OpenGameArt Summer Game Jam #3 Has Begun

One of our affiliate websites OpenGameArt (OGA), a free repository for public domain and copyleft licensed art, has just begun hosting this year's Summer Game Jam. To all libre developers looking for a challenge, this is your call to arms.

The rules are simple: participants are to create a game which independently of length and genre must use 6 art assets already available at OGA. The type of engine or code license used is up to the creator, but any artwork from the repository employed, along with any derivates, must comply with the specific licensing of each.

While this does not mean any game submitted to the jam will be libre, there's a good chance some will be, so regardless of whether you are a game developer or not, it would be wise to keep an eye on the contest results. It is also worth applauding OGA's initiative as a way of fostering usage and creation of Creative Commons licensed assets, and to spread word of the cultural benefits of open development.

Further information regarding regulations and prizes can be found on the jam's official page here.

OpenGameArt is ran entirely as a volunteer effort. Should you wish to contribute, you can check their forums for volunteer openings or help support server costs by donating to their Patreon.


Comments and questions? Post them on our forum thread.

This post was retrieved from freegamer.blogspot.com.

Square Tiling Of A Sphere, Part 1/3

I almost always work on 2D game maps, but occasionally I get intrigued by planetary maps. I'd like to make a planet that uses a grid. The topology of a sphere requires a few things:

1. Moving east or west you eventually wrap around the world → easy
2. Moving north/south you eventually reach a pole, and then all directions are south/north → medium
3. Wrapping around the world east/west is shorter near the poles than near the equator → hard

Some grid games like Civilization will let you wrap east/west but not north/south. That acts like a cylinder, not a sphere. And some grid games will let you wrap north/south just like you wrap east/west. That acts like a torus, not a sphere. A tile grid game that acts like a sphere is hard!

A few years ago I played with hexagons covering a sphere. The main idea was that although there are some pentagons scattered around, we can hide them by making the map generator produce impassable terrain (deep oceans, inaccessible mountains, lava, etc.) in those areas, so you can never get close to the pentagons. Also, we have to divide the planet into regions that get shuffled around as you move around. While I was working on that I found some other things I wanted to try, but I didn't try them right away. Why?

I have three kinds of projects:

1. My "main" projects (hexagonal grids, pathfinding, etc.) are about making high quality explanations. I'll spend a lot of time on these. I usually understand the topic reasonably well.
2. My "gamejam" projects like this one are about exploring new things. I'll spend a limited amount of time (hour, day, or week) on these. I usually don't understand the topic that well.
3. My "art" projects are about making something that looks cool.

Since I limit my time on each of the "gamejam" style projects (marked with an /x/ in the URL), once I run out of time, I'll stop, and make a list of things I want to explore later. For the hexagons-on-a-sphere project, I wanted to try squares-on-a-sphere, but didn't have time. I decided to explore that topic last week. I started with HEALPix, a layout used by NASA for placing quadrilaterals on a sphere, but I concluded that it's overkill for my needs. NASA also has the COBE quadrilateralized cube, and there are several other layouts to try. But I'm out of time, so those will be in a future "gamejam" style project. As often happens, I realize towards the end that I should've read more papers first, but sometimes I don't know what to look for until after I've tried implementing something.

Read about covering a sphere in square tiles

2019 Summer Innovation Program @ MassDiGi

The 2019 MassDiGI Summer Innovation Program (SIP) is a twelve-week internship program that includes the mentoring, guidance, housing, stipends and game development tools to help student teams finalize an original digital game and prepare it for launch.

• A chance to work on a game prototype from the ground up
• Work with a team of students to help create the next big hit
• Industry mentors to help guide you
• A free place to live and a stipend

This is not just another internship but a chance to hold the fate of a game in your hands.  There are industry mentors and faculty to help you – but in the end it is up to your team to build a successful game.

