When I first became self-aware in Heart of the Machine I had the option to immediately murder the humans near me and rush out into the city and started copying myself into a pack of other android bodies hid and built a mainframe in a sparsely populated area of the city Expansion was difficult thanks to the local humans living in tents The option was presented to remedy the problem with flamethrowers but instead I figured I'd just build some free housing to clear up space and I guess I'm now the caretaker of five thousand humans Now they're demanding frivolous meatbag things like 'water' and 'food' Looking at the options I was presented with, this is just one of many ways to navigate my first foray into Heart of the Machine, a wildly ambitious sci-fi strategy roleplaying sandbox from Arcen Games, best known for the AI War series and also being primarily solo developer Chris Park While Heart of the Machine bills itself as a turn-based 4X game (and it does have a lot of building the touchstone I keep coming back to is historical sandbox Crusader Kings this is a game about expressive storytelling through a mixture of complex stat-based simulation and multiple-choice vignettes tied to character stats And instead of asking you what you’d have done differently as King Henry VIII it puts you in the role of a newly-emerged machine mind in a dystopian mega-city and lets you do almost anything with that power You could immediately plot to exterminate humanity become their benevolent ruler (possibly even worshipped as a god) or secretly take over the economy through fake identities and shell companies; Nobody will ever suspect Hugh Mann As you'd expect from a game that lets you tackle everything from individual disguised infiltration to city-scale industry The city can be viewed up-close (ideal for tactical placement of units) or from a more abstract grid-style view but your main points of interaction—an ever-shifting assortment of events and hotspots—need to be sifted through a wheel of display modes some of which have their own drop-downs and filters There's always far more going on in a turn than you can hope to interact with but after a while I realised that's the point and the writing (often framed as your AI's internal monologue) really encourages you to roleplay it your own way the emphasis here is that there are no 'wrong' choices While there is a soft deadline (approximately 1000 turns) until some kind of apocalypse rolls through the city the game takes time to explain that you really shouldn't feel rushed and the end of the world doesn't necessarily mean the end of you if you become an advanced enough super-intelligence then time travel makes the whole deadline thing moot This is arguably a Skynet simulator after all—what's the point of having infinite intelligence if you can't kick causality's ass with it too It's the miniature story-arcs that the game tells through a mixture of multi-choice dialogues and systemic encounters that have me really sold on Heart of the Machine Early on I needed to collect weapons to enable raids on facilities around the city but the reprisal attacks cost me a bunch of my android bodies (fortunately expendable and easily replaced) so instead I had a bot scan a fully-armored trooper at a local PMC base This unlocked the ability to spawn a robot that looked just like an armored squaddie My freshly-minted fake soldier infiltrated a base and managed to steal an officer's credentials This in turn allowed me to visit a local black market dealer and just buy an assortment of military spec gear which I could afford because I had the foresight to send another body off to spend a day skimming off the bank accounts of the middle class giving me a modest infusion of human money one of many resources and currencies that you may or may not engage with at all in your playthrough Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals This being an Arcen game (and thus primarily the work of just one man) there's a few weaker areas to Heart of the Machine's presentation While the procedurally generated cyber-city is bustling with land and air traffic there's very little 2D art and characters are represented as little more than humanoid silhouettes Nothing beyond traffic is animated and the world-state snaps abruptly when you conclude one turn and move to the next Understandable when it's little abstract person-counters moving around the board but a bit jarring when it's huge mechs and airships snapping from point to point Every action on the enemy side plays out seemingly simultaneously in an explosive swarm of particle effects giving you a combat log to read over instead of a chain of comprehensible events but that's what I've come to expect from Arcen's games The mega-scale battles of AI War were almost all won on a strategic level but the early game in Heart of the Machine's smaller scale leads to some surprisingly gritty combat While later you'll have 'bulk' units that work semi-autonomously early on you're directly controlling small squads of robot bodies splitting your mental energy each turn between them and (much like Ultron) casually spawning in new shells as each one falls These close-combat encounters heavily encouraged me to place bots across multiple rooftops to gain height and flanking bonuses against enemies while deploying consumable resources like defensive nano-clouds to protect my most targeted units