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What Is the Thunderbird and Why Is the Darkside Detective Centering a Case on It?

Published

3 years ago

April 19, 2022

Video For What Is the Thunderbird and Why Is the Darkside Detective Centering a Case on It?

I’m Buddy, the Community Manager for Akupara Games and today, we’re releasing a new case for The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark! And I wanted to take a second to peel back the curtain on The Darkside Detective to give you a sneak peek into the mythological inspiration for the new case, the thunderbird.

“One Flew into the Cuckoo’s Nest” (this is the name of the case, the cuckoo is the thunderbird, do you get it?) takes place at Twin Lakes’ botanical garden. If you watched the trailer above, you’d be able to see that a thunderous egg and bird caw hint pretty strongly that there’s a problem that only McQueen and Dooley can sort out. That problem is a thunderbird, a giant, electrified bird threatening to zap and sizzle anyone getting too close.

In the folklore of indigenous tribes of North America, the thunderbird is a massive avian whose wingbeats create thunder and whose eyes spark with lightning. And in the same way that the mythological traits of dragons or unicorns vary from kingdom to kingdom in Europe, the different legends from different indigenous peoples afforded the thunderbird a wide variety of traits and abilities depending on that legend’s individual source. Whether the thunderbird was a force of nature, bringing storms, wind and rain; a shapeshifter, looking to blend in among the humans; or a spiritual guardian, protecting humanity from the dark creatures of the underworld depends highly on whom you’re hearing the story from. While the thunderbird shows up in folk tales from all across North America, it’s particularly associated with the Algonquian tribe of north-eastern Canada and the United States as well as a number of different cultures in the Pacific Northwest, where the thunderbird is commonly carved into tall totem poles.

Thunderbirds are a little bit off the beaten path for mythological creatures. Ghosts? Vampires? Zombies? These are kinds of creatures that jump to the front of your mind when we start talking about the kind of magical world the Darkside Detective takes place in. And true to form, The Darkside Detective has featured protesting ghosts, emotionally drained vampires and gangster zombies in the cases of the first two games. Creatures so common you’ll immediately recognize them (and the specific riffs on them that we do in our games for comedy.)

The thunderbirds, on the other hand, are a little less common, which makes them a unique subject for a Darkside Detective case. Outside of their presence in the folklore of indigenous tribes of North America, the thunderbird has popped up here and there in different pieces of popular culture. The recent film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, for instance, features a thunderbird being released to its native habitat of Arizona. The legendary bird, Zapdos, in the first generation of Pokemon games was also inspired by the thunderbird. Thunderbird is the codename for the first indigenous X-men character introduced alongside fan favorites (like Storm, Wolverine and Colossus.)

Without going into too many details for the case itself, since I promised myself I wouldn’t spoil this for any of you, the thunderbird’s size and power make it perfect for the Darkside Detective games. If the beating heart of the Darkside Detective is the bromance between Dooley and McQueen, then the arteries and blood vessels of this metaphorical circulatory system are the inherent comedy of fantastical creatures popping up in mundane places. Watching a completely normal security guard report on a massive thunderbird nesting on the roof of a building is precisely the right sort of humor that makes Darkside the kind of game that we all want to spend an hour hanging out with.

If any of the above really tickles your fancy, then feel free to download the new Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark case “One Flew Into the Cuckoo’s Nest” today, available now on Xbox.

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

Akupara Games

☆☆☆☆☆
6

★★★★★

$12.99

“Twin Lakes is a cursed city. Less cursed than say, “Demons are tearing it apart” but more cursed than “always loses its keys” or “often steps in puddles”. It’s roughly in the middle of the cursed scale, is what we’re trying to say.

Cursed enough that it’s a nuisance. Cursed enough that somebody has to deal with it…

That’s where The Darkside Detective comes in. Whenever you hear a bump in the night, feel a tingle up your spine, or smell something fishy, Detective Francis McQueen isn’t far behind.
No, he doesn’t smell of fish – it’s a phrase, come on…

Picking up after the events of The Darkside Detective https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2022/04/19/what-is-the-thunderbird-and-why-is-the-darkside-detective-centering-a-case-on-it/, McQueen has to save his usually-present (in body, if not mind) sidekick Officer Dooley from the Darkside, so the two can get back to what they do best – investigating the city’s many strange, often paranormal, always paradoxical goings-on.

Join them in this frighteningly funny point-and-click adventure as they investigate six more standalone cases bringing them to a carnival, the local retirement home, an amateur wrestling circuit and even as far away as Ireland as they do what they can to keep the Darkside at bay.”

