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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay

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O

OccamsBlender

Member
Popstar said:
Oh yeah. I totally forgot about the coming all apps must be 64-bit for iOS. Is there are timeline on 64-bit Unity?
Click to expand...

No doubt Unity is going berserk trying to make Apple's deadline. I know that Unity is under massive pressure from Zynga and a majority of top grossing Japanese app developers to not flub that deadline. There's a lot of money riding on Unity making that deadline and I have a feeling that a lot of things Unity did shoddily are no doubt coming back to haunt them.

To answer your question, Unity hasn't said anything, but Apples deadlines are that new apps will have to comply February 1st, updates have until June 1st. Perhaps the corporate giants could hold out until June 1st, but if Unity doesn't put out a 64 bit version in the next 17 days, I think there's going to be hell to pay.

Ashodin said:
I hope psyscrolr is on the Nintendo Direct tomorrow :)
Click to expand...
Congratulations!
 
W

Wreck-It Ralph

Member
Do you guys have advice for finding people to beta test a game? I'm worried that my game might be too complex, so I'd like to get some input on it before I try to sell it.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
Blizzard said:
Here are 4 slight variations with sideways bars. At least to me, there seems to be a mildly annoying optical illusion in some case(s) where the cyan looks wider than the red.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure we're dealing with sub pixel elements here. In other words I don think it's an optical illusion. It's that the red bits of the pixels and the blue bits of the pixels are physically in different places on an LCD display. The red you're using is very close to the physical red of an LED pixel, so the blue and green parts of those pixels are going to be practically off. Not only are the blue and green parts in different places, but cyan is going to be using both blue and green, so they *are* wider.
 
M

missile

Member
Seems like each OT[x] has its engine incident! xD

Whether rolling your own engine or not, in the end it's all about the game(s),
of course. But the vector of approach is different for each and everyone of
us. Everyone has a different need while going along making his/her own game.

Making an engine can be hard, but not necessarily so. It depends on the
perspective you're looking from. If you're going to use a lot of tools and
APIs for making a game, it appears to you that making all these tools and
stuff on your own would be a very hopeless task and may never lead to the game
wanted. Rightfully so (given the complexity of the game). Well, from this
perspective it becomes quite enticing to say that rolling ones own engine will
likely lead to nowhere. And using all these tools and stuff for awhile, one
may additionally come to the conclusion that such tools are even a necessity
for making any (successful) games to begin with!

But do all indie games need all these tools for building something worth
noting? Aren't many of the things superficially more complex than necessary
(today)? Aren't the many tools themselves a hindrance at times?

I'm wondering (I'm not) how those people in the '80 did their games single-
handedly at home without all the superior tools, internet etc., games which
stood the test of time, games which would be great indie games even today.

I think there is a way for indie game developers to build their own engine
and making successful games. And I think a key factor in doing so is to not
overpace on ones own abilities and to not set the goal quite too high at first
instance. Stated otherwise, if you play to your abilities, then you will grow
as you go.
 
V

Veritigo_X

Member
Everyone brought up a lot of good points on rolling your own engine vs using an off the shelf engine. I think I'm going to stick with the engine I have now and maybe learn to use Unity for my next project since I think it is a valuable skill. I started my current project as a way to try out new things and learn something new, not to make a finished product to sell. I feel like making my own engine is just something I have to at least try out once.

I should note that most of my frustrations probably come from the way this project all started. Calling my game engine an "engine" feels like I'm giving it too much credit. It started as a final project for my AI class and sort of evolved into more of a game as I fiddled with it over the years. It's in dire need of a refactoring and I've been putting that off for awhile now. I mainly work on it in my free time outside of work so refactoring code isn't exactly how I want to spend my free time, but it needs to be done if I want to move forward.

My main issues come from OpenGL and the general graphics pipeline. I never learned this in school so I've been sort of winging it when it comes to this game. Are there any good resources on OpenGL you guys recommend? I'm currently using GLU, but I'm open to trying something different if there are better options. Also any resources on game engine architecture and patterns would be helpful if I'm going to get around to refactoring this thing.
 
