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[Jobbs]

https://fat.gfycat.com/RealWearyBorzoi.webm
Been working on this swinging platform all day. I think I finally got the physics balanced just right. First getting all the different connected parts to link up, then fine tuning the exact numbers for an hour or so to make sure it has the right balance of speed, challenge, and utility. But it's all worth it because I love having dynamic stuff like this to break up the otherwise static level design most metroidvanias have.

Those platforms are dope! I love all this inverse kinematics nonsenes too, I can't wait to work on the next game!

So while I make progress every day, mentally I'm dawdling and buying time as I try to figure out every last thing that I could possibly want to be in the game systems-wise. I'm stuck halfway between production and pre-production.

Dude you're overthinking it. Just roll with it.

I say this with slight hesitation because I tend to think most people are smarter than me and must know best, but what I'm hearing from you just there is a similar melody to what I've heard before from others (and myself at points).

Making a game is an incredibly fluid process. You'll probably lose more time agonizing over this stuff now than you would tweaking old level designs down the road. Just dooo it.

 

[liliththepale]

Those platforms are dope! I love all this inverse kinematics nonsenes too, I can't wait to work on the next game!

Dude you're overthinking it. Just roll with it.

I say this with slight hesitation because I tend to think most people are smarter than me and must know best, but what I'm hearing from you just there is a similar melody to what I've heard before from others (and myself at points).

Making a game is an incredibly fluid process. You'll probably lose more time agonizing over this stuff now than you would tweaking old level designs down the road. Just dooo it.

Bear with me for a moment here. Every time I hear you say "I wish I was working on day/night cycles" or "I wish I was playing around with IK" or whatever it is you wish you were doing, I think about how I don't want to be in that position. Six months from now, I don't want to be ruing a feature that's missing because it would take too much work to revise the current designs and implementation to afford that.

So I'm okay with taking a bit of extra time right now to puzzle this out. I don't think I'll be in pre-production mode forever.

 

[Jobbs]

Bear with me for a moment here. Every time I hear you say "I wish I was working on day/night cycles" or "I wish I was playing around with IK" or whatever it is you wish you were doing, I think about how I don't want to be in that position. Six months from now, I don't want to be ruing a feature that's missing because it would take too much work to revise the current designs and implementation to afford that.

So I'm okay with taking a bit of extra time right now to puzzle this out. I don't think I'll be in pre-production mode forever.

Point taken, but if you work on a game for a long time (as I have been) some things are bound to spring up that you wish you had implemented. I think it's somewhat inevitable.

I went through quite a "what am I gonna do.." phase at the outset, following the KS. Eventually I just went with it. Even if there are a few regrets, on the bright side, I have a pretty big game now. That, and there is a certain safety that comes with working with what you have. Even a comfort.

 

[liliththepale]

Sure. I don't mean to claim things will ever be perfect, but I think a lot of that can be mitigated with careful planning. You can give me the well-deserved kick-in-the-pants if I'm still dawdling a month from now!

 

[Jobbs]

Sure. I don't mean to claim things will ever be perfect, but I think a lot of that can be mitigated with careful planning. You can give me the well-deserved kick-in-the-pants if I'm still dawdling a month from now!

I was probably being too presumptuous. I just see a lot of wheel spinning and big plans and "this will be perfect" attitudes from indies and creators in general, so I have a knee jerk reaction when I think I'm smelling it.

 

[jarosh]

Man, it's been forever since I posted in this thread. Might have been in the first one actually...

Anyway, just launched with OCTAHEDRON on Steam Greenlight and thought I'd share:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=534653006

What is it? I like to call it a "psychedelic vertical D.I.Y. platforming adventure". A vertical platformer in which your primary ability is to make your own platforms. Music also plays a somehwat important role. At EGX 2014 someone called it "Daft Punk meets Mega Man". I kinda liked that.

Here's the trailer:
https://vimeo.com/149854457

 

[Bollocks]

Are there best practices on how to let 2 CPU armies fight against each other, where each army is setup by a player beforehand?
Is there an industry term I'm missing? Don't know what to search for.
Because I also want the weaker army to sometimes win, it's actually a really tricky problem.
Would appreciate any links on that matter.

 

[Comfort Jones]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/abandon-the-town

Finally got the first real release of my Half life 2 mod done. Edited weapons, movement speed, enemy behaviors, all kinds of shit. Basically been doing this to learn how to make games rather than spend time and money at school so I hope it pays off :x.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

Current project is going very slow due to tryng to raise a family. Adam Saltzman is kinda my inspiration right now since he is a family man + dev as well.

Hardest thing for me is to focus with continual interruptions.

 

[Mathunilx]

Hello, I really don't know if this is the place but I just wanted to pop in to say that I write music and I am looking to write a few songs for a game. If anyone ever needs songs for their games I can probably take on a couple requests.

If this is not the right place I'm very sorry!

 

[mabec]

http://www.moddb.com/mods/abandon-the-town

Finally got the first real release of my Half life 2 mod done. Edited weapons, movement speed, enemy behaviors, all kinds of shit. Basically been doing this to learn how to make games rather than spend time and money at school so I hope it pays off :x.

I love HL mods, i will have my eyes on this. Please consider changing the hud color as well, making it standing out a bit more. maybe even hiding some by making it transparent?

 

[Jumplion]

Been a while since I posted. Tried to do visual stuff for my game, but hit a pretty major roadblock in that I have no idea how to do shader stuff, particles, and other things needed to art good. Redid some of the code from earlier, but otherwise I'm a bit stuck. Any suggestions on how to move forward when you're a code monkey with no art skills?

