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I wonder how much easier it is nowdays to get a game like this up and running with something like Unity. I only do hobbyist 2D game development, but every time

I wonder how much easier it is nowdays to get a game like this up and running with something like Unity. I only do hobbyist 2D game development, but every time I read articles regarding 80s 2D gamedev I come across things like harsh hardware limits and difficult optimization problems - it seems like developers were forced to deal with a lot more complexity back then.

Rooster61 8y ago
Ask the guys that made Descent. They just basically redid the entire thing from the ground up to make Overload in a modern engine. Pretty damned solid effort, too.
romwell 8y ago
The answer is, of course, in the article: >Matt: Writing code is easy. Finishing is hard.
gsich 8y ago
Most newer games don't have the same "feel" to it, compared to Descent 1/2.
Const-me 8y ago
> to get a game like this With similar graphics quality it’s only moderately hard. I think I could re-implement that graphic engine in Direct3D 11 within a week or so. > developers were forced to deal with a lot more complexity back then. I think modern games are way more complex. Even for graphics: visual quality improved by a huge factor. Descent authors had to implement these fixed-point math routines, modern games don’t because already implemented in hardware, both CPU and GPU. However, modern games do a lot more: complex shaders for stuff like skeletal animation and environment mapping, deferred shading incl. ambient occlusion, multiple render passes for stuff like transparency and volumetric lights, multiple post-effect render passes for stuff like HDR and tone mapping… Here’s an awesome article explaining how GTA5 does that: http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphics-study/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphic... And that’s just graphics, other components like animations & particle systems, AI, asset streaming, physics and gameplay are not much simpler in modern games.

Rooster61 8y ago

Ask the guys that made Descent. They just basically redid the entire thing from the ground up to make Overload in a modern engine. Pretty damned solid effort, too.

romwell 8y ago

The answer is, of course, in the article: >Matt: Writing code is easy. Finishing is hard.

gsich 8y ago

Most newer games don't have the same "feel" to it, compared to Descent 1/2.

Const-me 8y ago

> to get a game like this With similar graphics quality it’s only moderately hard. I think I could re-implement that graphic engine in Direct3D 11 within a week or so. > developers were forced to deal with a lot more complexity back then. I think modern games are way more complex. Even for graphics: visual quality improved by a huge factor. Descent authors had to implement these fixed-point math routines, modern games don’t because already implemented in hardware, both CPU and GPU. However, modern games do a lot more: complex shaders for stuff like skeletal animation and environment mapping, deferred shading incl. ambient occlusion, multiple render passes for stuff like transparency and volumetric lights, multiple post-effect render passes for stuff like HDR and tone mapping… Here’s an awesome article explaining how GTA5 does that: http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphics-study/ http://www.adriancourreges.com/blog/2015/11/02/gta-v-graphic... And that’s just graphics, other components like animations & particle systems, AI, asset streaming, physics and gameplay are not much simpler in modern games.