[HN Gopher] Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones
___________________________________________________________________
Cramming 'Papers, Please' onto Phones
Author : nycpig
Score : 1181 points
Date : 2022-08-06 20:43 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (dukope.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (dukope.com)
| xmprt wrote:
| The blog post was a blast to read and even better, it served as a
| great trailer for the game. Bought it immediately after reading.
| I wish more game devs wrote blog posts like this.
| chairhairair wrote:
| The productivity of solo indie game devs is just really
| impressive.
|
| While I'm aware of the "go fast alone, go far together" quote,
| I'm depressed by how inefficient app/ui development is at big
| tech companies compared to game studios, especially short staffed
| indies.
|
| Really makes me wonder about the "engineering excellence" that
| tech leads and "architects" pride themselves in when games are
| developed much more quickly and are - to my eye - much more
| stable and performant.
| oreally wrote:
| Yea the self wankery you see when these people place on
| insubstantial things like correctness against all possible
| situations in their PRs is amusing.
|
| Elon once wanted to move his programmers to windows upon seeing
| how fast world of warcraft was developed. Goes to show how fast
| people can be if they care about the things that matter.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| how far do you really need to go, alone
|
| You need a win, but not that big of a win in the grand scheme
| of things
|
| Six figures, a couple million
|
| Whereas big studios _need_ multiple hundred million+ hits
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| I don't play a lot of games anymore, but the last one I spent a
| considerable amount of time with was Stardew Valley. And I
| couldn't believe it was made by just one guy.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Remember last Tuesday when you wanted to add something, but
| your manager said no.
|
| Remember 2 weeks ago, and you really wanted to implement CICD,
| but the DevOps team told you not to.
|
| When you're developing any solo projects, you don't have anyone
| else telling you what you can't do.
|
| This is amazing, but you can also easily spend countless hours
| building something nobody really likes. I've made a small
| handful of games, a few of them have been released publicly. If
| I had to guess, at most maybe 20 people have played my games.
|
| But I taught myself everything I know via learning game
| development, and my career is amazing.
|
| Even now, I'm trying out different engines and having a blast.
| Odds are. I'll probably never produce anything that becomes all
| that popular. It'll just be another throwaway game on itch that
| nobody plays, but I can say without a doubt I had a hell of a
| time building it.
| chairhairair wrote:
| Expanding on this in a reply to my own comment.
|
| Grinding Gear Games, as an example, is a NZ based game studio
| that releases a new expansion to their famous RPG - Path of
| Exile - every three months.
|
| The game is not a simple program by any stretch - which might
| be a fair criticism for Papers Please by comparison since it is
| purely client-side and all possible states of the game can be
| fairly easily enumerated.
|
| Path of Exile is a persistent cross-platform 3D online
| multiplayer game that has daunting requirements for
| consistency, latency, and graphical performance.
|
| Despite that, each three month release cycle introduces more
| new UI elements and features than I think the entirety of
| Google apps release in the same timeframe. And that's not
| because Google isn't trying to build new things - they are and
| I've written UI for several of those projects.
|
| Does anyone else feel a real sense of deflation when it comes
| to app/web development velocity compared to games?
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| The inertia at big tech companies is likely from the
| overwhelming weight of the business itself. No one wants to
| push out updates lest it upset the finally tuned business
| machinery.
|
| A UI change can impact usage. Which can impact revenue. Which
| can impact stock price.
|
| The end users for large tech companies are essentially
| shareholders and investors.
| MrDresden wrote:
| Not to take anything away from the game devs (PoE is great
| and I wish I had started playing sooner) but I wonder how
| much internal politics plays a part.
|
| I can imagine that the game studio has most if not everyone
| onboard helping collectively to make the game better each
| iteration. It is a common goal.
|
| How many different product teams and managers get in the way
| for products at other companies where each is fighting for
| funding or privilege?
|
| Being in that kind of environment is draining for the product
| teams.
|
| Having worked at places that matched both these situations, I
| know where the quality and quantity of my output was greater.
| bestinterest wrote:
| I have the exact same feelings.
|
| Is immediate mode GUI's just that much better? Instead of a
| complex React/Redux style setup, how much easier would state
| management be if we had a render loop like game dev? Does
| that even make sense?
|
| I am very envious at the pure programming skills of so many
| game developers. UI's in indie games are just a side thing in
| the deep complexity of a game and they end up looking
| incredible compared to the level of effort required for year
| long web app projects.
| plorkyeran wrote:
| They've drifted away from calling it that, but the whole
| idea behind React was to bring immediate-mode rendering to
| the web. It has an event loop where each "frame" you render
| the current state from scratch, rather than explicitly
| updating the state of retained controls.
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| I use Zui with Kha/Haxe - an immediate mode GUI library. I
| cannot overstate how immediate mode GUI greatly simplifies
| ui development. React is massive step up from
| OOP/scenegraph/display list style gui, but it is still so
| complex and cumbersome compared to immediate mode. I can't
| fathom why there is such little exploration in this space
| and it seems mostly limited to gamedev.
|
| https://github.com/armory3d/zui
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Immediate mode GUI makes perfect sense for applications
| that repaint themselves all the time 60 (or more) times
| per second, as they're already doing the work and there's
| little overhead added by handling such GUI. I can deal
| with 3D editor working this way, but I don't think I
| would be very happy if my e-mail client did.
| bogwog wrote:
| That's just an implementation detail. The main benefits
| of an immediate mode UI is the API for using it. There's
| no reason that the loop has to run at 60 FPS. It could
| even be event-based, so it only updates when the user
| does something, for example.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Yes and no. That API makes certain approaches easier and
| other harder. Even if you manage to render only the
| changed parts of the screen, you still execute all your
| UI logic all the time so the renderer can be aware of
| what changed in the first place. Also, more involved
| stuff like animations become much more complex once you
| go event-based, to the point where retained mode UI may
| end up being a better choice from the API perspective. It
| all depends on what exactly you're implementing, and
| games often are a natural fit for immediate mode as they
| usually allow to keep it simple with no real downsides.
| JoeyJoJoJr wrote:
| I don't have much understanding of the internals of the
| immediate mode renderers, but I think there are
| optimisations to only redraw regions where component
| inputs have changed.
| jb1991 wrote:
| You typically have to implement those optimizations
| yourself, and most people don't. It's outside the scope
| of the renderer in most cases for it to decide what
| should or should not be rendered. As a result, immediate
| mode GUI, while fast to develop, typically really kills a
| battery life on mobile.
| tomc1985 wrote:
| They don't start fresh every three months.
|
| Usually they have multiple leagues cooking up in the oven at
| any given time, so that if the league they want to release
| isn't ready in time, another, simpler idea will likely be
| within reach of completion.
|
| The timeline is as such because their business model requires
| engagement spikes every three months. Remember that Path of
| Exile is free-to-play.
