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

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Yes, but the devil is in the details.

Then let's take it a step further to simplify without using overlays of objects.

Have your original character already pre-sliced into, say, upper costume, lower costume, etc.

For each of these objects, get the name of the current sprite and replace it with the corresponding sprite from another costume from an array. We do this to change costumes for our character using a similar method, except we just change the entire character.

Our normal sprites are numbered 0-X.

0 is idle
1-6 is run
7-10 is jump
so on

I use a bool to denote which costume is being worn and assign a new sprite from a new costume array.

So we don't have to create an array ahead of time and assign every damn sprite - I create an array at runtime and pull a set of sprites alphanumerically from a specific costume folder and assign them to the new array, 0-X again. Each new sprite is numbered with a prefix, with the exact same animation state per sprite so 0 in the new array will be idle, 1-6 run, etc.

Now if my bool says "blacksuit" is true - i simply assign a new sprite from the array:.

Unity C#
Code:
if (blacksuit)
    _renderer.sprite = _costume.blacksuit[int.Parse(_renderer.sprite.name)];

So what we are doing is assigning a new sprite in the renderer from an array from our costume class called "blacksuit". Inside that array i am grabbing the current sprite's name and turning it from a string to an int. Since my sprites are all numbered 1-X - it parses 1:1.

You can do something similar for your costume objects. This way you're not adding, overlaying and removing objects, you simply use one and change the sprite based on whatever sprite is supposed to be there.

I often screw around and have my dude change into random enemies XD

I should make a cardboard box.
 

missile

Member
Further down the road I will come up with multiple channels for the TV. Each
channel will have different receptions strengths (can be coupled with a
ray-caster to compute signal strength, reflection etc.) and may interfere with
other channels nearby. I just don't know if I can do it like its done in
reality because computing a band of UHF/VHF frequencies is computationally
quite expensive. xD Anyhow, there are ways around it. Well, my goal, within
this regard, is to imitate the behavior of a real (NTSC/PAL/CUSTOM) tuner.
But first things first. Still working on getting a proper B/W signal on the
screen...
 
Further down the road I will come up with multiple channels for the TV. Each
channel will have different receptions strengths (can be couple with a
ray-caster to compute signal strength, reflection etc.) and may interfere with
other channels nearby. I just don't know if I can do it like its done in
reality because computing a band of UHF/VHF frequencies is computationally
quite expensive. xD Anyhow, there are ways around it. Well, my goal, within
this regard, is to imitate the behavior of a real (NTSC/PAL/CUSTOM) tuner.
But first things first. Still working on getting a proper B/W signal on the
screen...

Just fucking take over the world, already! All this putting about is making me anxious :p
 
Jesus fucking christ. I banned a couple of would-be spammers on our forum. Now my site is under DDOS.

My log just went full stop with connections from damn near everywhere in EU.

I'm not sure what the intent is.

Edit: I brought the server down a few moments.
Edit2: Back on the line.
 

missile

Member
Just fucking take over the world, already! All this putting about is making me anxious :p
Perhaps I should stay a lil more silent than. ;) However, don't expect it
too soon. Currently, I am primarily working on the middle section of the whole
thing so to speak, the baseband video signal and their video circuits. To the
right lies the CRT and to the left the tuner (HF section, mixer etc.) if you
so will. The only thing (yet one of the most important one) which is currently
running is the sync stuff (vsync/hsync) which actually keeps the image on the
screen. If I get the b/w signal ready I will let the "CRT" and the video signal
desynchronize to demonstrate that we are dealing here with a proper video
signal and, best of all, to actually show off one of the most interesting
effect of all of video!

Jesus fucking christ. I banned a couple of would-be spammers on our forum. Now my site is under DDOS.

My log just went full stop with connections from damn near everywhere in EU.

