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nitrosodiumepicfps · 6 months

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Voxel Games

Once more, talking about voxels.

Crossy Road - This is a game that I imagine most people my age remember from childhood. It's like Frogger, with a technological advantage. It's isometric and all voxelated, you can clearly see what is going to be a hazard to your character, and it was a lot of fun back in the day. It's not too deep mechanically though, so I can't write paragraphs on it.

Minecraft - I think this is quite literally the most popular game of all time, neck in neck with Tetris. As I think I already touched on, Minecraft isn't really voxelated, it makes its geometry out of, well, geometry. Polygons. This hasn't done wonders for the performance, leading to each update grinding Minecraft closer to a halt. Despite this, loading each part of the world in 16x16 chunks and running on the in-house Render Dragon engine was a smart move, and essential to have this game run at all. Voxels are used in creating the game map; as everything is blocks (or at least fits into blocks), each cube of space can be represented by a voxel when generating terrain.

Teardown - Now this is a very cool game. Essentially, all of the world is voxels, and can be blown out, smashed to bits, disintegrated, or blasted apart. Once again, it's a unique engine, specially optimized to deal with so many minuscule game objects being simulated at once. You enter each map first to plan an escape route for a heist, knocking down walls to make the most efficient path. Then, you enter it a second time, running the course you've just sculpted yourself. It's a very interesting sandbox concept, and I'd definitely be interested in playing it, though I doubt my laptop could run it.

Skies of the Past - Just looking at a few images, I can tell this game is good. You're on an archipelago of misty floating islands, and you must find the secrets of the once-thriving civilization that existed on them. You can use different methods to get between islands, whether it's a hot air balloon, or a plane that looks straight out of Da Vinci's codex. Very cool look.

Fugl - Truth be told, I don't know what a "fugl" is. I thought maybe it's an anagram of flug, the German word for 'flying', but I have no clue. In the game, you play as a bird, and you just fly through various biomes at your own pace. It seems interesting and pretty relaxing, I could definitely see myself playing this with a multi-hour video essay in the background. The fact that it's all voxels not only makes it very stylised, but it means the game can have you fly through majestic vistas at little cost to your performance. Supposedly, there are many mythical creatures in the game, the prospect of which I absolutely ADORE. I've heard a term for these games, "life cycle simulations" or something like that, where you're just a bystander watching an ecosystem go about its usual cycles. It seems cool, but I don't feel like paying 7 pounds for it.

The Touryst - This is an open world game that simulates what it's like to be a tourist... or touryst. You can explore the towns of this community you're holidaying in, or go spelunking in ancient tombs. Whenever you're indoors, the camera switches to a fixed perspective, but it's a more typical third-person isometric view when you're wandering the boardwalk. From what I understand, you can essentially do anything, play the game like a normal tourist would, or explore the ruins and monuments of the ancient people.

Bonfire Peaks - This is a curious one. You play as some kind of backpacker who wants to go off the grid, and burns all their belongings in a fire. Each level requires a more complex method to bring your belongings to the bonfire, alternating between pushing, pulling and lifting the box. It has a Minecraft-esque world comprised of blocks, your character takes up two and the box takes up one. Therefore, you're maneuvering a complicated shape up various hills and inclines, which creates some interesting puzzle gameplay. The story seems interesting, though the Steam description doesn't explain much.

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ramajmedia · 5 years

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Man of Medan Review: Scary Sailor Stories | Screen Rant

Man of Medan, the first entry in Supermassive's Dark Pictures Anthology, brings a strong multiplayer focus to the cinematic horror of Until Dawn.

Developer Supermassive has a strong pedigree in cinematic horror. Until Dawn combined the filmic presentation of the best Quantic Dream titles with tight writing, top-tier acting talent, mind-blowing facial capture animation technology, and a genuine love of genre storytelling. All these elements combined to make Until Dawn a surprise hit that put the developer on the map. Followup efforts Hidden Agenda and The Inpatient were less successful, with a frustrating reliance on gimmicks like PlayStation VR and PlayLink undercutting the twisted mysteries at hand.

For their latest project, Supermassive is going back to basics, returning to the realm of pure cinematic horror. Man of Medan is the first entry in The Dark Pictures Anthology. Like Until Dawn, Man of Medan stars a cast of attractive young people thrown into a harrowing horror scenario, while the player is tasked with the responsibility of trying to keep them alive during their numerous trials.

Related: The 10 Best Choose Your Own Adventure Games

From the start, Man of Medan offers three ways to play: single player, online multiplayer for two players, and a local, "pass the controller" mode for up to five people to enjoy. In single player, the character switches between the five playable characters as the game progresses, and their decisions (and performance during Quick Time Events) determine who lives and who dies. While this mode offers a more traditional experience for fans of cinematic games, the true magic lies with two-player online co-op, called Shared Story Mode. The host can team up with someone on their friends list and play through the game as a team. Sometimes, the two players will be together, but some instances will have the players split up, leading to some asymmetrical scenarios.

