It's only Tuesday

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j602dnIo_F8
#Music@GameDEV

It's possible to make it somewhat good. First, the original image has to be sharp and clean. Lower the filmic grain to the very minimum too.

Then apply the filter mostly to the corners with gradient falloff. Then also set it lower on dark areas. It will leave the effect on bright peripheral areas, which is exactly where it appears on real lenses. With this approach even fairly big values will cause no discomfort for players.

For example, No Man's Sky uses this pattern and people often miss that it has the highest aberration value in history of gaming.

Road to Vostok got over 500 reviews in a few hours and landed at 82% positive reviews on Steam. The number of reviews suggests that he already sold over 15000 copies, probably up to 20000.

Which after all taxes and fees is over $70K in his pocket (most likely more, up to ~$120K).

Not bad for a solo developer but also not the highest conversion rate (he has a lot of followers on social media).

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1963610/Road_to_Vostok/
#IndieGames@GameDEV
#FPS@GameDEV
#GodotEngine@GameDEV

If you're waiting for Pragmata, go watch The Creator: a mysterious AI creature emerged in Asia after years of war. But they send the wrong person to kill it.

A visual masterpiece with dumb writing. Still an absolute marvel to watch as a movie.

To make it look real and immersive the director of Rogue One decided to film the whole movie on a consumer grade Sony Camera. And oh, it worked out!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6117bR0-MJg
#Movies@GameDEV

Sony FX3 to be more specific and they were still approved for IMAX with $4000 camera.

LOL (I live here)

#meme@GameDEV

This is Forza Horizon 6 map and IMO: it's tiny! We're living in 2026 when maps can be much bigger and it's beneficial for driving and sightseeing.

Lego City Undercover has bigger map, folks. This has to be a joke...

- Roads are not long enough to drive anything even remotely fast

- The only big "city" is ridiculously small, so no city racing either

- Only one biome, so no desert and barely any icy terrain

This will be a problem since the game will not be able to bring unique experience.

#Racing@GameDEV
#SimRace@GameDEV
#LevelDesing@GameDEV

Facts

#OffTopic@GameDEV
#meme@GameDEV

It's such a rare occasion when media and gamers agreed on something: Samson is 50% positive game that looks and feels like DLSS5!

- The performance is horrible
- MindsEye 2.0 (slightly better)

At least it's cheap, IDK

They left Avalanche (Just Cause, Mad Max, RAGE 2) in 2020, made a new studio in 2021, but had to shrink down in 2023 due to industry changes. They've had a bigger game in mind but lost too much to make it. So, we are playing in what's left of it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3634520/Samson/#app_reviews_hash

For some reason I have never played Torchlight II long enough, but since some other diabloids clicked, I gave it another chance and oh boi — good stuff. A 2012 game that feels perfect even now.

Yes, there are two newer games but they are both mediocre at best and made by completely different teams, so.

Get Torchlight II on sale (or maybe you have it for ages the same as I did) and give it a go.