Basketball is one of the most widely followed sports in the world, with leagues and competitions attracting millions of fans each season. Alongside watching games and supporting teams, many enthusiasts explore additional ways to engage with the sport, including basketball betting. For those new to this area, understanding the basics is essential for a structured and informed experience.
Understanding the Basics of Basketball Betting
Before getting started, it is important to understand how basketball betting works. At its core, betting involves predicting outcomes of games or specific events within them. Common options include match winners, point spreads, and total points scored. Each type of bet has its own structure, and learning these fundamentals helps new participants make informed choices. Taking time to understand the terminology and rules ensures a smoother introduction to basketball betting.
Learning About Odds and Markets
Odds are a central component of sports betting, representing the likelihood of an outcome and determining potential returns. They can be presented in different formats, such as fractional, decimal, or American odds. Understanding how odds work allows individuals to interpret market expectations and compare different betting options. Markets can vary widely, covering everything from overall game results to individual player performances, providing a range of ways to engage with basketball events.
Researching Teams and Players
Knowledge of teams, players, and recent performances is key to understanding basketball betting. Factors such as team form, injuries, and head to head records can all influence game outcomes. Following league updates, reviewing statistics, and staying informed about team news can help build a clearer picture of upcoming matches. This approach encourages a more analytical and informed perspective.
Choosing a Reliable Platform
Selecting a reputable and regulated platform is an important step when getting started. Reliable platforms provide clear information, secure transactions, and user friendly interfaces. Platforms such as Monopoly Casino offer structured environments where users can explore basketball related betting options alongside other forms of entertainment. Ensuring that a platform operates within legal and regulatory guidelines helps create a safer experience.
Starting with Simple Bets
For beginners, starting with straightforward betting options is often the most practical approach. Bets such as predicting the winner of a match or whether the total score will be above or below a set number are easier to understand. As familiarity grows, individuals may explore more complex markets, but beginning with simple bets helps build confidence and understanding of how betting works.
Managing Time and Participation
It is important to approach basketball betting with a balanced perspective. Setting personal limits on time and participation helps ensure that the activity remains controlled and enjoyable. Taking breaks and maintaining a structured approach allows individuals to engage responsibly while still appreciating the excitement of following basketball events.
Staying Informed and Adapting
The basketball landscape is constantly evolving, with team dynamics, player performances, and competition structures changing over time. Staying informed about these developments helps individuals adapt their approach and maintain an understanding of the sport. Engaging with expert analysis, sports coverage, and statistical data can provide valuable insights, enhancing the overall experience.
Getting started with basketball betting involves understanding the basics, learning about odds and markets, researching teams and players, and choosing a reliable platform. Beginning with simple bets and maintaining a balanced approach ensures a structured and informed experience. By staying informed and engaging responsibly, individuals can explore basketball betting as an extension of their interest in the sport, adding another dimension to following games and competitions.
Born in Nice on this day in 1928, Yves Klein lived only 34 years, but managed to reshape what art could be in daring ways. A painter and philosopher who patented his own shade of ultramarine — now known as International Klein Blue — he treated colour as something akin to a spiritual force. An important member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme, Klein trusted that art existed far beyond the canvas, in the invisible void. He died in Paris in 1962, but the power of his blue endures.
To mark his birthday, Our Culture shares five quotes that hint at Klein’s inner world and help you view blue in a whole new light:
“My paintings are but the ashes of my art.”
“I have written my name on the far side of the sky.”
Dave Grohl recently talked about being in therapy “six days a week for 70 weeks,” totalling over 430 sessions. The Foo Fighters frontman was referring to the aftermath of his public revelation of infidelity in 2024, a year after the release of the band’s best album in years, But Here We Are. In reckoning with grief following the deaths of longtime drummer Taylor Hawkins and Grohl’s mother, Virginia, that record sounded way more like the product of exhaustive psychoanalysis; at a lean 36 minutes, their new album, Your Favorite Toy, is more attuned to the anger and frustration festering in the waiting room. While its no-frills aggression often works therapeutically, the album earns a greater sense of direction when it tries harder to get to the bottom of it. Then it ends, like a therapist having to cut a session short at the root of an interesting idea.