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Related Topics:Case Centering Darkside Detective Thunderbird

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The German Empire Marches to Italy in a Free Expansion Today

Published

2 years ago

December 5, 2022

Entireweb News Bot

The German Empire Marches to Italy in a Free Expansion Today

We have a new expansion for our WW1 Italian Front FPS game Isonzo releasing today! It’s the first part of our Caporetto season of free expansions, and features a whole new faction with the arrival of the German Empire on the Italian Front, and brings a new map for the Offensive game mode. There will be two more releases in the Caporetto season, each one with a new map to ultimately link together into a three map Caporetto Offensive.

The German faction comes with more than ten new weapons, as well as historically accurate uniforms and equipment. This first Caporetto map sees you taking part in the early stages of the Twelfth Battle of the Isonzo, with German troops assaulting Italian positions on the road to Caporetto. Historically it was a military disaster for Italy which brought down the government – but maybe things can go differently with you on the battlefield?

The update sees new uniforms and equipment from the German Empire for Isonzo’s six classes: Rifleman, Assault, Engineer, Officer, Marksman and Mountaineer. For those who aren’t familiar with the game, each class has different weapon, gear and perk options that allow you to specialize your play style within the overall focus of the class. For instance, Marksmen are always sharpshooters, but a lot depends on your loadout. You could be a long-range sniper and observer identifying and eliminating high value targets with a scoped rifle, or you could equip body armor to take and hold a front line position with deadly accurate mid-range fire. Every class has choices to make in this regard.

In Isonzo’s signature Offensive game mode, one side must attack and break through multiple defensive lines. Thick layers of barbed wire, trenches, and whatever extra defenses the enemy engineers put together will stand in the way of a successful attack. Objectives can be taking and holding key points, or planting dynamite to sabotage enemy supply stashes or heavy artillery guns.

The new Caporetto map – the first of three in the season – is a huge battlefield based on the strategically important Monte Kolovrat. There are five defensive lines, where each line has two objectives for the attackers before they can advance further. While in the historical Battle of Caporetto both German and Austro-Hungarian forces were involved, in Isonzo we’ve chosen to focus on the German contribution, so the map recreates the stunning German advance from the town of Tolmein all the way to Kolovrat Ridge. It’s a damp, overcast day when the attack begins, and the attackers must first cut their way through lines of wire to break into a devastated town – including capturing a church defended by multiple heavy machine gun positions. Fortunately, in Isonzo there are many tactical options available to deal with such strong points: artillery barrages, smokescreens, snipers, rifle grenades, even poison gas. From there, it becomes a literal uphill battle for the German attackers as they begin to climb towards the peak of Kolovrat Ridge. They’ll need to sabotage bunkers and capture command posts while navigating rocky trenches and steep forested slopes. At the penultimate fourth defensive line there is a huge siege mortar to sabotage and a cluster of houses providing cover to the Italian defenders – then it’s one last climb to reach the final objective: Hill 1114. If the Germans can take it, the Italians will finally be the ones fighting uphill as their reinforcements stream in to try and counterattack.

Of course, things are no walk in the park for the defenders either – although it’s easier to maneuver when going downhill, and it’s much simpler for officers to deploy flares to call in support, the extensive trench lines can become a liability once the Germans get a foothold, providing cover as they advance. Some of the Italian defensive positions can be exposed against the sky, making it easy for German marksmen to pick off targets. Italian engineers should make good use of their construction abilities to put down additional sandbags and lay out extra wire to prevent German assault troops sneaking through the trees to flank trenches with their grenades or light machine guns.

As we mentioned before, historically the Battle of Caporetto was a disaster for the Italians. Appalling leadership led to poorly motivated and unprepared troops falling apart in the face of the combined Austro-Hungarian and German armies using cutting edge infiltration tactics. The Italian soldiers were not allowed to retreat until too late, and in the end hundreds of thousands would surrender. After Caporetto the top Italian general was fired and replaced by someone far more competent, who managed to turn the war around for the Italians. In Isonzo, it’s a more fair fight where both sides have an equal chance of winning, if they can use all the tactical options available better than their opponents.

The release will also bring other improvements to the game, including a prestige mode and higher level cap. Additionally, for those who want more options for visual customization of their character, the Royal Units DLC is releasing alongside the free expansion and contains uniforms from the German Kingdoms of Bavaria and Württemberg. Though part of the German Empire, these states had their own distinctive uniforms which we’ve carefully recreated with the same accuracy and attention to detail as with the other uniforms in the game.

The Battle for Caporetto Begins…

Isonzo is available right now on the Microsoft Store for Xbox, and the free Caporetto expansion is out today! Plenty of time to master the art of mountain warfare before the German Empire joins the action on the Italian Front. Follow us to get the latest development news as we add the finishing touches!