I'm not sure what the intent is. ...
You crossed the line! xD
 
Perhaps I should stay a lil more silent than. ;) However, don't expect it
too soon. Currently, I am primarily working on the middle section of the whole
thing so to speak, the baseband video signal and their video circuits. To the
right lies the CRT and to the left the tuner (HF section, mixer etc.) if you
so will. The only thing (yet one of the most important one) which is currently
running is the sync stuff (vsync/hsync) which actually keeps the image on the
screen. If I get the b/w signal ready I will let the "CRT" and the video signal
desynchronize to demonstrate that we are dealing here with a proper video
signal and, best of all, to actually show off one of the most interesting
effect of all of video!
FZcLKbW.gif


You crossed the line! xD
Ha! Just bots. crawl the web looking for familiar webpages like wordpress, joomla, phpbb, etc.

Still, though. Stupid.
 

Pehesse

Member
^^ Oh yeah, thx for the hint!

No worries!

I don't really use it often right now, as I'm too used to PS for Honey and switching tools in the mid of production is... a generally bad idea, but the few times I've used it, I was definitely positively impressed! It appears mainly geared towards comic drawers, but it has plenty to love for all kinds, as well. At least, as far as I tried, which is admittedly not very much :-D

And now for something that 100% wasn't made using the above soft:
 

missile

Member
I really do believe missile works on weapons research or something for some government. I'm not even making a joke.
I indeed had a stay in the military. I worked with the rocket launcher MARS
tracking its rockets with a fire-guidance-system to ensure that the rockets
hit within a given region to acknowledge safety firing for the whole battery.
This was in Germany many years ago. However, my name missile isn't related to
the military, it stems from playing Duke Nukem 3D with some of my friends via
LAN in the 90ies. That was fun!
 
The web sux. The amount of sh!tload is insane.

Different question; your logo, what does the sign mean?
I always wanted to know.
Agreed. I should remove branding from my sites but meh. Minor shit like this from bots is the least of my worries, tbh. Just sucks having it go down for 20 or so minutes.

As for the logo, it means nothing. It just looks good in red with my font :p
 
Agreed. I should remove branding from my sites but meh. Minor shit like this from bots is the least of my worries, tbh. Just sucks having it go down for 20 or so minutes.

The branding wouldn't matter too much to a bot -- all of the HTML will still have the vendor-specific tags.

Your best bet, if you haven't already, is to set up a pretty strict robots.txt to try and stop the legitimate bots from eating your bandwidth/server resources. This won't stop bots that ignore that file (most illegitimate ones) but it will help with a lot of the less-desirable ones (Russian, Chinese, etc.) as they seem to crawl and index everything, repeatedly. They still end up pulling some results from Google, so you don't lose that much by disallowing their search bots.

If you're being bombarded by "bad" bots (rogue crawlers, script kiddies, etc.) you're kind of hosed. I had this problem a while ago and couldn't find a good solution that didn't also impact regular site visitors, so I basically just had to ride it out and wait for it to clear up.
 

missile

Member
No worries!

I don't really use it often right now, as I'm too used to PS for Honey and switching tools in the mid of production is... a generally bad idea, but the few times I've used it, I was definitely positively impressed! It appears mainly geared towards comic drawers, but it has plenty to love for all kinds, as well. At least, as far as I tried, which is admittedly not very much :-D

And now for something that 100% wasn't made using the above soft:
When do we see in-game shots again? :)


... As for the logo, it means nothing. It just looks good in red with my font :p
Looks like a tag of a squad or something.
 

Pehesse

Member
When do we see in-game shots again? :)

Sooooon/next year (both of those statements are not incompatible). I just want to have these guys animated before plugging them all into the game at once!

But I get your point, I'll lay off on posting only anims for now :)
 

asa

Member
Well that escalated quickly!

Power Hover is featured by Apple in over 50 countries! 15 main banners and counting! Tomorrow we will know the exact number once the statistics catch up. This is amazingly stupefying!

What is happening! :D :D
 

missile

Member
Sooooon/next year (both of those statements are not incompatible). I just want to have these guys animated before plugging them all into the game at once!

But I get your point, I'll lay off on posting only anims for now :)
Na, keep them coming. I wanted to see these guys in the context of the game,
because it looks always quite cool if so. Anyhow, take your time.


Well that escalated quickly!

Power Hover is featured by Apple in over 50 countries! 15 main banners and counting! Tomorrow we will know the exact number once the statistics catch up. This is amazingly stupefying!

What is happening! :D :D
That's good news, I guess. Well done, Sir!
 

