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The metro area, meanwhile, is growing more slowly than those nationwide.

Fire Flower, Bullet Bill and more in action.
A new Mario Golf World Tour trailer has been released by Nintendo.

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Platform holder details its 2014 schedule in full.
Sony has released a comprehensive list of games being released for the PlayStation 4 in 2014.

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Camelot's return to the series was worth the wait.
Although popular opinion would have you believe we've been endlessly drowning in Mario sports games since the N64 days, we actually haven't had a new Mario Golf since Advance Tour hit the GBA a decade ago.



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All this week's new digital downloads.
Nintendo has detailed this week's North American eShop update.



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For most of my adult life, I’ve suffered from what I euphemistically have described as melancholy. And like most people, I mistakenly considered it to be a “mood” as opposed to a serious physiological issue.  If I just did X, then I’d feel better. 

When the issue began to seriously affect my life, I readily accepted “advice” that included “appreciate what you have”, “look on the bright side”, “try to reduce stress from your life”, “don’t sweat the small stuff”, etc.

However, that type of advice is about as relevant as telling someone who suffers from severe migraines or epilepsy that they can “cure it” by changing their attitude about it. 

Understanding what depression actually is

Depression isn’t caused by external events.  Not the type I’m talking about anyway.  Obviously if enough bad things happen to you, you can be pretty down.  But major depressive disorder is an event that occurs in the brain where your serotonin levels drop very low.  Because the symptom of it is simply being in an extremely “down mood”. Unfortunately, people who suffer this are inclined to try to just push themselves through it which only serves to exacerbate it.

In video game terms, if one’s mental well-being can be described as mana, then everything we do each day results in actions that give or take a bit of that mana.  A bad event, like a death or a divorce will take away a lot of mana.  What makes MDD so serious is that it is a largely random event that essentially drops your mana to near zero. Suddenly, those day to day events that might not be that big of a deal become potentially life threatening (or sanity threatening).

For example, some people talk about seasonal depressive disorder.  I think a better way to think of it is that during certain times of the year, the conditions result in a steady trickle of mana. For most people, this might be no big deal or maybe a mild case of be somber.  On the other hand, if you are unlucky enough to have an MDD event around this time, that steady mana trickle can take you to a very very dark place.

There is no cure, there is only management

Being an engineer, I tend to focus on solutions. The idea I couldn’t “solve” depression seemed ludicrous.  Throughout my 20s I had a mantra: “The cure for the blues is achievement.”  I made an ambitious bucket list to work towards by the time I was 40.

And so 40 hit and I had done everything I had hoped to do by then. My family life was wonderful. I had beautiful, wonderful wife of nearly 20 years. 3 healthy, happy children. A beautiful home. More money than I could ever need. My book had been published by Random House and was at every book store I went to. Good physical health. Lots of friends. Good support network. Awesome job.

But accomplishment has nothing to do with depression. Depression doesn’t care. It’s a physical disorder.  It’s like suggesting that someone with diabetes just needs to get a big promotion at work and suddenly they’ll be cured.

Depression doesn’t make people any more sensitive

Having talked to other people who are in a similar situation, one of the most frustrating aspects is that many people think that those with depression are just more sensitive or that you need to be careful what you say around them.   Again: Depression is NOT caused by external factors. 

Just as depression can’t be cured by good events, it can’t be caused by bad events. It is not caused by some relative saying something rude or getting a mean email or some Facebook argument. 

The only time external factors become an issue is right after an MDD event has occurred that has brought your mana down to zero. Then it matters and the onus is on us to understand that and manage it.

How to manage it

Once I began thinking of depression as a physical issue, I was able to start effectively researching ways of managing it.  Here are the techniques I’ve learned over the past 3 years (I’m 43 now, it was 40 when I finally accepted that there was no magic accomplishment bullet).

None of these things will “cure” it. This is simply managing it so that you don’t go into “negative mana”:

 

1. Mindfulness.  This means focusing on the moment. MDD events tend to cause people to dwell on everything that they imagine is bad. “I’m wasting my life”, “I’m not living up to expectations”, “Why am I still alive? What’s the point?”, “Nothing is worth doing anymore”.  You can’t talk yourself out of these things at that moment. Instead, you just need to distract yourself and focus on the moment.  For me, that means something as simple as taking a peek at the conservatory in the house at the lizards and watching them do what lizards do (answer: Not much).
   
   Mindfulness does NOT mean: Going for a walk, exercising, reading a book, etc.  It means find something around and focus on it for a bit. The simpler the better.
   
