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[Jacksinthe]

Great stuff everyone!

I'm a new member of the indie thread. I've been working on my game for about five months so far. If you have an idea, I think you should really go for it. I'm evangelizing UE4 as the grease that has let me turn a concept into a game for the first time ever, with only some experience using radiant back in the day for making multiplayer levels for Daikatana. Yes. Daikatana. Stop laughing. Last I checked servers will still running some of my maps!

But then art left me behind. I couldn't just work with BSPs and make anything remotely close to professional... so in went the towel.

Enter Unreal Engine 4 and a game design that *mandated* a simple art style. UE4 is incredibly powerful. Yes, blueprints might take a bit of getting your head around, and you need some understanding of coding, but you don't need to know any programming languages.

My project is entirely being built in my spare time and will be put out there for free, but I really appreciate the encouragement this thread has already given me in the few short weeks I've started posting in it. Expect to see the following at least once a week as I put out an update on how things are going!

A free first person puzzle exploration game coming to PC with Oculus Rift support sometime in 2015.

This + Oculus Rift = :O

 

[plagiarize]

This + Oculus Rift = :O

It can be pretty disorienting at times, as you'd expect... but I'm happy with how it plays in the rift

 

[Jacksinthe]

Yo all, iOS build just got approved for InfiniteCosmos BETA - so if any of you want to test out the game on iOS that would be fly. Current build is only 30fps which is the default for iOS apps. I am forcing 60fps in newer builds which should be up next week! If anyone wants in - just PM me your email and i will add you to the list of testers!

It can be pretty disorienting at times, as you'd expect... but I'm happy with how it plays in the rift

Ha! I have to try this with the Rift if I ever pick one up

 

[Five]

Yo all, iOS build just got approved for InfiniteCosmos BETA - so if any of you want to test out the game on iOS that would be fly. Current build is only 30fps which is the default for iOS apps. I am forcing 60fps in newer builds which should be up next week! If anyone wants in - just PM me your email and i will add you to the list of testers!

Great news! I'd love to help out. I can test on my 5s.

Also, nice job with the new thread!

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Yay new thread. Subscribing of course!

 

[Popstar]

Hello new thread.

 

[Roquentin]

I don't participate a lot here, but just wanted to say I love the thread and wish the best to all indie devs on NeoGAF.

 

[Genji]

Subbed. Thanks for putting the OT together!

 

[OldmanAndroid]

screw it. here's an early pic of what im working on to get us going

Looks interesting! Why no rubber duck on the main characters head though?

 

[chubigans]

Aw yeah nice work AbsintheGames, glad you've taken the reigns on this thread.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Aw yeah nice work AbsintheGames, glad you've taken the reigns on this thread.

Thanks, chubigans. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing haha! Hope I do alright

 

[OldmanAndroid]

Has anyone had any luck with focusing their marketing efforts on Lets Players? Seems like great exposure. Are people still paying them for exposure?

 

[plagiarize]

Thanks, chubigans. I honestly have no clue what I'm doing haha! Hope I do alright

That could totally be the title for OT3. At least that's how *I* feel half the time. I read up on Unreal Engine 4 matinees to see how I'd go about animating a camera pass through a level for a trailer, and realized that if I'd used a matinee to create the unfolding room from the end of level 4 instead of a timeline that it would have been about ten times easier.

Still, at least I know that now! This currently level has a lot of moving platforms and I'm going to save a bunch of time using matinees to animate them.

 

[Ventron]

Great job on the OP

I need some advice for something I'm making (currently made up of squares and programmer art), how do you decide what kind of art style to use?

I was thinking of going for SNES-style pixel art since my game will feature very small characters in a top-down environment ala-Bomberman, but I'm worried whether people have become sick of pixel art from indies.

 

[Blizzard]

Great job on the OP

I need some advice for something I'm making (currently made up of squares and programmer art), how do you decide what kind of art style to use?

I was thinking of going for SNES-style pixel art since my game will feature very small characters in a top-down environment ala-Bomberman, but I'm worried whether people have become sick of pixel art from indies.

Some people have probably already become sick of pixel art from indies, but I think ultimately you just have to do the best you (or your artist) can, and make something you are personally happy with.

If you use pixel art, people can say that you're trying too hard to be retro, and all the indie games look the same.
If you use a simple low-poly art style like The Witness or a few other games, people can say (I may have seen someone say this) that all indie games look the same now, going for that art style.
If you use 2D vector art, people can say that all indie games now look like smartphone ports, with cartoony rounded art.
If you try for something with a high-end 3D engine, you can run into issues with the quality and quantity of resources expected from modern games.