Man, it's been forever since I posted in this thread. Might have been in the first one actually...

Anyway, just launched with OCTAHEDRON on Steam Greenlight and thought I'd share:

[pretty images]

What is it? I like to call it a "psychedelic vertical D.I.Y. platforming adventure". A vertical platformer in which your primary ability is to make your own platforms. Music also plays a somehwat important role. At EGX 2014 someone called it "Daft Punk meets Mega Man". I kinda liked that.

Here's the trailer:
https://vimeo.com/149854457

Like, this stuff right here, looks darn neat. Hell if I know where to even begin to make things all shiny like that.

 

[jarosh]

Been a while since I posted. Tried to do visual stuff for my game, but hit a pretty major roadblock in that I have no idea how to do shader stuff, particles, and other things needed to art good. Redid some of the code from earlier, but otherwise I'm a bit stuck. Any suggestions on how to move forward when you're a code monkey with no art skills?



Like, this stuff right here, looks darn neat. Hell if I know where to even begin to make things all shiny like that.

My situation wasn't that different from yours. I wasn't a good pixel/visual artist and I'm really still not that great, and I considered hiring an artist for quite a while. But I just rolled with it and iterated over and over and got better at it and also tried to work around my limitations. Got some minor help with shaders, but almost everything in Octahedron is just sprites/particles. 2.5 years ago, in prototype form, it looked like this:

And here are just a few selected builds chronologically until today:

Oh yeah, and around 80% of the colors in the game are actually generated on the fly, in code, and many of them are constantly shifting and moving through a set color spectrum. Almost all sprites are just grayscale and have no typical pixel art shading. An idea and solution for me that had to a lot with being better at coding than at drawing.

 

[SplitYourInfinities]

If you want to make your game look fancy you have to learn to program shaders. They are a pain in the ass to make and hard to understand at first but you feel like a god when you achieve a desired effect. There are shortcuts tho, if you are using Unity you can buy Shader Forge, a WYSIWYG shader editor. If you want to understand the inner world of shaders my advice is to look for some GLSL tutorials and play with www.shadertoy.com, a online editor tool where the pro people (from MediaMolecule, Pixar or Google) share their own shaders and the code. Good luck.

 

[Subtilia]

If you want to make your game look fancy you have to learn to program shaders. They are a pain in the ass to make and hard to understand at first but you feel like a god when you achieve a desired effect. There are shortcuts tho, if you are using Unity you can buy Shader Forge, a WYSIWYG shader editor. If you want to understand the inner world of shaders my advice is to look for some GLSL tutorials and play with www.shadertoy.com, a online editor tool where the pro people (from MediaMolecule, Pixar or Google) share their own shaders and the code. Good luck.

Definitely. Custom shaders are a really good practice, and there's so much to be done with NPR yet! If you're working with Unity and has no idea where to start (like me a while ago) I'd also recommend the Unity documentation and answers site as a good source. There's a bunch of different basic shader code rolling around in the answers and a bit of copy pasta with those might get you something cool.

 

[Blizzard]

Definitely. Custom shaders are a really good practice, and there's so much to be done with NPR yet! If you're working with Unity and has no idea where to start (like me a while ago) I'd also recommend the Unity documentation and answers site as a good source. There's a bunch of different basic shader code rolling around in the answers and a bit of copy pasta with those might get you something cool.

I don't know much about shaders. What's NPR? Non-Photorealistic Rendering?

 

[Jumplion]

My situation wasn't that different from yours. I wasn't a good pixel/visual artist and I'm really still not that great, and I considered hiring an artist for quite a while. But I just rolled with it and iterated over and over and got better at it and also tried to work around my limitations. Got some minor help with shaders, but almost everything in Octahedron is just sprites/particles. 2.5 years ago, in prototype form, it looked like this:



And here are just a few selected builds chronologically until today:



Oh yeah, and around 80% of the colors in the game are actually generated on the fly, in code, and many of them are constantly shifting and moving through a set color spectrum. Almost all sprites are just grayscale and have no typical pixel art shading. An idea and solution for me that had to a lot with being better at coding than at drawing.

I think what's been preventing me is my engineering desires to have everything be as clean/efficient/smooth as possible, and I get worried that throwing a bunch of particle effects will slow things down and make a mess of things, especially since the project's on mobile. Was that a problem for you or has the business on screen generally been stable for your project?

You said your solution was basically just having blank, grayscale sprites and just manually shifting the tint and colors and whatnot? I'll have to see if I can get something interesting with that, and suck it up and play around with the particle effects.

If you want to make your game look fancy you have to learn to program shaders. They are a pain in the ass to make and hard to understand at first but you feel like a god when you achieve a desired effect. There are shortcuts tho, if you are using Unity you can buy Shader Forge, a WYSIWYG shader editor. If you want to understand the inner world of shaders my advice is to look for some GLSL tutorials and play with www.shadertoy.com, a online editor tool where the pro people (from MediaMolecule, Pixar or Google) share their own shaders and the code. Good luck.

Yeah, shaders was where I hit the roadblock. I found a Unity package online that did pretty much exactly what I wanted (check it out here; https://github.com/cakeslice/Outline-Effect , it's really cool and probably helpful for some of you guys!), but it was unfortunately hard coded to only do up to 3 different colors. I was trying to rejigger the thing to work with however many colors I wanted, but for whatever reason I couldn't figure it out. Makes me appreciate comments in code more, at least.

