Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
This is the GameShell, a retro gaming handheld that I built from a kit. I clipped and trimmed the plastic pieces, inserted the circuit boards, connected the wires and snapped it all together. It plays old games, emulated titles and homebrew software. It’s pleasing that something I built does those things.
The folks at Clockwork did most of the work, to be fair. They created the ClockworkPi, the small development board that powers the GameShell. It’s a small chip powered by a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU, a Mali GPU and 1GB DDR3 memory. It’s got Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, a micro HDMI port to output to a monitor and a slot for a micro SD card for storage. It’s an excellent base for a modestly-powered portable emulator box.
Along with the ClockworkPi, the GameShell also has a 2.7 inch TFT RPG display that runs at 60 frames-per-second. There’s an input board with a directional pad, ABXY buttons and a couple of additional inputs. There’s also a tiny two-channel speaker, a 3.7V 1200 mAh rechargeable battery and an optional row of five additional buttons that can snap onto the back of the GameShell’s case.
I mention these components separately, because that’s how they are assembled. Here’s what comes in the GameShell kit.
It looks like a lot, but it’s really simple. There are four main modules encased in their own plastic housings—the ClockworkPi, controller pad, display and battery. Once assembled, cables connect the ClockworkPi to the three other units. They are stacked within a Game Boy-esque plastic housing, two on two. The speaker bar is plugged into the main bar, and the unit is snapped together.
It’s a simple build that’s hard to screw up. If one were to say, bend the pins connecting the main board to the controller, that might make it harder to get it working. Also, from what I have heard, the screen will not survive being run over by a 470 pound motorized wheelchair. But that’s what replacements were made for, right? Okay, I made a few mistakes, but those were on me, and eventually I wound up with a nice little handheld that I could probably strip down to component parts blindfolded.
Once assembled, the GameShell is a tiny handheld Linux device. The 16GB micro SD card that comes with the kit is preloaded with Clockwork OS, based on Debian 9 ARMhf and Linux mainline Kernel 4.1x. It comes loaded with popular emulator front end RetroArch, and can run up to Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis games quite capably. There’s a standalone emulator for the original PlayStation, which can be hit or miss.
It comes loaded with the original Cave Story. There’s a free version of Doom on it, because any gaming system has to run Doom in some form in order to be validated. It even has a built-in music player, which I will never use.
With its Game Boy look and feel and its pleasantly responsive controls, the GameShell is nice to play games on. I feel like game makers and electronics hobbyists will get the most out of the system. It supports Preset C, Python, Lua, JS and LISP programming languages and supports a slew of smaller-scale game engines, including PICO 8 and LOVE2D. It’s open source hardware, so users are free to take it apart, wire it to other devices and fiddle to their hearts’ content. The studded backplate used to connect the optional five-button input bar to the back of the GameShell is even Lego compatible.
There’s a lot to do with Clockwork’s GameShell. I don’t know if I will ever build a game or program the GameShell into a television remote, but I will always be proud of this quirky little piece of hardware I put together.
DIY Retro Gaming Handheld Is As Fun To Build As It Is To Play
A legacy problem in the games industry, gender diversity is something AAA development has almost always struggled with. According to reports from Putting the G Into Gaming (GIG), an organization seeking to mend the gender disparity in games, only 20% of the industry workforce is female, with an even smaller amount in leadership roles.
“We’re here to find ways the industry can put its foot on the accelerator to make games a go-to career choice for women and girls from all walks of life,” GIG founder and business manager Liz Prince said in a statement.
Now, GIG is doubling down on its efforts to ensure proper representation for women in games with a new “diversity charter” -- announced Thursday -- that aims to light avenues for inclusion previously darkened by bias, unconscious or otherwise.
Development and publishing studios who choose to sign the free charter will receive a number of GIG-developed resources, including diversity benchmarking tools, attraction, selection, development, and retention toolkits, and various benefits from associated PR and marketing groups.
