Unity and Godot are the most popular choices, based on my time spent hanging out with other indie developers. If your game is a 2D RPG, RPG Maker is also a great way to get started. You can also use GameMaker if Unity and Godot seem intimidating.
I took 3 months off last year to get a game project finished up and released to Steam! Glad to see other indie developers here on Hacker News. I can't commit to weekly meetups, since I'm back at my job full-time, but I wish you the best of luck on your game!
I have a bachelor's in Computer Engineering from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and several of my courses covered how computers work in detail!
- ECE 190 and ECE 290 covered basic programming, logic gates, and the basics of software processor architecture.
- ECE 391 (one of the hardest courses in the school) covered x86 assembly and operating system design. The capstone project for the course was to build a simple OS with terminal input.
- ECE 411 covered processor architecture in detail, and how a modern x86 processor is built.
There should be courses from other universities that cover the same topics. Here's some similar courses I found on MIT's OpenCourseware platform.
I'd just like to say "thank you" to the moderators for helping make Hacker News such an interesting site. I've been reading Hacker News for years and it's really helped me keep on top of emerging trends in technology! Sometimes I've seen tech news hit Hacker News before even the major news outlets have a chance to report. It's pretty impressive. Keep up the good work!
Should this link be replaced with the original source? Ars Technica linked to the original blog post in the first paragraph, and the rest of the article summarizes the original source. Here's the blog post in question: https://obscuritory.com/sim/when-simcity-got-serious/
I believe this evaluation is usually done by a stunt coordinator instead. This is an experienced stunt performer that finds the right person for each stunt, and communicates with the performers on any safety issues that come up.
If you've been working at the same company for a while, ask your HR department if they have a policy around a leave of absence or a sabbatical! You can take a few months off to build a prototype of your idea, test it out with some users, and then decide whether to return to your day job or continue with your startup idea full time.
This will be much less risky than quitting your high-paying job and going all-in on a startup idea. Many startups fail for a variety of reasons, besides just poor execution.
Whatever you plan to do, make sure you have a backup plan.
Yes, this. Though I am not sure if I would start at HR or with your manager/director because of the risk of telegraphing an intention you do not yet have, leaving the company behind.
If you have a very good relationship with your manager/director, I think I would start there, something along the lines of "I've got this germ of an idea, and it won't leave me alone. It's in a completely different area, and I've got such a strong urge to explore it... ...but I like this place so much, I don't want to just walk away."
Leave it open like that, see what they say. They might offer the sabbatical idea themselves.
Alternatively, if your co's HR policies are available for all to peruse, check for the aforementioned policy.
Another alternative, based on experiences friends and colleagues of mine have had....
If the owner or GM or insertHeadHonchoTitle here is very entrepreneurial, spend evenings and weekends working on a business plan or 7-10 slide pitch deck, then, when it is ready to go, let them know you are heading out on your own.
I know a few people who did this and, instead of being thanked for their service were offered their first angel investment. Their boss, Terry Matthews, knew he had good people and knew he could make more by funding them than either keeping or just letting them walk away.
I came to the same realization that Apple doesn't seem to care when I started learning how to build apps on iOS.
Coming from Android, I was used to having high level conceptual guides on the core building blocks of the framework. In the Android docs, I found detailed explanations of Activities, Fragments, Views, and other major components. It was relatively easy for me to get started, and the system was designed to be extensible. Google even published blog posts regularly, which I could use to learn more about design decisions.
When I made the jump to iOS, though, it was difficult to find parallel documentation for what I was looking for. At the time (this was 2015, mind you), I couldn't find anything beyond API documentation for ViewControllers, Views, Core Data, etc. Most of the major documentation existed on third-party sites like NSHipster. Not to mention code signing. I'm pretty sure I'm one of handful developers at my firm who knows the system well enough to explain how it works...and that was after 2 years of working in iOS full-time.
I doubt that Apple will prioritize the developer experience on their platform anytime soon.
Edit: In case anyone wants to see the difference...
The Engineering Quad at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is also named "Bardeen Quad" in John Bardeen's honor.
I haven't been back to my alma mater in a while, so my memory may be fuzzy, but I remember there was a plaque on the southwest end of the quad commemorating his achievements. I hope it's still there!
When I was taking my introduction to semiconductors class in junior year, I thought it was pretty cool that we were studying a subject that one of the university's professors helped invent.
At one time, one of the classrooms in the Everitt Lab had a plaque noting that it was the site of the first university lecture on transistors, ever. I assume it's still there, though I haven't been back to the U of I for a while myself.
I never met Prof. Bardeen, but those I know who did said he was one of the nicest and most modest, unassuming guys you'd ever want to meet.
Edit:
An acquaintance of mine was a librarian at the U of I. According to her, even after he retired, he'd come into the Grainger Engineering Library a few times a week to catch up on the latest journals. She said he was always super-nice and polite to the staff. I believe she said he generally just wore a flannel shirt and jeans.
I find that the best senior engineers don't say "if you're not using Kubernetes you're a moron" and "learn how to sysadmin and you'll realize you don't need Kubernetes in the first place", but instead say "Kubernetes is fantastic for this use case because of these reasons..." and "sysadmin would be easier to use than Kubernetes for this problem because of these reasons..."
I'm not sure how one gets software engineers to justify and back up their decisions like this on a regular basis, but I suspect it would help management trust their engineers more.
> I'm not sure how one gets software engineers to justify and back up their decisions like this on a regular basis, but I suspect it would help management trust their engineers more.
More balanced senior engineers (I know anecdotally that there are lots of them) speaking up and challenging their fellow-engineers to justify their extreme positions will be a good start IMO.
If your manager listens to the engineer who says "Kubernetes is awesome and does all the things!" and doesn't listen to the engineer who says "I think Kubernetes is a bad idea for this project because x, y, and z", then yeah, it's time to find a new manager. Good managers listen to good advisors.
