Croteam | News

Serious Engine v1.10 source code was released just recently, but it already provoked the interest of a large number of developers.

Among the developers was a company Program Verification Systems, that used it’s static code analyzer to analyze the Serious Engine v1.10 code.

Their findings? Well, apparently there are “bugs in the code” and “suspicious code fragments”, but Croteam’s official stance on this matter remains that we write and develop a perfect code!

For example, PVS-Studio analyzer claims that it found typos and that there are identical sub-expressions to the left and to the right of the ‘==’ operator. So? One can never be too sure! We were just double checking! Errm, yes, just making sure, that was it. Definitely not a typo.

Further on in the analysis, PVS-Studio analyzer tries to pwn us with another finding: “in this code fragment we get a pointer “pwndView”, which is then assigned with NULL, making the condition always false. Most likely the programmer meant to write the inequality operator ‘!=’”.

While it may be true that the condition is always false, we’re positive that the programmer knew exactly what he (or she) was doing. Which is more than can be said for our PR department (it’s just me on Thursdays, hi!) that would love to further analyze the analyzer (or just use the word extensively) and its findings, but sadly can’t really understand any of that technical stuff.

But if you can, take a look at our careers section – we may have a job for you!

A big thanks goes to Svyatoslav Razmyslov from Program Verification Systems for testing Serious Engine v1.10, writing the article and trying to find bugs. Nice try 😉

Take a look at Serious Sam’s Bogus Detour video created by Swedish indie developer, Crackshell, which shows tons of action!

Since the last update, they have added some new features and have mostly completed the first four levels. They are working really hard to create a first person fully packed adrenaline shooter which will be a new fan favorite.

All we can say is that we will continue to monitor the development progress, as the game is shaping up quite nicely. You can also check the progress at Seriously!

Our friend Ryan C. Gordon, better known as Icculus has his mind set on untangling the Serious Engine source code for Linux.

“Apparently some parts of my Serious Sam work got merged 15 years ago, so I’m still untangling this.”

You can follow him on twitter and monitor his progress.

This year’s Game Developers Conference (GDC) will be held next week from March 14th – 18th in San Francisco and Croteam will be there. Vulkan expert Dean Sekulic will share his knowledge and expertise regarding the new Vulkan API. You can catch him on Panel Discussion Is Vulkan a Game Changer (presented by Imagination Technologies) and in the session Practical Development for Vulkan (presented by Valve Software).

See you there!

Thanks to you guys The Talos Principle has reached Top 5 on Steam Top Sellers List. Yay! 🙂

For everyone who hasn’t already bought the game now it’s the time ’cause both Talos and Gehenna are on big discounts (75% and 66% respectively) as a part of Steam Weekend Deal.

Offer ends on Monday, March 7th at 10 AM Pacific Time.

Release of Vulkan API is currently the hot topic in IT world. Guys from ArsTechnica have tested new API graphics for AMD and NVIDIA. General conclusion is that work still needs to be done but with further improvements the Vulkan could be the next big thing in developers world. You can read the whole review here.

Meanwhile, our colleagues from NVIDIA are quite satisfied with mutual work and cooperation on The Talos Principle.

“Croteam has always been a fantastic developer to work with, their enthusiasm and technical ability ensure they’re always on the cutting edge of technologies. It’s a pleasure to collaborate with them, and we’re especially excited to see The Talos Principle taking advantage of Vulkan on NVIDIA hardware and aligned to release!”, said Tony Tamasi, Sr. Vice President, Content & Technology, NVIDIA.

Vulkan is the new graphics API that makes for a great foundation for future games and 3D apps. If you’d like to check it out with The Talos Principle BETA Vulkan support, it’s a good idea to read this forum post first. Croteam’s Senior Programmer, Dean Sekulic, is pretty excited right now (we all are!) and his post is an interesting mix of instructions, disclaimers and a personal dev diary.

With the imminent release, Vulkan is also a hot topic in tech community so we asked Dean just a few questions about bringing Vulkan support to Serious Engine.

In-house interview: Why Vulkan?

Co-founder of Croteam and veteran of the games industry, Dean Sekulic is our graphics engine specialist. He is currently working on Vulkan implementation in Serious Engine.

