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[peaceiscloser]

That Stardew Valley token minority thread just had me worried for a few things in my game.

I thought about creating a black character in a role like Javert from Les Mis; but I'm just afraid that if I make someone black and a villain I'm going to get nuked for demonizing blacks. I don't really know what to think.

 

[JulianImp]

our token "recurring annoying rival character that shows up in the worst possible time(like mid boss fight to make the fight harder)". all with ridiculous armor color, make-up...


and ridiculous attacks!

texture is WIP.

Looks nice, but I think he needs to smile a bit more rather than keeping that serious expression in spite of that gaudy make-up of his.

 

[Cute Dragon Here]

That Stardew Valley token minority thread just had me worried for a few things in my game.

I thought about creating a black character in a role like Javert from Les Mis; but I'm just afraid that if I make someone black and a villain I'm going to get nuked for demonizing blacks. I don't really know what to think.

If adding a token minority somehow ends up being a bad idea, it probably is a good idea to just not do it. I'd rather not deal with the potential fallout...

 

[TheKroge]

I originally did not want to have a retreat mechanic in my game because of the potential issues it raises, but I finally pulled the trigger on it. Now when you start battle, you can retreat but you can only move as many ships as you have fuel for. In this case, they only had fuel for about half the fleet. The results are pretty much what you would expect:

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

Looks nice, but I think he needs to smile a bit more rather than keeping that serious expression in spite of that gaudy make-up of his.

the character has animate-able face. the expressions are very limited though since the whole character is just 1.3K tris.

here's the smirk.

 

[Theanine3D]

That Stardew Valley token minority thread just had me worried for a few things in my game.

I thought about creating a black character in a role like Javert from Les Mis; but I'm just afraid that if I make someone black and a villain I'm going to get nuked for demonizing blacks. I don't really know what to think.

Would that character be the *only* black character in your game? Any black protagonists or supporting characters? I think it would only be a big issue if this villain ends up being the ONLY black character in your game.

Having a single person-of-color antagonist amongst an otherwise 100% white cast is a common trope, and media using it is fully deserving of criticism. I would strongly recommend avoiding it.

 

[Jumplion]

That Stardew Valley token minority thread just had me worried for a few things in my game.

I thought about creating a black character in a role like Javert from Les Mis; but I'm just afraid that if I make someone black and a villain I'm going to get nuked for demonizing blacks. I don't really know what to think.

It's a tricky thing to get right. I'd say if the character you want to create would be the only black character in your game I'd take a step back and figure out why that's the case in your game. That's what a token character is, they're usually the only character of their type/race/sex/whatever that, whether intentionally or not, seems like a token effort to be seen as inclusive. It ends up making that character stand in for their whole group of people, intentionally or not.

It's a tight rope to balance on.

 

[peaceiscloser]

Would that character be the *only* black character in your game? Any black protagonists or supporting characters? I think it would only be a big issue if this villain ends up being the ONLY black character in your game.

Having a single person-of-color antagonist amongst an otherwise 100% white cast is a common trope, and media using it is fully deserving of criticism. I would strongly recommend avoiding it.

Nah, one of the supporting protagonists is black, and I plan on having a few more characters in. I'm just worried about having a villain of color at all. More or less, I thought it was really cool how in a recent broadway version of Les Mis, Javert is this black dude. It's a lot like the Operative in Firefly, and that's more or less the kind of character I'm looking to include. Or, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader! I mean, I know how he didn't end up black in the end as a character, but I really like the idea of it.

To give you an idea, this guy is an authoritarian figure, who if he was one of the good guys he'd be somewhat of a mentor figure. He's just misguided in his beliefs, and that's his downfall that makes him a villain. Someone that can absolutely inspire terror, but you can also sympathize with. I'm thinking Robert E. Lee in the American Civil War, where he's unfortunately fighting for the wrong side because that's where his loyalties lie. He's not the main villain either, just the enforcer of the big bad.

 

[Mafusto]

The feeling you get when the gears of your game start to fall together when coding it. Hopefully I can show some small gifs of the WiP next week.

