Month: April 2022

The world of The Iron Oath is grim, full of bloodshed and betrayal. I am leading a company of mercenaries, seeking revenge after a mission went bad and a man I trusted left me to die. I have practical concerns to deal with, like maintaining my influx of gold and supplies. But I also have a much slower, more dreadful resource to manage: the passage of time, and with it, the terrible toll it takes on my mercenaries. I have already discovered the best way for me to adapt — being the worst person all the time.

The Iron Oath will be, in some ways, very familiar to fans of strategy games and RPGs. Take a little Darkest Dungeon , and add some XCOM. Finally, sprinkle some Divinity. Original Sin .. You can cook it in one pan. Add some beautiful pixel animations and an epic music score. Then add the imaginative demonic enemy designs and you have a delicious stew.

As I adventure around the fantasy realm of Caelum, I have to navigate between the open world, cities and towns, dungeons, and individual battles. It would be easy for these things to blur together into an indistinguishable mush of numbers and goals, but developer Curious Panda Games introduces each layer of complexity gradually throughout a well-paced tutorial and the early hours of the campaign. You can choose between a relaxing, easy-going adventure or a difficult trek through dangerous territory. The Iron Oath has both.

Image: Curious Panda Games/Humble Games

The game provides me with the tools I need to survive in this hostile world. My mercenaries include powerful rangers and warriors as well as elementalists and wizards. The feeling of unleashing an electric torrent against your enemy is incredibly satisfying. Or watching a valkyrie fly through the enemies spear first. After I had completed the intro, and was able to enter the world with my mercenary group, I felt confident I could catch the evil ne’er-do well who had stabbed me in back. I wanted to get my revenge.

Of course, it’s not always that easy. So my story evolved as I encountered other factions and explored new places, while expanding my business. Although this is an early access title, there are still plenty of good things. Players can upgrade and customize each mercenary in their party, and send their favorites out on more missions for XP. The drawback is that the more you lean on a select few mercenaries, the more stressed and injured they become. Relying too much on them might cause their to snap. Failure to address their injuries could cause them to die. This is just like Darkest Dungeon ,. It’s a tough gig. Although my company occasionally gets a round, they are more likely to be treated for skull fractures and trauma.

And even if you do everything “right,” the clock is ticking, as it is for us all. It isn’t like a Fire Emblem title in which everyone stays rosy-cheeked, bright-eyed. There are always new mercenaries to recruit, level up, and customize, and I can upgrade my company to make managing the crew easier … but as I juggle gold and potions, I learn to start treating human life with the same cold practicality. These aren’t my comrades — they’re investments.

Image: Curious Panda Games/Humble Games

This is particularly true during battles. The Iron Oath shines in this area. A dungeon gives me a clear overview. It is possible to scout out the area, find traps and then explore. When combat happens, we get right to business; my four mercenaries are placed on a grid along with some enemies. I then decide my initial placement, and the strategy begins. Cover, flanking and position are important. The enemy has powerful damage abilities and debuffs which can create chaos. If I do not plan for it, they will. My powerful spells and attacks also have limited charges for the duration of the dungeon, which means I have to ration across many battles.

This constant tension of resource management, limited supplies, and continual danger means that I sometimes have to make some rough choices — choices that my mercenaries will have thoughts about. In the darkest dungeons, I come across an injured man. While I could help the man, it would give my enemies time to create traps or ambushes. I can give him some of my precious medical supplies so he can escape on his own. You could also kill him and take his body. This might upset some of my mercenaries but it will be fine with others. Giving away health potions to strangers? In this economy?

Image: Curious Panda Games/Humble Games

If I make too many choices that my mercenaries don’t like (or if I don’t pay them because I just had to spend all of my gold on gear) they’ll leave the company altogether. An angry, exhausted mercenary can also be less effective in combat, leading to a downward spiral in morale, as their friends get hurt or die, and that could lead to a decrease in effectiveness.

