This is why I really like Unreal Engine 4 atm. You can create something really fast in Blueprint (prototype, testing, etc). And when its stable you can re-make it in a C++ class for the speed and efficiency.
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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay
- Thread starter Jacksinthe
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This is why I really like Unreal Engine 4 atm. You can create something really fast in Blueprint (prototype, testing, etc). And when its stable you can re-make it in a C++ class for the speed and efficiency.
pettersson
Member
A close friend of mine (doesn't have an account here) just released his first Android game 'Steampunk Plumber'. He did it in his spare time during his daily commute to work. A few years ago when we were working together at a small games company, he create the game for XNA on XBox360.
Here's the play store page:
Steampunk Plumber
And his blog where he shares some of his creations
googoobachoo.de
It's a fun little puzzle game and it reminds to do some more work to get something finished and published
Here's the play store page:
Steampunk Plumber
And his blog where he shares some of his creations
googoobachoo.de
It's a fun little puzzle game and it reminds to do some more work to get something finished and published
Candescence
Member
For some reason, I'm fiddling with platformer pathfinding. Dunno why, it's probably gonna be painful, but when there's literally nothing out there for me to use, well, I guess some things you gotta do yourself.
This pathfinding node grid is basically a couple days work, mainly trying to figure out how it works and fixing bugs in the generator script. Basically, the nodes are coloured via debug gizmos spheres, representing different node types, for example, 'blank' nodes, inaccessible nodes, nodes over solids and platforms, slopes, edges of solids (platforms don't have edge nodes as actors can simply fall through them), and so on. I think I'll add wall nodes as well.
The node types basically define the type of links they have. Also, here's another pic with all the "useless" nodes no longer visible, and the rest of the nodes moved down a bit, to make things look less cluttered:
My next step is probably gonna be establishing node links. The easy part is establishing 'walk' and 'fall' nodes, 'jump' nodes are the hard part. 'Walk' nodes on slopes are somewhere in-between, but, being tile-based, the links are gonna take into account two types of slopes - slopes between 20-30 degrees and slopes at 45 degrees, both of which have very predictable node type patterns that can be exploited.
In that regard, thank God for tilesets. Trying to accomplish this with non-grid level design would be a fucking nightmare.
This pathfinding node grid is basically a couple days work, mainly trying to figure out how it works and fixing bugs in the generator script. Basically, the nodes are coloured via debug gizmos spheres, representing different node types, for example, 'blank' nodes, inaccessible nodes, nodes over solids and platforms, slopes, edges of solids (platforms don't have edge nodes as actors can simply fall through them), and so on. I think I'll add wall nodes as well.
The node types basically define the type of links they have. Also, here's another pic with all the "useless" nodes no longer visible, and the rest of the nodes moved down a bit, to make things look less cluttered:
My next step is probably gonna be establishing node links. The easy part is establishing 'walk' and 'fall' nodes, 'jump' nodes are the hard part. 'Walk' nodes on slopes are somewhere in-between, but, being tile-based, the links are gonna take into account two types of slopes - slopes between 20-30 degrees and slopes at 45 degrees, both of which have very predictable node type patterns that can be exploited.
In that regard, thank God for tilesets. Trying to accomplish this with non-grid level design would be a fucking nightmare.
Yeah, but mostly when I make something in Blueprint that works, I just think "well, it works" and I'm off to the next feature.
It's just so much faster to adjust later on. I guess the best way would be to code the foundation in C++ and then implement the stuff that is more likely to change/needs to be fine-tuned in BP using that foundation. At least that's what I'd be going for in a possible next project with the UE4.Working my way through the same thing but on a more basic level for now.
Just got my grid up and running and about to implement my first ever pathfinding algorithm.
All part of the game building learning exercise.
Hope everything comes together well for you!!!
Well, shit. I had a disagreement with my artist, and we parted ways. Not gonna say anything bad about him. He did good work. We just had a fundamental disagreement is all.
So I guess this is what it looks like now:
And in motion: http://i.imgur.com/aYsVVVR.gifv
Anyway, after looking around for a few days, I've found a new artist... but between him and the music/sound guy, it's gonna cost me my last $400. And that's just for the player character and one enemy. For the other enemies, I guess I'm gonna have to do palette swaps. As for backgrounds and HUD? Shit, I dunno, I guess I'm gonna have to do those myself until I make some more money. But that won't be until next year probably. So I guess I'm not going to be finishing up this demo this year like I'd hoped.
