6 ms·

The Diorama Engine

129 points by grzm 3y ago

itronitron 3y ago
Very nice aesthetic.
- all2 3y ago
  Phenomenal, even. I can imagine this will look fantastic if color and particle effects (transparent pngs on planes?) are added. Maybe they won't be added. If not, this art style still reminds me of black-and-white movies. It's effervescent, visceral somehow. It tugs at my hearstrings for some reason that I -- as yet -- cannot express.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
proee 3y ago
Estimated ship date for Playdate is end of 2023 (per website). Have there been any updates from the company on this?
- ecliptik 3y ago
  They ship in batches. I got mine 3 weeks ago in Batch 5 that I ordered in March 2023.
  - proee 3y ago
    Are you happy with the device - looks pretty cool minus the grayscale screen. Curious if that was chosen for battery life or cost?
    - jmcphers 3y ago
      LCDs are very inexpensive commodities; the Playdate has a Memory-in-Pixel display that I would guess costs a little more than an equivalently sized LCD. So I think it's partly the battery life thing, and partly an intentional aesthetic choice -- this little thing is meant to evoke nostalgia for the days where the compute and display limitations defined a genre of games (see early Game Boy). Would definitely suggest looking at videos showing the display at various angles before purchasing one. In the right light it is incredibly bright, crisp, and readable, and like any reflective tech it gets better, not worse, in sunlight. However, it really needs light coming from overhead to do its best -- if you are in dim or diffuse indoor light, the screen can be nigh unreadable, especially since it's so tiny!
- jmcphers 3y ago
  This is Panic's first foray into hardware and it really shows; while the device itself is very handsome and feels great, they really underestimated demand and have had a tough time getting the supply logistics under control. I ordered mine in February and got it 7 months later. I think they're (finally) catching up on orders, but I wouldn't take their word for it on ship dates
  - Paul_S 3y ago
    They conceived, built and delivered production units, all the while pyra has been "almost there" so I think they did OK. For a super niche product I think they did great.
ecliptik 3y ago
This is for the PlayDate [1], which is a fantastic handheld gaming system. Aesthetics really hit a lot of Monument Valley notes and would pair well with the systems crank to rotate the world. After reading the devlog and rest of the site I'm not entirely sure what the gameplay is, but looking forward to seeing more. 1. https://play.date/ https://play.date/
- msephton 3y ago
  As far as I know it's a puzzle adventure game.
- ilaksh 3y ago
  What is fantastic about it? It looks cheap and has a low resolution black & white display. Sure, the screen is reflective, but so what? As far as I can tell, what this project has going for it is just slick marketing. But for me the marketing video is over-produced, form-over-substance, and I can't stand the voiceover or overall tone. It's saccharine. I see some Cortex-M7 SBCs on AliExpress for $5. Add the rest of it and it's probably like $20 worth of hardware/enclosure and $5 for assembly labor. They are selling it for $200. So it's like a 700% markup.
  - jkubicek 3y ago
    > What is fantastic about it? * The screen is crisp and clear and especially playable in bright light * The crank is nifty and enables a lot of player interactions that you don't see anywhere else * The device itself is a design delight. It doesn't feel premium, so much as just the right amount of quality and playfullness. It's cute and fun. * Panic created an IDE that makes developing games for the Playdate super easy and fun. I've built a few (terrible) games and it was a blast * Panic is throwing a lot of weight behind game development for this. You get a ton of great games for free with the device, plus access to a storefront that's filled with so many other games of all genres * I think games are being priced sustainably. They aren't expensive, but they also aren't so cheap that the designers need to rely on ads or donations. I don't know if it'll last, but they're certainly heading in a good direction.
ChrisArchitect 3y ago
add "for PlayDate" or something to the title for clarity
nightowl_games 3y ago
Looks incredible! I was thinking about how to similate a 3d effect on an arduboy at one point. Great job, fun project, love the writeup. I'm pretty thumbsdown on the playdate as a disposable good, though.
- jmcphers 3y ago
  I have a Playdate and I think they did about as well as they could to try to keep it from becoming disposable: - the device doesn't require any network connection or service and works great offline - games are generally offline only - games are easily sideloaded via USB - intentionally anachronistic aesthetic and tech is a sort of guard against obsoletion (it's ... already obsolete?) So even if Panic stops selling and supporting Playdates tomorrow, people can continue to build fun things for them for some time to come, and if you find a 10 year old Playdate in a draw and power it on, you should still be good for a few rounds of Whitewater Wipeout!
bestouff 3y ago
IMO the constant sortings are nearly useless. It just needs to have 4 list of sorted blocks, one for each 90° angle. Then it just re-sorts them all when an object moves (which would be very cheap), or if few objects move it can just paint them dynamically at the right time (also cheap). So at all times it has 4 presorted lists, and it chooses the right one depending on the camera position.
- vanderZwan 3y ago
  I have a feeling you're onto something but also something feels off, like there's a catch we're missing. > Then it just re-sorts them all when an object moves (which would be very cheap) Given player input and moving enemies this is every frame anyway, and your solution sorts four angles instead of one. Wait, do you mean "insertion sort the moved object from its original position"? I guess that would be cheap if it's just a handful. EDIT: if he is using an adaptive sort it shouldn't really matter should it? Although using one sorted list per axis seems smart (you don't need four, symmetry means one sorted list is the other in reverse)
  - bestouff 3y ago
    Moving your player means only changer its relative order to a few blocks, so even a bubble sort will do at most a few swaps (typically 0 or 1 swap per frame unless it moves many blocks per frame) so yes, it should be inexpensive. And you don't need to run the full bubble sort on all blocks, just on the 2 blocks adjacent to the player (in the sorted list), and repeat until stabilized. Edit: I'm not sure about the symmetry thing though. You're sorting into a cone, so maybe there are cases where you're not symmetrical at all.
    - vanderZwan 3y ago
      It's an isometric game, so the viewport is not a cone projection but a cube.

