Nintendo has released a new, free game on the Switch Eshop without any prior warning. It’s called Jump Rope Challenge, and you play it by using two Joy-Con controllers, which you hold as though they were the handles of a jump rope (or “skipping rope” for those of us in Australia).
Two players can play together, each using just one Joy-Con, and the game is aiming to be as simple as possible, challenging you to jump 100 times a day. There are no tutorials and the menus are very simple, so don’t expect a fitness regime on par with Ring Fit Challenge–but it’s also totally free.
The game was developed internally at Nintendo Japan by a small team of developers working from home. It’s designed to give players a quick, easy form of exercise without needing to leave the house.
Jump Rope Challenge is available until the end of September; the game is, for whatever reason, intended as a limited-time release. Download it now so that you can keep it forever, like players who still own a PlayStation 4 with P.T. installed.
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Nintendo has announced and released Jump Rope Challenge, a free simple game that uses a pair of Joy-Con to allow Switch owners around the world to virtually jump rope anywhere without a jump rope.
Revealed by Nintendo’s Twitter, Jump Rope Challenge can be downloaded now, for free, on the eShop and was created by a few Nintendo developers who were working from home in Japan and wanted to “add quick and fun physical movement into their daily life.”
Put together Jump Rope Challenge and Ring Fit Adventure, and Nintendo is doing its part to keep you in-shape during the stay-at-home policies due to COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN who loves Nintendo and its randomness and hope it never changes. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
For the first time ever, a video game can be prescribed as medicine in the US, with the FDA approving EndeavourRX for use in treating symptoms of ADHD.
In an announcement from the US Food and Drug Administration (via The Verge), EndeavorRX by Akili Interactive is the first game in history that can be legally marketed in America as a medicine, after studies showed that the iOS product can be beneficial for patients impaired by ADHD. Doctors will be allowed to prescribe the game to children between eight and 12 years old.
It is worth noting that Akili Interactive’s study – by doctors working for EndeavorRX’s developer – came to the conclusion that there isn’t enough evidence to suggest that this game should be used as a replacement for established ADHD treatments, but that it can be used in addition to existing treatments.
EndeavourRX in action (complete with optional crab costume).
The game, which is only available on prescription (and which you can join a waiting list for) sees you travelling on a raft down rivers in various fantastical locations, collecting targets and dodging obstacles. Your character can even be equipped with various different costumes from a rotating selection. You can watch a short gameplay trailer to get a sense of it
You can check out the full news release from the FDA here, which explains why the landmark decision was made and describes the game as “the first digital therapeutic intended to improve symptoms associated with ADHD.”
“The EndeavorRx device offers a non-drug option for improving symptoms associated with ADHD in children and is an important example of the growing field of digital therapy and digital therapeutics,” notes Jeffery Shuren, director of the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
While talking with Jonathan Bennink, the lead designer on LEGO Super Mario, I was unsurprised to hear Super Mario Bros’ World 1-1 was a huge inspiration during the four-year development of the toy range. The warp pipe, question block, Goombas – even little fluffy clouds – are all wonderfully created out of bricks. However, after a few hours of play time, it actually more closely resembles Super Mario Maker. While the starter set provides the essentials – the starting point and the finish flag – everything in between is entirely up to you, and LEGO Super Mario is best enjoyed when you forget the instructions and let your imagination run wild.
That wasn’t my immediate reaction though. I always knew LEGO Super Mario wouldn’t be a ‘traditional’ LEGO set, designed to be either built following instructions and displayed, or just a random set of bricks from which you can build whatever you want. Instead it sits somewhere in between, its core components – the aforementioned warp pipe and finish flag, the power-up blocks and expansion sets like the Piranha Plant Power Slide, Boomer Bill Barrage and Toad’s Treasure Hunt – being the building blocks you piece together however you like.
It’s a simple idea: you build the level, in any way you see fit to any size you want, then move Mario through it. Imagine how a kid plays with action figures, walking them along, and you get the idea, but here Mario interacts with the blocks and obstacles, and collects coins as he goes.
