Created by Brian Clevinger's Nikola Tesla in 1923, Atomic Robo is a robotic member of a think-tank of Action Scientists, probing the shadowy outskirts of science. In Second Fiction's Atomic Robo: Violent Science, now available for iOS and coming soon to Windows 8 and Android, he does that too, only gamier.

Atomic Robo is the finest creation of 8-Bit Theater writer Brian Clevinger. Along with artist Scott Wegener, Clevinger has crafted a comic book world filled with supernatural thrills and the magic of science. Also, dinosaurs. It's been nominated for the Best Limited Series Eisner Award twice. That means you should read it (after you get finished reading Umbrella Academy).

The game is an action-platformer with lovely chiptune music. It also has power-ups, some jumping... Atomic Robo is in it, I hear.

Okay, I haven't played it yet, but it's Atomic Robo so I am buying it anyway. It's only $.99 right now on iTunes.

Two years ago, the Cub Scouts offered their version of a merit badge for video gaming. This week, the Boy Scouts of America added the 131st merit badge to its active list: Games Design.

The BSA's program doesn't mean just video games design either, though that is a part of it. (And, this post by Scouting magazine's blog for adult leaders says, "this is not a merit badge Scouts earn by playing video games.")

The work will involve creating a game in one of four areas: electronic, outdoors, tabletop and pen-and-paper role-playing games.

Interestingly, instruction No. 3 for getting this badge requires scouts to "define the term intellectual property," and "describe how intellectual property is protected and why protection is necessary." So remember, a Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and respects copyrights.

Play to win: Game Design merit badge released [Bryan on Scouting]

I play dozens of mobile games a week, at least 24 percent of which are puzzle games. From block-matching to word games; physics puzzlers to good old Tetris clones—I've played them all. The last thing I expected to see in last week's crop of new games was a puzzler unlike anything I'd played before. If I'd paid closer attention to developer Ambient Studios' 'About Us' page I wouldn't have been surprised by Monster Meltdown's ingenuity at all.

Yuri is a janitor at a top-secret Russian lab, the sort of place where deadly monsters escape captivity and they send the custodian to take care of it. Poor Yuri is tasked with guiding 80 levels of man-hungry beasts to capture portals using nothing but his wits, cunning and cleaning skills.

Well, that and a teleportation device.

I love the idea of a world where teleportation is so commonplace that devices utilizing the tech are standard issue for custodial workers. While the scientists are off getting coffee (or maybe they were devoured, but I like the coffee idea), Yuri is popping in and out of existence, swapping places with creatures in order to ensure they not only enter glowing capture portals, but that they do so only after collecting all the strange energy motes on the screen. Capturing monsters, gathering motes and doing it using less than the allotted number of jumps—that's how you get three stars in Yuri's world.

Monster Meltdown is not a relaxing, half-heartedly poking at the screen sort of game. Players have to consider the behavior of the monster on screen—will it chase Yuri? Does it automatically start walking when the level begins? Then they have to figure out the most efficient means of getting monster A into portal B. Sometimes it's as simple as touching the monster and swapping places. Other levels require pinpoint precision and expert timing—'port to shaft of light as the monster passes, swap with monster, port above electrical hazard, swap again—all in the span of seconds. It's as much a strategy and action game as it is a puzzle game.

After playing all weekend I finally wandered over to the Ambient Studios website to see what was up. Aha, founded by folks from Media Molecule, creators of Sony's LittleBigPlanet. I imagine Media Molecule as a rapidly-spinning imagination engine, flinging off great gobs of ingenuity as it rotates. One of those gobs landed right here.

I mean that in a good way, if it helps.

Monster Meltdown

• Genre: Teleportation Puzzler
• Developer: Ambient Studios
• Platform: iPad-Only
• Price: $1.99

Get Monster Meltdown on iTunes

NMA, the wacko Taiwanese animation studio, has become a kind of grim reaper in the world of Internet scandal. If you end up in an NMA video, it ain't good—although I am sure Francis, the YouTube comedian who rants about video games, is happy to cameo here on behalf of the outraged.

That said, NMA is no stranger to crossing lines of tastelessness and insensitivity. Jeff Bezos breathing fire and turning Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw into Foxy Brown is an old-school racist sight gag that American cartoonists stopped doing after the last cigar exploded about 60 years ago.

YouTube video uploaded by NMAWorldEdition

Let the zerg rushing begin. StarCraft II's first expansion comes out tomorrow, and to celebrate, Blizzard is streaming StarCrafty things all day.

The Heart of the Swarm global launch event, which you can watch using the embedded stream below, is hosted by the much-beloved Sean "day9" Plott. They've got cameras at a bunch of the worldwide SC2 launch parties, from Australia to South Korea to Irvine, California.

There will also be a "King of the Beta" tournament and some fanmade videos on the livestream, Blizzard says. The stream will end when the game launches at midnight Pacific tonight.

You can watch it all day here:

It's been a rough few months for folks who bought the Wii U right at launch. Almost none of the third-party games that came out alongside Nintendo's new home console set the world on fire and the first-party offerings made by Nintendo didn't deliver a lightning-bolt success like Wii Sports. It's no wonder that Shigeru Miyamoto wishes that Pikmin 3 had been ready to debut along with the system.

In a recent interview with Time Magazine's website, the guy who made Mario wishes that the little plant creatures in Nintendo's colorful strategy series could have been out back in November:

If you look back at the launch of Wii, we were able to prepare a game like Wii Sports, which at the time was clearly a new game, and launch that alongside a Zelda game. With the Wii U, we took a similar approach by launching Nintendo Land as well as a Mario game—though we're working on Zelda for Wii U, that's going to take us a little big longer.