The Diorama Engine

129 points by grzm 3y ago

itronitron 3y ago

Very nice aesthetic.

all2 3y ago
Phenomenal, even. I can imagine this will look fantastic if color and particle effects (transparent pngs on planes?) are added. Maybe they won't be added. If not, this art style still reminds me of black-and-white movies. It's effervescent, visceral somehow. It tugs at my hearstrings for some reason that I -- as yet -- cannot express.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

proee 3y ago

Estimated ship date for Playdate is end of 2023 (per website). Have there been any updates from the company on this?

ecliptik 3y ago
They ship in batches. I got mine 3 weeks ago in Batch 5 that I ordered in March 2023.
- proee 3y ago
  Are you happy with the device - looks pretty cool minus the grayscale screen. Curious if that was chosen for battery life or cost?
  - jmcphers 3y ago
    LCDs are very inexpensive commodities; the Playdate has a Memory-in-Pixel display that I would guess costs a little more than an equivalently sized LCD. So I think it's partly the battery life thing, and partly an intentional aesthetic choice -- this little thing is meant to evoke nostalgia for the days where the compute and display limitations defined a genre of games (see early Game Boy). Would definitely suggest looking at videos showing the display at various angles before purchasing one. In the right light it is incredibly bright, crisp, and readable, and like any reflective tech it gets better, not worse, in sunlight. However, it really needs light coming from overhead to do its best -- if you are in dim or diffuse indoor light, the screen can be nigh unreadable, especially since it's so tiny!
jmcphers 3y ago
This is Panic's first foray into hardware and it really shows; while the device itself is very handsome and feels great, they really underestimated demand and have had a tough time getting the supply logistics under control. I ordered mine in February and got it 7 months later. I think they're (finally) catching up on orders, but I wouldn't take their word for it on ship dates
- Paul_S 3y ago
  They conceived, built and delivered production units, all the while pyra has been "almost there" so I think they did OK. For a super niche product I think they did great.

