Graphics Programming weekly - Issue 435 - April 5th, 2026 www.jendrikillner.com/post/graphic...

Happy Easter

Heretic 2 got a brand new reverse engineered source port for modern systems featuring bug fixes, faster loading times and hud scaling for high resolutions. Playing Heretic 2 just became a lot easier.

For the moment it's Windows only:

github.com/m-x-d/Hereti...

Game On: A Feature Documentary about Brenda Romero Help Theresa Loong finish her documentary about Brenda Romero: visionary designer and mentor, shaping the future of game creation!

The amount of important things about games, industry, and life that I've learned from Brenda, following her career and work and advocacy and activism and mentorship and involvements from afar - but also the times we've crossed paths for work, is staggering.

www.kickstarter.com/projects/the...

I just released my video about the engine (and game) I've been working on.

The engine is based on dynamic SDFs, and the video describes how it works and what it makes possible.

Link in the reply!

This is my first YouTube video and it took forever - please repost!

Jam - Quake Brutalist Jam III Quake Brutalist Jam III is a megalithic community project more than a year in the making. It features an entirely new arsenal, a set of new monsters, new powerups, and a complete visual overhaul of Qu...

had to wait until the servers weren't so overloaded, but I'm proud to announce that Quake Brutalist Jam 3 is out now!
there's a standalone version that works like a game for those who don't own quake too!
www.slipseer.com/index.php?re...
this was a tremendous group effort, I couldn't be happier!

Either people who keep praising AI appreciate quantity over quality or they fundamentally use AI differently than I did. Because proof-reading every single thing it generates is rather cognitively draining than amplifying.
And that's ignoring the resources needed and moral implications to run it.

Every time I gave AI a try (code generation/completion, answering domain specific questions) I got frustrated. Especially when it starts citing theorems or papers that do not exist and I spend 30min like an idiot looking them up..
Yes if it works it can be a time saver. But most of the time it's not

Release 3.4.0 · libsdl-org/SDL Thanks to all the people who have contributed, SDL 3.4.0 is now available! In addition to lots of bug fixes and general system improvements, this release has some major themes of improved interoper...

Start the new year with a really big SDL3 release! 3.4.0 finally shipped, before the stroke of midnight! github.com/libsdl-org/S...

🎉 Happy New Year! 🎉
May everyone have the strength to make 2026 a good one, no matter what.

I’ve been in game dev for 26 years and I can’t remember any other time where a specific tech was being insistently and persistently pushed on devs as a group in the public sphere.

Why would it? Cui bono? Why would any given dev have an interest in other devs using tech they don’t have a stake in?

a man is standing in front of a green screen with his eyes closed Alt: shia labeouf doing to 'just do it' stance

Why wait for new year to get started if you can just start today.

What this underscores is the sheer danger of market consolidation in gaming. While companies like Valve and Epic do not legally have to carry a game, to not do so is functionally a death knell for that game on the PC; Santa Ragione has said it threatens the studio’s continued existence. This is not equivalent to a theater chain declining to carry a movie; this is two (mostly one) American companies more or less deciding what content is commercially viable across most of the world, in ways that are somehow more vague and opaque than the MPAA. This is a hegemony of American prudishness, applied globally, incoherently, unevenly, and unseriously. Anybody responsible for these decisions would be vaporized in seconds by a Pinku movie from the 1970s, and if a single person in this chain of command has an arts degree they are pretending they don’t for the sake of an ill-defined idea of business. Horses cannot be the ceiling for what is artistically and commercially possible in games, because otherwise we are in deep horseshit.

Chris Person takes a look at Horses, "the indie game that is too scandalous for either Valve or Epic, is only beyond the pale if you're not familiar with any other art form" (quoted from the article blurb).

aftermath.site/horses-indie...

At least read this paragraph:

GAME DEVS! GAME JAMMERS! ONE MONTH AWAY from this holiday's easiest jam -- TOY BOX JAM!

You get a huge pile of gfx, sfx, music -- what will YOU make with all these toys?

Join here! itch.io/jam/toy-box-...

