Editor's Note: Andrew concludes his bro-friendly series with an extensive look at independent development endeavors. After interviewing designers and producers, he sheds some much-needed light onto the current state of the industry as well as its future. If you're new to Andrew's Dudebro series, you can find the previous entries here, here, and here. -Omar

---

Dudebro has gone from meme to NeoGAF game-in-development. In the final installment, we'll take a look at how development tools are now at the disposal of the general public, and whether or not the idea of "community developed" games is on the precipice of becoming the next hot trend in video games.

Everyone loves to poke fun at video games. In fact, we sometimes satirize the industry by imagining fake games. But when the two ideas combined in a NeoGAF forum, someone inevitably stepped in to turn that imagined game into a real one. The result is Dudebro 2: My Shit is Fucked Up So I Got to Shoot/Slice You II: It's Straight-Up Dawg Time, and its creator is Will Goldstone -- a guy who wrote the book on the game's engine, Unity (literally).

Unfamiliar with the Unity Engine? Sure, it isn't as ubiquitous as the Unreal Engine or as flashy as Crystal Tools, but you have probably come across it. Browser-based games and iPhone games us it, and it recently jumped to consoles with the release of My Animal Center for the Wii (a game presumably about a center for animals). A couple years back, the engine made a huge splash with the release of the viral game Off-Road Velociraptor Safari, and developer Flashbang Games continues to use the engine in their high quality browser based games, available at Blurst.com.

The Unity Engine offers a simple interface, accessibility, and an ease of distribution that fit the needs of Dudebro and its volunteer development group, Grimoir Assembly Forge. "The engine is perfect for rapid prototyping as it lends itself to drag and drop, switching out settings, and testing easily, as a result it's perfect for the kind of work we're doing with Dudebro," says Goldstone, who is now the lead programmer on Dudebro. "Testing weapons, trying out new things with enemy behaviour -- without having to go back to scripts constantly, we can set up our own toolset and adjust in the main Unity window as we playtest, and I can export new builds to show the folks at NeoGAF and have them test too with a single click."

In fact, Goldstone's book is a great addition to the accessible toolset -- which is available for free -- that Unity provides. While you'll be paying for the Pro version, the free version offers plenty for the aspiring game developer. "It's essentially the same piece of kit," explains Goldstone, "but you can't do some stuff like dynamic shadows, exporting without a unity branding, and you can't sell your game made with it if you're going to profit over a certain threshold.... In general terms, you're looking at the same deal, which is a remarkable move for a software company."

But don't expect to jump in and make the next Gears of Wars. Goldstone offers some caution." As with any art form, game development is a discipline, and approaching it without that ethic will leave you nowhere. Beyond the construction and prototyping ease of use with Unity, a discipline and understanding of the components and scripting language is essential. Advanced elements such as AI, automation, multiplayer development and areas like that will always be complex, because by their very nature they require a lot of variation that an engine can't really be set up to deal with 'by default'."

Regardless, the program lowers the bar, and more people than ever, with formal training or otherwise, can get in to video game development. Many platforms exist for these efforts, and many companies, including console manufacturer Microsoft, are rewarding the work.

But smaller indie games have been the niche for lone auteurs and small groups. Grimoire Assembly Forge, on the other hand, ballooned to over 90 volunteers, a number that dwarfs some professional development studios. Are these larger scale community developed games a thing of the future?

The Dudebro team believes that it is possible, but that it's not a trend we will see anytime soon. Dudebro was a perfect storm of circumstance. Dudebro producer, Alan Partridge (NeoGAF user Earthstrike) elaborates: "In the case of GAF, you have a gaming forum with high membership. Naturally, some portion of the members will have some game related skills, and with such a large number of members, it almost seems trivial that there would be enough to make a game. I imagine that few other communities have both the volume and skills to spontaneously develop a game. As toolsets become more accessible, I can definitely see more communities doing what we're doing. I just don't think we're at that point in time yet."

As for lead designer, Andrea Nicolò (NeoGAF user Jocchan), Dudebro is actually not his first foray into community development. He first encountered the phenomenon by joining the development of Diamond Crush on an Italian Hardware Upgrade forum. While he's not new to the idea, he also expresses reservations about the proliferation of this method of game development, pointing out that there were some big guns involved in the Diamond Crush project, including current Technical Director of Crytek, Francesco Carucci.

While it may be sometime before we see games erupt from message boards the Internet over, Goldstone is incredibly happy to see the return of the dynamics that characterized early game development. "We're almost seeing a harkening back to the days of Spectrum bedroom programmers coming up with games on their own and distributing them to the masses. There are many more commercial pipelines since the advent of console based game stores such as XBLA and Steam, and this has really helped the popularity of Indie development rise and tools such as Unity really help promote that, also we've seen indie 'stars' rise to high acclaim in the industry, with games such as Braid and World of Goo getting high praise and awards."

Rest assured that your "best video game idea ever" won't follow you to the grave. You now have the tools to realize that dream and maybe in a couple years, you'll be heading a non-centralized game dev, with little overhead and unlimited passion. Or you can just jump on board the Dudebro project to see the future right now!