Now that 0.19 is in testing on a couple of servers we're faced with the reality that Liftoff is probably not going to be functional for much longer. So I'm curious what everyone's got planned.

Personally I've got my eye on !raccoonforlemmy@lemmy.world which is currently under development but looks like it might be the closest to my ideal. Developer describes it thusly:

I liked the feature richness of Liftoff (e.g. the possibility to explore all the communities of an external instance), the multi-community feature of Summit and the polished UI of Thunder and I wished I could have them all in the same app.

It's currently very promising, but also very buggy so I'm hopeful it might be in a more usable state by the time 0.19 starts majorly rolling out. We shall see. The dev put out a call for testers a couple days ago but I'm sure more wouldn't hurt if anyone wants to give it a whirl.

I've tried most of the main Android options by this point, Summit gets the most use just because of multi-communities (great for sports and other happening-right-now events) but I'm really not a fan of its interface.

Boost looks nice and simple, but I find a lot of the features to be just straight-up broken.

Sync and Eternity both put me off with their looks even though they look totally different to each other!

Connect would probably be my second choice so far, but I'd still need to keep Summit around for the multi-communities which is a bit annoying.

That's about the extent of my investigations at this point. Would love to hear which you've tried and what you like / dislike from the point of view of a Liftoff user. Let's get some recommendations ironed out before everything breaks and this group is overrun with people asking why 😅

Could be outstanding, could be something you've already completed.

I like to break my goals down into a sort of ladder with the eventual goal at the top, but smaller achievements on the way. So to that end my bucket list includes such gems as:

• Go out for a meal alone
• Buy a fancy ice lolly without feeling guilty about it
• Climb up the nearby hill without stopping for a break
• Reach out to for a catchup
• Finish reading the whole Discworld book series (I never did read the last one, iykyk)

Plus switching from the subscription model to a one-time fee for commercial PC-only license. Nice.

I enjoyed this part of the announcement:

We have seen other platforms making awkward moves with their pricing and terms, so we thought, what if we did the opposite

I wonder who they could possibly be referencing 🤔

Usually coats $19.95.

I slept for most of this offer apparently but it's still available for nine and a half hours as of time of posting! You can claim it with your Itch account then download it later.

As the man himself says, "Get all my game assets in a single bundle, great for learning new engines 👀"

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1915905

OP posted their unpopular opinion that game devs shouldn't be using their development time on making games accessible for people with disabilities.

But check out the top comments, which have turned into basically a handy checklist of all the simple accessibility features we can easily add to our games!

Thanks, OP 😄

Sorry in advance

Since Lemmy is a terrible influence, I’ve been convinced to give RSS another go as a means to get at the ~~news that interests me~~ interesting stuff that I’d otherwise miss. It’s actually working surprisingly well, so I thought I’d share some gamedev-specific resources that I’ve subscribed to so far.

My current approach for the feed is to subscribe to basically anything that looks interesting, then prune it later if it turns out to be no good or be too spammy. So I’d very much appreciate suggestions of blogs, magazines, video channels, podcasts, whatever is RSS-able!

READING MATERIAL

Magazines

• MCV / Develop Magazine - News, interviews etc from around the UK gaming industry
• Game Developer (née Gamasutra) - Lots of interesting news and articles among the nonsense here but I can’t find a way to sub to only certain categories, so may be too spammy. We’ll see.

Blogs

• LOSTGARDEN - Self-described as “a rare treasure trove of readable, thoughtful essays on game design theory, art and the business of design” and it’s not wrong
• Keith Burgun Games - Basically a personal blog that includes devlog updates, general musings on gamedev, and a podcast
• Blobs in Games - Technical articles that mostly go over my head but are interesting to read through anyway to see what sort of thing actual smart people get up to
• Brandon Cole - Game reviews and other articles from the perspective of a blind gamer who works as an accessibility consultant. Really interesting read, and audio versions of posts are included.

WATCHING & LISTENING

Podcasts

I don’t really do podcasts but would like to get into them more, so any recommendations for this section very welcome!