V

V_Arnold

Member
Engine talk!

I am using a custom engine, html5. Its my own. The only part currently handled by Jquery (unified inputs across browsers) will be replaced with a simpler library or my own javascript code for it soon.

I disagree with Feep that engines should not be made, but it certainly takes a different mindset/skillset to build them. If you "just" want to make your game with the tools you already are presented with, go ahead. If you have other plans, like the additional challenge/experience that comes with building your own engine, then do so.
 
R

Rubikant

Member
electroflame said:
I do some web design on the side and I always use Concrete5. WordPress is great for a blog, but I always found it lacking as a full website CMS.

As for the multiple domains, you could still do it like you have now (just redirect to other pages/subdomains). Alternatively, there are a couple of paid addons for Concrete5 that make that whole situation easier.

If you have your heart set on WordPress someone else might be better suited to helping you out. Otherwise, I can answer some questions about Concrete5 for you if you feel like branching out a bit.
Click to expand...

I'm not married to anything at this point, I just had heard WP was the most popular platform. However I know WP started as a blogging platform and grew into a CMS from there, and we aren't really looking to "blog" so much as just have sites to give information about our games. In other words, the ability to post updates and news is secondary to having things like an FAQ and whatnot. With that thought, it appears from glancing at it that Concrete5 was made to be a CMS from the get-go rather than growing into one from a blogging platform, so I'll definitely look into it more. Thanks!
 
E

electroflame

Member
Rubikant said:
I'm not married to anything at this point, I just had heard WP was the most popular platform. However I know WP started as a blogging platform and grew into a CMS from there, and we aren't really looking to "blog" so much as just have sites to give information about our games. In other words, the ability to post updates and news is secondary to having things like an FAQ and whatnot. With that thought, it appears from glancing at it that Concrete5 was made to be a CMS from the get-go rather than growing into one from a blogging platform, so I'll definitely look into it more. Thanks!
Click to expand...

No problem. Both have their merits, but I feel that Concrete5 is more well-rounded (essentially the two things it doesn't do well are blogs and forums). It can take a little while to get used to, but I really like it (especially updating sites, since it's mostly visual).

Good luck, if you have questions let me know and I'll do my best to answer them for you.
 
bumpkin

bumpkin

Member
Being someone who was pretty averse to using any pre-fab solutions when I was doing a lot of website development, I find my mantra to be very much the same when it comes to my game development. While it has certainly taken way more time and revisions than most would care to endure, having the experience of cobbling together an engine (2D only) has been invaluable. When I get all of the pieces in place and get something out the door running on it, I'm sure all of the frustrations, trials and tribulations will have been worth it!

For anyone wondering, my engine is written in C++ and built on a Mac using SDL (libsdl.org) with OpenGL. I've thought about maybe doing some sort of post-mortem on the structure and all that when it's done. I've made a ton of mistakes over the past year or so, restarted from the ground-up at least three times. But first things first, I gotta finish this sucker!
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
plagiarize said:
I'm pretty sure we're dealing with sub pixel elements here. In other words I don think it's an optical illusion. It's that the red bits of the pixels and the blue bits of the pixels are physically in different places on an LCD display. The red you're using is very close to the physical red of an LED pixel, so the blue and green parts of those pixels are going to be practically off. Not only are the blue and green parts in different places, but cyan is going to be using both blue and green, so they *are* wider.
Click to expand...
Interesting, thanks for the explanation.
akachan ningen said:
I like the bars better. But not in cyan, it just stands out so much. And maybe put one bar on top and one bar below, if you haven't already.
Click to expand...
This may be a bit of a copout, but this is another input that suggests I should make the colors configurable. What color do you think would be a good contrast besides cyan? Red/blue were the main color-blind contrasts I knew about. I was afraid red/yellow, green/blue, or similar might be bad. I also wanted brighter colors since there's a lot of darker colors and blue going on.
timetokill said:
Blizzard, here's the issue: Are these numbers capped? What kind of granularity does your game's system have?

