iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

I've posted my first MinerMancers dev log! Finally! 😄 Do let me know what you'd like to hear about next, if you have a preference. If a particular subject gets more requests I'll be sure to prioritise it. Hope you enjoy! youtu.be/-wdz4vMpIzA

youtu.be

MinerMancers DevLog 1

YouTube video by Steve Streeting

0145

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

MinerMancers is live on Steam! store.steampowered.com/app/3223050/... It's a game about silly wizards going mining together. Delve alone or with friends to satisfy your employer's demand for magical resources. This is a labour of love by my wife & I; there's a ways to go, but we're doing it 😄

store.steampowered.com

MinerMancers on Steam

MinerMancers is a co-op action game about under-appreciated wizards going mining together. You and up to 3 friends will cast spells, mine resources, fight monsters, and above all get back alive so you...

0176

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Oh and FYI we’re planning on using the Sinbad model in our game as a shopkeeper, as a callback for people in the know. So you’ll get a credit :)

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

Oh yeah, hi! Sorry for the delay, I’m not on Bsky as much as Mastodon :)

110

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

Switched to an AGX tonemapper for MinerMancers, and I really like how it retains the vibrancy of the colours much better than ACES did, especially when bright. It’s much closer to how HDR looked before, to the extent that I’ll probably drop the HDR path now since it was fiddly anyway

Screenshot of a pink wizard in a top-down cave, with veins of bright crystal

061

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

Object scattering system is starting to make open areas in MinerMancers levels feel a little more interesting 🧙‍♂️⛏️ #screenshotsaturday

A pink wizard in some sandy caves, surrounded by coral like decorations

1121

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

WIP decorative ground object growth system for MinerMancers. Kind of an L-System, everything grows out of a single point

031

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 14/12/2025

New lobber enemy (I affectionately refer to them as my lobby boys) making poison clouds and hiding behind things, annoyingly

040

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Explosions now apply force to things!

030

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 05/11/2025

Explosions can now destroy diggable areas. Now we're mining!💥⛏️

151

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

Minermancers spell work this week: physics objects and AOEs! Here’s a bouncing explosive barrel spell that’s fun to play with Getting client prediction and smooth replication working on physics objects was fiddly but it works now.

030

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

The particle systems clip against geometry as well

040

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Here’s the debug display of the spray on the server; expanding damage probes which automatically fill the space given cone angle / velocity settings. Much better than a fixed cone overlap test which wouldn’t track spray motion properly. It also clips against geometry so it doesn’t go through walls

150

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 25/10/2025

Minermancers progress this week: spray-style spells. Multiplayer predicted, and the underlying damage shapes are properly simulated to match the particle effects

1112

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

SUDS Pro is on sale! It's my #unrealengine dialogue plugin that lets you use text files to write dialogue, direct camera cuts, character animation and more. If you prefer writing dialogue like a script, I think this is a nice way to do it. Reposts appreciated! www.fab.com/listings/3e3...

030

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 06/10/2025

This mirrors advice I sometimes give to DMs for TTRPG systems. You never want to nail down every lore detail because your players will come up with things to fill the gaps, and those things will be better - either just plain better, or simply more meaningful to them personally

041

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

WTF? What is wrong with these companies? Clearly they’re tired of being successful, and of their customers having a positive opinion of them, and have decided to punch themselves in the family jewels to alleviate the boredom

000

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

Literally all I’m asking from a software vendor as a paying customer is that you don’t punch yourself in the balls. I know everyone is doing it, but you could just…not

110

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 02/10/2025

com/blog/2025/09/30/detailed-data-sharing-for-better-ai/

110

Mission levels are still 100% dynamic of course because almost everything is mutable. But faking more complex lighting through exaggerated subsurface, numerous small fill lights etc is still my preferred route right now. Cheapo!

020

Switched our lobby level back to static lighting today. Old skool tweaking lightmap resolutions. I regret nothing, it's all we need and it runs like butter

150

I do have a console variable I can set now to enable damage numbers everywhere. That way we can try it out occasionally to see how we feel about it. But my gut says it’ll just be distracting

000

There, even if I don't use this effect for damage numbers all the time, it's better than the UMG text for the potion machine summon countdown. I made the text size, lifetime, velocity and distortion effects more configurable as well Video: mastodon.gamedev.place/@sinbad/1152…

100

Quietly allowing people to assume you use LLM chatbots as well so they stop fecking talking at you about it

Wesley Crusher and friend wearing fake headsets in ST:TNG “The Game” while his Mum looks on in the background looking thrilled

0110

I actually have other places I can use this effect anyway, such as countdowns on potion summoning spots. I’m currently using 3D UMG widgets but these will look much better

100

There we go, I can now enable damage numbers on any character if I want, I even integrated it via the gameplay cue system so it's all replicated nicely. Still don't think I want them on all the time, but they are quite nice (they're coloured according to damage type now too).

100

place/@sinbad/115293772899819701

100

Wasn't obvious from the last clip but wheras a lot of these kinds of effects just orient the numbers once on spawn, I had to make sure they always faced the camera because you can spin our camera around a lot. Slightly awkward to do but looks betterVideo: mastodon.gamedev.

100

I'm not planning to have damage numbers popping out of enemies, but it's very useful to be able to see damage values in testing. I had too much fun making these. Maybe I might use it in a practice range area in the real game at least Video: mastodon.gamedev.place/@sinbad/1152…

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

3 windows is the magic number for testing since if a client can do something and another client can see it correctly (via the server player) then you're most of the way there.

000

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

Spending all day in this view making very careful changes so I don't break any of the multiplayer replication & prediction systems, as I chop up the spell system and re-assemble it. All appears to be working again now but 😖I hate multiplayer code

3 UE windows in a test level with 3 different coloured wizards in a triangle

Steve Streeting @sinbad3d.bsky.social · 29/09/2025

You thought bureaucracy was bad? Enter "vibe working" in Office 365! Try getting any sense at all out of the corporate world now everyone's had their brains cooked by delegating 90% of cognitive functions to a statistically biased bingo machine

050

Combat training has been suspended for now at least #caturday

Two black and white cats on a blue blanket together

050

I’ve discovered that Wired is really good these days. It’s been years since I was a subscriber - I feel like it went a bit meh for a while, or maybe I just got tired of it, but either way they seem to be past that

010

What my chair actually looks like vs what my cats think it is This afternoon Merry was defeated in single combat by my chair while I was trying to do the hoovering

A red HÅG Capisco saddle chair. It has the signature horizontal T shaped back/arm rests

A young Bruce Lee using a Wing Chung practice dummy

140

So now I'm browsing magazines again in an attempt to access more interesting writing that the Internet has largely abandoned in favour of AI and ads

140

I think this is why my rolls have turned out a very reddish brown today. 😄 I’m fine with it though

020