Even though the first two days of this week were spent by most Americans celebrating the Fourth of July, there were still a ton of happenings in the iOS gaming arena. Kicking things off was a story surrounding a puzzling update from Five Nights at Freddy’s creator Scott Cawthon. Now, this comes with the massive caveat that Cawthon is no stranger to (intentionally or unintentionally) trolling his audience with updates on the state of development of games in the Five Nights at Freddy’s series, but, you really never know.
If Scott Cawthon is to be believed, he’s been working on Five Nights at Freddy’s 6 but eventually decided to pull the plug on the project due to the pressure that comes from trying to develop another unique entry in the series — particularly with the sky-high expectations surrounding another FNAF sequel. Allegedly, instead he’s going to be working on smaller projects loosely based on the FNAF universe like the upcoming movie, a VR title, and other things.
What has us raising our eyebrows particularly high on this one is that Five Nights at Freddy’s: Sister Location was “delayed” because it was “too scary” and then the game was released four days later. Either way, kids are (still) crazy for FNAF, so it seems worth paying attention to, even if these odd updates seem like a strange way to promote a game.
With Season 3 of Rick and Morty only a few weeks away, Adult Swim has updated Pocket Mortys with online multiplayer battles, new dimensions to explore, and tons of other things. Pocket Mortys features a supremely agreeable free to play system that feels truly optional, and is easily among the best, if not the best Pokemon-like game on the App Store. It’s packed with Rick and Morty fan service, but even if you’ve never seen the show, it’s a fantastic collection and battling game only made better by this update.
Another Rome: Total War port is on the way to the App Store, and this time players will travel back in time to an entirely new scenario that begins with the Macedonians and escalates all the way to the Persian Empire. Rome: Total War – Alexander will launch as a standalone expansion for $4.99 soon. The original iPad port of Rome: Total War was received incredibly well by fans of strategy games, so it seems safe to assume Alexander will be just as good.
Telltale’s Minecraft: Story Mode is a clever mash-up between Telltale’s signature narrative-based games and the Minecraft universe which has practically no story in it at all. The first season of the game spanned eight individual episodes that at times felt a lot like playing a Minecraft-y version of the movie The Goonies. Few details are available yet for the second season except for the trailer and the release date of July 11th, but we’ll be keeping a close eye on this one.
The original Sorcery! is now available for free on the App Store, and is a game everyone should download during this promotion. We’ve written extensively about the game, but CliffsNotes effectively amount to Sorcery! is easily among the best game books on the App Store. If you’ve never played one, imagine Choose Your Own Adventure novels from when you were a kid, but fleshed out to an unbelievable extent. There are two more entries in the series, so if you find yourself enjoying Sorcery! be sure to check out the two sequels.
While it seems like everyone and their brother is riffing on Supercell’s Clash Royale these days, Tilting Point and Simutronics released Siege: Titan Wars this week which is another incredibly polished spin on the formula. Players dispatch swarms of troops and powerful titans, and unleash magic spells in realtime PvP battles. This style of game works incredibly well on mobile, so if you weren’t into Clash Royale for whatever reason, it’s worth giving this one a try.
In Hearthstone news, surrounding rumors, speculation, and legitimate leaks, Blizzard finally announced the next Hearthstone expansion: Knights of the Frozen Throne. Launching next month, Knights of the Frozen Throne is loosely based on the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, but with the requisite signature Hearthstone twist. New Death Knight Hero cards are being introduced, which provide each class with a new Undead-centric hero power.
Finally, Tencent’s Honor of Kings will be launching globally this year. It’s unlikely you’ve heard of this game unless you’re in China, but Honor of Kings has been unbelievably successful, sporting over 50 million daily active users and raking in over $140 million a month. The game is so popular in China that the developers were actually forced to limit how much people can play it by the Chinese government. It’s a situation that’s almost impossible to believe, but I’m incredibly curious to see how it does outside of Asian markets.
That’s it for this week! As always, if you appreciate these iOS gaming roundups and are interested in way more content like this, head over to TouchArcade where we’re posting iOS game news, reviews, guides, and more all day long. We’ve got an iOS gaming Twitch channel, a fantastic Discord server, and a weekly podcast that are also all worth checking out.
The Minecraft Better Together update revealed at E3 2017 is the epitome of multiplayer for the Minecraft community. Microsoft is spanning its reach not only across consoles and Windows 10, but bringing them all back together under one economy and collective Bedrock Engine. Which leads to some relevant questions about what happens to the money we’ve already spent on Minecraft.
If you’ve been enjoying Minecraft across platforms, you might want to hold off on making any further purchases until after the summer. With the implementation of the marketplace replacing dollars with new Minecraft coins, buying DLC and digital content for Minecraft is even easier. All of which will also be available cross-play with the Better Together update. But what will happen to those of us that have spent money on Minecraft via different devices?