|
| I also want to add that PoE has grown into one of, if not THE
| most complex games ever made; there are so many overlapping
| systems and mechanics that there were memes about what would
| happen if they added any more special destination buttons to
| the worldmap. And I'm not even talking about the initial
| release; it was a complicated game then, but now it has the
| mechanics of at least a dozen leagues baked into the core
| game play; many of those leagues are an entire game unto
| themselves (like Delve)
|
| I love it for this, but it makes me sad that most gamers
| don't try and reason about this complex thing, and instead
| follow build guides and copy streamers, instead of
| experiment. Also, because of the nature of the game's deisgn,
| you need to play for a stupendous amount of hours to reach
| the end- endgame, and for most folks you also need to trade
| items with people IRL as the designers intentionally do not
| add a decent trade system. There are a lot of other quirks
| that reflect the designers' intent to not make life easy,
| either, and players both love and hate that.
| Jare wrote:
| A lot of it is about tradeoffs (long term vs one-off projects,
| business stakeholders, and a long etc), but there's also
| significant selection bias. Most "indie" projects die before
| having much of a playable thing, and many successful solo indie
| projects can take many long and grueling years (e.g. Stardew
| Valley).
|
| Engineering in most organisations will place stability and
| predictability very high among priorities, and pay a hefty
| price for it (sometimes, messing up along the way and getting
| neither benefit). An individually brilliant engineer can be a
| great asset if properly managed, but you need the majority of
| people to be less of an outlier.
| chairhairair wrote:
| I think we can ignore the selection bias because I'm not
| aware of any "AAA app" (for lack of a better term) that moves
| as quickly and productively as the best game studios do (see
| my comment about Grinding Gear Games below). Additionally,
| these apps employ engineers that are supposedly amongst the
| best money can buy. At least, if there is some better way to
| hire top engineers it should be fairly obvious in AAA app
| output of some orgs with better hiring processes - but I'm
| not aware of any such apps or orgs.
|
| As for stability and predictability, I'm not confident that
| AAA apps are hugely (or maybe even significantly) more stable
| or predictable than the best games. Maybe my tolerance for
| bugs is higher in games than apps, but I do seem to tolerate
| quite a lot of jank and slowness from apps, so I'm not sure.
| bogwog wrote:
| Part of that is probably that game developers tend to be
| passionate about the work they do, whereas most people
| working in app development probably don't give too much of
| a shit about the boring apps they're making. It's hard to
| get motivated when you're just making a glorified front-end
| to a database, _another_ e-commerce site, etc.
|
| Of course, the tradeoffs in work-life balance for game
| development is massive, so it's not like that extra
| productivity is free (unless you're management). Nobody
| working at a typical software firm is going to be expected
| to crunch 12 hour work days for weeks just to ship.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I've had my eyes opened recently onto the world of modern game
| editors (Unity, Unreal, Godot, etc.) by watching gamedev
| streams. The productivity of these environments, and their
| associated asset stores, is amazing. You can't help but think
| that other domains would also be well-served by a fully-
| integrated experience like this. Surely the universe of
| "webapps" or "unix-y network services" is at least as
| constrained as "3D games" is (possibly more?).
|
| I would certainly be interested in a "Unity for line-of-
| business apps." I guess this was VB6 lol.
| BigJono wrote:
| The interesting thing is that the other comment alongside
| yours is talking about GGG, who rolled their own as a team of
| about 6 (in the early days), and they're by far the most
| productive game developer I've ever seen.
|
| I think Unity and the like have made the average project much
| more productive, but they don't add power to the top end. The
| power of having everything perfectly customisable by a team
| of experts with perfect domain knowledge is just too much for
| anyone else to match by getting quick wins off the work of
| others.
| ink404 wrote:
| do you have any streams that you'd recommend?
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I typically bounce around the twitch category before
| settling on one. These tend to be smaller streamers who
| don't have regular hours. One that I try not to miss is
| Jonathan Blow, though his current project is in a custom
| engine (written in new language on a custom compiler, even)
| so it's not immediately relevant to learning about modern
| game editors.
| phist_mcgee wrote:
| A bit of a tangent, but I lost quite a bit of respect for
| Jonathon Blow when he made comments about impostor
| syndrome:
|
| https://youtu.be/ECwHZlvvVH4?t=3370
| matttb wrote:
| Interesting you feel that way, I found it comforting.
| robocat wrote:
| I think what he said is awesome! You are presuming that
| others are on the same page as you: I have zero
| understanding as to why you "lost respect" at all.
|
| Perhaps you could share your own thoughts, opening
| yourself to criticism and a chance for interaction, and
| perhaps learning. I wrote a few comments on
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31990217 (discussing
| an opaque article titled "The Mysterious Return of
| Imposter Syndrome").
| grapeskin wrote:
| Having a complete mental map of your work environment is the
| key. Nothing changes without your approval and you have some
| idea of when and where every change was made along with what it
| does.
|
| Most of dev work is making sure other people can make sense of
| your work. With solo dev, that step is basically unnecessary.
|
| I think it's also why some indie games (eg binding of Isaac)
| get completely remade instead of making updates a year later.
| Walk away from the project for a couple months and it's an
| untamable beast.
| Linda703 wrote:
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I thought this has been on ipad forever
| MattRix wrote:
| Yes it has. He talks about the iPad version in the post.
| keyle wrote:
| The blog post is really top tier. Consider how much time some
| engineers spend considering details when they're just being
| contracted to do a job (I've work with lots) and how this indie
| game project is being explained, nitpicked, loved and cherished.
|
| The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this
| person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing
| off the explanation of how it's made.
|
| Side note... A lot of YouTubers also work like this: pushing the
| craftsmanship to beyond expectation to almost cause an emotional
| reaction.
|
| In this case though, it's genuine engineering with high
| standards.
| lemming wrote:
| IMO you should absolutely buy what he produces, partly as you
| say to support a genuine craftsman, but also because
| (unsurprisingly) the games he produces are really good. I also
| think of my purchases as a donation to keep his blog posts
| coming.
| wly_cdgr wrote:
| This blog post is good, but is pretty average stuff for a real
| professional. You are just used to reading webdev tip&trick
| postlets from third-rate hacks
| deathanatos wrote:
| No, this is definitely high-quality. Like the person you're
| responding to, far higher quality than a lot of professional
| work I've seen. This is very clearly someone who cares about
| the end result, not just about getting it done, and a lot of
| work I've seen in my career, the person cares more about just
| getting it done, than they do about getting it done _right._
|
| I'd also say it's about having the skill to do this: as other
| posters note, there are _multiple_ competencies on display in
| that post; graphics, coding, testing, etc. Each of those
| takes time to hone. I 've worked with any number of people
| that are not honing their skills, because when they get stuck
| or hit problems, will not take the time to dig into them and
| really _understand_ exactly what problem they hit, why they
| hit it, and how whatever language /tool/system they're
| working with works. They'll guess until something appears to
| work, and then move on.
|
| I'd put the detail in this blog post up there with Friday
| Factorio Facts, and that is also another top-notch game.
|
| If your professional environment is just full of people
| working at or even above the level here, you should know you
| have it good. And I think they do exist: I've definitely
| joined places where there are just _lots_ of incredible
| people; in hindsight I wish I 'd done a better job of
| learning and listening, when I had that...