Pehesse

Member
Na, keep them coming. I wanted to see these guys in the context of the game,
because it looks always quite cool if so. Anyhow, take your time.

Maybe I'll try a quick integration test this week end, 'cause you're right, it *is* better to see stuff in context! (and I have a truckload of new sound effects to try also, so might as well - no more silent match intros! Prototype players, rejoice :-D )

Well that escalated quickly!

Power Hover is featured by Apple in over 50 countries! 15 main banners and counting! Tomorrow we will know the exact number once the statistics catch up. This is amazingly stupefying!

What is happening! :D :D

Wow, congrats! :-D
 
The branding wouldn't matter too much to a bot -- all of the HTML will still have the vendor-specific tags.

Your best bet, if you haven't already, is to set up a pretty strict robots.txt to try and stop the legitimate bots from eating your bandwidth/server resources. This won't stop bots that ignore that file (most illegitimate ones) but it will help with a lot of the less-desirable ones (Russian, Chinese, etc.) as they seem to crawl and index everything, repeatedly. They still end up pulling some results from Google, so you don't lose that much by disallowing their search bots.

If you're being bombarded by "bad" bots (rogue crawlers, script kiddies, etc.) you're kind of hosed. I had this problem a while ago and couldn't find a good solution that didn't also impact regular site visitors, so I basically just had to ride it out and wait for it to clear up.
Aye. Already started rewriting some back-end garbage collection for bots today. Will implement tomorrow if I have time. Thanks!

Looks like a tag of a squad or something.
Nah. Just something I slapped together in a few minutes. IT allowed me to do cool stuff like: https://twitter.com/AbsintheGames/status/574210510536720384

There's more to that loading splash since - an entire boot sequence.
 
Wow that looks incredible. Nice work.

Thanks!

I felt that while the quality of the execution was very good, the actual design concept was highly generic. Reminded me of something I might see in a commercial for Fullsail. I don't know what specific advice to give except that if you want to avoid this impression the approach might need to change -- Have everything designed in one coherent vision (either by you or someone else) and then render based on that.

THat said, given it's not the main character, and the elements will apparently be mixed around a lot, maybe I'm premature in my criticism.

I agree with the design criticism; I never really appreciated the value of concept artists till I started making this game (probably need to eventually find one). I think coming up with compelling designs is a more important talent then actually being able draw or model. At the same time, I don't think generic is necessarily a bad thing, so long as the execution is high and there is creativity and uniqueness elsewhere.
 

missile

Member
... Nah. Just something I slapped together in a few minutes. IT allowed me to do cool stuff like: https://twitter.com/AbsintheGames/status/574210510536720384

There's more to that loading splash since - an entire boot sequence.
Ah nice! This lowscan stuff gains more and more momentum as further we go,
technology-wise. I think we are on the verge where such things are
considered as art instead of a limited technology it has arisen from. I mean,
how many kids know about ASCII, dithering, or the limitation of composite
video? They sum to 0, I guess.
 

missile

Member
26tP9RH4gmyIDZpBu.gif


OMG, it works! Got the b/w video signal running. I never was so proud seeing a
b/w image. xD Had some difficulties with some IIR filters, but now they are
stable and do their work.

Well, I also implemented a soft-start characteristic when turning on the CRT,
as you can see in the animation above. Since my CRT will be primarily based on
vacuum tubes (analog circuits) there was something known as an NTC (negative
temperature coefficient) resistor in the heater/filament circuit of all the
vacuum tubes to limit the initial current through them, because the filament
has a lower resistance if cold and as such would allow for a high current to
flow (for a very short time interval) far exiting (about 10-15x) the operating
current of the tubes in question. Hence, an NTC resistor was put into the
circuit which has a higher resistance if cold and drops in resistance when
heated up till leveling on an operating temperature/resistance. So the tubes
were soft-started to enhance their durability. An effect of this is the
following; the cathode of a vacuum tube doesn't emit as many electrons when
being at low temperature. Hence, the tube doesn't amplify as it should be, yet
the amplification builds up as the tube warms up. The horizontal and vertical
deflection coils deflecting the beam are driven by such tubes. As such the
beam won't sweep across the whole screen initially because the tubes are
coming from a cold start. That's why you have this sort of image build-up when
turning on an old CRT. I wanted to mimic it to some degree right from the
start to enhance the feeling of the whole thing, since a b/w video signal
isn't so thrilling from the outside yet it took a lot of work to make it all
running. The b/w picture is not just a grayscale put on the screen. It's
tightly woven into the video signal structure. Anyhow, I hope you like it.
 
