March 29, 2023
Toasters, pulleys, wheels and giant hats: the coolest Alt Ctrl games at GDC 2023
Alt.Ctrl.GDC is a regular fixture at the Game Developers Conference, and this year I spotted some properly incredible creations from its largely student-led group of exhibitors. There was a big focus on co-op games and time trial demos in this year's cohort, with nearly every stand having some sort of whiteboard pinned up that was constantly being scrubbed out with new fastest lap times and corresponding visitor names. There was also lots of friendly hooting emanating from them as well, as mates and strangers attempted to co-ordinate their gaggles of limbs to steer various game characters in the right direction. It was excellent fun, and I sampled a bunch of games that used toasters, intricate pulley systems, papier-mache tree stumps, bike wheels and more in place of your typical controllers and mice and keyboard. There were also plenty more I didn't get to try out, mainly due to time, and you can see the full list over on GDC's website . For now, though, here are some personal highlights of what I saw, including the largest bowler hat I think I've ever seen in my life. Don't ask me why this toaster only fires fish out of its bread rack, but this cute toaster-fishing-golfing game is a real delight. You use the timer dial to aim your toaster down its series of abstract obstacle courses, hold down the spring to charge your shot, and then release to propel your fish (who I'm assuming is the Gilliam of the game's title) towards the kitchen sink at the end of the road. There are slopes, wind blasts and rotating turbines to navigate, as well as sheer drops into the void and out of bounds gaps in the scenery you'll want to steer clear of, too. It has big What The golf energy, and I'd have happily played another dozen courses of this, easy peasy. All gamepads should have a clicky toaster dial from now on, please. If you can believe it, Paper Glider was not the most complicated Atl Ctrl game I saw at GDC this year. It certainly comes close, with its intricate set of pulleys, ropes, weights and modular frame, but playing this lovely little hang-glider game felt more like a mere warm-up for some of the other games on show here. In it, you control a cute, tiny box boy hanging precariously from a paper aeroplane, pulling down on the ropes to alter the flight trajectory of your fragile aircraft. The aim is to make it to the end in the fastest time, flying through golden rings that give you a speed boost while also dodging pesky tree branches, barrels, fences and obstructed open windows, pulling down to raise the plane, and raising them to divebomb below. It's wonderfully tactile and responsive, and the sense of immersion was exceedingly good for a busy showfloor. A (paper) cut above the rest. Part papier-mache, part wooden foot pump, Stump'd sees you inhabit your inner lumberjack as you chop wood while giving your troublesome raccoon pal the boot when he wanders onto your chop stump. It's one of those classic pat your head and rub your tummy sort of games, where you need to refrain from accidentally chopping your trash panda in two and use the foot pedal to toss him off to the side instead. If you do the wrong thing, he'll lash out and savage your face with his claws. You can only take so many of these hits, and it's game over when you've been shredded to high heaven by your fluffy companion. Or at least I assume he's your friend. That's what the developers told me when I stepped up to the stump, although I'm starting to believe they told me a porky. That raccoon's a crafty one, you see, as occasionally he'll come armed with a plunger to help him stick to the stump, requiring a second foot push, or cheese grater armour that you'll need to chop off first before pedalling. I'm not very good at rubbing my head and patting my tummy (see, I can't even get it right spelling it out), so I think you