1. Caught in the Echo
Perhaps the first Foo Fighters LP attempting to recapture the band’s early sound was 2007’s Echoes, Silence, Patience, and Grace, so it’s funny that a song called ‘Caught in the Echo’ serves as a reminder that Grohl and co. perpetually find themselves recalibrating around their raw, anthemic beginnings. For a song about overcoming a whirlwind of uncertainty, the track goes some way towards untightening its coiled-fist aggression into something resembling freedom. “Consider this an emancipation/ From all of my confusion,” he sings. It’s not totally convincing, but it gets the blood flowing.
2. Of All People
The track’s sneering attitude is so cut-and-dried it sounds like it was cobbled together in a matter of minutes, apparently targeting a drug dealer Grohl knew in the ’90s – it might as well have been an unearthed demo from that era. New drummer Ilan Rubin’s dynamism shines in this very meat-and-potatoes arrangement, which somewhat justifies the song’s inclusion.
3. Window
It only takes a couple of songs for the tempo to slacken down, with Grohl singing “I’m a puddle on the ground” while the band tries to keep his head above water. The cruising instrumental quiets, unfortunately, just in time to highlight some of the album’s clumsiest lyrics, suffocating whatever emotion was starting to simmer. “Man, that looks like fun,” it ends, the irony hot.
4. Your Favorite Toy
Despite an absolute clunker of a bridge, the title track makes the best case for a slight update of the band’s formative sound rather than a pale imitation of it. It’s torn at the very core, from the sincere but amorphous anger in Grohl’s lyrics to the clash between a swaggering, shuffling groove and flattening distortion – and something about that incongruity is playful, like they’re actually having fun with it.
5. If You Only Knew
If ‘If You Only Knew’ is slightly more memorable, it might be because the song drags itself out to drive the message home: “Maybe you’d feel the way I do/ If you only knew.” Though fuelled by some of the same stylistic contrasts, it doesn’t have the force behind the preceding title track to justify them.
6. Spit Shine
The album promptly revs back up on Side B, with a track driven by a “Think fast, nothing lasts” hardcore mentality that’s then sweetened by a more mature chorus. Not only is “The honeymoon is over” one of the most explicit lines Grohl spits out in reference to his domestic drama, it’s repeated twice in the chorus. Just like the drums hardly let up when the infectious part rushes in, Grohl doesn’t temper his unhinged vocals to serve the melody. It works.
7. Unconditional
Grohl dusts off his songcraft for the obligatory “There are better days ahead” tune, a vibe shift so drastic it almost compensates for the lyrics’ vagueness. “I’m sore from sleeping/ Everything hurts/ Can’t say what’s on my mind,” he begins, but it’s that state of fatigue that animates the most candid apology here.
8. Child Actor
Grohl turns the lens further inward on ‘Child Actor’, and you wonder if Your Favorite Toy would be a stronger album if it tried to balance out its anger instead of swerving briefly in the other direction. There’s a sense that the meanness is an effort to pretend like there’s no eyes on him, to counteract the “nice guy” persona attached to Grohl. But this earnest, measured self-reflection will probably mean more to those actually invested in his music.
9. Amen, Caveman
Another strange amalgamation, this time squaring the Foos’ Sonic Highways-era ambition with a hint of their flirtations with disco.
10. Asking for a Friend
The album ends with its most soaring chorus, an existential outpouring so vehement you wonder where it came from. But the mid-tempo closer remembers which album it’s on when it opts for a thrashy breakdown. “Save your promises/ Until we meet again,” it pleads. ‘Asking for a Friend’ is almost certainly not Foo Fighters’ bitter end, but it upholds their promise to rarely stray from their tried-and-true formula.
Gordon Massman (b. 1949) is a self-taught painter and poet based in Rockport, MA.
