Also, the increasing complexity of platforms and the growing codebases to support all of these subsystems, led to long compile and build times. With very different rendering processors on each platform, there was often a disconnect between how assets looked in art tools versus how they were rendered by the game on a given platform. For one, they had to assign resources to ensure that the game and its assets worked on each target platform. It was now about building data-driven tools and pipelines so that content creators could view their assets in-game and across platforms, ideally with little reliance on developers to recompile the game’s executable.ĭespite these efforts, developers still faced numerous challenges. As a result, game programming was no longer just about writing graphics and gameplay code. With the ability to handle more realistic art and sounds along with new types of media like 3D graphics and movies, game teams onboarded new types of contributors including artists, sound engineers, game designers, tool developers, and producers. Of course, those early developers also faced big challenges including tight hardware limits (e.g., 64k or less of available memory), low-level languages like assembly, and rudimentary development tools.Īs hardware improved and new platforms came along, the nature of game development continued to evolve. They not only created the game’s code, but also the art and sounds that gave those original games such a sense of character and charm.

Can you imagine what it may have been like to be one of the very early video game developers? They had full control of the game’s design, development process, and even the hardware itself, and they often developed in solo or in very small teams.

Unity development kit