During a showcase at Summer Games Fest, developer Dinosaur Polo Club announced that it will be adding a creative mode to Mini Motorways. The new mode will be available in a free game update coming to Apple Arcade, Steam, and Nintendo Switch on August 26, so you can get imaginative on whatever platform you’ve been playing this excellent strategy game.

Like its predecessor Mini Metro, the core gameplay of Mini Motorways has a lot of calm, meditative elements in the experience of placing those first few roads. But as your city grows and the street network gets more convoluted, things can turn hectic real quick. And if you’re like me, you’ve definitely run out of road tiles because you just couldn’t stand making painfully illogical city plans. Creative Mode offers the welcome option to focus on aesthetics, letting players recolor, move and pivot houses and destinations to develop a city with more order. Or with more chaos, you do you!

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/mini-motorways-is-getting-a-creative-mode-233031208.html?src=rss

Is copyrighted material a requirement for training AI? asks the Washington Post. That’s what top AI companies are arguing, and “Few AI developers have tried the more ethical route — until now.

“A group of more than two dozen AI researchers have found that they could build a massive eight-terabyte dataset using only text that was openly licensed or in public domain. They tested the dataset quality by using it to train a 7 billion parameter language model, which performed about as well as comparable industry efforts, such as Llama 2-7B, which Meta released in 2023.”

A paper published Thursday detailing their effort also reveals that the process was painstaking, arduous and impossible to fully automate. The group built an AI model that is significantly smaller than the latest offered by OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini, but their findings appear to represent the biggest, most transparent and rigorous effort yet to demonstrate a different way of building popular AI tools….

As it turns out, the task involves a lot of humans. That’s because of the technical challenges of data not being formatted in a way that’s machine readable, as well as the legal challenges of figuring out what license applies to which website, a daunting prospect when the industry is rife with improperly licensed data. “This isn’t a thing where you can just scale up the resources that you have available” like access to more computer chips and a fancy web scraper, said Stella Biderman [executive director of the nonprofit research institute Eleuther AI]. “We use automated tools, but all of our stuff was manually annotated at the end of the day and checked by people. And that’s just really hard.”

Still, the group managed to unearth new datasets that can be used ethically. Those include a set of 130,000 English language books in the Library of Congress, which is nearly double the size of the popular-books dataset Project Gutenberg. The group’s initiative also builds on recent efforts to develop more ethical, but still useful, datasets, such as FineWeb from Hugging Face, the open-source repository for machine learning… Still, Biderman remained skeptical that this approach could find enough content online to match the size of today’s state-of-the-art models… Biderman said she didn’t expect companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic to start adopting the same laborious process, but she hoped it would encourage them to at least rewind back to 2021 or 2022, when AI companies still shared a few sentences of information about what their models were trained on.

“Even partial transparency has a huge amount of social value and a moderate amount of scientific value,” she said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TweakTown writes that the Switch 2 “has reportedly beaten the record for the most-sold console within 24 hours and is on track to shatter the two-month record,” selling over 3 million units and tripling the PlayStation 4’s previous launch day sales.
So Nintendo’s first console in 8 years becomes “one of the most successful hardware releases of all time,” writes Barron’s, raising hopes for the future:

[2017’s original Switch] ultimately sold more than 152 million units… Switch 2’s big advantage is its backward compatibility, allowing it to play current-generation Switch games and giving gamers solace that their large investments in software are intact… Many older Switch games also play better on the Switch 2, taking advantage of the extra horsepower.

Bloomberg writes that its bigger screen and faster chip “live up to the hype:

Despite the hype and a $150 increase over the launch price for the original, the second-generation system manages to impress with faster performance, improved graphics, more comfortable ergonomics and enough tweaks throughout to make this feel like a distinctly new machine… This time, it’s capable of outputting 4K resolution and more impactful HDR video to your TV screen… It’s a bigger, faster, more polished version of a wildly successful gadget.
The “buzzy launch drew long lines” at retailers like Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and Gamestop, according to the article. (See the photos from AOL.com and USA Today.) “The era of spending hours waiting in line for the latest iPhone is long gone, but the debut of a new video game console is still a rare enough event that Nintendo fans didn’t think twice about driving to retailers in the middle of the night to secure a Switch 2.”

