Players of 'Pokemon Go' have three new legendary Pokemon to battle and collect, Sega has brought back 'Golden Axe' to the iPhone under the Sega Forever banner, and GameMaker Studio 2 is now available on macOS.
Niantic has added more content to "Pokemon Go," with three new legendary Pokemon being introduced to the AR iPhone game for players to collect. Originally from the game's Johto region, the Raikou, Entei, and Suicune Pokemon will be available as part of Raid Battles at Pokemon Gym locations, with each spending up to a month in a region as they tour the world over the next three months
Raikou, an electric-type Pokemon, will be collectable from Gyms throughout the Americas from August 31 until September 30, with the fire-type Entei appearing in Europe and Africa, and the water-type Suicune in the Asia-Pacific region. On September 30, all three will change locations until October 31, when they will switch again.
Alongside the three new legendary creatures, "Pokemon Go" is also field testing the EX Raid Battle feature in select regions. Functioning similar to existing Raid Battles, the EX versions will periodically appear at Gym locations and feature a more powerful raid boss, but only trainers who have successfully completed a Raid Battle at the Gym will be able to take part.
Invitations will soon be provided to eligible trainers in select areas to take part and to provide feedback for the new feature.
Sega has brought another game to its Sega Forever classic game collection, with side-scrolling action game "Golden Axe" joining the roster. Designed by Makoto Uchida and released in 1989, "Golden Axe" is a fighting game where players attempt to free the people of Yuria, threatened by antagonist Death Adder's attempt to destroy the fabled "Golden Axe."
The story takes the fight from a ransacked Turtle Village to the halls of Death Adder's base, with players taking on reanimated skeletons and other monsters standing in their way. Players control one of three main characters, including a barbarian wielding a sword, a dwarf equipped with an axe, and an Amazon warrior.
The latest version includes the ability to save progress made through the game, as well as an offline play mode and a high score board. As with others in the Sega Forever collection, it is a free-to-play title supported by advertising, which can be removed via a $1.99 in-app purchase.
The Sega Forever reissuing of the game marks a return to the App Store for "Golden Axe," after it was pulled from sale in 2015 alongside a number of other games. The list of removed games also included the sequels "Golden Axe 2" and "Golden Axe 3," both of which have yet to resurface in the App Store.
YoYo Games has brought its game production tool GameMaker Studio 2 to macOS, bringing the 2D game development engine to more users. Initially released in March this year on Windows and Linux, YoYo Games has also introduced a number of new features to the tool, arriving on Mac at the same time as other platforms, to further help in game creation.
GameMaker Studio 2 allows users to produce their own games without delving deeply into coding. Using a combination of a "drag and drop" system to create scripts, an extensive code library of events and actions, and assorted layer and tile assets, a variety of different games can be produced and made to run natively across multiple platforms, including iOS, macOS, Android, Windows, Ubuntu, and the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles.
The macOS version of GameMaker Studio 2 has all of the upgrades and features that have been introduced to the tool since its original launch, with feature parity across all platforms. New features introduced at the same time include a "last used" list for quickly accessing recently used assets, code folding for hiding and expanding large sections of code, and an integrated debugger for cleaning up code.
GameMaker Studio 2 starts from $99.99, but is offered with a variety of license options that covers different target platforms. The cheapest permanent license covers games made for macOS, Windows, and Ubuntu, while the most expensive can produce games for all platforms, but costs $1,500 for a 12-month license.
For macOS, GameMaker Studio 2 requires OS X El Capitan, 2 gigabytes of memory and at least 3 gigabytes of disk space at a minimum. It is recommended that it is used on a Mac running macOS Sierra with 8 gigabytes of RAM.