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Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by Lasantha Bandara - Premiumbloggertemplates.com.
Go to Blogger edit html and find these sentences.Now replace these sentences with your own descriptions.This theme is Bloggerized by Lasantha Bandara - Premiumbloggertemplates.com.
It's absolutely awesome that CAVE's library of shmups is being ported to Switch and genre fans can now enjoyDoDonPachi Resurrection.
I love CAVE shoot 'em ups and have enjoyed a couple previous entries in the DonPachi franchise as I own both DonPachi and DoDonPachi for PS1 but I've never played DoDonPachi Resurrection and it's quite a modern marvel. However, I will admit right off the bat that I didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did Espgaluda II with its intricate difficulty and scoring mechanics as DoDonPachi Resurrection mostly opts to play it safe with tried and true core gameplay and of course, thrilling action-packed stages that provide a hearty challenge.
Now, that should be more than enough on its own for any serious shmup player, especially considering just how tight and responsive the controls are. On a basic level, you alternate between a turbo shot and a steady laser shot which each have their own advantages. For example, the latter is slower and can halt enemy lasers mid-stream while the former can cancel projectiles whenever you're in hyper mode. Speaking of which, your hyper gauge gradually fills and once it's full, you can enter hyper mode to become more powerful and have the ability to cancel any enemy attack by alternating between the 2 shot types. Meanwhile, you get a stock of bombs that you can automatically deploy whenever you're about to get hit which is great for genre newcomers because this can be one tough shmup.
Before discussing more about its gameplay, I must say that DoDonPachi Resurrection is one great-looking and sounding shmup. I love it when shoot 'em ups feature such detailed visuals that you want to just reach into the screen and pick up the ships and such to get a closer look of them. The Raiden franchise is great at this yet DoDonPachi Resurrection is similar in its approach with superbly animated bosses, detailed stages, and distinctly-coloured projectiles. Oh, the music is excellent as well with plenty of upbeat and memorable tunes and I swear; one boss even goes to the music which made my jaw drop. I wish more shmups had this level of finesse. 😊
When it comes to modes, DoDonPachi Resurrection features 8 iterations that vary in difficulty and complexity. The most notable iteration is the original Black Label version where you can combine both shot types by holding 2 buttons down and while doing so, a gauge will increase that will eventually make the gameplay enter a super-difficult mode. Black Label also has an arrange mode that has you pilot the helicopter from Ketsui; another CAVE shmup. This is probably the most action-packed mode as you get a ton of firepower via option satellites and you can lock-on to enemies, too. There's also an iteration that lets you always fight the secret mid-bosses, a couple of novice modes, a sort of customizable VR training mode, and a basic arrange mode that resembles the previous DonPachi game.
With all of these modes in mind, you can further change up the gameplay to suit your play style by choosing from a few distinct ships and styles. For example, you can have a more focused or wider shot as well as choose to use bombs or sacrifice them for a potentially more powerful shot. Some options are trickier than others so as you adapt to the gameplay, it's rewarding to experiment with a higher degree of challenge. With all of that being said, there are no substantial power-ups which makes progress feel less satisfying as your capabilities remain flat from start to finish. It's still a ton of fun, though, and changing up the modes and options adds variety.
There’s a robust lineup of games joining PlayStation Now this month. There’s a Western epic with Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2, intense yokai action in the form of Nioh 2, while Judgment serves up a compelling psychological thriller. Enjoy cooperative hijinks with hilarious sim Moving Out, and give in to your competitive nature with both Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 and Nascar Heat 5. And also welcome back the acclaimed adventure of Kratos and Aterus as God of War returns to PlayStation Now. *Phew*. It’s an epic month. Let’s find out more about what awaits you when all these games join PlayStation Now tomorrow, July 6.
Red Dead Redemption 2
From the creators of Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption, Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sprawling tale of life in America at the dawn of the modern age. After a robbery goes badly wrong in the western town of Blackwater, Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang are forced to flee. With federal agents and the best bounty hunters in the nation massing on their heels, the gang must rob, steal and fight their way across the rugged heartland of America in order to survive. Also included is Red Dead Online: forge your own path as you battle lawmen, outlaw gangs and ferocious wild animals to build a life on the American frontier.
