Its been over 20 years since Ryan Seacrest showed up in households via American Idol. That gig became the catalyst for a career in entertainment that has only grown, continuously taking him from one high-profile gig to the next. He has hosted shows like the 59th Emmys in Los Angeles and Live! With Kelly and Ryan in New York. In between, the consummate host found time to host several radio programs and start a production company responsible for several seasons of Keeping Up With the Kardashians on the E! network. Seacrest even won an Emmy in 2010 for the production of Jamie Olivers Food Revolution. After living in New York City for a six-season tenure on Live!, Seacrest is back in LA as the new host of the iconic game show Wheel of Fortune. Without a doubt, Seacrest is one of the hardest-working people in Hollywood. No wonder his collection of real estate over the years has typically featured resort-like amenities, creating relaxing respites from the frenetic pace of showbiz.Below, we take a look at some of the properties Seacrest had owned over the years.The Mediterranean-style resort with Hollywood historyRyan Seacrests biggest career break came when he began hosting American Idol in 2002, its inaugural year. By 2006, the Atlanta native had become a household name, adding E! News host and radio DJ to his resume, and he had the paychecks to show for it. That year, he purchased an $11.5 million Mediterranean villa in the Hollywood Hills known as Casa di Pace, or the House of Peace. The 1974 build came with some serious Hollywood pedigree. Seacrest bought the six-bedroom, six-and-half-bathroom home from Horizon: An American Sagas Kevin Costner, who purchased it from actor Richard Dreyfuss, a leading man in 1970s Hollywood. With expansive views of the Hollywood Hills, tons of palm trees out front, and arched doorways and windows, the estate had a major Old Hollywood feel. I looked for the right property for years, Seacrest told AD during a tour of the home in 2008. In my head I was seeing the sort of villa you might see in Spain or Italy. The day I saw the house was the day I made an offer. Wanting his home to be warm and inviting, Seacrest added his personal touches to the decades-old property, turning a rec room into a 4,500-bottle wine cellar and tasting room. There were also three guesthouses, one of which he transformed into a club room inspired by the Htel Costes in Paris. Other highlights included a lap pool, a screening room, a state-of-the-art gym, a tennis court where hed host matches on Saturdays, and a patio where hed play dinner host to friends and family. I love to have people over, the Emmy winner told AD. I love to share food and wine and just literally sit there until I fall asleep. After offering the estate for $14.95 million in 2010, Seacrest finally sold it for $11 million in 2012.The modest Beverly Hills digsThe year 2012 was also when Seacrest bought a circa 1957 home for $3 million, probably his least flashy property to date. The slate gray Beverly Hills abode sat on just over an acre of land with expansive backyard views of Los Angeles. Perched behind a large, black rolling gate, the three-story dwelling was surrounded by lush vegetation. Featured inside were five bedrooms and a gourmet kitchen. Outside, there was a hillside terrace, a small pondlike pool and spa with a stone waterfall feature and a built-in grilling station. Advertised in its listing as an incredible opportunity to remodel or rebuild, the home was offered for $5.79 million in 2022 and it is believed to have been sold for $3.6 million.The audacious Beverly Hills estateEllen DeGeneres and Portia di Rossi owned this home prior to Ryan Seacrest.Photo: Roger Davies

Mention the word chalet to Jack Decker, owner of Kingston, New Yorkbased Vernacular Design, and two visuals immediately come to mind: The ultra-exaggerated A-frame and a Swiss house with one stone story and a slightly larger wooden level on topwith vertical siding that leads up to a gradually pitched roof, he says.One need not shy away from these romantically conventional images to design a sophisticated alpine lodge. But theres a fine line between ski-house classic and chalet clich, as ADs December cover star Lauren Santo Domingo referred to it in her print feature. (Think: bear-skin rugs, antler chandeliers, and other tired elements.) To design a mountain home thats totally chic, AD PRO turned to Decker and a few other experts in the genre for their go-to tips on getting the look picture-perfect.Choosing the kind of wood and level of character is important, says Decker. He would know: His studio, a high-end woodworking shop in the Hudson Valley, collaborates with some of the regions premier architects and interior designers to craft bespoke mountain retreats. Hes a fan of options that can lighten heavy forms, like white oak, including pigmented varieties.White oaks lightness is highlighted when joined with darker varieties in this Susannah Holmberg project.Photo: Malissa MabeyHolmberg draws in shades of green in the details of this pool house project. She also relies on natural shades to inspire the sandy tiles, the earthen shelving, and the rust-colored pillows.Photo: Malissa MabeyChoosing the wrong kind of wood is a make-or-break for Decker too, who believes that many people take chalet clichs too far by incorporating plywood-reminiscent veneering and heaps of knotted species. By rooting the structure in classicism and playing with the interiors instead, [its] going to look more appropriate, he adds.When it comes to fireplaces, plaster-finished, stone-crafted varieties can be a nice addition. Consider masses of glazing too: You could do the entire gable in glazing, keep the inside less distracting, and bring the outside in through the glass to adapt to more modern sensibilities.Overall, chalets should respond to the natural worldmore so than a stately manor, Decker notes. That might look like a jolt of welcome asymmetrylike placing the entrance to an A-frame on the side of the home rather than the front. Sometimes the landscape of the home calls for thinking outside of the box.Shades of white come to fore in Ghislaine Viass Aspen project, whether it be in marble, bleached wood, or warmer tones in the textiles.Photo: Garrett Rowland

