Every drop of water in my new game is simulated. I made a video about how it works. (Interesting for gamedevs & simulation fans) www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_I9...

I Simulated Every Drop of Water in My Game

YouTube video by Obbe Vermeij

youtube.com

This is my very first 'developer plays' video for Plentiful. Apparently that's how you market games these days. It has "Geek Builds World To Be Happy In" vibes but anyway... Hope you like the game. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pOVJ...

Developer Plays Plentiful — Nature Sandbox & Water Simulation

YouTube video by Obbe Vermeij

youtube.com

You could do worse than giving the 'Plentiful' demo a shot this weekend. It's like a 90s god game but with modern world building, dynamic water & visuals. Demo & wishlist on steam: store.steampowered.com/app/3044790/... #Indiegame #Indiedev #godgame

GTA1 and 2 had LAN multiplayer. To save bandwidth, they only sent keypresses between machines — assuming the game state was 100% deterministic. That meant every game had to run in perfect sync, at the framerate of the slowest PC.

Hey #PitchYaGame, Plentiful is a wholesome nature sim. - Shape the landscape by stacking stones. - Capture water in lakes and ponds. - Grow fruit and vegetables to feed your people. - Chill

The other massive trailer released today.

17 years ago, on April 29th 2008 we released Grand Theft Auto IV. On order to focus on making the game truly next-gen, we dropped a ton of game features from San Andreas. Stats (fitness, weight), Multiple cities, Stealth, Underwater swimming, Jet packs, Tanks, Bicycles, Monster trucks, Car modding

In gta3, traffic lights cycle through 3 states: North/South East/West Pedestrians The traffic light’s model orientation determines its cycle, and at startup, my code stored the cycle in the road nodes. This is why, even if the light was knocked over, cars still obeyed the light.

When working on the train in gta3 I found riding it boring. I considered letting the player jump ahead to the next station but this would cause streaming issues. Instead, I made the camera switch between random viewpoints near the track. This made the ride more interesting.

The Steam demo of my world crafter is now live. Plentiful v21 introduces: Volcanos, Lightning, Fire and Locusts store.steampowered.com/app/3044790/... A follow to anyone who kills the spiders on the 'Islands' level.

A new video is now live! Ever wonder why vehicles in San Andreas can't reach their top speed in certain areas? Let's take a look! (Sorry @obbevermeij.bsky.social, I believe I said your name wrong in this one 😅) youtu.be/vp9WlW9reG4?...

The Hidden Speed Limits of GTA San Andreas

YouTube video by TJGM

youtu.be

The cheats in gta3 (and Vice and SA) on pc were activated by typing a sequence of characters. Ie: ILOVESCOTLAND to make it rain or GUNSGUNSGUNS to give the player loads of weapons.

The streets of gta3 looked too clean so I added litter. It is a single rectangle that occasionally moves with the wind. It can also be dragged along by passing cars. The artists created 4 textures for it. 2 newspapers and 2 leaves.

In GTA San Andreas, small planes are periodically created near the player to perform a fly-by. Sometimes they crash. Before creating the plane, my code looks for obstacles in its path.

For gta3, Vice and SA; Memory on the ps2 was tight. We had to limit the number of used vehicle models to 8. My code would occasionally pick a car model to be phased out. Once there were none left on the map, this model would be removed and a new model could be loaded.

#GTA test and an early GTA Master. The master isn’t much different, but the test has several bugs still needing fixed.

There was no way we could fit the whole map of gta3 in PS2 memory. Streaming involves loading models from the DVD as the player moves around. This was the hardest technical challenge during the development of gta3 and was coded by Adam Fowler.

As the player moves around, cars are constantly created and deleted to give the appearance of a busy city. For gta3, Vice & SA, my code places cars at about 70m from the player if they would be in view of the camera. They get removed at around 90m.

The artists gave me a texture for the moon in gta3. I placed the moon in the sky, made sure it was visible at night and that it was a reasonable size. A few days later 4 artists were at my desk asking me to change the size of the moon. "No problem" I said.

Came across this rare photograph of the dev team behind gta3. This would have been taken in 2000/2001 in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland.