Take-Two posted a legally-required notice that it is laying off 70 workers and closing a studio in Seattle. This is part of mass layoffs announced across Take-Two. This has also been mentioned by Games Industry.biz, although without much more details than what I have here (at time of writing).

The only Take-Two studio in Seattle is Intercept Games, who have been making Kerbal Space Program 2. We also know that Intercept had about 65-70 people working there (half of which were on KSP2, half of which were on an unannounced project).

Various KSP2 devs have also posted on social media that they have been impacted by layoffs (not sure about the rules re: linking social media profiles, so I'll hold off).

We may or may not have more news in the coming days. It's hard times in the industry right now, and my heart goes out for everyone affected.

EDIT: From Game Developer:

When approached for comment by Game Developer, Take-Two wouldn't confirm whether Intercept Games has been impacted by the cuts–despite multiple Kerbal Space Program developers indicating they recently left the studio, with one expressly stating they were "laid off." A company spokesperson did, however, explain that its Private Division publishing label will continue to support Kerbal Space Program 2.

...

When pushed again on the current status of Intercept Games, Take-Two told Game Developer it has "nothing further to note."

Sorry if this is not the right place to post this.

I'm interested in a book about game development for the creation of world's, topics I'd like to see covered are:

• L-System
• Scene generator
• Fractal landscape

Is anyone aware of any material that may help me learn about the implementation of said topics. They don't need to be fully automated like a scene generator. Understanding immersion would also be important.

And perhaps while I'm at it if you have any favourite game development books I'd love to know them.

So a recurring thing that's come up when discussing ideas for games with friends, or just thinking about ideas: what are the most absolutely essential graphical assets for building a world?

Obviously, the answer will vary heavily for each game, but for some types of settings, the basic "starter set" is pretty universal. For example, nearly all house interiors will have a bed, at least one type of table (almost always dining), and at least one type of chair that goes with the table. After those crucial basics usually they'll also have some sort of shelf, a dresser, and kitchen counters and a fridge. Outdoor tilesets in 2D pixel art games typically need grass or other ground tiles, path tiles, water tiles, at least one type of tree, and at least one type of rock. From that point, you can expand to include things like fences, buildings, benches, lampposts, etc.

Trying to figure out a full list of assets needed for any game can be daunting, so I figure I'd ask for input on what you consider the most vital for various types of settings. Starting with the absolute barest necessities for building a basic map (so you can at least plot basic layouts and try to get a sense of the art direction), followed by the most commonly featured items. Could be for individual rooms, specific buildings (like gas stations or restaurants), or specific types of areas (jungles, farms, beaches, etc.).

Side-note: yes, I know you can use placeholder assets. But it's also helpful to just have a general list of what basic items are needed for reference.

(I already wrote this once, but my phone didn't like it and randomly deleted the whole thing... ◕∩◕ )

I've been wanting to develop some games for a while now, and I have an overarching theme idea in mind. I couldn't decide on top down pixelated game or 3D style, because it's more of a visual story kind of game, where you explore, build a base (or several), meet and talk to NPCs, learn the story, etc. I want a lot of detail but I only have (minimal) experience with pixelated games. So naturally, 3D sounds better for a higher detailed, and maybe stylized environment.

I don't know much at all about code ( for example, I had to look up how to format this post). I don't even know what languages there are other than Java. I make resourcepacks for Minecraft, but that's minimal coding for the .mcmeta file. I do also make fabric mods for it, but I use MCreator for those, which I'm sure is like training wheels for coding.

I have the skills for graphics for both characters/environments and GUI/HUD elements. I have an idea for my story, and a few ideas for characters. What I know I don't have is experience in balancing things like economies, rpg skills, fighting, and weapons/armor and their upgrades. But I'm not really planning on implementing those, at least not right now. (The economy would be first if I did)

I recently saw a video on youtube showcasing Unity Engine's nanite environments, and basically, I want in on that. They're gorgeous.

The Questions

So my 8 questions are, on a scale of one to ten (ten being basically impossible for one single person to do), how difficult would it be to make these elements in a singleplayer, 3D game for someone without experience (like me):

1. Sky, ground, objects (like trees, flowers, rocks, etc) and other environment visuals' 3D models for exploration? I need to be able to walk on it, and maybe hit things like trees for lumber.

2. Base building and gathering the materials to build? This comes with the inventory issue as well (looking at you, Minecraft), which I'm still trying to figure out how I want to do this.

3. Crafting said gathered materials for building elements and items to gift to NPCs? This will need GUI and workbench, most likely.

4. Collectibles? Think koroks from BoTW or the museum artifacts in Stardew Valley. I'd like for the player to be able to display these only in/on a shelf/table/glass case inside their base(s).

5. NPCs with many hours worth of randomized dialogue interaction, gifts to and from NPCs, as well as a few friendship levels and unlockable interactions/gifts?

6. What would the time frame look like for me to learn Unity's Engine for these elements, or is there a better engine I should be aware of?