US Treasury says it was hacked by China in 'major incident'Getty ImagesA Chinese state-sponsored hacker has broken into the US Treasury Department's systems, accessing employee workstations and some unclassified documents, American officials said on Monday.The breach occurred in early December and was made public in a letter penned by the Treasury Department to lawmakers notifying them of the incident.The US agency characterised the breach as a "major incident", and said it had been working with the FBI and other agencies to investigate the impact.A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington DC told BBC News that the accusation is part of a "smear attack" and was made "without any factual basis".The Treasury Department said in its letter to lawmakers that the China-based actor was able to override security via a key used by a third-party service provider that offers remote technical support to its employees.The compromised third-party service - called BeyondTrust - has since been taken offline, officials said. They added that there is no evidence to suggest the hacker has continued to access Treasury Department information since.Along with the FBI, the department has been working with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and third-party forensic investigators to determine the breach's overall impact.Based on evidence it has gathered so far, officials said the hack appears to have been carried out by "a China-based Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) actor"."In accordance with Treasury policy, intrusions attributable to an APT are considered a major cybersecurity incident," Treasury Department officials wrote in their letter to lawmakers.The department was made aware of the hack on 8 December by BeyondTrust, a spokesperson told the BBC. According to the company, the suspicious activity was first spotted on 2 December, but it took three days for the company to determine that it had been hacked. The spokesperson added that the hacker was able to remotely access several Treasury user workstations and certain unclassified documents that were kept by those users.The department did not specify the nature of these files, or when and for how long the hack took place. They also did not specify the level of confidentiality of the computer systems. For instance, access to 100 low-level workers would likely be less valuable then access to only 10 computers at a higher echelon within the department.The hackers may have been able to create accounts or change passwords in the three days that they were being watched by BeyondTrust. As espionage agents, the hackers are believed to have been seeking information, rather than attempting to steal funds.The spokesperson said the Treasury Department "takes very seriously all threats against our systems, and the data it holds", and that it will continue to work on protecting its data from outside threats.The department letter states that a supplemental report on the incident will be provided to lawmakers in 30 days.Chinese embassy spokesman Liu Pengyu denied the department's report, saying in a statement that it can be difficult to trace the origin of hackers."We hope that relevant parties will adopt a professional and responsible attitude when characterizing cyber incidents, basing their conclusions on sufficient evidence rather than unfounded speculation and accusations," he said."The US needs to stop using cyber security to smear and slander China, and stop spreading all kinds of disinformation about the so-called Chinese hacking threats."This is the latest high-profile and embarrassing US breach blamed on Chinese espionage hackers. It follows another hack of telecoms companies in December that potentially breached phone record data across large swathes of American society. United StatesCyber-security

Image: BigmodeOver the holiday season, we're republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors as part of our Best of 2024 series. This article was originally published in November. Enjoy!Who the heck spends seven years making a video game about animals literally, just animals?The game in question, Animal Well, isnt a farm game, its not a virtual pet game, its not even some kind of cosy simulator. On top of that, if you were only handed the back-of-the-box descriptors Metroidvania, pixel-art, retro-inspired it might quickly slide out of your brain, given how it sounds indistinguishable from most rank-and-file indie games.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kWatch on YouTube But the thing thats elevated this Game of the Year contender far beyond those vanilla descriptors and squarely into Its-kinda-hard-to-talk-about-what-makes-this-so-great territory is, well kinda hard to talk about. Depending on how you play it, this 2D-pixel-art-Metroidvania game can play like an exquisitely crafted video game, or it can unfold into a labyrinthian social experiment about the way people typically interact with games.With that philosophy (and dilemma) in mind, Nintendo Life caught up with the games solo creator, Billy Basso, to tease out the mysteries of Animal Well. In an attempt at keeping the games many mysteries intact, similarly to the game, weve structured this interview into three layers, so you, the reader, get to decide just how deep down the well you wish to go...Layer 1Image: Alan Lopez / Nintendo LifeNintendo Life (Alan Lopez): Before we start, just recapping that Ive prompted both you and the readers that Im going to structure the interview in layers, much like your game, to allow people to read as deep down as they want to learn about the game. So were going to start at the surface. Are you ready?Billy Basso: Yep, Im ready.Okay. Why animals?Why animals? I dont know. I just like them. I think everybody likes them. I dont know. Theyre fun to draw?