• New Seinen Manga For Mature Fans Coming Late January
    gamerant.com
    Many popular series have been ending abruptly, and with that, fans of manga are always looking for new series to get immersed in. A new manga will soon debut this month, known as Go to Go.
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  • The 5 First Principles of proper open world game design;
    gamedev.net
    1) The main character must be Cool!(Why would anybody want to go around killing innocent people in order to pay a tennis coach $150 an hour to basically live at their house and sleep with their wife!?)2) The setting must be Interesting!(Otherwise it's boring! And there's nothing interesting about a typical modern day city!)3) The missions must be Open!(We play open world games for freedom, not to be constatly told STAY ON THE YELLOW LINE! like Rockstar do
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  • These two games demand you type if you want to survive
    www.polygon.com
    The keyboard is a popular peripheral, but few games move beyond the common WASD controls and pursue typing and transcription as a major game mechanic. Some classic games did require typing to go north, and everyone knows the classic educational games of the typing genre (shout out to Mavis Bacon), but most games use different control schemes these days apart from some recent examples that make typing a central mechanic.In Dead Letter Dept., set to release on Jan. 30, the player character is a small town schmuck down on their luck and starting over in the big city. In order to pay the bills, they take a temp job doing data entry. As the character, you work for a mysterious agency that sends you to a strange, isolated industrial area to transcribe bits of mail from the postal service that the computer couldnt properly scan.The player has to punch in addresses, names, and notes, starting off at their own pace. As the narrative escalates a timer can kick in, but at first its just perusing pieces of random correspondence between friends and family: smiling faces, vacation photos, cute cards. I started off finger-pecking and finding citizen addresses in the database, but slowly began to transcribe long and unhinged messages from people in mysterious but terrifying circumstances.The imagery and text then become more surreal, and the protagonist slowly breaks down between shifts. A full run through the game takes approximately two hours, during which the agency delivers more randomized mail. The drudge work is made much more interesting with great scares set up by ominous narratives that play out over mail exchanges, clever audio cues and tech effects as the agency computer breaks, and a few slow build-ups to spooky jump scares.A very different recent typing game I enjoyed is Cryptmaster, an old-school dungeon crawler. The stark black-and-white visuals set the mood early with scuttling cockroaches, baleful skeletons, and swarms of rats. Four adventurers are commandeered into service by the titular Cryptmaster, a sinister and sassy necromancer with a grand plan. In order to pull it off, hell need some cronies, and so he finds four ancient heroes: the fighter Joro, the bard Maz, the roguish Syn, and the wizard Nix. The group must work its way through crypts, swamps, and tombs to the surface and in order to succeed, youre going to need to type like youve never typed before.Much like Hangman, Wheel of Fortune, or Wordle, much of Cryptmaster relies on filling in the blanks to guess a phrase, and mastering an existing vocabulary for battle. This starts off simple if you approach a chasm, you type JUMP to traverse it. When you find a chest, the Cryptmaster gives you a few hints, and you have to guess its identity.Being dead is terrible for the memory, so not only do our four heroes need to re-learn all of their skills, but they have to guess at concepts like a helmet or shield. As you defeat early enemies, the heroes slowly remember baseline skills like SOOTHE, JAB, and YELL, adding the commands to their repertoires. Now, if youll excuse me, I need to puzzle over a six letter ability with an O, a T, and an H in there.The game is in stark black and white, with an old-school interface where players use the arrow keys to navigate one step at a time. It only takes about a dozen hours to beat Cryptmaster, but its such an inventive game based around a strong central mechanic that the time flies by.Cryptmaster came out in May 2024, but it flew under my radar since its such a busy year for games. Its great to see two inventive games so close together, each using typing as a core pillar, but in very different ways. After playing shooters, RPGs, and cozy crafting games, typing games are a different way to get my noggin jogging. Transcription may seem boring at first glance, but doing it in a highly atmospheric environment with a metaphorical blade of damocles dangling over my head adds a certain thrill. Hopefully, well see creative developers continue to use typing as a way to navigate strange or scary worlds.
