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I own Planimeter. We publish Planimeter Game Engine 2D, which was previously called Grid Engine 9.[1] I spend a lot of time thinking about how independent deve

I own Planimeter. We publish Planimeter Game Engine 2D, which was previously called Grid Engine 9.[1] I spend a lot of time thinking about how independent developers can better spend their time. A lot of developers get caught up in design documents, or thinking about how they want to make a game, but not seriously understanding how many hours a week you need to commit to a project and over how many years. As a rule of thumb, about 20 hours a week over a period of multiple years dedicated to a single project seems to bisect game developers into categories of those who are productive and those who aren't. We have had conversations with different developers in communities, like LÖVE's, for instance: Surprisingly, many developers aren't interested in serious commercial efforts. A lot of them fixate over matters that don't make significant product impact. As an example, there's some sort of "ECS" fad going on right now. Years ago there was some sort of "push/pop game state" fad. Professional game engines aren't built this way, so I have no idea where these fads originate from. We are a group of former Source Engine contractors, game technology developers, and designers. We have written some articles on embedding Lua, multiplayer game networking, and introducing a CSS 2.1 compositor into game engines, among other things. I'm interested in having conversations with other game developers, and as a like to have, we love talking with those who have written significant pieces of software in the open source community. As a crude ballpark, a measure of "significant" might be any repository with over 75 stars, or development of a technique that is novel in game software, etc.[2] [1]: https://github.com/Planimeter/game-engine-2d https://github.com/Planimeter/game-engine-2d [2]: https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/github-statistics https://github.com/andrewmcwattersandco/github-statistics

edf13 4y ago
Links on your README to getting started and docs are 404
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  Thanks, we're moving to a new documentation site. So the GitHub wiki, where the documentation pages are stored and read from is our fallback at the moment.
cupofpython 4y ago
Could you give me some advice on a related problem I have? I want to make a "game" which is more of a game environment sandbox. something kind of in-between game engines and actual games. I want to be able to create the feel of different game types like FPS, RTS, top-down adventure, side scroller, whatever - within a certain set of consistencies of my choosing. Like something to toy with different ideas for game mechanics in different settings while not needing to explicitly manage things like what a wall or door is each time i change things (things that would be defined as part of me creating the "game"). I want to be able to invite a friend into test environments as well (so multiplayer needed). I am expecting to need to make edits to the game mechanics outside of the game, possibly even through adding extensions to whatever game engine i use - so i will not be looking to set up a UI for tweaking settings. Just something that makes it easy to make changes to how the game functions, easy to spin up a dedicated server to run an instance of the created game environment, easy for another person to join that environment. Advice needed is: is this scope feasible for 1 person and what game engine should I look into for trying it out? I am not trying to do anything particularly fancy; no overall game design, no story, minimal amount of textures and assets. Literally just an environment to toy with game mechanics. I understand there is so much below the surface of what I am trying to do that I dont understand, i.e. I have seen an example for all the decisions that need to be made about doors, how interactions work, size, how changes are managed (this door, or all doors?) etc. Basically, I am not trying to send my friend a new .exe everytime I make a change to a game mechanic - since that's expected to happen a lot as the primary use-case for the thing. If I add assets, then yeah - although ive seen games have the ability to download assets when connecting to the server, so maybe not even that. Ideally, I'll have a fixed set of assets that cover everything of interest, and the way they are rendered and the multiplayer networking and all will be consistent throughout. hopefully this all makes sense
- reidjs 4y ago
  This is why I’m making an html5 game, they just go to the URL which is the most recent version of the game.
  - cupofpython 4y ago
hpx7 4y ago
Hi there! I started a company this year focused on multiplayer server infrastructure. We also built a multiplayer game framework for Typescript that has gotten 400+ stars on Github in the past few months: https://github.com/hathora/hathora https://github.com/hathora/hathora Would love to connect and exchange notes about multiplayer development -- if you're interested, my email is on my profile.
- andrewmcwatters 4y ago
  I have watched your company build up this tech for a little while now, I suspect there are realistically really only handful of us in game software who really know this stuff inside and out and who are contributing back their knowledge. Thanks for dropping a reply on HN. I can be reached at andrew at andrewmcwatters.com. I'll shoot you an email.

edf13 4y ago

Links on your README to getting started and docs are 404

andrewmcwatters 4y ago
Thanks, we're moving to a new documentation site. So the GitHub wiki, where the documentation pages are stored and read from is our fallback at the moment.

cupofpython 4y ago

Could you give me some advice on a related problem I have? I want to make a "game" which is more of a game environment sandbox. something kind of in-between game engines and actual games. I want to be able to create the feel of different game types like FPS, RTS, top-down adventure, side scroller, whatever - within a certain set of consistencies of my choosing. Like something to toy with different ideas for game mechanics in different settings while not needing to explicitly manage things like what a wall or door is each time i change things (things that would be defined as part of me creating the "game"). I want to be able to invite a friend into test environments as well (so multiplayer needed). I am expecting to need to make edits to the game mechanics outside of the game, possibly even through adding extensions to whatever game engine i use - so i will not be looking to set up a UI for tweaking settings. Just something that makes it easy to make changes to how the game functions, easy to spin up a dedicated server to run an instance of the created game environment, easy for another person to join that environment. Advice needed is: is this scope feasible for 1 person and what game engine should I look into for trying it out? I am not trying to do anything particularly fancy; no overall game design, no story, minimal amount of textures and assets. Literally just an environment to toy with game mechanics. I understand there is so much below the surface of what I am trying to do that I dont understand, i.e. I have seen an example for all the decisions that need to be made about doors, how interactions work, size, how changes are managed (this door, or all doors?) etc. Basically, I am not trying to send my friend a new .exe everytime I make a change to a game mechanic - since that's expected to happen a lot as the primary use-case for the thing. If I add assets, then yeah - although ive seen games have the ability to download assets when connecting to the server, so maybe not even that. Ideally, I'll have a fixed set of assets that cover everything of interest, and the way they are rendered and the multiplayer networking and all will be consistent throughout. hopefully this all makes sense

reidjs 4y ago
This is why I’m making an html5 game, they just go to the URL which is the most recent version of the game.
- cupofpython 4y ago

hpx7 4y ago

Hi there! I started a company this year focused on multiplayer server infrastructure. We also built a multiplayer game framework for Typescript that has gotten 400+ stars on Github in the past few months: https://github.com/hathora/hathora https://github.com/hathora/hathora Would love to connect and exchange notes about multiplayer development -- if you're interested, my email is on my profile.

andrewmcwatters 4y ago
I have watched your company build up this tech for a little while now, I suspect there are realistically really only handful of us in game software who really know this stuff inside and out and who are contributing back their knowledge. Thanks for dropping a reply on HN. I can be reached at andrew at andrewmcwatters.com. I'll shoot you an email.