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[superNESjoe]

Thanks guys

The game is on Steam since almost 24 hours, so far the sales are within my expectations range, actually at the lower end of the range, but that's OK, I've seen worse

What frighten me though is, what will happen next? You get a decent exposure on Steam day one, but what to expect in the following days? 50% day one ? 10% ? Is there anyone here that can share his experience? I don't have any budget for ads, and almost no press coverage ect. so most of my sales comes from people browsing within Steam...

This is just my experience, but sales on Steam dropped off almost immediately. I'm in the same position as you, GunWorld got basically zero coverage from gaming websites (even small ones) and I was essentially at the mercy of Steam Store discovery.

GunWorld was available on Steam for 10 months before the Xbox One Edition was released. On the Xbox One store it outsold its entirety on Steam in a single day, and has continued to sell more units than the Steam version did in its whole 10 months, every single month.

This essentially cemented my decision to become a ID@Xbox developer primarily, with GunWorld 2 being an Xbox One exclusive for (at least) the short term future.

I don't want that to scare you off, but don't let your game just sit on Steam and hope for the best. Make as much of an effort as you can to get it picked up by press or small outlets, and explore options of porting it to other hardware/storefronts. Steam is outrageously overcrowded, and indies don't stand much of a chance of success by basic discovery after that initial front page duration goes away.

 

[neko.works]

This is just my experience, but sales on Steam dropped off almost immediately. I'm in the same position as you, GunWorld got basically zero coverage from gaming websites (even small ones) and I was essentially at the mercy of Steam Store discovery.

GunWorld was available on Steam for 10 months before the Xbox One Edition was released. On the Xbox One store it outsold its entirety on Steam in a single day, and has continued to sell more units than the Steam version did in its whole 10 months, every single month.

This essentially cemented my decision to become a ID@Xbox developer primarily, with GunWorld 2 being an Xbox One exclusive for (at least) the short term future.

I don't want that to scare you off, but don't let your game just sit on Steam and hope for the best. Make as much of an effort as you can to get it picked up by press or small outlets, and explore options of porting it to other hardware/storefronts. Steam is outrageously overcrowded, and indies don't stand much of a chance of success by basic discovery after that initial front page duration goes away.

Thanks for the share. This is exactly what I was expecting unfortunately.

The good news is that I'm also an ID@Xbox dev and I'm currently working on the Xbox One version

 

[Diablohead]

Steam seems to be at that point now where so many games are on the service you only get bulk sales the day you release or when you give it huge discounts in special sales, in other words it's like the app store now.

and speaking of drop-offs all my stuff currently has had it's honeymoon period and is now sat in a void of either no backers or hardly any greenlight votes, which is ok for now as I still need to work on more updates.

 

[Jacksinthe]

This is just my experience, but sales on Steam dropped off almost immediately. I'm in the same position as you, GunWorld got basically zero coverage from gaming websites (even small ones) and I was essentially at the mercy of Steam Store discovery.

GunWorld was available on Steam for 10 months before the Xbox One Edition was released. On the Xbox One store it outsold its entirety on Steam in a single day, and has continued to sell more units than the Steam version did in its whole 10 months, every single month.

This essentially cemented my decision to become a ID@Xbox developer primarily, with GunWorld 2 being an Xbox One exclusive for (at least) the short term future.

I don't want that to scare you off, but don't let your game just sit on Steam and hope for the best. Make as much of an effort as you can to get it picked up by press or small outlets, and explore options of porting it to other hardware/storefronts. Steam is outrageously overcrowded, and indies don't stand much of a chance of success by basic discovery after that initial front page duration goes away.

I agree with this. I feel with Greenlight there are so many asset flips making their way to the store with no legitimate curation games get lost in the shuffle unless you've got a PR budget.

Sad, really. Steam isn't what it used to be. Consoles seem to be a better bet as you get exposure from official social media channels and are up against a short release list.

"We're on Steam" feels a lot more like "we put up a website to sell our stuff" these days. Unless people already know who you are and where to look, they are a lot less likely to stumble upon you by accident.

I know both MS and Sony will work with you to help spread the word if you engage with them. Every little bit helps.

Steam sucks, IMO. It will only get worse when Valve phases out Greenlight in favor of your own store pages with zero curation by the community. I know finding games used to be a daunting task for Valve but at least you never saw the same level of "holy shit that's a Unity Asset Flip... Again" on the store with every other game. That coupled with the fact that every new indie game is hell bent on launching with a "sale" price - Steam is the epitome of the race to the bottom. Devs are afraid to price their games accordingly because everyone is conditioned to wait for the sales. Which is fine, sales give a game longer legs but the frequency has increased to such a point it's now the standard and as such, predictable. Hard to blame devs for going that route but that floor is going to give at some point to the detriment of every indie developer.

 

[superNESjoe]

I agree with this. I feel with Greenlight there are so many asset flips making their way to the store with no legitimate curation games get lost in the shuffle unless you've got a PR budget.

