Adding rollback netplay to a Game Boy Advance game from 2005: Part 1
tangobattle.substack.com
tangobattle.substack.com
I'm always struck at how much money these video game corporations leave on the table, though, if they just leaned into the community a little bit more, giving them the tools to build what they need/want.
And I often wonder about video game development in particular too. This is just me throwing random ideas out there, but it seems like video game design would benefit immensely from certain open-source "tools". Like the ability to edit a mechanic in-game and its values, to discover what the most interesting "metas" are.
In general, whenever I think about the longest enduring games, they all seem to have a period where players are experimenting with rules and mechanics. Then they discover a "stable" meta and over the next decades, make very few changes to keep things balanced. Games like chess, basketball, baseball, soccer, etc.
And I'm struck by how this isn't possible most of the time today, because businesses aren't keen on making any part of that process open with the possible exception of Roblox. I also imagine it would be very hard to build something like a game editor for CS:GO that's intuitive and simple for players to use, to experiment with new modes of playing.
I sometimes imagine a future where players can open up a game, edit the rules, then share that "seed" with other people, until the most popular "seed" is discovered and becomes popular amongst a community. In this way, one would discover non-intuitive, but immensely interesting game modes through sheer trial and error (much like how ARAM was discovered in League of Legends by players).
I think in some sense, video game development is still in its early days. There are so many things we don't know and haven't done.
I would argue that Starcraft and Warcraft 3's map editors were basically this. Many of the popular maps got developed into actual games - Dota, Various TDs, Uther Party etc. Only thing that was missing at the time was a match making system, so you had to use some private app or community to get quality games after certain level.
I was very sad that Blizzard squandered the opportunity they had to create a thriving custom map coummnity when Starcraft 2 came out due to some strange choices they had made, especially when their custom map engine for SC2 was quite powerful. I've day dreamed about a future where Starcraft 2 came out as a free* game that focused on creating custom map communities instead of the mess that was at the initial release.
* with purchasable campaign and ladder add ons, of course.
I never knew this, but it explains so much, especially how Riot has been unable to build a new game mode as successful as Summoner's Rift.
> I've day dreamed about a future where Starcraft 2 came out as a free* game that focused on creating custom map communities instead of the mess that was at the initial release.
That's my dream as well. It's such an interesting idea I'd love to explore or see someone build.
You mention counterstrike, the first version started life as a half life mod.
Primarily online games do a lot to prevent modding these days because the most popular usage of this is to cheat ruining the fun for a lot of people.
It's not without its problems.
Imagine a book publishing business that releases random word salads until a particular one sells well. A funny idea on paper but in practice very few repeat customers.
I know there's one game out there sorta like it, but it's a roguelike that's missing the colleciton aspect I liked.
The game you're referring to is called One Step From Eden, and it's worth checking out if you want MMBN's battle system wrapped up in a Slay The Spire package.
It was released during the pandemic when in-person tournaments could no longer be held, and allowed the Melee scene to flourish online, boasting even better netplay than the official Nintendo Switch smash game.
Totally agreed about it being fantastic work though.