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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay
- Thread starter Jacksinthe
- Start date
- Status
superNESjoe
Member
I always recommend Game Maker Studio for 2D stuff, but in reality the best answer is always whatever engine you're most familiar with.
If you're not familiar enough with an engine already to be able to build something like that inside of it, then my recommendation is to forget about it and learn an engine.
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Um, as I'm almost done with my world map portion of my game (should be GIFable once I fix the few nagging issues)...
I can't seem to position the map marker on the mini map in my game properly. Both are UI Images, with the marker a child to the mini map. (I already know how to get the position of the player, the size of the mini map, and the calculations needed to get a Vector2 that corresponds to where the marker should be on the map.)
Apparently I can't just bop the RectTransform my way... or transform. (want to directly set marker.)
Seems like it's resulting in very large bogus values when I actually set it even though the Vector2 I have created was printing out expected values (divided by 4)
I can't seem to position the map marker on the mini map in my game properly. Both are UI Images, with the marker a child to the mini map. (I already know how to get the position of the player, the size of the mini map, and the calculations needed to get a Vector2 that corresponds to where the marker should be on the map.)
Apparently I can't just bop the RectTransform my way... or transform. (want to directly set marker.)
Seems like it's resulting in very large bogus values when I actually set it even though the Vector2 I have created was printing out expected values (divided by 4)
My first ScreenShotSaturday I think 
The problem with making a very dark game is that it's just about impossible to take screenshots of it; you can't see anything!! I had to take some unlit shots and then up the ambient lights literally 10-20x in power so you can see what I've made so far.
The game is Holy Sheep (name might be pending), as always, and it got its start at GGJ 2016, by myself and two programmers. We also have a musician on part time now. It's a TPS multiplayer game for four players, and each player act as a certain class: Warper, Techie, Speedster and Ghost. They all have special abilities, most of which you can probably figure out by their names There are two special characters as well, the Hunter and the Sheep.
The game can only be won by the Hunter, whom any player can turn into temporarily by finding a special Holy Sword (see picture below). Of course, the last man standing is the victor. We've recently started adding the ability to throw the sword at the other players to make him even more fearful and he can now also jump really high, pretty much ten times as high as any other, but we're currently gonna make it so you can only use these two powers once per kill, at the most.
Any player struck by this sword will turn into a tiny Sheep. For the longest time, the only thing the Sheep could do was to hide and use tiny passages inside walls to get away from other players (a captured Sheep is a free Holy Sword, turning the tide in an instant). Today we've started adding the ability to clone yourself and make an "AI" driven companion roam the map for a short while, in order to lure other players away from you. At first we were just gonna let the clone go in a straight line and disappear as it hits a wall but as we already had a homing system for our abilities, we simply inverted it, making the sheep turn away in panic as it gets close to another player; making it harder to notice if it's a fake or not
I think the game is turning out rather well so far. It's just a hobby and portfolio project so it's gonna be free most likely when it's done. I really hope we can get a functional online system going for it, but at the very least we already have a pretty much perfect LAN option.
Som some pictures then. They're pretty large though, so bear with me.
I have one more map cooking, called Sacrifice, but it's been going through a lot of iterations and make-overs and is nowhere near presentable. The past week I've been remaking these three maps from scratch thanks to ProBuilder, removing 90% of the GameObjects from each map and yet they look identical or better, feels great
On Arena and Pyramid, the players each start in one of the corners, with the aim of reaching the Holy Sword either at one of the smaller pyramids on the short sides in the case of Arena, or on top of the major pyramid in the center of, well, Pyramid xD Battleground brings more verticality and length to the environment, and the players all start at the center, shielded by walls. The Holy Sword can again be found at one of the short sides of the map but it's also shielded by being inside a building of sorts down a couple of staircases. The current version of Sacrifice is played on two levels, where two players spawn on top, and two below. The top floor is currently the most decorated part with the bottom being just about completely empty, which was unintentional, but now I'm gonna keep it, because it kinda feels like you're trapped in Hell Stand in the right spot and you can't tell which direction is which, or even the fact that you're turning, the visibility is that terrible and it's terrifyingly awesome, imho
The problem with making a very dark game is that it's just about impossible to take screenshots of it; you can't see anything!! I had to take some unlit shots and then up the ambient lights literally 10-20x in power so you can see what I've made so far.The game is Holy Sheep (name might be pending), as always, and it got its start at GGJ 2016, by myself and two programmers. We also have a musician on part time now. It's a TPS multiplayer game for four players, and each player act as a certain class: Warper, Techie, Speedster and Ghost. They all have special abilities, most of which you can probably figure out by their names
There are two special characters as well, the Hunter and the Sheep.The game can only be won by the Hunter, whom any player can turn into temporarily by finding a special Holy Sword (see picture below). Of course, the last man standing is the victor. We've recently started adding the ability to throw the sword at the other players to make him even more fearful and he can now also jump really high, pretty much ten times as high as any other, but we're currently gonna make it so you can only use these two powers once per kill, at the most.