For instance, if I'm playing a game like Advance Wars, I want to know the pure numbers. I know X troop does 5 damage, and another does 7. I don't want a bar where I have to guess if the guy has 14 health or 15 health. I want the information quick and accessible.

Are attacks discrete? As in, is there continuous damage going on, or is each attack happening individually? If there are lots of attacks going on, bars are generally better so that you don't have number overload. But if it's one attack at a time, numbers are preferable so you have a good idea of that specific attack.

How important is leveling up weapons/defenses? Am I going to notice? It's a lot harder to see an actual difference when it's like "well this makes the bar go down this much, versus this much." But a difference between a 5 and a 4 can be huge if the number system is kept small.

Concrete numbers are going to be better for a more strategic, tactical game. It lets me know exactly how much damage or health or magic or whatever something has. It lets me make more informed decisions.

A good game designer should advocate for the player. If it's going to be easier for the player to play the game seeing the numbers, then use numbers.


As an aside, the bars are okay if you break them up into discrete elements, like you did in the top right version of this:
overlay_3_2x6pktj.png


But that becomes unwieldy if your numbers get too high.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the detailed comments. I think you're right on the mark, and the problem is that I have not 100% determined how high something like health could go numerically. The Advance Wars style maxes at 10, and the StarCraft style maxes higher as mentioned. StarCraft is obviously also not turn-based and may favor rapid action and less puzzle-style damage calculation.

Damage would be discrete in a turn-based fashion. I definitely agree about advocating for the player to make the game easy and clear to play. That's part of what this was about. I was actually usure if the numbers would be too unclear, especially with the small font I initially showed. With a larger font and the 1x zoom size, I feel like too much of the units and tiles get covered.

From the comments people posted, no one seemed to like this:
overlay_6khu2m.png


And thinking further, I think a player encountering that style would have the same issue you're talking about. Are those 4 discrete chunks of health, or just 25% blocks that approximate the actual health? It would be simple if they were discrete chunks of health, but I feel I'd at LEAST want to support up to 10 health. I suppose I could go full Super Metroid style and attempt something like this:
overlay_8l9b0p.png


But who knows, numbers may again be the best. More opinions welcome! My current conclusions are leaning in this direction:

For a turn-based tactics game with no randomness CURRENTLY planned, numbers are ideal. Since numbers are ideal, keeping them small makes things better for player calculations. I should push forward to get gameplay testing working so I can determine whether small numbers seem to work out. If I keep numbers, I should look for other font options and/or layout options to make 100% zoom readable without obscuring units too much.
 
L

Limanima

Member
My new game is finally in beta stage!
If there's anyone interested in trying it (iOS at this moment, Android version in a few days), please PM me.
The game is named Fat Cats and Mice and it's an easy to play/pick up game, that doesn't pretend to be more then it is : a simple game.
The only challenge in the game is to beat the other players in the leaderboards.
The game was developed using my brand new c++ multi-platform engine.

banner600x293.png
 
J

Jacksinthe

Banned
So i decided to take a break from gameplay elements today and work on effects. I completely rewrote my procedural rain to add even more proceduralness.

Custom physics (simplified from my usual since these objects are unimportant)
Custom collision
Each drop has individual mass
individual speed
individual reaction to wind
Procedural density (changes while its raining)
Procedural wind gusts and speeds (changes while its raining)

All in all I added a bit more functionality to the rain but I simplified my usual physics - since it is a digital world I wanted to get rid of small variances and descent acceleration to make it look more like a structured object.

I rewrote the way I handle trails, as well. Overall it is a huge performance improvement from my previous system.

In comparison, I am able to get 3 times the amount of rain to generate with my new system before it costs the same as my old system. This is nice since the current density in the video is approximately what my old density was. I managed to save about 0.4ms with this new system so I'm ecstatic.

All this for something to only be in the game maybe a total of 5 minutes :| I haven't decided if I want more. I want it to look good then pass quickly, so it's not overused.

