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

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Limanima

Member
International GAF, I need help translating a few text lines for my game Snails.
The game is going to be released soon on Steam.
This is the game in question:

Snails

I need help translating to german, italian, french and spanish.
This are the texts that require translation. This are small hint messages to be displayed in the loading screen.

You can speed up the game by pressing the fast forward button (or space key).
To gain a better time bonus, escort the necessary snails and then go for the coins.
Coins are optional. You don't need them to finish the levels.
Sometimes you don't need all snails to finish a level.
If you find a level too hard, try levels from other themes.
Can't get a gold medal? Try other levels and come back later.
Drop the objects on the floor, snails will pick them up and use it.
When a snail hits the border of the map, they will turn back.
To get a gold medal you'll need: all snails and medals in the best possible time.
Gold medal requirements for the level are displayed in the pause menu.

You can PM me if you are interested. Sorry, but I have no $ to pay for this job, so you will have to do it for free. :(
Edit: but your name will appear on the game credits. You can then brag that your name appears on a Steam game!

Thanks!

Someonoe offerde help for the french translation. Thanks!
I still need italian, german and spanish. Anyone?
 

anteevy

Member
lol @ Trials reference.
Yeah, I had to pay tribute to the Trials series :D my game was heavily influenced by some of their design principles, even if it doesn't look like it from the outside, being a ball-rolling game and all. Things like "if you just want to play through it, you have nearly unlimited respawns and time - but if you want to unlock the hardcore levels, you'll have to master these levels as good as you can first".
 
Finally. My artist plank is here. Everyone haze him when he posts. He is my partner in making things. He did all the art for Infinite Cosmos and is making my shit art look good in our unannounced game.

He is an amazing artist.
 

Aki-at

Member
Finally got some images of the booth (#736) Brock's playable at GDC, kind of awesome to see my game playable at an actual show, chalk down one more for another life's goal met : >

BrockGDC_031.jpg
 

Violet_0

Banned
Someonoe offerde help for the french translation. Thanks!
I still need italian, german and spanish. Anyone?

for what it's worth, here's a rough German translation. Maybe another friendly GerGaffer or someone in the community thread (there's probably one for Italy and Spain too) could finish it

Du kannst das Spiel mit der Beschleunigungstaste/knopf(?) oder Leertaste beschleunigen.
Um einen besseren Zeitbonus zu erhalten, musst du alle benötigten Schnecken zum Ziel bringen und dann die Münzen einsammeln.
Münzen sind optional. Du benötigst sie nicht, um ein Level erfolgreich zu beenden.
Manchmal benötigst du nicht alle Schnecken, um ein Level erfolgreich zu beenden.
Wenn du ein Level zu schwer findest, probiere doch einmal andere Levels von einem anderen Thema/Welt(?).
Kannst du die Goldmedallie nicht bekommen? Probiere ein anderes Level und versuche es später nocheinmal.
Lass ein (Objekt/Gegenstand) auf den Boden fallen, damit die Schnecken es aufheben und benutzten können.
Schnecken, die den Rand der Karte erreichen, drehen sich wieder um.
Um die Goldmedallie zu bekommen, benötigst du alle Schnecken und Medallien in der bestmöglichen Zeit.
Alle Vorraussetzungen für die Goldmedallien findest du im Pausenmenü.
 

friken

Member
Finally got some images of the booth (#736) Brock's playable at GDC, kind of awesome to see my game playable at an actual show, chalk down one more for another life's goal met : >

BrockGDC_031.jpg

Awesome, congrats. I look forward to showing Stardiver at tradeshows thos coming year.... now to start cracking the whip when i get back from gdc.
 
There I go calling out paid review solicitation on Twitter. Such a shameful practice. I say no and I keep getting emails so I'll just call them out for shady practices.
 

