5 Free Alternatives to Unity!

5 Free Alternatives to Unity!

After the Unity pricing fiasco of last month, a lot of Devs are still angry at Unity and have swore to switch to alternative game engines to develop their games with. In this article I am going to look deeper into five alternatives to Unity, all of which are free to get started with.

Unreal Engine

Unreal Engine 5 logo

Unreal Engine (Or just UE) is a big name in game development circles, and is probably Unity’s biggest rival. It has been used to make games like Fortnite, Batman Arkham Knight, Hollow knight and Borderlands.

As you can imagine, for a software with the scope of UE, it has a bit of a learning curve. It uses C++ to write scripts, which is not the easiest of languages to learn. But it does also have a visual scripting system called Blueprints. This allows you to create games using a more visual node based system.

Feature wise, UE is a heavy weight contender. It is packed with features like volumetric effects, Dynamic lighting, Advanced nanite landscaping system, a skeleton animation editor, and dozens of other AAA features.

It has been said that Unreal Engine isn’t particularly good for 2D projects. Whether this ever was true or not, it is certainly something that has got better with the more recent builds of UE.

There is a very active community for Unreal Engine. There are also lots of tutorials available for free on YouTube. Or, there are courses for sale on Udemy and the like.

Unreal is free to use. However, they ask for a 5% share of any income your game makes over the first $1 million dollars.

https://www.unrealengine.com/

Godot

Godot Logo

Godot is a free cross platform open source game engine.

It was initially designed by Juan Linietsky and Ariel Manzur. It was released in 2014, and runs on a variety of platforms and can compile to even more.

Godot uses Open GL as a renderer. With the latest version of Godot using Vulkan. It allows you to create 2D and 3D games using a range of different languages. As well as Godot’s own GDScript language, it allows you to use C++ and C#, or others which can be added using GDExtension.

It also has a very strong GUI system. It allows the user to easily create scalable UIs for any game or application.

Version 4.0 is the latest version of Godot. It boasts a range of new features as well as the Vulkan renderer which I mentioned earlier. It also has a handy movie maker mode you can use to record gameplay or cutscenes.

Because it is open source and free under the MIT license, Godot is free to use and will never charge you a fee for games written with it. Although there is the option to donate money on their homepage.

Like Unreal Engine, Godot has a huge community. As well as the official websites FAQ and Support stuff, the GitHub page for bug reports, there is social media channels and a discord server. Not to mention a whole load of community created user groups & free tutorials.

https://godotengine.org/

GameMaker

GameMaker Logo

GameMaker is the first one of the engines in this list which is 2D only. Despite this it’s a fairly capable cross platform engine which has created games like Hotline Miami on the Playstation.

It offers you two methods to create your game out the box. Firstly, You can code it using GML Code, a simple enough scripting language to get the hang of; Or you can use the GML Visual editor, a visual scripting method which uses action blocks to construct the game logic in an intuitive way.

It has it’s own physics system integrated into GML, and has Spine support for skeletal animations. It also supports shaders for effects and post processing.

There are an abundance of tutorials available free from the website, and on YouTube, as well as paid for courses on places like Udemy. There is a large and helpful community of developers.

Although GameMaker is free to learn and use, the only place you can publish to on the free package is the GX.games website. You need to take out a subscription before you can publish to any other platform.

FreeCreatorIndieEnterprise
GX.Games ExportGX.Games ExportGX.Games ExportGX.Games Export
Desktop ExportsDesktop ExportsDesktop Exports
Web ExportsWeb Exports
Mobile ExportsMobile Exports
Console Exports
$0.00$4.99 pcm$9.99 pcm$79.99 pcm

The above table shows which platforms you can publish to with which subscription tier. It also shows the monthly price. The annual prices are 10x the monthly price, a saving of two months subscription.

https://gamemaker.io/

GDevelop

GDevelop logo

GDevelop is another free open source game engine. It doesn’t offer console export options, unlike the previous engines in this list. It does however give the option to make 2D and 3D games.

I wasn’t sure whether to include this or not when I was originally planning this list. GDevelop comes across as more aimed at beginners, but after some research I have discovered it’s quite a capable game engine.

The editor can run on a variety of platforms, including a specific iOS/Android app. It offers codeless game creation using events and behaviours. Although users can use Javascript to create code blocks which can be used in place of events. This also allows users to enhance their games by adding additional features to engine.