Today I finally included the attack system that was waiting for me since last week, but during programming some ideas came up. Right now I have a system where attacks can be stacked on top of each other to create a new attack. Would you as a player rather have a consistent combo system where A->B and B->A are always generating the same attack or would it be nicer to have two separate attacks based on the order they are stacked?

 

[JulianImp]

the character has animate-able face. the expressions are very limited though since the whole character is just 1.3K tris.

here's the smirk.

Maybe you could place the mouth and eyes on top of the model like decals, and do simple texture swaps to give him more expressions without having to animate the vertices themselves?

 

[OricWindstar]

Cool
I'm glad I didn't discourage you. It's definitely harsh but something I wish I had known earlier in my life.

There's nothing wrong with RPG Maker so don't feel down about using it. Also, like I said, really consider doing a graphic adventure game. At any rate, an important thing to remember as an indie dev is that restrictions are usually a good thing. It doesn't seem like it but once you actually start making something, your ideas will transform in weird and wonderful ways out of necessity and problem-solving, and through this process become even better than before. Embrace the restrictions of RPG Maker or Twine or whatever you use.

And lastly, keep us posted in this thread with your progress!

Will do! Thanks for all the support.

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

Maybe you could place the mouth and eyes on top of the model like decals, and do simple texture swaps to give him more expressions without having to animate the vertices themselves?

Oh yeah why didn't thought of that. That way I can make him more annoying too. thanks..

EDIT: And I only learned this just now that our former boss( a Japanese programmer who is a die hard Bullet hell fan and has worked for a well loved game) will probably pitch in his ideas on this game too. We'll see once we meet him late April/Early may.


also, the main character run(not satisfied with the animation though).

 

[Theanine3D]

Nah, one of the supporting protagonists is black, and I plan on having a few more characters in. I'm just worried about having a villain of color at all. More or less, I thought it was really cool how in a recent broadway version of Les Mis, Javert is this black dude. It's a lot like the Operative in Firefly, and that's more or less the kind of character I'm looking to include. Or, James Earl Jones as Darth Vader! I mean, I know how he didn't end up black in the end as a character, but I really like the idea of it.

To give you an idea, this guy is an authoritarian figure, who if he was one of the good guys he'd be somewhat of a mentor figure. He's just misguided in his beliefs, and that's his downfall that makes him a villain. Someone that can absolutely inspire terror, but you can also sympathize with. I'm thinking Robert E. Lee in the American Civil War, where he's unfortunately fighting for the wrong side because that's where his loyalties lie. He's not the main villain either, just the enforcer of the big bad.

I can only speak for myself but that sounds fine to me. I'm Hispanic, not black, but if you were to swap black with Hispanic in your post I would be OK with it.

I believe in diversity, and that includes villain roles. People of color can be bad guys too! I just find it bothersome that we're frequently only cast as that, and not much else.

 

[Geminosity]

Sooooo... what do people make of bundle stuff like Groupees? Are they a good idea for something in greenlight to get more eyes on it and maybe even make a lil money or is the cost in potential full-price sales lost not worth it?

 

[Jumplion]

(playing with the keyboard instead of accelerometer)

Added a sort of indicator to warn players where the enemy is coming from. Still need to tweak it, make it more visible/less weird looking, but it seems to help a lot with knowing where to move next.

 

[JulianImp]

also, the main character run(not satisfied with the animation though).

Hmm... I'd say the whole body is too static throughout the runing cycle. Adding more weight to the sprint could be done by making his torso bob up and down slightly, and you could also add subtle counter-movements on his arms that'd happen due to his body's vertical momentum. As it is right now, it feels too much like his legs are the only thing being animated while the rest of the body's locked in place.

While I get where you're coming from with the sentai-ish arms pose, maybe you could make it more fluid by making him actually change stance as he transitions from standing to running, extending his right fist instead of his left one in order to make it more appealing, and reverting to the old pose when he comes to a stop.

Also, regarding the scarf I think you should make it not flap around so much in the idle state (using a lower flapping angle to pretend there's less wind hitting it) so that there's more of a difference between when he's standing and when he's running.

 

[tamaster92]

Things I have already learnt trying to make a souls-like game:

- Making good feeling parrys and counters is hard as fuck
- Making dodges move you far enough to feel like you dodged but not too far that you escape the battle is hard
- making side dodges rotate according to the lock on not just sideways is hard as hell
- making AI is hard as fuck.