26tP9RH4gmyIDZpBu.gif


OMG, it works! Got the b/w video signal running. I never was so proud seeing a
b/w image. xD Had some difficulties with some IIR filters, but now they are
stable and do their work.

Well, I also implemented a soft-start characteristic when turning on the CRT,
as you can see in the animation above. Since my CRT will be primarily based on
vacuum tubes (analog circuits) there was something known as an NTC (negative
temperature coefficient) resistor in the heater/filament circuit of all the
vacuum tubes to limit the initial current through them, because the filament
has a lower resistance if cold and as such would allow for a high current to
flow (for a very short time interval) far exiting (about 10-15x) the operating
current of the tubes in question. Hence, an NTC resistor was put into the
circuit which has a higher resistance if cold and drops in resistance when
heated up till leveling on an operating temperature/resistance. So the tubes
were soft-started to enhance their durability. An effect of this is the
following; the cathode of a vacuum tube doesn't emit as many electrons when
being at low temperature. Hence, the tube doesn't amplify as it should be, yet
the amplification builds up as the tube warms up. The horizontal and vertical
deflection coils deflecting the beam are driven by such tubes. As such the
beam won't sweep across the whole screen initially because the tubes are
coming from a cold start. That's why you have this sort of image build-up when
turning on an old CRT. I wanted to mimic it to some degree right from the
start to enhance the feeling of the whole thing, since a b/w video signal
isn't so thrilling from the outside yet it took a lot of work to make it all
running. The b/w picture is not just a grayscale put on the screen. It's
tightly woven into the video signal structure. Anyhow, I hope you like it.

Very impressive man.
 
Ah nice! This lowscan stuff gains more and more momentum as further we go,
technology-wise. I think we are on the verge where such things are
considered as art instead of a limited technology it has arisen from. I mean,
how many kids know about ASCII, dithering, or the limitation of composite
video? They sum to 0, I guess.

I do take this a step further than that tweet. Let's look at some work I had started for our trailer.

So we have a bit of a phosphor glow happening on-screen, the screen has a slight green tinge to it, minor screen curvature and ever so slight tilt to the left and off-center. I wasn't trying to create a 1:1 emulation of old technology, rather, take it a step further by exaggerating several key aspects of old displays.

Line highlighting.

Taking a display snafu to the brink, increasing phosphor glow and scanline rate while simply shifting horizontal lines in a wave pattern.

Here we can see the curvature, tilt and phosphor glow much better.

I also bring a bit of this to the game world under certain circumstances but only for flash moments like taking damage. In the next pic you will see several layers of effects. I first desaturate and brighten the edges of the screen to create more of a glow effect from the standard bloom. i then tile the screen edges to create a sort of grid or old-school phosphor grid - without the RGB separation. Next I use chromatic aberration to further break up the image around the screen edges and finally apply a soft blur and fullscreen fat scanline effect. All of this starts instantly with a half-life of 0.5 seconds and the remaining half life has their values lerped back to OEM and dampened with a curve for a nice slope back to normal over the next full second.

Now to see the old phosphor style monitor in action.

Here i display the lines for our logo, rendering each one at a time from the center and expanding up. It's hard to see the phosphor proper in that GIF but you get the idea. I also use some slight horizontal line shifting randomly to lessen the perceived sync:
http://www.gfycat.com/SadAgileArcticfox

Here we see the main login screen during the trailer. I use the same technique but add a quick glitch to the screen which ties in with other parts of the trailer later on. This time i chose to render the image from top to bottom to carry that theme throughout the video. The logo was only done as it was since it represents the development team.
http://www.gfycat.com/DifferentMildEuropeanfiresalamander

I am probably spending way too much time and effort on the little things when I am not sure if any of these things will pay off. There's a lot more that goes on during play that will more than likely go unnoticed by the way of nuance and subtlety. I am hoping the level of quality and polish will speak about how much time and effort we are putting into such a simple game.
 

snarge

Member
Well that escalated quickly!