Out of the box it offers the expected array of features

  • Tilemaps.
  • Physics engine.
  • Pathfinding.
  • Platformer engine.
  • Dialogue editor (Yarn Classic)
  • Leaderboards.
  • Gamepad support.
  • Particle Emitter.

Although closer examination reveals that the physics engine is 2D only, as it is based on the Box2D physics engine.

One of the most novel features of this engine is that it offers cloud based Mac and iOS compilation. Meaning you can get your game published without owning Apple hardware. However, it’s not cheap and its only available using your own certificates on the most expensive business tier. I thought it was worth mentioning anyway.

https://gdevelop.io/

Defold

Defold logo

Defold is another open source cross platform game engine, and the last of the alternatives to Unity we will look at today.

It can develop both 2D and 3D games. Although it was developed as a 3D engine, it was created with tools to allow development of 2D as well. It uses a modular, component based system of game objects.

Defold uses Lua as a scripting language. For those who don’t know, Lua is powerful and lightweight scripting language which combines simple syntax with powerful data description constructs.

It has support for 2D physics based on Box2D like GDevelop, but also supports 3D physics using Bullet.

The Editor is quite flexible, allowing for the editing of animations, scenes, UI, etc. all in Visual environment. It also boasts about its compiled games having a much smaller file size compared to Unity or Unreal.

There seems to be a reasonable sized community, with a forum on the official website, and the usual tutorials and asset packs to start developers off.

It’s been used to create games like Family Island by Melsoft, which boasts an impressive 50 million downloads on the Google Play store.

Defold is another game engine which is totally free, regardless of how well your game performs in any market.

https://defold.com/

Conclusion

There we have it. Regardless of how you feel about Unity and their new usage fees, there are plenty of alternatives to Unity. I only included a small selection in this article, and obviously there are the paid for engines like App Game Kit Studio which I am building Flappy-vaders with.

For a more Unity like toolset, then UE is the one to use but does also charge a fee if your game exceeds certain thresholds. If you are after a simpler game engine, but one that doesn’t charge a fee then one of the open source options like Godot or Defold would probably suit better.

My suggestion would be to look at each website in turn and decide which engine would best suit the game you have in mind. As each engine on this list is free, there is nothing stopping you from downloading and trying them out first.

Using AI as a Game Developer

Introduction

There has been lots of talk about AI recently. From the tinfoil hat wearing doom mongers, to those who think it marks the next age of human civilisation, and everyone in between. In fact, it’s hard to go online these days without stumbling across posts relating to AI.

With that in mind, I thought I would tell this short tale about how I used AI to help me in my work as an Indie Developer.

Flappy-Vaders

As many of you know, I am writing a game called Flappy-vaders in my free time. I share progress updates every two weeks, here on the blog.

The other day I was sat working on the game during a spare hour or two. I was trying to create some icons to represent the different daily missions. Apart from a couple of pencil sketches, I really had no clue as to what they should look like.

It’s fair to say I am a programmer, not an artist. I was having a very frustrating time trying to convert the various concepts to images. Time was ticking on, so I thought I would try see if using AI would help any.

What is ChatGPT?

I’m sure you are all aware of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. It’s a large language processing AI model, which can understand and reply to queries using human language.

It can do things like write essays or blog posts, find formulae, write poems or other creative stories, research a topic and provide a summary of the information, and even write code!

Hello ChatGPT.

I’d used ChatGPT previously for another unrelated task, so I didn’t need to create an account. I could just log into my existing one.

The above picture is the conversation I had with ChatGPT, where I explained what I needed help with. Then I narrowed down the scope of the task by asking for a specific concept.

I asked it to help me with an icon to represent distance, for the distance travelled daily mission.

ChatGPT replies more or less in real time. You can watch the text appear on screen as though it is typing to you. It didn’t take long before it had given me a list of seven ideas which all seemed to fit the requirements.

I narrowed the selection down to just two ideas, and was about to reach for my pencil again when I wondered whether AI could help any further with the task.

Bing AI Image Generator

The next AI tool I tried was the Bing AI Image Generator, which is another free to use tool.

Unlike ChatGPT, which provides you with text as an output, the AI Image Generator outputs images. So I entered the two suggestions I was considering from ChatGPT.

Suggestion 1 – A road or pathway stretching off into the distance

The first one was a road or pathway stretching off into the distance. However, I didn’t specify the size of the icons with this first prompt.

I was suitably impressed with the first round of images. particuarly the bottom left image, although the background wouldn’t translate to pixel art very well.

