Atlus recently showed off a side-scroller game featuring Jack Frost and Jack-o’-Lantern as a made-up game, but it’s been revealed as Shin Megami Tensei: Synchronicity Prologue, and it is available now for free.
Shin Megami Tensei: Synchronicity Prologue was made by ledybug, the development team by Krobon, who is known to be an avid fan of the Shin Megami Tensei series.
Atlus says to not think of the game as something directly related to Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux, but rather, something that tells us what was going on in the background during the U.N. Schwarzwelt Investigational Team’s activities.
The game is available to download here, and will be up for grabs until December 24, 2017. You can get a closer look at the game in our previous report.
Read more at http://www.siliconera.com/2017/10/16/atlus-jack-frost-jack-o-lantern-side-scroller-real-available-free-pc/#YDgGJfc30eLeHSY5.99
How to market your indie game on reddit like a pro using my proven 5-step template.
1. Around one year before release, use something like this: "Hey Reddit, after lurking and reading posts on /r/gamedev, I just learned to code and am working on <MY INDIE GAME>!"
2. On release day, use something like this: "Hey Reddit, I've been working on <MY INDIE GAME> for the past year and now it's finally out!"
3. Around a month after release, you probably won't get the traction that you're looking for (either because of bad marketing, bad product, bad luck, or all three). So, post something like this: "Hey Reddit, <MY INDIE GAME> failed. So here's a whole post talking about what I learned from failing!"
4. Soon after your previous post, if your game gets any kind of traction at all, use something like this: "Hey Reddit, after my last post hit the front page, <MY INDIE GAME> finally went viral! Thanks Reddit!"
5. A few months after that, you might need to use something like this: "Hey Reddit, I spoke too soon. I got too excited and quit my day job, but <MY INDIE GAME> only went viral for one day on /r/gamedev. It didn't translate into any actual sales because I just realized that other game developers aren't actually going to buy my game. Now I'm about to be homeless. Thanks Reddit!"
Q: How does Yoko Taro go about designing game characters? A: There are 7 steps in sequence from the start to the end:
1) Budget - It is important to clarify this as it affects the scaling of story and content 2) Period - Any accurate or rough timeline given to create content, can affect number of characters and amount of interactions 3) Market - What is wanted from the market you're targeting? Platforms? Genres? 4) Balance - Gender, percentage of Males vs. Females. Number of characters, 3-5 is a good number he usually start or work with 5) Fans - If the game is a sequel, what do the fans want? You may go against their wishes and try something new 6) The Game - Gameplay Specifications, Motion Cost for your characters to integrate as content in the game 7) The Drama - World View & Characteristics, characters interact with other characters and environment
Sometimes along the way, timeline becomes constrained and things such as 1 character per level can shift content balance. Carefully split scenarios to capture sufficient content for individual characters.
For students learning character design, it is really important to know about the budget because when a real budget really occurs, creators often try too hard to merge multiple characters into 1 character (in Japan).
Q: Why does Yoko Taro always work with a dark story? A: It was not a conscious decision at all. I think this is because I believe [Reality is just as dark]. This is proven from 2 traits...
Trait 01: Video Games are an imitation of the real world. For example, in classic Space Invaders with low quality graphics: Humans are able to perceive the black screen as "space" because there are alien sprites invading defending bases.
Trait 02: People (mostly) seek to kill in games. In a game where you kill enemies, there is no realistic possibility of a pleasant world filled with hope. Game tropes like killing 100 enemies/bosses with the main character ending up being a hero, kissed by a "princess", are the unrealistic stories (to Yoko Taro).
"Humans are smeared by their own desires, never able to run away from competition or enmities", this notion apply in many games (especially fun and popular ones).
There are a lot of wars happening right now. Competition and rivalry becomes part of a world view to the audience. Rivalry becomes about creating winners and losers. Games that depict this, I feel, can connect with others. Games are essentially parallel to the real world.
