Despite being quite a few years old now, Terraria is still a fairly popular 2D survival game and could be said to be responsible for popularising the genre. Today it has received a fairly sizeable patches that adds a number of things along with fixing a nice long list of bugs.

Patch 1.3.1 has added a variety of mechanical and machine parts, such as logic gates, junction boxes and mechanical lenses along with things such as Companion Cubes and Bone Campfires. Traps can now be rotated 90 degrees at a time as well, NPCs should be a little bit smarter (hopefully no more wandering out in the middle of the night!) and, joyfully, Inventory Sorting is now a thing in the game.

Bug fixes include that Medusa can no longer petrify players standing above her anymore, critters spawned from statues are no longer catchable, has made the Wooden Boomerang useable when standing upon slopes and much more besides.

The full notes can be read below:

Features

• Added Controller Support using Xinput.
• Added Inventory Sorting.
• Dart Traps & all Temple Traps can now be hammered to rotate 90 degrees at a time.
• Added smart interact, making chatting with NPCs, opening doors and using objects easier.
• Cannons (normal, bunny, confetti, Snowball Launcher) can now be controlled by wire and shoot fake projectiles!
• Improved Smart Cursor & made it interact with more items.

Quality of life

• Improved Wire drawing to look less fuzzy with multiple colors on the same tile.
• Improved over 1,800 sprite graphics.
• Optimized net messages for tile entities (target dummies, item frames)
• Improved the Settings Menu and added new settings.
• Added new large gem over-head display.
• Improved melee hit detection around slopes.
• You can now use situational building accessories from your inventory and toggle their effects like info accessories.
• Info icons now have a border around them when aimed at (clarity!).
• Improved keybinding options, you can now also bind to mouse 3/4/5.

Items

• Added Logic Gates (AND, NAND, OR, NOR, XOR, NXOR
• Added Logic Gate Lamps (On, Off, Faulty)
• Added Logic Sensors (Day, Night, Under Player)
• Added Liquid Sensors (Water, Lava, Honey, Any)
• Added Conveyor Belts.
• Added The Grand Design.
• Added Yellow Wrench.
• Added Junction Box.
• Added Mechanical Lens.
• Added Announcement Box.
• Added Actuation Rod.
• Added Team Blocks and Platforms.
• Added Static Hook.
• Added Presserator.
• Added Engineering Helmet.
• Added Companion Cube.
• Added Gem Locks.
• Added Large Amber.
• Added Weighted Pressure Plates (4 colors).
• Added Wire Bulb.
• Added 12 new craftable Critter Statues.
• Added Portal Gun Station.
• Added Trapped Chests.
• Added Projectile Pressure Pad.
• Added several new monster statues.
• Added Angler Tackle Bag.
• Added Geyser Trap.
• Added Bone Campfire.
• Added Ultra Bright Campfire.
• Added Multicolor Wrench.