The UI was my biggest problem during my time working with The Iron Oath . It’s a collection of little annoyances that don’t seem to matter individually, but they pile up over time. For instance, during battles, there’s no easy way to see my characters’ health at a glance as I survey the battle. The red shadow on their portraits is indicative of their HP loss. I also have the option to hover over the characters with my cursor and get full names and health bars. However, neither one of these options are very helpful when trying to find out the terrain and enemy information, as well as worrying about what happens to the rest of the dungeon. At other times, I accidentally closed out of upgrade screens, and it took me a while to find them again. None of these are deal breakers (especially in an early access game) but they’re bummers nonetheless.

Overall, I’m excited to see how The Iron Oath develops; Curious Panda Games has already laid out a road map throughout 2022 leading to an eventual full release that includes a new class, more points of interest, and more quests. For now, I’m having a lot of fun with the current build — my mercenaries, on the other hand, probably have some complaints with my management style.

The Iron Oath was released on April 19 on Windows PC. The game was reviewed using a download code provided by Humble Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

Apple doesn’t offer truly individualized customization of its products or interfaces to its users, and if anyone wants to customize the look of their Apple products – specifically their home screens – they’re in for A Time. With iOS 16 coming in September, there’s an opportunity for Apple to give consumers needed autonomy.

The only cell phones I’ve ever owned have been a Nokia (shoutout to Snake, my first love), a Blackberry, and an iPhone, none of which I’ve ever fully customized.

I am currently using my seventh iPhone and have always believed that the home screen of my smartphone is what it appears. Sure, I can “edit” the home screen’s layout with apps, widgets, and folders for organization, but I’ve never been able to make it more me – you know, how Android users can make their phones more them. That all changed this week when I tried my hand at customizing my phone’s home screen using two icon packs I purchased from Etsy.

Using this article (and its author Michael Potuck), as my guide, I gradually became more familiar with Widgetsmith and Shortcuts, along with everything else that’s required to make a customized home screen on my iPhone. Here’s what I had to do – which I will never do again because it took far too long.

Own an icon pack

First of all, the sheer number of icon packs available online is overwhelming. Although it is fun to look through the options online, I soon lost interest. It was almost like shopping in a mall instead of a boutique owned by an independent business.

You can find free icon packs, grab icon packs from Etsy, or create your own icon pack (though I hear this is difficult), and there are, quite literally, tens of thousands of packs to choose from. I spent about five minutes online before deciding on this icon pack for $6, and I got to work.

Download multiple zip files and PDFs

This was the first step that caused problems, even though it seemed like it was a small one. Following the instructions of the Etsy seller I downloaded zip files and pdfs. Once they were on my desktop, I needed to open them. Then, I had the task to open the zip file folders. It was tedious. Once I had access to the icon and widget folders, I, of course, had to choose which icons and widgets I wanted out of the hundreds available in the icon pack – I genuinely had no idea how bad it would get.

Copy and paste icons into Photos

I didn’t anticipate this step being so laborious, but wow was it ever. You have to cross-reference the apps you already have on your phone with the matching icons from the downloaded zip folders, and then you have to copy and paste those icons into Photos. Make sure you have iCloud syncing on, or you won’t be able to access the icons you chose on your phone.

Use shortcuts to redesign apps

Enter: the absolute epicenter of my frustration with Apple home screen customization.

Never have I ever become so familiarized with an app in the way I have become with Shortcuts during this process, and I am certain that I’ve barely scratched the surface of everything Shortcuts can actually do.

I don’t know where to start.

Basically, I had to open Shortcuts, hit the + sign in the upper right-hand corner, tap “Add Action,” type “open app” in the search bar, then tap “Open App” under “Scripting,” THEN choose from a list of apps I have on my phone in order to customize one of them.

Let’s suppose I want to personalize the Instagram app.

After I selected Instagram, I needed to click the three blue dots in the upper left corner. I chose “Add to My Home Screen,” renamed the app and then picked the photo from iCloud that would accompany it. Finally, I clicked “Add.” Honestly, this is all far too much as I’m reliving it, and I hate that I feel so compelled to write about it, but here we are.

At this stage, the app was in my hands using the icon packs I bought, which I copied into Photos and then redesigned in Shortcuts as I wished. I then had to repeat the re-design via Shortcuts with every app I wanted on my home screen, which took me no less than two hours. Now, the fun part?

