Free games

• Twitch

  • Max: The Curse of Brotherhood

    • 2014
    • Puzzle platforming game where, in a Labyrinth-esque plot, Max accidentally sends his little brother away with a magic spell he finds online and has to go rescue him

  • >observer_

    • 2017
    • First-person psychological horror game following a detective that can hack people’s minds as a form of interrogation

  • Project Warlock

    • 2018
    • First-person shooter that takes inspiration from games like Blood, Doom, and Heretic, featuring non-linear levels, keys, power-ups, and secret areas as well as some light RPG mechanics

  • Forsaken Remastered

    • 2018 remaster of the 1998 release
    • Single or multiplayer first-person shooter that has you playing a mercenary looting the post-apocalyptic husk of Earth

  • Dream Daddy

    • 2017
    • Visual novel developed by Game Grumps where you can choose between seven different fathers to date, with a customizable appearance and multiple endings

  • The Flame in the Flood

    • 2016
    • Roguelike survival adventure game where you play a young girl using a raft to navigate an apocalyptic flood that has turned the world into a series of islands

  • Steel Rats

    • 2018
    • Touted as a ground-breaking evolution of the 2.5D action arcade genre, it puts you into a retro-futuristic world with a wide array of skills and physics-based motorcycle combat

• Epic Games

  • ARK: Survival Evolved

    • 2017 release of the 2014 early-access title
    • Action adventure open world survival game that has you using firearms and improvised crafted weapons to defend yourself and your base against hostile humans and creatures

  • Samurai Shodown Neogeo Collection

    • 2020
    • The classic weapon-based 2D fighting games known to its fans as SamSho
    • SAMURAI SHODOWN was originally released on the NEOGEO in 1993, followed by its sequel SAMURAI SHODOWN II in 1994. The series became a trilogy in 1995 with SAMURAI SHODOWN III, followed soon after SAMURAI SHODOWN IV AMAKUSA’S REVENGE released in 1996. Seven years later the series returned with 2003’s SAMURAI SHODOWN V, and SAMURAI SHODOWN V SPECIAL released the following year on the NEOGEO… The new SAMURAI SHODOWN NEOGEO COLLECTION also includes a title never before released to the public. SAMURAI SHODOWN V PERFECT is a mysterious final version of SAMURAI SHODOWN V SPECIAL.
    • Also includes online fights and a museum mode with over 2,000 development documents and images, and hours of interviews with the developers

• As part of the Black Lives Matter movement, itch.io has released the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, looking to raise $5M in an even split between the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and the Community Bail Fund

  • Over 1500 different works from almost 1200 creators, worth thousands of dollars, all for a minimum donation of $5 USD
  • Includes popular games like Nuclear Throne, Night in the Woods, A Short Hike, Minit, and Celeste
  • Also has a lot of other things like comics,  assets you can use to make your own games, tabletop RPG or LARP rulesets and scenarios, and more
  • It’s enough content that they actually updated their game library pages to include a search function, since anyone that buys it will immediately have a very full library

BLM Updates from the tech and gaming world

• Infinity Ward updated the Modern Warfare and Warzone loading screens to show a message in support of Black Lives Matter
  • This has led to some complaining about getting politics shoved in their face, but as KingOfTheYetis said on reddit “My feeling on it is that if this screen bothers you, then you’re the problem.”
  • They’ve also made an official statement saying there is no place for racist content in their game, and they’re adding additional resources to monitor, ID, and ban racist content
• John Boyega, the actor who plays Finn in the latest Star Wars trilogy, made an excellent speech that was captured online and quoted by the official Star Wars Twitter account, calling for an end to racism and reminding us that black lives have always mattered
  • Some on Twitter pointed out the hypocrisy though, after Disney edited the The Force Awakens movie posters in China to make him smaller than BB-8
• Rockstar Games shut down access to Grand Theft Auto Online and Red Dead Online for two hours on June 4th to honour the legacy of George Floyd during his memorial service
• Tim Cook released a statement on Apple.com titled ‘Speaking up on racism’, calling on everyone to look past a return to comfortable normalcy and aim for a higher future that lives up to the ideals of equality and justice
  • They’ve also put their money where their mouth is, or at least a very small fraction of it, with their new Racial Equity and Justice Initiative backed by a $100M commitment
• Many music and streaming services around the world went dark for Black Out Tuesday on June 2nd, with Apple music calling on everyone to speak and act out against racism and injustice of all kinds
• Sony delayed their PlayStation 5 event that was scheduled for June 4th, saying they didn’t feel that it was the time for a celebration, and that they wanted to stand back and allow more important voices to be heard

Sony’s livestreaming PlayStation 5 announcements today, and we’ve got some highlights