[Laughter]Theres so many animals on the planet, and were just one of them. Most games are focused on people. But I feel like there's a lot of interesting animals in the world. Theyre a giant source of inspiration for me. You can go watch any nature documentary or go observe something out in the world and [animals] are probably going to act in a way that's kind of funny or interesting.I want to dig into this question a little more than that. The reason I wrote the question was not to act stupid. If you look around the [PAX] showroom floor, or really just [look at] any video game in general, everything feels like an attempt to drill down into genre. To make a game thats just about animals feels so simplistic as to almost be parody. If your game were not so dense, it would feel like a joke, but instead it feels profound in its simplicity. Thats why I was curious you just made a game about animals. [laughter]When I look for inspiration, I kind of go back to basics. I try not to be influenced by all the built-up tropes and stereotypes that people have. Yeah, there's lots of animals in games, but they're so far removed from the source material. They're either cartoony or chibi or they barely resemble them. A teddy bear has almost nothing to do with a grizzly bear that you would observe in nature. Animals are anthropomorphised to the point where they're just humans in costumes, and that's their role in the world to us.I wanted the game to [show] animals in a way where they feel almost like aliens, to show that they have their own ways of life and behaviours and that they fit into the ecosystem differently. And [to show] they're totally different from us, but also in some ways, similar. I wanted to actually pay attention to that. Even though [Animal Well] has a basic name, its a big part of the game.Thats an earnest answer, I love that.I've interviewed very few all-in-one solo developers. And that's probably because, one, they're rare, and two, most video games don't make it at this scale, let alone ones by solo developers. What would you say to somebody who right now is working totally alone trying to make a game [at the scale of] the game youve just made?I would say that working solo has a lot of advantages, actually. I think overall it's a much more efficient way to work in terms of the amount of money and effort that goes into the game, versus what results in playable stuff. There's no communication overhead with other members of the team; you don't have to argue for your idea; your iteration loop is just all in your head so you can work much faster. I think in a way it's the purest form of development. Sure, you're a single-threaded process and you can take a long time, but in a way, it's the safest way to work in terms of money and budget for a project.Image: BigmodeBut was there an element of game design that almost stopped you because you were developing it alone?I think maybe early on I did worry about just losing interest or getting distracted, which is, I think, pretty common in maybe the first six months [of a games development], where you have a new project that's really fun in the beginning, but you don't really know for sure if you're going to stick with it or it's just going to run its course or if you'll get bored; the fun kind of dries up as you explore the ideas.But after a while, I kind of stopped worrying about that, and it was just more a matter of how long it would take. It was my daily habit to work on this game and over time it became more and more a part of my life and identity. It became difficult to imagine just giving it up. It would be really a huge blow to all this time I've invested in my life.It was always really important to just find the fun. If I still enjoyed the day-to-day process, then in theory I could work on it forever because it's just a hobby. And I mean, I know I'll always play video games because they're just fun to [play]. I'm never going to get tired of that or I'm never wondering when will that end or any hobby that you like. So if I could always relate to it as a hobby and not as labour that I have to get to the end of, then it almost didn't really matter how long it took.Now it's your career.It's true. And there are a lot of parts of it that maybe aren't that fun that you have to do to actually ship it and sell it to people. And towards the end, all those things pile up and it does become work to actually wrap it up.Well, that leads me nicely to this: youre published by Bigmode, which for readers is the publishing company created by famous YouTube personality Dunkey. What was your first interaction with Dunkey like?It was actually after we had some email conversations that we wanted to meet, and they were gonna tell us about Bigmode before they announced it. I was already a fan, and I was excited to talk to him. I remember we had a Discord call schedule, and I was almost like, will he show up? And I remember seeing the video game Dunkey avatar in the meeting room. It was kind of funny being like, Wow, I'm actually going to talk to him. He's here. He's a real person. But then I was kind of surprised by how shy and soft-spoken he was. Totally the opposite from his video persona.But yeah, he's just a really polite, quiet, thoughtful person. And I guess people that haven't met him in real life maybe don't know that.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kHow quickly did it become apparent that you were going to work together?Pretty fast. We met a couple of times, and we had really good chemistry with me and my partner Dan and then Dunkey and Leah. They were both just really nice and they were easy to talk to. I was a little concerned about giving up creative control and just wanted to feel them out.And it just seemed like a good fit. We wanted the same things; on their end, it was a passion project, they wanted to get more involved in video games, and they loved them. And that's how I was approaching it too. It felt like I could trust them, to treat the project with care. And I felt like they had a lot to offer because they could get it in front of way more people than I'd ever be able to do on my own. It was all good.Okay, are you ready to go a little bit deeper?I'm ready.Layer 2Image: BigmodeI've heard a lot of people go so far as to call Animal Well a horror game, which I don't necessarily agree with, but the fact that I hear that sentiment repeated often is interesting to me. I feel like you've made a lot of design decisions that avoid