Caps Collective

Finally got some proper NPC character models working, with some AI smart objects for them to sit and check out the market stalls

The Big Sand desert party is happening this Saturday at the Red Rattler in Sydney, I'm super excited to show off what we've been working on 🏜️
events.humanitix.com/big-sand-des...

My virtual sci-fi band played SXSW Sydney! Here's what happened. YouTube video by Big Sand

I've been working with my friend on a live show for a virtual band at the end of this month. This video goes into the fancy cameras, Unreal trickery, and puppetry that makes up the show.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJWV...

Poster for the Big Sand Desert Rave, at Red Rattler in Marrickville on November the 29th

In Sydney end of November? The virtual band Big Sand is performing live!

I’ve been helping out with some of the tech behind the scenes, and I’m really excited for people to check it out!

Tickets: events.humanitix.com/big-sand-des...

Waypoint Constellations this year was something special. It’s at that sweet spot where they’re able to find talented speakers from across the state, but keep the energy tight knit and the talks uniquely weird.

Last night wasn’t just a night about games, it was truly about the people making them ✨

It’s been an amazing week - an exhausting week. Take a moment to congratulate yourself on making it through.

It’s also important that we listen to our bodies coming away from these events. If it’s telling you that you need to faint and cough up blood, give yourself the patience and space to do so.

Ben and Jonathan from Caps Collective at the 2024 AGDAs

Caps Collective is gonna be at #MIGW, so come say hi!

We’ll be at #GCAP, Freeplay Parallels, and #PAXAUS, hope to see you there!

STREAMING & SERIALISATION FOR UNREAL OPEN WORLDS JONATHAN MOALLEM LEAD PROGRAMMER @ GAMELOFT BRISBANE Unreal Engine 5 provides built-in solutions for chunked streaming management, multi-user editing, instancing, and LODing with its World Partition systems. Theres a ton of great tunctionality to lean on that will get you 90% of the way to your open world game, but there's also a lot of glue and gotchas to look out for. This talk offers an overview of some of the systems and strategies we've used at Gameloft Brisbane to manage multi-platform, open world games, from schedule and world state to streaming and serialisation. TUE 7TH OCT @3PM

As per my annual tradition, I'll be heading down to #MIGW for @gcapconf.bsky.social. I am a little bit nervous, but also excited to be delivering my first ever technical talk! It's about building open world games with World Partition in #UnrealEngine. I'll be in Melbourne all week, so come say hi!

Getting the hang of Unreal's Metasounds, now we're able to get objects listening to the output and bouncing to the music 🎶

A pile of cogs, baskets, and rugs by a door with a cog symbol on it

A group of pots in a row by a market stall with spices

A pile of garbage blocking the players movement

One of my favourite parts of level design is creating piles of junk as barriers for player movement

It’s so cool that the biggest game in the world right now is an Australian Indie

The Flour Fields Amongst the turmoil of the scarecrow onslaught, a beacon of hope has arrived for our farmers, as our reporters have retrieved an ancient map written in Dryadic, the language of plants. Herbolinguists from the farmers guild have marked out what appears to be the distant homeland of the dastardy scarecrows that are holding our fields hostage. While the translation is unclear, it goes on to describe a 'field of flowers'. A band of adventurers have already embarked to the scarecrows' homeland to take care of this denim clad sourge for good! Don't Worry Everything is fine! World's Gobliniest Human A great disturbance to village life yesterday as the goblin alarm was raised to supposed threat, apprehended by town guards. After an extensive interrogation and scrying, village officials came to the conclusion that it was in fact not a goblin but instead just a very short, ugly, slightly green wizard. Regardless, he's joined the adventuring guild.

The thrilling conclusion to our scarecrow saga

A newpaper titled Fantasy Town Daily with 2 articles, an ad, and a drawing of some flowers. The Flower Fields Amongst the turmoil of the scarecrow onslaught, a beacon of hope has arrived for our farmers, as our reporters have retrieved an ancient map written in Dryadic, the language of plants. Herbolinguists from the farmers guild have marked out what appears to be the distant homeland of the dastardy scarecrows that are holding our fields hostage. While the translation is unclear, it goes on to describe a 'field of flowers'. A band of adventurers have already embarked to the scarecrows' homeland to take care of this denim clad sourge for good! Curse got you down? Come to Aunty Crystals' healing hut! Food Safety Spells Despite ongoing food shortages, the following spells can no longer be cast due to health and safety concerns: • Cheese Whip • Wall of Meat • Flavour Blast

The Ministary of Conjured Cuisine will not be pleased with this development

2 Mission 2 Impossible would be a better title for that film though

A newpaper titled Fantasy Town Daily with 2 articles, an ad, and a drawing of a scarecrow. Scarecrows Had The Final Straw All across our fields, farmers have awoken to a shock, as scarecrows have up and started walking about! Little is known of the scarecrows motives, but they have become territorial of their fields. On the advise of local agricultural and enchantment experts, the farmers guild have agreed to "Burn it all down and send those monsters back to the inferno." Townsfolk are warned they may notice a slight food shortage in the coming weeks, and to avoid wearing any overalls and sun hats for their own protection. The Orb of Awakening Local innkeeper Veronica Stalwart has gained supernatural powers after she touched an orb containing the soul of a long dead god while cleaning her attic. When asked about her intentions, she stated "I promise to use these powers for good, no matter WHAT the being inside of me says!" Donate Blood Today! Please, Don't ask Why!

Scarecrows are my personal favourite animated humanoid constructs

Good luck @retroarchetype.bsky.social and the rest of the team!

