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ActuGaming.net Juste après la sortie de son DLC, Lies of P dépasse les 3 millions d’exemplaires Sans doute l’une des meilleures alternatives aux jeux de From Software, Lies of P a […] L'article Juste après la sortie de son DLC, Lie

Starving bacteria (cyan) use a microscopic harpoon—called the Type VI secretion system—to stab and kill neighboring cells (magenta). The prey burst, turning spherical and leaking nutrients, which the killers then use to survive and grow. (Image Credit: Glen D'Souza/ASU/Screen shot from video)NewsletterSign up for our email newsletter for the latest science newsBacteria are bad neighbors. And we’re not talking noisy, never-take-out-the-trash bad neighbors. We’re talking has-a-harpoon-gun-and-points-it-at-you bad neighbors. According to a new study in Science, some bacteria hunt nearby bacterial species when they’re hungry. Using a special weapon system called the Type VI Secretion System (T6SS), these bacteria shoot, spill, and then absorb the nutrients from the microbes they harpoon. “The punchline is: When things get tough, you eat your neighbors,” said Glen D’Souza, a study author and an assistant professor at Arizona State University, according to a press release. “We’ve known bacteria kill each other, that’s textbook. But what we’re seeing is that it’s not just important that the bacteria have weapons to kill, but they are controlling when they use those weapons specifically for situations to eat others where they can’t grow themselves.” According to the study authors, the research doesn’t just have implications for bacterial neighborhoods; it also has implications for human health and medicine. By harnessing these bacterial weapons, it may be possible to build better targeted antibiotics, designed to overcome antibiotic resistance. Ruthless Bacteria Use HarpoonsResearchers have long known that some bacteria can be ruthless, using weapons like the T6SS to clear out their competition. A nasty tool, the T6SS is essentially a tiny harpoon gun with a poison-tipped needle. When a bacterium shoots the weapon into another bacterium from a separate species, the needle pierces the microbe without killing it. Then, it injects toxins into the microbe that cause its internal nutrients to spill out.Up until now, researchers thought that this weapon helped bacteria eliminate their competition for space and for food, but after watching bacteria use the T6SS to attack their neighbors when food was scarce, the study authors concluded that these tiny harpooners use the weapon not only to remove rivals, but also to consume their competitors’ leaked nutrients.“Watching these cells in action really drives home how resourceful bacteria can be,” said Astrid Stubbusch, another study author and a researcher who worked on the study while at ETH Zurich, according to the press release. “By slowly releasing nutrients from their neighbors, they maximize their nutrient harvesting when every molecule counts.” Absorbing Food From NeighborsTo show that the bacteria used this system to eat when there was no food around, the study authors compared their attacks in both nutrient-rich and nutrient-poor environments. When supplied with ample resources, the bacteria used their harpoons to kill their neighbors quickly, with the released nutrients leaking out and dissolving immediately. But when resources were few and far between, they used their harpoons to kill their neighbors slowly, with the nutrients seeping out and sticking around. “This difference in dissolution time could mean that the killer cells load their spears with different toxins,” D’Souza said in another press release. While one toxin could eliminate the competition for space and for food when nutrients are available, another could create a food source, allowing bacteria to “absorb as many nutrients as possible” when sustenance is in short supply.Because of all this, this weapon system is more than ruthless; it’s also smart, and important to some species’ survival. When genetically unedited T6SS bacteria were put in an environment without food, they survived on spilled nutrients. But when genetically edited T6SS bacteria were placed in a similar environment, they died, because their ability to find food in their neighbors had been “turned off.”Harnessing Bacterial HarpoonsAccording to the study authors, the T6SS system is widely used by bacteria, both in and outside the lab. “It’s present in many different environments,” D’Souza said in one of the press releases. “It’s operational and happening in nature, from the oceans to the human gut.” The study authors add that their research could change the way we think about bacteria and could help in our fight