
Game Builder: Create 3D games with friends, no experience required - sohkamyung
https://www.blog.google/technology/area-120/create-3d-games-friends-no-experience-required/
======
abledon
Similar to how the hottest chat app is google docs for the new generation [1],
This is definitely a step in the write direction to snowball that momentum of
'virtual chat + collaborative playtime'

[1]
[https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/hotte...](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/03/hottest-
chat-app-teens-google-docs/584857/)

~~~
tudorw
Anyone for Roblox :)

~~~
lihaciudaniel
Yes. I remember (nostalgic times) when Roblox + Google docs (for group
documents) and Teamspeak where the main way we communicated

~~~
faitswulff
I must have gotten old somehow, because I remember Roblox as being that game I
put on the iPad for my 5 year old nephews.

~~~
QuinnWilton
I (and a lot of my friends) got their first real start with programming using
Roblox back in 2006. Most of us now work professionally in software or
security, directly as a result of our experience with making games in Roblox,
or hacking the game.

Writing exploits for Roblox gave me experience with everything from binary
analysis to web security and cryptography.

I've heard similar stories from other people for games like Runescape or
Minecraft. It's really astounding to me the ways in which a dedicated enough
teenager can take advantage of games to turn them into something really
educational.

~~~
QuinnWilton
Also, my handle in Roblox was Aeacus! Hit me up if we ever played together :)
I'm sure there's a ton of overlap between HN and the smallish Roblox scripting
community of 2006.

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h2odragon
Wife and daughter have spent the last two months working on their own private
minecraft mod with MCreator, this should tickle their interest. the puzzle
block programming paradigm promptly pissed off my preteen to the point she's
asked "wouldn't it be easier to type this?"

~~~
maushu
Seems she can implement cards using javacript.

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ehnto
I was ready to be skeptical but this is pretty cool. If it were trying to
replace Minecraft or games like it then it would be a tough sell, and you
would have a hard time breaking into that community. But it looks like it's
more powerful for the individual contributors, with the ability to make custom
blocks/entities on the fly rather than just using the ones someone else coded
up and made into a mod.

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dyarosla
I think it’s a great market to tackle- as both a game/level designer tool and
also an educational intro to scripting/coding.

IMO it’s very reminiscent of Microsoft’s Kodu and to a lesser extent Media
Molecule’s Little Big Planet and Dreams games.

I wish the team the best of luck! Hopefully it keeps chugging along for some
time; I’m wary because particularly these kinds of not quite game engine and
not quite game projects have a bad history of abandonment within 3-5 years
(I’ve researched this particular space for a while).

~~~
darzu
> Hopefully it keeps chugging along for some time

That's my biggest question, especially with Google. Meanwhile, Kodu is still
getting updates 10 years later! [0] (Disclosure: I was an intern on Kodu years
back, so I'm probably biased ;) )

[0] [https://www.kodugamelab.com/archive/new-kodu-
release-15470/](https://www.kodugamelab.com/archive/new-kodu-release-15470/)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
I thought Kodu was pretty much frozen at this point, and I think Project Spark
failed. Is it someone at MS working on the code?

~~~
darzu
There's still a dev fixing bugs and improving perf full-time, but it's not
getting drastic changes. More people are using Kodu now than ever before.

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jmalkin
Looks amazing!!

I wonder how well it will cope with non-basic games, as in non-platformers,
non-shooters.

I've noticed that many frameworks are great for basic tutorial project usage
but don't do well once you start on a real project

~~~
bobblywobbles
That's where you need to build up the fundamentals that you've learned. I'm
excited to see what people are going to build with this once they've gotten
comfortable with the engine. Creativity will be the limit!

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enneff
I just had a play with it. It seems very well thought out. It has a very nice
tutorial that introduces all the basic concepts. I am looking forward to
trying out the multiplayer aspect, as that seems to be the most compelling
thing about it.

