Yesterday, during Microsoft's “Inside Xbox” show, Snail Games announced that its open world voxel-based survival game “PixARK” will enter Xbox Game Preview on March 27, 2018. As the name suggests, the game is inspired by the world of Ark: Survival Evolved and other such games.
PixARK will be coming to Xbox One, PC, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 4 in 2018. It's unclear if the game will support PlayStation 4 Pro as the developer only confirmed Xbox One X support specifically.
Just like Ark: Survival Evolved, PixARK leaves a group of players stranded on a mysterious island. As expected, to survive, they must hunt, harvest, craft items, grow crops, and build shelters to protect themselves from dinosaurs, natural disasters, and hostile human players. You can also tame creatures, which plays a major role in the experience.
The game definitely has an interesting premise so hopefully it will deliver when it's available on Xbox One later month. However, those who want to play the more mature version can do so right now.
Ark: Survival Evolved is incredibly popular and has been played by over twelve million players since it launched in 2015. The game has numerous servers so you can team up with your friends and other individuals to conquer the map.
Remember how Amazon were selling the Minecraft 1TB Xbox for $298 yesterday? Well for whatever reason, that same console is now a hell of a lot cheaper.
Yesterday you could grab the 1TB bundle, with a month of Xbox Game Pass and Minecraft, for $298. Now, because why not, that same bundle will cost you $219.98:
Definitely the same bundle. And definitely a lot cheaper (I logged into a couple of Australian accounts to make sure).
If you're looking for a new console or just a 4K Blu-Ray player, you will 1000% not find a better deal than this. And I have no idea how long it'll be around for, but I wouldn't wait too long. Find out more over at Amazon Australia.
Parents worry that their children are spending too much time playing games on screens, but maybe they’re just playing, writes researcher Jane Mavoa below.
Mavoa is a PhD candidate in the Microsoft Research Centre for Social Natural User Interfaces in the School of Computing and Information Systems of the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Engineering.
If you worry that your child has too much screen time you aren’t alone. A 2015 poll found that Australian adults rated “excessive screen time” as their top child health concern, ahead of youth suicide, family violence, and bullying.
Screen time is seen by many as harmfully addictive, taking young children away from more desirable activities like reading, playing with physical toys, or playing outside and getting exercise. There is little hard evidence to back up these fears, but any parent reading the Australian Department of Health and Ageing’s updated official guidelines on screen time could be forgiven for being worried.
They recommend no screen time at all for children aged under two and no more than an hour a day for children under five. Even for children as old as 12, screen time should be limited to no more than two hours a day.
So what are children actually doing when they play on their screens, and is it bad?
Play is play
In fact, based on our own emerging research on children playing the popular Minecraft game, playing on screen may well be a lot like playing off screen. And no one says playing is bad for children.
Play is so strongly linked to positive social, developmental, cognitive, and physical outcomes that the UN has declared the opportunity to play as a fundamental human right for children globally.
Existing research work on children’s digital play has looked primarily at the use of games in education. But, there is another strand of work, including ours, that is more concerned with children’s self-directed, leisure time play. This play, in whatever setting, is strongly associated with positive outcomes like the development of abstract thinking, self-reflection, communication skills, resilience building, empathy, and feelings of accomplishment.
How much Minecraft is too much?
Minecraft is a timely and appropriate case study of contemporary play with upwards of 120 million copies sold. According to our survey of 753 parents, almost half of children aged 3-12 play the game, mostly on tablet devices.
Parents in our survey talked about time on Minecraft taking away from desirable activities like non-screen based play.
Working with co-researchers Dr Marcus Carter at the University of Sydney and associate professor Martin Gibbs at the University of Melbourne, we found that parents associated a wide range of positives with playing Minecraft.
The most commonly mentioned of these was creativity. Parents spoke about the game “fostering creativity” or “allowing the child to be creative,” either in a general sense, or in relation to specific game elements like design, construction, and problem solving.
Parents also noted the highly social nature of playing Minecraft. Even when children are not playing in the same “game world,” the verbal commentary and negotiation of in-game plans and actions provided opportunities for collaboration, negotiation, and teamwork—as well as conflict resolution.
But some parents were worried about what they thought were the excessive amounts of time children dedicated to the game. Parents in our survey talked about time on Minecraft taking away from desirable activities like non-screen based play.