While playing solo, the pacing can slow to a crawl as the game switches from one character to the next, showing them all getting scared in their own distinct ways. In multiplayer, however, it's much more streamlined. Each player will still have plenty of chances to control every character, but the whole thing moves by with a palpable energy, and communicating with a partner is key to unraveling the game's central mystery. Communication is also important key in interpreting certain events, since they may only be seen by one player, and not the other.

It's best to experience the game the first time via two-player co-op before giving it a shot in solo play. After getting a fairly thorough understanding of Man of Medan, it's jolly fun to gather a group of friends and act as something of a dungeon master during Movie Night, casting friends in the roles they feel best suit them. Each playthrough of Man of Medan takes between 4-6 hours (a bit less in two-player), but each adventure has a different outcome, especially with the inevitable wildcards which arise in Movie Night. In any given playthrough, all five heroes may survive, or all five might die. In our first go-round, two of the would-be survivors were killed in the final third of the game, but a thoughful (and lucky) second playthrough saw the whole team survive to the end.

The cast of Man of Medan is comprised of a mix of talented actors. The most well-known actor in the cast is Shawn Ashmore (Quantum Break, X-Men, The Following), though he plays an equal role in the ensemble alongside everyone else. Intermittently, Man of Medan will give players a brief respite, returning to the library of "The Curator." Played by The Crown's Pip Torrens, The Rod Serling-esque host of The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Curator is happy to address players directly and tease, encourage, or criticize their choices at various checkpoints in the game.

The facial animation is just as good as Until Dawn, if not better, and every closeup on a character in distress feels like a work of art. The full body animations, by contrast, can sometimes feel a bit robotic, but it's never outright bad. Best of all, Man of Medan runs at a much better framerate than Until Dawn, courtesy of the Unreal Engine 4. There are still plenty of dips here and there, but it feels considerably more stable than its predecessor. Even on PlayStation 4 Pro, textures can take a moment to pop in; this can sometimes lessen the impact of a sudden jump scare when a skeleton face jumps out in front of the screen before its low-res placeholder textures are replaced by the real deal.

Man of Medan is best enjoyed with friends, and part of that is because the main story is pretty thin. Four friends with varying interpersonal dynamics hire a sea captain (the fifth lead) to bring them out to a supposed crash site. After an encounter with a small band of scary pirates, everyone winds up on a mysterious ghost ship. It's a pretty straightforward premise, and the excitement doesn't come from the cliche narrative, but from how much fun it is to have a degree of control over how characters react to these cliches. There is a secret to the horrific events on the ghost ship, but it's so clearly telegraphed ahead of time, it hardly qualifies as a twist.

There is a lot less player agency in Man of Medan than in Until Dawn. There are fewer game-changing binary choices to make, and the QTE events are comparatively simple. There are still plenty of divergent paths and countless possible outcomes, but it doesn't feel as sprawling as its obvious progenitor. Perhaps this relative simplicity was the price Supermassive chose to pay in exchange for its unique and innovative multiplayer mode. For fans of co-op games, it was absolutely the right choice, but for players who prefer going solo, Man of Medan feels distressingly simple, and a big step backwards.

Man of Medan is an adventure best enjoyed with a friend in Shared Story Mode, and then enjoyed with many via Movie Night. Playing alone creates a decidedly lesser experience, but it's nonetheless a must play title for fans of cinematic adventure titles. Supermassive Games plans to create many more entries in The Dark Pictures Anthology; while certainly not without its flaws and shortcomings, Man of Medan is a strong starting point for future titles, and we're eager to see what The Curator has in store for us next year.

More: The 14 Scariest Video Games Of All Time

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan is out now on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC. Screen Rant was provided a PlayStation 4 digital copy for review.

source https://screenrant.com/man-of-medan-review/

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flamedtech-blog · 7 years

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From cell phone to server room: Nvidia's "Kayla" demonstrates the fate of Tegra A 8×5.5" motherboard with one year from now's Tegra components will be accessible in May.

SAN JOSE, CA—Tegra 4 telephones and tablets aren't exactly here yet, however Nvidia is as of now giving us insights about its successor, a chip codenamed "Logan." Due in mid 2014, the new processor's essential advancement is that it gets the design engineering Nvidia's portable processors pretty much fully informed regarding the design in its GeForce and Quadro representation items.

This refreshed GPU will clearly convey execution expands in respect to present-day chips, yet more critical will be the level of API bolster that it makes conceivable in cell phones. Anything bolstered by current Kepler-based illustrations cards—including OpenGL 4.3, Direct3D 11, CUDA, OpenCL, and PhysX—will be conceivable in telephones and tablets, though with less crude drive behind it than a top of the line PC design card can give.

To allow designers to begin playing with these APIs, a considerable lot of which aren't yet standard in ARM gadgets, Nvidia (with an Italian organization named Seco) is flaunting another little shape calculate motherboard called "Kayla" that is intended to give generally a similar programming highlights as Logan about a year prior to Logan is really booked to come to advertise. We got an opportunity to investigate the board here at Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference this week.

