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[Chris Murphy]

This looks genuinely amazing. I want to play this game.

You using Unity?

Thanks

Yeah I'm using Unity.

 

[DemonNite]

Added a new enemy type to the dungeons called the Smiling Creeper

His name should explain what he's all about. Creeps a lot and smiles whilst doing so just don't turn your back at him.

 

[missile]

I would say yes, the new one also looks more pleasing.

Yeah, the sphere has better shades, too. Well, I think I can improve on it
still a bit more. For, I came to the idea of making it all time dependent to
capitalizing on the integration of the eye over time which would increase the
shades an order of magnitude, but the pixels need to be scattered without
forming clusters or patterns in time, because those would become very
objectionable. I already tried something like that using random, but it looks
so ugly I refrained from posting anything. xD Random in time is like a confetti
rain all over the place.

...

...

Fits the game quite nicely!
Btw; are you dreaming of such things? xD

 

[DemonNite]

old

new

new pattern is much better... very noticeable on the motion blur trail

Fits the game quite nicely!
Btw; are you dreaming of such things? xD

Thanks!

I don't remember any of my dreams but I imagine they look like this

 

[JP_]

Been playing with a stealth mechanic

Nearly invisible if player is stationary, depending on what's behind the player relative to other players

But trails and dust still show up, so if they want to stay hidden they'll need to be sneaky.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

Been playing with a stealth mechanic

Nearly invisible if player is stationary, depending on what's behind the player relative to other players

But trails and dust still show up, so if they want to stay hidden they'll need to be sneaky.

Do you find you have a stuttering issue when you strafe around objects while looking at them in Unity? I have played with a bunch of first person stuff and it seems the default first person controller is flawed.

If you circle strafe around a stationary object you can visibly see it stutter and not be smooth. If you have any fixes for this I'd appreciate it!

 

[JP_]

Do you find you have a stuttering issue when you strafe around objects while looking at them in Unity? I have played with a bunch of first person stuff and it seems the default first person controller is flawed.

If you circle strafe around a stationary object you can visibly see it stutter and not be smooth. If you have any fixes for this I'd appreciate it!

To make zero g and non-up gravity movement work, I had to build a custom character controller so I'm not sure. Have you noticed it in published games or just in the editor?

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I built a custom character controller so I'm not sure. Have you noticed it in published games or just in the editor?

Awesome--that's the way to go. Good job!

I don't have any examples, but games that use the default controller have this issue. I'm really sensitive to this stuff, so it bugged the heck out of me. To test if it was just the editor I made executable and ran it outside of the Unity editor environment and it still did it. I have found several forum posts on other websites of people mentioning it, but without any resolutions lol. Seems it has to do with interpolation.

Regardless I'm wanting to take a similar path as you and build a custom one. Any specific references you learned from to build it?

And btw, I like the look of your game so far. The GIF probably makes the enemy far harder to see when cloaked. I can't even see it lol

 

[JP_]

Awesome--that's the way to go. Good job!

I don't have any examples, but games that use the default controller have this issue. I'm really sensitive to this stuff, so it bugged the heck out of me. To test if it was just the editor I made executable and ran it outside of the Unity editor environment and it still did it.

Regardless I'm wanting to take a similar path as you and build a custom one. Any specific references you learned from to build it?

And btw, I like the look of your game so far. The GIF probably makes the enemy far harder to see when cloaked. I can't even see it lol

I think I looked at q3 sourcecode to see how they did it, but I had very particular needs for my movement so I basically made it all custom. In Arms of Telos, ground movement is sort of a hybrid between racing and FPS controls. Unlike most FPS games, you keep your momentum while on the ground -- no need to bunny hop/strafe jump like Quake, and you're still in full control, unlike Tribes skiing. You can keep your speed if you take gradual turns, but if you turn too fast you lose traction sort of like a car and lose speed as you skid. But unlike a car, you can swivel without penalty so you can maintain movement while turning around to shoot at people (like in most FPS games). To make all that work in a way that feels natural but is also fun and balanced, it's basically custom physics. Had to do similar stuff to make the zero g movement compelling. AoT also supports gravity areas where gravity goes in arbitrary directions -- Unity's character controller was just too limited.

