• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.

bkw

Member
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.
Yeah. Performance might not be a huge deal, but even for simple games like a platformer, any sort of lag/delay could make the controls feel pretty bad. Maybe dev in a VM, but frequently test builds of the game outside. The dual boot is a pretty attractive option. I might do that since I probably don't need that many "instances". (Or perhaps have multiple drives that I swap physically. Not the best, but that way I don't have to deal with boot loaders/managers. One main drive, and another just to mess around. One that I can format easily.)

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.

Good to know! Thanks!
 
I hit that lull several times while on my current project. The best thing you can do is strive to have no "0" days. Even if you're just going in and tweaking a line of code, or adding a tree to your world map, those little bits add up, and you never know when you'll get hit with a big burst of "OH that's what I should do!"

I just want to reiterate this. It's been helping me get through a nasty slum :/

Been working on something, not sure if it's going to go anywhere, but I whipped up this minigame with some assets I had.

0b4ce4359b76b8682a077f8ccfd87b24.gif


I was working on dynamic player numbers and adapted it to this heh. You can add as many players as you want and they space out and get tied to a specific controller. (All of these are tied to a single one in this shot haha)

Anyone doing things for multiplayer: the ReWired plugin for controllers is an absolute dream.
 
It's been a long time since my last post, but we've been working steadily since our game Fearless Night was greenlit back in February. Today, I'm happy to announce our new character, Amika Heartome.

rivalofficial_by_oniika-d9frjtt.png


Official Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiRDXnFE-jA

Theme Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBiC9ZXKxIw&feature=youtu.be&a

Wow, it looks super professional. It seems a lot of work still needs to be done, but the character art and fighting already seems to be really cool.
 
That's looks killer. Simply killer.

Okay, GAF. Enable me.

I know that I should probably make a dialogue only copy of our code for final audio mix. But every time I start, I end up quitting. It's just too hard getting rid of all the flags and code that would get in the way. I suppose that I could just save the game every five seconds as we go through it, but I was trying to save time from us going through every possible branch. Which I guess we'd be doing anyways for the final validation runs before submitting final copy.

Tell me what to do, GAF.
 

JoBo4

Neo Member
i've been posting this (mistakenly) on other threads, but i found this one. For some reason i got a bit mixed up and posted it in the indie showcase threads, instead of this one!

Hopefully these questions haven't been asked a million times before. I tried to do some searching around for it but haven't found anything.

1. Looking to getting into this. In order to make a pretty well refined game (for game maker), would programming knowledge be necessary? How user friendly is gamemaker for a person who has very limited knowledge (being only HTML)?

2. I have a macbook. what would be the best option for game maker? Would using a virtual box be more ideal? Or is there another alternative that works better?

3. Any examples of games that have been made without any type of previous programming knowledge?

thanks
 

Ranger X

Member
1. Looking to getting into this. In order to make a pretty well refined game (for game maker), would programming knowledge be necessary? How user friendly is gamemaker for a person who has very limited knowledge (being only HTML)?

2. I have a macbook. what would be the best option for game maker? Would using a virtual box be more ideal? Or is there another alternative that works better?


1- GML (gamemaker language) is a scripting language that is VERY forgiving and friendly. There's no better place to start. I suggest you avoid nod programming or gamemaker's icon programming. (well, if you want to learn and evolve over time that is)

2- GameMaker Studio is having a MAC version but you should double check and see if it has any shortcomings. I know that the windows version can export to all platforms.
 

ASIS

Member
That's looks killer. Simply killer.

Okay, GAF. Enable me.

I know that I should probably make a dialogue only copy of our code for final audio mix. But every time I start, I end up quitting. It's just too hard getting rid of all the flags and code that would get in the way. I suppose that I could just save the game every five seconds as we go through it, but I was trying to save time from us going through every possible branch. Which I guess we'd be doing anyways for the final validation runs before submitting final copy.

Tell me what to do, GAF.

LOL ok I just woke up and the second I read this I immediately thought gaf.enabled = true; 😂

Anyway, I'm still in the very (very) early stages of learning game development to the point where the basics don't even work. It's frustrating shit I tell ya. so yeah I probably still can't help you. Just wanted to share that.

I need to get more sleep 😔
 

Popstar

Member
What are you people talking about. GameMaker: Studio is Windows only.

