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

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Minamu

Member
pbcqsc6.png


Finally completed the -very- simple Wii U (Eshop - US for now) game I was working on.

Objective is to destroy all the targets in each level/world as fast as possible. (record locally saved)

There's so much more features I'd like/planned to implement but unfortunately so little time. (damn full time job)

Features:
- 720p 60fps
- Off-TV
- Gyro aiming (Metroid Blast-ish)
- 10 levels/worlds

Direct-feed gameplay video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R35uWvL5R40
What engine and language is used for a project like this for the Wii U? And the other consoles for that matter. I'd love to make a console game eventually but I have no idea how to go about it, both on an engine level and how to get in contact with the console companies :/
 
What engine and language is used for a project like this for the Wii U? And the other consoles for that matter. I'd love to make a console game eventually but I have no idea how to go about it, both on an engine level and how to get in contact with the console companies :/

You can use whatever engine supports these consoles, if you deal with the licensing.

I'd think most people would use C++ for console development and I know that Sony packages a LLVM C++ compiler with their development tools.
I'd figure it'd be very similar with MS and Ninty, but you can use whatever language you want, if you can write a compiler for it ;)
 
What engine and language is used for a project like this for the Wii U? And the other consoles for that matter. I'd love to make a console game eventually but I have no idea how to go about it, both on an engine level and how to get in contact with the console companies :/

This was made in Unity.

I'm on my mobile now so can't post much details, but this site (https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com) has all the info you'll need to get started with Nintendo's indie program.
 

Pehesse

Member
TinyActualDogwoodtwigborer.gif


Here's my screenshot saturday... almost done with lining Big Blue's entire moveset this week. Then there's still color...
I'm tired
 

_machine

Member
Another shot of the rainforest, just without the rain this time:
Will have get some more exciting material next week when I'm back on my work computer, but so far our very closed beta seems to be working quite well. Some crashes here and there (some fixed) and somewhat large balance issues (though known and currently working on them), but we should probably think of ideas for competitions to allow some additional players in. Ideas are welcome...and might get rewarded with a beta key :p

Been doing a lot of preparations work toward the launch. There's plenty of left and now a whole a lot of time, but I'm super excited to get so close to the launch despite knowing that it'll be pretty much the only thing at the back of my head.
 
Well, hopefully by next saturday I may finally have a mock screenshot for my visual novel. After going past the agreed deadline with the main character artist (and still no replies up to this day...) I ended up asking the guy who has being doing my kawaii moe uguu fairies (a third one is in sketching atm) to help me with the main characters. Thank god he agreed...

Frustrating, yes, but at least this happened now and not in the middle of publishing negotiations or through a crowdfunding (something I've already seen happening to other projects). He's been much more clear and transparent in his communication too so that has been a huge plus as well.

Meanwhile, I'm experimenting a lot on the coding side too since I got a bit rusty from all the writing and graphic editing. That part where you put the wrong script or code and your screen comes out all borked, screen elements placed everywhere but in the places where they should be, lol.

edit: mStudios I feel your pain. Sketch hell is like a sketchy hell, haha! Good luck with those and looking forward to see them finished!
 

Pehesse

Member
Where and how can I give you my money?

Haha, thanks. I do have a Patreon, but it doesn't have any traction, so you're probably better off just waiting for the actual release, which is... still a ways off. But I'll get there, even if I have to stitch my drawing hand together with glue before then :-D

(On that note, I'm debating between different price points for the final release, but I'm also strongly considering a "pay what you want" model with no base... anyone got any experience on that to share?)

Sick animations! I really like them. Plus the old trainer in the background
Haha.png


#ScreenshotSaturday more like #SaturdayScketches for me... I don't have anything painted, but sketches!


Whoa, that's one big emote! Thanks :) The old trainer/referee doesn't have much of a role in the rest of the game, so I'm putting him to as much use as I can where I can :v

G'luck with the sketches! That's the phase I kind of like most, apart from when it's all actually finished and coming together :-D
 

Jarekx

Member

I'm trying to keep it simple and evoke the first Final Fantasy for this one. I think I like the simple health bars but I'm not so sure. Not sure if people would notice them as health indicators ( at least at first glance).
 

Lautaro

Member
Does everyone get a message from this guy?