• We’ll be seeing a sequel to the wildly popular Marvel’s Spider-Man on the new console, starring Miles Morales from Ultimate Spider-Man and Into the Spider-Verse
• Gran Turismo 7 will bring us more shiny cars, beautiful landscapes, and an interesting new campaign mode that lets players unlock and customize cars by winning races
• An expanded and enhanced Grand Theft Auto 5 will hit sometime in 2021, bringing the 6.5 year old title to yet another generation
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will have the titular duo transported through multiple dimensions with full detailed game worlds loading instantly
• Returnal is a sci-fi third person shooter where you play a pilot stranded on a mysterious world where, somehow, each time she dies she resurrects but somehow changed
• Square Enix showed off the very pretty Project Athia, which we don’t have much detail on but is from the studio that worked on Final Fantasy 15
• Stray is finally bringing us the full release of what was previously known as HK Project, a cat adventure game with you wandering a city as an actual housecat that I’ve been following updates since 2015
• Another Little Big Planet title is on its way, called Sackboy: A Big Adventure, with full 3D movement and a ton of new gameplay mechanics
• Oddworld is back with a return to its cinematic 2D platforming roots in Oddworld Soulstorm
• Ghostwire: Tokyo looks like a first-person action adventure game from the developers of The Evil Within that has you saving the city from all sorts of yokai from Japanese mythology
• Demon’s Souls, the original Soulsborne game from 2009 that spawned Dark Souls and Bloodborne, is getting a fancy new remake for the PS5
• Deathloop has you playing as a Dishonored-style assassin stuck on an island filled with people trying to kill you over and over, and you need to break out of the time loop by killing the 8 bosses before midnight
• Horizon Forbidden West is bringing us back to the world of Aloy from Zero Dawn, and it looks like a lot of fun. It might finally motivate me to play the first one
• And the PS5 itself was shown off, and it’s pretty… well, pretty. They’ve kind of gone the opposite way from Microsoft- the Xbox Series X is like a blank computer tower or other appliance, whereas the PS5 has white curves holding a tall, thin black rectangle, kind of reminiscent of an awards trophy
  • Also has two versions, one with and one without the 4K bluray drive
  • The one without looks a lot smoother and sleeker, but I have a bunch of PS4 discs still laying around that I wouldn’t mind being able to continue playing, so it’s a tricky choice
• The console itself will be launching this holiday season, and the games they showed will be coming in the next year or two

There’s a $5B lawsuit in the mix accusing Google of violating US federal wiretap laws by tracking the activities of users in Incognito mode

• The class action argues that Google is surreptitiously gathering info about what people view online and where they browse while in Incognito, and deceiving customers into believing that they’re controlling what information is shared
• A Google spokesperson said that Incognito mode isn’t built for that, but rather to prevent activity from being saved to your browser or device. “As we clearly state each time you open a new incognito tab, websites might be able to collect information about your browsing activity.”
• Some may have thought that Google themselves wouldn’t be one of those websites, but considering their business model for many years has been in large part giving away services for free and monetizing usage data, if people don’t want to be tracked they might have to try a little harder
• The plaintiffs say the lawsuit likely covers millions of Google users who, since June 2016, have browsed the internet using Incognito mode. So with the class action seeking $5,000 each in damages for violation of wiretapping and privacy laws, the lawsuit will amount to at least $5B

Tidbits

• eScooters from Lime and Bird are back in Edmonton, and their COVID-19 precautions seem to be putting everything on the riders
  • While they mention cleaning them when they’re put out, they’re expecting people using the scooters to use hand sanitizer before and after riding, and also mention that people should wear masks when out and about
• Apple has recently been awarded a patent for “synthetic selfies”, allowing people to coordinate a live composite shot of multiple people that aren’t physically near each other
  • Apparently they applied for the patent back in 2018, but this is some pretty solid timing for a feature like this
• According to the latest leaks, the upcoming iOS 14 expected to be announced this month at WWDC 2020 will be compatible with all devices currently running iOS 13, including the 5 year old iPhone 6S
• Trump has signed a new executive order aimed at social media and how they police content, with many asking if what he’s doing is even legal
  • The new directive is looking to change a federal law that has prevented tech companies from being sued or held liable for most posts, photos, and videos shared by users on their sites
  • This was, of course, soon after Twitter called out the US president for making false and inflammatory statements about mail-in voting
  • It’s not all black and white though, as changing this law could also impact third-party counterfeit items sold on Amazon and force Uber to be responsible for sexual assaults that take place in the company’s rides
• Zoom is developing a new end-to-end encryption service, but only for their corporate clients
  • According to CEO Eric Yuan “Free users for sure we don’t want to give that because we also want to work together with FBI, with local law enforcement in case some people use Zoom for a bad purpose”
• A quick reminder, I’m still keeping my eye on ABTraceTogether and once they start using the proper exposure notification tech I’ll start using the contact tracing app and let everyone know

Upload on Amazon Prime

• A sci-fi comedy series created by Greg Daniels, of The Office and Parks and Rec, that feels like Black Mirror meets The Good Place
• Futuristic time when you can choose to have your consciousness uploaded to the one of a number of proprietary afterlives before you die, combining life after death with some good old fashioned capitalistic dystopia
• Solid series, with good writing and pacing, though it sometimes feels like the writing team couldn’t decide on how to best use some of their story beats
• The first season is definitely worth checking out, and another one is already on the books.