Unity is currently sending emails threatening longtime developers with disabling their access completely over bogus data about private versus public licenses. Their initial email (included below) contained no details at all, but a requirement to "comply" otherwise they reserved the right to revoke our access by May 16th.

When pressed for details, they replied with five emails. Two of which are the names of employees at another local company who have never worked for us, and the name of an employee who does not work on Unity at the studio.

I believe this is a chilling look into the future of Unity Technologies as a company and a product we develop on. Unity are threatening to revoke our access to continue development, and feel emboldened to do so casually and without evidence. Then when pressed for evidence, they have produced something that would be laughable - except that they somehow gathered various names that call into question how they gather and scrape data. This methodology is completely flawed, and then being applied dangerously - with short-timeframe threats to revoke all license access.

Our studio has already sunset Unity as a technology, but this situation heavily affects one unreleased game of ours (Torpedia) and a game we lose money on, but are very passionate about (Stationeers). I feel most for our team members on Torpedia, who have spent years on this game. Detailed Outline

I am Dean Hall, I created a game called DayZ which I sold to Bohemia Interactive, and used the money to found my own studio called RocketWerkz in 2014.

Development with Unity has made up a significant portion of our products since the company was founded, with a spend of probably over 300K though this period, currently averaging about 30K per year. This has primarily included our game Stationeers, but also an unreleased game called Torpedia. Both of these games are on PC. We also develop using Unreal, and recently our own internal technology called BRUTAL (a C# mapping of Vulkan).

On May 9th Unity sent us the following email:

Hi RocketWerkz team,

I am reaching out to inform you that the Unity Compliance Team has flagged your account for potential compliance violations with our terms of service. Click here to review our terms of service.

As a reminder - there can be no mixing of Unity license types and according to our data you currently have users using Unity Personal licenses when they should under the umbrella of your Unity Pro subscription.

We kindly request that you take immediate action to ensure your compliance with these terms. If you do not, we reserve the right to revoke your company's existing licenses on May, 16th 2025.

Please work to resolve this to prevent your access from being revoked. I have included your account manager, Kelly Frazier, to this thread.

We replied asking for detail and eventually received the following from Kelly Frazier at Unity:

Our systems show the following users have been logging in with Personal Edition licenses. In order to remain compliant with Unity's terms of service, the following users will need to be assigned a Pro license: 

Then there are five listed items they supplies as evidence:

An @ rocketwerkz email, for a team member who has Unity Personal and does not work on a Unity project at the studio
The personal email address of a Rocketwerkz employee, whom we pay for a Unity Pro License for
An @ rocketwerkz email, for an external contractor who was provided one of our Unity Pro Licenses for a period in 2024 to do some work at the time
An obscured email domain, but the name of which is an employee at a company in Dunedin (New Zealand, where we are based) who has never worked for us
An obscured email domain, another employee at the same company above, but who never worked for us.

Most recently, our company paid Unity 43,294.87 on 21 Dec 2024, for our pro licenses.

Not a single one of those is a breach - but more concerningly the two employees who work at another studio - that studio is located where our studio was founded and where our accountants are based - and therefore where the registered address for our company is online if you use the government company website.

Beyond Unity threatening long-term customers with immediate revocation of licenses over shaky evidence - this raises some serious questions about how Unity is scraping this data and then processing it.

This should serve as a serious warning to all developers about the future we face with Unity development.

Chris' release videos are always more of a highlight reel, here's the full release notes.

More info + a link to the application form

Game Devs of Color Expo Website and Youtube Channel

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/22778737

I'm still figuring out the details but I have a working prototype and it uses (somewhat) accurate sail physics.

Alternative title: Unity gives up

Do you see yourself going back to Unity after they changed streams? I do not.

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/113032571990580083

How to cross promote under the new Steam Rules by Chris Zukowski

https://howtomarketagame.com/2024/08/26/how-to-cross-promote-under-the-new-steam-rules/

@gamedev

#GameDev #GameMarketing #Steam #GamesMarketing #IndieDev

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/113018036706256668

Submissions for the 2025 Independent Games Festival are open until September 30!

https://igf.com/article/2025-independent-games-festival-submissions-are-now-open

#IndieDev #GameDev

@indiedev

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/112958975936924665

New Rules for Steam Store Page Descriptions

TLDR You may no longer add:
- Links to external sites (use dedicated fields instead)
- Links or images pointing to other games on Steam
- Images that mimic Steam UI elements

https://store.steampowered.com/news/group/4145017/view/4201376568915048835

#Steam #GameDev #IndieDev #GameMarketing
@gamedev

*Edited for more clarity

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/112916519158308760

Draknek just announced their "New Voices Puzzle Grant" for 2024!

It's a USD$15,000 grant for developers from traditionally underrepresented groups who are working on puzzle games!
Includes 1-on-1 mentorship and super flexible terms when it comes to how the money is used.
Deadline is October 7th 2024.

