IGN is thrilled to unveil AudioClash: Battle of the Bands, an automatic battle strategy game in which you create musical bands from card games. The game will arrive on Steam Early Access in the third quarter of 2021.

Unveiled at the IGN Expo, AudioClash: Battle of the Bands is the first game co-created by The Living Tombstone, the famous internet virtual band most famous for their songs based on video games. Today, The Living Tombstone (created by producer-songwriter Yoav Landau and songwriter and singer Sam Haft) creates a song-based video game.

AudioClash is a multiplayer auto-battler, similar in its approach to the spin-off of the DOTA Auto Chess mod, in which you create a roster of band leaders and musicians and play cards representing their music to reproduce a musical ensemble, trying to blow up a rival group. The scene. The idea is to create a more accessible auto-battler, which can be picked up and played for an amateur, but with enough depth to allow for high-level competitive play.

Developed by Big Boat Interactive, the game will bring together elements of rock, metal, punk, pop and EDM, and will involve stars “summoned across time, space and alternate realities”. Every move in the game is associated with a piece of audio, and as you perform techniques in a battle, the music will grow consistently with it – essentially, your battle will create a custom song, every time you play. Members of The Living Tombstone will appear as in-game characters, which you will need to defeat along the way.

“We’ve always been adjacent to the gaming world, as players and creating content for fans,” Sam Haft told IGN. on a concept of “Battle Of The Bands” is linked to the history of the group: we first became a “group”, formally, while developing an action musical cartoon on the battle of the groups there. several years. made perfect sense to address a similar premise in our game.

“From the start, we knew we wanted it to be a musical fighting game. less accessible to casual gamers. Between the turn-based attack phases and collecting group members, you almost think of AudioClash as a musical Pokémon! “

Be sure to check back as we have lots and lots more coming from IGN Expo today, and IGN The summer of the game all this month including E3 2021 blanket.

The grandmaster and former world chess champion chats with The Drum of New York, where he has lived in exile from Russia since 2013. Our conversation is about the future of artificial intelligence – the genre of the game and the kind that could put us all out of work – as well as the future of chess.

Amid renewed interest in the latter, he launched a new chess platform – a passionate project for years – and before the interview began, had a few questions of his own: “Play it. you ? And if so, how good are you? “

I admit my mediocrity and admit I spent the hour before our call to be sent with ease by AI opponents on Kasparovchess. “We all lose against computers,” he reassures me. “Nowadays, there is nothing to be ashamed of! “

Alongside current world champion Magnus Carlson and former world champion Viswanathan Anand, Kasparov is one of the greatest statesmen in chess. Having retired from professional gaming in 2005, he spent much of his time selling the sport to the public. And now, with Kasparovchess, he hopes to compete with established online chess platforms and build on the game’s current popularity.

This is my second attempt, after releasing a previous iteration in 1999. “It didn’t go well because the technology wasn’t there to support my ambitions of promoting chess to a global audience. and create something that would be financially viable. ” The relaunched platform, made by Vivendi subsidiary Keysquare, is available through a website and iPhone app and offers puzzles, tutorials, articles and documentaries to subscribers, while limited content is available for subscribers. non-paying users.

Aimed at seasoned players and newbies alike, it hopes it can fill a gap in the chess content market with high production values ​​and a social element provided by a dedicated Discord server. “It’s a key element. It’s entertainment, education and community.

“I’ve always wanted to make sure that our contribution to global chess and our audience would focus on educational and entertaining elements. But I also wanted to make sure that we created a global community – that people join our platform and feel a sense of belonging.

It also has, of course, its own gaming platform to take on other players and its AI.

Deep thinking

Playing and sometimes losing against computers is something Kasparov is very familiar with, having lost to IBM’s Deep Blue in 1997 when he was the world chess champion.

His playing career was already linked to the early days of AI and modern computing and by the 1980s he was involved in some of the early attempts to introduce computers to sports, including the first basic website. ChessBase data. In 1989, he eliminated Deep Blue’s predecessor, Deep Thought.

“It was probably my blessing to have been world champion during the most revolutionary changes in the game. What happened during the 15 years of my reign changed the nature of chess – not because of me, but I knew it was happening. I saw computers coming, I gave my friends in Germany the idea to do ChessBase. It was the beginning of this kind of fusion between chess and computers.

In the years since his match against Deep Blue, he became an ambassador for AI, working with security firm Avast and lecturing TED arguing that human and machine intelligence should complement each other rather than to compete. “I preached human-machine collaboration, just saying ‘if you can’t beat them, join them.’

“Naturally, I didn’t feel well after the [Deep Blue] game in 1997. But now, almost a quarter of a century later, I think it was a blessing that I was a part of that experience.