Power Hover is featured by Apple in over 50 countries! 15 main banners and counting! Tomorrow we will know the exact number once the statistics catch up. This is amazingly stupefying!

What is happening! :D :D

That's great! Glad to see it happening. Keep us posted!



I made some progress this morning on my snail shooter. Charge style weapon, now with more (silly) effects than ever!

https://twitter.com/snarge/status/675346804724989953

It was quite weak at first, but I added an area of slow time around it, along with suspending movement on the player. This makes it feel really fun.
 

missile

Member
Very impressive man.
Thx a lot! :)


I do take ...
Which is awesome. It really fits the game. I also did many of the image space
stuff and all the RGB decompositions, line juggling etc.. Phosphor glow is way
cool. I'm going to implementing this when dealing with the CRT side.

Is it worth the effort? Well, I think the player appreciate the attention to
detail even without being able to tell all the things apart. It's not even
necessary to look after all these things straight. It just adds up making the
game feel properly crafted. That's why I like Pehesse's way of putting things,
one just feels the game will turn out superior even without looking, but if
you look, you will see so much detail in every corner. :+

However, I've turned a lil a way from just, say, image effects, because the
effects I'm now after will be part of the gameplay of my game Superstall and I
need effects that break in a very continuous and smooth fashion without
disturbing the player too much up until the signal is really lost. That's one
of the interesting part of analog stuff, they also break in an analog fashion.
Realizing such behavior comes close doing the real thing at least in an
approximated fashion. On the other hand I'm pretty pleased doing all these
things just on their own. It's a very interesting topic combining many fields.
And indeed, I've spent lots (like lots) of hours too on things which turned
out to be a "waste of time" or need to be skipped in favor of others. But
that's why we call it development, right?
 

Davision

Neo Member
Only hours left now to the start of Ludum Dare! I'm gonna enter this one, which is then my 2nd Ludum Dare.

Who else here is joining?
 
Thx a lot! :)



Which is awesome. It really fits the game. I also did many of the image space
stuff and all the RGB decompositions, line juggling etc.. Phosphor glow is way
cool. I'm going to implementing this when dealing with the CRT side.

Is it worth the effort? Well, I think the player appreciate the attention to
detail even without being able to tell all the things apart. It's not even
necessary to look after all these things straight. It just adds up making the
game feel properly crafted. That's why I like Pehesse's way of putting things,
one just feels the game will turn out superior even without looking, but if
you look, you will see so much detail in every corner. :+

However, I've turned a lil a way from just, say, image effects, because the
effects I'm now after will be part of the gameplay of my game Superstall
and I
need effects that break in a very continuous and smooth fashion without
disturbing the player too much up until the signal is really lost. That's one
of the interesting part of analog stuff, they also break in an analog fashion.
Realizing such behavior comes close doing the real thing at least in an
approximated fashion. On the other hand I'm pretty pleased doing all these
things just on their own. It's a very interesting topic combining many fields.
And indeed, I've spent lots (like lots) of hours too on things which turned
out to be a "waste of time" or need to be skipped in favor of others. But
that's why we call it development, right?

I feel the best inclusion of these visual elements is in some type of gameplay loop. They are great on their own, but as the bolded above, this is the right way to do it, IMO. I use 2 very simple effects minimally at all times - bloom and grain. Very mild bloom helps give the nice glow we see in the game without looking fuzzy and grain is used to help glue the image together. Without the grain the image looks very flat and lifeless.

I also don't go overboard:

You can see the grain here, but just slightly. In motion every frame gets a new pass and I use RGB for grain, instead of just grayscale like I see in a lot of other games. Compare the above with an earlier photoshop-only concept art for Neon City:


The glow and grain give the image a bit more cohesion and the end result is a more vibrant and less "flat" image.

