Exploding Kittens Game Blows Up Kickstarter

There are times when simple idea gets huge backing and astonishing support and money. Exploding Kittens has made a sensation by blowing away its humble $10,000 funding goal with attracting a whooping funding of $4 million in pledges on the popular crowd-funding forum Kickstarter. Exploding Kittens is simply a card game which offers a unique perspective and engaging game-play to the players which had inspired a huge amount of crowd sourcing fervour.

Exploding Kitten Fares Extremely Well On Kickstarter

The funding campaign for the Exploding starter saw an amazing response from the backers and it got fully funded within first twenty minutes. Another forty minutes later it reached 1000 percent of its funding goal.
This card game has been created by an online famous celebrity who is popularly known for his The Oatmeal and himself being called Matthew Inman. He had brought up his own distinct enthusiastic art style in the card design. The co-designer Elan Lee has been left stunned more than surprised with an overwhelming response they had received for their Exploding Kittens project on Kicstarter. Regarding this usual interest and funding pattern shown by this card game Kicstarter’s Luke Crane has said that the backers had been enthralled by project’s sense of humour, art style and presentation.

Exploding Kittens Is An Innovative Card Game

This game works in the manner of the Russian Roulette wherein players draws cards and tries to avoid being evicted from the from by unknowingly or accidently triggering an exploding kitten. It has all the interesting features to enhance the game-play by bringing a tragedy, drama, strategy and weaponized back hair. This card game is available in a regular deck and suitable for the players of 7 years of age and above.

Exploding Kitten is all about the strategic betrayal wherein the players would be pitied against each other. Players would be left to decide which one is to betray and how they wish to perform it. This game shouldn’t be taken literary as it has nothing to do with hurting cats or kittens. The object of this game is to defuse the explosions which might occur if the kittens happen to get into trouble.

Exploding Kitten Breaks Reading Rainbow Record On Kickstarter

Exploding Kittens has created a sensation of the crowd-funding website named Kickstarter. Currently its holds the record of eight most funded Kickstarter projectin its history. Exploding Kittens still have a 23 left days which gives it a great chance of becoming the most funded project in is history.

Exploding Kittens is attracting funding at a break-neck pace and it is all set to break the record of Reading Rainbow. Reading Rainbow had set record of most funded project in 2014 with a whooping backers count of 105,857 but Exploding Kittens has already achieved those number of backers and many are still pledging to support its endeavours.

As Exploding Kittens has already achieved the most number of backers, now comes the time to deliver what it projects. Inman is heavily busy creating the art work for the cards and aims to send it to their backers by the end of summer.

Teaching Mario to Play with Himself

When it comes we talk about artificial intelligence, so one of the most challenging sides it to teach computer to how to measure, understand, and react according to situation in the world around us. Actions, which are in the nature of human, can be taught to a robot, but teaching the decision making ability is difficult.

A team of researchers at the University of Tubingen, Germany has experimented and created a project which will change the concept of a real-world robot as AI is on the way to take the different challenges by reaching the Mario to play his own game on computer. Team of researchers has created the video, which will explain that how this system will work in step-by-step manner, but at the high levels the actions and response of Mario’s can be quantified as values.

In the whole process AI seems to start with basic information that how to navigate the world and how he is relating the various objects. The team has also created the tracking pattern for Mario’s curiosity about the rest of the world and how he is focusing on the collection of coins.

AI notes all the events when it encounters enemies and when it queried with a question that what are you thinking about Goomba? So Mario responds that, I don’t know anything. And after few experiments of interactions, Mario learns that how to jump or land on the Goomba and how to know that Goomba is dead. When it is translated back into human words, “If I will perfectly jump on Goomba, so he will die”.

Mario also learns that how to navigate any environment or how to activate question blocks which can grab power ups or how to jump to higher objects to reach any particular locations. AI has absolutely different rule if Mario is small or big because his behavior can vary according to his size or if he will get the mushroom or few fire flowers.

