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Steam is known for its frequent sales, but this weekend, you can grab a game completely for free. Princess Remedy 2: In A Heap of Trouble is free until 10 AM on October 15, and if you grab it in time, it’s yours to keep forever.
All you need to do to claim your digital copy is go to its Steam page and click “Add to Account.” You’ll then be greeted by a successful redemption message on the next page. Princess Remedy 2 is an action-RPG shooter that sort of resembles Game Boy games–of course with a much greater colour palette.
Princess Remedy 2 is the sequel to a free game, Princess Remedy: In A World of Hurt, that’s available on Steam right now. Both games are from developer Ludosity, a team that’s best known for its Zelda-like Ittle Dew series.
BlizzCon is home to championships, game reveals, fan events, and cosplay contests. This year it may host another spectacle: mass political demonstrations. In the wake of Blizzard’s heavily criticized decision to ban a player for making a political statement in a post-match interview, a group of gamers are organizing a protest to take place at the event.
The digital rights group Fight for the Future unveiled its Gamers For Freedom campaign. The campaign site already has tools in place like a scorecard for companies which have publicly pledged not to censor players, and suggestions for similar games for those who want to boycott Blizzard. The group is calling for an umbrella protest to take place at BlizzCon. You can RSVP for the protest through its Facebook page, and join its Discord channel.
“Blizzard, and other companies who are engaging in censorship on behalf of an authoritarian government, are not going to get away with it,” said Fight for the Future deputy director Evan Greer, in a statement. “They have no idea what kind of Internet shitstorm they’ve unleashed. We’re going to make an example out of them to make sure that all companies know that throwing human rights and free expression under the bus to make some extra money will not be tolerated.”
The controversy began when professional Hearthstone player Ng Wai Chung (aka Blitzchung) expressed support for the Hong Kong protests during a post-match interview. Blizzard banned Chung from competitive events for a year and rescinded his $10,000 in winnings. Since then the response has been fierce, with gamers calling for boycotts and some deleting their accounts. US Senators criticized the move as censorship, some Blizzard employees staged their own protest, and host personalities like Brian Kibler announced they would no longer shoutcast Hearthstone events. Most recently Hearthstone’s first ever World Champion, James Kostesich aka “Firebat,” called the penalty ridiculous and unreasonable.
Dayton Young, product director at Fight for the Future, outlined a series of steps the campaign believes Blizzard must take. Those include reversing the ban of Chung, restoring his $10,000 in tournament winnings, and repairing its relationship with livestream personalities who have declined to work with Blizzard.
“No gamers should be punished for expressing their views on politics and human rights,” Young said. “And no game company should ever ban or penalize players for advocating for their own political freedom. We call on all game developers and publishers to make a public commitment to support the rights of their customers, employees, and fans to freely express their beliefs in America, in Hong Kong, in China, and around the globe.”
Five more games have been added to Apple Arcade, further boosting the size of the mobile game subscription service’s library. Two of the five seem rather spooky, perfect for anyone looking for that type of game ahead of Halloween. In fact, both of the scary-looking games seem like the most promising of the new bunch.
Inmost looks like it may be the best of the lot, an atmospheric, story-driven puzzle platformer that has you control three different characters in three different stories, all of which come together in one interconnected narrative. Gameplay looks tense, with demonic-like shadow creatures chasing you through haunted-looking woods and crumbling settlements and castles. And although one of the characters can fight, it seems like all three need to rely on using the environment to overcome the dark forces they encounter. Though launching on Apple Arcade, Inmost is scheduled to also release on Nintendo Switch and PC.
The other spooky game, Stela, is more cinematic–presenting a puzzle platformer that relies on its unsettlingly creepy backgrounds, themes, and music to craft an experience similar to Limbo or Inside. Launching on Apple Arcade, Stela is coming to Xbox One on October 17 and PC sometime in 2019. The rest of the new games include the race car arena shooter ShockRods, action strategy game Decoherence, and music-focused action game Mind Symphony.