In short, some group of people will be unhappy no matter what, and you may want to start by at least making yourself and your team happy.

 

[Kritz]

Hello new thread!

So, I'm making a dumb burger game called Citizen Burger Disorder (barely playable alpha). If I'm lucky, I'll be able to launch the game on Steam sometime later this year. The goal is that if this game does well, I can use it to make other games, instead of making my parents happy and getting a Real Job™.

Everyone who posts here is awesome, and the more images / videos / writeups / playable content y'all post here, the cooler this place is!

edit:

Great job on the OP

I need some advice for something I'm making (currently made up of squares and programmer art), how do you decide what kind of art style to use?

Personal bias, but I'm quite fond of programmer art.

(let's overtake this thread with Australians!)

 

[Five]

Great job on the OP

I need some advice for something I'm making (currently made up of squares and programmer art), how do you decide what kind of art style to use?

I was thinking of going for SNES-style pixel art since my game will feature very small characters in a top-down environment ala-Bomberman, but I'm worried whether people have become sick of pixel art from indies.

Are you doing the art yourself? I generally just go with an art style that I'll enjoy doing. Different things play into that enjoyment of course, like how easy it is to create and implement. I don't enjoy creating pixel art, but I'm not tired of others using it. I just think you have to try a little harder to stand out with it because the minimized nature limits a lot of expression.

 

[charsace]

Only six months in at my current job and I want to get a raise so not much time for playing with Unity. Wish I was a fucking kid so that I could play with Unity and UE4 all day long. Man fuck kids those lucky assholes.

 

[vladimirdlc]

Hi, indiegaffers! At ny company after almost two years, we are finally releasing our game, Spectrum.

It will be out this thursday 8th, feel free to check out http://youtu.be/oeq6d7VicxY

 

[Kalnos]

Only six months in at my current job and I want to get a raise so not much time for playing with Unity. Wish I was a fucking kid so that I could play with Unity and UE4 all day long. Man fuck kids those lucky assholes.

We're the same person. When I get home I'm just tired, lol.

 

[ZeroX03]

Great new OT!

For all the new developers, Tom Francis (Gunpoint) has just started his no-experience Game Maker video tutorial series here. Also for the OT, RPG Maker VX Ace is expecting a mobile porting tool at some point too, for those who can really try work it for a professional product.

 

[plagiarize]

Only six months in at my current job and I want to get a raise so not much time for playing with Unity. Wish I was a fucking kid so that I could play with Unity and UE4 all day long. Man fuck kids those lucky assholes.

Hey now, that's just an excuse. I work full time and I'm making something. You can find the time.

I also find the time to run four or five times a week, go to the movies every week, follow a few tv shows and play games occasionally.

Just commit to getting a bit done everyday and you'll surprise yourself how quickly you make progress.

 

[vladimirdlc]

I agree with plagiarize, you can always sacrifice a bit of you free time to advance in your gamedev career.

If you don't have free time, well... that's another story.

 

[Purple Cheeto]

No love for Cocos 2D-X?

Also I've been using UE4/Blue Print at work. I'm not a big fan.

 

[OccamsBlender]

Great New Thread! Yay! I can't believe I joined back in page 30ish or so of the first thread.

this is cool!

anyone know much about 3d printing? is it sufficient to manufacture small quantities of figures (guess I'd have to hand paint them) or is it too limited? I've heard mixed reports.

There's many types of printers, and some of them can "paint" a figure for you too.
See: Powder Printing here:
http://www.tomsguide.com/us/3d-printer-buyers-guide,news-17651.html

A bit lengthy but a worthwhile read.

No love for Cocos 2D-X?

Also I've been using UE4/Blue Print at work. I'm not a big fan.

Cocos 2D, Cocos2D-X and Love certainly deserve some....love on this thread.

I have neglected my game for over 2 years; part of it is I do a lot of long and nasty hours at work but screw it. I should take every little step I can. Hopefully I'll have a new job that gives me more free time soon too!

 

[nitekrawlwer]

Long time lurker here. The people in these threads have been such an inspiration to me. So much so that I'm trying to develop a mobile game in Unity 3d. My controls for Pocket Smash(working title) have come a long way in the past few months. I've captured almost all of the controls of Smash bros with no on screen keys (I hate OSKs with a passion) and I'm very proud of that. While the debug log seems to be reading my touch inputs very well, Mecanim doesn't want to show the animations correctly or consistently.

I keep getting strange errors such as "animator.gotostate: state could not be found" and "invalid layer index" even when it does actually play the animations. Most animations will start to play but quit before finishing even with atomic selected on or an exit time of 1. Ive been googling for days and can't seem to find a solution.

