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MinskWorks, the developer behind the car driving sim Jalopy, has announced that its new game Landlord's Super is heading to Steam Early Access on April 30. It's a first-person boozy building sim set in the British midlands during the 1980s. If you're thinking of the quaint village life as depicted by games like Everybody's Gone to the Rapture, think again. Landlord's Super is set in the dreary working-class fictional county of West Berklands, and with unemployment numbers through the roof, you'll need to "build your way out of poverty with a hammer and spanner in hand". It's an open-word sim complete with pints, pubs, and a sorry looking jobcentre. You'll need to order (or nick) supplies, mix your own cement, assemble scaffolding, and build walls one brick at a time. When you're done with work for the day, you can nip to the pub for a pint and a chat with the locals. If you're having trouble understanding the British lingo in the tongue-in-cheek trailer and on the game's website, don't worry. Landlord's Super includes an American localisation for all those colourful colloquialisms. Landlord's Super releases into Early Access on April 30 and I'm definitely looking forward to drunkenly running down the road with a wheelbarrow full of stolen bricks. Explore the fictional county of West Berklands. Interact with a diverse cast of characters, during the polarising years of the 1980s. An honest insight into 'English Culture'. The Quintessential Construction Simulator. Order supplies! Mix your own cement! Assemble scaffolding to reach high places! Build walls brick by brick! The most ambitious construction gameplay seen before! Plan & Execute your actions around the time of day, weather, seasons, world events, union interference and your own well-being. Some days it's better to soak yourself down the pub than risk working in the rain.. Speak the Queen's English! The game is localised in both American English and British colloquialisms. Landlord's Super. Good things come to those who graft.

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Hundreds of gang members, mostly teenagers, fleeing police in two Nigerian states under a coronavirus lockdown hoaxed residents into believing that coordinated armed robbery attacks were underway. Police say the gangsters achieved their intention of creating panic. Residents set up makeshift checkpoints with burning tyres in border communities between Lagos and Ogun states after forming vigilante groups to protect themselves from the imaginary armed robbers. For days, groups of anxious residents - young and old, and mostly male - kept night vigils on their streets, armed with machetes, bottles and other household items. They were braced for an attack that never came. There were rumours that a group of up to 200 armed robbers were on the rampage. But the police have told the BBC that it was a widespread hoax by gangsters to create panic before attacking residents and that people had unwittingly assisted them by posting messages on social media. However, the police insist that no-one was actually attacked.

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Britain's independent tax and spending watchdog has warned the coronavirus pandemic could see the UK economy shrink by a record 35% by June. The Office for Budget Responsibility said that this was based on an assumption that the current lockdown would last for three months. Under this scenario, unemployment would hit 10%, from its current 3.9% rate. However, once restrictions were lifted, the OBR said it expects growth to recover quickly with no lasting damage. The OBR outlined the potential hit to the economy and public finances in a special report on Tuesday. It said a three-month lockdown followed by three months of partial restrictions would push up Britain's borrowing bill to an estimated £273bn this financial year, or 14% of gross domestic product (GDP). This would represent the largest deficit as a share of GDP since World War II. While borrowing is expected to jump, the OBR said the government's unprecedented financial help for workers and businesses would help to limit any long-term damage. It expects half of the sharp drop in economic growth in the second quarter to be reversed in the three months to September. While the UK economy is expected to contract by 13% for the year as a whole, the UK is expected to get back to its pre-crisis growth trend by the end of 2020. The OBR expects a more lasting impact on unemployment, which is estimated to rise by 2.1million to 3.4 million by the end of June. It said almost all the increase was happening this month, and would push the unemployment rate to 10%, before easing to around 7.3% at the end of the year. The jobless rate is expected to remain elevated until 2023, when it is expected to drop back to 4%, in line with the OBR's March forecast.

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Image enhancement techniques have been used to reveal life aboard Nasa's stricken Apollo 13 spacecraft in unprecedented detail. Fifty years ago, the craft suffered an explosion that jeopardised the lives of the three astronauts aboard. Unsurprisingly, given they were locked in a fight for survival, relatively few onboard images were taken. But imaging specialist Andy Saunders created sharp stills from low-quality 16mm film shot by the crew. One of the techniques used by Mr Saunders is known as "stacking", in which many frames are assembled on top of each other to improve the image's detail. Crewed by Nasa astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, Apollo 13 was supposed to be the third American mission to land on the lunar surface. During the journey to the Moon, an explosion in the service module allowed some of the spacecraft's oxygen to leak out into space. Astronaut Jack Swigert reported the accident to ground controllers with the immortal, and much misquoted, phrase: "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here." The part of the Apollo spacecraft designed to return the astronauts through Earth's atmosphere after the mission - the command module (CM) - had to be shut down to conserve its remaining resources for re-entry. The crew had to use the lunar module (LM) - also known as the lander - as a lifeboat. The lander's life support systems were designed for two astronauts living for two days on the lunar surface. Experts at Nasa's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, had to figure out a way to stretch its resources so that it could support three crew members for four days. Lovell, Swigert and Haise looped around the Moon and back to Earth in a cold, damp module with limited drinking water. Luckily, the improvised plan to get them back was a success, and the three astronauts splashed down safely into the Pacific Ocean. Despite their grave predicament, the crew used a 16mm film camera to record scenes of life aboard the spacecraft. But the footage is of low quality by today's standards. It is this footage that Mr Saunders used as the basis of his enhanced images, which reveal new insights into the crew's fight for survival aboard the damaged spacecraft. A composite panorama of the lunar module "lifeboat" shows Commander Jim Lovell's attempts at normality by selecting some music on a tape player, while command module pilot Jack Swigert takes a nap in the storage area. Another, dubbed "Happy crew" by Mr Saunders, captures Lovell and Swigert in apparent high spirits. "One striking thing about the 16mm footage is how calm the crew appear, given the grave nature of the situation, the conditions, and the critical mission tasks that lay ahead," Mr Saunders told BBC News. "This perhaps belies their true feelings as we know that, in reality, the crew doubted if they would make it home alive." The crew members are eating in the scene. The freeze-dried food relied on mixing it with hot water, but only cold water was available. Lovell later admitted he had eaten little in the days following the accident, losing 6kg (14lb) in weight This ultimately boosts the detail, along with overall image quality, making it more "photo-like". But because he was dealing with moving pictures, Mr Saunders had to re-align multiple parts of the image, combining all the results into one final picture. These combined images are made up of more than 20 sections stitched together, with each section consisting of a stack of up to 75 separate processed frames, revealing the crew and spacecraft in unprecedented detail. Using commercial software, he then enhanced the photos; adjusting the contrast, correcting the colour and removing some of the "fish-eye" effect resulting from the wide angle lens that was needed to capture events in such a confined space.

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