It is clear that AI learns about any particular environment and now Mario has an idea about real world and according to any particular situation he is free to behave or express his expression like; when first time he will jump on Goomba, so he will shout that may be Goomba is dead an later he test this hypothesis on the Goomba of future by comparing the expected result with expected outcome.

In the experiment Mario never use scripted responses, he only responds to syntax with his understanding and vast array of words. Now it’s clear that he can told the things like; “If you will perfectly jump on Goomba than Goomba will die, or he can learn by his own. In whole process he was able to complete syntax.

As a human we have applied same principles of communication and learning millions of times in life, but we have learn them when we were child and teaching something to Mario to jump on Goomba to kill it, it’s really fascinating example of AI.

Call of Duty Makes First Trip to China with Launch of Public Beta

When it comes to the world of gaming, every sales record has been shattered by Call of Duty, the first person shooter franchise. Even though the game has been enjoying all the possible success anyone can image, they have been really absent or non-existent in a country which is known to be the most populous country, but for not long. The wait is over and the free-to-play version of the first-person shooter, Call of Duty Online, has been officially launched in China on an open public beta. This announcement was made by the publisher Activision on Monday. The game, which has been specifically designed for the Chinese market has been released in partnership with the Internet conglomerate Tencent Holdings. Internet conglomerate Tencent Holdings has been based in China.

Chinese Market

The game’s launch marks the entry of wildly popular franchise for the first time and that too it will be widely available for the consumers in China. Even though the gaming population in the country has crossed more than a million marks, some of the people still play either the games, which have been developed by domestic Chinese companies, or other companies, which have been carrying out their business outside in the United States of America. Call of duty (an American game) was not available in the country until now.

In China for many years, traditional games consoles like PlayStation and Xbox were banned. Last year, 2014, the country announced that they are going to life the ban and would start allowing the console makers to launch their devices within the country’s border with one catch point- the products have to be distributed by a Chinese company. A while back companies like Microsoft and Sony announced that they are planning to launch their consoles in China. Even though Xbox One at present is available in the country, but Sony was forced to postpone the launch of PlayStation 4 last week. According to the sources from Sony, the company is still not sure about the launch date of PlayStation 4 in China.

As soon as the information pertaining to the lifting of ban was spread, the American companies have started working on the idea of releasing or launching their titles in the country. According to the survey conducted in 2014, there are nearly 300 million people, who are part of the Chinese gaming population and out of this, one third of the people are interested in the first-person shooter games. This data was more than enough for Activision. As many companies have made their games free for consumers, it is no surprise that the company has chosen the online medium.

The title of game, which is full Call of Duty game has taken many aspects from popular franchise like Black Ops and Modern Warfare. The game comes with single-player campaign, full online multiplayer, and Survival Mode for co-op playing. The company is trying to get some money by encouraging the user to either purchase the game or rent the game items.

3D-printed 'Star Wars' Buddhas: Zen and the art of the Force

We all know about an epic space opera, Star Wars and its hero Zen master. If you are the fan of Star Wars, so you can easily find Star Wars movies, books, television series, and videos games, but now you can also get Star Wars Buddhas with the help of 3d printing technology. Yoda was always known to have some kind of Zen master inside him. Chris Milnes, proprietor of the muckychris storefront and Etsy seller has really put in lot of effort and brought g the Zen side of this little green person with the help of his 3D-printed Zen Yoda figurines. These 3D statues have the combination of Buddha's pleasingly plump body apart from the Yoda’s head.

So what all is in for offering? 

As far as Milnes in concerned, Zen Yoda is just one of his many creations in offering. He has also design many greek related items which includes Boba Fett (Buddha Fett?), Iron Man, Darth Vader, "Battlestar Galactica”, Stormtrooper Buddha and Judge Dredd figurines. These statues are built using the Hotei body (laugh Buddha), figure, which was originally created by Sammy Davis, Thingiverse user. After this Milnes takes the most popular 3D models of superhero and sci-fi heads and melds these two onto a base. Thus, create flawless little nerd-gods. These designs have been possible due to the modeling work of Milnes apart from Creative Commons licensing from the original 3D modelers.