For collisions, I found a hacky way to still use Unity's rigidbody with my custom physics -- it's not perfect, but good enough. Tried rolling my own but felt limited with the collision tests available from Unity (made it difficult to reconcile simultaneous collisions with multiple objects). Might revisit later if I feel like I have a better understanding of all that.

 

[Fahzgoolin]

I think I looked at q3 sourcecode to see how they did it, but I had very particular needs for my movement so I basically made it all custom. In Arms of Telos, ground movement is sort of a hybrid between racing and FPS controls. Unlike most FPS games, you keep your momentum while on the ground -- no need to bunny hop/strafe jump like Quake, and you're still in full control, unlike Tribes skiing. You can keep your speed if you take gradual turns, but if you turn too fast you lose traction sort of like a car and lose speed as you skid. But unlike a car, you can swivel without penalty so you can maintain movement while turning around to shoot at people (like in most FPS games). To make all that work in a way that feels natural but is also fun and balanced, it's basically custom physics. Had to do similar stuff to make the zero g movement compelling. AoT also supports gravity areas where gravity goes in arbitrary directions -- Unity's character controller was just too limited.

For collisions, I found a hacky way to still use Unity's rigidbody with my custom physics -- it's not perfect, but good enough. Tried rolling my own but felt limited with the collision tests available from Unity (made it difficult to reconcile simultaneous collisions with multiple objects). Might revisit later if I feel like I have a better understanding of all that.

Wow! Thanks for the write up =) your game sounds like a lot of fun with a unique approach. Great job!

 

[missile]

... Been playing with a stealth mechanic ...

But trails and dust still show up, so if they want to stay hidden they'll need to be sneaky.

Yeah I like stealth elements, yet I think seeing the trail that way is a bit
too much, like no stealth, but may depend on how the game is meant to be
played. Would be interested to see the trails just refracting.

 

[CertifiedFP]

Hmm, I'm in quite a bit of internal debate with myself right now concerning a cornerstone of REDFOXES' design.

I'm torn between sticking to my original vision of RPG progression elements, or going with pure unfiltered action (Or Stealth, or Talking your way out of things) balanced from start to finish around Kaufman having fixed stats and abilities with the only variables in play being player skill and choices, reducing the RPG elements to being like STALKER's - Inventory and Dialog Choices.

Honestly leaning towards the latter. The former is starting to feel a bit too ambitious for my level of prior experience (no pun intended) and this wouldn't be the first time I cropped the scope of this game, I mean jesus I was originally going to go with a turn-based system.

And as a plus, I'd say the Latter would make putting multiple playable characters in viable for me again.

 

[missile]

G.O.D I think I got it!

pixelized defocus + pixelized motion blur in one scene;

fixed focus

auto focus

If these two effects could't go together on a pixelized level I would have
thrown it all out of the window! Damn! I'm still not there, yet, for there are
some new issues but I think they aren't deal breaking. Anyhow, I know now
that it is at least possible to have both, which makes me very satisfied
having spent all the time into these fukking pixels. xD Increasing the
resolution makes the effect even more stunning.

 

[DemonNite]

G.O.D I think I got it!

pixelized defocus + pixelized motion blur in one scene;

fixed focus

auto focus

If these two effects could't go together on a pixelized level I would have
thrown it all out of the window! Damn! I'm still not there, yet, for there are
some new issues but I think they aren't deal breaking. Anyhow, I know now
that it is at least possible to have both, which makes me very satisfied
having spent all the time into these fukking pixels. xD Increasing the
resolution makes the effect even more stunning.

Thats excellent - well worth the effort!

 

[Fahzgoolin]

G.O.D I think I got it!

pixelized defocus + pixelized motion blur in one scene;

fixed focus

auto focus

If these two effects could't go together on a pixelized level I would have
thrown it all out of the window! Damn! I'm still not there, yet, for there are
some new issues but I think they aren't deal breaking. Anyhow, I know now
that it is at least possible to have both, which makes me very satisfied
having spent all the time into these fukking pixels. xD Increasing the
resolution makes the effect even more stunning.

What is the colored pixel scatter/noise from? Seems to reflect splotches of color from the surrounding object?

 

[ninjarr]

Hey GAF, ninjarr here!