Any player struck by this sword will turn into a tiny Sheep. For the longest time, the only thing the Sheep could do was to hide and use tiny passages inside walls to get away from other players (a captured Sheep is a free Holy Sword, turning the tide in an instant). Today we've started adding the ability to clone yourself and make an "AI" driven companion roam the map for a short while, in order to lure other players away from you. At first we were just gonna let the clone go in a straight line and disappear as it hits a wall but as we already had a homing system for our abilities, we simply inverted it, making the sheep turn away in panic as it gets close to another player; making it harder to notice if it's a fake or not
I think the game is turning out rather well so far. It's just a hobby and portfolio project so it's gonna be free most likely when it's done. I really hope we can get a functional online system going for it, but at the very least we already have a pretty much perfect LAN option.
Som some pictures then. They're pretty large though, so bear with me.
Main menu (without the actual buttons). The camera is slowly rotating around the scene, keeping the sheep centered:
Unlit version of Arena, the very first map I created back in January at GGL 2016. It quickly became a dev team favorite during development and testing:
Lit version of Arena. It's pretty clear that I'm inspired by symmetrical multiplayer maps, I think:
Unlit version of Battleground, our second map. It's more rectangular in shape and everyone starts at the center:
Unlit view of Pyramid, my latest remade map, third iteration style I think. It's still WIP and is missing some geometry.
Lit view of Pyramid. I'm partiuclarly proud of how the pillars turned out, they looked really cool when the map is as dark as intended.
I have one more map cooking, called Sacrifice, but it's been going through a lot of iterations and make-overs and is nowhere near presentable. The past week I've been remaking these three maps from scratch thanks to ProBuilder, removing 90% of the GameObjects from each map and yet they look identical or better, feels great
On Arena and Pyramid, the players each start in one of the corners, with the aim of reaching the Holy Sword either at one of the smaller pyramids on the short sides in the case of Arena, or on top of the major pyramid in the center of, well, Pyramid xD Battleground brings more verticality and length to the environment, and the players all start at the center, shielded by walls. The Holy Sword can again be found at one of the short sides of the map but it's also shielded by being inside a building of sorts down a couple of staircases. The current version of Sacrifice is played on two levels, where two players spawn on top, and two below. The top floor is currently the most decorated part with the bottom being just about completely empty, which was unintentional, but now I'm gonna keep it, because it kinda feels like you're trapped in Hell
Stand in the right spot and you can't tell which direction is which, or even the fact that you're turning, the visibility is that terrible and it's terrifyingly awesome, imho Hm... I didn't do that yet for my walking but I did draw the (incomplete) running animation from new.
Extra Bonus Fun:
This is the running animation:
As you can see, it's missing 2 frames, namely between 2 and 3 and 4 and 1. I plan to make those hopefully tonight.
I'm not happy about the cloak thing I have on him in 4... The others look right whereas that one looks weird. Unsure how to make it fold and move based on the back arm moving.
Hm... I didn't do that yet for my walking but I did draw the (incomplete) running animation from new.
Extra Bonus Fun:
This is the running animation:
As you can see, it's missing 2 frames, namely between 2 and 3 and 4 and 1. I plan to make those hopefully tonight.
I'm not happy about the cloak thing I have on him in 4... The others look right whereas that one looks weird. Unsure how to make it fold and move based on the back arm moving.
nice progress, I'd recommend getting some actual vertical movement in the character. head bob adds a lot! when the character kicks out raise him up a bit, when he lands and goes between strides lower him a bit.
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
One of our options for if we don't hit our financial goal during the Summer Sale required to hire our remaining team members, we're gonna pull the trigger on a Kickstarter.
Any advice on what to properly set tiers at would be appreciated.
Any advice on what to properly set tiers at would be appreciated.
No question, really. Just wondering if anyone was using it. I guess I'll try to build an engine on it, although I'm not even sure what an engine entails. Time to find out!