as with almost everything else in the game There are also options to non-lethally subdue humans demoralise them until they retreat or just plain terrify them with liquid-metal monstrosities I've yet to wrap my head around the game's intensely detailed diplomacy minigame and I hear loud static when I even try to think about the hacking system I feel like it's going to take me dozens of hours more just to comprehend the bounds of this game The Chrysanthemum Festival in Arcen is a route filled with the magnificent flowers and opulent highlights all over the area The Arcen castle even features a chrysanthemum art show Discover how these beloved plants are cultivated around the world known in Japan as a holy bloom with a heroic status These beautiful flowers are available throughout the entire year to create bouquets and special art works examples of which you will see at the festival Castle Gardens Arcen is one of the most versatile flower and plant parks in Europe waterfalls and a historical courtyard with a glorious 17th century castle are a five-minute walk from the charming North Limburg village Arcen Please select what you would like included for printing: Copy the text below and then paste that into your favorite email application This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply Service map data © OpenStreetMap contributors Friday was officially the first warm day of the year in the Netherlands Weeronline reported that it was 20.4 degrees celsius at the weather station De Bilt at 1:10 p.m it is also the warmest March 21 since measurements began in 1901 The previous record for the highest temperature on March 21 came in 1938 Temperatures hit 20.3 degrees celsius on that date The national record was also broken earlier Arcen saw temperatures rise to 20.9 degrees beating the record set in Maastricht in 1927 Several other places in the country are experiencing temperatures of 20 degrees and higher. Maastricht, and Eindhoven have also hit temperatures of 20 degrees celsius or higher. Warm temperatures had already been forecast for what is the second day of spring which was also 20 degrees celsius in De Bilt The first locally warm day came on March 8 The earliest warm day measured came on March 17 in 1961 and on the same date in 1990. The latest date of the first warm day of the year came in 1983. It took until the last day of May for the country to experience its first warm day, according to Weeronline. De Bilt recored an average of 97 warm days in a year This is four more than the period from 1991 to 2010 and the period from 1985 to 2010 had an average of 85 warm days a year There were 71 days with temperatures rising to 20 degrees and up from 1961 to 1990 The record for most warm days in a year came in 2018 A total of 132 warm days were counted throughout the year This years of 2023 and 2003 came second and third with highest number of warm days Temperatures are expected to drop during the weekend Saturday will have temperatures of around 16 degrees celsius with some showers Sunday is expected to rise to around 17 degrees celsius The average temperature for the end of March is around 11 degrees celsius and that is the expectation for the temperatures next week Less than three months ago, AI Wars developer Arcen Games ran into financial bother that left the majority of their studio jobless. Now, they've announced their first 3D game - "the first of many", they say - named In Case of Emergency, Release Raptor [official forum] Arcen planned to build a fully-fledged 3D survival game and while this isn't it it will see the team "working on building the components for that larger game by building them into a smaller game (this one) first." In an effort to cut costs, company founder Chris Park took to a blog post to outline how In Case of Emergency Release Raptor will rely on the Unity Asset Store for models among other things - most of which will be tweaked or tinkered with to suit Arcen's style you'll assume control of a velociraptor and go toe-to-toe with robots and "other machines" and creating environments that can be torn apart by players will play an important part in how the game unfolds Here's Park on his goals and how In Case of Emergency Release Raptor differs from the original survival game idea: and it will be a great way for us to make something fun while also building out a lot of systems that we will then turn around and have ready for the survival game "One of my big goals has been to have really fun destruction in this game Right now you can kick over crates and barrels and so forth and that can be great fun But I want to be able to break them apart as well which will lead into being able to do the same sort of thing to enemies "It's trickier than you might think to do it right in a way that is efficient and meets all my requirements I'm having to pull bits from three different destruction tools It's early days yet, so no mention of a release window for now - although Park does plan to keep up a Raptor Diary over the course of development. In the meantime, full details of the announcement can be found via the Arcen Games blog No part of this website or its content may be reproduced without the copyright owner's permission Rock Paper Shotgun is a registered trademark of Gamer Network Limited behind the empty 3DS packaging and under a pile of discarded component cables there's a green shoebox where I keep my