ecliptik 3y ago

This is for the PlayDate [1], which is a fantastic handheld gaming system. Aesthetics really hit a lot of Monument Valley notes and would pair well with the systems crank to rotate the world. After reading the devlog and rest of the site I'm not entirely sure what the gameplay is, but looking forward to seeing more. 1. https://play.date/ https://play.date/

msephton 3y ago
As far as I know it's a puzzle adventure game.
ilaksh 3y ago
What is fantastic about it? It looks cheap and has a low resolution black & white display. Sure, the screen is reflective, but so what? As far as I can tell, what this project has going for it is just slick marketing. But for me the marketing video is over-produced, form-over-substance, and I can't stand the voiceover or overall tone. It's saccharine. I see some Cortex-M7 SBCs on AliExpress for $5. Add the rest of it and it's probably like $20 worth of hardware/enclosure and $5 for assembly labor. They are selling it for $200. So it's like a 700% markup.
- jkubicek 3y ago
  > What is fantastic about it? * The screen is crisp and clear and especially playable in bright light * The crank is nifty and enables a lot of player interactions that you don't see anywhere else * The device itself is a design delight. It doesn't feel premium, so much as just the right amount of quality and playfullness. It's cute and fun. * Panic created an IDE that makes developing games for the Playdate super easy and fun. I've built a few (terrible) games and it was a blast * Panic is throwing a lot of weight behind game development for this. You get a ton of great games for free with the device, plus access to a storefront that's filled with so many other games of all genres * I think games are being priced sustainably. They aren't expensive, but they also aren't so cheap that the designers need to rely on ads or donations. I don't know if it'll last, but they're certainly heading in a good direction.

ChrisArchitect 3y ago

add "for PlayDate" or something to the title for clarity

nightowl_games 3y ago

Looks incredible! I was thinking about how to similate a 3d effect on an arduboy at one point. Great job, fun project, love the writeup. I'm pretty thumbsdown on the playdate as a disposable good, though.

jmcphers 3y ago
I have a Playdate and I think they did about as well as they could to try to keep it from becoming disposable: - the device doesn't require any network connection or service and works great offline - games are generally offline only - games are easily sideloaded via USB - intentionally anachronistic aesthetic and tech is a sort of guard against obsoletion (it's ... already obsolete?) So even if Panic stops selling and supporting Playdates tomorrow, people can continue to build fun things for them for some time to come, and if you find a 10 year old Playdate in a draw and power it on, you should still be good for a few rounds of Whitewater Wipeout!

bestouff 3y ago

IMO the constant sortings are nearly useless. It just needs to have 4 list of sorted blocks, one for each 90° angle. Then it just re-sorts them all when an object moves (which would be very cheap), or if few objects move it can just paint them dynamically at the right time (also cheap). So at all times it has 4 presorted lists, and it chooses the right one depending on the camera position.

vanderZwan 3y ago
I have a feeling you're onto something but also something feels off, like there's a catch we're missing. > Then it just re-sorts them all when an object moves (which would be very cheap) Given player input and moving enemies this is every frame anyway, and your solution sorts four angles instead of one. Wait, do you mean "insertion sort the moved object from its original position"? I guess that would be cheap if it's just a handful. EDIT: if he is using an adaptive sort it shouldn't really matter should it? Although using one sorted list per axis seems smart (you don't need four, symmetry means one sorted list is the other in reverse)
- bestouff 3y ago
  Moving your player means only changer its relative order to a few blocks, so even a bubble sort will do at most a few swaps (typically 0 or 1 swap per frame unless it moves many blocks per frame) so yes, it should be inexpensive. And you don't need to run the full bubble sort on all blocks, just on the 2 blocks adjacent to the player (in the sorted list), and repeat until stabilized. Edit: I'm not sure about the symmetry thing though. You're sorting into a cone, so maybe there are cases where you're not symmetrical at all.
  - vanderZwan 3y ago
    It's an isometric game, so the viewport is not a cone projection but a cube.