Tech specs

Kayla consolidates three distinct segments: a Seco motherboard, which offers three HDMI ports, one 100 megabit Ethernet port, one gigabit Ethernet port, two USB 2.0 ports, an earphone jack, a miniaturized scale USB port, a microSD card peruser, and a SATA connector; a Seco daughterboard with a 1.3GHz Tegra 3 processor and 2GB of RAM; and a MXM daughterboard from Nvidia in view of the Kepler engineering, which incorporates a GPU and 1GB of representation RAM. In fact talking, any card in view of the MXM standard could be utilized with this board, however the MXM standard is once in a while utilized outside of costly, massive gaming tablets, and cards can be hard to get a hold of.

The GPU itself, which will be accessible in May, is a Kepler-based GPU with 384 of Nvidia's CUDA centers. This correct GPU isn't exactly the same as any of the organization's as of now transporting items. At any rate in center check, it's like some low-end and mid-extend cards in the GeForce 600 arrangement, most strikingly the GeForce 640 and 650 cards. Clearly, execution will differ in view of clock paces, memory speed and interface, and the quantity of PCI Express paths accessible (the Seco daughterboard seems to offer four paths, where most undeniable PCs offer sixteen)— the power prerequisites of an ARM chip will shield Logan from running as fast as today's low-end desktop design cards, however the crude preparing force is there.

On the design side, at any rate, this board will give engineers a smart thought of what the up and coming era of Tegra chips will resemble regarding upheld APIs and execution level.

"With CUDA 5 and OpenGL 4.3, this is a review of Logan," Nvidia General Manager of GPU Computing Ian Buck told Ars. "It gives a similar programming model, highlights, and surmised execution of Logan."

At the end of the day, for designers who need to bring their CUDA or PhysX-empowered workstation applications or diversions over to the ARM engineering, the Kayla board is the trying condition for you. Both in the presentation corridor and amid CEO Jen-Hsun Huang's opening-day keynote, the board was demonstrated running an ARM work of Ubuntu 12.04 and in addition some Nvidia design demos—beam following, smoke, and water recreations all gave off an impression of being running with a sensible level of smoothness (as should be obvious in the authority Nvidia video below).While Nvidia's CUDA innovation hasn't been accessible to engineers on ARM some time recently, this is the initial phase toward that path, and Nvidia will keep on improving backing with future equipment and programming. "Our next rendition of CUDA will bolster ARM five star," Buck said.

Obviously, while the Kayla board approximates the components and execution of Logan on the GPU side, the CPU side is really far-expelled from what that item will be prepared to do. The Tegra 3 chip runs four 1.3GHz Cortex-A9 CPU centers, which is a long ways from even the 1.9GHz Cortex-A15 CPU centers that Nvidia has been flaunting in its reference tablets for Tegra 4. We don't yet know much about Logan's CPU, however it makes sense that it will be significantly quicker than Tegra 4, putting a considerable amount of separation amongst it and the Tegra 3 contribute Kayla. Nvidia disclosed to us that the choice to utilize Tegra 3 for this board as opposed to Tegra 4 came down to interface bolster—Tegra 3 underpins the SATA interface and a PCI Express association with an outer GPU, and Tegra 4 does not.There's likewise no chance that Kayla will fit in anything moving toward the span of a cutting edge tablet—it gives a hefty portion of Logan's elements, however it clearly does not have Logan's joining. "Amazing that Logan will be the span of a dime, though Kayla is currently the extent of a tablet PC," Jen-Hsun Huang said amid Tuesday's keynote.

What's next?

"Many people are keen on ARM for superior registering and cutting edge supercomputers," Buck told Ars, "however they don't generally have an advancement stage to port their code or try different things with their code on ARM. One reason why we're doing this and bringing all the CUDA stuff to there is to help that product biological community get kicked off on ARM."

Some of Nvidia's rivals are additionally investigating this space, which would hypothetically supplant the (generally) couple of intense x86 CPUs in today's servers and supercomputers with numerous slower however more power-effective ARM processors. AMD has declared its goal to go into this market in 2014 with its own ARM chips, and Intel is battling back by utilizing its Atom processors to do a similar thing without the switch in processor models.

While Buck disclosed to us that Nvidia's concentration with Tegra was to remain centered around the shopper advertise—that is, cell phones and tablets and related gadgets like the Shield gaming tablet—he didn't discount the utilization of Nvidia's ARM contributes future servers. Specifically, the follow-up to Logan (codenamed Parker) will bolster 64-bit ARM guidelines, improving it suited for memory-escalated server applications than current Tegra chips.

There's nothing preventing Nvidia's accomplices from utilizing Kayla (and other, comparative items) in items like this now, however. An organization called E4 as of now uses Kayla-esque motherboards, Tegra 3 CPUs, and Quadro GPUs in its ARKA Microcluster, which Seco was flaunting in the show corridor. These servers can pack 24 CPUs and 24 GPUs into a server that expends around 1200 watts of energy, a relative concession on the off chance that you have a workload that should have the capacity to execute numerous littler undertakings as opposed to a couple of substantial ones. Items like these are something we'll just observe a greater amount of as ARM chips (and their going with GPUs) turn out to be more able.

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