can probably imagine how I fared with this one. Why use a analogue stick to guide your suited businessman to his day Job when you can suspend a giant bowler hat from the ceiling (yes, really) and have two people tilt it up and down with their head and hands to guide him down the street? A similar concept to Paper Glider, certainly, but made all the more chaotic by ballooning the size of the controller and chucking a second person into the mix. You have to get a cup of coffee, not spill it, and pretend you're definitely not an alien wearing a suit being controlled by two other aliens (that is, you, the two human players) from afar. It's definitely got a whiff of 'several kids stuffed inside a trenchcoat passing themselves off as an adult', this game, but at least everyone was wearing hair nets while playing. Otherwise there might have been an unsightly sheen developing by the time I saw this at the end of the week... By far one of the neatest asymmetric co-op games on the showfloor, Cosmic Crew: The Game channels the same vibes as Lovers In A Dangerous Spacetime into a top-down sh'mup / repair 'em up. One person takes control of the cockpit, firing at spaceships with their beautifully recreated space cannon controller, while the other is looking at a different screen, frantically swapping comically large floppy discs into a drive-like contraption to change the type of gun being firing by their mate. This mechanic player also had a little hammer to whack on different-sized plates representing parts of the ship in need of repair. It's a brilliant concept, and was the cause of many, intense concentrated faces whenever I walked passed it. To get a better idea of it in action, have a watch of Space Cow Games' submission video . Who knew driving a rotating car away from a mad bull across a wacky race course using two bicycle wheels would be so much fun? Two By 4 Racing is another asymmetric co-op game that shot straight to the top of my favourites list when I had a go with one of the developers. There are two players - one positioned at the front of the car, steering your way around the course, and another in the back facing the opposite direction powering the engine. Each only has a spinning bike wheel to power their side of the car, but you'll also switch roles each time you collect fuel, causing a mad moment of switcheroo panic that's made all the more hair-raising by the presence of a very angry bull chasing you down the track. The bull only appears when you've accidentally knocked over too many cows, mind, which are tracked by a spoon (but of course) gradually ticking up on your cow-o-meter beneath your wheel. When you hit max cow carnage (as I did within about five seconds, it seems), the spoon goes haywire, spinning from side to side as the bull emerges to give you a taste of your own medicine. It certainly got the heart racing, but it was brilliant fun. Moooooo-re of this, please. The level of craftsmanship on this year's Alt Ctrl games was just phenomenal, and nowhere was this more evident than in YettiBebbis' puppeteer controller. Here, players had to use both their hands to control a virtual puppet, much like you would do a physical one - that is, moving their fingers to lift the puppet's arms and legs, and the other hand to control their body movement and lift them up and down. In the game, you've got to use your puppet to mimic the movements of the devilish YettiBebbis, who are performing a ritual dance for their lord and master. Again, lots of intense 'concentrate' faces on this one, and no wonder. It was like suddenly being mistaken for somebody famous and having to adlib awkwardly in front of a crowd to maintain the illusion because you're too embarrassed to say otherwise, and cor, I was glad to go back to crashing into cows with a rotating car when I was done. My creaking joints ain't what they used to be.
Latest News
Top news around the world
Academy Awards

