July, 2020

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How to Advertise Board Games Online

Brand Game Development

“I love advertising!” That’s not a sentence you hear spoken out loud often. Advertising has a reputation for annoying people with messages that aren’t relevant to them, relentlessly wearing them down with half-truths broadcasted over TV networks and on billboards. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Now You Can Choose High-Performing Unity Shaders

The GameDev Guru

When choosing your next shader, you need to strike the balance between your dream visuals and the performance you take away. But how much performance do your shaders steal? Today, I'll give you handy tables so you can see the performance cost of the commonly used Unity shaders.

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Trending Sources

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TOP 10 YouTube Channels for Learning GameDev with Unity

Mnenad

In this video I present you my TOP 10 YouTube game development channels from which I learned to use Unity and much more around game design, development, business and inspiration.

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Release candidate: Godot 3.2.3 RC 3

Mircosoft Game Dev

Godot 3.2.2 was released on June 26 with over 3 months' worth of development, including many bugfixes and a handful of features. Some regressions were noticed after the release though, so we decided that Godot 3.2.3 would focus mainly on fixing those new bugs to ensure that all Godot users can have the most stable experience possible. Here's a third Release Candidate for the upcoming Godot 3.2.3 release.

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The Economy of the Metaverse | Interview with Epic CEO Tim Sweeney

Deconstructor of Fun

A lot has been written, and there has been a lot of discussion about, the potential for a huge new gaming and virtual world paradigm which many are calling the Metaverse. However, very little has been written or yet discussed about how such a platform needs to work. More specifically, in a future Metaverse platform, what kind of economy will be required to support a healthy and vibrant ecosystem for all of the participants: including all players on the commercial side of the value chain and for

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Little Racer – Design

The Knights of Unity

Working on the design of Little Racer required a lot of flexibility. There were many areas on which the designer had to work on – creating documentation, designing worlds, obstacles, levels, cars, creating all the names in the game, i.e. names of levels, cars, achievements, co-operating with artists, working on the balance of the game – creating conditions for achievements and all unlockables, working on the UX of level editor… Each week was a new challenge, what made us fully engage

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4 Lessons from Exit Games for Aspiring Board Game Designers

Brand Game Development

I’ve written before about my fondness for Escape Rooms. Certainly, board game designers can learn a lot from well-designed escape rooms. The only trouble, of course, is that being in a small indoor area with a handful of other people in close contact isn’t exactly a great idea right now. Exit Games by Kosmos are the closest we can get to the authentic in-person experience right now.

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Black Hole Demo

The Astronauts

I made a demo with my kid, and it somehow managed to get 1st place at a (small) demoparty! The story of this demo started around year 2006 (!). I had just started working at Unity in Copenhagen, and was renting a tiny room (it was like 12 square meters; back then that’s all I could afford). The guy I was renting from was into writing and music.

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Release candidate: Godot 3.2.3 RC 2

Mircosoft Game Dev

Edit 2020-07-30: We found that 3.2.3 RC 2 had been incorrectly built and does not reflect commit ac2e7d87d1c398db9c796afba6973a2f170ddfa2 but an earlier version (basically the same as 3.2.3 RC 1). As such these commits are not part of this 3.2.3 RC 2 build: changelog between 3.2.3 RC 1 and what RC 2 was intended to be. A new 3.2.3 RC 3 will be released to validate the above commits and a few additional ones.

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Epic's $18B Valuation: Too High or Too Low?

Deconstructor of Fun

This analysis is a part of Deconstructor of Fun’s Digest newsletter. You can sign up to the newsletter at the bottom of this text. The recent announcement that Sony has invested $250M for a 1.4% stake in Epic Games suggests the valuation of Epic now stands at $17.86B. It was earlier reported that Epic would seek to raise $750M in total under a separate deal which would suggest a valuation of over $18B if that additional deal closes as well!

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Linux

Grumpy Gamer

My linux Laptop (Dell XPS 13) arrives today. I tried to order it from Dell, but ended up canceling the order twice. Every time I order something from a on-line store not named Amazon I'm repeatably shocked at how bad it is. I eventually canceled both incorrect orders and just bought the same laptop from Amazon for the same price and it took 2 days to arrive, not the 9-15 days directly from Del.

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How to Manage Your Board Game Kickstarter Community

Brand Game Development

A couple of months ago, I asked the readers of this blog to send in answers to the question “ what confuses you most about board game development ?” I got a lot of responses, and one of them was about how to manage a Kickstarter community. That’s what I’ll be talking about in this post. Need help on your board game? Join my community of over 2,000 game developers, artists, and passionate creators.

