback from RESHOOT-beta-testers very early and therefore knew I’d better change the game design for RESHOOT R fundamentally.

With RESHOOT, the intention was to use the basic shoot ‘em formula as a frame for mainly modern game design elements. This worked only partially. The endless gameplay got no love from the retro community. Therefore RESHOOT R got a total redesign. I planned it as a classic horizontal shoot’ em-up with a just handful of modern details, and focus on visual effects never seen before Amiga. The plan: classic stage-based structure with rising difficulty level, power-up-weapons, lots of change of pace, and narrative elements leading to a dramatic climax.

The 2016 release Reshoot tried to marry classic shoot’ em-up gameplay with modern elements. It rather failed. Customers seem to prefer old-school elements in games on retro platforms.

No more one-man-show Collaboration with pixel artist Kevin Saunders from Australia was a given. He did great work on RESHOOT and proved that he is a reliable guy. This is not to be taken for granted in a development scenario which is mainly driven by passion, not money. One of the main challenges while developing RESHOOT and RESHOOT R was to find and lead people who can actually pull through, who do not flake away after a couple of weeks or at the slightest sight of any obstacles. Kevin and I discussed visual ideas and quickly decided to ditch the very abstract and clean design of RESHOOT and instead go for a comparably natural ­approach, combining the fluid animation of 3D-rendered objects with the distinctive look of hand-crafted pixels.

The simultaneous use of music and sound-fx was inevitable. One needs to know that it was not common practice in the Amigas early years and is still difficult to implement nowadays since the Amiga only has four sound channels and can mix sounds only with severe constraints in the visual and gameplay department. But our ears are so used to a modern hearing experience, that anything less would not sound acceptable in 2019. To keep the music pumping while player projectile whoosh over the screen and the boss warcries after taking another hit, took weeks of detailed work.

Project leader Richard ­Löwenstein uses modern tools to develop a game for a platform which essentially debuted in 1985.

Also, the switch to a different kind of music proved to be very important for the enhanced experience that RESHOOT R provides. I ditched the unconventional chiptune-music of RESHOOT for a ­modern, fast pulsed musical accompaniment of very high technical quality, comparable to what you would expect to hear on modern hardware platforms. A quarter of system memory was reserved just for audio use. This way the digital samples, which the Amigas Paula-customchip reads from memory and outputs through its four ­audio channels, would sound natural and not scratchy like is so often the case in Amiga games.

While talking about music, I need to mention gamescom 2016 and the importance of attending such gatherings. It was this visit that laid the groundwork for the audio experience. While showing RESHOOT to the public audience, I got into talks with Martin Ahman. Martin is a DJ and composer interested in electronic music. He told me how keen he is to, once in a lifetime, have one of his pieces in an Amiga game. He did not have any Amiga related releases on its curriculum vitae at that time. But he convinced me that he knows what it takes by sending a piece which was pretty close to what I had envisioned. It all resulted in audio tracks which not only drove the gameplay forward but which were so good on their own that prior to release, we decided to produce a separate Soundtrack-CD with remixes from the German Remix Group and others. Like Kevin Saunders, Martin Ahman is aware of the limitations of classic hardware and creative enough to work around them for the best possible performance.

The challenge is to create a 3D-illusion through visual layering and move dozens of objects at the same time, with only a 14-Mhz-CPU and 2 MB RAM under the hood.

Three years in the making It took me a while to enhance and modify the existing RESHOOT-Engine to cope with the many additional elements planned for RESHOOT R: I wanted narrative breaks, a diversified and sometimes surprising ­attack choreography, and parent-children-related objects which can be multiplied and combined to form bigger boss-like objects. One of my main goals was to add full screen perspective scrolling to enhance the illusion of visual depth. This has never been done in Amiga game before. The Amiga does not contain any 3D-capabilities, no scaling or texture mapping. Only a very simple GPU called “Copper“ can switch video characteristics at segments of each scan line. Therefore all perspective visual effects need clever coding since they must only use a minimum of CPU cycles while adding a maximum of visual impact to the experience. Doing this while drawing up to 100 moving objects on screen and keeping a steady 50 Hertz framerate proofed to be a very special challenge. Even down to optimising single bytes within data structures and counting CPU cycles for maximised performance within program loops.

One year after the initial development started, the engine was ready for its public debut at gamescom 2017. I showed one playable level and gathered a ton of feedback and ideas. It took another two years to implement the best proposals. One of the most important modifications concerns the collision system. It now mirrors the hitbox-based behaviour found in modern shoot’ em-up-games on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch. The added particle system not only looks nice, but it also helps distinguish cosmetic background graphics from collidable stuff. The extra weapon system now not only rewards persevering ­players, who remember and collect power-ups, with ­enhanced destruction ­capabilities; but it also incorporates an ­innovative shield ­function for the players ship: The hit of an enemy bullet only takes away one ­power-up, unless the ship returns to its ­basic configuration and a bullet hit is fatal. All these modifications add tremendously to the game-flow and playability ­experience.

The challenge is to create a 3D-illusion and move dozens of objects with only a 14-Mhz-CPU and 2 MB RAM.

Community and media seem to agree. Favourable comments from Youtubers, ­excited reviews in specialist magazines and a number of editorial pieces – one of which was aired on the German public TV-channel ZDF – prove that RESHOOT R is not only a great Amiga game – it’s a great game on any platform. So it paid off emotionally. But did it work financially?

The Retro community is very creative, loyal and willing to buy games at prices comparable to modern console releases. The market is still very, very niche, though. This restricts sales but increases the visibility of each games release, provided its creators invest sufficient time and knowledge into community work and marketing. RESHOOT R is essentially a bet on the assumption that the retro games community grows like the vintage car scene did in the past 20 years. If this becomes true, the market might become serious in the near future. Games like RESHOOT R help create such a market. Because if they are good-looking and entertaining, they may be considered a viable alternative to products on modern platforms – not only for people who actually owned an Amiga 30 years ago but also for new customers wanting to experience this special retro flavour in the most authentic way. Future projects like Intellivisions Amico-console help putting the market into the limelight.

RESHOOT R is a retro community effort, with contributions from several experienced freelance artists.

So, my newly founded retro specialist label “spieleschreiber” has a serious foot in the door and the business model is well and truly scalable. Conversions of RESHOOT R for Steam, Switch and Mega Drive-platforms are on the cards. The next AAA-release for Amiga is already in ­development: The fast-paced vertical shoot’ em-up RESHOOT PROXIMA III will bring Truxton-like space chaos onto Amiga. The game debuted at the Amiga34-­exhibition at the 12th October 2019 and will be released in 2020. Extrapolating from peoples interest at the show, this will be huge. Maybe it will even be the first Amiga game ever that gets successfully funded by a Kickstarter-­campaign. Tanglewood, Phantom Gear and several other recent projects for the Mega Drive-platform have proven it can be done.

Richard Löwenstein Journalist and Game Developer

Richard developed games since 1985. At the end of 1991, he started an editorial career, became editor of Amiga Joker and PC Joker Magazine, founded a number of games magazines and wrote about games and its industry for several leading media outlets. In 2015 Richard returned to game development, ­re­leased RESHOOT in 2016 and ­RESHOOT R in May 2019. More at www.spieleschreiber.de.

The post RESHOOT R: Driven by Passion appeared first on Making Games.

RESHOOT R: Driven by Passion published first on https://leolarsonblog.tumblr.com/

[anycontentposter]

Our favorite gear, rewarded: DPReview Awards 2019

DPReview Awards 2019

If 2018 was the year that full-frame mirrorless went mainstream, 2019 was the year when all of the major manufacturers really doubled-down on their mirrorless strategies. Canon pumped out a series of very high quality RF lenses, alongside the world's cheapest full-frame mirrorless camera. Nikon went all-in on its range of affordable F1.8 primes, and Sony pulled out all the stops - yet again - in the a7R IV.

Meanwhile, Olympus threw all of its technological know-how into the sports-oriented OM-D E-M1 X, Fujifilm reinvented medium-format with the GFX 100 and Ricoh's GR III and Leica's Q2 offered a welcome refresh for fans of fixed-focal length compacts.

That's a lot, and it's only a small taste of what happened this year. At the end of every year we get together as a team to recognize the standout products of the past 12 months in our annual DPReview Awards. Take a look through the slides above to find out which products made our list of the best gear of 2019!

Best accessory Shortlist: DJI Osmo pocket DJI Ronin SC Gnarbox 2.0 SSD Peak Design Travel Tripod Runner up: Peak Design Travel Tripod

The role of photography accessories is to play support to your creative endeavors. That can mean support in the traditional sense, like a well-designed travel tripod or 3-axis gimbal rig. Or it can mean support in the form of peace of mind, like a rugged file back-up device.

Our runner-up for best photography accessory, the Peak Design Travel Tripod, falls into the former category. Travel tripods aren't new, but Peak Design has managed to radically rethink the concept to create a package that's significantly more compact than the competition and just as stable, if not more so. Its Arca Swiss-compatible, dual-locking ball head in particular is worth calling out for its clever low-profile design. Available in both aluminum and carbon fiber, this is the travel tripod we'll likely be reaching for in 2020, whenever space is tight.

Read more about the Peak Design Travel Tripod

Winner: GNARBOX 2.0 SSD

The Gnarbox 2.0 brings calm to the often chaotic world of photography. It's the friend in the field you always wanted: a rugged (weather, dust and impact-resistant) SSD (available in 256GB, 512GB and 1TB) with built-in SD reader and super-fast transfer speeds (up to 350MB/s). It's there to protect all your precious data until you get it home for a full backup.

One-touch copying and an info LCD make it effortless to start transferring and confirm files have been properly duplicated. And for those eager to get ahead on their edits, Gnarbox will pair with a smart device so that you can sort and tag (using Photo Mechanic's image engine). But that's not all: Gnarbox also has swappable batteries and can even be used to charge other devices via a Micro-USB port. It'll also play nice with Apple's iPad Pro, with support for programs like Adobe Lightroom and Affinity Photo, when connected via its USB-C port. What more could you ask for?

Read more about the GNARBOX 2.0 SSD

Best smartphone camera Shortlist: Apple iPhone 11 Pro Google Pixel 4 Huawei P30 Pro Samsung Galaxy S10 5G Runner up: Apple iPhone 11 Pro

The iPhone 11 Pro is a significant step forward for Apple, and from a pure experience standpoint, is the nicest smartphone camera to use today. Its bright screen combined with HDR playback of photos makes the on-device experience of shooting and enjoying photos industry-leading. And unlike any other smartphone camera to-date, iPhones since the iPhone X utilize the wide P3 color space, meaning more life-like color capture and rendition.

A new ultra-wide lens allows for dramatic perspectives, and wide angle portrait mode - utilizing the main camera module - makes it easy to shoot more intimate perspectives of your loved ones and pets, with better image quality than the standard portrait mode offers. Editing photos, depth effects, and video is pleasing thanks to the Photos app updates, and clever features like 'capture outside the frame' offer creative uses of the phone's three lenses. Video quality is superb, with HDR capture up to 4K/60p.

We have some reservations over the warm and green-shifted colors, overly-processed faces from semantic rendering choices, significant lag in portrait mode, and image quality artifacts including banding, aggressive noise reduction and over-sharpening, but as an all-rounder, the iPhone 11 Pro is hard to beat.

Read more about the Apple iPhone 11 Pro

Winner: Google Pixel 4

The Pixel 4 offers compelling still image quality. If you shoot Night Sight - even during daylight hours - you'll be rewarded with some of the best detail retention and balanced noise reduction we've seen from a smartphone. It only gets better in Raw, since the DNGs produced by the Pixel 4 are the result of aligning and merging multiple frames. A new astrophotography mode is not just cool but inspiring, and also benefits any nighttime scene where longer exposures can be used. The combination of super-res zoom and a new telephoto module make 'zoomed in' photos better than many peers. And unlike the iPhone, you can continue to use the telephoto module in dim light.

