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[Davision]

Mind if I ask what the object of the game is? How does the gameplay work?

I'm not sure yet, I prototyped a couple of mechanics:
http://i.imgur.com/rJquVXL.gif
http://i.imgur.com/PYjm3r9.gif
http://i.imgur.com/l1rwfdu.gif

probably a mix of puzzles and platforming in first person with utilizing those mechanics. I also like the idea of just walking into a painting and loosing yourself into it with exploring and finding stuff. It could also vary greatly depending on the paintings/levels and their style.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm good! Can't quite say, unfortunately, but I will tell you that there are cones and even a few lines in it.

If Feep were prototyping his own game, he could obviously say.

The only logical conclusion is that he's been hired to develop Shenmue III (are there cones in that?).

 

[Jumplion]

I'm not sure yet, I prototyped a couple of mechanics:
http://i.imgur.com/rJquVXL.gif
http://i.imgur.com/PYjm3r9.gif
http://i.imgur.com/l1rwfdu.gif

probably a mix of puzzles and platforming in first person with utilizing those mechanics. I also like the idea of just walking into a painting and loosing yourself into it with exploring and finding stuff. It could also vary greatly depending on the paintings/levels and their style.

I feel like it doesn't necessarily need a "core" mechanic, it's literally an "Art Game" (you can take that one to the bank). My inner pretentious douche would be totally crazy with this all artsy, painting things and slowly seeing the darkness beneath what you're painting, and figuring out the story as you go along or something.

If you want something more traditional, I'd imagine things like "paint" and "erase" could provide for some interesting interactions. Like having to "erase" a dam, then quickly "paint" a rock to divert flow a certain way. Epic Mickey did something with paint like that. I 'unno.

Still looks purty!

 

[Huw_Dawson]

I'm so freaking rusty in 3DS Max. Really slow to get much done, but it's ultimately the most important part of my project. :\

EDIT: Nice write up Missile! I definitely think it is a challenge to make iterative development work in video games, but it's undeniable the benefits it reaps in other software.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Hey guys, got a question from a friend. He is curious about how some of you industry pros approach hiring people with experience, but the differentiating factor is school vs no school.

He wants to get into development and is toying around with learning on his own and going to school. I'd appreciate the feedback. He wants to keep his options open as much as possible.

Mine was basically: larger companies might like school but smaller startups generally don't require degrees if your work is up to snuff - which seems to be kinda on point. I think :\

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Hey guys, got a question from a friend. He is curious about how some of you industry pros approach hiring people with experience, but the differentiating factor is school vs no school.

He wants to get into development and is toying around with learning on his own and going to school. I'd appreciate the feedback. He wants to keep his options open as much as possible.

Mine was basically: larger companies might like school but smaller startups generally don't require degrees if your work is up to snuff - which seems to be kinda on point. I think :\

In my experience educational qualifications are only used to get past the HR folks who don't really understand what they're looking for and just look for things they've been specifically told to look for (eg knowledge of specific languages or applications)
Practical experience will get an interview or a trial, the trial / interview will decide the job.

 

[JulianImp]

In my experience educational qualifications are only used to get past the HR folks who don't really understand what they're looking for and just look for things they've been specifically told to look for (eg knowledge of specific languages or applications)
Practical experience will get an interview or a trial, the trial / interview will decide the job.

I agree with this. Degrees are often asked for as filters, but the guys hiring you often care more about work experience, portfolios and all that.

I mean, I was granted an interview and an programming exam for a high-profile Japanese game studio while I was there, and they cared more about whether I could pass their programming exam or not rather than the fact that my game design degree was pre-graduate level.

A while ago I also got a proposal from another Japanese company, and their focus wasn't on my degree but rather on my portfolio, experience with Unity3D and Japanese skills. In the end, the deal breaker was the fact that I still am not close to N2 level, but they still told me I'd have high chances of making it in if I could manage to pass the exam.

As far as local jobs go, I've seen that most of them want to know that you're good at using the tools you'll be using at work, and degrees are more like a tiebreaker than the main focus of their job search.

