Wow, it's like posting in the Steam forums here. Great job "game devs". -.-

hey look I found a battlenet post by somebody who bought Diablo 3 because didn't have a photosensitivity warning and then had to stop playing it because a section was destroying their brain

so that's my count of one (1) time it would have been useful and was excluded, which is already a sufficient count for the nonexistent inconvenience of their inclusion

https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/d3/topic/5967567564

The poster actually complained that he can't play the game at all now. A warning at game start-up is useless. You will need a warning on the Store page for this. So that they don't buy at all.

 

There should have been a warning on the game BEFORE I bought it.

Do you even read the OP yourself? Seems not.

What does this even mean? Philosophy? Do you make it your mission statement to disregard other people's perspective? Because that's a shitty philosophy my dude.

Ever heard of "minimalism" being a design philosophy? And you still haven't descripted an actual scenario, and compared those two. Which means you are running out of arguments.

but it may be life saving for someone else, so I don't think you're being very considerate by implying that these warnings are nonsense.

I don't think that one with unknown seizures, can be killed with the first one. Also, they may outright ignore the warning, because they never were diagnosed with it, so they think it's not their concern.

Unless one can explain to me in detail, how exactly the warning helps, and makes people behave differently to prevent a seizure. This political crap will stay way from my games.

Also, you're complaining about a minor inconvenience for you,

No, not inconvenience. But philosophy.

But why is this a problem? It's a relatively short warning time wise, and isn't that much work to implement.

It's a principle problem. I don't do things just because one wants me to. Especially I won't do things, that can't be proven to make an actual difference in the first place. The later is the real problem. This warning just doesn't do anything really. It just may turn an "indie" game, into a "AAA" grade start up mess. So, no. I'm not willing to reintroduce AAA nonsense into the indie dev world. Indies left AAA for reasons, and this kind of start up mess, is one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denn%C5%8D_Senshi_Porygon

Well, but I'm not an Asian dev, though.

People known to have this problem, are aware all ready that games may cause this. I don't see why you would need a warning for it again. Their doctors already told them.

For now, there is no law requiring this crap to show at game start. But seems it may come.

Here some Wiki info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosensitive_epilepsy#Video_games_and_pinball_machines

So, I hope that dumb politicians, since there are plenty of them these days. Don't force his one day. The reason why this screen is nonsense, is quite simple: People who know that they are sensitive, well, they already know that they are sensitive. Their doctor also informed them how to look for first signs, and how to counter their health issues.

I noticed this first appearing in AAA games. But now, I bought a newly released indie game a few days ago, and saw this screen, too.

Gamers want to pay more for my game? Do I look like that I would stop them? :D

It's called capitalism. Raise the prices, and then observe. If your forum glows, then you may have gone too far.

For instance, I bought INSIDE for 10 Euros if I recall. But it's normal price is whopping 20 Euros! And that for ONLY ~3 hours of gameplay. Yes, INSIDE as a high quality indie game. No, I don't think that they forums were glowing with complaints at all. I think I was the only one who complained. So that's why I waited, and only bought it for 10. Normally I don't wait, or hesitate to pay for games. But INSIDE is too expensive.

People complained about Steam World Dig, being too expensive with its 15 Euros price tag. And being too short. But this game could amass ~7 hours of game time, if I recall. And the quality also is quite decent there. Maybe, to be fair, INSIDE also got quite detailed levels compared to Steam World Dig.

Yeah, I heard .NET and XNA were big, weren't they? DirectDraw too. Visual Basic rocked. And who needs extended DOS memory anyway.
C# is still around in gamedev just because of Unity. Microsoft has nothing to do with it.

Were? In case you haven't noticed. .Net is cross platform now. And it was M$ who created C# in the first place. And they still update it. Its now on version 7. C#/F# and .Net are so good, that Xamarin did their own open source implementation called Mono for it.

A tech push can be annoying, but no, I'm still not a fan of old crap like OpenGL 1.3 either. Technology should be pushed forward at times. Yes, DX12 is another "DX10" just to push Windows 10 instead of Window Vista this time. But regarding Valve not carrying what tech we use. Yeah. But also they don't care a lot about Steam either. I'm not willing to give a Silicon Justice Warrior like GabeN even more money, so that he can get even more weight. I need M$ to get off its ass to make Windows Store succeed, because I want Windows 10 to have a future!

Bottom lines still is, that the days when Windows was sold as retail, is over. Yes, it still sells on the shelve today. But it's fading into an as-service model already. In two or three years, Windows 10 may be for free! Provided of course, that the Windows Store makes enough money.

In case nobody noticed it here, because everybody is using Linux. Windows 10 ain't pure 10. It's a stitched hybrid of 10 AND 7. There is still a lot to do left. Like unify the user interface, and ditch the 7 elements.

Your ignorance is showing. It's a bad move to encourage monopolies. History has taught that often enough by now.