1080/60 video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZj5AQ3juQw
 
K

Kritz

Banned
Finally got around to setting up the business side of my game this week. Got a tax number, got a business name, got a hot bank account. This all allowed me to finally get into Steam Partners, and now I've finally got access to the steamworks SDK and all the assorted tools that come with that.

Sure feels weird launching your own game from your own steam library, huh.
 
C

cbox

Member
Kritz said:
Finally got around to setting up the business side of my game this week. Got a tax number, got a business name, got a hot bank account. This all allowed me to finally get into Steam Partners, and now I've finally got access to the steamworks SDK and all the assorted tools that come with that.

Sure feels weird launching your own game from your own steam library, huh.
Click to expand...

Nice! We're in the process of this now. Are you in the US? We're from Canada and it seems pretty daunting to contact the IRS to get a number :|
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Kritz said:
Finally got around to setting up the business side of my game this week. Got a tax number, got a business name, got a hot bank account. This all allowed me to finally get into Steam Partners, and now I've finally got access to the steamworks SDK and all the assorted tools that come with that.

Sure feels weird launching your own game from your own steam library, huh.
Click to expand...
Sorry if I knew this and forgot, but did you already get approved by Greenlight first? I thought they changed Steam Partners so you have to have released a game on Steam first before you get full access. Or maybe I'm just thinking of the Steam developers group.
 
K

Kritz

Banned
ConvenientBox said:
Nice! We're in the process of this now. Are you in the US? We're from Canada and it seems pretty daunting to contact the IRS to get a number :|
Click to expand...

In Australia. The process was pretty painless - Steam actually provides its own process to help you fill out the tax treaty documents. But it's probably different for Canada. Australia's tax stuff is easy peasy though.

Blizzard said:
Sorry if I knew this and forgot, but did you already get approved by Greenlight first? I thought they changed Steam Partners so you have to have released a game on Steam first before you get full access. Or maybe I'm just thinking of the Steam developers group.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been Greenlit for a few months now. I'm taking the whole process pretty slowly, especially with the recent holiday break. I didn't get full access to partners until I went through and did all the business stuff, but now I have a loooot of reading to do, and I'm looking and thinking that getting stuff prepped for Steam is gonna be a full month's worth of work.

The amount of work I have left to do with this game is pretty daunting, too. I need to get the MP code up to scratch, because if that stuff isn't going than the entire game's at risk. Then I have to deal with making a full game with proper progression which isn't going to be a cakewalk. Not to mention I still have to make a whole bunch of mechanics to keep the game interesting. Then sound, music, "juice", a proper art pass... there's a lot to do.

Too much to think about. I'm just gonna tackle stuff as it comes, I guess. And I think I'm going to blow this month's ad money on buying a copy of Unity Pro, so I don't have to get all dodgy with implementing SteamWorks.NET.
 
P

plagiarize

Banned
The last couple of days have been pretty slow. I've been putting in the usual hours, but not feeling like I've been making much progress. The next area was meant to just be a rehash of an earlier dark platforming area but with a few pieces which now act as moving platforms instead of the previous statics, but I wasn't excited about the thought of building it. I've already been doing more complex moving platforms and it just seems a bit too iterative.

So I decided to put in a conveyor belt to do a conservation of moment puzzle (IE, you can jump further relative the static parts of the world running forwards along a conveyor than you can running forwards on static ground).

This took up a huge chunk of time as building a functional conveyor wasn't straight forwards at all. I got it working, eventually (like five minutes ago) and it works perfectly, but I spent ages on a tiny element. One which I now know will be a decent amount of work should I want to use the concept again (although I'll be able to build it quicker next time and won't spend so long on bad implementations, it'll still take an long time compared to a platform or similar).

I'm happy with it, I guess, since it works mechanically rather than via illusion (seemingly pretty much necessary to get the conservation of momentum thing happening as you'd expect) and I like the way it looks, but yeah. Too much stuff like this will slow things down a ton.

Instead of getting one relatively simple puzzle done in an evening, my boredom with the idea means I've spent two nights just proving the feasibility of something else. So it'll be three nights by the time I dress it up pretty and make it a proper area.