Limanima

Member
for what it's worth, here's a rough German translation. Maybe another friendly GerGaffer or someone in the community thread (there's probably one for Italy and Spain too) could finish it

Du kannst das Spiel mit der Beschleunigungstaste/knopf(?) oder Leertaste beschleunigen.
Um einen besseren Zeitbonus zu erhalten, musst du alle benötigten Schnecken zum Ziel bringen und dann die Münzen einsammeln.
Münzen sind optional. Du benötigst sie nicht, um ein Level erfolgreich zu beenden.
Manchmal benötigst du nicht alle Schnecken, um ein Level erfolgreich zu beenden.
Wenn du ein Level zu schwer findest, probiere doch einmal andere Levels von einem anderen Thema/Welt(?).
Kannst du die Goldmedallie nicht bekommen? Probiere ein anderes Level und versuche es später nocheinmal.
Lass ein (Objekt/Gegenstand) auf den Boden fallen, damit die Schnecken es aufheben und benutzten können.
Schnecken, die den Rand der Karte erreichen, drehen sich wieder um.
Um die Goldmedallie zu bekommen, benötigst du alle Schnecken und Medallien in der bestmöglichen Zeit.
Alle Vorraussetzungen für die Goldmedallien findest du im Pausenmenü.

Thanks!
I didn't knew those threads. I'm going to check those out.
 
Controls, combat, level design and focus on challenging bossfights. Though it also lacks so many things like different equipment, RPG stats and the online integration.

Oh, cool. I admit I haven't followed Malebolgia outside of the .gifs posted here, and somehow I had in my mind that it was mostly a walking mystery-solving game in a really dark mansion.
 

Aki-at

Member
Awesome, congrats. I look forward to showing Stardiver at tradeshows thos coming year.... now to start cracking the whip when i get back from gdc.

Thanks and good luck with that! Got to admit this is the first proper time preparing for a tradeshow, who knew how annoyed I would be with Windows Movie Maker by the end of it haha.

Great job dude :)

Thanks man, it's probably nothing major but I still can't believe it was playable at GDC. It's amazing how these little bouts of coverage can give you a bit of a morale boost :p

Patrick Klepek (of ex-Giant Bomb fame) played Malebolgia and liked it. :)

https://twitter.com/patrickklepek/status/573899113382674432

Congratulations! Been seeing the game a lot and really love the feeling it gives.

But seriously kill that spider.
 
Thanks man, it's probably nothing major but I still can't believe it was playable at GDC. It's amazing how these little bouts of coverage can give you a bit of a morale boost :p

Don't downplay it! Savor moments like that. Not everybody gets that kind of opportunity!
 
So I just hit about 6k lines of code (about 7.8k with comments) and am at the point where the surface is now scratched before fleshing out every other damn thing. This is relatively light.

Is it wrong of me to consider creating my own docs/wiki for my own sanity months from now? Was thinking about setting up some system where I can keep track of basics I can quickly search when trying to remember what I'm coding today, several months from now.

Anyone else do this?
 

JulianImp

Member
International GAF, I need help translating a few text lines for my game Snails.
The game is going to be released soon on Steam.
This is the game in question:

Snails

I need help translating to german, italian, french and spanish.
This are the texts that require translation. This are small hint messages to be displayed in the loading screen.

You can speed up the game by pressing the fast forward button (or space key).
To gain a better time bonus, escort the necessary snails and then go for the coins.
Coins are optional. You don't need them to finish the levels.
Sometimes you don't need all snails to finish a level.
If you find a level too hard, try levels from other themes.
Can't get a gold medal? Try other levels and come back later.
Drop the objects on the floor, snails will pick them up and use it.
When a snail hits the border of the map, they will turn back.
To get a gold medal you'll need: all snails and medals in the best possible time.
Gold medal requirements for the level are displayed in the pause menu.

You can PM me if you are interested. Sorry, but I have no $ to pay for this job, so you will have to do it for free. :(
Edit: but your name will appear on the game credits. You can then brag that your name appears on a Steam game!

