Brandon J Laatsch

‘freddiew' YouTube from 2010-13. Node channel 2011-2019. StressLevelZero games 2014-now. Hover Junkers, Duck Season, Boneworks and Bonelab.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@Rengle820 Navigating the OS, surface typing, video players.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

Save files in Marrow 2! The goal is to fully serialize the physics state of the game. A lot of late nights are going into this, but persistence will unlock so much gameplay!

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@StrainZex What you’re looking at is seven years of work towards that. Still got a lot to do, but it’s getting closer.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

Physics based objects and dead bodies were enough for Half-Life 2 because the input was mouse/keyboard. For VR to work, humans need to be physical at all times because tracked controllers give you unlimited agency to touch everything. Action requires satisfying reaction.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

In Boneworks, the physics rig represented the player with 6 rigidbodies. By Bonelab, arms and a chest were added bringing the count to 11. And now for Marrow 2, the spine has been completed, legs have been added and the ball has been removed. An 18 body physics player.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

In Boneworks, the physics rig represented the player with 6 rigidbodies. By Bonelab, arms and a chest were added bringing the count to 11. And now for Marrow 2, the spine has been completed, legs have been added and the ball has been removed. An 18 body physics player.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

The current state of the Marrow 2 Being. A fully body active ragdoll suitable to be the player, an NPC, an enemy, or a net player. Still a long ways to go but the dream is becoming real.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

‘26 goals: Release Patch 789 for Bonelab with Marrow 2. Bring Boneworks to Quest 3 and continue B-Side prep work. Migrate to Unity 6.3. Focus progress on a generic singular physics human, multi-rigidbody interaction, and serialization. Godspeed, SLZ!

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

Christmas Eve sales were up 20% versus Dec 24th ‘24. Exciting considering there aren’t many new games. VR is primed to inflect once Marrow is ready to expedite game production. Better hardware is great but what we really need is new games!

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

The same mod being loaded in both Boneworks and Bonelab.

While this is in a near shippable state, we're still hard at work on 3 core physics features that we intend to progress on before releasing Boneworks and updating Bonelab.

It's not good enough yet, back in the oven.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@Minibattle_Lop Like what we did with patch 3 and 6? Or longer term?

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

Slowly working towards being able to show more of Marrow 2. We’ve been working on a handful of core features, so the time investment has been intense to get it right. We have the rare opportunity to build something foundational, important to not squander it.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@Minibattle_Lop There’ll never be a final update announcement. We’re currently planning an update for Boneworks 6 years later, Valve recently patched Half Life, you never about this stuff. We keep our options open. Currently we’ve merged the 7, 8, and 9 branches together, so it’ll be Patch 789.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@darkRose044745 Because we don’t know what is going to make the cut. Don’t want to talk about things that end up on the sidelines until later. Also, it’s best to talk about when there are visuals to back it up, and these particular things are a ton of engineering time before we get the payoff.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@wigwamman72 It’s looking like it will be Patch 789.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@jmancurly It’ll be a long road. Ultimately I like making games, that’s the top priority. Marrow is a means to accelerate that process. I also want to play Marrow games made by others, but not if they require support that would take away from us making games. So it has to be solid first.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@ggxx9b We are the demand, we’re making it to make games with.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@ellyhonig @vr_hai @I3Llamas It’s solvable, just a bit more complicated than two bone ik. Irl you extend your clavicle in rhythm as your arm reaches maximal extension. This prevents you from slamming your arm straight. I solved it the same way in VR to eliminate the nasty common fix of arm stretching.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@axsdu_ I hope not.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@AnkhangelDragon Creatively it’s currently too time intensive to direct design around the lacking parts because it can’t fulfill analogous ideation drawing from the last 30 years of first person games. Fulfill basic FPS analogies and they’ll need less oversight. It’s the only way forward.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@Gogo_XR_ There are more, still seeing how far they will get for Marrow 2 as there are a few logical stopping points for each.

[Brandon J Laatsch @BrandonJLa]

@loiploip11 Because more data is needed to discern it. There are better and worse times to evaluate status. Working towards a good evaluation point. Information isn’t withheld, it’s unknown.