• Update: The 2019 SIP application period is now open. Click here to apply. 
• The application period will close March 20, 2019 at 11:59 pm ET. Successful applicants will be informed on or before March 31, 2019 at 11:59 pm ET.
• SIP19 runs from May 14 to August 11, 2019. Please read the FAQ's before applying. 

The Case Of Turner Prize: Are Too Many Ties Devaluing The Concept Of Competition?

CNN reports on the winners of this year's Turner Prize, an annual prize presented to a British visual artist. All of the finalists asked to be given the prize jointly, as a group, and so all of the contenders "won" in a competition in which no one lost.

This, combined with what some people see as a pattern in recent years, has irked some people. These people see this "tie" and equate it with the concept of spoiled Millennials who get "participation trophies" or prizes for trying. What has happened to cutthroat competition and actual winning.

The Arguments For and Against

The arguments against the Turner prize tie, in this case, are that the refusal to announce a single winner is indicative of snowflakes, who can't handle being losers. That too many winners devalues the concept of winning, and of competition in general. And that it lacks drama.

The arguments in favor are rather specific to this event. The artists decided that their works were complementary, rather than competitive, and did not feel that a competition was the right way to judge them. That felt that they had already "won" by having reached the shortlist for the prize. Alex Farquharson, the director of the Tate Britain gallery which organizes the prize, argues that times have changed and that competition may not be the right format to judge these kinds of works, anymore. Andrew Russeth, a writer for the Daily Mail, writes "This notion of having artists compete in public and one walk away the winner feels a little demeaning and unpleasant."

Some Points to Consider

As for the arguments against, it is important to divide up those activities in which competition really brings out the most effort and the best results versus those in which we have stuck absolute competitions because we were too boring or lazy to provide a better framework. The Olympics doesn't have a single winner, because we don't make the downhill skier compete against the figure skater; the disciplines and forms are too different to compare. So maybe, when it comes to art competitions with very loose frameworks, it is silly to compare different kinds of entries in different subjects, and with different intents. Maybe the Turner Prize is overdue for a restructure.

When it comes to "participation trophies", there are two hands here. On the one hand, participation trophies are not just a Millennial issue; that is lazy, biased journalism, and the usual "look down at the next generation" attitude of Boomers who have suddenly publicized a concept that has existed for generations. Everyone who joins the army (and doesn't screw up too badly) gets stripes and awards during and after service. Everyone who shows up for work gets paid, and often gets bonuses, even if they aren't the number one worker. Even the specific concept of participation trophies is a century old.

On the other hand, participation trophies are not "everyone gets a trophy". They are, unless severely mishandled, a reward for having put in effort. In the same event, different people, i.e. winners, get specific prizes, while everyone who at least put in effort gets the participation trophy. The recipients of these trophies are not morons, and they know that trophies for winning and trophies for participation have different values. But studies show that encouraging effort is better motivation than acknowledging talent. When you tell someone they have won, they stop trying; when you tell someone that they are smart, they often find a way to not be, act, or appear smart. When you tell someone that you see their hard work and you think it is worthwhile, they may end up trying harder, and, sometimes, they may eventually win or get smarter.

However, announcing the Turner Prize as a tie is lazy; if you set up a competition, you should not change the rules in the middle when you realize that the competition was the wrong format. They should have, originally, defined better categories that were more conductive to direct competition, or they should have defined goals for which prizes could be given to all, or a list, of people who met these goals. But, since they didn't, they should have awarded a winner and let the artists figure out how to deal with this.

Competition is not inherently evil. It brings out efforts and results that would not happen without it. When mishandled, it can bring out people too focused on the goal; they might even short circuit the permitted methods to get to that goal. Winning, when handled well, can be a goal or a stepping stone to more effort. Losing, when handled well, is not something to be afraid of. Competition against others should always be, in parallel, competition against ourselves. And for that, a job well done results in a self-award that does not require any external acknowledgement.

Pre-Oblivion Wild Speculation For My Factions!

Unless you've been living under a rock, if you're a Warmachine player you know the entire game is about to get shaken up by the Oblivion theme remixes plus a Dynamic Update addressing faction balance is dropping in about a week or so.

