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For those of us down under, PAX Aus is one of the biggest conventions we tend to have to grace our land girt by sea. The show floor is filled with exhibitions from all walks of gaming life from table top, right through the consoles, and all the way to PC gaming. If you want to see some of the coolest the games world has to offer, the PAX show floor never disappoints.
Where I didn't expect PAX Aus 2022 to go so hard was on the PC builds. Everywhere I looked there was another wild case, or some fluro cooling, crystal encrusted fans, and sometimes a concoction of all of the above. Booths all over the floor were showing off their wild creations, so here's some of the best looking PC builds I saw at Pax Aus this weekend.
Life is a beautiful array of colour and life presented in a never ending spectrum before us. So with that in mind, I wanted to start with some of the rainbow builds. These are the PCs on the show floor that couldn't commit to one colour so they chose them all.
There's a few pastels in the bunch, which tend to give this lovely ethereal clean look, as well as vibrant AF rainbow lights. Regardless, if you were looking to make a spectrum of a statement, you might get some sweet inspiration from these custom builds.
Image 1 of 8Not only is it crammed full of rainbow, but the crystals on the fans add extra bling. (Image credit: Future)
Rainbow PCs at Pax Aus 2022
Image 2 of 8The icy blue liquid helps tie this pastel rainbow together. (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 8This retro cutie has the sweetest nostalgia filled rainbow cables. (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 8Did somebody say they wanted more rainbows? (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 8This white pastel build looks so clean I want to eat fairy floss off it. (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 8Another toned down white theme with the rainbow highlights. (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 8When we said rainbow, we forgot to mentioned ADDED DISCO BALL. (Image credit: Future)Image 8 of 8This disco build also featured a really cool vertical RGB lit front. (Image credit: Future)If you're after a bit more of a tied together look for your build, it's fairly easy to achieve this by restricting your colours. Wild as a concept, I know, but breaking down your palette to just a few colours instead of all of them can create a really succinct look. This way you can choose just a few colours you really vibe with, or that might match the rest of your set up or personality better.
While rainbow builds were by far more common at Pax Aus this year, I still saw a good amount of beautiful looking PCs with restricted colour palettes. In many cases, they were more eye-catching on the floor than the rainbows, acting more as solid beacons drawing my admiration. Have a look at the gallery below to see some of these harmonious builds in action.
Image 1 of 7A fresh icy blue look to start your colour themed perusal. (Image credit: Future)Colour themed builds
Image 2 of 7A striking hot toned monster of a case filled with lava lighting. (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 7This beautiful blue build even came with a matching resin inlayed table top. (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 7The cooling fluid in this case looked delicious and dangerous. (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 7A simple classy black and white build. (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 7Bisexual lighting in a box. (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 7And another nice vertical front lined case to really show off the RGB lights. (Image credit: Future)But for some people uniting a build with colour just isn't enough. For those going even harder than unifying your gear with a colour palette, maybe you're rocking a theme. Themed builds can and will vary dramatically. I've seen some amazing ones over the years, like this Chainsaw Build, or the very dramatic Aorus build currently in the works.
Themed builds were among the least common I saw while roaming the PAX Aus floor, but they never failed to draw a crowd. Whether you're into bubble tea, anime, or The Boys, there's always someone ready to make a sick looking PC to match your aesthetic dreams.
Image 1 of 12It looks like Homelander might have gotten to this one before I managed a pic. (Image credit: Future)Themed Builds
Image 2 of 12It's cooled with compound V. (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 12It's not often we get to see so much detail on a case. (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 12The front is especially nice on this build. (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 12Another one , though this time more toned down for the Evangelion fans (Image credit: Future)Image 6 of 12The front view of the Unit 1 build. (Image credit: Future)Image 7 of 12Of course there's even more of these. (Image credit: Future)Image 8 of 12Unit 1 is just a rainbow mum on the inside. (Image credit: Future)Image 9 of 12A build you can go beyond with. (Image credit: Future)Image 10 of 12Sometimes a nice simple clean decal is really the way to go. (Image credit: Future)Image 11 of 12Easily the best themed case I found all weekend. Love Chad. (Image credit: Future)Image 12 of 12Of course boba in the coolant is actually the best idea ever. (Image credit: Future)The final category of builds I saw cropping up all over the place were open case style PCs. They would often have some transparent covering, but it's hard to tell if that was just to stop sticky fingers on the show floor. Regardless, every time I saw one of these open builds I stopped to have a look. They just beg for your attention.
Part of this is because they're open, and it's not common to see but it also helps in other ways. Often these are a bit more spread out, with RGB even more on display than usual. I saw a lot of cool cases in my journey around the convention, but there's something that feels next gen futuristic about these almost flat lay designs.
Image 1 of 5Close up of a clear case flat build. (Image credit: Future)Open builds
Image 2 of 5When you stretch your PC out it can game better. (Image credit: Future)Image 3 of 5Blinded by the RGB light shine from the open builds. (Image credit: Future)Image 4 of 5Just lay it all out for the coolest looks. (Image credit: Future)Image 5 of 5Why not just see everything. (Image credit: Future)Of course, most of the PCs shown off here are fairly top of the line builds, with looks to match. Of course, you don't have to have a fully specced out beast of a PC to have it chase a nice aesthetic, but it sure doesn't hurt. With new hardware releasing or just around the corner, it's never a bad time to think about how you want that hot new build to look. The beautiful PCs on display at PAX Aus 2022 have certainly given me some ideas for the future, and plenty of PC envy to deal with in the meantime.
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AMD has released a preliminary third quarter earnings report, and Wall Street isn’t happy. The company reported quarterly revenue of $5.6 billion, which is well below its previous estimate of $6.7 billion. At the close of trade on October 7, stocks of the company were down nearly 14%. Brutal.
AMD attributes the decline to the weak PC market and greater than expected inventories. AMD’s client business saw a huge 53% drop in revenue from last quarter alone! That’s got to hurt.
The same factors led Intel and Nvidia to issue poorer than expected earnings over recent weeks and months. The downturn in the PC market is especially jarring, though perhaps not entirely as bad as it would appear to be, following the pandemic related work from home sales boom.
Economic concerns continue to weigh heavily too. Discretionary spending is falling away as economic conditions deteriorate. In the gaming segment, sales would certainly have slowed as consumers awaited the launch of AMD’s Ryzen 7000-series CPUs, with new Radeon graphics cards to come later this year.
Your next upgrade(Image credit: Future)Best CPU for gaming: The top chips from Intel and AMD
Best gaming motherboard: The right boards
Best graphics card: Your perfect pixel-pusher awaits
Best SSD for gaming: Get into the game ahead of the restIn fact, AMD’s gaming business remains a strong point. It's still up 14% year-on-year. One would assume that 14% was heavily boosted during the early part of the year, as cryptocurrency miners bought up every GPU they could get their hands on.
According to research from IDC and Gartner, the second quarter saw one of the biggest declines in PC sales in many years. Still, according to IDC, global sales of 71.3 million PC shipments isn’t far below the pre-pandemic level of 74.3 million. It's going to be interesting to see third quarter results. Another decline will be a cause for concern, and expectations are low after a series of poor semiconductor earnings reports.
