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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

#251

Post by animal531 »

jiggawatts wrote: post #229

There are some basic things broken in the graphics engine: 1) Turning vsync "on" doesn't have the intended effect. There's still very visible tearing half way down the screen. 2) Turning vsync on in combination with full-screen mode results in a hideous stuttering when turning the viewport with the mouse. It looks like you got the swap chain sequence.. backwards? As in... swapping the "most recent" frame.. and then a…

>"As a former game engine developer, my advice is that with both DirectX and OpenGL there is generally only "one right way" to do certain things such as managing a swap chain. Yet, somehow, game developers manage to get this consistently wrong and never seem to test/fix it.

>Test, test, test! Plug in multiple monitors. With different resolutions. Drag your game around between them. Try laptops with hybrid (NVIDIA+Intel) GPUs. Use a HDR monitor. Use one of those laptops with a hybrid card and unplug the power while your game is running. Plug the power back in. Change your desktop resolution while your game is running. Try to get 10-bit working. Try to get the game to look identical even on wide-gamut monitors. Etc..."

Some good feedback, but remember they're using Unity, so they're not directly controlling anything on a low level.

As for the 2nd part, this is really hard in a small team. For example I'm a solo dev, so I only have access to 2 monitors, 2 graphics cards etc. BUT there are paid for services that provide testing, although that costs money; so when they've made a bit of cash and have a bigger user base then they can probably afford those.

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

#252

Post by m_eiman »

Fradow wrote: post #228
alephnan wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Mac users are also more likely to spend extravagant amounts of money. Have you tried sending out a survey asking “how much would you be willing to pay for this game?”

The game is a one-shot purchase though, and Steam doesn't offer a per-platform pricing. It doesn't look like a game where micro-transactions would work either.

Per-platform pricing is easy: just release the Mac version on Gog, the PC verson on Steam, the Linux version on … EA? Then you can set separate prices for each :)

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

#253

Post by culopatin »

thejosh wrote: post #194
stingrae wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1st Quarter 2022, Apple shipped nearly 15% of all PCs sold in the US.

On Steam Mac accounts for 2.20% of hardware survey users. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

But what would it be if games actually supported Mac? Chicken and the egg kind of thing

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

#256

Post by jason_slack »

I am currently on break from playing video games, but I will buy your game today and save it for when my digital detox is over.

You learned more by writing those algos than your corporate job would have done you :-)

Congrats on releasing your baby!

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

#257

Post by BlueTemplar »

baq wrote: post #14
Dachande663 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to Steam hardware survey, MacOS and Linux account for 2.55% and 1.14% respectively. Anecdotally a lot of game devs report a higher percentage of error reports from these users too. So no, not worth it yet but Proton May be changing that. [0] https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...

Steam deck is the game changer here.

Yeah, hopefully will work out better than the SteamOS consoles...

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

#258

Post by BlueTemplar »

meibo wrote: post #136
riidom wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As far as I know, you get no support usually, when you run it with proton/wine. I'm not interested in paying full price and then having the risk all myself. Of course there is the return before two hours thing, but then I also don't wanna create all that hassle. But if a developer makes some guarantees about proton support, that'd be something else, actually.

Valve has very active community support for Steam games on GitHub. If something doesn't work, you usually just have to report it, it will run through their QA queue to be confirmed, and then handed off to Codeweavers devs they contracted to work on Wine/Proton to fix the bug. It's a bigger hassle than just playing on Windows, but most games run out of the box now. Native Linux versions of games basically don't happen…

It's kind of weird to see this posted in a thread for a game so similar to Factorio ?

https://www.factorio.com/download

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

#259

Post by alwe »

iliketrains wrote: post #151
loxias wrote: post #130

Hey, This looks super cool from the videos, and exactly the sort of thing I'd love to play. Would love a Linux build so I can play it though, haven't needed a Windows VM in ages. Added to wish list for whenever you release that! (I thought modern game development was cross platform these days?)

Thanks! I have heard that it works on Proton just fine, but your mileage may vary. We just didn't have time to test things. We need to get Linux and Mac machines and test things thoroughly before claiming official support.

+1 Linux here too, have a longer train-ride on the weekend and wished I could play this on the train. Then ONI or Factorio it will be.

Added this game to my wishlist, will buy it when Linux support is available.

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

#260

Post by culopatin »

iliketrains wrote: post #154
pooloo wrote: post #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.

Multiplayer is a big topic and it is obviously on our minds. The big questions is what type of multiplayer would be the best for this kind of game? Would it be coop where each player would start on their corner of the map? Or would it be shared factory? Of maybe each player with its own island + trading? Also, it is technically very challenging, since the entire simulation must be perfectly deterministic. We actually…

I always wanted to try a game where you join an economy and your supply impacts the demand of others and changes the price, etc.

When playing Minecraft as a kid I always envisioned getting specialized in finding certain minerals or making certain items and selling them but I guess it was too early in the game and that wasn’t an option. There might be a mod now that allows for thag

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