Support NeoGAF

[timetokill]

images

I still like numeric better. Scales better (you can go as high as 99 without changing the format), reads better, easier to understand.
The only reason to not use it is narcissistic "art" reasons. Advocate for your players!

Suggestion: If everything is going to start at 10/10, you could not show any numbers until that state is changed. So if it's 10/10, don't show any numbers. If it's not, show the numbers. It would clean things up and fit nicely into how the player processes the information anyway.

 

[Pehesse]

I still like numeric better. Scales better (you can go as high as 99 without changing the format), reads better, easier to understand.
The only reason to not use it is narcissistic "art" reasons. Advocate for your players!

Suggestion: If everything is going to start at 10/10, you could not show any numbers until that state is changed. So if it's 10/10, don't show any numbers. If it's not, show the numbers. It would clean things up and fit nicely into how the player processes the information anyway.

I could understand and agree with this. However, for the sake of discussion:

As a counterpoint to this, as a player, and not simply for (narcissistic?) art reasons, shapes are easier to read for me in the heat of the moment rather than numbers, especially with lots of units next to each other (your gif is already straining my eyes a bit). I have fairly poor vision, and I need to focus on numbers before being able to read, interpret the shape they are, and understand correctly what they mean. While this all happens in a split second, it is still slower and more focus draining than recognizing shapes at a glance.

Also, while the 10/10 suggestion above works quite well, as proven by how Advance Wars (among many others) handles things, it is.. well, exactly how AW handles things. You could quickly risk looking derivative in a bad way. I'm not advocating changing stuff for the mere sake of changing stuff of course, but forging an identity sometimes comes at the price of trying something a little different, if this something different is justified enough (and I feel, here, the health blocks are, because health blocks are not an unknown code of representation for that specific resource in the realm of games, and the visual argument holds up well enough as far as my eyesight is concerned).

So all in all, while both could certainly work for me here, as a player, I think I'd prefer the health blocks, for playability, aesthetic, personality, and plain speed of play/access reasons.

But again: opinions! :-D

 

[OldmanAndroid]

Just put up our steam greenlight page...hows it look?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=391350373

 

[Blizzard]

Ehhhh putting the female playable character behind a backer reward? May I ask why you would do this? I'd understand that as a stretch goal (since it might require additional assets) but otherwise this is in rather poor taste, IMO. If you're going to make the assets anyway, just make her available... :\

I just wanted to chime in and say that I agree that the female playable character should be available from the start in my opinion. There may be other DLC options you can make if you need to, but that particular one may not be the best choice for a backer reward / DLC.

Got nothing much to add, except that I like how it looks :-D I like the health cubes more than the numerical values, myself, but I couldn't say which of the two would be more efficient after really practicing/knowing your game and GUI, for playing fast and taking information clearly instantly.
I like the line attack laser, too! Are you planning on more units with similar MAP attacks? Does this unit have a soul/err, I mean, does this unit have any other attack apart from this one? This is already making my AW-planning-brain-corner reeling from the possibilities.

I still like numeric better. Scales better (you can go as high as 99 without changing the format), reads better, easier to understand.
The only reason to not use it is narcissistic "art" reasons. Advocate for your players!

Suggestion: If everything is going to start at 10/10, you could not show any numbers until that state is changed. So if it's 10/10, don't show any numbers. If it's not, show the numbers. It would clean things up and fit nicely into how the player processes the information anyway.

I could understand and agree with this. However, for the sake of discussion:

As a counterpoint to this, as a player, and not simply for (narcissistic?) art reasons, shapes are easier to read for me in the heat of the moment rather than numbers, especially with lots of units next to each other (your gif is already straining my eyes a bit). I have fairly poor vision, and I need to focus on numbers before being able to read, interpret the shape they are, and understand correctly what they mean. While this all happens in a split second, it is still slower and more focus draining than recognizing shapes at a glance.

Also, while the 10/10 suggestion above works quite well, as proven by how Advance Wars (among many others) handles things, it is.. well, exactly how AW handles things. You could quickly risk looking derivative in a bad way. I'm not advocating changing stuff for the mere sake of changing stuff of course, but forging an identity sometimes comes at the price of trying something a little different, if this something different is justified enough (and I feel, here, the health blocks are, because health blocks are not an unknown code of representation for that specific resource in the realm of games, and the visual argument holds up well enough as far as my eyesight is concerned).

So all in all, while both could certainly work for me here, as a player, I think I'd prefer the health blocks, for playability, aesthetic, personality, and plain speed of play/access reasons.