Ho hum.

conveyoreditormzsih.png


Here's what it looks like in editor.

conveyormatinee50s1w.png


Here's the matinee that drives it. Each green triangle represents a linear key frame, each red triangle represents a curved key frame. The reds move the piece once it's moved out of view back to the start (which is also out of view), and the greens keep it moving forwards at a constant speed.

I'm happy with the end result, but kind of wish I'd just stuck to my design document. This wasn't a puzzle idea I had planned, I'd just noticed that when you're stood on a matinee object the player has conservation of momentum and thought it was the good basis for a 'quick' puzzle.

Live and learn basically.
 
W

whiteape

Member
I really don't get Unity's 2D system to work with different PPI settings for multiple devices (like iPad, iPhone retina, Desktop etc.)…

Do i really just have to support the highest resolution, and just scale the game down on lower res devices?

Edit: I just saw that 2D Toolkit supports @2x etc. images, but does it support it via Unity sprites, or only via their own spritesystem?
 
H

HP_Wuvcraft

Banned
Feep said:
Taking screenshots for Steam is fun!
Click to expand...

Congrats, Feep!

Also, I'm going to reconfig the hell out of all the command phrases.

Kritz said:
Finally got around to setting up the business side of my game this week. Got a tax number, got a business name, got a hot bank account.
Click to expand...

I hate all this shit, fyi.

I have to do my Board of Equalization filing this week and whhhhhhhhhhhhhy.
 
A

Altima

Member
Any suggestion for characters design ?

I think this is a very hard part for me because my drawing skill is.... ummmm....
terrible.
 
J

Jacksinthe

Banned
whiteape said:
I really don't get Unity's 2D system to work with different PPI settings for multiple devices (like iPad, iPhone retina, Desktop etc.)…

Do i really just have to support the highest resolution, and just scale the game down on lower res devices?

Edit: I just saw that 2D Toolkit supports @2x etc. images, but does it support it via Unity sprites, or only via their own spritesystem?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand the question you're trying to ask. What don't you get about 2D sprites and higher PPI devices? What is the issue you are experiencing? Or are you just questioning how it is supposed to work? Do you understand the relation between Pixels Per Units and Orthographic Size? Have you built something that looks blocky? Are sprites on a normal 1080 screen super small on a device with higher PPI?

We haven't run into any issues across a wide range of Android and iOS devices that support 300+ PPI.

plagiarize said:
I really like it. The binary trails are a nice touch.
Click to expand...

Thank you!
 
V

Veritigo_X

Member
Altima said:
Any suggestion for characters design ?

I think this is a very hard part for me because my drawing skill is.... ummmm....
terrible.
Click to expand...

It depends on the style you're going for, but I'm in the same boat. Right now all my art assets are different colored squares and circles haha. Definitely makes it hard to show off progress to friends or whoever. I'm thinking about going for a pixel art style and got a good list of resources a couple pages back from ChiefofCitadelSecurity:

ChiefofCitadelSecurity said:
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-pixel-art-tutorials/

I think this covers all the main ones and then some.
Click to expand...

I've only skimmed over a couple of the tutorials but it seems like a really good starting point.
 
K

Kyuur

Member
whiteape said:
I really don't get Unity's 2D system to work with different PPI settings for multiple devices (like iPad, iPhone retina, Desktop etc.)…

Do i really just have to support the highest resolution, and just scale the game down on lower res devices?

Edit: I just saw that 2D Toolkit supports @2x etc. images, but does it support it via Unity sprites, or only via their own spritesystem?
Click to expand...

2D Toolkit was built before Unity's own 2D system was launched, so I believe they use their own stuff unless it's changed in recent releases.
 
C

cbox

Member
Kritz said:
In Australia. The process was pretty painless - Steam actually provides its own process to help you fill out the tax treaty documents. But it's probably different for Canada. Australia's tax stuff is easy peasy though.
Click to expand...

It's probably the same for Canada, it SHOULD be at least considering we're attached!
 
S

Skinpop

Member
I have a question on unit conversions in a 3d engine.

