Support NeoGAF

[Pehesse]

Thanks for the kind words, guys :-D Though really, the credit for the character's design should go to her creators, this is only fanart!

Thanks for the replies about SFX process, too. I guess doing it as we go makes more sense indeed. That's what I did for the matches and the overall game structure, to get a sense for game feel. I'll consider getting back to it sooner than planned :-D

Jobbs, those sketches look mighty good, I'd play something like that. Some of the 2D platforming concepts I have try to steer away from combat, but I'd love to design some melee oriented game as well, for the sheer fun of making such animations. Wait and see, I guess.

(Here's an old sketch from one of those 2D platformer ideas, kind of an environment test - never went much further than that and some general design drafts, though:

)

 

[adixon]

Apparently, Spriter is programmed by one dude who may not have all that much time to dedicate to it, whereas Spine has more people working on that, which would explain a lot.

Spine is completely programmed by one dude -- he's just really productive! And in the past year or so a bunch of people in the community have started to improve/maintain the runtimes. The unity runtime has really taken on a life of its own! But still, that one guy, Nate, built the editor and did all 20 runtimes (or whatever it was) before anyone else started helping. He has an artist friend who makes the tutorial videos and helps with testing and the website, I think.

 

[jimmythepage]

Attack and unveal/equip done, I think I covered the basic actions and should be enough for this character, feel free to give me feedback!

 

[Pehesse]

Attack and unveal/equip done, I think I covered the basic actions and should be enough for this character, feel free to give me feedback!

I think these work much better than the previous ones!
One issue I have is with the eyes. They look at the camera/viewer (or at least, that's what it looks like to me), instead of being focussed on the target of their action, which I presume to be on the same plane as they, to their right. Shifting the eyes to reflect that would help convey a sense of concentration and overall cohesion, I think.

 

[jimmythepage]

I think these work much better than the previous ones!
One issue I have is with the eyes. They look at the camera/viewer (or at least, that's what it looks like to me), instead of being focussed on the target of their action, which I presume to be on the same plane as they, to their right. Shifting the eyes to reflect that would help convey a sense of concentration and overall cohesion, I think.

Thanks! uhmm I didn't notice that, for that I'll need to make a bone for the pupils as well but I think I'll resolve by simply draw them differently ;P

 

[Mystic River]

Attack and unveal/equip done, I think I covered the basic actions and should be enough for this character, feel free to give me feedback!

take a look at those eyes, make your character look front when attacking, it will looks like he is looking at what he is attacking, in the current one your character is looking at the player outside the screen

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

One issue I have is with the eyes.

Should be like this!

 

[jimmythepage]

take a look at those eyes, make your character look front when attacking, it will looks like he is looking at what he is attacking, in the current one your character is looking at the player outside the screen

I guess this was less noticeable in the walking animation, I'm fixing it

Should be like this!

LAWL DAMN XD

 

[Jobbs]

I tweaked some things now I think we're ready to go with the new enemies for the area. Here's a better quality video showing some stuff I was just doing for the hell of it. Never mind the npcs that look funny, they're placeholder assets right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ni-RgGaon6M&feature=youtu.be

 

[Mexen]

If you're already familiar with Android and Java development, and you are making a small puzzle game, you could do a lot worse than just use Android or Java to make the game with something like libGDX.

In terms of asset creation, given its for an educational non-profit project and the time frame involved, unless you have a specific desire to branch your skillset out into the various different fields that are involved in asset creation, I would strongly suggest making use of resources like OpenGameArt.

EDIT:
Actually, the current Humble Game Maker Bundle top tier payment includes AppGameKit which is a C++ supporting IDE, as well as spriter pro which you could use directly with something like Kenneys Modular Character Pack

Thanks for responding and the insight. I'll weigh my options and do some research. If I do go forward with this, I hope I can pick your brain once in a while when I need help.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

So #screnshotsaturday. I think the tests are coming along nicely.
We've added TV noise to the enemy deaths as they are done by virtual TV and not real people. It also ties pretty nicely to the whole TV theme the game has.
Same with the TV store with the racoon mascot animations. Love the hypnotoad reference Jon added to the racoon in one of the tv's lol

Although it seem only 2D sprites, the scenery is in reality 3D, as I wanted to give depth to the game in some situations like TV lights hanging above and changing perspective when the camera moves left and right, and doing the center camera the zelda bosses have.
This is a 3ds max render when I was trying the perspectives so it looked 2D.