genre [conventions], but still create that sort of feeling.So my question I guess is[pause]...its easier to tell when you scare a player, or when you thrill a player. But how do you know when you make something that simply makes a player constantly feel a vibe?Hmm. Early on I was interested in taking a lot of ideas from survival horror games and combining them with puzzle platformer stuff. Those early Silent Hill and Resident Evil PlayStation games are very near and dear to me and...Is that what the 'save phone' is [inspired by], by the way?Yep. I wanted to do the save room music, give you a feeling that this is your safe area and you can decompress for a little bit.I feel like some of those early horror games have what I think of as these good set-ups, where they're setting the stage to trick the player, almost like a trap. In Resident Evil 1, the first time you get the shotgun, it's mounted on a wall. You take it, and then you're like, Oh cool, I found the shotgun, that seems like a really good item. And then you leave the room and you realise that [taking it] released a switch, and now the ceiling is going to crush you. So then you're like, Oh no! But I want the shotgun! Ultimately, the solution is you have to put the shotgun back to get out of the room safely. You're kind of teased by itYou're told, No, you've got to put it back. You get a sense of ownership for only a second, and then it's taken away from you.Which is an emotional experience. It's like a kid thinking they can have a toy, and then their parents scolding them and making them put it back.So you were chasingthe feeling of loss?Yeah. That particular set-up taps into this primitive core memory that a lot of us have. l love that narrative set-up. In Animal Well, I reference it a little bit in the way you get this disc, and you eventually have to find the fake version of it, and swap it Indiana Jones-style.But, yeah, [feelings] like that, or the feeling of being stalked across a world is also very scary. Just being chased by something and knowing you're being hunted by this thing that can navigate the world is also another scary idea. I try to not really reuse ideas either. Any time I put [an idea] in the game, I thought, What's the hook here? What's the story behind this? What is the player going to do? How is the game going to react? And why is that interesting? If I have an idea like that, thats a good start for a new area of the game.Most games have an element of, 'These things are good for you, these things are bad for you.' Animal Well doesn't necessarily even have an opinion of you, in a way. It just is.That was an important consideration with the animal design, because in real life I don't think there's really good and evil. It's all grey. We have to exercise our judgement in any given situation. Is this dangerous? What does this creature want? What are their motivations? I think that's an interesting thing to think about.With any animal or creature I put in the game, I wanted players to be a little uneasy. Is this helpful? Are they going to help me with a puzzle? Is this a threat? I need to approach it with caution. And I feel like people are much more engaged when they're thinking that way, and not just like, Oh, I'm going to jump on this, this is bad, this is bad, oh here's a power-up, I'm going to grab it. When you just design like that, you don't have to think very hard about what you're doing and you're going to go on autopilot. I wanted to break those habits.As a player, the way that it made me feel was constantly curious, and always uneasy.Yes.Everything was rewarding, and everything was bad. So it was constant tension.I feel like that's a good state of mind to be in when you're exploring a space. It feels like not only are you literally exploring the environment, but you're exploring the creatures in it, and the game mechanics. You're just like trying to build a mental map of how things work and, I don't know. To me that seems fun.Images: Alan Lopez / Nintendo Life, BigmodeLets talk genre then since we're kind of on the topic of Metroidvania, which is a noun I kind of hate. Ill get into that, but first I'm curious aboutI'm going to assume that you're obviously a fan of the genre?Yeah, yeah!So Id love to hear a little bit more about what games inspired you in this genre, and what you took from them.Yeah, I love a lot of those games. I think Super Metroid is probably one of my favorites. I like the idea of exploring a space and returning to places you've already visited, but then finding something new. Its not just the idea that you're exploring, but that you still have these loose ends in your mind that you want to go back to. Its fun. As a whole, I probably have a soft spot for the Metroidvania genre.But I also don't like genre labels much. And it's actually been kind of sad to see the Metroidvania genre become sort of calcified. A lot of developers are very happy to just follow the blueprint, give you the double jump and a dash and, you know, all these movesets that are solidified from old ideas. It's not really fun if it's just a formula. I mean, I like the broad idea of these interlocking areas and abilities. I thought it was still a good framework to design a game in: its fun, it gives the player a lot of agency on what direction they get to go in, it's very rewarding to get new stuff and drip feed the mechanics. But I still wanted to make an original, fresh game, so I avoided almost all the existing tropes that I was aware of in Metroidvanias.My little rant on [the name] is, if we had called all dramas like, Ben-Hur-Commandants or something, then youd get in the mindset of, 'So, it's got to have a race, it's got to have...'It's exactly that. Yeah, it's like... it's actually really counterproductive for creativity when you have such a specific example. There's so many things you can take inspiration from, theres such a giant, wide open, infinite possibility space, and we're all focused on these two data points that we have, and people are very afraid to deviate from it.