Miscellaneous

• Critters spawned from statues are no longer catchable.
• Highly increased Duke Fishron’s “run away” distance.
• Medusa can no longer petrify players directly above her.
• Medusa is now Hardmode-only.
• Added NPC names for the painter, wizard, and skeleton merchant, based on contest results.
• You can now find Beehives in the Jungle – Not the bees!
• Lowered the volume of the Solar Eruption’s use sound.
• Torches can now be put on actuated tiles.
• Slimes should no longer be able to go through 1 block high gaps.
• Target dummies no longer benefit from lifesteal or spectre set.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Frostbite hiding time left when wet under certain circumstances.
• Fixed Desert Spirit hitbox to match sprite size.
• Fixed NPCs not recognizing kills / interactions properly if they have multiple segments.
• Fixed music boxes not emitting music notes while open.
• Fixed Flesh Grass spreading under Sunflowers.
• Fixed Tally Counter not showing information for enemies hit with mounts or special attacks.
• Fixed player leg skin colors mismatching the rest of the body when in stealth.
• Fixed Seedler not dropping from Boss Bags.
• Fixed popular NPC Housing exploit.
• Fixed Ranger Lifesteal bug.
• Fixed Paint Sprayer spraying over blocks in several occasions that it should not (e.g. grass that gets turned into dirt as a result of placing an object).
• Fixed being on the edge of the underground not counting when spawning dungeon / Underground Desert monsters.
• Fixed teleporting directly on top of a pressure plate not triggering it properly since.
• Fixed Town NPC melee weapons drawing brightly while in darkness.
• Fixed Crimson Heart failing to stand to roll roll around on platforms.
• Fixed tile entities not properly clearing on world clear procedure.
• Fixed Crystal Storm not bouncing its shots.
• Fixed chests without custom names not showing mouse over icons.
• Fixed Wooden Boomerang being unusable when near slopes.
• Fixed Wall of Flesh going above hell and dragging everyone with it.
• Fixed Martian Saucer having invisible / unhittable body parts in multiplayer.
• Fixed Martian Probe not causing Martian Invasions when it should.
• Harpies and Antlion Swarmers can no longer swim.
• Fixed dressers blowing up from explosive projectiles.
• Fixed Gi and Kimono leg sprites being genderswapped.
• Fixed ancient light and fishron bubbles not appearing in expert mode.
• Fixed Werewolf sounds being bugged if used for vanity.
• Fixed Tax Collector not using some of his special chat dialog.
• Fixed infinite flight time exploit.
• Fixed Martian Saucers missing their home planet during the invasion and leaving.
• Fixed trapdoors de-syncing when operated via wires.
• Fixed L shaped housing exploit.
• Fixed minecarts hitting invincible enemies.
• Fixed multiple bugs regarding auto-pause and inventory management.
• Demon Altars should no longer create ‘unbreakable’ pots.
• Fixed rare “character not respawning” under certain circumstances.
• Fixed background drawing through completely unlit walls in hell.
• Fixed solar pickaxe using a bad glowmask.
• Fixed wall of flesh not spawning in singleplayer under certain circumstance.
• Fixed snow not falling naturally after a player jumps in most cases.
• Fixed paintball gun and confetti grenades being unable to crit.
• Fixed Titanium Armor & Black Belt dodges not working against Moon Lord.
• Fixed animated tilesets touching half-bricks stop animating.
• Fixed yet another duplication exploit.
• Fixed altered worlds getting stuck in spirit release phase under a rare circumstance.
• Fixed Chlorophyte protection in the jungle not being as effective as it should be.
• Fixed right clicking equipment at inventory not granting achievements for equipping it.
• Fixed paladin’s shield ally protection benefits not functioning properly.
• Fixed minor capitalization issue in the guide’s help text.
• Fixed star in a bottle buff not working.
• Brain of Cthulhu & Eater of Worlds now properly leave upon massacring the player / if the player leaves their territory.
• Fixed issue where the nurse would not heal all debuffs under rare circumstances.
• Fixed double damage popups from other players inflicting harm to themselves via explosives.
• Fixed ‘full-screen map’ button opening a black screen if map is disabled in general.
• Fixed players being unable to get on a mount if they’re too close to workbenches.
• Fixed shenanigans with actuating gemspark blocks.
• Fixed Mudstone Brick having a bad name (Mudstone Block).
• Tiles under Lihzahrd altars can no longer be actuated until the golem is defeated.
• Fixed temporary holes in the darkness when removing light sources.
• Fixed items that cost less than 5 copper always sell for 1 copper , even when sold in Stacks.

And now for something adorably sweet.

Like many children, Shane Hickey’s young daughter loves to draw, and again like many children based her sketches and doodles on what she saw around her. In this case it was Blizzard’s upcoming game Overwatch and she decided to design her own character, which Shane decided to tweet to Blizzard to show them his daughter’s fanart:

@PlayOverwatch hi team! my daughter created a new character.Her name is birst. She’d love to know your thoughts pic.twitter.com/b31YWUPqSs

— Shane Hickey (@shanehickey) May 20, 2016

The character, named “Birst”, is described as a combination damage-dealer-healer equipped wither boomerang and a laser-suit-dress hybrid garment. She could be considered somewhat a combination between existing characters Lucio and Mercy, but it seemed that the Overwatch team loved the idea.

One of the concept artists decided to take the original fanart sketches and… well, here’s the result:

@shanehickey Our artists were so inspired by this that they created their own fan art! Hope your daughter loves it! pic.twitter.com/c1ToeH1MJF

— Overwatch (@PlayOverwatch) May 21, 2016

Reportedly Shane’s daughter considered it “the highlight of her life thus far”. Currently Shane’s account has the fanart as his avatar and banner as well.

It might just be a small gesture, but it’s always lovely to see bigger companies doing things like this, especially for younger fans. Who knows? Maybe in a future update Birst will become playable or the basis for a new character.

