Dave Pottinger

Dave Pottinger

@dcpottinger.bsky.social

Last Keep CEO (Fleetbreakers) Side Project (Dynamic adventure game) . Ex-Ensemble Studios (OG Age of Empires, Age of Mythology, Halo Wars), Ex-BonusXP (Stranger Things). . Husband/Dad. Prog/Designer. Lego Nerd.

247 Followers 683 Following 271 Posts Joined Aug 2023
2 months ago
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Holiday break night 3 on side project... Added collision window events, actual collision detection, and a very simple stagger reaction blend tree. Using some fine Synty models and Synty/Kubold animations.

Need to do some actual blending between locomotion and combat stances obv. #solodev #indiedev

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2 months ago
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Taking another day off from real work...

Side project getting basic ragdolls. Need add some force parms on actions. Very early rn.

Using the XML data setup that I like; anything I can avoid putting in prefabs or SOs goes in old school text data for ease of use/diff/inheritance. #solodev #indiedev

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2 months ago

What do game devs do on holiday break? Side projects! Rewriting event handling to make upcoming combat easier (combos, etc.).

Bought an asset off the Unity store (Quick Animation Events) that gave me the exact anim event interface I want (as a non-artist). Lots of tool time saved! #indiedev

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2 months ago

Hah, she's very tough to please!

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2 months ago

Some behind the scenes WIP stuff for our game. #roguelite #strategygame

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2 months ago

Been remiss posting about our game. Need to rectify that 😆

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3 months ago

Had a great time at Kill Bill Whole Bloody Affair. Enjoyed all the changes on a first viewing. Need to see again.

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4 months ago
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WIP partial tech tree for new @lastkeep.com faction. Showing the fine code that displays the name of the techs if we don't have icons yet. Very useful during dev.

We've got new PLAYTEST/DEMO (not with this faction ofc) out: store.steampowered.com/app/2929040/...

#indiegames #strategygame #indiedev

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5 months ago
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Check out the latest trailer for the new sci-fo RTS title Fleetbreakers as the game will have a free demo available during Steam Next Fest. #indiedev #indiegame Check out the latest trailer for the new sci-fo RTS title Fleetbreakers as the game will have a free demo available during Steam Next Fest

Check out the latest trailer for the new sci-fo RTS title Fleetbreakers as the game will have a free demo available during Steam Next Fest. #indiedev #indiegame

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5 months ago

We have a NEW TRAILER and PLAYTEST/DEMO for FLEETBREAKERS. @ign.com posted the trailer www.ign.com/videos/fleet....

Give it a look. Give us a wishlist😀

#strategygame #RTS #indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com

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5 months ago

Had a REALLY good day cranking out content and bugfixes. Fixed 18 items. Several of the "how did we not see this giant issue?" variety.

Unfortunately we also played the game, which generated another 21 bugs and tasks.

-3 net today. Doh.
#indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com #roguelite #strategygame

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5 months ago

Nice!

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5 months ago
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Welp. This was a LONG day of data wrangling to completely replace all our unit enhancements (rolled buffs on each squadron instance). This was after 4 days of building techs and relics😂

I'm am officially gassed on buffs for this week.
@lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #strategy #roguelite

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5 months ago
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So many little numbers to fit in such a small space. Still trying to get it all in 😆. Rollover (not shown) does make it a lot more parseable obv. @lastkeep.com #indiedev #indiegame #roguelite #strategygame

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6 months ago

Q: Why is that Scout ship not buffed by +20 like the text says?
...2 hours later...
A: Because I let us try a "new way" when I should have just said no. My fault 100%.

Now rebuilding all health data in @lastkeep.com ahead of key milestone. What can go wrong?

#indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

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6 months ago

Slogging through giant text pass on our game @lastkeep.com. There is a LOT. More than I want, but still not as much as we need.
I am certainly no fulltime text-person😀Doing it in bursts but it's still a bear. How do you all approach these kinds of tasks?
#indiedev #roguelite #strategygame

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6 months ago

Worse when it does it after stepping in the middle of a debug

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6 months ago

I'm not the *most* hardcore Alien fan, but I dig the lore expansion. It's been refreshing to have some other aliens carry the load a bit from the xenomorph. Cyborg stuff has been great, as well.

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6 months ago

Demoed @lastkeep.com at the SIX demo day. 10 hours on my feet hits different than 28 years ago when we did it for Age of Empires at Ensemble's first E3.
But we learned a lot about how our game today. How it appeals to folks and how it doesn't. Improvements to make!
#indiedev #strategygame #roguelite

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6 months ago
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We got a chance to hang out with the great folks from @seattleoba.org last night in Seattle. Thanks to everyone who stopped by. If you're in town this weekend, swing by our table at SIX on Sunday @seattleindies.bsky.social.

#six2025 #indiegames

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6 months ago
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About Seattle Indies Expo Seattle Indies Expo is a free, yearly, one-day exhibition of the Pacific Northwest’s up and coming indie video games. What better way to escape the crowds of PAX than with the coolest of indie games?

We've been pushing hard the last couple of weeks for some live demos of @lastkeep.com at six.seattleindies.org/about/ this weekend.
I won't lie, my in-person demo skills are probably a bit rusty 😅
#indiedev #strategygame #roguelite

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6 months ago

Always cool to meet new folks on here!

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6 months ago

Thanks for the shoutout🙏

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6 months ago

Happy to help in a tiny way.

LMK if you need any playtesting!

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6 months ago
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From the RealTimeStrategy community on Reddit: I’m Dave Pottinger, game designer and programmer behind Age of Empires and Halo Wars. I’ve spent 30 years making strategy video games and I’m working on ... Explore this post and more from the RealTimeStrategy community

Hah. It's always nice to hear from folks who enjoy the old games. AOM is my fav game we made for sure. Nice job on the videos!!!

I did an AMA a few weeks ago with some old nostalgia bits mixed in there: www.reddit.com/r/RealTimeSt...

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6 months ago

Been there. Got all worked up about needing some grand procedural placement algo on my side project last night. After an hour, I realized that I could just invert the order of the requirements. Removed all the needless complexity I was manufacturing.

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6 months ago

Nothing quite like spending hours rigging up new UI (new code, data, refactoring old code to pump the new calls, etc.) and then having it compile first time. Awesome😀
NARRATOR: It was, in fact, not awesome. Many extra hours were required for it to actually work.
#indiedev #indiegames @lastkeep.com

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7 months ago

Finally changed some XML parsing on @lastkeep.com today. Relics are comprised of techs, but refs were by name to tech instances in other XML file. Gross, but we put up with it forever. Now the techs can be inlined. So much nicer to have the data in one spot. Easier to edit. Less bugs. #indiegames

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7 months ago

Woot. Worked. #indiegames 😆

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7 months ago

Been chasing this bug on @lastkeep.com for several days. AI units intermittently attack. Can't repro locally. I think I found my uninitialized variable (doh). Testing fix now. Shouldn't have taken this long to find, but some optimization make it trickier to find. Nevertheless, fingers crossed.

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