Tag: Gaming

Gather close as Maylee, Caroline, & Peter talk the week in Gaming News, and the week in Gaming Layoffs. Paul is surprisingly positive about Ubisoft Montpellier Studio‘s Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. And Caroline tries to tame spirits with a green thumb in Strange Horticulture from Bad Viking.

Developer: Laundry Bear Games
Publisher: Laundry Bear Games
Composer: Halina Heron
Platforms: PC, Mac via steam and itch.io, iOS
Release Date: For PC & Mac 18^th October 2017, iOS 22^nd November 2018
Genre: Story-Driven Management Sim.

A trigger warning for this review. I will be talking respectfully about the processes that take place within a funeral home from washing a body to the process of cremation. If these things may trigger you, please skip this review.

A Mortician’s Tale is a game that introduces you to the intimate and confronting world of what happens to your body after death. You play the black-haired, tattooed Charlie, the newest funeral director in the family-run “Rose and Daughters Funeral Home”. Charlie has managed to land on her feet with a boss who eases her into the swing of things, with her first job being a closed casket funeral. So, to show your respect you are asked to wash the body to prepare it for the funeral, and then attend the funeral. After changing into a “respectful” outfit, covering your tattoos, you reminisce with the attendees, listen to their qualms, and take a moment to stand by the coffin and process the death yourself.

The gameplay has a very simple loop. Go to your computer to check your emails where quite a lot of exposition lies. You will find your Monthly Newsletter with handy dandy tips and tricks, your job for the day, and correspondence from friends and co-workers. Then you will follow the routine of attending to the client’s requests in the preparation of the body and attending the funeral. This can range from open caskets to cremations with all the tools and steps you would normally take simplified for the gameplay. However, the real gem of this game is the story inbuilt under this.

Each loop takes place about a month or so after the last. By reading the emails you follow the ownership of family-run business doing the best it can for their clients where the head wants to retire and slowly move into the hands of a larger conglomerate. In this business the model is to push for sales and exploit the grief of families for higher profits and at the crux of this game, a few real issues. Do you respect the last wishes of a person, or go for that commission? Where do you stand when a family member wants something different to the person who once inhabited the body in front of you? Is processing this body worth the environmental impact? Is a funeral worth going into debt for?

The soothing, yet eerie background tracks composed by Halina Heron are a perfect accompaniment to the repetitive procedures, email reading, and funerals you attend. While the track’s loop isn’t very long, the tracks provide smooth loops and transitions between scenes. When it comes to sound effects, the ticking of the embalming fluid machine, the rumble of the cremation, and such can be quite confronting starting off, but quickly become routine. Other sounds are quite soft with the cremulator making a sandy hush that may be disconcerting for entirely different reasons.

A Mortician’s Tale is a simple story, in a simple point and click game, that hit quite close to home. I played this shortly after visiting a local mortician who had recently sent off a friend’s father and we sat and chatted for a few hours about many things, including the idea of being death-positive. I thought I knew the basics of what happens after someone dies and the processing of a body, but at the age of 38 this game taught me about new procedures, things that made me feel uncomfortable, and about not having a will which would leave it up to family or friends to deal with.

Overall, I recommend taking your time and playing A Mortician’s Tale. Not because it’s an amazing visual extravaganza, but if like me you haven’t thought too much about your post-mortem corpse disposal process, it will hopefully make you seriously reconsider the last impact you will leave on this earth. While also having few easter eggs to dig up for good measure.

A Mortician’s Tale was released in October of 2017 by Laundry Bear Games and is currently available for PC & Mac through Steam and Itch.io, and for mobile on iOS. I received my copy in a Humble Bundle.

Oops! All Done!

Let me set the scene for you. You’re super excited for a Suicide Squad game, and early access has just opened. You might have cleared the evening for this, you’ve got your snacks and you’ve settled in. You let the game install and update while you were at work, so it’s ready to go. You fire it up and! You finished the game?

Rocksteady, the developer of Suicide Squad, had to take their game offline less than an hour after opening, after a number of players booted it up for the first time only to encounter a glitch that auto-completed the game for you. These players had purchased the Deluxe Edition, which is more expensive and grants players access 72 hours before it officially releases on February 2nd. But they got $20 of in-game currency as an apology.

Layoffs This Week

1,900 Activision Blizzard and Xbox employees are being laid off by Microsoft, while Mike Ybarra, Blizzard president, steps down.

“As we move forward in 2024, the leadership of Microsoft Gaming and Activision Blizzard is committed to aligning on a strategy and an execution plan with a sustainable cost structure that will support the whole of our growing business… As part of this process we have made the painful decision to reduce the size of our gaming workforce” says Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer.

Allen Adham, Blizzard’s chief design officer, is also stepping down. Microsoft has selected Johanna Faries as Blizzard’s new president, who used to be head of Call of Duty esports.

In other-layoff-news, 61 Sega of America employees will be laid off in March.

