@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

glassbottommeg

@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games

Queer af founder of Glass Bottom Games. BAFTA Breakthrough. Now working on something mysterious (previously: SkateBIRD, Hot Tin Roof, etc).

Things I tend to do include: #UnrealEngine, #IndieDev, #GameDev, and I love #Birds

Sometimes a bit of #GamingNews and #IndieGame / #Gaming too!

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brody, to random
@brody@peoplemaking.games avatar

Jeez, this is Unreal Engine 5's 9-slicing implementation?? This is so awful, good god. I didn't think you could screw this up...

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@brody ahahaha hahahahahahahaha <wheeeeeeeeeze>

Yeah welcome to the hell I spent a while in a few weeks ago

As far as I can tell, everyone basically writes THEIR OWN UI MATERIALS for essentially everything. Or they have no idea what 9 slice even is, because their idea of UI is solid color transparent boxes with rounded corners.

It's a very good UI system that's categorically incapable of making UI that looks remotely good, without a ton of custom code.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@ben @brody the one in engine right now simply does not work. It would be faster to simply point an engineer at a unity and say "like that". They're not even close to usable right now.

The behavior is such that even if you get it working, you then can't control the relative pixel size, it's like- utterly bizarre.

Oh and it stretches instead of tiles on the slices, to boot!

It basically only works for tiny rounded corner solid color "laser" style windows. Which checks out I guess, that's all Unreal games really ever bothered having.

klord, to random
@klord@toot.wales avatar

I've just robbed @glassbottommeg 's Switch and Twiddler idea (https://www.patreon.com/posts/switch-systems-99406783) and it's super flexible. 👍

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@klord yay! glad to be stolen from, heh

glassbottommeg, to random
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

I wonder if someone in my past did the "<snaps/points at me> hey, knock it off" thing, or if I just had latent Grandma DNA that kicked in when I turned 40

The cat gets the snap when he does something bad, and he knows the snap. I can do the snap a room away and I hear him stop savaging the couch.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@sinbad you gotta snap with intention. You gotta project your command through the snap. Would video of The Snap help?

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@Arxosnox we don't possess the great magics of our ancestors, but we have The Snap, and that makes us at least hedge wizards

glassbottommeg, to gamedev
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

I'm working on proper FX for the first time. Not just particles, but this stuff! I'm making FX meshes! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFgS5pzG1Qs

What I've realized is there are two uh, schools? of thought about FX meshes. The other one I'd seen more of is this sort, where you muck around heavily and render to a texture and bleh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nv28O2OIoQ

But- I don't like it as well? I associate the dynamic shader-heavy sort with crass, messy aesthetics. Dunno tho. Maybe I'm being unfair? Could just be my own aesthetic tastes bleeding through?

(spent the entire morning being SUPER ANGRY about studio closures, but aaannnyywaaaaays trying to focus on something more fun, so woooo FX)

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

So I got this thing at ewaste.

It's a Richtech Automated "AI" Temperature Screening System.

Time to open it up.

image/jpeg

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@foone oh shit! One of those bullshit face scanning things they deployed everywhere during COVID lol

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Pondering the parallels between the Christian myth of Adam and Eve approaching a tree with a snake in it and attaining knowledge of good and evil, with the snake and the gained knowledge seen as evil; and the Buddhist myth (new to me) of Mucalinda, meaning the Buddha also sat under a tree with a snake and there also attained enlightenment but here the knowledge so gained is good and the snake is seen as a protector

Could invent some really fun heresies by developing this line of thought further

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@mcc the one my friends always struggled with is there are Buddhist groups who engage in violent resistance and that, well yes, that's also Buddhism. Just not the ones who believe in pacifism. Which also isn't the rest, there's some in the middle!

glassbottommeg, to indiegames
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

Wow! This wasn't on my radar at all, but Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo looks absolutely fantastic. It isn't like Shovel Knight at all, but I want to say it has Shovel Knight Vibes anyways. Very worth a peek. https://store.steampowered.com/app/2870350/Pipistrello_and_the_Cursed_Yoyo/

Craigp, to random
@Craigp@mastodon.social avatar

Holy shit, these expensive new shoes kicked my walk speed way up. Around +50% sustained speed.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@Craigp wait. Really?