~~~
ehnto
Being able to write some code to make a custom block and then just drop it
right into the world, working the same for everyone else, is pretty cool.
Hopefully that is how it works.

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deanclatworthy
Does anyone else remember an old "game" for making games? It would have been
late 90s when I played it, and I remember we bought it on a CD. You could
build little top down games in it, I think the example was a football game.

~~~
teddyh
These are too early to be the one you’re looking for, but there have been a
number of these, including these two I had myself back in the day:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kitchen%27s_GameMaker](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garry_Kitchen%27s_GameMaker)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot-%27Em-
Up_Construction_Ki...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoot-%27Em-
Up_Construction_Kit)

~~~
umjames
I remember GameMaker from the 80s on the Apple ][e!

Also had Adventure Construction Set by EA (before they went all sports-crazy):
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Construction_Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventure_Construction_Set)

I also had a cracked copy of Pinball Construction Set too:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinball_Construction_Set)

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pauletienney
Seems nice. Anyone has an opinion on why Google built this? Do you think it is
related to Stadia? Or just a company hobby turning well?

~~~
ehnto
From another comment, it was released by their internal startup incubator.
It's potentially not related to anything else at all inside Google, just a
project a small team was able to put together with Google's money.

~~~
pauletienney
Thank you for the information. I did not see it.

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codetrotter
> Find 3D models on Google Poly and use them in your game instantly.

Google Poly seems to be a place for uploading things made with TiltBrush or
with a program called Blocks. First time hearing about the latter.

Will it be possible to load models from OBJ, COLLADA or other formats?

Edit: Originally I asked what about Google SketchUp also, but it turns out
SketchUp was sold to another company in 2012.

~~~
remedan
You can already upload any model to Google Poly. I remember submitting one
made in Blender. I thing I had to export it as OBJ.

~~~
taneq
Coincidentally enough I've spent half the day writing a .obj loader, and in
the process found out that Windows 10's "3D Viewer" app can open .obj files.

Edit: More than you ever wanted to know about the .obj and .mtl formats:

[http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/obj/](http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/obj/)

[http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/mtl/](http://paulbourke.net/dataformats/mtl/)

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eikenberry
Any word on when it will get Linux support?

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pkulak
I thought Steam could automatically load up Wine, or something like that?

~~~
breakingcups
You are correct, they have developed Proton [1] which is based on Wine.

[1]
[https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton](https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton)

~~~
albertzeyer
But it's not automatically. I think the developer has to enable that. Probably
because the developer is still intended (or wants) to verify that it really
works properly in Proton.

Or not sure. But I have not found a way to run arbitrary Windows Steam games
on Linux with Proton. Not sure how I would do that.

~~~
breakingcups
Yes, you can force it on all games if you want. I'm currently playing many
games on the latest version of Proton.

It might be named a bit confusingly though, I'm at work and don't remember
exactly but it might be worded something like "Override proton version for all
games" which also enables it for games not explicitly marked as compatible.

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MarcScott
This is great, but I wish there was a stand alone installation. I get that
most gamers would be happy to use Steam, and I am myself, but I would love to
use this in some of the coding clubs I run. I can imagine the look on the
network guy's face when I go to him and ask for Steam to be installed on a
school network.

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megaremote
Why do I need steam for this? Seems very odd.

~~~
kevingadd
Steam provides a CDN, updater, friends list/social infrastructure, really
terrible but functional user generated content sharing infrastructure, and
cloud saves to game developers, so it's pretty appealing even if you're a team
inside Google since the alternative is building your own installer and updater
- Google has no competitor to Steam on Windows or any other platform of note
other than Android.