I just hope this is all worth it. If I finish up this demo and get this thing up on Kickstarter and it fails, that would really, really suck.
So I guess this is what it looks like now:
And in motion: http://i.imgur.com/aYsVVVR.gifv
Anyway, after looking around for a few days, I've found a new artist... but between him and the music/sound guy, it's gonna cost me my last $400. And that's just for the player character and one enemy. For the other enemies, I guess I'm gonna have to do palette swaps. As for backgrounds and HUD? Shit, I dunno, I guess I'm gonna have to do those myself until I make some more money. But that won't be until next year probably. So I guess I'm not going to be finishing up this demo this year like I'd hoped.
I just hope this is all worth it. If I finish up this demo and get this thing up on Kickstarter and it fails, that would really, really suck.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Make it with stick figures. Ditch the floor and green thing make it all stick figure like. Go over the top.
REMEMBER STICKDEATH? That website with all the gruesome flash videos of stick people murdering each other? That shit was baller back in the day.
Do it. Unless of course someone else has done the exact same thing. Seriously. Make a demo and polish the shit out of it. Make it so fun to play people will replay the same 5 minutes constantly. Then Kickstart. If you fail? You didn't lose a dime. If you succeed - well, there you go. Stand out with it. Make it fun, campy, not taking itself seriously. Make people laugh with how creative it is with just stick figures. THAT will leave a greater mark on people than the artwork I saw previous.
Just my .02
Dead Prince
Banned
I'm sorry to hear that. Working with other people can be really tricky if you have different expectations and realities.
Though there is a market for crudely drawn art. David Jaffe's upcoming Drawn to Death seems to be an example of that. The only caveat, which is true of virtually all art, is that it needs to be consistent. So as long as it's all at the same level, that's just your style.
That idea occurred to me years ago, and I want to do it eventually. But... not with this game. No, the stick thing has to be in 3D. Think Okami, but stick figures on notebook paper instead of sumi-e on parchment. Similar to Drawn to Death, but even simpler; in fact, my first reaction to that game was, "God dammit, someone beat me to it!" but I think my idea is still different enough. I even got a basic demo the graphical effect I wanted up and running back when I first had the idea, but at the time I lacked the skills and tools to make it into a full game. I might be able to pull it off now, but I want to cut my teeth on some 2D games before trying to make a fully fledged 3D game.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
If I were you I wouldn't be spending money hoping to make it back later with a kickstarter for a small indie project. I'd try to do as much as I could by myself. Doing a successful kickstarter as an unknown must be like winning the lottery, unless you have something extremely cool to show that might go viral.
I agree with the other posters. If you're at all tight on money, be VERY careful about spending it and hoping to make it back. We're in the days where everyone has a Kickstarter and there are tons of games in Greenlight, and having success is rare. Make sure to take care of yourself.
Also, for making a prototype, remember that Braid started looking like this:
Hi all, long time lurker of this thread and have found it to be very inspiring. I have spent the last couple of months learning how to use Unity and C# and have gone through a few tutorials (I will give a quick plug to Jeremy Gibson's Introduction to Game Design and Prototyping, a fantastic book).
Now I have decided to take the next step and make a game on my own, for my first I have decided on a Tetris style game while changing a few things up. I don't expect this game to light the world on fire but just want to apply everything I have learned and do it unguided. After a few weeks (working on it outside of my day job), I have a working version of Tetris, I now want to change it up a bit by adding different block types and some kind of gameplay changes. While not an entirely original approach I am extremely happy with what I have accomplished and have learned a great deal (probably a lot more than during the tutorials as I have had to think on my feet rather than regurgitate someone else's code), but most importantly had a lot of fun. I will probably go the extra step with this game and release it on a few platforms, if only for the experience of doing so.
If I ask stupid questions please go easy as I am still very green in this space. I do have a question regarding scaling text across multiple resolutions/aspect ratios, are there certain font types that scale better than others in this regard?
Now I have decided to take the next step and make a game on my own, for my first I have decided on a Tetris style game while changing a few things up. I don't expect this game to light the world on fire but just want to apply everything I have learned and do it unguided. After a few weeks (working on it outside of my day job), I have a working version of Tetris, I now want to change it up a bit by adding different block types and some kind of gameplay changes. While not an entirely original approach I am extremely happy with what I have accomplished and have learned a great deal (probably a lot more than during the tutorials as I have had to think on my feet rather than regurgitate someone else's code), but most importantly had a lot of fun. I will probably go the extra step with this game and release it on a few platforms, if only for the experience of doing so.
