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Nintendo rose a fair few eyebrows in technology circles, as well as here at Sanitarium Towers, when it announced the 3D Classics line – classic games from older consoles such as the NES and Game Boy with a 3D graphic upgrade, offering a unique way to show of the power of the Nintendo 3DS handheld. While the idea has its merits, with a number of classic Nintendo titles getting the 3D Treatment – and persuading SEGA to join in and do the same to some classic SEGA titles – it has to be said that there are actually very few titles that have had the 3D Classic treatment.
Wouldn’t it be cool if you could take a NES game of your own choosing, and add 3D? If you’ve found yourself thinking that, you may want to check out Geod Studio’s new project, 3DNes – a work-in-progress Unity-based emulator that, as the name suggests, converts NES games into 3D.
Considering the simplicity of NES games, translating them into 3D is actually a difficult task. Unlike SNES games, which have four background layers, NES games have a single layer for the entire background. Imagine a diorama or a board game – everything in the background is printed on one board, while all the sprites – like your character the ground, enemies, items – are all just pieces on top. To allow the entire game to look 3D, 3DNes uses an algorithm that analyses the flat background and cuts it up into the pieces that make it up, then attempts to turn each piece into a 3D Object. The software is even clever enough to turn round objects into spheres or tubes, so for example, a ball will actually look like a ball instead of just a circle.
Exactly how well this works depends on the game in question, with things getting messier as the backgrounds get more complex. Games like my favourite franchise, Mega Man are translated well and benefit greatly from the effect, but games such as Contra or Castlevania somewhat struggle. Perhaps the best-emulated game is the original Super Mario Bros., which the developer admits was the main focus of the emulator and the most tested, which may explain the gap in quality between it and other games.
This having been said, Geod Studio hopes to improve the number of games that work well through subsequent beta releases, with head of the project Trần Vũ Trúc aiming for one-tenth of the entire NES library as his marker for success. He also suggests that there might be the potential for users to individually tailor the emulator for certain games, but is quick to state this is not currently the case, as he wants to ensure there’s “a strong emulation engine as the backbone” first.
At the moment, the emulator exists only online, as a WebGL game playable through the Unity Player. This means it only properly supports Mozilla-based browsers, such as Firefox or Seamonkey. It’s also extremely unstable, particularly when not using a AMD Graphics card, and may fail to go beyond loading the ROM, or even fail to work at all. However, Trần states that future releases of the emulator will be made available as software downloads, so it should only be a matter of time before we all get to try it properly.
Welcome to another update in what’s going on in the world of the gaming Kickstarter campaigns.
As always I’ll start you off with a summary of what’s happened to previously covered projects since last I typed up one of my updates. Most campaigns are in their midpoints right now but a few have begun to wind down or already have done.
We’ll start off with our sole campaign in the last week that has a distance to make up, and that’s VR experience Null of Hope – a project that combined retro gaming feel with the upcoming new VR trend. It has a week to go, but is currently far short of its target and will probably not reach its goal in time unless a lot of promotion is pushed towards a big audience who would back it.
Doing better are both A Place for the Unwilling, a game set within a city that takes cues from Sunless Sea among other games, and MachiaVillain, a haunted house builder and management game. Both have little time to go but also are close to reaching their targets. Seeing as how Kickstarter campaigns usually get a boost in their last few days, there is a good chance both of these projects could see their targets met.
Finally we have some really good news in that Which Friend – which is probably one of the nicer card games I’ve found and covered – has finished its campaign having met target. This was the card game that enabled you to ask which friend of a group would be most likely to do the thing on the card and was aimed at promoting conversation and allowing the group to recall good times spent together so I’m really happy that it met its target.
Also, one more thing to note before we go into this week’s projects – this week is a card/tabletop special. Enjoy!
First up is a board game. About being a cat and making a mess. What could be better?
Taking inspiration from comic Catass, Make a Mess sees you playing as the titular cat of the series as you run around and create the biggest mess you can – without getting caught. The last person standing wins over all and the game can support 2-6 players. There are cat tokens, parent tokens, a die, cards and more included within the game. Give it a go if you’ve ever fancied causing havoc without getting in trouble… at least not with a real person.
Make a Mess has 26 days to go to reach a €10,000 target.