Cute Dragon Here
Member
Any tips on using the Unity profiler? Now that the world map is feature complete I thought it might be a good idea to start learning how to use it properly. Last thing I'd want is to have the game so unoptimized that you need an unusually beefy CPU and GPU to run it well.
Planning to make sure computers at the level of low-GHz Core 2 Duo level and probably any DX9 card can run at the intended 60 FPS or better at the equivalent of upscaled to 1366x768 in the world map where a higher resolution does something.
I'm probably needlessly worrying about the 200-400K triangle count I'm seeing, graphics wise. That's with a camera distance of 64 - at the default 1000 it was pushing 1mil...
Planning to make sure computers at the level of low-GHz Core 2 Duo level and probably any DX9 card can run at the intended 60 FPS or better at the equivalent of upscaled to 1366x768 in the world map where a higher resolution does something.
I'm probably needlessly worrying about the 200-400K triangle count I'm seeing, graphics wise. That's with a camera distance of 64 - at the default 1000 it was pushing 1mil...
AusRoachman
Member
Spent a little bit of today adding some more building structures to my game , this is the machine gun turret , which is great against ground units .
Still need to think of a game name
And of course some anti air turrets
Still need to think of a game name
And of course some anti air turrets
Yeah, but what engine should I learn. I mean, if you say "whatever to like" it seems in the long run UE4 would be the most flexible option with the best performance if I go into 3D stuff? Then again, Steam's and Amazon's engines are totally free but I don't have heard a lot about them yet.
LordRaptor
Member
Consider yourself in 'pre-production'; how much time do you have available for pre-production?
Make a list of engines you think would be worth working with; for 'general purpose' indies the forerunners are GameMaker, Unity and UE, but if you have specific genres you want to work in don't discount 'single genre' engines like Twine, RPGMaker or AGS.
If you're an experienced coder, don't rule out things like SDL or Monogame either.
Pick an engine, and spend about a month doing basic tutorials; how is the workflow? Are you hitting obstacles to continue often? Can you foresee any 'deal-breaker' issues that you wouldn't want to deal with on a long-term basis?
Making similar content in multiple engines should give you an idea of which suits you better; suiting you better is waaaaaaaaaaay more important than what an engine is 'supposed to be' good for or what people who don't make games think is a 'good' or 'bad' engine.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Truth.
Theanine3D
Member
If you're talking about Source Engine, I would recommend against that strongly, as someone who spent years making content for it. Literally any other engine would be a better choice. You don't want to have to deal with Valve time when it comes to engine updates, bugfixes, and support.
There's a reason Valve made Source 2 free, and it wasn't because they were being charitable.
Hm... I think I can do the headbob but I'm not sure about the other part you mentioned.
That's some nice progress! I'd suggest that you move the soulders back and forward a tiny bit to give it more movement, because it looks like the arms from the elbows up aren't moving at all, and that makes it look and read worse.
I'm just starting on animating some of my UI.
This might be a stupid question but how many frames of animation should stuff like that have? If my game is running at 30 fps does that mean I should have that many frames (assuming the animation is a second long)?
This is all new to me and these are the kind of things I've never considered before when just playing a game.
This might be a stupid question but how many frames of animation should stuff like that have? If my game is running at 30 fps does that mean I should have that many frames (assuming the animation is a second long)?
This is all new to me and these are the kind of things I've never considered before when just playing a game.
So should I be moving the cloak(thing) more then? Is that what your saying? Show more moment in it's wrapings?
Also:
My enemy! It walks... AND NOTHING MORE!
Guys, I'm torn. Maybe it's just tonight and it will go away. I don't know.
I've added some wind and sand flying around and implemented some antialiasing, supersampling, SMAA blabla yada yada
What I'm really on about is the idea of my game being inherently violent.
You drive around with your cars and when meeting others you may trade or talk with them, but eventually a fight will break out with someone. People are dying, it's inevitable.
And even if I made it a world without people, it would still be a violent one.
Because, of course, it is some form of projection of a real world with huge problems and violence.
Mad Max is an obvious inspiration and it was a movie of few words. It was about survival, but to survive you have to defeat and kill.
This is a really big problem, basically ALL SCI-FI OR FANTASY that feels meaningful is about violence. I don't mean just games, I mean the inspiration for my games and often stuff I dream and think about. Books, movies, paintings.
Yes yes there are many films about love or coming of age or many other themes, but how many of these are set in a deeply interesting world different from ours? (If you have suggestions, please leave a comment!)