Rather than feel threatened by the increasing use of AI in business and industry, he suggests we should seize new emerging opportunities. “It wasn’t the end of the world – on the contrary, it was the start of a brave new world.

“We could really move forward if we stopped worrying about killer robots and recognized that evil, unfortunately, is still a human monopoly … the danger does not come from killer robots but from the people who control them.”

The proliferation of commercial AI will serve to highlight the real genius, he says. “It is important for us to recognize that we still have our advantages, based on exclusive human capabilities. Human creativity is not a ghost, it is a real thing.

The test of time

The royal game is more popular now than it has been in years, and Kasparov credits the web with the youth of current world chess champion Carlson and the recent Netflix crash The Queen’s Gambit, each playing a role – even if the game does not occupy the same space in the imagination of the public or the press as it did during the Cold War.

“When you look back to 1972, the Fischer-Spassky match, or my matches with [Boris] Karpov in the 1980s, chess often made the front page of a newspaper. It was really a big deal. But the main reason he was there was that the competition for public attention was meager.

“Chess has grown in size… maybe 1,000 times since 1972. The problem is, the rest of the field has grown a million times. This is why it occupies a much smaller space.

He jokes that his consulting work on the Netflix show (he gave advice on everything from the body language of the actors to the way they held the parts, to the development of the movements in the matches broadcasted). ) made him almost as famous as his playing career. “For so many years people have presented me as ‘the first man to lose to a computer’. This one is gradually replaced by “the consultant on The Queen’s Gambit”.

The show, he says, reminded viewers that chess can be a conscious activity, refuting the association of gambling with mental illness. Efforts to popularize the game have encountered “certain psychological barriers resulting from public perception based on images of the game developed over decades,” he says.

“Let’s be honest, great literature hasn’t helped much. And Bobby Fischer’s stories haven’t helped demonstrate that chess can keep you sane and not potentially endanger your sanity.

Thanks to The Queen’s Gambit, however, people have changed the image of gaming in their minds. “It is no longer seen as a potential destruction of their children or endangering their mental stability. Rather, it is seen as a kind of test that can help them overcome certain character traits, like the story of [protagonist] Beth Harmon overcoming drug and alcohol addiction. The image of the game has increased considerably.

The show’s impact, he says, proves that people want personality with their chess content. “Every story you sell, every lesson you teach, has to contain that element of personality, because that’s what people want to hear. It’s not “Oh, that’s the right decision”. Instead, it’s ‘When I was a kid I took this step because …’ This way of addressing the audience will hopefully be our signature.

Unlimited challenge

Kasparov is hoping that his own personality, combined with the focus on community building, can help Kasparovchess stand out from competitors such as Chess.com or Play Magnus, with Carlson, whose parent company has made an investment of £ 40million when it was listed on the Norwegian Stock Exchange. Last year.

Community building will be done in an “interactive context,” he says, using his dedicated Discord group chat platform and relying heavily on Grandmaster Ambassadors to attract a crowd. The public, he notes, has become accustomed to direct access to esports personalities. “That’s why Twitch is popular these days, because it’s spontaneous … it’s a very important way to connect with new audiences, especially a younger audience.”

With that in mind, Kasparov plans to offer his brain to chess fans, providing “spontaneous content in quotes” in the form of advice and analysis. He also recorded an exclusive tutorial for the site, giving members the chance to learn directly from the master.

Global lockdowns have prompted even more people to take up their chess boards and apps, and Kasparov is hoping his timing and strategy of combining learning and playing will seize the opportunity.

“There are so many people who have discovered chess recently and many others who knew how to play but didn’t because they were too busy, always with other things to do. If you can train them and excite them, if you provide this element of entertainment for them through education and learning, we can dramatically expand the global chess audience.

“I’m not a professional player anymore, but I know how to sell the game. And I know how to bring people in because, again, it’s all about the excitement. We need to get people interested in gambling and what gambling has to offer. “

To learn more about what the pandemic-propelled popularity of the gaming industry means for marketers, head over to The Drum’s gaming hub.

It was one of Netflix’s biggest achievements over the past year – and now a group of Lanarkshire chess players are hoping “The Queen’s Gambit” can help inspire a new generation of gamers.

Based at the Nurture Center on Glasgow Road, the Cambuslang Chess Club is now up and running, with ‘upbeat’ club organizers the Netflix show can ensure a healthy flow of interested players.

Janice Ross told Lanarkshire Live that she hopes the club can continue to grow, helped by the popularity of the show, which stars Anya Taylor-Joy as a chess prodigy.

Janice added: “The Queen’s Gambit got a lot of people excited and got them talking about chess.

“There are Scottish ties there because with the producer, Allan Scott, who had been trying to do it for years.

