Why485
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why485.bsky.social
Why485
@why485.bsky.social
Former modder turned gamedev. This is not a very serious account. Do not follow me here for gamedev hot takes or progressposting.
Pinned
I've updated the social media chart. More people keep coming here and following me that I respect so it's been tough to figure out what to do with this account.
"Freelancer Flight Sim" that is an open world combat flight simulator taking place on a small scaled map and scaled down gameplay, where you fly around as a mercenary and take missions for warring factions. Planets are airbases, space stations are FARPs. You can call it Strikelancer.
December 2, 2025 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Why485
Freelancer (2003)
December 1, 2025 at 11:35 PM
If you needed another reason to buy Gunner Heat PC, they recently did an interview on AI usage in gamedev and their response is absolutely worth highlighting:

"First of all, the proliferation of LLMs and other generative AI products is an active, top-down consolidation of power by tech capital."
December 1, 2025 at 6:32 PM
There are not many things I like about the Hornet. I could probably list them all, so here goes:
✅ The HMD is very good and gives a lot of SA
✅ Gun is center mounted in the nose
✅ Very easy, forgiving, and intuitive to fly at its limit
December 1, 2025 at 6:02 PM
This weekend's DCS. More in the alt text.
December 1, 2025 at 4:49 AM
Osprey
December 1, 2025 at 1:24 AM
If I hadn't bought a new solid state drive exclusively for DCS use about a week ago, I wouldn't have been able to install this latest patch.
November 30, 2025 at 3:34 PM
This a genuinely excellent crash course on gamepad controls for simmy driving games. It goes into the hall of fame for vehicle videos for me. I can't really think of any talk or presentation I've seen on simracing physics that talks about this stuff in any detail.
November 29, 2025 at 3:44 PM
Reposted by Why485
Lt Stuart Culley launches from a "lighter" - a barge used to tow flying boats - fitted with a take-off platform, to attack Zeppelin L53 off the coast of the Netherlands, 11/08/1918..

incredible art by Keith Ferris
(keithferrisart.com/product/just...)

1/2
November 25, 2025 at 7:12 PM
In a post-AI algorithm feed world every channel is slop until proven kino.
November 25, 2025 at 12:26 AM
Reposted by Why485
It's Black Friday sales season and the hit Steam Deck Verified indie game Endless Monday: Dreams and Deadlines is on sale!

You can also nominate the game for a "Labor of Love" award, which I hope you might want to do if you enjoyed the new OVERTIME chapter..!
store.steampowered.com/app/2262610/...
November 24, 2025 at 6:36 PM
After playing a bit of DCS over the weekend, which involved a lot of bright and blue sky, I'm increasingly convinced that the Unity Editor has burned itself into my monitor.
I'm starting to think all that dithering might have burned into my monitor, because there's a weird, almost cloth-like noise pattern that appears on the monitor. It seems to be concentrated in the top left quarter of the screen, which aligns with where the game window is in the Unity Editor.
November 24, 2025 at 4:59 PM
When I do my GOTY, it's completely vibes based, and not even restricted to games which came out that year. E.g. Descent was so good it had me asking if it could win 3 years in a row. That said, this year is pretty unique in that most of my list so far is games which actually DID release this year.
A reminder from Isabelle
November 23, 2025 at 10:25 PM
Spent half of yesterday trying to figure out how to render particles at half-resolution to little success. I know this is a thing that is possible with RenderGraph and whatnot, but I couldn't figure it out. Making matters worse, everything changed in 6.3, so almost all examples are obsolete.
November 23, 2025 at 9:53 PM
Way better video than I was expecting given the title. Talks mostly about the history of cool design in UI and how it's a canary in the coal mine for larger issues in the games industry. Opens with, "Why aren't game UIs cool anymore?" and it's like, oh boy do I have a lot of opinions on that.
very good video

- lots of evidence & history
- (even magazines)
- interviews w/ gamedevs
- lots of practical examples
- very entertaining
Yes, games really WERE cooler years ago
YouTube video by f4mi
youtu.be
November 23, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Reposted by Why485
Got something new in the hangar #gamedev #flightsim
November 21, 2025 at 10:21 PM
Unity Roadmap presentation is finally up. Last one was disastrous PR when they cancelled half the things in it, and let go half the people working on the things that were in it. Hopefully this one isn't so bad so I can have something to look forward to with Unity.
The Unity Engine roadmap
YouTube video by Unity
www.youtube.com
November 21, 2025 at 9:10 PM
Derail Valley has updated their roadmap to show how the next patch shouldn't be expected until sometime in 2027. Considering the time involved, and the massive breadth and depth of features, this reads more like a Derail Valley 2 to me than just a patch.
www.derailvalley.com/main/roadmap
November 21, 2025 at 1:08 AM
Cool short thread on the evolving definition of cutscene in video games. I wanted to talk more about this too, because Half-Life having "no cutscenes" was one of the things people talked about the MOST with that game at the time. Today though, the tram ride is considered an unskippable cutscene.
this is an unintentionally fascinating question for historical reasons - now, we think of a 'cutscene' in a game as 'any time where you can't interact with the game at your own pace' - so by this logic, rail-shooter sections can be a type of cutscene, walk-and-talks are a type of cutscene, etc...
1/
were there any half life haters at the time in pc gaming? like it opens with a fifteen minute unskippable cutscene before you get to do anything. there had to be action game purists who saw the future and were screaming on deaf ears
November 20, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Why485
missile motel sign, port hueneme, california, 1991
November 19, 2025 at 5:36 AM
It's funny to think about, but at least by my recollection, the only things people complained about on forums was that Xen sucks and there was too much platforming. Half-Life was famous for not having ANY cutscenes, since the game never takes control/the camera away from you. It was THE big thing.
November 20, 2025 at 7:25 AM
November 19, 2025 at 2:56 PM
Old gold. This often happens to me with modern multiplayer games and one of the reasons I think it's been so long since I've really sunk my teeth into a MP game.
November 18, 2025 at 11:16 PM