This was meant to be a post showcasing my game
I don’t really know how else and where to say this but I am honestly stumped by the situation around my game and s&box right now.
For a long time I defended the engine nearly tooth and nail whenever people doubted it every time people said it was not ready I honestly believed in what Facepunch was building and not just that I believed in the future of the platform and I wanted my game to be part of that.
That is why this whole situation is so hurtful. I have been working on a standalone game that I planned to release on Steam I have made decisions based on the information I had at the time and from what I was told, I’ve also attached the screenshots first party assets from the cloud browser could be used and I genuinely believed that I was allowed to build around them for a standalone release. I did not do this in bad faith nor did I try to steal anything or sneak anything past anyone. I asked and got an answer and I trusted it.
What makes this especially frustrating is that not long ago the expectation seemed to be that once s&box was ready and released, standalone exports would be a real path for developers. That was one of the reasons I committed to building my game in it. Now it feels like the rules are becoming unclear at the exact moment where projects are starting to become serious.
Honestly if this kind of logic had been applied to Facepunch in the beginning Garry’s Mod, the game that started this whole party, probably would never have existed the way it did. That is what feels absurd to me the company that was built from modding, experimentation and letting people create freely is now in a position where developers feel like they have to ask permission just to know whether their own standalone game can ship.
What makes it harder is that there does not seem to be a clear support path for situations like this yet. As far as I can tell, the only real option right now is to email Garry directly and hope for an answer. For something as serious as whether a developer can release their game that feels extremely fragile. I understand the team’s concerns and I know why Facepunch might not want certain first party assets used in standalone games.
I am not saying they do not have the right to make that decision they could and should. But from my point of view it is painful because I feel like I was led to believe something else and I built real work around that belief. I never thought I would have to beg the people who made the engine to let me release my game. I expected technical issues, bugs, missing features and development challenges and it hurts me to say that the hardest part is actually the uncertainty over whether I am even allowed to ship the project I have spent lots of my own time building from scratch.
I am a small developer and a college student with a full time job and this project matters a lot to me. It is not just some random experiment I can throw away without consequence, as I put a lot of myself into this game and I genuinely wanted it to be a good example of what could be made with s&box. That is what makes this so difficult I did not want to be in conflict with Facepunch to begin with.
I do not know whether I should keep pushing forward in s&box, wait and hope the licensing situation becomes clearer or start moving the project to another engine before I lose even more time. I am willing to remove or rework whatever needs to be changed but I cannot afford to work for another year without knowing whether I will actually be able to release the game. I still respect Facepunch and still think s&box has huge potential.
I just wish the rules around standalone releases and first-party assets had been clearer earlier because the uncertainty is now hitting and will hit developers like me very hard. I defended this project because I believed in it I still want to believe in it but right now I am genuinely worried about the future of my project.
TL;DR: New uncertainties around s&box standalone releases and first party asset restrictions is making me seriously worried about whether my game can release as planned and worried about the engine’s future.