New 'dual exposure controls' allow you to fine tune the 'look' of the resulting HDR image in real-time. Portrait mode has been improved to yield bokeh similar to what you'd expect from ILCs, with fewer depth map errors and virtually no shutter lag. As such, the Pixel 4 is truly an enthusiast's smartphone camera. We have reservations over its video quality, display, as well as certain metering and image processing choices, but its strong core competency in stills makes it our winner.

Read more about the Google Pixel 4

Best zoom lens Shortlist: Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM Canon RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 S Panasonic Leica DG Vario-Summilux 10-25mm F1.7 ASPH Sony E 16-55mm F2.8 G Runner-up: Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 S

Every year we struggle to narrow down the number of lenses released to a shortlist of just four or five. This year saw a lot of action in the lens space, with both Canon and Nikon putting considerable energy into building out their native mirrorless lens lineup, and Sigma, Sony and Tamron doing the same.

One of the zoom lenses that has most impressed us this year is Nikon's Z 24-70mm F2.8 S. Built for use in difficult conditions, the Z 24-70mm is tough and weather-sealed, but more than that, it's optically outstanding. Sharp, virtually aberration-free and extremely flare-resistant, the Z 24-70mm F2.8 really lets Z7 shooters make the most out of their camera's resolution, for anything from landscapes to portraiture.

Read more about the Nikon Z 24-70mm F2.8 S

Winner: Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM

We really, really like the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. It's small (at 70mm), relatively lightweight, autofocus is lightning fast and silent, and its optical image stabilization system is excellent.

The 70-200mm represents the first time we've seen Nano USM technology incorporated in fast L-series glass, and the increase in focus speed is dramatic compared to ring-type USM on EF lenses. But perhaps the most impressive thing about this lens is its optical quality. Contrast and sharpness are class-leading wide open at all focal lengths, bokeh is smooth with no distracting patterns, and both longitudinal and lateral forms of chromatic aberration are very well controlled.

This is the most impressive 70-200mm F2.8 lens we've ever seen, in a surprisingly compact form factor, and a worthy winner of our award for best zoom lens of 2019.

Read more about the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM

Best prime lens Shortlist: Tamron SP 35mm F1.4 Di USD Sigma 35mm F1.2 DG DN | Art Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM Nikon Nikkor Z 85mm F1.8 S Runner-up: Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM

There were so many great prime lenses released this year, and inevitably, it's near-impossible to reduce the list to just four. This 'shortlist' could have been at least twice as long and we would still have had to omit some great lenses. But the primes listed above represent our favorites of 2019, not only because of their optical quality, but also their versatility and overall value for money.

Among the most impressive lenses of any type released this year was the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM. Designed for portrait fans, the 135mm F1.8 is stunningly sharp and delivers beautiful images at its widest apertures. It's virtually aberration free, and is the fastest-to-focus lens of its kind. Sony's optical science has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years and the FE 135mm F1.8 is an excellent example of the company's current state-of-the-art. While 135mm isn't necessarily an everyday focal length, the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM is arguably the best option on the market right now for portrait shooters.

Read more about the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 GM

Winner: Nikon Nikkor Z 85mm F1.8 S

Nikon's S-series prime lenses for the Z system have impressed us this year with their performance, not to mention their versatility and value. All sub-$1000 and all relatively small and lightweight, the best of Nikon's new F1.8 options outperform many faster lenses that cost considerably more.

The Z 85mm F1.8 S is a great example. Sharp, virtually aberration-free and still nicely portable, this portrait prime isn't as fast as some of its competitors, or as polished as (say) the Sony FE 135mm F1.8 which takes the runner-up spot, but it's a supremely practical, useful lens. With its smooth bokeh, the Z 85mm F1.8 S is, of course, a fantastic portrait lens for Z6 and Z7 shooters, and a nifty 135mm equivalent on the APS-C Z50. But its size and weight, plus its superb sharpness make it just as useful for landscape and candid work.

Read more about the Nikon Nikkor Z 85mm F1.8 S

Best compact/fixed lens camera Shortlist: Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II Leica Q2 Ricoh GR III Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII Runner-up: Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII

This is always a tricky category, spanning multiple sensor formats and including both zoom and fixed focal length lenses. This year saw the release of some very impressive - and very different - compact / fixed-lens compact cameras, from the high-end Leica Q2 to the more consumer-friendly Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II.

Despite their different shapes, sizes and prices, all of the cameras in this section cater to the same basic need: high quality imaging, in a compact form factor. Our runner-up this year is Sony's best RX100-series camera yet. A small, powerful zoom with a high-quality EVF, great video and formidable autofocus, the RX100 VII is a near-perfect camera for travel and everyday photography and video. Inevitably it's not cheap, but this kind of technology never is.

Read more about the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII

Winner: Ricoh GR III

First announced in 2018, the GR III was released this year and quickly became one of our favorite compact cameras. Small and lightweight, but with a stabilized sensor and capable of stunning image quality the GR III is - like the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII - a wonderful camera for travel and everyday photography.

Yes, the lens is a fixed 28mm equivalent. No, the video mode isn't great, but this is a pure photography camera, capable of getting you images that larger, heavier or more complicated models simply won't.

Read more about the Ricoh GR III

Best consumer stills / video camera Shortlist: Fujifilm GFX 100 Panasonic Lumix DC-S1 Panasonic Lumix DC-S1H Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII Runner up: Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII

While the RX100-series has always been primarily about stills photography, Sony has evolved its range of high-quality 1-inch sensor compacts into powerful video tools, as well. The Mark VII captures oversampled UHD 4K video, Full HD at up to 120 fps and lower resolution video with a top frame rate of almost 1000 fps. Unlike its predecessor, the RX100 VII has a built-in mic input.

In short: the RX100 VII offers excellent 4K video, very good autofocus and a handy built-in finder, making it exceptionally versatile for photographers that need to capture both stills and movie footage.

