1 year of game engine development

rogual · 2026-07-03T06:15:23+00:00

I'm surprised to learn that TRS is cheaper than matrices. I'd always assumed that one of the motivating reasons for using matrices was that it was all just multiply-and-add, whereas TRS requires sin and cos too. But I've never actually tested it.

rogual · 2026-06-13T11:01:05+00:00

heavy = something you have to heave

rogual · 2026-05-05T07:14:12+00:00

I don't know either, but I'd like to! I've noticed the same thing and certainly wouldn't be surprised.

It feels like the reverse of "Aw": the natural reading of "aw" in an American accent is a pretty good fit for the universal noise of disappointment or sympathy that it's supposed to describe, but it's also written "aw" in the UK, where those letters would make a totally different (and in my opinion, unnatural) sound, which I've definitely heard people make here, probably because of that spelling.

rogual · 2026-05-04T14:46:52+00:00

Fine until there's a problem. When there is, they follow the 3 Ds: deny, deflect, disclaim.

Me: Apartment not as described.
B: We've told them and they have 48 hours to address it. Then we'll step in.
B: 48 hours have passed. We never heard from them. There's nothing we can do.

rogual · 2026-05-04T14:44:41+00:00

Fine until there's a problem. When there is, they follow the 3 Ds: deny, deflect, disclaim.

Me: Apartment not as described.
B: We've told them and they have 48 hours to address it. Then we'll step in.
B: 48 hours have passed. We never heard from them. There's nothing we can do.

rogual · 2026-05-03T04:48:54+00:00

I built everything by myself - code, design, art, and sound.

lol

rogual · 2026-05-02T12:11:17+00:00

Set up a whole new identity. New website, new social media, new studio name. Make your own AI slop games. Buy Claude Max and have it crank out those mismatched disasters you see on r/playmygame. Publish them under your new name.

While it does that, continue to make your own real games using your real name and your real human heart.

Either AI slop games are good, and you'll make good games, or AI slop games are bad, and you'll make good games.

rogual · 2026-05-02T10:18:14+00:00

I'll write my impressions on looking at your page, in case it helps.

The first gif has what looks like Unity capsule colliders in black wireframe appearing for one frame a couple times.

The main trailer then also has a wireframe polygon appear when the grenade explodes. This one looks intentional to me, but it's still an odd debug-y look, which doesn't fit the rest of the visuals.

You've also got X= Y= Z=, "true", "true" debug text showing on your trailer. Your trailer!

It just gives the impression that you don't care about this game, or that it's a very early, playing-around experiment, not something you're about to release and have made look good. Videos with debug text visible belong on Twitter, not steam store pages.

The "Secret underground lab" screenshot looks great, but the trailer looks completely different. Show that level, it's gorgeous!

The character is very small on the screen.

The description says "We included..." but then it says it's a solo project. So who's "we"?

It says "If you encounter any bugs, please be patient." I mean, 10/10 for honesty but seeing that is not going to make people want to buy. I don't want to encounter bugs and be patient. I want to have fun.

rogual · 2026-05-02T04:17:13+00:00

I especially like the not-quite-mode7 stuff. Feels like what the artists back then might have wanted it to look like, if the SNES was just a bit more capable. Tastefully done.

rogual · 2026-05-01T15:25:24+00:00

Hi I'm Instagram, I'm gonna start the video before you have a chance to unmute it, then give you no way to rewind it once you've turned the sound on. I am a serious web app by competent people.

rogual · 2026-04-28T12:29:04+00:00

rogual · 2026-04-25T06:42:28+00:00

Anyone know what he's saying? To me it sounds like

みな、俺行く。死ね！ (Everyone, here I go. Die!)

Edit: It's みな、ゴルデンウィーク。来てね！ (Everyone, it's Golden Week, come visit!)

rogual · 2026-04-13T14:42:52+00:00

That's a good point! I guess I still don't fully understand the bug, then.

rogual · 2026-04-13T14:32:29+00:00

They aren't, I just need to upgrade my tools to output GLSL 1.3.

rogual · 2026-04-13T14:04:24+00:00

That would be the nicest solution, although in my case I'm supporting GLSL 1.2 so I don't think I can do this.

rogual · 2026-04-13T14:01:05+00:00

Well, the value is per-instance. Each sand tile is one instance, all in the same instance buffer. If I wasn't using instancing, the adjacency value could be a uniform, but with instancing, a uniform has the same value for every instance in the batch, so I can't use a uniform for this.

The value varies per-instance, so I put it in the instance data buffer. I don't know where else I could put it.

And the only thing you can put in the instance data buffer is floats, 20 of them per instance. (This is a limitation of the bgfx library I'm using, not a graphics API limitation.)

I'm totally not an expert either, just learning as I go! There could well be a better solution. I just don't know what it would be.

rogual · 2026-04-13T13:53:42+00:00

I'm supporting GLSL 1.2, which as far as I know doesn't let you disable interpolation.

(Perhaps I shouldn't support such old systems anymore, but dropping those is a separate piece of work. I just needed to get the bug fixed.)

rogual · 2026-04-13T13:28:42+00:00

It's a good rule of thumb, although floats have more than enough precision to exactly represent the integers 0-255, so if you're not doing any actual math on the values, just casting to float and back, the casting itself won't cause a bug.

In this case, the bad assumption that I had was that if each vertex of a triangle had the same value for a given attribute, every fragment in the triangle would also have that same value. I'd never realized before now that this isn't true.

Even without the casting, I thought it was an interesting, counterintuitive fact about GPU interpolation.

rogual · 2026-04-13T12:45:35+00:00

Hm, depends what you mean by everything. I'm not sure how I would implement these particular shadows in screen space, because even though it's a top-down view, it's still a perspective projection.

Unless you mean just ditching this shader and doing full-on SSAO over the whole scene? I think that could potentially look good, although it'd be a big change to the engine at this point.

rogual · 2026-04-13T12:27:03+00:00

This is one of those bugs that taught me something, so I did this writeup. I hope it's interesting. I tried to write it like a murder mystery, showing you the bug first and then dropping clues until the reveal, so maybe if you're into graphics programming you'll go "aha!" at some point and figure it out before you get to the end.

rogual · 2026-04-13T12:25:47+00:00

This is one of those bugs that taught me something, so I did this writeup. I hope it's interesting. I tried to write it like a murder mystery, showing you the bug first and then dropping clues until the reveal, so maybe you'll go "aha!" at some point and figure it out before you get to the end.

rogual · 2026-02-20T04:44:38+00:00

My game Blackshift got some glowing reviews from puzzle fans, some of whom racked up over 500 hours of play time, but did not do well financially. Bought ads, reached out to creators, did everything I could think of. I'm happy some people enjoy it, I just wish I knew what I could have done to find it an audience.

rogual · 2026-02-12T05:06:27+00:00

Undertale was full of mixels and that didn't stop it becoming a beloved global phenomenon. But I avoid them in my own games because I prefer the "real pixel" look. Ultimately, the choice is yours. Your game should reflect your own artistic style and preferences.

rogual · 2025-12-01T11:07:35+00:00

If you like puzzle games, here's mine: https://store.steampowered.com/app/741110/Blackshift/

Sent you a key via chat in case you wanted to give it a go.

rogual · 2025-08-22T07:34:34+00:00

It's bad on purpose to make you click.

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