LET’S GET WEIRD

The best products of 2023

It’s Wednesday. You know what that means. It's time to get weird. But first! It’s time to announce the winners of the 2023 Golden Kitty Awards. Check them out here.

In today’s digest:

🕹️ A new Pokémon-style game but with one big twist

🛩️ Supersonic travel might be making a comeback sooner than we think

🍝 AI is everywhere, including in your kitchen with this robot

🛠️ A collection of developer, open-source, and no-code tools

And don’t forget to tell us what you thought about today’s newsletter at the end!

— The Product Hunt team

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THIS LOOKS FAMILIAR

It’s like Pokémon with a twist

Since its early-access launch on Steam five days ago, Palworld has sold over 5 million copies and got the gaming world's attention. 

But what is it? Palworld is a survival-adventure game developed by Japanese indie studio, Pocket Pair. The announcement trailer was originally released in 2021, and it starts off fairly cutesy. You control a character roaming a lush and vibrant world where you come across and befriend numerous little critters that can help you build your home, craft tools, and a farm for food.

Then you see the guns. Suddenly, the trailer shifts gear from a cute Animal Crossing / Pokémon vibe to a more FPS atmosphere you might see in some triple-A games. 

That’s where the survival aspect comes in. While the world looks lush, it’s pretty inhospitable, and you have to survive by building shelter, finding food, and fighting enemies – with guns. You can even give your pals (the monsters are called pals) their own guns to fight alongside you.

The controversy: Several people have noticed some striking resemblance to another Japanese monster-hunting game, but of course, your favorite little pika is bearing arms. According to Kotaku, the developers aren’t too concerned, insisting that the game passed legal reviews and isn’t infringing on Pokémon’s copyright. 

You playing?

HOT RIGHT NOW

Talking points from Planet Internet

✈️ Concorde 2.0: Remember the Concorde? It’s been over 20 years since we as a species had commercial supersonic air travel. That wait might soon end. NASA unveiled the X-59, a supersonic jet that solves the biggest issue: the boom.

🍝 I don’t cook, I don’t clean: AI does it instead. That’s according to a team of researchers at Stanford that built an AI-powered robot that can cook a three-course meal, clean up, and even handle your laundry.

NEW TOOLS

DEV TOOLS

• This tool alerts your developer team in seconds about potential trends and bottlenecks. 

• DevMail is an email sandbox platform built for developers.

• RepoCloud is a 1-click deploy solution for 200+ SaaS platforms.

• This tool converts images to React-based particle displays. 

NO-CODE

• Canonic lets you build full-stack apps and automations without code.

• PayMeForMyAI lets you build and monetize a GPT – without code. 

• Feather turns your Notion into an SEO-friendly blog. No code necessary. 

OPEN SOURCE

• Domain Digger is an open-source tool for next-level domain analysis.

• Instill VDP is a workflow solution for quickly building AI apps.

UNTIL NEXT TIME

Written by Aaron O’Leary.

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