- For those unfamiliar, the studio behind S&box is Facepunch, creators of Garry's Mod and Rust. Facepunch as a company doesn't get much attention but they're wildly successful. Started as just some guy in a bedroom, now ~$100m/year in revenue (all via Steam), $100m in the bank, ~100 employees and almost entirely a company of game developers (maybe 20% of employees are administrative staff). Still owned and ran by the founder, Garry. S&box (and Garry's Mod and Rust) is pure game developers making things they want to make.
- This is cool, though I'm reluctant to give praise when they have been so weird with Linux support on their games.
It was annoying after buying Rust to learn that you can't play on official servers on Linux. The game runs fine on Linux, the devs just don't allow it.
https://www.pcgamer.com/games/survival-crafting/rust-develop...
- I've been following S&box for probably over 10 years at this point. It's been obvious for the last 5+ years that the vision isn't "Garry's Mod 2" anymore but maybe something else, like a Roblox-like metaverse. I'm unsure where this project is going but they seem to have smart developers and a lot of passion so hopefully it works out.
I would caution Facepunch though that what made their past games a success wasn't perfection. In the case of Gmod I would actually say imperfection was the charm.
>Obviously this isn't the Source 2 code, that's up to Valve to open source if they want.
Does this mean you need Source 2 to develop with S&box?
- I always enjoyed Garry's blog.
It just seemed like a public diary. And a place to vent about dev,life,w/e. He seems to be unapologetic-ally himself.
Although I was pretty sure there used to be more posts (although maybe I'm conflating his posts there with his contributions to his old forums.)
https://garry.net/posts/
by hamdingers
0 subcomment
- Their site appears down, here's the github repository: https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public
- It depends on Source 2, which is not open source.
by terabytest
2 subcomments
- I really struggle to wrap my head around how this engine works. I haven’t used it, but I have experience with Source 1 and its systems and I imagine Source 2 is an extrapolation of that. But I really can’t wrap my head around how they’ve turned it into a scene-based game engine when Source 2 is map-based, how they’ve managed to build a completely different editor that still leverages Hammer maps somehow, and all the other stuff.
- The comments are hilarious. Every file has multiple profanity-filled rants.
by justinclift
2 subcomments
- The license: https://github.com/Facepunch/sbox-public/blob/master/LICENSE...
by Vermeulen
2 subcomments
- I don't understand what they got basing off the Source engine. Maybe it made sense when they started 6 years ago - to allow using Hammer and such. But at this point they've made their own editor, networking, scene system... why is it still attached to a giant legacy codebase.
- I really like the evidence for the bug fix for "VR not rendering" in the "Fixed" section
- I don't understand the point of this thing.
Maybe competing with other engines, but it's hard to know how good enough this will be.
The age of mods is over, we're in the age of engines now, I don't think they will catch up.
Valve is not a game company anymore, they out source everything.
- Looks like they’re positioning themselves as an open-source Roblox competitor. That would be awesome. Especially so if they follow through on the promise of standalone mode.
I’m interested in how they’re sandboxing C# code. Seems like an engineering problem full of pitfalls. I’ll definitely be peeking at this!
- As a web dev, I pronounce that sampersandbox.
- I feel the call of the valve hammer editor now (ok, that is a 20 year old memory so hopefully this engine has better map making tools)
by qingcharles
1 subcomments
- I really feel like that name is going to cause them issues with the other game builder with the same name:
https://www.sandbox.game/en/
by leberknecht
0 subcomment
- "Looks 20% cooler"
What is 1 "cool"?
by nosmokewhereiam
0 subcomment
- Woohoo, G man made it to HN! I believe in this project and am very hopeful as new game modes and models are added
by bangaladore
2 subcomments
- Looks like a serious competitor to Unity. Modern C# is really easy to pick up for beginners (that's actually how I started learning programming back around 2010).
What does monetization look like? Can you ship standalone games? Source 2 licensing requirements? Is this closer to Unity or closer to Roblox when it comes to publishing?
- Could it be ported to Source 1 now?
- >Once you have access to the developer preview, please use developer docs and discord to figure stuff out. Yes, I hate that every community is moving to discord and no-one uses forums anymore too, but it's the way the world is.
that cute snide comment won't somehow ensure that all of your community discussion isn't lost to discord-rot in a few short years.
keep your fate in your own hands..
(unless you just don't care)
by DeathArrow
1 subcomments
- Is this a competitor for Unity and Godot?
- Can we use the team fortress 2 release of source?
Oh. It's a modding sdk.
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/source-sdk-2013
- I heard Valve was going to Open Source the Source Engine when they launched the Steam Machine.
by derelicta
1 subcomments
- oh man, I know facepunch for two great things: GMod and Sly Cooper. Both games were a defining feature of my childhood ahah
by kevin-scott21
0 subcomment
- [dead]
Hacker News