Pad and Pixel

Sharing is caring! It seems that many major players in the video game industry haven’t quite caught on to the fact that social media is essentially dead or dying. I talked about this a bit in January in my monthly column. But I ended the article on a note upon which I probably should have elucidated. At the time I wrote: “Currently, I think brands and media need to focus on building up their own safe haven for consumers, readers, and fans away from social media and the like.

Sharing is caring! It is, perhaps, the perfect time in Cuba to make a horror game. Intertwined oil shortages and an economic crisis sparked by fuel shortages and the continued U.S. embargo, have rocked the island nation, leading to daily rolling blackouts as well as food, water, and medical shortages. Back in 2016, when Cuban indie developer Josuhe Pagliery, started work on his first game, it garnered international attention at a time when he thought things couldn’t get any more difficult.

Sharing is caring! Crimson Desert is the sort of glee-generating, open-world graphical powerhouse that clearly isn’t designed to be played on a handheld PC.

Sharing is caring! It started with a spark of an idea: What if you mashed up an off-road trucking simulator with the dread of a lurking evil? Then came the prototyping and mud. Finally, John Carpenter signed on, bringing with him his horror film pedigree, storytelling prowess, synth music compositions, love of video games, and—of course—his name.

Sharing is caring! I remain befuddled about the current state of SEO and the shift to GEO. For those of you blissfully unaware, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, or the way Google (and other search engines) force people to write to ensure they show up high in a search result. Or at least it was that way five years ago.

Sharing is caring! We are teetering on the tail end of the holidays, but I thought it would still be fun to send out a list of some of the cooler things I’ve been playing around with over the course of the year and call it a gift guide. Maybe there’s not enough time to order any of this and get it to your home in time to wrap and give away. But there’s plenty of time to pick some of this up and keep it for yourself. Trust me, it’s all pretty cool.

Sharing is caring! Fans of the sci-fi, dino-taming survival game ARK: Survival Ascended will get their first taste of the long-anticipated sequel—ARK 2—in a major update hitting near the end of 2027. ARK 2, Jeremy Stieglitz, co-founder of developer Studio Wildcard, said, is currently planned for a 2028 release.

Sharing is caring! Spectre Divide vanished. After five years of development, 65 million dollars in investment, and an early wave of strong support from pro players and the press. The tactical shooter meant to disrupt the Counter-Strike space collapsed in on itself, taking its promising studio with it.

Sharing is caring! A series of mysterious animated shorts popped up on number of official Nintendo channels this week, confounding and exciting fans of the Japanese game maker. In the first of the two shorts, a baby left to their own devices chases a floating pacifier, eventually standing on up to take its first wobbly steps before falling into the quickly returning mom’s arms.

Sharing is caring! A chat with the designers behind the Atari Gamestation GO Handheld gaming systems are big business as of late, and it’s not just PC gaming handhelds that are taking off. There’s also been a rise in the popularity of retro gaming handhelds.