Is opening up your source code worth it? Terry Cavanagh thinks it was for VVVVVV | Hacker News Reader

Is opening up your source code worth it? Terry Cavanagh thinks it was for VVVVVV

gamingonlinux.com

65 pointspferde16 comments

Terry C does great work. I’ve put many hours into super hexagon. It’s the quickest and most reliable way for me to get into flow.

Selfishly, I hope he one day releases the source code to super hexagon as well. The 60 fps lock and large double buffered vsync latency are killers. I play with vsync off, but an unlocked refresh rate would be fun to feel.

I asked Terry about Super Hexagon a while ago. His reply:

Hey!

This is something I'm thinking about! Super Hexagon's 10th anniversary is in 2022, but it's possible I'll end up doing it sooner than that...

- Terry

I emailed him asking about a way to get the current color on the screen, for a LED project I wanted to do:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYnmtfN_lrg

He replied and was very helpful. Unfortunately he didn't know of a good way to get the color, but he did send me a bunch of other code for a related project he had.

In the end, I just captured the color from a single pixel on the screen, which was fast and good enough for me, and the result is above.

How do you detect "Game Over" when simply capturing a single pixel?

IIRC the pixel is the first pixel of the time bar, and the entire screen flashes white when you lose, so I just detect that.

The code is here:

https://gitlab.com/stavros/gamelights/-/blob/master/misc/cap...

I'm not sure what linking to this blog adds - here's a direct link to the article it relates to.

https://distractionware.com/blog/2021/01/featured-vvvvvv-lev...

You're right, I was overly hasty in submitting this, I forgot to look for a more direct link. I'm sorry.

Can someone explain the hype about VVVVVV? I bought it and concluded there are no fixed level platformers I enjoy. At least with Spelunky or Catacomb Kids I can bash my head against different walls. I suspect I'm partially at Asperger's Syndrome spectrum, and timing challenges are infuriatingly hard for me. Many screens in VVVVVV are easy to figure out but rely on perfect execution. I really don't see the game as very puzzly. More like a game for speedrunners. At least the chiptunes are nice.

I guess I enjoyed Cave Story and Knytt Stories, but that's it. I thought about Celeste but it doesn't have 'story' in it ;-).

It's all about coreography and rhythm I would say. Similar to super meat boy, you play the level multiple times until you learn the pacing and refine the movements so you can execute it perfectly. It's like performative art.

It does feel really nice to fly through the map after you've got the dance down. It also looks and sounds nice.

It's a platformer, not a puzzle game, though. The difficulty is precisely in navigating through the obstacles without hitting anything.

VVVVVV has been out for a while and made a ton of money already, I can definitely see a use case for that. If he chooses to go open-source-first with his next game that would be more notable.

I've got a game I'm working on that I'm sure would benefit from open source, but I would like the chance to make money off of it first. I have debated making a separate open source version of it at times, though, and seeing where that goes.

I also might open-source a different game I'm working on (an even smaller abstract game). Need to get a bit further in developing it first though.

Mindustry is an example of a (very fun) game that is open-source-first. I'm not sure what Anuke (Mindustry dev) does for a living, but they are very fast to fix bugs and implement new features. It's free on itch.io, and android, but costs money on steam and iOS. I would ask them what kind of monetization they get out of the game. They're likely an exception and not a rule. You can't expect to make a very successful game ever.

Well, AAA studios like Id Software open sourced their game / engine as well, I think they have a policy of doing it X years after releasing the game.

They realize that 5-10 year old game engines are unlikely to be useful for current-day games, and that they earn money off of the game itself, its assets, storytelling, marketing, etc - not so much the code of the engine itself.

That said, while making the code open source, don't stop offering the opportunity to send you money, e.g. by selling the game. Id also only open sources their engines, not the assets, so if you want to play an open source version of Doom, you need to buy the game itself as well.

similar to Open Transport Tycoon I guess.

VVVVVV has a fantastic electronic soundtrack called PPPPPP: https://souleyedigitalmusic.bandcamp.com/album/pppppp-the-vv...

And if you enjoy that, there’s also a metal cover of PPPPPP called MMMMMM: https://souleyedigitalmusic.bandcamp.com/album/mmmmmm

(The game and Terry’s approach are good, too.)

Reminds me of verbosity level -vvvvvv

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