Earlier today, Prince spoke at Casual Connect London about the importance of game studios embracing diversity in order to remain competitive. “From a recruitment perspective it’s really difficult when you keep seeing shortlist after shortlist of men, especially in development," Prince remarked during the panel. "We just need to really accelerate change. There are some amazing initiatives in the games industry already but I just couldn’t help feel that we weren’t getting anywhere fast.”
GIG is pioneering the charter in conjunction with RightTrack Learning, a group specializing in helping companies implement new policies and programs. “In delivering diversity and inclusion training for clients...we have established a strong understanding of the games industry’s specific needs and are excited to pledge our commitment to support businesses signing up to the charter,” RightTrack lead director Claudia Cooney said in a statement.
“Together with RightTrack, we have developed a Charter to showcase those studios who commit to take proactive steps for change and would encourage games businesses to sign up and invest in steps and actions that will diversify and future proof our industry,” Prince said of the partnership.
As of now, it’s unclear which companies are committed to signing the charter, or what impact it will have. GIG’s campaign seeks to do just that via its four focus areas: attracting women from outside the industry into games; supporting women already in the industry; working with schools, universities and parents to promote games as an attractive career option for girls and young women; and providing studios with practical advice on how they can address gender imbalance, regardless of their size.
G Into Gaming: New charter aims to draw more women into game development
Mobile game publisher Scopely is on a growth path. The company has a $400 million revenue run rate. It expanded its headquarters in Culver City, California, and it has more than 300 employees.
It owes some of that to hit games such as Star Trek: Fleet Command and Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem. The company has internal game development teams, but it also works closely with external game developers with another 400 employees.
Jori Pearsall, senior vice president of product and studio general manager at Scopely, spoke at our recent GamesBeat Summit 2019 event about how Scopely manages those development teams based on the life cycles of its games. The company has a total of six live games that are bringing in the money, including older titles like Yahtzee that keep getting updates.

Above: Scopely aims to recruit more people to fill its new building.
Image Credit: Scopely
Michael Metzger, a partner at Drake Star, moderated the session. Pearsall noted that revenue grew more than 80% in 2018. Scopely typically secures an important intellectual property, works with an external studio that understand the game category that will underpin the IP, or builds the game internally.
Pearsall described it as a “hub and spoke model,” which made me think about the airline business. But in this case, the central services of the headquarters and publishing functions handle centralized tasks like analytics, marketing or user acquisition.
Then the spokes are the development teams that work on the games. The company looks for studios that are laser focused on making the best game in a specific category and operating it for years and years. Scopely has to set up tools and pipeline for games that will last for a long time, Pearsall said.
There are a variety of business models for working with the studios, Pearsall said, including investing in the external studios.
“We doubled our footprint” of office space in Los Angeles, Pearsall said. “It’s been an exciting period of growth.”

Above: Star Trek: Fleet Command is a big hit for Scopely.
Image Credit: Scopely
He added, “This is a really exciting time for the LA ecosystem. It has a rich track record of major entertainment companies being based here. Major IPs being developed here. In the last couple of years, we have seen the technology industry really accelerate in Los Angeles. When you get that intersection of entertainment and technology, it is ripe for what we are trying to do.”
Hubs and spokes — Why Scopely and LA’s game ecosystem are on the growth path
The Computer Science and Arts and Entertainment Technologies departments have partnered to launch the Game Development and Design program in order to provide undergraduates with the resources they need to go into the video game industry.
Formerly known as the Game and Mobile Media Applications program, this new certificate is intended to provide more overlap between the departments, said Paul Toprac, associate director of game development.
“You need to have certain core fundamental skills no matter which department you’re in,” Toprac said. “And then there’s some courses you can take ... to get certified in game development.”
Students participating in the program will work together during their senior year to develop actual games during a capstone course, which allows students to apply their education to projects, said Bruce Porter, Game Development and Design steering committee chair.
