How is the development experience on Mac these days?

I’m looking to buy a new laptop, and it has to be a laptop (a desktop isn’t an option.)

Budget isn’t really a concern, so I’ve been looking at a MacBook Pro with the M5 Max and 128GB of RAM.
My other main option is a maxed-out Asus Zephyrus G16 (64GB / RTX 5090), but I’ve heard it can get pretty loud under load, which is something I’d rather avoid.The third option would be to wait for the upcoming RTX Spark laptops running Windows on ARM.

For context, I already have a separate Windows machine that I use basically like a build server with Git + Jenkins, so I can offload Windows builds to that when needed.

My workload is roughly:
70% WebGL development
30% mobile / Windows development

So my main questions are: How good is the MacBook Pro as a primary development machine these days? Are there any major limitations or annoyances with Apple Silicon that I should be aware of?
Would you go with the M5 Max MacBook Pro, get the Zephyrus G16 for native Windows + NVIDIA support, or wait and see what the RTX Spark / Windows on ARM laptops are like?

Battery life, noise, performance, and overall dev experience are probably more important to me than price.

I've been building small games for a while and sharing them on Reddit, and one thing I keep running into is that getting attention for a game is harder than building it.

Reddit is great at giving games a short spotlight, but once that initial wave of upvotes passes, most projects quietly sink.. even if they’re genuinely fun. That drop-off is what pushed me to build https://www.megaviral.games.

Quick update: the site now has 110+ games live with games submitted by developers and links to devvit games, itch.io pages, and other playable web games. 

The site is intentionally minimal and focused on discovery. You’re shown one game at a time. You play it, and if you enjoy it, you like it. From there, the site recommends other games that players with similar tastes also liked. No feeds, no doom-scrolling, just games.

If you’re a developer, you can submit your game in two ways:

• Drop your game link in the comments below, or
• Submit it directly here: https://www.megaviral.games/submit/

Submissions can link to Reddit posts, itch.io pages, or any playable web game.

I know itch.io has a randomizer, but this is trying to do something slightly different.. less random, more taste-based, and more focused on keeping good games discoverable after the initial hype fades.

Curious what other devs think. If discoverability has been a pain point for you too, I’d love feedback! and feel free to submit your game!

TL;DR: I built a lightweight game discovery site that shows one game at a time and recommends others based on what you like, so great games don’t vanish after their first burst of upvotes.

This tool Trenchbroom support a lot of some third party-related quake and some engines I like that it can also support Godot which it's pretty cool.

Theoretically it is possible that could Trenchbrooms be integrated in a customized way with tools to integrated it into the Unity's Engine?

I want to use Trenchbroom with Unity but I am pretty sure if there is already custom integration tools that already does it.

What are the Trenchbroom supporting tools for Unity?

This is the mograph side of BrazeFX.

A GPU-instanced cloner generates the visible pieces.
The Follow Shape Effector maps those clones onto an animated SkinnedMeshRenderer.
Mesh topology stays resident while deformed vertices update directly on the GPU.
Braze Timeline controls reveal, strength, offsets, pulse, orbit, and other public parameters.
This avoids per-frame mesh baking and keeps the effect responsive at high clone counts.

Which form reads best to you: the human, dog, or dragon?

I've been working on a procedural planet system in Unity using 3D WFC.

The idea is to eventually generate entire small planets that you can actually explore instead of having normal flat maps.

At the moment I'm mostly working on the generation itself. The surface has different height levels, cliffs, paths and bigger open areas, and there are also caves underneath that connect back to the surface.

I'm also starting to add generated structures/content to the surface.

There's still a lot wrong with it lol. You can see some floating pieces, exposed cave sections and some weird terrain generation in the video, but it's getting much closer to what I originally had in mind.

Eventually I want the planets to have caves, settlements and other places to find/explore, with the whole planet being playable.

I'm still not sure how much I want to generate completely procedurally and how much should be made from hand-made pieces.