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  • This $10 game bundle is a great deal to support the trans community
    www.polygon.com
    In the wake of Executive Orders meant to roll back protections against vulnerable marginalized communities, 40 game designers have donated their games to the Best of 2024 TTRPG bundle in order to raise funds for The Trans Empowerment Project. The organization is a 501(c)3 non-profit that directly aids hundreds of trans folks each year. It also recently began the Quest Collective an initiative to support the community of tabletop gamers of marginalized genders by spotlighting a different game by a trans designer each month.The bundle, organized by Rayney Day Games, includes nearly 80 games with a diverse range of genres and systems from a collection of Monster of the Week adventures, to a queer hack of Honey Heist, the horror TTRPG Darkest Hour, and the perfectly named Teddy Bear Holding a Freaking Machine Gun.Among the bundles many solo games is Phantasticine, written by Taylor Smith with illustrations from Maria Capelle Frantz. Inspired by podcasts like Nothing Much Happens, the game is meant to help you fall asleep. The role-playing game equivalent of a guided meditation, it offers a structured scenario for the players imagination to explore as they drift into sleep a type of calming escapism that many might find extremely welcome right now.The bundle also includes duet games like Bound Together. An expanded version of the solo-game Bound by Kaden Ramstack, Bound Together is a playing card-based, setting agnostic, road trip RPG set in a post-collapse world. Players act as two characters who cling to one another as they travel across a dangerous land. Unfortunately, try as they might, they will likely not complete their journey. With a gorgeous black and gold design, this game alone is worth the price of the bundle.Also littered throughout this bundle are experimental microRPGs like Rainbow Mutant Slimes by Leigh Eldridge and Fil Cieplak. The GMless game for 1-6 players tells the story of a peaceful family of slimes living deep within a cave system until a Wizard uses it as a storage facility, drawing unwanted attention from bands of adventurers in search of the very magical artifact that gave you and your family sentience. With adorable, and colorful, designs alongside a quick set of rules and random tables, Rainbow Mutant Slimes is easy to pick up as you work to stop the adventurers from stealing the very thing that makes you you.While the Best of 2024 TTRPG bundle is brimming with great games, the money it raises will be used to directly aid trans and gender nonconfirming people in areas most impacted by anti-trans federal and state actions, with chapters in 11 states including Texas, Georgia, and North Carolina.
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  • Four New Experimental YouTube Premium Features That Launched This Week
    lifehacker.com
    YouTube Premium is expanding its list of paid-only featuresat least, for those who are willing to experiment. In a blog post this week, the company announced a handful of new experimental features available to Premium subscribers. These features, while not enabled by default, can be switched on from youtube.com/new, and can be used until they expire. In addition, YouTube also announced a sneak peak at a feature in the works, as well as a Premium discount for Google One subscriptions. Higher-quality musicYouTube Premium is adding a new high-quality audio bitrate for music videos. Now, songs can be up to 256kbps, matching the highest audio quality found on YouTube Music. This feature is only available on iOS and Android at the moment, from now through Feb. 22.Jump Ahead (on the web)Jump Ahead is an AI-powered YouTube feature that analyzes watch behavior on any given video to determine its "best" part, offering to "jump ahead" to that section. YouTube originally rolled out the feature as a test nearly a year ago, and has since made it a YouTube Premium option on mobile. Now, you can access it on the web as an experimental feature, from now until Feb. 5.Picture-in-picture for ShortsPicture-in-picture (or PiP) is a useful way to watch a video while multitasking on your device. If the video in question is a YouTube Short, however, PiP won't work, presumably because, well, the videos are quite short. If you have a Premium subscription, however, you can enable an experimental feature that lets you watch Shorts in PiP. I suppose that's good news for extremely busy viewers who want to watch a video that's 60 seconds or less, but need to get back to work immediately. Curiously, this feature is only available on iOS, and only until Feb. 19. Automatic Shorts downloadsSpeaking of Shorts, a new Premium experimental feature will automatically download Shorts for offline viewing. This feature is also an iOS exclusive: When you sign up for the experimental feature, you can head to the Downloads section of YouTube and scroll to "Smart Downloads," where you'll find any recently downloaded Shorts. This feature is available through Feb. 19. YouTube Premium discount through Google OneGoogle is also rolling out a new discount for YouTube Premium when it's purchased with a Google One Premium subscription (or higher). Google One Premium starts at $9.99 per month, and while YouTube Premium typically costs $13.99 per month, you can drop that cost to 11.99 per month. That's not a huge savings, but I do think it'll be an interesting offer for anyone who already subscribes to both or has one of the two subscriptions and is on the fence about subscribing to the other. If you're thinking, "Wait: I pay $19 a month for YouTube Premium. What's this about $14 a month?" that means you likely subscribed in the app, rather than the website (at least on iOS). Companies frequently increase the costs of subscriptions in apps versus on the web, since they need to pay a 30% tax to Apple or Google. If you subscribed through the Android app, you probably didn't have this premium hike. Faster playback speeds on iOS and Android (coming soon)This feature isn't out yet, but in its blog post, YouTube announced an in-the-works feature that will expand the playback speed options on mobile. iOS and Android users will be able to stream at up to 4x speed. As for who would want to watch or listen to content at that speed, I cannot say.
