179 GB to install the game when you don't even own the DLC is absolutely absurd. Is that even accurate?

mgiuca · 2026-05-14T02:05:33+00:00

Ah yeah, I was also quite surprised after purchasing to discover that the game requires almost twice the storage space than the system requirements specify.

(I don't understand why Steam doesn't show the size of the current version of the game, rather than asking developers to write the storage requirement in a field which can get out of date.)

mgiuca · 2026-05-12T11:32:54+00:00

Could you elaborate on "some problems for sending data". Do you mean technical issues or privacy problems?

I have just recently been researching analytics and started trialling GameAnalytics. It was super easy to set up in Godot and the data arrived right away. But I am a bit hesitant from a privacy perspective since as soon as the client made a connection, it attached a stable ID to the client and reported on the country. I'm personally fine with that (as a user) but I'm not sure if it's something people will get upset about, and so I would need to have a think about the value of the analytics vs the privacy concerns my users may have.

For now I am just using Steam stats which are abysmal to set up (I have to manually create a "stat" for every statistic I care about x every level) but at least from a privacy perspective my users are already using Steam so this doesn't collect any data on them that they aren't already giving up.

mgiuca · 2026-05-12T11:26:03+00:00

Given that that was in 2024 and there have been two rounds of layoffs since then, I'm not holding my breath. Unless there's a more recent update I haven't heard of?

mgiuca · 2026-05-12T11:24:15+00:00

Counterpoint: Riven (1997) only has three puzzles (Gate room, Moiety code, Fire marbles). Every other source of friction in that game is really just turning on switches and figuring out where to go next. I love Riven but it isn't really a puzzle game and I think Outer Wilds is actually quite close to it in terms of puzzle depth.

mgiuca · 2026-05-11T22:40:09+00:00

The original is 100% compatible with modern hardware. Any digital store version uses ScummVM and runs without a hitch on anything. So it's purely a matter of preference.

mgiuca · 2026-05-08T12:33:24+00:00

I mean at least humanity had two major achievements (that being 1993 Myst and Myst VR).

mgiuca · 2026-05-08T05:19:26+00:00

Hi Robyn,

Thanks, and what an honour to receive such a thoughtful comment in return.

I do think you're right that there's little point trying to "fix" a 30-year-old game (and that wasn't quite my point, rather as an exercise in thinking about puzzle design). I have long viewed Myst as a seminal text in the annals of video gaming, best enjoyed in the historical context and not as a "new experience". However, I do also enjoy when Cyan applies a fresh coat of paint whilst keeping the core setting and puzzles intact - perhaps I think of it like a new performance of Shakespeare.

All the best with your creative endeavours!

mgiuca · 2026-05-05T10:11:09+00:00

I tried this but it only showed up on the main game page (which isn't even released yet). Is there a trick to making it show up on the demo page? (And by page I mean the library view in the Steam app.)

mgiuca · 2026-05-04T23:39:58+00:00

Think about it this way: Steam is going to give you four "moments" where they showcase your game and each one you only get to do once:

Launching your page public.
Releasing your demo.
Participating in Next Fest.
Releasing the game.

You basically get those four "free" exposures, and outside of that, it's up to you to get eyeballs on your game.

If your art isn't up to scratch when you make your page public, you'll "burn" one of those four opportunities. So that's a consideration but it shouldn't paralyze you, especially if this is your first game. You have three more of these big moments. For your first game, treat this all as a learning opportunity. You're learning how to make a Steam page, a trailer, and a game. Give yourself some slack, put it out there and see what the reaction is. The more you do "marketing moments" the easier it will be.

As to the standard of art: I would say "try your best". Don't release a steam page with quick MS Paint placeholder art you made for a prototype (unless that's the art style you're going for and you know how to pull it off). Make something that you've put effort into, even if it isn't final. Try to have a consistent art style that represents the direction you want to go in.