Massman paints with oils in fear of worthlessness, meaningless, futility and death. He works on impractically large canvases to capture equally large emotions, honing paint’s ability to communicate broader, vaguer ideas than language alone. In his subject matter, nothing is taboo. Using thickly layered paint and abstracted imagery, his works tell stories of survival, dominance, procreation, power, security, ego, and vanity.
Massman’s subjects, while usually psychologically distressed, are offset by a subtle sense of humor, either on the canvas itself or in witty titles. Parodying his own angst and that of the human race with poetic sincerity, Massman’s paintings are shameless confessions of the human psyche, unfolded in graphic, chaotic detail. “I paint like a Kodiak bear attacking fresh carrion,” he says. “I yell at the painting. I often talk to it, in a lewd and loud fashion. I curse at it. Occasionally, I throw a brush at it.”
He approaches the canvas as a raconteur, striving to haul from the depths into the light of day the urges, fantasies, and delusions that most of us repress—or control—to keep us acceptable to civilized society. From crazy joy to amok destruction, Massman seeks to expose it all.
Massman studied literature and creative writing at the University of Texas-Austin and the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He taught writing and literature at The Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts in North Adams, MA, and is the published author of five poetry volumes, having composed thousands of poems over a span of forty-five years. Massman has exhibited in the United States, and his work is in the collection of the deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum.
You were a poet for 45 years before you picked up a brush, and you describe that shift almost as if poetry burned itself out. Was there a specific moment where you knew the poem couldn’t hold what you needed to say anymore, or was it a slower migration?
I finally realised that I had exhausted the multitudinous combination of words in my limited vocabulary, that I was writing the same poem repeatedly, and that I had reached my peak potential as a poet. I never thought of myself as a painter—I cannot draw figures and have no schooling in the visual arts—but as words abandoned me something equally as wonderful flowed into me, that being the potential expression of pure emotion through the painted image. After years of experimentation and steady practice, I have finally found the raw beginnings of my authentic voice. Because my poetry had always been unusually visual and uncommonly visceral, my transition to art was relatively seamless. But it has taken me years to fully grasp the unfiltered power of the painted picture.
The Lavender Windowpane by Gordon Massman, oil on canvas, 10×13 feet.
You’ve said that when you paint, the world ceases to exist. But with that harbour right outside your door, I wonder about the edges of the process. Does the view from your Gloucester wharf studio function as a decompression chamber, somewhere to land when you wrap up the process of painting?
Lobstermen launch from three sides of my sea-jutting studio, mostly bearded tough-skinned men in Gruden’s oilskins, Carhartt pants, knee-high muck boots, black woolen caps and thick rubber gloves. The sparkling harbour and open sea splendidly stretch before us in sparkling diamonds. Yet these “Gloucestermen”, as they are called, riding their diesel machines churn to kill. Nature is but an illusion of serenity, for behind the illusion, in the deepest seas or thickest forests animals eat each other alive in blood-soaked kill zones. Vacationing campers deep in the woods hear them shrieking while being eaten, a terrifying anthem of survival and death. This surrounds me while I paint. I lock myself in blaring headphones and rarely notice my surrounding “beauty”. There is no serene landing point for me. After work, when finally arriving home to my wife and dog, I decompress with a marijuana joint.
You work on canvases up to 12 feet — impractically large, as you put it. There’s something confrontational about that scale. Is the size about the viewer, or is it more about what your body needs to do to make it?
My pants size is 38; my shoe size is 12.5; my T-shirt size is X-large; My arm span size is 6’1”; my cranium size is 22.5 inches; my canvas size is monumental. Nature made me this way. Large visceral emotion requires large insatiable surfaces. I do not paint meticulously with pinpoint brushes and a magnifying glass under intense light. I paint in large spontaneous slashes the chaotic contradictory firestorm of emotion: rage, passion, grandiosity, insecurity, rebellion under nothing but ambient window-light. I cannot paint in total darkness, but I can paint in chiaroscuro. I load my applicators–sticks, brushes, hand-flesh, or sliced and spread-open 200 ml tubes–with the heart’s scariest crimson secrets. I paint torment and torment’s opposite, peace, and that requires oversized platforms, galleries be damned.