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kDo you have any non-video game influences that you used for Animal Well?Yes. I take a lot of inspiration from just physical locations, so honestly, just going for walks in my neighbourhood. I started paying a lot of attention to these tacky animal lawn ornaments that were in people's yards, these goofy frogs and raccoons, all sorts of stuff. And I thought it'd be fun to sort of imagine, What's the mythology that connects all these things? Because I feel like they're very common, but no one really thinks too hard about them. I thought it was kind of cool to combine this element of nature with peoples interests, because again, people tend to just be interested in animals created in their own image.So that, and also museums. They are really interesting to me, in the sense that they're curating all these different ideas and they allow people to explore them in a lot of different directions that are very open-ended; theyre designed to be viewed in any order, so I think they were a good inspiration for me to use for my level design.That's really interesting. I love that.I want to mention, a couple of years ago you know how websites are, they make you create lists of things [Ouch! - Ed.] and one of the top two or three games I played back then was Metroid Dread. I absolutely loved it. I still love it. But after I played Animal Well, I feel like I enjoy that game a little less now which is a healthy thing, I think! Because thats how genre pushes itself forward. [Metroidvania games] in particular pride themselves in environmental storytelling and non-linear design, but Animal Well, relative to common experiences in the genre, is so vastly different that it made me realise that we need more ideas.Yeah, I had a similar experience with Metroid Dread where it had been a while since I played a Metroid game, and it was one of my favourite series so I was like, Oh, a new Metroid, I'm really excited for this! But I think I played too many [games like it]. It looked beautiful, it felt great to play, but it was still the same item set you get in all the Metroid games. They added a few new abilities, which I was excited to see, but I don't think it was enough to really maintain my sense of excitement throughout the game.I love doing the last quarter or so of any Metroidvania where youve got pretty much the whole map open and you get to go clean up all the things you missed and fill in all the maps. But [in Metroid Dread] I was like, I know these are all just missile upgrades. And because I already know ahead of time what I'm going to get, I'm not that excited to go collect them all. Plus theyre not going to really enable any new gameplay experiences, really. It'll just see a number go up and I'll bomb all the hidden walls, or whatever. So it didn't create that sense of exploration and wonder that maybe I got in some of the earlier games when the whole formula was fresher to me.[That] made me aware that when there's a secret, it needs to be actually surprising, and it needs to break from the pattern that even the current game youre playing established. Because as a player, you're constantly trying to fit a model around everything you're experiencing. I think it's important to be aware of what that model might be in the player's head and either continue filling it in or break from it to surprise them.I think that Metroid even tells you where the secrets are after a certain point?Yeah, that's pretty common and a lot of people have said, I wish Animal Well did that. And it's like, well, they wouldn't be secrets then. [laughter] You're not entitled to get everything. If you get bored, then stop playing! Thats just going to make the secrets less meaningful for the people that did put in the work.Layer 3Images: Bigmode, Alan Lopez / Nintendo LifeWe're in the final layer. Are you ready?All right.Okaywhy bunnies?Why bunnies? That's another good question.You see, it's a callback to the first question[laughter] I don't know, I like bunnies. I have this picture that I got taken on Easter at Sears when I was two years old where I had some bunnies on my lap and I was wearing this striped overalls Easter outfit. I think I've always just thought they were cute and interesting.And I think intuitively, people associate them with mystery and going down the rabbit hole and magic tricks. They're always associated with these things that are magical or curious. It was an intuitive fit for them to represent the secrets in the game. I also like the idea of a collectible being a living creature that you're not actually collecting, you're just scaring away.It's really tempting to sit here and be like, 'Here are a bunch of things in your game, can you make meaning out of them?' I won't do that. But there is one item that I'm going to call out, and I'm not even going to ask you about it really, I just want to talk about it conceptually: The Cheater's Ring. It's a thing you can get through great and I mean great effort, and [spoiler warning] it allows players to clip through walls. And if you do that, then there are designed experiences and even characters that you can find that shouldn't be able to be found, which means theyre scripted, but only by effectively 'breaking' the game.So my specific question: with this in mind, can you expand even more about your relationship to the way a player develops their expectations? Because between this and a few other things, you seem to have made an entire element of Animal Well revolve around the concept of breaking expectations for what secrets are even supposed to be.Yeah, I've now realised that no matter what you put in a game, it will get found. There's no amount of effort that you can put into hiding a secret; I still trust that it will be found and appreciated and wondered about. So [instead], the harder its buried, the more interesting it is, in a sense.In a way, I was designing a game for myself. I think back to secrets I found in old Nintendo games, like the warp whistle in Mario, or even glitches in games that I was too young to know whether they were a secret, or a bug I didn't really even know what a bug meant. And because of [those experiences], I know how powerful [secrets] can be and how much they can inspire the imagination. It's just such a meaty thing to think about. They tap into the very core magic of games when you're younger when maybe you don't know how they're made I mean, a lot of people still don't know how games are made, and there's a lot of things in games I don't understand how they're achieved. Either way, I think it's exciting to get people thinking about where the boundary of the creative design space is and the technical aspects of how the game functions, and to blur that line a little bit, to try and remind people that there's a person that designed this game.