Hello from The Mirror: Game Development Platform & Sandbox

trizZzle

Sounds like Roblox or Core to me. 🤔 I will have a look at it. 🙂

themirrorgdp

trizZzle Roblox isn't a bad comparison 🙂 A next-gen Roblox that isn't kid-focused, with better graphics, richer experiences, and an open-core so creators can own their data

TheMidnightWolf

themirrorgdp Roblox isn't kid kid centered anymore. They want to be a dating app also

themirrorgdp

TheMidnightWolf They're trying to move beyond kid offerings, but 60% of users are still under the age of 16: https://backlinko.com/roblox-users

packrat

TheMidnightWolf They want to be a dating app also

every year the news and ads i see about that platform gets goofier. back in 2011 when i played, people got banned left and right because they were attempting the "Roblox dating roleplay" route in order to impress their pre-pubescent friends with stories of a girlfriend who goes to another school.
that aside, to this day, the only ones i've met who play on that site without irony or a paycheck are children, and dudes i would not let near my kid if i had one.

and all of that aside,
themirrorgdp what made you pick The Mirror as the name? and what does gdp mean?

kuligs2

themirrorgdp i guess them kids who used roblox finally grew up

trizZzle

packrat gdp = game development platform

themirrorgdp

packrat Yep, GDP = Game Development Platform.

The intent behind the "Mirror" name is inspirational: it's a different, digital reality but similar. You're "looking into The Mirror", yet it's slightly changed, hence the bottom-right of our logo is slightly different than the top-left from where it's "mirrored".

Gaming is already the prime immersive medium for online content (beyond text, images, video, etc.) because it combines everything together, all at once. Gaming is the closest comparison we have to real life, but it's still different, hence, "mirrored".

It's not perfect but we love the analogy and hope it can inspire people to create awesome stuff 🙂

PizzaHutsAlat

This looks like the sorta thing I dreamed game dev would be like as a kid. programming is easily my favorite part of game dev now, but I wish I had something like this when I was younger so that I wouldn't have to go through that tutorial hell. I could learn programming logic through using the visual programming alternative and get to the "real" coding later on. glad to see that something like this exists.

themirrorgdp

PizzaHutsAlat Thank you so much, this is a HUGE compliment; great to hear. We'd love for you to try it out and hear what you think! The suggestions made are often what we implement next.

Megalomaniak

themirrorgdp Since you ask for feedback... After downloading the mirror and launching it I need to register an account to log in, but the web page I'm taken to has no explicit 'register account' button. Now as an experienced computer user I can guess that I can probably reach registration via the sign in button on the page but a new user who's perhaps not yet all too experienced and tech savvy might not immediately realize that. Something to consider perhaps. Ideally one should even be able to register the account from in-app I think.

Follow-up: inputs from different devices can conflict. After creating my 'space' and entering it I couldn't properly move via WASD since I also have a flight stick connected and it's dead-zones are rather bad. Would be good to ideally have a means in the options to disable inputs from the device or map them only to some special flight mode. Also, for whatever reason one of the axis was constantly triggering the right click menu which was really annoying.

themirrorgdp

Megalomaniak Thanks for the feedback; yeah we haven't properly set up multiple inputs just yet, but we'll take a look.

Great points on smoothing the registration flow too; we'll work on those right away.

Thank you much!

unicornlox

Was the mirror project done with the customization of the godot editor or was it done like a compiled game in godot? If godot is made like a project compiled as a game, is it possible to share information about how to compile another game within the compiled game?

unicornlox

themirrorgdp Was the mirror project done with the customization of the godot editor or was it done like a compiled game in godot? If godot is made like a project compiled as a game, is it possible to share information about how to compile another game within the compiled game?

aaronfranke

unicornlox The Mirror is a compiled game as you put it. It ships with export templates. It doesn't use any of the Godot editor code. All of the editor mechanics like the gizmos, hierarchy, and inspector are remade from scratch.

Yes, we made our own visual scripting (or, specifically, I did). Yes, it's Godot 4. You can find docs on how to use our visual scripting here https://docs.themirror.space/docs/category/visual-scripting feel free to ask any questions.

gocat

It appears that you made your visual scripting? Is The Mirror based on godot 4?

Unicorn_Crusader16

This is the first I've heard of Mirror, I'll be sure to look more into it. Seems quite interesting! :3

unicornlox

aaronfranke Did you make mirror engine by yourself, that's great. do you have a team or are you by yourself? what's the story of mirror?

aaronfranke

unicornlox I am an employee, this is a company and we have a team. I will let @themirrorgdp answer in more detail including the story (that's an open question). I only made a portion of The Mirror (>95% of the scripting system, >95% of our modifications to the GLTF importer, and lots of other bits). A lot of stuff I work on is contributed back into Godot, like GLTF stuff.

unicornlox

aaronfranke thank you very much for your answer🙂

Megalomaniak

aaronfranke >95% of our modifications to the GLTF importer, and lots of other bits

I presume most of that has been upstreamed or at least will be(cause I can't think of any reason not to)?

themirrorgdp

unicornlox The long story short is that the founder (Jared) built an online business in Second Life as a kid and has been thinking about building a game development platform inspired by SL's real-time building mechanics. The timing was perfect as Godot started to become a super strong engine. Jared took the leap in Jan 2022 and thus, The Mirror was born. The name came from the idea of mirroring your imagination, your vision - whatever you wish to build.

It's a full-team effort though - that was just how we got started 🙂