To be really edgy, to have a interesting and conflicted world (drama is the beginning of all stories, really) the vast majority of important media is violent.
Star Wars, LOTR, Mad Max, the Matrix ... yes they have some character development but it's met and developed with combat (in mind).
Basically all movies with interesting imaginative worlds are peaceless.
-
I have made and thought about non-violent games before, but it's really hard to do in a compelling fashion. Some fun games people can play together in the same room are nice, but I am looking for singleplayer immersive stuff.
In most cases you can either go the sports/race route, which is boring, or go the puzzle route a la the witness, or do some "another platformer, but with a different twist this time!".
Making adventures is not fun for me, it is a crazy amount of writing for little play time and i don't enjoy playing them either.
None of these are truly compelling and I can't remember any of these grabbing my attention like a combat-oriented game could (again - any great outliers I should try? Please tell me!)
-
This e3 was horryfying for me. Games like Battlefield 1 look like hypergory "fuck yeah" shooters that are really really offputting, but the crowds love them.
I have never been so bored before when looking at new shooter titles. Maybe it's that I'm not a teenager any more, I don't know.
But e3 so far has been a real mirror showing the reality of big budget video games today. Violence and murder - be the best one!
I am still intrigued by Prey or Dishonored. But because the world looks so interesting. The artist in me can really appreciate the heart and thought that went into creating it. It is beautiful.
But this is just one side of the coin.
It's really really offputting.
-
And I feel guilty because I fuel the flames with my game.
Now obviously it's not that far in development, I can still scrap it.
But I love the stuff I have created, I like the world and I like the story behind it.
-
If anyone has an idea how I can make the desert survival car mad-max setting into something peaceful and interesting I would love to hear about it. I will surely spend a lot of thought myself about that.
Thanks for listening.
I've added some wind and sand flying around and implemented some antialiasing, supersampling, SMAA blabla yada yada
What I'm really on about is the idea of my game being inherently violent.
You drive around with your cars and when meeting others you may trade or talk with them, but eventually a fight will break out with someone. People are dying, it's inevitable.
And even if I made it a world without people, it would still be a violent one.
Because, of course, it is some form of projection of a real world with huge problems and violence.
Mad Max is an obvious inspiration and it was a movie of few words. It was about survival, but to survive you have to defeat and kill.
This is a really big problem, basically ALL SCI-FI OR FANTASY that feels meaningful is about violence. I don't mean just games, I mean the inspiration for my games and often stuff I dream and think about. Books, movies, paintings.
Yes yes there are many films about love or coming of age or many other themes, but how many of these are set in a deeply interesting world different from ours? (If you have suggestions, please leave a comment!)
To be really edgy, to have a interesting and conflicted world (drama is the beginning of all stories, really) the vast majority of important media is violent.
Star Wars, LOTR, Mad Max, the Matrix ... yes they have some character development but it's met and developed with combat (in mind).
Basically all movies with interesting imaginative worlds are peaceless.
-
I have made and thought about non-violent games before, but it's really hard to do in a compelling fashion. Some fun games people can play together in the same room are nice, but I am looking for singleplayer immersive stuff.
In most cases you can either go the sports/race route, which is boring, or go the puzzle route a la the witness, or do some "another platformer, but with a different twist this time!".
Making adventures is not fun for me, it is a crazy amount of writing for little play time and i don't enjoy playing them either.
None of these are truly compelling and I can't remember any of these grabbing my attention like a combat-oriented game could (again - any great outliers I should try? Please tell me!)
-
This e3 was horryfying for me. Games like Battlefield 1 look like hypergory "fuck yeah" shooters that are really really offputting, but the crowds love them.
I have never been so bored before when looking at new shooter titles. Maybe it's that I'm not a teenager any more, I don't know.
But e3 so far has been a real mirror showing the reality of big budget video games today. Violence and murder - be the best one!
I am still intrigued by Prey or Dishonored. But because the world looks so interesting. The artist in me can really appreciate the heart and thought that went into creating it. It is beautiful.
But this is just one side of the coin.
It's really really offputting.
-
And I feel guilty because I fuel the flames with my game.
Now obviously it's not that far in development, I can still scrap it.
But I love the stuff I have created, I like the world and I like the story behind it.
-
If anyone has an idea how I can make the desert survival car mad-max setting into something peaceful and interesting I would love to hear about it. I will surely spend a lot of thought myself about that.
Thanks for listening.
Anyone here familiar with MyGUI?