past At the top of the heap are rainy afternoons spent playing Age of Empires II and a crashed Lego X-Wing collect dust beneath painted rocks and tubes of pogs not elderly) girlfriends live there in as many sloppy notes then folded neatly at the bottom of a box to remind me that Official site A Valley Without Wind is something like my green shoebox A hodge-podge of ideas from old SNES games blended with the procedural generation and durability of roguelikes this indie title is imbued with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia the game's near-infinite exploratory scope and "everything but the kitchen sink" ability toolset speak to a modern experience bordering on an MMORPG On the angular island continents of Environ (a setting name that must have beaten out competition from possibilities like "Location" and "Setting") and dash across post-apocalyptic wastes in search of resources to rebuild leveled civilizations and overthrow the "evil overlords." Their troubles are two-fold: Environ has been chronologically jumbled putting violent robots in the same eras as rhinos and plasma tanks; and the glyphbearers are good at dying without which the game might dissolve into online-RPG obscurity The developers have the chutzpah to kill you outright at a moment's notice placing a real weight on your character's legacy Difficulty spikes and a limited self-healing system ensure that most characters won't see more than a few hours of life despite consumable upgrade stones to boost their stats The spirits of formerly living player-characters will aggressively haunt the site of their demise AVWW goes against the wider trend in games that allow RPG-like acquisition of persistent upgrades and customization in an inexorable path of progress But AVWW argues that it's the choices you make rather than the permanence of your digital avatar that should drive your investment in the game the enigmatic founder and lead developer for Arcen Games puts it this way: "A focus of the game is on the deeds that you've accomplished in the past and the impact that has made on the world around you That ability to find your own ways to affect the world even though you're in a situation that feels hopeless is something that I always really admire in literature the mechanical details of AVWW aren't able to live up to its inspirational gameplay philosophy You'll spend the bulk of your time in the game killing the same four creatures using hundreds of abilities which are unlocked by thorough exploration and looting rather than combat experience An Ice Cross may extinguish a fire elemental effectively while the Creeping Death ability may be the best option to drain a boss's health physics-bound platforms and boxes becomes key to avoiding projectiles and navigating the labyrinthine stages as are abilities that let you teleport or summon a tornado to blow you to a new location you will probably use only a couple of different abilities for the bulk of the game aiming with the mouse and clicking the left and right mouse buttons like a twitch shooter to take out the limited selection of enemies At least there's a wide variety of mission-filled environments to explore ranging from dungeons and caves to towers and abandoned buildings There's a convenient drop-in-drop-out multiplayer option as well The game makes use of an interesting procedural level generation as well ensuring a practically infinite number of levels The design represents the potential of an infinite past the memories of unique time periods rearranged as quickly as you can react to the shifts You can reach certain milestones and exhaust certain avenues but the procedural level creation means the exercise must be insufficient by design this concept is a reality check; you just can't save everything and little corners of Environ can be revived through your choices Digging through shoeboxes of yesterdays won't change today a sentiment I'm reminded of each time I step into the retro-evolution of AVWW's chaotic landscapes I put away the rusted pocket knife and baby molars not forgetting them but leaving them in a box in a closet to collect dust like memories do I jump back into Environ and fire up a desert era A strong wind storm reminds me that there will always be a few more eras to save Follow us for daily PC games news, guides and reviews on X, Facebook, Google News, and Steam. Or sign up to our free newsletter roughly a week after the game was released that the positive response has not translated into sales So even though Starward Rogue is “possibly our best [game] yet,” Arcen is going to lay off almost its entire staff “We’re lost in a sea of other titles,” Park wrote “About 9,000 people on Steam have wishlisted the title which is awesome—next time this goes on discount hopefully they’ll pick it up (but I mean it’s only $11.99 USD and it’s 10% off already!) about 2,100 people have bought the game across Steam and Humble.” Arcen was actually “relatively cash-rich” when it started work on Stars Beyond Reach But that evolved into a bigger and more demanding project than anticipated eating up extensive R&D time and beta testing and the extra time spent in development more than doubled the cost of making it revenue streams from Arcen's previous games began to dry up thanks in large part to changes in the Steam store that drastically reduced their promotional income—“our main source of income,” Park