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

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Also interesting that you guys are using Unity; I thought it wasn't traditionally suited for 2D games (from the bits I've read on it). Or maybe they've made changes to facilitate that better?

I'm a bit surprised too. Back when I was trying really hard to learn Unity, all of the tutorials I used for reference were for making a 3d game.

Unity has had a 2D toolset for about 2 years now.
 

wilboo

Neo Member
I've heard that making 2D stuff in Unity used to be a pretty big hassle, but a lot of changes have been made to accommodate it in the newer versions. We've found it really good! It has 2D physics all built in, no big problems so far. The game itself is actually constructed in 3D space, which allows us to have lots of really nice depth to it.

We were a bit worried at first about using the in-built physics engine, because we've seen a lot of 2D games that feel floaty, vague or sloppy because they use physics engines. But with a bit of work and some careful design, the game has ended up feeling nice and snappy.
 

GioG

Neo Member
Any pixel artists here looking for a little contract work? I'm coming up on the deadline for GunWorld 2 and need some backgrounds done.

Multi-layered, low resolution (NES style).

Alternatively, does anyone know the best place to look to contract a pixel artist?

Pixeljoint forums. Tons of pixel portfolios and whatnot, even mine's there somewhere.
 
You should use a real time clock.

And despite the Castlevania 2 "What a night for a curse" stuff being frequently regarded as negative, I always thought it was interesting and provocative; A bold design choice. I like bold and provocative design choices in my core games. That's something you don't see enough of, and particularly almost never see it in the AAA space. Incidentally, Alien Isolation is an example of it happening in AAA space, and is why I am such a fanboy of that game.

Alright, I'm going full bore with this. It's not finished yet because there's no color grading (I have the shader written, just haven't picked values yet), but I've got transitioning sky colors and a rotating sun, moon and stars. I'm super happy with it so far.

Video of effect (day cycle is 40s here for demonstration purpose, but it will probably be 20–30m eventually): https://youtu.be/Bs8euyciHJE

I'm curious whether you think I should have a clock on the UI, similar to what Majora's Mask has. I'm currently thinking it's not necessary. Because it's 2D, you can get a pretty good idea of what time it is by the position of the sun/moon in the sky, and I think it's interesting that you wouldn't be able to tell how much time has passed when you're deep in a dungeon. Plus I don't think there will be a rigid schedule for the player to follow or any kind of permanent time limit.


That's really impressive for such a brief amount of time!
Looks amazing lilith. Love the little cloud effect in the ruin the hook leaves.

Thanks, both! Ridley, yeah, I love adding particle effects in lots of places. It's a relatively easy way to polish a game. Even if it's unrealistic for a dust cloud to kick up with every step and jump you take, putting it all there gives a bit more presence to your game because it's clearer that things are interacting with each other. So one of the first things I did at the start of this project was animate dozens of different particle effects. I might have to add some more later (for instance, I'm just now noticing there aren't any splash animations), but it's a good place to start.

5NEs84t.png



Hello people, really inspiring stuff in this thread as usual.
Couple years back I was more active here, when I was working on my own little game called Fruitmatter. Since then I haven't been posting that much, but I've been lurking in the shadows checking this thread almost daily.

After I finished Fruitmatter, I was hired by Rovio to create prototypes for them, I also Prototyped and then lead the development of RETRY. That was pretty crazy year. :)

Anyways, Me and one other developer left the Rovio about a year ago and we have been slowly planning a new adventure: ODDROK Ltd.

We just lauched the website and the company and we are currently really busy finishing up our first game.

So you will be hearing more about us in the future now that we are officially out there.

Here's a little lowfi version of the Oddrok logo:
GIF1.gif

That logo is bad-ass! ♥

I'm not familiar with Rovio outside of Angry Birds, but it's cool you got that experience. What kind of game are you working on now?
 

Ventron

Member
Hey IndieGAF! I've been a long-time lurker of this thread, but now that my account has been approved it's time to post post post! The stuff posted here has been amazing and I'm excited to join in.

I'm working on Hollow Knight along with AriEX2 (or whatever his name is here, can't remember). I'm the lead designer, and right now I'm working on all of the enemy ai/behaviours.

So here's a GIF of a guy I finished up last week, some kind of weird fungus balloon dude!

jVWzh4i.gif


Super happy with his silly balloon-deflation death, still cracks me up watching it hahaha.

You guys had an impressive setup at PAX Aus! Really wish I could've come around but the Lupinball booth was so busy (especially after that surreal indie showcase panel!)

Were any other members of indie dev GAF exhibiting at PAX Aus this year?
 