Kinds of play
But what does play actually look like in Minecraft? How does it compare with different forms of traditional play, and what are the connections and consistencies between the two? These are the kinds of questions our research is seeking to address.
We know that parents value explicitly educational content in games, but what about play that is “just for fun”?
Take “symbolic” play for example. In a physical playground this might be something like a child using a stick as a horse or a sword as part of an imaginary story. In Minecraft, this might be a child assigning a role to an in-game object other than the role intended by the developer.
For example, in a recent Minecraft session with my three children, our avatars visited a swimming pool. I had my character jump straight into the water but was promptly informed by my five-year-old that it was of course quite silly to go swimming fully clothed. Upon further instruction I learned that the game’s diamond plated armor was to be worn as bathers, over the top of clothing mind you.
In “socio-dramatic” play children enact real-life scenarios like playing “shops” or “schools.” I’ve seen similar socio-dramatic play take place in Minecraft. My children once ran a restaurant in their Minecraft world that was supplied by a farm managed by my eldest child, who was also the town’s bus driver and the restaurant’s sole customer.
Other researchers have noted connections between digital and non-digital play. Seth Giddings in his book Gameworlds: Virtual Media and Children’s Everyday Play, gives numerous examples of children incorporating digital game features like objects, plots, and game mechanics, into play that happens outside of digital spaces.
I have heard of children “playing Minecraft” in school playgrounds where they substitute elements from Minecraft with readily available items like gum nuts instead of the in-game blocks of iron.
Children’s play worlds are informed by elements of both the physical, imaginary, and digital worlds. For children, the boundaries between these worlds are porous and less consequential than they are for adults.
‘Just for fun’
In the next phase of our research we will be documenting children’s Minecraft play in the same way that scholars have long documented traditional play. A crucial component of this process will be hearing from children themselves.
What would they like us adults to know about their Minecraft play? What sorts of play do they identify in Minecraft? What place do digital games have in their overall play worlds?
Ultimately we hope to identify possibilities for leveraging aspects of digital games to facilitate these consistencies and connections with the traditional types of play that are already highly valued. This isn’t about finding reasons to allow children unfettered access to devices. It is about looking at the reality of children playing Minecraft.
We know that parents value explicitly educational content in games, but what about play that is “just for fun”?
Screen-based play that at first may appear a waste of time, might have more in common with the highly revered free-play of children outside “screens” than we have previously given it credit for.
Back at the start of 2016, Dragon Quest Builders was released in Japan. I reviewed it then on PS4 and the game is still one of my recent favorites. So to have it come to the Switch is obviously great and the good news is that this updated release hasn’t compromised on any of the aspects that made the original version so memorable.
The premise of Dragon Quest Builders has you jump into the realm of Alefgard after the events of the first ever Dragon Quest game. Instead of fighting and defeating the evil Dragonlord at the end of that game, the protagonist foolishly decided to join forces with the tyrant. Obviously, the Dragonlord betrayed them and then laid waste to the realm.
When you turn up, your job is to rebuild the mess and try to thwart the Dragonlord as well as his minions once and for all.
What makes Dragon Quest Builders so very special though is how it merges an open world sandbox setup with a linear narrative via an action role-playing game framework. Normally, being able to go anywhere and destroy anything would break a linear story but it doesn’t really happen here.
Much of this is down to how the player is anchored to their town or base. On the start of each area, of which there are four, you have to rebuild your camp, as this is where you craft your items and improve your loadout from armor to weapons.
Credit: Square Enix
You can get quite carried away in ‘Dragon Quest Builders'.
What’s also a bit different is that your camp is populated with other residents. This, in turn, feeds into the rooms you build in your base and what they can end up generating for you.
The residents also give you quests, such as find other people that need help or build special rooms. Most of these result in you exploring the world and looking for resources.
The combat is also a big part of Dragon Quest Builders and is one of the aspects that makes it decidedly better than Minecraft. This is because Dragon Quest Builders is resolutely a third-person action game so you can manage close combat a lot easier.
The similarity to Minecraft is obvious but Dragon Quest Builders has more of a lineage behind it to warrant the block-based world. After all, it is one of the formative 8bit role-playing games.
Compared to the previous release of Dragon Quest Builders on PS4, PS3 and Vita, this Switch version has some interesting changes.
Credit: Square Enix
There is a great deal of variety between the areas in the game.
For the most part, the game is identical to the original release but when you finish an area and unlock the challenges there is a noticeable difference here.
Previously, each area had five optional challenges that unlocked special items in the free play mode Terra Incognita, such as the Sword of Erdrick among other things. The first of these challenges was based around completing each area within a specific timeframe, such as within 20 days for example.
This was tracked in your Status menu but now this has been changed to items discovered instead of days elapsed. While you still retain the day/night cycle, it’s less critical now and you can actually sleep if you want.
The latter point is worth noting, as you still have the various dream based flashbacks while you sleep, so this change now allows you to see those without having to worry about wasting time.
So in the first area, the first challenge of five is now to discover 150 items, rather than complete it within a certain timeframe.
Credit: Square Enix
Exploration and resource gathering are a large part of the appeal for ‘Dragon Quest Builders'.
This small and simple difference changes the focus from rushing through an area to instead exploring it thoroughly. Personally, I think this is an interesting and decent change to make. It means you can take your time with each area and really explore and have fun.
Obviously, the challenges are optional and for all intents and purposes, this Switch version of the game is identical. So on your first playthrough, you likely won’t notice this change but it is a welcome one once you start exploring every facet of Alefgard.
In terms of graphics and performance, it is closer to the PS3 version rather than PS4. Obviously, it is much better than the Vita version and it also looks and plays just fine either in portable mode or docked.
The Switch version also retains the Japanese button layout from the previous versions and that’s something I definitely appreciated. After pouring hundreds of hours into the various versions, the control changes for the Western PS4 release did melt my brain somewhat.
Overall, this is still the fantastic game I remember playing back at the start of 2016 and one that works brilliantly on the Switch. Not only from a graphical and performance point of view but also because it is now so convenient to play. So if you missed out on Dragon Quest Builders the first time around, then get it on the Switch as it is still better than Minecraft.
Minecraft is a huge game. After each update, Minecraft’s die-hard fans spend endless hours searching high and low throughout the game to find hidden features or glitches which were not publicly announced, or even intended.
There are many hidden “features” in Minecraft, but we have narrowed it down to eight of our favorites – why not give them a try yourself?
8 cool things you probably did not know you could do on Minecraft
1. Torches can be used to destroy sand and gravel en masse
Sometimes, we want to build stuff in the sky. But to get there, you need to first build a pole up into the sky, so you can then build a platform on top of it. Afterward, you’re left with the task of tearing it down, which can be difficult (and dangerous). Thankfully, there is a neat trick you can use to tear down a platform much quicker.
As you may know, sand and gravel in Minecraft are affected by gravity and cannot float in the sky. This means that if there is a tower of gravel or sand and you remove the bottom block, the rest will fall by one. But if you remove the bottom block very quickly and then place a torch in its place, the gravel or sand will cascade down one by one, each being destroyed when it hits the torch, tearing the tower down.
The next time you need to build a tower up into the sky, make it out of sand (or gravel!).
2. Pressure plates can be used to trap water and lava
Two of the most useful – yet most dangerous and irritating – elements of the game, water and lava, like to spread far and wide when they are placed down, and can quickly get out of control. Just tame them with pressure plates – it’s very simple! You can also use signs and fences.
3. Signs can be used to breathe underwater
I’ve lost count of how many times I have died while mining for clay underwater or just forgetting to watch the breath bar. Now I always carry a sign with me when I go under the waves because it lets you stay down as long as you want. All you need to do is to place a sign down against a block while submerged and it will create a pocket of air – easy!
4. Pumpkins make you invisible to Endermen
The Endermen are quite possibly the most irritating mobs in Minecraft. They are absolutely fine until you accidentally look at them, and then they begin to teleport all over the place and intermittently attack you; they are very powerful, and it is an easy mistake to make. However, if you wear a pumpkin on your head (by going to your inventory and placing a pumpkin in your character’s head slot) and look directly at an Enderman, it will not notice and you will be safe from being attacked!