Serious Engine already works on many different platforms and the general consensus is that it works very well. Why do we need Vulkan?
Vulkan is a great fit for Croteam’s next game, which will require no compromise when it comes to raw performance.

Vulkan wasn’t officially released till today, so how were you able to work on implementation and roll out one of the first titles supporting this new tech?
Croteam is a member of VAP (Vulkan Advisory Panel), and for almost a year we helped with designing the Vulkan API . It was a great idea on part of the Khronos Group to include Croteam and other game developers, because we all know what happens when you let only IHVs design the API: game developers are left with low-level programming of GPU registers. 😉

How would you describe the current state and performance of Vulkan API?
Vulkan has a huge potential! We’re only scratching the surface of what can be done with it, and porting The Talos Principle to Vulkan should be seen as a proof of concept. Of course, Vulkan also requires several changes in the higher level graphics system in Serious Engine and this will come in time…

What is your experience with implementing Vulkan support in an existing game engine and making it work with current technology?
We had great support from both NVIDIA and AMD and the really nice folks in their developer relations department and driver programmers helped us a great deal! All in all, it was a much smoother operation than I anticipated at first, regarding all the classic issues with “hitting a moving target.” Yes, it was quite hard to code support for API while it’s still being changed, but I’m really happy that we went that way so early and also helped in designing the API itself.
Also, I have to point out that we’re not there just yet – some work is left to be done in both low-level and high-level optimizations.

How would you describe your experience with Vulkan in just one sentence?
Vulkan in just one sentence? The endless war between performance and portability is finally over!

Would you be willing to share your experience with Vulkan with other developers?
Absolutely! I’ll be more than happy to share Croteam’s experience, both the advantages and the challenges, on porting an engine from OpenGL or Direct3D to Vulkan. I’ll be giving a lecture about implementing Vulkan in Serious Engine at Reboot Develop 2016 in Croatia in April. Hopefully, I’ll be one of the speakers at the Vulkan panel at GDC 2016 in San Francisco in March, but we’re still in talks about that one.

Happy New Year to everyone, hope you celebrated nicely.

New 2016 has started pretty well for us. The Talos Principle was awarded as Best Puzzle Game by editors at DualShockers. To check if you agree with them, buy and play Talos on Steam.

We are proud to announce that Jonas and Verena Kyratzes will be writing screenplay for Serious Sam 4! As you know, we already worked with Jonas on our critically acclaimed title The Talos Principle, and now we decided to extend the scope of our relationship to our beloved Serious Sam franchise. But Jonas brought in his secret weapon in form of Verena Kyratzes, and they both started shaping the story into something really awesome (not to say “blockbuster-y”).

“I was a fan of Serious Sam before I got to work with Croteam, so I must admit I was sort of hoping I might be involved with the next one if The Talos Principle went well. But more than that, we immediately clicked with the team, were treated like family, and really wanted to keep working with them. Going to Croatia and working in the office just confirmed that.” – Jonas Kyratzes

“I didn’t really expect to be doing this. At first I was just suggesting some ideas, some bits of dialogue, but eventually I ended up writing an entire draft of the script and working full-time with the team in Croatia. It was a very pleasant surprise, because ever since Talos, we’ve been good friends with the people at Croteam.” – Verena Kyratzes

“Storyline is being shaped out at the moment, and we can only say – it will be worth the wait!” – Damjan Mravunac, CMO

The Talos Principle is once again recognized as one of the best games of the year. Talos is three time nominee at this years Golden Joystick Awards. Nominations are for Best Original Game, Best Storytelling and PC Game of the year.

Voting is open for public so if you like Talos you can cast your vote here:

http://www.gamesradar.com/goldenjoystickawards/vote/

Awards ceremony will take place at the O2 arena in London on October 30th.

You have only 24 hours to get in possession of all Croteam games at once.

And the offer is spectacular:

Serious Sam Series is 90 % off, The Talos Principle and it’s DLCs are 66 % off and our brand new extension, Road to Gehenna is 25 % off.

Now it’s the time to log on to Steam and buy all these great games.

Act fast and buy now or regret later!

http://store.steampowered.com/search/?snr=1_7_7_151_12&term=croteam