Technologies

I Played People of Note, a Unique Musical RPG Blending Final Fantasy With Pop Songs

People of Note blends musical performance, rhythm and turn-based combat in one of the most creative games coming in 2026.

It’s been a while since rhythm mechanics moved beyond Guitar Hero and Rock Band to empower neat versions of action games, like Crypt of the Necrodancer, BPM: Bullets Per Minute and Hi-Fi Rush. Rarely does it grace role-playing games, and then only in quick-time events to make attacks or defenses stronger. But People of Note is an upcoming RPG that doesn’t just implement rhythm into combat — it weaves music through the whole package, from the combat and items to the characters and world around.

People of Note’s story is set in a fantasy world split into lands themed around musical genres. The game kicks off with Cadence, a singer dreaming of global stardom who must leave the pop land of Chordia to form a band if she has any hope of winning a Eurovision-like dream competition. Like any good RPG, she’ll have to travel to other lands (in this case, those of Rock, EDM and Rap) to form unlikely allies to make a harmonizing sound that breaks barriers and beats enemies on their path to stardom.

I got to play a short demo exploring about 90 minutes early in the game, which launches on April 7, and it’s definitely unique. Less revolutionary in mechanics than in marrying RPGs with the trappings of music, People of Note seems tailor-made for performers and musical theater nerds who want to see their art represented in fantasy games for a change. It’s more Kingdom Hearts than a hardcore stat-grinding RPG, but that makes it more accessible for the music novice (like me).

The gameplay revolves around classic RPG staples of turn-based battles and gaining levels; the game’s creative director Jason Wishnov cited Final Fantasy 9 and Chrono Cross as inspirations.

But People of Note has a ton of music, including in-game musical performances. Some of the voice acting of the main characters is split between spoken and singing talents, like main character Cadence (voiced by Heather Gonzalez, sung by the artist LEXXE). Others have one performer for both, like party member Fret (voiced and sung by Jason Charles Miller of industrial rock band Godhead).

That blend seems like it’s setting up People of Note to be more of an experiential journey, but there are some hints of depth. People of Note has borrowed some neat mechanics from the best RPGs out there, turning Final Fantasy’s ultimate move Limit Breaks into Mash-Up collaborations between characters (feeling more like Chrono Trigger’s double and triple techs). Skills and skill-augmenting gems can be swapped in and out like Final Fantasy’s Materia.

Most of People of Note’s innovations lie in remixing staple RPG elements with musical flair. In combat, turn order is visualized on the bottom of the screen as a musical stanza, which shows how many actions players and enemies get. Most of the time, a stanza will offer an attack bonus that rotates between musical styles, giving different party members alternating boosts. (The best songs let band members take turns to show off their stuff in solos.)

A short jaunt in rock-and-roll town

My preview opened just after Cadence leaves Chordia for the land of rock, Durandis, which is a dusty frontier town that would fit in a western. She finds it split between different subgenres, with punk and grunge fans sticking to their neighborhoods rather than blend with each other.

Soon enough, Cadence finds herself sticking up for the locals to defend against raiders (who twang away on banjos and do a bit of soft-boot line dancing). To her rescue comes Fret, a former rocker, who she wants to join her band.

But Fret’s got his own history as he laments the splintering of rock into so many divisive categories gatekeeping each other. He reluctantly joins Cadence as they seek an audience with the biggest local rocker who can protect the town — naturally, he’s also Fret’s old bandmate.

As that intro suggests, People of Note has a lighthearted tone, referencing music fan culture with jokes and jabs. Mostly this comes across in the unending avalanche of puns — an NPC named a Fretful Man, a bird cage with a sign that says Free Bird, Cadence joking that a raid has torn Durandis to «shred,» and so on. Fret’s old bandmate is a local metal star that he knew as Freq (pronounced «freak») but goes by Quincy these days.