I'm also frustrated that Walking/Running overrides side smash while crouching overrides my down smash, but at least that makes sense seeing as how the analog stick is used for movement as well as attacks. I just need to find out how to make the states more differentiated in those specific cases.

Any help or suggestions would be an absolute god send. If I can get this sorted out I can finally finish up on device multiplayer and finally have something to show for screen shot Saturday which has been a goal of mine for a few months now.

 

[Jacksinthe]

No love for Cocos 2D-X?

Also I've been using UE4/Blue Print at work. I'm not a big fan.

Well, I tried to keep the OP to engines/tools that are friendly to newcomers and still used by the heavy hitters. If you think Cocos should be up there I will gladly add if you PM me some details

Using Blueprint in UE4 reminds me a lot of when I make instruments and things in Reaktor:

 

[bkw]

Awesome new thread. 2015 is going to be a good year. I can feel it!

 

[Jacksinthe]

Long time lurker here. The people in these threads have been such an inspiration to me. So much so that I'm trying to develop a mobile game in Unity 3d. My controls for Pocket Smash(working title) have come a long way in the past few months. I've captured almost all of the controls of Smash bros with no on screen keys (I hate OSKs with a passion) and I'm very proud of that. While the debug log seems to be reading my touch inputs very well, Mecanim doesn't want to show the animations correctly or consistently.

I keep getting strange errors such as "animator.gotostate: state could not be found" and "invalid layer index" even when it does actually play the animations. Most animations will start to play but quit before finishing even with atomic selected on or an exit time of 1. Ive been googling for days and can't seem to find a solution.

I'm also frustrated that Walking/Running overrides side smash while crouching overrides my down smash, but at least that makes sense seeing as how the analog stick is used for movement as well as attacks. I just need to find out how to make the states more differentiated in those specific cases.

Any help or suggestions would be an absolute god send. If I can get this sorted out I can finally finish up on device multiplayer and finally have something to show for screen shot Saturday which has been a goal of mine for a few months now.

Ahhhh, mecanim. I don't know if you are rolling 2D or 3D so I'll give you my dirty 2D solutions.

Forget exit times, never trigger an animation from Any State, there's no need to use layers and just control entering/exiting animations from code. That is where you will have the most control. Also, how are you triggering your animations? Are you creating Parameters and using those to control entering/exiting?

The dirty is I used to have so many issue with animations using mecanim - probably because I never really understood it 100% - and I prefer to do everything i possibly can in code - so mecanim just serves as means to organize and set up parameters under which my animations trigger via my code. It's probably unorthodox but I had some major hangups with holding over frames if an animation ends in case I ever wanted it to, finding the current frame of animation for reference, if needed, etc.

So I just work with the bare minimum in Mecanim. No exit times. Just parameters to move from one animation to another. All controlled with code so I can adjust speed, timings, etc right through code and change up how and when they play and for how long without ever needing to touch mecanim after it's setup.

That's just me though. Mecanim has always been my Achilles heel in Unity

Edit: If it's 2D and you aren't using any blends - I have even dirtier solutions that are even simpler than Mecanim but still use Mecanim for a few things

 

[mabec]

Next things on my list for this prototype are:


[*]Stick with and perfect gameplay before doing a visual pass: I'll probably just keep this to simple models and a sorta 'ambient occlusion' look for a long time and perfect the gameplay that way. In terms of visuals and art direction, I want it to kinda look like the marketing material for Stunt Race FX:

Sounds promissing. Stunt Race FX where a childhood fav of mine and always wanted a sequel. Best of luck

 

[fengshuifever]

Yes! Almost missed the new thread, subbed.
i look forward to not showing anyone anything until it begins to look pretty and fleshed out


...You all make me so nervous.


Seriously though, it's such a joy just to read the thread and see all you talented sons-a-bitches post. Glad it lives on!

 

[hotnheavyload]

I've made the jump from Unity to UE4.

UE4.6 is incredible. Blueprint is my new best friend. Unfortunately I have a lot of tutorials to watch and material to read, but I'm quite well versed in PlayMaker for Unity, so it shouldn't be too much of a leap.

Currently have a deadline for the 27th of this month to deliver some 2D, animated assets for a platformer, I am so over going frame by frame by frame by frame by frame by frame etc etc etc

 

[Feep]

Long time lurker here. The people in these threads have been such an inspiration to me. So much so that I'm trying to develop a mobile game in Unity 3d. My controls for Pocket Smash(working title) have come a long way in the past few months. I've captured almost all of the controls of Smash bros with no on screen keys (I hate OSKs with a passion) and I'm very proud of that. While the debug log seems to be reading my touch inputs very well, Mecanim doesn't want to show the animations correctly or consistently.