I tried again, using the same prompt but using the term “small icon” rather than “icon”, and after a minute or got this second batch of images.

Again the designs were quite good. The general image of the road snaking off into the distance is strong in each of them.

I’m not sure however that the curves of the sweeping road would translate very well to the 22 x 22 pixel square image I need for the UI in the game.

I decided that didn’t need to refine this design further. So I moved on to the second one of the ideas I had shortlisted from the ChatGPT output.

Suggestion 2 – Two points or pins connected with a line

Next I tried the other option which I liked from the ChatGPT output. This was “Two points or pins connected with a line between them”.

It didn’t take a terribly long time for Bing to once again supply me with four images which it had generated from the prompt I had given it.

As soon as I saw the output, I knew that this was the one which I would use in the game.

The familiarity of the Google Maps style pin clearly conveys that the icon is representing travelling between the two point. This is exactly what I needed for the “Travel n Distance” daily mission.

I still however had to try and get the image to fit into a 22 x 22 pixel square.

I opened up Paint .Net and set to work on creating the icon.

The finished icon

The finished icon is shown in the screenshot below. I don’t think I did too bad of a job making the elements of the icon recognisable at the size it needed to be.

Overall, from the time I decided to open ChatGPT to the time I closed Paint .Net and added the icons to the media folder of the game, it took about 3 hours. Most of this time was me being overly fussy about tweaking the images in the art package.

Conclusion

I am in no doubt that there is no danger of humanity being replaced by AI anytime soon. It does however make for a very valuable tool for researching a topic, or for providing inspiration for graphical design.

I didn’t use it to generate any code however. I am aware that it can write code, but it’s best to view it as pseudo code as it is quite often error filled or generally incorrect.

I really do think that using AI for the simple task described above has saved me literally hours of time sketching and scratching my head. I am definitely going to look for more ways I can use AI to streamline my game development process.

The Unity Runtime Fee Fiasco

The Unity Runtime Fiasco

Unless you live under a rock, you’ll have noticed that the Game dev world was sent into disarray when Unity announced a new pricing scheme.  I certainly couldn’t help but notice as all the Game Dev Facebook groups were full of people disowning Unity and telling the world that they are switching to Unreal Engine or Godot. Even the news had headlines about Unity’s share price plummeting.  But what was it all about?  What had Unity done?

Unity announced earlier in September that they were changing their pricing to include a per install Unity runtime fee. This greatly upset a lot of developers who were very vocal about it on social media. Unity issued an apology, and then a short time later, a statement containing a revised pricing plan as well as addressing some of the concerns users had.

What did Unity do?

On 12/9 Unity shared this post on their blog about a new Unity Runtime Fee.  It explains that Unity is made up of two parts, the editor, and the runtime component.  The runtime component is the code which runs your game on the players device.

It’s this runtime component that Unity wanted to introduce a fee for each time it was downloaded, once a game had exceeded some thresholds relating to earnings and number of downloads.

Unity stated they believed a flat fee per install was fairer than taking a percentage of revenue as other game engines do.

They did not however explain which versions of Unity run time would be affected, leaving users angry that it had been applied retroactively, possibly costing developer millions in owed fees.

Nor did they explain how data regarding the thresholds would be collected.

Public outcry

A screenshot of a social media post from Brackeys in response to the Unity Runtime fee

The news spread all across the gaming industry like wildfire. It didn’t take very long before all the social medias were alive with posts from outraged indie developers who felt betrayed by Unity.

People were upset and confused by the announcement.  Many smaller developers were worried if this would have affected them.  In many of the Game Developer groups I follow, every other post seemed to be “I am leaving Unity and moving to Godot” or “I am quitting Unity and am going to use UE from now on”.

Even Unity Celebrities like Brackeys have made posts condemning Unity for the way it’s treated its customers.

So big was the fall out from Unity’s announcement that the news spread far beyond just the gaming world.  It even affected Unity’s share price, which dropped 12% in the days following the announcement.

Unity’s reaction

It only took five hours before Unity started tweeting out in defense of its new policy.  Offering explanations and reassurances that these new changes would only affect a small minority of developers.  They answered many of peoples questions on their forum online. 

A screen shot of a tweet from Unity saying that they have heard the users and will issue an update soon

However as the onslaught continued, Unity finally tweeted that “they had heard” the voices of concern from the public.  They also said that they would share an update again the a few days.

