Anime-Style Illustrations Created In Microsoft Excel 

Game scenario director Hiroo Otsubo has an interesting work process: he creates anime-style art in Excel. According to Otsubo, he can do a drawingin about four to five hours. If that sounds incredibly difficult, just look at how they’re put together in Excel. (This clip from another artist should shed light on how drawing in…

In Japan, You Can Hire Fake Friends For Facebook And Instagram Photos

For those hoping to impress others online, there are rent-a-friend services in Japan aimed specifically at social media users. Earlier this year, Jiji reported on these services, which are seeing a growing number of rent-a-friend requests for social media. This is still uncommon, but recently, the service has been introduced on mainstream Japanese television. “An…

Sailor Moon Cafes Opening This Month In Japan

Like Sailor Moon? Want to eat Sailor Moon-themed food? Good news. Starting this fall, four Sailor Moon cafes are opening in Japan. Yes, four! According to Rurubu, one is opening in Tokyo on September 22, while another opens in Osaka on September 28 and yet another begins business the following day in Nagoya. These cafes…

Shinagawa Station. Tokyo, Japan. By Reuben Monastra | IG  JPGs is a photo peek into wherever gamers might find interesting. If you’re a photographer and have images you want to share, drop us a line! 

Kiki’s cosplay by witchy.brew

Beats Taking The Bus

Sebastian Kowoll is a concept artist and illustrator from Colombia, who most recently worked on Ark: Survival Evolved and Dark & Light You can see more of Sebastian’s work at his ArtStation page To see the images in their native resolution, click on the “expand” button in the top-left corner. Fine Art is a celebration…

My Neighbor (The Mechanized Death Machine) Totoro

Model builder and Kotaku reader Kevin Derken is backwith a new original creation: some Totoro figures made from spare parts leftover from Maschinen Krieger model kits. He made four different versions, each based on a classic Maschinen Krieger paint scheme. If you like what you see, Kevin made a cast of his creation and is…

Uno Releases New Card Design For Color Blind Players

Uno is testing out a slight redesign of the classic family/hate game. And it’s a practical one, making some changes so that colour blind players aren’t stuck staring at a hand full of red and green cards and going “oh, great”. As Fast Company report, the redesign is being trialled with copies being sold directly…

DreamHack Unbans CS:GO Players Who Cheated And Fixed Matches

Last July, esports organization ESL lifted the lifetime ban on tournament participation from Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players who had been caught cheating or participating in match-fixing schemes. The new sanctions now call for a two-year ban on cheaters and a five-year ban on match fixers, with the potential for longer bans in extreme cases. This…

Destiny 2 Player Dodges In Style

Today on Highlight Reel we have overstimulated birds, synchronized shots, extreme telephoto photography in Final Fantasy, and much more! Watch the video then talk about your favorite highlight in the comments below. Be sure to check out, like, and share the original videos via the links below. Subscribe to Kotaku on YouTube for more! Battlefield…

Powerful Women Rule The New Rainbow Six DLC

New, powerful women characters are at the heart of the latest update to Rainbow Six Siege The new “Operation Blood Orchid” DLC released on September 6 makes a ton of tweaks to improve Ubisoft’s tactical shooter, but the main draw is the three new Operators. All three characters are currently available for Year 2 Season…

Final Fantasy XV‘s Wild Secret Dungeon Was Designed By One Man

If, like me, your favorite part of Final Fantasy XV was the mind-boggling Pitioss Ruins, here is a fun fact: It was designed by one person, according to director Hajime Tabata. Speaking with me in Seattle at PAX West last weekend, Tabata said he was surprised when I told him that I loved the Pitioss…

Hands On With Nintendo Switch’s Big Holiday RPGs

The Switch is such a familiar part of the gaming landscape now that it’s strange to consider that Nintendo’s hybrid device is about to head into its first holiday season. What’s even stranger is that for Baby’s First Christmas, Nintendo’s lineup is overloaded with deep single-player fantasy adventures: role-playing games Skyrim and Xenoblade Chronicles, and…

Battlegrounds Streamer’s Audience Loves His Loud, Obnoxious Stream Snipers

People. People everywhere. Screams like nothing you’ve ever heard, as though ripped from the endless throat of some Eldritch Leviathan. Unsolicited K-pop beats from the dankest corners of the Internet. There’s stream sniping, and then there’s whatever the hell Forsen endures on a daily basis playing PUBG Forsen is a moderately popular streamer who became…

My Liner Notes For Mother, EarthBound Beginnings‘ Vinyl Soundtrack

In 2015, the indie record press Ship To Shore Phono Co. put out an officially-licensed pressing of the soundtrack to Nintendo’s beloved RPG Mother, which had just been released that year in the U.S. as EarthBound Beginnings I backed it on Kickstarter (obviously!) and a representative from the company then reached out to ask if…