2. Deconditioning. Where I work, I have a standing policy on “brain times”. We only care about what accomplish in the bigger scheme of things. We don’t care if you’re accomplishing it at 2:30pm on a Wednesday. If you need to take a brain break (defined as: working from home and at 2:30pm you instead read a book or do something in your garden because you’ve had “an event” recently then do it).  
   
   Deconditioning is, by far, the hardest thing to do because MDD comes with “I’m not living up to other people’s expectations” and therefore it makes it even harder to force yourself to just not do something that requires mana even if it’s in the middle of a work day. 
   
   I still struggle with this a lot and I own my own company. Yet, middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday I will force myself to read through a contract or some proposal or status report or some other thing that sucks the life out of me simply because it’s a work day in the afternoon. But I’m getting much better at simply rescheduling things so that I either spend that time doing something I enjoy (like writing code) or something unrelated (reading a book, playing with the dog, whatever).
   
3. Drugs. There’s no way around this. SSRIs and related drugs are a life saver. Find ones that work for you and stick to them. Yea, it sucks to have to take something every day forever (until they do find a cure). But I already take a multivitamin.
   
4. People. How you deal with people in this situation depends on if you’re an introvert or an extrovert. I’m an extrovert so I tend to enjoy being around people most of the time. I gain mana from socializing. But introverts lose mana from socializing.  So if you’ve had an event, deal with the people issue appropriately. You don’t go flying with a severe ear infection and you shouldn’t go present at a company meeting if you’re an introvert and you’ve recently had a MDD event (reschedule! Yes, DO IT).
   
5. The right job. People say “Life is short” and proceed to live as if they’re immortal.  I had a financial advisor friend who joked that if I quit “messing around” I could be worth 9 to 10 figures instead of “merely” 8.  That gets back to the obvious: Having money has very little affect on MDD. MDD doesn’t care.  Epilepsy doesn’t go away if you have a lot of money either.   Instead, the right job means having a job that provides as many “mana generating” opportunities as possible with the fewest number of “mana absorbers” present.
   
   Where I work, we have an in-house fitness trainer, a nutritionist and (again, since hitting 40) it is forbidden to have anything resembling “crunch”. If someone is working a lot of hours, they’re asked if they’re doing it because they enjoy what they’re working on versus because they have some sense of obligation.  If it’s the latter, it’s discouraged and we can discuss the underlying issues.  A big part of this is employee retention.  Working with people you know and care about for many years is extremely helpful. 
   
   Having an environment where people feel there’s a lot of flexibility to learn and do new things over your career (tired of concept art? How about game design? Or how about cinematics? There’s time to learn).  At the same time, it also means having a lower stress environment where people are less likely to have anxiety or not get along as a result.
   
6. Diet and Exercise.  These aren’t cures. But holy cow, making sure I am not eating crap can go a long way.  I love my mochas in the morning (they really help me) but I’ve moved away from fast food and the other garbage I used to ingest and just feel better. Poor diet is more like a drip drip drip to mana.  Similarly, it’s not so much that exercise will make you happy as much as inactivity is a constant drip drip drip to mana.
   
7. Accepting what it is. Last but not least is accepting what MDD is. It’s a physical issue that has no simple cure. It is not some weakness in character. It is not a failure on your part to appreciate what you have.  It’s just as physical as epilepsy or diabetes or some other physical ailment.
   The only difference between MDD and any other ailment is that the symptoms of an MDD event come in the form misery that, if unmanaged, becomes utter despair that can be very dangerous.

 

I hope this helps others. It has taken me some years to get to this point.  Until recently, I’ve really not talked about this outside my family and a few very close friends.  But I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a lot of people out there facing these same challenges.

Most people who know me know me to be a pretty happy person. That’s because I am a happy person much of the time. Just like people can be very healthy until they have the flu, I am happy until I have an MDD event that requires me to have some care in how I manage it.

We are at GDC! More specifically, we are in a Hotel, which we are not allowed to leave. If we leave the Hotel, our PR person will shoot us. What we are doing at GDC is we are demoing Clockwork Empires for Members of the Press, so that they remember that we are alive. So far, the press response has been overwhelmingly positive.

Evan Lahti from PC Gamer got the first hands-on look at Clockwork Empires before GDC; we think he’s some kind of Space Pirate or something. You can find Mr. Lahti’s preview here. Inside you will find many of the secret things we have been working on revealed, including Steam Knights, Cultists, Eldritch Modules, and more. Behold its deadly secrets and quake in wonder. You will also find, revealed therein, that the game will be available – thanks to the dreaded manipulations of Early Access, the Wonder of the Scientific Age – soon for those of you brave enough to help us in the development process. We will be discussing this in further detail later.

