The Battle Cats POP! is out now on the North American and European eShops. Check out some footage from the game below.
This week’s Famitsu review scores are as follows:
Culdcept Revolt (3DS) – 8/8/8/9
Shin Hayarigami 2 (PS4/PS3/PSV) – 8/8/8/8
Ambition of the Slimes (3DS) – 8/8/7/7
Pac-Man 256 (PS4) – 7/8/7/7
Work continues on Hex Heroes, Prismatic’s real-time-strategy party game which was funded a couple of years ago. Today, the team shared an update as to what’s been going on with the Wii U version.
Prismatic mentioned on Kickstarter that there have been some technical issues on Wii U. That mean the team needed to “revisit the very foundation of how the game is built.” You can read the full update on Kickstarter, but the good news is that progress is going relatively smoothly now. Prismatic hopes to soon have the Wii U version in line with the PC edition showed at GDC earlier this year.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/prismaticgames/hex-heroes/posts/1614943
Ziggurat is heading to the European Wii U eShop later this week, followed by North America in the near future. Take a look at some footage below.
This week’s issue of Famitsu has revealed a new Aikatsu Stars game, titled “Aikatsu Stars! My Special Appeal” will be released on Nintendo 3DS. The idol rhythm game will be released alongside “Aikatsu Stars! Free Appeal”, which will be a free-to-play game. The targeted release date for both games is Summer 2016.
Famitsu promises to provide more information soon. A international release of either game seems fairly unlikely.
Nintendo opened up a special Miiverse community for its presence at E3 2016 where fans could discuss everything that happened in Los Angeles. Obviously, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was by far the most talked about game in this community. This Thursday, June 30th, Nintendo is closing that Miiverse community again – so if you want to get any posts in, do it now.
The latest Pokémon Shuffle is quite sizable, bringing a few updates to the main game, as well as the usual weekly updates. The Skill Swapper is a new item, which lets certain Pokémon (Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Ho-Oh, Regirock, Celebi, Mew, Rotom, Gengar, Sableye, Ampharos, Eevee, Jolteon, Leafeon, Chespin, Tangela, Tangrowth, Phanpy, Donphan, Cubone, Fafetch’d, Pachirisu, Druddigon, Dedenne, Zoroark and Chandelure) gain a new skill of the player’s choosing. A different set of Pokémon (Raikou, Entei, Suicune, Celebi, Rotom, Pikachu, Jolteon, Leafeon, Chespin, Quilladin, Tangela, Dedenne, Pachirisu, Phanpy, Donphan, Cubone, Marowak, Cofagrigus, Sigilyph, Farfetch’d, Reuniclus and Zoroark) can also now have their levels raised by the Raise Max Level item, and Pokémon Shuffle has given away two Raise Max Levels to celebrate. Furthermore, new Mission Cards have been added.
As for the weekly update, the promised Mega Gyrados challenge has arrived. As with other Mega challenges, this is a competitive stage for players to try and get the appropriate Mega stone. The top 13,000 players in Europe, 19,000 in North America, and 50,000 in Japan will get the Gyradosite, with additional prizes going to even higher placing players. The top 2,500 in Europe, 3,700 in North America, and 10,000 in Japan will get a Mega Speedup, and the top 700 in Europe, 1,000 in North America, and 3,000 in Japan will get a Raise Max Level as well. All players who don’t get the Gyradosite will get an Attack Power, and the top 18,000 in Europe, 19,000 in North America, and 70,000 in Japan will get a Disruption Delay. It will run until July 5th.
Finally, the Hitmonlee, Raikou, and Daily Pokémon (#1) stages are all returning, with the last of those featuring different forms of Rotom. Raikou is available until July 5th, and the other two until July 12th.
With Zero Time Dilemma releasing, series director Kotaro Uchikoshi has sent a message to the fans via Twitter. The full message, spread out over multiple tweets, reads:
Zero Time Dilemma was made by a small number of staff. I have seen them working very hard day after day within a limited time and asset. I am proud of them. And of course, I am proud of all the fans of ZE series. If there was no passionate action by all the fans, “June 28 in 2016” would become entirely different day from this timeline. I will say over and over again. You guys realized ZTD. The person who made ZTD is you. I really appreciate you. Thank you very much! Now, it’s time to decide. Will you play ZTD or not? The choice is yours.
LEGO Star Wars: The Force Awakens is here, and now we have a proper look at the 3DS version in action. You’ll find a bunch of footage below.
HulLBreach Studios prepared a new SDK Spriter trailer which shows overworld creation. See the video below.
“Overworld” is one of four level types users can make in SDK Spriter. Here’s the full explanation from HullBreach:
SDK Spriter is an all-in-one studio for creating retro video game assets, including character sprite sheets, tile sets, maps, and full levels. The final assets can be exported to Miiverse™ or SDKSpriter.com. It is exclusive to the Wii U™ console.
There are 4 primary components to SDK Spriter: Sprites, Tiles, Maps, and Levels.
Sprites are comprised of 64×64 pixel art characters that have eight frames of animation for each compass direction. The resulting sprite sheet is a PNG image.
Tiles are comprised of 64×64 tile pixel art that is assembled into a 16×16 grid. The resulting tile set is a PNG image.
Maps are 128×128 layered grids of tiles and collision rules that reference an existing tile set.
Levels are a combination of layered maps, a player sprite, multiple non-player character sprites, and metadata. Levels come in four forms: Overworld, Platformer, Terrain, and Dungeon Master. Depending on the level type, they follow basic rendering rules (i.e. fog, TV masking, shading, layering, tilt angle, etc.) and physics rules (gravity, collision-detection, warping, etc.).
