kalbfled

It seems to me that code gets ugly because the incentive structure rewards coders with a large feature velocity. If they write garbage that mostly works but will be very hard to maintain or expand, they can write on their resumes that they delivered the features and use that as a basis for a new, higher paying job.

This is my first indie game, which I made in reaction to the pandemic. I'm not aware of any bugs, but I know the game play still needs some work to make the game more compelling. Please share any suggestions you have!

The game doesn't require any permissions or collect any data.

The demo is now available for Android devices too: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.buildtheoa...

You have made the standard comment that tells me I need a better video explanation. The primary goal is to decide what geometry to send right now, which is a different question than, "What optimization techniques can I use to cull geometry to speed up drawing a frame?"

Plenty of games already delivery content over the internet--think Minecraft--but they're loading entire areas in bulk. I'm trying to sent only what is visible right now, just-in-time.

I'm going to develop an Android client for the same scene next. I hope that will make the use case more obvious.

This is pretty cool. I sent the link to a professional author friend with a dated website.

Please try the "New Proof of Concept," and let me know what you think. The source code is available for the "Old Proof of Concept."

The demo intends to showcase the "visibility precomputation" concept. I realize that the geometry in the scene looks dated--like N64, according to my girlfriend--and I might get around to something with a higher polygon count. I'm starting simple!

The article seems laden with strawman arguments. A lot of FOSS software is exceptional, and it isn't made by Google, et. all. For examples: Ubuntu, Blender 3D, etc.

(I realize that Ubuntu includes binary blobs, and Blender gets money from Google sometimes via Summer of Code. I don't think those facts invalidate my point.)

I created a video and proof-of-concept demo of "visibility precomputation." The goal is to determine what geometry, in a 3D world, is visible from a given volume. If you know the answer, you can deliver the world as streaming geometry, which is much lower bandwidth than streaming video, and it doesn't require users to pre-download the world (i.e. no expansion packs).

The company was not profitable, and I decided not to exercise my options. It was an eye opening experience when I started trying to look at the company objectively without the startup Kool-Aid flying around.

I get the impression that it is indeed all a very vicious game. Since I left, the remaining co-founder has been pushed out.

That's a fair comment, but I'm certain I don't possess Lebron-like ability when it comes to equity analysis. For me, the moral of the story is that people should go to the source material--contracts, laws, etc.--rather than operate on tribal knowledge. I'm sure some people would find this service useful, but will it be enough to sustain a business? Time will tell.

This pitch reminds me of those commercials for weed whackers where people are shown acting like replacing the string is on the level of rocket science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p22T3ZypQtA

After I left my last job, I had 3 months to decide if I wanted to exercise my options. I looked at the company's financial statements, compared them to publicly traded competitors, and made my decision. If I needed tax information, I would have gone to the IRS website and called them if necessary. (In my experience, they try to be helpful despite the hate they receive.)

I wish you guys the best of luck, but ultimately your revenue model seems predicated on the same strategy as the rest of the financial industry--presenting a good marketing story to attract other people's money. Nobody has a crystal ball.

How would you implement a vast, unbounded virtual world, like the Oasis in "Ready Player One"?

More info: https://github.com/kalbfled/jit-geometry

If you know anybody who works in the gaming industry, please share this with them!

If I ever resume working on the project, creating a visual editor would be a priority. I have an open "issue" on my Github repo to do that. My inspiration is the Glade GUI editor for Gnome. The visual editor would output the XML file my point-and-click engine uses to define a game.

As in life, where you start matters. To see the results of the simulation in tabular and graphical format, open simulation_results.ods.

Hi, all. Thanks for the upvotes. This little demo is something I created in 2015 because my then-girlfriend liked to play point-and-click games, and she had an idea for one. The idea never got off the ground, but at least I got a fun portfolio piece out of it.

Were you able to get it to work? (I'm the developer of the demo.)