Unity Graphics Menu 🎮, Rider Agent 🤖, Another Fast Blur 🫥
Game Development & Tools 🎮
Build a Custom Graphics Settings Menu in Unity
Learn how to build a Unity graphics menu that lets players change resolution, fullscreen mode, VSync, anti-aliasing, render scale, and shadow quality. The tutorial also explains how to toggle and adjust URP post-processing effects such as bloom, and why ambient occlusion needs a different approach. Finish by connecting the controls to a UI.
Rider Kit connects coding agents to Unreal Editor and Rider
JetBrains is previewing Rider Kit, an integration that connects coding agents in Unreal Editor to Rider’s development tools. Demonstrations show agents finding Blueprint inheritance through Rider’s indexes, controlling debugging sessions, capturing editor views, simulating gameplay inputs, and creating materials. The integration uses Agent Client Protocol to support a choice of agents, including developers’ own compatible agents. The presenter says it works with most Unreal Engine 5 versions through Rider; interested developers can apply to an early preview program.
Indie Game Marketing & Growth 📣
Better Creator Outreach: Email Tips for Indie Game Developers
A creator’s inbox is crowded, so a generic pitch can be easy to ignore. This video breaks down what makes outreach emails work: keep them concise and personal, show the gameplay with a GIF, include a key and press kit, and give creators a clear reason to cover your game. Early access or an exclusive demo can help your pitch stand out.
From Discord Dev Logs to 460,000 Sales: Iron Nest’s Indie Playbook
The team behind Iron Nest explains how they turned a niche turret-simulator concept into a breakout Steam hit. They began marketing early, tested content across platforms, and invited fans into the development process through an unusually open Discord community. After building momentum with playtests and a carefully timed demo, the game launched with 960,000 wishlists and sold over 460,000 copies in its first 10 days.
Graphics & Localization ✨
The Hidden Complexity of Multilingual Text in Games
A simple text field quickly becomes a major engineering challenge when it must support languages beyond English. In this conference talk, Jimmy Lee breaks down the Unicode and OpenType pipeline—from shaping and font fallback to bidirectional layout, line wrapping, and editing. It’s a revealing look at the complexity behind something every game UI needs to get right.
Smol Gaussian: A Faster Way to Blur Big
Large Gaussian blurs can be expensive, but this post explores a downsample-blur-upsample technique that keeps them fast and visually smooth. The author’s “Smol Gaussian” handles animated, non-uniform blur and aims to reduce artifacts around bright HDR highlights. An interactive WebGPU playground compares it with several other blur methods and includes performance benchmarks.