Game Bytes · June 2023

Game Bytes is our monthly series taking a peek at the world of gamedev on GitHub—featuring game engine updates, game jam details, open source games, mods, maps, and more. Game on!

Engine watch

Text Engine

Text Engine is a retro-inspired JavaScript-based text adventure game engine. You can use Text Engine to compose your next great work of interactive fiction. Text Engine works by reading a “disk file” that, at its simplest, returns a JavaScript object containing room, item, and character descriptions. It offers plenty of built-ins to get started with traditional IF commands like look, get, and inventory, but offers JavaScript functions to customize the engine behavior in code. To get started, check out the project on itch.io.

Game news

Beyond All Reason beyond 20,000 community members

Beyond All Reason is a real-time strategy (RTS) game that plays at a massive scale, with thousands of units slugging it out across large environments. Beyond All Reason is an open source games phenomenon, building a fast-growing community of players around Total Annihilation-inspired gameplay built atop the opensource Spring RTS engine. The project recently celebrated 20,000 members joining its Discord community, with special maps and game formats. Learn more and start playing at the Beyond All Reason website.

Sine Rider

If you’ve ever drawn lines idly with a graphing calculator then Sine Rider is a game made for you. As a game “about love and graphing,”Sine Rider challenges you to write equations to guide sledders on a coordinate plane. And it’s not just a clever puzzler: it’s developed by the student members of Hack Club, a global organization to bring together teenagers to learn to code and make interesting things. Play Sine Rider in your browser.

GDTLancer

GDTLancer is a space simulator for Windows, Linux, and Android that’s inspired by Freelancer, Orbiter, and other wide-ranging greats of the space sim genre. It features a true-to-life scale: stars and other celestial objects lie light-years apart, so you’re going to need to make use of that FTL drive. As a work-in-progress by a Ukrainian developer, you can follow along with development via YouTube dev diaries, the GitHub repo, or getting the latest version on itch.io.

Maps, mods, tools, and more

Shattered Paradise

We recently ran across the Shattered Paradise opensource expansion to Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun. It adds or modifies an impressive array of factions, units, maps, visuals, and other elements of the game to create a fresh take on a classic of real-time strategy. It’s yet another highlight of a Game Bytes favorite: the OpenRA community, which is building an engine and new gameplay based on the still-influential Red Alert series. Check out Shattered Paradise on ModDB.

Post-Processing Wireframe/Outlines

MirzaBeig/Post-Processing-Wireframe-Outlines is an effect for the Unity engine that applies an attractive and flexible wireframe-and-outline style to your game’s camera. It features an uncomplicated setup: drop in two components and start experimenting with the sliders. Alone or in concert with other shaders, you can bring a striking visual style to your next game. Check out the README on GitHub to get started.

Build games with GitHub Copilot

Speaking of building your next game, you can get a taste for how GitHub Copilot can fit into your game dev process with Scott Hanselman and Mark Russinovich’s Asteroids game. The multiplayer twist on the arcade classic was created in just an hour, live on stage at Microsoft Build 2023. Check out the startpoint branch and press play on the keynote video to follow along.

Floating Capsule Character Controller

Floating Capsule Character Controller isn’t just some fun alliteration: it’s a charming demonstration of how to tie together Three.js graphics and Rapier physics with React to build a game engine in the browser. Floating Capsule Character Controller shows off character and camera controls, movement, environments, and physics in a tidy package. Check out the demo and don’t forget to play with the settings panel.

ScummVM Google Summer of Code 2023

Website Source

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ScummVM welcomed five contributors as part of Google Summer of Code 2023. They’re now working on several parts of the game preservation project, which reimplements the engines of many classic adventure games and RPGs, so they’ll run on modern platforms. The ScummVM team is mentoring the contributors while they work on a range of projects, from compatibility and performance improvements to adding packaging and file integrity systems. Read the welcome message to learn more and follow the participants’ progress.

Game Jams

• GMTK Game Jam (July 7 to July 9)—Free-form 48-hour game jam with a theme to be announced at the start of the jam
• Open Source AI Game Jam (July 7 to July 9)—A 48-hour game jam that requires the use of at least one open-source AI tool
• JS13Kgames (13 August to 13 September)—Make a browser game that’s 13,312 bytes or smaller 😅

Game jam game of the month

Neo City Express puts you behind the wheel with delivery driver, Dagger McBlack, as he attempts to revive the family business with a lot of enthusiasm and deeply irresponsible decision making. After six levels of this part arcade racing game, part visual novel, and part touch typing trainer, you’ll know once and for all whether you’re a mono- or multitasker. With outstanding art, sound, music, and writing, it’s no surprise it ranked first place in multiple Ludum Dare 53 Jam categories. Download Neo City Express on itch.io.

That’s all for this edition of Game Bytes. We’ll see you next month!

Working on something cool or releasing something this month? Share it with us via gamebytes@github.com.

Written by

Lee Reilly

@leereilly

Developer / Marketing / Community at GitHub. Twitter: https://twitter.com/leereilly.