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The most surprising thing about Moroi is its sense of humor. Moroi is a top-down, dual-stick action and puzzle game set in a dungeon of surreal horrors, where each cell contains a unique and grotesque vignette. In the first area of the map, theres a cell containing a sentient meat grinder that craves human flesh. In another, a dead man is strapped to a feeding tube thats still pumping slop into his bulbous, pulsing stomach. The next room over, you meet a talking duck with far too many human teeth in its mouth. One tooth would be too many, but this duck has a full, smiling set. And then he rips them all out for you, leaving behind a bloody, empty bill. And this moment makes me laugh out loud. The gore in Moroi is so ridiculous that it turns the corner into hilarity, tapping into the gruesome absurdity that makes b-horror movies so charming. You dont expect the duck to have human teeth, but whats even more surprising is their sudden removal and the ducks leftover, blood-smeared smile. These shocking moments of levity appear in Moroi at a rapid-fire pace, twisting the vibe from brutality to bizarreness and back until it feels like youre trapped in a Francisco Goya fever dream directed by Sam Raimi. Its pretty awesome. Moroi comes from creator Alex Stanescu and his independent studio, Violet Saint. Though hes now based in Switzerland, Stanescu is Romanian and Moroi is filled with grimdark takes on his homegrown fairy tales. The games name refers to a vampire in Romanian folklore, even. Stanescu was also inspired by David Lynch, Heironymous Bosch, H.R. Giger and Little Nightmares, with a dash of Robert Sheckley and Douglas Adams for humor. But at its core, Moroi is a completely original world of creepiness, Stanescu explained during a media briefing hosted by the games publisher, Good Shepherd Entertainment. There's a big pool of things in my subconscious from which I pull, he said. General grotesquery, maybe carnival art, Bosch and early medieval art, and caricature. I always try to find my own style. Stanescu later clarified further, saying, Creepy things. Like, for example, in a puzzle, you have to vomit blood into the mouth of someone else. And you will find reality shifting in some places, like in a room you find someone else than you expect to find, and so on. Let's say dream logic. Violet Saint Its more like nightmare logic, really. Each of the cells in Moroi is connected get the severed hand from the autocannibal so the meat grinder can make bone dust, which you can then give to the creepy wizard, who turns it into salt for the witch, whos then devoured by her own potion, and so on. Eventually in the introductory level, you find a sword, break down a door and continue your quest to escape, but the prison only grows more strange. Every now and then, a voice interrupts your progress, whispering for you to find it. The creatures in the cells seem to know who you are, even though you have no memory of this place. Theres way more going on in Moroi than meets the eye. I tell a lot of it through the lore and collectibles, so those will carry a lot of storytelling, Stanescu said. The storytelling given by the characters and by the gameplay is pretty cryptic. You have to find and pay attention to what's happening. There are no branching storylines in Moroi, but your choices throughout the game will affect how it ends, according to Stanescu. He said the full experience should take about nine hours to complete, but this can be extended if you hunt down all of the secrets. Violet Saint Combat in Moroi is fast and fun, and heavy metal replaces the games moody dungeon music at the beginning of each fight, setting an appropriate tone of chaos and carnage. Dungeon guards are the main enemies and they appear in waves of five or so at a time, some with more powerful moves than others. I ended the hour-long demo with an enhanced sword and a gatling gun in my arsenal. With a sword, you have basic and heavy attacks, plus a finishing move that builds up as you deal damage. The gun doesnt require ammo but it runs on a cooldown mechanic, and it has a basic shot and a finisher. Dodge rolls round out your moveset in the early game, and the balance in these battles feels just right. On top of dodging and attacking, there are fiery cores scattered around the environments that you can explode for AOE damage but be warned, if youre too close to the boom, youll get hurt, too. The end of each battle is marked by piles of intestines and busted corpses hopefully not yours littering the cobblestones. The amount of blood-soaked surrealism, frantic combat and body horror in Morois first hour is impressive, and Im amped to discover all of the secrets in the full game, no matter how many exploded corpses I have to dig through. Or maybe even because of all the exploded corpses. Moroi is due to hit PC pretty soon early 2025.This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/pc/moroi-preview-a-grimdark-action-game-thats-actually-pretty-funny-150009465.html?src=rss
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Catch up on select AI news and developments from the past week or so. Stay in the know. Read the full article at MarketingProfs
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Operator is now out in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK and most places where ChatGPT is also available, OpenAI has announced. The company launched Operator in the US back in January, introducing it as an "agent that can go to the web to perform tasks" for the user. Operator can handle various browser-based tasks for users, such as filling out forms, making restaurant reservations and ordering groceries. At the moment, it's still a research preview in its early stages that comes with limitations, but the company said it hopes to roll out improvements based on user feedback. Operator is now rolling out to Pro users in Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the UK, and most places ChatGPT is available.Still working on making Operator available in the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein & Icelandwell keep you updated! OpenAI (@OpenAI) February 21, 2025 The tool is powered by a model called Computer-Using Agent (CUA) that's trained to see and interact with the buttons, menus and text fields people see when they visit a website. It can click buttons, type on text fields and basically interact with those elements "using all the actions a mouse and keyboard allow." In its announcement, the company said it's still working on launching Operator in the EU, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland. Operator is still only available for subscribers paying $200 a month for ChatGPT Pro, but the company plans to expand its availability to Plus, Team and Enterprise users in the future, before ultimately integrating its capabilities into ChatGPT. When that happens, it could be doing tasks for hundreds of millions of people around the world: ChatGPT recently surpassed 400 million weekly active users, twice as many as the user count OpenAI reported in August 2024. This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/chatgpts-ai-agent-operator-is-now-available-for-most-pro-users-133050651.html?src=rss
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