The Saviors by Gordon Massman, oil on canvas, 5×5 feet.
When you stand back from a finished painting, are you ever shocked by what came out of you?
Invariably. When I whirl at the center of my studio, I do not know who painted these Stonehenge pieces. I eliminate myself as the suspect for I alone, without spiritual intercession, am without talent.
The title Landscape & Power is interesting given that your work tends to be so interior. When you heard that framing, did it change how you thought about the piece being shown?
Unless that title refers to the inner landscape, it does not describe my work. The curator created that title, not I. Were I to title a solo exhibit of my work it would be Unraveled.
Sugar High #2 by Gordon Massman, oil on canvas, 8×8 feet.
I love your mirror paintings. What is it like to paint a mirror?
In a mirror the paintbrush meets itself inside of my own face. So, while painting a mirror I transform my face in a reverse self-portrait. I owned an old mirror and painted it. I liked it so I painted another, and the project dominoed into a series of painted mirrors which keep each other company in my studio. But these interesting flights of fancy do not truly represent the cosmos of my intention as an artist. Solitary, they twinkle in the distance, but my large pieces are my planets and constellations.
I have to ask: is the canvas where you’ll stay, or is there some other form quietly tugging at your sleeve?
I wish that I could paint air, but canvas fills my destiny, old school, no AI, no computer graphics, no taped-on bananas, no gimmicks or illusions, no youth-driven desperation. I am a dinosaur drinking a mirage.
Champagne in the Morning by Gordon Massman, oil on canvas, 9×12 feet.
What is artistically exciting you right now? Is there an artist, a piece of music, anything you’ve encountered that made you want to go straight back to the studio?
Our planet blossoms with art. Young people keep knocking it out of the ballpark, middle-aged people discover their brilliance, the old in their children’s vacated bedrooms reinvent themselves. Galleries cannot keep up with it, critics cannot comprehend it, the world cannot keep apace. Art is a riotous garden. My inspiration springs not from external stimulations but rather from my own internal psychological grinding.
However, art books often weightily spread their plenty upon my lap, art openings regularly captivate me, Instagram posts continuously blow my mind. I revel in passionate music, from Beethoven to Jimmy Page to Miles Davis. But it’s the grinding inside that sends me straight to the studio.
Gordon Massman. Photo by Charles Carroll
Postscript
I do not paint to decorate homes or to match colour combinations. Nor when I paint do I consider practical matters such as gallery representation or potential sales. Nor do I paint for tradition or establishment acclaim. I paint for my own private hard-won catharsis however I choose to paint it. Ugly is okay. Raw is okay. Undisciplined is okay. Ridicule is okay. Primitive is okay. It’s all okay. I am loyal only to myself and I am uncontrollable.
The Louvre heist of October 2025, with thieves disguised as removal men, a furniture lift scaled against the museum wall and €88 million in French Crown Jewels gone in under eight minutes, made art theft briefly feel like front-page news again. Indeed, the history of famous paintings is partly a history of people trying to steal them, and a surprising number have been stolen not once but repeatedly, as though certain works carry an irresistible pull for thieves across generations. Here are five of them.
The Ghent Altarpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1432)
The Ghent Altarpiece by brothers Hubert and Jan van Eyck holds the dubious honour of being the most repeatedly targeted work of art in history, having been the subject of over a dozen major crimes. Napoleon’s troops carried off four panels in 1794, a vicar reportedly made off with wing panels in 1816 and the Germans seized further pieces during the First World War. Then in 1934, a single panel — the Just Judges — was stolen with a ransom note attached. It has never been found; the cathedral floor has since been x-rayed to a depth of ten metres in the search for it. The Nazis seized what remained of the altarpiece during the Second World War, though it was ultimately recovered from an Austrian salt mine by Allied forces.