HEdrghe.png

Heh, yep, I got 2 messages from this guy. I imagine some devs gave him some keys for being "funny" so now he's trying the same with everyone. In my case, I just ignored him.

I wish I have ignored all the "Steam reviewers" that also ask for keys (guys that don't have a blog or youtube channel, just want keys in exchange for reviews in Steam... but not even that they will do at the end). I advice to send keys to small youtubers, several of them are pretty thankful of getting keys, in my case none of them failed to make videos about the game.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Yup. I'm learning how to draw alongside C# and Unity stuff. Starting off with this book

51HGMC1M5YL._AC_UL320_SR264,320_.jpg


I'm also taking art classes in this upcoming semester.
That looks neat and I will probably order it. I did notice several comments saying that the 4th edition is pretty bad (smaller font, removed chapter on color, removed margin notes and/or smaller font in margins, paper so thin you can see through it, etc.). I'm trying to order the 1989 paperback edition instead.

Speaking of programmer's needing art I ended up posting online about paying someone to put together a "real" model to test my systems on compared to my objects made up of default cubes in Unity. Don't want to keep working on building things that might not work with an actual character model. Surprised that once I told most folk what I was looking for (no texture/low-poly) they would suggest I do it myself and sent some great tutorials/resources.

cA5xv1o.png


Still needs to be rigged but I'm hoping that for testing things like rotation, animation and everything else it will work out. Once I get further along to in development I'll probably end up paying for something of a higher quality - have to get to that point first though!

That's awesome, do you mind sharing some of the tutorials and resources you found? Some of the rest of us also trying to learn to do art ourselves might find that really useful!
 

Minamu

Member
You can use whatever engine supports these consoles, if you deal with the licensing.

I'd think most people would use C++ for console development and I know that Sony packages a LLVM C++ compiler with their development tools.
I'd figure it'd be very similar with MS and Ninty, but you can use whatever language you want, if you can write a compiler for it ;)

This was made in Unity.

I'm on my mobile now so can't post much details, but this site (https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com) has all the info you'll need to get started with Nintendo's indie program.

I see, thanks :)
 
Anyone want to give me some backfeed on the site layout and design?

http://absinthegames.com/

I'd appreciate it!

It's pretty good. Not particularly inspired, but easily readable and plenty of proper information at a glance without being too busy.

One minor gripe is I expected the Games button in the navbar to bring me to a sub directory, rather than having the drop down menu as the only option. For now, since it's just the one game, you may as well have "Games" link to IC.

I would probably combine the About and Contact page into one. You don't have to—I've seen lots of sites both ways—it just feels neater to me.


Latest voxel body progress

That looks like it's going to be a pain in the ass to animate. Any plans for that?
 
It's pretty good. Not particularly inspired, but easily readable and plenty of proper information at a glance without being too busy.

One minor gripe is I expected the Games button in the navbar to bring me to a sub directory, rather than having the drop down menu as the only option. For now, since it's just the one game, you may as well have "Games" link to IC.

I would probably combine the About and Contact page into one. You don't have to—I've seen lots of sites both ways—it just feels neater to me.

All good feedback, thanks. I do have a legit "games" page setup I might revamp to get rid of the drop-down. Probably neater that way.
 

rje

Member
A bit more work on my little gameboy game side project, I have tile based collision, and transitioning between rooms working - now I'm working on filling out a simple map.

yHPw4n9.gif


Progress has been really slow, it's crazy how many little details you have to think through when everything is in assembly. In particular I have to spend a lot more time thinking about data layout.

I don't think I'll have a game to submit for gbjam at this rate, but I'm having so much fun that I think I'll keep working on it for a while.
 

bkw

Member
Anyone want to give me some backfeed on the site layout and design?

http://absinthegames.com/

I'd appreciate it!
Look good, very clean. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the huge absinthe games banner/header on every page though. Need to scroll on every page to see the content. Also, I personally like to immediately see the link to like/follow the game, as well as where I can buy, preorder, green light, etc. When I scan the page (for Infinite Cosmos), I'm expecting the Facebook / twitter icons, as well as the usual Google Play / AppStore buttons.
 
That's awesome, do you mind sharing some of the tutorials and resources you found? Some of the rest of us also trying to learn to do art ourselves might find that really useful!

Majority of what was linked is in the Reddit tutorial Wiki for blender but the most helpful resource was this video - pretty specific to my case though!

