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

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It went great! Better than I hoped.



There's varying types of regen you can do, though. I'm planning to only allow you to regen up to half health. This way, the player has to be careful because several hits can end their life if they play reckless. However, they have a baseline they can return to and more health if they play cautiously. My levels right now are kind of long so losing progress due to reckless gameplay punishes the player.
I still prefer to engage the player and make stuff like this active instead of passive, tbh. I just prefer choice/consequence as options. I use regen for our player's main energy pool but there is an ebb and flow to its use when you attack or zip around. There are ways to regain energy faster for your main pool which ties into your secondary pool for alt weapons so the better you get at utilizing generators the more you can pew pew.

If you are keeping passives, it might be fun to introduce some choice by having the player seek out various artifacts which apply different boons, but limit use to only 1 active at any one time. Breaking it down to easiest mechanics: increase your damage throughput, increase your damage mitigation or increase health regen or total health. This way you can still give the player "if X, then Y" style choices and invite the player to participate in that process, making them feel like they have more input. Doesn't have to be much but people play games differently and if you can give just an inch, it can be perceived as a mile and still clamped within your game's rules so it doesn't break anything. I just prefer looking for ways to include player decision making, even if it's just a tiny bit.
 

cbox

Member
Has anyone run into nasty clicking audio in Unity? I searched around and fixed any 0db issues with my wav files ( at least I think I did ) but on Android it's specifically really REALLY bad. Ideas?
 

JulianImp

Member
Every player and developer has different ideas and things they like about games. For me I think games are exciting when there are aspects to it that demand high skill. Of course I'm acknowledging that I'm intentionally alienating certain people, because no matter what I do I will be alienating certain people. There's no better way to address that then say with complete sincerity "not everything is for everybody".

I believe achievements are essentially collectibles/profile bragging rights. I believe some of those should exist to demand high skill from the player to truly earn. I don't believe the core game should be so difficult that most can't enjoy it, but I also don't believe that making the game accessible means making it so everybody wins everything all the time just for participating. I can recognize that doing this will bother achievement hunters without having to tailor make the game's rewards for the lowest skill level.

I think the "100% useless" threw you off or gave you the wrong tone. I don't think achievements are useless, I think they're fun. I said specifically, the whole quote, that I believe they are useless beyond being bragging rights. Is an achievement truly an achievement if every single person can get it just by putting in the time?

My last comment was more just a personal annoyance with the entire achievement/trophy system. When I see that someone really enjoys a game, but then something like an achievement (which isn't even truly in the game) ruins the entire experience for them, I just wonder what the hell they are doing. Why are they ruining their enjoyment and turning a game they were just loving into something they despise over that? I get that they think it's important, but I don't get why it means more to them then the game itself.

Your last paragraph is part of why I don't like achievements, since they added an extrinsic motivation that is now supposed to be the norm, compared to back when most bragging rights rewards were limited to self-imposed challenges, and you couldn't brag about them to anyone but a close circle of friends and/or acquaintances. Too many people are nowadays taken out of the game and being doing meta things just for the sake of getting achievements: For example, Team Fortress 2 has several achievements which incentivize wacky play, such as making yourself vulnerable by taunting for an enemy's freeze-cam, or using the medic's melee weapon to kill several enemies while you have a potentially game-swining invulnerability ability charged but undeployed. Those are all fine and dandy in single-player games, but in TF2 doing those wacky things will severely undermine your team's chances at winning, and yet you still find people attempting those.

If your vision is that the game should be hard, then I don't think rebalancing it to make it easier would actually help since, as you said, people who liked it for the challenge will feel cheated. I guess you could try implementing a couple QOL features to give newer players a better shot at understanding the game without having to just nerf things into oblivion. For example, Super Meat Boy is tough as nails, but the insta-respawn mechanic and being able to watch all your runs at once when you clear a level both really help tone the frustration down, all while you do stand a chance at beating the normal game without being a master player, and can go on to challenge the hard-as-nails dark world levels if you want a bigger challenge and can put up with the crazy difficulty they offer.
 

missile

Member
For me, I don't need achievements and I don't like them.