[Secrets] are almost an invitation to relate to creators and to think about their design process. They are very much worth putting into a game. I wish more games did that.Images: Alan Lopez / Nintendo LifeI feel it necessary to clarify that the Cheaters Ring isn't even a true debug mode, in a sense. It feels very explicitly designed to be another layer of meta-commentary.Yeah, I think it was a way to almost likeI don't want to go into too much detail, but I was thinking of it as a way to give players a behind-the-scenes look, like the bonus features on a DVD where you get to see some of the cut content, or see a little bit behind the scenes of what's still there. I didn't ever really want to delete anything from the game? It was almost like I was just building over itself as time went on.My favourite playful thing in any gamewell, my favourite video game at all is Super Mario Bros. 3.Okay, I think thats my favourite video game as well.Yeah! And when I was a kid, there was no internet, so we just talked to each other about 'secrets'. And the fact that the game hard-coded the ability to break it by going behind the levels was so playful. It sparked an internal dialogue with my little self that I never forgot.Yeah, I still remember, you get on the white block in the third level and you hold down for like, what, 10 seconds or something and then you're behind the scene and it's amazing! Why is that in there? Yeah, that's burned into my memory. It's like a core memory I have.Do you have a favourite secret in a video game?[long pause] Honestly, I think thatmight be it. That's the one that comes to mind. It's not the most elaborate secret, but it's very surprising and unintuitive, and it's still something you don't see in games nowadays, being able to go into the background of a 2D platformer. So yeah, honestly, I'll definitely say that one right now.Image: Alan Lopez / Nintendo LifeThanks to Billy for taking the time to chat. Animal Well is out on Switch - and it's rather good. ZoophoriaRelated GamesSee AlsoShare:06 Alan is a feature writer who has contributed to Kotaku, Nintendo Life and other prominent gaming sites. He has a background in psychology research, the science of creativity, and over 30 years of Nintendo gaming behind him. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related ArticlesBest Nintendo Switch Games Of 2024The finest Switch games of 2024PSA: Switch 2 Is Getting Revealed In The Next 100 DaysSet your AlarmosMultiple Cartoon Network Games Have Been Removed From The Switch eShopMerry Christmas!Feature: The Best Hidden Gems And Underrated Switch Games Of 2024Some shinies that may have slipped through your fingersFeature: 15 Best-Looking Switch Games Of 2024Hello, my pretties

Image: Nightdive StudiosUpdate [Tue 31st Dec 2024, 12:15pm]: While The Thing has yet to appear on the European Nintendo websites, heading to the eShop on the console itself now shows it ready and waiting to be purchased at your convenience.We've tested on the UK and Spanish stores and the game is sitting there for 24.99 / 27,99 respectively, so now's the time to pounce if you've been waiting patiently. Original story below.Original Story: Nightdive Studio's The Thing: Remastered launched in North America back on 5th December, giving Switch gamers in that territory the chance to (re)acquaint themselves with Computer Artwork's cult squad-based shooter from 2002. However, the European release has been tied up for weeks and it's yet to appear on eShops east of the Atlantic.Subscribe to Nintendo Life on YouTube790kWatch on YouTube The developer and publisher of the remaster took to social media with an update, indicating that the game based on John Carpenter's 1982 film, of course has been submitted to Nintendo of Europe and the team is just waiting for it to appear. Presumably, it's wedged somewhere in Nintendo's holiday backlog, so it looks like it's going to be a 2025 release around these parts:Anyone desperate to play the game is able to access a North American eShop using a Nintendo Account linked to that territory, but it looks like you shouldn't have to wait too long if you'd rather keep your Euro profile and associated accounts neat and tidy.Bafflingly, the possibility that the game is indeed on European eShops disguised as something else entirely apparently hasn't occurred to anyone. (Okay, now we're imagining how cool it would be if you downloaded another game and it turned out to be The Thing. Damn you, ratings boards and advertising standards and refund policies and every other consumer-focused regulation impeding our imagined, middling pranks!)We reviewed the US version earlier in the month, commending Nightdive's efforts at remastering a game that's great for half its run time. A classic fun-but-flawed situation, then - check out our review below, and we'll keep you posted once The Thing finally turns up in Europe. You're gonna have to sleep sometime (we recommend the second half)And it can only get better[source x.com]Related GamesSee AlsoShare:01 Gavin first wrote for Nintendo Life in 2018 before joining the site full-time the following year, rising through the ranks to become Editor. He can currently be found squashed beneath a Switch backlog the size of Normandy. Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...Related Articles161 Games You Should Pick Up In Nintendo's 'Hits For The Holidays' eShop Sale (North America)Every game we scored 9/10 or higher54 Games You Should Pick Up In The Nintendo Switch eShop Holiday Sale (Europe)Every game we scored 9/10 or higherPSA: Switch 2 Is Getting Revealed In The Next 100 DaysSet your AlarmosMultiple Cartoon Network Games Have Been Removed From The Switch eShopMerry Christmas!