AMD’s fourth quarter results will include Ryzen 7000 CPU sales and a trickle of RDNA 3 graphics cards. Will they be enough to give AMD a boost? Relatively low volume would suggest not, but if the global economy begins to recover, gamers will come back with money in hand. AMD, Intel and Nvidia will be hoping that to be the case.
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Let's start the week with a win for today's Wordle, in whatever way you want to go about it. I can offer quick tips and handy hints if you need them, and if you're truly stuck or simply want to save your daily win streak you'll find the answer to the October 10 (478) puzzle here too.
I got a bit caught up in one rigid line of thinking today, of having an idea form in my mind and then trying to make the answer fit no matter what the clues were telling me. Wordle doesn't work that way —it's a good thing I remembered that before it was too late.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Monday, October 10
We've got a happy answer today, a common word used whenever a person has a good time with absolutely anything. This term can be applied almost however you like, from having a great night out with friends to taking pleasure with a good book in front of a cozy fire. There are two vowels to find today.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 478 answer?
Still not sure? Let me help. The answer to the October 10 (478) Wordle is ENJOY.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- October 9: HOWDY
- October 8: VIGOR
- October 7: DANDY
- October 6: SLOTH
- October 5: MARSH
- October 4: BOUGH
- October 3: STING
- October 2: TWINE
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. 
means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. 
means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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A disclaimer in bold, red letters greets you when you first play Loretta. The warning mentions "topics that some people may find unacceptable," especially regarding language. In this point-and-click thriller set in the 1940s, starring a woman who murders her husband, profanity is highlighted as an element to be mindful of. But Loretta's cussing isn't just a Grand Theft Auto reminder this is serious business—it elevates the tone of the story.
Developers Yakov Butuzov (who previously worked on a similarly-structured game called Dom Rusalok) and Daria Vodyanaya teamed up with publisher Dangen Entertainment on the project, which has a demo available as part of the Steam Next Fest. In just shy of an hour, a strange vendor gave me a sample of poison, I confronted my husband about his escapades with the woman who works at the local diner, and seasoned his steak with nothing but pepper.
(Image credit: Dangen)The moment-to-moment gameplay is fairly straightforward, although it rarely holds your hand. The story is divided into multiple chapters, jumping back and forth in time to provide context on how your husband ended up deep down the well in your yard. In the 2D perspective, you're free to examine key objects in the environment—some provide information about Loretta, or the house itself. Others can be used for a number of purposes, depending on the situation. While not every object is properly highlighted, which led me to just hover over the backgrounds to find them, the developers have mentioned they're working on making them clearer for the final release.
Your actions in Loretta can be interrupted for a number of reasons. In the first sequence, a detective shows up and starts asking questions. Every time you're in conversation and a dialogue choice appears, you can pick up between two or three options. You never get to see the full response, but the tone and overall message are clear enough without spoiling things, which I appreciated. In other cases, it's the story itself that leads you to a different room or location altogether, either by concluding a sequence or an event taking place—a phone call, a strange noise coming from the basement, and so on.
There's plenty going on with Loretta's story. Although the premise is a standard one for the genre—the developers cite the works of Stephen King and Alfred Hitchcock as sources of inspiration, and quote directly from The Twelfth Man—it's a story hellbent on spinning scenes to keep you on your toes.
Loretta, for example, presents herself as a fairly regular character at first. She shares glimpses of her relationship with her husband, hinting at infidelity, a big move from New York City to a ranch far away she never asked for, and the overall degradation of their marriage over time. But once you learn about the murder, the tone of her writing (since she also acts as narrator off-screen) becomes much more aggressive and personal, featuring plenty of swearing. It pushed me to try and follow her personality, where I'd normally pick the "good" answer in other games, to stay true to her intentions.
(Image credit: Dangen)Every time you end a chapter, you have to complete a minigame to unlock the next. Some were confusing at first. One had me rapidly clicking on floating words displaying 'whiskey', 'scotch', and 'bourbon' so they wouldn’t reach the center of the screen. Others presented fairly simple puzzles, like clicking specific words that were only revealed when they passed over a mirror, the reflection indicating which were the correct ones. They make for an interesting break, although others felt more familiar, such as the consultation with a shrink where you're interpreting shapes.
But as promising as the demo was, I can't quite shake some reservations about what the finished game is going to look like. A 1940s story featuring a woman protagonist is already far more interesting than yet another one where you play as some hard-boiled or lousy guy, but the writing doesn't always land, getting a bit too close to the tropes and source material it apparently wants to distance itself from.
(Image credit: Dangen)When it does land, however, is mostly thanks to the use of profanity. I previously wrote about why I love failing in Disco Elysium, and prefaced the piece with one of the funniest results of failure in that game. Slurring "I want to have 'frell' with you" when you're trying to flirt with someone is the embodiment of embarrassment, but that's the kind of willingness to be messy in tone and dialogue that helps show Disco Elysium's characters and world in different lights.
Loretta, as prefaced by the disclaimer in the opening, is trying to embrace a mature tone as well. The way it deals with infidelity and marital problems from Loretta's perspective sets a promising foundation, as does the way the writing shifts, increasing the profanity as a deliberate reflection of Loretta's internal state after committing murder, and the way she chooses to remember everything that led to that moment. Whether or not her attitudes are not undermined by the rest of the game's writing remains to be seen. Even with just a short glimpse of her deeds, though, I'm willing to hear her side of the story.
Loretta is currently in development, and if you're quick you can download a demo during Steam Next Fest.
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Cassette Beasts takes inspiration from the Pokémon games of the 3D-sprite era while remixing the monster-taming formula with its own beats. Residents of New Wirral record beastly essences with a cassette player and "play" them to transform into the same monster. The result is a unique combat system, but Cassette Beats also presents a mystery for you to solve.
New Wirral is the island purgatory you're stuck on. New inhabitants typically appear at the beach without any recollection of how they got there before wandering into the nearby area of Harbourtown, where the rest of the stranded islanders live. You quickly run into an angry traffic cone monster, but luckily a ranger named Kayleigh swoops in to save you. She gives you one of two options for your first beast and throws you into battle right away. I got a Bansheep, which is basically a black-and-purple ghost sheep with wings.
(Image credit: Raw Fury)Cassette Beasts' turn-based battles are double matches, played with a partner, either an NPC or a friend. You swap cassette tapes to fight as different beasts, which can learn new moves just like in other monster-taming games. (Your ability to mimic monsters also lets you traverse environmental obstacles, like growing wings to fly over a cliff.) Action points, illustrated with little squares beneath the health bar, determine whether you have enough energy to use a move. Each character gains 2 AP a turn and another point if they hit a type weakness. Saving points lets you use your strongest moves later in the battle.
Monsters can be combined via the Fusion System, which gives them new sprites combining the traits of both beasts. It works similarly to how demon fusion does in Shin Megami Tensei, but it's much more varied. You can fuse any two of the 120 beasts into a unique creation rather than just a select few from a catalog. Over 14,000 unique fusions exist in Cassette Beasts, which acts as an alternative to the breeding systems of games like Temtem.
