So my question becomes, why Unity? It has one advantage I see: A giant body of users. But that's about it? I could be wrong and super look forward to your challenges.

C# has performance issues, and can't multi-thread. It also forces you to do all of the coding in syntax.

C++ is clunky, but far more versatile. You can do literally anything in it, with better performance. Unreal has a smaller but quicker-growing base of users. It also has blueprints to allow you to avoid coding for redundant tasks, or to outsource some simpler coding projects to other team members while you do the heavy lifting.

I only ask because a) I went through the same questions to myself, and b) if you haven't really gotten started yet, why start with Unity? There could be awesome reasons! It might benefit me for future game projects too.

Either or, as gamedevs on the side, we can bounce ideas off of each other nonetheless Looking forward to it partner!

Our main reasoning was that my friend and I needed to find a development environment we were both comfortable working in. He does a lot of web stuff (HTML5/CSS/Javascript) and I've done a lot of stuff in C/Objective-C through Xcode on Mac OS X so there wasn't a lot of overlap. We looked at a bunch of engines and Unity seemed to have the smallest learning curve.
Outside of Game dev, learning C# will be beneficial for my place of work. I'm a developer at a software company and while I'm mainly doing T-SQL and report building, theres scope to start doing core code which is either VisualBasic.Net or C#

Either way I wouldn't mind bouncing ideas around with you. We should set something up

_________________
Prince Septimus Cersil, Lord of Wychwood
Minister of Surveyors and Civil Engineers
Warden of the North
- Recipient of the Pyrencian Good Effort Award
- 2016 Winner of the 'Medal of S'alright'
- Stronger than an ant
- The Tallest

WELL THEN, that opens up another intersection of ours. My day job is as a consultant for a research company and for governments. My personal business in the evenings and on the side is as a research solutions provider. I discovered working with some of the biggest firms in the world that they are slow as hell at adapting, so I combined my past work as a statistician with my passion for building in code.

I do a lot of report-automation work. Mostly: Javascript/vba (into office solutions) and increasingly web-interface dashboards for automated predictive analytics. My sweetest breakthroughs have been combining the power of R as a statistical tool with web interfaces using JSON, but that has meant recently teaching myself to get around SQL databases seamlessly. I know, I know, SQL is not rocket science for experienced coders, but I surprisingly avoided it over my past coding projects. I realize that Apps are going to be extinct before they even take off, and most of the powerful interfaces are going to be web-based (at least, I'm speaking in terms of my client base), so I figured I'd start to dive into it. Perhaps we can catch up on mumble some time about all of this! And it'd be great if Nicholas and Kyn join us too. Looking forward to it!

i have issues with picture size on firefox as well

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Thrain Di'Derinan Favian II
Visual Scribe of Hermertia
Minister of Local Affairs and Protector of Derinan, Count of Pyrencia

Can confirm, pictures are wonky on Firefox.

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Guardian of Casadia
Master of the Slayers Guild
Minister of Hermertian History

I choose to believe Firefox is wonky with pictures, but I too am having these issues

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Ainmire Sera-Blodh of House Flenadrison, second of his name, King in the South, Ruler of Carrickshire, and slayer of false Kings.
"The Crippled King"
"Flanders"

There's enough people here that I think it warrants me reaching out to Kyn to see what code he used to solve this problem for Firefox/IE as well.

As for hobbies, does running your own business in the evenings count? I worked until midnight today on a contract I picked up on the side (research consulting/data work). I would complain, if it wasn't for the fact the hourly rate is sweeeeeet.

I use it as an opportunity to train/mentor as well, so if any of you would like to get into business statistics OR report coding OR web dashboard design OR organizational excellence consulting, and would like practical contracts to help, don't hesitate to chat. I work primarily with non-profit and government clients, but my client-base is growing rapidly into the private sector too. You'll find my model for pupils is pretty sweet! (If I put in 2 hours on a project, and my teammate puts in 8, I give them 80% of the profit, WITHOUT counting my hourly time spent on training, meaning it's even more of a sweet deal). My only hope/return is they become super awesome one day and therefore allies for the future.

Long day. I'm tired. Time for more of that golden elixir

Another consumer of my time. Stardew Valley. Fuck, it's like crack. And my GF, who is a non-gamer, has become addicted to it too. She's a keener and works overtime every night. The first time in the year I have known her, she skipped work to stay at home and play games with me. I don't know if I should be proud or not.

Either way. Stardew valley. It's. Dope.

I've not played Stardew Valley myself, but I've seen a few playthroughs online and it does look good. May have to get it myself.
I'm in a similar place at the moment with some old games I've been playing via emulator. I'm currently playing through Banjo Kazooie when I have spare time. The nostalgia is for real

_________________
Prince Septimus Cersil, Lord of Wychwood
Minister of Surveyors and Civil Engineers
Warden of the North
- Recipient of the Pyrencian Good Effort Award
- 2016 Winner of the 'Medal of S'alright'
- Stronger than an ant
- The Tallest