Game Dev Digest — Issue #236 - Cinematics, UX and more

Issue #236 - Cinematics, UX and more

This article was originally published on GameDevDigest.com

Some UX advice, cinematic breakdowns, code patterns, plus a lot more. Enjoy!

---

What makes a game cinematic? The answer is changing - The nun adventure game Indika is more interested in Tarkovsky than Bruckheimer
polygon.com

Everything I Know About The Fast Inverse Square Root Algorithm - The fast inverse square root algorithm, made famous (though not invented) by programming legend John Carmack in the Quake 3 source code, computes an inverse square root with a bewildering handful of lines that interpret and manipulate the raw bits of float. It's wild.
francisrstokes

Act on press - This is a UI design hill I will die on, and it dismays me how often and hard I have had to fight for it.
John Carmack

Masahiro Sakurai refused to add Dolby Surround to a Kirby game because players had to sit through the logo - Kirby creator and Smash Bros series director Masahiro Sakurai has revealed that he once chose to remove Dolby Surround from a game because the logo added extra waiting time for the player.
videogameschronicle.com

Life and Death of a Graphics Programmer - Recurrent internet discussions show a divide between programmers working in different industries. Topics like code clarity, performance, debuggability, architecture or maintainability are a source of friction. We are, paraphrasing the quote, industries divided by a common language. I am curious about other programmers’ experiences, and I wanted to present a general view of mine as a graphics programmer in games, in the form of anecdotes and examples.
elopezr.com

The Ultimate Game Dev's Guide to Working with Content Creators - One of the biggest marketing challenges facing game developers is how to work with content creators. How do you find creators that’ll resonate with your game? How do you approach them? And is it all luck?
a16zgames.substack.com

How I used paid ads to reach Steam's Popular Upcoming list - Since I enjoy numbers and statistics, I decided to try reach the magic wishlists mark with paid advertising, mostly on Reddit but also some Twitter and Facebook. The goal was to receive the blessings of the Steam algorithm at launch by getting on Popular Upcoming so I was fine if the strategy lost a bit of money per wishlist.
old.reddit.com

Custom SRP 3.0.0 - Simple Tiled Forward+
catlikecoding.com

How to Create a Visually Compelling Post-Apocalyptic Walkie-Talkie - Let’s follow Senne Bovée to explore the intricate journey of crafting a detailed, post-apocalyptic walkie-talkie. The realistic textures and details serve as tactile storytellers, echoing the item’s history and usage.
80.lv

Videos

The Timeless Beauty of Pre Rendered Graphics - Some PC games in the late 90s and early 2000s had a particular look that I think stands the test of time. Join me as I investigate why that is and take a look at it's legacy.
GameTalesHQ

Influence Map / Territory Borders Unity Tutorial - Hey, I came up with this way to solve creating an influence or territory border map for my hobby project so I wanted to share with you.
A Bit Of Game Dev

Larian Cinematics: A Top-Down Look at Our Bottom-Up Approach in 'Baldur's Gate 3' - No plan survives development. Join the cinematic director of Larian Studios, Jason Latino, for an account of how the realities of making a game at the scale and reactivity of Baldur's Gate 3 required constant evolution and reexamination of first principles.
GDC

6 Code Smells REFACTORED to Patterns! - Command, Flyweight, Factory, Builder, Strategy, and Decorator can often be implemented to solve common code smells - learn how into todays video as we refactor an Enemy Spawner from a naive implementation to a robust, modular and extensible system using game programming patterns.
git-amend

Unity UI canvas modes and canvas scaler explained - Learn all you need about the differend canvas modes and the canvas scaler in this Unity UI deep dive tutorial.
Christina Creates Games

'Valheim': Vikings, Roadmaps & Buying a Horse During Early Access - In this 2024 Independent Games Summit talk, Jonathan Smårs shares insight into the Valheim development journey so far through a patch-by-patch breakdown and managing player expectations spanning multiple years of development during early access and lessons learned along the way, both internal and external challenges that have emerged, and oh - and they bought a horse.
GDC

Assets

Template Toolkit Sale: Up to 60% off - Get the templates, system packs, and tutorials you need to build your games faster. Discover over 200 assets on sale.
Unity Affiliate

