Pokemon Sword and Shield arrive on Nintendo Switch next month, but before then, developer Game Freak is releasing another RPG for the hybrid system. Little Town Hero hits the Switch Eshop next week, and ahead of its release, the studio has put out a video that further details the game’s unique battle system.

Unlike a traditional RPG, you don’t equip weapons and armor to do battle against monsters in Little Town Hero; rather, you fight them using “ideas.” These fall into three categories: those that attack, those that defend, and those that “do something special.” The video likens this system to a card game. You have a limited number of ideas at your disposal, so you’ll need to use them strategically in order to come out victorious.

Your ideas are initially formed as “Izzits,” and you’ll need to expend power to turn them into “Dazzits” in order use them against a foe. Depending on where you are in town, you’ll also be able to enlist the help of bystanders during battle. These villagers can either attack the monsters or give you a buff. You’ll find “gimmicks” scattered around town as well that you can take advantage of; in the video, protagonist Axe comes across a cannon that he fires at a monstrous sheep.

In another departure from other RPGs, Little Town Hero also doesn’t have experience points in a traditional sense; rather, you’ll earn Eureka Points when you successfully defeat a monster. These can then be spent to power up your ideas across a skill tree. You can take a closer look at the combat system in the video above.

Little Town Hero launches on the Switch Eshop on October 16. Pokemon Sword and Shield, meanwhile, arrive on November 15. The Pokemon Company recently revealed another new Pokemon debuting in the games: Galarian Ponyta, which will be exclusive to Pokemon Shield. You can see all the other new Gen 8 Pokemon revealed so far in our gallery.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-devs-switch-rpg-little-town-hero-gets-batt/1100-6470498/

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.”

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/gamers-planning-hong-kong-protest-at-blizzcon-2019/1100-6470502/

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.

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.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/im-relentlessly-greedy-in-grindstone-and-it-makes-/1100-6470500/

Pokemon Go developer Niantic has launched a new tool that aims to make the process of adding new points of interest to its games easier. The tool is called Wayfarer, and it lets players not only suggest new wayspots for Niantic titles, but also allows them to review and edit suggestions by other players.

As Niantic explains on its blog, “With Niantic Wayfarer, eligible players will be able to review nominations of local points-of-interest (museums, art installations, historical markers, etc.) so they can be added to Niantic products (e.g. Portals, PokeStops and Gyms).” The tool is currently only available for select Ingress players, but the studio says it will expand to Pokemon Go users as well “before the new year.” You can learn more about the tool and sign up for it on Niantic’s website.

This certainly isn’t the first time Niantic has given players the ability to suggest new wayspots. Last year, the developer rolled out a PokeStop nomination feature in Pokemon Go that allowed players to suggest potential new PokeStops, and Gyms. That, however, is limited to certain countries and is only available to players in those regions who’ve hit the game’s level cap of 40.

In other Pokemon Go news, the game’s October Community Day event takes place tomorrow, October 12. The featured Pokemon this time is Trapinch, and if players can evolve it into its final form, Flygon, up to an hour after the event ends, it’ll learn the event-exclusive move Earth Power.

Pokemon Go players also still have a few more days to catch the game’s current Legendary, Altered Forme Giratina. The Renegade Pokemon will appear in five-star Raid Battles until October 17, after which point it’ll be replaced by a different Legendary–although Niantic has not yet announced which Pokemon will take its place.

from GameSpot – Game News https://www.gamespot.com/articles/pokemon-go-dev-releases-new-tool-to-suggest-points/1100-6470493/