Last month I talked about how the current shipping situation in the world affects the cost (and thus the price) of board games, but I feel that for a lot of people this is a merely theoretical issue, as long as you do not have a clear insight of what is the actual cost of a game. So, today, let's try to rectify this, and break apart the cost of a game, looking really into details. I hope that my colleagues won't kill me for disclosing this information, but I guess that's a risk I am going to take anyway
To do this breakdown effectively, I need to choose a title, and my weapon of choice is Origins: First Builders, a game that Board&Dice is releasing this year. But I must also acknowledge that countries have various way of taxing products, so I will try to also account for that, but since I don't work in world finances, it may not be 100% accurate.
Manufacturing cost
This is the easiest part... in a way. Origins: First Builders is made in China, and our production cost per unit is $11. I know, it does not seem like a lot, for a game that will end up priced around $70, so please bare with me... This is the cost per copy for a first print run amounting to 22000 copies, spread over 10 languages. This is a lot for most small and medium publishers. But there is a trap along the way.
In future prints (if any), we need to assume that the total amount printed drops sharply, with a realistic number per print of 5000 copies. Even this is a bit optimistic. Why? Let's assume that Origins: First Builders will be a hit in Germany and Poland, but not so popular elsewhere. This means that our German and Polish partners can reorder, while no other partners join. We'd have three choices: - do this print of let's say 3000 copies with a higher price per copy, - add 2000 English copies, hoping that they will sell, - or ask partners to wait until the time when someone else can join for a total of 5000 copies.
For simplicity sake, let's assume that we choose option 2 or 3, so we will end up printing no less than 5000 copies. In this case, while we do not have to pay again the fixed costs (printing plates, molds for plastics, etc), we'd still end up paying a higher price per copy, which is $12.5.
On the other hand, for these additional copies, we will no longer account for development or art costs, and marketing costs will be decreased, so we can assume that in the end the overall impact in our costs remains at the same level: $11.
Shipping cost
Shipping used to be a straightforward business: we'd assume that for a Ticket-to-Ride size box we'd have to pay $1 per copy, and for a smaller box $0.5. The new reality looks like this: $3 per copy, with a high chance that would increase to $4, for various reasons: - we asked for a shipping quote without guaranteed space on a vessel, which then falls apart, so we must accept a higher price or start paying port storage costs - vessels are delayed at destination (see this article: A record-breaking 44 container ships are stuck off the coast of California) which means not only delays, but added costs (shipping companies will move that costs to customers one way or another) - shipping is unavailable to Europe, which means we need to ship by train
So, to be on the safe side, we'll work with a shipping cost of $3.5, which should suffice (unless something really bad happens).
Art & Development cost
For Origins: First Builders we had a rather modest art budget, mostly because we have 3 people in house who are actively involved in this process, but accounting for their hours spent, we're looking at an overall cost of $8000.
But this game required a lot of development work, despite the fact that when we received it from Adam Kwapiński it was in a very advanced state. Still, we put in over 1000 hours of game development, rules writing, testing internally and externally, etc. This amounts to over $13000, and please bear in mind that our main office is in Poland, where salaries are still lower than in Western Europe or the United States.
Drawing the line, the art and development costs amount for a single dollar ($1) per copy, which is pretty amazing.
Marketing cost
This is the only part I must admit I do now know by heart, it is outside my field of expertise, but since I deal with financial planning I know the overall amount, which is again $1 per copy (if our marketing department did not go rogue ).
Royalties
Designers get a percentage of our net sales as royalties, and this is a percentage ranging from 7% to 9%, depending on the game genre, on the designer's experience and state of the game, and on a few other factors. But since we cannot disclose the details of an ongoing contract, we'll just assume that the amount is always 8%. This is what we know at this time, but I will go back to that after we look on the revenue side of things.
Other costs
So... we work using computers, in an office which requires us to pay rent and get certain supplies . This also affects the cost of each of our games, but in a limited way. When we made the financial forecast for the next year, we simply divide our fixed costs among planned products, and without going into the really boring details, we end up with $0.25 per copy. It's not a lot, but it adds up.