 

[bsp]

coming to this thread is a highlight, man. real neat projects going on.

working on escalator tek

and PC Gamer did an article on the game today, which was a total surprise.

 

[mStudios]

Hey guys, got a question from a friend. He is curious about how some of you industry pros approach hiring people with experience, but the differentiating factor is school vs no school.

He wants to get into development and is toying around with learning on his own and going to school. I'd appreciate the feedback. He wants to keep his options open as much as possible.

Mine was basically: larger companies might like school but smaller startups generally don't require degrees if your work is up to snuff - which seems to be kinda on point. I think :\

I always said to my friends: If you spent 4+ years going to college/university for computer science, you just wasted your time. All my previous job (and the current one) have hired me without any college diploma.

Sometime, sending them a program of what you can do it's more than enough.

 

[Furio53]

Hey guys, got a question from a friend. He is curious about how some of you industry pros approach hiring people with experience, but the differentiating factor is school vs no school.

He wants to get into development and is toying around with learning on his own and going to school. I'd appreciate the feedback. He wants to keep his options open as much as possible.

Mine was basically: larger companies might like school but smaller startups generally don't require degrees if your work is up to snuff - which seems to be kinda on point. I think :\

Having a portfolio to show is a lot more important. I don't think I've cared much beyond a glance at what school/degree. I just look at their body of work, whether it's mod experience or professional.

 

[dragonzdogma]

coming to this thread is a highlight, man. real neat projects going on.

working on escalator tek

and PC Gamer did an article on the game today, which was a total surprise.

You made this? This is impressive.

 

[bsp]

You made this? This is impressive.

There are two of us working on it, but thank you

 

[Blizzard]

I always said to my friends: If you spent 4+ years going to college/university for computer science, you just wasted your time. All my previous job (and the current one) have hired me without any college diploma.

Sometime, sending them a program of what you can do it's more than enough.

For games this might be true. For engineering jobs I think B.S./M.S. is important, though maybe I'm mistaken.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Been working on my new game lately. A physics-based puzzle game. (haven't revealed yet). Anyways, been now working on a new in-game level editor. So users will be able to create their own levels and share it online. Already works/etc. Been spending each day improving it, adding more of the game mechanics into it, making it friendlier, etc. Making this my 1st medium-big game for the year.

Will also make editing my own levels much easier. Already using very similar level editor to do so (both were made by me), but being in-game and actually tailored to the game allows for quicker access and quick testing.

 

[Water]

Been working on my new game lately. A physics-based puzzle game. (haven't revealed yet). Anyways, been now working on a new in-game level editor. So users will be able to create their own levels and share it online. Already works/etc. Been spending each day improving it, adding more of the game mechanics into it, making it friendlier, etc. Making this my 1st medium-big game for the year.

Will also make editing my own levels much easier. Already using very similar level editor to do so (both were made by me), but being in-game and actually tailored to the game allows for quicker access and quick testing.

It's super motivating to do application development where you yourself are in the intended audience. For the short prototypes me and my students have been working on, it has never made sense to spend much time to build development tools, but I hope there will be some larger projects soon where it would pay off. We should do a bit of it for the sake of learning anyway.

 

[Jacksinthe]

In my experience educational qualifications are only used to get past the HR folks who don't really understand what they're looking for and just look for things they've been specifically told to look for (eg knowledge of specific languages or applications)
Practical experience will get an interview or a trial, the trial / interview will decide the job.

I agree with this. Degrees are often asked for as filters, but the guys hiring you often care more about work experience, portfolios and all that.

I mean, I was granted an interview and an programming exam for a high-profile Japanese game studio while I was there, and they cared more about whether I could pass their programming exam or not rather than the fact that my game design degree was pre-graduate level.

A while ago I also got a proposal from another Japanese company, and their focus wasn't on my degree but rather on my portfolio, experience with Unity3D and Japanese skills. In the end, the deal breaker was the fact that I still am not close to N2 level, but they still told me I'd have high chances of making it in if I could manage to pass the exam.

As far as local jobs go, I've seen that most of them want to know that you're good at using the tools you'll be using at work, and degrees are more like a tiebreaker than the main focus of their job search.