I know of Shadertoy, it looks amazing. My main concern is how much coding in that properly transfers to, say, ShaderLab/CG/HLSL in Unity? It's probably not as simple as copy-pasting the results you get into Unity, right?

 

[Comfort Jones]

I love HL mods, i will have my eyes on this. Please consider changing the hud color as well, making it standing out a bit more. maybe even hiding some by making it transparent?

I can't promise hud changes on this particular project but I do agree certain elements could use improving. IMO the biggest issue is the godawful default crosshair, that I will prob try to change sooner rather than later.

#21 on moddb right now, wooo.

 

[jarosh]

I think what's been preventing me is my engineering desires to have everything be as clean/efficient/smooth as possible, and I get worried that throwing a bunch of particle effects will slow things down and make a mess of things, especially since the project's on mobile. Was that a problem for you or has the business on screen generally been stable for your project?

You said your solution was basically just having blank, grayscale sprites and just manually shifting the tint and colors and whatnot? I'll have to see if I can get something interesting with that, and suck it up and play around with the particle effects.

I was never concerned with mobile. My game is strictly PC/Mac and potentially consoles (PS4, Xbox One). My personal advice would actually be to NOT start with shaders or lots of particle effects or anything like that. Shaders came very late for me, after I had started to understand the aesthetic I was going for and a solid style had emerged. I recommend that you explore an aesthetic for yourself first. You need something there that makes you think "yes, this is what the game's visual style is all about" before you start throwing shaders and effects at things. STARTING with lots of flashy effects and shaders is kind of like implementing screen shake and hard hitting sound effects before you've ever tried to make the action you're attempting to augment feel good ON ITS OWN. You'll never know if the core of the design actually works. Yes, shaders can make your game look fancy and give it that polished look, but the game's visual identity must come first. It may eventually involve shaders and lots of particle effects, but it shouldn't start with them.

Even if you're no good at it, draw, sketch. On paper. Draw shapes or things that inspire you. Draw what you think your characters etc. should look like. Can you make them simpler, abstract them in some way that suits your skills or limitations? At the beginning, will you often iterate on a sprite or texture dozens, maybe hundreds of times before it looks like you want? Yes. You must put in the work if you want results, there's no way around that. Stop when it looks just good enough, then move on to other things. You will revisit it later and polish it more. Iteration. Things come into focus while you're working on more sprites or models or textures. A style will develop. But it's time consuming. If it seems like too much work or you can't afford to invest the time, consider finding an artist to work with. No shame in that.

The color tinting/color cycling I use worked for me because it fit the neon/psychedelic aesthetic I had already started to explore. I like to call it "unreliable color". In motion, many of the game's visual elements at first seem to have a specific color, until it becomes clear that they are shifting and cycling between two or more colors or sometimes the entire color spectrum. I use animated color gradients that move in different directions to reinforce that idea. Most objects in the game have two base hues they cylce through. In terms of workload I have to admit that this approach actually turned out to be quite time consuming, since most enemies are made up of 3, 4 or more sprites, so that different parts can be tinted with different gradients that move in different directions. On top of that, every single enemy or environmental element in the game has aspects that move, pump or flash in time with the beat of the music. So, it's not like this really ended up saving a lot of time when developing the visuals of the game, but it kind of shifted the necessary set of skills to something more in line with what I'm good at.

 

[Jumplion]

I was never concerned with mobile. My game is strictly PC/Mac and potentially consoles (PS4, Xbox One). My personal advice would actually be to NOT start with shaders or lots of particle effects or anything like that. Shaders came very late for me, after I had started to understand the aesthetic I was going for and a solid style had emerged. I recommend that you explore an aesthetic for yourself first. You need something there that makes you think "yes, this is what the game's visual style is all about" before you start throwing shaders and effects at things. STARTING with lots of flashy effects and shaders is kind of like implementing screen shake and hard hitting sound effects before you've ever tried to make the action you're attempting to augment feel good ON ITS OWN. You'll never know if the core of the design actually works. Yes, shaders can make your game look fancy and give it that polished look, but the game's visual identity must come first. It may eventually involve shaders and lots of particle effects, but it shouldn't start with them.

Even if you're no good at it, draw, sketch. On paper. Draw shapes or things that inspire you. Draw what you think your characters etc. should look like. Can you make them simpler, abstract them in some way that suits your skills or limitations? At the beginning, will you often iterate on a sprite or texture dozens, maybe hundreds of times before it looks like you want? Yes. You must put in the work if you want results, there's no way around that. Stop when it looks just good enough, then move on to other things. You will revisit it later and polish it more. Iteration. Things come into focus while you're working on more sprites or models or textures. A style will develop. But it's time consuming. If it seems like too much work or you can't afford to invest the time, consider finding an artist to work with. No shame in that.

The color tinting/color cycling I use worked for me because it fit the neon/psychedelic aesthetic I had already started to explore. I like to call it "unreliable color". In motion, many of the game's visual elements at first seem to have a specific color, until it becomes clear that they are shifting and cycling between two or more colors or sometimes the entire color spectrum. I use animated color gradients that move in different directions to reinforce that idea. Most objects in the game have two base hues they cylce through. In terms of workload I have to admit that this approach actually turned out to be quite time consuming, since most enemies are made up of 3, 4 or more sprites, so that different parts can be tinted with different gradients that move in different directions. On top of that, every single enemy or environmental element in the game has aspects that move, pump or flash in time with the beat of the music. So, it's not like this really ended up saving a lot of time when developing the visuals of the game, but it kind of shifted the necessary set of skills to something more in line with what I'm good at.