Thanks for the kind words, guys :-D Though really, the credit for the character's design should go to her creators, this is only fanart!

Thanks for the replies about SFX process, too. I guess doing it as we go makes more sense indeed. That's what I did for the matches and the overall game structure, to get a sense for game feel. I'll consider getting back to it sooner than planned :-D

Jobbs, those sketches look mighty good, I'd play something like that. Some of the 2D platforming concepts I have try to steer away from combat, but I'd love to design some melee oriented game as well, for the sheer fun of making such animations. Wait and see, I guess.

(Here's an old sketch from one of those 2D platformer ideas, kind of an environment test - never went much further than that and some general design drafts, though:
)

I really, really love how sketchy the background is.
Was it done with different paintbrushes on photoshop or did you use another program.

 

[Pehesse]

Should be like this!

:-D

As it often does, an image speaks more than a thousand words.

So #screnshotsaturday. I think the tests are coming along nicely.
We've added TV noise to the enemy deaths as they are done by virtual TV and not real people. It also ties pretty nicely to the whole TV theme the game has.
Same with the TV store with the racoon mascot animations. Love the hypnotoad reference Jon added to the racoon in one of the tv's lol

Although it seem only 2D sprites, the scenery is in reality 3D, as I wanted to give depth to the game in some situations like TV lights hanging above and changing perspective when the camera moves left and right, and doing the center camera the zelda bosses have.
This is a 3ds max render when I was trying the perspectives so it looked 2D.

I really, really love how sketchy the background is.
Was it done with different paintbrushes on photoshop or did you use another program.

Love the tv disintegration effect. If there's indeed an overall theme, it fits like a glove, on top of looking plain cool.

As for the sketchy background: actually, it was all hand drawn/scanned stuff! There are huge patches of plain, visible paper texture, since I didn't really know how to edit my scans. This was my punk period where digital work was the evil of the modern world, because of course it was, so I did as little as I could on the computer :-D Needless to say, it didn't last very long...

 

[mStudios]

.

Those animations, so good.

Has anyone from here played Ace Attorney series?

Spoiler

Just a reference I wanted to thrown in there

The beginning:

 

[jimmythepage]

Without posting all the animations again, they look really better with the eyes in the right postition, soooo let's try something new, sneaky walk!

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Has anyone from here played Ace Attorney series?

 

[Noogy]

Dude I love it. Made me think of https://youtu.be/QXiAzEZcxRA?t=37 for some reason. Love axes.

Also reminds me vaguely of a native american influenced design I scribbled out some time ago.

I'm dying, dying, DYING to make a melee based action RPG platformer. XD

Doo eeet!

 

[Five]

Sound design is quite difficult to get right, I find. I like that yours is overally pretty subdued, making for a quiet atmosphere, goes pretty well with the visuals.
I've been adding SFX to Honey in the beginning, but lately I've just been rushing through scenes, and I'm planning to go back over everything to sound it all at once... but I wonder if that's the best plan, or if I should tackle it as I go, making for slower individual scene progress, but no need to go back eventually. Any experience in the process? Might going back to sound everything in one go cause potential unforeseen problems/could cause everything to break? Do y'all usually sound your stuff as you go?

First of all, your animation is downright gorgeous! Everything about it is stellar, so very nicely done.

Sound design is an afterthought for me because it's not my forte. I have microphones, I have a good ear for things, and I'm okay at editing, but I'm not inspired by or great at any of it.

I did a first pass with SFX when the game was about 20% content complete, which only took a couple of days. Few of those sound bites were stellar, but the added dimension they created gave me some short-term inspiration. So for about the next 15–20% of content creation I was somewhat inspired to create and use really cool SFX as I go along plugging in new assets. But since then I've grown increasingly lazy, not adding new SFX to the pool and just recycling sounds for new assets, saying I'll go back over everything with a sound pass near the end of the project.