Sad, really. Steam isn't what it used to be. Consoles seem to be a better bet as you get exposure from official social media channels and are up against a short release list.

"We're on Steam" feels a lot more like "we put up a website to sell our stuff" these days. Unless people already know who you are and where to look, they are a lot less likely to stumble upon you by accident.

I know both MS and Sony will work with you to help spread the word if you engage with them. Every little bit helps.

Steam sucks, IMO. It will only get worse when Valve phases out Greenlight in favor of your own store pages with zero curation by the community. I know finding games used to be a daunting task for Valve but at least you never saw the same level of "holy shit that's a Unity Asset Flip... Again" on the store with every other game. That coupled with the fact that every new indie game is hell bent on launching with a "sale" price - Steam is the epitome of the race to the bottom. Devs are afraid to price their games accordingly because everyone is conditioned to wait for the sales. Which is fine, sales give a game longer legs but the frequency has increased to such a point it's now the standard and as such, predictable. Hard to blame devs for going that route but that floor is going to give at some point to the detriment of every indie developer.

Unfortunately I agree with all of this. It's pushed me away from PC development which, ironically, was once the only place an indie dev could release a product. Literally the only reason I want to release GunWorld 2 on PC is for the very small group of people on PC who liked the first one to have an option to play the sequel.

But I won't make any money on it, which let me be clear isn't my "main" goal, but when you do this for a living you have to, you know, make a living. I'm not going to waste time working on something that won't help feed my son when it's being embraced at a value I believe it deserves by another community.

 

[SeanNoonan]

You could always try playing around with tones for the overall image (darker at the front, lighter at the back) if you want it to "pop" a bit more.

Yeah, the issue with that is that I'm only using 4 colours in the game

 

[Ito]

Sharing some experience that might be useful for Game Maker: Studio users:

I've been "tolerating" for quite a while a GMS bug that happens when you go back to window mode from fullscreen mode, leading to an ugly rescaling of your views.

What happens is that your game window will be slightly smaller. Example: your game runs at 1920x1080, then you switch to window mode -> new window size: 1906x1053.

After googling for a solution, I found out that apparently the issue had been solved by YYG, as many user forums claimed in different threads.

But I was still getting it, and I was running GMS up to date (feb 2016).

After some testing, I found out that the issue wouldn't reproduce as long as your game window is smaller than your display resolution. However, if your game window's size matches or surpasses that of your display, you will be getting this issue anytime you switch to window mode from fullscreen mode.

To avoid it, make sure you use window_set_max_width(width) and window_set_max_height(height) to a higher value than your current display's width & height. If you don't, GM will automatically resize your window to fit your display size.

Now, having a window that doesn't fit inside your display might not be the best idea... but at least you get to manually set the window size, instead of letting GM automatically determine it by subtracting the window borders (which might screw your aspect ratio).

 

[Jacksinthe]

Sharing some experience that might be useful for Game Maker: Studio users:

I've been "tolerating" for quite a while a GMS bug that happens when you go back to window mode from fullscreen mode, leading to an ugly rescaling of your views.

What happens is that your game window will be slightly smaller. Example: your game runs at 1920x1080, then you switch to window mode -> new window size: 1906x1053.

After googling for a solution, I found out that apparently the issue had been solved by YYG, as many user forums claimed in different threads.

But I was still getting it, and I was running GMS up to date (feb 2016).

After some testing, I found out that the issue wouldn't reproduce as long as your game window is smaller than your display resolution. However, if your game window's size matches or surpasses that of your display, you will be getting this issue anytime you switch to window mode from fullscreen mode.

To avoid it, make sure you use window_set_max_width(width) and window_set_max_height(height) to a higher value than your current display's width & height. If you don't, GM will automatically resize your window to fit your display size.

Now, having a window that doesn't fit inside your display might not be the best idea... but at least you get to manually set the window size, instead of letting GM automatically determine it by subtracting the window borders (which might screw your aspect ratio).

Are you able to get the current screen resolution in fullscreen before going windowed and then set it back when you go from windowed to fullscreen? Unity used to do the same thing in an older version so I just captured the display size in fullscreen before toggling windowed mode and set it back going fullscreen.

 

[Lautaro]

What frighten me though is, what will happen next? You get a decent exposure on Steam day one, but what to expect in the following days? 50% day one ? 10% ? Is there anyone here that can share his experience? I don't have any budget for ads, and almost no press coverage ect. so most of my sales comes from people browsing within Steam...

You still have at least 5 visibility rounds that can give you impressions in the main page, unless you are planning a big update you can always combine them with a discount to attract more people.

 

[HandsomeCharles]

You still have at least 5 visibility rounds that can give you impressions in the main page, unless you are planning a big update you can always combine them with a discount to attract more people.

Visibility rounds? I've not heard that before. I assume it's "Front page of store" time or similar. Could you elaborate on it?

 

[jarosh]

Sharing some experience that might be useful for Game Maker: Studio users:

I've been "tolerating" for quite a while a GMS bug that happens when you go back to window mode from fullscreen mode, leading to an ugly rescaling of your views.