• The Clockwork Game Design Podcast / Strategy Can Be Fun - By Keith Burgun who I mentioned above already, a combo of discussions and interviews around game design
• Building The Game - “the ins and outs and ups and downs of being game designers in a documentary style”
• Deep Listens - Subbed to this because it described itself as taking deeper dives into what makes games great, but haven’t listened yet so we’ll see
• The Game Dev Advice Podcast - Basically what it says on the tin

Videos

Did you know you can still subscribe to YouTube channels via RSS? This should help with the problem of YT trying to decide what we actually want to see, versus what we’ve literally told it we want to see. So far I’ve RSS-followed:

• GDC - An excellent resource that you all no doubt already know about
• Going Indie - Video essay type content on the business side of games, from a guy who started his own indie studio
• Ask Gamedev - Despite the name this is more of a showcase channel for indie / solo games, but it’s fun for a bit of occasional inspiration
• Grant Abbitt - Actually a 3d modelling channel focusing on Blender but the way he explains things has been invaluable for me and my game

Plus a couple of devlog channels by members of this community that I’d like to make sure I don’t miss:

• QueenOfSquiggles - Making a magical farming sim inspired by Slime Rancher (shoutout @QueenOfSquiggles@lemmy.one )
• JulianH - Making a story-based game about the very far future, with some definite Outer Wilds vibes (shoutout @julianh@lemm.ee )

If any of you reading this have your own devlog channel, please share, I’d love to check it out too!

—

For anyone thinking of joining the RSS revolution, I’m trying out Inoreader which I’d seen recommended a fair bit around Lemmy. Not too sold on it yet, but the free plan is a decent enough start.

interesting stuff that I’d otherwise miss

Saw the author tooting about this project on Mastodon and I wanted to share it with everyone here.

We’ve all been there. You get to the end of a game jam and realise you need to set up an Itch page asap, or you’re wrapping up a long term project and you’re too burnt out to have the energy to even think.

This is a template pack that aims to take that pesky thinking out of the process. Just follow the template dimensions for the various images on your Itch page, and that’s one less thing to worry about and one more thing helping you stand out from all those unloved pages out there.

Find the download at: https://jannikboysen.itch.io/easy-releasy

TL;DR New moderator, so please do report any problematic posts or comments. What sort of content would you like to see here? Post-mortems? AMAs? And a reminder that we allow self-promo here but only if it adds value from a gamedev perspective.

—

Hi all! You might have seen my name around in the community. I’ve been here since before the Reddit blackouts, which I guess makes me some kind of ancient lemming-witch, and spent the last few weeks trying to kick off discussion threads and shilling our community at every opportunity which is probably how some of you made your way here in the first place.

I’ve recently been appointed as community mod by an instance admin (thank you Ada <3), due to our lead (and only other) mod currently being inactive.

Firstly, please know this isn’t a grab for power, it just makes sense to have someone able to deal with reports and enforce the existing rules already put in place by our lead mod until they hopefully return. I’ll do my best to steer the ship until that happens, but would love to get your feedback on direction.

—

As we’re a relatively new community on a relatively new site, obviously we don’t have a huge amount of valuable content here. YET. I’ve been chatting to some friends on other platforms about potentially making long form, in-depth posts here about their experiences to serve as interesting, educational reads as well as pillar content for the community.

Gamers with specific accessibility requirements, senior AAA developers, solo indie devs who have successfully acquired project funding or navigated their way through Next Fest, employers who can talk about how to get hired, that sort of thing.

We could potentially even go in the direction of AMA style threads rather than essays and make an event out of it, if that’s something the community would be more interested in?

Any suggestions for the sort of thing you’d like to see are very welcome, and I’ll do what I can to make it happen! Personally I’m coming at the gamedev topic from the perspective of a hobbyist solo developer, but I know we have a diverse group here who will most likely want to see different things, so this is your chance to be heard.

—

Lastly I just wanted to touch on the existing rule around self-promo, as I know many people are using mobile apps that don’t show the sidebar info and may be unaware.

Self-promotion is WELCOME in this community. But with a caveat: it must come with added value for our members. I’ll quote the sidebar here, written by our glorious leader:

Self-promotion is fine as long as you do it from a gamedev perspective - share your progress, insights, techniques and mishaps! If you recently posted, update the previous post instead of filling the frontpage with your project

So you want to drop a link to your devlog? Sure! Do it as part of a post discussing the stuff you learned recently during the development process and how we can avoid making the same mistakes you did.

