• he/him

Coder, pun perpetrator
Grumpiness elemental
Hyperbole abuser


Tools programmer
Writer-wannabe
Did translations once upon a time
I contain multitudes


(TurfsterNTE off Twitter)


Trans rights
Black lives matter


Be excellent to each other


UE4/5 Plugins on Itch
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johnnemann
@johnnemann

I get the same vibes from the Unity fallout as when Twitter really started to crumble and everyone was asking "what's next, where do we go, what's the place we're all going to agree, en masse, to move?"

And you're reading this on CoHost so YOU made the right choice but also here's the thing: there wasn't a right choice. There isn't a thing that's going to be the replacement for {old thing}, even given plenty of time. You gotta decide your needs and wants and then see what matches the most of those and guess what? The answer might be nothing. And god help you if that's the case, you should have given up your indie dreams and moved to Sweden a few years ago.

Anyway, I'm seeing a lot of stuff where everyone's like "Godot, that's the new thing!" and I hope it is but also it might not be. Before you move to Godot or anything else please take a sober look at whether it will work out or if you're moving to the engine equivalent of blue sky or, god forbid, mastodon. Just because there's a life raft doesn't mean it's seaworthy. There isn't always an answer waiting.

If you asked me to figure out an engine in which to release a commercial indie game with console support right now, today, I would simply refuse.


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in reply to @johnnemann's post:

it's Godot, clearly: reasonably close open source imitation of the popular thing everyone is fleeing, everyone hoping the same design decisions work out this time (since it was more obviously killed by bad business decisions), project leadership that i have seen multiple confidence-disinspiring things from, "almost good enough, if you're willing to put some work in yourself to paper over its shortcomings". pretty common open source outcome, honestly. [glares at GNU IMP's shit name, still, after 18 years of grumbling weekly use]

biggest difference in godot's favor is that if you can manage to ship a decent game, nobody really needs to know or care what engine it's made in, whereas social networks live or die or struggle for years on the basis of network effects ie how much "people you know are on it" lock-in bullshit headwinds it's facing.

i would much rather we ask what the "Firefox circa 2004", the Wikipedia etc of game engines might be - something so obviously better that everyone just uses it without any coaxing. but in the game engine space i think that's an Everest of R&D that most people don't have the resources to help out with, they gotta ship tomorrow, so they go with what they know.