We've had a whole ton of spoilers the last two weeks and I've been on a forced break from the game for some time due to work and family life, but I should be clear to start playing again coincidentally around when Oblivion will be dropping.

Since I've got a lot more time to think and listen to podcasts about the game than I have time to get out and play, I figure I'd put my thoughts down to help others pass the time as we all wait for the big release.



My Factions

I've been playing this game since around 2004 or 2005, waaaaay back in MK1. I've played a lot of factions over the years, but right now I have the following: Legion, Trolls, and Convergence.  I'm not 100% sure what I'm going to play post-Oblivion, though currently I'm leaning heavily towards Convergence as that's what I've been playing the last few months as I can squeeze games in here and there.

I will talk about how each one is shaping up with the spoilers we've got thus far and my feelings about how each is shaping up.

Legion

We've actually got all four themes for Legion spoiled and the development team has stated that they spent the most amount of time fixing Legion's highly segregated themes.  I'm of the opinion that most of Warmachine and Hordes power disparity is a function of how much time the very talented dev team gets to spend on any given faction, so Legion getting a lot of the focus for this re-balance is probably going to help them a ton.

They were on the top of the meta for a while when they got a load of attention for Primal Terrors about 1.5 years ago, but they've slowly whittled down. I never played many Ogrun beyond Warspears in MK2 and I played one game of Anamag and while fun it wasn't going to last given how much I'd end up wanting to buy (2x Chosen, 2x Rotwings, and a whole lot of Incubi).  Primal Terrors was great because it allowed Hellmouths and the new Ogrun stuff was solid. Oracles used to be the dominant theme, but it has waned somewhat. It at least allowed all beast options, the amazing Battle Engine, but was limited in units.  Often you'd see Children of the Dragon played with Thagrosh1 since you could end up with the Legion Super Friends of Character beasts (Typhon, Zurel, and Azreal) and basically no other Nephilim beasts since Nephilim beasts are kinda bad. At least there you could take other Nyss units which were somewhat decent (Raptors).  Finally there was Ravens of War which allowed Hellmouths but restricted you to only flying warbeasts which was just rough.

Now all themes allow all non-Character beasts and the otherwise awesome characters are available in other places. With the requisition system you can now play Legion as beast heavy again and still get your free solos, enabling the kind of lists I liked playing in MK2 when I primarily played the faction.

Legion Pro's: Most of what I have is painted and I love the way they look. Themes are wide open and Hellmouths are really insane to play with. Given what I own there does seem to be a good amount of variety in what I could play without requiring a lot of purchases to get there.

Legion Con's: I still will need to buy some new models to play the themes I'd want. While things are certainly better, playing old beast heavy lists appears like it's going to be kind of rough in the current meta since Legion non-Character beasts are still kind of pillow fisted and are still REALLY expensive.  Carniveans are awesome beasts, but at 18 points it's hard to justify vs. what you see in warjacks getting played (13-15 point heavies) or in Grymkin (again 13-15 point heavies) that will trade up into Legion beasts.  You're also stuck wanting a lot of support beasts to make your other expensive heavies really shine: Naga's and Seraphs aren't that cheap.

What I'm Excited About In Legion:  I'd want to play Ravens of War with Hellmouths and put Strider Deathstalkers on the table again, probably with some Raptors. Oracles looks great to use my nicely painted up Throne of Everblight and while I don't like many of the Legion units, I can take as many of the Minions units I want to screen my beasts and do work. I can even see some fun times with Vayl1 in Children of the Dragon sort of like what was played in MK2.  There is definitely stuff to explore here, and if I make purchases (Neraphs, Grotesques) there are some really crazy value lists that can be done with casters that may push the trading game in my favor.

Trolls

I played Trolls for a most of my time in MK3, though I was much bigger into them in MK2. We only have spoilers for Kriel Company and Power of Dhunia so far, and community reaction to them has been fairly underwhelming, especially compared to how great Legion has been on their themes.