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| I believe it all boils down to being an artist working on a
| project you're passionate about. If I was forced to work on
| someone else's project that I don't really care about just
| to make a living, I'd probably simply execute my tasks to
| make sure I reach the expectations, and that's it. I'd
| strive to finish my tasks fast to have more time doing
| something I actually care about, be it a side project,
| hobby, family time or even just a walk in a park. However,
| when I'm a one-man orchestra doing a project where my main
| motivation is to see that project being done, it's actually
| getting hard to restrain myself from going into all those
| interesting rabbit holes that could easily postpone the
| completion of that project almost indefinitely. I find it
| hard _not to_ hone my skills and dig into stuff to
| understand it in that setting.
|
| (of course, when I was young it was easy for me to get
| passionate not about the project itself, but on mere
| technical aspects of work I was doing for someone else;
| this kind of motivation, however, doesn't last very long
| unless you're able to change your job often to keep it
| fresh and challenging)
|
| What I deeply regret is that I struggle with writing about
| stuff I'm doing. There's a lot of interesting knowledge one
| acquires from such projects, but it often gets almost lost
| and only really lives on as a vague "experience" you can
| indirectly apply to your future projects. I would like to
| have my own experiences written down in such a neat way
| like in this post, not just for publicity, but also for my
| own personal needs when I want to go back to something I've
| done years ago. Usually, my attempts end with an
| unfinished, incomplete document that gets so out of date
| before completion that it's best to throw it out and start
| over, which of course doesn't happen until the memory of
| what I've done becomes foggy enough to make reminding
| myself what to write about a challenge on its own :( As it
| is right now, I'd struggle to describe the vast majority of
| my past passion work if anyone asked me about it; I'd need
| plenty of time and some "detective work" to reconstruct my
| memories.
| kergonath wrote:
| > The blog post alone makes you want to purchase whatever this
| person has been working on based on how much passion is oozing
| off the explanation of how it's made.
|
| _Papers Please_ is nice, but _Return of the Obra Dinn_ is a
| masterpiece. Honestly. A very cool concept with some impressive
| attention to detail. Pixel-perfect 1-bit dithered graphics,
| amazing soundtrack, and a nice story. I don't have a link here
| but there was a forum thread somewhere where he discussed his
| progress as he was making the game. It's a bit long but we'll
| worth a read as well.
| the_af wrote:
| I consider both games to be masterpieces, keeping my
| attention even when I was bored with gaming in general.
|
| I also played Helsing's Fire on the iPad, which while not a
| masterpiece, is still pretty fun!
| kergonath wrote:
| I like the idea of _Papers, Please_ more than actually
| playing it, I think. But I never played Helsing's Fire,
| thanks for the suggestion!
| vanderZwan wrote:
| This may be true, but in the same way that paintings
| don't have to be "beautiful" to be good paintings, games
| don't always have to be fun experiences to be good games.
| I think _Papers Please_ is a perfect example of such a
| game. I didn 't enjoy it so much as that it engaged me in
| its bleak bureaucracy.
| the_af wrote:
| Good point!
|
| Though I _actually_ enjoyed "Papers, Please" gameplay. I
| was overjoyed when I found it has an endless mode. I
| enjoy stamping those red "denied"!
| neycoda wrote:
| Oh, I forgot that desktop computers don't exist. I'll have to do
| my work on my phone now.
| diebeforei485 wrote:
| I own the iPad version. Anyone know if I need to pay again for
| the iPhone version?
| snoopy_telex wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/25/23277003/papers-please-mo...
|
| > He added that the game would be available as an update to the
| 2014 iPad app
| routerl wrote:
| You don't. Go buy it and the price will be gone.
| yojo wrote:
| I played through Papers, Please back when it came out on desktop,
| and at the time I remember wondering: "why is this fun?" I
| enjoyed it tremendously, but on the surface that didn't make any
| sense. Who wants to play an immigration officer sim? Getting this
| peek behind the curtain helped me understand all the little
| decisions that add up to an unexpectedly fun experience.
|
| The level of thought given to tiny UI interactions here is
| wonderful. Details like being able to swipe around to "play" with
| the dangling pull chain. Any other dev would just make it a
| static image and call it a day. But these little bits of magic
| working together transform one of the most boring possible topics
| into a real gem of a game. This post should be required reading
| for interaction designers.
| chii wrote:
| > I remember wondering: "why is this fun?"
|
| Other than the tactility of the UI (which is a major part of
| the game), the reason, i believe, it is fun is because the
| game's mechanics matches that of the actual role you play in
| the story. Many games don't really get this correct
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludonarrative_dissonance).
|
| In papers please, your decisions aren't clear cut, like in a
| regular RPG game, where you can "choose" to be a good guy or a
| bad guy by selecting one of two options, and one is clearly
| meant to be the good choice with the good ending, and the other
| bad. Papers please actually make you think like someone
| surviving a authoritarian regime, and your actions reflect that
| role too (you would, for example, choose not to feed, if family
| isn't absolutely hungry, or that you would attempt to deny
| entry as fast as possible, since a denied entry doesn't make
| you any money - no room for sympathies).
|
| It makes the game feel "real".
| marvin wrote:
| The "RPG" element of "obviously good, obviously evil"
| decision always felt contrived to me. Most people would never
| choose to be evil. Evil grows out of processes much more
| complicated and human than that.
|
| This seemed obvious to me even when I was 14, but maybe our
| culture has been stuck in a place where people's
| understanding of good and evil does not match reality.
| Propaganda during WWII (or any was, really) would be an
| obvious culprit.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| > Any other dev would just make it a static image and call it a
| day.
|
| You think so? Games are often full of little things like that.
| That's a good thing to point out, but it certainly doesn't seem
| as unusual as you paint it. Letting the user be playful is
| generally what games are good at ;)
| yojo wrote:
| I agree that good games give you things to play with, but
| this is literally the toggle to slide out a UI element, and
| only exists because a phone screen was too small for the
| original design to fit. If it had been a little triangle that
| you tapped, no one would have said anything. Instead it's got
| realistic chain physics and jingles around as you move the
| card.
|
| I'm trying to think of another instance of "sliding out a
| control" being given this level of attention, and I'm drawing
| a blank. It feels like an unusually high level of effort to
| put into a UI concession for a port that was going to sell
| well anyway.
|
| Granted, this game is mostly about sliding UI elements
| around, so maybe it is more integral to the experience than
| in other games.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| There is barely any external UI in this game (at least when
| you're actually playing), most of what you see is in
| universum. Had the game chosen a different art style, those
| could be 3D models that you would interact with in 3D
| space. You can easily imagine putting a VR headset on and
| having all these documents, stamps and pullchains around
| you, so it's only natural for them to behave in a realistic
| way - just like, say, SUPERHOT VR is started by pushing a
| floppy into the drive, when it could be just a simple
| button.
| unstatusthequo wrote:
| For those annoyed with the Apple Store not finding it under
| "papers please" and forcing you to use the comma instead of being
| sensical, here is the link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/papers-
| please/id935216956
|
| I scrolled several screens finding only knock offs without the
| comma. The App Store and Apple Music search experience is not
| great.
|
| Anyway, happily bought this game again in this new format! Well
| done, sir!
| bbx wrote:
| I knew about this game at launch but only bought it last year to
| play on a Windows tablet. Always thought I'd love the game... And
| I did.
|
| My only regret was that I couldn't play it more often, on the go,
| on my phone. I understood why, considering the intricate gameplay
| and the precise interface required, it wasn't possible.
|
| And then suddenly... this. Instant buy.
| krallja wrote:
| This is exactly how I would have hoped to find out "Papers,
| Please!" is out for mobile phones.