The Ghent Alterpiece by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. Photo source: Wikipedia
Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III by Rembrandt (1632)
Rembrandt’s Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III earned its entry in the 2006 Guinness World Records as the “Most Stolen Painting” after being taken four times in the space of 53 years — in 1966, 1973, 1981 and 1983. Each recovery had a peculiar character: once from the back of a bicycle, once from beneath a bench in a Streatham graveyard and once from a luggage rack at a British army garrison train station in Münster. Art historians have suspected the same person was behind multiple thefts, which raises even more questions. It now hangs, somewhat defiantly, at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in south London.
Portrait of Jacob de Gheyn III by Rembrandt. Photo source: Wikipedia
The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci (c. 1503–1519)
The Mona Lisa owes much of its global fame to its own theft. When Vincenzo Peruggia walked out of the Louvre with it under his coat in 1911, the painting was not known widely beyond specialists. It took 28 hours for anyone to notice it was gone, and the subsequent two-year manhunt transformed it into a worldwide sensation. During the Second World War, the Louvre’s director secretly evacuated almost the entire collection before the Nazis arrived; the Mona Lisa was moved six times through châteaux and abbeys across rural France, never falling into German hands despite being at the top of Hitler’s wish list. Since its return to Paris it has also been attacked repeatedly — most recently in 2022, when a protestor threw cake at its protective glass.
Mona Lisa by Leondardo da Vinci. Photo source: Wikipedia
Poppy Flowers by Vincent van Gogh (1887)
Van Gogh’s Poppy Flowers was stolen from Cairo’s Mohamed Khalil Museum in 1977 and recovered roughly a decade later. It was then stolen a second time in 2010, when a thief cut the canvas from its frame in broad daylight and walked out without triggering a single alarm. At the time, only seven of the museum’s 43 security cameras were operational. The painting has not been seen since.
Poppy Flowers by Vincent Van Gogh. Photo source: Wikipedia
The Scream by Edvard Munch (1893)
Two versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream have been stolen, from two different Oslo institutions. In 1994, thieves took the National Gallery’s version and left a note reading “Thanks for the poor security.” It was recovered three months later. In 2004, armed men walked into the Munch Museum in broad daylight and lifted another version directly off the wall. That one was missing for two years before being found damaged but intact. Both thefts, on close inspection, are almost insultingly brazen.
The Scream by Edvard Munch. Photo source: Wikipedia
Vince Staples has announced a new album, Cry Baby, which is slated for release on June 5 in partnership with Loma Vista Recordings. It opens with ‘Blackberry Marmalade’, a guitar-driven track he released over the weekend alongside a video co-directed by Staples and Bradley J. Calder. Check it out below.
“As the world burns, I have decided to release this album,” Staples said in a press release. “Thanks for listening.”
Cry Baby marks Staples’ first project as an independent artist. His last album, 2024’s Dark Times, was his final release with Def Jam.
Cry Baby Cover Artwork:
Cry Baby Tracklist:
1. Blackberry Marmalade
2. Go! Go! Gorilla
3. White Flag
4. The Running Man
5. TV Guide
6. The Big Bad Wolf
7. Only In America
8. Do You Know The Devil
9. Cotton
10. 7 In the Morning
How does one give form to what can’t be seen? Nike does it at the Air Lab during Milan Design Week, with a helping hand from Dropcity, a new player in the city’s architecture and design scene, set inside a ~40,000 m² labyrinth of former railway tunnels under Milan’s central station. The lucky few who got in saw it as a one-week-only glimpse into a shared experiment. But don’t get too sentimental about the “pop-up” label, it’s already halfway to permanence. Air Lab is staying put at Dropcity once their doors officially open this fall.
Courtesy of Nike
Of course, the whole thing is based on Nike’s long-standing relationship with… well, air. Think nearly 100 never-before-seen prototypes. Air Archives tracing Frank Rudy’s early experiments. The development of Air Liquid Max, FlyWeb, Radical AirFlow, Therma-FIT Air Milano. Eight tool stations exploring air as a design medium, visualizing (air as evidence), forming (air as shape), deforming (air as transformation), pumping (air as expansion), suctioning (air as void), calibrating (air as impulse), cooling (air as subtraction) and blasting (air as force). The Air Library, a lounge that turns a massive bubble into something you can sit on. Workshops that somehow manage to challenge the power of air too, through robotics, music, even breathing.