What happens is that your game window will be slightly smaller. Example: your game runs at 1920x1080, then you switch to window mode -> new window size: 1906x1053.

After googling for a solution, I found out that apparently the issue had been solved by YYG, as many user forums claimed in different threads.

But I was still getting it, and I was running GMS up to date (feb 2016).

After some testing, I found out that the issue wouldn't reproduce as long as your game window is smaller than your display resolution. However, if your game window's size matches or surpasses that of your display, you will be getting this issue anytime you switch to window mode from fullscreen mode.

To avoid it, make sure you use window_set_max_width(width) and window_set_max_height(height) to a higher value than your current display's width & height. If you don't, GM will automatically resize your window to fit your display size.

Now, having a window that doesn't fit inside your display might not be the best idea... but at least you get to manually set the window size, instead of letting GM automatically determine it by subtracting the window borders (which might screw your aspect ratio).

This is correct. And another important thing to know: it is not enough to set window_set_max_width and window_set_max_height when coming OUT of fullscreen. You MUST first wait 1 or 2 frames after switching into windowed mode. If you call them in the same step as window_set_fullscreen(false) it will not work and the window size and scaling will still be off.

 

[Ranger X]

Sharing some experience that might be useful for Game Maker: Studio users:

I've been "tolerating" for quite a while a GMS bug that happens when you go back to window mode from fullscreen mode, leading to an ugly rescaling of your views.

What happens is that your game window will be slightly smaller. Example: your game runs at 1920x1080, then you switch to window mode -> new window size: 1906x1053.

After googling for a solution, I found out that apparently the issue had been solved by YYG, as many user forums claimed in different threads.

But I was still getting it, and I was running GMS up to date (feb 2016).

After some testing, I found out that the issue wouldn't reproduce as long as your game window is smaller than your display resolution. However, if your game window's size matches or surpasses that of your display, you will be getting this issue anytime you switch to window mode from fullscreen mode.

To avoid it, make sure you use window_set_max_width(width) and window_set_max_height(height) to a higher value than your current display's width & height. If you don't, GM will automatically resize your window to fit your display size.

Now, having a window that doesn't fit inside your display might not be the best idea... but at least you get to manually set the window size, instead of letting GM automatically determine it by subtracting the window borders (which might screw your aspect ratio).

That's not how to do "overscan" anyways. You put the game fullscreen and you resize your application surface larger than the display.

 

[asa]

We made bit of a stumble on Android launch of Power Hover. We launched the game couple weeks ago, after the launch it quickly became apparent that video advertisement model we tried for Android version wasn't really working, we were displaying decent amount of ads but in return we only got pennies, and the remove ads iAP wasn't really doing anything either.

So I did the math on the first weeks data and the numbers just weren't there, I guess ads only work if you have like millions to tens of millions of downloads.

So instead we changed the Android version business model. we got rid of the ads, and changed the game into Free To try:
Now you can play the first chapter of the game for free.
To access rest of the game you can unlock it with one time iAP.
(if you bought the remove ads iAP earlier that also grants full access to the game, same thing if you managed to get far enough with ads).

Anyways, it was all bit of a hassle, we should have just gone with this model in the first place. We were thinking about free to try model initially, but wanted to try out the ads model. blah. Luckily we were able to do the change this early on and managed to do it so that the players who got far or bought something in the earlier version were pretty much unaffected. Phew!

Now it seems that the numbers are bit healthier, now we can stand behind the product, we were kinda bummed out by the amount of ads and what that did to the game. Live and learn!

Here's a new gif from the upcoming content update level, exploring deep waters.. The update should be ready in couple of weeks!

 

[Lautaro]

Visibility rounds? I've not heard that before. I assume it's "Front page of store" time or similar. Could you elaborate on it?

Mmm, its a Steamworks topic so I rather not reveal much, sorry.

 

[superNESjoe]

Sharing some experience that might be useful for Game Maker: Studio users:

I've been "tolerating" for quite a while a GMS bug that happens when you go back to window mode from fullscreen mode, leading to an ugly rescaling of your views.

What happens is that your game window will be slightly smaller. Example: your game runs at 1920x1080, then you switch to window mode -> new window size: 1906x1053.

After googling for a solution, I found out that apparently the issue had been solved by YYG, as many user forums claimed in different threads.

But I was still getting it, and I was running GMS up to date (feb 2016).

After some testing, I found out that the issue wouldn't reproduce as long as your game window is smaller than your display resolution. However, if your game window's size matches or surpasses that of your display, you will be getting this issue anytime you switch to window mode from fullscreen mode.

To avoid it, make sure you use window_set_max_width(width) and window_set_max_height(height) to a higher value than your current display's width & height. If you don't, GM will automatically resize your window to fit your display size.

Now, having a window that doesn't fit inside your display might not be the best idea... but at least you get to manually set the window size, instead of letting GM automatically determine it by subtracting the window borders (which might screw your aspect ratio).