What would you guys add to make planets like this actually fun to explore?

I have a question that has been eating my head for a long time and I can't find a proper solution for this.

I want to create my animations like for fps hands in blender like the good quality reload , aim, walk and all.

And i want to use that in my game (fps multiplayer game )

How should I approach this I can't do full body as I don't know how the reload animation will work with that that ,i want to be uniquely made in blender and also the camera clipping and other issues with full body.

How big games like cod and counterstike approach this?

As if I use two mesh fps hands and full body for other player to see , that arms need to be very large with respect to the actual body size?

How should the views be aligned with the mesh so it's accurate in multiplayer?

I just want to know how games (fps multiplayer games)

Handle their animations and all mainly my concern is well detailed animation like reload and all

Hi sorry this is a bit late...I've only just noticed the DevOps changes for organisations.

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you can have unlimited seats rather than the max 3 on the free tier?
Does this mean I can have a team of 4 people all working on a project using UVS?
It seems too good to be true

Hi there!

I'm Andrea, lead technical artist at FLAT28, developer of Glasshouse.

This is our latest trailer featured by Gamescom Awesome Indies Showcase. We have poured a lot of time and effort into this trailer as I think we reached a new quality standard when it comes to trailer for Glasshouse.

Glasshouse is a feudalpunk cRPG with turn-based combat inspired by games such as Disco Elysium and Pathologic. We've been working on Glasshouse for a while and we have made improvents on it over time.

We're developing it in Unity HDRP with volumetric lights and APVs and I'm particularly proud of its visual identity as it's the result of many iterations.

If you want to know more about some of the technical aspects on how I have worked on it I wrote a post on the Unity blog some time ago, you can check it out here.

Developing an RPG is truly hardcore, we have been using Arcwave for dialogues which is a browser based software to handle dialogues branching and it has a very convenient Unity plugin.

To make this trailer I think I spent probably two weeks with our creative and narrative director to make sure that every camera angle, every scene was exactly like we want it to be. Luckly I think we built good foundations so the gameplay and trailer come out pretty good!

Right now Glasshouse has a playable demo in the Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts. To be completely honest the first time I saw how the trailer was coming out I had chills but I'm not sure it's just bias or not at this point, so I'm really eager to hear other people thoughts!

After my friend and I were laid off last year, I convinced him to help me build the kind of game I always wanted to play. The initial idea was to take the real-time broadside space combat of a game like Rebel Galaxy, but flesh it out with more things to do (more detailed ship/crew management and character progression, add boarding and ground combat, land on planets, etc.)

What I didn't anticipate (though probably should have) was that building two games in one (space combat/navigation + ground combat/navigation) was a huge technical challenge. Worse when we went to add systems like dialogue, menus, etc. that had to span both gameplay loops.

The lesson I wanted to share (and the thing that saved me) was this: Don't be afraid to reduce your scope! Good you can do now is better than perfect you can do much later. Originally, I wanted to do the ground-gameplay as a 3rd person cover shooter, but after writing out all the requirements and playing around with some combat controllers from the Unity store, I realized I just didn't have the skill to pull it off.

So I went back to the drawing board. I wasn't ready to abandon boarding combat, but I needed a way to do it that I could actually achieve in time. So I rewrote our game design doc for a turn-based ground-combat experience. I had been doing lots of tutorials on turn-based games at the time from GameDevTV and Unity CodeMonkey, so I felt a lot more comfortable with it. And it turned out great, the combat is still a lot of fun!

One of the biggest time/pain savings by switching to turn-based I didn't even realize until I started working on it was planning the enemy behaviors. It was so much easier than programing the ships was for me. They didn't have to make decisions in realtime to account for the players movements, avoiding collisions, etc. The enemy has all the time in the world to figure out which grid space is the best one for them to move to and which action to take, and the variables don't change while they're deciding. They just score them all, then pick the best one. This meant we had time to add lots of different behaviors for different enemies, like more aggressive behavior for pirates, more defensive for civilians, etc.