It's been a while! Maybe some of you recognize my name from a few years ago, but I kinda disappeared a bit mostly because I decided to bite off way more than I could chew and make a video game. That video game just released and I suddenly feel capable of having a life again, so maybe I'll post a more... I miss it here. But let me show you what I've been working on for four years, first? Maybe some of you will enjoy this game, it is kind of for you.

The Wild Eternal is a first-person exploration game designed to be a relaxing adventure that kinda feels like journeying across an MMO for the first time as an underpowered and overwhelmed newbie. It's also a place to de-stress after a long day -- go for a hike, listen to some music, reflect on things.

Full Trailer

The Wild Eternal is a story-driven, first-person exploration game with light platforming, maze-solving and progression elements. Players are challenged to find their way through the foggy wilderness, or get lost trying.

The story is set in the early 1600's. You are an old woman named Ananta who has fled a life of suffering in search for lasting peace in the Himalayan wild. After a traumatic life, you long to escape the cycle of reincarnation so that you may finally rest.

I'm sure it's not everyone's cup of tea (no guns, no combat, no grinds), but some of you might dig it, especially if you liked games like Proteus or Firewatch but wanted a bit more player-progression. Here's some links:

The Wild Eternal Website
The Wild Eternal Steam Page
Music: Garden of Lost Dreams
Music: Wakening Lands

 

[Makai]

Nice song

 

[JP_]

Yeah I like stealth elements, yet I think seeing the trail that way is a bit
too much, like no stealth, but may depend on how the game is meant to be
played. Would be interested to see the trails just refracting.

Speed is a huge part of the game -- base move speed is like 100, skilled players will be flying through the map at around 350-500 spd. Color trails only show up at 250+ so if they want to be sneaky, they need to stay at a modest pace.

Indoors where there's gravity, there's still that dust. You emit less dust at slower speeds, but the idea is you'd want to be smart about moving around while people are watching; be sneaky.

In zero g, you have a bit more freedom -- no dust, but your thrusters will be visible. So there, you'd want to get going in the direction you want and then let go of the controls so you remain hidden as you drift to your destination -- limit course correction as much as possible.

Haven't playtested with others yet, but at least on paper I really like how that fits in with the rest of the game.

 

[NinjaBoyLao]

Saw our old mockup on my hard drive

looks bad lol.

Currently the game looks like this

 

[missile]

Thats excellent - well worth the effort!

For a couple of weeks I got an idea running in my head to perhaps develop a 3D
Photo app to experiment with, i.e. to visualize how some of the camera's
parameters behave resp. relate to each other like the lens, f-stop, sensor, DOF,
ISO, motion blur etc.. These renderings of mine could be used for a realtime
viewer of such parameters or serve as a preview for when you need to compute
a very highres/smooth image. Don't know, but I would be interested.

What is the colored pixel scatter/noise from? Seems to reflect splotches of color from the surrounding object?

The scattering is built from a modified variant of the algorithm to compute
Poisson disk samples, a distribution of points with the points at least a
given distance apart. If you compute a couple of these distributions and
relate them to each other you can cover the whole plane using them.

 

[pfkas]

Finally released my first android game today.

It's called Vectapulse and it's a rhythm game with a few new ideas.

Its free to download, with more songs unlocked and the ability to play your own tracks in the full version.

Please try it out, leave a rating or feedback.

download from the play store

Thanks all, hope you enjoy

 

[Makai]

Lighting errors go horribly right. Looks sorta like somebody's animal brawler game from here.`

 

[JP_]

Really like that subtle lighting on the yellow blip

 

[missile]

Speed is a huge part of the game -- base move speed is like 100, skilled players will be flying through the map at around 350-500 spd. Color trails only show up at 250+ so if they want to be sneaky, they need to stay at a modest pace.

Indoors where there's gravity, there's still that dust. You emit less dust at slower speeds, but the idea is you'd want to be smart about moving around while people are watching; be sneaky.

In zero g, you have a bit more freedom -- no dust, but your thrusters will be visible. So there, you'd want to get going in the direction you want and then let go of the controls so you remain hidden as you drift to your destination -- limit course correction as much as possible.

Haven't playtested with others yet, but at least on paper I really like how that fits in with the rest of the game.

Sounds good.

Lighting errors go horribly right. Looks sorta like somebody's animal brawler game from here.`

wtf? xD

 

[missile]

Hmm...

