Game Development

The 2013 StackExchange post [^1] describes what is now commonly called an "archetype" based ECS architecture that was implemented as compile time archetypes in the author's open source project in Feb 2018 ^3. A similar ECS model was described later in the June 2018 patent filed by Unity ^2 and active since 2020.

It's useful to bring visibility to the issue for the inevitable patent trolling that will occur in the future.

References: [^1]: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/questions/58693/grouping-entities-of-the-same-component-set-into-linear-memory/

Knowing when to put the mouse and keyboard down is hard.

I made this quite detailed shader, but it only fills a tiny part of the screen... Like maybe the player will see this once or twice max, but the rest of the time this element will only take up 40x40 pixel area 😅

What techniques have you found that help to keep you on track and let you understand when it's time to stop?

• Unity Software said Monday that it would lay off about 1,800 employees, or 25% of its overall workforce, as part of a corporate restructuring plan.
• The company said it is unable to “reasonably estimate the costs and charges in connection with this reduction, which it expects will be substantially incurred in the first quarter of 2024.”
• In October, John Riccitiello retired as Unity’s CEO, while former Red Hat CEO James Whitehurst became interim CEO.

From GameFromScratch.com

#Memes

I hope memes are allowed here >_<

Pog! ::D

maybe Unity has a chance to recover and do good by the community again

I still have doubts so personally I'm gonna stick with Godot and Bevy but we'll see in the coming future for how Unity progresses from here...

edit: whoops meant to post this in gamedevnews, gonna check before I post next time

From GamesIndustry.biz

They're cracking down on this.

I think now is the best time to share it. Unfortunately we're using it way more than we would like.

https://gamefromscratch.com/unity-alternatives-in-2023/

GameFromScratch.com / #GameDev

After seeing this other post here and lot of talk about it, I thought it'd be a good idea to make a list of free or FOSS engines for people that were considering using Unity but probably won't anymore, or that want to ditch it ASAP.

Feel free to add your own suggestions in this thread!

Engines:

• Godot - Probably the "biggest around", offers programming in both GDScript (very similar to Python) and C# with their Mono executable. Also has bindings for other languages thanks to their GDExtension API, such as Rust, Go and Nim. Has lots of material for learning and a community over programming.dev
• Solarus - FOSS, for making SNES/GBA Zelda-like games (top down action rpgs). Programming done with Lua
• GDevelop - FOSS, Similar to Construct2/3, focuses on visual scripting to define the workings of your game.
• OHRRPGCE OHR - Putting this one here because I'm simply too amused to leave it out. Could work as an alternative to RPG Maker, if you happen to know FreeBASIC and don't mind the really old school look of everything.
• Stride - Probably one of the best options for high performance 3D games with C# programming. MIT license
• Fyrox - Rust based engine. Allows both 2D and 3D development. MIT license
• Bevy - Similar to Fyrox above, it's made with Rust and allows both 2D and 3D. MIT or Apache license

Game specific engines - These are engines made to play a specific game, but they have enough tooling to allow you to make almost any other game with them

• OpenMW - Should probably be a good option for anyone with experience modding TES games. There is a "new game template" on their docs
• GZDoom - It's Doom. If you really, absolutely, definitely, must have your game run EVERYWHERE, this is one of the best choices. You aren't stuck to raycast first-person shooters, either, someone made a Donkey Kong Country with Doom and there's also Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart.
• Quake 2/3 source ports - Similar to GZDoom above, but for those that need good 3D performance. A good option is YamagiQ2
  • Pretty much any implementation or sourceport of id games fits the bill. The most recent open sourced engine of theirs was tech 4, which ran Doom 3 and Quake 4.

Frameworks - This is for the programmers.

• LOVE2D - Lua framework for making 2D games. Can also run on Android if the person installs the LOVE2D app
• MonoGame - Formerly XNA, it should be the go-to option for people with experience in C#. One of its most notable games is Stardew Valley
• libGDX - For people who want to make a game running in Java. Porting it to several platforms should be easy thanks to the JVM. Two notable games are Mindustry and Unciv (Civ5 clone)

Per the CEO in today's meeting:

"This is a ploy to gather more people to use Level Play [advertising network]. The mediation provider [advertising network] makes a cut off every ad, and right now a lot of people are on AppLovin Max [not Unity's], so a big part of this is they want people to switch to Level Play, and by doing that they'll make way more than the install pricing they're suggesting. It's too early to panic, but it is a big change"

If that sounds like a ramble, it's because it was, but the tl;dr is it seems Unity is giving a secret pass to companies that switch to use Unity's advertising solution.

Also some quick fun facts:

• Unity was never profitable
• Unity gave up competing with Unreal over a year ago
• Godot is a free and open source engine that competes with Unity professionally
• The trash App Store/Play Store games spy on you extensively, although Apple and Google have significantly limited their spying ability over the last couple years (i.e we used to open your camera in the background, can't do that anymore)

Update:

CEO is in talks with some Unity folks. The impression is "this decision came from very high up in Unity" from an exec who "had no idea how bad of an idea it was". We're expecting a public revision shortly (next couple days)

I made a blog post about my experience switching from Unity to Godot earlier this year, and some tips for Unity devs. Hopefully this can be useful for Unity devs considering the switch.

This is of course not including the yearly Unity subscription, where Unity Pro costs $2,040 per seat (although they may have Enterprise pricing)

Absolutely ridiculous. Many Unity devs are saying they're switching engines on social media.