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6 votes
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17 votes -
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5 votes -
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11 votes -
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10 votes -
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5 votes -
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6 votes -
How hard is it really to create your own video game?
I kind of want to start this discussion because something I’ve always wanted to do is make a video game, even if it’s just a small indie platformer. I’ve even gone so far as to plan out an entire...
I kind of want to start this discussion because something I’ve always wanted to do is make a video game, even if it’s just a small indie platformer. I’ve even gone so far as to plan out an entire game universe timeline with fleshed out characters and factions, but I have no point of reference on where to start. So, how do you start this process and where are some resources to learn?
19 votes -
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4 votes -
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9 votes -
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12 votes -
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6 votes -
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5 votes -
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1 vote -
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3 votes -
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4 votes -
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5 votes -
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4 votes -
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4 votes -
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7 votes -
Evennia, a Python MUD/MU* creation system
4 votes -
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7 votes -
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6 votes -
Open source is democratizing video game development
9 votes -
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7 votes -
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7 votes -
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11 votes -
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6 votes -
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9 votes -
Rockstar Games issue message regarding recent leak
@Rockstar Games: A Message from Rockstar Games pic.twitter.com/T4Wztu8RW8
7 votes -
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10 votes -
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6 votes -
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5 votes -
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8 votes -
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9 votes -
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7 votes -
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7 votes -
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3 votes -
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7 votes -
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8 votes -
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3 votes -
Are great games being ignored? An investigation
6 votes -
Bloodborne PSX: Recreating Bloodborne as a PlayStation One game
4 votes -
Platformer Toolkit
3 votes -
Foone reverse engineering SkiFree, one function at a time
@foone: OKAY SKIFREEThis is a game originally from 1991, developed by Chris Pirih, and included on one of the Windows Entertainment Packs. There's a modern 32bit version by the original developer, on the official site:https://t.co/Yoj7PDmkcV pic.twitter.com/ETQa1wdqqR
8 votes -
JavaScript physics engine for the absolute beginner
1 vote -
I need help with gender options in my game
I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I...
I'm making a video game, which is sort of a mixture of a puzzle game and interactive fiction. I'm a little uncertain about some name and pronoun choices that I currently offer to the player and I thought that you guys might be able to help me.
The game is in English. At the beginning of the game, the player chooses the main character's name and pronoun. This is presented through two screens that offer the choices through textual narrative. It goes something like this, with [brackets] marking the options that the player can currently choose between.
This is the story of...
[...Alice Aster.]
[...Alan Aster.]
[...Al Aster.]
It is...
[...her story.]
[...his story.]
[...their story.]
Detached from the wider narrative context, this method may seem clunky, but I believe it works within the game itself. Mechanically, that is. I'm less sure about the options that I'm offering.
The player can choose any of the three options in the first screen and again any in the second, regardless of what they chose in the first. This affects the player character's name and pronouns used throughout the game.
Now, there clearly are also many other pronouns that people identify with in English, just like there are many other names. However, for technical and design reasons, it would be challenging for me to have the player freely type in their preferred name or pronouns, and neither can I really present a long list of options. At the same time, by condensing all non-binary choices into the most common (?) "their" and by assuming that "her" also equates to "she" and so on, I wonder if I end up coming across as someone who thinks they are on top of things, but clearly has only a very superficial understanding of the topic. Which, to be honest, might not be that far from the truth.
Similarly, of the three names offered, "Al" is intended as a more gender-neutral or non-binary option than the other two. Does that make sense? Would there be a better way to handle this? Are there names that better signal non-binary or gender-neutral identity?
Or am I simply approaching this wrong?
The game itself does not deal with gender identity. As you can see, I'm not the right person to write about the topic. The choice of gender in fact has relatively little effect on the story itself. The player also has no choice over other matters of identity, including their character's cultural background or family structure. The character is not intended to be the player, but someone whose story the player follows. But it still feels important for me and for the story to offer a choice about the name and the pronoun. And I wouldn't be comfortable with it being just a "traditional" choice between male and female, as it would quite explicitly imply and reinforce assumptions about the world that I think we should move away from as a society.
Not that my game is of course going to change the world in any meaningful way. But having worked on it for about six years now, it has been one long personal learning experience for me. And this feels like another opportunity to understand something better.
Thanks in advance for any thoughts and advice.
14 votes -
Allegations of sexism, bullying, and burnout: Inside the Microsoft studio behind State Of Decay 3
4 votes -
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8 votes -
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6 votes -
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6 votes -
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9 votes -
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6 votes -
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6 votes -
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13 votes -
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11 votes -
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3 votes -
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6 votes -
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6 votes -
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6 votes -
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11 votes -
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14 votes -
Bobby Kotick actually wrote Fran Townsend's deranged, company-wide email
17 votes -
Activision CEO Bobby Kotick knew for years about sexual-misconduct allegations at videogame giant
10 votes -
How videogames make the ultimate sacrifice
3 votes -
The Legend of Bounce Back - My playable tribute to thirty-five years of Zelda
13 votes -
The animation of Final Fantasy II
2 votes -
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12 votes -
Announcing LittleJS - The tiny JavaScript game engine that can
10 votes -
The importance of button prompts
3 votes -
Why you didn't get lost in Metroid Dread
8 votes -
The anatomy of Portal - How Portal's puzzles trick you into being smart
5 votes -
Despite having just 5.8% sales, over 38% of bug reports for the game "ΔV: Rings of Saturn" come from the Linux community
32 votes -
Texture Archaeology, Cobblestone, and the most overused texture from the 90s
5 votes -
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11 votes -
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8 votes -
Konami is inviting indie developers to make new games based on some of its classic series
10 votes -
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14 votes -
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4 votes -
The animation of Final Fantasy I
7 votes -
How Arkane Studios designed Prey
9 votes -
Hyperbolica devlog #6: Pushing Unity to its limits
5 votes -
Crash Bandicoot dev on optimizing for the PlayStation | War Stories
12 votes -
Turns out the hardest part of making a game is...everything
8 votes -
Curt Schilling’s failed game studio finally sends last paychecks
7 votes -
Blizzard turned game developers into rock stars. Misbehavior followed
11 votes -
How the founder’s toxic culture tore apart Fullbright, the studio behind Gone Home
11 votes -
Activision Blizzard employees are walking out in protest
16 votes -
Inside Blizzard developers’ infamous Bill ‘Cosby Suite’
15 votes -
History of game jams
4 votes -
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6 votes -
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36 votes -
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9 votes -
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7 votes -
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8 votes -
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3 votes -
Why Wildermyth's best story wasn't written by anyone
5 votes -
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7 votes