Thanks!

Puedes acelerar la velocidad de juego presionando el botón de adelantar (o la tecla de espacio)
Para obtener un mejor bonificador de tiempo, escolta a los caracoles que sean necesarios y luego ve a por las monedas. (in neutral Spanish, it'd be "y luego intenta conseguir las monedas")
Las monedas son opcionales. No son necesarias para completar un nivel. (suggested translation to avoid redundancy: "Las monedas no son necesarias para completar un nivel.")
En algunos casos, no todos los caracoles son necesarios para completar un nivel.
Si algún nivel te parece demasiado difícil, intenta con niveles de una temática diferente.
¿No logras ganar una medalla de oro? Juega otros niveles e inténtalo nuevamente más tarde.
Deja objetos en el piso para que los caracoles los recojan y usen.
Cuando un caracol llegue al borde del mapa, dará la vuelta.
Para ganar una medalla de oro necesitarás obtener todos los caracoles y medallas en el mejor tiempo posible. (note: I think you might've meant "coins" rather than "medals"; in that case, it'd be "caracoles y monedas")
Los requisitos para obtener medalla de oro en un nivel se detallan en el menú de pausa.
 
NGXTyMK.gif

Well well, finally I can start posting funny gifs from our project!
I guess many know that feeling where you start from let's say "Pong" and it turns into "Digital Volley Simulator VR".

I'm kinda sure this happened to a lot of developers, basically it's fault of bad planning or overestimating resources (time/money/skills),
so yeah, in my case this happened for the game we're still developing now.

We started from a concept we were already familiar, procedural 2D topdown roguelike in pixelart that was made for a flash portal screen,
and since we got many good reviews even if the game was kinda buggy (it was a port from GBA)
we decided to go keep the formula but make better graphics and switch platform.

So we started making the assets for a pretty similar game but with other nifty gameplay/lore/world features:
And after we were alright with the graphics, we started fleshing out the classes, and the first animations.

knight walk
knight idle
knight attack

We prepared the animations for like 5-6 charcaters, and started fleshing the code for the new procedural dungeon with Unity.
And there started the snowballing...

The second artist of our team kept wondering if [we could translate the characters in voxels, using softwares like Qubicle it was super easy,
pretty much a snap of fingers once you get familiar with the tools.
Rigging the characters wasn't much of a trouble either, there were some issues with how joints move but overall the feeling wasn't bad.
Translating the assets was a different kettle of fish, the number of triangles that each tile had to draw was massive if we wanted to keep the voxel/pixel look on the environment,
I absolutely hate when you have simple planes as a surface but there are reasons developers use that.

So we could either make perfectly plain walls and floors and fill the area with various props, or switch to UnrealEgine4 which performed immensely better than Unity and allowed us to have a better look and a faster development pipeline (btw, if any Epic Games developer is reading this: you guys are awesome!) and we also had access to more features that allowed us to speed up the rendering of the game (there was some black magic involved in that so if you want more detail I can ask my programmer)

So yeah, from flash > to unity > to unreal and in quite the short time (around 2-3 months)

And at that pont, nobody "could stop that train", and we kept a very tight schedule of keep designing stuff in 2D and translate them in voxels, clean the geometry on maya and bring everything into Unreal, and we even started messing up with the particles, which are super stressing but also rewarding.


And in quite the short time we managed to flesh out the battle system, environments interaction and the overall feeling of the game, but to tell the truth I wan't fully convinced we could pull all of that until we started using Unreal 4, that really stepped up our game and we managed to go on [greenlight with a full fleshed trailer (sorry for the shameless promotion).
 

Limanima

Member
International GAF, I need help translating a few text lines for my game Snails.
The game is going to be released soon on Steam.
This is the game in question:

Snails

I need help translating to german, italian, french and spanish.
This are the texts that require translation. This are small hint messages to be displayed in the loading screen.