From my perspective, I think ideally it would have been nice if we'd been able to release Pikmin 3 closer to launch, but the Wii U—though it shares the Wii name—is obviously a brand new system, with new chips and graphical capabilities. It can do a lot more, and in the process of developing a lot of the features and functionality, the resources required to best utilize those features drew on some of the same resources that might have been spent developing games, thus we weren't able to bring quite as robust a lineup initially.

It's been a very slim January and February for Wii U owners, which makes events like the Rayman Legends delay all the more painful. Even though Nintendo has been candid about the bumpiness of its new system launch, it's still pretty rare to see its chief creative architect talk so frankly about what could have gone differently.

Miyamoto: I Couldn't Have Imagined Where We've Ended Up [Time]

With SimCity slowly stabilizing, more and more user-created content surfaces—which means we finally get to have some time to kick back and enjoy the beauty of our creations. YouTube user Calvin Chan put up this melancholic, noir-themed (the music from L.A. Noire fits right in) montage of his city at night.

SimCity - My City of Dreams [YouTube]

I was browsing Reddit casually last night and stumbled on this seemingly well-made Journey hoodie by user volpinazzurra (you can only tell so much from pictures). "It's reversible, too," I excitedly proclaimed to myself and my cat. Quickly check the comments and...oh. Not for sale. Not on Etsy. Probably can't bribe volpinazzurra with cookies and money.

But for those of you with a hand for sewing, she's considering selling the pattern. So there's that. Check the Imgur link below for more images.

Journey Hoodie [Imgur via Reddit]

StarCraft 2 expansion Heart of the Swarm is launching in South Korea. Some gamers are very excited! Others are excited, too, but also totally ticked off.

Besides concern over whether or not fans can get the special package game, there's also concern about a flood of non-gamers trying to snap up these physical copies to auction them off. But the biggest fuss by far is about what Blizzard is calling the special package version.

Blizzard is calling the special version, roughly, the "Keepsake Edition" (소장판). Thus, gamers are upset because this edition is actually limited to two thousand copies; however, Blizzard is not using the words "Limited Edition" (한정판), which is common in Korea for, well, limited editions.

As Kotaku reader Sang Kwon points out, this language is also used for the equivalent of Collector's Editions, to underscore the "limited" nature. So it's not fair to necessarily equate Keepsake Edition with Collector's Edition. Generally, in South Korea, Limited Editions and Collector's Editions are referred to by the small thing ('한정판' 한정=Limited 판=Edition). However, sometimes, Sang points out, "Collector's Edition" is written out phonetically in Korean (콜렉터즈 에디션/Kol lec tuz Eh di tion).

That being said, in Korean, Blizzard is calling this the "Keepsake Edition" (소장판), but in English, it's "Collector's Edition." The point of dispute is the word "limited". That's what everyone is getting hung up on!

And perhaps you can see why: Even the special Diablo III edition had "Limited" (한정) in front of "Keepsake Edition" (소장판).

Over on the Korean Battle.net, commenters aren't exactly happy about the "Limited Edition" omission for Heart of the Swarm. Wrote one commenter, "They should add the word 'Limited.'" Added another, "There is a typo. It's not 'Keepsake', but should be 'Limited.'"

Yet another quipped, "So I should be able to buy this whenever since it doesn't have the word 'Limited.'" And one commenter pointed out, "People outside of Seoul have almost zero chance of buying one."

That's not exactly true, as the Keepsake Edition will be available through retailers like Lotte Mart and Home Plus; however, they will be available in limited quantities only. It's all rather convoluted: There are two thousand Keepsake Editions at the launch party in Seoul; then, there are three thousand available through online retailer Auction; and then, there is apparently an unspecific amount available through select convenience stores.

The whole thing sounds like a confusing mess. If it's limited, then slap the word "limited" on it. If you're going to stoke demand by saying there's only a limited number of packages, then give those who stand in line the satisfaction that they do indeed own a limited edition product.

In case you are interested, you can watch the launch here on Twitch.

Collector's Edition [Battle.net Thanks, Sang!]
스타크래프트2: 군단의 심장 출시 행사 [@kimbilly]
StarCraft [Facebook]

Shuttle services are a great way for business owners to attract customers. In China, Carrefour and WuMart offer free transportation for grocery shoppers, but for internet cafes to offer a shuttle, that's a first.

Spotted outside of the Nanjing Institute of Technology today was a stretched Lincoln Town Car, with a banner that welcomed students to take the complimentary limo to the newly opened Xinhua Internet Cafe (the internet cafe has no relation to Xinhua news agency—Xinhua is often used as a term for "new" in China). After the limo was spotted, a picture was taken and put on the Chinese Twitter copy Sina Weibo.

So why was Xinhua Internet Cafe offering free limo rides to the students of Nanjing IT? According to People's Daily, there are two reasons: to advertise the new cafe, and because according to "State" law internet cafes aren't allowed to be built near universities.

The second reason is slightly suspect mostly because I went to university in China, and I live near a Chinese university. There are internet cafes everywhere, save on campus.

Regardless of the reasoning behind it, Xinhua's gambit seems to have paid off. According to an unidentified student at Nanjing IT, "The internet cafe is packed, all the students want to take a ride on the limo, so they end up visiting the internet cafe."

While riding in a stretch limo is cool, it appears Xinhua has also enlisted the use of two BMW's. When reporters asked the netcafe how it can afford to pay for the vehicles, the owner pointed to vans outside his cafe. Apparently the internet cafe uses vans and mini buses for its regular shuttle service. The limo and the BMWs belonged to the owner's friends who wanted to help out the business.

"The internet cafe industry is hard and cutthroat business," said the owner of Xinhua. "We moved to a new address and we needed to get customers, so we used this marketing idea to gain momentum."

[Tencent Games]