I’m only a hobbyist promammer but have probably read too much about game design. So all this advice is theoretical, I’m just quoting. All I have read always suggest that theme must follow gameplay, not the other way around. Suggestions are always to work on gameloops and gameplay elements first. Also, if a game can’t be physically prototyped, it isn’t ready for development yet. This is an odd suggestion unless you have tons of experience with board games, most games we play can be traced to physical simulation. RPG, FPS, puzzle games, management games, even visual novels can all be physically gamed. So I would suggest to do that first to find out which gameplay elements make sense with your desired themes. Iterate a lot, then it will be more intuitive and obvious what works with the theme and what doesn’t.
Because remaking the same features from scratch was taking too long. They had already delayed the project due to covid at that point. They ended up with three games: the one they started before intercept was created (and that never saw the light of day), the one based on KSP with the upgrades and new features added (also never seen publicly), a neutered version without the incomplete new features (like multeplayer and improved heat simulation) that was launched as early access. Poor fellows were set up for failure.
Not just making the same mistakes, they were told to scrap years of development and reuse the exact same codebase of KSP1. They had to start over the project with a decade plus of technical debt from a team they weren’t allowed to talk to.
Oh, the fucks up are massive. They hired a new studio, but also, they pulled the funding then the project without warning. Then they poached the devs, forcing the studio to close and sending them to a newly funded studio. But then, they forced the devs to scrap years of work from scratch, and start over the project with the old codebase and only a year as a deadline. Finally, when it became obvious it wasn’t a massive success, they cut their funding too without warning, and sold the IP without telling the studio about it.
KSP was mishandled so wildly that it should be a case study of how profit oriented management kills creativity and destroys IPs. They killed two studios and a massive IP with their shenanigans. This is why you never let the MBAs run anything.
We call those intrusive thoughts. The answers are literally meaningless. There’s no punishment or failure state on stardew valley, it cannot hurt you. Full optimization is not something that exist in or has any impact on the game at all.
I say this with all the kindness in my heart. If stardew valley estresses you out, then the problem is not the videogame. Your perfectionism and minmaxing POV might be what’s causing the anxiety and you would feel anxious and estressed in most other activities as well.
Whatever you do. Don’t dualboot. It gives a wrong impression of what Linux is, and complexity is not inherently a part of it. Try Mint as a live USB OS first. That means the OS runs from a USB thumb drive. This will allow you to dip your toes before you dive in. Just like dipping toes, it’s a no-compromise way of testing, but if you choose to install you already have 90% of what you need.
$80 digital. $90 physical. With the added spite that the “physical” copy is just a cartridge that loads a code for the game download. It’s just a $10 plastic box with an SD card with a download code inside.
Just because they are private doesn’t mean Gabe doesn’t like to make a ton of money. Dude owns tons of yacths and would like to own more. I love Valve and think they are the biggest ethical company in gaming. But they’re still a massive corporate monopoly. No one is perfect, and they did do things that hurt people. No need to be publicly traded to also be evil. Trust but verify.
What you don’t remember where the armies of bot accounts it brought into Steam. People would pay for votes and get scams and money grabs greenlit while indies couldn’t even get a foot on the door. YouTube channels made series about playing the shovelware and mocking the system. There’s a reason it was done away with.