I keep getting strange errors such as "animator.gotostate: state could not be found" and "invalid layer index" even when it does actually play the animations. Most animations will start to play but quit before finishing even with atomic selected on or an exit time of 1. Ive been googling for days and can't seem to find a solution.

I'm also frustrated that Walking/Running overrides side smash while crouching overrides my down smash, but at least that makes sense seeing as how the analog stick is used for movement as well as attacks. I just need to find out how to make the states more differentiated in those specific cases.

Any help or suggestions would be an absolute god send. If I can get this sorted out I can finally finish up on device multiplayer and finally have something to show for screen shot Saturday which has been a goal of mine for a few months now.

Directly playing animations via animator.Play() or animator.CrossFade() will override the nice little transitions you set up in the Mecanim controller. Avoid doing this directly if you can avoid it, and instead set the animator parameters (floats and ints and such) and try to let Mecanim handle all the transitions with the pretty little arrows.

Of course, for a fighting game, you might need to call things directly so that animations start super ultra instantly? Not sure.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

screw it. here's an early pic of what im working on to get us going

hehehehe

yehaw!

nice!

 

[SeanNoonan]

WIP, messing about with an old prototype - not sure where I'm going with it.

 

[Blizzard]

WIP, messing about with an old prototype - not sure where I'm going with it.

Hopefully you're going left, since the right looks dangerous.

 

[hotnheavyload]

WIP, messing about with an old prototype - not sure where I'm going with it.

Nice.

I think a giant, firey spider should emerge from the lava and blow you kisses while The Love Boat theme song plays.

 

[Blizzard]

Nice.

I think a giant, firey spider should emerge from the lava and blow you kisses while The Love Boat theme song plays.

I lost it. For anyone who doesn't know the theme, open this in another tab: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmUlKPthrag

Then watch the lava GIF and imagine. Seems fitting to me!

 

[Angryhead]

Oh hey, new thread!
I promise to post in you more than I did in the last one (not a hard goal to beat)
Unfortunately, I haven't worked on any game much since the end of November... have to get back into the groove, after a the holiday break from work (which meant that I played a load of games though, that was awesome)

Buddy of mine & me would like to make some kind of horror game (we're both huge fans of horror movies) but probably something that's a short "experience", not hugely mechanical. So I've been thinking about what fears I have and... one of the fears I have is getting mugged/stabbed in the tram, while riding to/from work.
The tram goes through the "bad part" of town which is I why I have this - dumb & probably very irrational - fear.
So I'm thinking I'd look up the statistics of how often crime actually happens in these things and make a simple thing where you can ride the tram and like 999/1000 nothing happens, but then that one time you get stabbed, haha.

Excuse the rambling, it's 10 AM and I got to work an hour ago and I've had two cups of coffee already.

WIP, messing about with an old prototype - not sure where I'm going with it.

Those lavabubbles are cool!

 

[SeanNoonan]

I think a giant, firey spider should emerge from the lava and blow you kisses while The Love Boat theme song plays.

I think that's the weirdest thing I've read today. Good work

Thanks everyone - seems I'm on the right track with that anyway.

 

[Mystic River]

great job! and hope this 2015 is a better year for the indie community!

By the way, I have a question and want to hear some opinions by those who have played Elite Dangerous.

I am doing a 2d procedural roguelike space game based on many ideas, a little bit of Elite (old version from the 80s) and many other games of that era, I read recently about how bad Elite Dangerous turned out to be , I just want to know what the indie community think about it and what would everyone here would like to see in a rogue like procedural space game.

My main focus has been in game mechanics and playability instead of graphics until now.

 

[_machine]

Stunning work on the OP!

Finally back home, but off course flu hit me on the way back so I'm trying to just enjoy the last days of the vacation and not bother my mind with the upcoming work. There's a lot of it in sight since I'm in the charge of the local GGJ site and we still have a lot of work to do and no sponsors to get the food for ~100 people, but it's certainly going to be an experience though. I take it most of you guys here are going to take part in GGJ as well?

As far as Ancestory goes, we're still trucking on with the Greenlight and certainly need some more support, but we have some good stuff planned and you can spot us here:

http://indieprize.org/europe2015/index.html

So yeah, we got a spot from the Indie Prize at Casual Connect Amsterdam next month which feels great and I know it's going to be a great time. I was there as a volunteer last time and thoroughly recommend it for the euros here. Speaking of which, I didn't spot any games from here on the list, any of you guys planning on going there?

