Robert Taylor

A #gamedev thread on Nintendo Switch input latency for @UnrealEngine (#UE4) games. Featuring @DreamscaperGame, our #indiegame leaving Early Access in August. It is a deceptively simple game that uses low-poly models & textures but hi-fidelity shading and post-processing. (1/X)

@flassari Nevermind - just needed a better Google Search:

@flassari What's the best way to clear the cache on these when testing? Switching GPU drivers?

When an Unreal 5.3+ game runs, it will immediately kick off precompilation of global shaders. You should wait for that to complete before starting the game, otherwise you'll likely get hitches. You do that with the NumPrecompilingPSOsRemaining node. #uetips

@flassari @TomGDev I believe it. You cant beat the iteration speed of Blueprints, which is critical for a small team building something that ambitious. As long as you’re strategic about when to push the logic into C++, then you get the best of both worlds.

"Clair Obscur was 95% Blueprints" I've been eagerly waiting for this talk to be uploaded, great job @TomGDev 💪 youtu.be/t1CrbTx6O6w?si…

What an absolute joy this game turned out to be. If you’re even remotely into JRPGs, you need to pick this game up.

@Vuthric Great find. 📝

Been studying 3rd person camera and discovered a neat trick from Zelda Walls blocking camera is commonly solved by moving the viewpoint closer. However when the wall is moved away, Link's camera doesn't immediately jump to its original 3rd person position, instead only slowly recovers when there is user input.

@Mega_Arcade @AfterburnerDevs The exception is in the waking world portion of the game, which I hard-capped at 30 FPS, but there isn't any action gameplay during those sections. Load into the dream world with Performance Mode enabled on Switch 2 and it should look & feel very good.

@Mega_Arcade @AfterburnerDevs Since we use dynamic resolution and have an option in the setting for "Performance Mode", you'll find the Switch 2 version already pushes the highest resolution it can at the target framerate (60 FPS in Performance mode, 30 FPS otherwise).

Yes, Dreamscaper (@AfterburnerDevs) runs great on Nintendo Switch 2! Enjoy your Roguelike Dream Crawling! ❤️

@DanFessler Did you feel this way about BotW?

I don't play much modern games, but I did recently finish TotK. Hot take: The design feels disjointed due to breadth of content. Doing your 50th shrine, lightroot, skyview, etc doesn't have more impact than the first handful of times, and instead lets you decompose the patterns as "content"

@ballmatthew Wow. This must have been an absolute herculean effort to compile all of this data. Very sobering. It's apparent that our industry has been due for a bit of wake-up call over the last few years. Very little concern for capital efficiency across the board.

I'm now at the age where, when I can find a (rare) solid stretch of a few hours to play a game, I spend half the time trying to figure out *what* to play and the remainder of the time *downloading* the game.😅

@IchiroDejobaan Thank you! Very interesting data. Do you happen to know what % of games released in 2024 had AI disclosures?

@AfterburnerRob Given the nature of most disclosures, I'd be disinclined to strongly link the substantial rise in 2024 releases with generative AI. To put it another way: devs seemed to use it in bits, but not in a way that leads me to believe they wouldn't/couldn't have released without it.

@IchiroDejobaan Happy 2025! Do you have any plans on following up on your analysis of AI games in the Steam ecosystem? There was a massive spike in Steam games released in 2024 and there is some contentious debate surrounding whether or not AI had a role in this shift.

@IchiroDejobaan Awesome. You’re doing good work! Thank you!

@AfterburnerRob Running the analysis again now—will report back when it's chewed through them all.

Dream. Die. Wake. Repeat. 🌙 Did you miss the "Sleeper" Action Roguelite Hit of 2024? Dreamscaper is @Steam's Daily Deal today at a whopping 75% discount! 🤯

@tkexpress11 @a16zGames But in another tweet you mention you shared this through your social media and newsletters, so I think this still skews heavily towards those *looking* for funding which is self-selection bias. Framed another way: those of us with cashflow don't follow VCs much on social media.

100% correct on that dichotomy I haven’t done the analysis but - 40% are solo devs (not funded) - 21% 2-5 people (very likely not funded) Many answer the survey anonymously so it’s hard to directly answer But from eyeballing it I’d estimate that only 15% have raised outside capital

[New] @a16zgames AI x Game Dev Survey 2024 We surveyed 650+ game devs & the results are fascinating: - 73% of studios are already using AI - 39% of studios see a >20% productivity gain TODAY - 23% of respondents see AI as a threat to their job Here are ALL the big findings 🧵👇

@tkexpress11 @a16zGames Maybe my anecdotal experiences are way off, but in my circles (overlap between both tech and gaming) there is a *stark* contrast between how VC-backed / SV-based gaming startups view AI vs. bootstrapped gaming studios.

@tkexpress11 @a16zGames It's certainly an improvement, so thank you, but the bigger question for me still remains: what % of these studios are VC-funded? My theory is that you've done a great job of accurately measuring how excited VC-backed founders are about what AI can do for their valuations.

@t_looman Congrats!

Just realized this year was my 10th year writing tutorials for Unreal Engine, since the launch of UE 4.0! Still love doing it and always learning. Especially excited about the courses being picked up by so many studios I admire! Thanks for all the support over the years!