 

[Makai]

This is really esoteric, but John Carmack inspired me to experiment with using stateless functional programming for games. If you're unfamiliar with functional programming, imagine programming without any variables! This sounds impossible, but you can make an application by only using functions. The benefit of excluding variables is functions are predictable and you can be sure there aren't any bugs. Proper functional languages won't even compile unless you've checked every case. The downside is it takes FOREVER to figure out how to structure things and it feels like you're back in Comp 101. Trivial problems become a lot tougher without state. I made the following demo in F# and Unity, and it took me 100x longer than it would have taken in C#. But after overcoming that initial architectural hurdle, anything else can be quicker than if I had started with C#. And I won't have to worry about elusive bugs.

The main data type is a list of entities (fighters, projectiles) and each entity has functions that give you their location, sprite, hitboxes, etc based on their value. Functional state machines are incredibly readable. Even a nonprogrammer was able to follow along while I walked them through it.

type Fighter =
    | Stand of Frame
    | StandToDuck of Frame
    | Duck of Frame
    | DuckToStand of Frame
    | Hop of Frame
    | HopLand of Frame
    | Leap of Frame
    | LeapLand of Frame
    | CatchGround of Frame
    | ThrowGround of Frame
    | Seed of Frame
    | Shovel of Frame
    | Water of Frame
    | AxeGround of Frame
    | AxeHop of Frame * Height
    | AxeLeap of Frame * Height

    member this.NextState input =
    
        let stand i =
            if input.A then Water 0
            elif input.B then AxeGround 0
            else
                match input.Pad with
                | Up | UpForward | UpBack -> Hop 0
                | Forward -> ThrowGround 0
                | Back -> CatchGround 0
                | Down | DownForward | DownBack -> StandToDuck 0
                | _ -> 
                    match i with
                    | LastFrame.Stand -> Stand 0
                    | i -> Stand (i + 1)

        let standToDuck = 
            function
            | LastFrame.StandToDuck -> Duck 0
            | i -> StandToDuck (i + 1)

        let duck i =
            if input.A then Seed 0
            elif input.B then Shovel 0
            else
                match input.Pad with
                | Up | UpForward | UpBack -> Leap 0
                | Down | DownForward | DownBack ->
                    match i with
                    | LastFrame.Duck -> Duck 0
                    | i -> Duck (i + 1)
                | _ -> DuckToStand 0

        let duckToStand = 
            function
            | LastFrame.DuckToStand -> Stand 0
            | i -> 
                match input.Pad with
                | Up | UpForward | UpBack -> Leap 0
                | _ -> DuckToStand (i + 1)

        let hop i = 
            if input.B then AxeHop (0, i)
            else
                match i with
                | LastFrame.Hop -> HopLand 0
                | i -> Hop (i + 1)

        let hopLand =
            function
            | LastFrame.HopLand -> 
                match input.Pad with
                | Down | DownForward | DownBack -> Duck 0
                | _ -> Stand 0
            | i -> HopLand (i + 1)

        let leap i =
            if input.B then AxeLeap (0, i)
            else
                match i with
                | LastFrame.Leap -> LeapLand 0
                | i -> Leap (i + 1)

        let leapLand = 
            function
            | LastFrame.LeapLand -> 
                match input.Pad with
                | Down | DownForward | DownBack -> Duck 0
                | _ -> Stand 0
            | i -> LeapLand (i + 1)
    
        let catchGround =
            function
            | LastFrame.CatchGround -> Stand 0
            | i -> CatchGround (i + 1)

        let throwGround =
            function
            | LastFrame.ThrowGround -> Stand 0
            | i -> ThrowGround (i + 1)

        let seed = 
            function
            | LastFrame.Seed -> Duck 0
            | i -> Seed (i + 1)

        let shovel = 
            function
            | LastFrame.Shovel -> Duck 0
            | i -> Shovel (i + 1)
    
        let water i =
            if input.A then
                match i with
                | LastFrame.Water -> Water 0
                | i -> Water (i + 1)
            else Stand 0
    