KevinCow

Banned
I brought my game to a game dev club at my school today and showed it off. I thought it was pretty impressive, especially compared to what other people were showing off. But the teacher, instead of commenting on the game itself, kinda scolded me for spending money on the graphics and music. He said, "You shouldn't be thinking about money right now, you should just be focusing on building a portfolio."

It kinda pissed me off. Like, who the hell are you to tell me what my plan for my game should be? I've been programming for over half my life and I've finally decided to get serious and actually finish something that I can show off, maybe even sell, and I want it to look and sound nice. What's the problem with that?
 

Blizzard

Banned
I brought my game to a game dev club at my school today and showed it off. I thought it was pretty impressive, especially compared to what other people were showing off. But the teacher, instead of commenting on the game itself, kinda scolded me for spending money on the graphics and music. He said, "You shouldn't be thinking about money right now, you should just be focusing on building a portfolio."

It kinda pissed me off. Like, who the hell are you to tell me what my plan for my game should be? I've been programming for over half my life and I've finally decided to get serious and actually finish something that I can show off, maybe even sell, and I want it to look and sound nice. What's the problem with that?
This may be an obvious remark to make, but just a respectful warning: If you release a game, remarks may well become MUCH harsher than that. Maybe it will be easier when they come from a stranger instead of from a teacher, but still, I think really tough skin becomes required.
 

Jobbs

Banned
Alright, I'm going full bore with this. It's not finished yet because there's no color grading (I have the shader written, just haven't picked values yet), but I've got transitioning sky colors and a rotating sun, moon and stars. I'm super happy with it so far.

Video of effect (day cycle is 40s here for demonstration purpose, but it will probably be 20–30m eventually): https://youtu.be/Bs8euyciHJE

I'm curious whether you think I should have a clock on the UI, similar to what Majora's Mask has. I'm currently thinking it's not necessary. Because it's 2D, you can get a pretty good idea of what time it is by the position of the sun/moon in the sky, and I think it's interesting that you wouldn't be able to tell how much time has passed when you're deep in a dungeon. Plus I don't think there will be a rigid schedule for the player to follow or any kind of permanent time limit.

That's really good. Color me impressed. 20-30 min actually sounds a bit long, but I guess it really depends on the greater design which I don't have a feel for yet. If I recall, 20-30 min is roughly what you get in big AAA open world day night cycle type games, where the pace is slower and you spend enormous amounts of time in the world running around doing various things. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I don't think there should be a clock indicator because, as you said, it's not overly essential that you always know what time it is, and there are clues readily available.

Nice stuff :)
 

KevinCow

Banned
This may be an obvious remark to make, but just a respectful warning: If you release a game, remarks may well become MUCH harsher than that. Maybe it will be easier when they come from a stranger instead of from a teacher, but still, I think really tough skin becomes required.

That's true. If you release something, there are going to be numerous "this sucks" comments, no matter how good it is.

It's not so much that the comment was negative, but more that he was turning what I viewed as a positive (me taking initiative to make my game look and sound good) and turning it into a negative. I don't understand why someone, especially a teacher, would tell me that putting my all into this project is a bad thing.
 
That's really good. Color me impressed. 20-30 min actually sounds a bit long, but I guess it really depends on the greater design which I don't have a feel for yet. If I recall, 20-30 min is roughly what you get in big AAA open world day night cycle type games, where the pace is slower and you spend enormous amounts of time in the world running around doing various things. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I don't think there should be a clock indicator because, as you said, it's not overly essential that you always know what time it is, and there are clues readily available.

Nice stuff :)

Well, it largely depends on what kind of game it is. The new game Kingdom, which is a sort of RTS about dealing with a wave of enemies each night, takes four minutes per day. Ocarina of Time days are two and a half minutes long (though time is stopped in towns and dungeons), but virtually every Zelda game since then has been a lot longer, including Twilight Princess where it arguably rarely matters. For instance, Majora's Mask days take eighteen minutes each by default, or a whole hour each if you play the song to slow down time. GTA IV and V are also about an hour long, and the new Witcher game is a full ninety minutes. An hour is more than I can handle and more than would be appropriate, but I don't think twenty minutes or so is that bad.

Mind you, I'm not tied down to a number. I just like the idea of having somewhat more substantial days. It gives me more room to put more events in each day, it adds weight to options like sleeping in beds (should I decide to add that), and it means the player will have to be more tactical overall.
 

bkw

Member
Does anyone here have experience with Linux and Mac porting of Unity games, plus distributing these via Steam? I'm looking to get Malebolgia on those platforms.

I imagine it's probably a very easy and straightforward process. However I do not have the hardware to test it out myself and generally lacking in time to work on this as well.

