Brainstormed game ideas and settled on a 2D platformer with unique story aspects.Defined core gameplay objectives and mechanics .Created an initial pitch document outlining the concept and overall gameflow. Pitch Document.pptx

Video game adaptations have been going through a little bit of a renaissance recently. Arcane, The Last of Us, the Mario movie, and more have been both critical and commercial hits, and proven that Hollywood might finally have a handle on how to turn video games into movies and TV shows. Its easiest, or at least most obvious, to say this trend started around Detective Pikachu or Sonic the Hedgehog, but the real truth is that the canary in the coal mine was 2016s Assassins Creed (now on Max), a surprisingly good sign that surprisingly great things were on the way. And with a new game in the franchise around the corner, the timing couldnt be better to revisit what is an underrated video game adaptation.The movie follows Cal (Michael Fassbender), a man who is on death row but gets saved by a mysterious organization called Abstergo secretly a front for the Templars of old. The group think his DNA is the key to their plan for world domination, and throw him on a machine called the Animus, which connects Cal to his ancient relative Aguilar de Nerha, a 15th-century warrior who belonged to a secret order of Assassins. In other words, its the exact same plot as just about every Assassins Creed video game thats been released since 2007 (which will be up to 14 main-series video games later this year, if youre keeping track).While the reception to the movie wasnt great upon release, revisiting it in 2025 is a bit of a shock. Director Justin Kurzel (Macbeth, The Order) shoots the movies vision of 15th-century Spain beautifully, with moody shadows that bring out the sparse but gorgeous colors, particularly on the elaborate costumes, which are surprisingly faithful to the Assassin outfits in the games. More importantly, though, is the fact that the movies action looks great. At its best moments, it feels exactly like the Assassins Creed fantasy rendered into live action, with Aguilar encountering burly Templar guards and dispatching them with his hidden blade, then escaping to the rooftops of Madrid for some effortless parkour.The biggest flaw of the movie is that its a narrative nightmare, a fairly common issue with video game adaptations. The clash between the mediums comes mostly because of storytelling space, with games taking up dozens of hours at least, while movies and shows have to squish those overly expansive narratives into neat two- to 10-hour packages. But while earlier attempts often lost their way because they werent faithful to the games they were adapting, Assassins Creeds faults come mostly through its fealty to the earliest games in the series.The first five or so Assassins Creed games, in particular, have ridiculously convoluted narratives. Rather than just being set in their own unique historical setting, the series gives an absurdly complicated modern-day narrative about Assassins, Templars, Abstergo, and some magical/technologically advanced devices, created when the Garden of Eden was built by a forerunner race, to control all human free will. Now, if youve kept up with the franchise, youll know that recently this modern story has taken a pretty significant back seat to the historical action that dominates the series marketing material. The movie, however, went all in.It tries to balance its two storylines carefully, all while opening the door for more movie sequels in the future, tying into the games, and bringing in new fans. Its frankly way too ambitious; the rare video game movie that could have used a little extra shame about the complications of its source material. Ultimately, this results in the movies second half getting mired in modern action thats frankly just not nearly as cool as the historical stuff that came before.But even this narrative quibbling is pretty minor in the grand scheme of the movie. Sure it gets a little lost in the weeds, but like the early Assassins Creed games its emulating, its still a ton of fun. More importantly, like the games, it absolutely nails the historical side of things, not through accuracy, but through the fun of fantasy. The movies version of 15th-century Spain is wonderfully rendered, with excellent costumes, gorgeous sets, and fantastic practical action scenes. Sure, it might be filtered through a convoluted lens, but the Assassins Creed movie is one of the best historical action movies Hollywood has made in years.Despite all of this, Assassins Creed is almost certainly not part of the video game adaptation renaissance. But its still a surprisingly good movie, its still absolutely worth watching, and looking back, its easy to see how it was a sign of great things to come for video game movies and shows.Assassins Creed is now streaming on Max.

