You probably ignore most of the mobile ads that pop up on your smartphone -- "Cookie Jam" may promise to be a engaging, fun experience but you're not going to hunt down the app to find out for yourself. Now you don't have to: starting today, Google will embed 60-second trials of smartphone apps directly into some of its mobile ads.
Source: Techcrunch
When researchers from ETH Zurich and Disney get together, they tend to conjure up fascinating creations, such as Beachbot -- a turtle-shaped robot that draws in the sand. This time, they've turned Super Mario Bros. into a huge eight-player game for a one-night event at a Swiss night club that happened to have a 360-degree projection system. According to Ars Technica, the team used an Arduino-based multiplexer in order to connect eight controllers to an unsullied Nintendo Entertainment System. Since they wanted a supersized retro gaming experience, they fed the video output to an upscaler, and then to a computer with custom software that can stitch frames into panoramas.
Via: Atmel, Ars Technica
Source: ETH Zurich
Psychonauts 2 is happening. It's a sequel to Double Fine's first-ever game, a quirky, beloved, 2005 platformer about a team of psychic spies-in-training. Most of the pieces are in order -- the concept art is in, the characters are rendered, the narrative is prepped and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer is ready to roll. The studio needs just one more thing before diving into development: $3.3 million from investors and fans. Slideshow-345788
The Game Awards kick off at 9PM ET (6PM PT) and we're hosting the entire show live on Twitch, complete with ridiculous commentary from your trusted Playdate team, Timothy Seppala, Sean Buckley and myself, Jessica Conditt. This is The Game Awards' second year running and it's poised to be a big, fancy affair filled with new trailers, game announcements, famous guests (including Kiefer Sutherland and Shaq) and musical interludes. And, of course, awards.
There are 22 categories, but titles up for "Game of the Year" are Bloodborne, Fallout 4, Metal Gear Solid V, Super Mario Maker and The Witcher 3. Watch along with us in this post, on Twitch.tv/Joystiq or on the Engadget Gaming homepage.
Moschino is becoming known for sending bizarre collections down the runway, meshing interesting aspects of culture with fashion. The brand's creative director, Jeremy Scott, has designed pieces based on fast food chain McDonald's, cartoon character SpongeBob and, most recently, Barbie. But it's not stopping there. Now, Moschino has partnered with Nintendo to unveil "Super Moschino," a set of t-shirts, sweaters and leather accessories that use Super Mario characters as the subject.
Source: Moschino
So you didn't buy Wolfenstein: The New Order, but you still want early access to the new Doom game? Run, don't walk to the sign-up page and get your information in (those who bought Wolfenstein last year should just search for the download on their respective gaming platforms), because this weekend it's taking testers for the test version on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam. The website is (predictably) crushed by gamers seeking a return to demon-filled corridors of their youth, but with access promised "first-come, first-serve" it's time to give that F5 key or auto-refresh script a workout. Good luck, but if you don't get in then maybe this quick taste of some multiplayer footage will help.
Source: Bethesda Softworks (Twitter)
Tatsumi Kimishima has big shoes to fill as the new president of Nintendo, following the unexpected death of Satoru Iwata earlier this year. Kimishima laid out his winding path toward leadership to Time, noting his involvement in the Great Wii Shortages of the mid-2000s and painting himself as a silent puppet master pulling strings across Nintendo for decades. He also laid out bits of his vision for the future, including some insight into Nintendo's mysterious new console, the NX.
Source: Time
Livestreaming sites like Twitch and YouTube Gaming are driving developers to rethink the way their games are played (and watched). One studio in particular has embraced this spectator-focused industry, and it's pushing the boundaries between player and audience member. Robot Loves Kitty is the husband-and-wife studio responsible for Legend of Dungeon. Its latest spinoff, Legend of Dungeon: Masters, allows Twitch viewers to drop helpful items or dangerous foes into the games played by their favorite streamers, live. It's almost like playing God, but in a dark, hellish dungeon -- perhaps "playing Lucifer" is a more correct phrase.
Who said that spreadsheet apps had to be dry and boring? Certainly not Reddit user Crruzi. As a test of Visual Basic skills, the budding programmer wrote and released an XCOM game, EXLCOM, for Microsoft Excel. That's right -- the same software you use to create charts and graphs will also let you fight invading aliens. It's not what you'd call visually rich (just about everything on the map is represented by crude squares), but it's a surprisingly thorough recreation of the game's tactical battles, complete with unique character stats and terrain you can blow up. There's even a basic level editor.
Via: Polygon
Source: Crruzi (Reddit)
Source: European PlayStation Blog