I always said to my friends: If you spent 4+ years going to college/university for computer science, you just wasted your time. All my previous job (and the current one) have hired me without any college diploma.

Sometime, sending them a program of what you can do it's more than enough.

Having a portfolio to show is a lot more important. I don't think I've cared much beyond a glance at what school/degree. I just look at their body of work, whether it's mod experience or professional.

For games this might be true. For engineering jobs I think B.S./M.S. is important, though maybe I'm mistaken.

Thanks for all the responses, folks! This is pretty much my view, as well. I'll pass on your thoughts.

Edit:

I want to add a bit to the previous responses.

What someone can actually do and what actual previous work they can show is the critical thing in getting hired, no doubt about that - the official school credentials are not that important.

However, I disagree that going to school to study CS at least for a short degree is a waste of time for most people who want to become game programmers. Would it be possible to learn all of the same stuff outside school? Yes, and it's incredible how good materials are available these days. Are most people going to actually do so in practice without external reinforcement, without being pushed to go through the full breadth of theory, and without support when it gets tough? I don't believe so.

The world is full of salaried programmers who have never learned a lot of the things that a CS degree requires you to learn, but I think a truly top tier programmer must be at least a bit familiar with those things. And if you're going to spend the time to learn them anyway, for most people it's going to be most efficient to do it at school. Most people are not John Carmacks. And even he could probably have benefited from some structured learning - I remember him tweeting/blogging stuff that he was researching and finding useful, that he could have figured out at the early stages of his work had he attended a good functional programming class or two.

Late to the party on this, but I thought I'd add my two cents. The degree is worthwhile and a lot of people, even in games, are saying the day you could join without some letters attached to your name are over. That said, I've interviewed for jobs I've not even applied for thanks to networking (also known as the case in which my father was quite correct and my teenage self woefully wrong).

Final world, it's possible, but harder - a lot harder.

Added this for easier linking. Thanks, all!

 

[derFeef]

I know this is a bit of a tough question to answer in public, or maybe not I don't know. With recent news of indie studios closing and so on, especially if it's "weird" but very personal projects - I am really curious how some of you are surviving, or if their games are "only" sideprojects and they have fulltime jobs as well. I am in a bit of a weird situation right now regarding that. I would rather sit at home and build my little things, knowing they would never make big money (and that's not my goal), than staying at a well-paid job for most of the day and have no energy left to do what I really want to do at the end of the day.

It's just the surviving part that's tough for me. I have the support, privately, but I don't want to ruin something and bring me and ours in a bad situation.

I am open for PM as well, if that's better for some of you.
Thanks in advance, hopefully my english is not too bad (I should say that more often).

 

[Jacksinthe]

My bad. Double. Weird.

 

[Water]

Thanks for all the responses, folks! This is pretty much my view, as well. I'll pass on your thoughts.

I want to add a bit to the previous responses.

What someone can actually do and what actual previous work they can show is the critical thing in getting hired, no doubt about that - the official school credentials are not that important.

However, I disagree that going to school to study CS at least for a short degree is a waste of time for most people who want to become game programmers. Would it be possible to learn all of the same stuff outside school? Yes, and it's incredible how good materials are available these days. Are most people going to actually do so in practice without external reinforcement, without being pushed to go through the full breadth of theory, and without support when it gets tough? I don't believe so.

The world is full of salaried programmers who have never learned a lot of the things that a CS degree requires you to learn, but I think a truly top tier programmer must be at least a bit familiar with those things. And if you're going to spend the time to learn them anyway, for most people it's going to be most efficient to do it at school. Most people are not John Carmacks. And even he could probably have benefited from some structured learning - I remember him tweeting/blogging stuff that he was researching and finding useful, that he could have figured out at the early stages of his work had he attended a good functional programming class or two.

 

[SquirrelWide]

Thanks for all the responses, folks! This is pretty much my view, as well. I'll pass on your thoughts.

Late to the party on this, but I thought I'd add my two cents. The degree is worthwhile and a lot of people, even in games, are saying the day you could join without some letters attached to your name are over. That said, I've interviewed for jobs I've not even applied for thanks to networking (also known as the case in which my father was quite correct and my teenage self woefully wrong).

