Issue #244 - Patterns, Procedural Content, and more

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Collected some more great game dev content for your weekend. Enjoy!

My Favorite Tools + Techniques for Procedural Gamedev - One of the unifying themes of the work is the use procedural and generative techniques in some way. Usually it's just some specific element of the level that makes use of this rather than a fully procedurally generated world. This has resulted in me accumulating a good number of procedural and semi-procedural tools and effects that I re-use from level to level. I thought I'd put together a list of some of my favorites in case they might be of interest to anyone else working on similar kinds of 3D applications.
cprimozic.net

Game Design Concepts - Valve just radically changed the behavior of demos.
thingspool.net

More Than Movements: Animation in Mobile Game Dev - Common animation problems in mobile game development and finding practical solutions to improve quality.
gamedeveloper.com

What Steam’s Big Demo Update Means For Your Marketing Strategy - We are still in the early days of this feature and still figuring out how it works so I can provide some early thoughts. But I will evolve this post as we learn more.
howtomarketagame.com

Hex Map 3.4.0 - Cell Struct - We continue our quest to get rid of the cell objects. This time we will achieve that goal, although we don't completely remove the HexCell type.
catlikecoding.com

A small games manifesto - 'Most great franchises were born from small games and incremental investment. This is far from easy in a crowded market, but it’s the path to sustainable success.' [For another post, read Why I absolutely love making small games and why you should do it too]
gamedeveloper.com

DontDestroyOnLoad in Unity — Best Practices - This is a Unity Tutorial on how to use DDOL tool correctly in terms of Software Architecture.
makaka.org

The Memento Design Pattern in C#, Practically With Examples - The Memento pattern is one of the foundational design patterns. It helps build UI features like undo/redo or UI transactions. In this article, we will see how to implement the Memento pattern in C#. We use a small WPF-based Fish Tank Manager as a sample application.
blog.postsharp.net

The state machine in C# with async/await - You often here that the async/await keywords leads to a state machine. But what does that mean? Let's discuss this with a simple example.
steven-giesel.com

Designing The Super Nintendo System - I put myself in the shoes of a Nintendo engineer working in Masayuki Uemura's team by studying what was available in 1989, namely a TV set, to understand what decisions had to be made while designing the SNES video system. Here is the summary of what I learned. Perhaps you will enjoy tagging along.
fabiensanglard.net

Unity E-books - Introducing our new e-book: Unity’s Data-Oriented Technology Stack (DOTS) for advanced developers, Get our first-ever guide about animation in Unity, E-book update: More design patterns and SOLID principles, New technical e-book for worldbuilding in XR with Unity available for free
cprimozic.net

Videos

A* Search: How Your Map Applications Find Shortest Routes - In this video, we explore the algorithms behind how modern mapping applications find routes that optimize time, distance, and cost. We motivate A* search from a first principle approach, building up to showing how it is a harmonious combination of both a careful, rigorous approach and a greedy, opportunistic approach.
Reducible

Factory Design Pattern in C# - Create Flexible Code in Your Apps - Hi everyone. My name is Marinko Spasojevic, and in this video, I will show you how to use a Factory pattern to improve your object creation without specifying the concrete objects in your business logic. It is a very useful pattern, and I use it all the time in my projects.
Code Maze

The Procedural Animation of Gibbon: Beyond the Trees - Wolfire Games - In this video, David talks about the prototype procedural animation work he did for Gibbon: Beyond the Trees, by Broken Rules.
Wolfire Games

It's Hard To Make Games - Unsurprisingly, solo game development is actually really hard -- yet many see it as the default path for those wanting to enter the industry. So let's take a look at a few existing games and how much effort went into them to set expectations for our own endeavors!
Acerola

Three ways to use Universal Render Pipeline Renderer Features | Tutorial - A Renderer Feature is a C# script that can be used at any stage in the Render Pipeline to affect the final render. Renderer Features provide a great way of adding custom rendering effects to your scene, often with no code required, making them artist-friendly.
Unity

Why Crosshairs Are Surprisingly Difficult for Game Developers - I mean crosshairs are just a little dot that show you where you're gonna shoot, right? Well I'm gonna show you why most of the time crosshairs are lying to you.
JayTheDevGuy

How to Code like Vlambeer? - Vlambeer is the best in the business when it comes to "game feel". In this video, I go over the GameMaker source code for a demo JW produced for a talk called 'The Art of Screenshake'.
Jordan Guillou

AUTOMATE Unity Project Setup (and 15 Essential Assets for 2024) - Never import your Packages and Assets one by one ever again. These cumbersome manual tasks can and should be automated, and it's easier than you think. Today we'll walk through all the code required and I'll show you all the Quality-of-Life Editor Enhancing Assets I import into every project!
git-amend

Can we add Multiplayer to a game in four weeks?? - Net Check Part 2 - Can the gang convert their game project into a Multiplayer Game in four weeks??
Unity

Assets

The Complete Advanced Algorithms & Programming Bundle - Algorithms are your friends

Whatever your specific programming discipline, algorithms are among the most powerful tools available to solve complex problems efficiently. This bundle of courses will give you confidence to implement cutting-edge algorithms across a host of languages, applications, and use-cases. Get access to over 40 in-depth courses, covering topics like deep learning, web development, machine learning, game dev and much more.