I can see how that torrent of dad jokes could be wearying over time, but the jokes landed just fine with me. They fit with the game’s general perspective that music should be playful, experimental and fun — not rigidly locked by rules and precedent.

In their quest to speak to Quincy, Cadence and Fret must pass through his lair, adorned in heavy metal skulls and flames. Players need to solve the puzzles found here, though these can be turned off in the game’s settings.

Players also have plenty of hard rocker enemies to defeat. These fights weren’t too challenging, especially given how the game omits some common RPG friction by, for instance, fully healing between battles. Given the demo’s position early in the game, I hope fights get a bit more complicated and vary in difficulty.

At the top of his lair, Quincy waited for us as a boss battle, getting in multiple attacks and messing with the player’s party. Midway through, he hindered damage done during the first action taken during my turn, forcing me to shift my strategy.

I also saw one of the game’s better innovations: Bosses power up every few turns, ratcheting up the tension and forcing players to end fights more quickly lest they be overwhelmed.

With Quincy humbled and his fans pledging to protect the town, Cadence and Fret go on their way to the next musical land to acquire another band member, seeking to further complexify their sound with EDM and rap to craft a truly iconic blend.

Many games have jokes and pop culture references, but People of Note feels fully committed to bringing a musical fantasy land to life, top to bottom.

Midway through the demo in a cinematic, Cadence launches into a song to get Fret to join her, transporting both to a stage where they trade verses expressing their positions before she wins him over and they harmonize. Like any good musical, conflict is expressed and resolved in song, with characters emerging changed and ready for the next part of the journey.

As I watched the cinematic, I noticed Cadence’s pop star-styled jacket has a bass clef weaved into its front, while Fret’s boot spurs look like guitar string tuning pegs — slight touches that speak to a lot of vision. The game’s streamlined RPG combat didn’t seem like it would satisfy fans of more hardcore games in the genre looking for a mechanical or strategic challenge, but for those who are willing to see the game’s playful blend of two worlds, it’s shaping up to be one of the more novel games of 2026.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Wednesday, March 18

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for March 18.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? I thought it was a fairly easy one, but read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Word before «card,» flood» or «photography»
Answer: FLASH

6A clue: Joust weapon
Answer: LANCE

7A clue: Brain, heart or lungs
Answer: ORGAN

8A clue: «Frozen» reindeer
Answer: SVEN

9A clue: What can be found on frozen roads or frozen margaritas
Answer: SALT

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Follow a dentist’s recommendation
Answer: FLOSS

2D clue: Baby bug
Answer: LARVA

3D clue: Shape made in the snow
Answer: ANGEL

4D clue: Very little
Answer: SCANT

5D clue: Egg layer
Answer: HEN

Technologies

Amazon Speeds Up Delivery Even More With 1- and 3-Hour Options

The retailer says the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities, with discounted shipping for Prime members.

Same-day delivery apparently isn’t fast enough for some Amazon shoppers. The retail giant said on Tuesday it’s adding new shipping options that will get products to front doors within a one- or three-hour window.

The company said in its announcement that the one-hour option is available in hundreds of cities across the US, while the three-hour option is now live in more than 2,000 areas. Amazon’s web page at amazon.com/getitfast shows whether those options are available to shoppers for their location. More than 90,000 products will be available for those shipping windows, the company said.

For those who can’t get those services (including the author of this post, who lives between Austin and San Antonio in Texas), a message will display: «3-hour delivery is currently unavailable. Check back at a later time or shop products with Same-Day delivery below.»

Pricing for the faster delivery options is not cheap: It’ll cost you $20 for one-hour delivery and $15 for three-hour delivery for those without an Amazon Prime account, or $10 and $5 for customers who subscribe to Prime.

Last year, the company rolled out faster Amazon delivery options to 4,000 additional areas.

In a video of the podcast Learn and Be Curious with Doug Herrington, hosted by Amazon’s CEO of worldwide stores, Kandace Kapps, the director of the company’s same-day strategy team, spoke in more detail about the challenges of fast shipping. Kapps discussed shifts in customer buying habits over the last few years, such as more people buying household essentials like toilet paper on Amazon.

