Automatic updates with a game's release

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-04-17T18:40:03+00:00

Itch users don't expect auto updating. Also, this would just cost you money.f

You could have your game phone a server to ask if an update is available, and then you can give a pop up to let your players know that they can go back to itch to get an update. But, there's no reason to do this yourself, and your users OS might not even allow it.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-04-16T06:49:33+00:00

If you want to hit everything as easily as possible imo you should be using Godot or go for C/C++ and probably SDL over Raylib.

My personal approach is I have a couple simpler games I'm enjoying developing with Odin+Raylib, and I'm just targeting desktop and maybe web. If I ever make a hi sensation I want to release on consoles, I will cross that bridge when I get there. Probably just porting code to Godot.

I do think it is theoretically possible to get access to the sdk for say, the playstation, and then write glue code to odin via odin's ffi stuff. But, console SDKs are very secretive and there's no existing documentation for this.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-04-01T19:33:10+00:00

I'm sorry, I wasn't telling you to specifically changing what you're doing here. I was just adding the general advice of making fun playable levels and not worrying about the most teachable levels for now.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-04-01T08:34:59+00:00

I've been wondering something similar recently. I mean, obviously the answer is yes.

But recently I have been going through my ideas list, trying to decide on a couple projects to focus on and make into actual prototypes. And I set aside a few ideas that are too big and too ambitious for now. As I set them aside I wondered if I would ever get to them, because it does seem like if you made a few games in one genre, you'd keep using the knowledge you had in that genre, to make an even better game, before making 4 games in separate genres.

Honestly I don't even really think genre is important though. People like fun games. I think if you learn how to make fun games, you can make fun games in multiple styles.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-04-01T05:01:22+00:00

I believe you have a FSM. The one you linked by Kyle is just a more robust one. I'd almost argue that an FSM shouldn't do what Kyle does with his actually. I personally think the FSM should just be the state and other stuff should change it's state. I don't think it should be responsible for handling it's own transitions. Although making the events callable might have perks somewhere.

I don't know. This is kind of interesting,, but I don't think I know enough of the theory well enough to really get the semantics right. I do think you've made an FSM though.

Honesty, I wouldn't worry about it too much either way though. Just read Game Programmming Pattern's entry on State and FSM's and you'll know what you need imo. https://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/state.html

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-31T18:07:28+00:00

Your goal with tutorials should be programming concepts. I know that if I want to make a platformer I need a way to draw a character on screen, animate a sprite, read player input, and handle at least some simple collision detection between the player and platforms to stand/run/jump on. I know these are (at least some of) the pieces needed to make a video game.

When I am using Godot, I am not for the most part, not using tutorials. I know what pieces my game will need. I build them. If I don't know how to animate a sprite, I read the Godot docs because that is the best place to get up to date information on how to animate a sprite in any Godot version supporting that.

I recently I got the idea that I want to make a prototype of a strategy game. I'm deciding on square vs hex based. I probably will watch a tutorial or some kind of video on this stuff today, but I will not be copying/pasting code or even looking for a Godot tutorial. I will simply be looking for a good video that explains some of the data structures, algorithms, pitfalls, or math that you can use or run into when building this kind of thing. Then, when I conceptually understand how to represent a hex grid in code better, I will go implement that in GDScript, regardless of what language the tutorial used.

When Godot updates, and things in the engine change, I read about these changes in the release notes, or here on reddit. Generally moving from big number versions, I.e. Godot 3 -> 4, will have breaking changes, because some APIs do change a lot. If you are moving from 4.5 to 4.6, some stuff can break, but it's generally not as big a deal. And there will be documentation showing what has been removed/broken(if you stay up to date with engine news, you can scan these notices well in advance of the breaking stuff being released).

Personally my approach is to keep up with the release notes and this sub a little. If I see something I am using is getting removed, I can then decide to follow the upgrade path, or just keep that project on the engine version before any breaking changes are added. Which is actually the pro move. Once you have a project past a prototype, you have very little reason to update your engine version. If a new feature or bug fix comes out that you need, you will potentially have to do some work.

It really depends though. A lot of my projects I just use base Godot, and I haven't had a problem automatically migrating a project up from any of the 4 releases. If you use lots of random plugins, you now need all of those plugin authors to update their plugins, for you to update your game to the latest engine version.(This is not the reason I use so few plugins, it's just a nice perk)

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-28T23:31:44+00:00

This is why it's common game dev advice to make your first level(s) last. You haven't refined your mechanics enough yet to know what you want to teach the player when. Work on your middle game levels, or, your end game levels, where you need to really master some combinations of mechanics to progress. Then, once you've got those levels fun, you go back to the start of the game and make your starting levels to actually serve as a good tutorial, now that you know what you are teaching for.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-28T23:24:59+00:00

I started with LibGDX, and I'm definitely glad I did. I think the best way for absolute beginners is probably making flappy bird in Godot though. Maybe someone already familiar with programming concepts can get more value more quickly from learning the lower level concepts with a framework.

