6 ms·

I always wonder how a solo developer can source high quality assets like these, plus develop a full game with them. In this case did the dev create the assets o

• Jhsto 2mo ago
  Anecdote, but I recall my friend saying he worked on freelancing assets to some train game and showed me some pictures of the said game. Unless there are more of these in existence, I think it was this.
  • altairprime 2mo ago
    Please tell him thank you from us all :)
    • abrookewood 2mo ago
      100% they look incredible.
  • n6242 2mo ago
    Well, there are 864 other train sim games on Steam right now, so there are quite a few others in existence.
• jamesfinlayson 2mo ago
  I thought it was kind of commoditised these days - there's an Unreal asset store I think? Probably one for Unity as well.
• topgrain2 2mo ago
  Almost every time I see a halfway polished “solo developer” game, they did not do all the work themselves. Especially, they usually hire out the music, maybe other sounds, and much of the artwork. Sometimes they also have freelancers doing marketing and such. Sometimes even some paid help writing the software. I highlight this not to bring those developers down, but because I think it’s important people understand how these things actually come to be, so they aren’t discouraged to try themselves by thinking they ought to actually be doing 100% of the work solo. That’s pretty rare.
  • AmVess 2mo ago
    Solo developer just means they developed the game themselves, not made it all themselves. I'm not sure how you could write what you wrote without that occurring to you.
    • computerdork 2mo ago
      Hmm, it didn’t occur to me. Yeah, not sure it’s obvious to many people so was glad for the explanation
    • appplication 2mo ago
      FWIW, that was not obvious to me either, and I appreciated the parent comment
    • SirHackalot 2mo ago
      Absolutely not obvious to me, especially since I have heard a lot of solo dev stories that insist it was purely a 1-person project. And it’s true in some cases.
    • laserDinosaur 2mo ago
      In that case, please, define "developed the game" for us. Is doing all the programming "developing" the game? Is coming up with the game design and hiring programmers "developing" the game? sits back with popcorn
      • stackghost 2mo ago
        Designing the game and having codex shit out the code is how I roll.
      • streetfighter64 2mo ago
        > Is doing all the programming "developing" the game? Yes, if you're also doing game design. > Is coming up with the game design and hiring programmers "developing" the game? Yes, so is using LLMs to do the programming.
• a_bonobo 2mo ago
  It wouldn't surprise me if Japan has its own market for train assets. There's a big community of train simulators! Go to the Kyoto or Tokyo train museums, they have dozens where you step into a replica of a train cab and then drive a photorealistic simulation (sometimes also just film) - the ex-keyboarder for Casiopeia runs a train simulation game company that makes those since the 90s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Mukaiya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minoru_Mukaiya). There are some Nintendo Switch train simulators like Densha de GO that are only available in Japan. I'm sure there's a treasure trove of already-built high-quality assets of Japanese trains.
  • dhosek 2mo ago
    I was looking at the controller support and apparently there are game controllers designed to follow the layout of a train operations controller with the same two levers that you can see in game.
    • a_bonobo 2mo ago
      I mentioned Densha de GO above, they have a designated controller like that for the Nintendo Switch too :)
      • dhosek 2mo ago
        It was below when I left the comment.
  • nokeya 2mo ago
    You can buy them overseas from online secondhand stores like mandarake and play on your switch, because there is no region lock. Interface will still be in Japanese, but it is pretty obvious what to to and how.
• aussieguy1234 2mo ago
  Nowadays a solo developer could use AI to generate some of these assets.
• BloondAndDoom 2mo ago
  There are lots of assets to purchase or even for free. majority of small devs will buy them, if they have money then will freelance. It’s very rare for one dev to do everything but do exist. Assets are generally cheap, unity asset store itch.io Unless you commission someone for work 1-2K would cover many small games easily.
• somenameforme 2mo ago
  It's not so much about the assets as the framing, lighting, positioning and blending it all in a compelling way. For instance in the trailer I recognize the large brick building at 0:14 from a cheap/free asset pack, though I don't recall which. And look at it - it's super generic copy/paste layering with some slight variations, and seemingly baked on lighting given the identical shading per floor/layer. But put in a well lit scene with appropriate framing, and suddenly you're here thinking it's a high end custom built asset. Now a days you can also get basically endless assets for free. Unreal gives away a new pack every few weeks or so on Fab (and has been doing this for years), KitBash3D gives occasionally gives away some amazing assets, and many more. But again none of this matters without some serious artistic and style sense. Given I recognize at least one asset there, I'd imagine a good chunk of his assets are from stuff like this. But you're not going to be able to clone anything comparable even if you had the exact assets he used. Placement and such is way more of an artistic thing than you might expect.