Open World Gamedev 2023/006
Hi and welcome to the sixth issue of this newsletter! Today's date is 2023-07-15.
I wasn't quite sure what to make of this but I think I'm going to go with the immersive sim theme (yes this newsletter is about open worlds but there is an overlap OK?! and it should be bigger!! (I might be biased) (because I'm making an open world imsim))
Anyway it's a big topic so there'll be more of it I'm sure. π
Share me: Boosting the newsletter helps more people find it so please do. π₯° Here are the announcement posts for Twitter (opens in a new tab) and Mastodon (opens in a new tab).
Help out: Would you or someone you know be interested in helping out with the newsletter, the Open World Gamedev discord, and Tides of Revival? Perhaps someone who would like to learn some copy-writing, some video production, some basic coding, some community management, some spreading of the word? I and my team could use some assistance! :)
πΊ Videos
- [AI] Modeling AI Perception and Awareness in Splinter Cell: Blacklist (opens in a new tab) by Martin Walsh.
- [AI] Picking a Good Spot: Naughty Dog's Post System (opens in a new tab) by Ming-Lun "Allen" Chou. β¨
- [AI] Simple and Scalable Game AI Decision Making (opens in a new tab) by Bobby Anguelov. β¨
- [AI] The Genius AI Behind The Sims (opens in a new tab) by Game Maker's Toolkit. β¨
- [Animation] Procedural animation in 10 steps (opens in a new tab) by Codeer.
- [Game Design] 2022 Was the Year of the Immersive Sim Comeback (opens in a new tab) by Charlatan Wonder. β¨
- [Game Design] An Example Of Fast Travel Done Right (opens in a new tab) by Gamedev Adventures. β¨
- [Game Design] ChatGPT in Skyrim (opens in a new tab) by ESO. β¨
- [Game Design] Daggerfall: An Overlooked Elder Scrolls Gem (opens in a new tab) by Tonesville. β¨
- [Game Design] Deus Ex: Mankind Divided's Amazing Open World (opens in a new tab) by Game Maker's Toolkit.
- [Game Design] Empowering the Player in a Story-Rich World: Co-Directing Dishonored (opens in a new tab) by Raphael Colantonio and Harvey Smith.
- [Game Design] Games that Don't Fake the Space (opens in a new tab) by Jacob Geller. β¨
- [Game Design] Games with empty worlds. (opens in a new tab) by The Cursed Judge. β¨
- [Game Design] How Deus Ex Blended Genres To Change Shooters Forever (opens in a new tab) by Warren Spector. β¨
- [Game Design] How Thief's Stealth System Almost Didn't Work (opens in a new tab) by Paul Neurath.
- [Game Design] How To Daggerfall (opens in a new tab) by Strat-Edgy Productions.
- [Game Design] Miasmata Cartography Tutorial (opens in a new tab) by Pilchardosan.
- [Game Design] Narrative Sorcery: Coherent Storytelling in an Open World (opens in a new tab) by Jon Ingold.
- [Game Design] Narrative vs. Fast Travel Mods (opens in a new tab) by Gopher.
- [Game Design] Non-Linear Game Design (opens in a new tab) by Timothy Cain. β¨
- [Game Design] Thoughts on Far Cry 6, while I tackle an outpost (opens in a new tab) by Tom Francis. β¨
- [Game Design] Tides of Revival: High Level Vision by Anders Elfgren. β¨
- [Game Design] Ultima Underworld Retrospective (opens in a new tab) by Michael Snow.
- [Game Design] Why should you play Immersive Sims? (opens in a new tab) by AndyPants TV. β¨
- [Game Design] Why Stairs Suck in Games... and why they don't have to (opens in a new tab) by Nick Maltbie. β¨
- [Worldbuilding] Imagining the Ideal Video Game City (opens in a new tab) by Adam Srayi. β¨
- [Worldbuilding] One Quest To Rule Them All: Quest Design in Non-Games Media (opens in a new tab) by Nathan Savant. β¨
- [Worldbuilding] Skyrimβs Woodworking is Shoddy and Confusing (opens in a new tab) by Any Austin. β¨
Sidenote 1: Adam Srayi is pretty new at the youtubing but I think he knocked it out of the park again! Bobby's presentation is also very good, I will likely be using something similar for Tides of Revival. The game I'm working on in my spare time. Shameless plug! If you are still not sure what it is me and my team are trying to make, I put together a handy little 2.5h vision video that should explain the basics. It's also up there.π
π Articles
- [AI] Dynamic patrol behaviour in stealth games (opens in a new tab) by Lean Rada. β¨
- [AI] How to Make an Advanced Stealth System (opens in a new tab) by Antonio Freyre. β¨
- [Animation] Why Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shoresβ Hugs Are a Secret Technical Marvel (opens in a new tab) by Rebekah Valentine. β¨
- [Game Design] Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles (opens in a new tab) by Daztur.
