Free games

• Twitch

  • Urban Trial Playground

    • 2019
    • Stunt bike racing game set on the sunny and colourful beaches of California, with more than 50 levels to stunt on

  • The Little Acre

    • 2016
    • Adventure game that has you playing a father and daughter lost in a strange new world looking for eachother, with full voice acting and hand-drawn animations

  • Avicii Invector

    • 2019
    • Rhythm action game similar to Rez meets Thumper, that has you flying through 25 of Swedish DJ Avicii’s electronic hits
    • Launched to support the Tim Bergling Foundation, founded by Avicii’s parents Klas and Anki Bergling after his death to advocate for the recognition of suicide as a global health emergency, as well as other issues that Tim had a passion for like climate change, endangered species preservation, global hunger, and more

  • Pankapu

    • 2017
    • Narrative action-platformer that takes place in the dreams of a child troubled by a tragic incident. Upgrade your skills, find new competencies, fight as a Dreamkeeper to get rid of Nightmare’s invasion.

  • Fractured Minds

    • 2019
    • An immersive artistic short game, exploring anxiety and mental health issues. Embark on a journey through the human psyche to experience the everyday challenges associated with these conditions.

  • Snake Pass

    • 2017
    • Physics based puzzle-platformer where your controls mirror the movement of a snake- you use the unique controls to slither, curl, and climb your way through increasingly challenging worlds

• Epic Games (requires 2FA)

  • Death Coming

    • 2017
    • Non-linear puzzle game where you must harvest human souls ‘Final Destination’ style. However, pesky mortals are not your only problem, as the Agents of Light will do everything they can to stop you.

Alberta has officially entered the contact tracing business, but they’ve followed in England and Australia’s steps instead of using the upcoming framework from Apple and Google

• ABTraceTogether is a mobile contact tracing app, that will exchange Bluetooth tokens with nearby devices to track who you’ve been in contact with over the last 21 days
  • Similar to the Apple/Google framework, data is kept on your device and encrypted. The only thing associated with your account that the government can see is your phone number
• If an Albertan tests positive for COVID-19, Alberta Health Services staff will get in touch with them and ask to have their data uploaded to AHS, so they can use that information to contact others that may have had close contact and identify next steps
• Unfortunately, even though they’re not hosting the data centrally and have somewhat aligned with the Apple/Google privacy guidelines, because they’re not using the specific framework the app is still somewhat limited
  • Android devices can have it run in the foreground or background, but iPhones need to have it running and onscreen at all times, without being locked, for it to work
    • Considering Alberta is asking its citizens to use the app for the duration of the pandemic, this is a pretty annoying ask. Battery life will be affected and you can’t use your iPhone for anything else or have it locked to protect your privacy
• All in all it’s not a bad attempt, but by pushing to release before using the proper frameworks they’ve handicapped themselves in the iOS market. I’m appreciative of their app from a privacy perspective, but they still just aren’t there if I need to have the app open and active at all times

Niantic is making changes to how players can earn coins in Pokemon Go, with a small nice change and a big nasty one

• They’ll be adding the ability to earn coins from daily tasks, like taking a snapshot or evolving a pokemon, to a maximum of 5 per day
• Unfortunately, even though they’re increasing the cap on daily earnings from 50 to 55 coins, they’re drastically cutting earnings from holding gyms
  • Rather than earning 6 coins per hour for every pokemon left in a gym, you now get 2
• The changes will roll out to Australia first while Niantic gathers feedback and makes tweaks, but it really looks like another freemium cash grab in the guise of something actually useful

Facebook made some changes to a piece of their software used by many mobile apps to allow logins through Facebook, breaking things like Waze, Spotify, TikTok, and Adobe Spark

• Apps using affected code seem to be crashing on load, even if you don’t use your Facebook account in any way
• They’ve since fixed the issue, but it’s a nice reminder to developers that they shouldn’t make themselves reliant on things like Facebook when they don’t have to

Banksy still at work

• Banksy usually saves social media for a tease
  • To help people find his latest work
  • Show off how a piece looked before it was stolen or removed
  • And sometimes show how it was done
• His last piece was about self isolation
  • showing a bathroom being wrecked by his iconic stencil rat
  • they are hanging off objects
  • in the toilet
  • counting the days on the wall
  • and even running on a roll of toilet paper
• His latest reveal has been a gift to healthcare workers
  • Delivered to University Hospital Southampton was a framed Banksy original
    • Titled: Painting for Saints
  • In black and white, a little boy sits with a basket of superhero toys
    • which clearly depict Batman and Spiderman
    • The boy is playing with a nurse doll
      • dressed in a medical mask and cape
      • the only colour is the red cross on her outfit
• As reported to the BBC
  • A note from Banksy read:
    • “Thanks for all you’re doing,”
    • “I hope this brightens the place up a bit, even if it’s only black and white”
• The Hospital will have the painting up until later in the fall
  • Then they hope to auction it off to raise money for the National Health Service
  • I am interested in how much it will end up auctioning for

Tidbits

• EA has confirmed that its upcoming games for the current generation can be “upgraded free” to run on next-generation consoles like the PS5 or Xbox Series X
  • This joins Microsoft’s Smart Delivery system for bringing cross-buy to more and more games, with titles like Assassin’s Creed Valhalla and Yakuza: Like a Dragon already announced as offering free upgrades if you buy the current-gen version
• Infinity Ward is taking heat this week for the latest Call of Duty: Modern Warfare patches bringing the game up to a grand total of 180GB on PC and consoles
  • They’ve now exceeded the listed space requirements for the game, and are nearing half of the total internal storage capacity of both the PS4 and Xbox One S
• SteamVR has officially ended support for macOS.
  • In other news, apparently SteamVR used to support macOS
  • This isn’t really a surprise, since no Macs ship with a video card that support VR gaming, and macOS doesn’t even support the frameworks that many popular VR games are based on
• Apple’s WWDC 2020 event will kick off online June 22nd
  • Developers are encouraged to download the Apple Developer app where additional info, including keynote details and session schedules, will be shared next month
  • It’ll be interested to see what comes of their new “everyone is invited” format, and how they’ll handle the influx of traffic now that it doesn’t cost $1,600 plus flights and accommodations
• Martha’s Wells’ first full Murderbot novel, Network Effect, is out now!
  • I’m re-reading the four previous novellas before I dig in, and I’ll be giving you my impressions once I’ve finished it
  • Recommended back in September 2017, episode 156
  • Fourth novella game out November 2018 and felt like a good endcap, so it’ll be interesting to see where things go
    • A manufactured security unit hired out to prospectors exploring new planets
    • It’s managed to jailbreak itself so that it can watch TV that it downloads secretly, between doing its job and dealing with the neuroses of working with humans
    • It’s just such a relatable, human character that has no interest in being human