Shoes with movement speed buffs are a real thing?

glassbottommeg, (edited ) to PCGaming
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

fuckin Roll7 just died https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2024/05/olliolli-kerbal-space-program-teams-shut-down-by-gta-publisher

EDIT: Fuck, this is also Kerbel Space Program 2 toast. Didn't realize Intercept was the new team that was on that.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

They were literal contemporaries! OlliOlli launched like a year after I founded my studio. Their work inspired SkateBIRD a bit, then we were launching just a bit before OlliOlli World, just! Like. AAAAAAAAAAAA.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@jannem I thought KSP 2 was someone else entirely? Like didn't a new dev take that over?

glassbottommeg,
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@DKesserich @jannem no clue - if so, fuckin hell 😭

glassbottommeg,
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@DKesserich @jannem SHIT https://www.pcgamer.com/games/sim/kerbal-space-program-2-developer-intercept-games-may-be-closing-as-part-of-take-twos-big-layoff-plan/

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@raptor85 @jannem Yep, this. You could totally make Skylines 2 with Unity. I mean I ditched it, but that's due to future planning - right now, sure.

They just... uh... did not. Or I mean maybe they would have on a longer timeline, but they shipped it before putting in that last year of polishing and tightening.

Craigp, to random
@Craigp@mastodon.social avatar

Well, I was trying to enjoy The Good Life. It has a lot going for it, but the combination of terrible pacing, weird out-of-order mechanic introductions, and just plain old bugs leave me a little cold.

I don't mind bugs if I can find a way around them, but seemingly game-blocking bugs are no good.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@Craigp heck it, I would have settled for a simple Zelda dayside/nightside hard transition, with sitting on benches or ocarina song analogs to just let me choose which thing I'm doing now.

The gradients between the two just, weren't interesting. Any of the "NPC does different stuff depending on time" they had could have been resolved, literally, the same as Zelda. Namely: all NPCs can have a lil script they execute on start of day or start of night, some of which can kick you out of that time entirely if you interrupt them wrong. There, done.

I did play the game for a bunch of hours, but after a point it just became a slog. That point being, when you started to have to travel really far, to all the various POIs, heh. I liked the beginning, at least!

klord, to random
@klord@toot.wales avatar

Gameplay Messaging System is ace. Top tip @glassbottommeg 👍

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@klord Oh! You mean the Lyra one? Yeah! It's surprisingly great.

Only downside I'm aware of is it had no replication, but I'm pretty sure you could add it without much work at all.

Also, I'm still not entirely decided if gameplay messages even should be replicated. Seems, er, dicey.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@klord Other big things to be aware of, if you aren't already: @sinbad's got two killer plugins. SUDS for dialogue, and SUSS is his new Utility AI engine.

I'd call both must-haves at this point, for a particular kind of game. Dialogue just in general is a huge hole in Unreal, and this fills that well, and SUSS is shaping up to be what I wish Unreal had done instead of BTs.

I'm uh, one of those "Behavior Trees are garbage" people, so finding reasonable alternatives has been a big focus of mine. Joe Wintergreen has an FSM (essentially an HFSM) implementation I'm using now, and that's pretty alright, but I think Steve's SUSS is likely the one you really want for er. Most like, game'y games. FPSes and stuff.

rafaelfajardo, to random
@rafaelfajardo@mastodon.social avatar

My new frand outside my studio window. So pretty!

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@rafaelfajardo oooooh, in a window well?

Huh I guess that makes sense. Would have figured it was still too exposed for those little ladies, but I guess those really are pretty enclosed.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Agree or disagree with the following statement: "Xpander" was Sandstorm for the kids who actually liked Trance

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@mcc big agree

glassbottommeg, to random
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

New paranoia:

We had a car drive itself into a tree. On its own. It isn't even an electric. Though I guess it wanted to be?

The fucking starter shorted out somehow, and the STARTER DROVE THE ENTIRE ENGINE. DESPITE THE PARKING BRAKE BEING ON.

I've never even heard of this failure mode. WTF.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@dcfedor oh hahaha no no, it did this when we weren't even there! We just came out and, the tree was knocked over, and the car was against it.

Battery was hot, smelled very funny, etc.

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@dcfedor I genuinely tried to put together a "someone tried to steal the car, hit a tree and ran off" story in my head. Even though we live in the middle of nowhere in the woods. And there was clearly no attempt at breaking or hotwiring or anything.

Because that STILL felt like it made more sense, heh

eniko, to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

If you have any curiosity about Nim as a language let this be a warning to you: https://forum.nim-lang.org/t/10312

Dude just went off 110% unprompted, holy shit

glassbottommeg,
@glassbottommeg@peoplemaking.games avatar

@jessechounard @dmbaturin @che5hire @eniko 40s here also, yep same. Occasionally I catch myself starting to use old terminology out of habit, then I stop, go "no no brain you know the new word stop it", and move on.

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