‘Oppenheimer’ Reigns at Oscars With Seven Wins, Including Best Picture and Director

Get the latest news about the 2024 Oscars, including nominations, winners, predictions and red carpet fashion at 96th Academy Awards

Around the World

Politic
'Trump tax': MSNBC host Chris Hayes shows how Trump winning would increase costs
Mar 28, 2024
How much would former President Donald Trump's proposed 10 percent tariff plan actually cost the average American household?The wave of tariffs Trump enacted when he was last president caused chaos, but there are many complexities that muddy this somewhat. However, MSNBC's Chris Hayes took an educated and simple guess at just how badly the country would be hit in the pocketbook under Trump's second-term plans."We don't know exactly how much everything would cost," said Hayes, but "just add 10 percent on the back of the napkin. Here's the cost of living under the Trump Tax."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal bills"Start with groceries," he said. "A dozen eggs cost about $3. Once you apply the Trump Tax, that is up to $3.30, with the U.S. importing over 4 million eggs a year, but cost consumers over $1.2 million. If you like oranges, they currently go for about $1.53 per pound. With the Trump Tax, that would be $1.68 per pound, which would cost American consumers almost $71 million for the nearly half a billion pounds of the import. Bananas. We don't really grow them in the U.S., do we? They average about $.63 per pound and going up to $.69 per pound with the Trump Tax, thanks to the U.S. importing more than 10 million pounds per year, that could cost Americans at $609 million and that's a $609 million tax on American consumers. Then there's tomatoes. They go for about $2.13 per pound. Apply the 10 percent Trump Tax. They would be $2.34 per pound, potentially costing Americans $3.5 million thanks to the 6.8 million pounds we import per year. If you are spending $1,200 on groceries, add another $120 to the bill. That's more than the peak of inflation in 2022, which topped off at 9 percent. This is 10 percent."Groceries are just the start, he continued."How about the refrigerator?" said Hayes. "You need to keep the groceries fresh. The average cost of a new fridge is about $1,300. With the Trump Tax, that could go up to $1,430, costing Americans $1.95 billion for the 15 million refrigerators that we import. Again, $1.95 billion of new taxes. What about the car that you need to drive to the grocery store? On average, a new car costs about $48,808 today. With Trump Tax, it costs $53,684, with Americans potentially taking a $66.3 billion hit across the board on the 13 million cars we import. That's not including the 50 percent tariff which would make it another $25,000. Even the smartphone in your pocket cost on average about $940 right now. With Trump Tax, it can go up to $1,034, with Americans potentially paying an extra $13.2 billion for the nearly 141 million smartphones that we import per year.""Everyone hates when you have to pay more for things," he added. "Inflation is one of the biggest liabilities for a sitting president. Yet here is Donald Trump, in the Year of our Lord 2024, running against President Biden, promising to make things more expensive for every American."Watch the video below or click here. Chris Hayes breaks down "Trump Tax" www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Politic
Trump-endorsed candidate says Beyoncé is teaching women 'how to be hyper-sexual'
Mar 28, 2024
North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson had yet another group of extremist comments unveiled — this time about legendary singer Beyoncé Knowles-Carter.According to The Root, "During a series of rants spanning multiple years, Robinson —who is Black —insulted Beyoncé’s singing abilities, called her a 'skank,' and said she was teaching 'young women how to be hyper-sexual w----s.'"For example, in 2017, Robinson posted to Facebook, “Person; Beyoncé is a role model!” Me; “The only person that butt shakin’, devil worshipping, skank is a role model to is people who want a fast track to Hell.” This is on top of previous reporting that he referred to her music as sounding like "Satanic chants."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsThese revelations come at a moment when Beyoncé herself has found herself at the center of some national controversy, having written a country music inspired album known as Cowboy Carter, and some country radio stations refusing to play singles off of it because of her race.Robinson, who is challenging Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein for the governorship of North Carolina, has been put under the spotlight for a number of bizarre and offensive comments throughout the years.Among other things, he has referred to school shooting survivors as "prosti-tots," pushed QAnon and "lizard people" conspiracy theories, questioned the Holocaust, and suggested American politics was better in the era when women couldn't vote.
READ MORE
Politic
'Some prosecutor should be looking into' Trump's latest legal defense scam: expert
Mar 28, 2024
Former President Donald Trump's sprawling network of ostensibly independent political groups raising money for him, much of it in service of paying legal expenses, seems to walk right up to the line of breaking the law, former prosecutor Kristy Greenberg told MSNBC's Alex Wagner — and may in fact cross it."Kristy, how is this legal?" asked Wagner. "How can he keep saying this one thing and doing another?""Well, I think the big question here will be looking behind all of this as to who is coordinating it," said Greenberg. "If Donald Trump is coordinating between his campaign and these PACs that are supposed to be third parties and independent — the Save America PAC is independent, even though he directs it, independent third-party — if there is sufficient coordination, you could prove that, then maybe you would have something to say these expenditures are not purely personal, these are really campaign contributions. And therefore they should be subject to the limits of $5,000 that campaign contributions are subject to."ALSO READ: ‘Don't have enough’: Wealthy Trump allies balk at helping Donald pay legal billsWhat it looks like, Greenberg went on, is that Trump and his allies are "just trying to do an end-run around these various regulations, and it seems so transparent.""[Special counsel] Jack Smith ... had served some subpoenas in connection with that nonexistent, as it turns out, election defense fund," Greenberg said. "He served some subpoenas and then he withdrew them and it was unclear why, because that seemed like such a clear-cut fraud. I questioned why that happened. Perhaps it was optics. Perhaps he thought like he had such strong cases, the January 6 case and the national security case, that he didn't want to seem as though he was trying to drain Trump of the ability to legally defend against those cases. Hard to say. But I questioned it at that time because that seemed like such a clear wire fraud case that it seemed like it should be looked into, but maybe they just had limited resources and didn't like the optics of it.""But I agree with you, this raises a lot of questions," she added. "Someone, somewhere, even if not the special counsel's office, because they are pretty busy — some prosecutors should be looking into this."Watch the video below or at the link. Kristy Greenberg on the legality of Trump's PACs www.youtube.com
READ MORE
Celebrity News

