@dontstopthinking.bsky.social
Tools Programmer @ Ubisoft Reflections
Landscape with a fisherman coming ashore from his boat in the foreground. Behind the river runs past a small Shinto shrine in the bank beside two tall trees.
'Water God at Katsushika' - Takahashi Hiroaki, 1924-27.
#JapaneseArt #shinhanga
Itโs really cool to see my talk freely available for everyone. Iโm proud of the work our team accomplished, and it means a lot that itโs now accessible to a wider audience.
Huge thanks to the GDC team for putting it out there!
#AssassinsCreedShadows #GameDevelopment #GDC2025
Hardcoded credentials in the Signal archiving tool used by the White House is a five-alarm security dumpster fire.
03.05.2025 21:42 โ ๐ 1759 ๐ 581 ๐ฌ 48 ๐ 46
Ever wonder what happens between your code and the CPU? @matt.godbolt.org explores how modern processors & compilers boost performanceโand what to do when they donโt.
16.04.2025 12:04 โ ๐ 47 ๐ 13 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 2
โI assumed with Sony having paid a lot of money for (Helldivers 2) that they would run the show. Because what do these wild kids in Sweden know? But I've been very pleasantly surprised to see how creator friendly PlayStation has been. Truly impressiveโ www.thegamebusiness.com/p/helldivers...
02.04.2025 06:30 โ ๐ 20 ๐ 2 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0Huge congrats to all my colleagues at Ubisoft on the launch of Assassin's Creed Shadows! The game is absolutely incredible - you guys have completely knocked it out of the park with this one. Bravo!
21.03.2025 20:24 โ ๐ 0 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# What's a PRNG
Most random number generators that you see on computers are pseudorandom number generators.
These are algorithms that output random-looking numbers based on one or other form of initial seed or state. Same input means same outputs!
Typically each iteration the generator will modify its internal state and return a value.
For example, a tiny, pitiful implementation of Lehmer random number generator might look something like this:
newState = (oldState * 7) % 11;
Given an initial state/seed of 3, this would output
[...]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreiafqnvmiytybquifjrskuxxzbb3qute7mdkeqq5pltuamgrjm2wb4@jpeg)
A screenshot of the blog post reads: # What's a PRNG Most random number generators that you see on computers are pseudorandom number generators. These are algorithms that output random-looking numbers based on one or other form of initial seed or state. Same input means same outputs! Typically each iteration the generator will modify its internal state and return a value. For example, a tiny, pitiful implementation of Lehmer random number generator might look something like this: newState = (oldState * 7) % 11; Given an initial state/seed of 3, this would output [...]
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# "Save scumming"
[image: A person with a sword and a shield stands on an isometric tile and innocently looks at a "17%" label above them]
If your game involves chance actions and allows to save/load the game before performing such actions, players will inevitably figure out that they can save and re-load the game to re-try the roll until they get what they want.
GameMaker does not currently allow to save/load state of the built-in random generator (and likely won't in the near future), but with a custom generator, you could save its state along with the game and load it back so that performing the same action after loading the game will always yield the same result.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreic4qctlqnihdw5tbhuwzepdkkqcgkfgwyuq65lscczhwgigvd5lru@jpeg)
A screenshot of the blog post reads: # "Save scumming" [image: A person with a sword and a shield stands on an isometric tile and innocently looks at a "17%" label above them] If your game involves chance actions and allows to save/load the game before performing such actions, players will inevitably figure out that they can save and re-load the game to re-try the roll until they get what they want. GameMaker does not currently allow to save/load state of the built-in random generator (and likely won't in the near future), but with a custom generator, you could save its state along with the game and load it back so that performing the same action after loading the game will always yield the same result.
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# WELL512
This is the PRNG that GameMaker itself uses!
Standing for Well Equidistributed Long-period Linear, it's a RNG with state consisting of an index and 16 unsigned 32-bit numbers. Allegedly it's all-around pretty good.