But again: opinions! :-D

Thanks for the replies! I'm actually glad to have people who like both options reply, since that's exactly why I'm keeping them both. Right now, pressing a key switches through the interface overlay modes. I figure some will prefer one, some will prefer the other, and some will want to change the colors. All of the above is possible and already implemented. Eventually I'll want to have an options screen that lets you save the setting.

About 10/10 I seem to recall that being the Advance Wars style, and hiding it at 10 is a possibility. Currently not everything has a max HP of 10, so I'm holding off on that decision until later in the development and playtesting process.

Pehesse, the laser is currently the only attack from that unit. By MAP attack do you mean area of effect attacks that do not target just one precise unit? I'm a longtime Advance Wars and it's definitely a big inspiration for art style and gameplay. I want to appeal to that niche, both for myself and others. But, I don't want to necessarily do everything the same way, and I'm currently planning that some of the major mechanics will be different in my game. Of course that may end up bothering the very audience I wanted to appeal to, but I'm hoping I can strike some middle ground. Different, but still enjoyable.

I'm currently working on getting things playable so I can actually start testing balance, seeing if my ideas are remotely fun, and implementing / dreaming up new units.

Also thanks for the eyestrain comment Pehesse -- I hope you're only talking about the numeric mode? I think I've made them as clear as I can, but again the squares will be an option (probably the default option) so any player can decide for themselves.

 

[Pehesse]

Thanks for the replies! I'm actually glad to have people who like both options reply, since that's exactly why I'm keeping them both. Right now, pressing a key switches through the interface overlay modes. I figure some will prefer one, some will prefer the other, and some will want to change the colors. All of the above is possible and already implemented. Eventually I'll want to have an options screen that lets you save the setting.

About 10/10 I seem to recall that being the Advance Wars style, and hiding it at 10 is a possibility. Currently not everything has a max HP of 10, so I'm holding off on that decision until later in the development and playtesting process.

Pehesse, the laser is currently the only attack from that unit. By MAP attack do you mean area of effect attacks that do not target just one precise unit? I'm a longtime Advance Wars and it's definitely a big inspiration for art style and gameplay. I want to appeal to that niche, both for myself and others. But, I don't want to necessarily do everything the same way, and I'm currently planning that some of the major mechanics will be different in my game. Of course that may end up bothering the very audience I wanted to appeal to, but I'm hoping I can strike some middle ground. Different, but still enjoyable.

I'm currently working on getting things playable so I can actually start testing balance, seeing if my ideas are remotely fun, and implementing / dreaming up new units.

Also thanks for the eyestrain comment Pehesse -- I hope you're only talking about the numeric mode? I think I've made them as clear as I can, but again the squares will be an option (probably the default option) so any player can decide for themselves.

Togglable option is a nice way to go, methinks, that way everybody can get what he likes :-D

The MAP attack is a Super Robot Wars reference, which was the closest equivalent I had to what I saw happening in the gif, ie attacking several units at once. It doesn't have a direct equivalent in AW if I recall correctly (except for CO powers but that's another matter entirely).
And I completely agree: even if AW is your inspiration, doing different things is a good idea, I believe, and stuff like MAP attacks offer plenty of awesome strategic possibilities, especially if you balance them out with high usage cost, or counterattacking penalties (if counterattacking is a thing), or.. well, it all depends on the rest of your game, really, but there's definitely lots of strategic fun to be had there :-D

As for the eyestrain, it's only for the numeric mode indeed, and it's really nothing against the numbers you've got, don't worry - no matter the size you'd give them, I see a number as always basically occupying the same visual space (some form of square), whereas something like an alignment of cubes has a different shape for each state. Meaning that for the eye that seeks a difference in overall shape, rather than details within the shape (like mine), health squares/health bars are clearer than numbers.

 

[timetokill]

I could understand and agree with this. However, for the sake of discussion:

As a counterpoint to this, as a player, and not simply for (narcissistic?) art reasons, shapes are easier to read for me in the heat of the moment rather than numbers, especially with lots of units next to each other (your gif is already straining my eyes a bit). I have fairly poor vision, and I need to focus on numbers before being able to read, interpret the shape they are, and understand correctly what they mean. While this all happens in a split second, it is still slower and more focus draining than recognizing shapes at a glance.