Most 3d software such as maya and max use centimeters as system units, and it's usually a hassle if you want to change this, especially if you already have assets made you'll risk losing precision.

Now for a 3d game engine I'd much prefer using 1 meter = 1 generic unit. It just makes physics code easier to write and use. I also feel that using meters as the unit makes better use of the precision.. but this obviously depends on game type and I might be completely wrong on this.

How do you tackle this from a workflow/asset creation perspective? Do you use centimeters as your unit in max/maya then simply scale models to their correct size in the engine? Doing that is trivial, but what I'm worried about is rigs and animations. To me that sounds like a recipe for headaches.
Do you work in centimeters or do you establish meters as the system unit in the asset authoring software? Maybe it's less of an headache in maya but in max not woking in centimeters(system scale) on a human sized model messes up the perspective viewport. I want the same relative size, just that my display units match my actual system unit(if my display unit is set to meters, 1 meter will still be 100 system units).

Now this is something that maybe the file exporter/importer should handle? I'm not sure if max fbx support is broken or assimp(the library I'm using to import models) doesn't account for the scale specified in the fbx file but changing these setting does nothing. I will always get the system units scale of things when importing.

Additionally another headache is how 3dsmax uses Z as up axis resulting in models being rotated and mirrored on import. Again changing settings in the fbx exporter does nothing to fix this. I remember having issues with this in unity as well so I'm just going to guess that Autodesks exporter is broken. Working in maya solves this issue though.

edit:
I'm considering using something like md5 instead, maybe it's simpler than fbx.
 
P

Popstar

Member
Skinpop said:
I have a question on unit conversions in a 3d engine.
Click to expand...
I use meters for everything myself.

Maya internally does everything in centimetres no matter what unit you set it to display. So just set it to metres. You may also need to change the near and far clipping planes for the camera, as Maya can screw this up when changing display units. Your exporter should be the thing to handle the conversions from centimetres to metres.

Max works in dimensionless units (or at least it used to, haven't used it in a long time) so you should just be able to set it to display those units as metres. How exactly does the viewport get messed up?

(I avoid fbx so I can't give you any specific advice there)
 
L

Lautaro

Member
Oh boy, steering behaviours were voodoo to me in the past, now I understand them but they are still messy when they interact wrong with each other. Here I am testing some obstacle avoidance behaviour but it caused me some problems with my other steering behaviours, I hope I can fix them soon to include it in a new build.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNg4rjF66Lw
 
S

Skinpop

Member
Popstar said:
I use meters for everything myself.

Maya internally does everything in centimetres no matter what unit you set it to display. So just set it to metres. You may also need to change the near and far clipping planes for the camera, as Maya can screw this up when changing display units. Your exporter should be the thing to handle the conversions from centimetres to metres.

Max works in dimensionless units (or at least it used to, haven't used it in a long time) so you should just be able to set it to display those units as metres. How exactly does the viewport get messed up?

(I avoid fbx so I can't give you any specific advice there)
Click to expand...

clipping plane, pan gets really slow and so on. it's kinda fixable but generally a big hassle in my experience.

3dsmax uses "system units" which you set to correspond to some arbitrary unit. Your model will still be represented by system units in the file, while display units is just what you work with in the editor for convenience. The issue is that the grid/perspective view is relative to the unit size and there is no way of automatically "scaling" it to the system unit I want to work in. This means when working in meters 1 m will be as small as one 1 cm when working in centimeters which means I'll have to adjust the whole grid, clipping planes and still have issues with pan/zoom(since it's set up to work at the default scale). Basically working on a human sized character in 1 m system units becomes a pain in the ass. The obvious solution would be to just work in cm and have the exporter do the unit scaling for me but with max and fbx at least that just doesn't work.

it works with maya. so I guess that confirms that 3dsmax's fbx exporter is broken. so problem solved I guess. annoying that I'll have to pass animations through maya for the time being though...

if you don't mind me asking, what exchange formats do you use? I would have liked working with md5 or smd since writing an importer for those is a lot easier than fbx, but there seems to be a lack of reliable max plugins for those formats.

edit: ironically obj, the one format I can't use for animation exports perfectly the way I expect it to with axis flipping and proper units and all.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
I don't mean to bring up the engine topic again, but one really satisfying thing that has happened once or twice is when you have your own engine, and then you think, "Hmm, but I need some functionality to do this particular thing."