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  • Why Fitbit Is Limiting Battery Performance on Some Smartwatch Models
    lifehacker.com
    This week, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced that Fitbit has agreed to pay a $12.25 million settlement over one of their older smartwatches, which had a battery defect that left some users with serious burns. Meanwhile, Fitbit itself announced that some of its more recent smartwatchesthe Sense and the Versa 3may also have an issue with overheating batteries that could pose a hazard to wearers, and is updating their software to fix the issue.What is the problem with Sense and Versa 3?According to a notice posted on the Fitbit Help Center, some (not all) Sense and Versa 3 devices have a defective battery that could overheat and possibly cause burns. Both of those watches were released in 2020. So far, Fitbit has not identified any newer watches as having this problem.What to do if you have a Sense or a Versa 3Fitbit says they are rolling out an update to the affected watches (again, not every Sense or Versa 3) that will limit its battery capabilities. Fitbit says: The update will improve the stability of the devices battery performance and reduce the risk of the battery overheating. As a result, the battery will last for shorter periods between charges and you may need to charge your device more frequently.If you dont want to update your device, too bad. According to that notice, after several days, your device will factory reset itself. This means it will delete any data that wasnt synced to your phone, and youll have to do the setup process all over again. In the course of the setup process, the new firmware update will be installed. There doesn't seem to be a way to continue using the device without the update.Youll know your device is due for an update thanks to notifications that will be sent to your phone, the device, and to your email.You can get $50 if you have an impacted Sense or Versa 3To soften the blow, Fitbit has a set up a form you can fill out to determine eligibility for a $50 appeasement if your device was one of the ones forced to update. Fitbit says it could take a week to verify whether youre eligible, during which time they may ask you for more information, and then another three weeks to process the payment.Fitbit also agreed to pay a fine over an earlier dangerous battery issueWhile it shouldn't affect any current Fitbit users, the company has also agreed to pay a $12.25 million settlement to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission over an earlier battery issue. The Ionic, a smartwatch launched in 2017, started burning peoples wrists as early as 2018, according to reports the company received.In 2020, the same year the Ionic was discontinued, Fitbit rolled out a battery update to reduce the risk of overheating (hmm, sounds familiar) but continued to receive reports of burns. They worked with the CPSC to do a full recall in 2022. You can find more information about that recall here.The settlement Fitbit is paying now is not directed at consumers who had the affected watches (that compensation was intended to be addressed with the recall), but to the CPSC itself, for failing to notify the government agency about such a seriously hazardous product. There were 78 reports of burn injuries, including two reports of third-degree burns and four reports of second-degree burns, the CPSC says. The company is also required to maintain internal controls and procedures designed to ensure compliance with the Consumer Product Safety Act (CPSA). A battery update isnt necessarily an ideal fix for consumers. For example, Fitbit parent company Google recently rolled out a battery update to its old Pixel 4a phones (released in 2020) that some users are saying makes the devices unusable. Ive reached out to Fitbit to ask if the Sense and Versa 3 update is related to the CPSC settlement and will update this article if I hear back.