Since Evan has already kindly written about our game this week, I’m not going to. Instead, here are some notes on the PR process of showing the game to forty different journalists in a five day span.

- Your PR person will set you up with a Hotel and a Space, and will get people into the Hotel. This is because she knows you are Incompetent. Because you are Incompetent, you will buy a shipping crate that was previously designed for musical equipment for the band Rhapsody of Fire, which you will then put foam into. Please test your case by putting the Art Director into it.

- Because you are Incompetent, the case you chose will not be allowed on board the airplane. Store your computers safely at some random luggage-storing place at Vancouver Airport, who are very nonplussed about this sort of thing.

- People on Twitter will compare your GDC experience to “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.” Remind them that you haven’t left the airport yet.

- Obtain new computers from Best Buy. These computers will have AMD cards in them. Remember all the things that are currently broken on AMD cards, and realize that your farms are blue and your trees are missing large parts of their geometry. Fix these things hastily; the rendering tasks you put off for “later” have become “now”.

- Take your enormous banner from PAX 2012 with you to put in the Hotel Room where you are showing the game. Daniel demonstrates the correct technique of listening to the walls in the Hotel Room to determine whether the banner is securely attached or not.

- The banner will fall off and choke your art director in the middle of the night. This is Good. It is probably because you used the tape from this kit, which was the only thing available at the local pharmacy:

- To prevent hunger, eat a burrito on Sunday that you will still feel the effects of three days later. Also, take your Horrifying Cough to GDC and show it to other developers and compare diseases. Rickets are totally in this year.

- Buy swim trunks to go sit in the hot tub at your hotel because that’s all you want to do, really, after showing the game for ten hours. Discover your hotel has no hot tub, and that you are surrounded by Ridiculously Healthy people from the Google Android team, and feel Bad about your Health. Try to intimidate them with your Rickets. Fail miserably, and slink back to your hotel room in Shame to watch a nature documentary about the echidna.

- On Monday, go drinking with British Game Developers. (These individuals shall remain nameless here.) British People will go into a Tiki Bar, and order “three more of the enormous flaming drinks and a ****load of straws.” (Here **** represents a British Word that is so foul we dare not repeat it.) What they will receive is Alcoholic Porridge, one hundred and eighteen dollars worth of it, which the bartender will then light on fire. Do not drink the Porridge. It is a Trap. Content yourself with the small gin and tonic a very nice man from Gearbox bought for you because, quote, “he felt sorry for you.”

- Have your brand-new pathfinding code blow up, in unreproducible ways and with exciting errors, in front of a Major Media Outlet. Send code back and forth from your hotel room to Vancouver, only to discover half of your pathfinding code is miraculously commented out. Remove that code; have your pathfinding code blow up in front of somebody from a different Major Media Outlet. This is the Live Demo portion of the proceedings.

- To protect yourself from GDC Flu, smear your entire body with Hand Sanitizer. Put Hand Sanitizer into your eyeballs to protect yourself from Oculus Rift Pinkeye, the Scourge of GDC.

- The Enormous Bottle of Lotion Incident: your PR person will ask your Hotel to deliver Hand Sanitizer to your room, because she is Smart and knows that you are Incompetent. This is why a confused bellhop will show up at your room at 8:30 PM, having misinterpreted your PR person’s request for Hand Sanitizer, with what Daniel described as “an enormous quantity of hand lotion and paper towels.” Your PR person also will not tell you that she has done this, which is why you have to explain some very interesting things to the confused bellhop.

- Be compared to Peter Molyneux by members of the media, and defend yourself from these accusations by one of the following:

a) yelling, “Look! An Echidna!”
b) cleverly changing the discussion to SimCity
c) spray Hand Sanitizer in the eyes of the press and run away making “woop-woop” noises

- You have three more days of this nonsense. GOOD LUCK!

Mario is preparing to take his skills to the golf course, once again. The latest trailer for Mario Golf: World Tour shows one of the game's more interesting locales: Cheep Cheep Lagoon, located at the bottom of a lake.

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It’s a pretty grand time to be into turn-based fantasy strategy games. Fallen Enchantress, Eador, Warlock, and Dominions 4 are all well worth playing for distinct reasons. And with the release of Triumph Studios’ Age of Wonders III at the end of this month, it might get to be an even better time. After the […]

The post Taking a closer look at Age of Wonders III appeared first on Quarter to Three.