Final world, it's possible, but harder - a lot harder.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Thanks folks! Added to my reply above!

 

[OldmanAndroid]

I know this is a bit of a tough question to answer in public, or maybe not I don't know. With recent news of indie studios closing and so on, especially if it's "weird" but very personal projects - I am really curious how some of you are surviving, or if their games are "only" sideprojects and they have fulltime jobs as well. I am in a bit of a weird situation right now regarding that. I would rather sit at home and build my little things, knowing they would never make big money (and that's not my goal), than staying at a well-paid job for most of the day and have no energy left to do what I really want to do at the end of the day.

It's just the surviving part that's tough for me. I have the support, privately, but I don't want to ruin something and bring me and ours in a bad situation.

I am open for PM as well, if that's better for some of you.
Thanks in advance, hopefully my english is not too bad (I should say that more often).

I've been working on games for over 7 years, released 2 games, and most of that time I've had to work a part time job. I have been just barely been getting by all that time. Twice I've quit, just to focus more on wrapping up a game. I don't really think about the costs of making my games, or breaking even, i think of it more as my tuition for getting an education in game development. I'm still foolishly optimistic that I can eventually make a full-time career out of this.

I just launched a game in April, and now I'm back to looking for some bullshit part-time job just to keep my head above the water. Still love it though, and its better than not making games at all.

Any Halifax developers here? I'm moving there in 2 weeks, never actually been. Just needed a change of scenery.

*Edit* After launching my game in April, I applied for around 40 to 50 jobs in the industry, everything from coding to marketing to producing to entry level QA jobs. Had a total of 2 interviews, and have basically given up on that for now. My education is in Business Admin, and from the recruiters I talked to, a lot of companies are looking for "brand name" studios on my resume.

 

[Jobbs]

I know this is a bit of a tough question to answer in public, or maybe not I don't know. With recent news of indie studios closing and so on, especially if it's "weird" but very personal projects - I am really curious how some of you are surviving, or if their games are "only" sideprojects and they have fulltime jobs as well. I am in a bit of a weird situation right now regarding that. I would rather sit at home and build my little things, knowing they would never make big money (and that's not my goal), than staying at a well-paid job for most of the day and have no energy left to do what I really want to do at the end of the day.

It's just the surviving part that's tough for me. I have the support, privately, but I don't want to ruin something and bring me and ours in a bad situation.

I am open for PM as well, if that's better for some of you.
Thanks in advance, hopefully my english is not too bad (I should say that more often).

I'm incredibly lucky since all this opportunity basically fell into my lap - First the KS, then the publishing deal. I'm also feeling a bit crushed under the responsibility of living up to the expectations people now seem to have.

Assuming when my game comes out people generally like it, I think I'll continue down the path of solo / small collabs, and I'm hopeful there'll be a future in that, since I have no shortage of ideas.

There's a vast world out there of talented and cool people, indie people, so collabs are really practical. Many of the people who worked on Ori, one of the most beautiful and polished games out there, didn't actually meet in person until E3, after the game was nearly done. (I'm sure I'll be corrected if that's wrong, but I did read that in an article)

 

[Jacksinthe]

I'm incredibly lucky since all this opportunity basically fell into my lap - First the KS, then the publishing deal. I'm also feeling a bit crushed under the responsibility of living up to the expectations people now seem to have.

Assuming when my game comes out people generally like it, I think I'll continue down the path of solo / small collabs, and I'm hopeful there'll be a future in that, since I have no shortage of ideas.

There's a vast world out there of talented and cool people, indie people, so collabs are really practical. Many of the people who worked on Ori, one of the most beautiful and polished games out there, didn't actually meet in person until E3, after the game was nearly done. (I'm sure I'll be corrected if that's wrong, but I did read that in an article)

That's right. You'd better produce quality or IT'S YOUR ASS!

Speaking of E3 - you going next year? I want to get some GAF indies to roll with me so we can go in Reservoir Dogs style.

That goes for everyone here - the ass part and the E3 part.