According to Milnes, his art comprises of mash up of existing item and creating new items with meaning. In case of the Zen Zode, it is aiming to create and balance Creative Commons licensing from the original 3D modeler with the force and the 'Star Wars' lore. Milnes is a digital sculptor and carries out all his modeling and 3D print work himself. Apart from being busy with his Etsy Store, he has been quiyte busy with the invention of the SquareHelper, which is a 3D-printed widget capable of keeping Square card readers from spinning around in case of being attached to an iPad or iPhone. He is a Makerbot user with Replicator 2x and Replicator 2 machines in use. According to what he offers, it takes nearly an hour to print a 2-inch figure, about three to four to print a 4-inch figure and around six hours to print a a 6-inch figure. This at present is the largest size offered by Milnes. The prices of these statues ranges from $7.99 (about £5, AU$10) for the small ones and about $27.99 (about £19, AU$34) for the big statues. What catches the eye most is the chrome and shiny gold offerings.

According to Milnes, his Etsy store has a few popular geek brands in offerings but even he agrees that Darth Vader, Stormtrooper and Yoda statues are the most popular ones. Considering the fact that Jediism has a very minor religious following around the world, it is quite obvious for the Yoda-Buddha to become immensely popular and such a hot commodity.

Researchers Turn Computer Into Poker Shark

According to the researchers at the University of Alberta, a computer program dubbed as “Cepheus” has been able to solve the game of Poker. Cepheus, has been created by computer poker research group, asserts that it can not only play heads-up limit Texas hold'em poker, but also beat human opponents.

When it comes to artificial intelligence, games like poker and chess have always been used as the test beds by researchers who are looking towards developing new concepts. There have been many success scenarios in the past like IBM's Deep Blue, which had defeated world champion Garry Kasparov in chess, and IBM's Watson, which defeated top-ranking Jeopardy! Champions. When it comes to a game of poker, it gives special challenges to artificial intelligence researchers because the computers or the players do not have the complete knowledge of past events and also they cannot see the cards held by their opponents.

Test of Cepheus: 

According to CPRG, any game can be solved if it is played over a period of time and if it is played with 95% confidence. The computer was trained to test Cepheus with poker over a period of two months. During this time it utilized more than 4,000 CPUs, and each of this CPU can handle 6 billion hands of poker. This was more poker which had been played by my entire human race.

Each of this hand, Cepheus constantly kept on managing its play and the choices kept on refining their choices and to find the best possible solution to each move. The main effort of University of Alberta's effort is to use a computer to play and win an imperfect information game when compared to perfect information games like checkers, chess and tic-tac-toe. The players will have access to all the information pertaining to the game.

While developing Cepheus, the CPRG's goal was to make sure the technology is able to make the computer think in some of the imperfect situations. This technology can be applied to any situations where there is a possibility of imperfect situations. According to Neil Burch, a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta and a coauthor of the study, it will be interesting to see this research being used in different problems. As far as Cepheus is concerned, it has proved its power with the cards but no one can say about its ability as it will be dependent on the limitation of the computational capabilities.

Computers will learn more as the time passes by as CPU/GPU, storage and RAM will continue to evolve which will allow more complex supercomputing, software programming and problem solving. When it comes to computer, if it goes wrong it will learn to go right and take the correct step in the situation again.

It is important for the computer to learn every possible step based on the database and determine the best possible move. Even though the artificial intelligence has lot awaiting in the future, Cepheus has a lot of contribution towards it.

Halo 5: Guardians Multiplayer Beta Preview - a New Hope?

Since the announcement of the game, the Xbox One gamers have been eagerly waiting for the announcement of the game. At present, the gamers were expecting the game to be launched in early 2015 but now looks like the developers have nearly pushed the release of the game to the end of the year. Still the developers have managed to go ahead with the beta test of their multiplayer section.

