Michal Bartoň

Core Loop in Top Casual Games Together with Playliner (by SensorTower), we analyzed the main gameplay loop of several games: - Homescapes - Monopoly GO - Royal Match - Match Factory - Coin Master - Travel Town The most interesting observation is that the live ops of top games are deeply integrated into the gameplay loop, becoming an essential part of it rather than a separate activity. ---- More mobile game references at: https://playliner.com

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Why Video Game Graphics Seem Like They Stopped Improving Ten years ago, The Witcher 3, Arkham Knight, and Metal Gear Solid V set a new bar for visual fidelity. Fast forward to today, and while games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Horizon Forbidden West are undeniably more detailed, the leap doesn’t feel as monumental as, say, PS2 to PS3. So why does it seem like graphics have stalled? 1. Diminishing Returns The biggest factor is simple: we hit a wall. Early 3D games improved drastically year after year because low-poly models and flat textures left so much room to grow. But once characters stopped looking like blocky mannequins, further refinements such as higher-res textures, slightly smoother animations became subtler. A 50,000-polygon model doesn’t look twice as good as a 25,000-polygon one. At some point, the human eye just stops noticing. 2. The Cost of Realism Modern AAA games chase photorealism, but that’s an exponentially harder target. - Realistic skin requires subsurface scattering. - Believable lighting demands ray tracing. - Dynamic foliage needs physics simulations. Each step forward demands far more processing power for smaller visible gains. Red Dead Redemption 2 still looks incredible, but it took eight years and a half-billion dollars. 3. Art Direction vs. Raw Power Some of the best-looking games today such as Elden Ring and Hades aren’t pushing technical boundaries. They succeed through strong art direction, proving that style ages better than raw fidelity. Meanwhile, many "realistic" games from 2015 (The Order: 1886, Driveclub) still hold up because they prioritized cohesive aesthetics over pure horsepower. 4. The Optimization Crisis Hardware has advanced, but so has developer reliance on brute force. Some games now ship with broken performance, relying on DLSS and FSR to hit playable framerates. 5. The Future: More Than Pixels Graphics have improved...just not in ways that always wow us. Real-time global illumination, path tracing, and AI upscaling are impressive tech, but they don’t make a game feel next-gen the way Crysis once did. Perhaps the next big leap won’t be in visuals at all, but in AI-driven interactivity, physics, or dynamic worlds. Or maybe we’ve just reached the point where better graphics don’t mean better games. And if that’s the case maybe that’s okay.

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As a freelance rigger, I need to make sure my builds have a lot of flexibility. So I've recently reworked my lid modules to add variable joint counts. By utilizing a curve-based output I can changed the amount of joints used based on the needs of the project. Higher joint counts for fidelity and control, lower counts for simplicity and optimization. Or I can test and iterate to find a happy middle ground. So animators using my rigs on film or game projects can enjoy the same features, such as: - Automated lid follow with eye movement - Main controls to position the lids through translation and sculpt the curvature with rotation/scale  - Secondary controls for finer detail (If there are enough joints to support it) - Manual or automated blinking. Animate controls, or activate the automated meet point between your posed lids for a perfect seal I've been using iterations of this system over my last few projects, both commercials and games. The core elements of this system have been floating around in my head since 2018, so it's been great to finally put it to the test. 

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Two formalized resources: Amir Likes Me and Complete Job Search Playbook Folks, all the time we are tinkering with new resources for Amir Satvat's Games Community. Sometimes what we add is brand new. In other cases, we have run extensive trials and, based on consistent and strong feedback, decide to formalize them. Today is one of those times. The first is Amir Likes Me. Once a month, you can let me know about a job search post that is at least partially for a role in games. I will add a supportive comment to help boost its visibility. Over the lifetime of our community, I have done about 200 of these. The feedback has been uniformly positive, so I am formalizing it as a resource. This is not a miracle fix, but it is one more way to get more eyes on your post and more connections. It is now on our homepage with a Google form for tracking. I am also adding statistics for this to our bi-weekly community updates so you can see the data on its impact. I will start the tracking at 200, per the data above. Link: https://lnkd.in/gUUuRSjd The second is the Complete Job Search Playbook. This PDF checklist, distilled from a LinkedIn post that received very positive feedback, outlines everything I would consider before calling a job search complete. I know the list is long and that not every candidate can do everything on it for many reasons. This is respected and that is not the goal. It is meant to be a short, printable document you can use to check off actions over any period of time and find new ideas you may not have tried, whether that is just one of them or all of them. Link: https://lnkd.in/gF_gj4rS Neither of these will be numbered resources, but both are now in our resource library, which is linked from our homepage. I hope many of you will use Amir Likes Me to boost your search posts and the checklist to expand your job search activities. Link to Overall Resource Library: https://lnkd.in/eE9EXB5M A big thank you to Desirée R., who helped with UX, resource planning, branding, and design. She did an excellent job. I appreciate your engagement and amplification of this post so we can get this help into the hands of as many games jobseekers as possible. Thank you games community for the continued privilege of serving you.

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Can you built a Unity game WITHOUT opening the Unity Editor? Yes, it’s possible. In my latest experiment, I used Cursor AI + GitHub to build a full-fledged Tic-Tac-Toe game — and the best part? I didn’t even open the Unity game engine until the final stage! Here’s what I did: ✅ Created a GitHub repo ✅ Connected it with Cursor AI ✅ Gave a few well-crafted prompts ✅ Watched as the AI handled scripting, scene setup, and logic — all from VS Code 🎮 From generating HTML versions to refining a Unity-native build, this process was a mix of automation, iteration, and a little manual intervention. But it proved one thing loud and clear: AI is not just assisting, it’s evolving the way we build games. ✨ I also created additional public repos including: An Object Pooling system A Procedural Story Generator 👨‍💻 Check out the full breakdown and live demo in my new video: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dHvkBv-h If you're a Unity developer (or even just curious), this is a must-watch. #GameDevelopment #Unity3D #CursorAI #AItools #GitHub #CodingWithAI #IndieDev #GameDevTools #LinkedInGaming #NikhilMalankar

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