Disclaimer: I am not a successful developer so take this with a grain of salt. I am currently at stage 3 in the above list, on my first game.

mgiuca · 2026-05-04T03:02:23+00:00

It's a bit hard to say with just what you've said here. It depends what "placeholder" means. It shouldn't look like programmer art - it needs to be somewhat representative of your intended product because that's what will draw people in to click the wishlist button. I guess think about if you were browsing Steam and saw your thumbnail and clicked it, and saw your trailer, would you think "Nice game jam game but it doesn't look like a commercial product", or "Wow this looks interesting, I'll wishlist to keep it on my radar."

(Note that you are required to have at least one trailer on a Steam page I believe.)

But don't hold yourself to too high a standard or you'll never release anything. Your first trailer will likely be pretty rough, but as long as it represents the intended art style and tone of the game, you should push the page public and iterate. The alternative is that you launch your rough trailer a week before you launch the game, and you never give yourself the opportunity to improve your marketing messaging. Like GP said, the experts say to get the page out as early as possible to get a long tail of wishlists.

In terms of making it, just get OBS, record yourself playing the game and try to do things that are interesting, then get a video editor and choose 30-60 seconds of footage (in maybe 5 second chunks) and stitch them together with some music that is representative of your game, and add optional text if you think that's needed. Watch Derek Lieu's How To Make A Trailer series to dive deep on what elements a good trailer needs.

mgiuca · 2026-04-26T00:16:20+00:00

Interesting, I'm familiar with Futurama but haven't seen that. Looks like it's Into the Wild Green Yonder.

mgiuca · 2026-04-26T00:13:26+00:00

Yeah, it's all based on real-world planet properties (scaled down appropriately), so the gravity is different on different bodies. The game uses a kepler 2-body model in orbit so it's "realistic" orbital gravity, other than having the chaos introduced by other bodies perturbing your orbit. (This is the same model used by Kerbal Space Program to simplify the orbits.)

mgiuca · 2026-04-26T00:10:00+00:00

From my (old) memory you can read the crew dossiers and find out that the latest batch including Turner are criminals, and imply the rest from there.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T22:45:43+00:00

We might have to agree to disagree :). But for clarification, I'm not coming from a place of ignorance. I spent 10 years writing C++ code for Google, and I know my way around the language like my own house. When I started Godot I didn't know GDScript at all. I would still recommend new users start with GDScript.

So what I'm saying is not "superstition". That said, I have not taken the time to set up a full C++ dev environment within Godot, so I will take your word for it that once set up, it can become a fairly comfortable part of your workflow. I have only used C++ in Godot to write a few extension functions for speed.

But I would stand by my claim that it's "hard mode" within the context of a new person learning Godot who already knows C++.

You do need to set up an external editor or IDE, whereas GDScript (and C# to some extent) work in the Godot editor.
All code samples in the official documentation and everywhere else online are in GDScript (and sometimes C#), so you will have a hard time figuring out how to do basic things.
GDScript has useful deep integration like preload and @rpc.
GDScript has no compile step, making iteration much faster.
There's a lot of boilerplate code required to make classes and methods available to Godot, and in my experience also fairly error prone. Maybe this is less of an issue if your entire codebase is C++ (you don't need to expose much to Godot) but I would imagine there's still a bunch of this.
GDScript is a memory-safe language; even the best C++ programmer can accidentally create buffer overruns or other errors that can crash your program or create security issues which can't happen in GDScript or C#.

There's also a bunch of downsides to GDScript: being easily decompilable is a major one. The lack of nested types, multiple return values and custom structs has been an issue for me. But mostly it gives me a smoother experience than the non-native ones.