Also, Gamers actively get angry with developers now if a game releases on
something other than Steam, so it's probably better for PR and adoption rates
to just target Steam and be done with it.

~~~
RHSeeger
To be more specific, gamers get annoyed when they have to install yet another
"game manager" program to play a game. This is especially true when that game
manager is well know to lack features and be insecure.

Installing a game standalone doesn't annoy anyone I know (though, to be fair,
I'm now older with few friends)

~~~
TeMPOraL
And to generalize it a bit - users get annoyed when they want to _just_ buy a
product, and the producer pulls some vendor lock-in bullshit trick. They're
right to be annoyed, because not only it is inconvenient, such moves are meant
to exploit them.

"Game manager" is a especially visible case because, with the exception of
Steam, Battle.Net, they're almost universally crap. Some of them are so bad I
wouldn't want to install one even if it was the _only_ game platform in
existence!

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lixtra
Sounds like the lambdaMOO of the present. To drop code objects into a life
multiplayer community is an ancient concept. Fun today as it was back then.

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pulkitsh1234
The build and instant play feature reminds me of Trackmania for some reason.

It was (is) a great game, but I still cannot believe why it never became
famous.

~~~
iforgotpassword
Are you from the US? It was fairly popular in Europe and also played in the
ESL, but I hardly ever saw players from anywhere else.

~~~
pulkitsh1234
haha I am from India, one of the somewhat 100 players from India when it came
out. I was ranked 15 when trackmania 2 came out.

Yes, you are right all the best players were from Europe.

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runetech
It looks very cool and also very familiar. I used to work with the tech that
turned into CREY ([https://www.playcrey.com/](https://www.playcrey.com/)), and
this seems to be in the same vein. CREY might be interesting for anyone who
wants to check out comparable offerings.

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glonq
"with friends, no experience required"

...but what if I've got experience but no friends?

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chacha2
I played a game like this when I was a kid called Atmosphir.

[https://onemoreblock.com/landing/](https://onemoreblock.com/landing/)

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gmueckl
How is content moderation done on thisnplatform? Is it all manual? It isneasy
to create offensive or illegal contetm when you have tools for free-form
expression. This problem is the reason why some game developers stopped adding
even simple features like uploading custom tag images in multiplayer games.

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nstart
Oh I can't wait to try this one out. The trailer makes it look good. Most
importantly, it has workshop support!
[https://steamcommunity.com/app/929860/workshop/](https://steamcommunity.com/app/929860/workshop/)

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the-alchemist
Anyone know if Google plans on open sourcing it, so we can port it to
different platforms?

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vyrotek
Just wish it had gamepad support!

~~~
vectorEQ
that should be fairly trivial to implement if they are indeed using unity. i
agree it would be cool to have, additionally it would allow for local
multiplayer which is always still the best way to enjoy these things imho =]

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bufferoverflow
I just tried it out, edited some code. It's alright. The problem I have with
it is the graphics quality. It's very plain. No shader access. Close to no
lighting.

I decided not to invest more time into it, it needs some work to be a game
engine.

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darkwinx
Haven't tried it yet. I think it will be a great prototyping tool too.

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martinesko36
Wait, so can you publish those games on say Steam later on?

~~~
snicky
It seems you can't yet.

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org3432
Anyone know what engine this is using?

~~~
ralusek
Considering google cloud's partnership with Unity, probably Unity.

~~~
feiss
yup, it's Unity

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bobblywobbles
Can you share "cards" with other people or just within your own projects?

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epa
Reminds me of Macromedia Flash and SWiSH Max if anyone remembers that tool.

~~~
perch56
OMG I had so much fun with SWiSH. Haven't thought about it for a few years now
... brings back some nice memories :)

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guipsp
This very much reminds me of Little Big Planet in a good way.

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danielscrubs
I’d really like some “x becomes beginner friendly”-filter on HackerNews.
Stockholm syndrome perhaps.

------
soup10
Not sure who the audience for this is. Kids I guess? Game developers want
engines and tools that make development easier without losing power or
flexibility. Players want new interesting gaming experiences.