GameMaker for Mac was based on the old pre-Studio version of GameMaker.
 

Datwheezy

Unconfirmed Member
As other's said, youll want to be running GameMaker in a windows environment, (whether bootcamp or virtual box).

As for your other question, I'm sure there are many others, but Tom Francis has said numerous times that he had zero programming knowledge before making Gunpoint (which is a GameMaker game)
 

Noaloha

Member
1. Looking to getting into this. In order to make a pretty well refined game (for game maker), would programming knowledge be necessary? How user friendly is gamemaker for a person who has very limited knowledge (being only HTML)?
I'd perhaps argue that programming knowledge at point of entry is not necessary. At all, in fact. However, there's a case to be made that you will need to have some sort of 'inate' programming comprehension stored away in side of you.

You'll find out soon enough (after two, three weeks) whether you 'get' the programming side of it. If, after a month, you're still copy-pasting other people's code that you found on Google, then it may not be for you. However, if you're taking the principals of earlier copy-pasted code and are now applying it to new problems based on your own understanding -- woohoo, you're on to something.

3. Any examples of games that have been made without any type of previous programming knowledge?

I suspect you're actually interested in bigger 'proper' games, or games that have a solid reputation and have been released. But for the sake of just showing what a *complete* beginner can achieve in a very short time-frame using GameMaker, I entered the October GafJam with no experience under my belt and made this small game through 1st Oct to 31st.

It's nothing special, obviously, but I can truthfully say that going into the project I had zero programming experience, zero sprite drawing/animating experience, zero musical experience. I watched some Tom Francis tutorial videos at the tail end of September and began the game Oct 1st. Just typing code, researching Google, testing things out, drawing lots of diagrams and calculations on scrap paper to internally figure things out, etc. (I also had a *very* shitty second half of October and wasn't able to commit much time at all to the project.)
 

JoBo4

Neo Member
thanks for the input, all. Yeah i think i'll opt in to use the Virtual Machine. I dont like the idea of having to use bootcamp and having to restart my computer just to use the mac side of things (i have grad school duties that take priority!)

And i'll also look into Tom Francis. He is exactly what i was looking for! I just wanted a more successful take on how he was able to do things so well.
 

JoBo4

Neo Member
I'd perhaps argue that programming knowledge at point of entry is not necessary. At all, in fact. However, there's a case to be made that you will need to have some sort of 'inate' programming comprehension stored away in side of you.

You'll find out soon enough (after two, three weeks) whether you 'get' the programming side of it. If, after a month, you're still copy-pasting other people's code that you found on Google, then it may not be for you. However, if you're taking the principals of earlier copy-pasted code and are now applying it to new problems based on your own understanding -- woohoo, you're on to something.



I suspect you're actually interested in bigger 'proper' games, or games that have a solid reputation and have been released. But for the sake of just showing what a *complete* beginner can achieve in a very short time-frame using GameMaker, I entered the October GafJam with no experience under my belt and made this small game through 1st Oct to 31st.

It's nothing special, obviously, but I can truthfully say that going into the project I had zero programming experience, zero sprite drawing/animating experience, zero musical experience. I watched some Tom Francis tutorial videos at the tail end of September and began the game Oct 1st. Just typing code, researching Google, testing things out, drawing lots of diagrams and calculations on scrap paper to internally figure things out, etc. (I also had a *very* shitty second half of October and wasn't able to commit much time at all to the project.)

dude, you're crazy. That is the opposite of "nothing special". That is legit amazing, especially for someone who says they had no prior knowledge of anything. That honestly looks better than the original. The levels weren't randomly generated, right? It was a set length with specifically placed enemies and obstacles?

Either way it's very awesome. I'm download the virtual box with game maker as well as Unity. The one I align with more will be the one i go with, but i'm still leaning more towards using GMS

I am known to be pretty adventurous when learning coding (at least with HTML) so I'm sure it'll be the same way with these, but I just wanted to ease into it. Especially considering I dont have all the time in the world
 

Noaloha

Member
dude, you're crazy. That is the opposite of "nothing special". That is legit amazing, especially for someone who says they had no prior knowledge of anything. That honestly looks better than the original. The levels weren't randomly generated, right? It was a set length with specifically placed enemies and obstacles?