In BriefPosted:6:03 AM PST December 31, 2024US telco Lumen says its network is now clear of Chinas Salt Typhoon hackersLumen, one of at least nine U.S. telecommunications firms reportedly compromised by Salt Typhoon hackers, says the Chinese hacking group is no longer in its network.Lumen spokesperson Mark Molzen told TechCrunch that an independent forensic analysis confirmed the company ejected the Chinese actors from its network, adding that there is no evidence that customer data was accessed during the Salt Typhoon breach.Lumens confirmation comes after U.S. telecom giants AT&T and Verizon confirmed to TechCrunch that they had also secured their networks following their breaches. T-Mobile, another Salt Typhoon target, said last month that it had no evidence of hackers still in its systems.AT&T and Verizon both said that a small number of high-profile customers had their communications accessed. U.S. officials said last week that less than 100 people were targeted in total, adding that most were high-ranking U.S. officials and politicians based in Washington D.C.Topics

French food delivery startup Epicery will cease operations Tuesday, after one last holiday season hurrah for its clients and the local food businesses that were using the platform during its nine years in business in exchange for a 25% commission.In a message announcing the decision to customers earlier this month, Epicerys team said that it was the result of the economic and financial challenges we have been facing for several months, and which, despite our best efforts, we have been unable to overcome.With a focus on premium groceries and local deliveries, Epicery suffered when inflation made customers rethink their food spending. Even after ceasing operations in some cities, it had a negative Ebitda of -4.69 million in 2023, on sales of 2.57 million.Before these difficulties, however, the startup reached unexpected highs when France went into lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was still riding that wave in late 2021 when Geopost/DPDgroup, the express parcel delivery branch of Groupe La Poste, which handles Frances national postal service, took a majority shareholding in the company.The corporate alliance made sense at the time: Geopost was also an investor in last-mile delivery service Stuart, of which Epicery was a heavy user. But in recent months, La Poste cut ties with several startups it previously invested in, and in particular, sold Stuart at a significant loss.In a statement shared with TechCrunch, Geopost stated that the decision was made following an in-depth analysis of [Epicerys] financial and operating performance leading to the conclusion that the subsidiarys short- and medium-term profitability has been severely impacted by developments in the food delivery market, a gradual post-COVID return to direct consumption from local shops, and strong competition in the catering segment.Food delivery in France in 2024 looked vastly different compared to Epicerys first years (it launched in 2016). At the time, its competitors included Take Eat Easy, which ceased operations in 2016, but Deliveroo and Uber Eats were nowhere in sight, and quick commerce hadnt gone through its rise and fall. While Cajoo, Flink, Gopuff, and Gorillas no longer operate in France, their marketing presence was hard to escape for quite a while.In comparison, Epicerys scale and visibility were always modest. It had some 25,000 recurring customers, buying from some 1,100 local shops, mostly in Paris and Lyon after it scaled back on its national expansion. This could have made sense as a standalone, lifestyle business, but arguably less so as a VC-backed one, and even less so as part of a large group where numbers like these hardly move the needle, especially with the Stuart synergies gone.Epicery co-founder and CEO douard Morhange wasnt able to comment on strategic aspects due to a non-disclosure agreement. In a personal statement, however, he commented on Epicerys legacy. Im very proud to have introduced local retailers to ecommerce over the past 10 years, and Im confident that theyll continue to develop their digital sales over the coming years.Morhange will remain active in the food sector, saying hes currently working on an ambitious new model that will enable the food industry to pursue its digitalization in France and abroad. As for Epicerys employees, Geopost said that each of them will receive support from the HR teams to discuss opportunities within the Group or to help them find a job.French entrepreneur Nicolas Machard, whose food marketplace Pourdebon is also a subsidiary of Geopost, said hes confident that Epicerys employees will soon land new roles. Hes also confident that Geopost and Pourdebon are still a great fit, mission-wise and economically. Not only is Pourdebon a heavy user of Geoposts food delivery service Chronofresh, but it is also on track to reach profitability in 2027, and will likely work on reaching that milestone earlier.Epicery didnt manage to make the math work on the profitability front, but it sometimes brought up to 10% or even 20% in sales to local shops it worked with. According to Elsa Hermal, who co-founded Epicery with Morhange and VC Marc Menas before leaving operations in 2019, this was a very important milestone.Whats wonderful, and whats very important to me, is that what we promised [shop owners] at the very beginning, and what took us a long time to achieve, has now become an important part of their business, said Hermal, whos now a business coach and impact investor, also through climate fund Satgana.As an investor, Hermal knows that Epicery was operating in a complex niche but doesnt think its a no-go. Logistics businesses are complicated and challenging in terms of metrics, but that doesnt mean it cant be done. Now that local businesses have had a taste of this, and in a context where every sale counts, it wouldnt be too surprising to see an Epicery-like model make a comeback at some point.