While playing with my pixelized defocus I made some interesting observations.
I'm wondering if the same technique can't be used to kill the aliasing
altogether? I made a test without and with a faint defocus adjusted just to
kill the alias where it starts (see animations below). The alias is still
there, but, as you can see, it is converted to some noise (sort of an average),
which means that the aliasing energy is spread more over the spectrum and will
as such have its amplitude reduced.

So I made the ground plane a bit larger such that the pattern starts to alias
and later put the defocus over it (second animation).

Well, that works pretty good I would say.

I don't want to go too far here, but this seems to be sort of a pixelized
anti-aliasing technique if you ask me. I mean, the noise is much more
pleasing to look at then the aliasing pattern, no? (don't mind the flickering,
needs more work).

Perhaps I can make this work on a global scope like mip-mapping or something.
It's worth a try at least. Would be cool to kill/convert aliasing happen in
highlights resp. reflections, too, that way. No idea.


Edit:
There is still some minor aliasing in the second image, but would go away
when turning up the defocus just a bit more.

 

[missile]

Finally released my first android game today.

It's called Vectapulse and it's a rhythm game with a few new ideas.

Its free to download, with more songs unlocked and the ability to play your own tracks in the full version.

Please try it out, leave a rating or feedback.

download from the play store

Thanks all, hope you enjoy

Looks clean and stylish! Well done!

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Hi guys, long time no see!
During the last year we had a bunch of problem with programmers (super long story about the last ones, but cutting it short, they didnt want to test anything, and only wanted to work if the things were final, something ive never seen a programmer do), but we finally are working with two programmers that are amazing and are giving it all and working as a team
So we can finally show some stuff about the game we are working.

It's called Sitcom Valley, and is an RPG and time management game were you play as the main character of a TV sitcom. Before going in and making the whole game we want to create a little version of it so people can test it that i hope we can finish soon, and showing the central mechanics of the game.
We just showed on twitter the concept art and final version of the main and playable character (your Seinfeld type of guy) and a little animated gif showing some pixelart of the character in his bedroom.
Jules (the main character) has trouble keeping neighbours and other weirdos out of his flat, so basically you need to "fight" against with an RPG ATB battle system them to keep them out.

 

[shysaursoft]

It's called Sitcom Valley

This is really great! I love the Paul Robertson-esq pixel art style, and the premise is sharp.

 

[Pere]

Anyone here has applied for a Developer account for any of the big three?

My team would like to, or at least try to, publish something there so I've been looking it up.
Do you need to have a VAT to apply for Dev? How serious do they get? I've read they have you sign an NDA.
Do we need to be an established business with legal documents? How likely is for a team of 3 students to be accepted and published? so much questions d_d

Can someone shed some light with his/her experience or point me to a site with comprehensible information for a newbie?

 

[_Rob_]

Taking advantage of a long weekend to work some more on my "Micro Italy" section of CnW's swamp level. Things are far more lively when these guys are blasting their tomatoes at you!

Oh and as it turns out, environmental animation like bunting blowing in the breeze and crazy taxi drivers help too!

https://twitter.com/ClassicGJ/status/854027302543523841

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

This is really great! I love the Paul Robertson-esq pixel art style, and the premise is sharp.

Thank you!
And i really have to say to my firend that amde the pixelart that someone compared him to Paul Robertson, because he always thinks he is crap compared to him lol

Taking advantage of a long weekend to work some more on my "Micro Italy" section of CnW's swamp level. Things are far more lively when these guys are blasting their tomatoes at you!

Oh and as it turns out, environmental animation like bunting blowing in the breeze and crazy taxi drivers help too!

https://twitter.com/ClassicGJ/status/854027302543523841

Wow, first time ive seen this and looks really cool. Love the designs of the character and scenery!

 

[SeanNoonan]

Finally.

 

[Peter Sjöstrand]

Here are a couple of work in progress assets that will be used in the new game that we're working on

 

[Chris Murphy]

So today (my birthday) I really wanted to make a track that delivered the emotional payload that I intend to deliver with Cozen Servo.

I'm pretty sure people are going to like it. Well.... I hope they will.