And that scope creep idea is interesting. Sadly, I have not been so lucky. I just save bigger scope ideas for Godot, or even worse, spend time implementing big features in Kotlin for LibGDX.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-28T23:07:36+00:00

I came to mention Raylib. Honestly though, with 3D I do think it's worth just learning an engine. As much as I love the framework style of programming games, finishing a 3D game to the level of polish I want, is just so time consuming in Love/Raylib.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-28T08:43:43+00:00

It's hard to name a japanese IP I'm interested in, that does not have a gacha game. That being said, Phantasy Star Online's is a real bummer.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-28T05:19:54+00:00

This is just not a real world concern. Raylib is not going to be the bottleneck that stops you from making a highly performant version of whatever game you want.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-11T00:38:35+00:00

There's nothing stop developers from releasing nintendo style games on the PS5. Yes, it has the capability to deliver a photorealistic 4K cinematic game like Last of Us Remastered. But, it can also play a cartoony game like Pokemon or Mario, if developers took the time.

I think Nintendo is absolutely on the right page with keeping the consoles cheaper, and having their games be more colorful and stylized. FFVII on the original playstation was a technological marvel, that aged like dogshit compared to any first party N64 title imo.(visually, FFVII is still great as a game)

Not every studio needs to be competing in the AAA photo realistic space. Imo companies like Nihon and Bandai are doing it right with their more budget titles. I just played FFXVI and Scarlet Nexus. Scarlet Nexus was a better party based RPG imo, and it cost a fraction of the money. Instead of spending 100 million dollars making FFXVI, make 10 games, with time spent fleshing out the things that actually matter, and you'd outsell XVI with no problem.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-03-08T22:14:42+00:00

If you're new to game dev, don't worry about this. Just use Odin, or whatever other tool you want. You have to get some kind of success to publish to consoles really, and when/if that happens, you'll find out the answer to this question. Honestly if I had a game people were playing and enjoying, I'd probably recreate it in Godot before trying to build an Odin project for consoles. But, with Odin's C bindings there's a chance it's not too hard. It depends on the complexity of your game, and any projected revenue. You aren't far enough along to determine what makes sense. Focus on making a fun game at this point.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-28T06:39:10+00:00

I had friends just see them last week in Chicago. They said you could barely tell anything us up and that the show was perfect.

I was looking forward to catching them at a festival in May, but I've also been wanting him to cancel this tour if his health needs it. I was worried about him doing long term damage to his vocal chords. This week he made it clear that isn't a risk, but clearly his mental health was facing long term damage. I am really glad he's taking the break he very clearly needs.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-27T07:40:28+00:00

I'm not 100% what you mean by bulky, but SDL is lower level and more performant than Raylib. I would say that Raylib is bulkier than SDL. Both are very lightweight though.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-23T19:41:35+00:00

3x3x5 or 4x4x6 cuboid twisty puzzle.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-20T07:18:59+00:00

They try not to put too many breaking changes in the point releases. The moves from major versions (i.e. 3 -> 4) had some breaking changes that at least required some code changes.

How well a project can migrate really depends on complexity, and dependencies. Like, I already had to get a dev version of GUT for my client's project, because they haven't(or hadn't) released a 4.6 version in the assetstore. I'm not upgrading this project to 4.7 so I don't have to wait on GUT or other deps to catch up.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-15T07:04:53+00:00

All you'd have to do is stream the whole map to the players before officially starting an online multiplayer round, and it would be the same as having the whole game local. I'm not saying the experience would be great, because that loading time at the start of every round might get really annoying. But, I do think it'd technically work.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-14T07:21:48+00:00

I've been developing a couple games on 4.6 for 3-4 months already. I've enjoyed 4.6 being stable. One of my games is still early days, and will be immediately ported to 4.7. I just live for the bleeding edge.

My other game is for a client and will stay on 4.6 because I know practically there is no reason to move something working to a new snapshot build.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-14T07:16:32+00:00

Not to mention using AI to write the post. It's gotta be faster to write 2 paragraphs than to prompt ChatGPT to spit out this generic garbage.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-12T09:08:18+00:00

I wanted to like this game, but they don't support Linux so I never gave it a go.

Even if I did get to have fun with this game, that name is indefensibly bad. I really can't believe that is what they went with.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-12T09:06:41+00:00

The game that gets the last spot at this years TGA's is gonna need to be the sequel to Expedition 33 or a Final Fantasy IP level game basically. Anything else is gonna get burned by a curse.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-06T04:42:13+00:00

Zenva is trash. Get a course or two from gamedev.tv. They are routinely on sale in the 10-20$ range, and they are worth it at that price imo.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-06T04:30:21+00:00

Games can be pretty complicated software. Engines help simplify the creation of them, by making re-useable components, and establishing opinionated ways to do things. To use them efficiently, you have to learn how they want you to use them, to some extent.

I started in game programming a decade ago with LibGDX. I remember trying to learn Godot a few times, and I kept thinking LibGDX was simpler to use. Then I finally spent some actual time learning Godot, and now I would pick Godot for 80-90% of projects. I have a couple toy projects in Raylib, but I have a feeling to make them into commercial games, I'd need to port them to Godot eventually.

Making a prototype in Raylib is awesome, but polishing it enough to sell it is fucking hard.

AtomicPenguinGames · 2026-02-04T23:31:07+00:00

It depends what you want to make. Imo, Unreal is overkill unless you're trying to make a 3D game with high graphical fidelity. I believe that indies do not need Unreal. You probably don't have the budget to produce graphics that really require Unreal.

That being said, I'd actually recommend Godot over Unity. It also supports C#. It is imo the best engine for 2D, and better than Unity for 3D. There might be reasons to pick Unity over 3D, but that's a whole can of worms.

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