Game Dev

Build Discord Games

Discord, the platform with over 200 million monthly active users, has just opened up Discord Activities for all developers.

This means you can build games that run inside Discord. They run inside an iframe and you can access Discord data for the players like their username, their friends list, invite other friends, use voice chat, etc.

One big benefit for developers is the access to such a huge userbase, they are working on Discoverability features to help players find games to play.

One of the most popular games, Death by AI, reached 7 million players in weeks. Very tough to achieve this without the massive Discord audience.

There is also the ability to implement in-app purchases so you can monetize your games. You can either do something like mobile with lots of IAP or something like a normal Premium Steam game where the game is mostly a demo and with a single payment it unlocks the full game.

With Unity you can make a WebGL build to make games that use Discord Activities. I found this tutorial video which seems to explain the setup very well.

This is certainly an interesting idea, I'd love to research this a bit if I can find the time, you can certainly build some interesting games that take advantage of the Discord ecosystem. And by being a new platform it might have better discoverability than something like Steam or Mobile.

Game Dev

Are you joining Steam Next Fest?

Are you participating in the Steam October Next Fest in 2 weeks?

If so reply to this email with your game (or [email protected]) I'm hoping I'll have time to do a livestream playing some demos from the festival.

The festival runs from 14 to the 21st of October.

Tech

Meta makes VR accessible and showcases the future

Meta just had their Meta Connect event where they showcased lots of hardware and software.

The rumors finally came true, Meta Quest 3S brings awesome VR for just $299 while the Quest 3 is $499 and includes the upcoming Batman Arkham Shadow. The 3S has the same chip but narrower FOV and Fresnel (instead of Pancake) lenses. It's essentially a Quest 2 but with the tech of the Quest 3.

With your Quest 3 you can also walk around super high quality realistic environments using gaussian splatting. In the future you will be able to build and share your own super high quality scenes.

They unveiled Llama 3.2 which is now multi-modal, meaning it understands text, sound and images. One of their demos showcased auto video dubbing where the speaker was speaking in Spanish and using AI it made a video where the speaker was talking in English (with lips moving correctly). This model is also lightweight meant to run on-device on mobiles.

But the coolest part of the event was when they showcased their high-tech futuristic AR glasses codenamed Orion. They weigh 100 grams, they have see-through (not pass-through), bright enough to use in daytime, very complex lenses to overlay virtual elements on top of the world, and the whole thing is controlled through a neural-activated wrist tracker.

Although this is just a prototype for now, they mentioned how it's only available for internal testing and few select external developers while they keep working on the technology (and hopefully getting it down in price)

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Gaming

News from Tokyo Game Show

Lots of gaming news this past week thanks to the Tokyo Game Show.

Xbox had a broadcast where they showcased MGS Snake Eater, My Hero Academia is coming to Overwatch, both Starfield and Diablo 4 are getting expansions soon, while Starcraft is coming to Game Pass.

Also showed lots of Japanese games (which is usually an area where Xbox struggles) like Metaphor ReFantazio, Atelier, Suikoden, Slitterhead, FragPunk, and more.

PlayStation had their State of Play where they showcased a free update to Astro Bot, PSVR2 games Metro Awakening and Hitman, Palworld (which released on PS immediately), Alan Wake expansion The Lake House.

Also Soul Reaver 1 & 2 remastered, Dynasty Warriors Origins, LEGO Horizon.

And the big announcement, Ghost of Yotei, the sequel to the excellent Ghost of Tsushima set 300 years in the future.

So yet another gaming event where there's something for everyone, whether you prefer cozy games or action games, huge RPGs or Multiplayer games, giant open worlds or tiny adventures, whatever you want to play there is a game just for you.

Also Assassin's Creed: Shadows was delayed to next February. I've been waiting for AC Japan for ages so I'm happy they're taking their time to polish the game, I hope it ends up great!