I think I know the purpose of the asterisk in Thunderbolts*, the title of the next Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. And if Im wrong Ill OK, I wont promise to eat any articles of clothing. Ive seen how that can backfire. But I would lay money down on it.If youre a longtime comics reader, my answer is not going to surprise you. But with Captain America: Brave New World in the marketing rearview and Marvel Studios going full steam on promoting Thunderbolts*, its own Suicide Squad-like, its a great time to unpack the reasoning for everyone else.It seems obvious to me that Thunderbolts* is really a Dark Avengers movie.Its about past precedentOnce upon a time, Marvel Comics had an event called Dark Reign though it was less of a discrete crossover and more of a general era of storytelling, defined by Norman Osborns rise to significant power in the U.S. government. Osborn (you might know him better as the Green Goblin) used that power, and the public goodwill hed deceptively won, to go from director of the Thunderbolts to director of SHIELD to director of his own paramilitary force, HAMMER, supposedly an acronym, though Osborn declined to invent an actual name that the letters stood for. (It might be helpful context that Dark Reign was published in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration.)At the apex of his rise, Osborn made sure that when the federal government decided to end its support for the Avengers, he would be in charge of making a new, government-approved superhero team to replace them. He put together a team of (mostly) supervillains disguised in the masks of real, publicly adored members of the Avengers including Bullseye as Hawkeye, Moonstone as Ms. Marvel/Carol Danvers, Wolverines rebellious son Daken as Wolverine, and the Scorpion wearing the Venom symbiote as Spider-Man. He also built his own Iron Man-inspired suit, dubbing himself the Iron Patriot.The Dark Avengers went through ups and downs over their history, but were often closely associated with that other superteam made up of supervillains, the Thunderbolts. Osborn used both teams to further his personal agendas of fame and retribution. After his fall from grace, the remaining Dark Avengers were even pressed into a new, more redemptive Thunderbolts program, overseen by Luke Cage.Marvels ongoing Thunderbolts comics series even changed its name to reflect its new characters, from Thunderbolts to Dark Avengers. Do you see what Im getting at here?Its about current patternsThe Marvel Cinematic Universes Thunderbolts, under the thumb of CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, are already primed to fit the matchy-matchy style of the Dark Avengers, if perhaps not in a full-on fool the public into thinking this is the real Hawkeye sort of way.Between Bucky, U.S. Agent, and Red Guardian, the movie has three potential reflections of Captain America, and an easy successor to Black Widow in Yelena Belova. Who does Sentry stand in for? Take your pick: Hes got the godlike power of a Thor and the You wouldnt like me when Im the Other Guy factor of the Hulk. Also, Sentry was a founding member of Osborns original Dark Avengers.Thunderbolts* simply rhymes too much with Norman Osborns superteam to ignore. I fully expect that one of the movies final scenes will be its end title card resolving to one that says Dark Avengers. But theres one more reason Im so sure of my bet.Its about future plansYou cant have an Avengers movie without some folks who call themselves the Avengers. (Well, I suppose you could, but it would be silly.)Kevin Feige has said that fans should expect to see the heroes of Captain America: Brave New World, Fantastic Four: First Steps, and Thunderbolts* in Avengers: Doomsday, the first MCU crossover flick since 2019s Avengers: Endgame, hitting screens almost exactly a year after Thunderbolts*. So whos putting the Avengers in Avengers: Doomsday?Its not the Fantastic Four*.*Id bet money itll be the Thunderbolts I mean, the Dark Avengers.

Firefly Aerospaces first attempt at landing on the moon was a success. The company, which is working with NASA under the agencys Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) program, announced early Sunday morning that its Blue Ghost lander softly touched down on the moon, and its upright and communicating with the team back home. Blue Ghost landed at 3:34AM ET in a region known as Mare Crisium. While Fireflys lander isnt the first commercial spacecraft to land on the moon, it is the first to land properly Intuitive Machines Odysseus ended up on its side last year after a faster-than-planned descent.Blue Ghost and the NASA instruments its carrying are expected to remain in operation for about 14 Earth days. After that, lunar night will begin. If all goes as planned, the lander will capture images in the leadup to lunar night and a few hours after darkness falls, getting high-definition imagery of a total eclipse, the lunar sunset and other moments to document the behaviour of levitating lunar dust. NASA is also testing instruments that can drill and collect samples from the surface.Fireflys Blue Ghost Mission 1 launched on January 15 and reached lunar orbit about a month later. The team says its already sent over 27 GB of data back to Earth from its journey. Just through transit to the Moon, Fireflys mission has already delivered the most science data to date for the NASA CLPS initiative, Shea Ferring, Fireflys Chief Technology Officer, said in a statement, noting that the hardest part of the mission is over. On X, the company shared a photo showing the lander's shadow on the surface of the moon following its successful touchdown, and joked, The lander saw her shadow, 2 more weeks of ops!This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/science/space/fireflys-blue-ghost-lander-successfully-touched-down-on-the-moon-155728834.html?src=rss