against antibiotic resistance. In fact, the T6SS could one day serve as a foundation for targeted drug delivery systems, which could mitigate the development of broader bacterial resistance to antibiotics. But before that can happen, however, researchers have to learn more about bacterial harpoons, and about when and how bacteria use them, both to beat and eat their neighbors.Article SourcesOur writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:Sam Walters is a journalist covering archaeology, paleontology, ecology, and evolution for Discover, along with an assortment of other topics. Before joining the Discover team as an assistant editor in 2022, Sam studied journalism at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois.1 free article leftWant More? Get unlimited access for as low as $1.99/monthSubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In1 free articleSubscribeWant more?Keep reading for as low as $1.99!SubscribeAlready a subscriber?Register or Log In

One stock recently impacted by a whirlwind of volatility is Block—the fintech powerhouse behind Square, Cash App, Tidal Music, and more. The company’s COO and CFO, Amrita Ahuja, shares how her team is using new AI tools to find opportunity amid disruption and reach customers left behind by traditional financial systems. Ahuja also shares lessons from the video game industry and discusses Gen Z’s surprising approach to money management.   This is an abridged transcript of an interview from Rapid Response, hosted by Robert Safian, former editor-in-chief of Fast Company. From the team behind the Masters of Scale podcast, Rapid Response features candid conversations with today’s top business leaders navigating real-time challenges. Subscribe to Rapid Response wherever you get your podcasts to ensure you never miss an episode. As a leader, when you’re looking at all of this volatility—the tariffs, consumer sentiment’s been unclear, the stock market’s been all over the place. You guys had a huge one-day drop in early May, and it quickly bounced back. How do you make sense of all these external factors? Yeah, our focus is on what we can control. And ultimately, the thing that we are laser-focused on for our business is product velocity. How quickly can we start small with something, launch something for our customers, and then test and iterate and learn so that ultimately, that something that we’ve launched scales into an important product? I’ll give you an example. Cash App Borrow, which is a product where our customers can get access to a line of credit, often $100, $200, that bridges them from paycheck to paycheck. We know so many Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. That’s a product that we launched about three years ago and have now scaled to serve 9 million actives with $15 billion in credit supply to our customers in a span of a couple short years. The more we can be out testing and launching product at a pace, the more we know we are ultimately delivering value to our customers, and the right things will happen from a stock perspective. Block is a financial services provider. You have Square, the point-of-sale system; the digital wallet Cash App, which you mentioned, which competes with Venmo and Robinhood; and a bunch of others. Then you’ve got the buy-now, pay-later leader Afterpay. You chair Square Financial Services, which is Block’s chartered bank. But you’ve said that in the fintech world, Block is only a little bit fin—that comparatively, it’s more tech. Can you explain what you mean by that? What we think is unique about us is our ability as a technology company to completely change innovation in the space, such that we can help solve systemic issues across credit, payments, commerce, and banking. What that means ultimately is we use technologies like AI and machine learning and data science, and we use these technologies in a unique way, in a way that’s different from a traditional bank. We are able to underwrite those who are often frankly forgotten by the traditional financial ecosystems. Our Square Loans product has almost triple the rate of women-owned businesses that we underwrite. Fifty-eight percent of our loans go to women-owned businesses versus 20% for the industry average. For that Cash App Borrow product I was talking about, 70% of those actives, the 9 million actives that we underwrote, fell below 580 as a FICO score. That’s considered a poor FICO score, and yet 97% of repayments are made on time. And this is because we have unique access to data and these technology and tools which can help us uniquely underwrite this often forgotten customer base. Yeah. I mean, credit—sometimes it’s been blamed for financial excesses. But access to credit is also, as