Although this news didn’t quieten the online discontent. It did start a lot of speculation as to what Unity would do instead. Ranging from scrapping the idea of a fee altogether, to charging a 5% flat fee of the games earnings.

A change of heart

Then ten whole days after the drama started, Marc Whitten from Unity, shared an open letter to the community.

This letter started with a heart felt apology, and acceptance that they should have spoken to the community more about the changes they wanted to implement.  He explained that the new charges were to ensure that they could support users. As well as to invest in keeping Unity up to date with the latest technologies.

He went on to say he realises how important the Unity users are to the company. And that they will work hard to earn back the users trust.  The letter then goes on to describe what changes have been made in Unity’s revised plans.

How does the new Unity Runtime fee work?

Their latest update clarified that the Runtime fee will only apply to games made with the next LTS release of Unity onwards.  This is due to be released in 2024.  This addresses one of the biggest concerns of the users. That this fee would be applied retroactively to existing published games.

If a game exceeds some thresholds relating to number of downloads and income generated, the developers will be given a choice to pay either a 2.5% of revenue share, or a calculated amount depending on the number of active monthly users.  Both these values are obtained from data you provide to Unity. You will always pay the smaller of the two values.  This also addresses another large concern from developers. That Unity would be using their own analytics to provide data used to calculate the fees unity would charge.

What are the thresholds

Before you are charged the Run time fee for your game, it has to exceed two thresholds.

The first one of these thresholds is on the number of downloads the game has had.  It has to have more than 200,000 downloads since it was published.

The second one relates to the income that your game generates.  To exceed the second threshold, your game needs to have earned more than $200,000 in the last 12 months.

So, in order to be eligible for the fee, your game must exceed both these thresholds and be made with a Unity version after the next LTS version.

However, if you do exceed these thresholds, you can always upgrade to Unity Professional. This will increase the thresholds to 1,000,000 downloads and $1,000,000 respectively.

Other changes Unity have made

With the next version of the LTS Unity and the Run Time fee, Unity are also adding cloud-based asset storage, Unity DevOps tools, and AI this November.

They are also removing the requirement for games made with the free Unity accounts to show a made with Unity splash screen when loading.

This is good as they have removed the Plus level account, which had no splash screen requirement.

Resignation

Shortly after I originally published this article, John Riccitiello, the CEO of Unity has resigned from both his position as Chief Executive Officer, and the board of directors of the company.

He had joined the company back in 2013 after resigning from his position as Electronic Art’s Chief executive.

Mr Riccitiello said “It’s been a privilege to lead Unity for nearly a decade and serve our employees, customers, developers and partners, all of whom have been instrumental to the company’s growth,”.

No reason was given for his resignation.

Conclusion

Although I think that Unity really dropped the ball with their initial announcement, I think they have made a reasonable compromise and have satisfied most of their userbase with their revised plans.

Its good to see that they do listen to their users, and hopefully they have learned a valuable lesson from this fiasco.

Unity is one of the largest game creation tools, I doubt very much that it would simply disappear due to one mistake.  Far too many studios have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars into developing games with Unity for them to just switch tools mid way through a project.

I hope that my next Unity game beats both the thresholds and becomes eligible for paying the Unity Runtime Fee! Lol.

Adventures in a foreign land

Adventures in a foreign land.

Well, as I said in the previous progress update post, My Girlfriend and I were off to Majorca to go sailing on my friend’s yacht for a few days, before heading inland to a Hotel where My friend’s wedding was going to take place.

We landed Monday afternoon after a short and enjoyable plane ride, and were picked up from the airport by my friend who then drove us straight to the harbour where his boat was moored. The plan was to sail to a nearby bay and enjoy a few beers, a swim and a barbecue.

Unfortunately we’d barely managed to light the barbie before my girlfriend started to feel unwell. Initially we just put this down to a touch of sea sickness, but as it carried on into our second day there we were starting to get a little worried.

As she was feeling no better on the Wednesday we decided to take her to a nearby hospital, where they moved her to the ICU.

She was diagnosed with Diabetic ketoacidosis, and had to stay in the intensive care for five days, Missing both the wedding, and our planned return flight.

Despite the language difficulties (Neither of us actually speak any Spanish other than Hello, and Thank you) the staff at the hospital were excellent; and after her stint in the ICU and a couple of days in a normal ward she was discharged.

In the mean time, while my girlfriend was laying in hospital all hooked up to monitors and IV drips etc. I was still trying to make the most of our trip.