Would be happy to even outsource it to one of you, with compensation.

For me, the mac build of my game was more or less telling Unity to build for mac and that was it. There were a few bugs here and there, but nothing too major I think. Granted, my game is pretty simple without any fancy shaders and what not. Plus an asset I used (Rewired) took care of all the input stuff.

Steam was easy to setup as well. Just an extra depot.

Though like you, I don't have a Linux machine setup, so I haven't tried making a Linux build.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I haven't tried GPU-intensive stuff like games, but VirtualBox + Debian worked quite well in my experience under Windows (and it's totally open-source and commercial-business-friendly).
 

Pehesse

Member
Alright, I'm going full bore with this. It's not finished yet because there's no color grading (I have the shader written, just haven't picked values yet), but I've got transitioning sky colors and a rotating sun, moon and stars. I'm super happy with it so far.

Video of effect (day cycle is 40s here for demonstration purpose, but it will probably be 20–30m eventually): https://youtu.be/Bs8euyciHJE

Oh wow, this looks amazing. That's another thing I was planning to do for my next game, it's going to look like I've stolen every one of your designs :-D

Kidding aside, yours will be tied to a clock then? Meaning time management will be an important system, or simply cosmetic?

(Just to be clear: my own idea for using a day->night transition visible in the background actually doesn't involve a timetable at all, it's more akin to a health system)

Also: particle effects: completely agreed. Made a world of difference in Honey, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't even add more of these. Gonna be very important for anything that comes next. Actually, environment reactivity to player passage is pretty cool in general with how it grounds the character in its environment - coming back to Ori, I loved how moving through grass would sway it in the direction you were going. I can see how it was made there, but I wonder how it'd work in C2 with an entire frame-by-frame aesthetic... I'll see when I get there, I suppose.
 

Dascu

Member
For me, the mac build of my game was more or less telling Unity to build for mac and that was it. There were a few bugs here and there, but nothing too major I think. Granted, my game is pretty simple without any fancy shaders and what not. Plus an asset I used (Rewired) took care of all the input stuff.

Steam was easy to setup as well. Just an extra depot.

Though like you, I don't have a Linux machine setup, so I haven't tried making a Linux build.
I know it's a really straightforward and simple affair. I just do not have a Mac to test it.
 

Water

Member
I'm a bit surprised too. Back when I was trying really hard to learn Unity, all of the tutorials I used for reference were for making a 3d game.
The new 2D functionality makes it quite easy to do 2D games, but Unity projects are fundamentally 3D, and you see that constantly in scripting etc. For that reason I think learning Unity from scratch is best done starting from 3D.

One example of the limitations is that using the built-in Unity navigation system is very easy for an average 3D project, but a total pain in the ass for a 2D project. (This should actually change sometime next year with nav system improvements.)
 
Oh wow, this looks amazing. That's another thing I was planning to do for my next game, it's going to look like I've stolen every one of your designs :-D

Kidding aside, yours will be tied to a clock then? Meaning time management will be an important system, or simply cosmetic?

(Just to be clear: my own idea for using a day->night transition visible in the background actually doesn't involve a timetable at all, it's more akin to a health system)

Also: particle effects: completely agreed. Made a world of difference in Honey, and I'm wondering if I shouldn't even add more of these. Gonna be very important for anything that comes next. Actually, environment reactivity to player passage is pretty cool in general with how it grounds the character in its environment - coming back to Ori, I loved how moving through grass would sway it in the direction you were going. I can see how it was made there, but I wonder how it'd work in C2 with an entire frame-by-frame aesthetic... I'll see when I get there, I suppose.

Ha ha, don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll end up worlds apart even if there are superficial similarities.

Time-keeping will be cosmetic in some parts but not all. I'm working on a mockup of the world map right now so I can plot the critical path (image linked below; zone names removed for spoiler reasons). Basically, there will be a central town and its suburbs where normal people will live and hold jobs. When the sun starts to set, most everyone heads inside to hide from the monsters that come out at night. Many of those who remain outside transform into werewolves. Night also means some of the stores will be closed. But everywhere else it's cosmetic, in the dungeons and castles and mountain passes.

http://i.imgur.com/2FFJg9i.png


For the tufts of grass, can you do something like the following?
Code:
if in idle state/animation and colliding with player {
    set to left/right animation depending on player's movement direction
} else if in left/right animation and not colliding with player anymore {
    reset to idle state/animation
}
 

Pehesse

Member
Ha ha, don't worry about it. I'm sure we'll end up worlds apart even if there are superficial similarities.