I'll take your advice as much as I can, though it's harder for the "draw stuff out" because my stuff is literally circles and squares. Though I have been meaning to get better at my drawing, I tried to do that "practice every day" thing but it fell through.

I think I'll suck it up and dive into photoshop, make some circles of various gradients and colors, maybe try the prepackaged Sprite Diffuse shader that Unity has and play with lighting. I wanted to set myself on a time limit for middle of January as the game itself is around 70% or so feature complete, it's really just the visuals, audio stuff, and smaller miscellaneous things like leaderboards and some extra wave stuff.

Also, side note for a small point of victory, but I figured out the solution to a problem that I coded the solution for in advanced. I wanted to spawn my enemies in a "wall" fashion, but the way I've rejiggered the spawning system it spawns an enemy based on the angle you give it and spits out the coordinate on the point of a circle of whatever radius. Useful since before I had to use predefined positions I made in a circle around the main space.

I made it default to a circle centered at (0,0), with a predefined radius, but I made sure to put in a function that lets me put in a custom centerpoint and radius. Badabing, badaboom, the solution's already there, just take the first enemy spawn's position and generate more enemies to spawn around that point at 90 degree angles in relation to it. I just forgot about it.

I love it when past me makes sure to idiot-proof future me, and future me still screws it up.

 

[jarosh]

I'll take your advice as much as I can, though it's harder for the "draw stuff out" because my stuff is literally circles and squares. Though I have been meaning to get better at my drawing, I tried to do that "practice every day" thing but it fell through.

I think I'll suck it up and dive into photoshop, make some circles of various gradients and colors, maybe try the prepackaged Sprite Diffuse shader that Unity has and play with lighting. I wanted to set myself on a time limit for middle of January as the game itself is around 70% or so feature complete, it's really just the visuals, audio stuff, and smaller miscellaneous things like leaderboards and some extra wave stuff.

Also, side note for a small point of victory, but I figured out the solution to a problem that I coded the solution for in advanced. I wanted to spawn my enemies in a "wall" fashion, but the way I've rejiggered the spawning system it spawns an enemy based on the angle you give it and spits out the coordinate on the point of a circle of whatever radius. Useful since before I had to use predefined positions I made in a circle around the main space.

I made it default to a circle centered at (0,0), with a predefined radius, but I made sure to put in a function that lets me put in a custom centerpoint and radius. Badabing, badaboom, the solution's already there, just take the first enemy spawn's position and generate more enemies to spawn around that point at 90 degree angles in relation to it. I just forgot about it.

I love it when past me makes sure to idiot-proof future me, and future me still screws it up.

Oh I didn't know you were so far along and were using an abstract style! Is that what you intend to keep? If so, why not experiment with bolder colors, with rotation and bouncing of objects, maybe based on velocity or collisions? Smooth, juicy bouncing and rotation and even color changes can be a good substitute for hand drawn animation and provide a lot of life and feedback. Apart from the movement itself, your objects look very static right now, they don't show any sign of being affected by their velocity, by collisions or player input. Once you have a simple, clean look with animations and colors you like, that's when I'd move to particle effects and shaders in your case. I'm convinced this can be made to look very juicy and vibrant.

 

[Jobbs]

Finally put in a feature I've been meaning to try out for a while now. Following the beta build early in the year, I moved away from "XP from killing enemies" just due to what I wanted to do with the progression path by way of "flowers". Consumable flowers are finite and manually placed and it's deliberately done this way so you must choose how to use them.

Ever since then there's been a bit of a hole, though... A lack of incentive for killing enemies. They became reduced, in many cases, to hassles that can be avoided and run past rather than something the player needs to destroy.

I put in a new HUD element. Internally I refer to this as the "efficiency bar". It's the new vertical bar on the left.

http://gfycat.com/LiveSourAmericancreamdraft

Killing enemies causes it to fill. Taking damage causes it to empty. I'm still experimenting with specifics, but the idea is that most aspects of your character are tied into this bar. Ammo costs, recharge rates, damage taken/received, armor expenditures, armor recharge rate, is modified by this bar's value. At full bar, the current idea is that all of your weapons can be fired without ammo cost.

Thoughts/ideas welcome. (I understand you can't fully respond to the idea as it relates to the full game balance without playing the game, naturally)

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

As always, Lillith is fucking killing it.

It's sad that I have to seriously think about putting two gamergate-bashing achievements into Army for actual fear of physical consequence.

 

[electroflame]

It's sad that I have to seriously think about putting two gamergate-bashing achievements into Army for actual fear of physical consequence.

My advice: don't go down that road. Taking jabs at things is normally fine, but there are way too many crazy people going to the extreme on either side of that argument -- I wouldn't want to open that can of worms.

 

[Jobbs]

Just stay out of that pile of horseshit. Not worth it.

 

[Gameboy415]

I haven't been able to post in this thread as much as I'd like but I'm thrilled to announce that our team's game, Anomaly 1729, has officially launched on Steam!!



http://store.steampowered.com/app/424320/

We're all in shock that the game is finally done and it's simply amazing seeing something I've personally worked on for the last ~2 years be commercially released.

If anyone here chooses to buy a copy and/or helps spread the word, we'd be eternally grateful!


On a related note, for those of you that have already released a game or two, what did you find to be the best way of promoting/marketing your games at launch?

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I haven't been able to post in this thread as much as I'd like but I'm thrilled to announce that our team's game, Anomaly 1729, has officially launched on Steam!!

Golf claps.

 

[Jobbs]

Golf claps.

10x golf clap!

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Show off.

 

[Razlo]

Man, it's been forever since I posted in this thread. Might have been in the first one actually...