Your bond with your human partner is also something you have to consider. These bonds are valuable because of the buffs they offer, like the Confidant system in Persona 5. You can also fuse with your partner to make a stronger monster during battle. Kayleigh is the only partner in the demo I played, but the official site clarifies there will be multiple partners you can choose from to strengthen your team. I only really meet a few people in the demo, including Kayleigh, a French barista, and a guy with a bright pink motorcycle jacket.
Now for the part that really hooked me: Cassette Beasts' intriguing mystery. I won't spoil it, but it goes from zero to one hundred real quick during a boss battle in an abandoned subway. It raises the stakes in a way that other monster-taming games often take too long to reach, without feeling like it's moving too fast. It's a promising start, especially considering how the bonds between you and your partner are supposed to weave into the gameplay. Even if your character is a blank slate, the rest of the colorful cast more than make up for it.
(Image credit: Raw Fury)Also, fittingly for a game about cassettes, the soundtrack rocks. Indie composer Joel Baylis recently announced that two of the tracks are already available online and on Spotify. These songs also pop up in the Steam Next Fest demo.
In short, I'm impressed. I'm looking forward to returning to New Wirral when the full game comes out in 2023. If you get in quick, you can play the demo during Steam Next Fest on Steam.
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After jumping into a foam pit during an event at TwitchCon San Diego over the weekend, Adriana Chechik, a Twitch streamer with 802,000 followers, broke her back in two places and had to have metal support rods surgically inserted into it.
The Lenovo Legion booth hosted a Face Off event at which streamers tried to knock each other off raised podiums using padded poles, as in the show Gladiators. The platforms were placed in a foam pit, though perhaps the word "pit" is generous, as it looked like little more than a thin layer of foam cubes scattered across a kind of inflatable pool sitting on the convention's hard floor.
Though Chechik's injury was the most severe, she wasn't the only streamer hurt in the foam pit. LochVaness dislocated her knee and sprained her ankle after stepping off a podium following her victory, and others have complained of back pain and difficulty walking following falls of their own.
While contestants were warned against diving into the pit, and had to sign liability waivers, a commentator at the booth had said they were "all about safety here at the Lenovo Legion booth. Wanna have good clean fun, be able to jump into that foam and enjoy yourself at the end of the day." It seems like everyone assumed more care was being taken to make the foam pit, which was placed there so people could fall into it, was actually safe for an adult human being to fall into.
The pit was eventually closed, so hopefully that's the end of the injuries and the end of a convention pit shaping up to be as infamous as the ball pit at DashCon.
Another streamer was hurt earlier at TwitchCon in an unrelated incident. Genshin Impact streamer Zummmers was competing in the World Balloon Cup, an event where players compete to keep a balloon in the air. The competition was staged in an enclosed mockup of a living room, and Zummmers broke her ankle after jumping over a chair.
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Seven years ago, a team of roughly 30 developers at EA Vancouver began working on a Plants vs. Zombies spin-off. Popcap's original tower defense game had already been successfully transformed into an online shooter with Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare in 2014, and apparently EA was open to more new ideas—in this case, a singleplayer action-adventure with Arkham-style combat in which a teenager partners with plants to fight undead while traveling through time.
As IGN reports, this intriguingly strange project was canceled through no fault of its own so the developers could be moved to the singleplayer Star Wars action-adventure begun by Visceral, which was itself canceled in 2017.
Character/world artist Tom Bramall, who would go on to work on two further Plants vs. Zombies games, Garden Warfare 2 and Battle for Neighborville, shared concept art for some of the canceled game's levels in 2018. As IGN's sources say, it was codenamed "Project Hot Tub" in reference to the movie Hot Tub Time Machine, and would have featured levels based on the present day, a pirate island, the wild west, and the far future.
Apparently Project Hot Tub's structure was based on that of the Uncharted games. That makes it apt the team was moved onto the Star Wars project headed by Amy Hennig, which was also planning to follow a similar "open corridor" format. Project Hot Tub would tell the story of a teenage boy named Eddie who befriends a Peashooter plant, working together after an accident hurls them and the zombies invading Neighborville across time. Eddie's abilities would be based on the plant he was accompanied by, with Peashooter's able to provide a short-range blast as well as leaves that serve as a glider, Sunflower lighting up dark places, and Chomper providing a heavy melee attack and grappling hook. During several short sections set in the Middle Ages players would instead control Eddie's sister Tessa, who had a time-rewinding power thanks to her own plant friend, Thyme.
It sounds like Project Hot Tub had everything going for it, with a 20-minute playable slice, an animated cinematic, and a plan for release in 2017, all part of a presentation that was well-received by executives who saw it in 2016. It was simply a matter of the Star Wars game being a bigger deal and more in need of resources that saw the Project Hot Tub team funneled over to help out. When that too was canceled, the team was split over multiple other projects across EA.
The odds of EA returning to Project Hot Tub seems slim at best. Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville, the third Garden Warfare game, stopped being supported a year after its release and mobile game Plants vs. Zombies 3 has bounced in and out of soft-launch in a limited number of territories over the last two years without ever seeing a global release.
Meanwhile, EA's interest in singleplayer Star Wars action-adventures resulted in Respawn's Jedi: Fallen Order, which was enough of a success to see a sequel greenlit. Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is scheduled for a 2023 release.
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On an average day about a dozen new games are released on Steam. And while we think that's a good thing, it can be understandably hard to keep up with. Potentially exciting gems are sure to be lost in the deluge of new things to play unless you sort through every single game that is released on Steam. So that’s exactly what we’ve done. If nothing catches your fancy this week, we've gathered the best PC games you can play right now and a running list of the 2022 games that are launching this year.
Sker Ritual
Steam page
Release: October 7
Developer: Wales Interactive
Launch price: $13.49 | £10.25 | AU$19.35Maid of Sker was a 2020 survival horror game which, while occasionally very bloody, focused mainly on creeping atmosphere. So it's surprising to see that this follow up is an online four-player horde shooter in the vein of Left 4 Dead. Launched into Early Access last week, the current version only has one of four planned maps, but it has plenty of zombie-like enemies to mow down, as well as a randomised 'miracles' system which offers roguelike style character progression throughout a run. Also expect four classes with distinct playstyles and a large selection of unlockable cosmetics, mostly in the form of masks. It's a pretty familiar template, with the most obvious novelty being its "upgradable steam-punk weapons". And yet, despite the popularity of Left 4 Dead and Back 4 Blood, there aren't a lot of games like this out there. It can be played solo, too.
1428: Shadows Over Silesia
Steam page
Release: October 5
Developer: KUBI Games
Launch price: $30 | £25 | AU$44.95Here's a fascinating, story-driven adventure set in a 13th century Europe on the brink of apocalypse. At least, the end of the world is what the preachers are predicting, as they are wont to do I guess, because despite an ongoing war between religious factions in Central Europe, "true evil of a completely different kind" is approaching. What follows is a story heavily indebted to real history but with a fantastical tinge, told from the point of view of two contrasting characters. While viewed from an isometric perspective and boasting full 3D graphics, this is very much a point and click adventure at heart, so expect taxing puzzles and excruciating decision making.