Steam is a monopoly. In case nobody noticed that. And Steam sucks, too. Even UPlay got now a better GUI than Steam. Steam search sucks. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to fix such things. Yet Valve still failed. So, don't complain about M$, and pretend that Valve may be a white knight here. If I sold my game on Windows Store, and Xbox, instead of Steam. It could make Valve to get up off its ass, and fix Steam in order not to lose devs. And M$ is motivated to make their Store as appealing as possible. In such a scenario, the devs, and customers can win.

Also. I don't think that M$ could prevent other launchers from being used in the first place. Because Apple couldn't stop Steam either.

The single actual reason is that: Android, iOS, Xbox, PlayStation... the market and the platform are tightly coupled and in control of a single company. Windows and Steam not yet. And there are people who want to preserve this, as it's subjectively or objectively worse to have too much control in a single company's hands.

Windows already tries to push its store  in front of everyone. They replaced the "select which program to open this file with" with a next-to-useless "find app in store" dialog. And they bring this up again after a while even with fixed file associations. I'd love to see Linux take off on Desktop, unfortunately it's so incredibly far behind and suffers alot from spare time code injections. Not to diss spare-time work, I did a lot myself, but to maintain an established and widely used system means a lot of boring maintenance work. And it turned out that such work doesn't appeal to spare time workers.

Steam is also controlled by one company. And GreenLight will be gone soon, according to Valve. And what ever the hell "control" supposed to mean here.

That said. M$ requires income from Windows. Windows as a product, so a sold copy, is history. Now, Windows is a service. And it comes with the store. This will provide free security, and even feature updates. Maybe one day, Windows 10 also could come for free itself. But that's only going to work with a profitable store.

My only concern with the Windows Store, is its low feature level:

• No whish-list.
• No mod/plugin support.
• Not GSync/Freesync compatible.
• No forum.
• Not FPS meter, or capture software compatible.

It also likes to break down for simple stuff. If M$ could fix these problems. Then I would ditch Steam for my own private use already.

One could say that the OS's store is "natural" for an OS, at some point in its evolution. While Steam, Origin, UPlay, Bethesda.net, GOG, etc. They are not. At least not in the later evolution period.

Windows Store also offers aside of games, other apps types. And movies, music, and books. I would ditch iTunes, too, for private use, if M$ had more original English voiced movies. But compared to Android, the Windows Store still seem to have more, though. Last time I checked, I found zero movies with original audio.

You haven't mentioned a single actual reason why Windows 10 Store, is inferior to Mac's store, or Steam itself. In case you haven't that noticed devs' complains, Steam sucks, too, with it's front page.

And besides, even if porting to Mac/Linux doesn't make much financial sense, having a portable game is useful if you ever want to sell on consoles, which is a bigger market for gaming than Windows (especially the Switch, which I hear is starving for content)

Windows 10 Store also starves for content. Seems Xbox may lack a bit, too, compared to PlayStation. And not every game genre can run on a Switch, or on a console to  begin with. It's either the processing power(not much of a case these days). Or the controls that makes porting pointless.

Personally I don't know what makes F# better than C# for game development, but if you say there's a benefit I believe you. I don't see much of a difference since both run on the Microsoft .NET CLR. It all depends on the programmer.

HTML5 is the master race ^_^

There are plenty of advantages in F# over C#. Both C++, and C# do have the Billion Dollar Mistake a.k.a. nullable types. F# doesn't have any nulls. So, no need to write code to handle nulls, nor any need to debug them during run-time. In general, OOP is over engineering. Inheritance sucks. Encapsulation sucks. That's why C likes still to appear these days, instead of being completely replaced by C++.

F# works with math like expression, instead of clunky statements. So shorter and more direct code, not just because of code noise reduction. Everything is immutable(except arrays) by default. This makes the code thread-safe, and easier to reason about. I think F# is ideal for the new generation of 4+ core CPUs like AMD Ryzen. And close to metal APIs DX12/Vulkan.

However, the immutables take up more memory, and can stress the GC. So there is this one single disadvantage, that when not handle correctly, can cause performance issues. Since .Net 4.6, programmers can now configure, and control the GC. The GC can be blocked for as long there is free RAM. Or can be cleared ahead entirely during any in-game transitions. So there is further room for performance optimization on .Net's side. Beside the obvious solution to use mutables, instead of immutable values. Arrays in F# are mutable, instead of immutable by default, already.

I don't know how .Net 4.6 compares to .Net Core. But this may be another thing to worry about when trying to port to Linux/Mac. I rather focus more on engine feature implementation, and actual game development, instead of messing around with porting. XBox/Store isn't supporting Vulkan either. You get this eternal platform war here again. Though, I think Xbox/Store = Linux, but minus the extra porting efforts. But of course I'm only guessing here.

