‘Planescape: Torment’ remaster arrives on April 11th
The rework polishes the game with a 4K-friendly interface on Macs and Windows PCs, a remastered soundtrack and interface tweaks (such as area zooming and quick looting) that reflect 18 years of progress. It even has the help of lead Torment designer Chris Avellone, who’s curating various fixes and upgrades to create his ideal vision of the game. This is also the first version of the RPG built for mobile, with both Android and...
‘Kerbal Space Program’ expansion has you making your own missions
The pack logically includes new parts (including some inspired by US and Russian space programs) as well as a competitive scoring mode. There’s even a personal parachute to save your crew if they have to bail in atmospheric flight.There’s no release date yet. However, you may be in for a surprise if you’re used to the steady stream of free upgrades from KSP’s testing days: Squad says the expansion will cost you...
Microsoft’s playable ads let you try apps without downloading
The time limit won’t be all that helpful when it’s unlikely that you’ll finish the first level of most games, let alone find your way around a complex productivity app. However, Microsoft is betting that playable ads are still much better than judging a title based on tiny ad graphics. And importantly, your favorite developers won’t have to bend over backwards to implement this — they just have to enable...
Microsoft reduced Windows update sizes by 35 percent
That feature is called differential download packages, which is a technical term for “only downloads what you need.” A differential download looks at the files already on your system and uses them to rebuild the new OS version from there. It sounds simple, but as Microsoft’s Laura Butler points out, it’s no easy task given the decades of legacy code and patches. For a major release like the Creators Update,...
Indie devs can publish on Xbox without Microsoft’s help
“With the Xbox Live Creators Program, you can ship your UWP [Universal Windows Platform] game on Xbox One, Windows 10 PC or simultaneously on both platforms,” Microsoft’s Andrew Parsons wrote in a post on the Windows Developer blog. You’ll even have access to commonplace stuff like Xbox Live sign-ins, Beam broadcasting, Game Hubs and leaderboards. What’s off limits for now, though, is pushing your game to...