Also, while the 10/10 suggestion above works quite well, as proven by how Advance Wars (among many others) handles things, it is.. well, exactly how AW handles things. You could quickly risk looking derivative in a bad way. I'm not advocating changing stuff for the mere sake of changing stuff of course, but forging an identity sometimes comes at the price of trying something a little different, if this something different is justified enough (and I feel, here, the health blocks are, because health blocks are not an unknown code of representation for that specific resource in the realm of games, and the visual argument holds up well enough as far as my eyesight is concerned).

So all in all, while both could certainly work for me here, as a player, I think I'd prefer the health blocks, for playability, aesthetic, personality, and plain speed of play/access reasons.

But again: opinions! :-D

Narcissistic was probably the wrong word to use, but I was being perhaps overly vocal about it because it really does seem to fall into the trap of avoiding numbers because of too much concern over the aesthetic presentation. Putting form before function is a trap a lot of indie devs fall into so I'm being a little over-the-top to make the point

While AW does do it that way, I think there's no point in reinventing the wheel unless your game is ABOUT reinventing that particular wheel. Those guys did a lot of design work to get to that point, and there's really no reason to throw out all that work just because you want to be different. There are a lot of tropes, shortcuts, and really just the "language" of games that has been developed for specific reasons, and to fight against that just to be different is usually a bad idea.

If his game isn't "about" the visual representation of health and stuff on units, I'd strongly recommend taking the valuable design work of his forebears and focus on innovating in the area he wants to innovate in.

 

[Pehesse]

Narcissistic was probably the wrong word to use, but I was being perhaps overly vocal about it because it really does seem to fall into the trap of avoiding numbers because of too much concern over the aesthetic presentation. Putting form before function is a trap a lot of indie devs fall into so I'm being a little over-the-top to make the point

While AW does do it that way, I think there's no point in reinventing the wheel unless your game is ABOUT reinventing that particular wheel. Those guys did a lot of design work to get to that point, and there's really no reason to throw out all that work just because you want to be different. There are a lot of tropes, shortcuts, and really just the "language" of games that has been developed for specific reasons, and to fight against that just to be different is usually a bad idea.

If his game isn't "about" the visual representation of health and stuff on units, I'd strongly recommend taking the valuable design work of his forebears and focus on innovating in the area he wants to innovate in.

Agreed on all accounts! Which is why I mentioned that health bars/cubes were a part of gaming's ingrained language as well :-D I definitely agree that innovation for innovation's sake is a pretty risky path to tread. However in this particular case I believe a case can be made for both (which we did) - and as far as I'm concerned, having the option to select which overlay to use is a great thing to pursue here, as it'd account for those different understandings.

 

[SriK]

Steel Assault | NES-styled sci-fi action platformer | Update #9
Twitter (@SteelAssault)
Website (http://steelassault.com)
(1/26/15 - Update #8)
(1/20/15 - Update #7)
(1/17/15 - Update #6)
...

We have 5 days left for Steel Assault's Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43113410/steel-assault/



We've currently raised just over $4,400 out of our $8,000 goal, with almost 200 backers. While this is pretty good, we still have a long ways to go if we want to see this get funded! We appreciate all the help we can get!

Even if you can't back the project, two small things you could do to help are share our Kickstarter page with others or retweet our project announcement on Twitter. The main issue we face right now is lack of exposure, so getting the word out is crucial for us!

Here's some other stuff you guys might be interested in. First off, here's some box art that Daniel (Steel Assault's artist) created for the game:

And here's a project update we wrote on NES parallax and other cool effects that you guys might be interested in. In addition to parallax, we also discuss movie playback and 3D engines on the NES:

Finally, we also just posted a project update talking more about Steel Assault's $399 tier, where I create an 8-bit cover of a song of your choice. All covers are going to be created in Famitracker from the ground up, so they'll be fully authentic (i.e. they'll sound true to the original song and be able to run on an actual NES).

I also provided a few sample covers on the update post, from Taxi Driver, Lord of the Rings, and Raiden II respectively. Here they are:

• Taxi Driver - Main Themes. (Original song) A condensed version of the Taxi Driver theme. This cover uses the Namco N163 expansion for the NES, which can add up to eight additional channels of expanded sound! (Five are used here.) It also uses heavy DPCM sampling. This is part of the reason why it sounds so much more advanced than a typical "8-bit" cover, even though it can still play on an NES.
• Lord of the Rings - Concerning Hobbits. (Original song) This song uses the Nintendo MMC5 expansion chip, which adds 2 additional square wave channels. It also uses DPCM to sample string ensembles at several points.
• Raiden II - Stage 2. (Original song) This song is barebones NES; it doesn't even use any DPCM. Just three melody channels and one noise channel. When you think of 8-bit music, this is probably the closest to what you're picturing (or hearing, I guess).