Read more about the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VII

Winner: Panasonic Lumix DC-S1

It might seem odd having both the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1 and S1H on the same list, for best stills / video hybrid camera and have the S1 beat its more video-centric stablemate, but this is precisely the point. With the S1H in the pipeline, Panasonic didn't need to make the S1 as good for video as it did, and it certainly didn't need to make it even better with a paid firmware update.

With the paid update, the S1 becomes a formidable camera for video, even to the extent that the costlier S1H may prove unnecessary for many filmmakers. We've done a lot of shooting this year on the S1 and it's an impressive machine from a manufacturer that perhaps more than any other, really knows how to do video right.

Read more about the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1

Best entry-level ILC Shortlist: Canon EOS M200 Fujifilm X-A7 Olympus PEN E-PL10 Sony a6100 Runner-up: Fujifilm X-A7

While a lot of attention gets paid to the high-end and professional market segments, often the most important cameras in a manufacturer's lineup are at the entry-level. The reason they're so important is that these are the products which - it is hoped - will attract new customers into a system.

The Fujifilm X-A7 is a significant camera for Fujifilm, and a great all-round option for beginner photographers in general. Significant for Fujifilm because it's the company's first entry-level offering that has really impressed us, and a great entry-level camera because it does exactly what a camera aimed at first-time buyers and smartphone upgraders should. It's simple, streamlined, reliable and responsive, and can easily transition between stills and high-quality video.

Read more about the Fujifilm X-A7

Winner: Canon EOS M200

If there's one thing Canon knows how to do it's make an attractive, sensibly-designed entry-level ILC. The EOS M200 is the company's latest, and while it doesn't represent a massive upgrade compared to the M100, the changes are very welcome including one change in particular - Eye Detect autofocus. Assuming that a lot of us (and arguably most beginners) will take a lot of pictures of friends and family, the addition of eye detection to the M200's autofocus mode really does make a big difference. Canon has also added 4K video capture and 'CRaw', for Raw format shooting without the massive file sizes.

Overall, the Canon EOS M200 doesn't bring much to the table which is genuinely 'new' but its combination of features, easy to operate design, and reliable image quality make it a great entry-level ILC, and our favorite of 2019.

Read more about the Canon EOS M200

Best midrange ILC Shortlist: Canon EOS M6 Mark II Fujifilm X-T30 Nikon Z50 Sony a6600 Runner-up: Nikon Z50

We define 'midrange' cameras as those transitional models between entry-level and enthusiast / pro which need to be able to work for inexperienced and more seasoned photographers alike.

Nikon's first APS-C format mirrorless camera is also one of its most user-friendly. Intended to be picked up by first-time ILC buyers and smartphone upgraders, the Z50 is designed to be simple and straightforward to use, but isn't 'dumbed down'. Featuring a high-quality electronic viewfinder, twin control dials and photographer-friendly ergonomics, the Z50 is a camera that leaves plenty of room for a beginner to experiment and grow creatively.

Read more about the Nikon Z50

Winner: Canon EOS M6 Mark II

Canon has been making good, solid interchangeable lens cameras for a really long time, and this experience shows in products like the EOS M6 Mark II. A really great camera doesn't need to do everything better than its competitors, it just has to do everything well enough, without getting in the way of your creativity.

The EOS M6 Mark II reaffirms Canon’s commitment to its compact, mirrorless EF-M system. After years of competent but usually beginner-focused models, the M6 II comes out swinging as a convincing option for more advanced users. Its new 32.5MP sensor has impressive resolution and dynamic range, the 14 fps maximum burst speed with autofocus is competitive, and its 4K video uses the full width of the sensor.

It doesn’t hands-down beat any of its competitors in any specific area, but as an all-around package, the M6 Mark II easily won us over for best midrange ILC of 2019.

Read more about Canon's EOS M6 Mark II

Best high-end ILC Shortlist: Fujifilm GFX 100 Olympus OM-D E-M1X Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R Sony a7R IV Runner-up: Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R

The Lumix DC-S1R will tick a ton of boxes for a ton of photographers, which is all the more impressive given that it’s Panasonic’s first full-frame offering (alongside the lower-resolution DC-S1). It’s built like a tank and all of the buttons and dials feel like they’re in just the right place.

The 47MP sensor at the heart of the S1R isn’t class-leading at this point, but it’s still capable of producing excellent image quality in almost any situation. Unfortunately, the DC-S1R falls somewhat short in terms of autofocus and tracking. While it can drive focus very quickly using Panasonic’s DFD technology, it just can’t quite keep up with competitors’ on-sensor phase detection systems for accuracy when photographing moving subjects.

Read more about the Panasonic Lumix DC-S1R

Winner: Sony a7R IV

The fourth iteration of Sony’s high-resolution mirrorless full-frame camera is the most capable, well-rounded interchangeable lens camera on the market today. It shoots 60.2MP files, offers industry-leading autofocus tracking, is capable of 10fps continuous bursts and shoots the best 4K video of any high-resolution camera you can buy. Plus, Sony claims weather-sealing has been improved, battery life is well above average and ergonomic tweaks have made it more comfortable and enjoyable to use than previous models.

The a7R IV is a camera that you really can shoot just about anything with, from action sports to billboard-ready landscapes, and because of that, it earns the distinction of being our high-end ILC of the year.

Read more about the Sony a7R IV

DPReview innovation award Shortlist: Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM Fujifilm GFX 100 Olympus OM-D E-M1X Peak Design Travel Tripod Runner-up: Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM

Optically the RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM is stunning, but it's also a marvel of engineering. At its short end, it collapses down to a barrel size not much longer than that of the RF 24-70mm F2.8L IS USM. At 1070g, it's 26% lighter than its EF equivalent, and feels surprisingly light in one's hands, and well-balanced on an EOS R body. Optical image stabilization offers an impressive CIPA rating of 5 stops. Combined with dual-sensing IS on EOS R bodies, you can expect tack sharp handheld shots on the long end at shutter speeds as low as 1/13s.

If that's not innovative, we don't know what is.

