Rockstar is set to move back to working in-office five days a week from April.
09.02.2024 - 11:23 / rockpapershotgun.com
If you played and liked last year's excellent slice-of-life adventure A Space For The Unbound, stop what you're doing and go and download the Steam Next Fest demo for Until Then. Go on, I'll wait. Right, sorted? Let's continue. Like A Space For The Unbound, Until Then is a coming of age story where the ups and downs of everyday high school life start intermingling with strange, supernatural occurences.
Memories come into question, relationships are tested, and the Steam page hints that people might be getting wiped from existence as a result. The Next Fest demo only tugs at the threads of these themes, but that's mostly because slacker student Mark Borja has more important things to worry about, like cheesing his book report slides on Crime And Punishment, and trying to insert his USB drive the right way round in his laptop. It's a wonderfully observed portrait of little mundane details mixed with big, tender emotions, and cor, its gorgeous mix of expressive pixel art and 3D environments is just the icing on an already fabulous cake, isn't it?
Inspired by developers Polychroma's home country of the Philippines, Until Then's demo does an exceptional job of capturing the quiet, everyday moments of living alone in a big city, as well as the mad rush of panic that comes from not doing your homework on time. It begins with the simple task of simply getting Mark to wake up, requiring you to hammer the 'Start' button several times to trigger his alarm clock beeps. He writhes and groans on his bed trying to drown out the noise of each of your clicks with his pillow, establishing a close, but playful relationship with the protagonist right from the get go.
There are also moments where you can surf Mark's social media feeds on his phone, liking and sharing posts with a click of your mouse, and even reply with fixed responses, which you'll first need to select, and then either hammer random keys on your keyboard or hold down space bar for Mark to type them out in real time. It's a neat little touch, and when he receives texts and DMs from his class president and mates that make him flustered, you'll see him hastily delete, retype, delete again and change his responses entirely as he works out what to say - just like the brilliant Videoverse did with its MSN-style chat logs last year.
The hour-ish long demo gives you plenty to chew on as it sets up the relationships of its cheery central cast, and I frequently found myself cooing over just how much personality the devs manage to squeeze from its really quite lovely pixel art. Its sound design immediately gives it a very clear sense of place, too, with the roar of traffic, cries from streetfood stands, birdsong and the squeak of fresh plimsolls on gymnasium
Rockstar is set to move back to working in-office five days a week from April.
A recent Palworld change that may or may not be a bug is going to be patched out, but it'll take a couple of days.
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As it lays off around 900 people across Sony's stable of studios, including cuts at Naughty Dog, Insomniac, and the entirety of now-defunct PlayStation London, PlayStation Studios is also canning multiple unannounced projects.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the Palwoods, Pocketpair have revealed a new Palworld update - Steam and Xbox patch v0.1.5.0. This is a larger overhaul, encompassing a juicy mixture of balance and technical tweaks that together make this spring's breakout survival game easier to play, less buggy and, dare I say, a little kinder, with various tweaks aimed at making life more liveable both for trainers and Pals. I have run my eye over the changelog at the bottom of this page and picked out a few highlights, like somebody fishing a stray banknote from the laundry.
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Google announced its new Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro handsets in the second half of 2023. The company reimagined the Pixel this year with a boatload of new changes and enhancements for a streamlined user experience. While there are several changes in the mix, the Pixel 8 series still features an optical fingerprint sensor instead of an ultrasonic one, like on the latest Galaxy S24 models. The optical fingerprint scanner on the Pixel 8 is slower and less reliable than the ultrasonic sensor, but there is a workaround to make it faster.
Elden Ring aficianados, it's finally almost time to unclench! Just shy of two years since the launch of FromSoftware's magisterial open-world action-adventure, publisher Bandai Namco has confirmed it'll be sharing more on the game's eagerly awaited DLC, Shadow of the Erdtree, later today, with early rumours pointing to a June launch.
Cybercrime and malicious acts by tricksters are increasing drastically with the ever-increasing use and spread of advanced technology in almost every aspect of life. While app stores like Google Play Store and Apple App Store are strengthening their platforms to detect malicious acts, cyber criminals manage to find new ways to fool the system and get their malicious, malware-laden apps onto them. Tricksters are now fooling smartphone users by uploading malicious apps on these stores in the guise of providing free services to users and these acts are going unnoticed. Needless to say, these malware-laden apps are being used to steal data and money from innocent users. In the latest instance, it has been reported that some malicious apps with a whopping 150000 downloads were discovered in the Google Play Store. These apps are said to be spreading Anatsa banking Trojan malware to users' smartphones to gain control over their devices. Know more about these malware apps here.