Anyway! This is the link to the track.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yAXYNb1w-Y&feature=youtu.be

 

[shysaursoft]

I was curious what it would look like if you could see the entire gameworld running, in a single screen. I love all the twinkling and micromovements, makes the whole place feel very alive.

Some closer views on certain areas:

The Ruins

The Forest

 

[Jessie.Bristol]

What the hell? The animations look great and I love how the game's title looks very Seinfeld-like.

 

[Painguy]

Anyone here have experience with the Occulus SDK? The documentation seems to be pretty inconsistent, outdated or bare bones. I'm working on an OpenGL application so no Unity or anything. Is there a good resource for this thing? I'm kinda fed up with reading through hundreds of lines of header files lol. I barely have something working atm.

 

[mStudios]

Hi guys, long time no see!
During the last year we had a bunch of problem with programmers (super long story about the last ones, but cutting it short, they didnt want to test anything, and only wanted to work if the things were final, something ive never seen a programmer do), but we finally are working with two programmers that are amazing and are giving it all and working as a team
So we can finally show some stuff about the game we are working.

It's called Sitcom Valley, and is an RPG and time management game were you play as the main character of a TV sitcom. Before going in and making the whole game we want to create a little version of it so people can test it that i hope we can finish soon, and showing the central mechanics of the game.
We just showed on twitter the concept art and final version of the main and playable character (your Seinfeld type of guy) and a little animated gif showing some pixelart of the character in his bedroom.
Jules (the main character) has trouble keeping neighbours and other weirdos out of his flat, so basically you need to "fight" against with an RPG ATB battle system them to keep them out.

Looking pretty good!

(Check skype)

 

[SeanNoonan]

And done. Time to start rolling out promo material, I guess.

 

[MrHoot]

We back and drawing lot's and lot's of ROCKS, also moss n stuff for caves

 

[ThePhotoshop]

If anyone here has any experience exporting from GameMaker Studio to Ubuntu, I'd like to pick your brains!

I'm able to compile and export (to Ubuntu running on a Mac virtual machine) but trying to run the game pops up a window for a second before it closes again. I don't know if this is what a crash looks like in Linux. I'm pretty sure I have all the required libraries installed through Terminal.

Basically, is there anyone with an actual dedicated Linux machine that can test my app?

 

[Blizzard]

If anyone here has any experience exporting from GameMaker Studio to Ubuntu, I'd like to pick your brains!

I'm able to compile and export (to Ubuntu running on a Mac virtual machine) but trying to run the game pops up a window for a second before it closes again. I don't know if this is what a crash looks like in Linux. I'm pretty sure I have all the required libraries installed through Terminal.

Basically, is there anyone with an actual dedicated Linux machine that can test my app?

Try running it from a command line and see if there's any output. If there's not, try googling and/or checking any documentation that might mention a log file. There should hopefully be one or the other.

 

[OricWindstar]

We back and drawing lot's and lot's of ROCKS, also moss n stuff for caves

Love the look of this!

 

[trudeaudm]

Just finished the trailer for my game Planetes. Whew! Trailer making is not really my thing. :-/
Tell me what you think?

https://youtu.be/pPHhf-6cUTg

 

[OricWindstar]

Just finished the trailer for my game Planetes. Whew! Trailer making is not really my thing. :-/
Tell me what you think?

The game looks really fun. As for the trailer, my main piece of advice would be cutting some of the shots shorter. It seems to linger on scenes a little too long, when it should be cutting to the next gameplay feature you're trying to sell. Looks cool, though!

 

[Yoshi]

What is up with Unity performance on Wii U when compared to PC?

My game is quite a simple 3D platformer, with mostly cube-based geometry. There are some ressource-instense things in there, like shadows and dynamic transparency, but nothing too wild. I have now made a PC version for a pitch and the game runs, on an eight year old laptop with an integrated graphics chip that cost 200€ back then, at a stable 60 fps - which is the target performance. On Wii U, the more complex level can crush down all the way to 40 (after all successful optimisation steps, mostly in my code, before it went down to 24), depending on the camera angle. The only two solutions I have found so far were to lower the draw distance or to turn off shadows (other than character shadows), both of which prevent the game from going below 55 fps. The first solution is detrimental to the global orientation because you cannot see the full level geometry at all times anymore, the second one is detrimental to local orientation, because floating platforms are hard to make out. I have tried numerous things:
- Baked occlusion culling crashed the framerate to 20 on Wii U (no change on PC, but a significant reduction in batches)
- Baking lighting crashed the PC most of the time when attempting it, when it finally worked it made absolutely no difference
- static batching of some geometry interfered with the transparency effect that I use when the user has chosen a camera angle that is not ideal and that is an important feature to me, since the game has a completely free camera system
- lowering (or upping) texture resolution made no difference whatsoever. Not too surprising, because the textures are super simple
- lowering shadow quality made no discernible difference