These are just some samples of what the song covers on this tier might sound like. I hope you enjoyed listening to these, and if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to let me know!

I think that's about it for now -- I hope you guys enjoyed all of this material. Thanks to everyone here for their support!

 

[missile]

You have my full attention. Could you elaborate?

Something specific? Are you interested in {TV, vacuum} tubes as well?

 

[The Quadsphere]

Re-gif previews on Greenlight: I gave it a try (inspired by OldmanAndroid and Mechanical Snowman) and came up with this:

I managed to meet the 1MB requirement by making the gif 200x200 (the size it is displayed at in the main greenlight list: it is upscaled to 268x268 on the game's page).

 

[Das-J]

^^^ Not bad at all - That 1MB requirement is seriously tricky, but I like what you put together.

On our end we have been blessed to be named Best in Play by GDC for this year's conference and Into the Stars has been selected to join some amazing games at Epic's booth!

This is a crazy ride that has taken up more hours than we could have imagined (and we all expected to be working 7 days a week) but hopefully there will be more time time to contribute to this thread after the conference...

Keep it rolling, IndieGAF!

 

[VisceralBowl]

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

 

[Blizzard]

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

Have you ever played Darwinia or Multiwinia? I'm reminded of that. The bloom can look cool, but I would respectfully suggest you be a LITTLE careful with it. It's easy to overdo it where it is difficult to see what's actually going on, unless that's your intention.

 

[timetokill]

Agreed on all accounts! Which is why I mentioned that health bars/cubes were a part of gaming's ingrained language as well :-D I definitely agree that innovation for innovation's sake is a pretty risky path to tread. However in this particular case I believe a case can be made for both (which we did) - and as far as I'm concerned, having the option to select which overlay to use is a great thing to pursue here, as it'd account for those different understandings.

Yeah, I should've acknowledged that you'd mentioned that I think the option is fine especially if he wants to allow for it, certainly. But at the same time I still strongly argue that the simple numbers are better >

 

[VisceralBowl]

Have you ever played Darwinia or Multiwinia? I'm reminded of that.

The bloom can look cool, but I would respectfully suggest you be a LITTLE careful with it. It's easy to overdo it where it is difficult to see what's actually going on, unless that's your intention.

I haven't heard of either.

The bloom was intentional, though I do agree it's a bit overpowering. I'll need to keep playing with it.

Next step is to get some more color in there.

 

[OldmanAndroid]

Re-gif previews on Greenlight: I gave it a try (inspired by OldmanAndroid and Mechanical Snowman) and came up with this:

I managed to meet the 1MB requirement by making the gif 200x200 (the size it is displayed at in the main greenlight list: it is upscaled to 268x268 on the game's page).

Looks great!

Man its hard to stop mashing f5 on the greenlight page, right? Gotta get away from my computer for a bit.

 

[electroflame]

Oh, very nice, that's definitely something to keep in mind.

Also, speaking of object pools, how do you handle that, exactly - bundle every relevant pool together in larger collections or just keep the various pools separate?

In my case I keep separate pools per object, as I prefer it that way. A basic roadmap for what I do is:

-PoolManager: a static class that uses that auto-instantiating prefab system.
--PrefabPoolDictionary: a dictionary that maintains a list of every pool, accessible by a static string name auto-generated by the code generation tool I talked about.
---PrefabPool: representing a single pool of PrefabItems, it's also the value of the dictionary above.
----PrefabPoolItem: an item in a prefab pool. Right now this just contains a prefab and its random weight (how often it can spawn relative to the other pool items).

Given the system above, auto-generating the key indexes for the PrefabPoolDictionary is a godsend, as I don't have to use naked strings to access it (as naked strings are brittle and generally buggy down the line). A practical example of what that looks like would be:

Naked string:

PoolManager.Pools["Enemies"]

Auto-generated, constant string:

PoolManager.Pools[ConstStrings.PoolIndexes.ENEMIES]

The benefit of this approach is that if I change the name of the indexes or anything I'll get helpful compiler warnings letting me know where I've used the previous (now invalid) values. Without this, you won't get any errors or warnings as "Enemies" as a naked string is still a valid key for the dictionary. Once you get into the game, though, you'll quickly find out you don't have a pool that can be accessed with that key, most likely as a NullReferenceError that could be difficult to track down.

