The title is "portable suckless [...] 90s-style Doom clone", however, in the technical details, it's specified that "this is my custom engine (raycastlib) based on raycasting, a technique used in Wolf3D engine, but it's improved, e.g. supporting multiple levels of floor and ceiling, so that the visual result is something between Wolf3D and Doom".
I don't think a that an improved raycasting engine qualifies as Doom-clone (in fact, this is the reason why the project is considerably less resource-intensive than Doom). If the project qualified itself as "Improved Wolfenstein engine", it'd probably get no attention.
It's admirable though that they released the assets with a very permissive license.
> a different, better direction than which the mainstream technology is taking, though this involves taking some steps back to before the things started to go wrong
There's definitely a significant self-absorption in this project. Modern mainstream gaming experience is different - not wrong - compared to what it was in the 90s; gamers looking for the 90s experience can still find modern retro-styled games. Also, it's not like everything from the 90s was gold. I actually do enjoy both AAA and indie FPSs.
> ["modern" programming (C++17, Rust, OOP etc.) or "advanced" engines] is an extremely bad choice for building long-lasting, accessible programs. New languages are a product of capitalism, evolved by the markets to serve corporations to make quick profit, not fulfilling the values that are good for the people.
I didn't read long enough to understand if this is a satire or not.
This is subjective, I started creating it as a Doom clone and have seen it that way all the time. I think if you show someone the screenshots they will say it looks like Doom and the kind of engine doesn't matter that much (many modern "Doom clones" also use modern engines, not the original BSP one). But of course your points about the engine are correct, it is simpler than Doom, which I mention in the readme. I haven't chosen that subtitle as a means of getting more attention, I don't really think about this as I despise marketing, I simply tried to describe it in a simple way.
> I didn't read long enough to understand if this is a satire or not.
Not a satire.
Definitely sounds like a suckless project to me!
It didn't seem to me like it was taking a jab at modern games or anything too serious. Just someone having a bit of fun, bragging a bit and showing off their work.
Nothing to get so worked up about. It's a neat project, no need to let semantics get you worked up. It all just seems like it was made for fun and it's kind of impressive for what it is.
Not everything needs to be stern and serious.
ALso, they really shouldn't claim "Doom clone" when their game is, technically, much worse than doom in many ways, when one of their major arguments is other games are "made wrong".
Sure, the writing style is a bit over-stated, but ultimately it demonstrates that the author asked "why should I build this? does it contribute to society?" which are questions that I think aren't always at the fore front of software devs' minds.
You don't have to agree with their conclusions, but I appreciate that this person is thinking about social impact when they write code, and that it appears to be a major motivation.
There are sections which sound like self-aggrandizing promotion, but honestly we tolerate that stuff (esp. on start-up focused sites like ProductHunt and HN) from commercial products all the time that promise to "change the world" if only you give them a small monthly fee or stare at their ads. At least this person is talking about free and public cultural works.
Finally, a bit of a nitpick, but there was a time when "Doom-clone" was the word people used to describe FPSs. If this person is truly trying to create a 90s game, that's actually the better terminology. Granted, it's likely not the most common interpretation of the word these days.
Didn’t read it like that at all. I just read someone explaining their principles and how it relates to something they make.
I don't know much about the C++ world, but it holds true for me in the Web. Sure, there is progress and such, but there is also much bloat and unnecessary heavy features which I avoid using, and only use with feature checks if necessary.
I'm afraid it might not be satire at all judging from the author's other writings:
https://gitlab.com/drummyfish/my_writings/-/blob/master/capi...
> Poverty, crime, violence.
Anybody want to tell him?
"In today's world of capitalism and fascism no one thinks anymore about doing something without personal benefit, without expecting something in return. Complete selflessness and aim for the pure indiscriminatory long-term benefit of everyone is no longer even considered and if it appears by chance, it is laughed at and portrayed as stupidity. Technology that we are using every day is infected by this poison more than anything else."
Clearly this person has a huge self interest in the form of an axe to grind and inflation of their own ego. That's OK, but it's not good to lie to oneself about motivations.