Hey, remember when Team YP got banned from competing in one of eSports’ major leagues? Well now it seems Capcom are also about to cause more headaches for the porn site sponsored-team – Capcom have banned sponsors of “adult content” in a recent rule change.

Players will not be allowed to participate in any tournament if they are sponsored by any sponsor that could be linked with adult content, which Team YP’s sponsorship with site Youporn certainly falls into. While many eSports events and ESL have been outlawing the adult content sponsors in their rules, this is the first time a publisher has followed suit.

The new rule, which also has an effect on sponsorships involving tobacco, alcohol and even e-cigarettes, has been attracting a little concern not only from Team YP although they’re probably the most obviously affected by this. Other teams in the Street Fighter V professional circuit have been adding their weight to the discussion too. Even commentator and long-time proponent of the fighting game community, James Chen has added his voice to the discussion:

“I definitely don’t think it’s fair for players like Filipino Man and Valmaster (two of Team YP’s players) to have this rule sprung on them like this. I do hope that a compromise can be achieved where these players are allowed to be supported by their team for travel/lodging and still play.”

Capcom have said that they are currently reviewing if any compromises can be made, such as allowing players to compete if they do not promote their banned sponsor.

“We understand everyone’s concern around the sponsorship rule in the [Capcom Pro Tour] ruleset. We will review and have an update soon. In the meantime, we won’t promote sponsors we deem inappropriate but all players are allowed to compete.”

Previously it had been said by the founder of Oculus that he didn’t care which headset players used to play their games – just as long as they still reaped the benefits of the sale. However, time moves on and it seems that someone has changed their mind.

The latest Oculus Store update comes with the standard tweaks and bug fixes, but according to reports it has also snuck in some DRM onto the platform. What this basically means is that now the Oculus Store will check to see if the headset is a Rift before letting you play – no Rift, no play.

The original statement from founder Palmer Luckey was said on a Reddit post a while back: “If customers buy a game from us, I don’t care if they mod it to run on whatever they want. As I have said a million times (and counter to the current circlejerk), our goal is not to profit by locking people to only our hardware – if it was, why in the world would we be supporting GearVR and talking with other headset makers?”

Of course, this was before someone actually cracked on how to actually DO that. Revive was a hack that made Oculus exclusives playable on Vive. Luckey wasn’t a fan saying: “This is a hack, and we don’t condone it. Users should expect that hacked games won’t work indefinitely, as regular software updates to games, apps, and our platform are likely to break hacked software.”

And it seems that now it’s actually happened. Not that it really comes as a surprise, as few other parts of the video game industry make their exclusives… well, non-exclusive or playable on another platform (at least not for a while).

It just seems that VR is evolving to match the current business plans.

It’s been around a year since the Kickstarter that did so well for Playtonic – Yooka-Laylee – finished and in that time there’s been snippets of news from the team. Mainly though they’ve been keeping quiet to work on the game, until earlier today when they released a massive update to backers of their campaign.

Firstly we were introduced to the central conflict of Yooka-Laylee’s world – namely that a hostile takeover of company Quack Corp by Diabolical Publishing Corporation has meant that the duo are currently venturing about the corporate building of Hivory Towers to recover Pagies and unlock the mysterious Grand Tomes. Diabolical seek to control all the world’s literature and make as much dollar from it as possible, lead by villain Capital B.

Joining the cast will be the previously announced Trowzer, a snake salesman who will sell you the unlocks for certain moves which you can unlock in any order you wish; Dr. Quack who was the former head of Quack Corp and is now inventing all sorts of inventions to keep the Diabolical shareholders happy; Dr. Puzz who was Quack’s former protege, now turned helper for Yooka and Laylee and will be responsible for transformations yet to be detailed and many more yet to be talked about.

Obviously there’s still a lot more to be revealed yet, but the play style will be very reminiscent of Yooka-Laylee’s forefather game, Banjo-Kazooie. More details will be coming in the next few months, with a feature in Edge Magazine on May 26th, reports on various gaming online channels and a showing at the Electronic Entertainment Expo. Also, for those who backed the game to a certain level (and I’m one of those people), Playtonic have said that the sandbox of the game will be releasing to them in July. The sandbox is intended to be a spoiler-free way for players to get used to the platforming style that will be Yooka-Laylee’s bread and butter.

As someone who loved Banjo-Kazooie as a child and can count herself among some of the first backers of the Kickstarter, I can’t wait to see Yooka-Laylee’s full release. Even if right now Playtonic have said they’re not ready to set a date in stone yet.