Wednesday and Thursday were spent on the boat. We sailed from the marina to the harbour where we had originally embarked. We had a few drinks and some of the other soon to be wedding guests came aboard. I even went for a swim in the sea!

On Friday we all went to the Finca Son Miranda Hotel, and got settled in. I cannot state how beautiful the hotel was. All the rooms were fresh and modern, but still maintained a traditional Mediterranean feel. It’s set in some gorgeous country side, surrounded by vineyards and olive trees with some great views of the nearby mountains.

The wedding itself was amazing, and everyone had a great time. It was lovely to meet the Bride’s family for the first time, and see my buddy’s family as well. (We’ve not seen anyone really the last year or so due to the Covid 19 pandemic.)

The ceremony itself took place in the afternoon among some olive trees in the hotel grounds. And was followed by a night of dancing, great food and awesome music 🙂

Sunday was a lot more laid back, lol. I spent most of the day in the shade at the bar by the pool. By this point, I’d already realised we wouldn’t be making our flight home so I arranged to share a hotel room with some of my buddy’s family until they flew home Wednesday.

The new hotel was close to the beach, and only a short walk away from Magaluf. I ended up sharing a room with my buddy’s brother, and brother in law, both of whom I already knew.

Aside from going out to eat and my daily hospital trips to visit my girlfriend we spent most of the time relaxing on the balcony, admiring the view and chatting the evening away.

On Wednesday I booked myself another hotel, and had barely got moved in and showered before my girlfriend called to tell me she had been discharged from the hospital and was ready to be picked up! I cannot explain how happy I was to hear this and I immediately rushed off to get a taxi.

That evening we had a takeaway on the balcony, and then went for a couple of drinks at JJs Sports Lounge (My favourite bar in the whole of Majorca) before having a quiet movie in bed courtesy of Netflix.

On the Thursday we were mostly rushing around trying to get tests done, and completing passenger locator forms, but we did get chance to have a meal and a few drinks with the newly weds

Then, almost as suddenly as it started, it was Friday and time to fly back home.

I’m sitting in the garden safe at home now as I write this, and I’m happy to say my girlfriend is now feeling completely better.

Our time in Majorca was certainly an adventure, with soaring highs and soul destroying lows. I’m glad we went though, and I’m looking forward to going again at some point in the future.

And there we go 🙂. This is the reason why this weeks update was a little thin on the ground! Lol!

Where we stand..

What a year it’s been!

When I was originally planning Dev with Dave, which feels like an eternity ago now, I had intended to spend many hours each week sitting in various cafes and the like round town writing Flappy-vaders and drinking tea 🙂

Little did I know that a global pandemic was round the corner and that the world would shut down for what has felt like forever. Hopefully though, come July the 19th all the remaining restrictions will be lifted and I will once again be able to go out and sit in a cafe and drink tea while I code.

The plan

As you know, I originally planned to cover “The four P’s”, those being Planning, Programing, Promotion and Publication, as well as developing Flappy-vaders alongside it.

Planning went off to a good start, as did Programming, but the game has taken a little longer to develop than I originally thought and I’m unable to do too much more on Promotion or Publication without the game having caught up.

I’m sorry the blog has been a little quiet lately. I should probably be able to come up with a few promotion blog post ideas, but I’m going to make a few videos and/or blog posts to help fill the blog a little. Things like showing how I used some of the software involved in the creation of Flappy-vaders. For example, Pixel art using Paint.net, Creating a sound effect using Audible, maybe even How to create a game trailer using OBS and HitFilm Express.

The game

So, although the game is really taking shape now, and I am really pleased with how it looks and feels, I still have quite a lot to do before it’s ready for the first beta tests.

I need to create systems to handle Adverts, Currency purchasing (using In App Purchase), Daily bonuses and missions, and the music. Not to mention media for the music, and some other game assets. And I need to work on some level design as well to expand upon the seven single “zones” the game has currently.

Then comes balancing, making sure it’s not to easy or hard to play the game, to earn coins, to unlock powerups, and that the power ups aren’t too weak or too powerful, etc. This stage is so important as it can mean the difference between a brilliant game and an average one.

Once the all the games systems are in place (even if not all of them are fully fleshed out, like trophies), the levels are more varied, and the first round of inhouse balancing has been done, then I will be starting a beta test for Flappy-vaders.