--------------------------------------

As for your question about pool memory, having everything as separate pools probably wouldn't affect memory much. Off the top of my head, the only major overhead I can think of would be the memory required for each list type -- the memory per-object should be the same or close to it as you're still storing the same amount of item data. Don't quote me on that, as I haven't checked into it, but it shouldn't be something to prematurely optimize.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

Go for it! I'd love to see more people explore low poly/flat-shaded aesthetics. It's an art style that can look pretty wonderful when accompanied by good lighting and a confident colour palette. I know I'm a little biased since Beacon is inspired by this look , by I love it when I discover new games experimenting with similar visuals.

 

[-COOLIO-]

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

sexy

SEXY

 

[Burt]

Steel Assault | NES-styled sci-fi action platformer | Update #9
Twitter (@SteelAssault)
Website (http://steelassault.com)
(1/26/15 - Update #8)
(1/20/15 - Update #7)
(1/17/15 - Update #6)
...

We have 5 days left for Steel Assault's Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/43113410/steel-assault/



We've currently raised just over $4,400 out of our $8,000 goal, with almost 200 backers. While this is pretty good, we still have a long ways to go if we want to see this get funded! We appreciate all the help we can get!

Even if you can't back the project, two small things you could do to help are share our Kickstarter page with others or retweet our project announcement on Twitter. The main issue we face right now is lack of exposure, so getting the word out is crucial for us!

Here's some other stuff you guys might be interested in. First off, here's some box art that Daniel (Steel Assault's artist) created for the game:

And here's a project update we wrote on NES parallax and other cool effects that you guys might be interested in. In addition to parallax, we also discuss movie playback and 3D engines on the NES:

Finally, we also just posted a project update talking more about Steel Assault's $399 tier, where I create an 8-bit cover of a song of your choice. All covers are going to be created in Famitracker from the ground up, so they'll be fully authentic (i.e. they'll sound true to the original song and be able to run on an actual NES).

I also provided a few sample covers on the update post, from Taxi Driver, Lord of the Rings, and Raiden II respectively. Here they are:

I think that's about it for now -- I hope you guys enjoyed all of this material. Thanks to everyone here for their support!

You'll make it with the last couple days' push. That box art is awesome.

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

And this is way cool too.

 

[bkw]

Is action safe and title safe still a thing nowadays?

 

[Popstar]

Is action safe and title safe still a thing nowadays?

Unfortunately yes.

 

[adixon]

So, this may be a bit off-topic, but holy cow: I've discovered two amazing things for Unity.

1. ConstantsGeneratorKit/Code generation in general. Essentially it's an editor class that will create static classes containing the string names of Tags, Layers, Scenes, and Resource files. After a bit of tinkering, I've also set it up to create a static class containing my object pool indexes, so I never have to use a naked string to access my object pools.

2. Auto-instantiating Prefab Singletons/Managers. A bit of a mouthful, but absolutely worth checking out. Essentially it lets you use the Singleton pattern (i.e. having unique, static classes that can be used from anywhere in your code -- think game managers or audio managers) but it also lets you store each manager as a prefab that can be edited in the editor. The first time you try to access the static class, it'll automatically instantiate an instance of the prefab in your scene. No more "scene zero"/additively loading a scene with your objects in it -- everything is handled automatically.

I didn't intend to go down this rabbit hole, but this stuff has really sped up my workflow. If anyone has some questions feel free to ask -- I've been using/customizing the classes from these articles for the past couple of days, so I've got a pretty good handle on them. They're absolutely worth looking into if you use Unity.

I just want to say that this is an incredibly helpful post. The auto-instantiating singleton prefabs are something I sort of arrived at on my own, but there are several ideas for improvement I'm going to steal from the article. The code generation approach is the solution to so much of my workflow that annoys me and costs me time that I feel like I should pay you for showing me the light. But instead I'll just say thanks

 

[bkw]

Unfortunately yes.

Is there a popular convention of what the sizes should be? Is it 80% and 90%?

 

[Popstar]

Is there a popular convention of what the sizes should be? Is it 80% and 90%?

Different console makers had different guidelines but I seem to remember it being standardized... I'll look it up and edit this post.