More info in the link here: https://grants.draknek.org/

@gamedev

#GameDev #IndieDev #PuzzleGame

cross-posted from: https://mastodon.social/users/Berin/statuses/112909319251670592

The Melbourne Queer Games 2024 Festival is open for submissions until August 23, 2024

There are no geographical restrictions regarding the submissions. Queer games from all over the world are eligible, and entry is free!

http://mqgf.com.au

@gamedev

#QueerGames #IndieDev #GameDev

@gamedev Hey, we are working right now on game called Profiteer, an economy centric strategy game with minimalistic approach on resources, right now we are close to the finish of our newer update(took more time than we expected), tell us what you think and if you have any questions write us down!
Link: https://hrust-inc.itch.io/profiteer
#games #ganedev #indiegames

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/16304397

Check out a story about thought processes going awry after ecstasy born from early successes and personal issues hitting.

Still, I decided to release the result of my work so far as a prototype for Fuck Capitalism Jam 2024, to be worked on in the future until it is done. Alongside part 1, which was basically developed within the time frame anyway, and is more than fitting for the theme as well.

I made a arcade style shoot em' up receltyish, where you're a pirate that can grapple enemies at low health to blow them up and let you move faster. It's not too long, but I think what is there is pretty fun, and worth making into a full game, so I though I'd try and get some feedback and see what other people think of it. It's free on my Itch.io page if you want to try it out (also theres a giant crab boss at the end which is pretty cool)

Had to share with this community, I decided for my second game to just rip off the band-aid and I entered a game jam targeted at beginners. I placed 3rd - with 1st and 2nd going to more seasoned game developers. I never imagined that, going in, I would be on the pedestal. I just have to thank everyone that participates in game development and indie gaming as a community - including you, reading this.

If you are curious and want to check it out:

The games ranked by overall score

The game itself

A devlog looking back at my first jam experience

Some background info. I have like no experience with programming. I know basic Linux and that's about it. I also want to start game development.

I'd like to learn some skills and the fundamentals so I can eventually move to a slightly bigger project.

From what I've heard I'm between gbstudio, tic 80 and Godot. Where do I start?

(I am an author of this game. I am not a shill, game is 100% free, there is no premium content, full game is avalaible without paying - this is work of passion and feedback is my main motivation).

"Dominion of Darkness” is a strateg/RPG text game in which the player takes on the role of a Sauron-style Lord of Darkness with the goal of conquering the world. He will carry out his plans by making various decisions. He will build his army and send it into battles, weave intrigues and deceptions, create secret spy networks and sectarian cults, recruit agents and commanders, corrupt representatives of Free Peoples and sow discord among them, collect magical artifacts and perform sinister plots. Note – one game takes about 1 hour, but the premise is that the game can be approached several times, each time making different decisions, getting different results and discovering something new.

Game is avalaible for free, online: https://adeptus7.itch.io/dominion

I am constantly improving the game, adding new content and mechanics, so Your feedback would matter.

If you are hesitant to play the game, I invite you to watch/listen to the reviews:

Indie Sampler (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM6f4UCEgWU

[BOKC] BlancoKix (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgNpSKToOSg

And here is the source code: https://www.mediafire.com/file/vvnouok03mop8n7/Dominion_of_Darkness_1.7.html/file

A few weeks ago, I started on a basic tutorial for developing games in Godot: “Ultimate Instruction to Godot 4” on YouTube by Clear Code. My goal was to not just finish the tutorial, but to build on it and create a small game with semi-professional standards. Here is said game, my first attempt not only at developing in Godot, but also my first attempt at creating a game.

If you know what you are doing, a playthrough is around 20-40 minutes, more on higher difficulties. On easy, it is possible to be reckless, while on higher difficulties, the game forces you to be quite considerate of your resources.

As this is my first game ever, I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback. I hope that, if you try it out, you will have as much fun with the game as I had making it!

If you dig action platformers or pixel art graphics, hope you check it out!

Many games support both keyboard/mouse and controller input. Many users (myself included) may wish to switch their input method mid-game, but what is the best way of handling this?

There are two potential solutions:

1. Have the two input methods combine and reach a consensus (e.g. pressing W on the keyboard while moving the left thumb stick to the left will cause the player to move forward and left)
2. Have only one input method work at any given time, but switch automatically depending on what the player most recently used.

Technically there is a third option, which is to have the user manually switch between the two input methods in a menu somewhere. I don't consider this a real option because the user experience would be terrible.

So, which solution do you think is better and why?

In my initial implementation, doors opened when a character approached them (using a sensor collider). But it looked creepy 😅 Imagine simply walking past the doors and having them open unexpectedly.

In the current implementation, I analyze navigation paths to determine if characters pass through the door, and open it when they approach.

Additionally, I added small visual feedback for wall placement, fine-tuned navigation, adjusted controls, made a few QoL improvements, and fixed a bunch of bugs.

This is for my WIP open source life simulation game made with Bevy under the working title Project Harmonia.

Tried to adjust my mesh generation logic :)