I've been working on a contribution for OpenMW to make the UI not shit the bed when using a larger-than-default text size, and it's driving me up the goddamn wall. MyGUI gets its configuration from a collection of XML files that are very poorly documented. The skinning system seems to have no concept of text size--e.g. I can't figure out a way to say "make this thing text size +2."
I've had moderate success in dynamically resizing all the widgets at runtime, but that's a pain in the ass for one, and I'm effectively hard-coding the layout (defeating the purpose of the XML format) for two. The runtime resizing seems to be pretty buggy, too.
So, at this point I'm thinking that MyGUI just isn't up to the task, and I'm wondering if anyone else has tried to do something like this and had success, or knows of a different GUI libarary that can do what I want it to do.
I've been working on a contribution for OpenMW to make the UI not shit the bed when using a larger-than-default text size, and it's driving me up the goddamn wall. MyGUI gets its configuration from a collection of XML files that are very poorly documented. The skinning system seems to have no concept of text size--e.g. I can't figure out a way to say "make this thing text size +2."
I've had moderate success in dynamically resizing all the widgets at runtime, but that's a pain in the ass for one, and I'm effectively hard-coding the layout (defeating the purpose of the XML format) for two. The runtime resizing seems to be pretty buggy, too.
So, at this point I'm thinking that MyGUI just isn't up to the task, and I'm wondering if anyone else has tried to do something like this and had success, or knows of a different GUI libarary that can do what I want it to do.
But you really shouldn't. Have you been developing and liking the game? Forget all about e3 and all of that stuff and ask yourself, had you not heard any of that, would you still be fine developing it?
Cause to me at least, it sounds less like you want to change it but rather feeling like your pressured to change it. Which in this case, I think is a bad thing.
Sounds like you are trying to accomplish what Gene Roddenberry tried & failed to do with Star Trek: TNG.
Survival is violent by definition, because it comes with the implication that something is trying to kill you. Watch some nature shows--violence isn't some uniquely human trait, and it's not a dirty word.
Now if we want to realistically limit human-on-human violence, you have to give a common adversary. You can't just have environmental resources, because humans naturally fight over those. So you need something external, like a colony or invading force. Or maybe the colony becomes an invading force depending on how well you get on with them.
Guys, I'm torn. Maybe it's just tonight and it will go away. I don't know.
I've added some wind and sand flying around and implemented some antialiasing, supersampling, SMAA blabla yada yada
What I'm really on about is the idea of my game being inherently violent.
You drive around with your cars and when meeting others you may trade or talk with them, but eventually a fight will break out with someone. People are dying, it's inevitable.
And even if I made it a world without people, it would still be a violent one.
Because, of course, it is some form of projection of a real world with huge problems and violence.
Mad Max is an obvious inspiration and it was a movie of few words. It was about survival, but to survive you have to defeat and kill.
This is a really big problem, basically ALL SCI-FI OR FANTASY that feels meaningful is about violence. I don't mean just games, I mean the inspiration for my games and often stuff I dream and think about. Books, movies, paintings.
Yes yes there are many films about love or coming of age or many other themes, but how many of these are set in a deeply interesting world different from ours? (If you have suggestions, please leave a comment!)
To be really edgy, to have a interesting and conflicted world (drama is the beginning of all stories, really) the vast majority of important media is violent.
Star Wars, LOTR, Mad Max, the Matrix ... yes they have some character development but it's met and developed with combat (in mind).
Basically all movies with interesting imaginative worlds are peaceless.
-
I have made and thought about non-violent games before, but it's really hard to do in a compelling fashion. Some fun games people can play together in the same room are nice, but I am looking for singleplayer immersive stuff.
In most cases you can either go the sports/race route, which is boring, or go the puzzle route a la the witness, or do some "another platformer, but with a different twist this time!".
Making adventures is not fun for me, it is a crazy amount of writing for little play time and i don't enjoy playing them either.
None of these are truly compelling and I can't remember any of these grabbing my attention like a combat-oriented game could (again - any great outliers I should try? Please tell me!)
-
This e3 was horryfying for me. Games like Battlefield 1 look like hypergory "fuck yeah" shooters that are really really offputting, but the crowds love them.
I have never been so bored before when looking at new shooter titles. Maybe it's that I'm not a teenager any more, I don't know.
But e3 so far has been a real mirror showing the reality of big budget video games today. Violence and murder - be the best one!