EDIT: http://www.nab.org/xert/scitech/pdfs/tv031510.pdf <- summary, I think you need to pay for the full standard

SMPTE ST 2046-1 defines the Safe Action Area as a rectangle that is 93% of the width and 93% of the height of the Production Aperture (or 720 x 480 in the case of 480-line formats) and concentric with it. The Safe Title Area is defined as a rectangle that is 90% of the width and 90% of the height of the Production Aperture (or 720 x 480 in the case of 480-line formats) and concentric with it.

European Broadcasting Union standard: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r095.pdf

TL;DR: 90%

 

[Korten]

Hey guys! So I ran into an issue that basically requires me to mix and match tilesets in RPG maker (and make somethings bigger) to make a tileset that matches a oriental town tileset but with more nature stuff...

Currently I have made this:

http://imgur.com/a/Ch1VU#0

For comparison here's a forest area in my game:

http://imgur.com/a/QWn9R#0

What do you guys think? Seem different enough without being too different?

 

[bkw]

Different console makers had different guidelines but I seem to remember it being standardized... I'll look it up and edit this post.

EDIT: http://www.nab.org/xert/scitech/pdfs/tv031510.pdf <- summary, I think you need to pay for the full standard


European Broadcasting Union standard: https://tech.ebu.ch/docs/r/r095.pdf

TL;DR: 90%

Thanks! That'll be a good starting point.

 

[Blizzard]

For a while I was trying to practice a little bit of pixel art regularly, maybe even once a day.

I stopped doing that and have not done any pixel art in a while, so when I made an explosion today it probably wasn't the best.

 

[Mystic River]

Hey guys! So I ran into an issue that basically requires me to mix and match tilesets in RPG maker (and make somethings bigger) to make a tileset that matches a oriental town tileset but with more nature stuff...

Currently I have made this:

http://imgur.com/a/Ch1VU#0

For comparison here's a forest area in my game:

http://imgur.com/a/QWn9R#0

What do you guys think? Seem different enough without being too different?

the first one the grass looks like just plain color, yeah it looks different but not so nice as the second one, so maybe change the grass a little bit?

 

[Candescence]

Bah, now I'm having problems with my player freaking out when pressing against a wall or walking up extreme slopes.

At this point, I'm honestly heavily considering just not using rigidbody stuff anymore and instead try using a basic character controller instead. Granted, I'm not really intent on using physics, anyway, so maybe trying to do a rigidbody controller is more trouble than its worth. I was thinking of just buying that physics platformer pack that seems really solid, but I have a feeling that just not using physics is gonna be easier in the long run.

In my case I keep separate pools per object, as I prefer it that way. A basic roadmap for what I do is:

-Stuff-

--------------------------------------

As for your question about pool memory, having everything as separate pools probably wouldn't affect memory much. Off the top of my head, the only major overhead I can think of would be the memory required for each list type -- the memory per-object should be the same or close to it as you're still storing the same amount of item data. Don't quote me on that, as I haven't checked into it, but it shouldn't be something to prematurely optimize.

Yeah, I had a feeling it was something along those lines. While my own pool stuff is a bit more specific and I gotta figure that out myself, reducing naked string use is certainly gonna be extremely useful.

 

[AusRoachman]

Would love to get everyone es opinion on a game idea I am considering , it would be a dayz style survival but with a blocky artstyle like unturned. However rather then the usual zombie enemies I would like to set in the nazi time period. As a husband who's wife's family survived through auschwitz I would love to pay some homage to those remarkable people but also don't want to tread on the memories and make light of the situation.

This is what unturned looks like

I would like to set it as you being an escaped prisoner and fleeing from the nazis whilst also just trying to survive. I don't want the fairly kiddie tone to play down the seriousness. I guess I would like it to possible educate but in the end it's still suppose to be just a fun game so I'm a little wary.

So I am guessing I am wondering if I should go down this path. I also don't want to just call it auschwitz as that would probably be pretty callous and blatant marketing but maybe that's just me.

I basically want todo a fairly accessible survival game that invokes some important messages and history .

Opinions?

 

[Xun]

Decided to test out a style I've never done before. It'll need a lot of work to make a full game out of it, but I like the early results.

That looks great dude! It reminds me a bit of Journey.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I don't want the fairly kiddie tone to play down the seriousness. I guess I would like it to possible educate but in the end it's still suppose to be just a fun game so I'm a little wary.

Something so horrific obviously needs a very light touch to handle with sensitivity and to not end up doing the opposite of what you intend to do by making the subject matter ridiculous, but if you look at something like Maus it obviously can be done.

I'd just imagine it would be incredibly difficult.

The 'safe' option would be allegory rather than explicit reference, but that's obviously a cop-out to some degree.

