Interesting resources for game development and study

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That's an interesting little web app. Thanks Alrik!
 
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I've recently come across GDevelop:
https://gdevelop-app.com/

I was looking for something GameMaker-like for Linux, to make a 2D CRPG.
A showcase of example games is here:
https://gdevelop-app.com/games-showcase/

As an aside:
Years ago I mucked around a bit with pygame to make something a bit like a 2D version of Legend, a game I liked a heap on the Amiga.
I didn't get much past the basics, but I'd like to have a go with something that does a lot of the heavy lifting for me. I'm a burnt-out software engineer so I don't mind the code side of things, I just want a bit more rapid progress on putting it all together so it's less likely I'll lose interest again :p

(I might have a look at Godot sometime)
 
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I would say that, if you're an experienced programmer, putting together a game with a modern engine would not be too challenging (in terms of the coding). A huge amount of the heavy lifting has been done for us, and, unless it's a very advanced game where you need to get into modifying the plumbing of the engine itself, you don't need to be a great programmer (which works for me). In fact, for games that aren't realtime, you could get away with pretty cookie-cutter code.

I was thinking about how to describe the challenge of learning an engine, and I reckon (assuming one can already code) it's akin to learning how to use the whole Adobe Creatve Suite to a somewhat competent degree. Not exactly rocket surgery - just a chunk of time to get familiar with all the concepts and interfaces.

I'd suggest forgetting about trying to achieve anything specific for a while, and just plough through loads of learning material until you're familiar with all the jargon and concepts; you have to become a sort of basic jack-of-all-trades first, so you know what all the code is referring to. Then the actual programming chops required to start putting it all together aren't all that demanding.

Doing it well, of course, is another matter - but I doubt it will be for a lack of coding skills :p
 
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But which engine to use on linx? Is godot the best we can do ? Maybe I'll muck around with a simple pacman to see how difficult it is in a few weeks.

I would say that, if you're an experienced programmer, putting together a game with a modern engine would not be too challenging (in terms of the coding). A huge amount of the heavy lifting has been done for us, and, unless it's a very advanced game where you need to get into modifying the plumbing of the engine itself, you don't need to be a great programmer (which works for me). In fact, for games that aren't realtime, you could get away with pretty cookie-cutter code.

I was thinking about how to describe the challenge of learning an engine, and I reckon (assuming one can already code) it's akin to learning how to use the whole Adobe Creatve Suite to a somewhat competent degree. Not exactly rocket surgery - just a chunk of time to get familiar with all the concepts and interfaces.

I'd suggest forgetting about trying to achieve anything specific for a while, and just plough through loads of learning material until you're familiar with all the jargon and concepts; you have to become a sort of basic jack-of-all-trades first, so you know what all the code is referring to. Then the actual programming chops required to start putting it all together aren't all that demanding.

Doing it well, of course, is another matter - but I doubt it will be for a lack of coding skills :p
 
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But which engine to use on linx? Is godot the best we can do ? Maybe I'll muck around with a simple pacman to see how difficult it is in a few weeks.

Well, in terms of Godot being the best we can do, I'd say it's already more than adequate for an indie game. If you were planning to make a whole game as a solo dev, then Godot won't be your limiting factor. You could make a very nice isometric style RPG with it, no problem. I've only been talking about its limitations when looking at more advanced styles of games. The sort of thing I'm looking at is not the kind of stuff a solo dev would usually worry about, because I'm just building a prototype for a more demanding style of game that I could never complete on my own. The big engines just have more tools and out-of-the-box stuff to achieve that more easily.

You also have Unity on Linux now. There is a case to be made for picking Unity as a learner. As I said, I find the way to go about learning this sort of thing is through immersion - just working through loads of random material all the time, until the engine is very familiar to you. Unity is a winner there, because it has so much material out there, you would probably never run dry. And once you've learned one engine, moving to another is just a transition - the core concepts are all pretty much the same and the skills transferable.

EDIT: Here's quite a nice little tutorial series for getting a basic pacman-like thing up and running in Godot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeCrE-ge8xM&list=PLda3VoSoc_TSBBOBYwcmlamF1UrjVtccZ
 
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Well i've done event programming all my life and spent years working on muds - so the headache will be the graphics and engine oddity/restrictions. I guess unity might have nicer graphics. Any sort of large scale game I would do solo would probably require some random-ness to the generator or perhaps data description of the langscape that gets translated into graphics by the engine. That's the way we used to do - layout things in matrix as values and then have the code translate those values.