Courtesy of Nike
What once lived inside the sole is now moving across the body, with Nike using air in garments that inflate, deflate, and adjust in real time. Take it from Radical AirFlow, a long-sleeve piece with small, cyclone-like cutouts that pushes air across the skin, turning it into a wearable cooling system. It’s tested under heat in a lab setup where athletes run in place while sensors quietly measure how hot they get. And it’s already picked up praise from athletes who crossed the finish line first wearing it, while everyone else in the background is still in short sleeves.
Courtesy of Nike
Who would’ve thought the invisible would be taken this far? “Nike has always had an experimental, hands-on culture of making, so on our first visit to Dropcity a year ago, it immediately felt both familiar and energizing,” says Golnaz Armin, VP, Design Studio Excellence. “Prototyping is a daily practice — an instinct to make, test and refine in real time, where ideas are meant to be worn, experienced and challenged through doing. As much as we embrace the latest digital capabilities, the craft of creating physical product through an iterative process remains essential.”
Figma stands as the benchmark for digital design. From creating user interfaces to collaborative design systems, it offers everything designers and developers need. While it is essentially a standard in today’s digital market, users often search for Figma alternatives at some point. The need to find other options stems from differences in workflow preferences, performance, pricing, and related factors. Different teams and projects need different strengths from a tool. Truth be told, there is no single perfect design tool anymore. That is why creators continuously search for the right tool for every stage of the creative process.
With this in mind, check out some of the topalternatives to Figma that perfectly cater to every modern creative’s needs.
Best Figma Alternatives in 2026
Simfa (Best for AI-Powered Ideation)
Simfa operates at a different layer of the creative process, and that is what makes it stand out. This toolkit helps creators accelerate the early stages of their projects. More specifically, it is built to make content creation much faster before designers move into structured design tools. Simfa enables automated content generation and instant creative iteration. By employing AI-powered creativity, this tool also positions itself as an app that reduces manual work and speeds up production. So, while options such as Figma help users build, Simfa helps them imagine faster.
Pricing
Free Access
Starter Package – $15 per month
Plus Package – $23 a month
Simfa+ Package – $99 per month
Enterprise Package – Customizable
Sketch
In the digital landscape of Figma alternatives, Sketch is one of the few native macOS applications. It is a toolkit specifically made for designers. From designing and prototyping to collaboration, this app helps designers stay focused on their work. However, the app being native to the Apple ecosystem may impose limitations.
Pricing
Free Trial
Standard Package – €13 a month
Professional Package – €22 per month
Enterprise Package – €44 a month
Private Cloud Package – Customizable
Flowstep
Flowstep is not a direct replacement for Figma, but it is tailored for the ideation phase. Its Imagination Algorithm enables creators to translate ideas into editable user interfaces. When refining the output, Flowstep allows users to enhance visuals using prompts or manual editing. However, users looking for something that addresses multiple content types beyond UI may find its scope more specialized.
Pricing
Free Access
Starter Package – $15 per month
Enterprise Package – Customizable
Lunacy
One Figma alternative that generally works as a free option is Lunacy. With innovative features, built-in graphics, and AI-driven tools, this design platform allows better efficiency. Such an offering is useful for teams that need to save hours of work to meet deadlines, finish projects, or streamline processes. Despite its accessibility, its nature remains close to traditional design tools.
Free Access
Pro Package – $14.98 a month
Enterprise Package – Customizable
Framer
Framer focuses on a different aspect of design. Instead of being the usual design tool, it functions as a design-to-site platform. In particular, it enables designers to produce site layouts and other visual components quickly using AI. To make them more responsive, Framer has additional tools for adding animations, interactions, and effects. It even has a built-in CMS and on-page collaboration features.
