Technology

Nidus turns a beautiful ecosystem into a frantic shooter

Published

2 years ago

March 17, 2024

Nidus turns a beautiful ecosystem into a frantic shooter

Scavengers Reign is a beautiful exploration of a complicated, fascinating, sometimes brutal ecology. Nidus is also a beautiful exploration of a complicated, fascinating, sometimes brutal ecology. Their approaches and styles are different, but the underlying themes share a connection — and an artist. Caleb Wood is an animator and now game developer who worked as a concept artist on Max’s sci-fi show while simultaneously solo-developing his recently released arcade bullet hell game.

Having begun his animation career 15 years ago, Wood decided that he wanted to figure out game development in 2020. Nidus was meant to be something simple that he could use to teach himself programming. “But because I’m able to produce some pretty good art quality,” he says, “I felt like I had to at least try marketing and see what I could accomplish.”

In Nidus, players simultaneously control a flower and a wasp in a symbiotic relationship, as they struggle against all manner of strange insects and critters in their wider ecosystem. Wood draws parallels to the symbiosis in Scavenger’s Reign, where dozens of strange alien creatures live in tenuous, dangerous harmony. In some moments, the humans who crash land there also figure out how to coexist with the nature around them, to varying degrees of success.

But he calls these parallels “autonomous” — he says he wasn’t deliberately planning much about them as he worked on each project. “I definitely gravitate towards natural themes and that sort of thing,” he says. “[But] the only thoughts going in my head [for Nidus] were that I wanna use these creatures and bugs and even the background as a canvas for looping animation.”

Much of Wood’s professional experience is in creating these looping animations. Nidus specifically draws a lineage from some of his earlier short films, like 2015’s TOTEM. Here, animations build up from intricate details, becoming more complex over time, and it’s easy to see it as another example of both the natural themes and the fluid, repetitive style present in Nidus.

During development these kinds of animations became increasingly influential on the game overall. Woods began to create “weaving loops” in specific areas, such as insect shells. “It was a way of putting more and more information into a small piece of animation,” he says. And as these animations became increasingly detailed, he began to realize that overwhelming the player’s attention was ultimately going to become a part of the game’s difficulty.

“Because the game was slowly becoming about splitting the players’ ability to focus, I just decided, ‘Okay, what if I lean into that and make everything absolutely overwhelming and hard to look at?’” Wood says. Combined with the neon colors and simultaneous control of two characters, Nidus is frenetic. (Perhaps more frenetic than intended — Wood says that he might not make design choices like the twin controls again, calling it “not super accessible.”)

By contrast, Scavengers Reign has a much more stripped-back art style. “It’s like you’re playing with geometric shapes whenever you’re designing,” says Wood of his work on the creature designs. It was “refreshing,” he says, to switch back and forth between the two projects.

Both animation for TV and games felt similar in that he was trying to create solutions to restrictions. On Scavengers, Wood would get requests from the show’s co-creator and art director Charles Huettner to fill a certain narrative function. In Nidus, the art would need to fit in with the game. “Whenever I’d work on creature designs for the show, it would clear my mind to go back into the mess of Nidus,” Wood says, and vice versa to get back to the reduced designs of Scavengers Reign.

He also says that working on a team for Scavengers meant things were simpler for him personally. “You’re just focusing on your small part that is going to serve a larger purpose,” he says. Working solo, making one design choice also meant dealing with all the knock-on effects. Changing an enemy’s weak spot, for example, isn’t just editing the art, but also everything further down the line of dominos — code, game design, and so on. “That spirals out of control real quick,” says Wood.

Wood isn’t sure exactly what’s next, but he would like to keep making games — in a team, if possible. Although he says Nidus was useful to give himself a rounded understanding of all the different parts of game development, he says it would be “amazing” to get a dedicated programmer. But whatever his next project ends up being, given his existing body of work, it’s fair to say there’s a good chance it’ll involve strange creatures and the ways they coexist.

Technology

TikTok ban: all the news on the app’s shutdown and return in the US

Published

6 hours ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

TikTok ban: all the news on the app’s shutdown and return in the US

After briefly going dark in the US to comply with the divest-or-ban law targeting ByteDance that went into effect on January 19th, TikTok quickly came back online. It eventually reappeared in the App Store and Google Play as negotiations between the US and China continued, and Donald Trump continued to sign extensions directing officials not to apply the law’s penalties.