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| There's a certain energy that's either unmatched, or it's just
| new to me, specifically from indie game developers that
| invigorates me. His post is just kinda filled with a "love of the
| game" vibe. I don't feel like other tech related industries have
| that same art house feel like game developers seem to have, or at
| least write about. You don't really see it in the sass space, or
| in my world of iOS, etc.
|
| Just something I've noticed about the indie games world. Seems
| like an inspiring, genuine space.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Imo, indie game devs don't get nearly the amount of mainstream
| attention they get as artists. So many of them do everything on
| their own, from the art and music to, of course, the coding.
|
| That kind of cross-discipline talent is so hard to find.
| marvin wrote:
| I think indie game devs of Pope's talent, motivation and
| ability are exceedingly rare. We're seeing only those who
| survive a filter that removes 99%. But the results are
| absolutely formidable.
| jordanmorgan10 wrote:
| True, I'm looking at the top 1% I'm sure when I made that
| comment. I guess another observation is someone of his
| stature could come off a lot more...entitled? I guess? But
| man, his post is pure though.
| wowokay wrote:
| Desktops still exist! In fact streamers and PC gamers use them! I
| don't really play games on my phone I think the people that do
| are usually playing games because it's convenient or prioritized
| in cost over desktops, since everyone believes they and there
| kids need phones.
| dicytea wrote:
| Anyone else experiencing a weird visual illusion with the second
| code screenshot, or am I just going crazy? It looks almost as if
| the text is slightly tilted, but measuring it with a grid shows
| that they're perfectly aligned.
| alexb_ wrote:
| I actually didn't know it was on mobile, so I searched for
| "Papers Please" on the Google Play store. Only complete garbage
| came up, and I had to actually go to the website to find a link
| to the game (which only has 5k downloads!)
|
| I wonder if there's a solution to this.
| djhworld wrote:
| Thanks, I searched the play store for both "papers please" and
| "papers, please" which didn't yield any meaningful results. If
| I hadn't have read this comment I would have (lazily) assumed
| it was iOS only.
|
| Play store says there have been 4000 downloads so at least some
| people are getting to that page, but probably through direct
| links rather than search
| mijoharas wrote:
| Weirdly I was lookingt to see if there was a papers please on
| Android last week and concluded it hadn't been ported to mobile
| because of the results.
|
| Lucky this came up on HN so I found out. If that weren't the
| case I doubt I'd have thought about it again and wouldn't have
| ever bought/played it.
| komadori wrote:
| Oh, wow, thanks! I did likewise and assumed the mobile port
| hadn't actually been released yet. Google's search is clearly
| awful :-/.
| fragmede wrote:
| Hilariously the correct play store link is the second hit for
| https://www.google.com/search?q=papers+please+android
| Hyperbolicum wrote:
| The issue is the missing comma, I ran into the same problem.
| Searching for "Papers, please" will yield the expected result.
|
| Maybe that's something that can be configured?
| danparsonson wrote:
| And for me at least it was necessary to include the quotation
| marks too.
| game-of-throws wrote:
| > I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop
| computers with mouse control.
|
| This is interesting to read. When I first played it I was dying
| for touch controls. It seemed like such a natural fit for the
| gameplay of sliding papers around.
| lupire wrote:
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| Magnificent craftsmanship.
|
| Another of my favorite games on the iPad is Darkest Dungeon.
| While perfectly legible and playable on the touch screen, the
| ignored opportunities for touch improvement (entire inches of
| "letterboxed" screen space, buttons sized for mouse but too small
| for pinkies, drag-to-scroll lists) are so disappointing.
| sintezcs wrote:
| Can't find it in the AppStore :(( looks like some regional
| restrictions are set
| metahost wrote:
| https://apps.apple.com/in/app/papers-please/id935216956
| mysterydip wrote:
| I thought this just came out for mobile? There's reviews that
| say 7 years ago.
| Hackbraten wrote:
| Used to be iPad-only, now it supports iPhone, too. See also
| the v1.4.0 entry of the version history.
| ridiculous_fish wrote:
| Just wanted to say thank you for Papers, Please! I loved playing
| it on my iPad and it's awesome to have it available for my phone
| now too - a free update no less.
| rolph wrote:
| "I created Papers, Please in 2013 specifically for desktop
| computers with mouse control. Now, here, in 2022, desktop
| computers no longer exist and all computing is done via handheld
| mobile telephone."
|
| No . Desktop and mobile are 2 different ecosystems. The users
| have desktops; those who are used, have mobile; those who are
| kings, have both.
| mastax wrote:
| Haxe is really unusual and interesting, and I don't think it gets
| talked about enough.
|
| > Haxe can build cross-platform applications targeting
| JavaScript, C++, C#, Java, JVM, Python, Lua, PHP, Flash, and
| allows access to each platform's native capabilities. Haxe has
| its own VMs (HashLink and NekoVM) but can also run in interpreted
| mode.
|
| Compiling from one language to another isnt particularly unusual,
| but compiling from one language to _so many_ is very unusual. On
| first impression it sounds unserious-- _real_ compilers output
| machine code--it 's tempting to denigrate it by calling it a
| transpiler. But there are a lot of advantages that come with this
| approach. You always have access to the full capabilities of your
| target platforms. From a single language you can write code that
| is massively portable while also targeting specific platforms
| with just an if statement.
|
| The "real" compiler authors spend months working on linkage,
| calling conventions, runtimes, symbol mangling, allocators, and
| debuginfo trying to get their native code to link properly to the
| objective-c frameworks on iOS--and it never feels quite right. If
| you instead compile to objective-c, a lot of things get easier.
| It's a very pragmatic approach.
| bogwog wrote:
| Haxe's transpiling helped me in a project once. The client
| needed a small-ish web app written ASAP, but they didn't know
| anything about their backend/stack when asked since they were
| non-technical and using an external provider for everything.
| The provider was not responding to emails for some reason, and
| the deadline was approaching, so I decided to start writing the
| thing in Haxe.
|
| I figured they were either running PHP/SQL or Node, so I wrote
| a simple backend in a way that would make it easy for to deploy
| to either one with minimal changes. By the time the provider
| finally replied, the project was nearly half way complete. It
| turned out that they were using a standard PHP/SQL stack, so
| had I gone with Javascript there would've been problems.
| Instead, all I had to do was change one flag in my build
| system.
|
| I don't know if this is a big selling point for Haxe since it's
| such a highly specific situation... but it's probably at least
| worth mentioning :P
| sitkack wrote:
| Brilliant!
| TazeTSchnitzel wrote:
| > The "real" compiler authors spend months working on linkage,
| calling conventions, runtimes, symbol mangling, allocators, and
| debuginfo
|
| Don't worry: targeting high-level languages gives you a
| different, equally-frustrating set of problems! Actually, many
| of them have equivalents to the low-level ones: you also have
| to worry about calling conventions, name mangling, runtimes...
| they just look quite different.