 

[nitekrawlwer]

I finally got on device multiplayer working for my in progress game Pocket Smash. It took forever to make sure that the players' controls weren't being confused.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwQT2fSGNs

The game tends to run above 60fps but Recordable is very power hungry on my tablet so I had to film in 1/2 the resolution and the framerate isn't ideal. I'm having some issues with the player 2 analog not showing up so to avoid confusion the visible analog stick is controlling Mario in this video. Hope you guys enjoy.

PS anyone know why the second analog stick wont show? I've made sure that it's not being culled by the camera.

 

[SquirrelWide]

Finally, we also just posted a project update talking more about Steel Assault's $399 tier, where I create an 8-bit cover of a song of your choice. All covers are going to be created in Famitracker from the ground up, so they'll be fully authentic (i.e. they'll sound true to the original song and be able to run on an actual NES).

Backed! Here's hoping one of those high end backers requests some go-go to get some real DC flavor in there.

 

[V_Arnold]

Blizzard: it is good to see your game moving forward! I remember when I first got a game's battle system together like that, having attack and move...it felt glorious

And the hard part comes after, implementing like...everything

 

[SquirrelWide]

Hey guys! So I ran into an issue that basically requires me to mix and match tilesets in RPG maker (and make somethings bigger) to make a tileset that matches a oriental town tileset but with more nature stuff...

Currently I have made this:

http://imgur.com/a/Ch1VU#0

For comparison here's a forest area in my game:

http://imgur.com/a/QWn9R#0

What do you guys think? Seem different enough without being too different?

The second one definitely seems to be an improvement, but I found it odd that the shadows (they are shadows, right?) don't seem to match up to anything. If they were laid with regard to that, it would make a lot more sense to me. Always interesting to see how much RPG Maker can be pushed.

 

[hobblygobbly]

GAF so I'm trying to learn how to do art, I'm just a programmer but spent the weekend so far giving it a proper try.

I'm trying to build a tileset of walls/corners, the problem is that I can't think up all the combinations of corners and stuff in my head, I only notice it either when:

a) Corners and stuff don't match up in my procedural room generator when placing my tiles.
b) If I try and build a preset/custom room/level in a map editor like Tiled, I come across corners and things that don't match when I try something and go back and draw it in the tileset. This takes a lot of time because I'm constantly finding different combinations.

Now my question is, is there any technique/method to follow to draw all possible combinations? Is it simply a trial and error thing or is it something that will get burnt into your head with practice? Obviously the combinations of what they look like change a little based on the perspective you're drawing from but you're always going to have a "L" shaped wall/combination etc.

I'm asking this as someone who literally has no art skills and only began this weekend trying to do it seriously in terms of learning.

I will give you what I have come up with. This is nothing good, my perspective is rough but basically you kind of face "the front" so certain walls on the X plane will be lighter and wider. You'll see what I mean here:

Yes, the colours aren't good and the perspective isn't good either but I'm learning, but my question is, it took me a good deal of time to find all the combinations of corners and stuff when plotting this map with the tileset I made. I had to go back to the tileset and add new corners that would line up. This is the tileset that I built the above with so far (yes it's all over the place, I haven't packaged it properly yet):

I've written some code for my procedural rooms generator (it's early and rough, going to do more work on it still - mostly to deal with long corridors). This is an example of one generated in the engine with simply black/white tiles that is replaced with my actual tiles I made. This is where I found a lot corners not matching up and stuff (and when I tried to build premade levels). This image is not to scale due to how I output it from the engine/code.

So GAF, is there any technique/method when making a tileset for walls and stuff that you can follow to make sure you get all the combinations for corners and stuff, or is this just something through trial and error? I'm a total newbie at art so maybe I'm missing something obvious. This was all 32x32 tiles, found it easiest for me when trying to learn.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

So GAF, is there any technique/method when making a tileset for walls and stuff that you can follow to make sure you get all the combinations for corners and stuff, or is this just something through trial and error?

Maybe this tutorial will be helpful?
The same principles apply to a non-bitwise implementation, but bitwise is obviously pretty efficient

EDIT:
Wait, or do you mean on drawing a tileset in the first place?

 

[electroflame]

I just want to say that this is an incredibly helpful post. The auto-instantiating singleton prefabs are something I sort of arrived at on my own, but there are several ideas for improvement I'm going to steal from the article. The code generation approach is the solution to so much of my workflow that annoys me and costs me time that I feel like I should pay you for showing me the light. But instead I'll just say thanks

Ha, you're welcome! Before I found these two approaches I was actually stumbling towards my own singleton prefab solution, but instead I took the one from the article and improved it a bit.