Anyway, just launched with OCTAHEDRON on Steam Greenlight and thought I'd share:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=534653006

What is it? I like to call it a "psychedelic vertical D.I.Y. platforming adventure". A vertical platformer in which your primary ability is to make your own platforms. Music also plays a somehwat important role. At EGX 2014 someone called it "Daft Punk meets Mega Man". I kinda liked that.

Here's the trailer:
https://vimeo.com/149854457

Crazy looking game, I love it!

 

[ThePhotoshop]

Hey, I'm looking for general feedback on the latest playable version of Wildfire. Basically I just want to know if you find it fun.

Download link: (Windows, ~60MB)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dg5m3hkbsyaj8jv/wildfire_alpha_decemberv2b.zip?dl=1

This is a stealth platformer where you can control the elements. It's inspired by immersive sims like Thief and Deus Ex.

This version has same screen, local co-op play. You just need a gamepad plugged in. If you want to turn off co-op, just press ESC and toggle it off in the Options menu.

Also, press F4 to toggle windowed/full screen.

 

[More_Badass]

Hey, I'm looking for general feedback on the latest playable version of Wildfire. Basically I just want to know if you find it fun.

Download link: (Windows, ~60MB)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dg5m3hkbsyaj8jv/wildfire_alpha_decemberv2b.zip?dl=1

This is a stealth platformer where you can control the elements. It's inspired by immersive sims like Thief and Deus Ex.

This version has same screen, local co-op play. You just need a gamepad plugged in. If you want to turn off co-op, just press ESC and toggle it off in the Options menu.

Also, press F4 to toggle windowed/full screen.

Game looks like it's come a long way since the early KS prototype/demo. Will definitely check out the current build later today

 

[ThePhotoshop]

Thanks!

 

[Blizzard]

Screenshot Sthursday? I guess I'd better show something!

It has taken me about a month, but here is the compiler / binary output / disassembly / virtual machine combination I made from scratch over the last month. This page was very useful for learning how to get started on a virtual machine: http://gameprogrammingpatterns.com/bytecode.html

Writing a virtual machine and recursive descent bytecode compiler was not as difficult as I might have expected, but it was still time-consuming and I would not recommend it for someone doing serious development. That said, it was very educational and it sure is rewarding to see your own scripts compiling and running.

 

[Jumplion]

Oh I didn't know you were so far along and were using an abstract style! Is that what you intend to keep? If so, why not experiment with bolder colors, with rotation and bouncing of objects, maybe based on velocity or collisions? Smooth, juicy bouncing and rotation and even color changes can be a good substitute for hand drawn animation and provide a lot of life and feedback. Apart from the movement itself, your objects look very static right now, they don't show any sign of being affected by their velocity, by collisions or player input. Once you have a simple, clean look with animations and colors you like, that's when I'd move to particle effects and shaders in your case. I'm convinced this can be made to look very juicy and vibrant.

Yeah, it's about as good as I can make it with my programmer art sensibilities

I imagined doing a sort of gemoetry wars-ish style, mostly with bright edges that can move and react to what's going on. Bloom n' onions n' all that sort of stuff. I just have no idea how to do specifically edge stuff and those wobbly wooshy things that goes on in Geometry Wars, and even less knowledge in shaders.

I'll do some small things with color shifting in direct code, maybe try to have the colors react to, say, proximity between each other and the player. Maybe position of the camera to, have some of that cool masking effect by putting some particles in the "background", and mask over that.

As always, Lillith is fucking killing it.

It's sad that I have to seriously think about putting two gamergate-bashing achievements into Army for actual fear of physical consequence.

Don't do it, as tempting as it would be. It's not worth it to potentially incur whatever tantrum comes with it.

 

[jarosh]

Yeah, it's about as good as I can make it with my programmer art sensibilities

I imagined doing a sort of gemoetry wars-ish style, mostly with bright edges that can move and react to what's going on. Bloom n' onions n' all that sort of stuff. I just have no idea how to do specifically edge stuff and those wobbly wooshy things that goes on in Geometry Wars, and even less knowledge in shaders.

I'll do some small things with color shifting in direct code, maybe try to have the colors react to, say, proximity between each other and the player. Maybe position of the camera to, have some of that cool masking effect by putting some particles in the "background", and mask over that.

While I'm not a fan of excessive "juicing" and screen shake (a lot of people seem to think it can somehow salvage boring mechanics), in moderation it would definitely help in your case. Watch this famous talk on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg or this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=216_5nu4aVQ and see how you could apply those things to your aesthetic.

Just don't go overboard with it!

Crazy looking game, I love it!

Thank you!

 

[liliththepale]

Finally put in a feature I've been meaning to try out for a while now. Following the beta build early in the year, I moved away from "XP from killing enemies" just due to what I wanted to do with the progression path by way of "flowers". Consumable flowers are finite and manually placed and it's deliberately done this way so you must choose how to use them.

Ever since then there's been a bit of a hole, though... A lack of incentive for killing enemies. They became reduced, in many cases, to hassles that can be avoided and run past rather than something the player needs to destroy.

I put in a new HUD element. Internally I refer to this as the "efficiency bar". It's the new vertical bar on the left.

http://gfycat.com/LiveSourAmericancreamdraft

Killing enemies causes it to fill. Taking damage causes it to empty. I'm still experimenting with specifics, but the idea is that most aspects of your character are tied into this bar. Ammo costs, recharge rates, damage taken/received, armor expenditures, armor recharge rate, is modified by this bar's value. At full bar, the current idea is that all of your weapons can be fired without ammo cost.