As regular readers of TechCrunch will know, 2024 was much like the years before it full of data breaches, ransomware attacks, and mass-hacks exploiting some of the most trivial software vulnerabilities. Even the most well-resourced organizations failed to keep hackers out of their systems over the past twelve months. AT&T experienced its second massive breach of the year, this time affecting nearly all customers; Ticketmaster had an alleged 560 million records stolen in the hack of cloud storage giant Snowflake; and health insurance giant Change Healthcare was hit by a ransomware crew that accessed the sensitive medical details of at least a third of all Americans.Your startup doesnt have to suffer the same fate in 2025. Some of the simplest things in security can help keep malicious hackers at bay.Here are some simple but effective! cybersecurity resolutions you should make as we head into the new year.Securely store your company passwordsPassword managers securely store all of your company passwords, so your employees dont have to worry about remembering them. Password managers also help to create and save unique and complex passwords for all your accounts. This can help prevent account intrusions caused by password re-use, where hackers take advantage of people using the same username and password across various online accounts. As soon as one password is compromised, the hackers can access the persons other accounts using the same password. Some companies are moving away from passwords altogether and relying on passkeys, which are resistant to phishing attacks, and other passwordless technology.Implement multi-factor authenticationPasswords alone are not on their own enough to defend your most important accounts against malicious threats. Hackers stole at least 1 billion personal records in 2024, helped largely by the use of stolen credentials for corporate accounts that were left unprotected by multifactor authentication.MFA, a security feature that requires users to provide an additional code beyond just a password when logging in, makes it far more difficult for cybercriminals to break into online accounts. In the case of cloud computing giant Snowflake, mandating the use of MFA could have prevented a pair of hackers from stealing highly sensitive data from AT&T and more than a hundred other corporate customers.Most security folks will recommend using authenticator apps that generate login codes on the device, rather than codes sent by SMS text message, which can in some cases be intercepted.Keep your software up-to-dateSome of the most damaging breaches of 2024 were caused by a years-old problem: Unpatched vulnerabilities in third-party software. One big hacking target in recent years are managed file-transfer tools, the software used by large companies and enterprises for transferring often large data files over the internet. Some file-transfer products and other enterprise technologies have been around for years (or longer), and are targeted for their propensity to store troves of sensitive company data.While some bugs are exploited as zero-days a vulnerability that comes to light before a patch is available the best thing companies can do is ensure your internal software is kept up-to-date and that security patches are applied as soon as possible.Backup your company dataRansomware attacks had another record-breaking year in 2024, with companies paying hackers huge sums of money in order to get their data back (and prevent it from being leaked online). Regularly backing up your companys data is a critical line of defense against data encryption and data-theft attacks. Backups, too, can also be targeted by hackers for their ability to help victims effectively restore their business operations without significant data loss. Having encrypted offsite backups can help in the event of security or data disasters.Stop picking up the phoneWhile hackers have for years relied on malware-laced email lures as their weapon of choice against unsuspected victims, some hacking groups are turning to fraudulent phone calls as their primary way of hacking into organizations. A single phone call to the IT help desk of casino and hotel giant MGM reportedly led to its massive breach in 2023, which cost the entertainment giant at least $100 million. As TechCrunchs Zack Whittaker writes perfectly here: Always be skeptical of unexpected calls, even if they come from a legitimate-looking contact, and never share confidential information over the phone without verifying them through another means of communication first.Be transparentEven if you do everything right, there are no guarantees that your startup wont be targeted. Startups are a prime target for hackers, thanks to their limited resources compared to larger companies. If your company falls victim to a cyberattack, being upfront about the incident can make a real difference in terms of outcomes. Transparency can help your customers take any action as necessary, and sharing information can help others defend against similar attacks in future.Not only can keeping a data breach under wraps cause reputational damage and potentially cost you significantly in fines but it could also land you a spot in TechCrunchs annual badly handled breaches roundup.

Breakdown & ShowreelsWeta FX Showreel 2024By Vincent Frei - 31/12/2024 Step into the world of cinematic brilliance with Weta FXs latest showreel! From the emotional beats of Better Man to the intense zero-gravity fight scenes in Alien: Romulus, the breathtaking apes of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and the colossal spectacle of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, experience the artistry that defines blockbuster visual effects! Vincent Frei The Art of VFX 2024

The town of Goshen, located in Litchfield County, is located in the northwestern part of Connecticut was first settled by European colonizers in 1738, with the town incorporating a year later. The community was named after theLand of Goshen, a part of ancient Egypt in the Bible. Goshen primarily grew as rural and agricultural in character, with limited industry and commercialization compared to other nearby towns. The town center village was home to the Congregational Church as far back as 1750. In 1832, the present Congregational Church was built from plans by Benjamin E. Palmer, a carpenter-builder who also built the Windham County Courthouse in Brooklyn, Connecticut. The church blends both Federal and Greek Revival styles, and Palmer likely took inspiration from Asher Benjamins design guidebooks. The church retains much of its original character even with the altered steeple, porte-cochere, and conversion of three-door facade to a single-entrance in 1894.