Britain’s first next-generation supercomputer, planned by Tories, in doubt after Labour government move The new Labour government has shelved £1.3bn of funding pledged by the Conservatives for technology and artificial intelligence projects, putting the future of the UK’s first next-generation supercomputer in doubt. The projects, announced last year, include £800m for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at the University of Edinburgh and a further £500m for the AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Continue reading...

A Tamagotchi seance, macabre cartoon horror and an arty shmup: this new festival spotlights a fertile Scottish games scene beyond Rockstar North Walking through the doors of this boutique video game festival, you are immediately greeted by a bullet hell shoot-em-up with a painterly twist. In ZOE Begone!, you dodge and unleash attacks at blistering speed before the game erupts into a euphoric shower of pointillist colour, dazzling the eyes and punishing the thumbs. Next to it sits Left Upon Read; at first glance, a dark-fantasy Quake clone, but one that gives you the bizarre task of checking text messages on a smartphone as you slice your way through a dungeon. These are subversive games, taking well-worn design tropes and breaking them in witty, playful ways. Rule-breaking is a major theme of Glasgow independent game festival, the latest iteration of an event previously known as Southside games festival. It took place last weekend at Civic House, nestled in the shadow of the M8, the concrete eyesore that carves through Glasgow and connects the city with the wider central belt. On display are more eccentric and smaller-budget games than those you see on shelves, all made by developers who either live within Glasgow or a short train ride away. Co-founder Joe Bain sees such works as part of the “wider cultural landscape” of games, and sought to create a space treating them as such. It’s a far cry from trade fairs such as Gamescom where, beyond the boisterous public halls, the machinations of the games industry can feel as if they’re moving in capital-driven lockstep. Continue reading...

National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh From Donkey Kong to Halo 3, the entirety of video game evolution is here – and you can play almost every console and cabinet Walking through the doors of this exhibition, you are immediately greeted by the PDP-10 - the gigantic mainframe computer that was used to program SpaceWar, considered by everyone except extreme computing history pedants to be the first recognisable video game. Next to it, on the left, a bright yellow working Pong arcade cabinet from 1972. Puck Man (later Pac-Man) and Space Invaders cabinets stand side by side just beyond. These are very familiar sights to anyone with a knowledge of gaming history, and they set the tone. If you’re a keen (or, let’s be honest, old) player then it’s highly unlikely that you’ll learn anything new at Game On, but you will nonetheless have fun. Beginning in 2002 at the Barbican in London, the Game On exhibition of video game history has been touring the world for all this time, only ever packed away entirely during the Covid-19 pandemic. It first came to Edinburgh later that year. Twenty-two years ago I dragged my dad along to this exhibition; this time I will be dragging my kids and encouraging them to have a go on the now-ancient games I loved when I was their age. Crucially, you can play almost everything at this exhibition, from Donkey Kong to Guitar Hero, Farming Simulator to Soulcalibur. One section pairs each console in gaming history with a defining game, another groups games together by genre, and a third is devoted to multiplayer, with four-player Halo 3 set up around a pillar. There are more than 100 games to sample and they form a well-curated nostalgia trip, focused primarily but not entirely on the 80s, 90s and 00s. Continue reading...