February, 2018

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How to Make Board Games for a New Audience

Brand Game Development

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Just here for Highway s & Byways updates? Click here. One of the biggest challenges I’m facing right now with Highways & Byways is that the audience I’m courting is different from the audience I won with War Co.

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Haunted by the Cave

Grumpy Gamer

Of all the games I've released, I'm haunted the most by The Cave. I guess when a game percolates in your head for 30 years, it's bound to mean something. I've released good games and I've released bad games, but I always felt I knew which was which, if not before releasing, it always became apparent soon after. I'd look at the game and understand why it failed or succeeded.

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Optimize Vegetation Generation

Mnenad

Step by step to dense vegetation and acceptable FPS. Since the last post I’ve been working on the terrain’s vegetation. Mainly I focused on generating grass that bends in the wind and some fern like plants, but what comes next is usable for all kind of meshes. The big problem was (and still is in some cases): HOW CAN WE GENERATE DENSE VEGETATION AND PLACE IT FAST AND WITHOUT TO MUCH FPS DROP AFTER THE GENERATION PROCESS ?

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Maintenance release: Godot 3.0.1

Mircosoft Game Dev

Since we haven't found any major issues in our release candidate , we are now releasing Godot 3.0.1! The only regression reported was a renaming issue on Windows which we fixed. If you were eagerly waiting for 3.0.1, you can go directly to our Download page and get the benefits of all the fixes! Both the itch.io and Steam distributions are updated. We have added many new features to the editor (and several to GDScript) in this release which we think will make your use of Godot even better.

Beta 52
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The curious case of Google removing over 77% of all our positive reviews

Greenheart Games

Welcome to the surprising second part of our Android release reports. If you missed part one, you can catch up on it here. In this report, I had expected to write about sales numbers and piracy rates but given the series of mind-boggling events this past week, this will have to wait a little. After the phenomenal reaction on our first day, things continued quite well, and by day six, we had an unbelievable rating of 5.0 from over two thousand players. 5 stars.

Puzzle 52
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Please join Bob at his special SXSW Gaming event next month for.

Game Writing Blog

Please join Bob at his special SXSW Gaming event next month for game development students of all ages.

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Don't fall down

Grumpy Gamer

How a skier managed to compete at the Olympics despite not being very good. It's a fascinating read and oddly inspirational. I wonder if this should be my new philosophy for making games: "Make a game and don't fall down.

Games 52
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How to Play Cinco Paus

Game Design Advice

First of all, why should you? Why should you learn how to play Michael Brough’s new game Cinco Paus ? After all, you’re busy, you have important things to do. This game looks weird and doesn’t seem to care whether you figure it out or not. Ok, I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that. I know it’s not your fault, you don’t know any better.

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Introduction and Godot 3.0.1-rc1

Mircosoft Game Dev

Hi Godot! My name is Hein-Pieter van Braam-Stewart. Some of you might know me on IRC/Discord/Matrix as 'TMM' and on GitHub as ' hpvb '. To help Rémi ( Akien ) focus on making sure the master branch is as good as it can be, I'm looking after the stable branch. Currently the stable branch is the 3.0 branch. I'm very happy to have been given this responsibility and I hope to work with all of you to make the Godot stable branches, well, just that!

Baking 52
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Android Release – Day 1 Report: What a reaction!

Greenheart Games

Yesterday, Game Dev Tycoon released on Google Play. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out, just click on the image below. Since our iOS release reports received a lot of interest (you can read part one , part two , part three and part four ), we decided to do the same with our Android release. Here we go with our first report. Release Day.

Dev 52
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Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games (Giglio/Bryant)

Game Writing Blog

Slay the Dragon: Writing Great Video Games (Giglio/Bryant) : We’re so happy she likes the book!

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How To Be Prolific Without Burning Out

Brand Game Development

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Just here for Highway s & Byways updates? Click here. When this post goes live, I’ll be asleep. In Hawaii, it will be 4 in the morning. I think it’s a lovely place to celebrate my 25th birthday. I am incredibly privileged to be able to take the week off to do this.

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Thimbleweed Park Vinyl

Grumpy Gamer

If your parent's old turntable is gathering dust in the basement, oh boy do I have an awesome use for it! Also worth noting that vinyl will likely still be playable after the apocalypse. MP3s. Not so much. Think of it as an investment in bartering for food in the future.

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Pitch: Tactical Breach Wizards

Tom Francis

I’ve been tweeting GIFs of a game I’m prototyping in Unity for a while now, codenamed Tiny Ex-Cons, and recently did a video blog about the core elements I’m hoping to combine if I go ahead with it. It’s too early to know if this is my next big project or not – my prototype doesn’t have enough to prove the concept yet – but I do want to start showing more of it.

