Tryhard dev log - Cutscene and Game Scripting with Yarn Spinner v3.0 beta

In our upcoming game Tryhard, we have cutscenes and dialogue and level scripting like many other RPGs. This dev log is about how we’re implementing some of that stuff in the game. 

(Note that I'm writing this post mostly for fellow Unity game devs, but even if you don't happen to be a dev, maybe you'll appreciate this technical behind-the-scenes look anyway? Just let all the game dev words and lingo wash over you like a summer rain.)

We’re using the free open-source dialogue system plugin Yarn Spinner v3.0 beta 2 as our main scripting and story plugin. I’ve written about Yarn in the past and I'm finding this fresh new version 3 to be a great upgrade with useful features, even while in beta. For more info on these features, see the Yarn Spinner docs "Coming in v3" page.

Here’s how we’re using some new YS3 features for some cutscene and scripting stuff in Tryhard:

Yep I'm at GDC 2025 (links / presskit / dance card)

Yep I'm attending GDC 2025. (For better or worse, I've made too many commitments to cancel.)

The best way to contact me is to @ me on BlueSky or email me ( yang.robert.w [AT] gmail ). You can also probably just find me lounging in the Yerba Buena Gardens on most non-rainy noon-afternoons.

If you're press / journalist / podcaster / creator / TikToker / YouTuber / writer etc. and you need content to feed the Machine -- contact me (see above) and I'm happy to talk about whatever to help you:

• General video game opinions / GDC gossip.
• For 2-3 years I've been contributing level design to Big Hops (check us out at Day of the Devs) and I've learned a lot about making 3D platformer levels
• But for a demo / better sense of the game, contact the director Chris Wade ( chris [AT] luckshotgames.com ). A lot of the dev team will be hanging around GDC too.
• I'm also speaking at GDC about the difficulty of teaching level design and writing The Level Design Book, now a top search result and community resource used in multiple schools and studios.
• I'm also here as part of a New Zealand government trade group, with generous support from NZ CODE. It's funny to be part of a "foreign" delegation "visiting" my home country. I can talk about what NZ is doing at GDC, the local NZ game industry, or explain NZ in general (is it really like Lord of the Rings?)
• I'm here pitching our upcoming game Tryhard, a tactics RPG about managing an underdog rugby club.
• If you fund / publish games and Tryhard seems interesting / you just want to connect in general, email me ( yang.robert.w [AT] gmail ) and we can probably figure out a last minute meeting or demo too.

Below, my event schedule / dance card for the week:

Tryhard devlog - about the setting, game world, and worldbuilding

Now that we’ve announced our upcoming game Tryhard (... WISHLIST ON STEAM?) I can talk more openly about our design and development process for it.

Today's post is about the game's setting, world, and worldbuilding.

Like many RPGs, Tryhard has an explorable 3D town hub where you can talk to NPCs, visit shops, and randomly barge into homes to steal things. These RPG towns usually exist in a magical fantasyland of make-believe, but Tryhard's town is based on an actual real-life magical fantasyland of make-believe called Auckland, New Zealand! 

Specifically, you live your RPG life in a unique IRL neighborhood known as Karangahape Road (pronounced like "ka-rawng-ah-hawp-ey").

Radiator University, Spring 2025 course catalog

Welcome back to Radiator University! Although it's been 7 years since we last offered any courses, we wish to assure you that we're absolutely open for business and/or scholarship, thanks to a fresh funding injection from Hegemony Capital, which will never compromise our academic mission in any way. 

Here's a sample of our new course offerings for the upcoming Spring 2025 semester:

AG 3532 - FOLIAGE AND TERROR
What is the reality of a forest, and how do we reconcile this with the virtual plantations infesting video games? While studying forest ecologies, we will survey various digital foliage tools such as SpeedTree and TreeIt. Students will then work in groups to "plant" virtual forests; with each week, the virtual forest must undergo 10 years of simulated growth. Then in partnership with Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank, students will spend the second half of the semester in Austria training as industrial arborists while studying the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Even as arborist-poets, can we ever truly know the whole of the forest, across all time and space, virtual and material? As Rilke would say - every tree is terrifying. (2 credits)
($30000 USD lab fee, 50% deposit required upon enrollment. Work Study students ineligible. Prerequisites: Advanced Austrian German or equivalent.)

The year of the blog? + how to easily put a Bluesky feed widget on your website

V Buckenham has declared that this is the year of the blog. I suppose I shall answer the call. It must be so.

I used to blog with shocking regularity -- at my peak (or my lowest point?) I was writing 2-3 posts a week. I can't imagine doing that now. But maybe I can commit to a 2-3 posts "every now and then"?

***

As long as we're strolling down memory lane: my most loyal readers may recall this blog used to have comments and a personal Twitter feed in the sidebar. I'm not bringing comments back, but I've gone ahead and added a personal Bluesky feed widget that displays a few of my most recent posts in the sidebar -- just like it's 2010. (If you're reading this on mobile, you'll have to switch to the desktop version to see the sidebar.)

Figuring out how to add a Bluesky feed widget was surprisingly complicated to figure out, but then very simple to execute. Useless google searches would have you believe that you have to sign-up for a weird widget scam service with a fake free plan, and the official Bluesky website only offers tools for embedding an individual post as a widget.

But if you can paste HTML, then you too can have a free and easy Bluesky feed widget on your website or Blogger or Wordpress or whatever. Here's my very authoritative guide:

New game announcement: "Tryhard" + "A Sportslike Manifesto"

Tryhard is an upcoming sports RPG about managing an underdog rugby club in New Zealand.

We're still quite early in development. But for now, it'd really help us if you wishlisted the game on Steam or idled in the Discord, mostly so we can show those stats to convince rich people to give us money to finish making the game.

If you're interested in why we're making this game / what's going on...