Costs summary
Production: $11 Shipping: $3.5 Art + development: $1 Marketing: $1 Others: $0.25 Royalties: 8% of net sales (we'll come back to that) Taxes (how could I forget about them?): 20% of profit
The supply chain
You, as the gamer and final customer, pay a price for a board game which is usually the MSRP (Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price), and you buy it from a retailer. That MSRP includes the VAT (if you're in Europe), GST or sales tax (North America), which is a tax that your government collects from all sales. The average VAT is 20% in the EU and the average sales tax is 10%. The retailer has its own costs as well, and they buy from distributors with an average discount of 50% of MSRP. The, distributors buy (or take under consignment) games from publishers with an average discount of 60% (in which case the publisher pays for shipping) or 65% (shipping is split). This would be the end of it, unless the publisher selling to the distributor is a localizing partner, in which case they would but from the original publisher (that would be us, Board&Dice) with a discount ranging from 70% to 75%. We will assume an average discount of 72.5% and co-publishers paying half of the cost of transport.
Yep, you're probably a little lost, unless you work in the industry, so let's switch to an image, assuming an MSRP of $70.
The first refers to the localization model: we - the original publisher - work with localization partners who translate and, later, sell the games. They get a high discount, but take all the risk, as they pay on delivery for all their games.
The second model is the classic distribution model: we - the original publisher - sell English copies to distributors. We get paid for half of the copies sent, while the other half remains under consignment, which means that we get paid if they get sold.
I know, a lot of people retain small pieces of the pie. There are a lot of conclusions to be drawn from these charts, for example that retailers retain more profit than it is shown because they can offer sometimes deep discounts. That is rarely the situation, and in most cases retails offer deeply discounted products that don't sell anymore to minimize loss (I know that there are exceptions). What we know for a fact is that in 2021 the shipping industry has made record profits, supported by price increasing 6 to 15 fold. Not knowing the exact details of every business down the "food chain" besides our own, it is hard to make more than educated guesses, so I will limit myself to talk about our own piece of the pie.
So, what's our profit in the end?
For Origins we made 7000 English copies and 15000 localized copied. With a weighted average, our profitability per copy would be $4.8. This is, of course, if: - all English language copies are sold (remember, this is partially a consignment model) - no copies are damaged in transport (we do not get paid for those) - there are no significant defects, which would make us send an unusual amount of replacements - the exchange rates between US dollars, Euro, and Polish zloty remain fairly constant.
But $70 was not the plan
We had originally planned Origins to be a $60 game. Going through the same model, our average profitability for a localized copy would be $0.4 and for an English copy $2, with a weighted average of $0.9, again under the same assumptions as before (the most relevant one being that all consignment copies get sold).
So, what changed?
Two important things changes: the shipping cost increased from under $1 to more than $3 per copy, and for this there are no smart(er) shipping strategies... because there is simply no cheaper shipping option. So, this cost had to be accounted for. The second one is a consequence of the first: raw materials became more expensive, because in a globalized economy nothing get sourced only from local suppliers (most of the time because there are not enough local suppliers). So, our manufacturing partners increased the costs only slightly, but enough to make a difference. Well, perhaps I should list a third: the pandemic increased the cost of risk, by a lot. What does that mean? Every time we publish a game (or, in general, an enterprise decides to invest in a new product) we are taking a risk: we invest in development, in people, in processes, etc. But the market and the supply chain come with bigger threats, which means that the outcome of failing is more costly. The cost of risk must be factored in, otherwise we'd have to either stop making new products, or accept that the first time we fail it will also be the last, as our business would no longer be viable.
Within the last 12 months, I noticed that a lot of successful games have an increased price point, among them I can count Terraforming Mars, Terra Mystica, or Maracaibo to name a few of my favorite titles. In Poland at least, Terraforming Mars is about 1.5x more expensive than it was a few years back when I got my copy. In my opinion, neither of these publishers, distributors or retailers increased the prices because they wanted a bigger margin, but rather out of necessity and desire to remain in business.