 

[Jobbs]

That's right. You'd better produce quality or IT'S YOUR ASS!

Speaking of E3 - you going next year? I want to get some GAF indies to roll with me so we can go in Reservoir Dogs style.

That goes for everyone here - the ass part and the E3 part.

I don't really want to go to stuff until after the game is done (or about done). Then I'll probably do some events. Maybe E3.

 

[Unain]

That's right. You'd better produce quality or IT'S YOUR ASS!

Speaking of E3 - you going next year? I want to get some GAF indies to roll with me so we can go in Reservoir Dogs style.

That goes for everyone here - the ass part and the E3 part.

As long as you're Mr Pink .

 

[Jumplion]

Thanks for all the responses, folks! This is pretty much my view, as well. I'll pass on your thoughts.

Edit:



Added this for easier linking. Thanks, all!

I'll add my late 2 cents in here to since I'm currently "living the dream" as a college student;

As a current college student dual majoring both Computer Science and Game Design (dear god, kill me now, I'm such a masochist...), it comes with its own share of frustrations and quirks, but I more view it as a place for me to have some direction and focus in what I want to do, meet people, schmooze it up with the professors and learn from them, and generally spend some time figuring things out.

If you already know exactly what you want to do, then maybe college isn't for you. It takes good discipline to self-teach and focus on what you're learning while simultaneously building a portfolio. For other people, mostly younger people like me, having some time to figure things out before you get pushed into the real world can be really helpful.

 

[derFeef]

That's right. You'd better produce quality or IT'S YOUR ASS!

Well then....

 

[mStudios]

I need suggestion from the indieArtists in this thread before I proceed:

 

[Ito]

IndieGAF, I'm in need of advice.

I just received a mail from Black Shell Media, offering to help promote Honey.

I searched a bit, but found little in the way of definitive positive or negative experience that would sway me either way. Also, it may be foolish of me, but I'm not entirely sold on the idea that Honey is a game in need of a publisher, especially not since it's still quite a ways off.

What are the pro/cons of partnering with a publisher? Do any of you have any experience with them to share? (I believe I saw Ancestory among the list of the projects they're helping with).

Any help is deeply appreciated! I've gotten so used to working on my own terms for so long, having somebody reach out like this is both intriguing and a little frightening. I don't want to rush into anything I might ultimately not need, but I also don't want to turn down an offer simply because I don't know enough about what it all entails... so, help, help!

I just got an e-mail from them offering their publishing services for Spirit Huntress.

What did you do in the end? Their e-mail looked too generic and bot-written.

It's just out of curiosity, since I've read all the opinions in this thread and in your TIGSource thread about this company, and I'm pretty aware that I should avoid them.

Honestly, I hope I can avoid publishers and that my game can grow some audience by itself... some day

 

[Jacksinthe]

I just got an e-mail from them offering their publishing services for Spirit Huntress.

What did you do in the end? Their e-mail looked too generic and bot-written.

It's just out of curiosity, since I've read all the opinions in this thread and in your TIGSource thread about this company, and I'm pretty aware that I should avoid them.

Honestly, I hope I can avoid publishers and that my game can grow some audience by itself... some day

I'm going to say no to this. A publisher does a lot more than you think in terms of aiding development. I'd jump at the chance for reputable names like Devolver or Adult to help with getting the word out.

No matter how hard you try, they will always have more reach than you. Unless by some chance you knocked it out of the park at first announcement then there's a good chance it might not happen on its own. Self publishing is great but requires lots of precision to execute with great effect unless every possible variable is ideal at that moment in time, that the primordial soup is the perfect mix to produce results on its own and it just coalesces of its own volition due to current market trends.

Nothing wrong with trying, but I'd keep my ears to the ground.

Edit:
I would avoid that publisher, tbh. I think most everyone here has received an email at some point from them.

 

[BrokenIcarus]

Man I envy most of you. So many cool things everytime I check out this Thread. I'll try to get more productive in the coming weeks and maybe I can finally contribute something here.

 

[Vark]

Been a while since I've posted anything, I kind of got VR sidetracked for a bit.

But here's my first pass at a title screen I don't totally hate. I need to take a course in typography or something one of these days. Textual elements always trip me up.

