A Retro Adventure Game Creator for Your Favorite Handheld Video Game System

John Gruber via Daring Fireball:

GB Studio is “A free and easy to use retro adventure game creator for your favourite handheld video game system”, by which they mean, but don’t want to name specifically, Nintendo’s GameBoy.

What a fun idea from developer Chris Maltby. You can output ROMs for emulators, play them on actual GameBoy hardware with a flash cartridge, or even export them for the web (which will even work on phones). It’s a remarkably polished IDE.

Get it here.

How to Use iOS GameCenter Leaderboards in Unity3d

You need to setup your app on the appstore connect first with the appropriate leaderboard. And you can only test this code on the iOS device and not in the unity3d player.


using UnityEngine.SocialPlatforms;

  private ILeaderboard leaderboard;
  private string leaderboard_id = "yourleaderboardid"; // setup on appstore connect

 void Start()
 {

    // Authenticate user first
        Social.localUser.Authenticate(success => {
            if (success)
            {
                Debug.Log("Authentication successful");
                string userInfo = "Username: " + Social.localUser.userName +
                    "\nUser ID: " + Social.localUser.id +
                    "\nIsUnderage: " + Social.localUser.underage;
                Debug.Log(userInfo);
            }
            else
                Debug.Log("Authentication failed");
        });

  // create social leaderboard
        leaderboard  = Social.CreateLeaderboard();
        leaderboard.id = leaderboard_id;
        leaderboard.LoadScores(result =>
        {
            Debug.Log("Received " + leaderboard.scores.Length + " scores");
            foreach (IScore score in leaderboard.scores)
                Debug.Log(score);
        });
  }

  void ReportScore(long score, string leaderboardID)
  {
        Debug.Log("Reporting score " + score + " on leaderboard " + leaderboardID);
        Social.ReportScore(score, leaderboardID, success => {
            Debug.Log(success ? "Reported score successfully" : "Failed to report score");
        });
  }

 void OpenLeaderboard()
 {
        Social.ShowLeaderboardUI();
 }

Adventure Game Trüberbrook Review

Charlie Hall writing for Polygon:

Even more disorienting is the storyline itself. Without spoiling too much, Trüberbrook feels like a bad episode of Doctor Who. Long sections of exposition, delivered by static characters who often can’t even be bothered to look toward the camera, do very little to make anything clear. Rather than lingering in certain interactions, I found myself clicking rapidly through the same dialogue options over and over again, searching for the right sequence to move the action along.

Most disappointing of all is that the gameplay itself is merely perfunctory. In motion, Trüberbrook is achingly linear, and relies on a series of barely connected tasks. Almost nothing in the game can be described as a puzzle. It’s more of a pixel hunt, with a contextual interface that does all of the work for you. The end result is a world that’s beautiful to look at, but a game that fails to entertain in any meaningful way.

Trüberbrook is available starting today on Linux, Mac, and Windows PC. Ports for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One are scheduled to launch on April 17.

This is a real bummer if true. I will be playing regardless.

Get it on Steam.

Sony Officially Kills PS Vita

BBC News:

But despite its niche appeal, the Vita ultimately failed to live up to Sony’s expectations, says Stefan Langford.

“It certainly comes as no surprise that the PS Vita has finally ended production, ultimately sounding the death knell of Sony’s mobile gaming ambitions,” says Mr Spendelow.
While the PS Vita has been consigned to history, Sony is believed to be readying a new games console.

Last year, company president and chief executive Kenichiro Yoshida told the Financial Times that it was “necessary” for Sony to work on next-generation hardware. He declined to say whether this machine would carry the name PlayStation 5.

Apple is eating everyone’s lunch.

Tim Schafer Talking Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2

Tim Schafer:

Psychonauts is an interesting thing. It’s about the human mind, and it goes to some really dark places, yet it’s a comedy. We make a lot of jokes, but we deal with life and death and sadness and all sorts of mental conditions. We bring to life and show people’s inner demons.

But I always try to remember it’s a comedy because you can get hung up on resolving plot points and doing that kind of mechanical stuff. You forget that you’re supposed to be making people laugh.

One of the industry’s best talking about the state of the video game business.

Trailer:

How LucasArts Bad Decision Making Killed The Company

Kotaku:

“One of the problems of working in a film company—[Lucas] is used to being able to change his mind,” said one source. “He didn’t really have a capacity for understanding how damaging and difficult to deal with these changes were.”

Lucasfilm executives meddling with development visions was a common theme at LucasArts for much of its existence, according to people who worked there. It was always a problem.

One of the most prominent examples of this came in the spring of 2012, just eight weeks before E3, when George Lucas dropped a bombshell: instead of starring a generic bounty hunter, 1313 would be helmed by the iconic mercenary Boba Fett.

It had to be Star Wars related.