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Update on recent VR developments

Mircosoft Game Dev

It has been a very busy month on the VR front in Godot. OpenVR. The focus for development has remained on OpenVR support for the most part and it is slowly finding use within the community. With the release of Godot 3.0 the OpenVR module can now be downloaded directly from the asset library. It comes with support for OpenVR on 64-bit Windows and on Linux.

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Dev snapshot: Godot 2.1.5 beta 1

Mircosoft Game Dev

Godot 3.0 was released a few weeks ago , and the feedback we are getting so far is incredible. The new version is of course not perfect, but for a major compatibility breaking release with over 18 months of development, it seems to be pretty usable and satisfactory for most users. Still, we still have many users who depend on the previous stable branch, 2.1, for various reasons: They might need support for OpenGL 2.1 / OpenGL ES 2.0, which is missing in Godot 3.0, limiting it to higher end devic

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BBEdit

Grumpy Gamer

I'm a big fan of BBEdit , as a Mac user, it's my text editor of choice for all but Xcode/C++ programming. David, Jenn, and I used BBEdit on Thimbleweed Park. I even created a custom syntax coloring scheme for our proprietary language and David added some great keyword based auto expansions. It's feature rich and has everything a coder could want. Except for one thing and it drives me crazy to the point that each time I need to do it, it puts a stain on what is by all other accounts, a perfect ed

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

"Musk and his fellow tech CEOs promote driverless vehicles as the future because it's the future they desire. They don't want to be on a subway or train next to regular people — as Musk has already said, one of them might be a serial killer! It's troubling how much they want to isolate themselves from regular people, but the reality of urban mobility is that only a small portion of the population can be in individualized transport until it simply stops working.".

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

This is why I'll never go to Disneyland. I don't consider this "enhancing" my ride experience. I find it creepy and invasive. It's not that I'm bothered by Disney tracking me through the park, it's that I don't want my name thrown up on a screen for everyone to see. That is a violation of my privacy.

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Preparing for GDC 2018

Mircosoft Game Dev

Spreading the word about Godot. Me and other Godot devs will be present at GDC 2018. The plan is to push Godot more into the corporate world. For this, the idea is meeting with devs or decisionmakers within companies, so we can do a very short presentation with key points about the project, explain why Godot can be a suitable technology for their needs, and which clear advantages it has over similar, proprietary technologies.

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70sscifiart:Art by Billy Graham, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and.

Game Writing Blog

70sscifiart : Art by Billy Graham, Klaus Janson, Glynis Wein, and Artie Simek.

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

There are three groups of people I really hate: Grammar Nazis, Password Nazis, and actual Nazis.

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

Wednesday Indie Game Dev!

Indy 52
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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

Ah, I see your problem there and it's assuming my C++ code is "well-defined".

Code 40
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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

Pro-tip for new indie devs: Your hardest game will be your second game.

Indy 40
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Happy Valentine's Day

Grumpy Gamer

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

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MISSING

Grumpy Gamer

What other Ron Gilberts around the world are doing.

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How to Manage Artists on a Board Game Project

Brand Game Development

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the seventeenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Artists are some of the most important people you will work with when you’re creating a game. Making sure they are happy and understand the needs of your project is critical to your game’s success.

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How to Find Artists for Your Board Game

Brand Game Development

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the sixteenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. One of the trickiest parts of self-publishing a board game can be finding good artists. It involves a mix of searching, managing, and writing good requirements.

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How to Create Specs for Your Board Game Artist

Brand Game Development

Board game development is a very individual process. Every single developer has different methods for creating their games. This article is the fifteenth of a 19-part suite on board game design and development. Commissioning art can be one of the most daunting parts of the game development process. I’ve written about How to Find an Artist for Your Board Game , but this time, I thought you’d like hearing from an actual artist!

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5 Uncanny Similarities Between Travel & Business

Brand Game Development

Dev Diary posts are made to teach game development through specific examples from my latest project: Highways & Byways. Just here for Highway s & Byways updates? Click here. It’s no secret that I’m a fan of travel. I don’t think anybody would expect anything less from a guy who created a board game called Highways & Byways.

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GLES2 and GDNative, progress report #2

Mircosoft Game Dev

Introduction. Almost one month has passed since the last progress report and the month of January happens to be the month in which Godot 3.0 got released ! Because of the big release there have been many GDNative related tasks that needed to be addressed. Apart from that, the month was mostly spent on implementing more 2D items in the renderer as well as working on getting custom shaders running.

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Moving to Vulkan (and ES 2.0) instead of OpenGL ES 3.0

Mircosoft Game Dev

Edit: Changed post title for clarity (previously Abandoning OpenGL ES 3.0 for Vulkan (and ES 2.0) ). We are not abandoning the current OpenGL ES 3.0 backend right now : as outlined in the post, we will start working on a Vulkan backend, which will eventually coexist with the OpenGL ES 2.0 and 3.0 backends - and eventually we might deprecate the OpenGL ES 3.0 backend if Vulkan cuts it.

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