My pull reques fixing the issue: github.com/EpicGames/Un...

(your epic games account needs to be connect to your github account to view the link)

Two cropped Unreal editor screenshots showing the setting of explicit navigation targets inside the UMG editor. In the left version now widgets are available for selection, on the right three widgets are available.

In Unreal its possible to set explicit widgets to target during gamepad navigation - but due to a bug only if those widgets were at least renamed once, otherwise they don't show up in the widget list o.O
#ue5 #gamedev

Hey, I worked on that! 😍
Really glad to finally see it out in the open, a lot of hard work went into it!

Did some local changes in my local Unreal version to launch the UMG editor 3x as fast... But I'm not sure if it's worth it to clean up the code and triple-check potential issues to a degree that I can open a pull request. I already have 10 open ones just idling in the queue for ages 😖

And just for reference, in case you don't know what the fork I'm talking about, my article on RCT and its "pathfinding": larstofus.com/2026/03/22/t...

Simulating 10,000 Guests in Planet Coaster | Owen McCarthy YouTube video by GameDaily Connect

Interestingly, the approach is very similar to the flow fields that Planet Coaster used 22 years later (does that count as pathfinding? the definition starts to get blurry now) youtu.be/EItfSy6GBis?...

Just learned that Rollercoaster Tycoon (1999) wasn't the only game that skipped pathfinding altogether, Pizza Tycoon (1994) did something very similar: pizzalegacy.nl/blog/traffic... (great article btw.)
#gamedev #pizzatycoon

I sometimes wonder if actual players even read patch notes? Outside of the rare content updates that bring things like new gamemodes or levels, I don't see how they are useful to the average player.
The X-Box doesn't even show patchnotes and players are apparently fine with it 🙃

meshoptimizer 1.1 is out!

github.com/zeux/meshopt...

Featuring two new major features, meshlet topology compression and opacity micromaps, as well as a few smaller features and improvements! More information in the infographic and release above :)

Boosts and repository stars are welcome!

Whoop! 🥳 The first of the two described fixes just got merged and will be part of 5.8!

The amount of resources that modern apps use is much more frustrating when you think about it in monetary terms. Chrome alone keeps 64€ of RAM hostage 😤

New blog post, this time about asset registry tags, an Unreal feature that I think isn't as widely known as it should be, given how useful it is. Contain (hopefully) relevant advice for both coders and non-coders:
haukethiessen.com/people-dont-... #Unreal #gamedev

Apparently there are blogs out there consisting of ai-written summaries of other people's blog posts.

Not sure if I should take it as a compliment to be chosen as the source material for a slop blog but I guess that's the modern internet for you 🫠

Oh, you are right, there are definitely different types of "no" that one can use. I was talking about the one that is followed by an explanation and some suggestions, not the "No, go away" one 😀
Maybe I should try to phrase that part better 🤔

The gold standard of optimization: A look under the hood of RollerCoaster Tycoon Due to some lucky circumstances, I recently had the chance to appear in one of the biggest German gaming podcasts, Stay Forever, to talk about the technology of RollerCoaster Tycoon (1999). It was …

After my recent podcast appearance at @stayforever.de where I talked about the optimization of RollerCoaster Tycoon, I finally found some time to also write an article:
larstofus.com/2026/03/22/t...
If you know German I'd still recommend the podcast, which also dives deep into the rest of the game 🎧

If you haven't used it until now I strongly recommend to give it a try. It's even Open Source! github.com/VoxelPlugin/...

Interesting, Brickadia now uses the excellent VoxelCore Plugin by @phyronnaz.bsky.social for drawing debug markers.
It's a LOT faster than Unreal's own debug drawing feature. In the shown example it increases the framerate from around 1 fps to 136(!)

Cropped screenshot from Blender release notes, showing the improvement of animation playback performance (40 -> 160 fps)

I don't even use Blender, but I love reading their release notes because of charts like this 🏎️

Amazing! That's great to hear ❤️

New blog post: A Decade of Slug
This talks about the evolution of the Slug font rendering algorithm, and it includes an exciting announcement: The patent has been dedicated to the public domain.
terathon.com/blog/decade-...

A tale about fixing eBPF spinlock issues in the Linux kernel | Ritesh Oedayrajsingh Varma A system freeze led us deep into Linux spinlock internals, where we helped find not one but three bugs in the kernel's resilient locking code used by eBPF.

New article! A user is reporting full system freezes while using Superluminal on Linux. What do you do? Cry? Well, we did a little bit.

But we also dove into the kernel...again, this time fixing several issues in eBPF's spinlock implementation. Read all about it:

rovarma.com/articles/a-t...

Very disappointed of this coverage of what is basically a gooner filter. This AI slop needs to die, quickly!

the fact that you're not just ripping it to shreds has me questioning everything else coming out of DF these days

For Decades the main goal of every new rendering technique was to give artists more control to achieve their artistic intention.
DLSS5 plans to "rectify" this mistake 🤮

Another SGA meetup with me on it is just around the corner. This time, we'll talk about the Energy Saving Plugin that I wrote for Unreal. If you're interested in using the plugin or energy saving techniques for games in general, take a look. #gamedev

Cropped screenshot of a Godot supporter gold member status

I'm doing my part 🫡

Table of peak player numbers of Godot Engine games. At the top is "Slay the Spire 2" with 574638 players, in second place "Brotato" with 38905, in third "Backpack Battles" with 36557.

Seems like Slay the Spire 2 had the biggest launch of any Godot Game ever, with 15x the players of the previous record holder, Brotato 👀
I hope that creates some momentum for the engine in general but at least it will catch some eyes.

Grading 15 Unreal projects that I received from students: Easy

Downloading 15 Unreal projects before unzipping those 15 projects and launching the editor 15 times to compile shaders 15 times: Pure pain 😭

#notGDC 2026, March 9-13. A game development non-conference, for everyone!

#notGDC 2026 is a free, online game dev non-conference for everyone!

This year it runs from March 9–13, the same time as that other conf.

Have some gamedev knowledge you want to share with the world? Slides, articles, videos are welcome, and submissions are now open!

For more info: notgdc.io

My favorite podcast just released an episode on of my favorite games: Rollercoaster Tycoon!
But as if that wasn't great enough, I even had the opportunity to appear in this episode as an interview partner and talk about two of my favorite topics: Rollercoasters and performance optimizations! 🎢