you say, an advantage that’s not available to everyone. Do you have a philosophy between those poles—between risk and opportunity? Or is what you’re saying is that the tech you have allows you to avoid that risk? That’s right. Let’s start with how do the current systems work? It works using inferior data, frankly. It’s more limited data. It’s outdated. Sometimes it’s inaccurate. And it ignores things like someone’s cash flows, the stability of your income, your savings rate, how money moves through your accounts, or how you use alternative forms of credit—like buy now, pay later, which we have in our ecosystem through Afterpay. We have a lot of these signals for our 57 million monthly actives on the Cash App side and for the 4 million small businesses on the Square side, and those, frankly, billions of transaction data points that we have on any given day paired with new technologies. And we intend to continue to be on the forefront of AI, machine learning, and data science to be able to empower more people into the economy. The combination of the superior data and the technologies is what we believe ultimately helps expand access. You have a financial background, but not in the financial services industry. Before Block, you were a video game developer at Activision. Are financial businesses and video games similar? Are there things that are similar about them? There are. There actually are some things that are similar, I will say. There are many things that are unique to each industry. Each industry is incredibly complex. You find that when big technology companies try to do gaming. They’ve taken over the world in many different ways, but they can’t always crack the nut on putting out a great game. Similarly, some of the largest technology companies have dabbled in fintech but haven’t been able to go as deep, so they’re both very nuanced and complex industries. I would say another similarity is that design really matters. Industrial design, the design of products, the interface of products, is absolutely mission-critical to a great game, and it’s absolutely mission-critical to the simplicity and accessibility of our products, be it on Square or Cash App. And then maybe the third thing that I would say is that when I was in gaming, at least the business models were rapidly changing from an intermediary distribution mechanism, like releasing a game once and then selling it through a retailer, to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. And similarly with banking, people don’t want to bank from 9 to 5, six days a week. They want 24/7 access to their money and the ability to, again, grow their financial livelihood, move their money around seamlessly. So, some similarities are there in that shift to an intermediary model or a slower model to an always-on, direct-to-consumer connection. Part of your target audience or your target customer base at Block are Gen Z folks. Did you learn things at Activision about Gen Z that has been useful? Are there things that businesses misunderstand about younger generations still? What we’ve learned is that Gen Z, millennial customers, aren’t going to do things the way their parents did. Some of our stats show that 63% of Gen Z customers have moved away from traditional credit cards, and over 80% are skeptical of them. Which means they’re not using a credit card to manage expenses; they’re using a debit card, but then layering on on a transaction-by-transaction basis. Or again, using tools like buy now, pay later, or Cash App Borrow, the means in which they’re managing their consistent cash flows. So that’s an example of how things are changing, and you’ve got to get up to speed with how the next generation of customers expects to manage their money.

DriftingSpirit Member Oct 25, 2017 18,563 They note how they usually start with PC and scale down, but they will be doing it the other way around this time to avoid issues with the console versions. 4:15 for console focus and 60fps 38:50 for the Series S comment  bsigg Member Oct 25, 2017 25,153 [DF] Inside The Witcher 4 Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo: CD Projekt RED + Epic Deep Dive Interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OplYN2MMI4Q www.resetera.com   Skot Member Oct 30, 2017 645 720p on Series S incoming   Bulby Prophet of Truth Member Oct 29, 2017 6,006 Berlin I think think any series s user will be happy with a beautiful 900p 30fps   Chronos Member Oct 27, 2017 1,249 This better not be a Cyberpunk situation all over again. If they can't get it to work on S, then they may just need to abandon that console. Work out a deal with MS or wait for their next generation.   