[poilib element=”quoteBox” parameters=”excerpt=Imagine%20how%20a%20kid%20plays%20with%20action%20figures%2C%20walking%20them%20along%2C%20and%20you%20get%20the%20idea”]However, LEGO Super Mario doesn’t do a particularly good job of explaining many of its little intricacies, instead relying on you to discover them through experience. Interestingly, the sets don’t come with paper instructions. Instead everything is done through the LEGO Super Mario app – the step-by-step guide shows you how to build each object, which is then followed by a short video showing how it works, meaning the basic gameplay mechanics are covered as you build. Some parts are obvious – the warp pipe is the start of each level, triggering a 60 second timer, and the flag is the finish, which tots up the number of coins collected during that time – but there’s less clarity about what some of the other elements do. If Mario ‘steps’ on a red brick, it burns him – I get that. Step on too many red bricks and it’s game over. Again, that’s obvious. But it took me a while to realise that while Mario’s screeching ‘Ow ow ow!’ he cannot collect coins, and when you only have a minute to grab as many as possible, choosing the right, safest path through a level makes a big difference.
At the centre of everything is Mario, who is about two-thirds the size of a Brickhead and has little LED screens for eyes and on his belly. Although he’s odd-looking – my five-year-old described him as evil and said “Bowser has turned him bad” – he’s kinda cute once he starts talking and reacting to movement. Importantly, his voice is spot on and his exclamations, from the way he greets Toad to whooping when jumping, are gleefully authentic.
[ignvideo url=”https://www.ign.com/videos/lego-super-mario-sets-reveal-trailer”]The sensor underneath Mario detects the colour of the bricks he’s touching – green for grass, blue for water, red for lava and yellow for sand – making him react accordingly. There are also unique patterned tiles that have different effects. Goombas, Koopas and Bowser Jr all have them on their back, and knocking them over and scanning the tile is the equivalent of stomping on them. Toad and Toadette have conversation tiles, which make Mario say ‘Hi’ when he passes, plus there are question block tiles that reward power-ups like the Super Mushroom and the Super Star, which makes him invincible for a few seconds.
There are also unique tiles on obstacles that, in conjunction with Mario’s built-in accelerometer, detect when he’s spinning on a platform or riding in the cart on the Piranha Plant Power Slide. The more spins, the more coins.
And collecting coins is the ultimate aim in LEGO Super Mario. At its simplest, you earn coins by moving Mario through the level, stomping enemies, collecting power-ups and completing obstacles. But there are ways to earn more if you’re willing to experiment. Spinning on a platform rewards coins, but stop and spin in the opposite direction and you’ll get bonus coins; balance on the power slide without hitting the piranha plants triggers a multiplier; the longer you move without hitting the plants at either end, the bigger the multiplier. These are all things you have to discover for yourself and I’m sure there are many other tricks I’ve yet to find.
LEGO Mario is about two thirds the size of a normal Brickhead.
Scores feed back into the app (Mario connects to your phone or tablet via Bluetooth), which you can then share with your friends. Sharing pictures of your creations is also encouraged, to enable others to build the same course and compete against one another. Indeed, that’s where LEGO Super Mario is most fun, playing together to see who can score the most points.
Sharing the experience also made for some unexpected level designs too. Mine were pretty restrained, moving from one themed area to the next, almost in homage to the Mario games I’ve played in the past. But my kids, who don’t have the history with the video games, threw the rule book out of the window and created towers by stacking obstacles on top of one another. Just because Mario runs from left to right in the games it doesn’t mean he has to in real life.
When LEGO Super Mario was first announced I was a little skeptical. I found the Mario figure a little off-putting and, as a fan of LEGO, I would’ve loved to have seen display models of the Princess Peach’s castle from Mario 64, or the airship from Odyssey (I still would). I was also dubious about how it would stand alone as a game when there’s so much emphasis on the player to follow a level rather than cheat or game the system. In that respect it has a lot in common with board games – yes, you can cheat by skipping the lava or jumping straight to the finish flag with seconds to go, but where’s the fun in that? Any initial skepticism I had was short-lived and after playing and creating for a few days, there’s so much to like about LEGO Super Mario. I love the idea of exploring new levels, to find new ways to get coins, and look forward to seeing the ways the community breaks the mould when it releases in August. But mostly I love the way it captures the playfulness of LEGO and experimentation of Nintendo, fusing it into something that’s both familiar and fresh.