Rigging was much more difficult than I thought - think it took me twice as long as modeling did.

xxnSfaU.gif


Should be working on a mech dancing simulator.
 

Jintor

Member
when does a game go from being a pile of assets and problems to being an experience?

i assume it's when you give it to someone who doesn't have any idea about the fact that it takes work to make things

seeing behind the curtain ruins things!
 

Five

Banned
when does a game go from being a pile of assets and problems to being an experience?

I doubt there are very many sophisticated games that ever stopped being a big pile of assets and problems. Being an experience often takes distancing yourself from the project, which obviously is hard when you're neck deep.

If there are some parts of the map you haven't played recently, go back and play them. Have some fun with something you're not actively working on. It should help bring some abstraction and understanding back.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Majority of what was linked is in the Reddit tutorial Wiki for blender but the most helpful resource was this video - pretty specific to my case though!

Rigging was much more difficult than I thought - think it took me twice as long as modeling did.

xxnSfaU.gif


Should be working on a mech dancing simulator.
Thanks, that Blender list is nice!

I seem to remember rigging being somewhat simple besides the user interface when I was doing it, but I was doing a basic human-ish skeleton instead of a mech. I also didn't mess with constraints or whatnot. Here's a very short video which you might want to watch anyway since it shows how to rig very quickly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLsBnLn41-U


On an unrelated note, the first round of Ludum Dare theme voting is up at http://ludumdare.com/compo/ if anyone wants to vote. I downvoted everything besides Seasons this first round, which is kind of rare for me. :p

Ludum Dare said:
A Map Will Be Useful
Attraction
Balance of Power
Can’t Stop Moving
Chain Reaction
Chaos
Day and Night
Deadline
Illusion of Choice
Infection
Labyrinth
Limited Capacity
Lost in the Forest
Power Supply
Seasons
Swarm
Teleporting
The Power of Two
This is Where We Die
Unexpected Connections
 

DrLazy

Member
Screenshot of my upcoming word-adventure game Scroodles, releasing Aug. 27 on ios and Android.

z5F968h.png


So excited the game is finally coming out.
 
Planning to break it apart into parts and rig it like a multi-part model.

Oh, okay. I didn't know if you're going to make a new model for each frame like Phil Fish did in Fez, or something else. It's been a while since I played it, but I think the method you're doing is how they animated characters in 3-D dot game heroes.
 
Oh, okay. I didn't know if you're going to make a new model for each frame like Phil Fish did in Fez, or something else. It's been a while since I played it, but I think the method you're doing is how they animated characters in 3-D dot game heroes.

Yeah, if I was gonna do a new model for each frame I'd make it like NES size. Which I still might do, I'm just exploring for now.
 

KevinCow

Banned
I've missed Screenshot Saturday by a few hours, but whatever. It's still Saturday somewhere.


I just got done adding scenery objects and parallax background layers, and I'm really happy with how it looks. And I did the HUD on Thursday, with the circular health bar that took forever to figure out.

There's still so much work that has to be done before I'm even ready to show off one level, but I'm happy to already have something that somewhat resembles a game.
 

titch

Member
So for a beginner this has been a pretty productive first proper week.

Learning to code (albeit i did a little c++/cobol on a course 20 years ago.....) in c#, use Visual Studio, and start to get to grips with Unity. Considering i've only been doing it during limited moment of free time, it does go to show you can teach an old dog new tricks!!!!

Been a pretty steep learning curve but I grabbed parts of what i've wanted to do from various online sources to put together the basics - controlling player/camera, spawning/killing enemies with projectiles and then restricting the player/camera to make it look even more like a level.

I've really enjoyed it especially the problem solving (once they were solved anyway) and probably the silliest mistakes were the best as it helped me to learn what was going on instead of just c&p someone else's code and loosely getting to grips with things

I've even managed to 'from scratch' create a basic enemy ai so I really feel like i am beginning to gather some of the early building blocks required to take things forward.

You never know i might even have a gif to put up before the end of the year ;) ........

I did notice several comments saying that the 4th edition is pretty bad (smaller font, removed chapter on color, removed margin notes and/or smaller font in margins, paper so thin you can see through it, etc.). I'm trying to order the 1989 paperback edition instead.

