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Comment by d0100 | Hacker News Reader

I've tried a few times to start making a game I consider "simple", the basics are:

* Animated character * Top down view * Grid based floor * "Default" RTS/MOBA physics

I've tried both Unreal and Unity but I've always found myself blocked by having to find out how to make something look like water, how to make an animation sync with movement, how to customize movement to something already familiar, etc

This means I can't actually make a game if I first don't make my own pretty much everything

I think that more than game engines, we need game frameworks that provided game designers with presets that present "solved" game mechanics, like water styles, ground tiling, precise character animation for any view angle, character movement, etc

It would be nice if we could have a "democratization" of video game development anytime in my lifetime

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Maybe I'm missing something, but aren't pretty much all of these issues solved using Blueprint/Prefabs in UE/Unity?

Water has a prefab: https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.1/Documentation/Manual/HOWTO-W...

Tiling is standard for Terrain Layers: https://docs.unity3d.com/2019.1/Documentation/Manual/class-T...

Syncing animation and movement could be solved using root motion: https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/RootMotion.html

Etc.

And then there's whole starter packs for all kinds of genres that include solutions for all these as well.

IMHO the two major players have you covered quite well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I can find the resources on how to do those things, I have a compiled list of tutorials & code with what I wanted, but that still leaves me with a ratio of 80% programming vs 20% game design

It'd be nice to be able to create a character and just attach preset behaviors: walk like Dota, add jump, etc

Then I can focus 80% on game design and 20% on development, this way I can know upfront if my game is worth polishing and customizing those presets

> It'd be nice to be able to create a character and just attach preset behaviors: walk like Dota, add jump, etc

You can already do this via the Unity asset store.

But I'm guessing in addition to having your dream engine/working environment, you also don't want to pay a dime for it.

They do say you get what you pay for.

I have searched in the Unity asset store, and there is either not what I need, or what I need is in several different packages that aren't seamless to use together, or the cost of everything is more than my monthly salary (non US here)

> But I'm guessing in addition to having your dream engine/working environment, you also don't want to pay a dime for it.

Before Unity came out the same could be said about people wanting a more accessible engine, no?

I'm fine with Unity's and Unreal's pricing models, I just want a more creator friendly game editor that isn't Roblox

Really?

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/characters/moba-mov...

Come on, man.

I have already done myself what that package provides

You don't need fancy animations or water that looks like water to work on the game design.

Use place holders for everything

Agree with this. Sounds like you want to prototype game designs more than code/utilize final implementations. The standard advice you'd get in game dev is to use super low production value assets to prototype. People even often "paper prototype" or use other completely non-digital media.

I agree with the sister comment to parent that suggested something like Game Maker. Those tools are simpler and more usable out the box than game engines.

If you want the feeling of completing a simple game as you go, and seeing your (near-)final implementations of elements as you hammer them out -- that's fine as a learning exercise. It will probably be inefficient (as you may change you mind about things later on that you already spent a bunch of time implementing/polishing), but it can be a cool way to learn. However, for that, you may run into what some other comments are saying: you'll have to figure a lot of custom stuff out as you go.

Edit: There's a good series[0] where a game critic / indie game dev makes 12 games in 12 months. He uses Game Maker Studio 2 and the episodes go back and forth between concept/design and execution.

[0] https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/category/v2/yahtzees-dev...

Whiteboxing/Greyboxing/whateverboxing is one of the most important processes that all too many hobbyists don't do, which causes them to burn out on gamedev. They want to _see_ everything working with how it looks in their head, but in reality the game mechanics vs. visuals are very different skillsets that can take a lot of time to master. I would recommend most new gamedevs spend all their time using just default objects in their respective engines. Literally just white/grey shapes that act on user input. If the mechanics feel fun with whiteboxes, they'll feel more fun with actual models/sprites/whatever. But on the flipside, you'll never know if your mechanics are fun if you never make them because you're too busy worrying about water animations.

Game Maker is a full engine. It's just more streamlined than most.

It seems to me you would be better served with something like GameMaker.

Sorry dude, learn the skills and get it done

I think that's just the nature of game dev. CRUD apps seem like they're all basically the same, yet we still hand-code them because there are always weird quirks and edge-cases. This is 10x more true for games (at least, remotely interesting ones). A game engine that supports exactly the kind of game you're wanting to make, out of the box, is not really going to support any other kind of game (or even very novel ones within the same genre). So the "everything" engines have to stick to the very most basic, least-common-denominator features, and even those are sprawling and require compromise.

It is exactly the nature of game dev. Most people fail to understand the level of complexity behind it. I think there's also this false sense that "basic features" in games are both simple to implement and universally applicable.

By example, grab two successful games that are considered to be in the same genre - say, Counter-Strike Global Offensive and Call of Duty - and compare them on a single, "basic" feature like character movement. There are actually massive differences in how they feel and play, and it goes much deeper than just tweaking some settings on a customizable character controller asset.