Read more about the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM

Winner: Fujifilm GFX 100

While very little about the GFX 100 is new or unique to this model, what counts is how all the ingredients are mixed together. The addition of in-camera stabilization, impressive video capture and hybrid on-sensor PDAF to the medium format world makes the Fujifilm GFX 100 among the most capable and most innovative cameras out there.

Fujifilm has been working hard to democratize digital medium format for a couple of years, but with the 100 megapixel GFX 100, the company completely changed our understanding of what a medium format camera could be.

Read more about the Fujifilm GFX 100

DPReview product of the year, 2019 Shortlist: Apple iPhone 11 Pro Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM Fujifilm GFX 100 Sony a7R IV Runner-up: Fujifilm GFX 100

As we wrote in the previous slide, the GFX 100 really did turn our idea of what a medium format camera could do on its head. While the MSRP of almost ten grand puts it out of reach to most non-professional photographers, there is an audience out there for cameras like this, and Fujifilm has done a great job of catering to them.

Pro wedding and event photographers, portrait and lifestyle shooters, and even a certain type of videographer have kept the GFX 100 on more or less continuous backorder since it was released. You may not need 100MP, but some people do. And the GFX 100, with Fujifilm's range of excellent GF lenses, makes 100MP shooting practical and enjoyable.

Read more about the Fujifilm GFX 100

Winner: Sony Alpha a7R IV

Sony is one of the more divisive brands on our site, partly because of a perception that it gets more attention than other manufacturers. This perception stems from two factors: firstly, Sony has released an astonishing number of high-end products in the past handful of years. Secondly, they have tended to be very good.

Taken as a whole, the a7R IV is Sony's best mirrorless camera yet. The enthusiast-focused a7 III continues to top the best-seller lists but if you want the highest resolution, the best autofocus system and some of the best video features on the market (not just in Sony's own product lineup) the a7R IV is where it's at. A true 'flagship', the a7R IV has undoubtedly benefited this year from no direct competition from Canon or Nikon, but it will take an unusually good product from either manufacturer to make the a7R IV look uncompetitive in 2020.

Read more about the Sony a7R IV

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[thegameslave]

Ubisoft 2018 E3 Briefing Impression

Ubisoft always brings a large set of games to E3. Usually an Assassin's Creed title, something Tom Clancy, a dancing title, and usually something a bit different. So what was on this years docket?

Just Dance 2019

Ubisoft loves it's dance series. And despite more there being fewer systems that monitor us in our living rooms, the Just Dance series continues to run rampant. Can't say I have ever purchased one, but it seems to be popular.

Beyond Good and Evil 2

The trailer showed the crew and their ship getting tossed around in  bad way while sitting in same ice rings around a planet. The ship gets near destroyed and then captured by what I can only assume are our villains. Then Jade, the original protagonist from the first game shows up. The game is still pre-alpha, which is dev speak for no-where near ready and subject to change.

They are trying to make fans part of the game via the Space Monkey program. They are asking fans to supply art, music, and ideas to the world of BGE2. To do so they partnered with a group named Hit Record. Details can be found here. I am torn on this. It is either a brilliant way to interact with fans. Or a cheap way to get free assets for their game.

Tom Clancy: Rainbow Six Seige

35 million players play this game. I am not one of them, but that is an impressive number. That is more people then are in Saudi Arabia (source). They are doing more contests, three planned through the year. In order to honor these professional players that keep this game going and keep it populated Ubisoft created a documentary following a 8 of community members over 9 months. To these people, this is more then a game, this is live. Another Mindset will be available August 13-19 at their Paris event.

Trials Rising

Trails, the game about falling with style and getting back up. The trailer showed some cool tricks on dirt bikes and some epic crashes. Things that no one would survive in real life. So thanks video game rules! The game was built largely my the community with players from the previous Trails game. It is out in February on everything not mobile. The game looks interesting, but not sure it is my cup of tea. All the ways you have to crash at least makes failure look fun

Tom Clancy's - The Division 2

It has been 7 months since the disease released on dollar bills on Black Friday. The disease is pretty burned out, but the country is in shambles. The trailer shows a happy community behind fenced walls with food and water. Then on the other side is those that abuse the weak. And variable nightmare. The people to save them, the agents of The Division.

In game you can play through the story based campaign. Then once you are done you pick a spec that allows you to customize your play style. They are also adding raids to the game. So 8 players, only 5 of which will show up on time, can play a mission at once. The game will also be supported by 3 free DLC "Episodes" over time. This could give the game much more lasting power then the previous game. Fingers crossed. It is set to release March 15, 2019.

Mario Rabbids

So apparently there are now Donkey Kong levels in Mario Rabbids. Or at least if you have the season pass you will have it on June 26th. This seems to break with all the free DLC from other games this year, but maybe there is enough to warrant it on this game.

Skull & Bones

Amazing how the worst thing that happened to some of the people of the past has become amazing games in the present. In Skull & Bones you are plundering the Indian Ocean. The game looks to have dynamic environments, and is, another shared environment. You will encounter other players and you can work together or fight. Or one then the other if you want to help a fellow and then steal their gold. You are pirates after all. Looks like you can outfit your ship before heading out. Looks like different ships have different abilities. The game, at least from the trailer reminds me highly of the ship battles in Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, which makes sense given it is the same studio. Fingers crossed this game is as fun as the trailer made it out to be.

Transference

The trailer for this game made about as much sense as a perfume add, but lets try anyway. We have a dad that apparently sucks at being a father and husband. He seems to be putting you, his son, in some sort of machine. This machine is maybe supposed to move your conscience into a virtual world? And he didn't test for bugs, so the world has corruptions. They didn't say, but lets assume the corruptions want you dead. This is why you always put stuff through Q&A. Deadly bugs will cause this to fail on the open market. And then the tag line "Escape a corrupted mind". We should know more about this mystery this fall.