5. The Shining meets Minecraft
In Minecraft 1.11, the Vindicator mob was added, along with an easter egg reference to the Stanley Kubrick movie The Shining. By using a name-tag called “Johnny” to tag the Vindicator mob, it will wield an ax and attack any mob within its radius – this can be very useful at night when you want to save yourself the trouble of taking care of all the zombies and creepers.
Source: https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net
6. Milk a Mooshroom for Mooshroom soup
Just like cows (which can be milked with a glass bottle), the rare Mooshroom cows can be “milked” using a wooden bowl by right-clicking the cow. Mooshroom soup is a very powerful food item and can immediately fill the health and hunger bar. If you can catch one of these Mooshrooms, it can be an unlimited food source!
7. Create an infinite water source
Water is one of the most useful resources in the entire game. It is used for all sorts of gameplay functions – such as brewing potions – and it is very handy to have an unlimited source right at your fingertips, or even in your house. This is very easy to do, and it takes advantage of the game’s water physics, which fills space around a water source block.
Create a 2×2 box and fill each block with a bucket of water. Then when you take some water from it with an empty bucket, the spot from where you took the water from will immediately fill back up and you can do this over and over, and get all of the water you need.
8. Give your tamed dogs a colorful collar
By using one of the many colored dyes available in-game, you can personalize your tamed dog’s collar. Although it’s not such a useful tip, it can be handy to give all of your dogs’ collars different colors so that they can be easily identified, and it looks pretty nice too. To color a collar, just right-click your dog with the dye equipped in your hand.
This is a sponsored post created in partnership with Gaijin Entertainment.
Crossout’s gameplay is divided over two areas: fighting and building. The smug satisfaction you can get from mounting a cannon to the back of your vehicle and then swinging round, mid-combat, to reveal your enormous tube of fiery death is what makes being a wasteland survivor so awesome. But you can only do this if you’ve got the parts and the knowledge to make it possible. And while you’ll have to source the parts yourself, we can definitely help you with the latter.
Here we’ve put together a beginner’s Crossout guide covering vehicle construction, resource management, weapons and combat. Read on and you’ll be the maddest Max to ever drive across the wasteland.
Crossout vehicle building guide
When selecting the parts for your rig, you’ll want to pay attention to how they affect your Power Score – the number in massive lettering right at the top of the panel whenever you hover over an item. The Power Score is an approximation of how dangerous your vehicle is and is used by the matchmaking system to decide who you will play with or against.
Vehicles are based around three parts: cabins, wheels, and frames. The cabin is the basis of your vehicle and will ultimately determine your style of play. The shield symbol is your armour, which is Crossout’s equivalent of HP. Wheels come in different shapes and sizes and contribute to your armour and power scores.
Generally speaking, the larger the wheel, the tankier the rig. Those with an ST in the name are steerable wheels. You can have more of these if you want to increase your vehicle’s handling and decrease its weight. Either way, be sure to include at least two of these or you’ll be driving in a straight line. Frames simply determine the length and width of your vehicle.
Beginner’s item guide
There are a lot of options when it comes to customisation in Crossout, and deciding what to use in your first few vehicles can be troublesome. Here are some suggestions to get you started.
Fuel barrel – Easily the most important item for the early game, this will enable you to salvage precious fuel after winning matches. Be sure to stay alive or it won’t work. And don’t weld more than one of them to your vehicle as they don’t stack.
Car jack – If your vehicle flips over during combat, this will absolutely save your bacon. If you don’t have a car jack you’ll have to rely on the kindness of other players to flip you back. We would not recommend doing that.
Weapon radiator – This is practically mandatory for shotgun users, but is still really useful for anyone wanting to deal high damage. If your weapons are overheating quickly, this will extend the amount of time you have before they stop firing.
Radar/radio – These items will increase the radius at which you can detect enemies, and are thus necessary if you intend to fight from range.
Scope – Useful for anyone who wants to snipe enemies with a cannon.
Testing Your Vehicle
Once you’ve constructed your rig, always hit the ‘Test Drive’ button and take it for a spin. There are a few things that you should check out here. Try firing your weapons at different angles. Make sure you can actually fire them as sometimes they get blocked by parts of your vehicle.
If you drive out of the workshop and into the yard, you’ll see an exact copy of your rig. This is a great opportunity to test out how it will stand up to punishment. Fire at it and make sure it doesn’t disintegrate at the first sign of a bullet.