Japanese Record Snowfalls

February was an interesting month for Japan snow-wise. A couple of rare heavy snowfalls struck the greater Tokyo area with one city, Kofu, smashing its all-time snow depth record with 114 cm/44.9” accumulating by February 15th. Details about this storm can be found here. However, the normally very snowy areas on the west coast of Honshu Island have averaged much below normal (as little as 34% of normal snowfall in some areas)....<br /><a href="http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/comment.html?entrynum=250">Read More</a>

Nintendo offers a small peek at its anticipated racer.
Nintendo has released three new Mario Kart 8 images which, while relatively small in size, offer a fresh look at three of the game's new courses.



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Filed under: Fantasy, Culture, Guild Wars 2, Buy-to-Play

A disabled non-player character in Guild Wars 2 has made a profound impact on a real-life player who shares similar traits.

Player Christina put a post on the GW2 forums stating that she has multiple sclerosis and was "overjoyed" when she found a fictional game counterpart in a young Asura named Taimi. "The friend I was playing with pointed her out, and I think I shrieked loud enough to wake the dead," she enthused.

Taimi has a degenerative disease that prevents her from walking far and requires her to use a golem to help her get around. She was introduced in a recent living story update and hangs out at the Vigil Keep.

At least for Christina, Taimi has inspired her through the NPC's character and place in the story: "I don't know where you're going with Taimi. But honestly I don't care. Because now, in Tyria, I can imagine having a giant golem cart me around when I can't feel my legs or when they hurt too badly to walk. Now when I get derisive or pitying looks, I can take a minute to imagine I'm sitting on a golem's shoulder like a complete kitten. So thank you for thinking of people like me. Thank you for thinking about how someone with a disability might get along in your world. And thank you for making her awesome."

Guild Wars 2 NPC inspires player with multiple sclerosis originally appeared on Massively on Wed, 26 Feb 2014 14:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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• Source: To Taimi's creators

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Nintendo announced today during its Nintendo Direct presentation that Mario Kart 8 is coming on May 30. Accompanying the announcement was a new trailer showing off several new characters: Bowser's long-neglected Koopa kids.

As part of its Nintendo Direct presentation today, Nintendo gave two of its highly-anticipated 3DS games release dates – just in time for the unofficial start of summer. Both Mario Golf World Tour and Kirby Triple Deluxe are due on May 2.

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So you’ve spent the last few months or years of your life developing a game.  Even getting it to market is one hell of an accomplishment.  Getting it to market and actually making money is even better.  Now imagine getting stomped on by a lawyer because your game’s name is similar to an overly broad trademark.  That would suck, wouldn’t it?  Now can you imagine if you released and trademarked the game two years before the other game existed?  Now, insult to injury, can you imagine if the game company suing you very likely copied a great deal of your game in the first place? 

 

Sounds unbelievable doesn’t it?  Well, that’s exactly what just happened to CandySwipe developer Runsome Apps Inc.  The following was posted on the CandySwipe website.

 

Open letter to King.com who wants to cancel the registration of the CandySwipe trademark.

Dear King,

 

Congratulations! You win! I created my game CandySwipe in memory of my late mother who passed away at an early age of 62 of leukemia. I released CandySwipe in 2010 five months after she passed and I made it because she always liked these sorts of games. In fact, if you beat the full version of the android game, you will still get the message saying "...the game was made in memory of my mother, Layla..." I created this game for warmhearted people like her and to help support my family, wife and two boys 10 and 4. Two years after I released CandySwipe, you released Candy Crush Saga on mobile; the app icon, candy pieces, and even the rewarding, "Sweet!" are nearly identical. So much so, that I have hundreds of instances of actual confusion from users who think CandySwipe is Candy Crush Saga, or that CandySwipe is a Candy Crush Saga knockoff. So when you attempted to register your trademark in 2012, I opposed it for "likelihood of confusion" (which is within my legal right) given I filed for my registered trademark back in 2010 (two years before Candy Crush Saga existed). Now, after quietly battling this trademark opposition for a year, I have learned that you now want to cancel my CandySwipe trademark so that I don't have the right to use my own game's name. You are able to do this because only within the last month you purchased the rights to a game named Candy Crusher (which is nothing like CandySwipe or even Candy Crush Saga). Good for you, you win. I hope you're happy taking the food out of my family's mouth when CandySwipe clearly existed well before Candy Crush Saga.

 

I have spent over three years working on this game as an independent app developer. I learned how to code on my own after my mother passed and CandySwipe was my first and most successful game; it's my livelihood, and you are now attempting to take that away from me. You have taken away the possibility of CandySwipe blossoming into what it has the potential of becoming. I have been quiet, not to exploit the situation, hoping that both sides could agree on a peaceful resolution. However, your move to buy a trademark for the sole purpose of getting away with infringing on the CandySwipe trademark and goodwill just sickens me.

