Stardock Magazine: March 2017

This edition of Stardock Magazine brings you an editorial from Brad Wardell, Star Control news and a recent dev diary. Stardock Magazine March 2017 By Brad Wardell ([@draginol](=/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9kcmFnaW5vbD91dG1fc291cmNlPXNkbWFpbCZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPXNkbWFnJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PUJSQURUV1QmdXRtX2NhbXBhaWduPVN0YXJkb2NrJTJCTWFnYXppbmUlMkJNQVIyMDE3)) Contents: • Editorial from Brad • Star Control: Last chance to join • What is a 4X game? Editorial from Brad Like a lot of you reading this, I've been around a long time. I just got back from GDC and it's always great to talk to people who have been in the industry for many years. For example, how many of you know what poke 53281,0 does? Good times. The tech just keeps getting better and better. For instance, AMD announced the Ryzen CPU recently. It's a big deal, but not for the reasons I've seen covered. What makes Ryzen special is that it brings 8 core processors to the mainstream. Those of you who have been with me since the OS/2 days know what a big deal multi-threading is. Unfortunately, it's been a long time since CPUs, on a per core basis, have gotten much faster. Most of the way computers have gotten faster is by adding more cores. But the progress of adding more cores has been slow. Most laptops, like my beloved Surface Pro 4, only has 2 CPU cores. All the juicy new tech really needs a minimum of 4 cores. 8 cores would be better. That's what we at Stardock have been investing all our Impulse money into: a next generation engine for our software and our games. Last year, we released Ashes of the Singularity, our first game to make use of this new engine. But games are really just the tip of the iceberg. As much as I love making games, the main purpose for developing this new core-neutral engine is for our software business. Specifically: Mixed Reality. Mixed Reality isn't the same as Virtual Reality. I personally don't really have much use for VR. It's neat and there is a place for it, but just as OS/2 allowed me to do lots of tasks at once, Mixed Reality will let me interact with lots of things at once. Mixed Reality will require lots and lots of CPU cores to take off - you might even say 8 cores minimum - and that's why Ryzen is so exciting. In Mixed Reality, you will need to split up every task into tiny parts between a desktop level device, a mobile level device, and some sort of eyeware (think same as sunglasses and no heavier). Then, using a simple gesture, you can bring things into your view as you need them and be totally unobtrusive otherwise. One day, we'll look back at pictures in which people hefted along big old monitors or even laptop displays and laugh just like we do when we see CRT monitors or giant mainframes. We are still pretty far form that future of course, but the first steps are mainstream CPUs with 8 CPU cores. Star Control: Last Chance to Join If you want to join the Founder's Program for Star Control, now is the time to do it. We're going to close it this month. You can also visit the Star Control site to pick up the classic series from the 1990s. Check out the [Star Control: Origins Gameplay Teaser](=/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g-dj1LNm50ZzQ3cV9jTSZ1dG1fc291cmNlPXNkbWFpbCZ1dG1fbWVkaXVtPXNkbWFnJnV0bV9jb250ZW50PVNDVklEJnV0bV9jYW1wYWlnbj1TdGFyZG9jayUyQk1hZ2F6aW5lJTJCTUFSMjAxNw==) to see what we're working on. What is a 4X game? [Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade image] 4X strategy. You may have heard of the term. It stands for: eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate. They are a specific genre of strategy game. Today we are going to talk about them and how Galactic Civilizations III: Crusade, aims to innovate the genre. 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