Free Access
Basic Package – $15 per month
Pro Package – $45 a month
Scale Package – $100 per month
Enterprise Package – Customizable
Final Notes
No one can argue that Figma is no longer a strong choice for interface design and collaborativeworkflows. Because it certainly still is. So why change something that works just fine? Well, let us admit it — designers do not just need to execute layouts; they also need to generate and refine ideas at speed to meet today’s demands. And that is where Figma alternatives matter. Not to imitate Figma, but to help with the steps before using it.
Given modern workflows, one tool from the list above worth considering is Simfa. It does not compete with Figma but focuses on accelerating the earliest and often slowest part of the design process — ideation. By using AI to redefine early-stage design thinking, Simfa enables creators to generate design ideas and polish visuals instantly and more efficiently. It is clearly a strong starting point before turning to traditional design tools like Figma.
There are 22 characters to unlock in Vampire Crawlers, and you can unlock them all by completing specific in-game objectives like progressing through areas, defeating bosses or completing hidden challenges. Vampire Crawlers is a first-person dungeon-crawling roguelike where each run has you using cards, managing resources, and adapting your deck as you push through encounters. You can unlock characters with different starting decks and unique effects, which can change how your deck plays from run to run. Here’s every character in Vampire Crawlers and how you can unlock each one.
Vampire Crawlers: How To Find and Unlock Every Character
As touched on earlier, Vampire Crawlersfeatures 22 unlockable characters, and to unlock each one, you’ll need to complete specific in-game objectives like defeating bosses, reaching milestones, and completing hidden objectives. Below is the full list of every character in the game, along with their effects, how to unlock them, and the gold required once they appear at the Gorton Bell Inn:
Antonio Belpaese is unlocked automatically during the tutorial. He adds 3 Armor when played, and red cards increase damage by 10%. There is no gold cost for unlocking him.
Imelda Belpaese becomes available after completing a run in Mad Forest, the first area. She adds 15 XP when played, and yellow cards grant +1 XP Growth. She costs 10 gold.
Pasqualina Belpaese requires you to reach Level 20 in Inlaid Library while playing as Imelda. She adds 10 Area, and purple cards increase Hand by 1. She costs 110 gold.
Gennaro Belpaese is unlocked by defeating the Mantichana in Mad Forest. He adds 2 Amount, and red cards deal 60 damage. He costs 700 gold.
Arca Ladonna unlocks after playing Fire Wand cards 100 times. She adds 3 Mana, and purple cards grant +1 Mana. She costs 420 gold.
Poe Ratcho becomes available after playing Garlic cards 25 times. He adds 20 Area, and blue cards draw 1 card. He costs 360 gold.
Dommario unlocks by collecting 5,000 coins. He grants +2 Duration, and purple cards deal 40 damage. He costs 1,120 gold.
Lama Ladonna requires completing a dungeon with at least 10% Curse. She increases damage by 50%, and blue cards increase damage by 15%. She costs 1,300 gold.
Bianca Ramba is unlocked by defeating the Milk Elemental in Dairy Plant. She adds 3 Amount, and purple cards grant +1 Amount. She costs 1,330 gold.
Porta unlocks after playing Lightning Ring cards 100 times. He adds 25 Area, and red cards grant +1 Mana. He costs 1,000 gold.
Mortaccio is unlocked by defeating 444 Skeletons in Mad Forest. He adds 2 Amount, and blue cards grant +1 Amount. He costs 600 gold.
Pugnala Provola requires finding the coffin in Berserk Wood and defeating its guardians. She increases damage by 20%, and yellow cards draw 1 card. She costs 1,440 gold.
Yatta Cavallo unlocks after defeating 250 Lion Heads in Inlaid Library. He adds 2 Amount, and yellow cards grant +1 Amount. He costs 600 gold.
Giovanna Grana is unlocked by finding the coffin in Library Sanctum. She adds 20 Luck, and purple cards draw 1 card. She costs 1,360 gold.