The Plague Doctor of Wippra
Steam page
Release: October 5
Developer: Electrocosmos
Launch price: $10 | £7.49 | AU$14.50The Plague Doctor of Wippra is another Medieval-themed point and click adventure, but with a decidedly old school approach. Presenting as an artefact from the early 1990s, you'll play as a German plague doctor as he undertakes his duties in the town of Wippra. The puzzle solving is themed around creating remedies for the game's ragtag cast of plague sufferers, and all have "real-life historical and medical context", according to the Steam page. Promisingly, the Steam page also promises "no bad jokes", which is a true rarity in this genre.
Falling Out
Steam page
Release: October 6
Developer: PolyCrunch Games
Launch price: $12 | £10 | AU$16The first thing I noticed about Falling Out is its resemblance to Spelunky, and while Derek Yu's roguelike has always boasted cooperative play, this game seems designed around it. It follows the unfortunate adventures of an "oddball couple" whose holiday has been ruined by a dangerous excursion in some underground dungeons (I hate it when that happens). Played solo, you'll switch between protagonists Giorgio and Felicie in order to solve problems requiring both, but it's the collaborative co-op mode that's most appealing here (there's PvP too, for what it's worth). Like Spelunky, there's a daily challenge, leaderboards, and a good reason not to linger in the levels for long. Expect to wield bananas, frying pans, and other weapons of questionable IRL effectiveness.
Manafinder
Steam page
Release: October 6
Developer: Wolfsden LLC
Launch price: $11.89 | £9.34 | AU$16.95This old school 16-bit JRPG is about as orthodox as they come, but it has clearly been made with love. Across 23 biomes you'll engage in tactical turn-based combat against over 100 different baddies, but as you'd expect, there's plenty of strange characters to meet and towns to explore too. It's these towns you'll be protecting: as a Manafinder, it's your job to seek out the manastones that are used to protect communities from the powerful beasts that dominate the landscape. Naturally, you'll be facing off against these foes in your mission to not save the world (how refreshing) but to keep it inhabitable.
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A promising demo out of Steam Next Fest is Floodland, a city and society builder set in a world ravaged by rampant, apocalyptic climate change. It has the distinction of not being just a colony-style city builder, but a society builder ala Frostpunk, where your decisions shape laws: How people behave and what they can do.
The demo, on Steam for Next Fest, showcases how emerging societies will scavenge for resources on islands amid a vast flooded plain. It has you setting up reliable streams of food and water, but also steadily moving your scavenging camps forward to find usable plastics, wood, and metal in ruins. It peaks with the restoration of an old radio tower, to contact other survivors with.
We first got a look at Floodland earlier this year, at the Future Games Show.
What I was most struck by with Floodland was its color and motion. The paintery palette lends it the aspect of an impressionist work, both more subdued than brighter candy-colored city builders and more vibrant than most muted and grimy post-apocalyptic work.
(Image credit: Vile Monarch)Floodland's society-building aspects aren't highlighted in this demo, but they're somewhat present. You choose which people you're leading from one of four tribes, each with their own place on the political axis of Old World-New World and Liberal-Authoritarian positions.
It's a promising look at how developer Vile Monarch has designed societies to be shaped by their ideals in new circumstances, and once you get more than one of those clans in one place I can imagine that it'll be difficult to balance their traits in order to get everyone's benefits. More so once you start passing laws to mandate or prohibit certain behaviors.
You can find Floodland on Steam, where it'll release on November 15, 2022. The YouTube channel for publisher Ravenscourt also has several trailers and videos highlighting the world, its setting, and how Floodland is played.
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2014 zombie survival shooter Unturned is trending right now, shattering eight years of concurrent player records for a whopping 93,161 players on October 4th. It's currently got over 50,000 players on, with a peak this weekend equal to its launch peak of over 60,000. (Thanks for the stats, SteamDB).
Why would this happen, you ask? Some major update? A showcase from a popular Twitch streamer? None of that. It's just free, fun, and has been consistently updated for eight years. You can have fun playing it competitively, cooperatively, or by yourself. That's it. That's the deets.
But it's notable nonetheless. Scrappy little Unturned has risen back into the top 15 most played games on Steam, butting heads with marquee titles like the anime-boosted Cyberpunk 2077, Vin Diesel endorsed ARK: Survival Evolved, and perennially popular Grand Theft Auto V.
Unturned was first released in 2014, a cute little unity project by Smartly Dressed Games, aka 16 year old Nelson Sexton, and blew up to a shocking (at the time) 24 million downloads. It combines the blocky aesthetics that were so in vogue at the time with the also-in-vogue open world zombie survival that we all love so much, complete with chunky shooting and crafting.
Unturned is free, but Sexton's work is supported by the purchase of silly in-game cosmetics, like a gold tophat and katana, or a biohazard suit. The community seems quite fond of him, even years later, posting bugs to the Steam forums with signoffs like "Nelson pls fix when u can." There's rudeness, of course, but markedly less than in the forums of many other games.
Back in 2016-17 PC Gamer spilled a lot of ink over Unturned, and that stuff still holds up today. Check out Unturned: how a survival game made by a 16-year-old racked up 24 million downloads and the follow-up, a year later, What it's like creating one of Steam's most popular games at just 20 years old.
You can find Unturned for free on Steam.
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Great moments in PC gaming are bite-sized celebrations of some of our favorite gaming memories.
Overwatch(Image credit: Blizzard)Developer: Blizzard
Year: 2016Early on in my Overwatch career, I was a support player. I healed on Mercy and Lucio in every game and you couldn't ask me to do anything else. I've changed a lot since then; I have a good amount of hours on every hero and I primarily play damage now. But for a brief period of time in that first year, I played one tank: D.Va.
D.Va's ultimate Self-Destruct is one of Overwatch's most splashy abilities. Even if you've never touched the game, you've surely seen videos of people sending a glowing hunk of mech into the air that explodes and just erases multiple people from the map. It's a fairly easy ult to understand compared to something like Genji's Dragonblade, which has him darting around the map with a sword. Self-Destruct is a little Evangelion-inspired plugsuit pilot hitting the big red button on her mech and sending it out into the world to hug people, fatally.
My first big D.Va bomb was unexpected. I'd been regularly playing with a group of folks I met in-game and I got stuck in the tank role. This was early enough that the high-level strategy of Overwatch hadn't clicked with me yet. I heard people talk about "combining ults", like grabbing an entire enemy team with Zarya's Graviton Surge and sending Hanzo's damaging dragon spirits through it, but I had zero context for what that actually looked like until this one game on the escort map Dorado.
There were 40 seconds left and we were defending the first point. The enemy team was rolling up the first hill and our Mei dropped her Blizzard, slowing everyone caught in it and freezing them solid. At that moment, it clicked. Frozen enemies + big bomb = Play of the Game. I fired my boosters in the Blizzard's direction, stopped, and plopped my mech in the middle of the team like a dog drops a toy. Boom. Quintuple Kill, emote, Play of the Game.
I had never been so proud of an ult before that moment. In the span of a few seconds, everything came together and I executed it. It was glorious. It was one of the first moments where I peered a little deeper into the depth of Overwatch's strategy and felt how exciting it was to execute on that. Now, 3,000 hours later and playing its sequel, I'm still searching for these moments.