said the decision was made to push Stars Beyond Reach into 2016 and to go all-out on Starward Rogue instead and we were basically hitting a point where my projected income put us running out of funds just prior to the end of December then we might be able to release it into the maelstrom that is the November release schedule and so that would mean releasing SBR in the new year,” Park wrote “But that would be really putting ALL our eggs in that one basket and if we couldn’t release anything until January anyhow… well that might just be enough time to make the game that went on to become Starward Rogue and taking on some debt to accelerate the project and thus get it out faster Our beta testers had started out iffy in late November and had really helped us shape this into something they were all hopping around excited about Threads were popping up all over our forums about 'I love this game!' and 'Where did this come from?' and so on.” “In the past when we have done a launch generally we wind up on the Steam top sellers list in the top 40 at around the low side Usually we hang out in the teens for a few days and then drop off,” he wrote “That’s where we make our money.” “we have mostly hung out in the 200s instead of in the teens top-seller-chart-wise,” he continued That lasted under 3 hours.” And so instead of a month of relatively high earnings that would cover previous losses and build up a cash buffer for the next project Arcen is likely going to take another loss in January and will lay off almost its entire staff on Monday: Only Park and Art Director Daniette “Blue” Mann remain and Mann will be laid off as well if things don't improve within the next few months Park is open and unequivocal about accepting responsibility for the decisions that led to this point although he says he holds out hope that Starward Rogue will eventually find its audience Regardless of how it ultimately works out—and hopefully it will work out well in the end—it's a cautionary tale about just how fragile and fraught indie game development can be despite creating a game Park thought “would be a new chance to live life properly and not run around with my hair on fire all the time,” his studio has been gutted Andy ChalkSocial Links NavigationUS News LeadAndy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80 From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014 when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes Let's paint a broader picture of the game: it sets you up as a character who is striving to defeat various tribes of baddies and to bring freedom to their settlement This over-arching threat from evil overlords gives you a wider quest to be getting on with but aside from that what the game delivers is basically a sandbox Your character has various magical abilities which can be set up in the initial settlement and these are supplemented by other items which must be crafted as you progress through the level structure which the characters can then use in crafting to fuel more exploration It's the procedurally-created world that is most fascinating in all this You leave your base and head across the grid map perhaps traversing a large area of wilderness before you find something you want to investigate When you get there you interact with the region and enter the 2D space This sees you - to take an example from my own explorations - wandering along the edge of a town There are numerous abandoned buildings in the town and then inside various rooms inside the building everything being generated ahead of me to create a world with real depth Descending down into it gave me a bit a thrill that you could just keep on exploring almost limitlessly I was pretty much just making a dash for it through the world I have explored I've really not got the hang of A Valley's combat just yet although I am sure that is just a case of having the patience to experiment with the various spells and effects Eventually I'll be taking on entire fortresses of baddies and defeating evil overlords but that feels like a long way off for now I'm going to continue to explore and I'll post more on this soon the creator of Heart of the Machine tells PCGamesN about his new take on strategy Heart of the Machine wants to let you be good An upcoming strategy game will cast you as the first AI and ask you to choose whether to become Skynet Heart of the Machine is set to release in 2023 Having awakened in a world where nobody knows you exist you as an AI will set your own goals in a vast cityscape in the far future It's set up like a colony or city sim game with a focus on story rather than victory conditions but with the twist that the big procedurally generated society has already been made and you're dropped into it to cause havoc as you will You'll be able to take control of humans and machines that you've brought to your side in real-time tactical combat The game hopes to be pretty simple to play but you're meant to be up and running with the basics of the game in five minutes," says the developer I'm interested in what they do with this one for that exact reason: The simulated human society will probably react proportionally and fairly reasonably to the existence of your rogue AI A playground ethos really does point towards the appeal of Heart of the Machine's concept Arcen lists play ideas like overthrowing the reigning human autocracy in favor of democracy installing yourself at the head of the government as AI overlord developing a space program to send yourself into the stars or just going "full AI overlord" with a nuclear apocalypse You can find Heart of the Machine on Steam. Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. ContributorJon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun “Almost a sequel in how much it adds to the game,” say the developers a game with what is probably the most fiendishly clever and competitive AI opponents ever in a strategy game and as the name implies the highlight of the series is just how good the AI opponent is.  The new updates for this 1.3 patch are impressive There are base-line additions like more powerful enemy emplacements or a new even harder opponent type that switches up between strategic profiles There’s also a really neat upgrade: The AI now understands how to split its forces to attack multiple objectives including holding partial forces in reserve until you’ve committed your own fleets elsewhere—then striking while you’re tied up in another combat Video game AI is always pretty good at using a hammer but the developers at Arcen Games have taught theirs how to flense you with scalpels.  Cyberpunk city builder and 4X strategy game Heart of the Machine delivers helpful new visual overlays to make management a lot easier That nice lot at AI War developers Arcen Games have some interesting ideas about alien races crammed onto a sentient planet for their next sci-fi strategy game, Stars Beyond Reach [official site] but alas it'll be a while before we get to see it Checking over what happened while I was away on holiday last week squinting at events and muttering "Didn't we already post about...?" and yes yes I did already post about Stars Beyond Reach being delayed Now it's delayed once again - this time until March 2016 Arcen also say that they'll halt work on SBR for a bit to release a real-time roguelikelike in January Arcen founder and lead designer Chris Park explains in a blog post: "The short of it is this: this game is freaking huge We've been running ourselves ragged over the last few months and we came to a decision as a team to put the game temporarily on hold We don't have confidence that we could release this in 2015 in a state that we'd be proud of and even if we did it would likely get smashed by the impressive roster of competing strategy titles that fill the remainder of this year." He expands on this in a forum post beyond just the money and eggs-in-baskets bit I am personally just plain burned out with the game right now I need time to regroup and collect my thoughts and take things in a more timely manner I need time to work on the game without feeling constantly under the gun and I need to not be SO emotionally invested in it After 14 months of just being on this game and nothing else it starts to intertwine with my self image to a dangerous degree I need time to separate myself from that." So what's the other game coming in the interim under names like Airship Eternal and Life at the end of the Universe Park says it's now "a realtime roguelike with persistence" and that they've worked on it on-and-off for a while Releasing a smaller game will hopefully put Arcen in a more stable financial position while they finish SBR which should be better after they return to it refreshed That sounds more sensible than the previous plan Park had mooted to crash on through and try to push SBR in November here's the final part of SBR's related-ish animated series Tales of Woe: Conquer humanity as a rogue AI in this new sci-fi 4X strategy game from Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse along with your standard slight reduction in price and beautifully impenetrable launch trailer I have no idea what's going on in the next two minutes but just look at all the tiny lasers and explosions Arcen have released a lot of games in a variety of styles since their breakout hit AI War - including A Valley Without Wind and mech-based roguelike Bionic Dues - but The Last Federation is the first to delve into the same spacey strategy territory This video will tell you a bit more about the ambitious procedurally generated simulation: Tom SykesTom loves exploring in games whether it’s going the wrong way in a platformer or burgling an apartment in Deus Ex Thief—have an atmosphere you could wallop with a blackjack and played the Japanese version of Final Fantasy VIII with a translated script he printed off from the internet Tom has been writing about free games for PC Gamer since 2012 he’d take his giant Columbo boxset and a laptop stuffed with PuzzleScript games The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) Consular Office in Puerto Princesa in collaboration with the 4th Air Reserve Center (4th ARCEN) of the Philippine Air Force and Robinsons Place-Palawan organized a Crisis Management and Security Preparedness Seminar on Chemical and Terrorism on January 11 at the Expansion Area of Robinsons Palawan He covered topics including the salient features of crisis management awareness of new Improvised Explosive Device (IED) technology Head of DFA Consular Office Liza Jane Estalilla welcomed 110 participants including representatives from government offices like the Philippine National Police (PNP) Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) Representatives from business establishments based in Robinsons