HellofaMouse Member Oct 27, 2017 8,551 i wonder if this'll come out before the gen is over? good chance itll be a 2077 situation, cross-gen release with a broken ps6 version  logash Member Oct 27, 2017 6,526 This makes sense since they want to have good performance on lower end machines and they mentioned that it was easier to scale up than to scale down. They also mentioned their legacy on PC and how they plan on scaling it up high like they usually do on PC.   KRT Member Aug 7, 2020 247 Series S was a mistake   chris 1515 Member Oct 27, 2017 7,116 Barcelona Spain The game have raytracing GI and reflection it will probably be 30 fps 600p-720p on Xbox Series S.   bitcloudrzr Member May 31, 2018 21,044 Bulby said: I think think any series s user will be happy with a beautiful 900p 30fps Click to expand... Click to shrink...   Yuuber Member Oct 28, 2017 4,540 KRT said: Series S was a mistake Click to expand... Click to shrink... Can we stop with these stupid takes? For all we know it sold as much as Series X, helped several games have better optimization on bigger consoles and it will definitely help optimizing newer games to the Nintendo Switch 2.  MANTRA Member Feb 21, 2024 1,198 No one who cares about 60fps should be buying a Series S, just make it 30fps.   Roytheone Member Oct 25, 2017 6,185 Chronos said: This better not be a Cyberpunk situation all over again. If they can't get it to work on S, then they may just need to abandon that console. Work out a deal with MS or wait for their next generation. Click to expand... Click to shrink... They can just go for 30 fps instead on the Series S. No need for a special deal for that, that's allowed.  Matterhorn Member Feb 6, 2019 254 United States Hoping for a very nice looking 30fps Switch 2 version.   Universal Acclaim Member Oct 5, 2024 2,617 Maybe off topic, but is 30fps target not so important anymore for 2027 industry-leading graphics? GTA is mainly doing it for design/physics/etc. whch is why the game can't be scaled down to 720-900p/60fps?   chris 1515 Member Oct 27, 2017 7,116 Barcelona Spain Matterhorn said: Hoping for a very nice looking 30fps Switch 2 version. Click to expand... Click to shrink... It will be a full port a few years after like The Witcher 3., they don't use software lumen here. I doubt the Switch 2 Raytracing capaclity is high enough to use the same pipeline to produce the Switch 2 version. EDIT: And they probably need to redo all the assets. https://www.reddit.com/r/FortNiteBR/comments/1l4a1o4/fortnite_on_the_switch_2_looks_great_these_low/ Fortnite doesn't use Nanite and Lumen on Switch 2.  Last edited: Yesterday at 4:18 PM bitcloudrzr Member May 31, 2018 21,044 Universal Acclaim said: Maybe off topic, but is 30fps target not so important anymore for 2027 industry-leading graphics? GTA is mainly doing it for design/physics/etc. whch is why the graphics can't be scaled down to 720p/60fps? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Graphics are the part of the game that can be scaled, it is CPU load that is the more difficult part, although devs have actually made cuts in the latter to increase performance mode fps viability. Even with this focus on 60fps performance modes, they are always going to have room to make a higher fidelity 30fps mode. Specifically with UE5 though, performance has been such a disaster all around and Epic seems to be taking it seriously now.   Greywaren Member Jul 16, 2019 13,530 Spain 60 fps target is fantastic, I wish it was the norm.   julia crawford Took the red AND the blue pills Member Oct 27, 2017 40,709 i am very ok with lower fps on the series s, it is far more palatable than severe resolution drops with upscaling artifacts.   Spoit Member Oct 28, 2017 5,599 Chronos said: This better not be a Cyberpunk situation all over again. If they can't get it to work on S, then they may just need to abandon that console. Work out a deal with MS or wait for their next generation. Click to expand... Click to shrink... And yet people keep talking about somehow getting PS6 games to work on the sony portable, which is probably going to be like half as powerful as a PS5, like that won't hold games back   PLASTICA-MAN Member Oct 26, 2017 29,563 chris 1515 said: The game have raytracing GI and reflection it will probably be 30 fps 600p-720p on Xbox Series S. Click to expand... Click to shrink... There is kinda a misconception of how Lumen and the hybrid RT is handled in UE5 titles. AO is also part of the ray traced pipeline through the HW Lumen too. Just shadows are handled separately from the RT system by using VSM which in final look behvae quite like RT shadows in shape, same how FF16 handled the shadows looking like RT ones while it isn't traced. UE5 can still trace shadows if they want to push things even further.  