Get the skills you need to get an edge in the increasingly competitive tech market, and help support One Tree Planted with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Blender Market's Essential Game Modding Toolkit Bundle - The essential Blender suite
3D artists, it’s time to optimize your workflows, build up your arsenal, and level up your skills with this bundle of tools, assets, and tutorials. If you’re a Blender user, get ready for a smorgasbord of invaluable tools, ranging from Retopoflow, which introduces a full retopology toolkit to the industry-standard open-source program, to Faceit, an add-on that makes facial rigging, mocap, and animation a breeze. You’ll also get a host of ready-to-use software and engine-agnostic assets, plus a curated selection of in-depth tutorials focusing on essential 3D graphics topics.
Pay what you want for this amazing package, and help support One Tree Planted with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

The Dev Days of Summer - 50% Off For A Limited Time. Unity’s top creators have hand-picked their favorite tools, templates, art packs, and much to help you getting started with Unity.
Unity Affiliate

Gitostory - Gitostory is an git-history system tailored for Unity. It focuses on asset history and progress. View, Compare and Restore previous versions of your assets.
emirkivrak Open Source

Unity-AR-ColorMapping - Unity AR Colormapping for easyar,vuforia,maxstar, arkit, arcore
airar-dev Open Source

com.nebukam.job-assist - Micro helper library for Unity's Job System
Nebukam Open Source

com.nebukam.easing - Easing toolkit using Unity.Mathematics
Nebukam Open Source

Unity-URP-Volumetric-Light - Unity package for versions 2022.3 and Unity 6. Adds support to render volumetric lighting for both the main and additional lights in URP. Compatible with URP render graph in Unity 6.
CristianQiu Open Source

Unity-URP-Outlines - A custom renderer feature for screen space outlines
Robinseibold Open Source

JoltPhysicsUnity - Jolt Physics bindings for Unity
seep Open Source

StatusEffectsFramework-Unity - Status Effect Framework is a framework for implementing status effects into any game. It is easy to use, and fully customizable.
maraudical Open Source

sprite-animations - A smooth and intuitive way to work with sprite sheets in Unity.
no-slopes Open Source

Hey-Area-Object-Spawner - Open-source Procedural Object Spawner Tool | for Unity Engine
JahnStar Open Source

AnimatorController-as-a-Code - (In development) A small Unity Editor Library to generate AnimatorController with C# Code.
anatawa12 Open Source

ExcelToJsonWizard - A tool for converting Excel data to JSON files and generating C# loader classes for use in Unity.
npckero Open Source

Unity_Extensions - Collection of useful unity Extensions
Greener-Games Open Source

Leartes Studios Unity, Unreal, Godot Mega Flash Sale - Get ‘em while you can! Game makers, this flash sale is coming in hot! Get your hands on a jam-packed bundle of assets for your next Unity or Unreal Engine project, including high-quality environments, props, character and vehicle models, audio assets, tools, and more! From post-apocalyptic wastelands to dark medieval milieus, these ready-to-use and customizable assets will help you realize your vision, whatever it may be. This bundle won’t last long, so snag it while you can. Plus, your purchase helps support Direct Relief.
Humble Bundle Affiliate

The Legendary Soundtrack Suite - Soundtracks to suit any occasion Whether you’re a game dev, film maker, content creator, or creative of any stripe, this bundle has the music you need to make your project soar! Included are 40 music packs across a vast galaxy of genres, ready to plug into your workflow. From medieval tunes suitable for your fantasy epic, to symphonic metal to get your audience’s spirit stirring, get all the music you need to capture the perfect vibe. Pay what you want for this massive library of music and help support No Kid Hungry with your purchase.
Humble Bundle Affiliate

URPShaders_Unity - In this repository includes URP Shader, like Customize Shader, Shader Graph, full-screen shader, etc
JackMikky Open Source

50% off VFXmania - Publisher Sale - VFXmania creates both stylized and realistic visual effects. Their mission is to create high-quality, affordable visual effects for indie game developers. PLUS, get Break Items - Toon VFX for FREE with code HARRY3D
Unity Affiliate

Spotlight

Sumo Tatami - Sumo Tatami: Unleash chaos in epic battles! Race, duel, sport modes, brawl in physics-driven madness!Grab wild weapons & outsmart rivals! Eat rice & get enhancements, drink tea & use power of boosters! Get yokuzuna rank in SUMO TATAMI!

[You can get the demo on Steam and follow them on Twitter]
Crazy Barbarian Games

My game, Call Of Dookie. Demo available on Steam

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