The Verge also opines that “the Switch 2’s eShop is much better,” calling it “way faster… with much less lag browsing through sections and loading up game pages.”

Or, as Barron’s puts it, “Ultimately, Nintendo is winning because it has a different strategy than its competition, the Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox. Instead of trying to appeal to tech snobs like me, who are obsessed with graphics resolution and hardware statistics like teraflops, Nintendo focuses on joy and fun.”

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mike Judge always seemed to have secret geek sympathies. He co-created the HBO series Silicon Valley, as well as the movie Office Space (reviewed in 1999 by Slashdot contributor Jon Katz).

Now comes the word that besides rebooting Buffy the Vampire Slayer — and an animated scifi/action/horror film called Predator: Killer of Killers — Hulu is also relaunching Judge’s animated series King of the Hill on August 4th. And Cinemablend notes they took great pains to ensure the inclusion of internet-loving neighbor Dale Gribble despite the death of voice actor Johnny Hardwick:

Co-creators Mike Judge and Greg Daniels joined the cast of returning voice actors for a revealing Q&A at ATX Fest while also revealing longtime cast member Toby Huss took over the role of Dale Gribble… Hardwick passed away in August 2023 at 64, with fans and co-stars paying tribute soon after. It was revealed at the time that he’d recorded some audio for the new season, but it was clear that another actor would be needed to fill those intimidating and conspiracy-obsessed shoes. Among other characters, Huss provided the voice of Cotton Hill and Kahn Sr. in the O.G. run, and feels to me like a natural fit to take over as Dale. And he sounds humbled to have been given the task, telling the ATX Fest crowd:
“Johnny was one-of-a-kind and a wonderful fellow. I’m not trying to copy Johnny…I guess I’m trying to be Johnny. He laid down a really wonderful goofball character…he had a lot of weird heart to him and that’s a credit to Johnny. So all I’m trying to do is hold on to his Dale-ness. We love our guy Johnny and it’s so sad that he’s not here….”

I can already hear Dale himself questioning why he sounds different, and whether or not the government has replaced him with a lizard creature or some other sentient organism… In the immediate aftermath of Johnny Hardwick’s death, the word was that the actor had filmed a couple of episodes’ worth of material for the Hulu revival, but Mike Judge went on the record at ATX Fest to reveal that initial assessment undershot things entirely. From the voice of Hank Hill himself: “Johnny Hardwick is in six episodes. He’s still going to be in the show.”

Hulu uploaded the new opening credits to YouTube eight days ago — and it’s already been viewed 2.1 million times, attracting 55,000 upvotes and 7,952 comments…
Long-time Slashdot reader theodp shared the official blurb describing the new show:

After years working a propane job in Saudi Arabia to earn their retirement nest egg, Hank and Peggy Hill return to a changed Arlen, Texas to reconnect with old friends Dale, Boomhauer and Bill. Meanwhile, Bobby is living his dream as a chef in Dallas and enjoying his 20s with his former classmates Connie, Joseph and Chane.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

LSD “is used to treat conditions like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and addiction,” notes Science Daily. And now a microbiology student “has found a long sought-after fungus that produces effects similar to the semisynthetic drug…”

Morning glory plants live in symbiosis with fungi that produce the same ergot alkaloids the Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann modified when he invented LSD in the late 1930s. Hofmann hypothesized that a fungus in morning glories produced alkaloids similar to those in LSD, but the species remained a mystery…

The researchers dubbed the fungus “Periglandula clandestina” for its ability to have eluded investigators for decades.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It’s early June, which means it’s time for a ton of video game events! Rising from the ashes of E3, Geoff Keighley’s Summer Game Fest is now the premium gaming event of the year, just inching ahead of… Geoff Keighley’s Game Awards in December. Unlike the show it replaced, Summer Game Fest is an egalitarian affair, spotlighting games from AAA developers and small indies across a diverse set of livestreams. SGF 2025 includes 15 individual events running from June 3-9 — you can find the full Summer Game Fest 2025 schedule here — and we’re smack dab in the middle of that programming right now.