I don't know what the takeaway is from my story, just thought I'd throw it out there.

 

[Pehesse]

First of all, your animation is downright gorgeous! Everything about it is stellar, so very nicely done.

Sound design is an afterthought for me because it's not my forte. I have microphones, I have a good ear for things, and I'm okay at editing, but I'm not inspired by or great at any of it.

I did a first pass with SFX when the game was about 20% content complete, which only took a couple of days. Few of those sound bites were stellar, but the added dimension they created gave me some short-term inspiration. So for about the next 15–20% of content creation I was somewhat inspired to create and use really cool SFX as I go along plugging in new assets. But since then I've grown increasingly lazy, not adding new SFX to the pool and just recycling sounds for new assets, saying I'll go back over everything with a sound pass near the end of the project.

I don't know what the takeaway is from my story, just thought I'd throw it out there.

Your story sounds like just what happened to me, so at least we can take away that it sounds like a fairly normal process :-D
(and thanks! really glad y'all seem to like that anim'!)

 

[Jacksinthe]

I broke down and made a FB account for AG. I'm not a FB kind of guy, tbh. Feels like old busted.

On another note I picked up a new mic for streaming. I have some nice analog kick/vocal mics that are great but the pres on my audio hardware aren't the best and I would like to get a new I/O eventually but I want to save for something stellar that I can use with 7.1 so I require a zillion outs and something that has a dedicated controller so I'll be saving for a bit XD

Will test the new mic out tonight on stream in 3 hours or so if anyone wants to party, I'll be rigging JUMP GUY 1000 with some sprites and further tweaking his moveset.

Been so long since I had anything new to show. And after that it's probably going to be quite a while again!

Gfycat version here, as usual: http://gfycat.com/ReliableFearlessHousefly

Also, unrelated but I have just done some fan animation for Indivisible, I'll post it here since we were on the topic of walk cycles just above. That, and I'm just itching to start working on a 2D platformer with that kind of animation, now, so I need to vent it however I can :-D

Horrible, IMO. AS USUAL, FROM YOU.

Dude I love it. Made me think of https://youtu.be/QXiAzEZcxRA?t=37 for some reason. Love axes.

Also reminds me vaguely of a native american influenced design I scribbled out some time ago.

I'm dying, dying, DYING to make a melee based action RPG platformer. XD

Yeah I'd love to see this. LOVE to see this.

Thanks for the kind words, guys :-D Though really, the credit for the character's design should go to her creators, this is only fanart!

Thanks for the replies about SFX process, too. I guess doing it as we go makes more sense indeed. That's what I did for the matches and the overall game structure, to get a sense for game feel. I'll consider getting back to it sooner than planned :-D

Jobbs, those sketches look mighty good, I'd play something like that. Some of the 2D platforming concepts I have try to steer away from combat, but I'd love to design some melee oriented game as well, for the sheer fun of making such animations. Wait and see, I guess.

(Here's an old sketch from one of those 2D platformer ideas, kind of an environment test - never went much further than that and some general design drafts, though:
)

I like the look of this. Are you considering doing something like this in the future? With your talent it would be quite stellar, IMO.

Should be like this!

QFT

So #screnshotsaturday. I think the tests are coming along nicely.
We've added TV noise to the enemy deaths as they are done by virtual TV and not real people. It also ties pretty nicely to the whole TV theme the game has.
Same with the TV store with the racoon mascot animations. Love the hypnotoad reference Jon added to the racoon in one of the tv's lol

Although it seem only 2D sprites, the scenery is in reality 3D, as I wanted to give depth to the game in some situations like TV lights hanging above and changing perspective when the camera moves left and right, and doing the center camera the zelda bosses have.
This is a 3ds max render when I was trying the perspectives so it looked 2D.

This is looking ace! I do like the enemy deaths - they are nice as they tie in with the rest of the theme. The animation and art direction here is spectacular. I mean, seriously well fucking done. Can't wait to get my paws on this.

