Dev Update (23/09/2023) + Godot Test
Added 2023-09-22 23:25:06 +0000 UTCHi!
Unity released today their apologize and new (mostly) positive changes. The trust aspect is still quite controversial but this was still an improvement.
You can read the "open letter to our community" here:
https://blog.unity.com/news/open-letter-on-runtime-fee
In the mean time while I'm still calculating some timelines for upcoming demos and having few talks with some industry people about today's Unity thing, here's that experimental Godot test that I mentioned earlier.
Download link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/13YHVAa5_-r0JjvrtFIQPMkKuiThwhghB?usp=sharing
I made this small Godot build to test out the visuals, code modularity and overall trying to find out if Godot could be viable option for Road to Vostok if the situation would lead to that. The rough "porting estimate" that I made while making this test was around 2-3 months, so it would need something like that to convert the all core features to Godot.
I do have to mention that this build is really barebones and rough (not made for public eyes), it's was purely for behind-the-scenes testing, so there's nothing more than just core movement and few basic things, but it's still interesting insight on how the game would perform/look in open-source engine like Godot.
Disclaimer: The FPS-number is not totally accurate, I could optimize that a lot more...
Here's the controls:
WASD = Movement
SHIFT = Sprint
SPACE = Jump
C = Crouch
Q/E = Lean
V = Flashlight
LMB = Fire
RMB = Aim
F = Firemode
1/2/3/4 = Time of day
I think the game development industry (me included) needs this weekend off after all this mess, so I will announce the future plans on Tuesday evening related to upcoming demos and information about the engine choice. After that it's all about progression and going forward!
Let me know what you think about the Unity's response and also the Godot experiment :)
- Antti (Developer)
Comments
Very cool to see, still feels pretty smooth overall, one big thing this would also allow for is easier modding later on, since godot can load external modules (".pck" files) which lets people directly overwrite existing game data/assets or append new content altogether. It also makes porting it to linux extremely easy which would be cool, though that is admittedly a small minority of the playerbase.
Nac
2023-09-26 18:37:06 +0000 UTCGodot build test looks actually quite promising. For such a small test build, I find that the overall look is much more ,,natural** and less boxy and clear cut like Unity seems to be but perhaps its just a matter of textures, lightning etc...
Rottmeister
2023-09-24 07:37:52 +0000 UTCThat is an outstanding answer :) looking forward to what is to come
DoneFeedingTheFox
2023-09-23 14:46:11 +0000 UTCI'm ready to dedicate my whole career for this project so we are talking truly long-term thing here and I'm not interested of making any other projects. My goal is to create the best survival game experience out there, community around that and that requires something that won't happen if you would switch from project to another. Otherwise your approach would be the best approach :)
Road to Vostok
2023-09-23 09:24:30 +0000 UTCtried out the test version and it ran smoothly, but as a user i can't really give much feedback as I don't know this engine at all. In your shoes I guess I would finish up Vostok using Unity and then consider another engine for next project :)
DoneFeedingTheFox
2023-09-23 08:30:33 +0000 UTCIf I was a unity developer. My biggest problem would be how they were trying to hide their changes to the TOS and broke a promise they made in 2019. Also, retroactively charging developers is crazy. I don't understand how it's even legal. They posted the TOS on github and stated "When you obtain a version of Unity, and don’t upgrade your project, we think you should be able to stick to that version of the TOS. In practice, that is only possible if you have access to bug fixes. For this reason, we now allow users to continue to use the TOS for the same major (year-based) version number, including Long Term Stable (LTS) builds that you are using in your project." They then took down the git repo with the TOS before announcing the recent TOS and pricing changes. This demonstrates that they willingly tried to deceive people and that they can not be trusted and anything they do now to remedy the situation can and probably will change again in the future. If I had a project in development I would look at the numbers and news and decide if staying on unity is viable. I think most of the player base would understand a delay, so the worry would be more financial I think. And also learning how to develop on a new engine might bring some headaches I'm sure. But any future project I would never use unity. Because I would always have a worry in the back of my head, wondering if unity was going to screw me in the future. Time to test the Godot build!
Iluvatar
2023-09-23 08:02:28 +0000 UTCkeep your ears open with unity
Юрий Су
2023-09-23 07:31:31 +0000 UTCGodot demo looks and feels great, especially for being done in a short time. I hope it's a viable option in the long term, because why even deal with all those Unity issues? It's clear they are just being greedy. Perhaps you can Godot could form a partnership as well because they need a killer app, and I think that could be Road to Vostok!