Since Apple Arcade launched, I’ve meant to try out many of its games, a number of which look terrific. And yet I can’t for one primary reason: Grindstone. Aside from dabbling in What The Golf and Card of Darkness, Grindstone remains my go-to mobile game a month after launch, and I’ve developed what feels like an unusual strategy for a puzzle game: taking big risks and quitting when backed into a corner. And my greed is to blame.
Your goal in Grindstone is to take out enough enemies–ideally in long chains of like-colored groups–to open the exit door and make your way out. Standard enemies don’t pose any danger to you, but leave them on the board long enough and they’ll attack adjacent tiles if you end a turn next to them. As you progress further into the game, special enemy types pop up that are a greater threat. That includes one who steals the precious grindstones created by long combos and which allow you to shift from attacking one color of enemy to another in a single turn.
While there are ways to avoid damage, the consequences of losing health are fairly severe. You have only three health points, and any you lose have to be restored between levels by spending gems you earn by playing. This has the makings of a microtransaction-fueled nightmare, but thankfully Grindstone’s place on Apple Arcade means it’s free of any in-game purchases, and thus there’s no worry that a tough level is meant to push you to spend real-world money.
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Still, I find myself avoiding a loss of health at all costs. At any time, you can quit out of the level you’re on, sacrificing any materials you’ve collected but saving yourself from a dangerous situation. And to spare myself spending any gems on health–feeding into my hoarding tendencies when playing games–I often back out of levels rather than suffer any damage, even if I could take a hit and ultimately still finish the level. Damage is not inevitable: More often than not, I can complete all three objectives in a level and safely escape without ever taking a hit. Quitting lets me take care of the perfect run I always strive for. Sure, I could return to a level to take care of a missed objective, but why not get it all out of the way on my first completion?
This strategy plays into the ultimate challenge that all players will run into in Grindstone: greed. Your primary objective in any level is to kill enough enemies to open the gate and escape, but it’s only later in a level that you’re presented with optional objectives (killing a particular enemy and, separately, obtaining a key and using it to open a chest). On top of the materials you can obtain by killing special enemies, you’re heavily incentivized not to exit a level as soon as you’re able. Instead, you’re constantly reeled back in with the prospect of further rewards–but at the risk of losing health or even death. When you see an enemy on the opposite side of the map that you’re sure you can take out (netting you further rewards), it’s hard to pass up the opportunity.
That same lure is there when you see a long chain to be executed that might land you far away from the exit–unsure of what enemies you’ll be surrounded by on the next turn and thus whether you’ll be able to make it out safely. The desire to dive back in rather than exiting is driven in large part by greed, but also the sheer satisfaction of long combos: The combination of sound effects and visuals make for an intensely delightful experience. Longer chains see your character progressively move faster as it’s executed–save for particularly heavy hits where the action momentarily slow down, not unlike landing a big hit in Monster Hunter. This is a purely visual flourish, but it feels fantastic every single time.
Other times, I can’t help but stick around just for the thrill of it. It’s not often a puzzle game with no time constraints makes me feel like I’m on the edge of my seat, and yet Grindstone is most fun when I say “screw it” to the smart choice and get the adrenaline pumping by taking big risks. That may result in the occasional retreat like a disastrous XCOM run, but the sheer exhilaration when things work out is well worth having to hit Quit once in a while.
Epic continues to hint that some big changes are in store for Fortnite in Season 11. The current season of the hit battle royale game is scheduled to end this Sunday, following an in-game event ominously known as “The End.” It appears that event could lead to an entirely new start for the game, if a supposed leak turns out to be accurate.
Numerous Fortnite players on Reddit and other forums have discovered an image for “Fortnite: Chapter 2” on the Italian App Store that suggests the game will be rebranded and revamped following the end of this season. While not confirmed, rumors have been swirling that the next season of Fortnite would bring an entirely new map, after dataminers discovered a list of new location names within the game’s code.
The name of this weekend’s big event also seems to suggest that Fortnite as players know it will be changing significantly. Further, a recent tweet by the Fortnite Twitter account teases that “The End is near” and shows the Battle Bus leaving the familiar island, playing into the rumors that a new map is coming. You can see the teaser below.