I'm glad someone found it useful!

Yeah, I had a feeling it was something along those lines. While my own pool stuff is a bit more specific and I gotta figure that out myself, reducing naked string use is certainly gonna be extremely useful.

When I make something for a game, I've taken up trying to make it as generic as possible for maximum reuse. Especially in the case of a pool manager, if it's designed to not care what it's pooling it's essentially infinitely reusable (in theory, anyway... ).

If you need some pointers feel free to ask. I'm no expert on pooling, but I feel like I've got a pretty good grasp on the concept, and so far I have a pretty awesome solution (in my opinion, anyway...) that I've cooked up over the last week.

 

[_machine]

Just put up our steam greenlight page...hows it look?

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=391350373

Looks really solid, I really can't think of anything that really pops out in a negative way. How's it going so far? I know Valve just Greenlit a huge batch and they've Greenlit a lot of games every week for a few months now and I heard that some projects have jumped over 20% last night even a while after launch.

 

[Korten]

The second one definitely seems to be an improvement, but I found it odd that the shadows (they are shadows, right?) don't seem to match up to anything. If they were laid with regard to that, it would make a lot more sense to me. Always interesting to see how much RPG Maker can be pushed.

The shadows in the first or second? In the second they're supposed to show the light coming through the trees. In the first one... It's kind of interesting because the script that I use for the lighting effects is actually being re-written.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_Oo-dN8xow

This isn't possible in it's current form, but he hopes to release this new version this month. That should change a lot about the game's shadows.

the first one the grass looks like just plain color, yeah it looks different but not so nice as the second one, so maybe change the grass a little bit?

Like this?

 

[timetokill]

Like this?

The perspective of things at the bottom of that screen is messing with my mind, dude! The land is on top of trees? You can see the backside of that cliff despite not being able to see that for any other land?

 

[Korten]

The perspective of things at the bottom of that screen is messing with my mind, dude! The land is on top of trees? You can see the backside of that cliff despite not being able to see that for any other land?

Oh... I just see it as you can see the edges of tree's that are up against the wall since they go out further.

 

[timetokill]

Oh... I just see it as you can see the edges of tree's that are up against the wall since they go out further.

I think that goes against the general rules of tilemapping. I get what you're saying, but due to the strange perspective that is used in top-down RPGs it's best to avoid anything like that. It makes it look like that upper cliff at the bottom of the screen is actually floating above the trees.

 

[OldmanAndroid]

Looks really solid, I really can't think of anything that really pops out in a negative way. How's it going so far? I know Valve just Greenlit a huge batch and they've Greenlit a lot of games every week for a few months now and I heard that some projects have jumped over 20% last night even a while after launch.

Thanks so much, going good so far I think...mostly positive comments. 595 votes. 44% yes, 52% no. 12% of the way to the top 100. I just sent out a few personalized emails with download links to the press (Rely on horror, Rockpapershotgun, and Kotaku), but so far don't seem to be losing momentum. Thanks for the info, that sounds encouraging!

 

[prodystopian]

Does anyone have any recommendations on articles discussing basic RPG math for leveling/items/attack/defense, etc. I'd like to play around with a simple RPG, and I realize it will have to be tweaked for feel, but I'm curious to read a bit to get started.

 

[Pehesse]

Here's the weekly ritual: new character, dialog test, etc. You know the drill!

 

[Jacksinthe]

Here's the weekly ritual: new character, dialog test, etc. You know the drill!

Awesome work, as usual.

 

[hobblygobbly]

Maybe this tutorial will be helpful?
The same principles apply to a non-bitwise implementation, but bitwise is obviously pretty efficient

EDIT:
Wait, or do you mean on drawing a tileset in the first place?

Yeah drawing in the first place but I have been going about it the wrong way, I've been looking at reference tilesets and I understand better how to draw them now. Still wrangling my head around perspective in 2D art + learning how to actually draw.

Thanks for that link though - it's interesting, much more elegant system in placing tiles than I have. I will be using that method (I've already implemented it!). Now I just need to draw tilesets better.

I've been having trouble getting my head around how to do pixel art with perspectives and stuff but looking at more references is helping. This tileset in particular is helping me: http://opengameart.org/content/dawnlike-16x16-universal-rogue-like-tileset-v18