Yeah pretty well documented. Was very easy to spin this up
This is the class that you spawn in to make a window: Docs
Each window is technically its own world and them I enable or disable the player on each one depending on if it hits a collider to move to the next room. It is possible to have them all looking at the same world though
During development I usually only playtest myself. But I found a way to trick myself into doing it right:
I create an android build of my game every day and load it onto my tablet to play in bed or on the couch. That forces me to just play the game as it is and create bug and balance tickets for whatever I encounter. Not sitting at the computer helps me separate myself from game development and provide more honest feedback.
Not only do the games need to be opensource, but their toolchains too. It would also be great if everything were stored in content-addressable storage. Then it wouldn't be necessary to track down stuff by follow URL paths to dead domains.
I hope that opensource game engines become more popular. It might just be a matter of time. Blender is now very popular and that's opensource.
Almost everything they've taken down has been for name/character/assets reasons: Pokémon Uranium, AM2R, etc. Something like Ship of Harkinian, a source port of Ocarina of Time, doesn't provide any Nintendo assets and hasn't been taken down yet. To my extremely limited knowledge, gameplay generally isn't copyrightable unless it's specifically been patented for some reason, so I think you're in the clear.
Never played the first one, but I apparently have it on steam, probably not my type of game but they have enough of my interest to at least install it on my deck and try it
Slay the Spire is fantastic. It's one of those games where thanks to luck, I'm either building the most crazy OP build or im barely surviving by cheesing everything.
Above you can see two of them ^ Ive got an achievement system implemented as well as a toolbar that lets you trigger things easily for testing purposes (e.g. giving the player a weapon, spawning an enemy, etc.)
Theres a data persisting system that will persist data in different scopes (e.g. room, level, run, game, permanent) that everything else uses. For example the achievement system looks at a certain category and a trigger (which is a key that the data in the persister is set under) so that whenever data is added to that trigger it sees if its higher than the amount needing to unlock the achievement (and if so unlocks it). The persister is decoupled from everything else by sending signals and then everything that wants to look at what data is set can (this would be the achievements, the unlock system, the dialogue system to see which dialogue is unlocked, etc.)
Main tools I have made:
palette swapping (allows for swapping the palette of the game so that things like each zone can have different colors)
unlocks (what weapons, enemies, etc. are unlocked)
toolbar (debug helping)
persister (persists data through a scope)
logger (logs information (separate so other components can show the logs e.g. the toolbar or a terminal)
leaderboard (keeps track of scores of players)
data (reads txt files from a data folder for usage in the rest of the game for separation of data and behaviours. e.g. you can define enemies each in their own txt file and have a generic enemy object that has its properties set based on the enemy it is. Makes it so you can easily add new stuff
Professionally in Unreal 5. Hate it with a passion. Not only is the engine a shared state leaking piece of s*it but the language(s) that come with it make the whole mess even worse.
In my free time I worked with Bevy which is really promising in my opinion. I hope their editor will be as amazing as the rest of the framework.
Recently I also tried Fyrox. It is nice, probably usable for some smaller things, but damn it feels a lot like Unreal again with going a OO-like paradigm. Of course little to no memory-safety issues it being developed in Rust as well (+ a runtime borrow checker they implemented on top to check on shared writes to Resources, Nodes, etc.), but compared to ECS it feels terribly clunky.
ECS just feel sooo right!
Also, if someone needs a more mature engine than Bevy, don't go for Unity or Unreal - Take a look at Godot. It's FOSS and even supports Rust bindings (and I do think Rust the shit and will be a big deal in the future).
I'm a senior non-game developer, playing at game development in my spare time. I used to use Unity, but I've quit them a few times, and I think this time is for good. UE4/5 didn't really fit my work flow or design style.
So I'm playing with Godot now, and I'm pretty impressed. Some things like 3d imports and animations could use some love, I think... But otherwise, I'm pretty happy with it.
I'm a DevOps person by trade, and I have been playing a lot of Palworld. This is my worst nightmare and I have no idea how any team bigger than one person could have done anything without basic source control. Guess it just goes to show that nobody cares about the details as long as you ship.
My realisation long ago is that the games industry just doesn't work like the rest of the software engineering industry. The most cowboy engineer you've ever worked with is a voice of reason in the game dev industry.
Yeah, I have a colleague or two who have worked in that space. You could not pay me enough to work with their tools, conditions, and practices. Guess I'm in the wrong sub for that opinion, but I'm just a wanderer stopping by.
It turned out it's not true, they did use VCS. However, they mention a pretty horrifying story about VCS nonetheless.
They were a team without prior or professional gamedev experience, and they were using git. The first senior engineer, and first member of the team who actually was a professional game developer, was someone who ranomly contacted them due to liking Craftopia. But he didn't have experience with Unity, only Unreal, so they just said mid-development "Ok, we'll just throw away all we have so far, and we'll switch to Unreal - if you're willing to be a lead engineer, and will teach us Unreal from scratch as we go."