We’ll see you in the trenches!

Isonzo

BlackMill Games

☆☆☆☆☆
208

★★★★★

$29.99

World War One expands to the mountains of the Italian Front – beautiful but deadly in equal measure. Inspired by the two year struggle for control of the Isonzo river valley and the Alps during World War One, Isonzo elevates the WW1 Games Series, figuratively and literally.

From the makers of Verdun and Tannenberg…

Take part in historical offensives from the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo to the Strafexpedition. Reflecting the course of the actual battles, as the attackers advance the fighting will shift through vastly different landscapes within a single offensive: from hillside fortresses to mountain trenches and fierce urban combat on city streets. Everything is recreated based on research and field trips, from sound effects and uniforms down to the houses, vineyards and trenches you’ll be fighting over.
The new Offensive game mode puts you right in the middle of key historical offensives on the Italian Front. Lead the charge across stunning Italian landscapes as you choose your path to victory – cut paths through barbed wire, flank your enemies by following mountain trails, or man a mortar to blast a way through. Shape a dynamic battlefield by laying sandbags and wire, placing ammo crates, deploying trench periscopes or sniper shields, and more.

Call in support with a unique historically accurate flare system: flare guns can mark targets for artillery or biplane flybys, or different colored flares can be used to guide your team. Once the big guns have softened up the enemy, finish the job at close quarters with an Arditi dagger or mountaineer’s pickaxe. Man heavy machine guns, mortars and even mountain guns for more direct fire support.

Choose from six classes based on historical combat roles and build your loadout from a selection of weapons, equipment and perks linked to that class, giving flexibility and variety while staying grounded in what real soldiers might have carried. You’ll be operating wire cutters, bandaging yourself and wounded teammates, and blowing the whistle to start an assault. One shot can kill and even lighter injuries can lead to quickly bleeding out.

Being an effective soldier in Isonzo is not just about being a good marksman. Mastering the terrain is also key – the mountain can be a friend or foe. Learn how to navigate well to maintain cover and surprise your enemies or support your allies.

Finally… watch out for the dreaded poison gas. You’ve never experienced WW1 action quite like this!

Isonzo key features include:
• MOUNTAIN WARFARE: Assaulting mountain fortifications, battling through ruined towns, and fording rivers are just a few of the challenges you’ll face as you fight your way through numerous enemy positions
• TACTICAL MULTIPLAYER FPS: Choose your role and loadout carefully to survive this high altitude combat – play a sniper to pick off the enemy engineers before they can cut your wire, use rifle grenades to clear enemy machine guns, and much more
• WORLD WAR ONE GAMEPLAY: Historical Offensive game mode based on real battles and focused on the unique challenges of Alpine warfare. Fight with 30+ WW1 weapons, poisonous gas attacks, and intense artillery barrages
• BUILD FOR VICTORY: Place your own wire, sandbags, trench periscopes, and more! Whether you’re digging in or on the attack, shaping the battlefield to your advantage will be key to victory
• FACES OF WAR: Make every class your own by picking from a variety of historically class-appropriate uniforms, accessories and headgear. As a finishing touch, you can even pick your mustache from several famous period-accurate styles!
• AUTHENTIC WW1 ATMOSPHERE: Accuracy in everything from maps and weaponry to music and the uniforms – fight for the Kingdom of Italy, the German Empire or the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy

MORE GAMES IN THE AUTHENTIC WW1 GAME SERIES
Immerse yourself in more WW1 action with our other standalone titles Tannenberg and Verdun. Experience trench warfare on the Western Front in Verdun, or maneuver for control of key sectors in Tannenberg on the Eastern Front. These authentic WW1 shooters let players choose from a range of squads from across the war, as they fight for control of the ever-changing frontlines.

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GAMES

Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport Tycoon Experience to Xbox

Published

2 years ago

December 5, 2022

Entireweb News Bot

Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport Tycoon Experience to Xbox

Today, we proudly share a sneak peek into the development of Transport Fever 2: Console Edition, and how we managed to bring the full transport tycoon experience to Xbox.

Transport Fever is a very popular and highly rated transportation tycoon franchise on PC. Its latest entry, Transport Fever 2, delivers a level of size and detail never before seen in the genre. The goal of the game is to build a successful transportation company by constructing railroads, streets, water and air lines. Starting in the 19th century, the player connects towns and industries to transport both passengers and cargo. In addition to a customizable free game mode, there is also a fully-fledged campaign mode with challenging missions set in real-world transportation history.

After the huge success of Transport Fever 2 on PC, it was only logical to bring the experience to consoles as well. Not only that, but no efforts were spared to give the console community the full experience that made the game great on PC. In order to achieve this, the engineers at Urban Games had to pull some rabbits out of their engineers’ hats.