I'm also super late with this, but hey we can act like it's celebration for the new OP

 

[welly_59]

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.prawnbox.aballstale

So my friend has ideas that he wants to get into game design so I said I would help him out with a project. The outcome is a balls tale, and android game which is linked above.

I'm no super coder, and I'm definitely no artist but I thought it would be good for him to see through a project and realise how much is involved before diving in deeper than he can swim.

Its a fun puzzley type of game, touch controlled with google play leaderboard integration.

Any feedback on the game mechanics and level design itself would be greatly received.

 

[Jarekx]

New thread looks great! I can't wait to see all the progress and projects people pursue in the coming year.

So I was working on an old prototype I had abandoned last year.

It was going to have turn based combat. You would act, then the enemy, but only the person at the front of each line. I had ideas for skills, that could cause you to get stuck in a position, poison circles that dealt damage when you hit certain points in the line, healing that worked the same way, the ability to reverse the way the line went or to cause it move through two people at once, and a few more ideas that weren't actually implemented. I was trying to make the combat encounters feel more like puzzles than stat checks, though I never got far enough to really make that a reality.

It's actually an idea I do hope to come back to, but I figured since it's a new year I'd like to work on another idea that's been floating around in my head. In premise, it's a Roguelike with Final Fantasy / Dragon Quest style combat.

I've only had a couple of hours to devote to it this year, but I'm close to having the very basics of combat done.

 

[_machine]

Also I've been using UE4/Blue Print at work. I'm not a big fan.

Why's that?

I still haven't had really time to delve into the engine much, but from my team both programmer and artists have been quite happy with it.

Artists have said that there's certainly a learning curve and coming from Unity it can be quite different. Some systems like the particles, matinee and other were quite overwhelming at first, but once used to they can be really powerful and fast tools.

The programmers have been really happy with Blueprint allowing them to try out stuff really fast and then if needed replace it with C++ having already iterated on the systems a bit faster than might be possible on purely coding. Biggest problems have been related to bugs in the Bluepring system where we have had to simply replace some blueprints with C++ because of the engine had a bug, but we've already seen quite a few of those bugs fixed. With the hotreloads and whatnot the whole workflow is faster than before as well so the support has been really great.

With that said, I really can't speak from my own experience yet as I haven't been involved in the development aspect much before and we are now going back to full production next week and I will probably get my hands dirty soon as well.

 

[Mr. Virus]

Nice first posts OP !

Wondering if anyone else is planning on launching their game in the next few weeks from here. We're launching Monstrum on Early Access at the end of the month, and will happily give some other devs shout outs when they're due to go live .

 

[V_Arnold]

New thread, new fun! I miss the HTML5 presence in the op, Construct 2 really?

Anyway, Ill try to write something up about that front if anyone is interested. Just give me a few days

I wish everyone tenfold progress compared to last years's/last thread's, especially to myself (cause that would up my progress to the thread average that way ) ! I cant allow the snail's pace to continue like in 2014. Time to switch those engines on...

 

[superNESjoe]

Great new thread!

Working on our next game, Bashketball, which we're going to start showing off very soon. It's a sports mash-up that combines Basketball, Volleyball, and Cage Fighting into one outrageous super-sport.

Here's a WIP of the art-style we're going for this time around.

(Imgur really wants to blow the image up for some reason, causing it to get pixelated. It's actually incredibly crisp in game.)

The game is played 1v1 or 2v2, with each team trying to dunk the ball into the opposing teams basket. To keep things interesting, the ball is actually a live animal that moves around the court trying to avoid the players. Bashketball is a full-contact sport, so players are encouraged to play offensively to grapple and attack their opponents, hurling them across the court in an effort to clear the way for a sweet slam dunk.

It's really combat oriented, so there's a lot of pressure to get that satisfaction of heavy contact down correctly. We're really excited about it but nervous all the same. Can't wait to show off some of it down the road.

 

[Dascu]

Nice first posts OP !

Wondering if anyone else is planning on launching their game in the next few weeks from here. We're launching Monstrum on Early Access at the end of the month, and will happily give some other devs shout outs when they're due to go live .

Good luck. I'm very curious to see how your game turns out. I experimented with random and procedural levels in early version of Malebolgia, but I didn't really manage to handle it and dropped it in favour of a set level.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

At least some of the cons associated with Flixel are mitigated by using Haxeflixel which is still under active development and isn't irrevocably attached to Flash - it might be worth linking as an alternative for Flixel, or as a suggestion in its own right?