Practically every flagship phone can take a great picture. But that hasnt stopped Xiaomi from continuing its partnership with legendary camera maker Leica to produce a photo powerhouse in the new Xiaomi 15 Ultra.Powered by a Snapdragon 8 Elite chip with up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, it goes without saying that the Xiaomi 15 Ultra has top-notch specs. It also has a huge 6,000 mAh battery, which is bigger than anything you get from Apple, Google or Samsung. Meanwhile, when it comes to charging, wired speeds go up to 90 watts or just a tad slower at 80 watts wirelessly, which is no mean feat. And unlike most phones sold in the US, it comes with a power adapter in the box.Elsewhere, the 15 Ultra sports a gorgeous 6.7-inch AMOLED display with a 1-120Hz refresh rate and up to 3,200 nits of brightness. Its also available in three colorways: a white model with an etched back, black with an almost rubbery textured finish and a special Silver Chrome edition that draws inspiration from some of Leicas old-school cameras. I appreciate that the white model I tested features subtle swerves carved into its back that shine in the sunlight. But lets be honest, that two-toned metal and black one is easily the most attractive of the bunch because it really leans into what this phone does best.In back, theres a massive circular camera module that normally Im not a huge fan of when used on rival devices like the OnePlus 13. However, on this device, its more than just a showpiece because inside it is some serious photo hardware. The Ultra 15s 23mm equivalent main camera uses a massive 1-inch 50-megapixel Sony sensor. Then, for stuff like expansive landscapes, theres an f/2.2 50-MP ultrawide cam. But it doesnt stop there because theres not one but two zoom lenses: a 50MP midrange shooter with a 70mm focal length plus a super high-res 200MP periscope array with a 100mm focal length (which equates to a 4.7x optical zoom).Now, I havent had a ton of time to fully put it through its paces, but from what Ive seen so far, the Xiaomi Ultra 15 has one of the most well-rounded photo toolkits around. Its got Leica optics along with big sensors and lenses that cover pretty much every focal length youd need on a daily basis. And on the software side, there are some preset Leica filters like Vibrant or Authentic to really drive home the collaboration between the two brands.Sam Rutherford for EngadgetThat said, one of the things that impresses me the most is that Xiaomi even created a separate Photography kit that includes an add-on camera grip with a physical shutter button, an adjustable dial and a dedicated video button. Theres also a case that allows you to attach a standard 67mm filter adapter. This means, assuming you have the right gear, you can take some of the same glass you use on your real camera and use it with the Ultra 15. And this isnt just some half-hearted afterthought either, as the kit also comes with bonuses like a hand strap, a decorative lens ring and two different removable caps for its shutter.Notably, unlike some Chinese phones like those from Huawei, Xiaomi handsets still have access to Google services, so you can download apps from the Play Store. Even the companys HyperOS 2 is a relatively minimalist Android skin that looks good and is easy to use. And while this model will be available globally starting at around 850, sadly there are no official plans to bring it to the US, which is a real shame because no one is really selling handsets like this in America anymore. (RIP to the Panasonic Lumix DMC-CM1.)This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/mobile/smartphones/the-xiaomi-15-ultra-is-a-leica-powered-photo-showcase-143001055.html?src=rss

Looking for NYT Connections answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, plus my commentary on the puzzles.

Looking for NYT Strands answers and hints? Here's all you need to know to solve today's game, including the spangram.

This week, Xiaomi launched its first premium EV in China called the SU7 Ultra, which starts at 529,000 Chinese yuan ($72,627).

Xiaomi is continuing its push into higher end devices where it is trying to challenge market leader Samsung.

