Reddit user No-Arm9089, aka indie developer Ashnell Games, has shared a funny trailer for their newly released game called Grandpa High on Retro, which is an action-adventure game with third-person modern mechanics created with Unreal Engine:In this games world featuring a retro PS1 graphics style, you, the grandpa, have been called by a mistress to save her life. The neighborhood will be turned into a fighting arena enter the buildings, go through the forest, and climb up to the roof. (Its not an easy job for a normal grandpa, but youre far beyond being average.)As you pass through semi-open linear levels, get involved in some fierce gunfire and shoot at them using various weapons like guns or grenades, and the boss fights will help unlock new story progress. Youll also enjoy the freedom to explore the neighborhood and learn its history and characters. Ashnell Games Ashnell GamesAshnell Games said that this game is a love letter to GTA 4, GTA San Andreas, Max Payne, and Postal 2. The campaign length is around 4 to 6 hours. Besides the trailer, the developer also shared a few demos on Twitter, showcasing the dialogue and combat:Grandpa High on Retro is now offering a 10% off discount on Steam. Dont hesitate to check it out if youre interested in giving it a try.Join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post A Third-Person Action Adventure Game With PS1 Style Graphics & Modern Mechanics appeared first on CG SHARES.

MachineGamesThere are roles that belong to certain actors, and we cant imagine anyone else there. One of them is Indiana Jones, who will forever be Harrison Ford for us, but time passes, and the actor cant live forever, so the industry has to figure something out.In Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Ford was made 40 years younger with Industrial Light & Magics stellar VFX skills. In Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, the protagonist used Troy Bakers voice and motion capture, and it impressed Ford, who toldThe Wall Street Journal that Bakers performance answers the question of whether AI should be used to create new content from retired actors.You dont need artificial intelligence to steal my soul, Ford said (via VGC.) You can already do it for nickels and dimes with good ideas and talent.As for Baker, Ford thinks he did a brilliant job, and it didnt take AI to do it.Actors have been speaking out against using AI to replicate their voices. Nicolas Cage has recently criticized the notion: That is a dead end if an actor lets one AI robot manipulate his or her performance even a little bit, an inch will eventually become a mile and all integrity, purity, and truth of art will be replaced by financial interests only. We cant let that happen.To fight this loss of autonomy, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) called a strike on behalf of actors working on video games last year, fighting for peoples right to control their voices.Do you agree with Ford? Join our80 Level Talent platformand ournew Discord server, follow us onInstagram,Twitter,LinkedIn,Telegram,TikTok, andThreads,where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.Source link The post Harrison Ford: Troy Baker as Indiana Jones Shows That You Dont Need AI to Steal Souls appeared first on CG SHARES.

Take-Two has supported Nintendo platforms over the years, and the company expects that to continue with the Nintendo Switch 2. This comes just days after another high-profile publisher, EA, said something similar, indicating the Madden series may show up on Switch 2.In an interview with Barron's, Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick said he's not ready to make any announcements, but fans can expect reveals to come. "Historically, we've supported Nintendo platforms selectively; we've supported them when the platform is right for the property at hand," Zelnick said. "We haven't made any announcements, but I think you can expect it will be supportive when it makes sense."During an earnings call, Zenick said there was a time when Nintendo platforms were aimed nearly exclusively at kids and young people in general, but that's no longer the case. The Switch can "support any audience" today, Zelnick said, stopping short of specifically confirming any game releases for Switch 2.Continue Reading at GameSpot

Ahead of its full release on February 11, Civilization VII developer Firaxis has outlined plans to improve the game with post-launch fixes and new features. Early reviews for Civilization VII have been mixed so far, while Steam community feedback posts have also highlighted several areas that need to be addressed.In a developer update, Firaxis revealed that its primary focus is on the user interface, as it wants to make this part of the game easier to use and read. "We need some time to digest all of your feedback, but some areas that we're already looking into include making UI interactions more intuitive, improving map readability, fixing areas of polish like formatting, and more," Firaxis explained in a blog post. "We're committed to getting this right, and will share more details as soon as we can."Firaxis will also be working on implementing several features requested by the community, adding these in via free future updates. While the timing for these has yet to be worked out, the developer says that Civilization VII fans can expect to see the following features added in time:Continue Reading at GameSpot

Those hoping to build an unstoppable team in Pokemon Scarlet & Violet are in luck, as although there are more than 600 Pokemon missing from the games at launch, there's still a fairly wide selection of powerful Pokemon from which to choose, many of which are brand new additions to the long-running franchise. One or two are version exclusives, but most of the most powerful Pokemon can be caught in either version of the game.

