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Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

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Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is it 2005?

No. If you’re just waking up a lot has changed. There’s a pandemic. Donald Trump (seriously!) was president. There’s a new Cold War. Everyone works from home and drives an EV. Cars can drive themselves now. It’s a weird time to be alive. Good luck!

And Apple is no longer the cool company it used to be. Their decline in hardware and software quality was what made me stopped buying Macs after being a fan for the longest time.

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#113
>I also quite enjoy the added SWE challenges. I had to write so many complex algorithms (path-finding, logistics, serialization, ...) and optimize things down to bits (shaders, compression of in-memory data, ...) that were rarely required by my corp job.

If you ever need a reprieve or change of pace and want to write some words instead of code, do consider writing an engineering blog about how you designed and built it. Factorio's blog has been an enjoyable read, seems like a similar one by you guys would be as well.

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#114
Just noting that I have interest in multiplayer support similar to Factorio or Satisfactory where players work towards a common goal, and also have purchased with that not being a feature per the road map. These types of games make for good time passers while conversating with distant friends.

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#117
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. If you’re just waking up a lot has changed. There’s a pandemic. Donald Trump (seriously!) was president. There’s a new Cold War. Everyone works from home and drives an EV. Cars can drive themselves now. It’s a weird time to be alive. Good luck!

And Apple is no longer the cool company it used to be. Their decline in hardware and software quality was what made me stopped buying Macs after being a fan for the longest time.

I didn’t say Apple was cool. I said Mac users were. In fact, I’d posit anyone using a Unix based operating system is inherently cool.

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#118
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Power tends to be interesting when it can be used for logic control - having some trigger that causes a portion of the industry to go dark to focus on some rarely used portion - too many games throw power in just because it's everywhere in factory sims. As you continue to develop the game I'd suggest you make sure the features you add are always accompanying some interesting feature expansion - one thing that always…

Oh yeah, was never a fan of Satisfactory's combat. Did they ever make it optional? I really wanted to enjoy Satisfactory, but found the first-person perspective made factory building tedious. I know they've made some QoL changes like adding a grid to make it easier, but...meh. It's a beautiful game, but so far DSP has been my favorite factory builder, but gimme another dozen hours and I'll decide how CoI compares in…

It has slowly become more optional - there's a bit that's necessary near the beginning with your weak little zapper... but if you've played before it's pretty easy to rush guns quickly enough that you never really have to seriously worry about it. It becomes a non-factor really quickly... and if it were like factorio (and they could destroy portions of your base) it'd be even worse since it's so hard to figure out what little components are missing in Satisfactory.

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#119

I’m a sad. No Mac. :-( Looks really good. Congrats man. 84% overwhelmingly positive isn’t anything to sneeze at too. The experience must have been amazing. I learned more about computers in developing games that were 1% of what you’ve done. No matter the financial outcome you are winning at nerd life, which is the only life that matters (other than to your spouse your family and friends).

Thanks and sorry for no Mac support. The hard truth is that Mac users represents less than 1% of our potential user base and it is hard to justify the time to support Mac. We are planning to revisit this decision soon and see how much effort would it be.

> 1% of our potential user base

How did you determine this? Factorio is available for Mac. How did they, and other game developers, justify the work for a Mac port?

Re: Show HN: A friend and I spent 6 years making a simulation game, finally released

#120
post #45

Looks awesome! Congrats on the release, and it seems like you're getting a pretty good reception so far as well. A few questions: 1. How did you get all the assets for your game? Did you make them yourselves? I also work on games as a hobby, but I'm no artist so I struggle to get things looking as good as this game. 2. How did you decide to use Unity for your game engine? Did you consider any others, and if so, what…

Thank you! 1. All 3D assets and music was done by our contractors. All paid work. On average, one model is probably around $500. 2. C#. We both were familiar with it and it is a great language. Lots of nice features, easy to work with, lots of tools, less error prone (looking at you C++), has reflection (very helpful for serialization and code gen), and if you know what you are doing, it can be very performant (avoid…

It sounds like you had several different contractors working on it, so what steps did you take to ensure a consistent art style?
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