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Unity Addressables & SpriteAtlas: How to Efficiently Use Sprites

The GameDev Guru

Are you using Unity SpriteAtlas for efficient sprites and UI Images? If so, be careful with its nasty memory side effects. Use Addressables to combat these.

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VR and Galaxy's Edge

Game Design Aspect

In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses the use of virtual reality in creating the theme park Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge. Years ago, I was interviewed by Disney Imagineering for an internal documentary on design. I pointed out that level designers of video games are often inspired by amusement parks. Amusement parks are designed to lead visitors through a physical space.

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Release candidate: Godot 3.2.3 RC 1

Mircosoft Game Dev

Godot 3.2.2 was released on June 26 with over 3 months' worth of development, including many bugfixes and a handful of features. Some regressions were noticed after the release though, so we decided that Godot 3.2.3 would focus mainly on fixing those new bugs to ensure that all Godot users can have the most stable experience possible. Here's a Release Candidate for the upcoming Godot 3.2.3 release.

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The Imminent Ragnarok of M&A in Mobile Gaming Space

Deconstructor of Fun

This post is written by Eric Seufert , a strategy consultant and the owner of Mobile Dev Memo In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of events, including a great battle, foretold to lead to the death of a number of great figures and gods, natural disasters and the submersion of the world in water. After these events, the world will resurface anew and fertile, the surviving and returning gods will meet and the world will be repopulated.

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Little Racer – 3D Art

The Knights of Unity

Background. Our main goal was to create an easy to pick, approachable couch multiplayer game for up to four players. Rivals are supposed to win the slot-cars-like race set in a variety of worlds. Graphic simplicity was dictated by the general idea of the game’s casualty. We’ve decided to set our game in a low-poly setting for the sake of readability.

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Fantasy Strike is Free to Play

Sirlin

The Fantasy Strike fighting game is now free to play. I’ll explain why this is a landmark for the genre. First, this is something we’ve been working on for years. The original vision of the game was always to capture the essence of the genre along with all its strategic depth and difficulty, but to make it radically easier to understand and control than most of the rest of genre.

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Profiling Can Now Be As Smooth As Silk

The GameDev Guru

How to profile and work on the editor at the same time without affecting your results with the Unity Standalone Profiler

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Dear Daughter: A Quarantine Essay

Game Design Aspect

It is with heartfelt joy that I announce the publication of " Dear Daughter ," a personal essay written about my quarantine experiences, on Nearness. As a site inspired by the need to share and seek solace from each other during the COVID-19 pandemic, I could not have found a better home for this piece. I also plan to submit the essay to the Greenburgh Library Covid-19 Memory Project and other such memory projects.

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Announcing the monthly Live Q&A!

Mircosoft Game Dev

What has been an idea (and something many community members suggested for a long time) is now a reality. We will be hosting a Live Q&A session with Godot core contributors the last week of each month. Live Q&A. The idea is to stream a Jitsi a call between core contributors to our Youtube channel. A moderator will pick questions from the chat and we will try to answer them as best as possible.

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How Riot can Turn Team Fight Tactics into a Billion Dollar Game

Deconstructor of Fun

Riot’s Team Fight Tactics (TFT) was launched quickly to catch the emerging auto-chess genre that was gaining popularity as a mod on Twitch. Riot for sure succeeded in shipping fast, but they clearly didn’t pay much attention on the business case for the game. After four months TFT has $.43 Revenue per Download. If this wasn’t a Riot’s game, we’d deem it as a commercial failure by now, because very few companies can turn the boat around at this point.

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Little Racer – General and Development

The Knights of Unity

Prologue. It all started when we were just kids playing slot cars toys, do you know those? Toys for which you had to build a track yourself and then simply put them on it, and race with your friends just by pressing a button! That’s what Little Racer is all about, to bring joy from our childhood times for everyone! We decided to release our game on Nintendo Switch, as joy-cons and console itself suit the game perfectly.

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The Kristala Dev Blog - Issue #19

Astral Clock Tower Studios

Hey there, sweet beans! Welcome back to the Kristala dev blog! We're happy you're here. The last time we met, we shared some pretty exciting updates from the world of Kristala, and this issue will be no different. But before we dive into today's super thicc, super juicy issue, we have to get something off our chest. We know we've promised you bi-weekly dev blogs, but in truth, there's been a lot happening lately here at ACS headquarters.

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What the hell happened to Boing Boing?

Grumpy Gamer

They used to be a great counter culture site and now they are just a shopping channel. I'm sure it makes them a lot of money, but they have lost all respect and authority in my eyes. They have joined the ranks of sell-outs. I'm sure they all drive BMWs.