Aesthetics over everything

If you are like me, and like things to be even and aligned, this step of personalizing your home screen can take many hours. You have your re-designed apps-turned-shortcuts! These are the correct color palettes (you believe). You’ve renamed each app in all lowercase (with the exception of WhatsApp) for reasons you can’t eloquently explain!

Even if your home is not as cluttered and crowded as mine, it can take you hours to decide how you will use the space. An important note here, which takes additional time: When arranging your home screen, you need to long-press the original apps to “Remove from Home Screen” to alleviate clutter and make room for your shortcuts, while being careful to not actually delete the original app – otherwise your shortcuts won’t work.

I genuinely love how my phone now looks after an entire morning of customizing my home screen, but there are still issues.

The gray widget calendar at the top, for example, doesn’t actually sync to my iCal, but rather, opens the app Widgetsmith – something I had to download to create that particular widget in the first place; there is no workaround for this, lest I download a third-party calendar app, which I am certainly not. This means that I either have to swipe right on my home screen to access my actual calendar or search for it in the pull-down menu. Kyle, my Android-user coworker, was shocked when I brought up this issue to him.

Additionally, every time I open any of my newly-created, earthy apps (re: Shortcuts), I see this little swoopdy-woop that comes and goes – which can be dismissed with a swipe – but will appear every time I open a shortcut, forever, in perpetuity:

Last but not least, now that I’ve re-designed all of my apps to look exactly how I want them to with the help of my icon pack on my home screen, I am left with a clutter of icons, widgets, and wallpapers in my photo album(s) in addition to zip files and folders on my desktop that now need to be cleaned up.

iOS 16 to the rescue?

After chatting with some of my colleagues over at 9to5Google, I learned some things that Apple’s forthcoming iOS 16 could do to improve this process.

To start, iOS 16 could simply include any available themes for our home screens, let alone customizable ones. Did you know that what took me four hours would take someone about a minute and a half on an Android? I’ve seen a video of it being done. Android users have loads of built-in themes to choose from, and that barely scratches the surface.

More specifically, did you know that when you pick a color theme on an Android for your home screen, apps that are native to the phone automatically update to that specific color palette? Imagine not having to individually create and customize each and every one of your apps into a shortcut, whether or not they’re from a third party. If iOS 16 at the very least allowed us to customize native apps and widgets with pre-chosen themes, that would be a huge step in the right direction.

Final thoughts

I want to say here for the record, that on a scale of tech-savviness – 10 being extremely tech-savvy, and 1 being not at all – I’m like…a 7, probably, at least in comparison to your average person (not in comparison to literally any of my coworkers). Despite my knowledge and understanding of very particular technology, the process was extremely difficult. From start to finish, it took me approximately four hours to create my home screen design.

What did Apple do? They kept us loyal, and, for the most part, wildly loyal, customers who could customize their own Apple devices. Now that I’ve seen what my home screen can look like – while also understanding on a level that I wish I didn’t – what it takes to get a home screen that you love, I want everyone to have icons, widgets, and themes that reflect their personality. Why does Apple refuse to give us any autonomy as consumers?

As I was lamenting to my coworkers at 9to5Google about my customization ordeal, Ben Schoon said, rather joyously, “Come to Android – it’s so much easier ..” I won’t, again for reasons I can’t explain, but that’s not the point.

The point is this: for Apple to gatekeep customization from its user base is, at this stage, an antiquated, frustrating, and frankly outlandish approach for a company that touts creativity, inspiration, and innovation in each of its individual products. If I want to be inspired by my device, to be creative with my device, to innovate on my device, why can’t I make it my own?

Beadle & Grimm’s, purveyor of the finest and most esoteric licensed merchandise for Dungeons & Dragons and Critical Role, is branching out. The company co-founded by actor Matthew Lillard has a new line of items to support Pathfinder’s Absalom: City of Lost Omens. It’s also taking a big swing with a lavish assortment of kits for Magic: The Gathering. But while I’ve sung the company’s praises in the past, this new batch of products is definitely a mixed bag.

