Dylan Falconer

@CloudlessStudio Common wisdom is to get 7k wishlists minimum before nextfest since you can only enter 1 nextfest per game

Is next fest really worth it? I feel like your game needs organic growth to be seen anyway, like a viral post, or YT coverage. I feel like an extra few hundred wishlists won’t make a difference unless your game is already quite popular.

@OlexGameDev I love this message. I'm rooting for you, Olex

@falconerd To those who doubt themselves: don’t underestimate your future self. There will be some resistance but it's worth breaking through it. It feels like I have learned more in the last two years than my entire pro career.

In this issue of Bytes Beneath, I explore the programming lie that limits the possibility space of games you may create without you even noticing. bytesbeneath.com/p/make-any-gam…

@DjMolehill @grok True. And a horse can be faster than a car if the car is parked

@falconerd @grok can't garbage collection actually be even faster than malloc/free memory management if implemented properly?

Your CS degree convinced you that: - Garbage collection is necessary - Manual memory is too hard - Performance doesn't matter All lies. Memory has lifetimes. Learn this once. Use it forever.

@AnalogDreamDev I've been following your progress and it's looking really unique! Love to see it

@falconerd This is a great article and I actually came to the same realization recently. I essentially was forced out of unreal and unity because those assumptions I've had about game dev for the past decade were limiting me, and were framed by those engines. So I started building my own.

There’s a quote that keeps floating around in my head as I get older: “The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.” Its one of those lines that feels more true the longer time goes on. Games lost an entire relationship between hardware, art, and the player.

@TheGingerBill As well as the lmgtfy slap in the face, perspective is cultivated through experience and is often nuanced That's one reason why I value humans teaching me something (even via another medium like a book) rather than an AI response

I am offended when people respond to questions with LLM generated stuff, because have access to the same LLMs that those people do. Do they not realize that? It's effectively the same as people saying "let me Google that for you". I've already done that...

Once you realise engines hide complexity instead of removing it you almost have no choice but to build from scratch

Stages of programming dependencies Beginner: NewSolution.sln -> Solution Explorer -> Add NuGet Package Intermediate: cl src/main.c -I include/ /LINK lib/... Advanced: Copy the code you need into your repo. Delete the rest. Master: cl my_game.c /NODEFAULTLIB

A simple observation about programming: It pays to embrace complexity early on You'll be much better prepared than if you're always protected from it For a beginner: Manual memory is scary. Collision detection is complex. Building from scratch seems impossible. When you've worked through the fog of uncertainty and see it for what it is? The journey becomes a lot easier

Entitled people think that because they put effort into something that means people owe them money and/or praise They always seem to learn the hard way and crash out

@AceaLashley @rcgamering @_SpyDtroid_ Yep, the remakes are a multiverse/sequel series. It's not actually a remake, unfortunately

@rcgamering @_SpyDtroid_ How can remakes be a different timeline? Wouldnt that be a multiverse sequel?

Cloud describing how he feels in the moment is what got me the most. Up until this point theres not a single moment where Cloud is presented to have strong emotions like this and seeing it here is gutwrenching 💔 I’m really sad Rebirth decided not to include this bit

@reitinet Good stuff :)

@falconerd Robo Miner does. I test my games on ancient devices as well. But I also run my own engine and I really love optimizing ... Robo Miner is just 14 Mb Even my "biggest" game Exipelago is highly optimized for old hardware (water/light sim is a bit demanding on bus tho)

99% of indie games I see don't: - Ship with a small file size - Run well on old hardware - Use simple, direct code Too much bloat. Not enough craft.

@falconerd game dev is easier than web development

How to learn game programming: Old way - Unity tutorials - Asset store plugins - Following YouTube step-by-step - Never understanding what's happening New way (ancient way) - Build from scratch in a systems language - Implement collision yourself at least once - Break things, then fix them - Actually understand your game Understanding > abstraction

@malavolence_ It seems like many indies go full-time too early and have to scramble to make money It's common to "just get it out" instead of canceling a project when it's not very good I'm not sure how I feel about it since the market decides anyway

@falconerd maybe its just the games i see but most of the indie games are some of the indie trends (deckbuilder, roguelike, movement shooter, etc.) i genuinely got bored with most of them im sure they intend well, but it just comes off as money-first and art-second

@jogamedev @raysan5 💯

@falconerd Shoutout to @raysan5 for fighting the good fight by bringing the craft back to games!

@korzewarrior Off the top of my head: Refactoring: caseymuratori.com/blog_0015 Memory: dgtlgrove.com/p/untangling-l… gingerbill.org/article/2019/0… Algorithms: redblobgames.com Networking and/or physics: gafferongames.com Shaders: iquilezles.org gmshaders.com

@forGL_as_lang That actually sounds really fun I was born too late

Debugger and Profiler tools. Monitor consoles for server side activity. It's all good. Data oriented Design. Row major vs Column major 2D matrix multiply. When it gets too much: Design by Contract Simplify to less demanding data or routing. Dictionary approach perhaps? Personally : Never did any games but had fun and got paid to do Graphics programming in ASM on PC with output to displays, printers or color film Recorder. 8088 CPU, no Floating point, no Graphics hardware accelerators. Set device to color raster mode and start sending horizontal lines of raster moving from top to bottom, like a printer feeds paper as it prints. 16 bit CPU with cost saving 8 bit data bus ISA. Cache is 3 bytes. We used 16 or 8 bit Integers where possible. 16.16 fixed point for geometry calculations. Render area available was 32K x 32K. Render widow was 4K x 4K. Line, polyline, polygon, triangle,rectangle, circle, ellipse, ellipse rotated, elliptical arc rotated, other raster data. Different 24 bit colors can be at each corner of background rectangle to do smooth shading. Film Recorder had a high accuracy CRT with 4096 dot positions addressable horizontally in 3 inch width and a Very stable high voltage power supply. Over 1300 dots per inch. Very few devices today have that much. Red / Green / Blue color wheel between CRT and 35 mm color film. Film would be high definition analog storage of a computer rendered image. CalComp Samurai 35 color film Recorder

@KoltPenny Agreed - My ThinkPad t480s has very similar specs Good quality build, decent price, forces at least somewhat reasonable programming

@falconerd All indies should develop on an i5-7200 and Intel HD620 graphics to maximize performance.