I don't want to get told what I have achieved or not. I want to experience the
game as I do and as I go, i.e. just playing teh game as it is. For me they are
pretty useless, I don't like to see them displayed on my screen (they pull me
out of the experience). I don't like the sound, reminds me on a fukking dog
experiment whatsoever. Yet I don't mind people who like them for whatever
reason. Well, I even helped random people getting one of the more difficult
trophies back on PS3. They messaged me if I can pull it for them. I did. If
they play the trophy game and feel better or more complete that way, why not.
 

correojon

Member
That's a bullshit way of doing things though. What if someone wants to play at maximum difficulty? Then the game stealthily forces them to play on an easier difficulty if they're not immediately great at it? Screw that.
The key is subtlety: if the player can´t identify the game´s making things easier for him, he won´t have any reasons to get mad. Tone down the difficulty little by little by adjusting some properties here and there, taking small steps each time. This also opens the door to getting rid of difficulty alltogether and implement other systems, like enemies adjusting to the player´s style. Say, imagine the player is always dying against the same type of enemy. The game can tone down some properties of that enemy and alter layouts so it appears more instead of other types of enemies. This way you are making things easier, but are also forcing the player to learn how to deal with that type of enemy. Once he starts dying less against that enemy and more against another enemy B, you can start balancing enemy B.

Try Warning Forever (free indie game for Windows): it´s a boss rush game where the boss evolves depending on how you destroy it´s parts and how it manages to kill you. You have the chance to alter the way he evolves, so you can make it take a form you are more comfortable with, or make it evolve in ways that are more difficult for you. You are actively setting the level or difficuty directly through gameplay, so there´s no such thing as a max or min difficulty level. BTW, this system has the huge benefit of almost infinite replayability.

What I mean is that there doesn´t need to be a difficulty tier system and instead of the game becoming easier for the player you can see it as adpating to his playstyle.

For me, I don't need achievements and I don't like them.

I don't want to get told what I have achieved or not. I want to experience the
game as I do and as I go, i.e. just playing teh game as it is. For me they are
pretty useless, I don't like to see them displayed on my screen (they pull me
out of the experience). I don't like the sound, reminds me on a fukking dog
experiment whatsoever. Yet I don't mind people who like them for whatever
reason. Well, I even helped random people getting one of the more difficult
trophies back on PS3. They messaged me if I can pull it for them. I did. If
they play the trophy game and feel better or more complete that way, why not.
Same here. I hate it when an achievement saying I completed the prologue or first tutorial in the game pops in. Really? Do you need to congratulate your players for stuff like that? Is that worth the immersion-breaking? Give me unlockables like new weapons, characters or levels, customization options or something that I can enjoy, not a popup message telling me I´m awesome because I watched a cutscene.
 

Loginius

Member
I think it's just right, but it's way too hard. Playtesters think it's just right, but then I think it's boring. I can't win!
Just my two cents but If your not making a game you think is fun then why would anyone else?
I understand ofc that you have to think of your plalyerbase too but the target audience likes challenging games right?
People complaining about difficulty doesnt necessarily mean that they dont actually enjoy it.
Without it they might get bored and play something else instead of complaining about it. If you adjust it do it ever so slightly.
But thats just what I think and I might be completely wrong :D
 

missile

Member
... Same here. I hate it when an achievement saying I completed the prologue or first tutorial in the game pops in. Really? Do you need to congratulate your players for stuff like that? Is that worth the immersion-breaking? Give me unlockables like new weapons, characters or levels, customization options or something that I can enjoy, not a popup message telling me I´m awesome because I watched a cutscene.
From what I have read, on consoles, you are even forced to implement/use
achievements. So some developers may come up with some pretty stupid things.
I mean, an achievements for taking a picture? lol
 
Just my two cents but If your not making a game you think is fun then why would anyone else?
I understand ofc that you have to think of your plalyerbase too but the target audience likes challenging games right?
People complaining about difficulty doesnt necessarily mean that they dont actually enjoy it.
Without it they might get bored and play something else instead of complaining about it. If you adjust it do it ever so slightly.
But thats just what I think and I might be completely wrong :D

That's exactly what I feel. There's a balance I'm still trying to strike here, and I know I'll hit it.