Why not manufacture locally?
If we had a penny for every instance I've heard this, we would... have been able to keep the MSRP lower
This is an entirely new, long discussion, and I promise I will comment on this soon. In anticipation, what I can say now is that we tried. For the kind of games we make, there are no viable options to produce in US or Europe... yet!
I was watching Jamey Stegmaier on uTube talking about his comfort games. You know intuitive to play, easy to set up, light on rules overhead but still with interesting decisions.
It was interesting that his tolerance to play long and complicated games back to back has diminished during the pandemic. I actually feel the opposite. I think playing so much on Yucata has meant that I able to play multiple games back to back or even simultaneously.
It has also given me a great number of games that I know the rules for well without having to consult the rules book. I am not going to include fillers in the list.
My comfort games include Little Town which is a really satisfying, tile activation game. It doesn’t get any simpler than this. On your turn simply place your meeple and activate the eight squares around it or build a building. It’s easy to set up and takes about thirty minutes to play. Despite this there is some strategy around which buildings to build and some track decisions. It also has some nice positive player interaction in that you can pay to use an opponents building.
Before lockdown my most played game (and indeed BGG’s most played game) was Wingspan There’s good reason for this. It’s about the right depth and length of play. Again easy to set up with no complicated scaling. The rules set is a tad complex but the rules are quick to pick up once you have played a few rounds. The most difficult decision is which cards to choose from your opening hand but with the quick start pack this is easy to teach to newbies.
My most played game is Cacao and this is so intuitive. The only slightly weird think is the checker board tile lay out but besides from this no rules overhead at all. But again so satisfying. A little bit more aggressive than some of the other games on this list.
Everdell for me is a bit like Wingspan. I’ve played this so much it just feels like coming home. But each games plays are really differently. This a bit more time consuming to set up than some of the other games on this list and longer too. But it still feel quite intuitive to me. We no longer bother with the tree. The only complex bit is the remembering what happens at the end of each season.
Carcassonne for me is such en elegant game with just the right amount of player interaction although it came be cutthroat at two player. Some will argue that the farmers take it out of this this but I disagree. Carcassonne is a game for me that’s deeper than it looks. Sure there’s a lot of luck, unless you draft for the tiles, but the more skilled player will always win. I get comfort is seeing that familiar landscape spreading out before me. I can’t wait for the Carcassonne: 20th Anniversary Edition edition. But the Winter edition is the most beautiful.
Istanbul is one of those games it’s impossible not to enjoy. I love the vibrancy and the different mechanisms. I like the multiple paths to victory. Again a tad tricky to teach and set ups a bit more complex than the other games on this list. But at least there is no adding up at the end. This is my bomb proof game. I have not had someone dislike it yet. Again just the right amount of player interaction.
Finally PARKS. This is literally a walk in the Park. Easy to teach, Intuitive, no set up to speak of (all the components ready to go in their trays) and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome.
Fancy dipping a toe into the gaming world of yesteryear? Here are the six classic consoles we think you should start with
People often make the mistake of thinking that video games are a relentlessly forward-looking medium. It's all about the next big release, the next console generation, the next PC graphics card technology. Except it isn't really. Games are, like most other artforms these days, obsessively self-referential. They are constantly mining the past for successful ideas, merging old genres to create strange new ones, or simply borrowing the aesthetics of past generations. If modern games have one fault (they probably have more, but let's not go there), it's that they can seem intimidating to newcomers because they rely so much on age-old conventions and traditions.
Also, old consoles are nice. They look weird and thrilling, with their chunky plastic bodies and their gigantic cartridge ports. They are relics of fun, nostalgic artifacts that remind us of childhoods spent waiting patiently for games to load from cassettes, or blowing the dust out of old carts. Obviously, there are hundreds of online emulators that let you experience classic titles from the comfort of your PC, but that's sort of missing the point – much like listening to the MP3 of an old 78 record. Part of the pleasure is in the ritual of the vintage hardware: plugging in a cartridge, sliding in a diskette, or hitting the button that sends a CD lid flipping up like an old ghetto blaster. It's faintly fetishistic, of course, but you know, fetish is about pleasure, and old games machines certainly provide that.