> Latest News in Media

Watch It
Millie Bobby Brown & Jake Bongiovi Celebrate “Three Years of Bliss” Ahead of Wedding
March 24, 2024
C4Ehegcq1-A
Kate Middleton & Prince William "Enormously Touched" by Public Support
March 24, 2024
s8fig-RCjFc
Gisele Bündchen Denies Cheating on Ex-Husband Tom Brady
March 23, 2024
_SpRMagA8BM
Eminem, 50 Cent & Snoop Dogg Present Dr. Dre with a Star on the Walk of Fame
March 19, 2024
4bNLs1hxVp8
Opening Remarks for the Variety Summit October 20th, 2023 Jay Penske
March 18, 2024
c6Z707iLq8E
'Everybody Was S----ing Their Pants': Nick Thune Jokes About Being Born in the '70s and Fatherhood
March 16, 2024
mm7Baf6o2d8
Gunna Says Tour Will Up Creativity in Rap, Endorses Flo Milli | TMZ
March 22, 2024
QfMU24fw-Qo
Reporter Taylor Lorenz Says Palace Botched Kate Cancer News Rollout | TMZ Live
March 22, 2024
o43ZucdiyEo
Riley Strain's Body Found After Going Missing in Nashville 2 Weeks Ago | TMZ NOW
March 22, 2024
1m1zM-4_Cs8
Kyle Richards hasn’t spoken to co-star Dorit Kemsley, denies sending her a ‘manipulative’ text
March 24, 2024
LqLZzDP1hm4
Jordan Emanuel on her connection to 'RHOSLC' star Meredith Marks, advice from Amanda Batula
March 24, 2024
5NPAwlOov1Y
Kate Middleton’s uncle Gary apologizes after slamming ‘fickle’ Meghan Markle in scathing interview
March 24, 2024
JWG9kitALZk
TV Schedule
Late Night Show
Watch the latest shows of U.S. top comedians

Sports

Latest sport results, news, videos, interviews and comments
Latest Events
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SK Brann W - Barcelona W
20
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Hacken W - PSG W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
SL Benfica W - Lyon W
19
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: Playoffs - Women
Ajax W - Chelsea W
17
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Atletico Madrid - Barcelona
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester United - Liverpool
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Inter Milan - Napoli
17
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Brighton - Manchester City
17
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Borussia Dortmund - Eintracht Frankfurt
17
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Chelsea - Leicester City
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Roma - Sassuolo
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Verona - AC Milan
17
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Genoa
16
Mar
GERMANY: Bundesliga
Darmstadt - Bayern Munich
16
Mar
ENGLAND: FA Cup
Manchester City - Newcastle United
16
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Fulham - Tottenham Hotspur
16
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Osasuna - Real Madrid
13
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Atletico Madrid - Inter Milan
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Barcelona - Napoli
12
Mar
CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: 1/8 Final
Arsenal - Porto
11
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Chelsea - Newcastle United
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Liverpool - Manchester City
10
Mar
SPAIN: La Liga
Real Madrid - Celta Vigo
10
Mar
ENGLAND: Premier League
Aston Villa - Tottenham Hotspur
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Juventus - Atalanta
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
Fiorentina - Roma
10
Mar
ITALY: Serie A
AC Milan - Empoli
Find us on Instagram
at @feedimo to stay up to date with the latest.
Featured Video You Might Like
zWJ3MxW_HWA L1eLanNeZKg i1XRgbyUtOo -g9Qziqbif8 0vmRhiLHE2U JFCZUoa6MYE UfN5PCF5EUo 2PV55f3-UAg W3y9zuI_F64 -7qCxIccihU pQ9gcOoH9R8 g5MRDEXRk4k
Copyright © 2020 Feedimo. All Rights Reserved.