If I ask stupid questions please go easy as I am still very green in this space
. I do have a question regarding scaling text across multiple resolutions/aspect ratios, are there certain font types that scale better than others in this regard?thenewjeva
Member
So I plan on getting started on my second game project soon. We're trying to create a 2D puzzle platforming game. I've mostly had experienced working with frameworks that allow me to build my own assets from scratch such as LibGDX and XNA/Monogame, but I have dabbled with Unity for a few projects. However, but I'm having trouble getting used to the following concepts:
1. The "Unit" System: I know that these "units" represent meters and the standard conversion is 100 pixels per meter, but is there any way to change that value for particular resolutions or does Unity do it automatically? So let's say I want my game screen to be 10 units tall, does Unity render the game screen with that same measurement when the player uses a different resolution?
2. Working With Sprites: Addendum to the first part. Let's say I create a character sprite that is about 200 pixels tall and it was made specifically for a 1080p resolution. With the standard unit measurement, my character would be 2 m tall. If the player were to run the game at a lower resolution, would my sprite scale to that same unit measurement? How about if the resolution is larger than 1080p? Not specifically related, but is it better to design sprites for your largest intended resolution and downsample all sprites for lower resolutions or is it better to design sprites that work well for a specific range of resolutions?
3. Drag-and-Drop concepts: I know Unity provides a lot of tools that should make my life easier such as collision detection, but I'm failing to understand how this concept works when it comes to writing scripts for each object. Let's say I want to set my character sprite to die whenever it collides with a bullet. So within my character script, do I set it so that whenever it comes into contact with a bullet sprite, it will run the "dying" logic? Are the scripts set up so that it will recognize all objects currently placed within the game world?
So besides my complaints and confusion, do you guys feel that I'm better off learning Unity to get started on this project, or should I stick to what I know, have a better understanding of how everything works, and start from scratch using Monogame?
1. The "Unit" System: I know that these "units" represent meters and the standard conversion is 100 pixels per meter, but is there any way to change that value for particular resolutions or does Unity do it automatically? So let's say I want my game screen to be 10 units tall, does Unity render the game screen with that same measurement when the player uses a different resolution?
2. Working With Sprites: Addendum to the first part. Let's say I create a character sprite that is about 200 pixels tall and it was made specifically for a 1080p resolution. With the standard unit measurement, my character would be 2 m tall. If the player were to run the game at a lower resolution, would my sprite scale to that same unit measurement? How about if the resolution is larger than 1080p? Not specifically related, but is it better to design sprites for your largest intended resolution and downsample all sprites for lower resolutions or is it better to design sprites that work well for a specific range of resolutions?
3. Drag-and-Drop concepts: I know Unity provides a lot of tools that should make my life easier such as collision detection, but I'm failing to understand how this concept works when it comes to writing scripts for each object. Let's say I want to set my character sprite to die whenever it collides with a bullet. So within my character script, do I set it so that whenever it comes into contact with a bullet sprite, it will run the "dying" logic? Are the scripts set up so that it will recognize all objects currently placed within the game world?
So besides my complaints and confusion, do you guys feel that I'm better off learning Unity to get started on this project, or should I stick to what I know, have a better understanding of how everything works, and start from scratch using Monogame?
timetokill
Banned
Oh my godddd I lost hours to a damn bug where I forgot to unregister a message handler when I switched scenes so when I went back to that scene it was still there and trying to run functions off of a now-deleted gameObject
whyyyyy
whyyyyy
GroundCombo
Member
For both of these, google "unity pixel perfect sprites". The key words you need in Unity are orthographic camera and pixels per unit. There are plenty of nice summaries on how to set it up. For UI, see the CanvasScaler component and how its reference resolution works.
You set the collision layer for each object (that has a rigidbody and collider) and tweak the physics2D collision matrix in project settings to allow collisions between layers. So you'd have your character in the "Player" layer and bullets in, say, "Bullet" or "Enemy". Each time the character collides with one of those, your OnCollisionEnter2D() method in the character script gets called. You can compare layers and tags for more complex situations.
Hehe I love how this looks, tbh. I'd play it completely done in this style. Sometimes you work best and are most creative when working within your own limits. Heck, I'm an artist by trade and I feel that I'm most creative when I hit my own artistic limits.