A new Stardew Valley-like cozy simulation game, Sugardew Island, has been announced for release in March 2025 on PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch. Developed by indie studio Rokaplay, Sugardew Island shares certain gameplay elements from Stardew Valley, such as farming and relationships with NPCs.

is this project finished. ive been looking for a gig to make music for a game. if your ever interested let me know. im freshly new to this site lol. here is my work KOALA MUSIC - YouTube. also this game looks badass

This is not the first time Ive written about a video game that appears to have been sent out to die, and I predict it will not be the last. The latest victim of the business is Dragon Age: The Veilguard, which of course was one of the subjects of EAs February earnings call with CEO Andrew Wilson.Dragon Age: The Veilguard sold 1.5 million copies in its first two months post-release 50% of what EA higher-ups expected for the game to sell in that time (or perhaps the better word is needed, based on the budget). In order to break out beyond the core audience, games need to directly connect to the evolving demand of players who increasingly seek shared world features and deeper engagement alongside high-quality narratives in this beloved category, Wilson said on the call. Electronic Arts had a high-quality launch and was well reviewed by critics and those who played. However, it did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.Many have zeroed in on the shared world features part of this quote, with some suggesting that Wilson is blaming Veilguards failure to hit sales targets on its lack of live-service elements. Shared world elements would have been out of place in Veilguard, to be sure. But the part Im fixated on is that last part, when Wilson says that Veilguard did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market.Its no secret that 2024 was a huge year for RPGs. And all of those RPGs had the arguable misfortune of following in the footsteps of the unexpected juggernaut that is Baldurs Gate 3, which sold 2.5 million copies after entering early access in 2020; since fully launching in 2023, it has sold 15 million copies and is still in Steams top 20 most-played games. Andrew Wilson will hear no argument from me about the highly competitive market for RPGs. That would have been a steep uphill climb for the developers of Dragon Age: The Veilguard.But the Veilguard team was already climbing uphill for years before hitting the market. The game faced multiple redesigns, several high-profile departures, and staff layoffs over the course of its 10-year development. The mere fact that this game took a decade to make would likely have caused its costs to be far more significant than the other RPGs with which it was competing for players attention in 2024. To quote Bloomberg reporter (and my friend) Jason Schreier in his recent article about skyrocketing video game costs: To understand why video-game budgets have grown so rapidly, you have to understand where that money is actually going: paying peoples salaries. [] So if you have 300 employees and youre estimating $20,000 a month for each one (got to pay good wages to compete in 2025), youre spending $72 million a year.We dont know the exact salaries for all the employees who came and went over the course of Veilguard, but it seems fair to say that its budget likely ballooned over the course of its long, tumultuous development time.For further comparison: Metaphor: ReFantazio had a similarly long development cycle, having first been announced in 2016. Last October, publisher Sega announced that Metaphor: ReFantazio had sold 1 million copies. Not so different from Veilguards numbers, except it wasnt considered a failure!Lets go to another example: the