 

This also contradicts your recent quote by Riccardo in "An open letter on intellectual property" posted on your website which states, "We believe in a thriving game development community, and believe that good game developers – both small and large - have every right to protect the hard work they do and the games they create."

 

I myself was only trying to protect my hard work.

 

I wanted to take this moment to write you this letter so that you know who I am. Because I now know exactly what you are. Congratulations on your success!

Sincerely,
Albert Ransom
President (Founder), Runsome Apps Inc.

Link to confusion between CandySwipe and Candy Crush Saga

Link to Trademark Opposition - http://ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/v?pno=91210162&pty=OPP&eno=9

Link to recent Gamezebo article featuring this story.

 

I post this here because I think this story needs to be spread far and wide (and so far has been).  It’s not a matter that the US trademark system is going to be fixed anytime soon and everyone knows that is the crux of the problem here.  That however is beyond our control for now… people have been crying for trademark reform for ages and change is occurring at a glacial pace.

 

That said, we can certainly shame companies that stifle competition through abusive lawsuits.  The worst part is, these companies make it harder for companies that legitimately want to protect their IP rights.  In this day and age, a small developer ( basically any without a legal team ) are pretty much at the mercy of another company that want to simply clone their game.  The world of indie game development is moving towards a world where he/she with the largest legal budget wins and I think most of us never want to see that happen.  At least, those of us that aren't loaded or lawyers that is.

 

King certainly isn’t the only villain here.  Even a company I deeply love, Bethesda, was guilty of abusing an overly broad trademark ( Scrolls ).  They took a run at Notch of Minecraft fame.  The difference in that story is, Minecraft has sold a bazillion copies and had the resources to fight back.  Notch basically won but the outcome left everyone else basically just as vulnerable.  So, from this point on, Scrolls is basically off limit in your game name.  Had Notch not had piles of money, he would have probably been forced to concede without a fight.

 

But King are a special kind of awful.  First they applied for the overly broad Candy trademark ( awarded in the UK, pending in US I believe ), basically baring other video games from using Candy in the title, even ones created (and trademarked!) years ago.  As is obvious from this activity, they intend to use this trademark, no matter how stupid it was.  But this isn’t their only action, they also opposed ( the much more sane ) Trademark application of Stoic’s The Banner Saga as apparently the use of the word Saga is too close to Candy Crush Saga.  Fortunately Stoic are going to fight back.  Stoic pretty accurately sum up the indie spirit and oppositions in their comment:

 

“Two years ago, the three of us at Stoic set out to make an epic Viking game: The Banner Saga,” Stoic cofounder Alex Thomas said in a statement. “We did, and people loved it, so we’re making another one. We won’t make a Viking saga without the word Saga, and we don’t appreciate anyone telling us we can’t. King.com claims they’re not attempting to prevent us from using The Banner Saga, and yet their legal opposition to our trademark filing remains. We’re humbled by the outpouring of support and honored to have others stand with us for the right to their own Saga. We just want to make great games.”

 

So, what’s the best response to King?  Letting people know, as many people as possible.  Let the lay person know that this kind of crap is going to make their game selection worse.  Let developers know how toxic a landscape this will create.  Own a King published game?  Well, reviews on app stores are certainly a great forum to educate people!

 

Don’t look to the legal system for solutions, at least not in the short term.  It’s broken and wont be fixed for a very long time.  So the next most effective way of deterring a company like King from these abusive behaviors is by hitting them in the wallet.  The CandyJam protests were certainly a good start, but frankly, that’s most a matter of preaching to the choir.  The people that really need to know are the average consumers, and App Store comments are about the strongest voice we’ve got.  Uprating CandySwipe above Candy Crush Saga would certainly be an interesting way to start!  Of course, it would also be great to see CandySwipe use the money to crush this in court, as frankly most of the power comes from the mismatch in legal resources, not due to any standing under the law.  That said, the more of us that talk about this, the more likely it hit mainstream press and the more people that associate the name King with evil.

 

We shouldn’t live in a world where only the wealthy can defend themselves.  Sadly though, that is what we are becoming.

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The Mushroom Kingdom is a horrifying place. At least, that's the lesson to be learned from this new two minute trailer for Mario Kart 8. You'll see Mario and company racing and paragliding through an airport, proving that air traffic control simply does not exist in this world. And sure, anti-grav strips may be cool to race on, but what's with all these baby-people driving motorcycles? How do they have licenses? Will you want to expose your children to this anarchist propaganda when it debuts on Wii U in the spring?

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Nintendo will be making it easier for you to fill in the 50 states with 3DS StreetPass targets soon. Declaring this Saturday and Sunday "National StreetPass Weekend," Nintendo will use the recently-added relay points to shuffle your data to states you've never set foot in.