Thoughts/ideas welcome. (I understand you can't fully respond to the idea as it relates to the full game balance without playing the game, naturally)

I'm interested how this affects game balance. This kind of thing always seemed tricky to me, to reward the player for not fucking up by making it easier to not fuck up. You see it in everything from shmup powerups to Link firing projectiles from his sword at full health. Framed properly, this is a really cool reward for the superior player. Framed improperly, this is an unfair punishment and exploitation of poor players. The good stay good and the bad stay bad.

Often this is balanced by being a limited use event. For example, charging up to full capacity grants you a single-use attack, or using the awesome new power drains the meter you've built. Other times it's balanced by making you more of a glass cannon—technically more powerful, but easier to take damage.

I'm curious how you're going to mete this out.

As always, Lillith is fucking killing it.

It's sad that I have to seriously think about putting two gamergate-bashing achievements into Army for actual fear of physical consequence.

Just don't. It could Westboro Church, KKK or even Nazis and I would still suggest you not. Every rational thinker already knows they're evil, so inserting a take-that is just smug, self-righteous and tacky. Plus GG in particular could make your life miserable if your game catches on.

My situation wasn't that different from yours. I wasn't a good pixel/visual artist and I'm really still not that great, and I considered hiring an artist for quite a while. But I just rolled with it and iterated over and over and got better at it and also tried to work around my limitations. Got some minor help with shaders, but almost everything in Octahedron is just sprites/particles. 2.5 years ago, in prototype form, it looked like this:

And here are just a few selected builds chronologically until today:

Oh yeah, and around 80% of the colors in the game are actually generated on the fly, in code, and many of them are constantly shifting and moving through a set color spectrum. Almost all sprites are just grayscale and have no typical pixel art shading. An idea and solution for me that had to a lot with being better at coding than at drawing.

This is so cool! I suck at programmatic art and shaders, so I love seeing people who are experts at it do their thing. Good luck with the game. ♥

 

[Blizzard]

Plus GG in particular could make your life miserable if your game catches on.

This is a practical approach, but the sad thing is that this is basically how terrorism works, I feel. The main goal of terrorism is presumably to make people terrorized, so when people consider things like "I should avoid sporting events because they might be bombed and I am afraid of being bombed" the goal is being met.

Likewise, when people are literally afraid of being raped or murdered (or the same being done to their loved ones) because of something in a videogame, it's kind of like the Charlie Hebdo situation -- you could avoid mentioning/drawing certain things, and maybe reduce your personal odds of being murdered, but it sure is messed up either way.

 

[liliththepale]

This is a practical approach, but the sad thing is that this is basically how terrorism works, I feel. The main goal of terrorism is presumably to make people terrorized, so when people consider things like "I should avoid sporting events because they might be bombed and I am afraid of being bombed" the goal is being met.

Likewise, when people are literally afraid of being raped or murdered (or the same being done to their loved ones) because of something in a videogame, it's kind of like the Charlie Hebdo situation -- you could avoid mentioning/drawing certain things, and maybe reduce your personal odds of being murdered, but it sure is messed up either way.

I'm not saying we should give in to terrorist demands. Otherwise why would I be a female game developer making a game with a female protagonist? I just think he shouldn't pick fights with people. There's a difference between continuing to make the kind of material GG complains about versus actively aggravating them by specifically calling them out. The latter is what I'm advising against.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm not saying we should give in to terrorist demands. Otherwise why would I be a female game developer making a game with a female protagonist? I just think he shouldn't pick fights with people. There's a difference between continuing to make the kind of material GG complains about versus actively aggravating them by specifically calling them out. The latter is what I'm advising against.

Fair enough.

On an actual game development note, I was doing some testing and found out my script parser still has at least one bug. Fixing time!

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I've decided against it.

This is a practical approach, but the sad thing is that this is basically how terrorism works, I feel. The main goal of terrorism is presumably to make people terrorized, so when people consider things like "I should avoid sporting events because they might be bombed and I am afraid of being bombed" the goal is being met.

Likewise, when people are literally afraid of being raped or murdered (or the same being done to their loved ones) because of something in a videogame, it's kind of like the Charlie Hebdo situation -- you could avoid mentioning/drawing certain things, and maybe reduce your personal odds of being murdered, but it sure is messed up either way.

Besides what Lillith pointed out:

1) This is our first game, and it's going to be an easy target for ridicule regardless of if GG raises a stink or not, just based on the fact that it is a Visual Novel (even though it really isn't). We don't have the clout.

2) It's just two achievements. It's not like it's an essential part of the game that would dramatically affect it if cut. It would make an impact, for sure, just based on the content of the situation in which you would get them, but it's not big enough to warrant the irrationally sized bullshit I'd receive.

3) Achievements are public.

4) GG is already going to throw a fuckfit when they hear about the game just because it has a female protagonist as the canon gender choice.

5) People are already going to attribute MANY portions of the game to be a metaphor for Real Life(tm). And while the game IS a commentary on games and more specifically gaming habits, it's not a commentary on racist, sexism, or even GG.

 

[Gameboy415]

Golf claps.

10x golf clap!

Thanks!

Man, it's been forever since I posted in this thread. Might have been in the first one actually...

Anyway, just launched with OCTAHEDRON on Steam Greenlight and thought I'd share:

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=534653006

I'm really liking your art style and the music in the trailer is great!
I gave you guys a big thumbs up and look forward to seeing more - best of luck with Greenlight!