sales of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, about which Square Enix higher-ups have been tight-lipped. This was a sequel, so the comparison might not feel entirely fair, but it is from 2024, so it was definitely competing for players attention alongside these other RPGs. Rebirth had a four-year development cycle and has been widely described as underperforming after early estimates placed it at 2 million copies sold. (FF7 Rebirth recently came to PC via Steam and appears to be doing quite well, but were only talking about early sales numbers here.)Another 2024 RPG, Dragons Dogma 2, took five years to develop. This game was considered a huge success for Capcom, selling 2.5 million copies in its first 11 days post-release. The game eventually hit a milestone of 3.3 million in October 2024, but based on EAs metrics and expectations shared on the earnings call, those early numbers are key.One more! Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth took three years to develop, and it sold 1 million units in its first week, according to a proud press release describing it as the fastest-selling title in the series.So why would Veilguard be considered a failure by comparison? In terms of copies sold, its in the ballpark of what one might expect compared to the other RPGs released in the same time period at the $70 price point. Selling 1.5 million units in the first quarter heck, even just 1 million seems on par with the number of people on this planet who buy RPG video games of this scope.The Metaphor: ReFantazio comparison seems particularly telling to me, especially given its eight-year development timeline. Again, we cant see under the hood in terms of how much those developers salaries actually are costing. But we do know that Metaphor hasnt even managed to sell as many copies as Veilguard up to this point, and when I Google the words Atlus layoffs, all I can find is this article from 2024 about how the studio raised its workers salaries.The Dragon Age series was, historically, successful enough to set high expectations for Veilguard but lets consider those numbers. Dragon Age: Inquisition arrived in 2014 to a very different video game landscape with different costs. But, hey, what were those early sales numbers? 1.14 million units in the first week. Now, Inquisition went on to be the best-selling Bioware game of all time, eventually hitting 12 million units a mega-blockbuster. To contrast that with another entry in the series, Dragon Age 2 only has an estimated 2 million sales.All this to say, EA CEO Andrew Wilson and the rest of EA leadership didnt just expect Dragon Age: The Veilguard to sell on par with the inevitable competition, or even slightly above average. They expected it to be a huge, immediate hit and they didnt just expect it, they budgeted for it. Even though the entire year of other comparable RPGs leading up to Veilguard proved the unlikelihood of this, those expectations didnt change. And then, unsurprisingly, Veilguard failed to meet them.And so, even though the game sold just as well as it ordinarily would have for the type of game that it is and the time period in which it was released, BioWare still got hit with a post-release restructure and layoffs (the team size is estimated to be just 100 people now) because Veilguard needed to be not just a success, but a massive success. And it needed to become that successful in a year that also had multiple other amazing RPG releases preceding it. And it needed to do that after having one of the most infamously tortured development cycles Ive heard about in my entire journalistic career.Maybe the game did not resonate with a broad enough audience in this highly competitive market. But highly competitive expectations seem like an undeniable factor, too.