        let axeGround =
            function
            | LastFrame.AxeGround -> Stand 0
            | i -> AxeGround (i + 1)

        let axeHop =
            function
            | _, LastFrame.Hop -> HopLand 0
            | LastFrame.AxeAir, h -> Hop h
            | i, h -> AxeHop ((i + 1), (h + 1))
    
        let axeLeap =
            function
            | _, LastFrame.Leap -> LeapLand 0
            | LastFrame.AxeAir, h -> Leap h
            | i, h -> AxeLeap ((i + 1), (h + 1))

        match this with
        | Stand i -> stand i
        | StandToDuck i -> standToDuck i
        | Duck i -> duck i 
        | DuckToStand i -> duckToStand i
        | Hop i -> hop i
        | HopLand i -> hopLand i
        | Leap i -> leap i
        | LeapLand i -> leapLand i
        | CatchGround i -> catchGround i
        | ThrowGround i -> throwGround i
        | Seed i -> seed i
        | Shovel i -> shovel i
        | Water i -> water i
        | AxeGround i -> axeGround i
        | AxeHop (i, h) -> axeHop (i, h)
        | AxeLeap (i, h) -> axeLeap (i, h)

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

Hmm... I'd say the whole body is too static throughout the runing cycle. Adding more weight to the sprint could be done by making his torso bob up and down slightly, and you could also add subtle counter-movements on his arms that'd happen due to his body's vertical momentum. As it is right now, it feels too much like his legs are the only thing being animated while the rest of the body's locked in place.

While I get where you're coming from with the sentai-ish arms pose, maybe you could make it more fluid by making him actually change stance as he transitions from standing to running, extending his right fist instead of his left one in order to make it more appealing, and reverting to the old pose when he comes to a stop.

Also, regarding the scarf I think you should make it not flap around so much in the idle state (using a lower flapping angle to pretend there's less wind hitting it) so that there's more of a difference between when he's standing and when he's running.

there will be around 3-4 run and 2-4 idle loops that the character will switch to randomly,+ different hand/body gestures everytime he detonates the bomb(blended on mecanim) and I kinda want to keep the right arm in that position since it is his "weapon arm" that he'll only move on attacks(still undecided but most likely change depending on the the initial playtests)

and currently the scarf is animated independently of the body's motion(it's an 80 frame loop), We intend to make it a homage to Powerpuff Girls Mojo Jojo's cape that is always waving on his right side and is always facing the camera no matter what. We are also considering to animate it using shader like Shonibi's scarf though.

 

[Lautaro]

Ugh, sometimes I think having a Linux version is not worth the effort. They're only 3% of my sales but I spend around 30% of my bug-fixing time trying to find solutions to incompatibilities between Unity and some specific Linux configurations.

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Greetings everyone!

I just wanted to share the good news about my first project - I have officially placed my game on Steam Greenlight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650008871

Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you are really interested, I would be more than happy to send you a link to a current build of the game.

 

[gingerbeardman]

Took me a second to realise what the game was. Very cool!

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Took me a second to realise what the game was. Very cool!

I really appreciate the feedback! Apparently, its not getting a great initial reception on Greenlight...

 

[RelentlessRolento]

Got to work a big chunk of basic AI for my enemies today, primarily only movement. Later this week I'll be knocking out enemy attacks and helping them find the player, but so far so good.

I'd post what I have but it's so early it's not even worth a glance till more work gets done.

 

[Geminosity]

Things I have already learnt trying to make a souls-like game:

...
- making AI is hard as fuck.

Haha yeah. AI is both super fun and super frustrating. Half the time you seem to spend just wondering what the heck the AI is even doing and how you got it to decide whatever it's up to was a good idea. I was trying to make my bots in Advance more selective on target choice last night and somehow got them going absolutely bananas shooting everything in sight instead XD

~Functional programming awesomeness~

I find this stuff fascinating but I wouldn't even know where to start with it. Aside from the obvious benefits of readability does it come with any performance improvements (aka from not having to store the variables in memory) or does all the callbacks just amount to much of the same?

Greetings everyone!

I just wanted to share the good news about my first project - I have officially placed my game on Steam Greenlight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650008871

Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you are really interested, I would be more than happy to send you a link to a current build of the game.

