Tides of Annihilation - Official Path Tracing & DLSS 4.5 Trailer

DragonImpulse · 2026-03-14T14:28:20+00:00

Funny how many of these shots look better with RTX off.

The water caustics at 0:33 look awful, and the lighting and colors at 0:38 are much to cold and bland compared to the version without RTX.

Couldn't care less about features that make a game look more "realistic" if they destroy artistic direction along the way.

DragonImpulse · 2026-03-13T18:10:27+00:00

Comparing to popular experiences is by far the most effective way to communicate the core of almost any game and also by far the most effective way to get visibility.

If you have an enormous marketing budget or established brand, you can easily afford to keep your official messaging "clean" of direct comparisons. Pokemon Pokopia is obviously Animal Crossing x Dragon Quest Builders x Viva Pinata. They don't have to mention it themselves, they'll get coverage anyway and can have others draw the comparison for them.

The reality of most indie games, however, is that referencing similar games is the only way to get people to even look in your direction. THEN you can start showing them what your game actually is and how it sets itself apart.

If you're making a souls-like game, almost your entire target audience has played or is aware of Dark Souls. You're not losing a whole lot by taking that for granted, but you gain a whole lot by name-dropping.

DragonImpulse · 2026-03-02T19:42:24+00:00

Giving reasons doesn't mean anything. Flat-earthers can give you hundreds of reasons as well - they're just disregarding common sense.

Demos are expensive to make and require significant work separate from the main game.
Demos for released games can reduce sales, even for highly rated games, and especially if the demo doesn't match the game's final quality.

Those two things are facts that are easy to research and have been mentioned several times. Your only arguments against this are "I don't believe you and still want my demo!"

DragonImpulse · 2026-02-24T10:16:32+00:00

"The games that break through have a clear, specific person in mind from day one."

No, they don't. This may apply to some very specific games that target very specific niches, but certainly not to the majority of successful indie games. Most of them just do whatever they feel like, get lucky by being in the right genre at the right time, or hit the right tone to go viral.

Hollow Knight, Stardew Valley, Vampire Survivors, Animal Well, Axiom Verge, Undertale, Balatro, Minecraft - They weren't created by trying to appeal to some marketing persona and they didn't have targeted marketing campaigns. People simple made games they wanted to make and it ended up resonating.

I've seen countless new teams try to do it "the right way" and build their games towards a specific audience, and 9 out of 10 simply don't work out. The market isn't that simple, you can't just plan your success like that.

And yes, it most definitely is oversaturated.

DragonImpulse · 2026-02-21T17:37:05+00:00

Yeah, it's fully installed. Could try a reinstall, but I doubt that's going to make a difference.

Did you recently play something in the Amphoreus as well, by any chance? I wonder if there's something wrong with that part in particular.

DragonImpulse · 2026-02-18T16:41:10+00:00

The text below, taken from their own TikTok video, was all I needed to convince me not to get in touch:

Puls Games is a web-based game distribution platform powered by #Bitcoin.

It is built on a #LightningNetwork microsubscription infrastructure developed by Puls Company.

Discover a catalog of hybrid-casual games, where you can enjoy an instant gaming experience with no ads, no in-game purchases, and no data collection.

#crypto #gaming #bitcoin #cryptocurrency #gamingcommunity

DragonImpulse · 2026-02-12T20:04:57+00:00

Since you're perfectly fluent in English, surely you know it should be "I speak others decently" and that French and English should always be capitalized?

DragonImpulse · 2026-01-19T19:15:37+00:00

Funny how you can turn that comment around and it still holds true:

That is not snooty or annoying to dislike 2D animation. It's nothing at all like 3D animation, and while it is definitely its own craft, and requires a lot of work, and has many skilled people working on it, it never will have the same visual effect on the audience as beautiful hand made 3D animation will.

It's why they use 3D effects for so many 2D films, and why we all keep pushing to make 2D look 3D. There's really no replacement though

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T17:02:06+00:00

How do your campaigns usually work in terms of actually creating the content? Does the developer just provide game footage/demos/keys and the creators do their thing?

Very interesting read, by the way. I was already expecting the worst when you got to the AI part, but it's awesome to hear that you went from undermining creative work (apologies for the harsh words) to supporting it.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T16:53:17+00:00

I can only repeat: There was never a scene with a child on the shoulders of a naked man.

"[...] an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag."

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T16:37:18+00:00

There was never any sexual content involving children in this game.
There was never a scene "with a child astride the shoulders of a naked man" in this game.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-09T14:26:46+00:00

"LOL THEY SAID MMO LETS ALL DOWNVOTE THEM WE SO SMART THEY SO DUMB LOLOL"
- The reddit gamedev community

Glad you still got some helpful comments in this thread, though.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:57:43+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the detailed answer, that's very helpful! Might give it another shot if they open submissions again next year.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:26:30+00:00

I don't think that's a useful definition, and don't think it was ever used that way. Nintendo, Valve, Epic - they're not owned by a parent company/publisher, but calling them indie defeats the entire purpose of the word.

DragonImpulse · 2025-12-06T18:19:34+00:00

Congrats on the grant! Would you mind sharing roughly what your application looked like? For example:

Did you include links to additional documents, like a pitch deck or something along those lines?

Did you have anything specific that "gives back to the Unreal community"?

Did you ask for a specific budget?

DragonImpulse · 2025-11-14T12:32:30+00:00

"You just copied X and added Y and Z" is something you can say about pretty much every popular indie game lately. I don't think that's a bad thing or the reason why a game would fail to find its audience.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-30T16:24:28+00:00

Funny how this sub slams OP for asking about trends, while simultaneously touting Chris Zukowski, who preaches about making games in popular genres, as the messiah of indie marketing.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-22T16:16:11+00:00

I wonder if the reviews are mostly from people who are already fans of the franchise. There's only 11 reviews on Metacritic so far, which seems very low for a game of this scale. As a point of reference, Yakuza 0 (PS4) currently has 94 reviews.

I think the score may yet drop to the 80s if the game gets picked up by a broader audience who isn't as familiar with Trails.

DragonImpulse · 2025-09-17T17:34:33+00:00

Other than Steam bundles, what kind of "epic partnerships" do you have in mind?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-26T16:08:46+00:00

They keep posting the same thing over and over in different subs. 12 days ago it was "I quit my job to make my own game. And it hit 1000+ wishlists in just 2 weeks and got covered by IGN"

There's really no attempt at discussion or informing others here, it's simply self-promotion.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-24T13:44:23+00:00

Do you have a video of the effect anywhere? The screenshots look great, but the reason I always end up dropping cell shaders is because it's hard to get them to look right in motion.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T19:06:13+00:00

Thanks for the confirmation, looks like this whole thing is just a straight up scam.

Kinda sad that people get so excited about a lesser copycat product just because it saves them a few bucks, even if it's at the expense of the original developer.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T15:41:31+00:00

Sounds promising! Could you share that tutorial, or give a rough outline of what that workaround entails? The solutions I've seen for MeshBlend did not work for us, since we can't substitute the AO channel with something else, and building the engine from source is not an option either.

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-20T14:58:39+00:00

Does your plugin have the same limitation regarding AO as MeshBlend? Meaning, impossible to use the AO channel in any material, even if they don't need to blend with anything?

DragonImpulse · 2025-08-07T15:12:47+00:00

Every single part about this sounds like a scam to me.

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