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Why485

@why485.bsky.social

780 followers 150 following 1K posts

Former modder turned gamedev. This is not a very serious account. Do not follow me here for gamedev hot takes or progressposting.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · Dec 18

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.

Posting habits per social media websites (in order of increasing irreverence). TL;DL: Twitter is dead for me, my Bluesky is becoming more serious than I want it to be. Still haven't figured out how to handle my social media.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 1d

Honestly if it weren't for the pedigree I wouldn't be interested but like, it has the MechWarrior 2 guy AND the X-Wing guy so it has to be good right?

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 1d

It's a hard thing to talk about because there's so much gameplay and mechanical baggage. I played it for a few hours and... well it's another one of those. It has a few interesting ideas but I feel like the most interesting ideas it has it doesn't run with. Difficult to talk about in short form.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 2d

It's really difficult to find screenshots that show this, and it's also really difficult to get screenshots of the game, but it really tickles me how oversized all the ground units are in Rogue Squadron for the sake of gameplay. I didn't even notice until I almost collided with an AT-ST.

AT-ST in Rogue Squadron 3D viewed from the cockpit of an A-Wing. All the ground vehicles, even the AT-AT, are much bigger than they should be because it makes them easier to see at whatever resolution the N64 was running at. It's also really fun to shoot big enemies because they're bigger targets and their size makes them easy to see. Shooting at little smudges would be no good.

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Reposted by Why485

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · May 20

Friendly reminder that you can make your game look much cooler with this one simple trick.

A hand slapping a blue ADDITIVE BLENDING button at very high speed

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 3d

The ships actually accelerate really fast (~15G in every direction), it's just that the combination of the high speeds involved, and the fact the ships are all 50-200 meters long that makes it look feel as "slow" and deliberate as it does.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 3d

In a brain fog delirium late last night for no reason I recreated Independence War 2's flight, which is even weirder than I thought because the numbers are kind of bonkers if you take them at face value.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 3d

Iconic doors in video games.

Retro Tech Dreams @retrotechdreams.bsky.social · 3d

Half Life's Black Mesa Research Facility

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 4d

It helps a lot too that the game is absolutely gorgeous with a visual flair and polish to it that is rare in video games. There's a "smoothness" and weight to it all, that meshes perfectly with the long arcs and trajectories the ships themselves take.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 4d

E.g. considering how slow and heavy all the ships are, it's pretty crazy that the game isn't instead built around and emphasize turrets, so you don't need to waste so much time turning a 100 meter long ship around to bring weapons to bear. Everything "dogfights" like huge, heavy fighters.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 4d

In all the years I've been messing around with space sim physics and gameplay styles I've never accidentally created something like Independence War. IWAR makes so many counter-intuitive decisions about its design and balance, but that's also why it works so well.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 5d

It's the test map for the Halo 1 Digsite project. Has a bunch of assets from old pre-release versions of Halo ported to MCC to play around with. It's really awesome stuff. The map itself is the Macworld 1999 map.

Steam Workshop::Spasm Playground (Digsite Test Map)

steamcommunity.com

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 5d

This impact effect from the Halo AR is one of my favorite effects in video games. Very juicy and satisfying, especially when a hallway gets filled with the sparks flying around.

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Reposted by Why485

Retro Tech Dreams @retrotechdreams.bsky.social · 6d

Midtown Madness (1999)

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 6d

The level of detail in the API is really incredible. One example is Counter-Strike style buy menu. You can totally create custom classes and force weapons and abilities and everything and this is just the equipment API. I am genuinely shocked. This is so much more powerful than I could have hoped.

Screenshot of API examples for adding equipment.
Source: https://github.com/Synthetic-Virus/bf6-portal-sdk-docs/blob/main/docs/api/player-equipment.md

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 6d

This is looking like the most supported modding has been since the Refractor engine days. AFAIK there's still no way to add new assets to the game, so no Star Wars or Halo mods for example, but having an API and scripting language at all is in many ways more powerful than the Refractor tools.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 6d

Took a quick peak at the Battlefield SDK and aside from the absolutely sickening aspect of needing to defile my PC with NPM, the fact that you CAN program at all in Javascript for custom Battlefield game modes is already sounding insanely powerful. This is really, really promising.

Player System - Control, State, Spawning, Equipment (120+ functions)
UI System - Widgets, Notifications, Layouts (104+ functions)
AI System - Behaviors, Combat, Pathing (25+ functions)
Game Systems - Teams, Scoring, Vehicles, VFX & Audio (115+ functions)
Spatial Objects - Spawning, Transform, Gameplay Objects (80+ functions)
Utilities - Math, Vector operations, Helper library (modlib)

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 7d

I guess it wasn't really aimed at newbies, but I will say that asteroids is my "default game" when I'm learning a new engine/language/framework/etc.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 7d

I'm surprised there aren't more of those sorts of underwater 6DOF style games. There's only a tiny handful of them. You could make some pretty cool looking visuals with that kind of setting.

Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 7d

Was watching some footage of the old arcade game Tokyo Wars. I still think if you want to practice making a small game, game jam style, one of the best things you can do is clone an old arcade game or like something from the home computer era. They inherently have extremely narrowly scopes.

Tokyo Wars Arcade

YouTube video by Insert Coin

www.youtube.com

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 8d

It's all in the really good Ars Technica article from July. They created a new studio (Ridgeline) to make the singleplayer, but after a few years of problems, Ridgeline was shut down by EA, and their work tossed. Criterion, DICE, and Motive were then on the hook to slap together a campaign ASAP.

What’s wrong with AAA games? The development of the next Battlefield has answers.

EA insiders describe stress and setbacks in a project that’s too big to fail.

arstechnica.com

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 8d

I found out after I posted that they do (and that I already followed them months ago), but they don't use it.
bsky.app/profile/skwe...

bsky.app

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 8d

Actually, more than any other aesthetic, THIS is what I want. In my fictional dream team for a game that could never happen, Skwerl does the concept art and airplane designs.

Skwerl's header art from his Twitter page. Has a weird and awesome hybrid design of something that looks like a Jaguar and Phantom and XFV-12. Very Cold War looking aesthetics, using a lot of the design language of planes of that era, but still a fictional plane.
https://x.com/Skwerl_Art

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 8d

I wish there was a jet game that looked like this.

War Thunder promo art of a Hornet launching an AIM-120 over a colorful desert that's on fire because of burning oilfields. I am also delusional enough to pretend that's actually a Sparrow being fired, and the bombs are Mk82s and Mk84s.

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Why485 @why485.bsky.social · 8d

It didn't really work though, and the quirks it had were counter-intuitive and felt bad. It's close enough to the typical "slippery space" approach (enough drag to add max speeds and arrest lateral vectors, but not so much you fly on rails) that I think fine-tuning that would give better results.