“There is also the film “Queen of Katwe” about Phiona Mutesi, who grew up in Uganda and represented her country in chess – I think these things show people that chess is a hobby for everyone.

“They show how chess can help you develop other skills as well.”

Janice started playing chess in her late teens and quickly became addicted, which led to her playing for the University of Strathclyde team.

She helped start the Cambuslang Chess Club after the first lockdown ended last year, with meetings taking place in coffee shops and cafes.

Now they have settled into a permanent home at the Nurture Center, where they will meet on Saturday afternoon.

She added: “We want to encourage all ages and abilities to get involved, and it doesn’t matter if you have no experience.

“We want to establish ourselves and end up playing against other clubs like East Kilbride, but at the same time it’s about having social interaction and a little bit of discussion as well.

“Chess can be such a rewarding experience. It’s not something that is just for men, or only young people, there are no barriers.

“It can be great for older communities, for example, because it really makes the brain work.

“Having the Nurture Center is great too, because it’s a place we can settle down. They’ve been very helpful and some of them at the center play themselves.”

The group already has several chess sets, but if anyone has spare parts or unused sets, the group will welcome them.

They can be dropped off during the club meeting, which is every Saturday for two hours, starting at 1:30 p.m.

Everyone is welcome.

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And did you know that Lanarkshire Live has its own app? Download yours for free here.

Anya Taylor-Joy hosted the season finale of Saturday Night Live Tonight (May 22), joking in his opening monologue about fans of his Netflix chess drama The Queen’s Gambit who continued to take the game for themselves.

“I’m happy to say that after watching the show, millions of people bought chess sets, and dozens of them actually learned to play,” the actor joked.

She also asked how anyone in the audience could not have seen the hit Netflix series, asking, “For those of you who haven’t seen it: what were you doing in quarantine? It was King tiger and Queen’s Gambit, it was the only new TV for, like, months.

Earlier in the monologue, Taylor-Joy pointed out that the Saturday Night Live The crowd was the first of the year to be: “a completely complete audience, completely vaccinated”.

“If you’re feeling nervous sitting so close to another person, just imagine them naked,” she suggested. “Just kidding, we’ve all been inside for a year, everyone already imagines everyone naked.”

Referring to her distinct British accent, Taylor-Joy said: “Now that you hear my accent, you might be surprised to know that I was born in Miami, raised between Argentina and London, and that my mother tongue is spanish so legally my ethnicity is ‘fashion week’.

Taylor-Joy concluded the monologue by introducing the show, including musical performer Lil Nas X, in Spanish.

She then returned to play various characters, including Emma ‘Baby Spice’ Bunton in a Hollywood Squares-themed sketch.

Earlier in the show, Chris Rock had joined the cast as they offered their memories of making Saturday Night Live during a year of restrictions related to the pandemic.

The upcoming FTX Crypto Cup online chess tournament is set to pit the top ten players in the world against each other, allowing the global chess elite to compete for USD 100,000 worth of bitcoin (BTC), provided by the event sponsor and the exchange of cryptographic derivatives FTX, and $ 220,000 in cash.

Among the grandmasters who will take part in the cup, described as the world’s first bitcoin-priced chess tournament, are Norwegian Magnus Carlsen, the world’s highest-ranked chess player, and Russian Ian Nepomniachtchi, number four. global. The event will precede their 14-game world title match scheduled to take place in November-December in Dubai.

The event, which is part of this year’s Meltwater Champions Chess Tour, will be held May 23-31, allowing fans to follow the pot value of the prize in real time and its fluctuations, organizers said in a statement.

FTX has also entered into a long-term agreement with Play Magnus group, who is the organizer of the cup, to become its official crypto exchange partner.

“Online chess and digital finance are growing rapidly,” said Sam Bankman-Fried, CEO and Founder of FTX.

If Carlsen got the crypto bonus, it would allow the player to further diversify their budding investment portfolio. In a tweet on April 29, the Grandmaster admitted to having gone online six months earlier.

“Strategic planning and research are also essential here. No shortcuts! Carlsen noted.

Trade publication Chess24.com claims the next cup “could be the strongest chess tournament ever, with a 16-player field including the full Top 10 from the May 2021 FIDE Classic Ranking List “, referring to International Federation of Chessworld ranking of (FIDE).

The event, which will air on television and online streaming platforms Twitch and YouTube, will secure its winner a spot in the tour finale in San Francisco in September.

In another example of how the worlds of crypto and chess intersect, last November Ethereum (ETH) co-founder Vitalik Buterin participated in a live showdown against Alexandra Botez, a female FIDE Master. recognized by FIDE and five times Canadian Women’s National Champion. Buterin, who is an amateur chess player, was checked and mate in over a minute.
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