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  • How to buy a NVIDIA RTX 50 series GPU
    www.engadget.com
    Following a two-year wait, NVIDIAs highly-anticipated GeForce 50 series of GPUs are nearly here. Engadget has published its review of the $2,000 RTX 5090, but if youre reading this article, chances are you already know if you want to splurge on a 50 series card. The question then is how to buy one of them? Depending on when you read this story, the good news is that were at most a week away from major retailers, including Best Buy and Newegg, stocking the new cards on January 30.As for the bad news? If the 50 series launch is anything like the 40 series one before it, expect high demand and limited initial availability. If youre set on buying an RTX 5090, 5080, 5070 Ti or 5070 at release, be sure to use the notification feature Best Buy and other retailers offer to have the best chance of securing one of the cards before they all sell out.GeForce RTX 5090 for $2,000: The RTX 5090 is the most expensive consumer GPU NVIDIA has ever released. Its also one of the most powerful and power-hungry, with the 5090 featuring 21,760 CUDA cores, 32GB of GDDR7 VRAM and a potential total power draw of 575W.Of course, as with all of NVIDIAs new GPUs, raw specs are only half the story. In conjunction with DLSS 4, the entire 50 series is capable of multi-frame generation. With the tech, RTX 50 GPUs can generate up to three additional frames for every frame they render using traditional techniques. DLSS 4 is the reason the 5090 can produce an average of 246 frames per second with full ray tracing in games like Cyberpunk 2077.If you prefer to buy from Newegg or B&H, both retailers will stock models from third-party OEMs, including ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI and Zotac.GeForce RTX 5080 for $999: Despite costing half as much as the RTX 5090, the 5080 is no slouch. It features an impressive 10,752 CUDA cores and 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM, with a memory bandwidth of 960GB/sec. Like the 5090, you get the benefit of DLSS 4 multi-frame generation. Moreover, total power draw is more modest at 360W, meaning you probably wont need a 1,000W PSU to power the 5080.Again, both Newegg and B&H will stock third-party options. For a Founders Edition model, your best bets are NVIDIA and Best Buy.GeForce RTX 5070 Ti for $749. If I had to guess, the 5070 Ti is probably the model with the most interest from people who want to buy a 50 series card. Thats because it features 16GB of GDDR7 VRAM compared to the 5070s 12GB. An extra 4GB of VRAM might not seem like much, but it will likely translate to the 5070 Ti being a much better purchase over the long run. Modern AAA games use a lot of VRAM, so much so that 8GB GPUs like the RTX 3070 are starting to show their age.Unfortunately, the 5070 Ti is the one model NVIDIA won't offer a Founders Edition version of, so finding one to buy may be tricky. Your best bet here is likely to be B&H. The retailer is showing a few 5070 Ti models on its website.GeForce RTX 5070 for $549: At launch, the RTX 5070 will be NVIDIAs most affordable 50 series GPU. Its also the GPU NVIDIA claims is as fast as the RTX 4090. Of course, thats with DLSS 4 enabled. If youre interested in the 5070, I strongly advise waiting for reviews to come out before you commit to buying one. As mentioned, with only 12GB of VRAM, the 5070 could quickly become a bottleneck to your system.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/computing/how-to-buy-a-nvidia-rtx-50-series-gpu-160902797.html?src=rss
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  • NYT Strands today my hints, answers and spangram for Saturday, January 25 (game #328)
    www.techradar.com
    Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.
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  • Did you show negative sentiment for insurance companies after the UHC CEO shooting? Police were watching
    www.fastcompany.com
    When news broke that the United Healthcare CEO was shot in broad daylight early last month, outrage erupted online. But it wasnt aimed at the assassin. Instead, it was directed at the broken U.S. healthcare system he represented. But, it turns out, for those who expressed negative sentiment about insurance companies online, the government was watching.A document obtained by the transparency nonprofit Property of the People via the New York State Intelligence Center, and reported by journalist Ken Klippenstein on his Substack, warned against users online wanting to counter corporate greed. Marked LAW ENFORCEMENT USE ONLY, this type of document is typically inaccessible to the public, and is only in the public domain thanks to the transparency efforts of Property of the People.The warning signs come as a sea of social media posts indicate that shooting suspect Luigi Mangione might be viewed as a martyr who could inspire extremists to action, the document reads. There is a concern with potential copy-cat attacks, increased online threats of violence, and potential for hoax or doxing incidents directed at high-profile corporate employees or public leaders.The report cited examples including a viral online poll asking, Who is the most hated CEO in America? and the Wanted posters that briefly appeared around Manhattan, displaying the names and salaries of several health insurance executives. (In response, panicked executives scrambled to scrub their personal information from the internet and hired additional security.)The document also mentioned the wave of positive posts on social media about Mangione. One X user described his perp walk as the Hardest pic of 2024. Another replied to the NYPD News X account, Did you guys . . . make him hotter?According to Klippenstein, the document is part of a larger wave of threat reports circulated among law enforcement by intelligence hubs established after 9/11 to combat terrorism, known as fusion hubs.Mangione is currently facing 11 state criminal counts in New York, including first-degree murder and murder as a crime of terrorism. If you were one of those who liked his mug shot or a related meme, be wary.Oh, so everyone? one reader commented under Klippensteins post. That narrows it down.
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