Q: How did NieR:Automata come to life? A: [Platinum Games is the Genesis of it]
1) Platinum Games approaches Square Enix first 2) Square Enix sounds out NieR's production (Yosuke Saito, Executive Producer pitches to do another NieR game) 3) Square Enix approaches Yoko Taro. Rights of NieR is with S.E... (jokingly), I think S.E. took pity of me and gave me an opportunity for a poor to earn money (yet again) 4) Yoko Taro tries to understand and imagine in the direction and expectations of Platinum Games (since the best of developers are there) 5) Yoko Taro analyzes between Sci-Fi or Battle Adventure sort of themes. He thought perhaps Fantasy is a good pitch to Platinum 6) Yoko found out that Platinum developers actually respect the themes of the previous NieR IPs (to not change it too much) 7) Yoko always misunderstood that Hideki Kamiya was the centre of the whole company. (jokingly, he thought the company was like the Mad Max game) 8) He also realizes that Platinum is not an office with top-down hierarchy, they even take opinions and suggestions from newbies in the office 9) The RPG element is revived as Platinum wants to maintain the consistent RPG factor from past NieR titles: Gestalt and Replicant
Q: What sort of trial & error does Yoko Taro use during game writing? A: [IMAGINE] is the core
This is by no means a short answer, I think some creators may not truly understand imagination. To me, it's something near to making something interesting out of something that no one would commonly think it's interesting.
There is also [You]. Who you are is critical to your imagination.
1) You are the center of your own world 2) To express yourself is to control what others think of you 3) Throwing a rock to someone's heart will ripple your environment 4) Ripples created actually differ from person to person based on perspectives 5) However, people hope to connect by sharing similar perspectives
[No matter how interesting an idea can be, always doubt it]
(Shows kitten picture) - Without captions, this mostly look cute to people, even though not everyone - With "This kitten is abandoned and abused" captions, people have the power to immediately change their perspectives when they are given different labels
It is important to analyze why people would have initial perspectives and then change their minds later from other factors.
[If you are seeking for uniqueness, you need to know the standards]
It is also good to understand that a creator can not have control to how everyone feel with just 1 story. It is important to know the customers you are servicing to. Are they a massive crowd or a niche audience?
Creators often insist on purely doing what they want but market research ends up being the most important as it depicts common connections of different perspectives. It is never about how you understand your own story.
I cold emailed a single YouTuber yesterday with over 200,000 subscribers and got an almost instant reply.
You can too (hopefully) with these six tips...
1. Personalize the crap out of your email. Bonus points if you lead with humor or don't actually pitch them on your game right away. If you're going to pitch right away, try to lead off with something like, "I noticed that you enjoyed [insert game name here]. We were deeply inspired by that game in the creation of ours. You might like ours as well!" - Take a few seconds to browse the channel and learn a bit about the YouTuber, then tailor the email specifically to them. You can also develop a more authentic relationship by not pitching them right away, and being more genuine with your initial email (such as asking them a question that you're curious about).
2. Make it easy for them. Don't make them dig for basic information about the game. This is a given, but include screenshots, a link to the trailer, and a brief one-line summary in the body of the email. Then, attach a press kit. Remember, if they want to cover your game they'll need to create a custom thumbnail for it--make it as easy on them as possible. If the game's not already out, make sure to specify a release date and whether or not they'll need to wait for a specific date and time before releasing it.
3. Have patience. YouTubers have crazy schedules, and they get pitched multiple times a day. If the YouTuber doesn't reply, it's perfectly fine to send a follow-up after a week or so to check in, but don't spam their inbox. Remember that there are significantly more indie games being released than there are YouTubers willing to play them.
4. Come up with a sexy subject line and leading sentence. Make the first line count. If the first line doesn't convey enough value, the YouTuber will delete the email. The best advice is to use the road less traveled and try techniques that haven't been used before. Most YouTubers have seen generic pitches a gazillion times--don't be like everyone else.
5. Make sure your email is relevant. Most emails get ignored because the YouTuber probably has no interest in covering a game of that genre and/or caliber. Early in my career, I worked with a YouTuber with over 4 million subscribers. It didn't translate to game sales because the targeting was wrong. It's all about knowing the audience--this is kind of common sense, but make sure that the YouTuber has a track record of playing games that is similar in genre to your game.
6. Have flawless spelling and grammar. If your email looks like it was written by a 10-year-old, the YouTuber isn't going to be very convinced. Most of these horribly-written emails get tossed straight into the bin. Proofread your stuff. It's okay to have a typo here and there. I mean, I make small mistakes all the time.