Time-keeping will be cosmetic in some parts but not all. I'm working on a mockup of the world map right now so I can plot the critical path (image linked below; zone names removed for spoiler reasons). Basically, there will be a central town and its suburbs where normal people will live and hold jobs. When the sun starts to set, most everyone heads inside to hide from the monsters that come out at night. Many of those who remain outside transform into werewolves. Night also means some of the stores will be closed. But everywhere else it's cosmetic, in the dungeons and castles and mountain passes.

http://i.imgur.com/2FFJg9i.png


For the tufts of grass, can you do something like the following?
Code:
if in idle state/animation and colliding with player {
    set to left/right animation depending on player's movement direction
} else if in left/right animation and not colliding with player anymore {
    reset to idle state/animation
}

I see! Well, it sure sounds like something I'd be interested to play :-D

As for the grass code, yeah, I think it'd work - though to be honest it's not so much the code I'm worried about, rather the number of assets and animation setup required to have a varied effect (if it's the same one everywhere it's just going to be dull).
Using spine like animation/bones pulling 2D planes, you could easily "pull" the grass according to the players velocity, allowing for varying motions and speeds, but if strands of grass are basically still assets, only with "idle" and "moving" animations, I might need different kind of moving animations + different kinds of grass strings altogether for variety... and that's not even going into what else could be dynamic, which quickly ramps up in memory usage. So that's mostly what I'm concerned about for now, but it's probably much too early to be concerned over anything :-D
 

taku

Member
I see! Well, it sure sounds like something I'd be interested to play :-D

As for the grass code, yeah, I think it'd work - though to be honest it's not so much the code I'm worried about, rather the number of assets and animation setup required to have a varied effect (if it's the same one everywhere it's just going to be dull).
Using spine like animation/bones pulling 2D planes, you could easily "pull" the grass according to the players velocity, allowing for varying motions and speeds, but if strands of grass are basically still assets, only with "idle" and "moving" animations, I might need different kind of moving animations + different kinds of grass strings altogether for variety... and that's not even going into what else could be dynamic, which quickly ramps up in memory usage. So that's mostly what I'm concerned about for now, but it's probably much too early to be concerned over anything :-D
Hey man, you can do this in Construct 2 as well. I'll see if I can scramble together an example for reference purposes today if you're interested.
 

Pehesse

Member
Hey man, you can do this in Construct 2 as well. I'll see if I can scramble together an example for reference purposes today if you're interested.

Taku to the rescue once again! I'd love that, thanks a lot! I hope I'll be able to repay you at some point, too...
 
I see! Well, it sure sounds like something I'd be interested to play :-D

As for the grass code, yeah, I think it'd work - though to be honest it's not so much the code I'm worried about, rather the number of assets and animation setup required to have a varied effect (if it's the same one everywhere it's just going to be dull).
Using spine like animation/bones pulling 2D planes, you could easily "pull" the grass according to the players velocity, allowing for varying motions and speeds, but if strands of grass are basically still assets, only with "idle" and "moving" animations, I might need different kind of moving animations + different kinds of grass strings altogether for variety... and that's not even going into what else could be dynamic, which quickly ramps up in memory usage. So that's mostly what I'm concerned about for now, but it's probably much too early to be concerned over anything :-D

Oh, I getcha. Yeah, learning how to balance resource reuse is always difficult. I think 3–5 sets would be enough for this part. I don't know. Maybe look into some beloved retro games like A Link to the Past, Pokemon or Earthbound. Those games only have a small collection of ground tiles at their disposal, but they're artfully arranged. Sometimes clever macro design makes up for insufficient micro design.
 

Pehesse

Member
Oh, I getcha. Yeah, learning how to balance resource reuse is always difficult. I think 3–5 sets would be enough for this part. I don't know. Maybe look into some beloved retro games like A Link to the Past, Pokemon or Earthbound. Those games only have a small collection of ground tiles at their disposal, but they're artfully arranged. Sometimes clever macro design makes up for insufficient micro design.

Quite right! Must... resist... urge to start prototyping something else :-D
 
That's true. If you release something, there are going to be numerous "this sucks" comments, no matter how good it is.

It's not so much that the comment was negative, but more that he was turning what I viewed as a positive (me taking initiative to make my game look and sound good) and turning it into a negative. I don't understand why someone, especially a teacher, would tell me that putting my all into this project is a bad thing.

Yep, you need some really tough skin for some of the opinions everyone of us is going to hear when they show their games.

But dont fret Kevin, if you really think what you are doing right now id the right thing for you, continue down that path. The dont waste money thing just exapnd your portfolio and show that in companies is very typical of teachers, so dont worry too much.
 

