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Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

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Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#71

Post by lukan »

Suppafly wrote: post #67
plussed_reader wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also a convenient excuse to sell more ramm and disk space 'for the textures'.

>But also a convenient excuse to sell more ramm and disk space 'for the textures'. Except different companies sell different things. This is like the conspiracy that women's pants don't have pockets to sell more purses.

"This is like the conspiracy that women's pants don't have pockets to sell more purses."

Oh my god, this explains everything!

(btw. I recently learned, that the 9/11 inside job conspiracy evolved. Nowdays the standard theory is, that there were not even planes in the first place, just bombs and smoke)

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#72

Post by shermantanktop »

mlekoszek wrote: post #66
shermantanktop wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hard to know how to respond to that. This could be applied to virtually all technology changes that benefit users but also make money for someone else. I assume you use a refrigerator and not a hole in the ground with ice. Have you been manipulated into giving money to Big Appliance?

To an absolute hardliner for appropriate technology, probably -- but simplicity isn't necessarily all-or-nothing, and (IMO) helping people pull off cool things with simpler tools isn't so bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

Sure, but we're not talking about how to irrigate a field here, we're talking about being limited to 600x800 resolution when playing a game.

Some people were teenagers when that was the best you could get, so I'm guessing they see it as a "good old days" baseline that they can be principled about while indulging their nostalgia.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#74

Post by dclowd9901 »

shermantanktop wrote: post #64
plussed_reader wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But also a convenient excuse to sell more ramm and disk space 'for the textures'.

Hard to know how to respond to that. This could be applied to virtually all technology changes that benefit users but also make money for someone else. I assume you use a refrigerator and not a hole in the ground with ice. Have you been manipulated into giving money to Big Appliance?

I would argue refrigerators provide a lot more utility for most people than high poly counts.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#75

Post by lukan »

shermantanktop wrote: post #72
mlekoszek wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an absolute hardliner for appropriate technology, probably -- but simplicity isn't necessarily all-or-nothing, and (IMO) helping people pull off cool things with simpler tools isn't so bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

Sure, but we're not talking about how to irrigate a field here, we're talking about being limited to 600x800 resolution when playing a game. Some people were teenagers when that was the best you could get, so I'm guessing they see it as a "good old days" baseline that they can be principled about while indulging their nostalgia.

I remember that was the best I can get and I was thrilled for it at the time. But then I was even more thrilled when Far Cry came out. Then Crysis ... why would I go back? Now you surely can argue, that nowdays the creativity got lower in favour of just more textures, but I like to have both.

Still, for a simple game limiting to 800x600 for performance and dev reasons - why not? But for me it means I see no use case for myself.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#76

Post by dicytea »

klibertp wrote: post #56
golergka wrote: post #53

> When all of the patterns get used, I will delete the project and rewrite it in Rust. With no OOP. https://racenis.github.io/tram-sdk/patterns.html Love it.

Woah, it's cutting it close - just 3-5 aren't used! The Rust port might be on the horizon :D

Time to cook up a PR.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#77

Post by mlekoszek »

shermantanktop wrote: post #72
mlekoszek wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To an absolute hardliner for appropriate technology, probably -- but simplicity isn't necessarily all-or-nothing, and (IMO) helping people pull off cool things with simpler tools isn't so bad. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appropriate_technology

Sure, but we're not talking about how to irrigate a field here, we're talking about being limited to 600x800 resolution when playing a game. Some people were teenagers when that was the best you could get, so I'm guessing they see it as a "good old days" baseline that they can be principled about while indulging their nostalgia.

I can see that, but I think calling it just nostalgia-driven is judging a book by its cover.

First off, I want to say you can totally have a design ethos that covers game engines as much as irrigation systems -- Lee Felsenstein explicitly cited Ivan Illich's notion of 'convivial technology' as an influence on his modems. And Illich mostly talked about bicycles.

What I see in this project is a specific kind of appropriate technology -- 'toaster compatibility' -- mixed with conscious adoption of old methods and aesthetics to serve and signal that end. Which is cool, IMO.

HTMX uses similar techniques in trying to 'bring back' hypermedia and reduce dependencies, although I think they're after a different kind of simplicity. And of course, their Hypermedia Systems book makes similar nods to 90s-software aesthetics: https://hypermedia.systems/

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#78

Post by danbolt »

tsumnia wrote: post #25

"A thing should be a thing. It should not be a bunch of things pretending to be a single thing. With nodes you have to pretend that a collection of things is a single thing." Just want to say this line was great, very Terry Pratchett. Feels like something Sam Vimes would think during a particularly complex investigation. I love it and hope you keep it moving forward. Haven't gotten a chance to mess around with it, bu…

I think the paragraph after is really interesting:

“Also when creating things with nodes, you have to go back and forth between node GUI and code.”

You can see Godot’s Node/GDScript setup as a bit of a response to this argument. Or, they try to make the “going back and forth” as seamless and integrated possible with things like the $ operator and autocomplete.

That said, I do think at the end of day, the “thing is a thing” mindset ultimately prevails, as you have to ship a game.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#79

Post by tombert »

royaltheartist wrote: post #45
robertlagrant wrote: post #13

I replayed Half-life 2 recently and was struck, even without high-res texture packs, how amazing the game still looks today.

That's why I think really good art direction beats raw graphical power any day. Source was pretty impressive back in the day, but the bit that's stood the test of time is just how carefully considered the environments and models are. Valve really put their resources into detailing and maximizing the mileage they got out of their technical constraints, and it still looks cohesive and well-designed 20 years later

Still baffles me how unnerving the Ravenholm level is even today. It's got a creepy, unsettling vibe, 20 years later, entirely due to really decent art direction.

Re: Show HN: Tramway SDK – An unholy union between Half-Life and Morrowind engines

#80

Post by bigstrat2003 »

whalesalad wrote: post #2

Just wanna say the website aesthetic is legendary. Very on brand.

Except that it would be way better if it wasn't arbitrarily limited to a tiny column. I have a large screen, use it please. Don't make me dig into the developer console to undo your fixed width in order to have a pleasant reading experience.
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