Let’s tackle distractions. These are easily one of the biggest factors in a loss of productivity. What can you do to get rid of these distractions? Firstly, turn off most notifications. Modern technology is all about giving us important info as soon as it’s relevant. You just can’t have enough of it and you’ll keep looking for more, such as social media, your email, news notifications, and such. These lull your senses into thinking that they deserve immediate attention; this goes back to the importance versus urgent discussion from the previous article. If these notifications are actually important to you, just turn off the audible and visual prompts then check on them during your break times, and be done for the day. This will save you a lot of time since you can see more at a glance rather than slowly being fed little bits of information.
Next, don’t overburden yourself. You might have hundreds of things to do, but the key to doing them all is to focus on a few specific things on a daily basis and complete those. Yes, this will leave the other tasks hanging but multi-tasking means less focus and very little progress for any of the tasks. If you try to multitask, one thing leads to another and another and at the endof the day, nothing has really been accomplished, or even worse, more work was added than done. Narrow down your daily focus to only a few goals at a time and get those accomplished.
Sometimes the best solution is to simply ignore some things. “Ignore” is a rather nasty word, but if you don’t learn to slow down the effects of distractions on your work, your important tasks won’t be receiving the attention that they deserve. Learn to postpone doing things that don’t need to be done immediately in favor of your important tasks. As long as you aren’t unhealthily stacking up your schedule before deadlines, this procedure won’t really change the end result since the tasks will be finished either way.
Important Takeaways: Distractions are easily one of the biggest factors in ruining your productivity. Some common distractions include notifications or the chain of work that comes from multitasking. For notifications, just turn them off then check on them all at once during designated breaks or free time elsewhere. If you try to multitask, you won’t end up getting much done due to a lack of focus, and in the worst cases, you’ll create more work for yourself than you started with.
Just focus on a few tasks on a daily basis and slowly build up a bunch of check marks rather than checking off everything at once. Sometimes, you should simply be ignoring things that can be postponed for a later date. As long as you evenly distribute your schedule, what gets done now and what gets done later doesn’t matter since it’ll all be done anyways. Everything doesn’t need to happen in an instant, so just pace yourself and save your sanity.
It occurs to me that naming your game Everythingis the equivalent of a college band calling itself “Free Beer.”
This of course doesn’t mean everything, it means Everything, David O’Reilly’s simulation of, well, everything. It’s very hard to explain in one sentence. The game is now available on Steam, where Everything now costs $11.99.
Yet in a cruel twist, buying Everything doesn’t get you everything in Everything. The original soundtrack is $5.59 sold separately, $15.82 bundled.
The good news is, it doesn’t take long to download Everything. It’s only 2 GB.
I’m imagining the chats today with Steam customer support.
Rep: How may I help you? Customer: I made a purchase and didn’t receive what I bought. Rep: What did you buy? Customer: Everything. Rep: So what’s the problem? Customer: What’s the problem? I’m playing as a goddamn seagull or something! Where’s my key for Ghost Recon: Wildlands?!
Well, its rather hard to explain in such a short sentences of article, so just read a full review at Polygon
Do you like playing Rock Paper Scissor? How about if we add an rpg theme style to it? and... we give another challenge by giving units, the more unit you have the more powerful you are! and last but not least, can you survive a 100 wave? There! you get RPS Knight!
Yeah, this light mobile android games is as cool as the game's name. it has good pixel classic graphic and a solid theme. there are 3 heroes we can choose from as the game's mechanic said, Knight (Rock) - Spearmen (Scissor) - Magician (Paper). and each one can defeat and be defeated by each other.
if you can defeat the enemy, you reserve one unit, that unit will be moved to the back of the army, and the next unit will battle the next enemy, and so on until one of the army doesnt have unit anymore. oh yeah, you will get a draw if you and the enemy have the same unit battling each other, and the result will be lose to all side.
There 2 modes in the game, Campaign and Challenge mode. The fun is when you beat some wave, the wave will be longer, where you cant see the back row of enemy unit and we have to think strategically to defeat the enemy while maintaining our units. Its a solid minigame with style, with a solid gameplay, theme, art, and music, but thats all. after you get how to play it and you can beat the enemies easily, after some time you will get bored. Waiting for their next update for now.