Personally, I love what was done in Kriel Company, allowing all beasts to be taken means you can play with Maulers to make your shooting beasts into melee threats again. That's a big deal IMO as many of my MK3 lists were based around a Bomber + Mauler battlegroup and it always performed very well for me.

The downside in Kriel Company is that it doesn't appear the Dynamic Update is fixing much of anything with the Troll shooting units, which are all just underwhelming for their points. Highwaymen are a beautiful unit, but at Range 8 on their guns, for a shooting-only unit, is just...sad. Grim2 could do some work with them, maybe Gunny or a few other casters but from what I found out is that other factions can shoot you before you get to shoot them and Troll shooting units are at best DEF 13 ARM 16 under the stone. That's not very hard to kill with guns.

The biggest winners in Kriel Company are the Battle Engines. The War Wagon is bonkers and the Hooch Hauler may have some synergies to help unlock some lists. I can certainly see playing with Battlegroup heavy lists and Battle Engines in Kriel Company going forward, with maybe a few casters supporting some ranged units to do some other work. The theme also grants Marked Target to solos, which can really be interesting given how many sprays we can take in theme and how many Whelps can be fit into lists.

Power of Dhunia looks the same as it was frankly. but now with 8 point Runeshaper units and Dhunia Archons can be taken in theme which can really help with fury management with Shepherds Call (remove 1 fury point from each beast within 3").

Currently I'm hoping that the next round of Dynamic Updates hits the Troll ranged units, and we have some hope for really cool Riot Quest solos in the Pyg Tanks and Boomhowler2.  Heck with Boomhowler1's unit becoming Partisan Trolls, they may show up in more lists if they see a points drop and/or a RAT buff.

Storm in the North and Band of Heroes haven't been spoiled yet, though we do know that Rok is in Storm in the North, which means Doomshaper2 can play in that theme and get access to PacMan'ing Rok and not have to worry about meeting free points quotas with the new system.

Troll Pro's: Personally, I own a crap ton of Trolls, nearly the entire faction due to picking up bits for cheap as other players left the faction. Currently Trolls aren't seeing much play, but I think they have a lot more going for them than people are currently letting on. With the potential RAT buffs from Marked Target in Kriel Company, plus what can be done with Dhunia Archon's, I can see possibly playing Ragnor with an army of gun based lights that can be made to hit like heavies with Rage and Pulverizer. You can get Ice Trolls thrown weapons upwards of PS19 or 20 and fit the fury management to really go all out.

Troll Con's: Unfortunately Trolls suffer from having to play a Mauler and our best ranged beast, the Bomber, is 19 points. Things are just kind of expensive in the faction and we lack native or easy access to Pathfinder on our beasts, and in general Troll lists need a lot of support.  On a personal note, while I have a lot of Trolls, not nearly as much of it is painted and what I was painting I was trying to get up to a high standard. The models don't lend themselves to painting up quickly either which hurts my motivation. It's just not clear Trolls will be particularly strong after the update AND if I swapped to playing them again it'd be a lot of hobby time to get them painted.

What I'm Excited About In Trolls: I am weirdly drawn to a bunch of casters in the faction that are considered just bad: Grissel1 with War Wagons look like it can be just insane. Horgle2 can finally take the mix of beasts and infantry to play the kind of list he'd want. I already mentioned Ragnor1 and using lights to shoot things and then trade up massively due to stacking strength buffs. Grim2 could possibly do the same thing and even support infantry, ditto for Gunny.  None of it may end up being particularly meta defining, but it sure looks fun as hell.

Convergence

With only two themes in faction and one of them spoiled already, it's odd that I'm left looking at CoC as the faction poised to come out of this update possibly the strongest of what I own.

Destruction Initiative's changes were reacted to fairly negatively by the community, though I don't share their opinion. We lost 2" of extra deployment and the Requisition changes mean that we will not be casually getting 4 sets of 3 servitors easily for free. Nearly every DI list I've run has had 12 shield guards and I'd be lying if I said that Attunement and Elimination servitors haven't won me games via flare on a caster or doing that last point of damage to a heavy in a zone.