Gave you a thumbs up, I really like the idea of mixing a sort of puzzle game with DDR-style rhythmic matching. Plus I'm always a fan of well presented clean aesthetic :3

The slim amount of text you've gone for makes me wonder if I should cut back on the blurb on Advance's. After seeing yours I think perhaps a good trailer says a lot more than a wall of text, like on mine, can XD

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Haha yeah. AI is both super fun and super frustrating. Half the time you seem to spend just wondering what the heck the AI is even doing and how you got it to decide whatever it's up to was a good idea. I was trying to make my bots in Advance more selective on target choice last night and somehow got them going absolutely bananas shooting everything in sight instead XD


I find this stuff fascinating but I wouldn't even know where to start with it. Aside from the obvious benefits of readability does it come with any performance improvements (aka from not having to store the variables in memory) or does all the callbacks just amount to much of the same?



Gave you a thumbs up, I really like the idea of mixing a sort of puzzle game with DDR-style rhythmic matching. Plus I'm always a fan of well presented clean aesthetic :3

The slim amount of text you've gone for makes me wonder if I should cut back on the blurb on Advance's. After seeing yours I think perhaps a good trailer says a lot more than a wall of text, like on mine, can XD

I'm not sure about your project, but my gameplay concept is pretty simple so the trailer provides most of the context for what to expect when playing. A more complex/involved game may still benefit from an expanded description...

Thanks for the thumbs up!

 

[Geminosity]

I really appreciate the feedback! Apparently, its not getting a great initial reception on Greenlight...

I'm not sure about your project, but my gameplay concept is pretty simple so the trailer provides most of the context for what to expect when playing. A more complex/involved game may still benefit from an expanded description...

Thanks for the thumbs up!

No worries :3

Yeah, I think it's really good if you can get the concept across in a trailer without having to use any text, but due to the hidden information aspect of my game I'm not sure it's possible for moi XD
I don't think the concept for my game is complex as even people who don't play games seem to get it within a single match or two but it's so thoroughly alien compared to most games outside of "Hidden in Plain Sight" that I find it incredibly hard to describe in just a sentence or two ^.^; It definitely doesn't explain itself in screenshots though :s

Looking at your greenlight spread again, the only thing that jumps out at me as maybe being troublesome is your game's icon is a bit empty. While the clean aesthetic works well in the game I'm not sure the icon captures it very well. I'd be tempted to rework it to emphasise the 3d / layering aspect where you can see the upcoming pattern in the background rather than the flat 2D representation you've gone for as it currently wouldn't stand out very well in the mess of other icons on the greenlight page to me :3

 

[HidingMyThunder]

No worries :3

Yeah, I think it's really good if you can get the concept across in a trailer without having to use any text, but due to the hidden information aspect of my game I'm not sure it's possible for moi XD
I don't think the concept for my game is complex as even people who don't play games seem to get it within a single match or two but it's so thoroughly alien compared to most games outside of "Hidden in Plain Sight" that I find it incredibly hard to describe in just a sentence or two ^.^; It definitely doesn't explain itself in screenshots though :s

Looking at your greenlight spread again, the only thing that jumps out at me as maybe being troublesome is your game's icon is a bit empty. While the clean aesthetic works well in the game I'm not sure the icon captures it very well. I'd be tempted to rework it to emphasise the 3d / layering aspect where you can see the upcoming pattern in the background rather than the flat 2D representation you've gone for as it currently wouldn't stand out very well in the mess of other icons on the greenlight page to me :3

That's great advice! I'll update it tonight

 

[HidingMyThunder]

No worries :3

Yeah, I think it's really good if you can get the concept across in a trailer without having to use any text, but due to the hidden information aspect of my game I'm not sure it's possible for moi XD
I don't think the concept for my game is complex as even people who don't play games seem to get it within a single match or two but it's so thoroughly alien compared to most games outside of "Hidden in Plain Sight" that I find it incredibly hard to describe in just a sentence or two ^.^; It definitely doesn't explain itself in screenshots though :s

Looking at your greenlight spread again, the only thing that jumps out at me as maybe being troublesome is your game's icon is a bit empty. While the clean aesthetic works well in the game I'm not sure the icon captures it very well. I'd be tempted to rework it to emphasise the 3d / layering aspect where you can see the upcoming pattern in the background rather than the flat 2D representation you've gone for as it currently wouldn't stand out very well in the mess of other icons on the greenlight page to me :3

The icon looks a lot better with your idea! Hopefully, it will stand out a little more...

