Issue #220 - Digging Deep

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Some insightful deep dives into how things work this week, plus the usual smorgasbord of great game dev topics. Enjoy!

The most important goal in designing software is understandability - When you're designing a piece of software, the single most important thing to design for is understandability. Security, performance, and correctness are all important, but they come after understandability.
ntietz.com

C# Tip: ObservableCollection - a data type to intercept changes to the collection - Imagine you need a way to raise events whenever an item is added or removed from a collection.
code4it.dev

How to port a Unity game to Android: a comprehensive guide - Why should you learn how to port a Unity game to Android? Well, that is the question in the spotlight at the moment. In the ever-evolving world of mobile gaming, Android has emerged as a dominant platform with millions of users worldwide.
mainleaf.com

GPU Run-time Procedural Placement on Terrain - In this article, I will explain the method for implementing run-time GPU placement of objects on terrain, using Unity engine. This technique may be adapted to any engine supporting compute shaders
Kacper Szwajka

See How to Create Batman-Style Dark Deco 3D Buildings in Blender - Tomasz Artur Bolek walked us through the series of Batman-style dark deco 3D building concepts and shared in detail his approach to modeling and texturing the buildings in Blender, along with insights into lighting and rendering techniques.
80.lv

The Easy-to-Use Tilemap Editor - A free level design tool to craft beautiful 2D tilemaps right in your browser using any tileset.
spritefusion.com

Start building spatial apps for Apple Vision Pro with Unity - Following months of collaboration with developers in our visionOS beta program, we’re excited to share that official support for visionOS is now available to all Unity Pro, Enterprise, and Industry subscribers. You can now leverage Unity’s familiar authoring workflows, robust XR tools, and cross-platform compatibility to create immersive spatial experiences for a whole new ecosystem on Apple Vision Pro. Official support channels and success plans are also available to help you get started.
Unity

A look at mobile screen reader support in the Unity Engine - In a positive shift toward inclusivity, an increasing number of game developers are prioritizing accessibility as an integral aspect of their creations. Unity is dedicated to providing support to help developers achieve their accessibility goals.
Unity

Videos

The Strange Graphics Of LETHAL COMPANY - Topics covered: Frame capturing, fixed resolution rendering, edge detection, posterization, depth of field, bloom
Acerola

When Optimisations Work, But for the Wrong Reasons - Level of detail and imposters are effective optimizations that work for reasons you may not fully understand. Let's explore why, from a hardware perspective, these work.
SimonDev

Level up your code with game programming patterns: Pattern combo | Tutorial - In this final video of our programming design patterns video series, we’ll go through an action/fighting game combo system that integrates the design patterns we’ve explored so far. You’ll learn how the different patterns work together to create this action sample.
Unity

Lifelike actions and reactions – adding physics to your game - From advanced 3D open worlds to the smallest 2D title, all games need physics to give them weight. In this video, Nicolas Borromeo and Vera Mommersteeg dive into Unity’s physics solutions for common use cases as well as challenges such as ghost collisions, tunneling, and unexpected bounces. You learn more about choosing and using NVIDIA PhysX, Unity Physics, or Havok Physics for Unity – and see how creators are integrating physics in their games.
Unity

Why is It Difficult to Make Good AI for Games? - Having made over 100 videos digging into how AI works in video games, I've never really explained why this is such a big problem. Let's discuss some core AI fundamentals.
AI and Games

2D Animations, Sprite Sheets, Lights & SFX in COOKIE CUTTER - Creator Spotlight: Cookie Cutter
Unity

Learn Unit Testing for MVP/MVC Architecture in Unity - Walk through Unit Testing with the Unity Test Runner in Edit and Play modes in this first installment of the MVP/MVC series. We'll create some sample tests, helper Attributes and Classes, plus Spies and Mocks with NSubstitute!
git-amend

Chaos Theory in Game Music - In this GDC 2023 talk, game composer Winifred Phillips discusses her score for the Jurassic World Primal Ops video game. By focusing on tonal ambiguity and unconventional harmonic progression, the music of Jurassic World Primal Ops was able to subvert expectations, keeping players on edge and infusing chaotic excitement into gameplay.
GDC

Trello for game dev - Starter guide! - This walkthrough will teach you all the basics you need to start working with Trello for game dev projects effectively. I show you how to setup boards, how to create lists, how to work with cards, give a deep look into Checklists and we will have a first look into creating dependency systems.
Christina Creates Games

Super Mario's Invisible Difficulty Settings - From Super Mario Bros. to Mario Wonder, Nintendo has explored and experimented with a genius way to let players dictate their own level of difficulty.
Game Maker's Toolkit

Time travel in Unity | Useless Game Dev - New video out, it's about time. Time rewind more specifically, like you find in Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, or Braid, or many other cool games that utilize this concept as a game mechanic or as part of their story. Let's see if we can make it work.
Useless Game Dev

Assets

Fantasy Lunar New Year Bundle - Save up to 95% and kickstart your fantasy projects with the best time-saving tools, 3D assets, and more. Including: Fluffy Grooming Tool, Sensor Toolkit, The Illustrated Nature, Fantasy Monsters Animated Megapack and a lot more!
Unity Affiliate