Peak values in the level are 800 batches and 3k tris by the way.

How can performance on a 2012 console be so significantly worse than on a 2009 budget laptop that concurrently runs Unity and a browser?

 

[Minamu]

Could you post a pic or video of the game? Sounds like something is seriously wrong for sure. Did you try all those improvements one at a time or did you combine them? How and where did you create the geometry? What kind of coding improvements have you done? You should ask your question on the unity forums as well, and maybe at stack overflow or similar? Some Wii U dev board? Maybe even the programming OT here on gaf.

Maybe Unity for Wii U simply sucks :lol It sounds like you ought to have waaay higher frames than 60, right? I mean, if Bayonetta 2 can have 60 fps, why can't you?

 

[Parham]

What are you seeing in the Wii U profiler?

 

[Yoshi]

Could you post a pic or video of the game? Sounds like something is seriously wrong for sure. Did you try all those improvements one at a time or did you combine them? How and where did you create the geometry? What kind of coding improvements have you done? You should ask your question on the unity forums as well, and maybe at stack overflow or similar? Some Wii U dev board? Maybe even the programming OT here on gaf.

Maybe Unity for Wii U simply sucks :lol It sounds like you ought to have waaay higher frames than 60, right? I mean, if Bayonetta 2 can have 60 fps, why can't you?

Well, for an image of the situation where the framerate is the worst (using PC version obviously):

I tried the improvements one at a time, not all at once, to check for each individually if it leads to an improvement. I did not want to introduce a situation, where I implement an improvement that is actually making it worse.

The coding improvements were on my collision detection, which I have coded myself instead of using the Unity system (I know that this is not the preferred way, but I like to have full control over as much as possible). Previously, I had the character check if he can take a position by doing a collision check with the whole geometry, checking first for each pair of objects, if bounding spheres collide. Since numerous collision checks occur per update, my most important optimisation was to filter out those objects that collide with a sphere that signifies the main character's action radius and to only compare to them. Earlier, the more naive approach was no problem, but as geometry grew it slowly became one. The collision detection definitely is not at fault anymore, because the game can run at 60 fps, just not if the camera angle is problematic. I also implemented a manual culling (via my own code rather than the Unity system) of specific objects that have a lot of polygons (i.e. cylinders, capsules, spheres, though only cylinders play a role in this level) and I changed some places where squareroots were computed but which were avoidable. This brought the other almost finished level to rock solid 60fps on Wii U and this level (in the screen) to the afore mentioned intervall.

Additional optimisations that I made but which did not harm the performance were removing recolouring of textures where not needed and fixing coloured variants of textures instead (to allow for runtime culling), carefully checking which objects need to have a shadow and which elements should receive shadows (and applying this accordingly) and to take cheaper shaders where possible.

The geometry was created by using prefabs in the unity editor and for the basic geometric shapes I used the Unity primitives or created them in Blender if not available in Unity. Characters were created using Sculptris (really nice tool by the way, especially for people who are not well-versed with art, like me).

I will have some look into the profiler and may ask the question elsewhere, but I was just so frustrated and surprised that the game runs absolutely flawlessly (60 fps due to locking from above, no drops) on my old laptop which runs other intense stuff at the same time, yet struggles on a much more modern system.

 

[Professor Lich]

Is there anyone here who is using or has experience with Unity Collaborate? We're using it and just over the past week now we're getting weird merging with just about everything now. Prefabs, Animation Controllers, Scripts, two people can be working on something and instead of giving a heads up about a merging conflict, Collaborate seems to just squish things together.

Fake Edit: Did some testing with a teammate, and yeah, Unity Collaborate is Merging files and things without telling us first. Wonderful.