You can speed up the game by pressing the fast forward button (or space key).
To gain a better time bonus, escort the necessary snails and then go for the coins.
Coins are optional. You don't need them to finish the levels.
Sometimes you don't need all snails to finish a level.
If you find a level too hard, try levels from other themes.
Can't get a gold medal? Try other levels and come back later.
Drop the objects on the floor, snails will pick them up and use it.
When a snail hits the border of the map, they will turn back.
To get a gold medal you'll need: all snails and medals in the best possible time.
Gold medal requirements for the level are displayed in the pause menu.

You can PM me if you are interested. Sorry, but I have no $ to pay for this job, so you will have to do it for free. :(
Edit: but your name will appear on the game credits. You can then brag that your name appears on a Steam game!

Thanks!

Thanks everyone, I already have it translated to all languages (I'm waiting for the french, but Morrigan Stark already offered help).
 

V_Arnold

Member
So I just hit about 6k lines of code (about 7.8k with comments) and am at the point where the surface is now scratched before fleshing out every other damn thing. This is relatively light.

Is it wrong of me to consider creating my own docs/wiki for my own sanity months from now? Was thinking about setting up some system where I can keep track of basics I can quickly search when trying to remember what I'm coding today, several months from now.

Anyone else do this?

DO IT! DO IT!

I am hitting myself retroactively for NOT doing this.
I had to scrap and rebuild so many modules in my projects because if this. Life comes in kicking, months pass, and when I go back to my own code, I do not see reason. I do no see sanity. I only see a mess.

Document it as much as you can, it can only help you.
And besides, once you properly describe a structure, if any flaws are to be revealed in that structure, you will reveal it to yourself when you are making the documentation.

Additional tip: mark any future changes and cleanup goals with TODO. You can ctrl+F your way through them once you have the time and will to do so.
 

Five

Banned
I'm getting pretty close to wanting to run a Kickstarter campaign for my game. I feel like there's finally enough to it that I can show off what the game's about. Does anyone want to give it a few runs and give me some feedback before I move forward?

download: demo v01

I'm thinking some next steps are to revise the website, cut a trailer and contact some press and YouTubers. Ideally, I'd get the campaign going before the end of the month, but I don't have a very good idea of what I'm doing.

http://zippy.gfycat.com/AptDistantCurlew.webm

http://fat.gfycat.com/EnchantedPleasedFlatfish.webm

http://zippy.gfycat.com/WanMasculineBangeltiger.webm
 

Blizzard

Banned
So I just hit about 6k lines of code (about 7.8k with comments) and am at the point where the surface is now scratched before fleshing out every other damn thing. This is relatively light.

Is it wrong of me to consider creating my own docs/wiki for my own sanity months from now? Was thinking about setting up some system where I can keep track of basics I can quickly search when trying to remember what I'm coding today, several months from now.

Anyone else do this?
I suggest using whatever form of documentation is effective for you. I use tons of comments and document methods in header files, but some people might like an overall documentation/wiki system to remind themselves how things work.

Out of curiosity, what did you use to count the code?
 
DO IT! DO IT!

I am hitting myself retroactively for NOT doing this.
I had to scrap and rebuild so many modules in my projects because if this. Life comes in kicking, months pass, and when I go back to my own code, I do not see reason. I do no see sanity. I only see a mess.

Document it as much as you can, it can only help you.
And besides, once you properly describe a structure, if any flaws are to be revealed in that structure, you will reveal it to yourself when you are making the documentation.

Additional tip: mark any future changes and cleanup goals with TODO. You can ctrl+F your way through them once you have the time and will to do so.
Aye. I will probably use MediaWiki unless there is a more "doc" style setup for online-baaed systems I haven't seen. Having a nice searchable and super linkable database would be so much good to have when systems start to get complex. Just going through some things yesterday I found several fixes/consolidation.