I am still intrigued by Prey or Dishonored. But because the world looks so interesting. The artist in me can really appreciate the heart and thought that went into creating it. It is beautiful.
But this is just one side of the coin.
It's really really offputting.
-
And I feel guilty because I fuel the flames with my game.
Now obviously it's not that far in development, I can still scrap it.
But I love the stuff I have created, I like the world and I like the story behind it.
-
If anyone has an idea how I can make the desert survival car mad-max setting into something peaceful and interesting I would love to hear about it. I will surely spend a lot of thought myself about that.
Thanks for listening.
You´re using Mad-Max as a setting, a setting that inspired things like Fist of the North Star and you want to remove violence? I´m not saying it can´t be done, but it clashes so much with the setting you´ve chosen that the result will feel really bland. But anyway, what are your reasons to suddenly want to make this peaceful? It seems to me that you started your game with a vision and now want to change it halfway and do a 180 because of external reasons totally unrelated to game design or your initial idea for the game. Not a good idea, everything in your game should strive to achieve that vision, be true to yourself or it´ll show in the result.
I´m not saying it can´t be done, just look at the Zelda U thread, just one image has sparked a 30 page thread and I wouldn´t say violence is one of the defining characteristics of Zelda or why so many people are excited for it. And like it, there are many adventure (and otherwise) games that don´t rely on violence to be something truly worthy of praise. So it can be done, but the problem is that your vision of the game is so distinct to this new approach that I don´t think the result will feel right.
If you make a game going against your feelings and trying to appeal to the audience (or worst yet, to some narrow minded opinions) I´m afraid you´ll end with something heartless and it´ll show. But if you stay true to your original awesome idea you´ll be more driven to go the extra mile in all aspects and that´ll show too.
LordRaptor
Member
Your post speaks to me because it's something that bothers me myself.
I will give you some thoughts, hopefully they will provide you with some clarity, or new options to consider.
Firstly, violence is elementary conflict resolution.
The old phrase about "everything is a nail when all you have is a hammer" applies tenfold to videogames, because the vast majority provide you with the sole interaction mechanic of a weapon; if all you have is a weapon to interact with, then violence is the only possible outcome.
What happens if you provide tools for compromise and communication? Could you make an interesting game where convincing people not to fight is as valid a success condition as executing anyone who stands in your path? What happens if you are unable to keep promises you make to secure peace? What happens if people break promises to you? Does violence become an inevitable consequence in such a setting? If so, instead of making violence the default gameplay, what if it was a minor fail condition, and the game is clear about that? You understand the stakes of each death, because you have spent time getting to know the person you must end up killing. You lose trust as a leader, because you end up killing people in your group. In a mad-max style scenario, you are responsible for bringing the human race one step closer to extinction.
Essentially, how do you portray the repercussions of violence as a bad thing, if that is what you want to show?
Secondly, player archetypes and game objectives.
There are tons of personality archetype tests floating around the web you can go read up on to see what things resonate with different people, but I'll use Bartles MMO archetypes as a fairly well known on in game design circles.
Broadly speaking, all players fit into 4 different categories to some degree or other; if you know this, then you can choose to deliberately minimise the "killer" category, or in fact remove it entirely. Sure, people who are really invested in being "killers" will mock your game as a "non-game" or "walking simulator" or whatever, but the people who aren't will actually find more appreciation that you emphasise activities that are usually marginalised in gaming.
So as to some rough thoughts as to possible derived gameplay for each alternate archetype;
Achievers - Resource management and collection. Trading with outposts you encounter. Unique 'sets' to collect (eg Audio log 1/5, a one off bonus for collecting all 5)
Explorers - hidden caches around the map to find. puzzles to solve to access new areas (eg 'hack a lock' to enter an abandoned bunker)
Socialisers - dialogue with everyone you encounter. Things like reputation management systems / morality choice systems.
tl;dr:
Could you make an interesting game that contains either no or minimal violence?
Yes, I believe you could. But it's not a well trodden path, so it won't be easy.
e: And I just found the thread about Jonathon Blows E3 tweets. Hooooooooooo-boy.
I haven't read or written anything in the violence threads, but I kinda dislike it too. The top quality games that I enjoy and have seen so far at E3 this year are violent games, and while I don't hide the fact that I enjoy these action games, I also sorta kinda don't like that aspect of myself.
At the same time, the game I'm working on is rather violent, but it's masked by ugly graphics :lol After all, you can shoot tiny missiles at other players, but there's no blood or HP meters, a hit means a buff or debuff when you get hit or hit someone else. It's really difficult to get rid a violent imagery, it seems. Conflicts are entertaining.