Tricktale

Neo Member
Alright, I'm going full bore with this. It's not finished yet because there's no color grading (I have the shader written, just haven't picked values yet), but I've got transitioning sky colors and a rotating sun, moon and stars. I'm super happy with it so far.

Video of effect (day cycle is 40s here for demonstration purpose, but it will probably be 20–30m eventually): https://youtu.be/Bs8euyciHJE

I'm curious whether you think I should have a clock on the UI, similar to what Majora's Mask has. I'm currently thinking it's not necessary. Because it's 2D, you can get a pretty good idea of what time it is by the position of the sun/moon in the sky, and I think it's interesting that you wouldn't be able to tell how much time has passed when you're deep in a dungeon. Plus I don't think there will be a rigid schedule for the player to follow or any kind of permanent time limit.

That looks brilliant! I personally wouldn't have a clock on the UI, as you say, not knowing the time when the sky isn't visible would be really interesting and lead to some really cool gameplay mechanics. You could have parts of the dungeon that are open to allow the sky to be visible. I'm currently working on a mechanic that requires the player to view the sky when they need to calculate the exact time/date from the stars.


Quick pic of something I'm currently working on:
FHHvfdp.png
 

bkw

Member
I know it's a really straightforward and simple affair. I just do not have a Mac to test it.
How thorough of a test do you think you'll need? (or want?) I could run through it if you'd like. Maybe some others here can too, so you'll have more coverage. Try the guys in the Indie Games thread as well.

(Though I only have a Macbook from Late 2008, so not sure if that's below your target)
 

OBias

Member
Are there companies that install indie games on arcade machines in Japan or in the West? I feel that indie shmup developers could benefit from this kind of partnership a lot.
 

TronLight

Everybody is Mikkelsexual
Hey guys! I'm a college student, and for my Programming 2 course I've been assigned a project, which is basically build a small game in Java, and I'm honestly overwhelmed just at the thought.

I have a few guidelines (it's about robots, 2D space, there have to be at least two kinds of robots, thing like those).

So what I thought about doing is basically a X-Com style game, with a grid as the map, where the characters can move tile-by-tile. And I'd like (need) some feedback on this because I'm kinda lost. Setting aside graphics and such, this is what I was thinking about as base:

Have one "master class" GameObject, with methods which are common to all the entities (like getX, getY, spawInLocation...), and then have:

1) Robot sub-class, which is in turn divided into different kinds of robots (attack, support...), each robot would store the it's position, which weapon it has, HP, etc...
2) Map sub-class which contains the information about the map layout and what's on each tile and what kind of tile it is
3) Props like walls and such

and others. What do you think?

But then I don't really know how to make them interact... A friend suggested to write a class full of statc methods like attack, move, but I think that kinda defeats the purpose of OO programming.

Any help?
 

Ito

Member
Alright, I'm going full bore with this. It's not finished yet because there's no color grading (I have the shader written, just haven't picked values yet), but I've got transitioning sky colors and a rotating sun, moon and stars. I'm super happy with it so far.

Video of effect (day cycle is 40s here for demonstration purpose, but it will probably be 20–30m eventually): https://youtu.be/Bs8euyciHJE

That's very nice, Lilith. Congratulations. However, I'm a bit confused (I haven't visited these forums in a while), is this a new project of yours? If so, what's gonna happen to Nethermind?

I love the character design btw.
 

Lork

Member
Hey guys! I'm a college student, and for my Programming 2 course I've been assigned a project, which is basically build a small game in Java, and I'm honestly overwhelmed just at the thought.

I have a few guidelines (it's about robots, 2D space, there have to be at least two kinds of robots, thing like those).

So what I thought about doing is basically a X-Com style game, with a grid as the map, where the characters can move tile-by-tile. And I'd like (need) some feedback on this because I'm kinda lost. Setting aside graphics and such, this is what I was thinking about as base:

Have one "master class" GameObject, with methods which are common to all the entities (like getX, getY, spawInLocation...), and then have:

1) Robot sub-class, which is in turn divided into different kinds of robots (attack, support...), each robot would store the it's position, which weapon it has, HP, etc...
2) Map sub-class which contains the information about the map layout and what's on each tile and what kind of tile it is
3) Props like walls and such

and others. What do you think?

But then I don't really know how to make them interact... A friend suggested to write a class full of statc methods like attack, move, but I think that kinda defeats the purpose of OO programming.