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Alex is the head of IGN’s UK Studio and has an unhealthy obsession with LEGO. Follow him on Twitter.
The Academy has announced a new step in its move towards better representation, even as it announced that it had surpassed the A2020 goals set in response to the #OscarsSoWhite movement in 2015–that is, doubling the number of women and people of color who were included among its membership. Now, the organization is looking towards 2025 with a new set of goals aimed at further increasing diversity and representation, as reported by THR.
The changes are set to begin with the 2021 Academy Awards, beginning with the news that the Best Picture category will now be set at 10 nominees per year, where previously the number of nominees fluctuated as needed. Further changes are yet to be made by a new task force, appointed by Film Academy President David Rubin and including governor and A2020 Committee chair DeVon Franklin.
The task force will develop “new representation and inclusion standards for Oscars eligibility,” as reported on the Academy news release, to be implemented by July 31, 2020, in time for 2021’s awards–which has been postponed from its usual February date.
The Academy is also improving the way films are screened for members, to make sure that every film gets an equal opportunity to be seen and considered. This will involve a new quarterly screening process through the Academy Screening Room, the site used by members to stream films.
The new 2025 goals also focus on internal changes through its membership, governance and even how film history is portrayed in the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, but the changes to the awards themselves will be most noticeable to those outside of the Academy.
Donkey Kong player Robbie Lakeman has achieved a new world record of 1,260,700 while streaming on Twitch, surpassing player John McCurdy’s 2019 record of 1,259,000. While the achievement hasn’t yet been verified on Twin Galaxies’ Donkey Kong leaderboard, the full run is available to watch on Twitch.
Lakeman previously held the second highest record at 1,247,700, set in February 2018, and has long been one of the top players in the community.
Congratulations to my friend Robbie Lakeman on his new Donkey Kong world record! 1,260,700 points, incredible.
The news that he had set a new record was tweeted out by Billy Mitchell, a fellow Donkey Kong player who featured in the movie The King of Kong, and later became infamous for allegations of cheating on his historical DK records. After an investigation, Twin Galaxies wiped his high scores from the site and banned him from submitting any new ones.
Lakeman’s record-setting moment was clipped a number of times on Twitch, where he often runs record-beating attempts. The full four hour session is also available to view for those who are curious.
While EndeavorRX, a game by therapy-focused studio Akili Interactive may not be groundbreaking for its graphics or its gameplay, it just broke new ground by becoming the first video game that can legally be marketed and prescribed as medication in the USA.
EndeavorRX–with RX being the medical notation for prescription–is a game for iPhone and iPad that can now legally be prescribed by doctors. Designed for children between the ages of eight and 12 who have inattentive or combined-type ADHD, the game went through six years of clinical trials before finally receiving FDA approval.
The most favorable study showed that one in three of the children studied in clinical trials “no longer had a measurable attention deficit on at least one measure of objective attention,” after they played Endeavor for 25 minutes a day, five days a week for four weeks straight.
Of course, while the study showed the game could help with the effects of ADHD, the results still aren’t comparable with traditional, medication-based treatments. The study’s conclusion warns that the results “are not sufficient to suggest that AKL-T01 should be used as an alternative to established and recommended treatments for ADHD.”
The game itself focuses on dodging obstacles and collecting items, pretty standard gameplay for a number of different genres. However, Endeavor’s website claims it’s “different from other action video games that a child might play,” with a trial against an unnamed control game showing almost zero effect from the control.
“The treatment programmed into the game was scientifically designed to challenge a child’s brain during treatment requiring the child’s attention and focus on multiple tasks at the same time,” the website explains, though there isn’t much detail as to how the design of Endeavor is different from other task-based games.
