Konami? Lazy? Say it isn't so!
-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Super Bomberman R was created with Unity
- Thread starter Shard
- Start date
Technobabel
Member
Unity as a game development environment is really simple to pick up and use by people who aren't super competent programmers, so there are a lot of people making games with it that can't get the most out of it.
Polioliolio
Member
2017. Bomberman can't run at 60fps. Noice.
Well to some extent an engine choice does affect "optimization". On the one hand, obviously, by how well optimized its algorithms, data structures etc. are, but also by which kind of development practices it encourages.
Dark Cloud
Member
I hear unity isn't good.
When you have countless examples of Unity games running bad, with a few exceptions, it is hard not to blame the engine.
That is both wrong, and a sad state of affairs.
When you have countless examples of people who understand nothing about engines and games constantly talking about engines and games, you get people blaming the wrong thing.
It's a pretty simple concept: engines are not the primary source of game quality, developers are. Conversation over forever.
BigEmil
Junior Member
Latest Unity versions improved multithreading etc so better performance
HexaDrive is a good studio though.
From my experience (mainly a C++ game programmer, but I've worked on Unity before), Unity has some questionable engine design choices (single threaded scripting, garbage collection, poor support for hotfixes) that unsuspecting developers will fall into these traps and then difficult to fix in later stages of development, while Unity proclaims itself to be easy to use. It is not. It is full of pitfalls.
I wouldn't put the blame on anyone's technical skills.
Not that I'm trying to defend a 30fps Bomberman, but when people use the "Unity is shit" blanket statement I think of Assault Android Cactus.
Best indie of 2016.
KneehighPark
Member
Should have used Fox Engine for that silky smooth 60 fps.
Unity has multithread support now, added last year.
Oh I'm not a developer, I'm only a consumer. As a consumer, I have horrible past with Unity games, and that is enough to make me avoid or at least be cautious with products that use it. I don't really care about the potential of the engine if a lot of the ending results (most of them, in my experience) are unoptimized messes.
They are. But I don't think they have control on technical and design decisions, that's probably up to Konami, which in itself explains a lot.
They should have some say on tech decisions at least. Unless other options they have proposed was too expensive, which is very likely haha. I assume Konami doesn't give this game a proper budget anyway.
Which is good news but I still think they reacted too slowly to dev needs. This and the UI system.
Watch Da Birdie
I buy cakes for myself on my birthday it's not weird lots of people do it I bet
Oh. That's cool, but where's some of the modern titles like the 3D ones?
Anyway with the 30th Anniversary and all if Konami gives us a compilation collection, that'd be swell.
Honestly when I heard a new Bomberman was coming to the Switch I was hyped---if it was a full 3D-adventure in the vein of 64 or Hero I'd totally buy Day 1 along with a Switch, though now I'm waiting till around Christmas to pick the Switch up. Probably will be able to get this game far cheaper I imagine, which will be nice, though even if it's full price I'll probably pick it up when I get my Switch to support the series.
Oh believe me, this isn't surprising at all lmao.
I'm no programmer or dev, so I'd really like it if someone with experience with game development and Unity could make a thread trying to explain what's the deal with this engine. I've seen great examples of games with good performance made on Unity and running at steady 60fps on consoles like Assault Android Cactus, but most of my experiences with the engine come from terribly optimized/ugly indie or low budget games, to the point that whenever something indie looks ugly or seems to have bad performance, people guess it's made on Unity and they end up being right.
Hell, yesterday we had a thread about this game, and I remember someone saying that the bad visuals and disappointing 30fps gameplay probably meant it used Unity... and now this pops up lmao.
I'm no programmer or dev, so I'd really like it if someone with experience with game development and Unity could make a thread trying to explain what's the deal with this engine. I've seen great examples of games with good performance made on Unity and running at steady 60fps on consoles like Assault Android Cactus, but most of my experiences with the engine come from terribly optimized/ugly indie or low budget games, to the point that whenever something indie looks ugly or seems to have bad performance, people guess it's made on Unity and they end up being right.
Hell, yesterday we had a thread about this game, and I remember someone saying that the bad visuals and disappointing 30fps gameplay probably meant it used Unity... and now this pops up lmao.
infinityBCRT
Member
Such a no brainer. Whoever made the decision to build a new code base made a huge mistake.
Stitch
Gold Member
Also has like 15 seconds loading screens
2017. We're lucky to have Bomberman at all.
The deal with this engine is that nowhere near the amount of games could have been made without it. It is an engine that lowered the bar of 3D game development by a lot.
But the ease of use comes with multiple caveats and side effects of course. You can say it is easy to use but hard to master.