Finally, in mid-December, TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew told employees that the agreements to create TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, which includes Oracle, Silver Lake, and MGX as part owners, have been signed, and the deal is expected to close on January 22nd, 2026. His letter said that for users in the US, the new joint venture will oversee data protection, the security of a newly-retrained algorithm, content moderation, and the deployment of the US app and platform.

Read on for all the latest news on the TikTok ban law in the US.

Technology

Secret phrases to get you past AI bot customer service

Published

6 hours ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

Secret phrases to get you past AI bot customer service

NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

You’re gonna love me for this.

Say you’re calling customer service because you need help. Maybe your bill is wrong, your service is down or you want a refund. Instead of a person, a cheerful AI voice answers and drops you into an endless loop of menus and misunderstood prompts. Now what?

That’s not an accident. Many companies use what insiders call “frustration AI.” The system is specifically designed to exhaust you until you hang up and walk away.

Not today. (Get more tips like this at GetKim.com)

FOX NEWS POLL: VOTERS SAY GO SLOW ON AI DEVELOPMENT — BUT DON’T KNOW WHO SHOULD STEER

Here are a few ways to bypass “frustration” AI bots. (Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Use the magic words

You want a human. For starters, don’t explain your issue. That’s the trap. You need words the AI has been programmed to treat differently.

Nuclear phrases: When the AI bot asks why you’re calling, say, “I need to cancel my service” or “I am returning a call.” The word cancel sets off alarms and often sends you straight to the customer retention team. Saying you’re returning a call signals an existing issue the bot cannot track. I used that last weekend when my internet went down, and, bam, I had a human.

Power words: When the system starts listing options, clearly say one word: “Supervisor.” If that doesn’t work, say, “I need to file a formal complaint.” Most systems are not programmed to deal with complaints or supervisors. They escalate fast.

Technical bypass: Asked to enter your account number? Press the pound key (#) instead of numbers. Many older systems treat unexpected input as an error and default to a human.

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“Supervisor” is one magic word that can get you a human on the other end of the line. (Neil Godwin/Future via Getty Images)

Go above the bots

If direct commands fail with AI, be a confused human.

The Frustration Act: When the AI bot asks a question, pause. Wait 10 seconds before answering. These systems are built for fast, clean responses. Long pauses often break the flow and send your call to a human.

The Unintelligible Bypass: Stuck in a loop? Act like your phone connection is terrible. Say garbled words or nonsense. After the system says, “I’m having trouble understanding you” three times, many bots automatically transfer you to a live agent.

The Language Barrier Trick: If the company offers multiple languages, choose one that’s not your primary language or does not match your accent. The AI often gives up quickly and routes you to a human trained to handle language issues.

Use these tricks when you need help. You are calling for service, not an AI bot.

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Long pauses and garbled language can also get you referred to a human. (iStock)

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Technology

The latest iPad Air is $400 for the first time and arrives by Christmas

Published

18 hours ago

December 18, 2025

Press Room

The latest iPad Air is 0 for the first time and arrives by Christmas

If you have $400 and want an iPad, your options are usually kind of limited to either just the base iPad, or better yet, the latest iPad Mini — if it happens to be on sale when you’re shopping (it is now, but that’s not always the case). But right now, you should consider getting the 128GB version of Apple’s 11-inch iPad Air with the capable M3 processor. At Target, multiple colors of this model are $399.99, beating the previous low of $449.99 we’ve seen during large-scale deal events. Currently, no other retailer is matching this price. This sale ends Saturday night.

$400 is a sweet price for this model, as it debuted in early 2025 for $600. In terms of how it stacks up to other iPad models, Verge editor-at-large David Pierce said in his impressions that the M3 Air is “exactly what you think it is. Which is fine.” I know, that sounds like a back-handed compliment, but it’s been a while since iPads peaked in terms of utility, design, and fast performance. This one carries the torch in Apple’s tablet dominance, and its M3 processor means it’ll be a fantastic tablet for longer than any other iPad at the $400 price point. Read our in-depth impressions.