That said, being able to take 3x ADO's for a requisition slot and taking an Optifex Directive unit for another slot is also great. I can pay the equivalent points for more servitors if I want, or I can downgrade "useful" servitors to Accretion servitors, where I can spend 6 points to get 9 shield guards that can also do repair. As it is, I'm ambivalent about the changes, mostly because the requisition changes mean that unless I'm playing casters who want to run TEP's, I may not want to be playing in DI as much anymore.

My hopes and dreams are riding on Clockwork Legion. Being able to play battlegroup heavy lists with a small screen of possibly recurring infantry seems strong. At a minimum, if I'm not running TEP's and can live without the shield guards, being able to take Frustrum Locus's dispel guns to supplement our usual jack based lists appears to be a great option. Given that what I think could be the biggest factor for us has yet to be spoiled, there is a massive amount of potential or let down here.

Privateer Press has said that the Dynamic Update was mainly to look at factions that didn't go through CID in MK3, and Convergence is one of those factions that didn't really get a proper CID. As such we may finally see fixes to our units, and points drops on our heavy vectors, and at least we'll most certainly see points drops on our Colossal's which will really help out.

The main thing that scares me is that since PP also announced that CoC was going to be the next big set of new releases once all of Oblivion's massive amount of new models gets out, it may mean that they're saving working on the faction when that CID comes around in upwards of 4 months. Conversely, some of the worst performing units in the game are in Convergence, so there is some hope we get tweaks to help out.

There are worries and potential for the theme to be big. We're almost certainly losing advanced move, and one of the theme benefits they have to keep is making Enigma Foundries FA: 4 so that the list can actually function.  Keeping vengeance on our medium based units can be a big deal, especially if they fix said units. They're so close to possibly being good in a few builds.  If we get a new release that hands out pathfinder, the theme will REALLY open up to infantry being usable besides just Aurora and Axis, with maybe Lucant.

CoC Pro's: All of the potential changes mentioned above is probably too much to hope for in this update cycle, but any combination of those changes could really make the faction strong and if recurring infantry is able to make it to the table and work - things really would look up for CoC. The Void Archon will also really help the list in terms of hitting power and infantry clearing.  I also own basically the entire faction thanks to trading away the last vestiges of my GW mini's from almost over a decade ago and since they paint up so fast, I have about 85% of the faction fully painted already. That's a huge boon for wanting to keep going with the faction I'm currently most excited to put on the table as is.

CoC Con's: If Clockwork Legions gets minimal updates and next to no points drops on our heavies, the faction is probably going to continue to struggle. I've played into Circle and Skorne at a recent Steamroller and...it is not pretty. Both factions seem to oddly be getting buffs in some of their spoiled themes, so if not enough changes Convergence could be stuck having uphill battles into a lot of the current meta.

What I'm Excited About In CoC: The Void Archon alone opens up the faction a lot in either theme, bringing Dark Shroud to the faction and a really strong spray. Conservators can possibly really shine here bringing shield guards for Enigma Foundries and with a Void Archon to buff damage we could be looking at 12 Point high MAT PS19 heavies to trade up with. Aurora may actually end up playable with some of these changes. Lucant certainly will like having them around, and Axis will love having a persistent damage buff to go out when necessary.  I have this weird desire to play Syntherion and the requisition options for him only make his list better (he wants ADO's real bad), and points drops on the Axiom or Conflux will help those lists as well.  At worst in a few months CoC is getting a whole new slew of releases and that will be amazing!

Closing Thoughts

Regardless of which way I go with what to play, I love what PP is doing with the game. It's been hard enough not being able to play in the current meta, and I'm really lucky that my schedule opens up in August and September to get games again with this incredible set of changes.  Each day at work it's always fun to hit refresh at random breaks throughout the day to see what new things have been spoiled. Now I'm just stuck waiting around for the Clockwork Legions Insider we were told is coming to drop...

