I believe it was a desperate attempt to get a new source of revenue. His upcoming Sokoban game is taking forever to make, so it’s not going to bring them any new revenue anytime soon. In large part because he made the arcane decision to create a new programming language for it (as a replacement for C++), because apparently Sokoban is the type of game where you really need that high performance.
Yes, but read that again, he’s making a new language, not a new engine… To put it in terms of food, using things like Unity is equivalent to eating industrialized food, you have absolutely no control and you get what you get; Using other engines like Unreal or Godot that have open source is like cooking at home, some work but you can get it just the way you like; Building an engine yourself is like having a little farm in your backyard and doing everything from start to finish, it’s slow, you’ll face problems that have nothing to do with cooking that were handled by the farmers before and at the end you’ll get something only slightly better than what you could using store bought products; Building a language from scratch is the personification of the saying “to make an apple pie from scratch first you have to invent the universe”.
And you know the worst part? It won’t be any faster or better in any mensurable way, large groups of developers spend decades to develop the languages we have today.
I think his use case is that the new language allows for more rapid iteration in development. Years ago now, I saw his demo of the language, and it compiled so quickly that it may as well have been done by the time he pressed Enter. For all the gains he got from that, it still hasn’t helped him release a game by now, but I do see the problem he’s trying to solve, and I do think it’s worth solving.
Faster compilation is probably nice, but making a new language with all its tooling from scratch is a huge endeavor. Props to him for actually doing it.
The problem is that all this work takes away time from the actual game development. I’m not sure about the scope of his next game, but from what I’ve seen I don’t really understand why his Sokoban adventure game can’t be made in Unity. I don’t think he’s pushing any hardware limits with it.
Unity also got hot reloading nowadays, which is about as fast iteration you can get.
I’m just armchair guessing, but I believe he would’ve been done with his game by now if he just used Unity.
Hollow Knight: Silksong is a Unity game, last I checked, and it’s not getting done any faster. As per The Witness, it’s probably far more about how he’s retooling puzzles rather than his language, if I had to guess. Plus, it’s not just iterating within the editor; this thing exported a build in well under a second. I worked on a Unity game a few years ago, and it definitely took me far longer than that. It even had a bug for a bit there where we couldn’t see the game when run via the editor on Linux, so the only way we could test it was by exporting a build until we got an update to Unity.
A pretty terrible one. Remasters are for games that are high on replay value and deeply nostalgic. Braid was cool and innovative and I enjoyed it when I played through it the first (and only) time, but I have no desire to play it again.
Braid was a solid game all its own, and a remaster certainly wasn’t needed (yet or at all). The Witness was freaking phenomenal, and I hope there will be other iterations of games like it to come. Blow can go blow away though. He’s an anti-vaxxer and Covid conspiracy theorist, and that is something I can write off as anyone worth acknowledging. Plenty of other amazing games in the sea.
I appreciate letting me know about the anti-vaxxer conspiracy stuff. Makes me feel better about never finishing The Witness (not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because whatever filters were on there, it made me cripplingly motion sick for hours every time I played it).
I never finished The Witness either, but I kinda wished I would have, as the philosophical nature and puzzles were both very engrossing, such a unique take on the “walking simulator” style of game. Granted, it was much more than that, and I’d actually compare it closer to Myst and Obduction than such. The puzzles were repetitive but just incentive enough to be engaging and twisted in just the right way, though they got devilishly difficult later on. Sucks about the motion sickness though. Wonder if there was an .ini swing which could’ve turned the filter off?
Though, all in all, this was definitely a difficult “separate the art from the artist” scenario.
Yeah, I had the same reaction - The puzzles were definitely “learn how to think a new way,” my favorite kind. I ended my play on one perspective-shifting pattern puzzle that I was so close to beating, so I kept pushing myself through the motion sickness, and just ended up disabled on the bed feeling ill and unable to move for two hours (without completing the puzzle).
I tried a bunch of things - permanent reticle in center of screen, disabling walk shake, etc. I still play high-motion FPS shooters with no issue. It’s just some games (The Forest was another). I am guessing it’s a middleware-introduced visual filter that adds 15-25ms delay to screen latency, just enough to mess with inner ear visual/motion sync in sensitive people.
The game was advertised as having 40 new levels, which at first glance is sounds engaging and interesting, until you find out most of those levels are programmer/beta/alpha stages. It’s not entirely new content, but rather going through iterations until you arrive at the level as it is today. While interesting, it does feel disingenuous to advertise this as a new level. When I hear braid has a new level, I think “There’s one more puzzle piece”, but that’s not the case. You are not rewarded with anything in game, but instead receive some occasionally insightful commentary. In total, there are around 14 actual, new puzzles.
I looked on the Steam page and didn’t see that, but I thought I remembered it from launch. Perhaps I was just tired and missed it, but I think they didn’t do a good enough job calling it out.
If you liked the puzzle design style of the Witness, check out Taiji. It uses a similar open-ended structure that leaves puzzle rules for you to discover on your own.
Or the people who care about it already have it. It doesn’t have archaic controls or graphics or whatnot, so the need to buy a new version is way lower than the likes of a Resident Evil remake.
Yep! I would be much more interested in a Braid 2 rather than a remake of a game I already own and enjoy. I actually didn’t realize until writing this comment that Braid Anniversary Edition even had more puzzles than the original.
He should have called it “Braid+” or “Braid 1.5” or something. “Anniversary Edition” makes it sound like I’m just going to pay to replay the same puzzles I already figured out a decade ago but with minor cosmetic changes. Forty new levels is fairly substantial.
I liked Subnautica 1 but I feel like it took me way too long to find a few key blueprints and I’m not sure if it’s because the game is designed weird or if I just couldn’t find them.
I liked BZ, but I LOVED the original. The original is an 8/10 for me, and BZ is a 6/10 (not in shitty game reviewer numbers, for me a 5/10 is a game I thought was fun to play. And 8/10 is insanely good and almost no games get a 10.)
Don’t get too excited. The studio was been acquired by the publisher of PUBG, and their stated plans are to release subnautica 2 as a live service game with possible coop. I don’t think subnautica 2 is going to be anything like what you’re expecting. They’ve CLAIMED there will be no subscriptions or anything similar, but they’ve been conspicuously silent on microtransactions.
Unknown Worlds Entertainment is currently making another Subnautica game. They are publicly referring to it as “Subnautica 2.” So apparently they consider Below Zero to be a standalone expansion to Subnautica a bit like Half-Life: Opposing Force rather than a full sequel.
A few things that I have heard the developers confirm about this new game:
It will take place in the same universe as the first two games.
It will not take place on planet 4546B
There will be swimming in it
There will be submarines in it. Plural.
It will be co-op capable. If I understand what they’ve communicated right, it is going to be a single-player game that will have a “join game” button so you can invite a small number of buddies to join you.
From the screenshots they’ve shown, there’s going to be colorful ocean wildlife in it.
According to the Wiki, one of the original concept artists and the composer for Below Zero’s soundtrack are working on it.
They’re playing a lot of details close to the chest for now, very few gameplay or story concepts have been discussed. It is very likely going to be an ocean survival game with a nonzero chance of having your submarine bitten off by a 300 foot scream eel.
BZ was never Subnautica 2. It was a spinoff produced by a different team. It was originally supposed to be an expansion for the first game, but it got big enough they decided to release it standalone.
The title makes it seem like they’re putting these pics on the Steam page. Or at least that’s what it seemed like to me.
But they’re actually sneaking these pictures into these capsules you can find in the game. Normally these capsules have screenshots from other players’ games. Now players have found screenshots that are from the sequel (presumably). That’s really cool!
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