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

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Afrocious

Member
Anyone need help with programming games inside Unity?

I'm a software dev of 2 years who's messed around with Unity back in college. I'd like to jump back into it, but I'm finding tutorials and books to not be satisfactory enough. I figure I could lend my skills in programming to anyone who already has a project up in Unity.

I'd be doing it for free and on my own time of course, so no huge commitments yet. I'm just looking to find a project to jump in on to get a taste of how a real Unity game is structured. In return, I could potentially fix some bugs for you.

Then again, I can't guarantee that since I have no idea how bad the bugs might be (and some bugs are pretty bad and might be outside my scope of what little I know about Unity.)

TBH, it would be also be interesting to help out with a fledgling Unity dev - that way we could learn together but I feel doing the work pro bono would make things kinda weird.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png
 

Nezzhil

Member
Here is the game that my team and I made this weekend. I hope you lime it!

The theme was a let down for us, but I think that our team has do the best to make a little full game to this LD. I’m sure that it will have some bugs, and some of the puzzle elements aren’t easy for the player (we lack of the time to add most of the visual feedback to help the player to solve them) I hope that you have some fun playing it.

Good work to all the developers and artists! Now it's time to play a lot of games (and I hope that a lot of the games are from Gaf members).


You can play it here (the visuals are better in the downloable version).
 
Having problems designing backgrounds for this brawler so I think I'll sit down and draw everything out on paper before attempting it on computer. Sounds like a more constructive way to do what u need.
 

Noogy

Member
Recently, I couldn't fell to sleep and have started
reading an old paper from Heinrich Hertz about the equations describing
electromagnetic wave propagation away from a dipole antenna -- sort of an
approximation to Maxwell's equations. His equations and its solution give some
interesting decaying function for a wave radiating out from a dipole at a
given frequency over ideal ground.

To relief myself somewhat from daily work, I thought; hey, why not try to
mimic the wave propagation and decay properties and use it as the input to my
TV simulator, man?

This paragraph right here is what convinced me that I'm a hack of a programmer.
 

missile

Member
Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png
I like. Had a similar idea where Gaffers/Mods fall from the sky comming
after you saying some of their favorit sayings. xD


This paragraph right here is what convinced me that I'm a hack of a programmer.
But it drives me away from sleep even more. xD Technical stuff really keeps
me awake for long hours. Not so good. How does an artist sleep?
 

missile

Member
CSG (Constructive Solid Geometry), does any game use it in a dynamic fashion,
i.e. does construct solids at runtime, being shaded, and, perhaps, have their
volume resp. mass distribution computed to be used for the inertia tensor for
doing some good physics with such solids? I think this technique could become
more applicable because it is manly CPU bound (not memory). Given all the
compute-units these days, there should be something possible. Anyone has some
experience here regarding realtime CSG?
 
PortadaD-550x308.jpg

So we couldnt sadly finish the game as a whole package, with a real match of 2vs2 and the menus working with it. Nearly everything is already finished. But not united in any way, so the only thing we could do is upload a mechanics build.

You can play and vote it here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=91098

Super sad we couldnt finish it, but we will try to do a post compo and release new builds this week that we hope at the end are a whole package, and hopefully also add some kind of AI.

Here are is a screen of the build (the background was put in fast in the last moment and looks bad, but the final result should be crisp pixelart with audience and animated, thats all done but still not implemented) now :

And here are some screens of the menu thats finished but not yet added (the tutorial explains nicely whats a 2vs2 complete match would be):

Here is the game that my team and I made this weekend. I hope you lime it!

The theme was a let down for us, but I think that our team has do the best to make a little full game to this LD. I’m sure that it will have some bugs, and some of the puzzle elements aren’t easy for the player (we lack of the time to add most of the visual feedback to help the player to solve them) I hope that you have some fun playing it.

Good work to all the developers and artists! Now it's time to play a lot of games (and I hope that a lot of the games are from Gaf members).



You can play it here (the visuals are better in the downloable version).

Hey, that looks nice. Will surely play it and vote it.
EDIT: Played, im now on the second level and I really dont know what to do lol I can get to the prince but I dont undertand what I can do with him, Ive touched every character in that stage with him but it does nothing. Any tips? Want to beat it before voting it.

Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png

Ha, this idea is super fun, just tried it a little, and seems hard lol
Will play a little bit more with it and review it.
EDIT. Played it a bunch, already reviewed it. Basically, its a nice little game but it could be super great fun if the starting levels were a little better paced to get a hang fully with the mechanics.
 