We reached out to a Microsoft spokesperson for clarification about how the Minecraft Better Together update will affect current and future purchases.
OnMSFT: As we already understand it, the Better Together Update will be making Coins and DLC purchases reach across platforms to each Minecraft on each platform. This brings into question if purchasing Minecraft will be across platform as well. For example, if a gamer buys Minecraft on the Windows 10 Store, will that Minecraft key be available for other consoles or will that player need to purchase Minecraft core game separately for the other console?”
Players will need to purchase Minecraft separately for each device they play on.
OnMSFT: Furthermore, will previous DLC and Coin purchases on the Marketplace be consolidated into extra coins or will previous purchases be ignored? I.E. if I bought the Fallout 4 Mashup Pack for Windows 10 and for Xbox One console version, will one of those be turned/refunded into coins once the games are merged together? Or will the payment towards one of those packs be lost?”
Players will not receive coin credit for packs purchased on multiple devices in the past.
OnMSFT: Is Xbox Play Anywhere for Windows 10/Xbox One in the future?”
Minecraft is not an Xbox Play Anywhere title. With endless, randomly generated worlds, millions of players and an amazing amount of community content, the value that players get from Minecraft is second to none. We feel that there’s an incredible value our players are getting for the cost to buy Minecraft already.
According to Microsoft, Minecraft is a value for its price, so buying it individually on each platform shouldn’t be too much to ask for. The Better Together update will merge the Bedrock Edition for almost all versions of Minecraft (except PlayStation 4 and Java Edition) letting you play together and merge all of your purchased content under one marketplace.
Is the fact that Microsoft won’t refund any duplicated Minecraft DLC purchases before the fact controversial? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.
The huge Better Together Minecraft [$6.99] update (or 1.2) is getting closer, and the developers continue teasing upcoming features. One of the new features is ravines, which make map generation much more interesting and create all kinds of possibilities for funny bridge-centered builds. We are also getting parrots, which can be tamed and will perch on your shoulder, turning you into a silly-looking pirate. The update is also adding jukeboxes and music discs, for those lonely, quiet nights of winter. Speaking of winter, temperature will now decrease with height.
The update will also give you the opportunity to play around with fireworks, as you can see in the gif above, and will also offer the possibility of starting new maps with Bonus Chests, which are very helpful. Finally, the crafting UI is redesigned to combine the classic crafting UI with regular recipe book style crafting, which should be great help for players. No word yet on when the update will release, but it shouldn’t be too far off.
Local authorities have been “amazed to see that young women from slums could design as architects or urban planners”, according to the co-ordinator of a United Nations initiative using the video game Minecraft to get communities designing their own public spaces.
The Block by Block project is the work of UN-Habitat – the United Nations agency for sustainable urban development – together with the makers of the hugely popular world-building computer game Minecraft, Mojang.
Block by Block is a global UN-run programme in which Minecraft is used as a community participation tool in the design of public spaces, like this one designed for Dandora, Nairobi – the location of the biggest dump site in East Africa
Since 2012, they have used the game to engage communities all over the world — particularly young people, women and slum dwellers – in the design of their local public spaces, and have now reached more than 25 countries. Kenya, Peru, Haiti and Nepal are among the nations to have Block by Block-designed spaces.
Last month, Pontus Westerberg, coordinator of Block by Block, took to the stage at Made In Space, a three-day festival held at Space10 in Copenhagen’s meatpacking district, to explain how the initiative uses Minecraft as a community participation tool in urban design for public space projects all over the world – particularly in poor communities within developing countries.
Communities are able to build into virtual landscapes that correspond to the real-life environment, as in this project in Mogadishu, Somalia, where a market hall has been built on a former waste heap
“They’re quite stale,” said Westerberg, speaking about typical urban planning meetings in local communities. “Generally, a person will stand in a room in front of people who are listening. All the people in the room are above the age of 45 or 50. There are generally no young people, and not so many women.”
“In Kenya where I live, more than 50 per cent of the population is under 25, so finding ways to get young people involved in community space projects is crucial.”
This rendering shows plans for the second phase of the Market Hall development in Mogadishu, Somalia, where 20 years of civil war has severely limited the development of basic urban services
The Block by Block programme organises workshops with 30-to-50 people that live and work around the planned public spaces. Divided into groups of around three or four people, the local residents are taught how to build in the virtual landscape of Minecraft.
“Older residents who have never used computers before are taught by young guys,” explained Westerberg. “So you get this really nice intergenerational communication going on.”
After building projects in Minecraft, stakeholders from local government, the mayor’s office, planners and architects listen to presentations by people who were part of the design process.