Any help?
Rather than determining the robot's position within its own class, you're probably better off using the tiles. That way you can easily get a reference to the relevant robot using the same logic that you'd already be using to select targets for attacks and abilities. Then you could have methods that look something like this on your Robot class, with more specific abilities on your subclasses:

Code:
void Attack(int xCoord, int yCoord, int damage)
{
    getTile(xCoord, yCoord).Inhabitant.TakeDamage(damage);
}

public void TakeDamage(damage)
{
    Health -= damage;
}
 

TronLight

Everybody is Mikkelsexual
Rather than determining the robot's position within its own class, you're probably better off using the tiles. That way you can easily get a reference to the relevant robot using the same logic that you'd already be using to select targets for attacks and abilities. Then you could have methods that look something like this on your Robot class, with more specific abilities on your subclasses:

Code:
void Attack(int xCoord, int yCoord, int damage)
{
    getTile(xCoord, yCoord).Inhabitant.TakeDamage(damage);
}

public void TakeDamage(damage)
{
    Health -= damage;
}

How would getTile work though? A method in the "Map" class that would return x and y based on what though? Like, if I store the map in a matrix I would use the indexes of the array or a value stored inside the array itself?
 

Lork

Member
How would getTile work though? A method in the "Map" class that would return x and y based on what though? Like, if I store the map in a matrix I would use the indexes of the array or a value stored inside the array itself?
Don't quite understand the question, sorry. If you have a Map class, surely it would have some sort of function to look up and return a reference to a given tile using its coordinates, right? The way this function works would differ depending on how you're storing the tiles, but once you've settled on a format, its implementation should be fairly obvious.
 

V_Arnold

Member
How would getTile work though? A method in the "Map" class that would return x and y based on what though? Like, if I store the map in a matrix I would use the indexes of the array or a value stored inside the array itself?

So, here is a basic overview of how a style like this works.

You have a map object.
Lets say you initialize the map with this:
new Map(x,y) -> x is the width, y is the height.

Okay, obviously you will have functions like this:
- lookupTile(x,y) -> returns a 0 if its empty, for example, or a unit reference (unit id maybe?) if it is occupied. Or a trap reference if it is occupied by a trap, or an obstacle.

Or, as others mentioned, you can just make it an object that has its own data.
So you have an array of tiles, and each tile has a bunch of stats and properties, like inhabitant, position, is_hovered, etc.

In any case, you can decide how to deal with these things, and then you just make sure to have a way of:

- Determining the position of any given unit
- Determining what is in any given position of a tile

Once you have both of these, it is easy to implement a full system on these foundations.
 

TronLight

Everybody is Mikkelsexual
Don't quite understand the question, sorry. If you have a Map class, surely it would have some sort of function to look up and return a reference to a given tile using its coordinates, right? The way this function works would differ depending on how you're storing the tiles, but once you've settled on a format, its implementation should be fairly obvious.

I didn't make myself clear sorry. Yes what you said it's obvious, my problem is mostly how to store the tiles and make the map.

I initially thought about having a Map, as a simple matrix, and use the indexes of the matrix to find the actors on the map and store the coords in the object, not the map itself. Like the Robot class would have posX and posY and then a get.PosY, getPosX to find it. And to know if a tile is free do something like Tile[x][y].isFree().

But your suggestion makes more sense, so basically I would have a Tile class, that would keep posX, posY, isOccupied, isSolid things like that and interrogate the tile itself about who's on it and where is it. But where do I store the tile? An array? An arraylist?
 

TronLight

Everybody is Mikkelsexual
So, here is a basic overview of how a style like this works.

You have a map object.
Lets say you initialize the map with this:
new Map(x,y) -> x is the width, y is the height.

Okay, obviously you will have functions like this:
- lookupTile(x,y) -> returns a 0 if its empty, for example, or a unit reference (unit id maybe?) if it is occupied. Or a trap reference if it is occupied by a trap, or an obstacle.

Or, as others mentioned, you can just make it an object that has its own data.
So you have an array of tiles, and each tile has a bunch of stats and properties, like inhabitant, position, is_hovered, etc.

In any case, you can decide how to deal with these things, and then you just make sure to have a way of:

- Determining the position of any given unit
- Determining what is in any given position of a tile

Once you have both of these, it is easy to implement a full system on these foundations.

I see, that a pretty simple concept.
So my idea of storing the position in the robot itself 100% sucks ahah
.

How could the first case be implemented? I'd have two variables which would store the size, and then how do I store each tile?
 

V_Arnold

Member
I program in javascript, so I just create an array of arrays, each array containing a bunch of objects.

So in my puzzle game, I have 20 tiles, individually, that make up arrays called rows and also columns (so I have a few different ways of reaching them if I want to).

IF you work in less dynamic languages, you can just create each tile individually, assign a unique id of them, and store those in the arrays. That way, you are just storing a bunch of ints.
 
