>the crux of the argument was to prove that making your engine wasn't as complicated as people are making it out to be.
the question posed is fine, the framing seems (potentially uninentionally) inflammatory, for a topic that is basically the gamedev equivalent of emacs vs vim. I feel like Casey should know better at this point, but maybe this was an honest blind spot. Or maybe he was intentionally invoking Cunningham (which seems unnecessary given his presence. But hey, it's effective)
>and show how long it takes me to make a 2D game engine in that same amount of time just by following HMH, but also with the ability to use existing libraries. I bet it'll be less than a week
depends on what we define as "game". I've done a fair number of game jam games in 2-3 days with a variety of technologies, from tiny 2d game frameworks to Unity. I could make something "playable" in a few days. I'm sure in a week with my experience that I could roll together something neat to show off to friends.
But I wouldn't consider any of those projects close to "shippable". And being a game dev I can talk your ear off for hours about the difference between "playable", "shippable"[0] , and "competent"[1], and the steps/polish needed for each.
To spare you that huge lecture, I'll just mention that gamedev, once you go past the "solo indie project" scale, is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between (but not limited to) programming, art, sound design, and writing. on any project past this solo indie project scale, you'll need tools to accommodate the non-technical folk, and those tools take time to develop and maintain. You can either play double duty as gameplay and tools programmer, have a dedicated tools maintaininer/go-between for the artists (because it always becomes a full-time gig), or make use of already made tools that already have these considerations in mind. In that latter case, an engine is invaluable.
[0] i.e. 99.9999% of games you'll find on steam are basically the benchmark of "shippable"... but how many of those in a random sample would you actually play for more than 5 minutes?
[1] you know, an actually good game that you'd pay money for, in an age where at least a bunch of mobile crap is free to screw around with for 5 minutes. If you're trying to make any revenue whatsoever, that's the bar being set.
the question posed is fine, the framing seems (potentially uninentionally) inflammatory, for a topic that is basically the gamedev equivalent of emacs vs vim. I feel like Casey should know better at this point, but maybe this was an honest blind spot. Or maybe he was intentionally invoking Cunningham (which seems unnecessary given his presence. But hey, it's effective)
>and show how long it takes me to make a 2D game engine in that same amount of time just by following HMH, but also with the ability to use existing libraries. I bet it'll be less than a week
depends on what we define as "game". I've done a fair number of game jam games in 2-3 days with a variety of technologies, from tiny 2d game frameworks to Unity. I could make something "playable" in a few days. I'm sure in a week with my experience that I could roll together something neat to show off to friends.
But I wouldn't consider any of those projects close to "shippable". And being a game dev I can talk your ear off for hours about the difference between "playable", "shippable"[0] , and "competent"[1], and the steps/polish needed for each.
To spare you that huge lecture, I'll just mention that gamedev, once you go past the "solo indie project" scale, is a multi-disciplinary collaboration between (but not limited to) programming, art, sound design, and writing. on any project past this solo indie project scale, you'll need tools to accommodate the non-technical folk, and those tools take time to develop and maintain. You can either play double duty as gameplay and tools programmer, have a dedicated tools maintaininer/go-between for the artists (because it always becomes a full-time gig), or make use of already made tools that already have these considerations in mind. In that latter case, an engine is invaluable.
[0] i.e. 99.9999% of games you'll find on steam are basically the benchmark of "shippable"... but how many of those in a random sample would you actually play for more than 5 minutes?
[1] you know, an actually good game that you'd pay money for, in an age where at least a bunch of mobile crap is free to screw around with for 5 minutes. If you're trying to make any revenue whatsoever, that's the bar being set.