Ianan

Member
Started a new UE4 project today, I've put C++ on hold for the time being since learning how to program has made Blueprint just click with me completely. Hoping to have something to show off soon! :D
 

Blizzard

Banned
Ha, this idea is super fun, just tried it a little, and seems hard lol
Will play a little bit more with it and review it.
EDIT. Played it a bunch, already reviewed it. Basically, its a nice little game but it could be super great fun if the starting levels were a little better paced to get a hang fully with the mechanics.
Thanks for playing! I was working down to the wire -- if I had more time I should have spent some on improving the wave design.
 
Thanks for playing! I was working down to the wire -- if I had more time I should have spent some on improving the wave design.

Understandable, we couldn't even finish it as a whole package, something that you did and that already makes it better as a game.
As I said, si a fun little game that only need a little betetr begginers pacing, but other than that is pretty good trying to get further and better records.
 
So I finally released Nomad Fleet on Steam.

I decided to make a postmortem with my "raw" experience, that is my technical mistakes, the game's problems, sales numbers, etc.

You can check the postmortem here: http://www.indiedb.com/games/nomad-fleet/news/from-early-access-to-full-release

Always good to read a post-mortem.

One thing I'll say is that you used the word "notorious" but that generally means "famous for something bad," which I don't think is what you meant :) I'd use "well-known" or "famous."
 

Lautaro

Member
Always good to read a post-mortem.

One thing I'll say is that you used the word "notorious" but that generally means "famous for something bad," which I don't think is what you meant :) I'd use "well-known" or "famous."

But I don't mean famous, I mean something that would make you stop and look: like a purple cow.

Seeing this TED talk, maybe a better word would be "remarkable": https://youtu.be/xBIVlM435Zg
 
Awesome work everyone ! No little thing is little! It all adds up in the end ^_^

I think once this week is nearing end I'll be needing some input on color choices. So far designs are coming out ok, but my colors feel all over the place.

Any useful tips for background design? I'm making a beat-em-up and have been looking at streets of rage for reference but don't know.... I'll try posting pics tomorrow when I get to a stopping point.
 

missile

Member
2UeLKoO.png


Even programming the simplest of graphics amazes me each time.
(software rendering)

This will serve as my 3d testbed for my wave-radiator and for some retro
fueled 3d dithering techniques to exercise what I've wrote about limited
color use, shade tables and stuff applied to 3d low-poly objects.
 

Nezzhil

Member
Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png

PortadaD-550x308.jpg

So we couldnt sadly finish the game as a whole package, with a real match of 2vs2 and the menus working with it. Nearly everything is already finished. But not united in any way, so the only thing we could do is upload a mechanics build.

You can play and vote it here:
http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=91098

Super sad we couldnt finish it, but we will try to do a post compo and release new builds this week that we hope at the end are a whole package, and hopefully also add some kind of AI.

I will play your games today, I will write a comment as MightyToastStudio.
 

Minamu

Member
Can someone explain the math to me regarding circles? :lol I've been trying to make a unity camera rotate around a scene and while it looks alright at 1x speed, it's very clear at higher speeds that my technique is nowhere near a perfect circle. It's like it's changing the values for rotation in the wrong order or something.

I'm doing this using a unity animation, with 8 key frames, 4 of which are the south, west, north and east positions, and 4 more inbetween those so it looks like an angled octagon. I assumed that unity would smooth it out to a circle that way and it does for the most part. Basically the 4 main positions look at the center at either 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees with the other 4 at those values + 45. I have a final frame at 360 degrees too so frame 1 and the last are the same so there's no jump cut at the start and end.

I don't think I've entered any wrong values but some axis sometimes change out of sync with the others, like camera position moves first and then the viewing angle instead of at the same time, or something. It might be that my secondary points are misplaced but they're all using the same coordinates numbers and the problem mainly happens at 1 or 2 positions. Odd :)
 

Parham

Banned
Looking to test my UI against different types of colorblindness. Anyone have any suggestions as far as a good application to use? Color Oracle seems to have trouble with multiple monitors. I'd prefer to have something I can install locally, so I don't have to constantly upload screenshots to a website.
 
@Parham
I lately stumbled upon a color blindness shader, but I can't seem to find it again :(

Anyways a quick google turned up the usual stackoverlow results http://stackoverflow.com/questions/87146/rgb-filters-for-different-forms-of-color-blindness

And there are some useful links like Vischeck for example. Turns out Gimp has a color blindness mode built in as well by default

This is very useful, thanks! I'm actually looking into simulating colour blindness at the moment so that I can try and add accessibility modes to my game. Having a couple of issues getting the shader to work in Game Maker at the moment though, but should get it with some more time!
 