I'm sure violence against robots will be unacceptable in 10 years. Or even now:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2955544/Woul...
Like this game and the art project, but the ideas like "no violence on living beings" (see the FAQ for more nonsense) seems pretty misguided.
But it's actually written in C++. There isn't a Makefile, just make.sh. And in there, I don't see the C++ standard specified. I'm guessing g++ defaults to C++98.
So that really makes you think. suckless means C++, but not the convenient parts like type inference. Not the safe parts like unique_ptr. A language with inheritance _and_ all of C's footguns.
What a head-scratcher. Excellent outsider art.
That's a totally defensible statement.
Shaving off some aesthetic components of violence and positioning the work as anticapitalist does not address the core issue of every game project: What does the game facilitate a study of? That's not a leading question or "gotcha". It's just the thing every game player will ask at some point: What is it about? What do you do?
I believe the most likely answer to that is that it's primarily a technical study, and the game part of it is not exactly the focus, which is why the content of it is directionless "filler", opting to say less of the thing it emulates, but to on some level venerate it rather than critique it: it's still a game about shooting stuff and...that's it, it has nothing more to say, it doesn't "go" somewhere. And it will stay stuck there so long as it stays within the subset of what the original game did. Which makes it, in some sense, incomplete as a work. A tech demo with a bit of game bolted on, call it what you may.
If we proceed further in the direction of staying within principle and do not halt at the point where something Doom-like is possible, all these other development opportunities come up that seem more coherent with the ideology at play:
* Mazes/exploration gameplay(finding one's way home) * Procedural landscapes/dream simulator * Sports gameplay * Networked virtual worlds
The only problem, then, is the feeling that this would break with tradition, but that's exactly it: it would be radical from a "positive" standpoint rather than a "negative" one to develop in a new direction.
I wish I could live long enough to see sentient robots become part of society and protest this violent game which discriminates robots and encourage violence towards machines. #AIUnitedCancelAnarch
I also wish this wouldn't so political, I don't see what capitalism has done to this guy - including giving him the tools to create this game! There are also plenty of games that can be played and studied freely.
I used robots just to bring attention to pacifism and because I found it a nice replacement for demons, plus it also has that small extra advantage of being friendlier towards e.g. people who dislike blood or whatever.
> politics
My views have become a centerpoint of my life and everything I do, but I don't mind if anyone forks this and takes all politics out. Or even put your own politics in. It's all fine, that's why I released it into public domain!
Microchip Corp. is an actual business. They make cool stuff like the PIC MCUs used for building useful things such as a HVAC thermostat. They're not General Atomics or Lockheed Martin who make drones used for killing people.
Solid move. In your expression, others are empowered to also express themselves.
Every project is political. If it doesn't question the status quo, it is condoning it tacitly. That is in itself a political action. This fetish with not being "political" is generally a dogwhistle for (extreme) right-wing thoughts, which may or may not be something you want to espouse.
To the creator thank you for making this. I also enjoyed reading the manifesto. Keep up the good work and never stop fighting capitalism.
Eventually, everything will be monetized. It's getting more difficult to find public spaces where there isn't an expectation of spending money now. Noticeable.
And maybe it's not a fight. Better management is a plausible path. More people more happy, maybe with the cost of some people not being peak happy.
> In today's world of capitalism and fascism
Today’s world is run by neoliberal planned economies, what some Communists might call “state-run capitalism” (usually in reference to China). Fascism and capitalism is so far away from an accurate description of how today’s world operates. When you’re that far on the left, you lose the ability to distinguish between Fascism and Liberalism.
https://digiplay-gaming.itch.io/brawlbots
UE4 compiled to WebGL 2. The payload itself is a massive binary. My bias is still toward optimized WebGL 2 beating SDL 2 via emscriten. But that requires a deeper drive to demonstrate. Still, it's nice to have choices. And I think what we are seeing is definitely near native, AAA quality for web games which is exciting!
GTA V is the only modern game I’ve played which appears to have kept the fun bit intact.
If you target GLES3, you can have the speed benefits of both.