What I'm finding that's working out pretty well in the test I did since posting yesterday is providing item drops for players. I'm actually considering implementing this into the tutorial by having a section where the game gives you a Respawn Eagle, and then forces you to fall into a hole and die, and then use the Respawn Eagle to revive yourself on the other side. There are no cheap unavoidable deaths like that in the game, but it would be a good way to force the player to learn how useful that item is.

Alternatively, I could just give the player infinite Respawn Eagles for the tutorial level to reduce punishment of death during the whole "learning to play" phase, since people do seem to die on the tutorial. Only low-skill players will end up dying and being forced to use the item, while high skilled players who will likely never need it anyways won't end up being forced to learn about it.
 
Sorry if I'm a tad late to the Achievements thing, but here's my take:

I'm not a huge fan of them. I quite enjoy some of the ones that are presented as little challenges or strange things to do (Gnome in the rocket, for instance) but the totally arbitrary "Play the game!" Style ones make me want to curl up and die.

That said, from a commercial standpoint I would say they are 100% necessary. In general, the public want them and in some instances (I.e, mobile) your game has a zero percent chance of being featured if you don't have them (and integrate them with the platforms' own systems).

I see them as a necessary evil :(
 

mStudios

Member
Someone recommend me a Pixel Editor for Mac.

All the goods one I can find are on Windows and working on windows just because of a pixel app is not worthy
 

LordRaptor

Member
My only real problem with achievements is the implementation that MS instigated and Sony followed suit on, namely as a sysemic feature requirement; you must have at least x achievements, and they must have 'values' totalling y.

Its like... saying every game has to have a K:D ratio. Or lives. Or highscore tables.

Things like unlockable cheats, unlockable costumes, new game plus, unlockable difficulty modes, collection pages to fill etc are all technically achievements, in terms of additional player meta-tasks.

e:
Someone recommend me a Pixel Editor for Mac.

All the goods one I can find are on Windows and working on windows just because a pixel app is not worthy

I don't have a mac, but is Piskel any use?
 

Dlink16

Member
This is obviously really rough and ugly. I just did it in ten minutes. But you get the basic idea. The main thing is you need a bit of foreshortening when it moves in and out of the distance in addition to just scaling the bits. So further parts taper down in size and closer ones taper up. Also legs have a joint in the middle, so you can't just scale the whole thing uniformly.

jCumWtR.gif




spine files:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-4XOw-XWt42bFk2VnFPNVVHa1k

Thanks for the tips and the work file! I'll be playing around with this tonight to try and get things looking better.
 

Blizzard

Banned
One positive note about achievements that I don't think has been mentioned yet: They can be used to get an idea of how many players beat your game. Games that have those "you completed chapter X achievements" may seem silly, but the developers can at least look at the Steam achievement stats and see how many people even made it to chapter 4 etc.
 

LordRaptor

Member
One positive note about achievements that I don't think has been mentioned yet: They can be used to get an idea of how many players beat your game. Games that have those "you completed chapter X achievements" may seem silly, but the developers can at least look at the Steam achievement stats and see how many people even made it to chapter 4 etc.

Unrelated, but you reminded me, the original steam release of GalCon Fusion, the guy who made it obviously didn't understand how achievements work, because he had an achievement for playing each level at a different difficulty, but it would relock any other related achievements;

so if you played on "easy" and beat the level, then replayed on "medium" it would unlock "medium" and relock "easy" lol
 

LordRaptor

Member
Pretty sure you absolutely can't as part of cert on the consoles - on steam I'd imagine it's more of a guideline that you probably shouldn't rather than a requirement that you can not.