overthewaves Member Sep 30, 2020 1,203 What about the PS5 handheld?   nullpotential Member Jun 24, 2024 87 KRT said: Series S was a mistake Click to expand... Click to shrink... Consoles were a mistake.  GPU Member Oct 10, 2024 1,075 I really dont think Series S/X will be much of a factor by the time this game comes out.   Lashley <<Tag Here>> Member Oct 25, 2017 65,679 Just make series s 480p 30fps   pappacone Member Jan 10, 2020 4,076 Greywaren said: 60 fps target is fantastic, I wish it was the norm. Click to expand... Click to shrink... It pretty much is   Super Studied the Buster Sword Member Jan 29, 2022 13,601 I hope they can pull 60 FPS off in the full game.   Theorry Member Oct 27, 2017 69,045 "target" Uh huh. We know how that is gonna go.  Jakartalado Member Oct 27, 2017 2,818 São Paulo, Brazil Skot said: 720p on Series S incoming Click to expand... Click to shrink... If the PS5 is internally at 720p up to 900p, I seriously doubt that.  Revoltoftheunique Member Jan 23, 2022 2,312 It will be unstable 60fps with lots of stuttering.   defaltoption Plug in a controller and enter the Konami code The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 12,485 Austin KRT said: Series S was a mistake Click to expand... Click to shrink... With that same attitude in this case you could say consoles are the mistake. You on your Series X or PS5 Pro are holding my 5090 back. Not so fun of a take anymore. Thats why its stupid.   Horns Member Dec 7, 2018 3,423 I hope Microsoft drops the requirement for Series S by the time this comes out.   chris 1515 Member Oct 27, 2017 7,116 Barcelona Spain PLASTICA-MAN said: There is kinda a misconception of how Lumen and the hybrid RT is handled in UE5 titles. AO is also part of the ray traced pipeline through the HW Lumen too. Just shadows are handled separately from the RT system by using VSM which in final look behvae quite like RT shadows in shape, same how FF16 handled the shadows looking like RT ones while it isn't traced. UE5 can still trace shadows if they want to push things even further. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes indirect shadows are handled by hardware lumen. But at the end ot doesn¡t change my comment. i think the game will be 600´720p at 30 fps on Series S.  bitcloudrzr Member May 31, 2018 21,044 Spoit said: And yet people keep talking about somehow getting PS6 games to work on the sony portable, which is probably going to be like half as powerful as a PS5, like that won't hold games back Click to expand... Click to shrink... Has it been confirmed that Sony is going to have release requirements like the XS?   Commander Shepherd Member Jan 27, 2023 173 Anyone remember when no load screens was talked about for Witcher 3?   chris 1515 Member Oct 27, 2017 7,116 Barcelona Spain No this is probably different than most game are doing it here the main focus is the 60 fps mode and after they can create a balanced(40 fps) and 30 fps mode. This is not the other way around.  stanman Member Feb 13, 2025 235 defaltoption said: With that same attitude in this case you could say consoles are the mistake. You on your Series X or PS5 Pro are holding my 5090 back. Not so fun of a take anymore. Thats why its stupid. Click to expand... Click to shrink... And your mistake is comparing a PC graphics card to a console.  PLASTICA-MAN Member Oct 26, 2017 29,563 chris 1515 said: Yes indirect shadows are handled by hardware lumen. But at the end ot doesn¡t change my comment. i think the game will be 600´720p at 30 fps on Series S. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Yes. I am sure Series S will have HW solution but probably at 30 FPS. that would be a miracle if they achieve 60 FPS.  ArchedThunder Uncle Beerus Member Oct 25, 2017 21,278 chris 1515 said: It will be a full port a few years after like The Witcher 3., they don't use software lumen here. I doubt the Switch 2 Raytracing capaclity is high enough to use the same pipeline to produce the Switch 2 version. EDIT: And they probably need to redo all the assets. https://www.reddit.com/r/FortNiteBR/comments/1l4a1o4/fortnite_on_the_switch_2_looks_great_these_low/ Fortnite doesn't use Nanite and Lumen on Switch 2. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Fortnite not using Lumen or Nanite at launch doesn't mean they can't run well on Switch 2. It's a launch port and they prioritized clean IQ and 60fps. I wouldn't be surprised to see them added later. Also it's not like the ray tracing in a Witcher 3 port has to match PS5, there's a lot of scaling back that can be done with ray tracing without ripping out the kitchen sink. Software lumen is also likely to be an option on P.   jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,465 Interesting times ahead.... bitcloudrzr said: Has it been confirmed that Sony is going to have release requirements like the XS? Click to expand... Click to shrink... Your know good n well everything about this rumor has been confirmed. /S  Derbel McDillet ▲ Legend ▲ Member Nov 23, 2022 25,250 Chronos said: This better not be a Cyberpunk situation all over again. If they can't get it to work on S, then they may just need to abandon that console. Work out a deal with MS or wait for their next generation. Click to expand... Click to shrink... How does this sound like a Cyberpunk issue? They didn't say they can't get it to work on the S.   defaltoption Plug in a controller and enter the Konami code The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 12,485 Austin stanman said: And your mistake is comparing a PC graphics card to a console. Click to expand... Click to shrink...   reksveks Member May 17, 2022 7,628 Horns said: I hope Microsoft drops the requirement for Series S by the time this comes out. Click to expand... Click to shrink... why? dev can make it 30 fps on series s and 60 fps on series x if needed. if they aren't or don't have to drop it for gta vi, they probably ain't dropping it for tw4.  chris 1515 Member Oct 27, 2017 7,116 Barcelona Spain defaltoption said: With that same attitude in this case you could say consoles are the mistake. You on your Series X or PS5 Pro are holding my 5090 back. Not so fun of a take anymore. Thats why its stupid. Click to expand... Click to shrink... No the consoles won't hold back your 5090 because the game is created with hardware lumen, RT reflection, virtual shadows maps and Nanite plus Nanite vegetation in minds. Maybe Nanite character too in final version? If the game was made with software lumen as the base it would have holding back your 5090... Your PC will have much better IQ, framerate and better raytracing with Megalight(direct raytraced shadows with tons of lighe source) and better raytracing settings in general.  bitcloudrzr Member May 31, 2018 21,044 jroc74 said: Interesting times ahead.... Your know good n well everything about this rumor has been confirmed. /S Click to expand... Click to shrink... Sony is like the opposite of a platform holder "forcing" adoption, for better or worse.   defaltoption Plug in a controller and enter the Konami code The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 12,485 Austin chris 1515 said: No the consoles won't hold back yout 5090 because the game is created with hardware lumen, RT reflection, virtual shadows maps and Nanite plus Nanite vegetation in minds. Maybe Nanite character too in final version? If the game was made with software lumen as the base it would have holding back your 5090... Your PC will have much better IQ, framerate and better raytracing with Megalight(direct raytraced shadows) and better raytracing settings in general. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Exactly, the series s is not a "mistake" or holding any version of the game on console or even PC back, that's what I'm saying to the person I replied to, its stupid to say that.   cursed beef Member Jan 3, 2021 998 Have to imagine MS will lift the Series S parity clause when the next consoles launch. Which will be before/around the time W4 hits, right?   Alvis Saw the truth behind the copied door Member Oct 25, 2017 12,270 EU Chronos said: This better not be a Cyberpunk situation all over again. If they can't get it to work on S, then they may just need to abandon that console. Work out a deal with MS or wait for their next generation. Click to expand... Click to shrink... ? they said that 60 FPS on Series S is challenging, not the act of releasing the game there at all. The game can simply run at 30 FPS on Series S if they can't pull off 60 FPS. Or have a 40 FPS mode in lieu of 60 FPS. The CPU and storage speed differences between last gen and current gen were gigantic. This isn't even remotely close to a comparable situation.  defaltoption Plug in a controller and enter the Konami code The Fallen Oct 27, 2017 12,485 Austin misqoute post   jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,465 defaltoption said: With that same attitude in this case you could say consoles are the mistake. You on your Series X or PS5 Pro are holding my 5090 back. Not so fun of a take anymore. Thats why its stupid. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Ah yes, clearly 5090 cards are the vast majority of the minimum requirements for PC games. How can anyone say this with a straight face anymore when there are now PC games running on a Steam Deck. At least ppl saying that about the Series S are comparing it to other consoles. That said, it is interesting they are focusing on consoles first, then PC. 