 

[Pehesse]

I just got an e-mail from them offering their publishing services for Spirit Huntress.

What did you do in the end? Their e-mail looked too generic and bot-written.

It's just out of curiosity, since I've read all the opinions in this thread and in your TIGSource thread about this company, and I'm pretty aware that I should avoid them.

Honestly, I hope I can avoid publishers and that my game can grow some audience by itself... some day

I followed everyone's advice, which was basically to ignore it!

I agree with Absinthe, Devolver and Adult Swim are definitely names to look out for, and the question would be radically different were they the ones to contact you, but as for the ones that did us.. well, as everyone said before, I'll add my own voice: ignore, ignore :-D

 

[-COOLIO-]

is it too soon after e3? lawd, i think im finally ready to show off my game.

ive been working on this on and off for a couple years now. for perspective, i wrote the starling section for the original indie game dev thread because i was tinkering around with this.

aaannyway, this is my new site: datindie.com

and this is the introduction blog post i wrote for it verbatim:

Rage Quest is a game that I've wanted for a long time. It's a pick-up-and-play RPG with a novel new combat system that works exceptionally well with both keyboard/mouse and touchscreen inputs. Thematically, the game is about Internet hate!

Gameplay

Here's a 23 second look at how the gameplay currently looks (Trigger warning: volume may be a smidgen too loud): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jc76gCP-01M

So let me describe what you just saw there. The game is real time in the sense that every ability has a "charge time", which is illustrated by the transparent, colored pointers. When the charge time finishes, the ability is executed. You can have up to 3 abilities charging at a time, and can pick from up to 4 abilities per color (red, green, and blue). If you're familiar with JRPGs, you can think of each color as a unique party member with 4 available abilities. In that video I began charging the block ability well before the enemy attacked me because it takes 1 second to charge, and is only effective for 3 seconds after it executes (FYI: the rate of time was doubled in this demo). The key to combat in Rage Quest is strategy, quick thinking, and good reflexes.

Setting

Upon close inspection of the background doodads in the video, you may have noticed the game takes place on the Internet. Consequently, Internet culture permeates throughout the game but in a (hopefully) non-grating fashion. The enemies in the video are actually malware. Other enemy types you see early on include: bloatware, YouTube comments, and spambots. The first available optional side quest in the game involves choosing whether or not to pursue a bounty put on AdBlock's head by a disgruntled spambot. Here are some of the items you can buy in the game:

Maybe you can even guess what one or two of them do?

Art

Since the game takes place on the Internet, I thought a Conker's Bad Fur Day approach to the art might be appropriate, which is to say, the game has a deceptively cute artistic tone mired in lewd gags. I feel like that's a fair representation of how the Internet can feel a lot of the time. Here's a nice screen shot.

Enemies: bloatware, malware, YouTube comment, and spambot. Which is which?

Story

As the "Rage Quest" title suggests, the concept of rage and hate is central to the story and the game's world revolves around it. As a fervent MOBA player and a fairly active participant on Internet forums, this topic is near and dear to my heart, and it's something that I like to talk and think about. I hope to achieve a nuanced story that talks about why and how people hate, and the consequences of our hate.

A possible side quest?

Current State

I currently plan to release the game on Steam (Mac/Windows), Android, and iOS, though I'm currently unsure of the release date. I think the game is currently about 65% complete, but I've heard that the final 10% is killer.

Stay tuned!

 

[Lautaro]

Congratulations, Coolio and good luck with your project.

In my case, Steam approved Nomad Fleet so I think I'll make the store page public tomorrow, send some keys during next week and finally release in July 14. So far I've received very little feedback from my testers but apparently there's no major bugs.

 

[RhysD85]

Congratulations, Coolio and good luck with your project.

In my case, Steam approved Nomad Fleet so I think I'll make the store page public tomorrow, send some keys during next week and finally release in July 14. So far I've received very little feedback from my testers but apparently there's no major bugs.

Congrats! Be sure to link it here and i'll grab a copy when it's out!