At the same time, the game I'm working on is rather violent, but it's masked by ugly graphics :lol After all, you can shoot tiny missiles at other players, but there's no blood or HP meters, a hit means a buff or debuff when you get hit or hit someone else. It's really difficult to get rid a violent imagery, it seems. Conflicts are entertaining.
AusRoachman
Member
When I was designing my game I spent a lot of time trying to come up with non violent ideas , and I almost always went back to violence in some form. Probably says a lot about my creativity and trying to think out the box , but also those are the games I play the most so naturally I want to build something I enjoy.
Since having kids and seeing them enjoy games like mine craft I've always wanted to tackle a game that has no violence , and I may try something for my next game , but I think the theme you have chosen is a hard one to not have any kind of violence.
It's a tough one but ultimately build a game you want to play.
I agree with the point he´s trying to make, I´m incredibly bored by all the AAA trying to be violent, obscure, serious and mature, but I also agree that videogames are a mature media and there should be place for everything. Everyone should be able to enjoy what they like without being judged, that´s where his message fails to me.
But anyway, just make the game YOU want to make. It´s great to listen to any kind of feedback, but in the end it´s you who´s going to be putting 1000+hours into making the game, so passion for it is a requirement I think. Listen to people, but don´t let any external opinion dilute your passion about your game.
I'm not trying to tell you what to do, but I'm also on the side of appreciating games with non-violent options. I've been playing a ton of Mirror's Edge Catalyst, which unfortunately still makes you fight guards occasionally, but for the most part the emphasis is on platforming.
It bothers me on some level if I watch a set of E3 trailers and each one involves super gory violence. I'm glad for the contrast that exists -- I played The Witness and Firewatch this year, for example.
But...I still enjoy playing stylized shooters. I've played lots of CSGO and Overwatch. I guess CSGO is mild violence by modern standards.
It's an important question, and of course there will be lots of strong opinions. The audience will be there either way, so one could argue that you might as well make money from it. Then again, just going for money and encouraging majority views doesn't really help societal change. Then again, some may argue that even super-realistic violence makes no difference psychologically, not even to desensitize, etc. It's a big chain of issues. As with many issues, the truth may lie somewhere in the middle.
It bothers me on some level if I watch a set of E3 trailers and each one involves super gory violence. I'm glad for the contrast that exists -- I played The Witness and Firewatch this year, for example.
But...I still enjoy playing stylized shooters. I've played lots of CSGO and Overwatch. I guess CSGO is mild violence by modern standards.
It's an important question, and of course there will be lots of strong opinions. The audience will be there either way, so one could argue that you might as well make money from it. Then again, just going for money and encouraging majority views doesn't really help societal change. Then again, some may argue that even super-realistic violence makes no difference psychologically, not even to desensitize, etc. It's a big chain of issues. As with many issues, the truth may lie somewhere in the middle.
So should I be moving the cloak(thing) more then? Is that what your saying? Show more moment in it's wrapings?
Also:
My enemy! It walks... AND NOTHING MORE!
This is really fluid and exaggerated, but take a look at this GBA Batman's running cycle:
Notice that even when walking we don't just move our arms back and forth, but also tend to rotate our torso ever so slightly. That's the kind of subtle (and minor) movement I think your sprites are missing. Like, they're serviceable for prototype art, but I think they just wouldn't cut it for being considered as release quality sprites.
Just saw somebody's game show up in the indie trailer at Xbox
On the topic of violence as mechanics and such, I totally get you. I find it frustrating how games default to violence in mechanics, but it's also the easiest form of conflict and the one that games have been designed to handle for years.
Personally I try to incorporate violence in a meaningful way, in the sort of meta way that we see from Spec Ops: The Line, which is often countered with "isn't a game 'about' violence inherently violent?" Like how "there's no anti-war movie", can you have your cake and eat it to? I'd like to think you can, but I'm probably not skillfull enough to properly incorporate that kind of stuff.
On the topic of violence as mechanics and such, I totally get you. I find it frustrating how games default to violence in mechanics, but it's also the easiest form of conflict and the one that games have been designed to handle for years.
Personally I try to incorporate violence in a meaningful way, in the sort of meta way that we see from Spec Ops: The Line, which is often countered with "isn't a game 'about' violence inherently violent?" Like how "there's no anti-war movie", can you have your cake and eat it to? I'd like to think you can, but I'm probably not skillfull enough to properly incorporate that kind of stuff.