|
| Especially you want to support any kind of dynamic
| functionality, there are many uncomfortable trade-offs
| involved.
| vmladenov wrote:
| > On first impression it sounds unserious--real compilers
| output machine code--it's tempting to denigrate it by calling
| it a transpiler.
|
| What? No, this is so wrong. "Real" compilers transform input
| from a source language to a target language. That's it. A
| program could compile a language to itself with functions
| inlined and it would still be a compiler. Transpiler is a dumb
| word made up to identify compilers that output valid source for
| a chosen language.
| cedilla wrote:
| Transpiler is a very useful word. It makes it clear that the
| translation doesn't happen from a high-level language to a
| low-level language as is usually implicitly assumed.
|
| Arguing about the technical definition of compiler misses the
| point outside of a scientific paper. Connotations are more
| important than an arbitrary definition you happen to agreee
| with.
| boondaburrah wrote:
| There's also that Haxe is older than a lot of the stuff we take
| for granted today. It's roots are in ActionScript, and it
| started as basically a successor to AS2 before Adobe came out
| with ActionScript 3. It did "same codebase on server and
| client" by compiling to flash bytecode and PHP before node
| existed. It's ECMAScript/AS roots + static types + type
| inference make it feel like alternate-timeline TypeScript as it
| also compiles to JS.
|
| So it's completely comfortable for me. AND I can hit C++ if the
| platform demands it!
| chii wrote:
| one aspect that's a bit underrated in haxe isn't just the
| cross-compilation, but the macro system - it's way more
| powerful a macro system than the regular macros found in
| C/C++. It's closer to a LISP macro, but only at compile time
| (rather than also runtime macros).
|
| For example, you can define a json file, and have a macro
| that produce a class that matches that json file's fields. It
| would type-check (and you get auto-complete, for example, if
| you called that class's fields in another function). Of
| course, there's nothing special about a json file...why not
| use a live schema fetched from the internet!
| https://code.haxe.org/category/macros/completion-from-
| url.ht...
| bogwog wrote:
| Another cool thing about macros is that, since the Haxe
| compiler itself implements a language server, you can go
| really crazy with AST manipulations and it will all show up
| in your IDE's autocomplete feature (if you have one).
|
| There was a demo I saw a while back where someone added
| Google search suggestions to their IDE by hitting a Google
| endpoint in a Haxe macro.
| lastdong wrote:
| Love this game, bought it for different platforms over the years.
| I'll prob end up doing the same for mobile :) Papers Please, FTL
| and Don't Starve (discovered them around the same time) are on my
| top list of games, it was a period of very fine releases.
| macintux wrote:
| Thanks for reminding me I need to play Don't Starve again.
| Dangerously addictive though.
| radiojasper wrote:
| This is one of the coolest things I've read in a while. I love
| the thought process behind each element of the game and it's all
| executed very well. As a fan of the desktop game, I can't wait to
| try this out on mobile.
| Ava433 wrote:
| at_ wrote:
| Find his work endlessly inspiring not just in terms of how good
| it is, but also in the way it has proved there's an audience
| hungry for the experimental and conceptually quite challenging
| games he makes, too -- carved a path and set the bar for
| artistically inclined game-devs (and game-dev inclined artists)
| psyc wrote:
| I was ready to charge in here and pitch a fit because I thought
| the title was referring to storage / memory.
| zbird wrote:
| Yeah, though on the other hand the title does not seem
| particularly taxing. "Shove it down to Unity" and then the big
| bulk of the work is cramming the game into a small screen.
|
| The 'Auto Player Testing' is smart and a token of good design,
| as he must have completely decoupled IO from the main game
| logic. That seemed the most interesting to me.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Man it is gonna be so nice when the average young adult has a
| device in their pocket that folds out to the size of a paperback,
| or even a magazine, and we can start making popular culture that
| fits that size again instead of everything having to make sense
| through the tiny window of a phone.
| soylentgraham wrote:
| Phones could be fine if 95% of the screen wasn't covered in
| popups, adverts, mailing list & cookie prompts.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Firefox mobile + UBO brings the future to you today.
| asdff wrote:
| Only on android though
| haunter wrote:
| And iOS with Firefox Focus
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Not only - uBlock Origin works great on GNU/Linux phones
| too.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I make comics. I grew up reading stuff that used the space of
| a magazine spread in all kinds of clever ways, I fell in love
| with the way I can play with layout across a page. I made an
| entire graphic novel with multiple storylines running in
| parallel across every page.
|
| A phone can show one or two panels at a time, at best.
| There's a lot of stuff you just can't do. It's a tiny,
| limited canvas, even before it gets shitted up with ads and
| pop ups.
| asojfdowgh wrote:
| randomly grabbing the first thing on tapas:
| https://tapas.io/episode/1123711
|
| I don't think any book could give the feeling of
| _transitions_ as the webtoon format can, yes, its only a
| panel (or less!) at a time, but the artist can give a
| halting thought-by-thought feel of a man on his deathbed,
| or roll out an entire red carpet of flourishes to introduce
| a character of nobility
|
| You can't go super transition-heavy in print, because well,
| printing and pages cost. and people need to move their big
| hands to flick the pages, there is an expected consumption
| rate for that effort put in, so even if cost wasn't an
| issue, people would get fed up with the transitions anyhow.
|
| so yeah, 1 panel at a time, is a bit of a downside, but IMO
| its also an upside in that one can give each panel its own
| treatment and such. an infinite vertical strip as one's
| canvas
|
| - - -
|
| of course, getting all the bits into the right places with
| the right breathing rooms and the right flow is a true
| skill in of itself, but, I dunno, is it better to read 1
| super good comic, or 100 entertaining enough ones? the bar
| is lowered by all of this, yes, but is that a bad thing?
| boondaburrah wrote:
| I've noticed this smartphone layout in comics before and
| I recognise the strengths but find it really less
| enjoyable to read. I have to be constantly scrolling and
| it's difficult to ever settle into a scene and feel it
| since they're gone in the blink of an eye. In regular
| pages that panel is still on the page and/or you can play
| with panel size and layout to create impact, but I just
| don't feel it with these scrolling comics.
|
| That being said, I /do/ like the transition thing you
| mentioned.
| wingerlang wrote:
| I posted below but I will post a direct reply. Modern
| phone-first comics simply don't follow the 'grid' and it
| works really well. Check this one out
| https://www.webtoons.com/en/thriller/not-even-
| bones/ep-1/vie... for a cool example.
| Torifyme12 wrote:
| Scott McCloud of Zot fame was an early adopter of the web,
| I attended a talk from him where he was talking about how
| frustrated he was that the 3 panel format had persisted to
| the web, when there were so many ways to use space
| creatively.
|
| He later adapted that talk for his "understanding comics"
| Ted talk. Worth a watch if you love the medium
| morelisp wrote:
| You could also read the book, which is... well, "not a
| TED talk" should be sufficient to convince anyone.
| egypturnash wrote:
| I've got all his books and he's even linked to one of my
| comics in the past. http://egypt.urnash.com/rita/ if
| you're curious.
|
| It's pretty cool on a decent-sized screen, it was
| designed around the size of the iPad I'd just gotten when
| I started it. Not so cool on a phone. Try it on both and
| you'll see what I mean.