I recently lost an hour trying to find out why force feedback suddenly stopped working in my game. Then I realized the 360 controller's batteries were almost empty and even though the input still worked, force feedback didn't. Switched batteries and everything worked again. Yay.
Edit: Yes, I want that stick figure game thing!
timetokill
Banned
hahaha that's a pretty good one
I agree with the other posters. If you're at all tight on money, be VERY careful about spending it and hoping to make it back. We're in the days where everyone has a Kickstarter and there are tons of games in Greenlight, and having success is rare. Make sure to take care of yourself.
Also, for making a prototype, remember that Braid started looking like this:
Seeing early prototypes of amazing games is the most inspiring thing when starting working on a game. It's like "they started looking like this so my game looking ugly now means very little". Really awesome stuff.
Even if the Blow probably spend a pretty penny on an artist to make the finished game look as good as it looks.
Level design in full troll mode. These little running critters will run away and despawn -- If you kill them in time, you get an upgrade.
http://www.gfycat.com/EvenSpottedIbizanhound
I like to make them lead into something dangerous.
http://www.gfycat.com/EvenSpottedIbizanhound
I like to make them lead into something dangerous.
Currently thinking about the eventual Mac port of my UE4 game. Problem is, I have no Mac. Is anyone running the UE4 on a Hackintosh, maybe that would work (or is that illegal? I don't even know)? Or what would be the cheapest Mac device that can still package a UE4 project (and at least be able to play with 10-20fps)? Probably a cheap Mac Mini?
Just think your graphics are awesome btw!!!!
Out of curiosity, how many characters are there?
Matti's card looks like it was cropped wrong to me. I think that's just because the place where you clipped his art is so close to the natural border of the design that I wonder why you didn't try to make it all fit. It's probably fine. The more I look at it, the less it bothers me.
This is a personal preference, but I hate when text gets hyphenated over a line break. Especially having one every other line in the leading paragraph seems egregious.
The art style is fantastic as ever, so big props there.
Ha, I would have definitely fallen into the pit on the first try.
Thanks guys, btw there's not actually a pit, I could see how it looks that way in the gif. But I just like the idea of someone's attention being on the runnerbug and then they run right into a giant.
Welcome to Unity ! I also was used to LibGDX but since the latest versions Unity 2D is now really good. Easy GUI, specials effects, component architecture, etc... and you can build a prototype on each platforms (WebGL support !)
1. Yes.
2. Yes. It's better to design sprites for your largest intended resolution. Unity will scale down/up the sprites for you.
3. Not really. Unity call some magic methods each game cycle to check if something need to be done : Start(), Update(), FixedUpdate(), CollisionXYZMethod, etc... on every gameObjects on the scene.
4. I think it's a good idea to learn Unity if you want to do more games in the future or if you need a cross-platform game.
Oh, my bad. I was looking at it on a half-lit screen and still bleary-eyed from recently waking up. With the creature's small dip, and Little Blue's dash at the same place, I figured it was a gap. Though this trap makes more sense as just the enemy, not also a pit.
Hey, remember when you were talking about wanting to have more of a dynamic world? I wonder if you could hook something up with the spawning of these creatures. Like maybe some spawn again at a certain time of day, or some appear on the map after a given action is triggered, or maybe creatures that you miss move to a different part of the map or something. I don't know, that probably fucks up some balance or thing in your design. I just felt like spit balling.
timetokill
Banned
It looks like a pit to me too, haha. The runnerbug's dip through that area reinforced that idea.
The way enemies work, generally, is most enemies do not respawn until you use a save point. Other enemies, such as the giant here, do not respawn ever after being killed. Certain other enemies, usually small or less challenging enemies, respawn continuously after leaving the room.
I don't think the GS map is suited to a living world or a clock. It's just going to be fairly static this time, with the exception of a couple of random rare spawns.
I can't wait to go back to the drawing board, with a new game next year, and come up with a new approach to everything and hopefully let my future minion(s) figure out how to make it work on the technical side.
The way enemies work, generally, is most enemies do not respawn until you use a save point. Other enemies, such as the giant here, do not respawn ever after being killed. Certain other enemies, usually small or less challenging enemies, respawn continuously after leaving the room.
I don't think the GS map is suited to a living world or a clock. It's just going to be fairly static this time, with the exception of a couple of random rare spawns.
I can't wait to go back to the drawing board, with a new game next year, and come up with a new approach to everything and hopefully let my future minion(s) figure out how to make it work on the technical side.