Either way it's very awesome. I'm download the virtual box with game maker as well as Unity. The one I align with more will be the one i go with, but i'm still leaning more towards using GMS

I am known to be pretty adventurous when learning coding (at least with HTML) so I'm sure it'll be the same way with these, but I just wanted to ease into it. Especially considering I dont have all the time in the world

Oh thank you for the complimentary words. :) I wish I'd been able to put a couple of other Zaxxon elements in there (Zaxxon's 'forcefields' were going to be broken overhead street-lamps with bare wires, and Zaxxon's 'floor missiles' were going to be fireworks) but I just couldn't find the time before the GameJam's deadline sadly. And no, not randomly generated. The actual object placement - the construction of the finished game essentially - was all dropped in manually and done entirely on the very last day, ha. Everything up to that was learning/adjusting code to get object behaviours and interactions working right. The background is just one big image that scrolls diagonally across your static 'view'. (As an aside, the 'boss' thing, if you can call it that, was all thrown together on the second to last day -- I made this fellow in Bloodborne, took a handful of phone pictures with different face sliders for the animation and hastily coded up some movement. Weird thing.)
 

Das-J

Law of the West
We're working on the animation of enemy ships for Into the Stars - Here's an in-progress shot of one coming out of warp.

What do you all think?

bxGpgad.gif
 

JoBo4

Neo Member
Oh thank you for the complimentary words. :) I wish I'd been able to put a couple of other Zaxxon elements in there (Zaxxon's 'forcefields' were going to be broken overhead street-lamps with bare wires, and Zaxxon's 'floor missiles' were going to be fireworks) but I just couldn't find the time before the GameJam's deadline sadly. And no, not randomly generated. The actual object placement - the construction of the finished game essentially - was all dropped in manually and done entirely on the very last day, ha. Everything up to that was learning/adjusting code to get object behaviours and interactions working right. The background is just one big image that scrolls diagonally across your static 'view'. (As an aside, the 'boss' thing, if you can call it that, was all thrown together on the second to last day -- I made this fellow in Bloodborne, took a handful of phone pictures with different face sliders for the animation and hastily coded up some movement. Weird thing.)




hahahaha oh man that's awesome. I knew the boss HAD to be from something else. But i thought it was an edited picture of someone in real life. That's amazing. But it fits the game very well (I think).
 

ASIS

Member
Hey GameDev GAF, I making this short conversational game about mending a broken friendship and I really need some feedback on the script. Would anyone mind trying it out and maybe provide some feedback on what dialogue works/doesn't work or if it's any good at all? Thanks.

You can play it here: http://www.philome.la/ArtSiriwatt/what-we-take-for-granted

I have just a couple of points:

1. The conversation is very one sided. Matt is very much an abusive asshole while Kevin sounds like a very reasonable guy. There aren't any points where they connect, no grey areas, which really begs the question "why are they friends (for at least a couple of months) to begin with"? The game doesn't address this point at all. If anything it doesn't seem like they even know each other. Sure, Kevin explained himself to Matt, but on the flip side Kevin never acknowledged anything about Matt either. To him, he was just a drunk asshole. As such, most of the choices given to the player seem either dismissive or apologetic. There are no truly defensive options, no options that can breakdown Kevin's personality like he did to matt. I think if you put two guys at an evenly flawed personality then something more interesting will come up.

2. It was very clear why Kevin was upset. But the game seems more about ending a friendship rather than mending it. I'm not sure if the dialogue is complete or not, but as I played the game multiple times I was still waiting for some closure, I never got it.

As for the writing itself, barring the 2 points I mentioned I thought it was well done. It was crystal clear what was going on and I also liked the style of writing.
 

neko.works

Member
382.png


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.

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!

Thanks for your feedback! I'm really interested in getting comments from fans of Hang-On, as it is my main inspiration for this project.

About the colors, I've recently implemented a day/night cycle system, so now, there will be at least 6 variations for each stage!

Here's an example with the City stage:

436.jpg


I was planning to add billboards in the City stage, and there's already cactus in the Canyon stage:

424.jpg


There is a dust effect when drifting, but as you mentioned, it's not quite visible. I'll fix it!

The night city might be a bit too dark, and the desert not colorful enough, but actually, I'm trying to make mood variations for some stages, as I think it would be boring to have the same style in all the stages!
 