~~~
ggggtez
Yes it looks like it's for kids. Basically everything a kid would want from
Minecraft, minus the licensed characters I guess.

~~~
soup10
i dunno i think the survival/mining/crafting aspect of minecraft is a big part
of what makes it popular. also i think the "card programming model" and every
variation of that sort of thing is such a bad idea. either support real
programming or don't, don't make users deal with some junky programming
emulation system

~~~
dragonwriter
> either support real programming

This prominently advertises live (type it in and its an active part of the
game with no build/reload/whatever step) JavaScript coding, so it supports
real coding.

> don't make users deal with some junky programming emulation system

Excel supports real programming, but people get a lot done it relying mainly
on its wide variety of "junky programming emulation" features. People who
don't see themselves as programmers often see what programmers see as "junky
programming emulation" as accessible tools that don't have (and with
familiarity end up lowering) the psychological/emotional barriers actual
coding has for lots of people.

~~~
cr0sh
> accessible tools that don't have...the psychological/emotional barriers
> actual coding has for lots of people

I don't think I've ever seen this expressed before; that is, people (in
general) having "psychological/emotional barriers" to "actual coding"?

Do you have any links or other references to this; studies, documents, heck -
even a general audience article? It would all be interesting to read about.
I've seen people struggle with learning (and often giving up) "coding" and
"software development", and I am interested in what these barriers may be, etc
- and what ways around them, or lessening them, there are.

I've run into this topic tangentially when it comes to children's education
(particularly Papert's Mindstorms seems to touch on the issue), but it would
be interesting to understand it more when it comes to older individuals.

~~~
TuringTest
> I don't think I've ever seen this expressed before; that is, people (in
> general) having "psychological/emotional barriers" to "actual coding"?

Are you a developer, by any chance? There's a whole academic field of study[1]
dedicated to overcome the barriers faced by people trying to develop _software
artifacts_ without the need of being trained in a formal system.[2]

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-
user_development](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/End-user_development) [2]
[http://acypher.com/wwid/FrontMatter/index.html#Introduction](http://acypher.com/wwid/FrontMatter/index.html#Introduction)

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elil17
It’s a shame that making simple games doesn’t require coding like it used to.
For myself, and a lot of others I’m sure, games were a huge motivator to teach
myself programming. Now kids won’t be as motivated to do that

~~~
munchbunny
I would have killed to have tools like Unity when I got into game programming.
All of my hobby time was eaten up trying to wrangle OpenGL and C++ and crappy
open source engines, and cobbling together a shitty physics engine, so I never
got around to the actual game part. When I went back years later to prototype
ideas in Unity, it was a breath of fresh air.

However, in my struggles to get off the ground, I did learn a lot more about
font rendering than I ever wanted to, and it has come up unexpectedly useful.

~~~
tomcam
Wait, you can’t leave us hanging about how font rendering was unexpectedly
useful. What kind of fonts did you deal with later in life and why?

~~~
munchbunny
It's not that exciting of a story. ;)

I had to write my own font rendering code for lack of much in the way of
general purpose libraries for doing it in 3-D engines back around 2005. Your
options were, more or less, to pay through the nose for Scaleform, to roll
your own, or to use something really ugly. So I had to learn some basic
typography to tie Freetype into a text rendering engine, which got me
practical experience with editing font files, anti-aliasing, hinting, kerning,
processing digraphs, Unicode, the works.

Web 2.0 started more or less right after that, so interest in digital
typography in general exploded. I ended up working on some applications of
text layout in non-left-to-right and pictograph languages for 2D canvas, SVG,
and web based image manipulation in general. So out of sheer coincidence my
hobby work messing with OpenGL/Freetype was suddenly directly relevant.

~~~
tomcam
pretty exciting to me. lots of interesting projects. thanks for sharing.

------
yangikan
No tutorials on how to get started and the product could possibly be purged in
another 3 years. Start with something like Gamemaker if you really want
something that will be around for sometime.

~~~
ggggtez
based on the article, I think you missed the point. This is a competitor with
Minecraft. Not a competitor to Unity.

