Will Goldstone

Senior Design Director @unitygames | Unity since 2006. Indie Dev, Delorean nerd, Author, SYNTHWΔVE artist. Views mine! he/him. Bsky: @willgoldstone.bsky.social

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

I have the good fortune to meet and work with the most inspirational creative people every day.

Not everyone is as lucky, and so if there's anything I can do to help you re: #Unity3d, #gamedev, connections, design, anything - please feel free to ask.

[Thomas Brush @thomasbrushdev]

Every tiny negative thing a playtester says is going to turn into something positive (if you humble yourself!)

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

@JussiKemppainen @Jakob_Wahlberg @unity Hey Jakob, must be a bug, let me ask graphics folks. I’ve not seen this on my project but I’m on HDRP so perhaps I’m immune to it, your stuff is URP I assume? Any other details you can share that might be non standard?

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

If you are publishing to Steam go say thanks to Jo for making your life better! #gamedev

[Jo @jogamedev]

Setting up a Steam page feels like it takes way longer than it should, so I made a little tool to quickly compose and arrange all the Steam Capsules that you need to launch your storepage.

All you have to do is drag in your base assets and then you can rearrange and scale them for each capsule.

What used to take me an hour now takes 5 minutes.

I'm making this tool available for anyone who wants it.

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

This is why real filmmakers rock.

[Anish Moonka @anishmoonka]

You're watching a $248 million film and not a single green or blue screen was used. The alien is a handmade puppet. The cockpit physically rotates to simulate gravity. I looked at the production tech behind this 95% score, and the engineering is wild.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller, directing their first live-action movie in 12 years, built the entire Hail Mary spacecraft as a real set at Shepperton Studios in England. Not a miniature. Not a digital model. A full-size ship interior you can walk through. Production designer Charlie Wood studied the International Space Station, Russia's Mir station, and the Boeing 747 cockpit to get the look right. He deliberately made the panels mismatched, because real spacecraft are assembled from parts made by different companies. Nothing matches perfectly. That's what makes it feel real.

The cockpit is only about 8 feet wide. It sits on a mechanical platform that can tilt, spin, and shake, so when the ship changes direction or enters different gravity conditions, the whole set moves. Chairs end up on walls. Ladders flip direction. Gosling was suspended inside a spinning ring so he could float and move through the ship for real, reacting to actual hardware around him. No guessing where a wall might be added later.

Then there's Rocky. He's the alien co-lead, and he's not CGI. Neal Scanlan, the creature designer who built the Porgs for Star Wars, spent a full year on this character. Over 300 designs before they landed on the final look. Rocky is a thin, hollow shell, 3D-printed from a digital sculpture, then hand-painted in see-through layers so light passes through him like skin. His arms pop off and swap out depending on the scene: one set has a closed fist for walking, another has tiny motorized fingers strong enough to pick up objects. Five puppeteers (nicknamed the "Rockyteers") operated him in every scene. James Ortiz, an award-winning puppet designer from New York theater, voiced Rocky and controlled him on set. When Scanlan met him, he told Ortiz, "You're Frank Oz, and I'm making Yoda for you." Every reaction Gosling gives to the alien is to something physically in front of him.

Greig Fraser, who won the Oscar for shooting Dune, filmed the space scenes in the larger IMAX format (that taller image you see in IMAX theaters) and the Earth flashbacks in regular widescreen. Then the team did something unusual: they took the digital footage and printed it onto real film strips, twice, using two different types of film stock. Then they scanned those strips back into digital. It sounds redundant, but it adds a texture and warmth that you can only get from physical film. Fraser used the same technique on Dune and The Batman.

Drew Goddard spent six years writing this screenplay. His last adaptation of Andy Weir's novel, The Martian, earned him an Oscar nomination. He described the challenge this way: a screenplay gets about 5% of a novel's word count. The lead is alone for most of the runtime. When he finally gets a co-star, that co-star doesn't speak English, communicates through sounds closer to whale song, and has no face. Goddard called it a screenwriter's nightmare, then said that difficulty was the whole point. He and the directors fought studio pushback to keep Weir's original ending intact.

95% from 212 critics. 98% from over 2,500 audience ratings. And the lead isn't a superhero, a cop, or a soldier. He's just an ordinary middle school science teacher.

[Johan Vinet @johanvinet]

Also, LUNARK is human-made, frame by frame. No AI involved, just pure dedication and love for the craft. 🥰

[Sakura Rabbit 樱花兔 @Sakura_Rabbiter]

This is in real-time.

#unity #shader #vfx #gamedev

[Unity for Games @unitygames]

The 2026 Unity Game Development Report is here 🎮

Discover how studios worldwide are adapting to an ever-changing industry, from developing smaller, focused titles to adopting new revenue models.

See the five key trends shaping game development this year.

[Indie Game Joe @IndieGameJoe]

This indie dev spent 1,400+ days building his game, Tangy TD, completely from scratch in C++.

Seeing him and his wife react after the game earned $250,000 in its first week after launch is honestly beautiful.

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

The @unitygames live stream up right now https://t.co/iBlJcS3ukj it'll be still on youtube if you missed it #gamedev

[Sakura Rabbit 樱花兔 @Sakura_Rabbiter]

The Witch's Bedroom~😊

#Unity #VFX #shader #realtime #MadeWithUnity

[80 LEVEL @80Level]

Among Us creator @InnerslothDevs unveiled the contract it sends to indie game developers who want help from its fund, @Slothfund. It takes 50% of the game's revenue until the advance is repaid and then 15%, making it a sweet deal for game makers.

The studio wants to "encourage other funds/publishers to adopt terms that were more developer-friendly": https://t.co/B0etFT5G9Q

[Chris Wade 🌭🐸 @chriswade__]

Water levels are a drag in most games, but we made them something to look forward to in BIG HOPS! Here's 3 ways we solved the problem. #bighops #waterlevels #gamedev

[VIKARE @vikare06]

Btw, in case you are wondering, the graphics were actually mostly vector graphics which were then directly digital laser printed on the 35mm film, which is why we don't have surviving animation cells of those interfaces.
The warm glow you see in all the old interfaces comes from the exposure on the 35mm film.

[Unity for Games @unitygames]

The 2026 Unity Game Development Report is here.

Faster preproduction. Smaller, sharper games. New ways to grow revenue.
Five trends reshaping how studios build and launch this year.

👇 Read the full report

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

@matyv_7 @sireilisa We call them baked hams.

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

@ShaunPeoples I mean I coulda been fancy and gone to Brenda’s but I am nothing if not a basic b

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

Starting GDC week in the time honoured tradition. #gamedev

[Tim Soret @timsoret]

Flying to San Francisco today to show The Last Night in private around GDC. Last year was an absolute pleasure, met many creative heroes.

Gamedevs, platforms, angels, VCs, publishers, TV / cinema producers: hit me up. I have something special. Here for the full week.

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

Had a great time hosting the Product Update for GDC, if you missed it, link in thread. Looking forward to catching some of you IRL next week! #unity #gamedev

[Unity for Games @unitygames]

Get a sneak peek at the upcoming Unity Engine and tech updates designed to help you build and scale your games 🛠️

[Will Goldstone @willgoldstone]

@IsaiahToth_Dev @ShedworksGreg Absolutely, drop me a DM Greg or email will at unity com.