LordRaptor

Member
Can someone explain the math to me regarding circles? :lol I've been trying to make a unity camera rotate around a scene and while it looks alright at 1x speed, it's very clear at higher speeds that my technique is nowhere near a perfect circle. It's like it's changing the values for rotation in the wrong order or something.

I'm doing this using a unity animation

I'd suggest doing it in code rather than in mecanim tbh; a bezier spline (im sure you can find code snippets for one) would probably give you exactly what you need and let you finesse the number of points and smoothness in code with a parameter rather than handcoding
 

Minamu

Member
I'd suggest doing it in code rather than in mecanim tbh; a bezier spline (im sure you can find code snippets for one) would probably give you exactly what you need and let you finesse the number of points and smoothness in code with a parameter rather than handcoding
Yeah that might be a good idea, thanks :)
 

bearbytes

Member
I like the "Journey To Silius" vibe in your graphics. Is this a staight platform shooter?

Hey, thanks. The game is styled after some of my favorite NES games, things like Darkwing Duck, Megaman, and yeah, Journey To Silius as well. We stuck to the NES color palette, used famitracker for sound, stuff like that.

You choose the level order, beating levels gets you new weapons, etc. While you can beat the levels in any order, there are shortcuts and secrets that require certain weapons or combinations of weapons in order for you to reach them. There are collectibles to find, things to unlock, challenges.

We actually just went up on greenlight, you can check out the trailer there to get a better idea, and if you dig it, please give us a vote!

Check it out in steam:
http://steam://url/CommunityFilePage/666889283

In your browser:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=666889283
 

Nezzhil

Member
Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png

I liked it a lot, really cool mechanics. I wrote a small review of the game in the comments as MightyToastStudio. Good work!

The link to play your game isn't working :( , it's intentional?
 
So character is placeholder sprite (thank you SNK ;) He will be removed soon for real art) and AA is turned off in the shot, but I'm still having problems with background coloring. I'm wondering if I should dull out objects that are non interactive, or playable, or what... I can't figure it out.


So far there is enemy AI, a proper spawn system, proper camera system, proper hit/combo system, mostly full player control (running, walking, regular combos, running combos)

I'm jumping into doing characters for now though, characters might take longer, but I still am worried about my coloring so any input is appreciated
p0QHO.gif
 

JeffG

Member
Can someone explain the math to me regarding circles? :lol I've been trying to make a unity camera rotate around a scene and while it looks alright at 1x speed, it's very clear at higher speeds that my technique is nowhere near a perfect circle. It's like it's changing the values for rotation in the wrong order or something.

I'm doing this using a unity animation, with 8 key frames, 4 of which are the south, west, north and east positions, and 4 more inbetween those so it looks like an angled octagon. I assumed that unity would smooth it out to a circle that way and it does for the most part. Basically the 4 main positions look at the center at either 0, 90, 180 and 270 degrees with the other 4 at those values + 45. I have a final frame at 360 degrees too so frame 1 and the last are the same so there's no jump cut at the start and end.

I don't think I've entered any wrong values but some axis sometimes change out of sync with the others, like camera position moves first and then the viewing angle instead of at the same time, or something. It might be that my secondary points are misplaced but they're all using the same coordinates numbers and the problem mainly happens at 1 or 2 positions. Odd :)
Use code


attach to camera

Code:
public class movecamera : MonoBehaviour {
    public GameObject target;//the target object
    public Vector3 offsetTargetPosition = Vector3.up;
    public float speed = 10.0f;//a speed modifier
    public float distanceAway = 2;
    public Vector3 cameraOffset = Vector3.forward;

    void Start()
    {
        transform.position = target.transform.position + cameraOffset + (Vector3.forward * distanceAway);

        transform.LookAt(target.transform.position + offsetTargetPosition);//makes the camera look to it

    }

    void Update()
    {
      transform.RotateAround(target.transform.position + offsetTargetPosition, Vector3.up, Time.deltaTime * speed);
    }
}
 

DarkKyo

Member
Can anyone recommend me a homebrew pixel/sprite art editor for the NDS(not 3DS)? I'm going to be at PAX this weekend and it would be lovely to be able to churn out some pixel art for a game I'm working on while waiting in lines and such. I know there are more than a few editors out there, but I'm wondering if anyone here has any experience with them to the point where you could recommend one?
 
GunWorld 2 is through cert, and we picked a release date today. Launching exclusively on Xbox One on May 13th.
Yup, I'm not only the idiot that made a sequel to a game nobody liked, but I'm also launching it the same day as Doom.
 

Jobbs

Banned
The idea of editing out a significant amount of dialogue in my game is starting to seem like it may improve the experience... But I feel so hesitant to do this because I put so much work (and $$$) into getting it all recorded and edited.