 

[Jobbs]

This is a practical approach, but the sad thing is that this is basically how terrorism works, I feel. The main goal of terrorism is presumably to make people terrorized, so when people consider things like "I should avoid sporting events because they might be bombed and I am afraid of being bombed" the goal is being met.

Likewise, when people are literally afraid of being raped or murdered (or the same being done to their loved ones) because of something in a videogame, it's kind of like the Charlie Hebdo situation -- you could avoid mentioning/drawing certain things, and maybe reduce your personal odds of being murdered, but it sure is messed up either way.

It's not my job to provoke assholes into doxxing me. That's not what I'm doing this for. I wouldn't change my game design based on their preferences, but I also wouldn't get involved in their stupid world just for the hell of it.

No one really wins an internet food fight, especially one where people are getting vicious and IRL harassing/doxxing. Actively doing things soley to provoke people, even if those people are assholes, just sounds really stupid to me.

Otherwise why would I be a female game developer making a game with a female protagonist?

You're in for a good time if/when one of your games reaches a certain level success/prominence, as I'm sure other women could attest.

I'm interested how this affects game balance. This kind of thing always seemed tricky to me, to reward the player for not fucking up by making it easier to not fuck up. You see it in everything from shmup powerups to Link firing projectiles from his sword at full health. Framed properly, this is a really cool reward for the superior player. Framed improperly, this is an unfair punishment and exploitation of poor players. The good stay good and the bad stay bad.

Often this is balanced by being a limited use event. For example, charging up to full capacity grants you a single-use attack, or using the awesome new power drains the meter you've built. Other times it's balanced by making you more of a glass cannon—technically more powerful, but easier to take damage.

I'm curious how you're going to mete this out.

I also just finished putting together the pet system and was slinging various numbers and values all night. It's all guesswork in the initial implementation, and I'm curious as anyone else to see what happens once it's tested in earnest.

As for the efficiency bar, the "Full bar = free shots" thing really does feel reminiscent of Link's shooting sword, and that was where I got the idea. Right now, it's configured so if the bar is 40%, your performance is similar to what it was all the time before. So -- In other words, I *think* it's a net buff? Hard to say, but because things really go to hell if your bar is empty it definitely makes the gameplay higher-stakes, which is what I was looking for.

 

[snarge]

While I'm not a fan of excessive "juicing" and screen shake (a lot of people seem to think it can somehow salvage boring mechanics), in moderation it would definitely help in your case. Watch this famous talk on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fy0aCDmgnxg or this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=216_5nu4aVQ and see how you could apply those things to your aesthetic.

Just don't go overboard with it!



Thank you!

Voted! Looks great, and thanks for posting all the cool updates in here. I love seeing pictures that show a progression of...well, progress, haha.

 

[bumpkin]

Jobbs: Loving the new footage. Proud to be a backer.

In the world of my meager dev exploits, I love when everything looks right in the code yet somehow things aren't working. It's very tough to debug in a time and workflow friendly manner when my laptop screen isn't large enough to side-by-side my IDE and the game so break points are a freaking pain to use. They're worse given that the issue is in my render that runs every frame.

Anyone have any good game debugging techniques?

 

[ken_matthews]

Hey, I'm looking for general feedback on the latest playable version of Wildfire. Basically I just want to know if you find it fun.

Download link: (Windows, ~60MB)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dg5m3hkbsyaj8jv/wildfire_alpha_decemberv2b.zip?dl=1

This is a stealth platformer where you can control the elements. It's inspired by immersive sims like Thief and Deus Ex.

This version has same screen, local co-op play. You just need a gamepad plugged in. If you want to turn off co-op, just press ESC and toggle it off in the Options menu.

Also, press F4 to toggle windowed/full screen.

Tried it out and its pretty cool. I like the utility of the elements for navigating the stage's obstacles and enemies. The only thing I would say is that maybe the character runs a bit too slow. Although I did experience what seems like a bug on first launch; when local co-op was on the character's horizontal movement speed was extremely fast. After turning it off, it normalized and hasn't happened again on subsequent restarts (cannot reproduce it).

EDIT: I enjoyed it but I do not know if I found it fun. I think it plays well with interesting game mechanics, but I don't think I feel compelled to play more of it.

 

[Blizzard]

Jobbs: Loving the new footage. Proud to be a backer.

In the world of my meager dev exploits, I love when everything looks right in the code yet somehow things aren't working. It's very tough to debug in a time and workflow friendly manner when my laptop screen isn't large enough to side-by-side my IDE and the game so break points are a freaking pain to use. They're worse given that the issue is in my render that runs every frame.

Anyone have any good game debugging techniques?

It's tough to say without knowing more specifics about your problem. Is it likely to be a shader bug? There are other tool(s) for that.

If it's purely a render system bug, try to describe (at least to yourself) the bug as precisely as possible so you can pin down the location where it might be happening.

Does the bug happen every frame? If not, try to identify the bug case so you can set a breakpoint and examine data. If it is every frame, try something like adding a hotkey that dumps the framebuffer to BMPs / PNGs at various points along the render path. Then you can examine each step and see where something went wrong.

 

[Jumplion]

Jobbs: Loving the new footage. Proud to be a backer.

In the world of my meager dev exploits, I love when everything looks right in the code yet somehow things aren't working. It's very tough to debug in a time and workflow friendly manner when my laptop screen isn't large enough to side-by-side my IDE and the game so break points are a freaking pain to use. They're worse given that the issue is in my render that runs every frame.

Anyone have any good game debugging techniques?

Debug.Log() every little thing you think could be causing it.

