What A Million Dollar Game Looks Like Behind The Curtain (Jonas Tyroller's "Thronefall")
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Chapters
00:00:00 - Introduction and Lighting Discussion
The conversation kicks off with a discussion about the game's lighting setup, focusing on the use of a single directional light with real-time shadows. The importance of lighting in game development is highlighted.
00:00:25 - Exploring Low-Poly Meshes and Planes
The focus shifts to the use of low-poly meshes and multiple planes to create the game environment. The "janky" yet effective approach of using gradient sprites for map boundaries is explained.
00:01:22 - Map Boundary Design and Performance
A deeper dive into why multiple quads are used to shape the map's boundaries, discussing the trade-offs between performance and ease of implementation for a small number of sprites.
00:03:10 - Testing the Game and Camera Perspectives
The game is run in Unity to showcase the map's edge-darkening effect. The conversation explores switching from an orthographic to a perspective camera, revealing how it impacts the visual style.
00:05:25 - Orthographic vs. Perspective Cameras
The benefits and drawbacks of using an orthographic camera for strategy games are discussed, emphasizing its cozy aesthetic and suitability for the genre.
00:06:16 - Scene Hierarchy and Naming Conventions
The hierarchy of the level select scene is explored, including the use of meshes created in Blender and the lack of strict naming conventions in a small team.
00:08:17 - Custom Geometry Scripts for Level Design
A custom geometry script used to build levels and draw lines is showcased, demonstrating how it simplifies level creation and modification.
00:11:00 - Performance and Mesh Optimization
The discussion covers real-time mesh creation, mesh colliders, and optimization techniques like combining rocks into a single mesh to reduce draw calls.
00:13:25 - Art Style and Color Theory
The art style is analyzed, focusing on how "crappy" assets are made to look good through precise shaders, lighting, and color theory. A color manager tool is shown to unify level themes.
00:17:31 - Code Architecture and Singletons
The use of singletons for both global and local managers is explained, along with the pros and cons of Thronefall’s interconnected code architecture for a small project.
00:23:33 - Variable Naming and Code Simplicity
The conversation wraps up with a look at scriptable objects, variable naming conventions, and the philosophy of keeping code simple and descriptive for maintainability.