• ENTERTAINMENT

Is This HoloLens Game The Future Of Crime Fiction?

'Fragments' hides holographic clues under your furniture

By Brittany Vincent

August 18, 2016

Microsoft's augmented reality headset Hololens is one of the most impressive devices we've seen in recent years, allowing you to see holograms over your view of the real world.

And while the company just recently opened orders for it to the general public at the steep price of $3,000 per headset, that won't keep me from being ridiculously excited about its implications for productivity, hanging out with my friends online, and most importantly — gaming.

Out of Microsoft's cadre of upcoming Hololens releases, the one that's continually fascinating to me is Asobo Studios' Fragments, an interactive crime drama a la Rockstar Games' L.A. Noire. Microsoft recently released a trailer that explains more about how the game will work.

Using the Hololens, the entire game becomes a part of your living space with the power of spatial mapping. You become the main character in an interactive video game where characters look and speak to you as though you've been scripted right into it, right down to asking questions and getting to the bottom of a murder mystery.

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Sure, you could do that before in an adventure game, but never with this level of integration. You could potentially sit down with a character on your sofa and interrogate her.

Microsoft's impressive new tech allows for clues to be sprinkled in any room you decide to play in, which should keep things fresh as you attempt to crack the case. For instance, Fragments may decide to place a clue beneath your coffee table or behind an item in the room.

Real talk, I might start out being too lazy to move around my living room furniture to find a clue, but eventually I'll get up off my butt so I can graduate from gumshoe status.

• ENTERTAINMENT

This New XBox Game Lets You Literally Battle Cancer

'I, Hope' follows a little girl set on wiping out the illness

By Brittany Vincent

August 18, 2016

I, Hope

ID@Xbox is publishing I, Hope, a 3D adventure where 100% of the proceeds go to children with life-threatening illnesses.Microsoft

Video games are an important tool for some when it comes to dealing with terminal illnesses or death, as Numines Games' That Dragon, Cancer demonstrated when it debuted on PC earlier this year. It took an extremely emotional and tumultuous experience and turned it into a powerful adventure anyone could relate to.

In turn it became a resource for others, further demonstrating the sheer power video games can possess. I get the same vibe from the upcoming indie title I, Hope, which is unique in that 100 percent of its profits upon release will be donated to children with terminal illnesses as well as their families.

The brainchild of Arconyx's Kenny Roy, development and training laboratory ANOMALIA and the GameChanger charity, I, Hope is an upcoming release with one goal in mind: Helping kids conquer cancer in their own ways.

It will be available on ID@Xbox, Microsoft's self-publishing program for indie developers, home to a landscape of unique games from smaller creators who may otherwise never have been able to get their titles on a major platform.

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The game's aimed specifically at children going through long, scary treatment courses and hospital stays. It features a little girl named Hope who trying to defeat Cancer — literally.

Rather than an illness, it's a creature that's caused a blight on her homeland. Hope is tasked with heading out to several different islands, defeating the evil forces on each, and restoring her home to its former glory.

It's an interesting metaphor for kids looking for a way to deal with their illnesses while having fun in the process. Hospital stays and news about ailing health is scary for cancer sufferers at any age, but I, Hope wants to give kids a little fun during what could otherwise be a bleak period in their lives.

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Beyond its younger target audience, I, Hope should appeal to anyone who enjoys a classic action-adventure game. It looks like a solid, The Legend of Zelda-inspired journey, and it's set for a 2017 release exclusively on Xbox One.

• ENTERTAINMENT

How to build the video game you wanted when you were 13

Tips from a guy who did it.

By Billy Cadden

October 10, 2017

Straits of SikinaLotia

OK before we get started let's get one thing out of the way. The subject of this piece is our coworker and friend. We like him. This article is not meant to be a review and it is certainly not objective. This is a story about a guy who created an indie video game inspired by those he played as a kid. There you have it, folks. Transparency. Now proceed.

If you've got a pulse and a decent memory, you must admit that there are some dreams you had as a pre-teen that you wish you hadn't given up on for practicality's sake. It's the kind of thing you think about rarely, when you read an article about an astronaut or meet a novelist at a party.

So when we learned that our Director of Product Jade Lockwood—of Bonnier Corp., PopSci's parent company—was wrapping up a project more than two decades in the making, we knew we needed to ask him a few questions. The fact that Lockwood, now 34, decided to build a video game he dreamed up as a middle schooler made our staff that much more curious. Innovation, we love. Geekery, we love. A pitch-perfect throwback fantasy soundtrack—yeah, love that, too.

Lockwood spent thousands of hours over the past six-plus years bringing to life the mythos of his old-school RPG game, Lotia, which came out in June on Steam. We wanted to know how he managed it. I spoke with Lockwood—and of course played the game for, uh, several work hours—to learn about the process, and what it feels like to unleash to the world something of your middle school daydreams.