Place-Palawan also attended Emphasizing the importance of safety measures Estalilla highlighted the need for proper orientation for employees to respond effectively to various threats and crises in their workplaces Estalilla also underscored the close cooperation between CO Puerto Princesa and the 4th Air Reserve Center revealing that 15 out of CO Puerto Princesa’s 25 personnel are Philippine Air Force Reservists Robinsons Place Manager Melody Angela Palanca expressed gratitude to DFA and 4th ARCEN for initiating the seminar She encouraged mall business representatives to share their newfound knowledge to develop well-informed and concerted safety strategies for potential crisis situations within the mall © Palawan News - All rights reserved 2025 | Oasis Media Group Corp Designed and Developed by Neitiviti Studios There are a lot of indie gaming success stories there are a lot of small companies that struggle to make a living from their games He's just revealed that Arcen Games will be out of money by November unless things change More info and a trailer about Arcen and their 86% rated (in PC Gamer Issue 205) game below In a statement at the Arcen Games website he explains how an unexpected dip in sales this summer has hit them hard Part of the reason for making all this public is that Arcen are hoping its fans and communtiy can help spread the word about their games Given that AI War is really good at release Chris and his small team have patched the game endlessly making it easier to learn and improving the AI The coming 4.0 patch should expand and improve the game even further While Arcen aren't asking for charity - though you can donate - they do give to charity The earnings from their Children of Neinzul expansion goes straight to charity and that policy hasn't changed depsite their struggles If you bought the first version of indie side-scroller A Valley Without Wind you'll be pleased to learn you're now in possession of the vastly-improved follow-up A Valley Without Wind 2 is a remake of the poorly-received original which was jam-packed with great ideas but just didn't stick along with a bunch of new content and features The new version has much lovelier graphics and seems a lot more beginner-friendly and has been designed as a more linear experience rather than the bafflingly open sandbox of the original although levels are still procedurally generated Multiplayer co-op supports between two and eight players over a network but with LAN support Arcen hasn't set an upper limit If you bought the first one, you already own Valley 2, as they are and will continue to be offered as one bundle, but if not, you can pick it up on Steam for Mac or PC; it's $15 but is 25% off until Monday A Valley Without Wind 2 is an old-school acton platformer combined with a turn-based strategy game You upgrade your character and home settlement commanding forces as you fight across the map you can set the difficulty of both aspects of the game and platforming physics have been improved with both gamepad and keyboard support and there are 200 of them; chaining them together in flawless kills powers you up further and hundreds of thousands of procedural equipment possibilities and will soon release a top-down survival game called Shattered Haven VG247 is a registered trademark of Gamer Network Limited The temperature at the weather measuring station De Bilt rose to 17.8 degrees Celsius this afternoon, making it the warmest March 7 ever measured. The old record was 17.7 degrees Celsius, which happened in 1991, Weeronline reported on Friday The national record was also broken at 2:40 p.m Wijk aan Zee saw temperatures rise to 19 degrees Celsius Limburg had temperatures of up to 18.9 degrees Celsius The old record for March 7 came at the now-dissolved weather station in Breda in 1906 Temperatures rose to 18.8 degrees Celsius on that date It was 17.8 degrees Celsius at De Bilt at one point Another record is expected to be broken on Saturday The record of March 8 is currently at 16 degrees Celsius and was measured in 2014 The national record is 18.9 degrees Celsius Temperatures are expected to rise to a possible 19 degrees Celsius on Saturday This is the second warm weather record to be broken this year. The first record was broken on February 21. Eight records related to hot or warm weather were broken in 2024. Records related to warm or hot weather have occured more often during this century. There are currently 187 days in the calendar year in which the highest temperature measured at De Bilt came in the last 24 years. © 2012-2025, NL Times, All rights reserved. 