 

[Jacksinthe]

I'll be on in about 5 minutes if anyone is bored:
http://www.twitch.tv/absinthegames

 

[Kyuur]

ART

Your art style makes me go hnngngggh everytime I see a new piece. Love it.


Having a bit of trouble with some meshing stuff. I'm trying to find a way to algorithmically determine that two triangles form a quad so that I can do some subdivision and optimization stuff. I have two triangles:

tri1
{
	v1 = 0.5, -1, 0
	v2 = 1, -1, 0.5
	v3 = 0, 0, 0.5
}
tri2
{
	v1 = 0.5, -1, 0
	v2 = 0, 0, 0.5
	v3 = 0, -0.5, 0
}

What I thought I could do, was calculate the normal for each triangle and compare. I thought, since both of these triangles are facing the same plane, they should have the same normal. That doesn't seem to be the case, unless my math is horribly wrong (I'm taking the dot product of two edges for each tri).

From what I can see after recreating the tris in Unity, they do form a plane, so I am stumped. Anyone familiar with this problem?

 

[HelloMeow]

What I thought I could do, was calculate the normal for each triangle and compare. I thought, since both of these triangles are facing the same plane, they should have the same normal. That doesn't seem to be the case, unless my math is horribly wrong (I'm taking the dot product of two edges for each tri).

You need to take the cross product, not the dot product. Other than that it sounds about right.

By the way, the two resulting normals might not be exactly the same due the imprecision of floats. You could try to compare both normals by looking at the angle between them. If it's very, very small, they're the same.

 

[Jobbs]

Doo eeet!

I'll definitely be doing some kind of melee focused game (not necessarily anything like those concept arts) after I finish Ghost Song.

 

[Kyuur]

You need to take the cross product, not the dot product. Other than that it sounds about right.

By the way, the two resulting normals might not be exactly the same due the imprecision of floats. You could try to compare both normals by looking at the angle between them. If it's very, very small, they're the same.

That was a typo, but it made me look again and I was calculating the cross product wrong.. so there's that!

Thanks for the tip regarding floats! Will have to determine a threshold I guess, will test and see what I need.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Fuuuck. Trying to make a tutorial for my game and it's so tedious my mind just shuts down every time I start working. I'll probably just end up with some still shots and a text box explanation.

 

[Mystic River]

Fuuuck. Trying to make a tutorial for my game and it's so tedious my mind just shuts down every time I start working. I'll probably just end up with some still shots and a text box explanation.

tutorials are for dummies

Just let the player guess how to play and if in need read the manual , that's how it used to be in the past

 

[Lautaro]

tutorials are for dummies

Just let the player guess how to play and if in need read the manual , that's how it used to be in the past

Tutorials are necessary if the game is complex.

If the game is simple to learn then I suggest teaching as he plays.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Thanks for the kind words, guys :-D

Spotted your awesome game alongside Beacon in today's indiecade screenshotsaturday showcase! Congrats! http://indiecade.tumblr.com/

For anyone curious as to what's been going on with the game, we've made very solid progress, I've just haven't really had the time to update the folks on TigSource and her on GAF as of late. Big things to come in the next month though

Here's some neat new media though showing off the polished environments and combat!

http://gfycat.com/AcrobaticHoarseElkhound#

http://i.imgur.com/zMHoN2C.webm
http://i.imgur.com/ozYSARJ.webm

 

[WanderingWind]

So #screnshotsaturday. I think the tests are coming along nicely.
We've added TV noise to the enemy deaths as they are done by virtual TV and not real people. It also ties pretty nicely to the whole TV theme the game has.
Same with the TV store with the racoon mascot animations. Love the hypnotoad reference Jon added to the racoon in one of the tv's lol

I'm really loving the mechanics on display here. I can't remember the last beat em up that had blocking. And charge attacks ala Mega Man are super interactive. Gives a bit of beat to the usual mashy gameplay. Definitely jumped up on my radar.

Some of y'all are making games that look way, way, way better than anything on Steam Greenlight.

