#Game Development Tools

[askagamedev]

How are RPGs like Bg3, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elder Scrolls, etc that have so many story branches presented to the developers? Is one person in charge of one whole story branch or is it divided into chunks in a way? Does the writers room look an awful lot like Charlie from always sunny?

Narrative in such games are usually a lot more modular and systemic than you think. When you're putting together a narrative for a quest, for example, it's usually [set up in the form of a flowchart] - what happens in what order, where things branch, where they converge, where decisions can be made, and so on. If narrative is a big part of our game, the team usually has some a narrative design tool to help organize all of these things so that individual contributors can all work on different parts of the same narrative at the same time, all while keeping the project stable and functional.

What we're basically thinking about is a system of beats, where the overall narrative is defined as a logical flowchart of individual beats. Each beat thus has its own pre-requisites, internal logic to track player progress and handle item and reward management, and outward-facing variables for other beats to take into consideration (e.g. any decisions made during this beat that might need to be referenced later). Each beat can be worked on separately, which allows different narrative designers to work on different parts of the narrative flow concurrently.

Within a specific beat, we apply logic to determine what happens. If condition X is met, we play this conversation. If condition X is not met, we skip the conversation or maybe play an alternative conversation. These conditions can often be internal or external (e.g. from a previously-completed quest or beat), and are usually as complicated as we have the breadth to make them. After a particular quest or subquest is ready for testing, the narrative designer writes up a test plan for QA to validate the quest - how to start it, how to proceed through it, the different variations on prerequisites, and the expected results given the different player choices and variables going into the quest.

If we didn't have the kind of technical tooling needed to keep things organized, it would probably look a lot like those conspiracy boards. As such, most of this looks a lot more like a flowchart with a lot of clickable fields that allow us to set up conditions, results, dialogues, variables, and so on.

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[helphopeandedification]

Weathering AI and Changing Times Ahead

What are you dreaming of doing in the near future? What are your plans to address the coming changes? It’s been fascinating to see what changes are coming up. It’s been fascinating and maybe a little scary( just joking I think). Maybe you have an engaging game your developing, creating new software, app or development environment or starting some other type of business. Not sure? Well one of the…

[xceltectechnology]

Transforming Gaming: How Unity 3D Shapes Modern Game Development

Unity 3D has become a disruptive force in the ever-evolving game industry, changing the way developers create, implement, and release immersive gaming experiences. Unity 3D's advanced features and adaptable design enable artists, from independent developers to large companies, to realize their ideas.

What is Unity 3D?

Unity 3D is a cross-platform game engine that offers tools for creating interactive 2D and 3D experiences. Known for its user-friendly interface and robust capabilities, Unity has become a cornerstone for game developers worldwide. Its versatility supports diverse genres and platforms, from mobile devices to virtual reality headsets.

Key Features that Revolutionize Game Development

Cross-Platform Compatibility: Unity 3D enables developers to build games once and deploy them across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, PC, consoles, and VR systems. This capability drastically reduces development time and costs.

Realistic Graphics and Physics: Unity’s advanced rendering engine supports high-quality visuals, realistic lighting, and intricate physics simulations, ensuring immersive gameplay experiences.

Asset Store Ecosystem: The Unity Asset Store offers a rich marketplace of pre-built assets, scripts, animations, and plugins, helping developers speed up the creation process without sacrificing quality.

Powerful Scripting: With support for C#, Unity provides a robust scripting environment that allows developers to implement complex gameplay mechanics and AI behaviors.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: Unity is a leader in VR and AR development, offering tools to build experiences for devices like Oculus, HTC Vive, and Microsoft HoloLens. Real-World Applications of Unity 3D

AAA Titles and Indie Games: Unity has been the backbone of popular games such as Cuphead, Hollow Knight, and Among Us. Its versatility caters to both high-budget productions and indie projects.

Virtual Reality Games: Unity’s seamless integration with VR platforms has enabled groundbreaking titles like Beat Saber, which deliver fully immersive gaming experiences.

Educational and Simulation Games: Beyond entertainment, Unity 3D powers educational games and simulations that provide valuable training tools in industries like healthcare and engineering.

The Future of Gaming with Unity 3D

As technology evolves, Unity continues to stay ahead of the curve with support for cutting-edge advancements such as machine learning, real-time ray tracing, and AI-powered NPCs. Its adaptability ensures that developers can create games that align with future trends, from metaverse experiences to cloud gaming platforms.

Conclusion: The Unity 3D Advantage

Xceltec is leading to Unity 3D App game development, making it accessible to creators of all levels while providing tools to push the boundaries of innovation. Whether you're building a mobile puzzler or a VR epic, Unity 3D equips you with the power to craft unforgettable experiences that captivate players around the globe.