“We’ve been doing this for about eight years, and we’ve had some remarkably sophisticated games developed by these partnerships,” Porter, a computer science professor, said. “What’s special now is the ... new courses and opportunities in fine arts for these students.”
To ensure the program responds to changes in the gaming industry, an advisory council of industry representatives will give advice to the program, Porter said.
“It’s going to be very important for a program like this to stay in touch with industry trends and to be ahead of those trends,” Porter said. “We will create new courses and tear down old courses that are no longer as relevant (to) try to keep ahead of where the industry is going.”
Austin dominates the Texas gaming industry with more than 140 of the 270 gaming companies in Texas located in Austin, according to the Austin American-Statesman.
“We have strong participation from the industry here, and that’s part of the program ... having a strong partnership outside of UT with the game companies,” Toprac said.
Toprac said it’s important for the partnership to be fostered between both of the departments’ students since they will have to communicate with each other and understand each other’s respective challenges.
“Previously, it was difficult for the CS students to get into the (Arts and Entertainment) courses,” Toprac said. “Now there’s gonna be a pathway for them to do that. Likewise ... we’re going to make sure that there’s a series of courses there to help (Arts and Entertainment) students so they learn what they need to learn about programming.”
Computer science senior Huylar Lee wants to develop video games after graduating, and said it’s important for the departments to collaborate since it happens at the professional level.
“I think the artist should be aware of the programming side, and the programmers should be aware of the artists’ side,” Lee said. “It helps provide a better cohesive project and better final release in the long run.”
Want to develop video games? There’s a program for you
The jewel in Oculus Quest’s launch line-up isn’t available on any other headset, but it isn’t a full game. Instead, it’s the start of an episodic series, the first of which offers barely 40 minutes of story gameplay. But what a 40 minutes that is.
Created by a division of ILM, rather than a traditional game developer, the game is a stunning experience from the first second, as you play the role of a smuggler who unexpectedly finds themselves a captive of Darth Vader. It turns out you’re part of a bloodline that can unlock an ancient artefact on Mustafar (the lava planet from Revenge Of The Sith and Rogue One) that grants immortality.
The sense of scale is extraordinary, as you stare up through your spaceship’s cockpit as a Star Destroyer looms into view or fly down to enter a giant underground city. The Quest’s lack of power is clearly visible in some very low resolution textures and yet the overall effect is still stunning, with some very impressive virtual characters that feel believably solid and real.
The ability to walk around the virtual sets is a huge benefit of using Quest but the fact that the controllers are so accurate even more so. Soon enough you get to wield a lightsabre and you’re transported into a Star Wars fan’s wet dream. Not only can you deflect laser bolts but the lightsabre fights finally offer the kind of motion-controlled combat fans have been denied for years.
The combat’s secretly quite simple, relying almost solely on parrying in one of two directions, but the ability for enemies to crowd around, so you have to keep checking every direction for attackers, neatly disguises the fact. The pacing of the fights feels right too, with tense seconds waiting for an attack and then a flurry of action.
Speaking from a Star Wars nerd’s perspective the only thing we didn’t like was the sassy droid, who talks and acts only like a regular human, but the portrayal of Vader actually has some nuance to it, with some surprising moments of dialogue.
The story may be short but there’s also a multi-stage challenge mode where you have to fight remotes (which, again, is so much like the movies it almost made us weak at the knees with wish fulfilment) and other increasingly dangerous opponents. It’s actually quite hard, and has its own minor unlockables, which further justifies the already perfectly reasonable asking price.
Vader Immortal review – plus the best of Oculus Quest games
It’s called Stadia. Time, Time
Get ready gamers: Google is ready to take on Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo in the gaming space.
At the annual Game Developers Conference the technology giant announced its new Stadia gaming platform, looking to make it easier to not just make video games but play them on any screen you own including phones, computers and TVs.