I dealt with issues like this, and didn't know a good way to fix them. They became a non-issue for me (in theory anyway) once I became a dedicated console developer as all of my games are built for 1080p and the resolution never changes mid-game anymore.

 

[Jumplion]

We made bit of a stumble on Android launch of Power Hover. We launched the game couple weeks ago, after the launch it quickly became apparent that video advertisement model we tried for Android version wasn't really working, we were displaying decent amount of ads but in return we only got pennies, and the remove ads iAP wasn't really doing anything either.

So I did the math on the first weeks data and the numbers just weren't there, I guess ads only work if you have like millions to tens of millions of downloads.

So instead we changed the Android version business model. we got rid of the ads, and changed the game into Free To try:
Now you can play the first chapter of the game for free.
To access rest of the game you can unlock it with one time iAP.
(if you bought the remove ads iAP earlier that also grants full access to the game, same thing if you managed to get far enough with ads).

Anyways, it was all bit of a hassle, we should have just gone with this model in the first place. We were thinking about free to try model initially, but wanted to try out the ads model. blah. Luckily we were able to do the change this early on and managed to do it so that the players who got far or bought something in the earlier version were pretty much unaffected. Phew!

Now it seems that the numbers are bit healthier, now we can stand behind the product, we were kinda bummed out by the amount of ads and what that did to the game. Live and learn!

Here's a new gif from the upcoming content update level, exploring deep waters.. The update should be ready in couple of weeks!

Thanks for the insight. Monetizing is always a challenge to balance.

My game would probably be better for an ad model, free to play with ads and pay for an ad-free version. I'm debating whether to also make submitting to leaderboards behind that paywall, I'd imagine they aren't used as often when compared to just number of players. Also mulling over where to place the ads, put a banner ad at the top/bottom in the menu screens, have a splash ad after a few game overs, or both?

I'm not expecting to make anything substantial from it, but it's good exercise to consider and implement. Decisions, decisions.

 

[innervision961]

Dear Indie Gaf,

I'm learning C# and Unity and I'm absolutely floored by how well it's clicking for me. I have to ask you guys.

• what are some must have resources for beginner programmers

• what is a good forum to ask juvenile C#/Unity questions

• must watch/read?

Thanks guys!

 

[HandsomeCharles]

Mmm, its a Steamworks topic so I rather not reveal much, sorry.

Ok, no worries! I'll ask the guy who handles the Steam stuff at work and find out from him

Dear Indie Gaf,

• what are some must have resources for beginner programmers

• what is a good forum to ask juvenile C#/Unity questions

• must watch/read?

Thanks guys!

For resources (read: assets), I can recommend Kenney's asset packs. This can give you a little boost above programmer art, which helps make your first projects feel more like "proper" games. (Oh, and they're free!)

As for Programming resources (Specifically with Unity) I'm afraid I can't give you much help there. I didn't really learn to program via Unity, and thus all the questions I had were a google-search away. That said, Unity Answers is a fantastic repository of information! It's not the best organised (since it is essentially a big Q&A site), but I can more or less guarantee you that any problems you come up against whilst you're still learning will have been solved via Unity Answers already.

Good forums for Unity dev would be the Unity forums themselves, or the Unity subreddits. You've got /r/Unity3D and /r/Unity2D. Just have a little read up on the rules before you make a post. I see quite a lot of "beginner" questions on there, but it's always good to make sure you're not treading on any toes.

If you have any weird or specific issues, I'm always available too if you want to send me a message. Unity isn't what I work with most of the time, but it is what I'm using for my home-project, so I can try to lend a hand if you're totally stumped by something.

Hope that helps!

 

[Darkstorne]

We made bit of a stumble on Android launch of Power Hover. We launched the game couple weeks ago, after the launch it quickly became apparent that video advertisement model we tried for Android version wasn't really working, we were displaying decent amount of ads but in return we only got pennies, and the remove ads iAP wasn't really doing anything either.

So I did the math on the first weeks data and the numbers just weren't there, I guess ads only work if you have like millions to tens of millions of downloads.

So instead we changed the Android version business model. we got rid of the ads, and changed the game into Free To try:
Now you can play the first chapter of the game for free.
To access rest of the game you can unlock it with one time iAP.
(if you bought the remove ads iAP earlier that also grants full access to the game, same thing if you managed to get far enough with ads).

Anyways, it was all bit of a hassle, we should have just gone with this model in the first place. We were thinking about free to try model initially, but wanted to try out the ads model. blah. Luckily we were able to do the change this early on and managed to do it so that the players who got far or bought something in the earlier version were pretty much unaffected. Phew!

Now it seems that the numbers are bit healthier, now we can stand behind the product, we were kinda bummed out by the amount of ads and what that did to the game. Live and learn!

This is really awesome info. I'm planning on creating an Android/iOS release of my game once the Steam version is out, and I was planning on the free-to-try model on the basis that I hate the thought of ads cluttering the screen and ruining the experience/UI. I was fully expecting to make less money doing this, but hearing that it'll likely lead to better, or at least similar, income is great news.