Ready to transform your game ideas into reality?

Partner with Unity 3D experts to bring your vision to life. Contact us today to start building your next gaming masterpiece!

For more information: https://www.xceltec.com/

[technoo-experts]

Essential Game Development Tools - A Complete Guide

Explore the must-have game development tools, covering everything from game engines and 3D modeling software to audio editors and collaboration platforms. This guide provides an overview of the software and resources that streamline each stage of the development process, helping you create visually stunning, immersive games. Ideal for beginners and experienced developers alike, this toolkit will set you up with everything needed to turn creative ideas into playable realities.

[meowguiiiin]

The game is done! I turned an artwork into a playable minigame!!

Finished the game yippee! Please let me know if you find any bugs and I'll try to fix them. :)

Thank you for 150+ notes on the original artwork!

[st-hedge]

It wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card that I’d draw V again. Anyway I’ll go ahead ramble in the tags

[physalian]

Take A Risk and Don’t Write a Chosen One

This trope stands the test of time for some very good reasons: Audience wish-fulfillment as they live vicariously through the hero, automatic plot-induced agency for your protagonist, and automatic legitimate reasons for your protagonist to join the whirlwind adventure of the day.

I like chosen ones. We all have our favorite famous chosen ones and I’m not here to say the concept of a chosen one is bad at all.

However.

Those “automatic” windfalls that come pre-packaged with the trope can lead to the author taking shortcuts, or not thinking they have to put in more effort to write a compelling character, because they’re the “chosen one,” what more do you need?

Not writing your protagonist as commanded by the powers that be to participate in the plot forces you to get creative with why they’re here, what they want, and how they entrench themselves in the story. And most importantly, if the gods haven’t chosen them to act, they must now choose themselves to act.

—

I have never read Harry Potter and after its author-who-shan’t-be-named flushed her reputation down the toilet, I never will. I’ve seen the movies, they’re ok. I have no nostalgia-driven love for this franchise, and most of that comes from watching Harry be an incredibly boring protagonist.

Book readers correct me, but Harry is the poster child of “only exists so the audience can live vicariously” with generic heroic traits and nonexistent or at least unimportant side quirks and distinguishing hobbies, interests, or personality tics. He’s “brave” and “courageous” and “determined”... as most child protagonists of children’s books should be. He has zero flaws that come back to bite him in the ass. He acts the way he’s supposed to, not the way he should want to, as an independent being.

He’s the least interesting character in this entire cast, and I can’t stand Movie Ron. Ron, Hermione, Neville, or Draco would have made much more compelling protagonists and so much of this relies on the “Harry is important because the plot demands it” crutch.

Why is he the chosen one? Because his birthday happened at the right time of year? What is the story trying to say about the dichotomy between him and Voldemort? What about his personality, his wizard-societal stances on the many faux pas in this series, or the choices he makes, that makes him the chosen one? Why should I care?

You know who’s a great chosen one? Percy Jackson. Why? Because he understands the screwed up world he lives in on page 1. Being a demigod isn’t everything he ever dreamed and despite what Disney + wants you to believe, he’s got a crap bio dad who’s as disappointing in book one as Percy expects him to be.

He’s not even the chosen one by the end of the original series, and what a fantastic twist that was.

An infamously self-chosen protagonist has her own iconic hero quote: "I volunteer as tribute". Katniss is a nobody. She's not the evil president's daughter, she's not the child of a famously martyred revolutionary, she's just a girl who refuses to bow down to the reaping, refuses to let her sister get slaughtered, and volunteers for a death match that historically sees anyone living to survive another year cowering in relief. Yeah, she has some convenient skills in her archery and survival knowledge, but those matter because her district is starving, she learned through necessity.

Every second of her story, Katniss is fighting for her right to exist, and she only becomes a "chosen one" dragged around by the powers that be when she becomes marketable to the grand scheming of the actual revolutionaries, when, before, she didn't care about politics, she just wanted to save her sister. She matters because she chose compassion in a world where survival demands only serving yourself.

—

It’s so, so easy to start planning your book and make your cool fantasy world and figure out how your protagonist fits into it. So easy to say “well they’re the long-lost princess and the only heir to the throne” or “this magic amulet from her great great aunt is the key to saving the world” or “she’s the villain’s secret love child and the only one who can stop him because blood magic” or “this vague prophecy picked this little desert slave boy to bring balance to the Force”.

None of these stories are at fault for writing chosen ones.

But push yourself to let go of that crutch and come up with other reasons for why your hero is the hero. Usually this character has been isekai'd into magical-fantasy-land or magical-hidden-fantasy-urban-underbelly and you can still write that character.