 

[Geminosity]

The icon looks a lot better with your idea! Hopefully, it will stand out a little more...

Cool, I hope it helps!
Gotta make use of those few precious days on the front page of greenlight because once you're off it your traffic will nosedive

 

[Makai]

I find this stuff fascinating but I wouldn't even know where to start with it. Aside from the obvious benefits of readability does it come with any performance improvements (aka from not having to store the variables in memory) or does all the callbacks just amount to much of the same?

According to John Carmack, there could be big performance improvements. Before he was hired by Oculus, he was working on a port of Wolfenstein 3D to Haskell as a test project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PhArSujR_A&t=2m5s

Haskell's garbage collection is a lot more efficient than normal because it doesn't have to worry about variables.

https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/Memory_Management

Haskell's computation model is very different from that of conventional mutable languages. Data immutability forces us to produce a lot of temporary data but it also helps to collect this garbage rapidly. The trick is that immutable data NEVER points to younger values. Indeed, younger values don't yet exist at the time when an old value is created, so it cannot be pointed to from scratch. And since values are never modified, neither can it be pointed to later. This is the key property of immutable data.

This greatly simplifies garbage collection (GC). At anytime we can scan the last values created and free those that are not pointed to from the same set (of course, real roots of live values hierarchy are live in the stack). It is how things work: by default, GHC uses generational GC. New data are allocated in 512kb "nursery". Once it's exhausted, "minor GC" occurs - it scans the nursery and frees unused values. Or, to be exact, it copies live values to the main memory area. The fewer values that survive - the less work to do. If you have, for example, a recursive algorithm that quickly filled the nursery with generations of its induction variables - only the last generation of the variables will survive and be copied to main memory, the rest will be not even touched! So it has a counter-intuitive behavior: the larger percent of your values are garbage - the faster it works.

If you want to give it a try, there's an awesome free book. http://learnyouahaskell.com/

Definitely read the first page at least.

 

[Jumplion]

Greetings everyone!

I just wanted to share the good news about my first project - I have officially placed my game on Steam Greenlight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650008871

Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you are really interested, I would be more than happy to send you a link to a current build of the game.

I dig it.

I'll fully admit I'm jelly of that art style, it just looks so clean and balanced. Any tips you could give on that kind of visual style? Here's my own game for looksies.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

It's Cthulhu. Be creative? Maybe garbled noises? I dunno... but it sounds like the thing that you don't really need "VO"...

Rest of the game does.

 

[Geminosity]

According to John Carmack, there could be big performance improvements. Before he was hired by Oculus, he was working on a port of Wolfenstein 3D to Haskell as a test project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PhArSujR_A&t=2m5s

Haskell's garbage collection is a lot more efficient than normal because it doesn't have to worry about variables.

https://wiki.haskell.org/GHC/Memory_Management



If you want to give it a try, there's an awesome free book. http://learnyouahaskell.com/

Definitely read the first page at least.

Ooh! Thankies!
I'll have to sit and chew on all of this, but if I can use any of it to squeeze more performance out / make my code less spaghetti-like then it's welcome :3

 

[Diablohead]

My kickstarter was small but a few things I learned about running one that might help others:

The kickstarter dashboard is really good, you can see everyone, see their tiers and send out bulk messages to only those at a set tier, I had a feeling this was possible but you can't see what you can do until you launch your kickstarter.

You will get an email about EVERYTHING during the kickstarter, every single backer, pledge change, cancel, message reply, private message, feedback, likes to your update posts, everything. Be prepared for a full inbox every morning.

The 48 hour reminder email people can sign up for is rather good, my second to last day was one of the bigger money increases outside of day one.

about 75% of the backers were all from finding my kickstarter listed on the website directly and not from external sources, my only advertising was on twitter, a neogaf post in this thread and any friends who spread the word. If I was asking for a bigger number I would have tried harder so I do suggest you work out something.