Next up is a card game set within a dystopian universe.
Grafters is described as a “hand-building game for 2-4 players of daring heists and corporate swindles set on the fringes of the Dystopian Universe.” Your goal is to steal as much money from the corrupt government and your fellow players as possible. Each player will start with a hand of 6 ‘Specialist’ cards, and their aim is to use them to recruit more criminals, steal money and protect yourself from theft.
Thirdly we have a tabletop roleplaying game, that the creators aim to have as a free game. Sounds good.
Set within an original universe and with “simple rules that most people can learn” Mythical Might will be an app-based game adventure for Android and iPhone users. Set within a universe that’s seen multiple realities clashing into one, it will be an interactive e-book style game with settings crafted by a Quest Master for people to play.
Mythical Might has a $25,000 goal of which it has made $35 and there are 59 days more to go.
Finally we have a card game for young adults, but one that doesn’t seem centred around drinking for once. Makes a change.
The basic point of GAME OVER is to win by being the last person not to draw a GAME OVER card. The game is played by having the deck of cards face down and drawing until one player is left, while performing the actions on the cards. The game has been finished already, so this Kickstarter is just to enable it can be printed.
GAME OVER has a target of $1,145 CAD with 39 days to go. It has yet to be backed.
Don’t you just love it when big sites and companies make little slip-ups?
Earlier an ad campaign for Overwatch went up on IGN before being taken down again quickly. The reason? It contained the release date for the game, as well as mention of a beta that would be starting a few weeks earlier. Whoops.
Spotted by Reddit user DeadpooltheGreat, they managed to capture some screencaps before IGN took down the adverts:
Since the news was already out, Blizzard have since come out to confirm that the release date is indeed May 24th, and there will be a beta weekend for pre-orderers starting from May 3rd before the rest of the beta period from the 5th to the 9th will be a totally open, free for all beta before the game is taken offline again for the final few tweaks. The open beta will be on both PC and consoles and will feature everything that we’ve been shown – all 21 heroes, all the maps, full progression system. Also if you pre-ordered you’ll get an extra key to give to a friend to give them access to the first two days that are otherwise closed off.
There’s even been some videos put out to give all the information out:
Again, don’t you just love it when little slip-ups like this happen? Somehow it makes big reveals like this even better.
Well, this is quite a blow to fans of the Fable series.
Today Microsoft have announced that the upcoming game Fable Legends has stopped development, and what’s more Lionhead Studios could also be no more soon. All this comes from an update that’s detailing changes to the company’s internal development studios, one of which is Lionhead. The update also mentions that other studio Press Play is a certain to be shut down:
After much consideration we have decided to cease development on Fable Legends, and are in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios in the UK. Additionally, we will close Press Play Studios in Denmark, and sunset development on Project Knoxville.
These have been tough decisions and we have not made them lightly, nor are they a reflection on these development teams – we are incredibly fortunate to have the talent, creativity and commitment of the people at these studios… These changes are taking effect as Microsoft Studios continues to focus its investment and development on the games and franchises that fans find most exciting and want to play.
Fable Legends would have been a multiplayer title that would have taken the series in a new direction – pitting the majority of players as heroes against their sole opponent who would have been controlling the monsters and other various hazards. It even had a beta and a lot of time had already been spent promoting the game to players so it’s a shame to see all that effort going to waste.
Press Play was currently working on a third-person multiplayer survival game codenamed Project Knoxville, chosen through a fan vote campaign. With the studio’s closure it seems this project might be dead in the water as well.
Of course, given the wording of the update, it’s not yet certain that Lionhead will be closed although Microsoft say they are in talks with the studio discussing its closure.
Either way, it’s a sad day for anyone who was looking forward to the next Fable game and our thoughts are with those people at Lionhead and Press Play.
Those of you who remember our Indie Game Show might remember one of our guests Shaz.
He came presenting his local co-op game BFF or Die in which teamwork is required to progress through all the levels and screwing over your teammates might mean screwing yourself over too. Now the 2-4 player game is up on Steam Greenlight waiting to get approved. It is a very good game, and I can say that having actually given it a try at one event. Go give it a look even if you don’t have some nearby friends to play this game with – it also comes with a singleplayer mode.