Good luck with the update =)

 

[innervision961]

Ok, no worries! I'll ask the guy who handles the Steam stuff at work and find out from him



For resources (read: assets), I can recommend Kenney's asset packs. This can give you a little boost above programmer art, which helps make your first projects feel more like "proper" games. (Oh, and they're free!)

As for Programming resources (Specifically with Unity) I'm afraid I can't give you much help there. I didn't really learn to program via Unity, and thus all the questions I had were a google-search away. That said, Unity Answers is a fantastic repository of information! It's not the best organised (since it is essentially a big Q&A site), but I can more or less guarantee you that any problems you come up against whilst you're still learning will have been solved via Unity Answers already.

Good forums for Unity dev would be the Unity forums themselves, or the Unity subreddits. You've got /r/Unity3D and /r/Unity2D. Just have a little read up on the rules before you make a post. I see quite a lot of "beginner" questions on there, but it's always good to make sure you're not treading on any toes.

If you have any weird or specific issues, I'm always available too if you want to send me a message. Unity isn't what I work with most of the time, but it is what I'm using for my home-project, so I can try to lend a hand if you're totally stumped by something.

Hope that helps!

Thank you for the response! Yeah the Unity forums have been my go to so far, and they're pretty solid, just does t seem like a real tight knit type of community, so I thought maybe I'd missed one.

Also kudos for the asset pack link! This will be extremely helpful during prototyping!

I guess where I'm at in my learning process is somewhere around the area of coroutines (when, how and why use them), should I use force to move a rigid body for my character controller or move the transform... Things like that, sometimes a little more open ended questions.

 

[Bit-Bit]

We made bit of a stumble on Android launch of Power Hover. We launched the game couple weeks ago, after the launch it quickly became apparent that video advertisement model we tried for Android version wasn't really working, we were displaying decent amount of ads but in return we only got pennies, and the remove ads iAP wasn't really doing anything either.

So I did the math on the first weeks data and the numbers just weren't there, I guess ads only work if you have like millions to tens of millions of downloads.

So instead we changed the Android version business model. we got rid of the ads, and changed the game into Free To try:
Now you can play the first chapter of the game for free.
To access rest of the game you can unlock it with one time iAP.
(if you bought the remove ads iAP earlier that also grants full access to the game, same thing if you managed to get far enough with ads).

Anyways, it was all bit of a hassle, we should have just gone with this model in the first place. We were thinking about free to try model initially, but wanted to try out the ads model. blah. Luckily we were able to do the change this early on and managed to do it so that the players who got far or bought something in the earlier version were pretty much unaffected. Phew!

Now it seems that the numbers are bit healthier, now we can stand behind the product, we were kinda bummed out by the amount of ads and what that did to the game. Live and learn!

Here's a new gif from the upcoming content update level, exploring deep waters.. The update should be ready in couple of weeks!

This is great info. I wish more devs would share their numbers and strategies.

My current game is an infinite runner type with no levels so I can't really take advantage of the free to try method. But I'll definitely keep this post on mind for my next game.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Another attempt at trying to reach out to anyone else on Steam.

Still having trouble getting a Mac build up.

Anyhow, here are my steps:

1. Transfer my ContentPrep.zip from my Steamworks folder to my Google Drive. Same with wxPython and the .zip file for the mac build from RenPy.
2. Change to my Mac
3. Download all three
4. Change Mac settings to allow downloads from anywhere.
5. Unzip wxPython
6. Try to install it from the .pkg, only for it to say 'No files to install'.

 

[Ito]

This is correct. And another important thing to know: it is not enough to set window_set_max_width and window_set_max_height when coming OUT of fullscreen. You MUST first wait 1 or 2 frames after switching into windowed mode. If you call them in the same step as window_set_fullscreen(false) it will not work and the window size and scaling will still be off.

Yup, a lot of window functions don't work right after switching into window/fullscreen mode. Another example is window_center()... Took me a while to figure out that the reason the game window wouldn't show at the center of the screen is because I was calling this function right after switching the screen mode...

Are you able to get the current screen resolution in fullscreen before going windowed and then set it back when you go from windowed to fullscreen? Unity used to do the same thing in an older version so I just captured the display size in fullscreen before toggling windowed mode and set it back going fullscreen.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. The problem was, GM:S would subtract a small amount from the window height/width (corresponding to the window borders) regardless of whatever value you set, before or after switching screen modes.



I've spent all of February working on pretty boring stuff, including but not limited to: display, user config, a dynamic text system (with typing effect), better debugging and design tools... God I wish I'm done with all this stuff so I can go back to the slightly less boring and equally frustrating part of games development.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Yup, a lot of window functions don't work right after switching into window/fullscreen mode. Another example is window_center()... Took me a while to figure out that the reason the game window wouldn't show at the center of the screen is because I was calling this function right after switching the screen mode...