I mean... offhand I can't think of a reason why you would, other than entirely removing an achievement from the game because post launch updates have obsoleted it, but its still probably just a bool you can set / unset in the back end.
 

Popstar

Member
Someone recommend me a Pixel Editor for Mac.

All the goods one I can find are on Windows and working on windows just because a pixel app is not worthy
I used Pixen years ago, but it seems like development stalled and the maintainer is trying to take it closed source.
 
The key is subtlety: if the player can´t identify the game´s making things easier for him, he won´t have any reasons to get mad.

But that's what I hate the most about the concept. ;P You struggle against a difficult part, then feel accomplished when you finally manage to defeat it... but your victory is completely illusory: you didn't get any better, the game was dumbing itself down behind your back. And you might not even realize it until much later when you hear about this feature, if ever. It's like an adult letting a child win at a board game.

Of course, many players don't necessarily care about challenging themselves, and such a system is fine for them. I'm not against the idea wholesale, but I think that 1) the player should be aware of what's going on, and 2) there should definitely be a way to disable the feature.
 
Been working on what kind level I want to use in our Kickstarter demo and settled on this:

P7Xvi8S.gif


A broken down factory, sinking into lava and full of gears. This is still pretty bare bones of what I want to do with the concept, but I'm actually really happy with the vibe and color palette. Still haven't quite figured out what I want the platforms you actually run on to look like, but having the music more or less decided on has helped a lot with figuring out the visuals.
 
Pretty sure you absolutely can't as part of cert on the consoles - on steam I'd imagine it's more of a guideline that you probably shouldn't rather than a requirement that you can not.

I mean... offhand I can't think of a reason why you would, other than entirely removing an achievement from the game because post launch updates have obsoleted it, but its still probably just a bool you can set / unset in the back end.

I relocked achievements a lot during testing to see if they triggered correctly. No reason to do it in a finished product, though.
 

LordRaptor

Member
I relocked achievements a lot during testing to see if they triggered correctly. No reason to do it in a finished product, though.

Yeah, the only scenario I could think of is if you have a game like LoL and you do a character rework that makes prior achievements impossible - you'd probably want to relock it and recycle that 'space' to fit the new criteria rather than have achievements that are impossible to obtain for anyone who didn't get it prior to that

e:

screenshot saturday?
1mmNr8e.gif


Testing shader effect for building / teleporting in
 

bumpkin

Member
Welcome back! How did it do on the Wii U? Or is that a sorta NDA thing?

I'll admit I flaked out on the WiiU Dev thing myself.
Same here. I got my environment set up from a software standpoint, but I never pulled the trigger on ordering hardware so I couldn't deploy anything. Admittedly I jumped on the Wii U developer registration very prematurely, but I also had no idea they were going to expect such an investment financially to get started. It probably wasn't reasonable to think that if they let almost anyone in, they'd just give out hardware like Halloween candy, but I also didn't think they'd have that sort of barrier of entry.

Hate mobile (iOS) all you want, but at least you can use your personal iPhone/iPad/iPod to deploy and test your Apps.
 

Blizzard

Banned
Same here. I got my environment set up from a software standpoint, but I never pulled the trigger on ordering hardware so I couldn't deploy anything. Admittedly I jumped on the Wii U developer registration very prematurely, but I also had no idea they were going to expect such an investment financially to get started. It probably wasn't reasonable to think that if they let almost anyone in, they'd just give out hardware like Halloween candy, but I also didn't think they'd have that sort of barrier of entry.

Hate mobile (iOS) all you want, but at least you can use your personal iPhone/iPad/iPod to deploy and test your Apps.
Maybe things changed, but originally there was very little barrier of entry for a certain amount of time.
 

Krammy

Member
Woah, I forgot GAF had an indie game dev thread.