Epic Environments Mega Bundle - Unity & Unreal - Create fantasy worlds in Unity & Unreal. Bring the fantasy world of your dreams to life in your Unity or Unreal Engine game project with this massive bundle of assets! From bustling medieval urbanscapes to ancient temple environments teeming with mystery and majesty, you’ll get tons of modular assets with which to craft play spaces that’ll enchant and transport your players. Also included are a host of characters and props to help make your environments feel convincing and lived-in. Pay what you want for this epic toolkit, valued at over $1,000, and help support Code.org with your purchase.
Humble Bundle Affiliate

cavifree - Screen space shader for Unity resembling the "cavity" effect in Blender
federicocasares Open Source

GameplayTags - GameplayTags implementation for Unity
BandoWare Open Source

MGS.Curve - Smooth 3D curve component for Unity project develop.
mogoson Open Source

GITweaks - Tools and tweaks for working with global illumination in Unity
pema99 Open Source

UGizmo - Highly efficient gizmo drawer for Unity
harumas Open Source

ILAttributes - A collection of attributes for Unity Engine to write functions which can only be expressed by IL. Private Proxy is included.
Akeit0 Open Source

UnityPythonConnectionModules - Continuous TCP communication between Python and Unity
konbraphat51 Open Source

Serializable-Dictionary-Unity - Create a serializable dictionary in Unity with all necessary error detections
EduardMalkhasyan Open Source

UnityUIDrawable - A simple and performant drawing system for UGUI-space that makes use of rendertextures and shaders.
bosqmode Open Source

unity-material-symbols - This project simplifies the usage of Google's Material Symbols (Icons) on Unity.
convalise Open Source

Lattice - A visual scripting system for Unity ECS. Quickly create gameplay logic.
Pontoco Open Source

scene-loader - A package that standardizes scene loading operations between the Unity Scene Manager and Addressables, allowing multiple alternatives of awaiting such as Coroutines, Async or UniTask.
mygamedevtools Open Source

Unity_2D_VFX - A collection of visual effects for 2D Unity projects.
Magnno Open Source

Rewired-Glyphs - An expansion for Guavaman's Rewired Unity Asset that provides a simple to use API for showing input icons to the player at runtime based on their input method and bindings.
Orange-Panda Open Source

staircase-procedure - The Unity Staircase Procedure Toolkit
AndreZenner Open Source

MinimalCompute - Minimal test scenes contains compute shaders, compute buffers etc Playing with the transport between CPU GPU
cinight Open Source

Qunity - a quake map importer for unity
chunky-cat Open Source

Scrubber - An experimental presentation program with Unity
keijiro Open Source

50% off Raygeas - Publisher Sale - Raygeas is a small team of enthusiasts creating complex assets with stylized graphics to help you create your own fantasy worlds, including textures, models, shaders, and sounds. PLUS, get Stylized Terrain Textures for FREE with code RAYGEAS
Unity Affiliate

Epic Royalty Free Music Collection Vol. 2 - The makings of an epic soundtrack. Looking for the perfect soundtrack to accompany your next project? Composer Joel Steudler invites you on a sonic journey with this colossal collection of royalty-free music from his intensive catalog! From entrancing synthwave to bombastic tunes perfect to make an impact in your trailer, this collection is packed with tracks suitable for films, games, or whatever you’re working on! Plus, your purchase will support JDRF in their mission to find a cure for type 1 diabetes!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Low Poly Game Dev Bundle - Low-poly building blocks. Nail the evocative retro look of the 32-bit era in your next project with this bundle of low-poly game assets, usable on Unity, Unreal, and other game engines big and small! You’ll get thousands of individual assets across dozens of themed packs, allowing you to create everything from awe-inspiring futuristic space colonies, to post-apocalyptic ruins teeming with hazard—plus, all the props you need to bring them to life! Everything in this bundle is in FBX format, so you’ll be able to integrate it all seamlessly, regardless of your workflow. Play what you want for this bundle of amazing building blocks and help support Save the Children with your purchase!
Humble Bundle Affiliate

Spotlight

Castle Of Alchemists - Defend your castle in this fast-paced tower defense/action hybrid game with stunning pixel art graphics! Play as alchemically enhanced warrior Bellator, set traps, build towers, craft powerful weapons, and defend your home! The fate of the castle lies in your hands!

[You can get it in Early Access on Steam and follow them on Twitter]
Team Machiavelli

---

My game, Call Of Dookie. Demo available on Steam

---

You can subscribe to the free weekly newsletter on GameDevDigest.com

This post includes affiliate links; I may receive compensation if you purchase products or services from the different links provided in this article.