It's easy to take stuff like this for granted and just assume the implementation is simple. In reality it is much more complex than that, and many of the differences that seem subtle may actually be much greater when it comes to design and programming.

Sounds like you don't want game engine, you want a fully coded game with a map maker.

Wonder how much of the current gaming ecosystem is originally rooted in the Warcraft 3 map making scene.

If you’re asking, you may know this already, but the whole MOBA genre (eg League of Legends) came from custom war3 maps.

The roots may actually go back further than that. There's a custom map for Starcraft/Brood War which used single hero control and lane pushing mechanics and predates the WC3 DotA maps:

https://starcraft.fandom.com/wiki/Aeon_of_Strife_(map)

There was also a Warcraft 3 conversion (Dunno if it was done by the same people) that, at least, I saw before DotA took over the custom games channel.

It's a learning curve. You don't need to reinvent all these things, but you do need to learn the tooling.

* Animation sync with movement in unreal is done either by embedding root motion into your animations or just trying to use a blendspace to make movement animation fluidly transition with your speed.

* Movement is customized for basic characters via the character movement controller component.

* Water is a hard problem but the basic ue4 water implementation is good: https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BuildingWorlds/Wate...

* Top down view is just a camera facing down

There is no easy path to mastery with any engine out there. Games are hard and the learning curve is intimidating. Start small and grow from there.

For instance, take a tutorial like this and understand 100% of everything going on:

https://learn.unity.com/project/bolt-platformer-tutorial

Visual scripting in Unity or Unreal, combined with asset store packages, can get you very far. A buddy of mine shipped a game on Steam built entirely in PlayMaker. But he had spent five years learning and mastering the tool and the engine. YMMV.

You seriously need to go through a few standard unity tutorials they offer just after installing, it will save you a lot of time and the blocks you've mentioned.

I’m not advocating for Roblox because it’s quite terrible. But. They did make it stupidly simple to make stupid 3D games. If you like getting eaten and slowly have poop stuck to you while falling through the digestive system until you are pooped out…

I have not tried godot yet but it’s something I’m going to get to soon

https://godotengine.org/

Maybe keep an eye out for S&Box, the successor to Garry'sMod.

It's not out yet, but uses the Source 2 engine and C# for modding, and will probably have an active community from launch.

Godot is coming up mighty quick. I've been favorably impressed. Also, if your concept is 2D, it's way beyond the 3D-centric game engines for that task: might not be the question being asked, but it's worth a thought.

Why is Roblox terrible?

It helps to start with a less complex game and learn the basics of how the engine works. I know in Godot at least (and I assume Unity is miles ahead) there are prefab things to do what you describe but you will need to know how to fit them together.

Another option would be to fork an existing foss RTS game, like Spring, Warzone 2100, BOSwars, etc.

All you could ever ask for is available in the Unity asset store. A lot of it free.

Yes I agree with you. Even with unity/unreal/etc. it’s still a monumental amount of work to have a game. Personally, I have more fun modding a fully functioning game than I do starting from scratch.

Modding is a totally underrated thing right now, but I feel it might become big in the future. Someone just needs to come up with a solution to both keep mods free and incentivize mod authors.

The way I see it, the big boys create games that acts as platforms and users freely create content of their own using these platforms. Bethesda/Microsoft might be in a good position to achieve this, they have good modding communities around their other games, really interested what their next title brings to the table, hope they don't blow it up like the last time they tried to monetize mods.

You also have something like Roblox, where the concepts of game development and modding kinda blend together, so it's definitely a trend to keep an eye on in the future.

You should keep an eye out for S&Box! It's the successor to the popular Garry's Mod. Garry's Mod is, imo, the sandbox and modding game and I think that S&Box will be even better. It's based on the Source 2 engine, and the main developer Garry has collected a lot of experience with GMod.

While GMod mods are based on Lua, S&Box uses C#, which is an awesome choice, imo. C# is a bit more verbose than Lua, but it probably enables mods of higher quality.

It's not out yet, but some keys get distributed to chosen people. Sadly, I'm not one of those.

Thanks, subscribed to their subreddit. Never had the time to jump into Garry's Mod but might give this one a try when it comes out.

Unity Asset Store has done this. Unreal / Blueprints fulfill the same role, but I'm less familiar with them.

There are lots of asset packs for things like that. So you can get stuff done if you don't mind things not looking and not performing exactly the way you want, and don't mind your game having assets that people might recognize from other games!

Otherwise yeah, making a game is hard.

The Unity marketplace has lots of things like that.

Only drawback is, you run the risk of players being able to identify all the readymades you used. Use too many, and your game will feel like an unoriginal "asset flip".

If you want a game template, there are lots available in the gaming marketplaces. Your game will be almost identical to its competitors though

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