Thanks for your feedback! I'm really interested in getting comments from fans of Hang-On, as it is my main inspiration for this project.

About the colors, I've recently implemented a day/night cycle system, so now, there will be at least 6 variations for each stage!

Here's an example with the City stage:

436.jpg


I was planning to add billboards in the City stage, and there's already cactus in the Canyon stage:

424.jpg


There is a dust effect when drifting, but as you mentioned, it's not quite visible. I'll fix it!

The night city might be a bit too dark, and the desert not colorful enough, but actually, I'm trying to make mood variations for some stages, as I think it would be boring to have the same style in all the stages!
3D racing inspired by Super Hang-On? Nicccce.

Visually it has a very nice and coherent style, but like others have said some parts seem a bit barren. One of cooler things I remember about those Super-Scaler games was the amount of crazy little details on the roadsides, especially in later games like Outrunners.

The cityscape, for example, could have a few buildings along the side of the roads and maybe atleast one little section where it feels like you're riding along in the heart of a busy part of the city. Or maybe a few shooting stars and comets over the desert stage during the eve of sunset. Just little things to liven it up some. If you could get weather effects in there that'd be even better but that isn't a necessity really.

Still though seems really promising, just on the premise alone. Not a lot of arcade-style racing games out there period, let alone any going along this path of inspiration. That oft-delayed one on Wii U is the sole other example that comes to mind.

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 some nice transition going on. Good to see how this one's progressing. I'm hoping something like this would be possible with bitmap/rasterized graphics. Theoretically I'm guessing it should, but I can't recall many modern 2D games that go aside the vector art path utilizing something similar. Maybe it's just a memory-related thing :/
 

Schryver

Member
Where would I even begin if I want to make a first person game? Only experience with coding was a college C and Unix course that I was totally lost in. Was thinking about using Unreal for that reason..depending how complicated I try to make the game mechanics I could probably do most with just Blueprint but not sure. Also have minimal experience 3d modeling (only used Inventor and Pro/Engineer). I imagine getting my initial gameplay ideas figured out and creating a prototype level is the logical first step but I really don't know.
 

neko.works

Member
382.png


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.

3D racing inspired by Super Hang-On? Nicccce.

Visually it has a very nice and coherent style, but like others have said some parts seem a bit barren. One of cooler things I remember about those Super-Scaler games was the amount of crazy little details on the roadsides, especially in later games like Outrunners.

The cityscape, for example, could have a few buildings along the side of the roads and maybe atleast one little section where it feels like you're riding along in the heart of a busy part of the city. Or maybe a few shooting stars and comets over the desert stage during the eve of sunset. Just little things to liven it up some. If you could get weather effects in there that'd be even better but that isn't a necessity really.

Still though seems really promising, just on the premise alone. Not a lot of arcade-style racing games out there period, let alone any going along this path of inspiration. That oft-delayed one on Wii U is the sole other example that comes to mind.

Thanks for your feedback!

About the details in the sides of the road, my style is more like Hang-On which had simple assets, rather than Outrun which had more complex assets such as buildings and fences.

I think that the illusion of a 3D road was more coherent with Hang-On, as the more complex assets in Outrun accentuated the limitations of this kind of graphic engine - you could see the perspective problems with the fences for instance.
 

Jobbs

Banned
Not a fan of the steam controller. I'm not even sure what the hell this thing is for (well, I know what its design purpose is, but I just don't think it needs to exist on the basis of it being so unwieldy and frustrating to play games with).

Oh well, it seems to function properly with my game, so mission accomplished, I guess.
 
Not a fan of the steam controller. I'm not even sure what the hell this thing is for (well, I know what its design purpose is, but I just don't think it needs to exist on the basis of it being so unwieldy and frustrating to play games with).

Oh well, it seems to function properly with my game, so mission accomplished, I guess.

Yeah, I'm waiting for it to catch on before I invest in one for testing. I can't imagine anything would go wrong as it's purportedly designed as catch-all controller, but it doesn't particularly interest me.
 

Blizzard

Banned
I think the Steam controller is a really neat piece of hardware. My favorite game I've tried it with thus far is probably Civ V. I love the amount of configurability it has.

I'd say it's good for people who don't mind putting in 5-10 hours or more to get comfortable with it, especially for games that would normally require a mouse like top-down RPGs / strategy games.
 