That's very nice, Lilith. Congratulations. However, I'm a bit confused (I haven't visited these forums in a while), is this a new project of yours? If so, what's gonna happen to Nethermind?

I love the character design btw.

Hey, thanks! Yeah, that's on hold for now. I hope I feel comfortable working on it again eventually, but right now I do not. There are a lot of things about it that bother me and that can't be helped without remaking the entire game, and I was also pretty disappointed whenever none of the publishers we reached out to responded with anything. I don't have any imperative to work on it other than inertia, and I'd rather be working on something I enjoy than not. :)
 
Lilith,

That Hag Magnate time sequence makes me wanna cry.

Also, for the group:
I had an idea for a weapon system. Each weapon has three slots for upgrades. I wanted to go for the obvious Infinity Gems/Stones joke, but am unsure what to call my upgrade artifacts.

Ideas include:
Infinity Pebbles
Infinity Marbles
Eternity Stones
Eternity Gems
Infinity Shit
 
Hey, thanks! Yeah, that's on hold for now. I hope I feel comfortable working on it again eventually, but right now I do not. There are a lot of things about it that bother me and that can't be helped without remaking the entire game, and I was also pretty disappointed whenever none of the publishers we reached out to responded with anything. I don't have any imperative to work on it other than inertia, and I'd rather be working on something I enjoy than not. :)

Oh, I thought Abe was still working on Nethermind. Is that not the case?
 
Oh, I thought Abe was still working on Nethermind. Is that not the case?

In part. I mean, I don't want to air out a lot of drama here, but basically it stopped being a priority for him when I stopped working on it. I'll let him tell that tale if he wants to.


Lilith,

That Hag Magnate time sequence makes me wanna cry.

Also, for the group:
I had an idea for a weapon system. Each weapon has three slots for upgrades. I wanted to go for the obvious Infinity Gems/Stones joke, but am unsure what to call my upgrade artifacts.

Ideas include:
Infinity Pebbles
Infinity Marbles
Eternity Stones
Eternity Gems
Infinity Shit

My favorite of those is Eternity Stones. I like it because it sounds really close but also kind of misses the point (infinity being a measurement of power here, and eternity a measure of time).
 

Jobbs

Banned
I'm sitting here trying to take a fresh look at making liquid spray (as it pertains to blood or whatever from an enemy in the game...).

neonsplatter1.gif


So I animated some different patterns by hand and I guess the goal will be to make them spawn a number of times in random patterns in different directions (in the case of an explosion, otherwise maybe they'd be more deliberately directed) and move outward, and also maybe mix in some blobs that don't dissipate as quickly and maybe like some kind of mist.

I'll try to put this together over the weekend and I'll report here how it goes. Anyone have any tips or advice in the mean time?
 
I'm sitting here trying to take a fresh look at making liquid spray (as it pertains to blood or whatever from an enemy in the game...).

neonsplatter1.gif


So I animated some different patterns by hand and I guess the goal will be to make them spawn a number of times in random patterns in different directions (in the case of an explosion, otherwise maybe they'd be more deliberately directed) and move outward, and also maybe mix in some blobs that don't dissipate as quickly and maybe like some kind of mist.

I'll try to put this together over the weekend and I'll report here how it goes. Anyone have any tips or advice in the mean time?

I'm working on the same thing right now, actually. I think you're off to a great start here. There's a decent variety here and they each animate well.

For general bursts, I'd consider adding a few "round" animations that explode in all directions. If you're not already, I'd also consider making the animation speed variable (between x0.8 and x1.2 or so).



Bit more progress on A&B tonight!

1) You can drink a potion if you press X
2) The targeting is now automatic if you use projectile weapons
3) SPELLS: Switch between them with DPad Up. Use them by pressing Y. There's a Soul Arrow and a Combustion Spell.
4) Some other small things.

http://www.warsoup.com/files/A&B01.zip

No idea why this is happening, but on a DS4 (with DS4Windows) the d-up is switching the sword and bow, nothing changes the spell, and pressing d-left followed by d-right does this super spin attack that glitches out if performed too close to an enemy.

I like that targeting is automatic with projectiles. I don't necessarily like how readily it swaps between targeted characters. If I'm very nearly in the middle of two enemies and locked on to one, I can (and did) accidentally move just into the range of the enemy I'm not locked onto a moment before firing, causing the targeting to pick the "wrong" enemy. Maybe look into some sort of range bias where if you're already locked onto character A but B is close, then you have to be 20% closer to B than you are to A before the targeting switches. That way it's more deliberate.
 

bkw

Member
It's another rainy weekend, so I've got to thinking about my dev setup. I like to experiment with coding project every now and then, but it's getting to the point where I have multiple versions of Unity installed, multiple versions of Visual Studio, python, ruby, various SDKs, etc. This mess really bugs me. Some older stuff like Unity I need to keep around in case I need to support older released titles.