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Okay so any new video game release, especially one that includes lots of unique powers, is going to see bugs. Overwatch 2 isn't free of those, and while some are frustrating, others are mostly funny. This one... is hysterical, even if it's an exploit.
Players of lovable robot Bastion have noticed that if you time it right and input the right clicks and keys at the right moments, you can call down a very, very large number of artillery strikes. As many as you can click for in the limited time window that Bastion's new ultimate allows.
No, I won't tell you how to do it here because you shouldn't do it in public. If you do it in public, please absolutely do not do it in competitive. That's cheating in a very bad way that ruins other peoples' good time. In bot matches? Custom games? Private? Go to town. This is hilarious.
Naturally this is the source of some pretty entertaining streamer clips, as players are caught off guard, shocked, and generally bamboozled by the sudden ocean of artillery markers and explosions coming their way. "They buffed bastion ult!!" posted the appropriately-named BastionMain11 on Twitter.
Players encountering the bug for the first time are perhaps the most entertaining clips to watch. Reactions range from surprise and curiosity to a panicked "what the 'frell' is that."
BRO WTF IS THIS?????????????? pic.twitter.com/529wjrtqt8October 9, 2022
See moreLMFAOOOO THIS 'frack' IS UNREAL pic.twitter.com/BfcE1SwF7QOctober 9, 2022
See moreHowever, experienced players—those who've encountered the bug being exploited already—provide some superb reactions.
bastion buff in OW2 is wild pic.twitter.com/UXuwP4oIoUOctober 8, 2022
See more"He's doing it again" indeed.
In other Overwatch 2 news, the hero tier lists are all over the place and there's at least a temporary fix to the whole phone number fiasco.
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Up and coming digital roleplaying platform Role is launching a marketplace where people can pick up tabletop roleplaying games from some of the biggest IPs out there, partnering with Modiphius and Magpie Games. That means games like the Fallout, Homeworld, Dune, and Star Trek TTRPGs are on there, with upcoming Avatar Legends on the way.
"Role proudly stands as both the easiest place to play and create for RPG fans today. Every game room is designed for minimal prep, easy navigation, and fast gameplay that focuses on social fun rather than complex cumbersome tabletop simulation tools," said Role's CEO, Elle Dwight.
Dwight describes role like this: "Role’s UI is designed to be simple and intuitive, keeping consistency across every game you could possibly play."
Compared to other digital roleplaying spaces, Role's killer feature is that it's wholly drag-and-drop. You don't have to learn any specialized scripting, coding, or markup language to make automation work smoothly in your game. That's true for both players and gamemasters.
Role itself is a free app, but the new marketplace gives you a space where you can find new games to play, then immediately buy their digital editions. The bundles include standard stuff like PDFs and art for the game, but also include Role integrations like a thematic skin on the app and automated character sheets. What's especially nice is that all of Role's official rulesets are customizable, letting players tailor it to their house rules or their game's unique needs.
Quickstarts for many games are already free on Role, as is a ruleset compatible with Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Role's team recommended rules-like games to kick off, such as Isle of Ixx, Vast Grimm, or CyberMetal 2012, but free quickstarts for Modiphius games like Homeworld, Fallout, Dune, and Star Trek are also up there.
The marketplace is currently a field for game publishers, and Dwight says it'll have at least four new games per month into 2023. "This roadmap includes the catalogs of multiple major publishers such as Modiphius and Magpie Games, as well as popular indies such as World Champ Game Co. and Sword Queen Games," she said.
Role will also support self-service in 2023, letting any RPG creator make, share, and sell their material to the community.
You can find Role at their website: playrole.com, where you can also see the game marketplace.
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It's time for today's Wordle hint, freshly made to set you on the right path without giving the game away. Or if you'd prefer to get things done quickly, you'll find the full answer to the October 9 (477) puzzle just a little further down the page. Whatever you need and at any level, you'll find it here—I can even teach you how to play.
Disbelief soon turned to joy today, as today's answer was one of those words I didn't expect to come across in Wordle's relatively formal environment.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Sunday, October 9
The answer to today's Wordle is an informal greeting, typically associated with certain parts of the US. International puzzle fans will probably remember this phrase from a certain Pixar movie series starring Tom Hanks as a toy with a string pull in his back.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 477 answer?
Almost there. The answer to the October 9 (477) Wordle is HOWDY.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- October 8: VIGOR
- October 7: DANDY
- October 6: SLOTH
- October 5: MARSH
- October 4: BOUGH
- October 3: STING
- October 2: TWINE
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
- September 29: SCALD
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Jason Dyer has a blog called All the Adventures (via RPS) where he plans to play and write about every text adventure ever made, from the beginning. It is of course a gloriously doomed undertaking, just like the CRPG Addict's impossible quest to finish every CRPG in chronological order, which is why it's wonderful. Right now, Dyer is playing and blogging about Ferret, an obscure sci-fi adventure first released in 1982.
The original Ferret was made for the Data General Nova, a 16-bit minicomputer, and was only made available for PC with a DOS version released as a free download by the original authors in 2009. Ferret's anonymous creators, who worked at the UK division of Data General, explain that since their game was "Developed in stages, the game's architecture allowed the addition of extra phases in an incremental manner." And so they continued developing it, the updates ending with a "Final functional release with end game" that was uploaded on August 15, 2022.
That means it was 40 years between the first version of Ferret and one with an end game, which may technically be a record for "longest time a game has been in development". Good luck beating that, Beyond Good and Evil 2.
As Dyer points out, Ferret has 3,449 objects and 1,785 rooms (though not all of them can be reached by the player). For comparison's sake, the original Zork has 60 objects and 110 rooms, while A Mind Forever Voyaging has 30 objects and 178 rooms. Ferret may not have as many words as Cragne Manor (a collaborative work made by 84 designers), but it's a big game. And one that's going to take a while for any player to finish. It's an old-fashioned game of trial-and-error puzzles where you usually find out you've made an error by dying.
If you're still interested in trying Ferret for yourself, be aware that Windows does not like the official download and will flag it as a trojan. Fortunately, Dyer has made a minimal download available that will not make Windows have a conniption fit. After downloading those files, you'll want to run ferret.bat since ferret.exe launches a version that closes the window immediately when you die. In ferret.bat you'll stay in the parser and be able to begin over by typing "ferret" to relaunch. Remember the "save [filename]" and "restore [filename]" commands are your friends, and good luck.
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Christophe Gans, director of the 2006 Silent Hill movie, was recently interviewed by France's Movie and Game. Though Gans was not involved in 2012's Silent Hill: Revelations, he previously claimed to be returning for another Silent Hill movie, and told Movie and Game that it will be part of a larger Silent Hill push by Konami.
Gans said, via translation by Resetera user Angie, that "there are several games in development as we speak, there are several teams on it, with a big line of games" and that "[Konami] will revive the franchise, I think they were really impressed of the success of the remakes of Resident Evil that are evidently exceptional games."
When the interviewer brings up the rumor that Bloober Team, the studio behind Layers of Fear and The Medium, is working on a remake of Silent Hill 2, (at the 17.14 mark of the interview), Gans simply nods. In response to a question about who else is working on these games, he replies, "there are several teams."