Not a fan of the steam controller. I'm not even sure what the hell this thing is for (well, I know what its design purpose is, but I just don't think it needs to exist on the basis of it being so unwieldy and frustrating to play games with).

Oh well, it seems to function properly with my game, so mission accomplished, I guess.

"Hey guys, we're not relevant anymore since the field we pioneered as learned to grow up independently of us. What do we do?"
 
The Steam controller seems like a net good to me, but only because nothing is quantifiably bad about it. It fills a very small niche and seems to do that very well, and it's (supposedly) doesn't cause any extra work for developers.

But on a grander scale I think Valve made a critical misunderstanding of most couch gamers, so rather like the OUYA it solves a problem that barely exists. The Steam controller is great for some people and irrelevant for most people. It's benign.
 
Valve still seems pretty relevant to me in that Steam, DOTA2, and CSGO are very popular. What do you mean?

Steam no longer is the big dog in the park anymore. They have competition, and Steam Boxes are not a big enough bullet to really make the kind of dent that they used to.

Steam is great, but they are no longer running the show.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Steam no longer is the big dog in the park anymore. They have competition, and Steam Boxes are not a big enough bullet to really make the kind of dent that they used to.

Steam is great, but they are no longer running the show.
Please forgive me if my tone sounds across as hostile in text, but these points do not make sense to me.

I thought we were talking Steam Controllers, not Steam Boxes?

About no longer being "the big dog in the park", isn't Steam still the largest digital distribution service? How is that not being the "big dog", unless I'm misunderstanding your metaphor?

What dent did Valve make before, if not with games and their digital storefront, both of which are still making dents (DOTA2 and CSGO, and continually increasing Steam user base)?
 
What dent did Valve make before, if not with games and their digital storefront, both of which are still making dents (DOTA2 and CSGO, and continually increasing Steam user base)?

I'm talking about Steam in general.

Steam had the pleasure of being the only real digital distribution force on the market for a long while. They simply are not anymore. That's not good or bad. I'm glad they are evolving, but it seems like a step back instead of making something NEW.
 
A WILD CRAPPY GIF APPEARS! I need a better recording program for Unity stuff than GifCam, it shit the bed when trying to record this, so this is really all I had to work with.

ClutteredBareKingsnake.gif


Those with good memory will wonder why I'm now suddenly doing top-down stuff instead of a platformer. Well, this is basically the result of a rather quick test thing I did, using sprites in a 3D environment. The idea was to basically see if I could do something like 2D Zelda or CrossCode. And I'm already convinced that perhaps this might actually be a better route to take than a regular 2D sidescroller:

- Indie platformers are, well, fairly common
- Much, much easier to do pathfinding with just the Unity navmesh stuff
- There's something neat about the whole 2D/3D mixture with sprites and relatively low poly environments that's just kinda neat and isn't done often
- The added third dimension increases the possibilities for level design and 'game modes', such as the player and their current opponent trying to race down two parallel tracks while trying to hinder each other along the way
- I'm also thinking that it could let me do stuff such as the semi-bullet hell stuff you see in Undertale, though it'd essentially be two fighters throwing that sort of thing at each other, though different characters will have different attacks and playstyles.

Currently the view is orthographic, but I'd like to do a perspective view like the pic below, but the trick is getting sprites to properly billboard without causing clipping issues with 3D geometry, which I still haven't figured out yet.

MucmRhh.png


Anyhow. Feedback on this little thing? And any suggestions for this new direction? Should I go with automatic jumping ala Zelda and CrossCode, or manual jumping, for example? I'm leaning towards limiting jumps to automatic, since it works well so far.


It's been a long time since my last post, but we've been working steadily since our game Fearless Night was greenlit back in February. Today, I'm happy to announce our new character, Amika Heartome.

rivalofficial_by_oniika-d9frjtt.png


Official Trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiRDXnFE-jA

Theme Song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBiC9ZXKxIw&feature=youtu.be&a

Holy shit, this is cool.
 

Pehesse

Member
Anyhow. Feedback on this little thing? And any suggestions for this new direction? Should I go with automatic jumping ala Zelda and CrossCode, or manual jumping, for example? I'm leaning towards limiting jumps to automatic, since it works well so far.