| pbronez wrote:
| I've recently started following a few webcomics that are
| phone first. I'm sure they've been around a while, but it
| was novel to me to have a story set up as a continuous
| downward scroll. There isn't as much flexibility as you get
| with a comic spread, but there are still interesting tricks
| that contribute significantly to the overall feel and
| pacing of the story.
| wingerlang wrote:
| Definitely agree with this. They achieve a form of
| dynamic animation sometimes, where the continuous scroll
| can "lead" objects on the screen into new scenes which
| can be really cool. I'd recommend the previous poster to
| read a couple of episodes, one example I found really
| cool was this one
| https://www.webtoons.com/en/thriller/not-even-
| bones/ep-1/vie...
|
| Works best on the phone where you can have it fullscreen
| and smooth scrolling.
| naet wrote:
| I love comics like MSPA that use web elements like
| animation, hypertext, chatlogs, and interactive panels as
| progressive enhancements on the comic form. But I
| actually really dislike the scroll comic format.
|
| I don't enjoy fiddling with the scroll position, or
| things peeking in from the edges, I like a nicely laid
| out scene and a button or other control that takes me to
| the next "page" or scene without the fuss that scrolling
| to the right position adds.
| daguava wrote:
| You have severely painted this as something that's easily
| done while clearly not reading what he posted...
| blooalien wrote:
| > From the article: "Now, here, in 2022, desktop computers no
| longer exist and all computing is done via handheld mobile
| telephone."
|
| They're _kidding,_ right? Nobody in their right mind actually
| believes that, do they?
| DizzyDoo wrote:
| Of course, he just called it a "handheld mobile telephone",
| that's tongue-in-cheek.
| kencausey wrote:
| It's hyperbolic truth, acknowledging that the future is now.
| fragmede wrote:
| _All_ is hyperbole, since the ergonomics on a laptop are
| terrible, and there will always be a segment for which that
| 's a showstopper, but it's already true for certain segments
| of the population. Especially among the less privileged where
| there may not even _be_ a desktop computer available or only
| at school /library, mobile phones are increasingly where work
| is done. Writing essays and emails, and filling out important
| forms, may not be the most ergonomic, but it beats not being
| able to.
|
| Look at devices with foldable screens and external keyboards
| like the Asus Zenbook 17. Without getting lost in arguing
| semantics of if an iPad (mini/pro/regular) sized tablet
| counts as a mobile telephone, it's clearly not a desktop, and
| it's easy enough to imagine that desktop computers will go
| the way of the mainframe.
| matheusmoreira wrote:
| > the ergonomics on a laptop are terrible
|
| Agreed. Honestly if I had a way to comfortably write
| software on my phone I don't think I'd ever use my laptop
| ever again. Phones are simply too comfortable.
|
| Unfortunately the vast majority of them are consumer
| devices: unlike real computers they don't come with the
| tools used to program them. I can't make a new app on my
| phone and run it.
| lotu wrote:
| I was stunned when I went to a writing circle and saw
| college students using their phones.
| krallja wrote:
| It would be reasonable if they had a Bluetooth keyboard.
| macintux wrote:
| I remember when young adults were blazing fast at typing
| on flip phones. It's perfectly reasonable to be
| productive without a keyboard.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Flip phones had keyboards though.
| macintux wrote:
| My point is that people will adapt to typing on nearly
| anything.
| kergonath wrote:
| In terms of number of hours used daily, there is no context.
| Mobiles are the largest video game market, and the most used
| computing platforms. So, not quite _all_ computing, but an
| awful lot of it.
| a9h74j wrote:
| I took that as either [kidding] overstatement (to bypass
| discussion of _why_ ) or short for _desktop computers no
| longer exist [for my market purposes]_.
|
| To your general question, I've heard a professor lament a
| student stating that _all CAD applications should work on
| phones._
| dagw wrote:
| _I 've heard a professor lament a student stating that all
| CAD applications should work on phones._
|
| And why is that such a lamentable idea? Modern phones have
| the processing power these days. Walking around a factory,
| building sites or a muddy field with a phone in your hand
| is a lot easier than walking around with a laptop. Plus
| modern phones have LiDAR and multiple cameras opening up
| for all kinds of interesting options. Frankly any CAD
| platform which doesn't embrace mobile will probably fall
| out of favour over the next few years.
| a9h74j wrote:
| You are probably right to the extent of multimodal _for
| some tasks_ or for sensor input. But redlining a 200 page
| set of drawings to capture _as built_ info is still
| different from assembling that set of drawings in the
| first place. I doubt it will be all or nothing. E.g.,
| supporting field service will require generating
| particular views, but I don 't see engineering review
| meetings skimping on monitor pixels, at a cost of N
| laptops per hour just to assemble a meeting.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes, it's tongue in cheek.
| Animats wrote:
| Yeah. This is a big problem with the "metaverse". Peering into
| a high-resolution 3D world via a hand-sized screen is tunnel
| vision. We're still a long way from the "swim goggles" form
| factor in VR headgear, which is what Carmack says is the
| minimum for reasonable consumer adoption levels.
|
| Playing "Papers Please" on a phone requires a good memory. Do
| you remember what the recognized visa issuing cities for
| Kolechia are? You need to know that. If you have to swipe to
| the rulebook to look it up, your productivity will drop and you
| won't make enough money for the day to keep your family fed.
| aliqot wrote:
| I'm noticing a lot of the younger crowd don't seem as glued to
| the phone as their parents. Materialists will always be
| materialists, but as an adherent to Ordnung, I don't own/need a
| phone, so it sticks out and it's obvious to me that the normal
| garden variety youth these days are not as absorbed as the
| first generation to this little thing known to 'create fire'
| because it is now commonplace. A computer in your pocket has 0
| novelty or wow-factor to this generation, as it should. Nobody
| fawns over a butane-lighter or debit card, they're commonplace
| despite being relatively new.
|
| This isn't just in my community, it's noticeable enough in my
| travels that it seems to be a trend. I assume it is because of
| more short-format digestible content, along with the shift of
| social being one-to-one and one-to-many, to being many-to-many,
| in the sense that you're not necessarily seeking out those you
| had a direct relationship with, you're seeking out elements and
| segments of a topical zeitgeist, whether that be tech videos,
| memes, cat compilations etc.
|
| I also have another hypothesis- when phones that provided a
| rich experience first debuted, it was the nerds and city folk
| who got it first. iPhone then brought this mobile-first-
| lifestyle to the stylemakers and artists and those whose inner
| monologue is narrated by Justin Long, folks who'd likely have
| bought anything apple anyway. From there, smartphones and rich
| experiences were disseminated into the lesser elements of the
| greater public who either are receptive to tastemaker's
| influences or have limited option to refute the convenience of
| popularity; popular hardware is cheap, ubiquitous and
| accessible, some might say in some regards modern smart phones
| are disposable.
|
| What I'm getting at is this, this stuff is no longer a mystery
| to this generation. We are now 2 or 3 generations removed from
| this type of pocket-computer being anything wow-inducing. I
| think of it sometimes like when I was a youngster, the class of
| people who traveled via air vs everyone else at ground level.
| Air travel had a mystique and prestige, this person must be
| doing something to be enjoying a cigarette and being served a
| glass of wine however many feet in the air, direct to
| destination. The same way I might not be in admiration of my
| neighbors boots for having a good welt, because a good welt is
| a given, I assume the youngster of today are no longer enamored
| by the novelty of a mobile phone or pocket-computer. As such,
| it is no longer a status symbol for most. So what the new
| iPhone came out and you got one, that's only a valid status
| symbol for maybe a few weeks, for over 1,000 USD invested in
| some models.
|
| Youth of today, I don't see them going for a pocket atlas or
| any such form factor, I see them going for augmented spectacles
| or lenses. Everything indicates that a new 'moores law' is
| taking effect around energy storage and thermodynamics - we are
| no longer optimizing per-core clock speed, we are optimizing
| core count and the amount of energy that can be stored to later
| be turned into CPU cycles rather than heat. As soon as the
| battery technology will allow it, you will see lenses, whether
| they be spectacles or contacts, that will take in and
| assimilate your surroundings, your focus, and the imperceptible
| changes to your heart rate, retinal dilation, and ocular
| pressure responses to commercial items. It's not far fetched,
| we already know of this research being done. Despite the
| cumbersome experience of VR, we are seeing a point where it is
| no longer 3D TV or bluray level tech, it's sub-standard as a
| whole but more and more people are buying it because it shows
| promise.
|
| I see in the future that our interface devices, whether they be
| communicators like phones, or additive interfaces like AR
| spectacles that can dole out retail info in response to a brief
| biomarker-spike like pupil dilation when glancing at a new pair
| of shoes. These devices will be funded by corporations much the
| same way tech learning materials, operating systems, and
| software is today. It makes most sense that before wider
| adoption, they'd first be available to those with the most
| capacity for realizing an ad-prompt via converting to a
| purchase, so think of like snapchat goggles release, but at
| your local best buy.
|
| pocket-held mobile phones are the least optimal form factor for
| every purpose or task it can accommodate other than "fits in
| pocket". Mark my words, as soon as it can be bonded to a
| wearable lens, it will be, and the corporations will subsidize
| it heavily. You think adtech is bad now, just wait.
| arthurcolle wrote:
| You're Amish? Are you allowed to use a computer? I won't tell
| - just wondering.
| adolph wrote:
| The Ordnung is a set of rules for Amish, Old Order Mennonite
| and Conservative Mennonite living. Ordnung is the German word
| for order, discipline, rule, arrangement, organization, or
| system. Because the Amish have no central church government,
| each assembly is autonomous and is its own governing
| authority. Thus, every local church maintains an individual
| set of rules, adhering to its own Ordnung, which may vary
| from district to district as each community administers its
| own guidelines.
| aliqot wrote:
| Yes, nice to meet you
| macintux wrote:
| Had to skim for a bit to figure out what was going on, because I
| distinctly remember playing on my iPad many years ago. Turns out
| it was iPad only, this was the first time it was redesigned to
| fit on the phone screen. The author didn't want to force users
| into landscape mode, which I completely understand: playing games
| in landscape feels alien on my iPhone.
|
| Interesting look at the process of making the UI work well.
| daguava wrote:
| The attention to detail and player experience in this is second
| to none, this article is a treat, thank you for sharing.
|
| Working in the gaming industry myself, everything here spoke to
| what I want gaming to be.
| silisili wrote:
| I don't know a lot about Haxe, or C#, but that has to be the
| cleanest transpiler results I've seen to date.
|
| Most transpilers I've toyed with(admittedly, not many, and years
| ago) gave every variable and function awful autogenerated names.
| funstuff007 wrote:
| > here, in 2022, desktop computers no longer exist and all
| computing is done via handheld mobile telephone. Time to update
| this dinosaur.
|
| What a witty fellow.
| Underphil wrote:
| I took it as tongue-in-cheek but as a desktop loving dinosaur I
| couldn't help feel mildly personally attacked :)
| tosh wrote:
| Fantastic write-up. Thanks for sharing this!
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| I'm always amazed at how many programming languages there are.
| I'd never heard of Haxe, I don't think it would have crossed my
| mind to look for something like it but here it is powering a
| highly successful game with, from what I can tell, a vibrant eco
| system around the language as well.
|
| Perhaps I'm not curious enough to go exploring for these
| languages. I've used a few smaller ones in my years (usually
| because of an external forcing factor - like Squirrel running on
| ElecticImp devices) but I tend to stick to the big names we all
| know
| boondaburrah wrote:
| Haxe is wild to me since I recently started learning it and
| realised it's basically TypeScript but before TypeScript. Since
| it's statically typed and can hit C#/Java/C++/JS, I really want
| to try it in line of business applications as well.
| MBCook wrote:
| I've only ever heard of it in one context. About seven years
| ago TiVo announced that they were going to start using it to
| program their devices when they made the new (terrible)
| interface.
|
| I don't think I've heard about it since then.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Haxe is very much a games language, it started out (IIRC) as
| an ActionScript compiler by a game studio (Motion Twin, now
| most famous for Dead Cells) who was sick of trying to program
| in the shitty bare-minimum editor built into Flash, and
| evolved into its own language that compiled to the Flash
| plug-in's VM. Motion Twin released it and its support tools
| as open source, and a lot of other Flash game devs picked it
| up.
| MBCook wrote:
| Interesting. I don't do any games development so outside
| the small amount I know about from watching various AAA
| games being discussed I'm pretty ignorant.
|
| Thanks for the context.
| dhosek wrote:
| I came of age in an era in which it was often important _which_
| version of a language you were programming in. Not all C code
| could compile with all C compilers (which was part of the
| motivation behind the C preprocessor), likewise with Pascal,
| BASIC, FORTRAN, etc. IBM had two different Pascal compilers for
| VM /CMS named, confusingly, VS/Pascal and Pascal/VS which were
| almost but not quite identical in functionality and features.
| On timesharing systems, you might discover all manner of legacy
| languages lurking on the (dishwasher-sized) hard drives. I
| checked out a book on SNOBOL from the library to understand
| what was happening in some SPITBOL code that I found on UIC's
| mainframe that was part of the source for a C compiler. Most
| personal computers came with some version of a Microsoft BASIC
| in ROM, but there were differences from one platform to the
| next so you couldn't necessarily just type in a program written
| in AppleSoft BASIC and run it in QBASIC under DOS. The fact
| that in 2022 JVM languages run identically anywhere and that
| Rust is (almost) platform-agnostic is, to be honest, kind of
| miraculous.
| tokinonagare wrote:
| > I'd never heard of Haxe
|
| Well it was born in France in a web game company (some of their
| games were pretty famous domestically) as an internal language,
| and the main selling point at first was the multiple
| compilation targets (PHP, JS) which included Flash. It wasn't
| something developed in English in the open at first like a lot
| of new languages are nowadays, so obviously it took some time
| to get some international exposure.
| PoignardAzur wrote:
| Wait, you mean Motion Twin?
| govg wrote:
| Yes, who are famous in large part for Dead Cells. One of
| the developers even went on to lead Shiro Games, which has
| done stuff like Dune and Northgard.
| ptato wrote:
| but also DinoRPG and My Brute. I played a ton of those
| when I was younger.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I really like Haxe.