#toyboxjam2025 #gamejam #pico8 #unity #godot #GameMaker #love2D

Newgrounds, Old Memories Ep 1 YouTube video by Ringo's Ghost

Newgrounds is down for updates but in the meantime you can watch this five-part YouTube series about Newgrounds:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed5Z...

An in-game render of Ozzy Osbourne, with the logo for Brutal Legend and text that reads, "Free for the next 666 minutes" and the itch.io logo in the bottom right corner

To honor Ozzy's larger-than-life rock and roll legacy, we're making Brütal Legend *FREE* on itch.io: doublefine.itch.io/brutal-legend

But this incredible deal will only last for 666 minutes, as the prophecy foretold. So get yourself clicking, before it disappears like a demon in the night...

🤘 🖤

PNG is back!

After over two decades, we released a new PNG spec.
www.programmax.net/articles/png...

Jeff Vogel: Making Games Alone For 30 Years, Unity vs Custom Engine, Indie Survival | Ep. #046 YouTube video by Thomas Brush

I did a long interview with the Full Time Game Dev and it turned out great. I get to rant freely for 1.5 hours, and I got to say a lot of fun stuff. Thanks so much to @thomasbrushdev, and take a look!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9zY...

a person riding on the back of a penguin ALT: a person riding on the back of a penguin

This is a thread about me switching to Linux, after nearly 30 (!) years of using Windows. I need to make games on that thing too, so I hope it works

There are many reasons for this, but tl;dr reason is that Windows is getting in my way. It's being a hindrance. An obstacle. It should be transparent.

Basically 12 tips from Mike Acton on how to get shit done.

medium.com/@mike_acton/...

8 colours #pixelart #artpost

Indie game devs! Worried you don't have a good publishing deal? May I present my firm's 2025 Publishing Agreement Data Report! Taken from 100+ actual Publishing Agreements ranging from 2017-2025, providing averages for rev share splits, advances, IP ownership and more!
indiegamepublishing.com

EA just open sourced Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Renegade and Generals I can't quite believe it either. Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Command & Conquer Renegade and Command & Conquer Generals (inc. Zero Hour) have their code officially open sourced.

EA just open sourced Command & Conquer, Red Alert, Renegade and Generals
#EA #RTS #RedAlert #OpenSource #Gaming #CommandandConquer

Stuff like Windows AV reactivating itself every now and then, tanking perf make me really want to switch to Linux fully (I have been running at least one nix machine since ~2000). But the fact that 96.55% of people (steam survey) are running Win, keep my main rig on it. No matter how much it sucks.

Welcome to JCGT-announce! We announce articles for the Journal of Computer Graphics Techniques here. If you prefer to get announcements sent to your email, sign up at jcgt.org/read.html

A Newgrounds Documentary: Once Upon A Time On The Internet Learn about Newgrounds.com and the site's 30 years of impact on internet culture in this feature-length documentary.

The Kickstarter for ONCE UPON A TIME ON THE INTERNET is live! A whole documentary about Newgrounds!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/con...

We’re hiring! 🌟

Open roles across tons of departments! Check them out at romerogames.com/careers.

Speculative applications are also welcome! ✒️

wildfire rages through a building in southern california, bright orange against grey arches, with water from firefighting attempts pooling in the foreground

ATTENTION: I am starting a charity bundle to benefit victims of the Southern California wildfires. Game (and other) makers, please submit your projects so we can do some good. There is a call for submissions of projects through the 18th, please share widely! FAQ below:

itch.io/jam/californ...

32GB Ryzen 3700X.
embed seems to be still work in progress. With clang 19.1.6 100M takes 8sec and 1GB crashes after 7m32sec now :)
Just tried on my linux laptop (i5 5300U 8GB) and it compiles in 0.15sec and 0.8sec respectively..
It is good enough for me now as I wont embed GBs of data anyway.

Just saw that GCC15 and Clang19 support embed now. I can only test clang for now but the results are rather sobering. 100MB took about 57sec but my system slowed down to a crawl as clang ate all the ram. 1GB took only 3sec because it crashed failing to allocate enough memory..