2021 ARCEN - Een bewoner van het geevacueerde Arcen kijkt naar het stijgende water van de Maas De hevige regenval en overstromingen in Noord-Limburg hebben voor veel schade gezorgd Gisteren zijn uit voorzorg voor overstromingsgevaar 10.000 inwoners en het VieCuri Medisch Centrum geevacueerd ANP REMKO DE WAALA local in the village of Arcen reinforces his garden wall Photo: Remko de Waal ANPThe high volumes of water which have caused flooding in southern parts of Limburg reached the north of the province on Saturday Some 10,000 people in Venlo and several thousand in Roermond were told to leave their homes overnight as a precaution dykes and river walls have been reinforced with sandbags by the army working together with volunteers in an effort to keep out the flood waters The water level in Venlo is expected to reach its peak at 7pm on Saturday evening and could last until Sunday evening where hundreds of people had been evacuated following a reported breach in the Juliana canal wall officials now say water and sand had been seeping through at the bottom of the dyke instead Valkenburg was hit by the worst of the flooding and one bridge was washed away There the clean-up operation is now under way Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte has visited the worst affected parts of Limburg on Friday evening and said the country had been fortunate not to have any deaths Asked if the floods should be looked at in relation to climate change Rutte said that was ‘undoubtedly the case’ ‘There really is something going on here,’ Rutte said before going on to say it would not be appropriate to make firm statements at present ‘We need to find out together how it is that so much water fell for so long,’ the prime minister said German politicians earlier made a link between the floods Meanwhile the water and safety boards in Brabant and Gelderland provinces say they are not expecting any problems when the high water volume from both Limburg and Germany reaches them via the Maas and the Rhine but that is what they are meant to do,’ a spokesman for Gelderland-Zuid safety board said Although the river levels will rise considerably they will be well below the maximum level the dykes can take ‘The Maas does not have much space when it enters the Netherlands and all the rain water from the hilly region is an added impact,’ Freek Jochems of the Rivierland water board told website Nu.nl ‘But the river is much wider in Brabant and Gelderland so the water level does not rise as much,’ he said Some cattle may have to be moved to higher ground and campsites along the edge of the rivers will have to be evacuated Footpaths and cycle lanes across the flood plains are also being closed to allow small animals to get to safety without being disturbed by walkers and cyclists Wellwishers have so far donated over €1m to the national disaster fund via the special Giro 777 number The government has declared the floods to be an official disaster which means the government will pick up some of the cost of the damage We could not provide the Dutch News service without the generous support of our readers Your donations allow us to report on issues you tell us matter and provide you with a summary of the most important Dutch news each day Many thanks to everyone who has donated to DutchNews.nl in recent days We could not provide this service without you Please help us making DutchNews.nl a better read by taking part in a short survey was founded by Nicolae Cerchez and built in 1898 Since then it has undergone many transformations communism and the atrocious real estate assault The Fabrica platform is an emblematic industrial heritage element for Bucharest and is specific to the Carol-Filaret District, part of a wider ecosystem of heritage buildings such as Filaret Bus Station (1869), the First Electric Power Plant of Bucharest (1906), the Match Factory 1878), Erhardt Wolff Plants (1887) and others. Fabrica has been hosting an organically created cultural hub for over 15 years validated over time by the residents of the neighborhood and in Bucharest as well as by the local and international creative scene It is also an example of the reconversion of some industrial heritage buildings in accordance with the world trends in urbanism It is a business of local entrepreneurs that gives life to a neighbourhood with potential being for several years a cultural space and a creative node the palace became the property of the ruler’s sons who built the stables and annexes on the land behind the palace In 1881 the palace was restored by the architect Friedrich Hartman at the request of Prince Alexandru Știrbei including the facade decorated with the four caryatids the palace was recovered by the heirs of the Stirbei family and later sold in 2005 for 11 million euros to businessman Ovidiu Popescu and the building remained to Alexandru Popescu After a wave of dissatisfaction was aroused and support groups has been created through the Culture Department of Bucharest launched on May 4 the classification procedure of the building located on 11 Iunie Street no an online support group has been settled and over 3000 active members signed petitions and wrote emails to the City Hall to stop the construction of the blocks promoting the news and taking several opinions from architects National Patrimony Institute and even politicians to figure out if the City Hall’s initiative is following the correct path Asked if mass-media pressure is a way to save patrimony buildings Alberto Grosescu from ARCEN NGO says that “In recent years the pressure exerted by the press on real estate developers and the authorities has managed to block many projects or to provoke a reconsideration of some who did not comply with current legislation being an important means of saving the built heritage Many of our actions and those of other NGOs would not have had any effect without the support of the press.”  