7. What materials might you guess that I'd need to spend money on to make this game? I already have: a Mac, the Adobe Suite, a drawing tablet, all the time in the world, and ideas. Would I need a license for anything?

8. What have I overlooked? 3D modeling (and not just blocky models in blockbench) is a skill I realized I'd need to learn just as I was writing this post.

The reason I'm asking so many questions is because I can't tell if trying this will be worth my time or not, and if I could afford to hire someone for parts of it, if need be. I have ADHD, so I'm wondering if this is just the "new shiny thing" that has caught my eye (probably is). I don't want to dive into a major learning session and project development if it ultimately won't go anywhere because it's too hard for my smooth brain.

Then again, I see some games (what I would consider low quality) that I'm like, "man, I could've done that, that looks so simple and easy!" So basically I have no idea whether I'm near the peak of Mt Stupid on the Dunning-Kreuger graph, or if I'm past it and somewhere in the valley.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Also, feel free to talk to me like I'm a dumb 5 year old.

Well, a few minutes ago I finally pushed the button, the game is released. So I wanted to write a short write up of some things that I had to do to release the game. I won't really talk about making the game itself too much, more about the part of actually releasing the game, if you are interested in more of that you can see my posts from Timasomo (1, 2, 3, 4, showcase).

Steam

I have already created many games in the past, I've been making games for more than 5 years, but always as a hobbyist. So I never experienced releasing a game on a platform like Steam. I have to say working with Steam and Steamworks is very pleasant and streamlined, but it is still much more complex than for example releasing a game on itch.io, which is what I did before for all my other games. I'll try to summarize how the process looks like.

First, before you can even get on Steam, you have to register, fill out a ton of paperwork, wait some time for it to be manually approved. Afterwards, you have to pay the 100 dollars for Steam Direct. At this point you finally get a Steam app id, which you can use to start integrating Steam features into your game. For example, having achievements, Steam cloud integration (so the saves get synced between devices), leaderboards and potentially more, especially if you are making a multiplayer game. To make my game I am using Godot, and I found a C# library called Facepunch.Steamworks which made this all quite easy, I'd definitely recommend it if you are using Unity or Godot with C# and want to release your game on Steam.

Before releasing a game on Steam you also have to finish everything on a gigantic checklist, including things like: uploading 10 various header, capsule and other images which are used on the store page and Steam library. An icon for the game. What are the minimum requirements required to run the game, whether the game has adult content, whether it supports controllers, how much the game will cost, screenshots, a trailer, there are just so many things to do! And when you complete parts of this checklist you have to have your game go through manual reviews. Each review could take about 3 days to get done. I failed one review first so I had to resubmit it too and wait again. Let me tell you, if you plan to release a game on Steam, reserve at least a month to do it, and start going through the reviews as soon as possible -- actually I think there even is a minimum of a month before you can release the game from the day you get an app id.

Trailer

Creating a good trailer is super hard. I am not a video creator/editor at all, but luckily I at least own a solid program for creating videos -- Vegas 14 pro, that I got for super cheap in some Humble bundle about 8 or something years ago, so I at least had a good start there. I ended up with not that complex of a project and Vegas still kept crashing when rendering, so I am not sure if I'd recommend it though.

The hardest thing for a trailer is deciding what to put in it for me. I know that a trailer should be super short, should showcase how the gameplay looks, what are the features and so on, but when I got to actually making it, it was still super hard to decide what to put there. How do I even start? I watched a ton of other indie game trailers to get some inspiration and that also didn't help that much. There are some trailers which are really just gameplay, some trailers which are actually just incredible with editing I could never do as a pleb... So I started with something that I know a bit more. I created a very short music track, and decided that I will just edit the trailer to fit the music.

The music track basically splits the trailer into 4/5 very short sections:

• Basic gameplay, how the game looks when you start playing it
• Explaining the roguelite part of the game, selecting spells and items
• More complex gameplay, how some combinations of spells and items can look later in a run
• List of features
• Special bonus ending section showing a "Legendary" spell, which should show how insane spells can get, followed by the logo of the game

I think the trailer ended up being not too bad, but I still had some feedback that it isn't flashy enough. And it's true, but I am not really sure how to improve it easily. When watching the Vampire Survivors trailer for example I can see that they did a much better job: it's so much more dynamic, the music really pumps you up, it's overall better edited, it has cool transitions, camera movement and so on.

End

Releasing a game on Steam was a great experience. I learned so much! I basically made this game over weekends and evenings, since I also have a job. To try maintain my productivity I tried to do at least some work on the game every single day. I have to say that towards the end I started losing some steam (haha), some days scrambling to do at least something late in the evening before I went to sleep. But, if at least someone plays the game I think I want to keep updating it more, I still do really like the game!

Thanks for reading! Feel free to ask me anything about the game, or the game dev process, or about anything basically haha.

Here's the Steam store page, the game costs 5 dollars, I'd love it if you checked it out. If you want to play the game but can't afford it PM me and I'll send you a key for the game (at least once I get the keys I requested -- did you know that Steam has to approve the creation of keys manually? Edit: the keys are now ready)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2682910/The_Spellswapper/