To conclude my references, here how i play the game on my device.
What in your thought if you hear about a god of normal attack?
Is it really a god?
Why does he only have a normal attack?
What the difference with normal people's attack?
Yep, i have a tought of it, it really catches my eye, and then suddenly i just downloaded the game without looking at the game's rating, comment, nor the screenshot. I dont know how they came up with these niche and unique name. But i know they got a good naming skill for their babies where all of gamer know the meaning, usually become a habit in their gaming, but always forgotten by player. yeah, games nowadays have such an epic name which have a high meaning or even make them epic to be read by the gamer, but this game, have a good SEO game optimization name because no other game have about the same name or even theme name in all of game platform.
You can find the game here
lets walk away from the game's name, how about the game itself?
Well, actually its an idle clicker game with good animation and korean game style. It have a similar gameplay with Tap Titan, but with a sideview battle system. You just have to tap the screen so the so called god of normal attack will attack the enemies. if you dont tap the screen, the character will automatically attack the enemies about every 3 seconds. You have a health bar, which will decrease if you get hit by the enemies, so to avoid this just tap the screen to quickly defeat the enemies.
They try to use different approach to get partner which is not by normal currencies, but a hard to get currency. Well, its rather hard to progress the game because of it, but they provide bunch of heroes to choose as a partner and a limited seat of partner to be placed.
The User Interface has a personality and match with the theme where mostly they give a hot color to burn our spirit for playing the game. And they gave enough and good feedback to the player such as attack animation, enemies hit, upgrade, and many more, which is rather crucial and they deliver it good enough.
*Apparently they just changed the game's name somehow into GOD OF ATTACK, i dont know why they change the name or did i misread the game's name?
To summarize what i reviewed, you can watch the gameplay video below, started from tutorial.
Sometimes you’ll find yourself out of the house, with nothing but a laptop and a whole lot of time. And while laptops are getting more and more powerful, most are still low-spec machines when it comes to gaming.
But just because you’re living out of home with an integrated GPU doesn’t mean you have to be bored. Here’s 13 games you can play on the potato-powered productivity device that is your laptop.
Risk of Rain
Part of the problem with gaming on the laptop, however, is that sometimes that’s all you have. No mouse, no separate controller, and sometimes no room for either anyway.
Risk of Rain is perfect in those scenarios, since it’s purely a keyboard-only game. An action platformer that gets harder every 5 minutes, Risk of Rain is all about balancing the risk/reward mechanic of hanging around a level long enough to gain XP and money before the crazier enemies show up. The 8-bit graphics are designed to run on just about anything too, so you won’t feel handicapped by your choice of hardware.
Civilization 5
As long as you have an Intel Core i3 or better CPU, you’ll have enough grunt in your low-end laptop to run Civilization 5. And if you’re looking for a game that you can carry on your hard drive until the day it dies, it’s hard to ignore Civ 5.
There’s plenty of depth with the expansions and the mods available in the Steam Workshop, although chances are the Complete Edition will have enough content to keep you going through those lonely nights in hotels. It also plays just fine with the touchpad, which can be a lifesaver sometimes if you don’t have a spare mouse around.
Owlboy
But if you’re after something a little more vibrant, a little faster and something a tad fresher, the side-scrolling platformer Owlboy will be right up your alley. Apart from the fact that Nathan found it was a surprisingly clever and quite modern despite the look, the game will basically run on anything. There’s no requirement for a discrete GPU and you only need 600MB of space, which is always a plus if you’re gaming on your work laptop.
Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine
But sometimes you just want to open up your laptop for a bit of virtual catharsis. So for that moment, I give you the best Ork Slaying Simulator around: Relic’s Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine.
It gets repetitive at points, but Space Marine is basically an unhinged, non-stop slaughter of Orks from start to finish. It’s also quite an old game by today’s standards, and should have no trouble maintaining a perfectly playable framerate on laptops with the 6th or 7th generation Intel CPUs. (Here’s how the game runs on an Intel HD Graphics 4600 if you want a reference.)