Also, my game Fort Meow came out today for STEAM and iPAD - Getting some good initial impressions so far with an 8.5 from AussieGeek.com.au!

 

[-COOLIO-]

Congratulations, Coolio and good luck with your project.

In my case, Steam approved Nomad Fleet so I think I'll make the store page public tomorrow, send some keys during next week and finally release in July 14. So far I've received very little feedback from my testers but apparently there's no major bugs.

congrats on getting through greenlight!

 

[Lautaro]

congrats on getting through greenlight!

Actually I got through Greenlight a few months ago, what they approved now was my store page so now I can publish immediatelly (but of course, I'll wait a month because everyone is recovering from the last sale and E3 just now).

What are your plans for your game? are you going to start a Greenlight campaign soon? remember to get all your press, contacts and best looking material ready for the first days because after the first 1 or 2 weeks, most campaigns lose momentum.

Congrats! Be sure to link it here and i'll grab a copy when it's out!

Thanks. Congratulations for your launch, opinions seem positive so far (well, cats seem to improve everything).

 

[GulAtiCa]

It's super motivating to do application development where you yourself are in the intended audience. For the short prototypes me and my students have been working on, it has never made sense to spend much time to build development tools, but I hope there will be some larger projects soon where it would pay off. We should do a bit of it for the sake of learning anyway.

Yeah. I needed a custom level editor in general (in Javascript) that I could use for my future projects. Esp as I needed the output to be JSON format, I didn't really find anything online, as I only needed the editor output, not any engine, since that is my own. So for past year+ I worked a little bit on making my own. Very simple one. Rectangles, Circles & Polygon objects. With ability to do basic stuff like move them,etc of course. And ability to add custom attributes. I worked on it and improved it over course of that time as needed. Little buggy but works.

Finally decided to put it in-game. Since needs to be user friendly, made it more similar to Mario Maker interface and added custom objects for each different game object/mechanic. This version much nicer and much much easier to use. Today finished getting all the game mechanics into the editor and allow for play testing.

And result? Already become super useful in debugging different things in the gameplay. Now able to quickly test different scenarios within seconds of each other and fixed several bigger bugs that I might not have noticed right away. That has saved me a lot of time. Just got to tie it into the main game now too to help test levels more easier, but that is easy.

Still got a lot of work with it left. Making it more user friendly (adding actual graphics will improve that by a lot in-of-itself of course) but also now making it so users can save levels. Then the fun part comes making those save online and making sure it follows Nintendo guidelines correctly.

 

[JinjoUnchained]

Been a while since I've posted anything, I kind of got VR sidetracked for a bit.

But here's my first pass at a title screen I don't totally hate. I need to take a course in typography or something one of these days. Textual elements always trip me up.

Uh, does CPA = Certified Public Accountant = a pirate budgeting sim? This title begs so many questions.

Oh and I think the title screen looks nice! I'm sure it will look even better when you resize the title letters and add some environmental/character details.

 

[Vark]

Uh, does CPA = Certified Public Accountant = a pirate budgeting sim? This title begs so many questions.

Oh and I think the title screen looks nice! I'm sure it will look even better when you resize the title letters and add some environmental/character details.

Certified Pirate Accountant! but yea.

The screens going to be dynamic so I'm adding things in the foreground and background that will animate in and out while it sits there.

What changes would you make to the letters? I'm definitely open to any and all suggestions.

 

[JinjoUnchained]

Certified Pirate Accountant! but yea.

The screens going to be dynamic so I'm adding things in the foreground and background that will animate in and out while it sits there.

What changes would you make to the letters? I'm definitely open to any and all suggestions.

Did you use The Great Wave Off Kanagawa as a reference? Looks like a cardboard take off of that work, an interesting theme. The little pieces of tape are a really nice touch and the grain on the cardboard looks really nice.

At this stage, Id say the size of the lettering dominates the screen too much, at least in the still image. It would make it harder to see tiny environmental details (cannonballs or seagulls?).

 

[-COOLIO-]

Actually I got through Greenlight a few months ago, what they approved now was my store page so now I can publish immediatelly (but of course, I'll wait a month because everyone is recovering from the last sale and E3 just now).