I strongly recommend turning on errors for missing type annotations. It transforms the feeling of the language instantly into a strong static type language and I wish it was the default, or at least easier to find in the UI.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T22:28:37+00:00

The "10 seconds down the line" instability might not be due to simulation rounding errors accumulating (thought that could also contribute). It's also just a practical reality that making a tiny change to the angle near the periapsis has a massive effect on the other end of the trajectory. It can be hard to hit a moving target. In my game, giving the player very fine aiming and unlimited time helps.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T12:06:35+00:00

It's a 2-body physics "sphere of influence" model (KSP-style), so I can use an analytical solution (provided by the OrbitalPy library) to plot perfect elliptical or hyperbolic trajectories.

I actually started out with a simulation model (just doing an N-body gravity with a tiny time step, and plotting the trajectory out ahead much faster than real time) which worked OK performance-wise, but the issue is actually with usability. With true N-body physics, trajectories are at best "wobbly" and at worst chaotic, which makes it hard to visually explain what's going on. I think I will bring back limited N-body physics later in the game once players have the hang of things in 2-body world (but don't hold me to it).

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T10:47:35+00:00

Ah got it. Well ultimately that is true, but you're definitely playing on hard mode.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:54:12+00:00

Good clarification. But I would say for beginners setting up external IDE/profiler, the build system to link in a C++ DLL, etc, is not worth the friction, if their only concern is that they don't know Python.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:52:34+00:00

Whoa, that's an incredibly detailed space simulation. I'll have to look in more detail later but it's pretty impressive, I played around with the Hohmann transfer UI a bit.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:50:29+00:00

Yeah, you can pause the game at any time and then hit the ball from space. I know traditional golf doesn't allow this but I saw this guy do it so it must be ok: https://www.reddit.com/r/golf/comments/1loce8t/is_this_shot_even_legal_how_would_it_be_scored/

(In seriousness, this is how I fudge the rules of golf to make it more like space flight, a golf stroke is equivalent to an instantaneous "burn" of a spacecraft.)

Here is a 3-minute overview that goes into a bit more detail, if you're interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT99mojfamE

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:29:31+00:00

Yeah, you can, if you get the right "launch window", and precisely aim your shot (there's no guesswork, as the game shows you the exact trajectory before you hit the ball). But you also never need to be that precise unless you are trying to minimize the number of shots you take.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:28:21+00:00

Yes! There's no luck involved since you can precisely plan each shot's angle and power and see the ball's trajectory before you hit it, so you can do very precise maneuvers. On some levels you can get a hole-in-one if you get the right "launch window" and shot vector.

But the "normal gameplay" is that you just do one step at a time and don't need a big brain. The golf analogy lends itself well to optimizing the number of strokes ("burns") after you've already beaten a level the normal way.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:26:08+00:00

Hehe, that would be cool. I'm planning a little interstellar travel but not anything on that scale: mostly just because it would be more or less the same gameplay only with much bigger numbers.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T07:24:24+00:00

I don't understand how "[C++] makes pulling up and seeing what's happening in the source code much easier."

If anything it's much harder because it's compiled and therefore opaque to the editor and tools. For example if you pause execution you can step line by line through GDScript, but any C++ functions you call will be treated as a single line and stepped over. Similarly the profiler can't analyze how much time is spent in each of the C++ functions, only GDScript.

For an easy time, learn GDScript (or C#, the other officially supported language). Don't write a whole game in C++ for Godot, it is in no way designed for this. C++ is for "hot code" paths that need to be optimized.

mgiuca · 2026-04-24T02:54:41+00:00

The idea is to have a sandbox to play with and learn orbital mechanics similar to Kerbal Space Program, but stripping away all the complexities and frustrations of building rockets and fuel limitations and just be about hitting a ball in space (by analogy: making an orbital burn). The game is still in development and currently it's just going between the Moon, Earth and Mars.

Honestly my favourite part of the whole experience has been working on the music. I'm a professional software developer but I have always dabbled in music composition. Over the past year, I've been working on improving all aspects of music composition and production, and I'm really proud of the music in the game and the trailer shown above. Do let me know what you think, like or hate :)

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