Looking for trailer feedback? Sure! Tell us all about the research you’ve done so far and how you used what you learned to structure what you’re showing us. What do you think worked and what didn’t?

Want an excuse to give us your Steam wishlist link? Sure! But do it as part of a post-mortem post of some kind, a brief guide on how you approached making an unusual mechanic, or even a meta-discussion on what you’ve learned about encouraging more wishlists…

…you get the idea.

If promo posts start to significantly overshadow more discussion-focused posts we may eventually revisit this rule, but as a probably temporary guardian of the space it would be weird of me to come in and immediately make changes like that, so here we are.

Thanks for reading my wall of text and I hope you all have a great day!

When this community was brand new I got to talking with a few people who fancy the idea of taking part in a game jam, but are too nervous. Whether because they’d never done one before, or at least not in a while, or just a general lack of confidence in their ability to “keep up” with more experienced devs.

Well, I’ve taken part in a lot of jams over the last few years. Some of them successfully completed, some of them utter failures, one of them somehow both. And the two jams that I can personally recommend for beginners or nervous folks, both just happen to be on their way. So I thought I’d share!

My First Game Jam

• Dates: July 22nd - August 6th (14 days)
• Itch: https://itch.io/jam/my-first-game-jam-summer-2023
• Discord: https://discord.gg/8p8KtKtDvQ

Why this jam is great:

This was in fact my first ever game jam, back in 2020, and it was a great experience. The community is helpful and welcoming to everyone regardless of experience level, with more experienced folks (including myself, now!), hanging around and responding to pings for help.

The jam runs for two whole weeks which is a much easier prospect for a first-timer than the typical 48-72h ones. It’s well-established, well-moderated, and quite big so if you’re looking to join a team you’ll have a solid chance.

The My First Game Jam actually runs twice per year, so if you’re still not ready to jump in you can look out for this one happening again in Winter.

Rainbow Jam

• Dates: September 8th-24th (14 days)
• Itch: https://itch.io/jam/rainbowjam23
• Discord: https://discord.gg/wyZfC9ddrv

Why this jam is great:

The Rainbow Jam is a jam for LGBT+ folk and their allies, with all the inclusivity and friendliness that suggests. It’s much smaller than My First Game Jam, but has been running for 7 years with the result that most of the regulars get to know each other from year to year. By far the nicest jam community I’ve joined, to the extent that many of us now keep in touch year-round.

As well as just being a lovely wholesome jam, which again lasts for two weeks to avoid stressful time-crunch, the organisers are also very active in finding sponsors and opportunities for under-represented devs and artists. You’ll often see job postings, talks, funding opportunities posted there that aren’t easily found otherwise.

And of course, it’s not starting until September so you have some time to build up the courage to join!

—

Personally I’m so excited for both of these, they’re by far the highlight of the game jam calendar for me. Longer jams tend to attract a more mature audience (in outlook if not in actual age) and are generally just a lot less stressful in every possible way, so they’re a fantastic place to start.

If you have any questions about either of them or about taking part in game jams in general, I’d be very happy to answer. Maybe a few of you fancy taking part and can even team up!

Or maybe you have similarly beginner-friendly jams to recommend, in which case the more the merrier. Just leave a reply with the jam details in a similar format to the above, I know I’d love to hear about them for future reference even if nobody else is interested 😄

Apologies if this is covered in a FAQ somewhere, I couldn't find anything!

If I'm part of a community here, but the sole moderator has been AWOL, is there a process for getting more mods assigned just so any issues can be dealt with until the original mod hopefully returns? I tried searching for a requests community or a support ticket email address etc and came up empty handed but I might just have missed it.

Thanks for any info.

I've been on Lemmy for 12 days apparently, feels like a lifetime! And I keep seeing posts about how it's too empty or there's no content outside of the Reddit drama or whatever.

So it got me thinking, am I just subbed to way more stuff than most? Because I go into the "all" tab maybe once a day, and keep busy in "subscribed" the rest of the time.

Here's my stats:

• 121 Lemmy communities
• 42 Kbin magazines
• 163 total

That's for this account, although I also have a second account for slightly different topics so there's probably another 20-30 or so unique subs on there.

How about you?