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Game Idea Lists

Game Design Aspect

In this article, game designer Sande Chen discusses the practice of generating game ideas on a daily or weekly basis. In writing classes, students sometimes are asked to journal or write daily. Similarly, game design students may be asked to generate lists of game ideas or mechanics. The idea is to promote accountability and consistency with a daily assignment.

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Dev snapshot: Godot 3.2.3 beta 1

Mircosoft Game Dev

Godot 3.2.2 was released on June 26 with over 3 months' worth of development, including many bugfixes and a handful of features. Some regressions were noticed after the release though, so we decided that Godot 3.2.3 would focus mainly on fixing those new bugs to ensure that all Godot users can have the most stable experience possible. Changes. C#: Add Visual Studio support ( GH-39784 ).

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Zynga vs. Supercell - How One Ascended and the Other Declined

Deconstructor of Fun

This analysis is a part of Deconstructor of Fun’s Digest newsletter. You can sign up to the newsletter at the bottom of this text. Supercell in Decline Earlier this month, Ilkka Paananen, Supercell’s CEO talked about key learnings from his company on their 10 year anniversary: 10 Learnings from 10 Years. The lessons are not typical: “hire slowly”, “play the infinite game”, “replace control with trust”, etc.

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Summer 2020

Febucci

Summer 2018. Summer 2018. I just started “Febucci”. The months after, I wrote many Unity Tips and Tutorials. The tutorials kinda exploded, so I kept making them. The articles took too much time, so I started creating “only” GIF tutorials. They still needed a lot of time. Summer 2019. Summer 2019. I took a pause from tutorials and focused on my game.

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What to Expect When You’re Making a Board Game: Time, Money, and Effort

Brand Game Development

Over the last four articles of Start to Finish: Publish and Sell Your First Board Game , I’ve talked about a lot of things that are more complicated than you’d think. That includes the unexpected depth of the board game industry as well as the surprising variety of responsibilities which a self-publishing developer must handle. I’ve written about the five levels of communication game developers must master.

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Linux Password Manager

Grumpy Gamer

This isn't really about Linux password manager, it's more about password managers in general. It seems like everyone is going for "cloud storage" of my passwords. This is nuts. I know they "claim" they are fully encrypted and they don't have access to the passwords, but why should I trust them? These passwords are my life. It's crazy that this has become standard practice in the password manager world.

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Godot community poll 2020

Mircosoft Game Dev

It's this time of the year again! Help us better understand who is using Godot, what are your needs and towards where Godot usage is trending by completing the anonymous community poll! This is a short poll that should take a few minutes to complete. Take the Godot Community Poll 2020. The poll is configured so results are visible to everyone so, after filling it, you can see the general trends.

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Help us reach the next funding goal to ensure continued C# support

Mircosoft Game Dev

During the past year, Ignacio Etcheverry worked on significantly improving C# support and its integration in Godot, adding support for Android, HTML5 and iOS, as well as popular third party IDEs. This was financed thanks to a generous donation from Microsoft. Unfortunately, due to the Covid situation, the renewal of this grant has been suspended and is uncertain.

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Donation changes

Mircosoft Game Dev

Status. The project situation changed a lot for the better in the past few months, with a steady growth in the amount of users and contributors, and a nice boost to our funding situation thanks to an Epic MegaGrant which will cover my (Juan) and George's work for the next two years, freeing donation funds for new purposes. Therefore, we discussed with core contributors that this is a good time to change how the project manages donations, and give our whole crowdfunding a much-needed update.

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GDScript progress report: Type checking is back

Mircosoft Game Dev

After completing the new tokenizer and parser as mentioned in the previous reports, I started working on the code analyzer, which is responsible for type checking and also for used for other features like warnings and some optimizations. This was done before as a second pass inside the parser but it was now moved to another class to make it clear that it doesn't happen at the same pass thus avoiding issues with functions being called out of order (which happened by a few contributions that misse

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C# progress report: Visual Studio and VSCode

Mircosoft Game Dev

In a past progress report I announced a Godot extension for Visual Studio Mac and MonoDevelop. This was the first step towards Godot support in C# IDEs. Today I'm announcing two new extensions for other editors: Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code. In this progress report I'm going to do a brief introduction to the features included in the current version of the extensions.

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How to Build the Amazon of Game Companies

Deconstructor of Fun

This analysis is a part of Deconstructor of Fun’s Digest newsletter. You can sign up to the newsletter at the bottom of this text. Today at $1.3T in market capitalization, Amazon is the most valuable company in the world. Further, the company has arguably the highest defensive barriers to its business than any other company in the world. However, when we look at gaming companies, we don’t see the same level of defensibility that we see for companies in other industries.

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