 

[Nemo]

Tutorials are necessary if the game is complex.

If the game is simple to learn then I suggest teaching as he plays.

I agree. I'm actually doing this in my next game, doesn't have a tutorial but during gameplay the player will receive feedback in the way of the phone vibrating during the times where he/she was supposed to touch the screen. It'll be funny to see how people will react to this since I barely see vibration being used as negative feedback

 

[Jobbs]

fuck all tutorials.. give the minimum info necessary so the player understands how to play, but a lot of explanation and linearity is boring IMO.

Most people playing games aren't dumb, they can figure things out if you give them just enough.

 

[Pehesse]

Once more, thanks all for your comments :-D What a nice thing to start the day to!

Spotted your awesome game alongside Beacon in today's indiecade screenshotsaturday showcase! Congrats! http://indiecade.tumblr.com/

For anyone curious as to what's been going on with the game, we've made very solid progress, I've just haven't really had the time to update the folks on TigSource and her on GAF as of late. Big things to come in the next month though

Here's some neat new media though showing off the polished environments and combat!

http://gfycat.com/AcrobaticHoarseElkhound#



http://i.imgur.com/zMHoN2C.webm

http://i.imgur.com/ozYSARJ.webm

I saw the Indiecade tweets, yeah! (and went to bed right after as it was quite late :-D). Dunno if we should read into those in regards to the selection for the actual festival. Either way, congrats as well!! Wonder what the next month will bring :-3

Horrible, IMO. AS USUAL, FROM YOU.

NOOOO

I like the look of this. Are you considering doing something like this in the future? With your talent it would be quite stellar, IMO.

Yeah, this is one of the possible designs I plan to develop further after Honey.

Right now I still haven't made up my mind, so it's pretty open: I'm thinking either a non-violent exploration based 2D platformer, the one pictured there (basically a reverse Metroid 2 design, starting at the bottom of a pit you need to climb out of, so heavy on the atmosphere), or a melee-based action/exploration 2D platformer because ANIMATIONS (and there'd totally be an AXE and a CASTLE just because), or a sci-fi adventure game swinging between RPG and point and click mechanics, though the battle system would be a dialog system (that's actually the most likely candidate right now, but I'm wavering at the idea of jumping into another project with so much dialog, now, so maybe I'll leave it for later)... or maybe a sort of sequel to Honey, as I'm figuring out what I think could be a cool design for one as I go along the current one. I won't say much more, except that it wouldn't be *quite* the same, and I think it could be quite fun, especially if people end up liking Honey as a character :-D

That reminds me, though, that it was suggested in this thread to jam for a bit a few weeks for now? If someone has a cool idea and groundwork for a 2D melee platformer and wants some axegirl animations (not the one from earlier, but that doesn't mean we can't design our own Raiyaki <3), I might be persuaded to leave Honey for a few days/weeks!

fuck all tutorials.. give the minimum info necessary so the player understands how to play, but a lot of explanation and linearity is boring IMO.

Most people playing games aren't dumb, they can figure things out if you give them just enough.

I wouldn't say fuck it all, exactly but yeah, I'd try to limit the artificial exposition.
If at all possible, I'd make the tutorial part of the overall context, and possibly something the player doesn't even realize is a tutorial. Thinking back to Super Metroid with the animals climbing out of the pit here: you're funneled into a clear situation with no way out, and you have a clear visual explanation of what you're expected to do to climb out... but there aren't big bright button prompts to prod you, and you're not even expected to get there at all in the first place. Another example I remember loving was Advance Wars, where the tutorial was a clearly segmented section, replayable apart from the actual main campaign, with its own plot. That made it a fun mini campaign. And then they had to ruin it in AW2 by making it a mandatory part of the main campaign... same thing happened to Fire Emblem, actually.