Yeah, that's pretty much what I did. The problem was, GM:S would subtract a small amount from the window height/width (corresponding to the window borders) regardless of whatever value you set, before or after switching screen modes.



I've spent all of February working on pretty boring stuff, including but not limited to: display, user config, a dynamic text system (with typing effect), better debugging and design tools... God I wish I'm done with all this stuff so I can go back to the slightly less boring and equally frustrating part of games development.

Ah i get you now.

And yeah - it's one of the reason's i haven't done anything that isn't a keybind editor or gameplay related

 

[Pixels]

I'm currently assesing platforms for their sales viability and I was wondering how Steam is these days? Are there too many Indies and Early Access titles coming out to have a chance at actually making money?

(As a side note, I recommend not developing exclusively for iOS/Android/Mobile as there is a very slim chance you will make anything)

 

[Jobbs]

Do you guys think the blurred frames add to or detract from the animation?

It had occured to me that maybe some blurred frames (or blurred segments) in animations with relatively low framerates could make things gel more.

 

[Jacksinthe]

Do you guys think the blurred frames add to or detract from the animation?

It had occured to me that maybe some blurred frames (or blurred segments) in animations with relatively low framerates could make things gel more.

Looks fine but GIF framerates probably don't do it justice.

 

[Jobbs]

Looks fine but GIF framerates probably don't do it justice.

well obviously I can change the framerate.

in game it might end up actually being a bit faster like this

 

[correojon]

well obviously I can change the framerate.

in game it might end up actually being a bit faster like this

I like a lot the effect, it´s very subtle but noticeable, I´d say keep it (but don´t go crazy with it and start adding it to more frames).

 

[spazchicken]

Do you guys think the blurred frames add to or detract from the animation?

It had occured to me that maybe some blurred frames (or blurred segments) in animations with relatively low framerates could make things gel more.

Thumbs up. Looks great.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Do you guys think the blurred frames add to or detract from the animation?

It had occured to me that maybe some blurred frames (or blurred segments) in animations with relatively low framerates could make things gel more.

Initial thoughts are its distracting but I'd need to see it in-game.

 

[Jacksinthe]

well obviously I can change the framerate.

in game it might end up actually being a bit faster like this

GIF framerate, not animation speed. Animated GIFs are usually poop for showing how smooth anything is.

 

[HandsomeCharles]

I guess where I'm at in my learning process is somewhere around the area of coroutines (when, how and why use them), should I use force to move a rigid body for my character controller or move the transform... Things like that, sometimes a little more open ended questions.

Ok, so with coroutines, I don't really use them (yet), but I'll do my best at trying to explain their use. (Feel free to correct me, anyone with more experience!)

The idea behind a co-routine is that is is essentially a function that can pause it's execution, so that the entire execution of the function is carried out over a number of frames, or a fixed time period.

If you imagine a standard function, when it get's called each line of code is executed in turn, and then the function ends. With a co-routine, you can specify a point at which the function should "yield". This means that when it reaches this point, the execution will stop, but it will also be resumed from this same point the next time you call the function.

As a usage example, say you have a timer in your game that counts down from 10 to 1, but it's one of those "fake timers", where every second is actually 3 seconds. You could update this timer by holding a counter, waiting until 3 seconds had passed (By adding or subtracting deltatime), and then updating your text, or you could use a coroutine.

In the coroutine, you would simply subtract one from the counter value, Update your text object, and then tell it to "yield" for 3 seconds. So long as this coroutine was being called from your main update function, it means that it would not continue to execute until those 3 seconds had passed. Potentially a much neater and easier way to do something like this, without messy extra variables in place.

Hope that gives you a better idea of what they're supposed to do.

As for Rigidbodies, always use forces, unless you are doing something incredibly specific like a "teleport" or resetting the body's position due to a player death. Rule of thumb is that if you want the movement to be gradual and realistic over the course of some frames, use forces. If you want it to be instantaneous then set the transform's position.

The reason for this is that if you just set transforms, you can get some crazy physics results. Your object can be set to be inside other objects, the strength of a collision/impact will not be properly calculated etc. Just use forces as much as possible

 

[Pehesse]

Do you guys think the blurred frames add to or detract from the animation?

It had occured to me that maybe some blurred frames (or blurred segments) in animations with relatively low framerates could make things gel more.

I'm not a fan, tbh. In theory, I'm all for using smear frames to add some fluidity to the motion without adding extra frames, but I feel the motion here isn't fast enough to warrant using some with your current decomposition. I'm also not convinced by their appearance, I don't find them to gel very well with your aesthetic. They're noticeable there, but they're also not smeared enough to denote any significant movement since the motion arcs and frame intervals are very small.

I'd save the idea dor really big movements that need to be fast in a short amount of frames - but then again I feel it'd kind of go against the rest of the overall animation, which is more subdued? I'm not sure. Looking at it here, I just feel it muddies the motion, rather than add to it. All subjective opinion though, yadda yadda, so make of that what you will!