Devil May Cry 5 | Release Date, Gameplay Preview, Trailer, News, & More..

Devil May Cry 5 | Release date, Gameplay preview, Trailer, News, & more..


Devil May Cry 5 is turning out to be one of the great game from Capcom in the principal quarter of 2019, and it's set to highlight new and old characters alike. Going about as a continuation that fans have been holding up a long time to play, Dante and Nero return close by newcomer V, the last of which we've just observed a little bother of up to this point. 

It feels so fulfilling to have capcom's badass child back and all prepared to kick some ass. So here Pro-GamersArena has compiled everything you need to know about DMC 5 including all the latest gameplay, news, trailers, and more...


Quick facts:

• Release date: 8 March 2019
• Developer: Capcom
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Devil May Cry 5: Release Date

Capcom has affirmed that Devil May Cry 5 will release for PS4, Xbox One and PC on March 8, 2018. This is an entirely bustling quarter of 2019 as DMC 5 will contend with different blockbusters like the Resident Evil 2 Remake, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Anthem, and more. 

Devil May Cry 5: Trailers

We've compiled two of the most recent trailers for Devil May Cry 5 beneath. The latest trailer from Tokyo Games Show uncovers V as the third playable character and a broad take a gander at how Dante plays both in investigation and battle. He can part his bike into two swords and murder evil presences with them, which is pretty F**king cool.

Somewhere else in the trailer simply above, we can see the third playable character, referred to just as 'V'. There's valuable little to go ahead about this newcomer at the present time, however we do realize that we'll be playing as him for specific segments of the game, and we'll additionally have the capacity to pick which character we need to play as in a few segments of Devil May Cry 5. 

Gameplay Preview:

Devil May Cry 5 is an immediate continuation of the fourth part that knows precisely what it's doing as far as story, style and being a total rebel. 

So the demo starts as Nero and colleague/tricky specialist Nico walk around a crushed Redgrave City on board a corroded old van with 'Devil May Cry' disdained over the side in splendid, fluorescent neon. It's obvious from an initial couple of moments that DMC is back, and it's prepared to let you know it. 

Subsequent to dropping you off, Nero is tossed straight into some renegade activity. London has been crushed, with evil spirit going crazy among the nearly non-existent, post-Brexit populace. Clearly, being evil presences, they focus on Nero like a flash, which means it's the ideal opportunity for a battle. This is the place you get the chance to see Devil May Cry 5's most inventive new highlights: Devil Breaker.

This is Nero's arm and can be separated and modified to your loving with a variety of gnarly powers. Squeezing the circle catch evokes a little punch, yet holding it is a totally extraordinary story. When you will do as such, Nero throws an appallingly hard left hook before his arm heaved forward a consistent light emission that managed silly measures of harm. 

Obviously, Nero's Red Queen (Sword) and Blue Rose (Revolver) make a merited return and have additionally been skilled a shocking update that enables his character to pop simply more. They're massive and satisfying to use, and show that Devil May Cry 5 is expecting to make battle feel weightier and more noteworthy than past sessions. Sending demons back to the profundities they originated from is an impact, particularly when they look so awful.

The boss fight that finished the demo was with Goliath. Obviously, he was a transcending behemoth that any consistent individual would run and escape. Nero, in the entirety of his astuteness, chose to experiment with his comic drama hacks and estrange the devil. The fight itself partook, to begin with, on the top of a building, at that point inside the building lastly in a gigantic open square. The progressions were consistent and striking as Goliath made short work of anything around him.


So, How's It?

Devil May Cry 5 is a wonderful return for the outrageous action series, displaying all the vital trademarks while pushing the limits of what we anticipate from it. 

So subsequent to viewing the gameplay, it's simply tingling to kill a cluster of evil spirits, however we should hold up until 8 March 2018 to accept the rules as a portion of the world's most noteworthy devil hunters.

Independence Day 2020