StarLink: Battle for Atlas

Space based game with real life toys that help outfit your ships. You can go from planet to space to another planet and dog fight. The area is called Atlas, and you have to protect it. And you can go to target and buy accessories for you toys to mod your ship for the situation. And they are teaming with Nintendo on this again as Starfox is there with this ship. Does this mean I can buy a Arwing?!? They had one on stage, so fingers crossed it will be in stores, and that it won't sale out in 30 seconds. I will probably get this game just because I love space shooters. I just hope I don't get nickle and dimed by the need for toys.

For Honor

Good to know Ubisoft didn't forget about this game. The guy on stage said thanks to the community. For the week you can get the starter edition of For Honor for free on uPlay. That is pretty cool. After that they announced new factions coming to the game. For Honor: Marching Fire was announced. The new faction and 4 new fighters are from China bringing new fighting styles. There will also be a new mode called Breach. There was lots of fighting in a castle courtyard. I am not not sure what really was going on. But it looked cool. The whole thing about making the starter free this week means I will at least try it.

The Crew 2

Another Crew title. There is an open beta for PS4 that can be pre-loaded and will be available soon. Looks like there are more then land based vehicles now. In the trailer they showed planes, and boats as well. Each category of vehicle has tons of options in it as well. Looks like something you might like if you liked the first Crew.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey

Welcome to Greece Assassin. You are apparently stuck in the middle of the Peloponnesian War and must save the country. The game is still an RPG and when you start the game you choose to play as Alexios (the guy) or Kassandra (the girl). Nice to see they added some choice here. You start the game learning to use the weapon of your grand father, a special broken but glowy spear, fancy. Of course being in a war means that you will end up in battles. Prepare to interact with the history of Greece on October 5th. Which also apparently means fighting a Minotaur. I may have to jump back into this series.

[aurelliocheek]

RESHOOT R: Driven by Passion

Richard Löwenstein about why releasing for Amiga almost makes sense.

What is the driving force behind someone who is developing games from an almost dead genre on a hardware platform which seems to have died about 25 years ago? Because that’s what I did! I released a horizontal scrolling shoot’ em-up called RESHOOT R on Amiga end of May 2019.

I invested roundabout 2,000 hours of a precious lifetime into developing. To understand the reasons behind this decision, let me rewind the calendar to the mid-1980s – a period where electronic gaming was, ­although in its infancy, already experiencing its first big transition. The first wave of consoles was being followed by more versatile programmable home computers, which lowered the entry-level for potential software architects massively. Everyone could now learn how to make games.

This is the time when my career in game development started. In 1985, at the age of 15, I finished developing Twinky goes ­hiking, the first of several successful ­commercial releases on the most classic of computer hardware platforms, the ­Commodore 64. Other titles like Persian Gulf Inferno followed. My career as a developer ended in 1991 when several loose contacts to magazine publishing houses strengthened and I was given the chance to become a member of the team of Amiga Joker, Germany’s leading games magazine by then.

Joining the editorial staff meant a great opportunity but also killed my game ­developer ambitions since both jobs are very time consuming, and I preferred to focus. Back then it was clear that I would not finish my most ambitious games project at that time: an elaborate shoot’ em-up for the Amiga-platform, an action game in the classic R-Type-style. It should have been a lighthouse project, a game more beautiful and faster than comparable products at the time.

RESHOOT R is designed to read map-files created with “Tiled“ and restart at the edited position immediately. That lowers turnaround times while designing and testing significantly.

A new market emerges Fast forward to the summer of 2015. When I cleared up my cellar, what emerged were several Amiga home computers I had ­retired by the end of the 90s. One of them contained the source code of my old shoot’ em-up-project, which I had buried in 1991. As fate would have it, at the same time I wrote some pieces about the flourishing market for new games releases on the ­8-bit-platform Commodore 64. Like vinyl and vintage cars, old games ­machines ­seemed to gain attention. Several indicators hinted for an emerging situation: mainly the growing number of retro related exhibitors at gamescom, and an increasing number of new games releases of professional quality not only on Commodore 64, but also on other platforms like Amstrad/Schneider CPC. My favourite vintage games platform – the Commodore Amiga – did not get its share of new releases though. That seemed strange because it used to be the most popular games platform in the very early 90s in Europe. It’s said to have sold about five million units in the EU-territory, still has loyal followers, and is very popular within the demo scene. I assumed that it’s comparably elaborate to develop games for Amiga, so much so that a classic one man show – common constellation on ­older ­8-bit-systems – can hardly handle the job. The Amigas 16-bit-technology, though antique by modern standards, ­already ­enables quite sophisticated content. It takes trained specialists to take care of design, coding, pixels and music if the result was to be on par with the best games released in the heydays of the Amiga. Also, the Amiga was not very popular outside of ­Europe and therefore – unlike the Mega Drive – cannot confide on momentum from US- and Asia-based developers.

It felt like it was time to change that. I felt the fever for coding returning, decided to revive my old source code from 1991 and maybe develop it into the fully fleshed game I had envisioned about 25 years ago. Such a project is time consuming and not to be finished within a few hours. I ­calculated with an investment of three hours a day, four days a week, six months minimum. Such an enormous additional burden on the time account could not ­easily be ­reconciled with a regular job and a family. My approach: night shift. Get to bed at 10pm; wake myself at 2am; develop several hours undisturbed; return to bed and wake up with my family. Sounds crazy and it maybe is, but it works. But why, you may ask. The answer is simple. Passion. The implementation of a lifelong dream. I want to prove to myself that I can develop a high-quality Amiga game and maybe gain some attention and recognition. July 2015 marks the beginning of my project of heart.

RESHOOT R runs on the classic Amiga-models A1200, A4000 and CD32, as well as compatible emulators and recent Amiga-clones like Vampire V4.

Retro platform, modern tools Very quickly I realised that Amiga development no longer works like in 1991 for me. In recent years I managed a couple of ­iPhone developments and learned how to use modern software tools such as Xcode and Unity on Apple Mac. The Amiga can’t handle common features, like multiple monitor setup or version control. Therefore it was clear that I had to setup a cross-development system. My main tools:

iMac. The built-in Internet connection has to be mentioned, because in 1991 this was not yet available. Gathering and sharing information is so much simpler today!