 

[Jobbs]

^ Thank you guys for your kind remarks and feedback =)

I'm not a fan, tbh. In theory, I'm all for using smear frames to add some fluidity to the motion without adding extra frames, but I feel the motion here isn't fast enough to warrant using some with your current decomposition. I'm also not convinced by their appearance, I don't find them to gel very well with your aesthetic. They're noticeable there, but they're also not smeared enough to denote any significant movement since the motion arcs and frame intervals are very small.

I'd save the idea dor really big movements that need to be fast in a short amount of frames - but then again I feel it'd kind of go against the rest of the overall animation, which is more subdued? I'm not sure. Looking at it here, I just feel it muddies the motion, rather than add to it. All subjective opinion though, yadda yadda, so make of that what you will!

What prompted me to try it were some of the more jarring switches. This is the most jarring.

These general leg positions are mostly the same thing I regurgitate each time, because I've done a basic run cycle a thousand times -- And 10 frames is my standard jam. I noticed certain frames, especially the one above, stand out a bit though because there's not enough tweening. Rather than add frames to my routine (work!) I thought I'd try some blurring.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

At what point do you leave a major design choice behind for something else?

I'm thinking of ditching the current viewpoint of Dick Whitman (yes that is the code name for Game 2) for a more traditional side view, ala EarthBound, Costume Quest, and the like. The problem is that while I really, really, really like the idea of doing the game in first person (ala typical dungeon crawlers), three things pop up:

a) I can only see it to an extent in my mind's eye
b) it won't be as visually engaging to the player
c) even though the idea is novel, the execution may cause players to shy away rather than flock to it.

Thematically, the FPV works. It's original in context. I'm second guessing myself, wondering if the only reason I'm thinking of ditching it is to play it safe. Play it easy.

How far do I let this go before making a definite decision?

 

[Pehesse]

^ Thank you guys for your kind remarks and feedback =)



What prompted me to try it were some of the more jarring switches. This is the most jarring.

These general leg positions are mostly the same thing I regurgitate each time, because I've done a basic run cycle a thousand times -- And 10 frames is my standard jam. I noticed certain frames, especially the one above, stand out a bit though because there's not enough tweening. Rather than add frames to my routine (work!) I thought I'd try some blurring.

Heh, yeah, my first thought would be to go to 12 frame cycles for walk/jog cycles, but... work :-D In that case, I'd perhaps try to inch the leg in the first of those two frames closer to where it's going on the second one, so there's less ground to travel. Alternatively, use a definite smear effect only on the leg on the second frame, much more pronounced (ie: not blur, but the clear whole, or at least half, arc). Other than that... not sure what else to suggest. I get the issue, but I don't think blurred frames (even in part) is the right solution.

(There's also something slightly off with the hair, since only a small part moves, making it look like a wig on top of a solid helmet, but I understand that's kind of an unavoidable effect with moving parts, and this is entering complete nitpick territory - still thought I'd mention it just in case, but it can work fine as is :-D )

 

[correojon]

At what point do you leave a major design choice behind for something else?

I'm thinking of ditching the current viewpoint of Dick Whitman (yes that is the code name for Game 2) for a more traditional side view, ala EarthBound, Costume Quest, and the like. The problem is that while I really, really, really like the idea of doing the game in first person (ala typical dungeon crawlers), three things pop up:

a) I can only see it to an extent in my mind's eye
b) it won't be as visually engaging to the player
c) even though the idea is novel, the execution may cause players to shy away rather than flock to it.

Thematically, the FPV works. It's original in context. I'm second guessing myself, wondering if the only reason I'm thinking of ditching it is to play it safe. Play it easy.

How far do I let this go before making a definite decision?

I try to focus on gameplay first, so ask yourself how will this affect gameplay. Did you plan some nice mechanics that won´t work in the side view? Or will the game allow for more elaborated mechanics on the side view? If there´s no difference in this regard then it´s just a matter of aesthetics and personal taste, so just choose what you think is best. It´s good to make a game with the main appeal in mind, but you´ll probably be more engaged (and thus, put more work into it with less effort) if you´re making something you absolutely love and can see turning out as something fantastic when it´s done.

EDIT: Also, write down your arguments for both sides, sometimes doing this will make you think about the decission in another way and make it clearer which one´s the better choice.

 

[asa]

Thanks for the insight. Monetizing is always a challenge to balance.

This is great info. I wish more devs would share their numbers and strategies.

I was fully expecting to make less money doing this, but hearing that it'll likely lead to better, or at least similar, income is great news.
Good luck with the update =)

Just keep in mind that every game is it's own story, some might do well on ads some might not. I don't know if free to try is the best way to monetize for us, it's probably far from ideal, but it seems to be doing better than ads for now and it's pretty close to premium which I personally think is the best solution.

I guess we will know more in a month

 

[dude]

A question to people in here building 3d games - I work on mobile games as a day job and I'm way too used to being as frugal as possible on every visual front. I feel really lost and insecure when it comes to modern PCs.
Is there a site or tool to help me understand how many tris, for example, to aim for for different GPUs/rigs? Without, for the moment, taking into account shaders/effects etc

Thanks.