Always providing the freshest layer of paint

One of the most cherished features of Transport Fever 2 are its highly detailed vehicles. The game comes with more than 200 lovingly hand-modeled trains, ships, and airplanes, each sporting multiple 4k textures and normal maps.

One of the many stars: The in-game model of the Class A 3/5 locomotive going full steam ahead.

On PC, it is easily affordable to have all the models and textures in memory whenever needed, as a typical rig has 16 GB of RAM and a GPU with a dedicated extra memory. Consoles, however, are built differently. They have a unified architecture with an overall smaller amount but ultra-fast memory. The key to make it work on consoles is texture streaming, which allows to clear textures of models that are not in view anymore. Moreover, this technology is used in Transport Fever 2 to constantly load textures at the highest affordable resolution to present the stars of the show, like the classic Class A 3/5 steam locomotive, in their best coat of paint at all times.

Keeping the ground like a console pro

A trademark of Transport Fever 2 are its huge maps. During development of the game, it was always paramount to provide a real sense of scale. The engine should allow for maps where a high-speed train, such as the famous Japanese Shinkansen, can really make use of its superior speed. So, a lot of effort was put into designing a highly effective terrain rendering pipeline that can handle maps of more than 120 sq miles of size with a detail resolution of almost 1 yard. Central to this is a dynamic terrain tessellation algorithm on the CPU that, while costing a bit of extra memory, makes sure the engine can render these maps on a wide variety of PCs.

1670225403 320 Transport Fever 2 Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport — The river flows: A comparison between software tessellation (white) and hardware tessellation on Xbox Series X|S (blue) of a canyon in the dry climate biome.

Now, enter the world of consoles with their incredibly well-designed GPUs and graphic APIs. Here, the hardware can be leveraged very well for terrain rendering by making use of the GPU tessellation feature. This feature generates the render mesh for the terrain fully on the graphics card, saving valuable processing time for the complex economy and city growth simulations. While generating more triangles, the hardware approach still costs less memory overall due to its efficiency. So vast maps can be viewed from a bird’s view high up in the sky and seamlessly zoomed in down to individual rocks on a riverbank.

Inspiring the inner architect

Finally, let’s talk about constructions, a central and defining part of the Transport Fever 2 experience. Constructions are large assemblies that consist of dozens of assets, street segments, ground decals and terrain modifications. Think of structures like airports, train stations, docks, highway crossings, and many more. Anything that is needed to build a vast transportation empire.

For a smooth construction experience, it is key that the player really feels that he has precise control over the building placement. On PC, constructions are typically built using the mouse. As the average PC user is very well adjusted to this method of input, it is sufficiently performant to calculate the entire construction each frame and place it under the cursor. However, on consoles, the best way of building constructions is to have them always kept in the center of the screen and move the camera along the map for placement. And moving the camera needs to be as smooth as silk.

1670225403 708 Transport Fever 2 Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport — Reminiscent of the famous glass roofs of the Liège-Guillemins train station: A preview (on the left) and the final construction (on the right) of the modern-age train station in Transport Fever 2.

So, for the console release of Transport Fever 2, the construction preview pipeline was overhauled. All dynamic calculations are now performed in the background while a static preview of the structure and its underlying ground plan are shown. Not only are constructions now completely stable in terms of FPS, but they also give feedback to the player on what environment features the construction would tear down when built.

Let’s get tycooning on console

We are very excited to bring the Transport Fever franchise to consoles for the first time ever with the release of Transport Fever 2: Console Edition on Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One in February 2023, and we hope you will enjoy it as much as we did developing it.

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What Is the Thunderbird and Why Is the Darkside Detective Centering a Case on It?

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What Is the Thunderbird and Why Is the Darkside Detective Centering a Case on It?

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

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The German Empire Marches to Italy in a Free Expansion Today

Isonzo

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Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport Tycoon Experience to Xbox

Always providing the freshest layer of paint

Keeping the ground like a console pro

Inspiring the inner architect

Let’s get tycooning on console

How AI is Transforming SEO and What Website Owners Need to Know

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What Is the Thunderbird and Why Is the Darkside Detective Centering a Case on It?

The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark

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This Week’s Deals with Gold and Spotlight Sale

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The German Empire Marches to Italy in a Free Expansion Today

Isonzo

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Transport Fever 2: Console Edition is Bringing the Full Transport Tycoon Experience to Xbox

Always providing the freshest layer of paint

Keeping the ground like a console pro

Inspiring the inner architect

Let’s get tycooning on console

How AI is Transforming SEO and What Website Owners Need to Know

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