When the kickstarter finished up 17% of the backers had card payment issues which they have seven days to fix, you can see who exactly has not paid in your kickstarter dashboard.

My video for the kickstarter was just gameplay clips with some music, i didn't put much effort into it but I now wish that I did, I did show enough off to give people an expectation but I should have explained things being shown with subtitles.

Only a small portion of backers came from external articles, again I never really advertised the campaign but out of 20+ websites linking to me, only a few % came from those sources.

Depeding on the size of your kickstarter I would say try to not update every day but at least twice a week with reasonable information, don't write a tiny update in the first few days, wait until you have some content. I would also make a web link to the latest news post and apply it to the top of my kickstarter information.

It doesn't matter how many times you explain something, people will ask you about it! I had a lot of PM's about stuff I had covered twice in updates which were directly linked from the kickstarter page.

speaking of pm's I also got a lot of people advertising, asking if I needed X or Y and other kickstarters asking to give them a call out in exchange for backing your project, for these I either said "thanks but i'm ok" or ignored if it was a obvious ad.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

My kickstarter was small but a few things I learned about running one that might help others:

The kickstarter dashboard is really good, you can see everyone, see their tiers and send out bulk messages to only those at a set tier, I had a feeling this was possible but you can't see what you can do until you launch your kickstarter.

You will get an email about EVERYTHING during the kickstarter, every single backer, pledge change, cancel, message reply, private message, feedback, likes to your update posts, everything. Be prepared for a full inbox every morning.

The 48 hour reminder email people can sign up for is rather good, my second to last day was one of the bigger money increases outside of day one.

about 75% of the backers were all from finding my kickstarter listed on the website directly and not from external sources, my only advertising was on twitter, a neogaf post in this thread and any friends who spread the word. If I was asking for a bigger number I would have tried harder so I do suggest you work out something.

When the kickstarter finished up 17% of the backers had card payment issues which they have seven days to fix, you can see who exactly has not paid in your kickstarter dashboard.

My video for the kickstarter was just gameplay clips with some music, i didn't put much effort into it but I now wish that I did, I did show enough off to give people an expectation but I should have explained things being shown with subtitles.

Only a small portion of backers came from external articles, again I never really advertised the campaign but out of 20+ websites linking to me, only a few % came from those sources.

Depeding on the size of your kickstarter I would say try to not update every day but at least twice a week with reasonable information, don't write a tiny update in the first few days, wait until you have some content. I would also make a web link to the latest news post and apply it to the top of my kickstarter information.

It doesn't matter how many times you explain something, people will ask you about it! I had a lot of PM's about stuff I had covered twice in updates which were directly linked from the kickstarter page.

speaking of pm's I also got a lot of people advertising, asking if I needed X or Y and other kickstarters asking to give them a call out in exchange for backing your project, for these I either said "thanks but i'm ok" or ignored if it was a obvious ad.

Awesome this is very helpful. I'm launching my Kickstarter in 1-2 months so this info is a massive help. Congrads n thx again

 

[HidingMyThunder]

I dig it.

I'll fully admit I'm jelly of that art style, it just looks so clean and balanced. Any tips you could give on that kind of visual style? Here's my own game for looksies.

Your game looks crazy!

I'm not sure what tips I could give. I tried to keep everything as minimal as possible - stark color choices, limited shapes and behavior (all the animations are accomplished via rescaling), and good camera behaviors.

One tip I would give to your game is to have the center circle pulse. It would add some more life to the game world (you would have to test it with the flying projectiles to make sure it wasn't too much). Other than that, I think your game looks awesome!

 

[udivision]

Greetings everyone!

I just wanted to share the good news about my first project - I have officially placed my game on Steam Greenlight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650008871

Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you are really interested, I would be more than happy to send you a link to a current build of the game.

Nice. I guess it's like Simon Says with more going on?

Was your game made in Construct 2?

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Nice. I guess it's like Simon Says with more going on?

Was your game made in Construct 2?