TheGreatMightyPoo
Banned
Is it a complete engine with data/level pipeline or is it just a renderer? All they did in recent years are just ports right?
Zombie James
Banned
It shows :/
Randomizer
Member
That explains the framerate. I like Unity and what they have done for indie development but good god the engine isn't optimised for shit. A major publisher like Konami has no business using it, especially when there are far better alternatives such as UE4.
It's a complete engine that they even licensed to Game Republic back in the PS3/360 days for their games. They retrofitted the engine a bit and used it for Type-0 HD on PS4/PC. It's basically a last-gen engine, but... I wouldn't think that would get in the way of Super Bomberman R.
It's a complete engine that they even licensed to Game Republic back in the PS3/360 days for their games. They retrofitted the engine a bit and used it for Type-0 HD on PS4/PC. It's basically a last-gen engine, but... I wouldn't think that would get in the way of Super Bomberman R.
Wow I didn't know this. Thanks!
Now I can't imagine Unity being a cheaper option than this.
The Taxman
Neo Member
The main issue with Unity is while it is pretty intuitive for beginners to pick up and work with, the finer details of how the engine processes various things like object interactions, resource management etc are not made explicitly apparent, or even obscured behind a black box (closed source engine). Combine this with general purpose C# code for objects, restricting your control over memory to its GC system and you have a "death by a thousand cuts" situation with optimization. Lots of little things that can add up over time in larger scope projects.
Developers that already have an understanding of how game engines are typically structured can work around these issues, but it explains why performance issues are so prevalent with Indies who use the engine because they need a lower barrier of entry for programming.
frankie_baby
Member
Well unity was free to wii u developers I'd imagine its the same for switch
wait, it looks and runs that bad AND is 720p? ffs Konami.
You would have been better off porting one of the old ones and selling it for $10.
Vital Tundra
Member
That explains the load times and 30fps, but at the same time the game is extremely basic graphically. How is it not 60fps?
Edit: Its also running at 720p? The fuck? Thats just not okay. Nevemind they could have used Unreal, they have their very own engine that scales great.
There is no excuse AT ALL. It should be runnnig at 60fps, it should be running at native 1080p, and load times should be instant for a game like this. Unity can work, but Konami shouldn't really be using that engine as a big name publisher.
Edit: Its also running at 720p? The fuck? Thats just not okay. Nevemind they could have used Unreal, they have their very own engine that scales great.
There is no excuse AT ALL. It should be runnnig at 60fps, it should be running at native 1080p, and load times should be instant for a game like this. Unity can work, but Konami shouldn't really be using that engine as a big name publisher.
I mean it's definitely Konami's 'fault' because this isn't even a port so it's not like they built anything without the target platform in mind, 30fps would've likely always been the goal I guess. It's hard to call it fault when I doubt they were ever targeting a higher framerate.
But given the pedigree of developer involved it's not a great sign, hard to say where any potential problems are though and comments about using other engines to solve those problems don't really have any basis in reality.
It's a complex situation in which we have very little information, and for me regardless of the why I'm just a bit sad about what we're getting.
Tye The Czar
Member
Not that I'm trying to defend a 30fps Bomberman, but when people use the "Unity is shit" blanket statement I think of Assault Android Cactus.
Pretty much this. It's not the engine, but the team behind it that makes a difference. And I bet my bottom dollar that a more competent or dedicated team could get Super Bomberman R running at 60FPS with shorter load times when the same thing had been done with the Wii version.
TheGreatMightyPoo
Banned
Where is this "runs like shit" narrative coming from???
I've seen many a video.
It's 30 fps.
But please show this "running like shit".
giancarlo123x
Banned
Is this going to suck? I pre-ordered it but haven't looked at it at all because I figure they can't fuck up something simple like this.
They're not going to fuck it up. Unless playing a 30fps game gives you seizures or something, it'll be a lot of fun when the dozens of us here have 8 player match ups every weekend!
Marty Chinn
Member
Engine's most certainly can be one of the primary sources of performance issues though, especially when an engine is not running as well on one platform compared to another. This is a very common case with either a newer engine or new platforms.
Omega Kirby
Member
Unity can be really good and beautiful engine when effort is put into it
30fps at that poor graphical fidelity qualifies.
Unity can be really good and beautiful engine when effort is put into it
What is that?
Sora the Cat
Member
Mr. Pointy
Member
IIRC, I've read it runs in between 900p and 1080p when docked. I don't remember what the exact number is.
Hexadrive is hardly a slouch when it comes to technical proficiency, and their biggest feat may arguably be the fact that they took a complete piece of crap port from another developer like ZOE2 HD and turned it into the definitive version of that game. This really is pointing to Konami not giving enough time or money.