What are your plans for your game? are you going to start a Greenlight campaign soon? remember to get all your press, contacts and best looking material ready for the first days because after the first 1 or 2 weeks, most campaigns lose momentum.

ah, i see. and thanks for the advice man. yeah, i'll attempt greenlight when i'm closer to finishing.

btw i checked your game out and it looks really high quality for an indie. good job!

 

[Vark]

Did you use The Great Wave Off Kanagawa as a reference? Looks like a cardboard take off of that work, an interesting theme. The little pieces of tape are a really nice touch and the grain on the cardboard looks really nice.

At this stage, Id say the size of the lettering dominates the screen too much, at least in the still image. It would make it harder to see tiny environmental details (cannonballs or seagulls?).

Yea, stylistically I'm using a variety of sources for reference so it's got a slight collage look to it like someone cut it out of a few different places. But I'm a big fan of Hokusai and ukiyo-e so for a while it was drifting more heavily that way but I had to resolve it with the style of the characters and the ships.

The title space is only there momentarily for a start screen. Once you get into the game the lettering goes away and you're left with the main stage. If I can ever figure out a good way to screen capture I'll have to make some gifs.

 

[Jintor]

Hi friends. I'm a complete programming newbie working my way through gamemaker tutorials. Does anyone have any recommendations for gamemaker tutorials?

I want to get up to the stage where I can fool around trying to prototype a platformer/fighter, but I'm so basic pretty much anything is okay. So far I've done two basic "My First Game" tutorials (one click-on-things-to-get-points and a breakout clone) and am fooling around with gamemaker's physics thing.

I plan to at least do Derek Lu's and Tom Francis' tutorials

 

[liliththepale]

Hi friends. I'm a complete programming newbie working my way through gamemaker tutorials. Does anyone have any recommendations for gamemaker tutorials?

I want to get up to the stage where I can fool around trying to prototype a platformer/fighter, but I'm so basic pretty much anything is okay. So far I've done two basic "My First Game" tutorials (one click-on-things-to-get-points and a breakout clone) and am fooling around with gamemaker's physics thing.

I plan to at least do Derek Lu's and Tom Francis' tutorials

I've heard a lot of good things about Shaun Spalding's tutorials (especially his platformer one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IysShLIaosk). Though tbh mostly I learned GameMaker from the manual, fooling around myself, and asking Q's on the GameMaker Community forum.

 

[Visualante2]

I'm looking to create a 2D crowd system almost like the one in Pikmin. However instead of being quite alert and organised the agents will be choatic and unpredictable while still following the player.

The idea is to have agents acting as collectables, moving around a level and you have to collect them up, almost in a Katamari fashion. But unlike Katamari where the entity is fixed to a static physics ball it will be almost like a flocking system. Part of me feels that this would work best using some sort of particle system where the paticles are turned on once they collide with the player the forced become active. This might have limitations in the way I animate the agents and might not scale well (I'd like hundreds of agents).

Ultimately right now I'm just looking for make the agents follow the player but I'd like to have something more like a chaotic ball and less of a conga line.

I've been looking at the NavMesh in Unity and that's what I'll be exploring today. If anyone has any tips on what approach to try I'd appreciate it.

 

[archangelmorph]

I'm looking to create a 2D crowd system almost like the one in Pikmin. However instead of being quite alert and organised the agents will be choatic and unpredictable while still following the player.

The idea is to have agents acting as collectables, moving around a level and you have to collect them up, almost in a Katamari fashion. But unlike Katamari where the entity is fixed to a static physics ball it will be almost like a flocking system. Part of me feels that this would work best using some sort of particle system where the paticles are turned on once they collide with the player the forced become active. This might have limitations in the way I animate the agents and might not scale well (I'd like hundreds of agents).

Ultimately right now I'm just looking for make the agents follow the player but I'd like to have something more like a chaotic ball and less of a conga line.

I've been looking at the NavMesh in Unity and that's what I'll be exploring today. If anyone has any tips on what approach to try I'd appreciate it.

Look into swarming / flocking algorithms..

 

[Jacksinthe]

Look into swarming / flocking algorithms..

+1