Cr2uEogWYAAcQya.png:large


Lately, I've been working on art for a Game Boy Color homebrew I'd like to collaborate on (when I have more art completed). Having dabbled a bit with them in the past on the design side, and with a love of all things Game Boy, I had a programmer buddy whip up a colour edit ROM a few years back, with the purpose of testing palettes across both a monitor and an unlit (or lit) Game Boy Color screen.

It's a crummy image, but here it is running on a Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101 (brightness on low), with some palettes I've been testing out.
 

Pehesse

Member
Congratulations! Best of luck with the launch.

Thanks a lot! Though to be honest, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself until then... I mean, obviously, contact as much press and as many people as I can, and work on bugs and fixes - but there's also a lot of waiting involved, and I'm not sure how to deal with that. How did you?
 

Pehesse

Member
!!!

So awesome! Will definitely be checking this out with my friends soon.

Thanks a lot :-D :-D And actually, that brings me to this point: everyone here gets a key if you want one! I'm not really doing a Big Blowout Giveaway since the game will be free upon release so it just seems weird to make a big deal out of something you can get yourself, but really, if you want one, I have one with your name on it. Release will be Sep. 30th, but I'll send press keys until then so you can start checking out the game already, if you so choose!

So... yeah!

EDIT: Big Blue is the name of one of the characters in the game, though I can't say 100% the name isn't a F-Zero reference to some extent :-D
 

Amirai

Member

Congrats, Pehesse! I've been really impressed with your game every time I've seen it. All that animation... Wow.

If I may ask, what are the preview times in construct 2 like now that the game is complete and what are your CPU/hard drive specs (HD/SSD)? I'm working on a game in C2 that'll have a lot of animation and have been avoiding adding it because I want to keep the preview times quick. I've also been looking at possibly getting a new computer and am debating what to get.
 

Pehesse

Member
Congrats, Pehesse! I've been really impressed with your game every time I've seen it. All that animation... Wow.

If I may ask, what are the preview times in construct 2 like now that the game is complete and what are your CPU/hard drive specs (HD/SSD)? I'm working on a game in C2 that'll have a lot of animation and have been avoiding adding it because I want to keep the preview times quick. I've also been looking at possibly getting a new computer and am debating what to get.

Thanks a lot! :-D

As for the preview times in C2: they're longer than they used to be! :-D In fact, they turned into one of the main issues in the later stages of development. Preview mode started failing repeatedly using Chrome/Firefox (and it's why I stopped doing dev livestreams altogether, couldn't get C2, the preview mode and the stream running all at the same time), and I could only get it consistently working using Edge for some reason. When it was still working on Chrome/FF, they used to be about 3-4mn - on Edge, it shortened to about 1 to 2mn, though it didn't load all the sound files (since I'm using ogg only). Also, ugh, Edge, but in that case, turned to be a lifesaver, so... gets a pass this time :-D

As for exporting, that takes about 8-10mn right now, both with and without using the script minifier. So not extremely long compared to some other horror stories... but when you're used to the 5s preview/export time for over half your project, anything above that becomes annoying :-D

My computer specs are: i7 4790K 4.00Ghz, 16Go RAM, Win 10 64bit, GTX980 and 2To Hard Drive. It's my gaming rig as well, and basically my biggest investment for game dev altogether apart from software licenses and my 7 y.-old cintiq - very lucky to ever have had access to stuff like that!
 

Dascu

Member
Thanks a lot! Though to be honest, I'm not quite sure what to do with myself until then... I mean, obviously, contact as much press and as many people as I can, and work on bugs and fixes - but there's also a lot of waiting involved, and I'm not sure how to deal with that. How did you?
Well, more or less that. Send out emails to press/streamers with Steam keys. Playtest the game several times and see if you still find spots of improvement. Mentally prepare yourself for a lot of not-so-nice feedback and bugs/issues where you didn't expect it.

Maybe try to relax a bit. The weeks after launch will be more stressful.
 