And then, they also mention this:
Surprisingly, [the new engineer] had no experience using the version control system git.
According to him, Perforce seems to be a better match for Unreal Engine.
But Perforce is too expensive. This is not the amount that a company like us would pay.
If you can't use Perforce, you should at least use svn instead of git.
Fully trusting his words, I also migrated my version control system from git to svn.
On the other hand, now that I think about it, SVN may actually be better for Unity projects than git is, at least in some areas.
One major issue with Unity and VCS are the scene and asset files. Trying to mere scene changes when multiple people have worked on the same scene is hell, to the point where it's usually better to just choose one changset and manually re-do the other. I know there is a unity merge tool for that, but since you have no idea what exactly it did, it's been pretty hit or miss.
SVN could solve that issue, since you can just lock files.
However, that still doesn't outweights the benefits of virtually every other feature of VCSes.
It's such a shame that Unity are greedy bastards that tend to buy out and heavily paywall amazing projects. I've worked with Plastic on one project, and it's amazing. I've really enjoyed the workflow, and the way the merging works is awesome. But then, Unity came and now it's unaffordable for anyone but larger teams.
Same with Parsec. Parsec has been an amazing alternative for Steam Remote, that had open source SDK and libraries to integrate directly into games. It was a perfect alternative for smaller teams that can't make proper multiplayer. And once Unity bought them, they've removed access to SDK only for companies that directly ask for it - which we (being a small student project done on our free time, that really could use MP since it's two player only local coop game) have done, mentioning that we're really just students and hobbyist.
They response? They basically said "Sure, we can give you access to the SDK, no problem. The first step is to pay us 1 000 000$ for it.". How can anyone be so out of touch?
Nah, you can't patent gameplay mechanics unless they are super specific and interconnected.
Taking what's good from other games and turning it into something new (or similar) is known as remixing and it happens all the time. Like mentioned in another comment, Palworld did this by taking the fun elements of different genres / vibes (Pokémon, Survival games, Shooters) and making that into a game.
Even the Pokémon Company had to put a statement out basically telling the Xitter drama seekers to shut up and stop reporting the game for infringement, because there wasn't any.
Just make sure (like you already mention) not to use assets, sounds, names and other IP related subjects.
It still grinds my gears that Warner Bros. patented the Nemesis System they used in their shadow of war/Mordor games. I'd love a whole genre of those kinds of games with different settings and themes.
Even in their case, the phrasing within their patent form is fairly specific to their games. Unless one completely clones the system, I would be surprised if they got legal trouble for it. Better to check with a qualified lawyer of course.
The games have a number of captains, and they will sometimes fight among themselves. The winner will get stronger and level up. The player can attack these captains, too, who may have a strong point or a weakness. If the player dies while fighting, the captain grows stronger and will taunt the player on a rematch. If the player manages to make the captain flee and live, he may develop a fear for the player
There are many things that can define the captains, such as fears (of the player, of fire, of wargs), weaknesses (to stealth, to arrows, to fire) and even immunities (to arrows, to stealth, you get the drill)
Also, if the player dies to an unamed orc, said orc will become a captain. I vaguely remember some captains coming back to life, if they weren't decapitated on the killing blow. They return weaker, but will comment on wanting revenge.
As a final note, Shadows of Mordor is a pretty fun game. Think of it as Assassin's Creed exploration with Batman Arkham City combat. Not the most faithful game to Tolkien's work, but it's good.
I'd point you to godot but I'm pretty biased because I just really love godot.
I will say though that depending on the scope of the project you have planned, it might not be best to make your dream project your first one. Test the waters with a few really small games first, and then once you're comfortable and know your tools well enough do your big idea.
I was invited to a FLOSS engine project, I think it was Piston. I did not know much so I just bailed. I usually prefer making stuff from scratch because my aim is to learn, I know the software I write has no use. Like rn I am writing a UNIX shell. Just to learn (I just remoted it, see my profile).
Still, I doubt I will ever get a systems job. I don't have a degree. I dropped out. I will get one eventually, but I doubt the shirtty thirdie for-profit college I can afford is going to be attractive to recruiters.
I do have a job currently, it pays enough for thirdie living especially given the devaluation of currency here. I just want to have a job where I am not ignored for days by my client, like the job I have now.
I think it's everyone's dream to make a FLOSS that attracts pay piggies, I would like that too but I don't put much stonk on it. It's as delusional as people who clone a Todo app and expect to get hired by anyone.
Delusions run rampant in this discipline sadly. People are entitled. I think a degree is important because I would personally not entrust a non-degree holder with the stuff I personally like.
You are right that having a shiny education gives people a huge advantage. It's not everything though.
For example, I have a friend who makes 6 figures in europe doing performance-oriented C++ work, with no degree. Once you get the first job it becomes far easier.