I think you just have to take a step back and think about what makes a game enjoyable to you.
Violence makes for good game mechanics because it's a good vessel for dramatic moments that test and challenge the player or make them feel powerful.
This is definitely not the only way to draw a player in though. Think about what makes city builders fun, visual novels, puzzle games, RPGs, even more simple games like Farmville.
I think the sort of game you've started to make could easily pull from a puzzle game, a city builder, it could have survival elements even if it's just a you vs. the weather sort of deal. I'd focus on making movement fun too if there's not going to be combat. Make the act of just traversing the map enjoyable.
timetokill
Banned
Yeah, but generally in Mirror's Edge you're running from the threat of violence. I don't think it's just about committing violence but the fact that the majority of the big games are steeped in violence in one way or another.
Theanine3D
Member
For those who need music for their game, Groupees has a Royalty Free Music bundle available until tomorrow. Pay what you want with a $1 minimum (with a $3 tier that nets you extra tracks)
https://groupees.com/rfmb2
https://groupees.com/rfmb2
LordRaptor
Member
Holy crap, there's some really good stuff in here at a crazy low price
liliththepale
Banned
No, I don't have anything to present yet and my day-job is pretty busy at the moment. Though, unrelated, but I'll be at vidcon.
*nodnod* Not sure if I'm going to that, but if I do, I'll let you know!
Theanine3D
Member
HP_Wuvcraft
Banned
Screenshot saturday!
Difficulty starts to rise in the hidden paths:
I've always loved the gameboy-ish feel of this.
Not really my intention, but glad you like it!
bumpkin
Member
I've slowly been getting more spirtework from my artist but now I'm facing a conundrum as the frame sizes keep changing from animation to animation. I don't have an issue with my engine knowing the frame dimensions for each animation, it's more a concern about them being properly centered in relation to each other. For example, his head is dead center when he's standing still, but more to the right when he's running. Right now it's using the top left corner as the anchor point for positioning, but I'm wondering if I should switch to using the center as the anchor.
For those using spite sheets in your game (like Jobbs with Ghost Song, I assume), how are you handling this problem?
For those using spite sheets in your game (like Jobbs with Ghost Song, I assume), how are you handling this problem?
I always center them in the X axis so I can easily reverse them when looking left or right by just setting the Xscale to 1 or -1 so the sprite just flips, but doesn´t change position. In the Y axis I always set the center at the same distance from the bottom of the feet, so that when changing sprites (like standing->running) the character will always be standing perfectly on the floor. More than the sprite size, I guess I use the bounding box size and position so it becomes consistent. Don´t know if I explained it very clearly...
I said my piece in PM but I'll put it here for the hell of it.. I typically keep all the frames the same size for a given unit because it's far simpler that way. I only vary the size in unusual cases (such as if a specific animation needs WAY more space than everything else) and in such a case I manually position it in the scripting.
I'm working on this guy right now:
https://gfycat.com/ClosedPreciousBongo
Sorry about the huge size...
But I'm using three different units for him all together just because he has different sets of animations that vary so much in size and making every frame big enough to hold every possible animation would increase the memory footprint a lot. I may be able to sustain it but it just seems terribly inefficient and unwise.
Incidentally one of the fun things I do with an animation like this is link his movement speed per frame. So rather than his running simply being setting X speed to a fixed number, I set X speed to a variable and change that variable specifically per each run animation frame so as to try and make his feet match the ground as much as possible.
Still needs a few tweaks.
For some animations a constant speed is fine, but some of my gimpy animations work much better set up this way.
liliththepale
Banned
Anything not on the tile grid and that doesn't use a lot of rotating, I put the sprite origin at the bottom-center. Basically wherever its horizontal center of mass is and where it touches the ground.
TheHollowNight
Member
Yeah, backing up this too. Used Source since 2004 and can't recommend it at all. The only thing I miss is the BSP brush building tools. It's a confused and backwards beast with possibly the worst art pipeline of any engine ever. Even when we created a custom branch which 'modernized' the engine to an extent, and were ready to reveal our first project (before Beacon) Valve offered us no engine support and asked for $250k for the licence...yeahhhhhh, no thanks.
On a different note, Beacon had like, 3 seconds of footage in Microsoft's E3 conference, so I can probably check that off the life goals list!
https://youtu.be/1_mLdDSi7L8
I saw that, congrats! We didn't make it again this year, but oh well.
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