Stadia, which will launch later in 2019, promises new ways to connect with games including a Play button on YouTube videos that will launch you from the video into that game.
Google demonstrated the new platform at the annual event Tuesday in San Francisco. While showing a video of the game "Assassin's Creed Odyssey," it was shown how a "Play" button on the YouTube video could transport the viewer right into the game.
Often a player gets the urge to play a game while watching a video, but has to boot up a game console or another program on their computer. This Stadia feature would get players into a game in "as quick as five seconds with no download, no patch, no update and no install," said Google vice president and general manager Phil Harrison, a former Sony and Microsoft game executive who joined Google last year.
"Stadia offers instant access to play ... (and reduces) the friction between getting excited about a game and playing a game," he said.
Other features built into Google's game-streaming platform include Crowd Play for instant joining and coordination of multiplayer games and Google Assistant-style help feature when players get stuck in games.
Last October, Google began Project Stream, a four-month PC streaming video game test that included Ubisoft's "Assassin's Creed Odyssey."
"We learned we could bring a triple A game to any platform using Chrome (Google's web browser)," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said at the event. "We are dead serious about making this technology accessible to everyone," he said.
As opposed to downloading games to a hard drive, Stadia will tap into Google’s vast global server network – the same one that powers Google Search – to stream the games to your devices.
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"The data center is your platform,” says head of engineering Majd Baker.
In another demonstration, the same game was handed off from a Pixel Chromebook, successively to a Pixel smartphone, desktop PC, tablet and then to a television using Chromecast.
Google vice president and general manager Phil Harrison on stage during Google's announcement of its Stadia video game platform at the Game Developers Conference Tuesday, March 19, in San Francisco. (Photo: Google)
Games will be able to stream in 4K at 60 frames per second, rivaling the graphical power of the Xbox One X and PlayStation 4 Pro. Users can use a USB controller or Google's new Stadia remote that features WiFi to connect directly to the data center.
Google's controller also has a button dedicated to streaming to YouTube and one for summoning the Google Assistant for in-game help.
No pricing information was announced for the service or the controller.
Another feature, called State Share, would let players send a link via YouTube, email or other manner letting others pick up a game at a specific spot. "I can create moments specifically for this kind of sharing," said Dylan Cuthbert, founder of game studio Q-Games and developer of games such as "Star Fox 64 3D" and "PixelJunk Monsters."
Cuthbert has a game in development that uses the feature. He says he hopes to "let the internet turn my game into an infinite replayable treasure hunt."
More than 100 game studios have Stadia development tools now. Among other developers working on games to play on Stadia is id Software, which will bring its "Doom Eternal" to the service.
Google will also open its own Stadia Games and Entertainment studio, which will bring its own first-party games to market and seek to remaster classic games to the system, said studio head Jade Raymond, previously a producer and executive producer with games such as "Assassin's Creed" and "Watch Dogs" with Ubisoft and worked on Star Wars games at Electronic Arts before joining Google recently.
"We are on the brink of a huge revolution in gaming, one that will unlock a whole new level of creativity for developers," she said.
Google is not alone in its vision of a cloud gaming future for video games – a vision that could certainly make games a more economical proposition for consumers. Microsoft and Electronic Arts are both working on cloud services, with Microsoft teasing a similar vision last year with its Project xCloud.
All this industry activity will grow cloud gaming subscriptions from an estimated $234 million last year to $1.5 billion in 2023, estimates research firm IHS Markit.
While Google has strengths in its network, devices and Chrome browser, "arguably both Microsoft and (Chinese gaming and internet giant) Tencent are better positioned with strengths in both infrastructure and content," said Piers Harding-Rolls, IHS Markit's head of games research, in an analysis Tuesday.
"I do not expect a Google cloud gaming proposition to dramatically impact the next cycle of console sales, but it may start to pick up some users that are not ready to spend $400 on a new console at launch," he said.
Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider.