The Halo Series: 

The halo series has always been synonymous with the Xbox Brand and more than that, it is the very first successful first-person-shooter (FPS) game on a console. There are players who have now gone bored of all sort of running games and especially games like Call of Duty (CoD). Halo: Combat Evolved is a sci-fi FPS that will put the players in the role of Master Chief, who is a human super soldier who squared off against an alien force known as the Covenant.

Even though single-player campaign still had a strong but the multiplayer games have really caught everyone's attention. Multiplayer revolutionized the genre and made the first-person-shooters on consoles playable, instinctive, and most importantly, fun. This is a genre, which was running for the longest time on domain of PCs and meant for PC only. There are players who still find the keyboard and mouse combination on desktop computers best to play these kinds of games but 2001's Halo: Combat Evolved and its sequel Halo 2 have proven that slick controls and multiplayer goodness are better for consoles.

The latest game in this series is the Halo 5 but there are difficulties that have been faced by the developers. Developer Bungie has created five Halo games (the three main series entries, and side-stories ODST and Reach), will be ending his partnership with Microsoft and will be moving the Halo series to 343 Industries. Halo 4 series was one of the games which received mixed responses, some of the players complained that the game lacked innovation while others that the game keeps on changing all the time.

Now, 343 Industries is getting all prepared for the release of Halo 5. Even-though there still time for the final release but an early multiplayer beta has been started on the Xbox One for those people who have already picked up Halo: The Master Chief Collection - a compilation of the first four games that makes the players as Master Chief in the series. The beta version started on December 29, 2014 and is expected to continue till the date January 18, 2015.

Whether the new game work or not, but still the previous version Halo 4 has only managed to get meager 20,000 peak population day a year after release, Halo 3's on the other hand got 1.1 million and Halo Reach's got 900,000. It will be quite interesting to see how 343 Industries will be able to manage to maintain what seems to be a very inquisitive mix of old and new.

The Best Games for Your New Android Phone

There are lots of arguments pertaining to the lack of games on Android based phones and tablets when compared to the ones with iOS. Even though Android is working hard to get these gaps filled, still there are lots of games which are worth playing and having on the phone. The games for android range from monster-punch madness to a Zen like strategy games. The list is endless. Some of the favorites among market experts and players are:

1 Rymdkapsel: - This game is a space-age strategy game, which has been set in a strange, pixel-perfect world. In this game, the player has to control many white rectangles as they keep on gathering resources, food stores, fire lasers at intruders and research unexplained monoliths.

2 Smash Hit: - This game is known to elevate itself into a total art form and is well known method of stress relief. The players have to go through a path wherein they have to face Glass walls, pyramids, windows, and even DNA-like helixes in their path. The players have to destroy these obstacles before they can do any damage to them. This game is very simple and addictive and can be a player’s delight.

3 Badland: - This game explains more or less about the evolution of human genome through time. In this, the untitled protagonist species keeps on shrinking or multiplying many times in a single level. The immersive 2D aesthetic and the puzzles make this game a pleasure to play.

4 Plants vs. Zombies: - The game is about strategically positioning the plants on the game board to avoid the legion of zombies, which are ready to overtake the game board. New challenges and increased number of zombies make this game more than one can handle.

5 Hearthstone: - At present this game is accessible on phones and tablets with more than 6 inches screen. This can be full of thrill of one on one fight and quickly made the player addicted.

6 Jetpack Joyride: - The game is all about getting the highest score through some of the basic cartoon animations of the game.

7 Super Hexagon: - In this game the player is in the form on a triangle and moving across on a pulsating hexagon, which keeps on throwing obstacles at the player. It is difficult for the players to be alive for more than 60 seconds but, this is what makes the game so addictive.

8 The Room 2: - This is a sequel to The Room and the developers have already taken the game to a new level and made it even more exciting. The puzzles are much more complex this time and it will not be easy for a player to get out of the room so easily.

9 Kingdom Rush Origins: - This is one of the best tower defense game that anyone can get on their phone or tablet. Origins are the latest additions to the Kingdom Rush series and it has everything to excite the fans of the previous game.

10 Minecraft:- Pocket edition: - This game carries out the essence of the main mine-craft game very well and sure to keep a beginner happy.