The line its an honor to just be nominated is a cliche, but its certainly true that landing an Oscar nomination comes with prestige, attention, and lots of award-season press coverage on the stories behind every film. But for Union, a documentary film that follows the historic efforts of a group of Amazon warehouse workers as they launchand winthe first-ever union campaign at the retail giant, theres a story in the fact that they werent nominated.When the creative team behind Union first embedded with Amazon Staten Island warehouse workers in 2020, they werent looking to make a buzzy, commercial film. They raised their full budget before the Amazon Labor Union even won its election. They were committed, producer Samantha Curley says, to documenting this particular labor struggle, and asking questions about the modern workforce and how people are politicized through work, long before it was clear just how big the story would become.But then they were there to capture that win, and they were ready with years of footage of Chris Smalls, the campaigns intrepid leader, before he became an overnight labor celebrityheading to the White House and onto the Daily Show and as the subject of major media coverage.And it seemed like their documentary could actually be marketableand big. They premiered at Sundance 2024, and won the festivals U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award for the Art of Change. We really felt like there wasnt a reason that it wouldnt get picked up or distributed, Curley says. They knew Amazons streaming service wouldnt buy the film, of course, but they figured other places might.[Photo: Martin DiCicco]Distributors didnt clamor to pick it up, though. In fact, the filmmakers got pass after pass. Not even were waiting to see or its a soft pass or just not hearing back, but hard nos, relatively quickly, Curley says. So they pivoted to an independent self release, partnering with 250 labor organizations and affinity groups to screen the film for one night or limited runs in more than 20 cities. Those screenings often sold out, meaning Union was the highest-grossing film for the theaters on those nights. They held showings followed by Q&As with Amazon Labor Union workers, and screened the film near Amazon warehouses. They did an online rental release where viewers could donate so that an Amazon worker could watch the film for free.In this way, Unions distribution became a story in itself, mirroring the one the film toldabout the power of organizing, how a small group of people can make a big impact, and who institutional systems really work for. Curley says none of the big distributions actually even said anything about Amazon. What we gathered, that was never explicitly stated, was that it was really about labor, she says.[Photo: Martin DiCicco]The Amazon Labor Union was just one part of a bigger wave of organizing taking place. Around the same time, Apple retail workers began organizing (and got their first contract in 2024), as did Disney park characters (who voted to unionize in 2024). Major actions from the United AutoWorkers, Hollywood actors and writers, and more dominated the news cycle of the past few years. This idea of the labor movement and worker power is so relevant and threatening that, I thinkand again, this wasnt ever explicitly statedbut what we took from those conversations [with distributors] was like, these distributors dont want people pointing the finger at them any moreso than they already are, Curley says.Generally, some were also shying away from political contentthough Curley doesnt think that Union, or the experience of watching it, is overtly political. If youre reading the film that way, its definitely present, but I think the film is about group projects, and about the audacious belief that we can make anything better, or we can change anything about our circumstances, she says.Even though the film itself focuses on Amazon, it offers a broad perspective of the labor movement at large. It is pretty insular to this group of Amazon organizers in Staten Island, Curley says, but we worked really hard to remind viewers this is just one small part of this huge machine. The timing of the film speaks to this as well: its not a 10-year retrospective of a historic moment, but came out amid an ongoing labor resurgence. We wanted the film to become part of the conversation about the future of work and labor organizing.After all that effort, Union did manage to get shortlisted for the Best Documentary Feature Oscar nominations. We were really fortunate to have such strong support and guidance within the awards campaign, and belief that the film could really be in the conversation, Curley says. Being shortlisted did increase the films visibility, boost its independent distribution path, and give the participants some validation, she adds, for all the time they committed to the project.[Photo: Martin DiCicco]It would have been cool and a different journey to have been nominated, she adds, but not being nominated allows us to continue to balance the kind of prestige of the film with the real collective effort and struggle to get the film out there.(The films creative team, along with Curley, includes producer Mars Verrone, cinematographer and producer Martin Dicicco, directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story, editors Blair McClendon and Malika Zouhali-Worrall, and composer Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe.)Its also an opportunity for the film to keep paving its own way. An Oscars appearance can seem like an ending: a grand culmination of effort. But Unions story isnt over. The team is already thinking about its next phase of distribution, and has plans tied to May Day and Labor Day. Its outside of the awards circuit, and so can tell its story beyond awards season. Now we just get to be a film thats trying to reach audiences, Curley says. Amazon workers fight isnt over either; more than two years after unionizing, they still dont have a contract. (Workers authorized a strike at the end of 2024 as part of its efforts to get the retail giant to negotiate.) And the larger conversation about labor isnt ending either; though the Trump administration is taking steps to dismantle the labor movement and erase worker power, those threats are also bolstering conversations about the importance of workers rights, and the power of collective organizing. The film might focus on Amazon, but really it highlights this dichotomy, she notes, of how organizing is essential and also impossible.The film shows the Staten Island warehouse win, yes, but also how the Amazon Labor Union lost its next two elections, and how infighting and burnout start to appear among the organizers. It ends by showing the very beginnings of yet another campaign at a warehouse in California. Its this idea of, we just spend time with this small group of workers, and [this is] going to be happening with workers at every company and every part of the world, Curley says, and that being inspiring and daunting.