For Honey, I've made it a place you can choose to go to (Coach's gym), where it makes sense that someone would be there to give you tips - and even then, it's not about button prompts, but contextualized comments. And you might want to go there to talk about other stuff than learning to fight, too. And other stuff might happen there. And... so yeah, I hope it doesn't feel too much like the tutorial area in the end, because it's not really one! (as for the VN part... I hope I won't need to underline "press a key to keep reading" :v)

 

[Jobbs]

I was playing Pillars of Eternity a while ago, and near the start there's a story event and you aren't specifically directed to where to go next -- I mean, you're supposed to leave the zone and travel the map and go to town, but I'm so used to games prompting you exactly when and where to go to the next place, leading you by your nose like a donkey, that it was jarring. And refreshing.

People can figure things out. Just make the required info available and off with them.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

fuck all tutorials.. give the minimum info necessary so the player understands how to play, but a lot of explanation and linearity is boring IMO.

Most people playing games aren't dumb, they can figure things out if you give them just enough.

Honestly, if you ever attend any form of focus testing or play testing scenario where you can observe regular folks off the street playing something you have made, you will absolutely despair at just how wrong this statement is.

That reminds me, though, that it was suggested in this thread to jam for a bit a few weeks for now?

I threw it out as a maybe-fun thing, but there's the Humble Bundle indie game contest running right now, and someone else mentioned theres a bigger gamejam in the middle of august IIRC, so timing seems to be pretty bad for doing this anytime soon

 

[Jobbs]

Honestly, if you ever attend any form of focus testing or play testing scenario where you can observe regular folks off the street playing something you have made, you will absolutely despair at just how wrong this statement is.

Maybe I should say anyone who would be interested in playing the kind of games I like and would make. Dark Souls explains very little and has been a successful franchise.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Love the tv disintegration effect. If there's indeed an overall theme, it fits like a glove, on top of looking plain cool.

As for the sketchy background: actually, it was all hand drawn/scanned stuff! There are huge patches of plain, visible paper texture, since I didn't really know how to edit my scans. This was my punk period where digital work was the evil of the modern world, because of course it was, so I did as little as I could on the computer :-D Needless to say, it didn't last very long...

Those animations, so good.

Has anyone from here played Ace Attorney series?

Spoiler

Just a reference I wanted to thrown in there

Thanks, and as someone whom loves Phoenix Wright and Akward Zombie's comics loved the reference!

This is looking ace! I do like the enemy deaths - they are nice as they tie in with the rest of the theme. The animation and art direction here is spectacular. I mean, seriously well fucking done. Can't wait to get my paws on this.

Thanks! Im going to show more of it as we are making it, thats for sure. Its good to hear all this impressions.

I'm really loving the mechanics on display here. I can't remember the last beat em up that had blocking. And charge attacks ala Mega Man are super interactive. Gives a bit of beat to the usual mashy gameplay. Definitely jumped up on my radar.

Some of y'all are making games that look way, way, way better than anything on Steam Greenlight.

Thanks WanderingWind, im really glad you gave an opinion about the mechanics. We were not too sure if people would like things like the charging. We still need to perfect the back defending though.
May I ask a question? Would you prefer that he defended automatically the back attacks just by pressing the defend button, or you need to push back and the defend button at the same time to defend from those attacks?

 

[JulianImp]

I'm finally tackling one of the more imposing parts of my VN today: Serializing and deserializing the game state to allow saving and loading. The typewriter, variable manager and message log sub-systems are simple enough that serializing and deserializing their state is farily easy, but the music manager is a bit more complex, and the graphics manager has an awful lot of data it has to save.

So far I'm using a very simple system that separates each property in a predetermined order using pipe characters, and I split each subsystem's properties with a string. The result is kind of like this:

108 <&#8212; Current message index loaded into the typewriter
-|-
4 <&#8212; Message log size
104|105|106|107 <&#8212; Messages available in the message log
-|-
bullets|1 <&#8212; Variables
-|-
3|3 <&#8212;BGM and SFX track counts
bgm_wind|0.5|0|1 <&#8212;Music track data
bgm_suspense|1|0|1
-|-
2|3 <&#8212;Number of background and sprite layers that will be used
0|bg_forest_night|0|0|0|1|1|FFFFFFFF|0|0|1 <&#8212;Background data
1|
2|spr_bob_angry|0.66|0|0|1|1|FFFFFFFF|0|0|1 <&#8212;Sprite data
3|spr_mike_shocked|0.33|0|0|1|1|FFFFFFFF|0|0|1
4|

The thing is I want to keep parsing as fast and easy as possible, which is why I haven't looked into using XML or JSON for handling the process. Right now I'm thinking that tweens might be an issue since they can have an arbitrary number of data-delay pairs. As I type this, I'm thinking that using a simple integer to denote the number of pairs in that tween might work, though...