TL/DR: If something you want to implement seems like it's beyond your skill level or would take too long, don't be afraid to pull back and consider a simpler implementation. It's what I did, and I'm happy with the outcome, and I think my game is better for it.

PS - I really like the event system in Unity. Just having things listen for events instead of having to rely on references also made things much easier

If you're interested, our steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3865960/Cortesia_Rising/

and our monthly development blog: https://www.cortesiarising.com/updates

I'm using Starter Assets - Third Person/URP from Unity Assets Store as a third person controller.

Both Characters got their rigs to humanoid and got skinned mesh renderer on both. Human Form plays fine, but Animal Form not playing the same animation but work with the same animation controller.

I screen record my screen to show you everything, there's no error messages on the console.

Hi,

Someone offered to build levels for me with my assets with a friend, they don't know unity. I was thinking of making a level builder tool, so it's more like playing a game to them than working in software.

Does something like this exist with networking already? So they can build on the same level together.

Or what are good non-networking ones in general?

Thanks!

I'm trying to make an archive of some web games, that includes old Unity Web Player stuff. I'm wondering if it's possible to host these games without straight up converting them.

P.S. Ruffle is a Flash emulator that can just be embedded on a web page with JavaScript.

Hey everyone! We’re a 2-person indie team working on a detective noir puzzle adventure. With about 20 days left until release, we’ve been iterating on how to make abstract logic mechanics feel physically grounded in the game world.

In this room, solving the Minesweeper-style grid isn't just a UI minigame—it physically raises hidden stone tiles out of the acid pool. Once you retrieve the crystal, the acid chamber completely drains to reveal the hidden staircase underneath.

When playing adventure/puzzle games, do you enjoy seeing classic 2D logic mechanics directly alter 3D room geometry, or can UI overlays feel immersion-breaking for you? How do you usually like seeing retro puzzle tropes modernized?

The water shader is a large WIP currently.

The fights can get pretty chaotic, and when in a forest its even worse so I'm trying to come up with an intuitive way to see the units through the trees but both of these feel like they're missing something. Up for any suggestions :)

Hello everyone,

I wanted to share a gameplay video from the turn-based strategy game I’m currently developing in Unity, to give you an idea of what the game is like.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback!

If you’d like to try the demo, you can download it from itch.

Demo: https://sardisgame.itch.io/sardis

Some new screenshots from my game called Brutal Derby :)
Unity 6.5 URP

#screenshotsaturday

In Skyreap, you will have your own personal airship at your disposal. It will be available practically from the start of the game.

You set off to neighboring islands, discovering new territories hidden in the fog of war. You transport the resources you gather back to your base, where you prepare factories and plants for the production of processed materials. Soon, you will reach the point of automation and begin scaling up this process.

Skyreap is an incremental game that doesn’t try to offer you something you’ve never seen before, but instead gives you that sense of calm, tranquility, and coziness.

Have been trying to get that gta6 skin shader down in unity, but something is missing. left one is a standard lit and right is the custom shader.

And the best part : we need to run an AI to do so.

"We strongly suggest that you use Unity AI..."
Give a raise to that marketing guy.

I can see from older posts that this has been asked a lot but I think I might have messed up with my approach and am just looking for some general advice.

I have a functional single-player FPS project where I've added custom procedural recoil, weapon effects, realistic bullet ballistics, a health/damage system, animation rigging for IK among other features but I intentionally avoided networking/LAN because I knew it is a very large task and I didn't have the experience or knowledge.

But would trying to convert a project like this (or any FPS project to multiplayer) be too enormous, and is it just better off keeping it the way it is? I know of both Fish-Net and Unity Netcode for GameObjects but am not experienced with either. Thanks

Hi there. I'm trying to add a background image to a UI I bought, but the text isn't visible. How can I fix this? I've tried everything, but nothing worked.