Pehesse

Member
Well, more or less that. Send out emails to press/streamers with Steam keys. Playtest the game several times and see if you still find spots of improvement. Mentally prepare yourself for a lot of not-so-nice feedback and bugs/issues where you didn't expect it.

Maybe try to relax a bit. The weeks after launch will be more stressful.

Thanks for the advice! :-D
 

DemonNite

Member

Congrats :)

I've been lurking Gaf for a long time been following some of these indie games including yours... so I'm happy that you got there in the end!

As for advice, I released my first Steam game last year and it can be nerve wrecking but just be patient and take good and bad reviews on the chin. We all learn from it (I know I did).

Since this is my first post in here, I will post my first screenshot saturaday! Playing with smoke & fire ideas

3o6Zt4hnAD1cngh7Ak.gif
 
Well, more or less that. Send out emails to press/streamers with Steam keys. Playtest the game several times and see if you still find spots of improvement. Mentally prepare yourself for a lot of not-so-nice feedback and bugs/issues where you didn't expect it.

Maybe try to relax a bit. The weeks after launch will be more stressful.

Mirroring this. I've had two game launches now and both have been the same. Launch day and the weeks after will be real stressful. Just focus on press and relax for now.
 

Pehesse

Member
Mirroring this. I've had two game launches now and both have been the same. Launch day and the weeks after will be real stressful. Just focus on press and relax for now.

Congrats :)

I've been lurking Gaf for a long time been following some of these indie games including yours... so I'm happy that you got there in the end!

As for advice, I released my first Steam game last year and it can be nerve wrecking but just be patient and take good and bad reviews on the chin. We all learn from it (I know I did).

Since this is my first post in here, I will post my first screenshot saturaday! Playing with smoke & fire ideas

3o6Zt4hnAD1cngh7Ak.gif

Thank you both! Patience is going to be the name of the game, and I'll try to keep my cool :-D Very curious (anxious?) to see what the reviews will be, indeed, but aren't we all?

Glad you're showing what you're working on, too, K Monkey! Lots of Amnesia vibes from that GIF, and since I'm fresh off SOMA, I'm interested! :-D
 

asa

Member
We started working on a new game: Little Knight! (just a working title, name has been taken)
Here's a #screenshotsaturday from today, showing of the hammer item and handpainted look for the enviroments.

giphy.gif


Game consept is based on the little prototype I made back in june, back then the game was using pixels, but we decided to go with 3D, Figured 3D look would stand out more from the myriads of pixel games.

 
We started working on a new game: Little Knight! (just a working title, name has been taken)
Here's a #screenshotsaturday from today, showing of the hammer item and handpainted look for the enviroments.

giphy.gif


Game consept is based on the little prototype I made back in june, back then the game was using pixels, but we decided to go with 3D, Figured 3D look would stand out more from the myriads of pixel games.

Love the character animations!
 
Same here. I got my environment set up from a software standpoint, but I never pulled the trigger on ordering hardware so I couldn't deploy anything. Admittedly I jumped on the Wii U developer registration very prematurely, but I also had no idea they were going to expect such an investment financially to get started. It probably wasn't reasonable to think that if they let almost anyone in, they'd just give out hardware like Halloween candy, but I also didn't think they'd have that sort of barrier of entry.

Hate mobile (iOS) all you want, but at least you can use your personal iPhone/iPad/iPod to deploy and test your Apps.

No hate here (unless I gave off that impression at one point), it's the only mobile ecosystem that you see returns on your investment.

Though wait, you can deploy your apps to the app store from your device? I read you needed an actual Mac to compile it all. I'm still using Construct 2 and have some prototypes, I just lack the idevice.

In Construct 2 you export the game to a third party plug in, and from there you have export that to a mac and then to the app store barring a lot check. If there was a method to skip the Mac part I should get cracking on that.

Going to wait until my current contract is up and make the switch to an Iphone6 at least.
 
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