This is another one where the code almost works if you copy-pasted it:
[...]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreiecn2gkz7nbp23i7txygfc2znind3voccl5xhp5vru5iusot57nvy@jpeg)
A screenshot of the blog post reads: # WELL512 This is the PRNG that GameMaker itself uses! Standing for Well Equidistributed Long-period Linear, it's a RNG with state consisting of an index and 16 unsigned 32-bit numbers. Allegedly it's all-around pretty good. This is another one where the code almost works if you copy-pasted it: [...]
![A screenshot of the blog post reads:
# MINSTD
This generator is much simpler so it manages to beat some of the extension calls even on VM:
[graphs]
And on YYC, a global version almost beats the C++ raw pointer version!
[graphs]
You can squeeze a little more performance out of it by turning the generator into a set of macros:
[graphs]
Here I'm also testing a script that modifies a self.state variable with a forceinline tag, but that is not as efficient as doing this during a GML build with a macro.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:u3hek6kpzqeee3xa6f65otna/bafkreidyvaooylvppfdahfvjnl23sjb5yzrgbzqidrwyjb75czn2kmb42i@jpeg)
A screenshot of the blog post reads: # MINSTD This generator is much simpler so it manages to beat some of the extension calls even on VM: [graphs] And on YYC, a global version almost beats the C++ raw pointer version! [graphs] You can squeeze a little more performance out of it by turning the generator into a set of macros: [graphs] Here I'm also testing a script that modifies a self.state variable with a forceinline tag, but that is not as efficient as doing this during a GML build with a macro.
I wrote a new blog post!
It's about pseudorandom number generators - what these are, how they work, when you might to use a custom one in GameMaker, and performance comparisons.
yal.cc/gamemaker-cu...
Obsidian is now free for work.
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore the organizations that support Obsidian on our site.
obsidian.md/blog/free-fo...
I spent the last month reverse engineering Call of Duty's anti-cheat!
Blog post here: ssno.cc/posts/revers...
CARTOON OF THE DAY
21.01.2025 22:05 โ ๐ 16925 ๐ 3635 ๐ฌ 169 ๐ 199
I have just made the repo of my C++ STL replacement lib public on github. It's called Bedrock.
It's got the usual things, Vector, String, Atomic etc. but also a very good HashMap and few interesting allocators (details on blog: danglingpointers.com/post/bedrock...)
github.com/jlaumon/Bedr...
What does it mean for something to be Turing complete?
I answer this question, and more, through a series of fully interactive Turing machine simulations! Play, pause, step forwards and backwards, and even write your own Turing machine programs in my latest blog post.
samwho.dev/turing-machi...
Some of my fav work I did on SW:Jedi Survivor.
Joined late during production of the game so had to produce work at lightening speed while learning the engine and systems. Sometimes you never get as much time as you like on levels, so you have to learn to take short cuts to get the quality you want.
pixel art of an eclipse in a night sky. the palette goes from bright pink to purple to dark blue. in the foreground a crow with a glowing eye sits on a tree branch.
eclipse #pixelart 2022
24.11.2024 10:41 โ ๐ 3361 ๐ 670 ๐ฌ 21 ๐ 6You know what I hear a lot about in this industry? Imposter syndrome.
I made the 8th best-selling game of all time. By all rights, I should feel like an authority. I donโt. I have it too.
Hereโs my advice to devs out there: Ignore it. Youโre better than you think you are.
๐๐ ๐ง๐ ๐ช๐ ๐ฆ๐ฃ๐ค๐๐๐ ๐๐๐ฃ๐ค๐ฅ ๐๐๐ ๐๐ง๐๐ฃ๐ช๐ฅ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ค ๐๐๐ฅ๐ ๐๐๐๐.
18.11.2024 22:20 โ ๐ 7 ๐ 1 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
The Telltale game engine has a cutscene tool called the "Chore tool" (chore is short for choreography), for constructing cinematic sequences out of component parts. The tool and its name has a heritage that goes all the way back to one of the original tools built for making LucasArts SCUMM games.
09.11.2024 23:43 โ ๐ 81 ๐ 14 ๐ฌ 3 ๐ 2Hey hey, is this place any better than Twitter??
06.09.2024 21:40 โ ๐ 0 ๐ 0 ๐ฌ 0 ๐ 0