Stardew Valley
Unsurprisingly, if you were busy farming up a storm at home you can do it on the road as well. Stardew Valley has bugger all hardware requirements save for 2GB of RAM and a GPU with 256mb of video memory, which pretty much any laptop from the last few years will be able to manage with no problems at all. You can also play quite happily using the keyboard, although taking a controller with you isn’t a bad idea.
The Binding of Isaac
Another game that runs on a potato, The Binding of Isaac deserves a special mention here because it’s perfectly playable with keyboard controls. The arrow keys determine the direction you shoot and you just rely on SPACE for items, WASD for movement and SHIFT (or E) to place bombs. Easy.
Oh and there’s the small part that The Binding of Isaac is an excellent game with loads of depth. There’s a reason it has a competitive scene.
Endless Legend
If you like the idea of playing a thoughtful 4X on the go, but want more of a fantasy bent to the experience, Amplitude’s Endless Legend is an excellent alternative. You’ll want to turn the graphics down all the way, but the game will run. Which is nice, since it gives you a reason to discover why this game gives Civ a run for its money.
Dungeon Keeper 2
But if you need some strategy with a sick sense of humour to keep you distracted while you’re away from home, there’s perhaps nothing better than Bullfrog’s bizarre classic, Dungeon Keeper 2. The original is arguably a purer experience - well, as pure as commanding a bunch of minions from Hell trying to belt the snot out of wandering adventurers - but the sequel stands up a lot better in this day and age.
It’s something I would recommend having a separate mouse for, however, although you can control the first-person elements with the keyboard easily enough. And don’t worry about the system requirements - DK2 released in 1999, although the Good Old Games version plays nicely with Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10.
FTL
Released in 2012 and one of the most successful early uses of the Kickstarter platform, Faster Than Light should be on most people’s PCs already (if not their tablets). There’s plenty of content and difficulty thanks to the expansion and the modding scene, and FTL also has a small footprint on your hard drive (which is a lifesaver if you’re running off a 128GB SSD).
Darkest Dungeon
Another recent game with minimal hardware requirements is the grim world of Darkest Dungeon. A RPG with roguelike elements, Darkest Dungeon needs nothing more than a few GBs of RAM and an OpenGL 3.2+ compliant GPU - which is basically everything from the last five years.
On the practical side of things, the game’s turn-based nature means you won’t have any issues just playing it with the trackpad if that’s the only option available to you. The developers do recommend having a 1080p screen as a minimum, but with 1440p and even 4K laptop screens increasingly becoming standard that shouldn’t be much of a stumbling block.
Oh and just in case you needed it: Darkest Dungeon is pretty damn good, if a tad punishing.
Sleeping Dogs
Sometimes you just want to lose yourself in an open world. And what better world to explore than the brutal streets of Hong Kong. Sleeping Dogs was already incredibly well optimised on PC, but it runs just fine on laptops as well. I’d recommend packing a controller in your travel case for this, and it’s not the kind of game you want to download on airport Wi-Fi.
But any integrated graphics from the HD 2500 series and up can run Sleeping Dogs, albeit at reduced settings. And besides, sometimes when you’re miles away from home it’s just good to grab a bike and punch a few blokes in the face. (The story is also uncannily good, if you like the undercover cop shtick.)
Euro Truck Simulator 2
You might miss having your full trucking rig from home, but any laptop with an Intel HD 4000 or better GPU will be able to run SLS’s cathartic trucking simulation. Euro Truck Simulator 2's relaxing nature already makes it a strong candidate for being on your laptop, but the added benefit is that the game has a full suite of keyboard controls. You’ll still have to use the trackpad to turn the game’s camera around, but since left and right is mapped to A/D you can manage that on a laptop pretty easily.
Duelyst
Rounding out this list is Duelyst, the free-to-play collectable card game that draws from the world of JRPGs as much as it does Hearthstone. Everyone also knows by this stage that you can play Hearthstone on anything, phones included, so why not go for something a bit different?
The fun of Duelyst is in the positioning. Matches take place on a battle grid where each player is responsible for the deployment and movement of their units, which are drawn from a deck of cards. Fans of Hearthstone will recognise most of the mechanics, but the pixel art and the added tactical layer are a huge bonus. And another plus is the fact that Duelyst doesn’t need to run through Steam or another third-party service, which is a huge help if your only available internet is blocking connections to Steam/Battle.net.