Tim S
2023-09-23 02:52:34 +0000 UTCI'm actually quite familiar with Unreal in overall since the classic Unity vs. Unreal topic has followed me for most of my career, so I have followed UE's development very closely all these years + I did those few prototypes with UE5 last week, like I did with Godot. Unreal is massive in terms of features and it would most likely be an overkill for this project, since I would only need very tiny part of those features. I can't deny that visually it's way beyond everything else, but when it comes to being nimble and fast, it's not that since it's designed for high-end productions and support large teams that need advanced features and advanced pipelines. Unreal has also many other upsides, it has a good CEO (actual developer), it's being used by Epic for making games, it has financial stability and good reputation etc. But it's just a matter of choosing the right tool for the right job + I'm also a big fan of simplicity in overall when it comes game dev tools and Unity + Godot are winning in that category.
Road to Vostok
2023-09-23 01:25:19 +0000 UTCI’m sorry, made a MAJOR typo, I meant Unreal engine not Untiy
M1XED_BAG
2023-09-23 01:14:00 +0000 UTCCould you specify what you mean by investigating how things would look like? Do you mean that it would be worth while to continue using Unity and see how things would evolve from this point forward? If that's what you're referring, there's one key element why the decision to stay or switch is now relevant. When you are developing a long-term project like RtV the project scale is increasing each month and each month the project becomes harder to port since there's simply more files, code, audio and assets related to the project. There's a certain content threshold where the porting is still "fun & reasonable", when you go over that threshold the porting becomes a monumental task that you don't want to deal with. Currently RtV is still within this "fun & reasonable" content threshold, but this project will expand heavily in 2024, so if I would just wait then the porting window kind of closes over time and you lose the ability to control the situation, so you're basically stuck with the engine and its future. I'm not yet saying that I will make the switch, but just wanted to highlight this topic since it's important part of this decision making process, even though most of my assets and code are quite modular etc.
Road to Vostok
2023-09-23 00:50:33 +0000 UTCSo it seems, obviously, Godot is completely doable for you. Do you think it would be worth while to investigate how things would go on unity, and could we see what that would look and feel like as well?
M1XED_BAG
2023-09-23 00:22:32 +0000 UTCI'm glad Unity is walking it back, but they shouldn't have had to in the first place. Godot feels good! Awesome job knocking this out in just a few days. You are a real pro at this. Playing this and the Unity build side by side feel very similar. If you feel ok with pushing the project timeline out a few months, and you aren't 100% about how things will go with Unity in the next few years, then Godot might be the best choice.
Kevin Kirkbride
2023-09-23 00:03:28 +0000 UTCAbsolutely and that's why it's worrying and hard to understand how out of touch the leadership were and push that through even when bunch of insider community members warned them multiple times.
Road to Vostok
2023-09-22 23:54:11 +0000 UTCCertainly. If they had put this exact plan forth at the start- as they should have- they would've not had nearly as much backlash, IMO.
Tobias August Williams
2023-09-22 23:51:38 +0000 UTCThe trust is definitely the difficult part here and unfortunately real effects of losing that will show later on when people are making engine choices for their next projects and new developers are googling around if Unity is a trustworthy and stable platform to begin their gamedev journeys.
Road to Vostok
2023-09-22 23:46:53 +0000 UTCYea it feels actually quite snappy, even though I made everything from scratch in few days, like procedural movement, custom audio, custom recoil etc. The lag with flashlight + firing is caused because shaders are not pre-loaded so that would be easily fixable :)
Road to Vostok
2023-09-22 23:44:22 +0000 UTCA few days of dev time in Godot and it's already better than Tarkov! Personally I would say screw Unity and port the game to something else. In this apology they're only walking back some of the changes to something that's a bit more easily swallowed. I think the industry should punish them hard for even considering such a sleezy move in the first place.
Nick Evans
2023-09-22 23:42:43 +0000 UTCI think Unitys response gave us everything we could want, aside from restoring trust. However, that cannot be restored with one blog post that says future changes- it will always take years to recover from things like this. I also see a lot of anger over keeping the runtime fees, without reading more than those words. People who aren't registering its runtime fees OR 2.5% revenue, whichever is LOWER. That's a huge difference.
Tobias August Williams
2023-09-22 23:41:28 +0000 UTCI'm honestly impressed with how the Godot build feels, especially given how quickly you put it together. All the features feel tight, I don't really feel like there's any apparent "engine limitation" with the included features aside from the FPS drop when a new light source is added. Frame rate is pretty good too, not as stable as Unity obviously but typically hovered around 110-144 on RTX 2060 Super. Basically, if you announced that you were going to rebuild the entire project in Godot, I wouldn't feel worried. :)
Fonzi
2023-09-22 23:41:28 +0000 UTCI feel cautiously relieved about Unity's response, I'm really glad the devspace of Unity and the industry as a whole can start moving forward again. It felt like time froze for a lot of developers while Unity was in the midst of the controversy. Hopefully no more surprises like that from now on. On a more selfish note, I'm glad that you (probably) won't have to give up your decade of Unity experience for this project. :) Looking forward to trying out this Godot build!
Fonzi
2023-09-22 23:30:07 +0000 UTC
