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Bobby Voicu

Co-op Scrabble: I’m here for it

By Bobby Voicu

We’ve already seen this trend in video gaming, where co-op games are becoming more popular. I mean, It Takes Two is one of the best games I’ve played in the last few years and one of the reasons for that is that I played it along with my wife.

I learned recently that Scrabble has a co-op version now (called “Together”) and I want to play it. We love Scrabble in our home and it sometimes gets a little bit too competitive.

Ray Adler, vice-president and global head of games at Mattel, said: “Scrabble has truly stood the test of time as one of the most popular board games in history, and we want to ensure the game continues to be inclusive for all players. For anyone who’s ever thought ‘word games aren’t for me’, or felt a little intimidated by the classic game, Scrabble Together mode is an ideal option.”

Adler said the game still allows players to celebrate the “wonder of words” but also “brings people together”.

Brett Smitheram, 2016 world Scrabble champion, said the new game “speaks to a trend in younger people who want to avoid competitive games and sense of losing, instead favouring teamwork and collaboration working towards a fun goal together”.

While I still like competitive games, I found myself more open and drawn to co-op games lately, games where I can take the time to chat with friends and enjoying a slower pace.

Source: The Guardian

Meta offers up Quest’s Horizon OS to other companies

By Bobby Voicu

This is as big as it can be. While a duopoly between Meta and Apple on headsets wouldn’t be the best in the world, this still opens up the industry. Hopefully Google will come on board as well.

First, the company said that it will make the operating system behind the Meta Quest headsets, Meta Horizon OS, available to other companies to create third-party hardware.

It already has a handful of partners on board to make headsets, with ASUS Republic of Gamers creating “an all-new performance gaming headset,” while Lenovo designs one optimized for productivity and entertainment.

Meta also said it will create a limited-edition Meta Quest headset “inspired by Xbox,” and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg suggested in an Instagram post that one could make a VR headset bundled with an Xbox controller and Game Pass so players could play on a virtual big screen TV wherever they happened to be.

From here.

Redirect 301 with Cloudflare

By Bobby Voicu

I recently found out that if you use Cloudflare, you can do a domain redirect with them, rather than needing to create a blank website with a 301 rule in Apache or something similar.

So here it is (as much for anyone that needs as for me when I surely will forget about it):

The documentation is here with more examples.

Here’s the rule I used to redirect the old “.ro” domain to this one:

Discovery and Monetization on MR platforms

By Bobby Voicu

I feel that crossplay mobile/MR will be the way to monetize free-to-play games and increase distribution on the Mixed Reality platforms.

Niantic and Meta partnered to fund three multiplayer mixed reality demo games that run in the browser and support both Quest 3 and mobile.

The demos were built over a ten week period using Niantic’s 8th Wall web-based AR engine, which has a fully in-browser editor and offers cloud hosting for built projects. Niantic is the company behind smartphone AR games like Pokémon GO, Pikmin Bloom, and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite.

The condition of the funding for the three teams was that their projects use 8th Wall’s multiplayer module, which can enable cross-play between headsets and traditional mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

More here.

How is Mobile Gaming Gonna Die?

By Bobby Voicu

In 2012 I started a gaming company called MavenHut. It was making Facebook canvas games. About 2 years after we started we needed to change platforms to mobile because Facebook games were dying.

Well, there’s a chance mobile gaming will similarly die as well:

I believe that mobile games could be facing the same deliberate death-by-a-platform as games Facebook suffered a decade ago. We’re like frogs being slowly boiled alive. The temperature is gradually increasing due to all the privacy changes. But the changes are happening relatively slowly. So, we’re not jumping out of the water to save ourselves from impending death.

This is a really good article at Deconstructor of Fun.

Mark Zuckerberg reviews the Apple Vision Pro

By Bobby Voicu

I find it interesting that the CEO of Meta/Facebook is reviewing the device of the competition in a public way. I mean, would you ever see Tim Cook reviewing the Meta Quest 3?

And the video is quite good.

The final conclusion is that Meta Quest 3 is on par with the Vision Pro if you take the price and intended purpose into consideration. I didn’t yet test the Apple Vision Pro, but I can imagine based on the reviews I’ve seen that Zuck is not that far off course.

Anyway, here it is, on Instagram:

The Martian has a New, “Lost” Chapter

By Bobby Voicu

If you loved Andy Weir’s The Martian, let me tell you it’s 10 years since publication.

Even better, Andy Weir wrote a “lost chapter” for the book that you can read here.

Via Kottke

What Games to Play in VR/MR/AR?

By Bobby Voicu

I’ve recently got into Mixed Reality gaming, when I bought a Meta Quest 3. Once I did that, I noticed there aren’t any good newsletters for the people that play these kind of games, so I made one! :D

If you want to subscribe, the newsletter’s name is XR Gamer Digest and you can find it here. Where you can find the previous (5 by now) editions.

We publish it every Friday, so hop on!

24 Hours with Apple Vision Pro

By Bobby Voicu

Not me, unfortunately. I would’ve loved to test it and buy it, but, you know… 6 weeks of wait time.

Anyway, Joanna Stern from the Wall Street Journal spent (almost) 24 hours testing it. I would’ve loved to see some games in there, as well, but nevertheless, the video is worth watching.