Xcode. Mainly works a comfortable code editor with version control, code completion and text highlighting; features not yet invented in 1991

FS-UAE Amiga Emulator. Almost 100 percent compatible to the real hardware. Extraordinary built-in debugging capabilities

ASM Pro. Classic tool running on Amiga. Translates source code into pure and fast machine language. Switched to VASM-cross-development tool recently

Tiled: A very common map editor for all kinds of 2D-games. Allows comfortable placement of tiles and objects in separate layers. Code on Amiga read and interprets Tiles’ XML-data-exports for use in RESHOOT

Commodore Amiga 1200. Real retro hardware used to test code regularly. File transfer between iMac and Amiga works with SD card which both systems can read and write

Another integral part of the development environment is a virtual hard drive partition, which the iMac and Amiga both can access to share source code and data files. Some few self-written keyboard macros automate the interaction of Xcode on the Mac and the tools on the Amiga emulator. One press of the F1-key stores source code, activates FS-UAE, loads source code into ASM Pro, compiles and executes. This takes about one second. On the real retro hardware this would take approximately 30 seconds. Turnaround times of 1991 and 2019 cannot be compared.

RESHOOT R is available as digital download, in two CD-ROM-editions and even on classic 3.5 “disc shown here. Prices go from 29 to 54 Euros. Go to www.amigashop.org.

After establishing a working development environment, it took me some time to get back into thinking in Assembler ­language. To me, Assembler is still the ­purest form of coding because of it’s logical approach and direct access to the hardware. It’s fast, too. Much faster than anything if one knows how to handle it. The price for speed: Compared to C++ or C#, Assembler code looks rather abstract and unreadable, because it mainly consists of commands which provide memory access, logical operators and branches to control program flow. I should add that a dedicated game development environment comparable to Unity actually exists on Amiga, albeit much simpler. Also, like today’s ­modern operating systems, the Amiga OS provides libraries which handle visual, aural and input/output operations. But on classic hardware, processor cycles and memory are very precious. The ­Amiga libraries slow code down considerably, game development environments alike. Almost no reasonable games on the Amiga makes use of such features.

For my game it was ine­vitable to draw and move pixels as fast and memory-efficient as possible. I, therefore, did what most Amiga coders did in the heydays of the machine: switch off the OS and write custom code which fits the game like a glove. That’s what you need to do, if you want maximum performance on a 14 MHz machine with 2 MB of memory. These are the specs of the Amiga 1200, which is my favourite iteration of the Amiga-family and therefore became my target platform. I love this machine because of its elegant case containing considerably more processing power than the earlier Amiga models 500, 1000 and 2000. It was released just a few years prior to Commodore demise and therefore – like its console-cousin CD32 – did not manage to gain the same market share as the Amiga 500. Because of their versatility, the ­Amiga 1200, 4000 and CD32 seem to be on the rise now though. Prices for used models currently go through the roof.

The 2019 release RESHOOT R shows its creators have learned their lesson. It sets its focus on smooth gameplay with just some minor modern modifications. This resulted in very favourable reviews from Youtubers and the specialist press.

Don’t innovate too much At this stage, it occurred to me that – while I grew back into the code – I could ­modernise the game design. Why not incorporate new elements not seen before on Amiga? One idea was to add twitch gameplay with an endless structure. I imagined a kind of endless reaction test, fast and fluid as the Amiga classic Silkworm, mixed with ­elements of Japanese bullet-hell-shooters. The player’s survival would not be divided into many short chapters. Instead, there should be only one level and even a ­single life. Once the player’s spaceship hits an invader or a bullet: Game Over, score billing and new attempt. Just like Flappy Bird. That would be an interesting new alternative to Apydia, R-Type, Thunderforce IV, Last ­Resort and other classic horizontal shooters from the 80s and 90s that I found so intense and exciting.

It took me one year to finish ­developing RESHOOT – a game which I had started to work in the early 90s and which got its release in August 2016. It was not the high-quality shoot’ em-up I had in my brain at first. But it was proof that I can finish such a project. That seemed sufficient, especially as so many comparable projects fail to reach the finish line. RESHOOT was released physically on CD-ROM, simply because I wanted to feel the satisfaction of being able to touch the fruits of my labour with my hands. Within one year of development I learned a lot. So much so that, even before sending the ISO-image to the ­CD-ROM duplication facility, I started to work on a follow-up project. This was going to be the lighthouse project I had originally envisioned. I already had given birth to its name: RESHOOT R. The intention of the “R “mainly was to ignite discussions within the community about its meaning. I decided to invite the community to become involved in the development. Let people join the process, that means a serious investment of time and energy, but it’s important to gain attention. Also, this way I gathered feedback from RESHOOT-beta-testers very early and therefore knew I’d better change the game design for RESHOOT R fundamentally.

With RESHOOT, the intention was to use the basic shoot ‘em formula as a frame for mainly modern game design elements. This worked only partially. The endless gameplay got no love from the retro community. Therefore RESHOOT R got a total redesign. I planned it as a classic horizontal shoot’ em-up with a just handful of modern details, and focus on visual effects never seen before Amiga. The plan: classic stage-based structure with rising difficulty level, power-up-weapons, lots of change of pace, and narrative elements leading to a dramatic climax.

The 2016 release Reshoot tried to marry classic shoot’ em-up gameplay with modern elements. It rather failed. Customers seem to prefer old-school elements in games on retro platforms.

No more one-man-show Collaboration with pixel artist Kevin Saunders from Australia was a given. He did great work on RESHOOT and proved that he is a reliable guy. This is not to be taken for granted in a development scenario which is mainly driven by passion, not money. One of the main challenges while developing RESHOOT and RESHOOT R was to find and lead people who can actually pull through, who do not flake away after a couple of weeks or at the slightest sight of any obstacles. Kevin and I discussed visual ideas and quickly decided to ditch the very abstract and clean design of RESHOOT and instead go for a comparably natural ­approach, combining the fluid animation of 3D-rendered objects with the distinctive look of hand-crafted pixels.