|
| I want smaller game engines to succeed, but the tooling is just
| painful to use.
|
| From the time I spent with Haxe, it's very neat language. At
| the same time, half of why I make games is to learn.
|
| If I have to use your custom language I'm not learning skills
| to use at work.
|
| For example, with C# you can make games with several languages,
| you can also work on boring Fintech so you can pay your rent.
|
| With .net core open source I'd love for more engines to use it.
| Godot 4 with Mono will be a very very strong contender.
| stijnsanders wrote:
| ( https://dukope.com/devlogs/ doesn't appear to have a feed URL?
| )
| MOARDONGZPLZ wrote:
| This is such a good blog post. I also didn't know this author was
| behind Obra Dinn, but that one is also great. I used to play
| Papers Please years ago and will certainly purchase it when it
| does come out for iPhone.
| emllnd wrote:
| It's available on the iPhone App Store for me!
| rossvor wrote:
| If you see a devlog post from Lucas Pope you know it's going to
| be a goldmine. No matter the topic. Dude has a real knack in
| writing these, clearly describing the problem and the thought
| process on possible solution. And making it all very interesting
| so you yourself start thinking how would you address it or what
| other cool thing could be built instead.
|
| Here's some of his other huge devlogs on TIGSOURCE:
|
| 1. Papers, Please.
| https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=29750.0
|
| 2. Return of the Obra Dinn.
| https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=40832.0
| franknine wrote:
| Another great devlog thread on TIGSOURCE is Leilani's Island by
| Craig Forrester, it's a treasure trove of 2D platformer
| development:
|
| https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=46289.0
| collegeburner wrote:
| Arstechnica did a war stories with him on Return of the Obra
| Dinn, combining one of my fave video series with one of my fave
| gamedevs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMi6xgdSbMA
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| Yes - I remember even coming across those before Papers became
| a bigger thing. So thorough
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| From a practical standpoint, I can't even understand how he
| writes these! Presumably, this process took him months (a
| year?) to work through. What was he doing that whole time?
| Taking notes and captures for an eventual blog post? It just
| seems he has an incredible ability for organization and
| foresight, one that I am deeply jealous of.
| aerovistae wrote:
| Yes, the guy is honestly some type of genius. To be this
| talented of a programmer, and across multiple platforms,
| languages, and toolsets just dazzles me. It's hard enough to
| just be competent with one platform. I can't imagine.
|
| And on top of that he composes the music and makes the art and
| literally everything else.
|
| I honestly just don't understand how a person can get that good
| at that many things.
| hbn wrote:
| He's also a fantastic game designer. I played through Return
| of the Obra Dinn last year and it was one of the coolest game
| experiences I've had. It really doesn't hold your hand, it's
| just using logic and clues to piece together a mystery and
| put names to faces. Keep a notepad handy and it's a real fun
| time!
| rkagerer wrote:
| Huh. I got bored of Papers, Please. Guess it's just not my
| cup of tea. Will have to try Obra Dinn.
| aerovistae wrote:
| Same. Obra Dinn is a much more complicated and
| interesting game. It's 10x the game Papers, Please is.
| thrwyoilarticle wrote:
| Interestingly Lucas Pope says he thinks Papers Please is
| a better game. As a method of telling a story I think
| it's as good as you can get - e.g. the gameplay in Obra
| Dinn doesn't thematically link to the story in the same
| way - but I'm just don't enjoy the game. I know: you're
| supposed to be bored, it's supposed to be unwieldy,
| you're supposed to be frustrated by the rules. But I just
| want to do something else.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| His post on how exactly he came up with those really nice
| 2bit graphics in a way that it doesn't hurt the eyes and
| creates that very unique look was very enlightening.
| bspammer wrote:
| This is what's truly mindblowing about Lucas Pope to me.
| Many people are technically talented, but good game
| designers are really, really hard to come by. Having both
| in one person just feels unfair.
|
| Obra Dinn, especially, is one of my favourite games of all
| time, it's such a unique experience.
| slazaro wrote:
| Aesthetically too. If you've seen screenshots of Obra
| Dinn, you remember. It has such a distinctive look to it.
| the_af wrote:
| I was about to write this. Lukas Pope is not only
| technically talented, he's also a brilliant games designer.
|
| As for Obra Dinn, I found it very cool that many puzzles
| have more than one answer, in particular when it's a
| subjective matter!
| turdit wrote:
| testing7787 wrote:
| 1ark wrote:
| Speaking as a game dev, I think you can learn it, but it
| takes time. I was interested since a kid to make games. And
| as a teenager programmed some for the web, and trying to
| learn C++ reading Quake2 source or whatever I could find,
| also bought some game dev books. Not much came out of it I
| thought. At around twenty, there were enough tutorials in
| Macromedia tools to sort of guide me toward something. Then I
| struck luck getting into game programming at a tech
| institute. Finally I could make something, it took more than
| a decade to get simple games on the screen for me. But I get
| easily distracted, procrastinate and lack enough IQ. Those
| books and formulas were hard for a mediocre teenager.
|
| Parallel to all this I was interested in music too. Fooling
| around in ReBirth and Fruity Loops. Many years later got a
| guitar and tried to learn that, you get a lot of music theory
| from that. That theory is much easier than programming, still
| takes a lot of time.
|
| Drawing I'm not really good at, but got an eye for what looks
| decent and can play with colors. On a computer it can almost
| be like cheating because you can be "inspired" by others. But
| books and tutorials on art exists too of course, how far that
| rabbit hole do you want to go? And 3D is a bit of a mix
| between tech and art, you could draw a cute character on
| paper front and side with a pencil. And when you model,
| texture, rig and animate that; it can be really impressive.
|
| What I am trying to say, it looks like genius but it is a lot
| of work over a period. But it is creative/craft work, and not
| boring. And you can learn the basics of all the areas and
| make something great. When making apps, all those areas of
| you are unused. No music, no art. At best some graphic design
| (UI).
|
| If you want to really put it in a compressed environment
| where it is not (?) overwhelming, but still technical, try
| C64 programming. There are lots of resources and step-by-step
| guides, and you will get a taste of everything and can build
| from there. We are many that have the desire to make our
| _own_ games. Some are indeed geniuses, or very strong in
| multiple areas. Others just stumbled across Unity and are
| going through whatever guides there are with desire. These
| days you can choose your difficulty and dedication level.
|
| For simpler games, getting your game to run on desktop, iOS
| and Android is not that hard. Because most platform code will
| be some glue, and then you are off inside your own game code.
| It takes weeks/months to figure that out, but then you are
| done and carry it with you for every game in the future. Then
| when you put it all together plus the uniqueness of your game
| (because it is unique right?!), you get a great and
| interesting blog post like this one!
| frenchie14 wrote:
| His youtube[0] also has some very interesting behind the scenes
| content. If you haven't seen the Obra Dinn ship building
| timelapse[1] you're in for a treat! (Major spoilers - don't
| watch unless you've already beaten the game!)
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/user/dukope1 [1]
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZFoBvJf8Ug
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| He wrote an entire app in unity just for the schematic
| playback. I'm gobsmacked by his ingenuity!
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-08-07 23:01 UTC)