Special Edition of Fantasy Town Daily!

DnD is for Nerds has been a huge inspiration for the events in our game, and I've been so psyched to see how successful their new board game kickstarter has been.

Food Review: Elder God Calamari This week, we tried out local celebrity chef Abher'li the Mind Flayer's signature dish: "Lllln'gha bthnkor ot Me-pog Ehye", which roughly translates to "Consume the flesh of the Elder One!" Four stars: Surprisingly tender, slightly chewy, and the visions have only grown stronger since... Lesser Potions for Lesser Heroes! Come to Mr. Mediocre's, where the potions aren't too hot or too cold, they're just alright. Rogue, Light? Local rogue Gorath was seen floating above the town today, taunting a pack of brawlers just out of reach after reportedly drinking a potion of levitation. I swear, it's something new with this guy every day...

Read all about elder god calamari, floating rogues, and lesser potions in this edition of Fantasy Town Daily!

INSANE ADVENTURER "FORGETS TO QUICKSAVE" An upsetting turn of events today, as well known non-violent hero Paci Fistrun is now from authorities after committing what can only be described as "a horrifying murder spree". Reports claimed he got bored and wanted to see what would happen. The hero released a statement this morning: "I was just fooling around, I meant to reload after, but forgot to quicksave, I swear! Well, there goes this play through... LYCANTHROPILLS! Unleash your inner beast! THEY'RE KITTEN ABOUT SAFETY STANDARDS! A local inn has received scathing reviews over its weekend grand-opening when several high-ranking town gentry in attendance were transformed into house cats upon trying the "new soup”. The commissioner of the Magical Safety Standard Alliance had this to say about the incident: "meow? meoooooow" followed by faint purring.

Remember adventurers, always keep a backup.

The Woods Last Song: The notorious Princess Woodsong and her bloodthirsty band of furry friends have been brought to justice by our brave adventurers. The princess is awaiting trial for her crimes, including: • Insubordination • Unkemptness • Murder If sentenced, she will be locked in 'The Tower', an asylum for runaway princesses. DID YOU KNOW? The cost of a single health potion is enough to feed a family of five for a year! Donations to your local Guild Co. branch will increase start of next quarter, to help afford essential costs. GET A NEW FOCUSING CRYSTAL! Your spells will backfire no more!

Extra extra! Read all about it! Princess Woodsong has been brought to ‘justice’!

Fantasy Town Daily newspaper with the following articles: Princess Out for Revenge: Princess Woodsong, who apparently has been captured for six months, has grown tired of waiting for rescue. She was broken out by a band of befriended woodland creatures, who she has trained into a deadly miltia. Now, reports indicate she's out for revenge against the town for forgetting about her. Our correspondent from GuildCo. has reached out to clarify the situation: "We think her ransom note got caught in our spam filter. Think you might be Psychic? Get tested today, at any nearby inquisition outpost! Royal Spell Bans: Following a royal decree, the following spells have been banned from non-authorized use: • Zone of Tax Evasion • Repress Trauma • Powerword: Gaslight

Be careful out there, rogue deer WILL attack on sight!

Fantasy Town Regional Manager - Quality of Life Update v2.2.7 - Steam News We're back at it again making some little changes so the game is all up to date just in time for our biggest sale yet!

Just in time for the Steam sale, we’ve released a new patch cleaning up some of those small outstanding nitpicks that have been keeping us up at night.

Patch notes:
store.steampowered.com/news/app/152...

The capsule art for the game showing the sale cost of $4 ($5.60 AUD), with Steam’s artwork for the sale in the background

The Steam City Builder and Colony Sim sale is live, and we’ve got our biggest discount yet of 60%!

If you’ve been wishing for the chance to run your own adventuring town, look no further

s.team/a/1524530

Reduce, Reuse, Reanimate ♻️

Our debut issue of Fantasy News Daily is out now!

If you haven't heard of the Game UI Database (gameuidatabase.com), it's a great tool for when you need to remember that one cool menu from a game you played years ago.

Save 40% on The Palace on the Hill on Steam A heartfelt story of ambition, struggle, and friendship told from the perspective of a young boy in fictional 90s rural India. Explore ancient palace ruins, set up your garden, cook Indian food, run e...

If anyone wants to try out a cute short farming game, I've been really enjoying The Palace on the Hill. It's from a small Indian indie dev team, and they definitely deverse the support!
s.team/a/2562620

Godot 4.4, a unified experience – Godot Engine Look forward to plenty of quality of life improvements hidden within this release. Faster load speeds, reduced stutter, streamlined processes - spotting all the optimizations that have been applied in...

Finally! After all this time Godot has typed dictionaries! This patch announcement reads like a wishlist just for me

godotengine.org/releases/4.4/

new post! bimbo.nekoweb.org/posts/7-bsky...

The niftiest, runtime interned string tokens C++ can buy A brief overview of the runtime string tokens used by our custom engine and the story of how I got there.

First blog post of the year: DONE! In this exciting episode, I talk about the fun little string token class I added instead of writing the static mesh packer like I said I would.
#cpplus #cpp #gamedev #opensource #programming #gameengine

Sound Sensitivity IF YOU CONSIDER YOURSELF TO BE SENSITIVE TO SOUNDS, please fill this out to help a 4th grader with a research project! And feel free to share! Thank you!

👂 CALLING ALL MY SOUND-SENSITIVE PEEPS 👂

Please fill out this survey to help a very wonderful 4th grader that I know get some key data for a school project! And please share!

forms.gle/dHAa7uQrhY7f...