Managing resources and currency
There are several resource types in Crossout, with each serving a different purpose.
Gold is used to purchase new items on the market, as well as new vehicles and packs. You can acquire more gold by selling the loot you get in-game or by purchasing it.
Fuel is used to go on raids. It can also be sold for gold. If your fuel is running low you can top it up using the jerry can in your storage. This resource will refill itself on a daily basis, so if you’re done for the day, don’t bother wasting precious jerry can fuel on your main supply.
Scrap metal is used to craft most items in Crossout. Everything is made of scrap metal, from weapons to car doors. If you‘re running low on it, consider salvaging some of the parts you no longer need.
Copper is mostly acquired through raids and is used to craft wires and electronic equipment.
Coupons are a special resource and can be traded with engineers for rare items.
Crossout weapon guide
There are four different types of weapon that you will be introduced to in the early game. They are as follows:
Machine guns are the first gun you’ll be allowed to use and are by far the most versatile. While they are relatively weak, you can usually have quite a lot of them, and they can fire from a mid-to-long distance as well as up close.
Shotguns are extremely powerful at close range but can only fire a short burst before having to cool off. For this reason, they are suited to combatants who want to get in close and are often paired with melee weapons.
Cannons are the most powerful early game weapons and can easily destroy a car in just a few hits. They are, however, much more useful at long range and have a limited angle of fire.
Melee weapons are used by many different drivers. They are very handy for players who like to get up close and personal and can be used to ram enemies away from objectives.
Crossout combat guide
PvP
PvP fights in Crossout are fast-paced and frenetic. Understanding how to use this chaos to your advantage is the key to victory. Here are five handy tips for surviving in the petrol-drenched wastelands.
Aim for the guns Most players, especially at lower levels, don’t have access to any strong frames or struts to mount their guns on. In fact, they’re often just welded to the vehicle’s base frame. If you focus your fire on the enemy’s weapons, you can easily destroy them, turning their vehicle into a defenceless target to practice your aim on. Watch out for melee weapons, though – they can still tear you up.
Destroy all bots Check the bottom of the list of player names for any that are made of single-word, forgettable names like ‘Madison’ or ‘Tony’. These are AI-controlled bots and are easy pickings for us homo sapiens. Try to kill them as quickly as possible. Not only will this leave your opposition outmanned and outgunned, it will also bag you extra goodies at the end of the game for getting more kills/assists.
Kill the cannons Cannons are by far the most powerful weapons at the start of the game and can easily shred your vehicle from the other side of the map. If you see someone firing one of these at you or a teammate, it is often sensible to focus your attention on them before you end up part of a vehicular bolognese.
Find an angle Some players, particularly those using cannons, can only shoot when you’re on a certain side of their vehicle. Use this to your advantage by getting on their weaker side, then unleash a volley of fire and watch them turn into a smouldering wreck.
Man the fort The early game modes in Crossout all involve controlling or capturing a point so make sure you keep your eyes on the top of the screen to see if your base is in trouble. It’s very easy for someone to slip away and start capturing a base, given how fast some of the vehicles can move and how open the maps are.
PvE
PvE in Crossout is a different beast altogether, and while most of the above rules still apply, there are a few extra things to keep in mind.
Strength in numbers Try to stick with your teammates because the game will usually throw more and more enemies at you as the raid continues. If you get caught on your own, you’ll quickly be torn to pieces, so sharing the damage between the whole group will ensure that you always have the maximum amount of firepower available to you.
Repair with caution Your repair kit will allow you to respawn if you die, but you only get one of these per raid. For this reason, it’s best to save it until your allies are in desperate need of help. If you get destroyed half way through and the rest of your team is doing fine without you, consider waiting until the end when they’ll really need you at full health.
Sweep and clear If you’re on an objective-based raid, such as the ones where you have to protect oil pumps, be absolutely certain that you’ve cleared one before moving on to the other. It’s very easy for a single enemy to be left, slowly chipping away at a pump’s armour while you manage a swarm of vehicles at the other side of the map.
Now you’re on your own, survivor. Get out there and raise some hell. If you get stuck, or just need a reference for what something does, don’t forget to give the Crossout wiki a visit. You can also just ask around in general chat – the community is normally happy to help out.