We’re covering SGF 2025 with a small team on the ground in LA and a far larger group of writers tuning in remotely to the various livestreams. Expect game previews, interviews and reactions to arrive over the coming days (the show’s in-person component runs from Saturday-Monday), and a boatload of new trailers and release date announcements in between.

Through it all, we’re collating the biggest announcements right here, with links out to more in-depth coverage where we have it, in chronological order.

Tuesday, June 3

State of Unreal: The Witcher IV and Fortnite AI

Epic hitched its wagon to SGF this year, aligning its annual developer Unreal Fest conference, which last took place in the fall of 2024, with the consumer event. The conference was held in Orlando, Florida, from June 2-5, with well over a hundred developer sessions focused on Unreal Engine. The highlight was State of Unreal, which was the first event on the official Summer Game Fest schedule. Amid a bunch of very cool tech demos and announcements, we got some meaningful updates on Epic’s own Fortnite and CD PROJEKT RED’s upcoming The Witcher IV.

The Witcher IV was first unveiled at The Game Awards last year, and we’ve heard very little about it since. At State of Unreal, we got a tech demo for Unreal Engine 5.6, played in real time on a base PS5. The roughly 10-minute slot featured a mix of gameplay and cinematics, and showed off a detailed, bustling world. Perhaps the technical highlight was Nanite Foliage, an extension of UE5’s Nanite system for geometry that renders foliage without the level of detail pop-in that is perhaps the most widespread graphical aberration still plaguing games today. On the game side, we saw a town filled with hundreds of NPCs going about their business. The town itself wasn’t quite on the scale of The Witcher III‘s Novigrad City, but nonetheless felt alive in a way beyond anything the last game achieved.

It’s fair to say that Fortnite‘s moment in the spotlight was… less impressive. Hot on the heels of smooshing a profane Darth Vader AI into the game, Epic announced that creators will be able to roll their own AI NPCs into the game later this year.

Wednesday, June 4

PlayStation State of Play: Marvel Tōkon, Silent Hill f and the return of Lumines

Another company getting a headstart on proceedings was Sony, who threw its third State of Play of the year onto the Summer Game Fest schedule a couple days ahead of the opening night event. It was a packed stream by Sony’s standards, with over 20 games and even a surprise hardware announcement.

The most time was given to Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, a new PlayStation Studios tag fighter that fuses Marvel Superheroes with anime visuals. It’s also 4 versus 4, which is wild. It’s being developed by Arc System Works, the team perhaps best known for the Guilty Gear series. It’s coming to PS5 and PC in 2026. Not-so-coincidentally, Sony also announced Project Defiant, a wireless fight stick that’ll support PS5 and PC and arrive in… 2026.

Elsewhere, we got a parade of release dates, with concrete dates for Sword of the Sea (August 19) Baby Steps (September 8) and Silent Hill f (September 25). We also got confirmation of that Final Fantasy Tactics remaster (coming September 30), an an all-new… let’s call it aspirational “2026” date for Pragmata, which, if you’re keeping score, was advertised alongside the launch of the PS5. Great going, Capcom!

Rounding out the show was a bunch of smaller announcements. We heard about a new Nioh game, Nioh 3, coming in 2026; Suda51’s new weirdness Romeo is a Dead Man; and Lumines Arise, a long-awaited return to the Lumines series from the developer behind Tetris Effect.

Thursday, June 5

Diddly squat

There were absolutely no Summer Game Fest events scheduled on Thursday. We assume that’s out of respect for antipodean trees, as June 5 was Arbor Day in New Zealand. (It’s probably because everyone was playing Nintendo Switch 2.)

Friday, June 6

Summer Game Fest Live: Resident Evil Requiem, Stranger Than Heaven and sequels abound

It’s fair to say that previous Summer Game Fest opening night streams have been… whelming at best. This year’s showing was certainly an improvement, not least because there were exponentially fewer mobile game and MMO ads littering the presentation. Yes, folks tracking Gabe Newell’s yacht were disappointed that Half-Life 3 didn’t show up, and the Silksong crowd remains sad, alone and unloved, but there were nonetheless some huge announcements.