Finally, I'm debating whether it'd be worth it to try and "encrypt" the save slots with any kind of simple algorithm (such as bitwise XORing the whole thing using a string as the key), or if it'd be fine to leave things as-is. While people could spoil themselves by looking at variable names and all that or even tamper with the save data to produce odd results, I don't know if that'd be a bad thing, since it isn't like you can wander into your save files and change their values accidentally.

 

[Water]

Maybe I should say anyone who would be interested in playing the kind of games I like and would make. Dark Souls explains very little and has been a successful franchise.

It's unfortunate that making a game subtle and sophisticated will cut down its possible audience and business viability so drastically. Sure, design work can achieve compromises, but they are likely much more severe than in movies and other non-interactive media, where people would usually be able to enjoy the surface of the work regardless of whether they see the depth.

 

[Water]

I'm finally tackling one of the more imposing parts of my VN today: Serializing and deserializing the game state to allow saving and loading.
...
The thing is I want to keep parsing as fast and easy as possible, which is why I haven't looked into using XML or JSON for handling the process. Right now I'm thinking that tweens might be an issue since they can have an arbitrary number of data-delay pairs. As I type this, I'm thinking that using a simple integer to denote the number of pairs in that tween might work, though...

Is your motivation to improve the development process (easier editing, debugging, etc.)?
If it's just to provide saving and loading to the player, it doesn't sound necessary to manually record presentation data like animation states, active sprites, etc. for a VN game. Have you considered just keeping track of the last major scene loaded and the player's choices from that point, and loading by instantly rerunning the choices to the point where the save was made?
Also, what tech are you using - engine, relevant plugins?

 

[JulianImp]

Is your motivation to improve the development process (easier editing, debugging, etc.)?
If it's just to provide saving and loading to the player, it doesn't sound necessary to manually record presentation data like animation states, active sprites, etc. for a VN game. Have you considered just keeping track of the last major scene loaded and the player's choices from that point, and loading by instantly rerunning the choices to the point where the save was made?
Also, what tech are you using - engine, relevant plugins?

Thanks for the feedback!

The issue I have with saving/loading is that all this data has to be saved because it carries over between message nodes, so you can, for example, load a background and then keep it around for the next N nodes before removing it or replacing it with anything else, and the same holds true for all the additional data such as position, rotation, scale, tint and so on. A friend suggested that I re-added all graphics/audio assignments on each new node, but that isn't something I can reliably automate in my node editor, and asking the developer to remember to copy/paste each assignment every time would defeat the purpose of the tool trying to solve things for them. Therefore, I can't possibly tell what's the current state of the graphics, variables and music unless I serialize its data and buffer that whenever a new message node is loaded, write that information down when the user wants to save the game and then deserialize it back into each system to reload.

There's also the issue that my message nodes have no distinction between major and minor nodes, so I'd probably have to record the player's choices since the start of the game. Compared to the benefits of having random access to any point in the script, I believe that running through the whole thing until the loaded scene is reached would be awfully inefficient. Since I can't tell if a graphics or audio assignment is actually kept until the loaded scene, I couldn't possibly ignore any assignments done N nodes ago because they might still be relevant, and that in turn results in an awful lot of asset loading that wasn't actually needed for the final result and will get unloaded as soon as the garbage collector acts (also being a bottleneck for the next garbage collection, since it'll have to handle all the SFX, music, sprites and backgrounds that were called during the re-creation of the loaded scene but aren't even being used there).