In-funnier-layoff-news, one dev at Blizzard was able to utilise his employee perks to get himself World of Warcraft for free until 2033. Adam Holisky, former Blizzard employee, used all the subscription codes he hadn’t activated in Keyring before he got axed. Yay?

-TEAM ROCKET THEME-

That’s right, a Pokemon heist! Or rather, Pokemon cards heist, with three intruders managing to grab over 35,000 Pokemon cards from a collectible store in San Jose, called Tofu’s Trading.

The thieves were able to slide through the side doors, despite the doors being blocked by a fridge. The motion detectors were faulty and without the alarm they were in and out in 10 minutes. They were also able to grab Magic: The Gathering booster packs, and the shop’s WHOLE cash register.

Amy Simpson, the owner, believes it wasn’t targeted as the thieves “didn’t know what to take”. She’s taking it in good humour, making fun of how committed to crawling around the thieves were, all captured on security cameras.

News Nibbles!

Universal in Florida will be presenting ‘Super Nintendo World’ next year, adding a Nintendo-themed theme park to their ‘Epic Universe’, which is supposed to contain five worlds.

Embracer Group cancelled a Deus Ex game, but a group of former Volition developers, who were shut down by Embracer Group, have formed their own studio; Shapeshifter Games.

Nintendo are planning on making 10 million Switch 2s by March 2025, to hopefully prevent a shortage problem upon launch.

And now for some upcoming games!

February 1

• Granblue Fantasy: Relink – PC, PS5, PS4

February 2

• Jujutsu Kaisen Cursed Clash – PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch
• Persona 3 Reload – PC, XSX, XBO
• Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League – PC, PS5, XSX

February 6

• CLeM – PC, Switch

That’s it this week in gaming news!

This week in gaming news: Palworld tops the gaming charts and rumour mills, a dismal prediction for Game Devs in 2024, and some special gaming bytes.

For those living under a rock, this week has been dwarfed by the unexpected boom of Palworld into the gaming stratosphere. The monster collecting survival game Palworld, has not only beat out opening week records set by Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring and Hogwarts Legacy, selling over 7 million copies in the last 5 days since release, but it also has beaten Valve’s own Counter-Strike 2 All-Time Peak player count, becoming the second most played game of all time with over 1.86 million concurrent players. However, this has not come without hiccups. The game has released in early access on steam and game preview on game pass, so bugs are to be expected, but steam and Microsoft are publishing different versions. Each with their own bugs and server issues that have required emergency meetings with Epic Games backend, and individual updates with expectations that they won’t coalesce until crossplay is established in the future. Until then, Microsoft players will have to deal with the lack of dedicated servers and slow updates, and the quality of life updates seen with steam users.
Internally, developer Pocket Pair has had to deal with a slew of press and player accusations with Community Manager and CEO reporting to have been receiving death threats, “slanderous comments, and outlandish claims.” Some of these being claims they “ripped off Pokémon” and utilised AI to either create the monsters in the game or that GenAI is used in the game. The CEO Takuro Mizobe has responded to at least one claim, stating that “We have absolutely no intention of infringing upon the intellectual property of other companies.” But not all are convinced, with former head of Pokémon’s legal team Dan McGowan saying the game “looks like the usual ripoff nonsense that I would see a thousand times a year when I was Chief Legal Officer of Pokémon.” And not without cause, with a mod already released and removed that not only put Pokémon into Palworld, but also Ash, Misty, and Team Rocket. Creator, Toasted Shoes, put out a statement after the mods removal.

“Nintendo has come for me, please leave me in your thoughts and prayers”

The 2024 Forecast for Game Developers
After more layoffs Game Devs are facing a hard reality this week with Riot laying off 11% of its workforce. That’s 530 people losing their jobs with the blame being put on management’s decision to rapidly expand after the pandemic. And it’s not the only one, with the trend continuing in more studios. 2k’s 31^st Union is cutting team members even after the “momentous” move to California. Embracer Group is trying to find a buyer for developer Piranha Bytes. And the developer of recently released VR game Micro Machines: Mini Challenge Mayhem, WIMO Games, has announced they’ve closed their doors with around three dozen staff left out in the cold.
With one third of developers being impacted by layoffs in the last year, and more than half of developers concerned about their futures we can see there are challenges to face in the future. Experts are increasing the worry with expectations the gaming industry will face challenges possibly into 2025 after the abundance of games released in 2020, and 2021 pushing unrealistic release schedules. Despite this, industry leaders are optimistic of the long-term survivability of game development, leaning of the industries resilience and potential growth in the future.