Refusing to make them the chosen one demands one thing first and foremost: How is this outsider going to fight for their place to exist here? What do they bring to the table with their hobbies or interests or unique skillset that happens to be mighty applicable and useful in this new world? What is it about their personality that draws these strangers in? What do they want from this new world, and what are they willing to do to get it?

This choice demands you give your hero agency (though whether you give into those demands is up to you).

More importantly: I think it gives your audience agency, as they still live vicariously through their hero. Sure, lots of kids have lost their parents and live in horrid conditions like a cupboard under the stairs, but none of us will ever be “chosen” by omniscient wizard prophets. Harry would have immediately been a more compelling protagonist to me if he’d stumbled upon magical shenaniganry and fought for his place as some forgotten nobody mudblood.

Harry would have shown us his courage, instead of the story insisting he has it, we promise, just don’t think too hard about it.

Stop giving me characters who accept their destiny because God said so. Give me characters who fight tooth and nail for a destiny they discover on their own and I’ll root for them to succeed even more than someone compelled by force. Not everyone can be a chosen one, but everyone *can* choose themselves and decide to act.

—

With that said, I have an announcement! I have a new book in the works bereft of a prophecy-ordained hero. It’s time I put all my sagely writing wisdom to the test in a shiny published paperback myself. If you’ve learned anything from my blog in your writing journey, please subscribe for updates on the upcoming novel!

[dragonksenia]

If you don't mind, I want to share these arts/sketches with you 👀

I really like this idea and hope that one day will finish it

Trailer of the game project:

[molegato]

So I made a free little silly tool for small gamedevs!

If you struggle thinking what to post on social media to promote your game every day, this just gives you ideas. It pulls from external files you can customize in notepad to fit your game, too!

You can find it here!

[t4tails]

ok this game has so many glitches or just fuck ups in general compared to its predecessors its a little funny. the worst i got in city was getting stuck in a wall once but here theres just inexplicably jack ryder tied to a table by an evil preacher despite the fact that i have already completed that mission and saved him

[askagamedev]

Is your workplace/industry buzzing about (what companies would like us to call) "AI"? What's the buzz, if so?

We're not thinking about AI too much - it's too far away on the horizon to seriously consider while we're busy focusing on getting the game into alpha, beta, and doing our cert submission prep. Some of the more senior leadership have talked about it in that kind of long-term planning sort of way and there's been some preliminary evaluation on that front, but the general attitude from my studio leadership (and the leadership of the franchise I'm currently working on) is that AI is interesting but the potential legal pitfalls from using AI trained on large internet-scraped data sets for things like asset generation have yet to be addressed... and we're far too well-known and visible a franchise to risk that kind of legal trouble knowingly.

Our primary goal in evaluating AI as a development tool is for the same reason we develop tools and automated assistance to help artists create assets - anything that helps automate the annoying and busy work that artists have to do frees up more dev time for them to do the creative stuff that we want them to do. Instead of having to create normal and spec maps by hand, maybe we can automate and improve the process so that the artists can spend their time creating more cool assets and not have to handle the fiddly busy work. If an AI can help by pre-filling in values and setting things up for them to review and adjust, that's a lot faster than having to do it by hand. A large portion of our tool engineering is targeted at those kinds of problems.

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[hotfudgecherryrosy]

Hi! Little update on the Quizlet-like app, henceforth known and tagged as Innaflash. (One of my friend's ideas, and I'm a sucker for puns :) )

Tl;dr of below is i'd like opinions on the UI mockup so far, maybe some alternative color theme ideas.

No coding has happened yet, but I started making a UI mockup to get the brain juices going and also bc i just love messing around with color themes and graphic design, hee hee. I think I'm going with a webcore theme. Default will be purple, but there will be the option to change the theme (i already have the code for this so it's easy to implement). A couple images are above, I'd like to hear what you all think :)

[h4ppyc4t]

Hello all, I ended up needing a little bit of help this month so I decided to open this account to advertise commissions! I'm able to do pixel art, reference images, and more. Just ask and I'll most likely be okay with what you want!

[technoo-experts]

Top Game Development Tools - The Ultimate Toolkit for Creators

Unlock the potential of game creation with this guide to essential game development tools. From powerful engines to graphic design software, sound editing programs, and project management resources, discover the tools that professional developers rely on to bring games to life. Whether you're an indie developer or part of a larger team, this guide will help you choose the best tools for building engaging gameplay, stunning visuals, and immersive soundscapes, taking your game from concept to reality with efficiency and creativity.

[meowguiiiin]

WIP game

Turning it into a game on Scratch now!

I haven’t drawn any full pieces recently because of this lol

[kevinsteen]

i can't fucking believe powerwash simulator got its final update today that game has seen me thru the toughest days of my 20s man it's such a special video game