She said that Amazon can deliver so quickly by placing same-day delivery hubs close to customers in metro areas and by getting products ready to ship within 15 minutes, aided by warehouse robots.

«I think customers are going to continue to get magically surprised by how fast we can deliver to their doorstop,» Kapps said.

Herrington said fast shipping increases sales: «When we speed up the service, the probability that somebody buys a product from us goes up.»

Other retailers, including Walmart, have been adding same-day delivery options or exploring other ways to speed up shipping times to compete with Amazon.

Removing buyers’ moments of hesitation

Part of Amazon’s strategy, which has involved a massive buildout of locations, deployment of thousands of trucks, deals with other delivery services and investment in logistics software, is actually pretty simple: being there when people need last-minute items or make impulse buys.

«It’s about removing the last moment where you would’ve reconsidered the purchase,» said Stephanie Carls, retail insights expert at coupon and promotional-code website RetailMeNot, a sibling site of CNET. «It changes how you shop, not just how fast you get things.»

Carls said that Amazon’s super-fast delivery is removing the timeframe when people might change their minds about a purchase.

«There used to be a gap between deciding to buy something and actually having it. That’s when you’d price check, rethink it, or decide you didn’t need it after all,» she said. «This closes that gap.»

The retail expert said that competitors, including Walmart and Target, have been speeding up delivery times in some markets. Still, they’re not matching Amazon’s scale or product range at those speeds or levels of consistency.

«And that’s what starts to make everyone else feel slow,» Carls said. «Amazon’s advantage is how tightly connected its technology, inventory and delivery networks are, which makes this level of speed more repeatable.»

Technologies

Dog Health Goes Digital With New AI Chatbot

Fi Intelligence allows you to ask questions of a specially tailored pet health chatbot, but it’s not meant to replace vet visits.

It might be time to rethink what it means to be sick as a dog. On Tuesday, Fi, a smart pet technology company, announced a new AI-powered chatbot to help owners stay on top of their dog’s health using a blend of personal information and generalized dog breed data.

The AI agent, which the company is calling Fi Intelligence, is integrated directly into the Fi app. It has access to all the information gathered about your dog across the entire suite of Fi products, including the Fi Series 3 Plus and Fi Mini dog collars, as well as information and documents uploaded by the pet owner. The service is for dogs only (not cats, rabbits or other pets).

If you already own a Fi smart collar, existing data will be incorporated into the AI agent’s dataset to help it answer your questions.

When creating Fi Intelligence, the company identified a multitude of common questions that dog owners have, including whether their animal friend is walking or sleeping enough, or scratching more than usual. The chatbot was created to help owners find answers to these questions quickly and easily, according to Fi.

Fi designed its agent to answer these questions using a mix of general information about a dog’s breed, personal information and biometric data gathered by Fi smart pet collars.

Pet owners can ask the chatbot questions in plain English and get back detailed responses. Fi Intelligence is equipped to answer general questions, contrast your dog’s current data to previous time periods and compare your dog’s data to other dogs of the same breed.

Fi says its chatbot is different from general-purpose AI agents because it has been trained on a proprietary dataset containing «the largest repository of real-world canine activity, sleep and behavior data in the world.»

Fi Intelligence doesn’t replace a trip to the vet — and the company stresses it’s not supposed to. Rather, the agent is supposed to grant owners «informed confidence» about their dog’s health and can help them «show up [to the vet] with specific, documented observations drawn from weeks of continuous data.»

«The strongest signal from our beta was that owners aren’t using this to replace their vet,» said Fi’s Vice President of Product Darrell Stone. «They’re using it to show up better prepared.»

According to Fi, the Fi Intelligence integration will provide the most complete dog health profile available in the app so far. Fi Intelligence is available to all Fi members immediately.