Open source is democratizing video game development | Hacker News Reader

Open source is democratizing video game development

github.com

40 pointssmartblondeva27 comments

Lol, what a word salad.

What is the thing that's being democratized right now, as opposed to when Unreal or Unity became available (or XNA, or BASIC on the C64), and how is open source involved?

Godot, Phaser, etc. have existed for about a decade.

From the article:

“You don’t necessarily need advanced programming and graphics skills to make a polished and professional game anymore,”

Yes you do, if you want to do anything but the most basic asset flip, understanding stuff like pathfinding or computer graphics is not optional.

One thing that’s beautiful about game development is how you can create a fun game from the simplest principal. How complex is the gameplay in a game like a Celeste? Yes, there’s a lot of stylistic polish, but it uses pixel art and doesn’t require pathfinding, save for a few minor sections. And even a game like Celeste is many tiers above what can be enjoyable.

Celeste has a huge amount of code dedicated to the proper smooth movements. It requires both knowledge of "physics" simulation, as well as coding methods to get a particular desired outcome (ala, the feeling of responsiveness).

It might not be easy for someone without coding experience to create. Have a look at https://github.com/NoelFB/Celeste/blob/master/Source/Player/...

A lot of that is polish to make the game feel great. You should play Matty’s game Jumper. The game was made with Game Maker back in the early 2000s, which was targeted to low-code users back then. The game mechanics are very similar to Celeste. Despite the lack of polish, it’s still a very entertaining game.

Not the person you were replying to, but that takes me back! Back in those days I was in early high school and Jumper was one of the games I looked up to when I was learning Game Maker. I completely forgot about it.

Frankly this still doesn’t seem technically challenging. It does seem like a different sort of design challenge though to get all of the little mechanics correct. This isn’t like inventing a new algorithm though. I suspect implementing this is more like constantly iterative tweaks and “feeling out” whether the controls are right.

The end result looks complicated but no sort of specialized engineering skill seems necessary to achieve the result. Just grit and design talent.

I think you're discounting too much the level of skill that 'grit and talent' requires. Cos it is exactly inventing a new algorithm - just not via mathematical proof or vigorous formality.

It's kind of weird how terrible this code is (according to software design 'best practices'). 5k lines in a single file, tons of repetition that could be replaced with more compact code etc.

I would think the author was a novice programmer, but looking at the creator's history they've already made Towerfall, another hugely acclaimed game (and one I still play to this day), about 5 years before this was released.

Yet the game itself is extremely polished.

I kind of have no idea where to take this thought, except that successful auters have very different sensibilities than garden variety programmers.

> (according to software design 'best practices')

that's because these best practices aren't geared towards producing something good - it's geared towards making something easy to understand for someone else, and easy to maintain when requirements change.

It is also designed for the lowest common denominator programmers - so that many can work on the same code base, over a long period of time.

For games, none of these goals matter at all.

Yep, absolutely. A lot of game code has really big files. Although not exactly the gold standard for code style, the Source Engine does have a significant level of even though almost every file is 1k+ SLOC.

Here's the base Source Engine movement code for example: https://github.com/VSES/SourceEngine2007/blob/master/src_mai...

I mean, stuff like this isn't really defensible:

    switch (index)
    {    
        case 0: return sound0;
        case 1: return sound1;
        case 2: return sound2;
        case 3: return sound3;
        case 4: return sound4;
    }

Look perfectly readable and easy to understand.

only because there's no `default` case.

You could argue that having `sound` as an array, and index into that array is better, but once again, what does "better" mean here?

this code works as is, you will not get an array index out of bounds error. If this is quick and easy to write, what else could you ask for?

Games are (sadly IMO) mostly write-only software.

Its because best practices are written by people who dont write alot of code. Most of them are lowest common denoninator bs.

> How complex is the gameplay in a game like a Celeste?

Here you go:

https://twitter.com/MaddyThorson/status/1238338574220546049

I don't typically enjoy platformers, but as both a gamer and a dev, I really appreciate the amount of polish that went into this!

Let's stop spreading this corporate propaganda. Microsoft's goal is to kill software freedom, and the goal of these Github articles is to give the company a facelift. If open source is democratizing gamedev so much, howcome Microsoft's DirectX is still proprietary? Get the hell out of Github and stop spreading this naivete on HN.

https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jun/30/give-up-github-la...

https://githubcopilotinvestigation.com/

> If open source is democratizing gamedev so much, howcome Microsoft's DirectX is still proprietary?

DirectX is (and as far as I can tell, always has been) free to use by anyone.

Which part of DirectX would you like them to open-source that would improve accessibility?

none of it. directx is a cope.

Off topic: but why do these designers keep using typefaces that have ink traps in them on digital mediums?

I get it if you like the way it looks, but it has a purpose and it's so tacky to see. Yuck.

On topic: Planimeter publishes Planimeter Game Engine 2D, so if you're interested in game development with a full engine in Lua, check out our work with flagship features like client-side prediction out-of-the-box, network variables on entities, and a sophisticated UI compositor built-in.[1]

[1]: https://github.com/Planimeter/game-engine-2d

The article mentions asset stores / packs as part of the democratization but that is also often the biggest barrier to open sourcing games. Solo or small indie developers often rely on asset stores for at least part of their content and that usually means they can't open source their entire game even if they wanted to as licenses for assets usually do not allow for redistribution in this form.

If you want to open source a game you generally need to plan for it from the start and only use assets that you fully own or that have licenses that allow redistribution.

You can open source just the code but this is limited in what it allows others to do in terms of contributing to or remixing the game. Even learning from the code is limited if you don't have access to the assets such that you can run the code and make changes.

It's the id software model, isn't it? Open source the code, allow mods, encourage an ecosystem that anyone can learn from. And if they want the original assets instead of subbing in their own, they can buy a copy of the game and use those with their modified code.

They can still distribute their mod and other players of the original game will already have the shared assets.

Any new assets can have their own licensing terms.

I've run into similar situations with open sourcing non game code too. I can open source the code I wrote, but not branded images and trademarked assets that designers made. So we just subbed the assets with placeholders. Everything still worked, it just looked different.

With games, though, that becomes harder when something like a level is both an asset and non trivial to replace, and its design is often more unique than the engine itself. Think something like Portal, which is a joy not necessarily because of the Source engine, but because of the great level design and balance.

Just interesting to think about. I'd love to see more open games.

It is the id model, and it's not without value, it's just short of what I'd really call an "open source game" since so much of a game is about the assets, levels, etc. and not just the code.

I think id's open source code has been great for lots of reasons. I just think there is untapped potential in "fully" open source games where all the assets (including the source assets like Blender files and not just the intermediate formats like .fbx) are open source as well as the code as that makes it easier for people to experiment, learn and remix the content.

Well ok but people have been making games forever and its still hard to make games on certain platforms. We need to democratize assembly and calculus.

As someone who plays NetHack, The Powder Toy, and Super Tux Kart, I can assure you that open source has already democratized game development.

Open source actually hurts developers wanting to go "pro" in game dev.

It's like writing, anyone can write. But not everyone can make enough money to live off it

So you have maximize the roi on your time and investment. I highly highly recommend sticking to a commercial engine like unity, unreal, or even phyres.

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