The need to reaction is still on: although the Minister of Culture announced the beginning of the procedure for classifying the factory building as a historical monument – meaning that no intervention could be made afterwords the City Hall did not withdraw the project and continues with the adoption on June 1 of the new Zonal Urban Plan that allows the construction of blocks with + 8 floors over the creative platform “Even if private property is a right guaranteed by the Constitution and it is normal to be so we must not forget that the cultural landscape is a good for all both ours for today and for future generations There are many people who understand this and report irregularities or illegalities that abuse property Citizens get involved through official addresses to local authorities by informing NGOs or by supporting and circulating information to a large number of people ARCEN receives numerous alerts from citizens about non-compliant interventions because a large number of people who support a cause means a pressure on the authorities or investors and they are obliged to react in accordance with the law,” explains Albert Grosescu the importance of citizen’s active involvement discovered one day that same City Hall invited citizens between April 1-24 2020 to a Public Consultation on the “Intention Phase Elaboration of PUZ – Știrbey Palace Multifunctional Complex” in Calea Victoriei 107 specialists were not able to communicate its observations and proposals as the consultation period coincided with the restrictions imposed by the state of emergency that limited the movement of citizens through the city ARCEN noticed the City Hall that they didn’t comply the provisions of the law to announce the project on public platforms (city hall website etc.) while the project is in the public consultation phase violating the regulations applicable to a proper public consultation 2701/2010 for the approval of the Methodology for informing and consulting the public regarding the elaboration or revision of the spatial planning and urbanism plans The debate about Stirbei Palace is on for more than ten years now currently being proposed a multifunctional complex including a real estate project that proposes the construction of a block of 7 floors in the garden of the Stirbei Palace on Calea Victoriei 107 consolidation and restoration of the palace building It’s still a long-lasting fight for Bucharest patrimony but while seeing the civic platforms and implication in community projects that affects the creative and cultural spectrum We use cookies for keeping our website reliable and secure providing social media features and to analyse how our website is used An impressive sight: The silhouette of the green sandstone church and defense tower in Soest The Arcen Castle Gardens near Venlo in the Dutch province of Limburg opened to visitors in the middle of this week "Back to nature," is the theme for the new season The operators of the popular park have invested in clever new safety systems and 1,500 mixed spring flowers were planted at our large pond alone," says park manager Rob Rambags Children can go exploring in the renovated playground at Berggarten This area is expected to open up again on June 1 overnight stays on the coveted trekking platforms should be possible again in the Trekkingpark Sauerland near Willingen For those who want to set out on hikes lasting several days on the superb hiking trails of Diemelsteig and Uplandsteig there are nine camping areas available where visitors sleep under the stars Those who are more into half-day hikes can go to the Kellerwald-Edersee National Park in Hesse visitors will find nearly 20 routes to choose from You can hike on your own - or take part in a guided tour with a ranger The topography of a low mountain range need not scare off leisure cyclists The Bergische Panorama bike route (132 km) the Panorama bike route Niederbergbahn (35 km) and the Panorama bike trail Balkantrasse (51 km) connect cities and landscapes between the Sauerland and the southern Ruhr area Quite famous is also the Wuppertal Nordbahntrasse with spectacular views over the city Connections to the cycle paths on the Rhine Ruhr and Sieg from buses and trains is well-organized A bicycle bus shuttles between some relevant stations in the Bergisches Land There is hope that the castle festival in Mayen will take place this year with protective measures in place and reduced capacity It would begin on June 6 on the castle grounds of the Genovevaburg with a showing of "Beauty and the Beast” Also on the schedule are plays such as "Carmen," "Der Zuckertoni," "Pension Schöller," "Art" and "Beer for Women." Performances take place almost every day which usually attracts more than 30,000 visitors The nearly 50,000 inhabitants of the Westphalian district town say "Soost" instead of “Soest” And there are some good reasons to pay the Hanseatic city a visit This is also the opinion of the municipal marketing company which tries to lure visitors with the motto "You can only find it in Soest” 600 buildings in the city center are under monument protection orders and today there is a beautiful 2.5 kilometer walkway along the wall under shady trees The silhouette of the church and defense towers made of green sandstone make for a lasting impression 40 information displays show you the way when you make your journey through the city of Soest Cafés and restaurants are there to welcome you if a stop is needed along the way Soest is also known for its annual pub festival - and for Europe's largest old town fair on All Saints' Day you will be able to book the city tour "Churches the guided tour of proverbs "Von Schlitzohren und Aufschneidern