Image: Paizo

Let’s start with the best of the batch: Pathfinder Character Chronicles. These $40 hardcover books are customized for each of the game’s core classes, and contain everything you need to manage your player character from level one upward. There is a character sheet up front — up to 25 pages long for some classes — that gives you more than enough room for all of your skills, feats, spells, and more. These books also include all of the rules from the Pathfinder Core Rulebook and the Pathfinder Advanced Player’s Guide that apply to a given class: spells, feats, even some extra stuff that Beadle & Grimm’s made up on its own. Add in original art and a pull-out dry-erase board so you’re not making nasty erasures all over the place during play, and it’s chef’s kiss perfect in my opinion. You can even get a couple of ribbon bookmarks that will help you keep track of your places. They are well-made and affordable. I want them for Starfinder, D&D, Cyberpunk Red, Twilight: 2000 … everything. Please make them right away.

Next up, we’ve got Absalom: City of Lost Omens Gold Edition, a weighty campaign-in-a-box that includes all of the content from the Paizo-published campaign book. This is the same sort of treatment that Beadle & Grimm’s has given to Wizards of the Coast’s campaigns in the past, including Baldur’s Gate: Descent Into Avernus, Curse of Strahd, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, Tal’Doeri Campaign Setting Reborn, and more.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

This Gold Edition format hits a sweet spot right between Beadle & Grimm’s over-the-top Platinum Editions and Paizo’s core book itself. For game masters (GMs), the entire campaign is broken up into smaller pamphlets that make prepping and playing at the table a breeze. The custom GM screen is included, as well as NPC and place cards to make sharing art easy with other players, handouts for passing across the world, and a variety of coins, pins and coasters to help bring the setting alive. It’s another outstanding package, albeit with a premium price tag — $349.99. As I have said, it is a joy to have such support. I know this because I have run many campaigns and some of them took years. This set will make your life as a GM easier, and your players will love it. The Gold Edition also comes with some of the most vibrant and interesting large-scale battle maps that I’ve seen in any Beadle & Grimm’s product to date. They even throw in a code to unlock the entire campaign digitally, which is a welcome addition for quick reference alone.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

My only gripe here are the maps, which are redundant in the extreme. There’s a large map of the entire city of Absalom, an even larger two-part map that’s something like four feet across, and a portfolio of over a dozen 8. 5-by-11-inch maps of each of the city’s districts. That means you have three copies of the same city map printed at different scales. The city map isn’t very interesting. It’s such a large urban center that it may as well be a texture when seen from above. However, here, it may be more a problem with the source material. It could have left Beadle & Grimms’s without much more interesting cartography.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Finally, my least favorite line out of this latest batch of products are the items that support Magic: The Gathering‘s newest set of cards, Kamigawa Neon Dynasty. I simply can’t recommend the $499 Kamigawa Platinum set. The deck boxes, backpack and art card folio are the most expensive items. They feel like something you would find at a convention. The demon mask necklace and art-inspired life counter are both a bit too offensive. The biggest disappointment is the sword-adorned card vault, which is difficult to open and won’t lay completely flat on the table. It’s also got these big lids that are easy to catch your hand on if you leave them open.

On the other hand, the $199 Kamigawa Silver includes the best stuff from this line. The LED playmat is a delight, and while it’s a bit thin for my liking, it’s quite the conversation piece. It runs off USB power, including cell phone battery packs. Metal counters look great and feel solid in your hand. However, collectors may not want to spend too much on the most valuable cards. Add in 100 card sleeves, a handy game log, and a world map, and you’ve got some decent value for your money.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

The trouble is that Beadle & Grimm’s originally wanted this Kamigawa line to start shipping in February — around the same time that Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty was released in print to the public. Magic‘s next set, Streets of New Capenna, drops on Friday, and the Kamigawa line is still showing as a pre-order on the Beadle & Grimm’s website. As I am aware, the global logistics pipeline has been shut down. This is not the first time the company has missed shipping estimates. If it plans to keep up with the breakneck pace of new releases that Magic is known for, Beadle & Grimm’s is going to have to get a lot better at logistics to keep hungry fans sated.