Ceramist Alex Matisse is a member of a storied family of artists and inventors, including his great-grandfather Henri Matisse and father Paul. Raised in a small New England town, he was making things from clay in the fourth grade. By the time he entered high school it was all that he wanted to do.Matisse was hesitant to fully embrace his calling because he didnt want to be compared to anyone else. When I graduated, I made one more concerted effort to leave behind the family legacy, and didnt sign up for any art classes at college, he says. A month or two in and I was totally miserable and talked my way into the ceramics program. A year and a half later he left higher education behind to pursue traditional apprenticeship and was mentored by two potters, Matt Jones and Mark Hewitt.In 2009, Matisse purchased an old tobacco farm in the mountains of North Carolina and founded East Fork. He built a wood-burning kiln that was 36 feet long and also established a series of rudimentary workshops which served as the original site of the fledgling business. He now works alongside his wife Connie Rose Coady-Matisse, and today the company is one of the largest dinnerware manufacturers in the United States.Alex Matisse \\\ Photo: Tim RobisonEven when Matisse is not producing pottery with clays from the American Southeast, he finds it difficult to switch from work to personal mode. When he does find some spare time in a packed schedule hell often hop on his bike and ride deep into the woods to reset.As a creative, Matisse has plenty of things to jot down, not always an easy feat when hes on the go or in an unexpected place. My ideas usually come at inopportune times, like when I am driving to work in the dark on my long commute, he adds. I have a hard time keeping track of a physical notebook so I usually have three or four half-filled ones going at a time.Today, Alex Matisse joins us for Friday Five!Photo: Courtesy of East Fork1. A Wooden LadleThis was made by a guy named Jake who lived in an airstream on the property that East Fork was started on. Jake was there to help a friend of mine named Raivo build this beautiful timberframed kiln shed that would shelter a large wood-burning kiln. It came out of a hunk of cherry from a tree we cut down in the middle of an old tobacco field. Jake sent me the spoon maybe a year after he moved back to Maine. The level of detail and precision has always floored me. Its one of the few functional objects I have that I am too scared to use because I love it so much. I generally frown upon not using things that are designed to be used.Photo: Courtesy of Matisse Family2. Franois-Xavier Lalanne hippo tubMy grandmother Teeny lived in a beautiful country house in a small village south of Paris. She was married to Pierre Matisse and then Marcel Duchamp before he died so naturally there was art everywhere. My absolute favorite piece of capital A art was the Lalanne Hippo tub. It functioned beautifully and my brother and I would always insist that they close up the sides and we would slosh around in the echoey blackness.Photo: Tim Robison3. Our little cabin in the woodsWhen we wanted to get out of Asheville but not travel far we would rent this little cabin that our friends Helen and Josh (of Fuzzco) renovated. We happened to have it rented the weekend that everything shut down in the spring of 2020. We never left and bought it a year later. Its very small, doesnt have closets or a washing machine (we did finally install one in a cinderblock outbuilding a short walk from the cabin) and usually has a family of flying squirrels who live in the eves, and I drive 45 minutes to work each way every day but I love it. It sits perched on a spit of land that is surrounded by steep woods and you look out into the canopy from almost every room. The cabin holds our family close, not letting us drift away like you can in a large house. Our girls have grown up tromping in the river and exploring the woods, and it was a cocoon that held Connie and I tight through some of the hardest moments of our marriage. It has a wood-fired hot tub and a wood stove and a ton of beautiful native landscaping I installed during Covid, so I keep the fires tended and plants watered and Connie keeps us fed, and when friends come to visit the rest of the world falls away in this little oasis.Photo: Alex Matisse4. My father, Paul MatisseMy father built his life around making beautiful things. He would never call himself just an artist always an artist/inventor. The things he made are beautiful and accessible and often interactive. He has an engineers mind and is prone to over complicate, but the finished thing always brings joy to whoever interacts with it. Most of his life was spent making musical sculptures installed everywhere from a sculpture park in Aix-en-Provence to the Boston T to an old grain silo on the property of a close friend, artist Otto Peine. We grew up in a large converted baptist church in a small town outside of Boston. In the house he would design solutions for everything, like a mechanism that opened both sides of a cabinet door when you pull on just one side, everything designed and machined in the machine shop on the ground floor. There was no chimney or fireplace in the church when we were young and he solved that problem by hanging our stockings under the clapper of the massive iron bell that hangs in the belfry, it rings on the hour every hour and is still wound by hand twice a week.Photo: Mike Belleme5. The first wood kiln at East ForkFrom 2010 to 2015 all the pots I made were fired in a large wood burning kiln I designed and built myself (with the help of some good friends of course). It was about the length of a school bus and could hold about 1000 pots of various sizes from 4-foot-tall decorative vessels to the smallest bowl just 3 inches across. The kiln was a mash up of large kilns you would find in different parts of the world, from the groundhog kilns of North Carolina to big kilns designed to fire water jars in Burma. The curve of the sides was drawn from the silhouette of a candle flame. It was a beautiful space to be in, which was nice because every time we loaded the kiln it would take about 3 or 4 days of sitting in it loading the pottery. What I loved about making pottery back then was how you could build just about every part of the technical process, not to mention make your own clay and glazes from materials you pulled out of the ground yourself. We sold that property when we moved East Fork in to Asheville to help fund the growth. The kiln was taken down and the bricks recycled, turned into three or four smaller kilns, including one on Marthas Vineyard. One day I hope I get to build another workshop like that, and fire a big wood burning kiln again.Works by Alex Matisse and East Fork:East Fork pottery photos courtesy of East Fork.