Krochi Freetto requires defeating 6,666 enemies in total. He adds 10 Revival, and Wild W cards grant +5 Revival. He costs 3,000 gold.
Suor Clerici unlocks by recovering a total of 1,000 HP. She heals 3 when played, and blue cards heal 1 after encounters. She costs 1,760 gold.
O’Sole Meeo is unlocked by defeating 50 Dragon Shrimps in Gallo Tower. He adds 3 Amount, and red cards grant +5 Luck. He costs 2,400 gold.
Concetta Caciotta unlocks by finding the coffin in Gallo Tower. She adds 10 Area, and red cards grant +5 Area. She costs 1,920 gold.
Iguana Gallo Valletto is unlocked by defeating Gallo in Gallo Tower. He increases coin gain by 25%, and Wild W cards increase coin gain by another 10%. He costs 4,800 gold.
Christine Davian unlocks after finding and playing the Pentagram card, which becomes available at Level 35 in any run. She reduces the Mana cost of the next card by 1, and purple cards prevent one enemy attack. She costs 2,800 gold.
Poppea is unlocked by finding the coffin in Milk Factory. She increases Hand by 1, and yellow cards grant +1 Duration. She costs 2,200 gold.
MissingN0 is unlocked by defeating Red Death. He adds 4 Armor, and red cards draw 2 cards. He costs 6,666 gold.
That’s about every character in Vampire Crawlers and how you can unlock each one. For more gaming news and guides, be sure to check out our gaming page!
New drama The Testaments, available on Disney+ in the UK, has big shoes to fill. After all, it follows acclaimed series The Handmaid’s Tale, which ran for six seasons and won the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.
The Testaments serves as a sequel, switching the focus on a new generation of Gilead women a few years after the original wrapped up. So far, reviews have been mostly positive, and the audience seem into it, too. Does that mean we can expect a second season in the near future?
The Testaments Season 2 Release Date
At the time of writing, there’s no official news about a potential The Testaments season 2. That said, all signs point to the narrative unfolding across multiple seasons.
Executive producer Warren Littlefield told The Hollywood Reporter that the behind-the-scenes team would need at least three seasons to tell the story, and that the writers room for the second one is already in progress.
In other words, a renewal is likely around the corner. If all goes well, new episodes could arrive in 2027.
The Testaments Cast
Chase Infiniti as Agnes MacKenzie
Lucy Halliday as Daisy
Ann Dowd as Aunt Lydia
Mabel Li as Aunt Vidala
Brad Alexander as Garth Chapin
Isolde Ardies as Huldah
Rowan Blanchard as Shunammite
Mattea Conforti as Becka Grove
Elisabeth Moss as June Osborne
What Is The Testaments About?
Based on the 2019 novel of the same name by Margaret Atwood, The Testaments returns to explore the dystopian world of Gilead through a new lens.
The story revolves around three women whose lives intersect in unexpected ways. Fans of the original are already familiar with Aunt Lydia, once a strict enforcer of Gilead’s rules. Now, she is operating with more ambiguity, and possibly working against the system from within.
We also follow Agnes, a young girl raised inside Gilead’s elite class and groomed to become a Commander’s wife. Finally, there’s Daisy, another teenager raised in Canada who works as an undercover Mayday operative.
In short, the series delves into how a new generation begins to challenge the regime. While the world is still bleak, this spinoff is more about awakening and rebellion – themes that will continue to take centre stage in a potential The Testaments season 2.
“What I love is how specific our cast has become in who they are and how they interpret this world, so that awakening is coming at different times in our narrative, and it will be manifested in all different ways based on their alliances, their personalities, how they respond. But awakening we will have. And I think the fun is, how do these young women respond? How do they band together and become just as fearsome as Gilead is?” Warren Littlefield revealed in the THR interview.
The first season of The Testaments is ongoing, with episodes landing weekly on Disney+ until late May.
Are There Other Shows Like The Testaments?
If you like The Testaments, similar shows include Watchmen, Pluribus, 3%, The Man in the High Castle, and The Leftovers.