Most all other effects in game are done via the gameplay and combat loops. I really don't like adding effects just for the sake of existing so I make sure to incorporate them into gameplay. It's more fun to:

  • user presses button
  • thing executes
  • thing provides visual and auditory feedback
  • user analyzes the visual and auditory feedback
  • user - decision time
  • back to top

I know things like a UI are needed for health display and the like but I also like using effects to provide some visual feedback in a combat loop for the player.

Take this overheat:

When firing from this amazingly drawn mech the screen is the indicator for gun heat (along with the sprite, itself, the gun gets red hot and smokes - more on that when I get my sprites in).

I begin by brightening the center of the image and applying a slight desaturation to that center, fading as it moves outward while raising the bloom level. I add a blend overlay of red to the outside edges of the screen and a tilt-shift radial blur that works its way inward towards the player. Finally i increase the film grain by a metric ton, increasing its size and color saturation. I also bleed some of the brighter colors into the area as you can see from the bright rooftop or my amazingly, hand-drawn, robot man. Looks much better in play than in that pic but you get the idea. That gun will probably be more powerful as i tweak it's play but there is a hard-lock on overheat and cooldown. The screen is the overheat visual indicator I chose over a bar or something the player has to look at. The screen becomes far harder to see because it's a monster weapon that makes you OP so there should be some drawback to holding the kill button down.

Any way I can work an effect or the like into the gameplay and combat loop, I will. People tend to like it when things happen that are cool when they press buttons - I do try to capitalize on that whenever possible.
 

missile

Member
I feel the best inclusion of these visual elements is in some type of gameplay loop. They are great on their own, but as the bolded above, this is the right way to do it, IMO. I use 2 very simple effects minimally at all times - bloom and grain. Very mild bloom helps give the nice glow we see in the game without looking fuzzy and grain is used to help glue the image together. Without the grain the image looks very flat and lifeless.
Grain always helps against flats. What's the problem with flats, anyways?
Well, I did a bit of a research, and, basically, in a nutshell, looking at a
constant colored region makes you blind! There are some cells in the eye which
need to be constantly refresh (acting like a capacitor). The rapid eye
movement tries to focus a different point within a given region to charge the
capacitors again. Yet if the region is constant and large it becomes
impossible to properly do a refresh. So with grain you basically ease the eye
refreshing its cells keeping your perception alive. So let there be grain! xD


I also don't go overboard:


You can see the grain here, but just slightly. In motion every frame gets a new pass and I use RGB for grain, instead of just grayscale like I see in a lot of other games. Compare the above with an earlier photoshop-only concept art for Neon City:



The glow and grain give the image a bit more cohesion and the end result is a more vibrant and less "flat" image.

Most all other effects in game are done via the gameplay and combat loops. I really don't like adding effects just for the sake of existing so I make sure to incorporate them into gameplay. It's more fun to:

  • user presses button
  • thing executes
  • thing provides visual and auditory feedback
  • user analyzes the visual and auditory feedback
  • user - decision time
  • back to top
...
Fully agree. That's the way it should be done!


... I know things like a UI are needed for health display and the like but I also like using effects to provide some visual feedback in a combat loop for the player.

Take this overheat:


When firing from this amazingly drawn mech the screen is the indicator for gun heat (along with the sprite, itself, the gun gets red hot and smokes - more on that when I get my sprites in).

I begin by brightening the center of the image and applying a slight desaturation to that center, fading as it moves outward while raising the bloom level. I add a blend overlay of red to the outside edges of the screen and a tilt-shift radial blur that works its way inward towards the player. Finally i increase the film grain by a metric ton, increasing its size and color saturation. I also bleed some of the brighter colors into the area as you can see from the bright rooftop or my amazingly, hand-drawn, robot man. Looks much better in play than in that pic but you get the idea. That gun will probably be more powerful as i tweak it's play but there is a hard-lock on overheat and cooldown. The screen is the overheat visual indicator I chose over a bar or something the player has to look at. The screen becomes far harder to see because it's a monster weapon that makes you OP so there should be some drawback to holding the kill button down.

Any way I can work an effect or the like into the gameplay and combat loop, I will. People tend to like it when things happen that are cool when they press buttons - I do try to capitalize on that whenever possible.
Boahh ... cool! Top-notch! Would be could to have no HUD at all.
 