That's fair enough. Not to belabor the point, but what do you think of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night in this regard? Most of the map is pretty static, but there is a clock room where certain things only happen at certain times.
I think unless there was actually a clock you could see, it would be effectively not much different to users whether it was a random dice roll or something that is based on the time. If I had a big clock in a room, then maybe I'd do something like that. But there's no clock baked into the UI and the game's various features right now.
tamaster92
Member
Been working on the audio pass for my game Aphex today, shit is hard.
bfxr.net has been a lifesaver in this regard, so easy to make good FX sounds.
Only the UI sounds left tomorrow and then I need to figure out how the hell to do volume settings in UE4 xD
bfxr.net has been a lifesaver in this regard, so easy to make good FX sounds.
Only the UI sounds left tomorrow and then I need to figure out how the hell to do volume settings in UE4 xD
Sure. That makes sense. No matter; I'm sure it's still going to be great!
Are you going for synth sounds for everything? I guess you probably should at this point to keep things consistent. If not, freesound.org has been super helpful to me for finding samples.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
That looks good. Don't let someone leaving get you down.
SeanNoonan
Member
I love doing shitty vines https://vine.co/v/etiEe6L067b
https://vine.co/v/etiEe6L067btimetokill
Banned
omg fuck rigging fuck blender fuck everything
tamaster92
Member
I wasn't sure at first but after slotting some in I like how it fits with the game and will likely keep it
Need new music now though, feel a more chiptune based music would work better
Hell I might just slot in multiple tracks until I'm ready to release, change between them and see which I prefer
TheHollowNight
Member
work in progress (the sides need to blast off more violently), but we have some pretty bad-ass drop pods in the game now!
I agree about the door blast off effect and I'd love to see more smoke inside so the enemy inside takes a second to be revealed as the smoke clears. Great look so far!
There will be 20 minion cards available at the launch, with 4 more coming soon after the launch and then more to follow (we plan on having pretty much all of the added content free, though leave room for a larger expansion if we feel it'd be worth it). It doesn't sound much on paper, but I believe even that is plenty of depth and choice in the context of the game.
I hadn't really noticed it before, but I agree on Matti being a bit clipped on the card. It might be something worth taking a look at since I believe the art is still there for the rest of it.
And I agree on the hyphenation, will have to sort it out for next week's image. Thanks for the feedback and kind comments!
That looks great! How are you handling the possible collision with the player character or with enemies/props since those "doors" are pretty massive?
Instant gory death + delete all savegames.
Delete system32.
Just sent our store page for Valve to review, starting to get quite excited, but pretty scared too...
Jacksinthe
Banned
I'll be streaming making a new version of my PopCap in about 2 hours if anyone is around.
Will fix my mic issues this time. 1080/60 again tho! Going to try some different settings.
Will fix my mic issues this time. 1080/60 again tho! Going to try some different settings.
First draft of Big Blue's AI is done! I planned to reuse the previous match's, but in the end I scrapped every bit of it and started from scratch using another design. It's a lot cleaner, at least...
Some examples of what to expect:
http://gfycat.com/BareDecisiveFrog
http://gfycat.com/RemorsefulDisfiguredIrrawaddydolphin
Going to try to keep some surprises in store, even though it's hard to resist showing some of her more unique stuff :-D Going to be hard to resist going back and re-doing the other matches AI based on that new system, too... will depend on playtesting feedback, I guess. If they're fun enough as it is, probably best I don't go back and break everything for the sake of making it "better".
Time to spruce up the referee now, and have him stop referencing Carrion Wind!
Some examples of what to expect:
http://gfycat.com/BareDecisiveFrog
http://gfycat.com/RemorsefulDisfiguredIrrawaddydolphin
Going to try to keep some surprises in store, even though it's hard to resist showing some of her more unique stuff :-D Going to be hard to resist going back and re-doing the other matches AI based on that new system, too... will depend on playtesting feedback, I guess. If they're fun enough as it is, probably best I don't go back and break everything for the sake of making it "better".
Time to spruce up the referee now, and have him stop referencing Carrion Wind!
Jacksinthe
Banned
Hitting it right now:
https://gaming.youtube.com/c/AbsintheGames/live
https://gaming.youtube.com/c/AbsintheGames/live
Can't stream it from Germany.
How will the inputs work? Simple or complex like Street fighter (e.x Hadouken Inputs)?
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Storyboard time:
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