Perhaps the biggest of all was the “ninth” (Zero and Code Veronica erasure is real) Resident Evil game. Resident Evil Requiem is said to be a tonal shift compared to the last game, Resident Evil Village. Here’s hoping it reinvigorates the series in the same way Resident Evil VII did following the disappointing 6.

We also heard more from Sega studio Ryu Ga Gotoku about Project Century, which seems to be a 1943 take on the Yakuza series. It’s now called Stranger Than Heaven, and there’s a (literally) jazzy new trailer for your consideration.

Outside of those big swings, there were sequels to a bunch of mid-sized games, like Atomic Heart, Code Vein and Mortal Shell, and a spiritual sequel of sorts: Scott Pilgrim EX, a beat-em-up that takes the baton from the 2010 Ubisoft brawler Scott Pilgrim vs. the World: The Game.

There were countless other announcements at the show, including:

• Troy Baker is the big cheese in Mouse: P.I. for Hire

• Here’s a silly puppet boxing game you never knew you needed

• Killer Inn turns Werewolf into a multiplayer action game

• Out of Words is a cozy stop-motion co-op adventure from Epic Games

• Lego Voyagers is a co-op puzzle game from the studio behind Builder’s Journey

• Mina the Hollower, from the makers of Shovel Knight, arrives on Halloween

• Wu-Tang Clan’s new game blends anime with Afro-surrealism

Day of the Devs: Blighted, Snap & Grab, Blighted and Escape Academy II

As always, the kickoff show was followed by a Day of the Devs stream, which focused on smaller projects and indie games. You can watch the full stream here.

Escape Academy has been firmly on our best couch co-op games list for some time, and now it’s got a sequel on the way. Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School takes the same basic co-op escape room fun and expands on it, moving away from a level-select map screen and towards a fully 3D school campus for players to explore. So long as the puzzles themselves are as fun as the original, it seems like a winner. 

Semblance studio Nyamakop is back with new jam called Relooted, a heist game with a unique twist. As in the real world, museums in the West are full of items plundered from African nations under colonialism. Unlike the real world, in Relooted the colonial powers have signed a treaty to return these items to their places of origin, but things aren’t going to plan, as many artifacts are finding their way into private collections. It’s your job to steal them back. The British Museum is quaking in its boots.

Here are some of the other games that caught our eye:

• Snap & Grab is No Goblin’s campy, photography-based heist game

• Please, Watch the Artwork is a puzzle game with eerie paintings and a sad clown

• Bask in the grotesque pixel-art beauty of Neverway

• Pocket Boss turns corporate data manipulation into a puzzle game

• Tire Boy is a wacky open-world adventure game you can tread all over

The rest: Ball x Pit, Hitman and 007 First Light

After Day of the Devs came Devolver. Its Summer Game Fest show was a little more muted than usual, focusing on a single game: Ball x Pit. It’s the next game from Kenny Sun, an indie developer who previously made the sleeper hit Mr. Sun’s Hatbox. Ball x Pit is being made by a team of more than half a dozen devs, in contrast to Sun’s mostly solo prior works. It looks like an interesting mashup of Breakout and base-building mechanics, and there’s a demo on Steam available right now.

Then came IOI, the makers of Hitman, who put together a classic E3-style cringefest, full of awkward pauses, ill-paced demos and repetitive trailers. Honestly, as someone who’s been watching game company presentations for two decades or so, it was a nice moment of nostalgia. 

Away from the marvel of a presenter trying to cope with everything going wrong, the show did have some actual content, with an extended demo of the new James Bond-themed Hitman mission, an announcement that Hitman is coming to iOS and table tops, and a presentation on MindsEye, a game from former GTA producer Leslie Benzies that IOI is publishing. 