Well, in terms of Godot being the best we can do, I'd say it's already more than adequate for an indie game. If you were planning to make a whole game as a solo dev, then Godot won't be your limiting factor. You could make a very nice isometric style RPG with it, no problem. I've only been talking about its limitations when looking at more advanced styles of games. The sort of thing I'm looking at is not the kind of stuff a solo dev would usually worry about, because I'm just building a prototype for a more demanding style of game that I could never complete on my own. The big engines just have more tools and out-of-the-box stuff to achieve that more easily.

You also have Unity on Linux now. There is a case to be made for picking Unity as a learner. As I said, I find the way to go about learning this sort of thing is through immersion - just working through loads of random material all the time, until the engine is very familiar to you. Unity is a winner there, because it has so much material out there, you would probably never run dry. And once you've learned one engine, moving to another is just a transition - the core concepts are all pretty much the same and the skills transferable.

EDIT: Here's quite a nice little tutorial series for getting a basic pacman-like thing up and running in Godot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeCrE-ge8xM&list=PLda3VoSoc_TSBBOBYwcmlamF1UrjVtccZ
 
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Well, the game changer, IMO, is the easy availability of high quality assets - Quixel Megascans, Speedtree, Mixamo animations, the Unreal and Unity markets, and so on. Bear in mind that things like models, textures, and animations are in standard formats - many high quality assets you could buy in the Unreal market, you could extract to use in any other engine. This is one of the reasons I'm always banging on about the idea that graphics quality is often not dictated by the engine. The reason there often looks like a graphics hierarchy, that might go - Unreal - Unity - Godot - is largely because of the markets they happen to appeal to, and who's using them. In any one one of them, you could dial the settings up to bring a GPU to its knees. If you brought triple A talent to bear in the creation of all those assets, you could get great results with any serious engine. It's just that what you tend to see with Godot at the moment is mainly hobbyists.

It is true that Godot has a couple of limitations that would affect higher end games at present, but there's be very little reason why something like an isometric-style game should look any better or worse in any of those engines - they could all do that job very nicely, at whatever quality you provide.

When you start to get into the idea of procedurally populating a landscape, that's the sort of thing where the commercial engines have more tools to help you (which is a part of the reason they tend to be chosen for more ambitious projects.) Lumberyard comes with some really nice tools for that sort of thing, and Unreal and Unity have third party tools you can purchase.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wX7O9K66zbY

Honestly, if you guys that are professional programmers did a few of the right courses, you'd be off to the races. :)
 
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If anyone's interested, this one is available for free on Amazon Kindle Store (amazon.com): Ray Tracing Gems: High-Quality and Real-Time Rendering with DXR and Other APIs [Print Replica] Kindle Edition . Hardcover available for 33USD.

pibbur who realizes that it's there also if noone's interested.
 
If anyone's interested, this one is available for free on Amazon Kindle Store (amazon.com): Ray Tracing Gems: High-Quality and Real-Time Rendering with DXR and Other APIs [Print Replica] Kindle Edition . Hardcover available for 33USD.

pibbur who realizes that it's there also if noone's interested.

Lovely. That's gone in the library.

Thanks.
 
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Also, on the subject of books, this one I think is excellent, and I found it extremely helpful. This guy knows his stuff, but also understands that a lot of academic writing is also simply bad writing, and he explores the topic with wit and clarity. Also, for those that can't afford to purchase his book, he makes the whole text available online. Maximum points all round.

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
 
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I'll be taking a break for a little while. I've decided to concentrate on putting together something playable, and I'm not going to come back until I have something to show.

It won't be the prototype thingie I'm working on longer term, but I think it will be an important exercise to complete something half-decent that people could actually play. So just a demo-type thing, but with all the key elements working. They say it's very important to actually take some small projects to completion when you're starting out. Trouble is, because I'm interested in RPGs, taking even a basic one to a finished game is a mammoth undertaking. So, I'm compromising and just aiming to complete an RPG demo instead.

So, that's it from me until I've got the job done. Best wishes and good luck to everyone!


 
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On the positive it is free; on the negative it mostly covers stuff I already know. I.e, it focus on what they consider to be gaming algorithms or technique but not so much on the unique aspect of game programming (i.e, graphics).

Also, on the subject of books, this one I think is excellent, and I found it extremely helpful. This guy knows his stuff, but also understands that a lot of academic writing is also simply bad writing, and he explores the topic with wit and clarity. Also, for those that can't afford to purchase his book, he makes the whole text available online. Maximum points all round.

http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/
 
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