We've previously seen leaked art from what is allegedly Bloober Team's pitch for a Silent Hill 2 remake. The studio's CEO didn't deny the rumors, saying, "We can't comment on anything we are doing because we appreciate our relationship with our partners." We've also seen leaked art from a new Silent Hill game that was quickly hit by a copyright strike from Konami, and something called Silent Hill: The Short Message has appeared on a Korean rating site.
Indie publisher Annapurna Interactive has reportedly been in talks with Konami, and, perhaps fueled by wishful thinking, some fans are convinced members of Team Silent who worked on the original games like composer/sound designer Akira Yamaoka and Masahiro Ito and art director and monster designer Masahiro Ito are also involved in a new Silent Hill project.
On the subject of his own return to Silent Hill, Gans said, "In this second movie, I'll try to explain that Silent Hill is a place that owes as much to the creatures that live there as what we project on the town. So I'll enter into something way more psychological and way more psychoanalytic in order to try to make people understand that Silent Hill isn't only this strange labyrinth that changes its form but also the projection of tortured and tormented souls and sometimes of extremely paradoxical feelings that can be between mad love and violence."
Gans previously directed Brotherhood of the Wolf, a fun martial arts/action/horror movie set in the 18th century and featuring some excellent tricorn hats. If he has to direct another videogame adaptation, I reckon he'd be a much better match for a Bloodborne movie myself.
- Read more: The best horror games on PC.
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Hello Ringo777,
Welcome to UnityHQ Nolfseries Community. Please feel free to browse around and get to know the others. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask.
Ringo777 joined on the 10/08/2022.
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Here's a weird one: Take famous inspirational quotes, feed them to an image generation software, and see what comes out the other end. Then take the product and quiz people on which quote was used to generate it. That's the idea behind DALL-E-dle, which gives you a suite of images, four options, and asks you to figure out which quote produced the art on display in a limited number of guesses.
You can try DALL-E-dle on its website: https://glasp.co/dalledle/
It's very strange, honestly. Is a nebulous figure surrounded by a field of blue prompted by "You only pass through this life once, you don't come back for an encore" or by "You miss 100 percent of the shots you never take"? Probably not either one, but it's kinda hard to be sure.
The AI DALL-E 2 uses a process called diffusion to generate images. It starts with a pattern of random dots and a prompt. It then alters the pattern of dots towards an image as it recognizes specific aspects of that image as being similar to the prompt. It's the second in a series of generative image programs developed at the Open AI project.
We've been talking about AI art all year, it seems. First we tooled around with Nvidia's AI art program, which turns doodles into masterpieces. Then someone started using AI to generate fusions of Overwatch characters. After that, some guy won an art competition with a generative AI and then doubled down on it.
Then someone decided a person who showed up in their art was a spoopy cryptid. However, most recently, the people that make Facebook made an AI video tool and we hate it already.
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From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light.
What makes a great secret agent? If you're thinking of boring things like 'training', 'gadgets' and 'intelligence'... well, you're probably right. Capcom's forgotten interactive movie spy spoof has some other ideas though, and one night, we found out how one idiot with a head full of trivia can put James Bond to shame. Or make him cover his eyes with shame, anyway. One of the two.
Oh, and did I mention James Bond is actually in it? George Lazenby, anyway.
(Cropped stream above. Disc 3 footage borrowed from Oliver Twitt's playthrough on YouTube due to the impossible difficulty. Definitely check out his captioned run through the entire game from Part 1.)
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What is a boss that a house cat might face? If you guessed vacuum cleaner, you are correct.
Such is the journey players will find in Stars in the Trash, a hand-drawn indie platformer from developer Valhalla Cats that's coming in the vague future, but has a demo you can play right now.
Visually designed to evoke the feel of older hand-animated movies, Stars in the Trash is a "narrative-driven platformer that combines action, exploration and puzzles." It'll star Moka, a spoiled housecat that decides to run away in search of adventure.
Over the course of the adventure Moka will have to avoid the kennelman, who of course wants to capture him, and learn how to survive the streets. Naturally, that means coming to appreciate "what he left behind." Meanwhile, you'll be appreciating detailed cat animations and beautifully drawn watercolor backgrounds.
You can find Stars in the Trash on Steam. It has a pre-release demo running that you can also get from Steam, but its release date is yet to be announced.
Nothing bad better happen to these pets. This is triggering some kind of deep-seated childhood fear that bad things will happen to the cat and dog. I watched The Brave Little Toaster too young and it messed me up real good.
Anyway, I expect this one will be an exciting hit for many. After all, cat game Stray was a smash success earlier this year.
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Activision has released a trailer outlining the PC features of the upcoming Modern Warfare 2, releasing on October 28. This game is not to be confused with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which was released on November 12, 2009.
It all looks pretty good, if to be expected for a AAA PC release in 2022. In between snippets of gameplay, the trailer promises features like 4k graphics and ultrawide support. The first one, ok, sure, everyone and their mother is doing 4k (or at least 4k reconstructions), but ultrawide isn't always a given, so it's nice to have the assurance from Activision.
The second big highlight of the trailer is "Ricochet Anti-Cheat," which I guess at least doesn't have the reputation of Denuvo, as far as bullet point features go. Ricochet's been in use on Warzone and Vanguard for the past year, and it seems to work well enough. A quick perusal of the Warzone subreddit shows some players sporadically complaining about its implementation, but almost exclusively for it letting suspected cheaters slip through the cracks—I didn't see any performance or privacy dings against it.
The trailer concludes by highlighting "Over 500+ customization options." Going over the subsequent shots of MW2's graphics menus, there are some impressive options like custom frame rate limits and targets, image reconstruction tech like FidelityFX, and separate FOV sliders for vehicle, third person, and first person modes. All pretty granular stuff, and I definitely appreciate a good graphics menu.
Modern Warfare 2 also has some generous minimum system specs: just a GTX 960 and a ten-year-old i5-3570 and you're good to go. Of course, the money you might save there would get eaten up by the series' constantly ballooning storage demands: previous configurations of Warzone have gotten dangerously close to 200GB.
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As reported by Massively Overpowered, Bethesda and Zenimax Online have announced that they will allow Google Stadia players to transfer characters and progress to the PC version of the game. The studios join the likes of Bungie and IO Interactive in rescuing players from the streaming platform, which is set to shut down in January.
"We are happy to share that our Stadia players will be able to transfer their ESO accounts to PC, bringing with them all of their progress, including but not limited to existing characters, purchased items, achievements, and inventory," the announcement shared to Twitter reads. "Since Stadia players already play ESO on our PC servers, all of their friends and guilds will be waiting for them once they complete the transfer."
This has to come as a relief to Stadia ESO players, though the inherent developer control of live service games, coupled with the sheer time investment players put into MMOs like ESO, really makes this a no-brainer for me.
Some of the commenters on Twitter are mourning their loss of the ability to play the game untethered from a gaming PC, and I get that. I'm not a fan of Stadia's pure streaming model, but EVE Online introduced the EVE Anywhere feature which allows subscribing players to stream the game or play it from local files. I think that hybrid model could hold a lot of promise going forward.