- [Game Design] First-Person 3Cs: Camera (opens in a new tab) by Martin Annander. β¨
- [Game Design] Five pillars of Immersive Sims (opens in a new tab) by Maxim Samoylenko.
- [Game Design] Postmortem: Thief: The Dark Project (opens in a new tab) by Charlie Gardner.
- [Game Design] System Shock: The oral history of a forward-thinking PC classic (opens in a new tab) by Jeremy Peel. β¨
- [Procedural Generation] Semiotic NPC Design β Mapping Symbols of Identity (opens in a new tab) by Chantal Ryan. β¨
- [Programming] Why Storing State Machines in ECS is a bad idea (opens in a new tab) by Sander Mertens.
Sidenote 2: Read the Combat as Sport/War one!
π Physical Products!
- [RPG] Traveller (opens in a new tab). Mini-review: Sci-fi RPG with a great "lifepath" system for creating your characters.
Check out this issue's accompanying video here!
π¦ Assets, Code & Tools
- [Book] FlexTale Hexcrawl Toolkit (opens in a new tab) by Infinium Game Studios. β¨
- [Book] Seasons in Shadow (opens in a new tab) by Gaffer Games. β¨
- [Library] Intermediate Graphics Library (IGL) (opens in a new tab) by Meta. β¨
- [Library] Open Asset Import Library (assimp) (opens in a new tab) by Kim Kulling et.al.
- [Map] As Terras do Norte (opens in a new tab) by Horoscope Zine. β¨
π Cool Nuggets β¨
- Fixing Black Outlines (opens in a new tab)
- Game Website Structure (opens in a new tab)
- Good Exploration Mechanics Discussion (opens in a new tab)
- Hydro Erosion (opens in a new tab)
- Medieval Building Generator (opens in a new tab)
- Multiple Parties in RPGs (opens in a new tab)
- On Dwarf Fortress's Launch (opens in a new tab)
- On Immersive Sims (opens in a new tab)
- Procedural Paths (opens in a new tab)
- Procedural Sword Generator (opens in a new tab)
- Procedurally Generated RPG-like Quests Discussion (opens in a new tab)
- Psychographics VS Demographics (opens in a new tab)
- Rain System (opens in a new tab)
- Scaling Down Grass Near Camera (opens in a new tab)
- Single-shader Grass Field (opens in a new tab)
- Turning Noise Into Sharp Tips (opens in a new tab)
- Walk cycle generator (opens in a new tab)
Sidenote 3: I like it when people post questions on social media and get interesting answers. Check out the discussion nuggets. The one on immersive sims is strong too.
π Bonus Stuff
- [Humor] Playing the bad guy is hard (opens in a new tab) by Viva La Dirt League. β¨
- [Production] ISO 8601 (opens in a new tab) by Wikipedia.
- [Production] Player promises - and how to use them in game production (opens in a new tab) by Jannick Hynding Lund.
- [Production] Breaking Down Remedy's Northlight Engine (opens in a new tab) by Remedy Entertainment. β¨
- [Production] My 10 YEAR Indie Game Development Journey (opens in a new tab) by ThinMatrix. β¨
- [Programming] How to make your game run at 60fps (opens in a new tab) by Tyler Glaiel.
- [Worldbuilding] 10 Famous Swords of the Middle Ages (opens in a new tab) by Medievalists. β¨
Sidenote 4: ISO 8601 is almost always the right choice when writing a date and time. It's one of the few ISOs that are made into memes. (Also sorry but Fahrenheit is not "more intuitive". The last explanation I read was that you could read it as percentages, like it's 75% hot, great! Well WTF does 105% hot mean?!? It's equally easy to make up "intuitive" or "human" explanations for the Celsius scale.)
Endnote: As always, thanks for reading! π I'm on Twitter (opens in a new tab), Mastodon (opens in a new tab), Youtube (opens in a new tab).
You can also come and chat to open worlders over at our Open World Gamedev / Tides of Revival Discord server (opens in a new tab). Many of the resources get posted and discussed there first.
Extra Credits: My friend Kenny (opens in a new tab) of Hello Worlds (opens in a new tab) has helped me out with the technical aspects of the newsletter to make it a bit snazzier.