Game Dev

HL2 turns 20! (Get it FREE)

Can you believe 2004 was 20 years ago? That was the year Half-Life 2 came out!

To celebrate that milestone Valve has just put out a really nice update to the game, there's a dedicated page covering all the changes, lots of bug fixes and quality of life improvements.

But more than that they also added some excellent in-game developer documentary like many of their other games. They added Workshop support, Graphics options, Steam Deck support and more.

Perhaps best of all, they published an excellent 2 hour Documentary video on the making of the game. I just watched it and it's awesome, full of interesting nuggets of information on how the game was built. I loved watching this documentary, I might do a video talking about my favorite highlights (like how they made the AI seem smart with bullseyes)

And yes they do talk about Episode 3 or Half-Life 3 and why it never came to pass.

There's also 3 published videos of the game before it was released. Siggraph 2000, E3 2002, E3 2003. I remember seeing the 2003 physics demo myself when I was a kid and being absolutely amazed at the physics, it looked like magic!

The game is currently completely FREE on Steam. If you haven't played this masterpiece I highly recommend you do. Even if you're not necessarily a fan of the genre (FPS story focused) I still recommend you play it just to have knowledge of such a historically significant game.

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Get it HERE and use coupon RAMSTERZ at checkout to get it for FREE!

Black Friday is almost here!

There will be lots of assets on sale and timed Flash Deals at 70% OFF! You can already see the List of all the assets that will be on Flash Deals.

My own Asset, the Mouse Cursor System Pro, will be on a Flash Deal 70% OFF in 8 days.

Game Dev

Basic but very important Demo tips

Nowadays making a good Demo is essential if you want to find success with your games. A good Demo is the difference between getting 100 wishlists in a Steam Festival or getting 10,000!

There is a great post on Reddit talking about 4 common mistakes that people make with their demos (which you should avoid)

1. Trying to reinvent the wheel with control schemes.

Remember one of the golden rules for game design, you want your game to be a little unique so it stands out from the crowd, but not too unique to the point where people don't even know how to play it. You need to strike a balance between familiarity and uniqueness. If a player cannot figure out how to play your game within 60 seconds, they will uninstall and try another demo.

2. Blocking the gameplay behind a massive amount of reading.

Remember the classic "show don't tell". Teach the controls by requiring the player to do something in the world instead of reading text, like the classic example of Super Mario 1-1 where it very intuitively teaches the player to jump. I highly recommend you use mini-videos to teach the player controls and interactions, In Unity you can use the Video Player component, I have a lecture on it in my Ultimate Unity Overview course.

3. No tutorial at all.

Feeling lost and confused is probably the worst feeling you can give to your player, especially in a quick demo. Make everything as straightforward as possible, playtest a lot BEFORE you publish your demo.

4. Releasing the demo waaaaaay too soon.

Demos are super important nowadays and the bar for quality has been going up and up. Demos are NOT alpha versions! They should be very high quality, very well polished, with excellent presentation and bug free. The only difference between the demo should be in size/length, not in quality. If you need more time then delay the game for 3 months and join the next Steam Festival.

Gaming

This is an Xbox, also this...

Xbox has been in an interesting transition period these past few years. Slowly over time it has been more about "play games anywhere (esp. through Game Pass)" rather than "buy our dedicated game console and play games there"

First it was Xbox games were also coming out on PC, then they experimented with putting some games on PlayStation (Sea of Thieves)

And now they have a marketing campaign that very clearly promotes how anything can be an ‘Xbox’. Clearly they no longer see themselves competing with PlayStation/Nintendo but rather just trying to get the entire world to subscribe to Game Pass.

The ad shows an Xbox, then just a Smart TV, then a Phone, SteamDeck, Notebook, and really anything with a screen and an internet connection, all of those playing Xbox games.

The reception to that video has been mixed, about 40% dislikes with apparently lots of people upset that owning the console is no longer a requirement to play a bunch of games.

As a developer this is awesome because it means more ways for players to play your games, and as a player it means more ways to play your games on more devices.

Fun

From Game to Real life!

Sometimes playing a game can inspire you to do something in real life.

This one player loved playing Deep Rock Galactic so much that when he saw a job application for rock drill/explosive mining he decided to give it a go, and now 3 years later is very happy with his job and in the best shape of his life!

It's definitely amazing to be able to explore an area in a videogame and find out you love it to then give it a try in real-life. Although I would say maybe don't do that if your favorite game is Payday 2...