One person whose fate remains uncertain in the great Stadia disaster of 2k22-23 is the streamer Colour, you know, that guy with 6,000 hours of Red Dead Online on Stadia. Rocsktar has yet to officially address the fate of their players on the platform. My heart goes out to Colour and his fellow Stadia cowpokes. It would be neither rootin' nor tootin' to lose that much progress on a game, I tell you what.
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Whether you need a quick clue for today's Wordle or you'd like some thorough help in the form of the answer to the October 8 (476) puzzle in plain text, you'll find everything you need just below—and if you're new to Wordle I can even teach you how to play.
The perils of finding the right letters but not in any helpful order struck today, and finding the answer felt a lot like trying to puzzle out what a building was from a close-up photo of a single brick—the information's accurate, but not necessarily helpful.
Wordle hint
Today's Wordle: A hint for Saturday, October 8
The word you're looking for today is a way of describing someone or something that's energetic, strong, and full of life and enthusiasm. There are two different vowels in today's word, although international Wordle fans will need to watch out because they'd spell it with three.
Wordle help: 3 tips for beating Wordle every day
If there's one thing better than playing Wordle, it's playing Wordle well, which is why I'm going to share a few quick tips to help set you on the path to success:
- A good opener contains a balanced mix of unique vowels and consonants.
- A tactical second guess helps to narrow down the pool of letters quickly.
- The solution may contain repeat letters.
There's no time pressure beyond making sure it's done by midnight. So there's no reason to not treat the game like a casual newspaper crossword and come back to it later if you're coming up blank.
Wordle answer
(Image credit: Josh Wardle)What is the Wordle 476 answer?
Let's get your weekend off to a great start. The answer to the October 8 (476) Wordle is VIGOR.
Previous answers
Wordle archive: Which words have been used
The more past Wordle answers you can cram into your memory banks, the better your chances of guessing today's Wordle answer without accidentally picking a solution that's already been used. Past Wordle answers can also give you some excellent ideas for fun starting words that keep your daily puzzle solving fresh.
Here are some recent Wordle solutions:
- October 7: DANDY
- October 6: SLOTH
- October 5: MARSH
- October 4: BOUGH
- October 3: STING
- October 2: TWINE
- October 1: LEAVE
- September 30: SCORN
- September 29: SCALD
- September 28: USURP
Learn more about Wordle
Every day Wordle presents you with six rows of five boxes, and it's up to you to work out which secret five-letter word is hiding inside them.
You'll want to start with a strong word like ALERT—something containing multiple vowels, common consonants, and no repeat letters. Hit Enter and the boxes will show you which letters you've got right or wrong. If a box turns
️, it means that letter isn't in the secret word at all. means the letter is in the word, but not in that position. means you've got the right letter in the right spot.You'll want your second go to compliment the first, using another "good" word to cover any common letters you missed last time while also trying to avoid any letter you now know for a fact isn't present in today's answer.
After that it's just a case of using what you've learned to narrow your guesses down to the right word. You have six tries in total and can only use real words (so no filling the boxes with EEEEE to see if there's an E). Don't forget letters can repeat too (ex: BOOKS).
If you need any further advice feel free to check out our Wordle tips, and if you'd like to find out which words have already been used you'll find those below.
Originally, Wordle was dreamed up by software engineer Josh Wardle, as a surprise for his partner who loves word games. From there it spread to his family, and finally got released to the public. The word puzzle game has since inspired tons of games like Wordle, refocusing the daily gimmick around music or math or geography. It wasn't long before Wordle became so popular it was sold to the New York Times for seven figures. Surely it's only a matter of time before we all solely communicate in tricolor boxes.
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Testing videogames is a challenging job, and it's only becoming more challenging as games get bigger and more complex. What really makes the job tricky, however, is covering for the work of three other testers while pretending you have a full team to the developer that contracted the work. That's the kind of thing a number of QA developers say they were directed to do while testing major games at a large third-party testing house.
Two current and eight former workers at prolific Romanian quality assurance outsourcer Quantic Lab spoke to PC Gamer about their jobs on the condition of anonymity, alleging that management not only pressures its testers above and beyond the norm for this vital but too often under-resourced subset of game development, but also misleads clients about the size and competency of its QA teams—and directs employees to keep up the charade.
You're likely unfamiliar with Quantic Lab, which is based in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, but you will know the games this Embracer Group subsidiary worked on: Cyberpunk 2077, The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine, Divinity: Original Sin 2, Necromunda Hired Gun, Cities Skylines, and more were all tested by Quantic employees. Testers had access to development builds of these games, scrutinizing them for glitches and potential blocks to progress in a similar way to how speedrunners attempt to "break" a game following release.
In June, a series of videos from gaming YouTube channel Upper Echelon Gamers drew attention to Quantic's alleged mismanagement and duplicitous business practices. UEG focused on the testimony of former members of Quantic's Cyberpunk 2077 QA team, the distress management caused those workers, and the negative impact this had on Cyberpunk's development.
Doru Șupeală, a Romanian tech journalist, published several accounts from former Quantic employees alleging malpractice on the part of management to his substack, Hacking Work. Șupeală offered invaluable assistance in researching this story. Quantic was also investigated by the Romanian outlet, Libertatea, which has published similar findings.
The employees I spoke to describe an environment where Quantic was constantly operating beyond its means, accepting more projects than it had the capacity for, and stretching its staff too thinly between them.
They indicated that these issues hit a crescendo when the company took on contracts to test Cyberpunk 2077 and NBA 2K21. Cyberpunk has been a bit of a lightning rod for Quantic, but the company does not seem to be officially credited in 2K21, a practice that one of the currently active employees touched on.
"Unfortunately, many Quantic Lab testers were not credited in all games that they tested," they said. "In some cases, publishers' criteria for crediting a person was if they worked more than five months on that game. If someone worked only four months and two weeks on that game, they wouldn't be credited."
Night City Blues
(Image credit: CDPR)A number of the employees we spoke to were intimately involved in Quantic's testing of Cyberpunk 2077. They allege that Cyberpunk 2077 and NBA 2K were a gravity well at the company, pulling talent from other divisions and leaving other projects short-staffed even as the Cyberpunk project in particular floundered. All the employees we spoke to indicated that these two marquee projects were fully staffed, but not with the experienced testers promised to the clients.
"From a team of 30 people [initially assigned to Cyberpunk 2077], I think only 10 of them had experience on QA," a source who worked on Cyberpunk for Quantic told us. Of those 10, they said that "none of the 'experienced' testers had more than a year."
Several of the employees we spoke to mentioned being told by management to avoid talking about how many years they'd worked in the industry when communicating with CD Projekt employees, and they agreed that the Polish developer was not getting the level of experience it paid for with its QA team at Quantic. They said that CDPR contacted Quantic several times about the team's underwhelming performance.
The Cyberpunk team at Quantic would be doubled partway through development, but lack of experience, the onset of Covid-19, and directives from Quantic management that clashed with CD Projekt's development priorities all led to Quantic underperforming in comparison to the other QA teams CDPR had working on the project.