Saturday-Sunday: Xbox and much, much more

Now you’re all caught up. We’re expecting a lot of news this weekend, mostly from Xbox on Sunday. We’ll be updating this article through the weekend and beyond, but you can find the latest announcements from Summer Game Fest 2025 on our front page.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/everything-new-at-summer-game-fest-2025-marvel-tokon-resident-evil-requiem-and-more-185425995.html?src=rss

Once upon a time, long-time Slashdot reader tgibson learned how to type on a manual typewriter, back in an 8th grade classroom.
And to this day, they write, “my bias is to nod approvingly at touch typists and roll my eyes at those who need to stare at the keyboard while typing…” But how true is that for computer professionals today?

After 15 years I left industry and became a post-secondary computer science educator. Occasionally I rant to my students about the importance of touch-typing as a skill to have as a software engineer.

But I’ve been out of the game for some time now. Those of you hiring or working with freshly-minted software engineers, what’s your take?

One anonymous Slashdot reader responded:

Oh, you mean the kid in the next cubicle that has said “Hey Siri” 297 times this morning? I’ll let you know when he starts typing. A minor suggestion to office managers… please purchase a very quiet keyboard. Fellow cube-mates who are accomplished typists would consider that struggling audibly to be akin to nails on a blackboard…
Share your own thoughts in the comments.

How important is it for programmers to learn touch typing?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Camper Van: Make it Home has everything you’d want out of a home-decorating simulator, but it’s all on wheels and slightly miniaturized, and something about that combination is extra peaceful. The game is available on Steam right now, following a surprise drop during the Wholesome Games Showcase, which is part of Summer Game Fest 2025.

In Camper Van: Make it Home, players solve organization puzzles and use their interior design skills to craft the mobile homes of their dreams. There’s even space to decorate outside of the vehicle, and the accessories change along with the environments and seasons. Camper Van: Make it Home is just a perfect encapsulation of pastel dreaminess and cozy creativity.

Camper Van: Make it Home is developed by Spanish indie team Malapata Studio, with financial support from Wings. The game has been on a little journey from Kickstarter, where it garnered more than 2,000 backers in 2023, to today’s full release on Steam.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/camper-van-make-it-home-takes-interior-design-on-the-road-170043811.html?src=rss

There’s a new shop management sim in town. Discounty will be released on August 21 for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. The game tasks players with managing a discount supermarket in a bustling town.

The core gameplay loop reminds me of the shopkeeper portion of Moonlighter, but Discounty lets folks freely organize the shop’s layout. It’s also more than just a management sim. Players can walk around the town and “get caught up in small-town drama” while attempting to strike lucrative trade deals.

There’s a story here, as the tight knit community of Blomkest will react to how well the shop is doing. Getting too popular could ruffle feathers in the town, so players will have to manage sales expectations against the needs of the community. A tagline asks “will you pursue endless profits, or find a way to benefit everyone in Blomkest?”

First time developer Crinkle Cut Games promises that the game holds some kind of dark secret, and we are dying to know what it is. Do capitalistic ghosts come out at night to haunt the town’s residents? We’ll find out this August.

This news came to us via the Wholesome Direct livestream, which happened right in the middle of Summer Game Fest. Follow all of the SGF happenings and trailers right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/the-cozy-management-sim-discounty-arrives-on-august-21-170037206.html?src=rss

The egg-cooking roguelike Omelet You Cook is officially available for PC via Steam. It was shadow-dropped during the Wholesome Direct livestream, which falls in the middle of Summer Game Fest. This quirky title was first revealed last year, but now we can get our grubby little paws on it.

The game looks like a good combination of chaos and strategy, casting players as a line cook at a middle school cafeteria. There’s a bit of Overcooked here, along with the narrative-focused cooking sim Venba and the sushi minigame part of Dave the Diver. It looks really fun.

It’s not just a chaotic minigame. Players can add and prep ingredients between rounds, and there are rare relics that provide power-ups. There’s even a hungry dog that hoovers up unwanted ingredients.

This is an early access release, so folks should expect updates and changes as the months roll on. Developer SchuBox Games is also working on a football sim that stars chickens called Dicey Birdball, but that one didn’t get a surprise drop today. That team sure does love poultry. 