Don't kill yourself trying to publish what you have to Windows Store. Unless your game engine is already suited for porting a game to Windows Store,or uses IE9/Edge compatible HTML5 (Porting HTML5 games is VERY EASY to Windows Store!!!!  ), it probably isn't worth the time, but again you may feel differently.

Well, the whole reason why I decided to use OpenTK, and not DX instead, wasn't for the reasons other devs may have chosen it. E.g. cross platform. I'm some kind of technology nut. I chose OpenTK because it isn't object oriented. That's one of the reasons why I program my game/engine in F#, too, and not C/C++ or C#. However, OpenGL/OpenAL is executed badly. Then Apple seems to kill off OpenGL anyways, and not even wanting to support Vulkan. Linux is dropping a lot again with its market share on Steam. I still may have used a high-level Vulkan framework. But there is none just yet. Nvidia's is experimental still.  I don't feel like entering this eternal war between platforms anymore. But rather just choose my side instead.

I was wondering if the lack of extra money from Mac/Linux releases, could be compensated with Windows Store/Xbox releases. OpenGL ain't consistent over Linux, and Mac. This also may require more work just to port. But DX should be without much porting problems for Windows Store/Xbox. There may be less extra money, but there should also be less extra work.

My engine is currently in Pre-Alpha 1. So, there is still an opportunity to use DX instead of OpenTK. 

By the way, people seem to game a lot on the Windows Store: https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/store/windows-app-data-trends

A reason why I'm thinking of going for exclusive M$ support for my games, is Apple's failure to support OpenGL 4.6/Vulkan. Apple got stuck on 4.1. And frankly, Metal will just kill off OpenGL. Because of Metal, there is not going to be Vulkan support either.

Linux is such a small market, which if not already oversaturated, will get over stuffed soon!? I'm still working on my fist game. So I have no clue. But, I have to wonder whether cross platform, is worth the money with my own engine.

I was wondering how Windows Store compares now to desktop Linux and Mac.

Aside of the expected M$ advocating with its own games like Gears of War, Quantum Break, MinedByM$Craft, etc.

Other AAA games also appeared: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Ryze of the Tomb Raider, Dead Rising 4, and maybe others.

New indie games are: Batman, The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, The Wolf Among Us (by Tell Tale), Cities: Sky Lines, ReCore, Ori and the Blind Forest, Broken Age, The Turin Test, Teslargrad, and maybe others.

Damn, even EVERPSACE which was made with UE4. And UE4 is NOT supporting UWP last time I checked a year ago. Is also on the Windows Store!

I'm really getting a strong itch, not to port to Linux/Mac. But use the Windows Store as a second platform instead. I tried to find market share statistics, to see how many even buy on the store. But I couldn't find anything good really.

Another thing that makes me happy, is the growing popularity of F#. On the Unity feedback page, F# is the top 5 most requested feature. And way more popular than Swift: https://feedback.unity3d.com/forums/unity/suggestions?utf8=%E2%9C%93&status=0&category=&view=most_voted

This is one of the reasons why I'm willing to give F# a solid chance. End even considered to make a game engine with it.

785 lines, 26 files, and 24 modules.

Is extreme fragmentation of code over files like that common for F#?

I just started to make the engine. There are even to two modules empty of code, because they serve as place holders.

Currently I'm refactoring the input system. When I'm done, one other module will be gone. And the input sub engine module will have grown.

I found a better language than C#, it's called F#. I never thought that one language could do so significantly better than C#. :O

To put F# to the test. I'm making a custom F# engine for my current game.

I love F# and ML type languages but I'm not sure they are a good fit for games considering all the immutability. I feel like to get a game running decent you have to break a lot of the rules for the engine.

I'm fine with mutables for optimization inside the engine. But I'm also developing for desktop, and not for mobile or console. So the hardware limitations ain't so tight.

I haven't really ever considered trying though so I could be wrong. Looking forward to seeing your results

I just got started. The engine showcase project got 785 lines, 26 files, and 24 modules. So I'm busy building the foundation. :D

Maybe a reason why it's called type provider, and not code generator, is because it never makes the source files visible inside an IDE. And seems with F#, it more of an actual language feature. While in C#, it's more of I tool, I read.

UE4 uses reflection to drive blueprints - tbh I still don't really understand what type providers are supposed to be, it sounds like it could be some sort of reflection as well...?

Reflection works only during run-time. Type providers work during dev-time, generating source code. I think it may work via the compiler itself. At least in C#/F#.

Here is an example from WPF. I created a window and added a TextBlock element:


The editor created a XAML file:


Now, I can access that GUI element with its name texBlock:


But how is this possible? Because I never defined any textBlock class inside my C# code. It's because of this code that was generated by the type provider:


Note that this file, this partial class, is not visible inside my project files. But you will fined the definition of textbox in there. And any other element, like the button class for the Button element, that I also added to the editor earlier.

This is how I consider doing things inside my engine. But with the scene files, and assets. And with Yaml instead of XAML.