Thanks for posting that would have probably ordered the 4th edition and not realised - i didn't see anything like that in the quick look that i had for reviews on amazon uk. Made me dig a little deeper and realised what a bad decision the 4th edtion would be - probably going to go for the 3rd edition but i reckon both 2 and 3 are just as worth it.
 
Can anyone who knows Unity help me out with a problem i'm having? It's something probably basic that i'm having trouble figuring out. The comment chain tells you everything about what my problem was and where i'm at with it now https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/3h55je/help_i_have_an_empty_object_with_an_audio_source/

i'm sure that guy hates me by now lol
That looks neat and I will probably order it. I did notice several comments saying that the 4th edition is pretty bad (smaller font, removed chapter on color, removed margin notes and/or smaller font in margins, paper so thin you can see through it, etc.). I'm trying to order the 1989 paperback edition instead.

Yup. That's why I avoided that version.
 
Turns out I was setting pivot points all over the place and kinda borked my rig. Ended up doing it over to get the animation working "better".

sDGSXht.gif


Figure that's good enough for me to do my testing. Happy to wave goodbye to Blender and get back to working and coding in Unity.
 
Can anyone who knows Unity help me out with a problem i'm having? It's something probably basic that i'm having trouble figuring out. The comment chain tells you everything about what my problem was and where i'm at with it now https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/3h55je/help_i_have_an_empty_object_with_an_audio_source/

The error message tells you that the world1 reference isn't pointing to anything (= is null), so you probably haven't dragged the scene object containing the music script to the world1 variable in the MainMenu object.
 
The error message tells you that the world1 reference isn't pointing to anything (= is null), so you probably haven't dragged the scene object containing the music script to the world1 variable in the MainMenu object.

:O Ohhh so you drag the whole object into the slot.... Thanks!
 
Can anyone who knows Unity help me out with a problem i'm having? It's something probably basic that i'm having trouble figuring out. The comment chain tells you everything about what my problem was and where i'm at with it now https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/3h55je/help_i_have_an_empty_object_with_an_audio_source/

i'm sure that guy hates me by now lol

Well, that's getting rather convoluted but... To make it work as it is now, I think you just need to drag the game object that has the World1Music script (not the script file itself) into the World1 slot of your Main Menu object.

EDIT: :(
 
Been working a bit on a (main?) character this week, learning anatomy and stuff since it's the first character I ever do.


Also did some work on my environments, not much though. Learning how to decal, trying materials and post processing, fog, etc.



I would also like to ask you guys, specially since you know next to nothing about my project (it'll be ready at some point!), what name intrigues you more:

Twelve
or
Twelfth Moon
? Both names still subject to change :D
 

Chaos

Member
Figure that's good enough for me to do my testing. Happy to wave goodbye to Blender and get back to working and coding in Unity.


3dbuzz.com sell a dvd called Maya fundamentals, there is a project in it where you model and animate a simple mech.

It uses Maya but you might be able to follow along in blender if that is any interest to you.


https://youtu.be/tagDIZXfQ7o


3dpalace make mechs tutorials in 3dsmax

http://www.3d-palace.com/store/#!/Hard-Surface-3d-Masterclasses/c/13657816/offset=0&sort=nameAsc
 
Been working a bit on a (main?) character this week, learning anatomy and stuff since it's the first character I ever do.

Wow, how am I supposed to follow that up with my voxel humans? XD
Also, neither of those titles really sparks my interest, but at least the latter suggests something like... sci-fi or something.


Uh, anyway..... ;__;


ntzj4vo.gif
 
I would also like to ask you guys, specially since you know next to nothing about my project (it'll be ready at some point!), what name intrigues you more:

Twelve
or
Twelfth Moon
? Both names still subject to change :D

Twelfth Moon is a little generic. I like how structurally obtuse "Twelve" is. It doesn't mean anything on its own, but being a title you know it's supposed to mean something, so the audience ascribes a level of mysticism to it. It's fantastic! To me, at least.
 
Twelve is better, but when picking names it's also important to think about the "Googleability" of that name.

If you type "Twelve" into Google I don't think it'll bring you anywhere close to your game. Even typing something like "Twelve game" might not help.

Of the two, I prefer Twelve, but I figured I'd bring up that it will confuse search engines when people are trying to find out more info on your game.
 
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