This news comes from today’s Wholesome Direct livestream, which coincides with Summer Game Fest. The announcements keep coming in from SGF, so stay on top of things right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/the-breakfast-making-roguelike-omelet-you-cook-was-just-surprise-released-on-steam-170024208.html?src=rss

Monument Valley 3 is finally coming to more platforms, after being a Netflix exclusive since December. The game will be released on July 22 for PC, Switch, PS4, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S. Remember, Switch games are playable on Switch 2, so it should also technically be available on Nintendo’s new console.

Monument Valley 3 is considered a solid entry in the franchise, with plenty of fresh puzzles that play with perspective. You navigate a character through bizarre mazes and strangely-designed levels.

These games are partially inspired by artists like M.C. Escher, as the pathways don’t necessarily follow the laws of physics. It’s a whole lot of fun, and sort of plays like a more psychedelic version of the Switch exclusive Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker.

The third entry in the franchise brings in a new gameplay mechanic in the form of a sailboat that freely moves between sections. The vibes are top-tier, with gorgeous art and a great ambient soundtrack. We don’t have a price yet, as Monument Valley 3 was free with a Netflix subscription, but Monument Valley 2 ranged from $5 to $8 depending on the platform.

This news comes from today’s Wholesome Direct livestream, which happens during Summer Game Fest. The announcements are coming in fast and hot from SGF, so stay on top of things right here.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/monument-valley-3-breaks-free-from-netflix-on-july-22-170002131.html?src=rss

MIT comp-sci professor Ryan Williams suspected that a small amount of memory “would be as helpful as a lot of time in all conceivable computations…” writes Quanta magazine.

“In February, he finally posted his proof online, to widespread acclaim…”

Every algorithm takes some time to run, and requires some space to store data while it’s running. Until now, the only known algorithms for accomplishing certain tasks required an amount of space roughly proportional to their runtime, and researchers had long assumed there’s no way to do better. Williams’ proof established a mathematical procedure for transforming any algorithm — no matter what it does — into a form that uses much less space.
What’s more, this result — a statement about what you can compute given a certain amount of space — also implies a second result, about what you cannot compute in a certain amount of time. This second result isn’t surprising in itself: Researchers expected it to be true, but they had no idea how to prove it. Williams’ solution, based on his sweeping first result, feels almost cartoonishly excessive, akin to proving a suspected murderer guilty by establishing an ironclad alibi for everyone else on the planet. It could also offer a new way to attack one of the oldest open problems in computer science.

“It’s a pretty stunning result, and a massive advance,” said Paul Beame, a computer scientist at the University of Washington.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader mspohr for sharing the article.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Hitman trilogy, also known as Hitman World of Assassination, will be available on iPhones, iPads, as well as Mac computers, this summer. IO Interactive has announced that it was expanding Hitman’s availability during the developer’s showcase at Summer Game Fest 2025, where it celebrated the franchise’s 25th anniversary. IO Interactive’s Chief Development Officer, Veronique Lallier, said the launch on iOS means you can travel the world with Hitman in your pocket. Event attendees were given the chance to experience the game running natively on iOS. 

Lallier also announced that Hitman is coming to table top. IO Interactive has teamed up with board game creator Mood Publishing to make Hitman the board game, which will be available for backing on Kickstarter later this year. The board game will feature the franchise’s characters, iconic weapons and backdrops. Up to four players can play as assassins going after a single target, and the one who takes the target out will get the payout in the end. 

In addition, the developer has revealed that Le Chiffre, the villain from the Bond film Casino Royale, will be the World of Assassination’s new Elusive Target. Mads Mikkelsen, the actor who played Le Chiffre in the movie, provided the likeness and the voice for the new game character. You’ll only have a limited time to go after Mikkelsen’s character, as Hitman’s Elusive Target missions only appear once, and you cannot attempt them again after they end. To note, IO Interactive recently revealed its James Bond game, 007 First Light, which will be coming out in 2026. If you play the Elusive Target mission with Le Chiffre, you can redeem an exclusive suit in 007 First Light when it becomes available.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/hitman-world-of-assassination-is-coming-to-ios-and-table-tops-160036401.html?src=rss