The simultaneous use of music and sound-fx was inevitable. One needs to know that it was not common practice in the Amigas early years and is still difficult to implement nowadays since the Amiga only has four sound channels and can mix sounds only with severe constraints in the visual and gameplay department. But our ears are so used to a modern hearing experience, that anything less would not sound acceptable in 2019. To keep the music pumping while player projectile whoosh over the screen and the boss warcries after taking another hit, took weeks of detailed work.

Project leader Richard ­Löwenstein uses modern tools to develop a game for a platform which essentially debuted in 1985.

Also, the switch to a different kind of music proved to be very important for the enhanced experience that RESHOOT R provides. I ditched the unconventional chiptune-music of RESHOOT for a ­modern, fast pulsed musical accompaniment of very high technical quality, comparable to what you would expect to hear on modern hardware platforms. A quarter of system memory was reserved just for audio use. This way the digital samples, which the Amigas Paula-customchip reads from memory and outputs through its four ­audio channels, would sound natural and not scratchy like is so often the case in Amiga games.

While talking about music, I need to mention gamescom 2016 and the importance of attending such gatherings. It was this visit that laid the groundwork for the audio experience. While showing RESHOOT to the public audience, I got into talks with Martin Ahman. Martin is a DJ and composer interested in electronic music. He told me how keen he is to, once in a lifetime, have one of his pieces in an Amiga game. He did not have any Amiga related releases on its curriculum vitae at that time. But he convinced me that he knows what it takes by sending a piece which was pretty close to what I had envisioned. It all resulted in audio tracks which not only drove the gameplay forward but which were so good on their own that prior to release, we decided to produce a separate Soundtrack-CD with remixes from the German Remix Group and others. Like Kevin Saunders, Martin Ahman is aware of the limitations of classic hardware and creative enough to work around them for the best possible performance.

The challenge is to create a 3D-illusion and move dozens of objects with only a 14-Mhz-CPU and 2 MB RAM.

Three years in the making It took me a while to enhance and modify the existing RESHOOT-Engine to cope with the many additional elements planned for RESHOOT R: I wanted narrative breaks, a diversified and sometimes surprising ­attack choreography, and parent-children-related objects which can be multiplied and combined to form bigger boss-like objects. One of my main goals was to add full screen perspective scrolling to enhance the illusion of visual depth. This has never been done in Amiga game before. The Amiga does not contain any 3D-capabilities, no scaling or texture mapping. Only a very simple GPU called “Copper“ can switch video characteristics at segments of each scan line. Therefore all perspective visual effects need clever coding since they must only use a minimum of CPU cycles while adding a maximum of visual impact to the experience. Doing this while drawing up to 100 moving objects on screen and keeping a steady 50 Hertz framerate proofed to be a very special challenge. Even down to optimising single bytes within data structures and counting CPU cycles for maximised performance within program loops.

One year after the initial development started, the engine was ready for its public debut at gamescom 2017. I showed one playable level and gathered a ton of feedback and ideas. It took another two years to implement the best proposals. One of the most important modifications concerns the collision system. It now mirrors the hitbox-based behaviour found in modern shoot’ em-up-games on Xbox, PlayStation and Switch. The added particle system not only looks nice, but it also helps distinguish cosmetic background graphics from collidable stuff. The extra weapon system now not only rewards persevering ­players, who remember and collect power-ups, with ­enhanced destruction ­capabilities; but it also incorporates an ­innovative shield ­function for the players ship: The hit of an enemy bullet only takes away one ­power-up, unless the ship returns to its ­basic configuration and a bullet hit is fatal. All these modifications add tremendously to the game-flow and playability ­experience.

RESHOOT R is a retro community effort, with contributions from several experienced freelance artists.

Community and media seem to agree. Favourable comments from Youtubers, ­excited reviews in specialist magazines and a number of editorial pieces – one of which was aired on the German public TV-channel ZDF – prove that RESHOOT R is not only a great Amiga game – it’s a great game on any platform. So it paid off emotionally. But did it work financially?

The Retro community is very creative, loyal and willing to buy games at prices comparable to modern console releases. The market is still very, very niche, though. This restricts sales but increases the visibility of each games release, provided its creators invest sufficient time and knowledge into community work and marketing. RESHOOT R is essentially a bet on the assumption that the retro games community grows like the vintage car scene did in the past 20 years. If this becomes true, the market might become serious in the near future. Games like RESHOOT R help create such a market. Because if they are good-looking and entertaining, they may be considered a viable alternative to products on modern platforms – not only for people who actually owned an Amiga 30 years ago but also for new customers wanting to experience this special retro flavour in the most authentic way. Future projects like Intellivisions Amico-console help putting the market into the limelight.

The challenge is to create a 3D-illusion through visual layering and move dozens of objects at the same time, with only a 14-Mhz-CPU and 2 MB RAM under the hood.

So, my newly founded retro specialist label “spieleschreiber” has a serious foot in the door and the business model is well and truly scalable. Conversions of RESHOOT R for Steam, Switch and Mega Drive-platforms are on the cards. The next AAA-release for Amiga is already in ­development: The fast-paced vertical shoot’ em-up RESHOOT PROXIMA III will bring Truxton-like space chaos onto Amiga. The game debuted at the Amiga34-­exhibition at the 12th October 2019 and will be released in 2020. Extrapolating from peoples interest at the show, this will be huge. Maybe it will even be the first Amiga game ever that gets successfully funded by a Kickstarter-­campaign. Tanglewood, Phantom Gear and several other recent projects for the Mega Drive-platform have proven it can be done.

Richard Löwenstein Journalist and Game Developer

Richard developed games since 1985. At the end of 1991, he started an editorial career, became editor of Amiga Joker and PC Joker Magazine, founded a number of games magazines and wrote about games and its industry for several leading media outlets. In 2015 Richard returned to game development, ­re­leased RESHOOT in 2016 and RESHOOT R in May 2019. More at www.spieleschreiber.de

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