And then you go to add it, and realize you already added support for that particular feature, a long time ago, and you can almost just use it as-is. :D Every once in a while, maybe past-me does something right.
 
P

Popstar

Member
Skinpop said:
if you don't mind me asking, what exchange formats do you use?
Click to expand...
I write my own exporters and use my own custom formats.

The lack of reliable Max plugins doesn't surprise me. Company I worked for last time I used Max regularly switched to Maya, and the crumbling Max SDK was one of the reasons. A lot of the sample plugins they shipped broke at some point and were never fixed. Total shitshow.
 
K

Kalnos

Banned
Blizzard said:
I don't mean to bring up the engine topic again
Click to expand...

lol, I don't think it's that taboo. It gets people to think about why they should use an existing engine or why they shouldn't if nothing else. Tons of good points on all sides.

Being able to reuse some old stuff is always a great feeling though, nice one!
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Kalnos said:
lol, I don't think it's that taboo. It gets people to think about why they should use an existing engine or why they shouldn't if nothing else. Tons of good points on all sides.

Being able to reuse some old stuff is always a great feeling though, nice one!
Click to expand...
It's hard to discuss. At minimum, I do agree that thinking about one's reasons for doing something is generally good, and being dogmatic is generally bad.

That's something I really like about Casey Muratori, the Handmade Hero guy. He has a lot of strong, unusual opinions on things like not using virtual methods, that traditional object-oriented design is evil or whatever, that writing little bits of code as you need them and THEN abstracting them out is good, and so on. Assuming I understand him correctly.

He has a ton of experience, yet I don't necessarily agree with some of his opinions and practices...but when he talks about them, I still feel like sometimes he'll clarify and say that what he's REALLY against is people dogmatically following practices (like standard college class OOP design) without thinking about the potential benefits or drawbacks. Normal OOP is nice for some things, and obviously seems to work in the industry, but I'd like to think what Casey is saying is, "Don't blindly use the same tool for every problem, just because everyone else is doing it and you were told to do it, without at least considering the pros and cons."
 
P

Purple Cheeto

Member
Blizzard said:
It's hard to discuss. At minimum, I do agree that thinking about one's reasons for doing something is generally good, and being dogmatic is generally bad.

That's something I really like about Casey Muratori, the Handmade Hero guy. He has a lot of strong, unusual opinions on things like not using virtual methods, that traditional object-oriented design is evil or whatever, that writing little bits of code as you need them and THEN abstracting them out is good, and so on. Assuming I understand him correctly.

He has a ton of experience, yet I don't necessarily agree with some of his opinions and practices...but when he talks about them, I still feel like sometimes he'll clarify and say that what he's REALLY against is people dogmatically following practices (like standard college class OOP design) without thinking about the potential benefits or drawbacks. Normal OOP is nice for some things, and obviously seems to work in the industry, but I'd like to think what Casey is saying is, "Don't blindly use the same tool for every problem, just because everyone else is doing it and you were told to do it, without at least considering the pros and cons."
Click to expand...

If you think his feelings on OOP are interesting you should listen to Mike Acton (director of engineering at Insomniac) or Christer Ericsson (director of engineering at Activision) talk about the evils of OOP and the joy of DOD.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
Feep said:
http://store.steampowered.com/app/319740

^_^
Click to expand...
The bears are kind of weird. Nice otherwise though!

I see you have trading card support. If you're allowed to say, does Valve put a restriction on that, or can you be a rogue developer and actually allow 5 cards to drop and have a 5-card badge, for example? I'm not aware of any games that have the same number of drops as required for the badge, probably because Valve wants the trading/market system used, but I did not know if it was a hard requirement.
 
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