There's also Rubberducking, basically just sitting down and explaining your code line by line. You'd be amazed at how many problems you catch just by explaining it to someone.

 

[jarosh]

This is so cool! I suck at programmatic art and shaders, so I love seeing people who are experts at it do their thing. Good luck with the game. ♥

I'm really liking your art style and the music in the trailer is great!
I gave you guys a big thumbs up and look forward to seeing more - best of luck with Greenlight!

Thank you for the support! Also, it's really just me. No one else on the team

Voted! Looks great, and thanks for posting all the cool updates in here. I love seeing pictures that show a progression of...well, progress, haha.

Thanks! I'm surprised at all the cool feedback in here. And the conversation seems quite casual and relaxed. Maybe I should be posting more!

 

[liliththepale]

Happy New Year fellow devs!

I added tightrope walking today. I'm not sure how much interesting or diverse gameplay I'll be able to get out of it, but fortunately there wasn't a whole lot of work involved so I don't think it'll amount to time wasted. I'm cheating a lot on the rope physics but IDGAF. It's visually interesting and that's enough.

https://fat.gfycat.com/WellgroomedHighButterfly.webm

edit: I topped the page again. Sorry. I promise that wasn't intentional! I'm not just a megalomaniac.

Thank you for the support! Also, it's really just me. No one else on the team

Thanks! I'm surprised at all the cool feedback in here. And the conversation seems quite casual and relaxed. Maybe I should be posting more!

Yes! Please do! ♥

You're in for a good time if/when one of your games reaches a certain level success/prominence, as I'm sure other women could attest.


I also just finished putting together the pet system and was slinging various numbers and values all night. It's all guesswork in the initial implementation, and I'm curious as anyone else to see what happens once it's tested in earnest.

As for the efficiency bar, the "Full bar = free shots" thing really does feel reminiscent of Link's shooting sword, and that was where I got the idea. Right now, it's configured so if the bar is 40%, your performance is similar to what it was all the time before. So -- In other words, I *think* it's a net buff? Hard to say, but because things really go to hell if your bar is empty it definitely makes the gameplay higher-stakes, which is what I was looking for.

Sounds interesting. I haven't played enough of your game to be able to comment more, but it seems like you understand what you're doing.

Hey, I'm looking for general feedback on the latest playable version of Wildfire. Basically I just want to know if you find it fun.

Download link: (Windows, ~60MB)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dg5m3hkbsyaj8jv/wildfire_alpha_decemberv2b.zip?dl=1

This is a stealth platformer where you can control the elements. It's inspired by immersive sims like Thief and Deus Ex.

This version has same screen, local co-op play. You just need a gamepad plugged in. If you want to turn off co-op, just press ESC and toggle it off in the Options menu.

Also, press F4 to toggle windowed/full screen.

I'm not a fan of the game assuming I have someone playing with me just because there's a controller plugged in. I guess it's nice to know co-op is an option, but I didn't even realize it was toggle-able until I went to quit the game. (long story short, some of the programs I'm running freak out if I unplug the DualShock 4 and later plug it back in)

I experienced some kind of bug with regard to the sprinting after alt-tabbing back into the game. I don't remember if any of the triggers were held or what position the control stick was in when I tabbed out of the game. Sorry. But what happened when I tabbed back in is the player moves at a ludicrous speed through the map and only keeps getting faster. Here's a video I recorded of the effect: https://youtu.be/GK6qT-w6OPw

I don't understand why the first box you run into can be slid through but the next ones have to be burned. Is it just because of the grass there?

The attack hitbox of the enemies seem unfair. Specifically, their attacks seem to hit the player even when you're several pixels behind or above any of the white swoosh animation. I'm assuming this is to prevent the player from just running past enemies when cornered but I would find another solution. Make the enemy solid, reduce the attack windup delay, or something.

The throwing distance on the oil barrels is a bit hard to believe. I probably shouldn't let it upset me, but in a game that's all about intuitive systems and simulated physics, hucking a 450-lb barrel (oil is roughly 7.5 lbs/gal and 55 gallons is a common barrel size, plus the weight of the wood) a hundred feet away is a real stretch. Same with people you can throw, though to a lesser extent because they probably weigh a third of what the barrel does. I mean, this is a game where you can jump several times your own height, float on clouds of smoke and also magically replant patches of grass by pointing here and there, so I don't know why I'm letting this thing in particular get to me. Maybe it has something to do with not being able to magically summon the barrels to yourself like you can with the elementals.

When climbing up vines, I would like for a fresh press of the up (W) key to jump rather than having to switch to spacebar. I haven't been using spacebar the whole time so it's awkward to start now. I know you don't necessarily want the player to immediately leap off the top just because the up key is still held, but I think checking for a fresh press of the up key shouldn't be a problem. I don't know. Maybe this is just something to get used to.

Every little move I make causes lots of noise, but guards loudly calling out at me does not in turn make noise. I think it should. That'll probably break some of your level design as-is but I think it will make more sense and also allow for some new designs. Maybe even have a certain kind of enemy that serves as a look out and is especially good at crying for attention (unless that's already in the game and I just didn't get that far? I played through the whole tutorial until it brought me back to the title screen).

Other than that, I like it a fair amount. The music and sound design are great. I enjoy the art a lot. It perhaps feels a little rudimentary being two-dimensional. I think Thief and Deus Ex can do a lot more with guard patterns and level design since they're three-dimensional, but you're making good with what you have and I won't hold that against the game. Stuff like the slip-n-slide and water bubble feel pretty clever, and are a lot easier to play with in 2D than 3D, so there's that!