Game Design And Programming - Book Bundle - Game development skills within reach. Start your journey into game development today with this bundle of books from Pearson, full of critical instruction for beginners and invaluable skill-up material for seasoned devs! Learn how to create compelling and profitable content for one of the hottest games around in Roblox Game Development in 24 Hours: The Official Roblox Guide. Bone up on the basics required to truly understand the craft in Fundamentals of Game Design. Empower yourself with the skills to create your own bespoke art assets with Learning Blender. Get all these books and more—a value of over $800—and help support Women Who Code with your purchase.
Humble Bundle Affiliate

50% off David Dumais Audio - Publisher Sale - Get 50% off David Dumais Audio assets. David Dumais is a professional sound designer and composer for video games. He also releases weekly videos on the art of sound design on his growing YouTube channel. PLUS, get 8-Bit Retro Game SFX Pack for FREE with code DAVIDDUMAISAUDIO
Unity Affiliate

FMOD-Syntax - Generates code to allow invoking FMOD events with a strongly-typed syntax.
RoyTheunissen Open Source

textmeshpro-spriteatlas-support - Tool that converts SpriteAtlas to TextMeshPro Sprite asset
codewriter-packages Open Source

Goap - A multi-threaded GOAP system for Unity
crashkonijn Open Source

The Fantasy Realms Bundle - Pro-quality MMO assets for Unity. Get the expertly crafted character models that’ll bring your Unity MMO to life with this jam-packed bundle from the master artisans at Dragonsan Studios! Included are an array of separate asset packs that include distinct character models for dwarves, elves, humans, orcs, and more, as well as multiple awesome armor sets each. You’ll also get a vast selection of icon packs that’ll bring some pro-level polish to your UI, ranging from skill icons, to loot, crafting resources, consumables, and more! Pay what you want for over $1,200 worth of assets that’ll make your MMO ready for primetime, and help support One Tree Planted with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

LutLight2D - Stylized pixel art lighting via color replacement. It keeps the original colors of the palette and can create unusual stylization effects.
NullTale Open Source

QuickPlayMode - When entering play mode, automatically resetting static members of dirty types, instead of reloading the domain.
stalomeow Open Source

Graphene - Graphene for Unity UI Toolkit is a lightweight and modular framework for building user interfaces
LudiKha Open Source

Corel 2023 Painter And More Software Bundle - Corel’s artist’s arsenal is back! Back by popular demand, this bundle of digital art and editing tools from Corel will help you make your artistic vision real! Sketch, paint, and illustrate with the renowned Corel Painter 2023, including a kit full of brush packs to help you create your signature style. Make every shot your best with the advanced photo editing capabilities of PaintShop Pro, and harness the time-saving power of AfterShot Pro. Become a master of the digital canvas with the help of Corel, and help support Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

unity-tabsystem - Unity UI tab menus.
b3x206 Open Source

SaintsField - A Unity Inspector extension tool focusing on script fields inspector enhancement
TylerTemp Open Source

Unity-Prefab-Collider-Generator - Unity PCG Generates a Box-Collider Encapsulating Every Child Mesh, Collider or Transform
ltmx Open Source

AutoScene - Edit a Scene, Play Another - A Productivity Unity Plugin
chsxf Open Source

AdvancedSharpAdbClient - AdvancedSharpAdbClient is a .NET library that allows .NET, Mono and Unity applications to communicate with Android devices. It's improved version of SharpAdbClient.
SharpAdb Open Source

FREE Input Prompts Pack - Icons for PC and Consoles for Unreal Engine or Unity - Enhance your gaming experience with our comprehensive input control icons pack. Our pack includes a wide range of icons for various platforms, including PC and consoles. Whether you prefer gamepads, mouse and keyboard, or a combination of both, we have you covered. Our icons are designed to work seamlessly with any type of game, ensuring a smooth and immersive gameplay.
juliocacko.itch.io

Weatherade: Snow and Rain System - Weatherade system allows you to create snowy/rainy scenes in Unity using a set of shaders and tools that are finely tuned to work together. [Currently 50% off for the next 7 days]
NOT_Lonely Affiliate

The Complete Learn To Code Bundle - Coding for AI, games & more
Interested in learning about the intersection of game development and the rapidly advancing technologies driving AI? This bundle of video courses from Mammoth Interactive will get you up to speed! Learn how to implement, manage, and optimize large language models like GPT with the cutting edge toolkit Ollama. Drill down on the basics of popular game engines like Unity, Unreal, and Godot, hone your programming skills in languages like JavaScript and Python, and much more!
Pay what you want for this bundle of over 40 comprehensive courses and help support charity with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Spotlight

Rabbit's Tale - The tale of a Rabbit that goes in search of his family after they were kidnapped by the Steam Order which has an oppressive dominion over his world. But, along the way, in this hand-drawn metroidvania open-world something very mystical and dark happens to our hero.

[You can wishlist it on Steam, follow them on Twitter and visit their website]
Golden Bug Studios

My game, Call Of Dookie. Demo available on Steam

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