EDIT: NVM. A little googling lead me to this. That's a huge help.

 

[SeanNoonan]

well obviously I can change the framerate.

in game it might end up actually being a bit faster like this

Looks good to me except the hair - it kinda looks like a single sprite pinned to another that's translating up and down a couple of pixels.

Looks awesome otherwise, I quite like the blur ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

 

[LordRaptor]

Not sure if this will be useful to anyone, but Pakt publishing are giving away a free game dev ebook a day - todays is about Unity Scripting.
They also have a half price sale on gamedev books for the rest of this week.

A question to people in here building 3d games - I work on mobile games as a day job and I'm way too used to being as frugal as possible on every visual front. I feel really lost and insecure when it comes to modern PCs.
Is there a site or tool to help me understand how many tris, for example, to aim for for different GPUs/rigs? Without, for the moment, taking into account shaders/effects etc

Thanks.

Modern 2D games are generally actually 3D games with sprites applied as textures to quads (2 tris), so however many sprites you know you can safely handle you can assume you can handle double that as tris. "Low poly" characters are generally considered 5000 polys or less.

Most modern 3D artist workflow is to make ridiculously high poly sculpts, export ("bake") the normal map of that stupidly high poly sculpt, and then apply that normal map to a much lower poly version ("in game") version of that sculpt - insanely detailed surfaces like cobblestone walls where every cobblestone is a different size and with different levels of wear are usually just flat planes with all the details coming from the textures and normal maps.

Its not actually the polycount thats usually the bottleneck for 3D games on modern GPUs though, as most modern systems even using software rendering can push millions of polys at a time, its usually texture fillrate.

 

[Ruruja]

EDIT: NVM. A little googling lead me to this. That's a huge help.

Cool link, I copied the list into a nice Evernote file for me and my friend in case that disappears.

Kinda blown away by the FF13/FF13-2 count if those numbers are true, though I remember their hands/fingers looking a little rubbish, so I'm guessing 90% of those polys went into their face.

 

[Jobbs]

Looks good to me except the hair - it kinda looks like a single sprite pinned to another that's translating up and down a couple of pixels.

Looks awesome otherwise, I quite like the blur ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

thank you the hair movement was kept kind of minimal because I doubt it'lll be that perceptible in game context.

 

[Ito]

I don't quite like the blurring, Jobbs. For some reason, it creates a weird "lens" effect.

Now, this might be only because the background is static, but still, I feel like the legs movement is not so fast as to require a blur effect.


----


And another display-related issue with Game Maker: Studio. I'd really appreciate if anyone could help me with this:

GM:S users, are you having trouble keeping the aspect ratio when running your game in a smaller resolution than 1920x1080 (fullscreen mode)?

My game runs at 1920x1080, and I can resize it to whatever I want as long as my display size remains 1920x1080.
The moment I set my OS screen resolution to, say, 1600x900 (which is also a 16:9 display!!) and I enter fullscreen mode, I'll get this horrible screen tearing effect.

I've been googling all night and I've found some users having the very same issue with some specific resolutions.

The fun part is I can't take a screenshot because when I do, for some reason, the resulting picture looks perfect. So I'm guessing this is a monitor issue, then? because tweaking the monitor CP options doesn't fix it either.

Before you thing it's my code's fault, I tried creating a new project, setting a new room, enabling a 1600x900 view with a 1600x900 port, going fullscreen... and I got the same ugly rescaling (and yes, I had enabled the "Keep Aspect Ratio" in the global game settings).

Edit: My OS is Windows 10.

 

[dude]

Not sure if this will be useful to anyone, but Pakt publishing are giving away a free game dev ebook a day - todays is about Unity Scripting.
They also have a half price sale on gamedev books for the rest of this week.

How are their books? I might be interested in a couple of their titles but I have no idea how they are in regards to quality.

 

[superNESjoe]

Pretty divisive on that blur. I don't mind it, but would like to see it in game.

 

[LordRaptor]

How are their books?

¯\_(&#12484_/¯

I've never personally had much luck with "how 2 gamedev" books, because they either assume you don't know shit about shit and spend half the book on "how to install a program" type guides and end at "well done, you've just made space invaders", or they assume you're a ComSci graduate and dive straight into the deep end without explaining core concepts.

Todays freeby book seems like it might be useful and has downloadable code snippets, and hey, free.

 

[Jobbs]

I don't quite like the blurring, Jobbs. For some reason, it creates a weird "lens" effect.

Movies go along at 24 fps and there's a lot of blurring even when stuff isn't moving all that fast and that's the only reason you don't really notice how low the framerate is.

 

[fengshuifever]

well obviously I can change the framerate.

in game it might end up actually being a bit faster like this

No real useful criticism but I really like the way the end of her skirt/long shirt moves.
It's not too flowy and not too rigid