A serial killer is stalking the streets, and his murders are a work of art. That’s more or less the premise behind Psycasso®, a tongue-in-cheek 2D pixel art game from Omni Digital Technologies that’s debuting a demo at Steam Next Fest this week, with plans to head into Early Access later this year. Playing as the killer, you get a job and build a life by day, then hunt the streets by night to find and torture victims, paint masterpieces with their blood, then sell them to fund operations.I sat down with lead developer Benjamin Lavender and Omni, designer and producer, to talk about this playfully gory game that gives a classic retro style and a fresh (if gruesome) twist.Let’s start with a bit of background about the game.Omni: We wanted to make something that stands out. We know a lot of indie studios are releasing games and the market is ever growing, so we wanted to make something that’s not just fun to play, but catches people’s attention when others tell them about it. We’ve created an open-world pixel art game about an artist who spends his day getting a job, trying to fit into society. Then at nighttime, things take a more sinister turn and he goes around and makes artwork out of his victim's blood.We didn’t want to make it creepy and gory. We kind of wanted it to be cutesy and fun, just to make it ironic. Making it was a big challenge. We basically had to create an entire city with functioning shops and NPCs who have their own lives, their own hobbies. It was a huge challenge.So what does the actual gameplay look like?Omni: There’s a day cycle and a night cycle that breaks up the gameplay. During the day, you can get a job, level up skills, buy properties and furniture upgrades. At nighttime, the lighting completely changes, the vibe completely changes, there’s police on the street and the flow of the game shifts. The idea is that you can kidnap NPCs using a whole bunch of different weapons – guns, throwable grenades, little traps and cool stuff that you can capture people with.Once captured on the street, you can either harvest their blood and body parts there, or buy a specialist room to keep them in a cage and put them in various equipment like hanging chains or torture chairs. The player gets better rewards for harvesting blood and body parts this way.On the flip side, there’s a whole other element to the game where the player is given missions each week from galleries around the city. They come up on your phone menu, and you can accept them and do either portrait or landscape paintings, with all of the painting being done using only shades of red. We've got some nice drip effects and splat sounds to make it feel like you’re painting with blood. Then you can give your creation a name, submit it to a gallery, then it goes into a fake auction, people will bid on the artwork and you get paid and large amount of in-game money so you can then buy upgrades for the home, upgrade painting tools like bigger paint brushes, more selection tools, stuff like that.Ben: There’s definitely nothing like it. And that was the aim, is when you are telling people about it, they’re like, “Oh, okay. Right. We’re not going to forget about this.” Let’s dig into the 2D tools you used to create this world.Ben: It’s using the 2D Renderer. The Happy Harvest 2D sample project that you guys made was kind of a big starting point, from a lighting perspective, and doing the normal maps of the 2D and getting the lighting to look nice. Our night system is a very stripped-down, then added-on version of the thing that you guys made. I was particularly interested by its shadows. The building’s shadows aren’t actually shadows – it’s a black light. We tried to recreate that with all of our buildings in the entire open world – so it does look beautiful for a 2D game, if I do say so myself.Can you say a bit about how you’re using AI or procedural generation in NPCs?Ben: I don’t know how many actually made it into the demo to be fair, number-wise. Every single NPC has a unique identity, as in they all have a place of work that they go to on a regular schedule. They have hobbies, they have spots where they prefer to loiter, a park bench or whatever. So you can get to know everyone’s individual lifestyle.So, the old man that lives in the same building as me might love to go to the casino at nighttime or go consistently on a Monday and a Friday, that kind of vibe.It uses the A* Pathfinding Project, because we knew we wanted to have a lot of AIs. We’ve locked off most of the city for the demo, but the actual size of the city is huge. The police mechanics are currently turned off, but there’s 80% police mechanics in there as well. If you punch someone or hurt someone, that’s a crime, and if anyone sees it, they can go and report to the police and then things happen. That’s a feature that’s there but not demo-ready yet.How close would you say you are to a full release?Omni: We should be scheduled for October for early access. By that point we’ll have the stealth mechanics and the policing systems polished and in and get some of the other upcoming features buttoned up. We’re fairly close.Ben: Lots of it’s already done, it’s just turned off for the demo. We don’t want to overwhelm people because there’s just so much for the player to do.Tell me a bit about the paint mechanics – how did you build that?Ben: It is custom. We built it ourselves completely from scratch. But I can't take responsibility for that one – someone else did the whole thing – that was their baby. It is really, really cool though.Omni: It’s got a variety of masking tools, the ability to change opacity and spacing, you can undo, redo. It’s a really fantastic feature that gives people the opportunity to express themselves and make some great art.Ben: And it's gamified, so it doesn’t feel like you’ve just opened up Paint in Windows.Omni: Best of all is when you make a painting, it gets turned into an inventory item so you physically carry it around with you and can sell it or treasure it.What’s the most exciting part of Psycasso for you?Omni: Stunning graphics. I think graphically, it looks really pretty.Ben: Visually, you could look at it and go, “Oh, that’s Psycasso.”Omni: What we’ve done is taken a cozy retro-style game, and we’ve brought modern design, logic, and technology into it. So you're playing what feels like a nostalgic game, but you're getting the experience of a much newer project.Check out the Psycasso demo on Steam, and stay tuned for more NextFest coverage.