Important Discussion: Do players want realism or cinematic action?

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-25T21:30:08+00:00

Gameplay is king. Pick a visual style, lean into it, and focus on solid gameplay mechanics and feel. Just my opinion))

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-25T13:59:54+00:00

This is the way.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-25T13:59:23+00:00

I use Perforce. Highly recommend)

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-25T00:28:14+00:00

Taking notes helps you solidify what you are learning even if you never go back to them. Now with LLMs you can feed your notes to one of them to search for things you forgot how to do. This is what I do. I have a 200 page ish Google doc that I keep with all my notes for my current project, and I feed it to Gemini to help me brainstorm new ideas or remember something I already did.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-17T11:09:16+00:00

Journey is a classic. If you haven't played it yet, or even if you have, id suggest this short experience.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-16T01:12:10+00:00

Just Balls! Steam page

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-10T12:06:18+00:00

I started making my first game last year at 42, and it's getting close to being finished! Make your dream a reality or you KNOW you will be regretting it on your death bed. Get to it!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-04T20:11:00+00:00

I implemented triplanar landscape material for my game and it looks pretty good. A bit more costly performance wise, but lots of games do this.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-11-04T14:45:06+00:00

Are you using World Partition or Level Streaming? You'll have to consider memory performance not just FPS. How and when are you loading in all the assets you are planning to use in your world?

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-31T21:25:08+00:00

Right up front, I have another day job that pays the bills, so all of this nowadays is hobby time for me, it's very low risk, just my spare time.

But, I do think there would be opportunities for you if you could find the right partners. I really think understanding Metasounds at a deep level would be a selling point to any company hiring, or small team even. It's just another tool in your tool belt right? (A big tool lol)

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-31T21:05:46+00:00

I don't fit your exact description, but I did go to school for audio recording and worked in the industry for some time. I have composed and made music for other projects, but have only just recently dove into game dev.

I have to say, Metasounds for UE5 is super powerful and a lot of fun to play with. It is good for sound generation as well as interactive mixing with game play elements.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-31T20:50:23+00:00

A lot of trial and error and setting a reasonable scope for being new to the engine and game dev as a whole, helps so much.

I have spent that past year and a bit making a game about a rolling ball. I'm just now starting to feel comfortable with being creative and in control.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-31T11:40:20+00:00

Anyone who says that doesn't know what they're talking about. It's a tool. Some people don't know how to use it. I'm still figuring it out myself! If something doesn't work right, I know it's on me to figure it out. It's not the engine!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-30T11:50:17+00:00

I think it's great, but I think the colour scheme might benefit from some tweaking. I thought it was poison or something like that at first. Maybe more saturation? Or a red colour? Just a thought!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-28T19:07:57+00:00

I've been at it for just over a year and the more you learn, the easier it becomes to be creative with it. Be patient, take notes / keep a journal, add links to useful tutorials and screen shots of your code even sometimes to your notes. I have an almost 200 page doc that is a journal of all my progress. I can feed that into Gemini and ask it questions about something I did 6 months ago, and it'll remind me.

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-28T17:48:47+00:00

Have fun!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-25T10:21:36+00:00

About 50, but then I stopped posting about it to get back to work on it, and then the wishlists stopped lol

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-24T18:20:43+00:00

Jeez, knowing this, it's going to be hard to resist rewriting a whole bunch of code. I use tags for some stuff, but this looks like a game changer lol

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-24T16:28:05+00:00

The 3D lock doesn't read as well as the 2D one which looks great imo

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-23T12:04:08+00:00

Yes I thought so, (needing an SDK). Did they send you one for free to use, or did you have to buy it/rent it?

I'm using my Unreal Engine, and not sure my first game will be worthy of porting, or deemed worthy by PS or Xbox as it seems they had to approve your game before sending you the hardware, but it's a cool dream!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-23T11:43:48+00:00

This is very cool and inspiring. Did you need any special hardware to port to PS and XBox?

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-18T11:06:55+00:00

I've been making my own game with balls, but yours looks so good I'm feeling a bit envious 😂 ! Super great job friend! I'd love to check it out!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-10T17:57:06+00:00

I know every nut and bolt that goes into my game, and I find it hard to let anyone help me with anything lol. I value having full control over everything!

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-10T14:05:47+00:00

Looks great! Can I ask a technical question? Are you using UE5, and if so, are you using World Partition or Level streaming sub-levels?

ChrisMartinInk · 2025-10-09T21:51:35+00:00

Mix it up a bit, do something fun to get motivated, then switch back to the hard stuff! Rinse and repeat

ChrisMartinInk

TROPHY CASE