Got some flashbacks of the GBA glory days :-D I loved their top down 2D platformers. Examples that jump to mind are Tomb Raider Prophecy (lots of jumping, and an orthographic projection similar to yours), Sigma Star Saga (some jumping), Sonic Battle (3D environments+sprites, LOTS of jumping :v), and some of the isometric ones like the Spyros or Rayman (was it Hoodlum Havoc?), or even Back to Stone (fairly sure there was jumping in there). That last one was kinda crummy, too, but it's still a reference :-D

The main issue I recall with most of those was unseen spaces: everything related to relief was tricky to understand/manoeuver with, whether you were in front, on top or behind. That may have been partly due to the GBA's limited rendering capabilities, so maybe you'll find ways around that problem?

So yeah, I think 2D top down platforming oughta work, and apart from the GBA library, it's true I don't recall too many of them on other platforms, so I'm eager to see more!
 

Blizzard

Banned
Got some flashbacks of the GBA glory days :-D I loved their top down 2D platformers. Examples that jump to mind are Tomb Raider Prophecy (lots of jumping, and an orthographic projection similar to yours), Sigma Star Saga (some jumping), Sonic Battle (3D environments+sprites, LOTS of jumping :v), and some of the isometric ones like the Spyros or Rayman (was it Hoodlum Havoc?), or even Back to Stone (fairly sure there was jumping in there). That last one was kinda crummy, too, but it's still a reference :-D

The main issue I recall with most of those was unseen spaces: everything related to relief was tricky to understand/manoeuver with, whether you were in front, on top or behind. That may have been partly due to the GBA's limited rendering capabilities, so maybe you'll find ways around that problem?

So yeah, I think 2D top down platforming oughta work, and apart from the GBA library, it's true I don't recall too many of them on other platforms, so I'm eager to see more!
I'm reminded of Croc 2 on GameBoy Color. Is that the sort of game you're thinking of? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkwKtisLDr8&feature=youtu.be&t=54
 
Hmmm, so I keep finding myself never satisfied with the work I am doing. I just finished my 3rd iteration of our games base male character model. And I think I am finally satisfied with it (not finished but probably won't do a fourth version); but here is my question to others:

Do you find yourself constantly going back to "finished" assets to make them "better"? I can't seem to help it but I always feel like I can make things better...and that I got to start from scratch on the new version....with the way I am working, shit is never going to get done

example:

previous base model
RR9b.jpg


new base model
KR9b.jpg
 
Got some flashbacks of the GBA glory days :-D I loved their top down 2D platformers. Examples that jump to mind are Tomb Raider Prophecy (lots of jumping, and an orthographic projection similar to yours), Sigma Star Saga (some jumping), Sonic Battle (3D environments+sprites, LOTS of jumping :v), and some of the isometric ones like the Spyros or Rayman (was it Hoodlum Havoc?), or even Back to Stone (fairly sure there was jumping in there). That last one was kinda crummy, too, but it's still a reference :-D

The main issue I recall with most of those was unseen spaces: everything related to relief was tricky to understand/manoeuver with, whether you were in front, on top or behind. That may have been partly due to the GBA's limited rendering capabilities, so maybe you'll find ways around that problem?

So yeah, I think 2D top down platforming oughta work, and apart from the GBA library, it's true I don't recall too many of them on other platforms, so I'm eager to see more!

Well, I'm using CrossCode mainly was inspiration for this one (though that one uses sprites instead of models), but there's certainly other examples. Figuring out stuff behind geometry will be a problem, though I'm hoping to make it so the level design doesn't make it too much of an issue. I could put in some kind of shader to show when characters are behind geometry, hopefully that won't be too hard to find.

The whole depth issue is partly why I'm hoping to go with perspective rather than ortho somehow, but right now the current viewpoint works fine, as long as I take care with the level design.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Hmmm, so I keep finding myself never satisfied with the work I am doing. I just finished my 3rd iteration of our games base male character model. And I think I am finally satisfied with it (not finished but probably won't do a fourth version); but here is my question to others:

Do you find yourself constantly going back to "finished" assets to make them "better"? I can't seem to help it but I always feel like I can make things better...and that I got to start from scratch on the new version....with the way I am working, shit is never going to get done

example:

previous base model
RR9b.jpg


new base model
KR9b.jpg
I feel like there's something...missing in the new model, but I can't quite put my finger on it. (totally the pants :p)
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom