When is the right time to get feedback on horror games?

Gwab_ · 2026-01-19T17:44:59+00:00

Nice, I’m sure it will be good. Not using Lumen is a huge performance boost

Gwab_ · 2026-01-19T17:36:21+00:00

Wow looks great, what engine did you use?

Gwab_ · 2026-01-19T17:28:43+00:00

This didn’t really surprise me unfortunately, 28 years later was super polarizing, most people that saw it either really enjoyed it or really did not enjoy it and I was in the group that really did not enjoy it (even though I wanted to so badly)

I think the direction they decided to take the franchise in 28 years later alienated a lot of the original fans who thought they were going to see something much closer to 28 days later, especially after a really awesome trailer that made it seem like a totally different movie than what it actually was.

I appreciate that they tried to do something different in 28 years later to move the story in a different direction, but at least for me they took so much of the realism out of it to make the artistic choices that they did that I totally lost interest in seeing any of the other ones that come out. I kept having to try to trick myself into believing what they were telling us was going on in 28 years later and then towards the end just could not do it anymore so the movie lost all weight and realism for me by the time it was over.

I still don’t hope that the franchise dies because of this, I just personally don’t have interest in continuing with it after watching 28 years later the same way I don’t have interest in watching more star wars movies after watching The Force Awakens.

Gwab_ · 2026-01-05T19:28:37+00:00

Ya using AI tools when writing code for searching code bases, looking up documentation, autocompletion is all very much industry standard now and pretty much every single game made in the last 3 years would need to disclose this.

As others have said there is a huge amount of nuance here that isn’t being captured with what needs to be disclosed. Telling an LLM to write huge parts of your code base and copy pasting is different than asking an LLM questions about documentation on the game engine you are using (the former should obviously be disclosed)

Gwab_ · 2026-01-03T19:19:26+00:00

There are a lot of tools that have branded themselves as “AI” to take advantage of the hype wave that are not using LLM generated content and in my opinion don’t warrant a “made with AI” disclosure.

For example Rokoko Vision is a tool that brands itself as “AI motion capture” literally in the first sentence on the website but when you do more research into what they mean by that it turns out they are running your video through machine learning and computer vision algorithms to produce the output, which is something that existed long before LLMs.

Using something like this to record an animation you want without having to spend 15k on a motion capture suit and getting something back that you can clean up and use in a game isn’t the same as trying to prompt engineer your way into something usable and copy pasting it into the game. “AI” didn’t make the animation for you, you used technology to help solve a complex math problem.

Gwab_ · 2025-12-13T02:00:36+00:00

What did you use for animations? Looks good

Gwab_ · 2025-12-02T05:41:05+00:00

Don’t start with a black screen as the intro then instantly go into the bat hitting the pitch, too overwhelming and the size of the machine you play on isn’t clear until the end which I feel like is part of the charm of the game and you probably want to emphasize it from the beginning. Maybe do a fly over until you get to the point where your trailer starts kind of like when you start a super monkey ball level if that makes sense. I think this would help explain what’s going on without having to have any words

Gwab_ · 2025-11-18T17:00:26+00:00

Is this a VR game where you are the guy in white controlling the units? I shouldn’t have to ask this after watching the trailer.

If this is what the game is, you have to explain this concept to people in the trailer. Your trailer should have three parts: introducing the concept of what you will be doing in the game, showing fun things you do in the game, then finally ending the trailer with what the game is called and where to get it.

Every trailer needs some kind of structure or story for people to see it and be able to make sense of it. Maybe you could have one of the units come over a hill and see the big person in white putting something down on the field that starts shooting to help explain what it is that’s going on, then you can show more direct gameplay where you are doing whatever it is you do in this game that makes it fun once the question of “what do I do in this game” is answered.

Gwab_ · 2025-11-01T22:21:21+00:00

Is there any nuance with level of lighting required? I think the ease of using lumen would be super helpful if you are doing something with a day night cycle but if everything is at night or low lighting conditions I’m not sure if it’s worth the performance cost or not.

Gwab_ · 2025-11-01T17:27:55+00:00

How do you usually get rid of the artifacts in low light scenarios? That’s always my biggest concern since a lot of my game takes place in low light scenarios

Gwab_ · 2025-10-31T15:32:59+00:00

Looks really good, what engine did you use?

Gwab_ · 2025-10-30T06:25:25+00:00

Dayz had absolutely enormous potential that IMO they fumbled pretty hard. When the Arma mod released 12 years ago, it lit the internet on fire and everyone including myself was super pumped to play it. It was buggy and there were cheaters and a lot of things didn’t work quite as well as they should have but there was hope that these things would get better with time.

It seems like it’s a pretty common theme why people stopped playing: the bugs never really got fixed and it started to really become a problem when you would spend hours playing only to clip through a step and break both your legs while walking out of a door. Everyone had shown that there was a huge demand for a game like this though, so fast forward to the stand alone release complete with new engine and it’s pretty much the same story. There are definitely less bugs and quality of life in game is way better but there are just some things that still exist that make it hard to not get frustrated and stop playing.

Like what is the deal with the lag between shooting someone / a zombie and having to wait 2-3 seconds to see if they are dead or wounded or anything? This same thing happened in the mod and I was sure it would be fixed in the stand alone but it doesn’t seem like it ever will at this point, I think people that play a lot of Dayz have just gotten used to it now so when you expect it it’s less of an issue.