And now for the Gaming Bytes:

• Awesome Games Done Quick is back with AGDQ2024 streaming over 135 speedruns and raising over 5 million us dollars for The Prevent Cancer Foundation during the week-long event.
• While earlier this week it was rumoured BulletStorm VR was to be removed from the PS5 Store and auto refunded… it has come to light that only Japan and South Korea will be receiving this golden ticket with the rest of the world left to fend for ourselves.
• And for those people looking forward to the game Indiana Jones and the Great Ciricle, Harrison Ford is NOT voicing Indiana Jones, rather Troy Baker the voice actor behind The Last of Us’s Joel, BioShock Infinite’s Booker DeWitt , and many more.
• OH! And the finalists for the Freeplay Awards for 2024 have been announced. If you don’t know what they are, it is the world’s longest-running independent games festival with the awards ceremony to take place on the 29^th of February in Melbourne. These awards focus on Australian and New Zealand indi grass roots game artists and developers with this year’s nominees to include Unpacking from Witch Beam Games, Wayward Strand from ghost pattern, and Dap from Melting Parrot, plus many more. For the full list of nominations CLICK HERE

And now for the upcoming game releases.
Friday the 26^th brings us two new releases with Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth coming to PC, PlayStation, & Xbox, and Tekken 8 coming to PC and Next Gen Consoles.
On Tuesday the 30^th Rugby 24 to PC, PlayStation, & Xbox.
Wednesday the 31^st the DLC for 2021’s Eastward, Eastward: Octopia DLC and is coming to PC & Switch
And lastly, Thursday the 1^st of February, Granblue Fantasy: Relink comes to PC and PlayStation.

This week brings you Paul, Maylee, and Cam to talk gaming news with Mighty Kingdom Turmoil & other studio layoffs. Paul then waxes poetic about The Cub developed by Demagog studio, while Maylee gets stabby in a review of The Outlast Trials developed by RedBarrels.

This week Maylee leads Peter and Cam through the week in Gaming News. Cam wonders the future of Mario while reviewing Super Mario Bros Wonder and Rani reaches high and talks climbling in a review of Jusant.

Bobby Kotick Is Gone

The now-former CEO of Activision Blizzard has officially stepped down now that the 2023 year has ended and the acquisition by Microsoft proceeds. He won’t be the only executive-level employee leaving, with more expected to depart as the transition process develops. Otherwise, the leadership teams for Activision Publishing and Blizzard will remain in place.

The now-vacant CEO spot won’t be filled, and instead executives will report directly to Matt Booty, President of Microsoft Game Content and Studios.

Minecrafters, Grab Your Picks…

If you forgot that there was a Minecraft movie on the way, well, here’s your reminder. And now you also know that Jack Black, who has played Bowser in the Super Mario Bros. Movie, will be starring as the main man himself, Minecraft Steve. You may also know Jack Black from a few other films. The movie will be directed by Jared Hess, known for Nacho Libre, and Napoleon Dynamite.

Jason Momoa had reportedly been in negotiations to voice Minecraft Steve last year.

The Minecraft movie has been in development since 2014, while filming began in December 2023. It is scheduled to release in early April, 2025, meaning it will have been in development for 10-ish years. It hasn’t been the smoothest journey for the movie, as a few directors have dropped out, and the initial release date of May 24th, 2019 obviously not working out.

The Mouse Is OUT!

And a horror game has already been created within 24 hours of ‘Steamboat Willie’ entering the public domain. The game, called Infestation 88, has a terrifying depiction of the mouse hunting the player down in a spooky warehouse.

Disney is rather infamous for its heavy-handed approach to protecting its copyright, as the company has been reported to discourage a stonemason from carving Winnie-the-Pooh into a child’s gravestone. In fact, Steamboat Willie was initially set to enter the public domain in 1984, but the company lobbied US copyright laws to extend to “the life of the author plus 50 years”.

Now that the fated day has finally arrived, along with Infestation 88, a horror movie has been announced, as well as NFTs created, dubstep remixes mixed, and just generally making the mouse do things that Disney definitely wouldn’t approve of.

The 2023 Steam Awards

Let’s round up another round of awards! The Steam Awards is pretty straightforward, nominate your favourite games and then vote for them! Games also can’t win more than two categories.

Sit Back and Relax went to Dave the Diver, and the Labour of Love Award was granted to Red Dead Redemption 2.

Better With Friends went to Lethal Company, and Most Innovative Gameplay went to Starfield.

Outstanding Story-Rich Game and Game of the Year goes to Baldur’s Gate 3.

Some News Nibbles

Peanut Butter, a shiba inu, will be participating in Awesome Games Done Quick, a charity speedrunning event. He is probably the first dog to get into speedrunning video games, and he will be beating Gyromite in front of an audience.

The PlayStation 5 has officially passed 50 million units, managing to sell 10 million units in the latter half of 2023.

Square Enix has expressed a desire to apply AI technology ‘more aggressively’ to create ‘new forms of content’ for consumers, with Square Enix president, Takashi Kiryu stating “I believe that generative AI has the potential not only to reshape was we create, but also to fundamentally change the processes by which we create, including programming”.

And now for some upcoming game releases!

January 11

• War Hospital – PC, PS5, XBX

That’s it for game releases. You have a week to work through your backlog before games start getting released again.