Anyway, for those interested in trying old consoles first-hand, here are six classics that I'd recommend starting with. I deliberately chose machines that are easy to get hold of on eBay or at car boot sales and that won't break the bank. They all have very large gaming libraries and again, the games are easily available. These are all relatively reliable too, so even if you buy one that looks like it has been driven over by a Ford Model, it should still function.
As ever, feel free to add your own suggestions!
Commodore Amiga, 1985
Okay, this isn't strictly a console, it's a home computer, but if you owned an Amiga in the late-eighties or early nineties you owned one of the best games machines on the planet. This was the glory era of Britsoft, when idiosyncratic UK studios like Bitmap Brothers (Speedball 2, Chaos Engine), Team 17 (Worms), Bullfrog (Syndicate) and Sensible Software (Cannon Fodder, Sensible Soccer) were in their pomp. It's also where a lot of technically gifted European studios like Guerrilla and Housemarque originated, courtesy of the 'demo scene', where coders, artists and musicians competed to wring the absolute most out of the Amiga hardware.
Buying guide: you can get a basic functional Amiga 500 for about £35 on eBay, but look for people offering bundles of the computer and games. Subsequent models, including the Amiga 600 and Amiga 1200, offer more processing power and design refinements, as well as compatibility with later titles, but most of the best games will run on a 500 or the slightly improved 500+ just fine. "I'd go for the Amiga 500+," says journalist and vintage games collector Will Freeman. "It plays a few more late era games than the 500, and with an easily available, super simple to use bit of software – I use ‘Relokick’ – you can trick your Amiga 500+ into booting up as an Amiga 500, thus letting you play all the additional games."
Sega Mega Drive, 1988
As the first major 16bit console, the Mega Drive was a massive success in the US and Europe, thanks to its combination of fantastic arcade conversions and authentic (for the time) sports simulations. It was the golden age of the scrolling action game, with titles like Streets of Rage, Altered Beast and Mickey Mouse: Castle of Illusion typifying the genre, while EA came into its own producing the Fifa, NHL and NBA simulations. There were also wonderful RPGs like Phantasy Star and Shining Force, as well as compelling blasters such as Gunstar Heroes, Truxton and Contra: Hard Corps, all filled with colour and energy. And of course, there was Sonic the Hedgehog, his first three adventures still as astonishingly fast and vibrant as they were 20 years ago.
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Buying guide: There were two basic versions of the Mega Drive in Pal territories, the original and the updated Mega Drive 2. Both are fine, though the latter is smaller and feels cheaper, and the 'reset' switch is prone to breaking. The original Mega Drive also has better sound quality, even though it doesn't run true stereo through the A/V port. You can pick up a Mega Drive on eBay for £20-100 depending on condition and the number of games bundled with it, but you'll also find them at car boot sales for a fiver. Make sure you get all the cables and at least two joypads so you can play great two-player titles like Micro Machines. Oh and if you're thinking of building on to your system with one of the two later Mega Drive add-ons, go for the Mega CD rather than the later 32X. The latter had very few decent games, while the Mega CD boasted the decent Sonic CD and luscious Lunar: The Silver Star, and you can experience the era's most controversial title, NightTrap – which is awful, by the way, but was debated in the US Senate during a 'ban this sick filth' frenzy so it has 'historical interest'.
Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1990
Some call Nintendo's 16bit machine the greatest games console of all time, and it's difficult to disagree. It was technically superior to the Mega Drive with more colours and clever sprite rotation/scaling hardware and it has a truly vast software catalogue. Indeed, from 1990 to 1996, the system saw some of the most iconic series' of all time, from Final Fantasy to Street Fighter, with Nintendo wringing the most out of its exclusivity deals with Japanese developers. And of course, there were homegrown classics like Super Mario Kart, Super Metroid and F-Zero, as well as the wonderful Donkey Kong Country titles from first-party studio, Rare. And basically, if you want to understand the history of the JRPG genre, this is where to come and gorge yourself: Chrono Trigger, Zelda, Secret of Mana, Final Fantasy III... the list is endless.