Everything on the Beadle & Grimm’s website for the Pathfinder franchise is 10% off through April.

Beadle & Grimm’s products were provided by the manufacturer for review. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships, but not with Beadle & Grimm’s. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via other affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.

Charter and Comcast have announced a partnership in creating a new streaming platform on 4K streaming devices and smart TVs. The new streaming platform will compete with Apple TV, Roku and Google.

Comcast will license its streaming platform and hardware, Flex as well as Xumo, which it acquired in 2020. It will also sell XClass TVs at retail stores. Charter is bringing a $900 million investment to the table.

The products Charter and Comcast create will feature loads of free ad-supported content. There will be more than 200 unique streaming channels as well as popular apps like Peacock. It’s not sure if Apple TV+ will be a featured app, but it’s likely we’ll see Netflix, Hulu, Prime Video, and others on the platform.

Xumo will continue to operate as a free global streaming service available through the joint venture’s products and third-party devices. Charter will offer the 4K streaming TV devices and voice remotes beginning in 2023. Comcast will offer its Flex streaming service as a streaming device to customers.

Our new venture will bring a full-featured operating platform, new devices, and smart TVs with a robust app store providing a more streamlined and aggregated experience for the customer. This venture, which will expand the options available to consumers in the video market, can compete with national media platforms and adds to our already extensive range of Spectrum TV apps that are compatible on all customer-owned streaming devices.

Tom Rutledge, Charter Chairman and CEO

It looks like there is time before Apple and other companies with hardware and services will notice the new competitor. We haven’t seen the new Apple TV hardware in a while. Last year, the company released the Apple TV 4K at its Spring Unleashed event. The new Siri remote is included, as well as HDR and Dolby Vision. Were we able to see an upgraded device at WWDC June?

On the streaming service side, Apple TV+ original content has won countless awards recently. It’s continuing to pump out hit content that viewers love to watch. Check out the running guide for what you can watch on Apple TV+.

After months of waiting, Apple is finally rolling out its self-service repair program for selected iPhone models in the US. Starting now, users can buy parts of iPhone 12, 13, and SE 3 directly from Apple, but is it worth it? Here’s what iFixit has to say about the program.

iFixit is well-known for teaching people how to fix tech products; it’s also famous for giving repair scores for Apple’s new products and showing us what’s inside of them. Elizabeth Chamberlain, iFixit’s founder and CEO, says that this program is fantastic. She says it “enables more people to repair tech products is great news”. But there is a catch.

The biggest problem? Apple has increased the number of parts-paired strategies, which means that only a few serial numbers can be used for authorized repairs. You cannot purchase key parts without a serial number or IMEI. If you use an aftermarket part, there’s an “unable to verify” warning waiting for you. This tactic impedes third-party repairs with scare tactics, feature loss, and can limit the options available to recyclers or refurbishers. It could also shorten the cycle of economic growth.

Over the next year, Apple plans to extend the program to M1 MacBooks and also to European customers, with other products and markets coming on a later date. The company will also support older iPhone models, although it’s not clear when.

Chamberlain praises the program by saying iFixit is really happy to see “Apple making repair manuals available for everyone for free online. (…) The manuals are written with these heavy-duty tools in mind, even though it’s hard to imagine that most DIY fixers would want to go through the expense or hassle of acquiring this much equipment.” But, also, there’s a catch, as iFixit claims the program “doesn’t do what Right to Repair legislation around the world aims to do.”

While it is a significant step towards repair and an important change for Apple’s leadership, it doesn’t accomplish what Right to Repair legislation all over the globe aims to. A true right to repair will give independent repair shops a chance to compete in the repair marketplace, bringing down the cost of repairs for everyone. Unfortunately, this program expands the freedom to repair with one hand, while locking the door with the other. Integrating a serial number check into their checkout process is a dire omen and could allow Apple the power to block even more repairs in the future. Building the technology to provision individual repairs easily sets Apple up as the gateway to approve–or deny–any repairs in the future, with parts from any source.

You can read the detailed report here.