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Latest Comments by soulsource
Unity Considers Tentative Changes To Controversial Policies
19 Sep 2023 at 4:11 pm UTC

So, just that I get this right: Does this mean, that instead of Unity directly doing the invasive tracking, now game devs need to come up with some invasive install tracking technique?

If yes: That's going to go just fiiiiine on the European market, especially for small indies that don't have a permanent legal team.

Unity attempt to clarify new install fees as developers revolt
14 Sep 2023 at 1:53 pm UTC Likes: 3

Quoting: ZlopezI don't understand why they just don't go with the same model as Unreal Engine has (maybe they have a new one now, I didn't check for some time) and if the game makes some amount of money, they need to pay from each sold copy. The installs amount seems really strange as a metric.
Epic Games uses Unreal Engine for their in-house projects (Fortnite...), the licensing to third parties is a bonus for them. Unity development is primarily (solely?) funded by licensing.

Here's some alternatives to the Unity game engine
14 Sep 2023 at 9:47 am UTC

Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: EhvisI think the biggest problem with most engines is the lack of console support. I imagine that is a big breaking point for a lot of devs. And Godot is a prime example of the difficulties in managing that.
Sadly the blame is entirely on Sony and Microsoft, who keep a tight grip on all the SDK stuff for it. Quite ridiculous really.
Also, the strict technical requirements regarding toolchains. For some console manufacturers you absolutely need to use their toolchains, and only their toolchains. If you use a programming language that's not supported by their toolchain, you have a problem. Not an unsolvable problem, but a problem that requires contacting the console manufacturers, and usually building your own custom version of the language's compiler...

GOG has a big Indie Festival Sale on
14 Sep 2023 at 9:23 am UTC

Quoting: Installcool. anyone played firewatch? how is it?
I can't say much about the game itself, because I didn't get very far. I feel like I need to post this warning though: If you are sensitive to motion sickness, Firewatch might not be the right game for you. I had to stop playing, because I kept getting nausea from it.

Here's some alternatives to the Unity game engine
14 Sep 2023 at 8:42 am UTC Likes: 4

Quoting: PhiladelphusI've been following Bevy for the past few years, and I while I think it's a solid engine with significant promise and solid momentum, the developers themselves note that it is still very much a work in progress. It just hit version 0.11 (with releases roughly every 3 months), and they're not afraid to overhaul and break APIs in the name of improvement between versions at the moment. It also lacks an editor program at the moment, though now that 0.11 is out I believe starting work on one is finally ready to happen. There are definitely people using it to build games right now, but even the official Bevy information page suggests Godot if you want/need a full-featured game engine today.

If all that hasn't put you off it, I do think it's a very interesting engine, and one I'd like to get around to experimenting with making games in one of these days. Of note, it's written in Rust, so might be a fun way to help brush up on your Rust skills. :smile:
By sheer coincidence I started a small Pac-Man clone in Bevy last week, just to see how that engine works and how it feels to work with an ECS.

Bevy is an amazing piece of software. The authors are true masters of Rust generics, what makes developing with bevy a breeze. For instance, if you realize, while working on a system, that the system needs an additional component, all you have to do is to add it to the system's function signature, and it magically works. No need to touch anything outside of the system.
Similarly, if a system could do more if a certain component is present, but also works if the component isn't present, you can just add it as an Option parameter that's simply set to None for entities that don't have the component. Magic.

It's probably as easy as using an engine can be.
I've worked with both, Unreal and Unity, and both are way less elegant, and require a lot more work for every change you make to your project.

The lack of an editor might make it not suitable for bigger projects (though iirc bevy supports GLTF, so one could probably use Blender as editor), but the incredible speed of developing in it makes it imho very appealing for smaller projects and especially prototypes.

Stellaris 3.9 'Caelum' free update is out now
12 Sep 2023 at 11:58 am UTC Likes: 3

Well, that's going to break my savegame (I think). Luckily one can roll back to the previous version.

But there's another issue with it: How dare they release such a cool sounding update when I still haven't finished Book of Hours, Baldur's Gate 3 and Tears of the Kingdom? The audacity! :wink:

Star Trek: Infinite from Paradox releases October 12
8 Sep 2023 at 8:02 pm UTC Likes: 1

Quoting: Kimyrielle
Quoting: Grogan"Star Trek" broke canon with the "reboot" movies. They used... wait for it... a temporal event to do it.

They lost me there.
The game seems to be set in the TNG era, so it won't suffer from any of that. :)

PS: I didn't mind the reboot movies. They don't strictly break canon, since they're set in an alternative timeline (and time travel has been a part of Trek since forever, so that's fair game, IMHO). I have a bigger problem with all the space magic they introduced in the newer shows. That stuff makes me cringe. I loved Trek more when it at least tried to remain close to science.
And that earlier Star Trek is now considered "close to science" tells a lot about the newer series :tongue:.

Don't get me wrong, I love Star Trek. Up to and including Enterprise. I did not watch anything newer than that, though, because I could not bear to watch the first of the "actually, I wanted to do Star Wars" timeline movies to the and, and didn't dare to check out any newer Star Trek in fear of it having the same style...

Linux updates tease Valve 'Galileo' and 'Sephiroth' - Steam Deck refresh? Or new VR?
8 Sep 2023 at 7:44 pm UTC

Quoting: tarmo888
Quoting: soulsourceI know it's unlikely, but I'm still hoping for a new Steam Controller...

If it has a headphone jack, it could need an audio driver, right?

(At this point I pretty much convinced myself that it isn't a gamepad.)
The driver is for the OS, which runs the game. For a gamepad, the sound is coming from a device that runs the game.
Also makes no sense to run a Linux OS on a gamepad if it's only a gamepad.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean...
The gamepad would be connected as a peripheral device to the computer that runs the game. If the gamepad contains an audio-chip, that chip would need a driver on the computer the gamepad is connected to.

(And yes, I am aware that there is a standard for USB audio devices - but if I've learned one thing over the years, than that hardware manufacturers treat standards as suggestions at best.)

Star Trek: Infinite from Paradox releases October 12
8 Sep 2023 at 11:01 am UTC Likes: 3

Ah, so there are now paid Stellaris mods too...

Linux updates tease Valve 'Galileo' and 'Sephiroth' - Steam Deck refresh? Or new VR?
5 Sep 2023 at 3:19 pm UTC Likes: 5

I know it's unlikely, but I'm still hoping for a new Steam Controller...

If it has a headphone jack, it could need an audio driver, right?

(At this point I pretty much convinced myself that it isn't a gamepad.)