Grain always helps against flats. What's the problem with flats, anyways?
Well, I did a bit of a research, and, basically, in a nutshell, looking at a
constant colored region makes you blind! There are some cells in the eye which
need to be constantly refresh (acting like a capacitor). The rapid eye
movement tries to focus a different point within a given region to charge the
capacitors again. Yet if the region is constant and large it becomes
impossible to properly do a refresh. So with grain you basically ease the eye
refreshing its cells keeping your perception alive. So let there be grain! xD



Fully agree. That's the way it should be done!



Boahh ... cool! Top-notch! Would be could to have no HUD at all.
See! I'm not smart enough to know eyeball stuff but I knew grain did something XD

As for HUDless, I have tossed around the idea using different visual and audio cues. The weapon display will probably be axed in favor of player colors (Mega Man) but I still need to convey health, disk/zip energy and secondary alt-weapon energy. I use other screen effects to denote player conditions so a HUD may be required to keep the image clean 90% of the time. I can work some trickery around the player but that would be too intrusive since we are still working out scene colors for readability.
 

asa

Member
Sorry for repeating myself, but i'm just so excited :D

AppAnnie just updated: Power Hover is apparently now featured in 146 countries!
 
Only hours left now to the start of Ludum Dare! I'm gonna enter this one, which is then my 2nd Ludum Dare.

Who else here is joining?

I kind of wanted to but I'm coming down with a cold, so it seems like a bad idea at the moment.


Sorry for repeating myself, but i'm just so excited :D

AppAnnie just updated: Power Hover is apparently now featured in 146 countries!

That's so cool! The game looks really good.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Do you have to sign up online or something? I'm curious and may try.
Just make an account on ludumdare.com and I think that's it. Submit if you finish something by the 2-day compo deadline or 3-day jam deadline. Check out the rules before the event starts of course.

I don't THINK you even have to make an "I'm in!" blog post, but a lot of people do that.
 
Do you have to sign up online or something? I'm curious and may try.

Well, you'll need to create on account on ludumdare.com in order to submit your game at the end, but you don't need to officially sign up for this specific competition or anything.

EDIT: Dammit Blizzard.
 

DNAbro

Member
Just make an account on ludumdare.com and I think that's it. Submit if you finish something by the 2-day compo deadline or 3-day jam deadline. Check out the rules before the event starts of course.

I don't THINK you even have to make an "I'm in!" blog post, but a lot of people do that.

Thanks. Want something like this to force me to create something that looks like a finished project. Have the habit of getting into projects that are a bit too big. If it ends up well I might submit.
 

Davision

Neo Member
Sucks, that it starts at 3 o'clock in the night here, curious about the theme. Starting at 3 in the night might a bad idea, trying to get some sleep while having ideas float around might be too.

I'm planning to enter again if I don't hate the theme too much. :p
The only one I kinda hate is the "two button controls" one. Better then 1 button controls and all the flappy birds like games it would spawn though.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Sucks, that it starts at 3 o'clock in the night here, curious about the theme. Starting at 3 in the night might a bad idea, trying to get some sleep while having ideas float around might be too.


The only one I kinda hate is the "two button controls" one. Better then 1 button controls and all the flappy birds like games it would spawn though.
I actually thought that "two button controls" WOULD produce a ton of flappy bird games, and people would just add a button.

Or, a ton of endless runners where you can jump and shoot. I'd rather not play 50 games from either of those genres for voting. :p
 

Blizzard

Banned
So I'm still stuck PLAYING two-button games, but at least I can make a Growing game instead.

However, to get a high theme vote I imagine I'll have to use both. :|


*edit* There was almost a 3-way tie. Also, ALL themes were negatively voted this time. As usual, all themes are really unpopular I guess?
 

Davision

Neo Member
Haha, it got to be Two Button controls, I really feared that would be it, well I will stick to Growing. Growing should be great even though I have no ideas formed yet.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Someone made a good point -- "Growing" seems like a theme, and "Two button control" seems like more of a constraint. Unfortunately, a huge part of the Ludum Dare audience is set on keeping constraints, particularly mechanical constraints, in the theme running. So I guess we're stuck with them.
 
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