If you want to be involved in the beta testing and be one of the first people to actually play the game, the feel free to drop me a message on either Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. 🙂

The experience

I can honestly say this has been an emotional roller-coaster, from the highs of seeing how well the visuals work, or that the game is actually fun to play; to the lows of running into deadlines without having the work finished, and issues in the code which kept we at the keyboard till gone midnight some days.

I’m also hugely surprised at how much time and effort is involved in doing the behind the scenes stuff for Dev with Dave, things like writing blog posts, creating and editing videos, social media etc.

I have immensely enjoyed creating Flappy-vaders with you watching along, and I really hope you are enjoying it to!

What’s next

As I said above, I’ll carry on creating the remaining systems, expanding on the existing level design, and balancing the game a little. before releasing a build on Android to those on the Beta Test Team 🙂

Blog wise, expect a few more posts on promotion, but also keep an eye out for the “How I made” posts as well.

Also, for anyone who wants to drink tea (or coffee) out of their very own Dev with Dave mug, watch this space! 😀

Six months in

Six months in

It’s been six months since Dev with Dave launched. I really can’t believe how quickly the time has passed!

This landmark does feel like the ideal time to just recap on the project, and to go over some of the highs and lows.

What we’ve learned so far

During the first few months, the main focus was on planning, writing your own Game Design Document, a few example GDDs from games, an introduction to Trello, and access to the Flappy-vaders trello board so you can see for yourselves how it works.

After planning, came programming. Now I deliberately didn’t want to go to deeply into coding on the blog, so instead it was mostly theory based stuff which would be applicable to any language you’re using.

Flappy-vaders

Flappy-vaders has come on a long way in the last six months. From developing the basic systems with place holder art, to adding some of the visual effects, and adding powerups and upgrades. It’s starting to look like a halfway finished game, although there is still a way to go yet.

The bad bits

Now when I originally planned Dev with Dave, one of the things I was hoping to do was to spend time in various coffee shops and cafes (and McDonalds.. 🙄) but unfortunately the global pandemic happened and for large chunks of this year we have been in lockdown and all these places have been closed.

Because I am only working on Dev with Dave in my free time, I have struggled occasionally to keep up. This has shown in delays to the weekly progress update videos, and quiet periods on the social media. I’ve also found keeping the Trello board up to date to be tricky at times.

The good bits

I really enjoyed reading through the old game GDDs in the planning stage, and I have to say that Flappy-vaders has reached the stage where testing something quickly can turn into playing the game for 20 minutes! lol.

I’ve enjoyed the few times I managed to get out with the tablet and get some of the game written whilst having a nice cup of tea.

What’s coming next

I’ll be wrapping up the Programming theme soon, and moving onto promotion, where I’ll be talking about using social media and paid adverts to promote your game.

I’ll also be finishing off the last of the Flappy-vaders systems required for things like powerups and the store before moving on to level design.

I’m also hoping that the lockdown will end soon, and I’ll be able to go out and not only return to the cafes to write the game, but also get my hair cut! 😂

Dave

Nice to get out again

Hello World,

I went to the Top-Deck Inn on Monday this week. It was the first time I’ve been anywhere with the tablet since before the UK went into lockdown back in March (I think anyway, feels like it was forever ago now).

It was really nice to sit and enjoy a reasonably priced cup of tea while I worked on Flappy-vaders.

I also managed to squash a bug relating to the explosion effect, despite only being there for an hour.

What’s coming next..

So, over the next couple of months I’m going to be talking about programming. On top of the rundown of the progress made on the game in the fortnightly updates, I’m going to share some thoughts on things which will help to make you a better developer.

We’ll be starting off later this week with comments, and how important it is to comment your code.

Outro..

And that’s all for now. I’m off to fire up the tablet and write some more Flappy-vaders (While I listen to Ernest Cline’s awesome second novel “Armada”)

Challenges

To make things slightly more challenging and/or interesting, as well as to prove you don’t need a high end PC, a large team or a shed load of cash, I’m going to be creating the entire game solo, using a really low spec PC, and as smaller budget as possible.

Coding at Geek Retreat (Pre-lockdown)

Originally, I was planning to work on this game in coffee shops and cafes around town, but sadly due to the covid19 pandemic the whole country is on lockdown so Instead I’m going to be stuck in my house.

I’ll explain more about the hardware and software I’ll be using in the next post.

Once the game is published, I’ll go over how much I spent on developing this project and any other costs, for those who are interested.