According to the in-game countdown timers, the End event is scheduled to take place at 11 AM PT / 2 PM ET on Sunday, October 13. Just what the event will entail is anyone’s guess, but it presumably has something to do with the Visitor. The mysterious character first appeared in Season 4 of the game and built a rocket, which caused a rift to form in the sky. The Visitor returned in Season 10 and is building another rocket at Dusty Depot, so the countdown timers may signal when it will launch.
Ahead of the event, Epic has rolled out one final set of Season 10 challenges for players to complete. A number of these involve tracking down recordings left behind by the Visitor, further suggesting he’ll play an important role in this weekend’s event. You can find maps and guides for the Visitor recordings, as well as this season’s other challenges, in our complete Fortnite Season 10 challenges roundup.
Epic hasn’t yet confirmed when Season 11 will officially begin, but new seasons typically kick off shortly after the previous one begins, so it will presumably start sometime next week. Similarly, the developer hasn’t shared many concrete details on what players can expect from the new season, but we do know one change that’ll happen. As part of its recent matchmaking tweaks, Epic will be adding bots to Fortnite. You can catch up on everything else we know about Fortnite Season 11 so far here.
Apex Legends Season 3: Meltdown introduces a bunch of changes into Respawn’s battle royale game, including a brand-new map, playable character, battle pass, and weapon. The new weapon, the Charge Rifle, has had a pretty major impact on the game, offering a way to deal high amounts of damage from afar. Respawn seems to agree with some of the complaints levied at the Charge Rifle for being too powerful because the developer is planning some weapon balance changes.
On the Apex Legends Trello page, you can see all of the quality-of-life changes that Respawn has planned or is just keeping track of for its battle royale–one of which is balancing changes for the Charge Rifle. Respawn isn’t clear about how the weapon is changing, only that the Charge Rifle balance “is not where it should be” and that adjustments are “incoming.” Respawn typically implements updates for Apex Legends on Tuesdays–like the upcoming Halloween-themed Fight or Fright event–so we could see changes to the Charge Rifle as soon as October 15.
Currently, the Charge Rifle is one of the strongest sniper rifles in the game. So on a large map like World’s Edge, one that encourages long-range encounters, it’s one of the best options you can have in your arsenal. The weapon initially fires a small laser that does moderate damage before shooting a much stronger beam that does considerable amounts of damage. It’s probably one of the best weapons to use if you’re playing as new character Crypto, because its lack of bullet drop and fairly fast fire rate allows you to quickly snipe at opponents you spy with your drone.
Looking through Trello, there are a few other notable changes scheduled for Apex Legends as well. Respawn is planning to implement an option to keep the deathbox UI open while taking damage, for example, allowing you to go back to the way the UI used to work prior to Season 3 if that’s what you prefer.
Perhaps most intriguing is a patch to add the option to spend Legend Tokens to re-roll your daily challenges. Between all three in-game currencies, Legend Tokens are the one that most players have in excess, only spending them to buy new playable Legends. Having the option to use them to get new dailies would be a huge boon for those working through the battle pass who occasionally get challenges tied to characters they never play or don’t own.
A lot of game developers admit that they kind of fell into the job by accident. Some come from tech, some from the movie industry, or maybe even just from being a part of a game’s community. Night School Studio’s Sean Krankel, however, came from the particularly uncommon path of the daytime soap opera.
On this month’s episode of IGN Unfiltered, the Oxenfree and Afterparty developer joins host Ryan McCaffrey to discuss how he worked his way from an EB Games store, through an internship with a daytime soap opera in Los Angeles, and through Disney’s animated films, before making his way into game development.
When you get together with friends or family, there is something incredibly satisfying about finding a game you all enjoy and diving headlong into it, whiling away the hours with strategy, cooperation, and (of course) backstabbing.
For those hungry for more of that board game action, Walmart is having a sale on tons of great games, including Catan, Mysterium, Dungeons & Dragons, and much more.
Best Deal: Mysterium for $37.93
Take up your psychic powers and collaborate with a ghost to solve the murder at the Warwick Manor. Play as either a psychic medium or an all-knowing ghost in this 2-7 player mystery game.