This got me thinking of how to clean things up. I've never messed with virtual machines before, and what benefits they offer, but is this situation where people generally turn to VMs? I keep reading about programmers/developers needing a machine to run VMs. Makes sense for applications and web, but do VMs generally work well for game development? That extra layer seems like it could cause problems.
 
It's another rainy weekend, so I've got to thinking about my dev setup. I like to experiment with coding project every now and then, but it's getting to the point where I have multiple versions of Unity installed, multiple versions of Visual Studio, python, ruby, various SDKs, etc. This mess really bugs me. Some older stuff like Unity I need to keep around in case I need to support older released titles.

This got me thinking of how to clean things up. I've never messed with virtual machines before, and what benefits they offer, but is this situation where people generally turn to VMs? I keep reading about programmers/developers needing a machine to run VMs. Makes sense for applications and web, but do VMs generally work well for game development? That extra layer seems like it could cause problems.

VMs would ensure no conflicts between different installations. But they also run slower, since you'd be running two OS's simultaneously. If performance is a big deal for your coding experiments I wouldn't do it unless your PC is a beast or your programs aren't performance-heavy anyway.

Another option is to dual boot two different OS installations on different partitions of your hard drive. You would have two Windows on the same computer, not interacting with each other, basically.
 
It's another rainy weekend, so I've got to thinking about my dev setup. I like to experiment with coding project every now and then, but it's getting to the point where I have multiple versions of Unity installed, multiple versions of Visual Studio, python, ruby, various SDKs, etc. This mess really bugs me. Some older stuff like Unity I need to keep around in case I need to support older released titles.

This got me thinking of how to clean things up. I've never messed with virtual machines before, and what benefits they offer, but is this situation where people generally turn to VMs? I keep reading about programmers/developers needing a machine to run VMs. Makes sense for applications and web, but do VMs generally work well for game development? That extra layer seems like it could cause problems.

You can probably get rid of older Unity versions, as Unity has a download archive for almost all of their older versions.
 
382.png


Hi everyone :3

1st post about one of my upcoming games: Super Night Riders, a 3D arcade racing game inspired by 80's classics, mostly Hang-On from SEGA. My goal is to have a similar gameplay with modern visuals. The game is currently on Steam Greenlight.

I'm now working on the visual aspect of the game, as I got mixed comments about its look on Greenlight, so I've changed a lot of things so far, including the riders, which were lowpoly initially.

As a huge fan of Hang-On, I'm looking forward to how your game will develop. I like the overall atmophere already, the sense of 3D and speed is quite cool. Here's some general feedback from my first impression: The two bottom screens look better IMO, more colourful. As others also stated, the night is still a bit too black and the desert looks a bit empty and colourless - there's an image on your blog with the desert at another time of day: I think you got the right idea to play around with sky colours to achieve a more beautiful atmosphere.
Also, if your time allows for that, you could try to add some occasional variety to the sides of the road (e.g. billboards in city, cactus in desert) and maybe even some visual spice like in Outrun with some sand or leaves on the street (I like the effect in the spring stage with the trees btw.)... The animation could profit from some more little details like the dustparticle effect in sharp curves which is very subtle right now, maybe make that a more visible stylised effect - not overdone (that would clash with the minimalistic look) but something to give the player more visual feedback of the movement going on. Looking forward to see more of this!
 

Popstar

Member
It's another rainy weekend, so I've got to thinking about my dev setup. I like to experiment with coding project every now and then, but it's getting to the point where I have multiple versions of Unity installed, multiple versions of Visual Studio, python, ruby, various SDKs, etc. This mess really bugs me. Some older stuff like Unity I need to keep around in case I need to support older released titles.

This got me thinking of how to clean things up. I've never messed with virtual machines before, and what benefits they offer, but is this situation where people generally turn to VMs? I keep reading about programmers/developers needing a machine to run VMs. Makes sense for applications and web, but do VMs generally work well for game development? That extra layer seems like it could cause problems.
Visual Studio 2015 comes with C++ toolsets for VS2013 and VS2012. The Windows 7.1 SDK comes with VS2010 and VS2008 toolsets. So if you're only keeping the old versions of Visual Studio installed for older C++ projects in theory only need to install Visual Studio 2015 along with the Windows 7.1 SDK to have access to all the compilers from Visual Studio 2008 onward.
 
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