By the way, I'm building the system on top of vanilla Unity 5. If you'd like to read the documentation I've written for it so far in order to get a better understanding of the way I've been trying to handle things, here it is: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uX4s2-UMBisVK99b3ncZMQfJPKmbtUjNJQKQt51lumM/edit?usp=sharing

 

[WanderingWind]

Thanks WanderingWind, im really glad you gave an opinion about the mechanics. We were not too sure if people would like things like the charging. We still need to perfect the back defending though.
May I ask a question? Would you prefer that he defended automatically the back attacks just by pressing the defend button, or you need to push back and the defend button at the same time to defend from those attacks?

Maybe start with having to push back and defend and auto defend as a powerup?

 

[mabec]

Since Matt is asleep i don't think he mind me sharing this

The sound that elevator make reminds me of grinding my teeths.

 

[Jobbs]

It's unfortunate that making a game subtle and sophisticated will cut down its possible audience and business viability so drastically. Sure, design work can achieve compromises, but they are likely much more severe than in movies and other non-interactive media, where people would usually be able to enjoy the surface of the work regardless of whether they see the depth.

If Dark Souls was cuddly just like a Zelda game I don't think it'd have a cult following. It'd be forgettable.

Since Matt is asleep i don't think he mind me sharing this

What Mabec is talking about is that I upped the native resolution to 1080p.. It's hard to tell from a gif though, because it's already resized a bit.

Basically what happened is I was sitting here with a native 1720x966 or some wierd number game.. (very long story how it got that way) So when you full screened it onto a typical 1080p display, you'd get the game stretched out a bit and therefore less crisp looking than it might be.

So -- What I tried doing was just changing the game's res to 1920x1080, but without stretching the game, only by extending the standard view area (so, smaller characters on screen) and after some testing I think it works. It's a bit less clausterphobic than it might be, it seems to look fine.

http://www.gfycat.com/ImpracticalDelightfulAsiaticmouflon
http://www.gfycat.com/CompetentShrillKentrosaurus
http://www.gfycat.com/DisloyalCharmingAngwantibo

 

[liliththepale]

What Mabec is talking about is that I upped the native resolution to 1080p.. It's hard to tell from a gif though, because it's already resized a bit.

Hey, nice! What made you decide to switch it up?

edit: nvm, you explained a bit. I think it's a good call.

 

[Jobbs]

Hey, nice! What made you decide to switch it up?

edit: nvm, you explained a bit. I think it's a good call.

Yep, and I figure I can control the view area with black fog if I need to keep something feeling clausterphobic. I already do that in a few areas.

 

[liliththepale]

Yep, and I figure I can control the view area with black fog if I need to keep something feeling clausterphobic. I already do that in a few areas.

Yeah, it's pretty easy to pull the walls in to make it more claustrophobic. For example, both of the rooms below are only one screen wide and tall, but pulling the walls in makes the red room feel tighter.

 

[Jobbs]

claustrophobic, doh.

but yeah, exactly. and sometimes I do shit like this in dark areas.

 

[liliththepale]

lol, I didn't even realize you misspelled it.

That fog is great! Limiting visibility can be very effective at times, so long as it's implemented properly. I'm a big fan of that trick where a hidden room is hinted at, but mostly occluded by something in the foreground that's brushed away when you enter. Rayman Origins and Legends did that a lot.

We're trying out a new post effect to make things a little more frenetic. When you get hurt, you teleport back to the last safe spot you stood in. So we added a static-y effect that normally blends at 0.1, but blends up to 0.3 when you get significantly far from the point you'll teleport back to. The subtle increase as you progress through a given gauntlet and the release when you clear it is really satisfying. I might try to capture a video, but I'm not sure how well the encoding will represent the subtleties.

 

[Jobbs]

I might try to capture a video, but I'm not sure how well the encoding will represent the subtleties.

It'll be fine -- I just know it.

 

[liliththepale]

It'll be fine -- I just know it.

Alright, I'm uploading a clip right now. Fraps killed the framerate, and the game's not using delta timing, so there's a bit of slowdown. And I have to leave for a dinner party in five minutes. This'll be the link, but YT says the upload is going to take another half an hour. http://youtu.be/BC0cEWYX_tg *fingers crossed*