Simon Says and DDR are pretty good comparisons! And it was made in GameMaker which turned out to be a pretty painless experience

 

[Exuro]

Does anyone know good tutorials/documents for composite design, perhaps with Unity in mind? I've been doing everything with my block classes(making moving blocks, switch/button blocks, etc) in my game via inheritance and now that I've figured out how to implement them I want to break them down into components so I can mix and match them to have blocks that have several attributes/components, but I'm not 100% sure the way to go about that. I assume the base class shouldn't know anything about the component classes, but I'm not sure how the component classes should interact with the base class. Haven't had a ton of luck with google and I don't want to just try out my own idea, which is to attach the component class to the block class and have the component class subscribe to the block class via a delegate that happens with respect to some trigger like the player walking on the block, leaving the block, etc. If I want a block that changes color and moves when I enter it I'd add a color change block component and move component and then somehow tell them both to run when the block has onEnter called on it. That doesn't seem like a proper way to do it with the delegates but that's the only way I can think about it. Any pointers/links/whatever would be helpful.

 

[AusRoachman]

Messing with voxels again and looking at how i might get a 3d ui going because i think it looks cool

 

[HidingMyThunder]

Messing with voxels again and looking at how i might get a 3d ui going because i think it looks cool

It has a paper Mario vibe to it!

 

[udivision]

Messing with voxels again and looking at how i might get a 3d ui going because i think it looks cool

[/IMG]http://i.imgur.com/6TAl4h4.gif[/IMG]

That does look pretty cool.

It has a paper Mario vibe to it!

That's what I was thinking too.

 

[DNAbro]

Greetings everyone!

I just wanted to share the good news about my first project - I have officially placed my game on Steam Greenlight.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650008871

Any comments or feedback would be greatly appreciated. And if you are really interested, I would be more than happy to send you a link to a current build of the game.

The voice reminds me so much of Super Hexagon. Looks really cool.


Also I'm so excited I'm finally starting to build the prototype for the game I've been planning. I'm upset I have to stop working on it cause of sleep lol.

 

[timetokill]

Messing with voxels again and looking at how i might get a 3d ui going because i think it looks cool

Hexels, not voxels, right? Or are you talking about the character/UI only? It looks like the character might be one voxel thick, not sure.

 

[Blizzard]

Messing with voxels again and looking at how i might get a 3d ui going because i think it looks cool

It looks cool, but as player feedback: 3D GUI's can easily be irritating. Star Citizen had an early prototype for adjusting ship settings or guns or something. It looked neat, like a 3D hologram, but it was a NIGHTMARE to try tor use, especially in VR, compared to a simple flat screen facing the player.

So I'd just say be careful if the player is going to be looking at it a lot, or examining it carefully.

 

[AusRoachman]

It looks cool, but as player feedback: 3D GUI's can easily be irritating. Star Citizen had an early prototype for adjusting ship settings or guns or something. It looked neat, like a 3D hologram, but it was a NIGHTMARE to try tor use, especially in VR, compared to a simple flat screen facing the player.

So I'd just say be careful if the player is going to be looking at it a lot, or examining it carefully.

Thanks for the tip. i do agree a 3d ui could be irratating, especially with a turn based game like mine, where it switches between units.

I will probably just use it for small stuff like health icons, There are still normal ui for round switching, resources e.t.c

Heres another one

 

[AusRoachman]

Hexels, not voxels, right? Or are you talking about the character/UI only? It looks like the character might be one voxel thick, not sure.

The characters/trees/ui mockups are voxels and can be exploded. Another example here

 

[timetokill]

The characters/trees/ui mockups are voxels and can be exploded. Another example here

I see, I thought you were talking about the terrain at first.
Very nice. I've been playing with something like that myself:

Are you using PicaVoxel or did you roll your own importer?

 

[AusRoachman]

I see, I thought you were talking about the terrain at first.
Very nice. I've been playing with something like that myself:

Are you using PicaVoxel or did you roll your own importer?

Great pic! . Yeh picavoxel and magicavoxel for the modeller. Really helps as I suck with 3d art , and I own a ton of 2d art , so it makes sense to just convert them to 3d

Still learning how picavoxel all works, using the basic animator e.t.c but its an impressive package and definitely recommended if you want to use voxel models.