NASA uses Oculus Rift and Kinect

For what is quite possibly the last blog post of 2013; the following video comes from NASA who demonstrate the use of a combination of the Oculus Rift and Kinect in order to control a robotic  arm.

 

The video is very short but the potential of this is great, it also shows how (relatively inexpensive) gaming technology is already used for prototypes for very serious, non-gaming applications.

Tower of Ascension, an Unreal engine powered mobile game

Tower of Ascension is another great showcase of what UDK can achieve on mobile devices. Running on iOS, the free to play action-RPG should cater for the type of market the now aborted Infinity Blade Dungeons would have done.

More information about the game can be found here.

Valve's answer to Oculus Rift?

There are rumours that Valve is gearing up its own answer to Oculus Rift, the popular VR headset which is already out in beta -or as it is called development kit- form (I have blogged about this particular device before). These are fuelled by the company adding sessions titled "What VR Could, Should, and Almost Certainly Will be within Two Years" and "Virtual Reality and Steam" for its upcoming January 2014 Steam Developer Days conference. More information about the conference here.

It remains to be seen what will happen with Valve (it could well be they end up collaborating with Oculus Rift); however one way or the other VR in gaming is to be a very interesting topic to follow in 2014 as there will very likely be many upcoming developments relating to more than just one company.

New Sony Playstation Move?

News have been making the rounds about a new patent filed by Sony which sees an extension of the concept their Playstation Move controller was based on. Picture below, a touchpad can be seen on the device (which is not on the current version).

With PS4 now out it is very conceivable that Sony will be giving the controller an update too.

MOGA Ace Power, an iPhone/iPod game controller

Pictured below, MOGA Ace Power is a controller which wraps around your iPhone and/or iPod device, affording you with controls similar to that of a joypad. This tackles one of the biggest criticisms of iOS games though it does appear to be quite sizeable.

What is also important about the MOGA Ace Power controller is that it is part of the Apple MFI (which stands for Made for iPhone/iPod) program and thus officially sanctioned. 

More information about the device here.

No Man's Sky, a procedurally created game

Hello Games' No Man's Sky has been making the news for its unique approach to its world creation where everything in the upcoming exploration game has been created procedurally according to it developers, even down to a single atom.

 

This is worth looking at in the video above.

Resident Evil 4 and Doom mash-up

In what is one of the most peculiar mash-ups in a mod I have seen recently; it is now possible to play the original Doom game with Resident Evil's 4 characters driving the game. This is best explained by watching the vid below. The mod is (imaginatively) called Doom The Mercenaries.

It is fascinating to see people modding games released so long ago; this can also be downloaded here (you will need a copy of Doom).

Crytek to launch mobile CryEngine powered game

I have often blogged about UDK-powered games; with the Epic Games engine now being firmly behind a number of iOS titles. Crytek is attempting to catch up on that by launching, in 2014, a game called The Collectables which is created using their popular CryEngine engine tech.

The video above shows the game (and it does look fairly impressive), this is set to appear on both Android and iOS platforms, is free to play and is, hopefully, going to set a trend with other CryEngine-created mobile titles following suit.

CryEngine instructional video from Packt Publishing

Packt Publishing who have published a book I was the co-author on (see here) also do instructional videos, with a very recent one, from November 2013, being the CryEngine SDK Game Programming Essentials one.

With an emphasis on AI for the popular Crytek engine, the video can be purchased from here (this also includes more detail on the content and a short sample clip).

Book review on the International Journal of Game-Based Learning

A book review I have authored is now published on the IGI International Journal of Game-Based Learning, on Issue 4 of Volume 3. This is on the Guide to Computer Simulations and Games, authored by Katrin Becker and J.R. Parke. The book was published by Wiley.

This review can be read in full here.

UDK iOS Game Development Beginners Guide on the official UDK website

A book I am the co-author on, released in 2012 is, I have just realised, featured on Epic Games' official Unreal engine website, alongside other resources under the Books and Guides part of the site.

This can be seen here, the book in question is the UDK iOS Game Development Beginners Guide from Packt Publishing.

 

You can purchase the book from here.

Microsoft Imagine Cup Pitch Video Challenge

Static Games, a start-up games dev studio put together by Bournemouth University BSc Games Technology undergraduate students, has achieved an Honourable Mention in the Microsoft Imagine Cup Pitch Video Challenge (under the Games category).

 

More information about this (and the competition) can be found here.