Getting the first job is tough, but having personal projects really helps. Don't undersell yourself. You need to give people the impression that you dropped out due to pure happenstance (e.g. health or family issues that are now resolved). Make them think that you are a lucky find; if you had finished the degree you'd already be at a bigger company with a bigger salary.
Yeah you are right. Still, the sanctions make things hard to find job in most American or even Western European countries. American countries literally need a permission from the state department to 'officially' hire from here, but Western European countries avoid hiring Iranians because banking is extremely limited -- at least in theory. I have 2 PayPal accounts, one under my own name, one under some dude's name I don't know. With courier services it's very easy to transfer money. Even given the 'recent developments'. Not to mention crypto. Also, banks such as Turkey's Ziraat open accounts for Iranian nationales in a day or two, problem is, you have to be physically there. I am home-bound, a homebody. That is why I dropped out of JDM. I could not simply convince myself to step out of the threshold of our home. It's either very cold, very hot, and when it's temperate, my nose starts running like a ravine. I have lost both my male and female friends as well, to pill addiction (mine, not theirs). Coffee shops here have this thing called 'public table' to make up for the lack of bars and clubs, but I don't simply want to go out. The last time I went out was 6 months ago, no joking. I have two psychiatrists. I just pop Rialin and code.
All the 'cool jobs' here are either military shit which puts you on Bibi's radar, or college-educated only. Shit work exists. But even they don't do remote. Fuck them. Currency is so devalued t makes no sense to work locally.
Sorry if I am trauma-dumping (why is it a word anyways, these damn muricans label everything) --- just venting.
To be honest I have no frame of reference to understand what it's like to try and find a job while navigating the American economic sanctions. It sounds awful. Is there no prospect of finding remote work in the other BRICS nations? I was under the impression that they try to avoid relying on american-controlled software, so I thought this would create some employment opportunities.
There should be plenty. I applied to two in Turkey, they were fine jobs. All these countries are even healthier than America in some aspects, economy-wise. The jobs in Turkey were cool af. There are some duds in BRIC like Turkmenistan though. I think I have to focus my attention on a Christian nation, rather than a Muslim nation. Chances that there would be expats from English-speaking countries in Georgia is much higher than being one in Turkey. And that is the ultimate problem I face, language. I speak Persian natively and English at L2 level, and I would have issues communicating. I once interviewed for an on-site data pipeline engineering job in the capital, I wanted to fail it because moving cities is impossible for me. I interviewed with a Russian dude, or was he Ukrainian or Belarusian, anways, he worked for the Iranian company in questions and his accent was thick, my accent was thick and even if I wanted to pass the test and rail that cute recruiter daily and nightly and ever so rightly, I would not have been able to.
Let's not forget about Russia. They have a much stronger software industry than BRIC nations.
I got one callback from Turkish company, they were making Real-time OSes. Zilch. I don't think even if the Ayatollah rizzed Biden and vice versa and Iran was a member of G7 + 2, it would not have made a difference, neither for BRIC, nor for EU, and none for NA ,os SA or SEA. It's just impossible to get a job when I think of myself worse than dirt.
I’ve worked with many Iranians here in the US and all of them are excellent engineers. At least one of them managed to get over here without a college degree and work his way up to a comfortable software job.
Not having a degree is going to be rough as far as immigration goes… but you’re capable of figuring out complex systems so you’re capable of figuring this out. Easier said than done… but if you keep pushing you’ll get somewhere. If you accept defeat early, you’ll get nowhere.
I'll be honest, and sorry in advance, but it'll help you more. Your cynicism is probably the thing getting in the way. I understand it's rough and not fun, but you've got to avoid it grinding you down.
You need to give yourself reasons to stand out. Making a half baked unfinished engine that no one uses isn't as impresive as improving an existing one that people use. Greenfield projects are rare and you probably not going to get that as a first role. So you need to prove to employers you can take legacy code, learn it, understand it, improve it and get it live. Demonstrating you have the capability to do that on a FOSS project demonstrates you may be able to do that on an in-house engine. You also learn from the code others write. Why did they do it this way? Is it better? What are the pros and cons? Degrees differentiate, yes, but a green person out of uni vs someone who has proven they can do a similar job, you have an advantage. Plus, 5 PRS is probably easier than a new engine. Making one from scratch cannot hurt, but it doesn't prove everything they need to know. Businesses hire because they have a problem and need someone competent to solve that problem. Tick those boxes and remove the risk and you have reasonable chances.
If you only demonstrate you're not comfortable going out of your comfort zone and getting your hands dirty, you are not helping yourself.
So give them reasons to hire you, give yourself a chance, and keep applying. Give yourself a 2% chance, apply to 50 jobs, give yourself a 10% chance, apply for 10, but always go over the odds.
Remember, industry is rough right now. A lot of experienced proven folk got let go in last year. Might need to improve your odds and bide your time.
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