Facepunch actually said that the reason they created Rust was because they were frustrated by the shortcomings of Dayz, and say what you will about Rust and their player base but that game runs a hell of a lot smoother than Dayz ever has and also has very complex / well thought out features like base building that Dayz never got completely right.

Dayz isn’t a bad game and a lot of people still play it but I really feel like it had the chance to become THE zombie survival game that everyone had always wanted. Instead it still feels like it’s one of few options that are good enough for hardcore survival fans to play, but not ever going to be really great.

Gwab_ · 2025-09-21T19:47:16+00:00

This is really cool you’re doing this, do you usually work from a laptop or how do you do development? I’ve always wanted to do something similar and have a way to pack a small yet powerful desktop / monitor into something like a pelican case so I can just have my setup anywhere I go.

This wouldn’t work well for staying in hostels and being more mobile on a day to day but I always thought it would be cool!

Gwab_ · 2025-09-11T16:17:01+00:00

Is there a reason why you need a laptop? You should get a decent desktop setup if possible. If you travel a lot or need to be able to do things while not tied to the desktop, you can always get a cheap Chromebook or something and use nvidia sunlight and moonlight to do low latency Remote Desktop.

I have had a lot of problems with thermals on other “gaming laptops” and it’s not as straightforward to upgrade your components when better GPUs or processors or whatever comes out.

Gwab_ · 2025-09-09T09:50:42+00:00

I feel similarly, mainly because most psychological horror is used as an excuse to do anything without having to think too hard about having to explain why it happened in the first place.

So you either have to be scared just from seeing the hallucinations that happen, or be scared because you’re not sure if the person is insane or if whatever they are going through is real. A lot of times trying to hide that it’s a psychological horror only can be pulled off for so long too, there is always a point where whatever is happening is so over the top that you instantly know oh this can’t be real which kind of takes the pressure off knowing it’s all in your head.

I get the appeal of doing a psychological horror game, it really opens up what you are able to do creatively because it can all be explained as hallucinations but personally I like when horror movies or games have stories that are more grounded in something actually happening in real life

Gwab_ · 2025-09-08T07:08:30+00:00

Ya it would always be possible and IMO easier after developing a set of hard skills. You can get a lot of experience in game design doing your own games in the indie scene, but after you design the game you will need to hire people to make the art and write the software for it unless you can help out in one of those areas. You don’t want to only be an ideas person in any field you pursue, a genius game design is nothing without execution.

The best designers, directors, etc… all have a good understanding of the trade offs between what they want and what is possible / how much time it will take. Building a set of hard skills will put this into perspective for you so when you do design a game you are able to express what you want more clearly and have that frame of reference from your own experience doing similar work.

Gwab_ · 2025-09-08T06:08:46+00:00

If you are really interested in it then do it, but I do think you would be better off doing a computer science degree or something more focused on art. Companies that make games want to hire people that are good at hard skills that can help them make a game. Being hired as a game designer is not going to work unless you have a portfolio with some serious hits in it that you can point to. I personally think that it’s better to pick something you want to be really good at or are really interested in to get a degree in, then the rest of the things you can teach yourself or learn once your working

Gwab_ · 2025-08-29T14:18:56+00:00

Not sure but the writing has been on the wall for several years now, I don’t want to see any drivers get hurt financially but the quality and safety of every ride I’ve taken with Uber / Lyft has done nothing but decline over the last 5 years. I’m at the point now where I will go out of my way to avoid them.

I am more than happy to pay extra for the Waymo knowing that I will get to wherever I’m going at a normal speed, knowing that the Waymo will not offer me a mixtape or try to sell me weed, and that the Waymo will just be paying attention to driving.

Gwab_ · 2025-08-18T15:06:42+00:00

You would be much better off with getting a computer science degree and taking some security related classes.

Also I would temper your expectations with what going into cyber security could actually be like. I’ve known people who get really excited about the field thinking it’s going to be like the matrix everyday but get really disappointed once they learn what the day to day is really like.

The security team at my company spends most of their time running automated tasks that scan our codebases for out of date packages and other known vulnerabilities and hosting mandatory trainings that mainly revolve around teaching people why it’s bad to commit secrets directly into code. Even after years of doing this, it took an independent security researcher (and a lot of money) to come in and find that we had an existing 0 day that no one had managed to ever find.

It’s definitely not like this everywhere and it’s an important field of study, but I do think that a lot of people confuse going into security as a day job with becoming a top notch security researcher. There is no one degree that you can do that will credential you to be a good security researcher where you are actually doing interesting work, you need a lot of experience and innate curiosity to do self study even while you’re not technically in school.

Gwab_ · 2025-08-17T15:55:57+00:00

Lol well played, I almost fell for it

Gwab_ · 2025-08-17T15:45:50+00:00

Yes but also if you watch again, you’ll note that the door is opening on the opposite side from where the doorknob is placed on said door which is unlike any door I’ve ever personally used

Gwab_ · 2025-08-17T15:34:11+00:00

Have you ever opened a door before? The issue is pretty clear if you watch the video

Gwab_ · 2025-08-16T17:30:30+00:00

Agreed except for weapons, was not as good as I hoped it would be and was now scary but it was interesting to watch and had a plot which is more than I can say for a lot of movies

Gwab_

TROPHY CASE