Endeavor’s FDA approval is a big step forward for the idea of games as treatment or therapy, and they’re not the only ones working on medicinal video games. French game studio Ubisoft is currently working on a prescription video game designed to treat Amblyopia, or “lazy eye”, in partnership with medical company Amblyotech.
Quantum Error, the upcoming PS5 horror game from developer TeamKill (Kings of Lorn: The Fall of Ebris), has received a new gameplay video during the Future Games Show. The footage, below, shows some of the creepy environments and monsters players will be facing when the game launches at an unannounced date.
Quantum Error is a “cosmic horror” FPS, and the game’s official site has revealed some more details about it. You’ll be playing as Captain Jacob Thomas, a firefighter who is sent with his partner Shane Costa and a crew to the Monad Quantum Research Facility, where something has gone wrong.
Once you’re there, you’ll discover that an entity of some kind has attacked, and the fire that is spreading through the facility is a sign of something far more grim. While the goal is initially to save as many people as possible from the fire, it soon gets more complicated than that.
While the trailer proudly displays the PS5 logo, the game will also come to PS4.
Plenty of games have been unveiled for PlayStation 5 this month, thanks to the console’s reveal event. If you’re hungry for more horror, it’s also worth checking out the trailer for the next Resident Evil title, Resident Evil: Village, which is coming in 2021.
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Destiny 2‘s new Season of Arrivals has brought a rise in the game’s Power cap, kicking off another period in which players are earning new gear to strengthen their characters. Climbing the Power ladder is one of the core elements of Destiny, as is finding any way to shortcut the process through exploits, bugs, and other lucky happenings. Season of Arrivals has a bug like that, but instead of fixing it, which Bungie has already partially dealt with. But instead of hampering players’ ability to use the shortcut, the developer should leave it in the game–because it actually has some spooky thematic resonance.
The exploit players are using comes from the newly introduced Umbral Engrams, Arrivals’ season-specific gear system. Umbral Engrams drop from all activities in the game right now, and you can use a special machine to “focus” them, allowing you to change your random gear drop into one from a specific category you choose. You can focus Umbral Engrams to become seasonal armor or seasonal weapons, or make them focus on particular stats.
Usually, Umbral Engrams drop at a certain Power level that’s in line with your character’s other gear. Thanks to a bug, if you focus your engrams to become seasonal armor, they often get a big Power spike. That makes them akin to “Powerful” weekly drops in the world, allowing players to quickly get up to the “soft” Power cap of 1,050. That’s almost the highest you can get your gear this season–to get up to 1,060, you need to do “Pinnacle” activities, like Destiny 2’s raids and dungeons.
The thing about Umbral Engrams is that they drop from any activity, including the Forge activities added with the Black Armory season that popped up after the Forsaken expansion. The Forge is something players have exploited since it was released, because the game would quickly load you into a new Forge run soon after one ended. You could enter the activity and leave your game, allowing it to run over and over again. Forges ended and started so quickly that Destiny 2 wouldn’t kick you out for being AFK, and even if you fail the event (since you’re not playing), you still are sometimes awarded an Umbral Engram. So through the first weekend of the Season of Arrivals, players would just load into the Forge and leaving their games running, gathering a bunch of Umbral Engrams, and decrypting them to jump their characters up to the 1,050 with no grinding and no work.
That’s definitely not how Bungie intended to play the Season of Arrivals, and already, the developer has partially put a stop to the exploit. Starting on Monday, the developer made a change so that Forge activities won’t start automatically after one ends–you’ll now be kicked to orbit when a Forge activity concludes, meaning you’ll have to manually restart it for another chance at a quick Umbral Engram.
Umbral Engrams are currently a pretty quick way to power up your character, thanks to a bug–which is exactly in keeping with the idea of accepting “gifts from the Darkness.”
This is a quick way to deal with an exploit, and it was expected that Bungie would put a stop to it. But really, Bungie should just leave the bug be–it’s a perfect accidental addition to the Season of Arrivals’ story.