Mumbai is one city where Block by Block ran workshops with the people that live and work around the planned public spaces
Speaking about one particular project in Nairobi, Kenya, Westerberg said, “I spoke to the mayor of Nairobi and the head of the urban planning department after the presentations, and they were just amazed to see that young women from slums could actually design as architects or urban planners.”
The ideas from the presentations are put into a final report, which is then given to an architect, who translates the designs and ideas into architectural drawings.
Recent projects include a series of workshops in Hanoi where a group of teenage girls used Minecraft to come up with ideas to improve safety in their local neighbourhood. In Palestine, the organisation worked with 50 teenagers to design a park in East Jerusalem, and in Kosovo an old derelict market space was turned into a public square.
Participants in Mumbai collaborated on this park design in Gautam Nagar – one of 45 resettlement and rehabilitation colonies across the city. The walls surrounding this colony have now been painted with advice about saving water, the environment and waste disposal
Minecraft is the world’s second best-selling video game of all time, with more than 121 million copies sold worldwide. In a virtual landscape, players use textured cubes to build constructions. There are no specific goals set for the player to accomplish, so what they do in the world is up to them.
Using the game, players have recreated real and fictional locations from various time periods, including a 1:1 street layout of Lower Manhattan in the 1930s and the continent of Westeros as featured in George RR Martin’s Game of Thrones novels.
In Nairobi, Block by Block participants imagined a public space with a skate park. Based on the proposals from the community, a detailed design, including the materials to be used, has been developed for costing and construction
Jose Sanchez, the developer behind another architecture-focused video game, Block’hood, told Dezeen last year that the medium was becoming an increasingly important tool for designing cities.
A group of participants in Nairobi proposed street lighting for their scheme
“As architects, we have been trained to think of local scales: small, medium, large and extra large,” he said. “But today we face global issues and we need new tools to address a new kind of scale: a planetary scale.
“By using games, we can engage a global audience in the problems that architecture is facing.”
In a few weeks, and more precisely up to August 25, players with a Nintendo Switch will be able to try out the first season of Minecraft: Story Mode. But if everything goes well, other titles of Telltale Games should follow up.
Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1 is currently the only game Telltale has announced for Nintendo Switch, but Head of Communications Job Stauffer did not deny the possibility of seeing other titles of the company on the hybrid platform of the house of Kyoto.
It was at GameSpot that Job Stauffer, director of communication, expressed the interest of the developer on the new machine of Nintendo:
“We haven’t quite announced [Minecraft: Story Mode Season 2 for Switch] but we certainly hope to continue things on that platform; we’re big fans.”
“It wouldn’t be unheard if more of our series also made it to Switch; we love the platform. It’s kind of perfect for what we do. All of our games are the same on mobile as they are on consoles. And for a mobile console [like the Switch] it’s pretty awesome.”
The release date for Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1 on Nintendo Switch has not yet been communicated.
In recent weeks Stauffer also stated that Telltale is discussing a new intellectual property, however, there are no announcements about it. “An original, new IP is definitely still in our future,” Stauffer told Gamespot. “It may not be as immediate as the next few things we have coming up. We haven’t been able to say a lot about it in the last few years.”
What series of Telltale Games do you want to see happen on Nintendo Switch: The Wolf Among Us, Batman, The Walking Dead, or Guardians of the Galaxy? Let us know about it in the comments below.
We remind you that the first episode of Minecraft Story Mode’s second season will arrive on PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and mobile devices running on iOS and Android in a few days, on July 11th.
Microsoft has been slipping fun Easter Eggs into Windows 10’s Insider builds, with the ninja cat meme being only the most obvious manifestation of this trend.
Another Reddit user yesterday spotted and posted a new easter egg where Windows error window read “Windows is opening a portal to another dimension”. This is potentially a reference to Minecraft, which Microsoft now owns and has been pushing for mixed reality and education purposes.
While Easter eggs are popular with fans and some customers, not everyone is enamoured by the thought of Easter Eggs.
In a 2007 post detailing the amount of due diligence done when adding an Easter Egg, Microsoft’s Larry Osterman branded the practice as irresponsible.
But it didn’t matter – we still shouldn’t have done it. Why? Because it was utterly irresponsible. We didn’t tell the customers about it, and that was unforgivable, ESPECIALLY in a network server. What would have happened if there had been a buffer overflow or other security bug in the Easter Egg code? How could we POSSIBLY explain to our customers that the reason we allowed a worm to propagate on the internet was because of the vanity of our deveopers? Why on EARTH would they trust us in the future?
That being said, Easter Eggs are still fun for both developers and users alike, and this particular one has only appeared on an insider beta build so far.
Spotted any other Easter Eggs in Windows 10? Let us know in the comments below.