Workers familiar with the project told us that one such issue was testers filing many low-impact bug reports in order to match daily quotas set by Quantic management. Developers at CDPR would receive numerous reports of low-priority graphical glitches, and testers at Quantic had their attention diverted from ferreting out higher-priority issues like the progress-blocking main quest glitches that made it to the final release.
Multiple former workers on the project indicated that Quantic's contract with CDPR was open to extension through Cyberpunk's updates and expansions, but wasn't renewed when it expired in 2021.
Quantic was one of several quality assurance teams to work on Cyberpunk 2077, including QLOC S.A. and CDPR's in-house team, but the fact remains that Quantic's mismanagement left a third of Cyberpunk's gameplay QA workforce struggling to fulfill its basic obligations.
"I wouldn't blame Cyberpunk on [Quantic], CDPR still released the damn thing," one of the former Quantic employees who worked on the game told us, "but the fact that the game was in the state that it was, [Quantic] contributed." The same employee posited that a better-managed team in the same position could have bought CD Projekt valuable time on the project.
Spread thin
(Image credit: 2K)It was common to see entire projects handled by one person, which actually needed a team of one to three testers.
Alongside Cyberpunk, the company's regular work on other smaller projects continued, but with exacerbated staffing issues. A former senior Quantic employee who was hired in 2019 says it was "standard practice" to misrepresent the "size and experience" of the company's QA teams to clients.
These smaller projects would run understaffed, according to multiple sources, while management pressured employees to create the appearance of full teams. "On smaller projects, you were lucky to have at least half the testers," claims one former employee.
The degree of understaffing on any given project was not a static situation. Games would undergo rounds of testing, and the teams handling them would be at various capacities at different stages. At one point in development, a project may be at or close to capacity, then return for another round but this time handled by a skeleton crew.
"It was common to see entire projects handled by one person, which actually needed a team of one to three testers [in addition to the lead tester]," a former lead told us. "Some lead testers handled two to three projects at a time, with probably fewer than needed testers assigned to each one."
Our sources told us that "lead testers" at Quantic often only have around one to three years' experience in the industry due to Quantic's targeting of recent graduates and a high turnover rate at the company. For context, a source with experience at an AAA QA department told us that a lead was promoted "quickly" if they reached that point from entry level in two and a half years, while some of the Quantic employees we spoke to faced that level of professional pressure, at a lower level of pay, in less than a year.
According to the employees, these lead testers are often put in the position of keeping up the fiction of a team's size and competency in communication with clients, on top of the regular pressures of testing a game.
"I was a lead tester in contact with clients and I had to do that [lie about their team's size]," a former lead told us. "I have done that dozens of 'frelling' times." They found the experience distasteful, but say they did it due to a lack of other career prospects, especially at the height of the pandemic.
Several of our sources attested to misleading clients in the way they logged work. Testers at Quantic typically use a database called Jira to log bugs for clients. Typically, an individual tester will have their own Jira account which they use to report issues, but the workers I spoke to alleged that testers at Quantic would often be encouraged to log into accounts of testers who quit, were out sick, assigned to other projects between rounds of testing, or even never once touched the game in question in order to avoid activity discrepancies that might raise questions about team size.
Low pay, low morale
(Image credit: Focus Home Interactive)Compounding these dishonest practices, employees who spoke to us said they worked in a toxic environment for low pay. A former senior employee said that managers insulted and berated lead testers, with that stress trickling down to the wider teams.
Multiple employees told us that management would directly state that testing games was unskilled work, with that stance perhaps helping to explain the high turnover or employees who were treated as expendable. We were told that in recent years, during the time of Cyberpunk 2077's development, junior testers earned close to minimum wage (1,450 Romanian lei, or about €300 a month), with no bonuses. A full lead tester could expect to earn around €680/month, which the former employees we spoke to indicated was still extremely difficult to live on in Cluj.
I never tried working in game development again, even though it was my passion at first.
Like many workplaces, the onset of Covid-19 negatively impacted Quantic Lab, and the workers we spoke to were highly critical of Quantic's response. They told us that work-from-home privileges were unevenly granted and largely reserved for upper management, despite remote work being widely adopted in the games industry in response to the pandemic. Testers were arranged close together, shoulder-to-shoulder, with multiple employees attesting to an infamous meeting where an HR employee stated that six feet of social distancing was only required when individuals were face-to-face, and that it was safe to be closer as long as this was not the case.
Ultimately, the employees we spoke to felt worn down by the low-pay, high-stress environment, the lack of support, and the petty indignities that come with working a supposedly "low skill" job, especially during the height of the pandemic. "At this point, [Quantic] should pay for my therapy," said one.
Most of the former employees we spoke to went on to other jobs in tech and gaming, and conceded that they'd at least gotten something to put on a resume. Another wouldn't even give the company that: "Quantic made me hate games and gaming. I never tried working in game development again, even though it was my passion at first."
Quantic Lab did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
Quantic Lab's specific issues aside, quality assurance is already a particularly underpaid and underappreciated aspect of game development. QA workers are often external contractors, either on a company-scale, like Quantic, or at the individual level, with the pay, benefits, and job security disparities with salaried employees that entails.
The success of Game Workers United's QA union at Raven Software presents a potential way forward, but unionization, especially in an industry relatively new to labor action and at a company with high turnover, is inherently challenging.
The employees we spoke to were pessimistic about Quantic's prospects of changing for the better as a result of current negative attention. One suggested it would require a top-down overhaul of management originating from its corporate owners at the Embracer Group, which acquired the company in November 2020.
Doom running through the Notepad app looks surprisingly playable
in Gaming News
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Very few months go by on PC Gamer without mention of 1993's most-loved FPS, Doom. That game somehow manages to find a new lease of life regularly, be it running ray tracing, on a motherboard BIOS, or, as I've just seen today, in the Notepad app.
Game dev creator, Sam Chiet, claims it's "the ideal way to play." And while they're clearly joking, it's not actually that terrible of an experience. I mean, the game is running at 60fps for starters. I've certainly seen worse.
The fidelity of the final image perhaps isn't ideal, and yes, there is some flickering. But for a game displayed wholly through the use of characters in the Notepad app, it's not half bad. I can actually make out what's happening in the game, and the lack of colour isn't as distracting as you might expect.
This isn't some magically modded version of the text-based app, either. The Notepad app has not been modded in any way, says Chiet.
"Incredible," John Romero, one of the creators of Doom, says in a tweet responding to Chiet.
NotepadDOOM may soon arrive as a downloadable version for others to play if you're interested in trying it out for yourself. Cheit says it'll take some time to package it all together, but that should all be done in the next couple of days. There's also another version of Doom called DOOM-ASCII that will run in a text-based terminal if you need an immediate retro gaming hit.
It's all very impressive. You think you've seen it all with Doom and then someone comes along and runs the game on/with something they shouldn't. There's even a whole Reddit dedicated to old hardware running Doom. You can also thank Doom's original creators for allowing all this to happen in the beginning. The Doom source code was released for non-profit use back in 1997, and ever since it's hosted hundreds, if not thousands, of whacky projects.
Open source software has resurrected Doom over and over again, and allowed for a lot of ingenious uses over the years, though Doom's relatively paltry system requirements sure help a bunch, too.
You can run the game on a potato, literally.
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