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Buying guide: As with the Mega Drive, a basic unit with all the leads will cost you upwards of £20, but it's worth checking eBay for decent bundles of hardware and games. The pal machines can get quite discoloured so this isn't going to look pretty, but the hardware is sturdy.
Sony PlayStation, 1994
It was tough to decide between Sony's original 32bit console and its spectacularly successful successor, but for greater retro appeal, we went for the former. This was the machine that totally disrupted the home console market, shoving Sega and Nintendo out of the way and bringing Sony into the industry in a big way. The sleek hardware architecture is built for 3D graphics, and unlike its rival, the Sega Saturn, developers got to grips with it fast, relishing a new piece of kit to fiddle with. Games-wise, this is where a lot of the key current franchises came into their own, including Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid, Tekken and Tomb Raider, and where developers discovered the twenty-something, post-pub gaming generation through offbeat music-powered classics such as WipEout and Pa Rappa the Rappa. It's also worth tracking down gems like Konami's strategy RPG Vandal Hearts and Reflections' early open-world gangster adventure, Driver.
Buyers guide: There were several iterations of the PlayStation One and you should do some research before buying, even if that just means reading the Wikipedia entry on PlayStation Models. Earlier version had more inputs on the back as well as a Parallel I/O connector, which was only ever really used for cheat cartridges. However, these first models also had some problems playing FMV (full-motion video), so unless you really want Audio In/Out connections, go for a later iterations. The budget PSone machines are okay, but they're teeny and look like toys – they don't have the slightly chunky bold looks of the originals. The PSone also omits the serial port, so if you fancied connecting two PlayStations together for local multiplayer WipEout face-offs, avoid it. As for pricing, you can get a machine for a tenner on eBay, and often that will include a few games. Remember to search locally, though, to save on postage with those massive bundle deals. Oh and you'll need some memory cards to save your games, too!
Racing driver Jann Mardenborough on how playing Gran Tourism was the launch pad to his career.
Jann Mardenborough won the Nissan PlayStation GT Academy competition in 2011, earning the chance to take part in professional racing. Backed by Nissan, he has since competed extensively in sports car racing and completed one season in single-seaters; he's finished with a class podium at the Le Mans 24 Hours and as runner-up in the Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand.
As part of the Infinite Red Bull Racing driver development program, he will race for Arden International in this year's GP3 Championship – one of the most important feeder series for Formula One.
I started gaming when I was seven
Playing Gran Tourism on the original PlayStation, really just racing games, I played the odd shooting game now and then but the majority of it was racing, I've always had a passion for Gran Tourism and to drive cars I'd probably never, ever, get to drive.
For my A-levels, I designed a gaming pod to race in
I made it out of MDF wood and bought myself a wheel paddle with some money I saved up, and then I was away. About a year later GT Academy came round, and served me pretty well.
Winning GT Academy was the best moment of my life
I knew that my life was going to change massively. After that, the first time I drove a fast GT car, a fast road car, that was a pretty cool moment – to be released round Silverstone in a 500-horse power Nissan GT-R was pretty crazy for a 19-year-old.
The transition from video game to real-life driving wasn't that difficult
The controls and physics engines in games these days are crazy, they take real-life data from cars and then put them into code so that the way that the car pitches and brakes and the steering input works very well in racing games.
Of course, you feel the G-force which you don't in the game, but you're so tightly strapped into the seat, that it's not really an issue.
People think gaming is just lounging around
But it can actually be something that's fantastic and, although it's all happened very, very quickly, it's a amazingly cool situation to find myself in.
In a way, I'm sort of living out my childhood dream, so it's very fulfilling that gaming is what has allowed me to do that.
It would be the absolute pinnacle for me to reach F1
But I'm concentrating this year on GP3 and will try to develop and improve. The Infinite Red Bull Racing driver development program means I can use their simulators to train so that I can arrive at a track I've never driven at before and can be on the pace in the first practice session.
A lot of guys have made the jump into the top of the sport from GP3, so it's nice to know that I'm in the correct championship, and with a great team as well, I'm in a great position to get the ball rolling.