I just sorta realized that a lot of what people expect from a game like mine -- A game drawing from Super Metroid and Dark Souls -- is the solitude and mystique... and I have characters who seem to babble on for ages and I'm starting to feel like this amount of dialogue is working against what the game is supposed to be.

A conundrum because I don't know how my bias is affecting this decision.
 

Violet_0

Banned
So I'm going to be honest. I think my spriting is what is killing me when it comes to making a game. I wanted, and still do, make a Souls/Zelda inspiried game, but then I look at my sprites and realize they look terrible as soon as I try and draw them doing attack animations.

F5Nb.png


I made this which shows the "newest" to the "oldest" and I'm almost tempted to go back to the original since it feels like it's the only one that could have proper attack animations, but it's also very simple and not very appealing. The middle one almost looks like it might be the best, but I started with that originally, found I needed to make the arms longer and that's what created the "newest" one.

It's driving me crazy and I haven't made any progress in days because of it.

keep in mind that it takes many years of practice to become a reasonably skilled artist (though, imo, pixel art is somewhat more beginner-friendly as you are more likely to get away with programmer art-type visuals). If you're good at coding, I think you should probably worry more about getting the whole thing to work properly, implement all the mechanics while using temporary art assets. If you have a working prototype of your game to show around, I'd imagine it would be a lot easier to find a partner to collaborate with. You could also hire someone to create the game art, which would probably be not affordable in the long run. Realistically, your best options might be to go with a simpler art direction, like 8-bit graphics, for example

I'm in a somewhat similar situation currently, except that in my case my programming skill isn't nearly sufficient enough to make the game I have in mind without spending months, possibly even years acquiring that knowledge (and that's just UE blueprints). Since I'm mostly interested in the art side of game development anyway, I've decided to work on something much more mechanically simple instead. Know your limits, basically
 
I've been experimenting on and off with UE4 blueprints and I love how easy it can be (especially the networking. I can't get over how easy it is to make a game work with online multiplayer)

But I've been wondering if I should just jump into Unity. It just seems like I would have more freedom there and some things would be easier to code rather than make a massive collections of BP nodes to do something as easy as switching a camera inside a player controller.

I'm conflicted. I do have some programming experience but not enough to play with the UE4 source code. I think unity probably has the best balance of customization and easy to code.

What do?
 
Damn, thought this music composition would be a bit easier, but it's like writing, but a little harder I find. I learned how to use the program decently, but I can't really do shit if I don't have a tune in my head to apply.
 
But I've been wondering if I should just jump into Unity. It just seems like I would have more freedom there and some things would be easier to code rather than make a massive collections of BP nodes to do something as easy as switching a camera inside a player controller.

I know you were only using this as an example, but from my experience, doing this particular thing requires only a few nodes - with "Set View Target with Blend" being the main one.

In my game, I've created a very basic Blueprint class containing nothing but a Camera component. I've called this class "TempCamera." Whenever I want to, for example, start a cutscene, I use a "Spawn Actor from Class" to spawn a TempCamera, then I set its world transforms (to position/rotate it), and then I plug that newly spawned TempCamera into a new "Set View Target with Blend" node to switch the player controller's view to it. That's it. Only 3 nodes at most (4 I guess if you count the Get Player Controller node). Maybe I've misunderstood what you're trying to achieve and you meant something completely different though.

Regardless, I think you should just use whatever you're most comfortable with. It honestly sounds like you like C# more. For serious projects, go with what you know best, and you can experiment with something different on the side in your free time if you want to.
 

Odrion

Banned
Here's my 48-hour LD competition game: http://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-35/?action=preview&uid=12278

As usual, I did my normal mistake of thinking the game was doable because I could beat it, and then finding out that everyone thinks it's really hard. And I think THEIR games are hard. :p

12278-shot0-146094025glp2n.png

Playing through a whole bunch of games and rating them in the 64 x 64 game jam... Yeah, it seems like the most common and one of the worst issues everyone has (I'm not excluded) is that they made their games too difficult or obtuse because the mechanics and solutions are OBVIOUS to the developer but for a player going in blind you can't really make any assumption. I tried to make my game accessible and still realized after the submission that I didn't explain to people how to get into the store.

And everyone hates to have their hand held, so... It's a tricky balancing act.
 

missile

Member
Given my adventure in to retro graphics, I'm looking for some interesting
color palettes. Does anyone have some or knows a place to get some good or
specific color palettes which may perhaps have some hand-crafted shades in
them regarding a given scenario, ambient, or atmosphere?

From memory, which of the old-school standard computer color palettes you
liked or like the most? I find the Acorn RISC one quite interesting;

N7uBmK8.png
 
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