Killing the Walk Monster

What Hacker News said

Recommends db48x · 2021-09 · on “Why video game doors are so hard to get right [video]”

[this video] Here’s a game developer talking about the problem and how they solved it in The Witness, but note well the limitations he describes. It’s not directly useful if the player can jump, for instance.

Cites sunrunner · 2025-02 · on “Splitting from Handmade Network”

I feel the same about Casey and his work, and like another commenter said, his simple, practical and honest approach to his work is refreshing in an era of languages, environments and tools that feel bloated, slow and ineffective (IMHO). > That being said the whole network idea, and the fetishisation of his particular coding philosophy was always cringe. And I agree with this too. The point of Handmade Hero to me was always to show that the complex software systems that you interact with can be understood despite their size and complexity, and that it's still possible (though perhaps in a lot of cases impractical) to recreate these from the ground up. Also that there's tremendous value in un

Cites wasmperson · 2025-07 · on “The Big Oops: Anatomy of a Thirty-Five-Year Mistake [video]”

A custom engine is never _needed_ technically speaking since COTS engines are often customizable to the point where you can do anything you want with them. That doesn't mean that they don't influence the design of games, though. There's a talk that Casey gives where he explains how he implemented the movement system for The Witness, in which he shows examples of Unity-based "walking simulator"-type games dealing with limitations of the engine in ways that The Witness was able to totally avoid. This allowed the game's artists to be creative with set design without worrying as much about performance issues or collision bugs, thus potentially opening up more design space. [this video] Here's some pr