Players who’ve been keeping up with the lore of Destiny 2’s story arc since the Forsaken expansion know that things are getting muddled in the world of Bungie’s MMO. In the early days of Destiny and its story, things were pretty black and white: the player Guardians wield the Light, a “good” kind of space magic, and the bad guys have, use, and worship the Darkness, the “bad” kind of space magic.
But especially since the Forsaken expansion, that dichotomy has slowly been morphing to make the Darkness a much more nebulous and nuanced force as we’ve awaited the arrival of a spooky, unknown new group of seemingly evil aliens. And now, those powerful creatures who wield the Darkness have shown up in the solar system–and they’re not invading, but offering gifts.
The Season of Arrivals has seen the Pyramid ships we’ve been waiting on since the end of Destiny 2’s vanilla campaign finally, uh, arriving, and that’s created a new seasonal activity called Contact and a new way of earning gear–the aforementioned Umbral Engrams. These are similar to the Engrams Destiny players have been picking up since the first game to get new weapons and armor–the difference, from a story perspective, is that these Engrams are infused with Darkness. These are the “gifts” the Darkness is presenting to players.
There are a few stories floating around in the Destiny lore about what interacting with the Darkness is actually like, and it’s not always the frightening destruction of the Collapse, the event that ended the Golden Age of humanity hundreds of years in the games’ past. Lately, the Darkness has been more about trying to seduce Guardians with promises of power. One story, about a fireteam called the Kentarch-3, details a group of Guardians who went into the Black Garden and were given some kind of strange, incredible power by the Darkness they encountered there. The three Guardians eventually turned on each other as that power seemingly corrupted them.
Right now, players are farming activities where they die repeatedly and don’t actually play, in order to get a quick path to high-level gear using Umbral Engrams. That sounds exactly like the Darkness tempting and seducing the good guys with promises of easy power. What if the Umbral Engrams aren’t bugged at all? What if they’re working exactly as intended?
What if we all thought we were taking advantage of an exploit for extra power–but we were really giving in to the temptations of the Darkness?
That’s actually a fun and frightening thought, where the meta side of Destiny 2’s Power grind could intersect with the story side of what Bungie wants players to experience–by succumbing to the exploit, we’re playing right into the Darkness’s hands. What’s more, allowing players to use the Forge exploit to grow their Power quickly doesn’t really hurt anybody. Guardians who aren’t in the know might get annoyed with other players being AFK if they’re actually trying to successfully complete the Forge, but most players exploiting the system actively avoid messing up anyone else’s day by putting on the lowest-level gear they can. That drops the exploiters’ Power levels so they won’t get matched with people genuinely trying to run the activity.
And sure, the exploit gets you close to endgame content quickly, like the new dungeon, Prophecy, which recommends a starting Power level of 1,040. But Umbral Engrams can’t get you to 1,060, the peak Power level. To get that, you still need to grind some of Destiny 2’s toughest stuff. You can speed your way to Pinnacle activities with the Darkness’s help, but you still have to defeat the game’s most difficult challenges to continue, and being able to start those activities doesn’t guarantee you’ll have the skill or capability to finish them.
And that, too, feeds into the idea that power gained from the Darkness is a double-edged sword. It’s quick and it’s easy, but how useful is it? Are you truly benefitting from leaping over the grind but not earning the experience that comes with a slower ascent (if not practically, at least thematically)? Are these gifts from the Darkness all they’re cracked up to be?
It’s fun to imagine Bungie taking advantage of the situation. Sure, you can enjoy a speedy Power grind in the Season of Arrivals, but maybe that decision will come back to haunt you next season. Bungie could use player data to implement another story element, where perhaps the Darkness asks something in return for all these “gifts.” And as a player, your actions would suddenly matter in a way they often don’t in Destiny 2, as your choice of how to play the game, and whether to effectively cheat, have unforeseen consequences.
In any case, this is one of those serendipitous times when an in-game bug actually feels more like a feature. Bungie has an opportunity to play it up and use it to Destiny 2’s advantage. Let us have our easy, possibly easy power, Bungie–you can even find a way to make us regret it later. It’ll make for an even cooler story for you to tell.
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