Game Information

The game info page is a Public access page for most of my notes and other things. Though this page may connect to other ACCNT required pages or topic pages.

Pages

• Project chronos:Project chronos home ACCNT
• Project terrorbits:Project terrorbits home ACCNT

Engine(s)

Unreal engine 5 (5.6)

Unreal engine was the main choice due to all of its great features, though do to more digging I have done, ultimately it all boils down to UE just being shit.

More info can be best shown in both perspectives in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eFWHguddcs&t=77s

Unity 6.2

Unity has been an engine I have always had mixed feelings about.

I feel that most of its tools, assets, and basically everything about unity is overpriced and just a bad market nature.

Though then again, it is still a better engine in terms of performance for lack of graphical fidelity.

Source mod

The SOURCE engine is a really cool thing, the in-house engine of VALVe themselves, and quite a massive modding community!

I am honestly in very much love with hammer (besides it fallbacks that HAMMER++ fixes) and many other types of brush map/terrain editors.

GODOT (go-dot? not guhdo?)

The one and only rival to unity and amongst the stars. Ever since godot sent out their 4.5 update, they have picked up MASSIVE steam! and now, nearly 2 months later, they are ALREADY releasing 4.6 with default support for openGL and DirectX12!

Then at the same time, they have the WIDEST toolset I have ever seen from an engine, and the best-in-class out of the box physics engine I have ever seen.

The engines. how they fulfil, and how they were designed.

Game engines are a complex bit of kit. Though here is the thing; you could have made the most efficient code you have ever seen!

But then, oh whats this? problems? in my game engine whilst I made the best code?

Yeah. This is the issue known as THE ENGINE WASN'T DESIGNED THIS WAY!

If you fail to see what I mean, follow along.

Game engines are build on their foundation, some have strengths and some have fallbacks.

For example: SOURCE is designed to make fast and simple shapes. its good at making jagged corners that make mathematical sense.

Unity's strength, uhh... Im not too sure.

UE's strength is in high level graphics, whilst still giving fairly good performance.

Going against the engines design will cause you issues! even though your code may be squeaky clean and perfect, your maps may be perfectly optimised to hell, but outside the engine's strength, you'll cause issues!

In a lot of cases, going into the game's strength will often provide higher output. even if you think your code is less optimal, the engine thinks that its perfect, and youll get higher output from that then if you were to go outside the strength or design structure.

Writing

Tips

Think big, think wide!

One thing I failed to see was the fact I was confining myself to only think in a "true" aspect. As in, it needed to be perfectly accurate.

This was a mistake since I failed to see that most stories in their plots have at least a few things that are impossible in reality. That's the saying "if something isn't fake in a story, its not fiction."

Think bad, make it rusty!

Another thing I was also doing was confining myself to think in a way that only allowed me to make a perfect idea, right out of the box.

But the best way to do it, or any way to do it, is to think as large and as big as possible! Maybe as bad, and as rusty as possible!

Only then after can you take that idea and make it better.

Minor details will become minor, major details are major!

One thing I also fell into was making too much background for a small item, like, literally an entire life story that would probably never be shown in the game.

At the same time I had also tried to make the entire lifeline fit into the timeline as seamlessly and full as possible, then at the same time I forgotten about the main plot.

Instead of making the minor details bigger then the major details, make the major details major! Yes, this seems quite obvious. but then again if you fall into it, this can be helpful!

Make the full story, not the sub pages.

Make the story, not the details. Make revisions, not re-writes.

Write down your ideas!

One thing I had seen online that also resonated with me, was the fact of "If you have an idea for a scene in a game, WRITE IT DOWN".

Well, what does this mean? This means you DONT need to literally write or re-write the beginning or middle of your story for this unwritten idea to fit into. WRITE IT DOWN.

Make it a skeleton idea. What are the basic pointers? What is your current vision? What are you going to imagine about this?

Put it on paper first, then you can either mould your story around it, or build on top of it, or incorporate it!

Games don't have to be long!

(specifically story games)

One thing I also had seen I was fixating on was making my games about 2 hours long. though I forgot that you can make a game shorter!

One great example of this is Mike Klubnika's games that normally last about 30-15 mins.

MODELS/SOUNDS/TEXTURES TO USE

Some may be in UE format, unsure.

• https://www.freepoly.org/ freepoly, free public domain use models (CC0)
• https://ambientcg.com/ public domain materials. 290+ Free PBR materials
• https://daveface.gumroad.com/l/uPXbQ free models
• https://sonniss.com/gameaudiogdc/ royalty free music, ambience, and sound effects