I will probably take a week off to build my code wiki. Would be great to do this now rather than later. And dedicate a few minutes in work nights to update and add new info to it.

I suggest using whatever form of documentation is effective for you. I use tons of comments and document methods in header files, but some people might like an overall documentation/wiki system to remind themselves how things work.

Out of curiosity, what did you use to count the code?
Aye. I want to have a searchable database by keyword. This should help greatly.

Also, I use CLOC. A simple terminal based utity that can count any type of code you have. It also list empty lines and comments so you can get straight to the meat and potatoes without including those in your count.
 

anteevy

Member
I'm getting pretty close to wanting to run a Kickstarter campaign for my game. I feel like there's finally enough to it that I can show off what the game's about. Does anyone want to give it a few runs and give me some feedback before I move forward?

download: demo v01

I'm thinking some next steps are to revise the website, cut a trailer and contact some press and YouTubers. Ideally, I'd get the campaign going before the end of the month, but I don't have a very good idea of what I'm doing.

http://zippy.gfycat.com/AptDistantCurlew.webm

http://fat.gfycat.com/EnchantedPleasedFlatfish.webm

http://zippy.gfycat.com/WanMasculineBangeltiger.webm

Good job! Just played for 15min or so. Already feels very polished - I love the graphics and animations (and the creepy enemies). I had to laugh when that zombie with the back pointing towards the bottom crawled towards me and killed me with his fire breath. Controls/movement are also fine, I played with the keyboard. Good that you can also jump with the up cursor key, because I'm using the QWERTZ layout. No sound/music yet, right?

I'm also currently creating a landing page, a blog and a trailer and want to start with marketing in a few weeks. Not sure when to contact the press though. As soon as page/blog/Twitter/Facebook are up? When I'm putting it on Greenlight? Should I even bother sending an alpha build that already has most of the levels but no level selection hub which means levels have to be started via the console (with the help of instruction texts in the game of course)?
 

Blizzard

Banned
Also, I use CLOC. A simple terminal based utity that can count any type of code you have. It also list empty lines and comments so you can get straight to the meat and potatoes without including those in your count.
Cool, it turns out CLOC is also the counter I decided on, and I already had it on my computer. :p

Side note, Sourceforge.net apparently keeps going up and down. Has this been happening much lately?
 

purdobol

Member
My first poor attemt to create a game. Sorta puzzle/platformer heavily inspired by old MS-DOS game wich title i will not reveal until somebody guess it :p
This project was on hold for long time. Currently getting back to it.

Title for now is Jump man.
Latest build (10 levels)

Some screens:
637x358.resizedimage
637x358.resizedimage


Gameplay video

As you can see i'm terrible 3d modeller :p
 
Cool, it turns out CLOC is also the counter I decided on, and I already had it on my computer. :p

Side note, Sourceforge.net apparently keeps going up and down. Has this been happening much lately?
Just looked now and yep - down. I've had CLOC on my 'puter for a good while, too hahah!

THIS

Also, people saying I MUST advertise... I had one call me at the studio once. Nuts.
"This is a unique opportunity!"
"We think your app has what it takes!"
"We can get your app in front of millions of people!" (meanwhile my personal YT account has more subs)
"For just X dollars we will review and feature your app blah blah"
etc.

I do have one guy from Japan who emails daily only with his email address, name and a series of numbers that don't pan out to any order number I have or make sense

Translating gets me pretty much nothing but a G+ profile. May just have to add him to a filter that goes straight to my garbage.
 

Servbot24

Banned
Anyone know of a good tutorial for getting sharp 2D gameplay in Unity? I've only been able to get floaty controls. I.e. I want MegaMan X, not LittleBigPlanet.
 
I had been quite busy lately, but I was able to finally make some progress today.

CityBuildingTest.png


Added a saloon and soon will add many more shops, houses, etc.. in the old wild west style towns, there are some planets in which technology and the old is mixed so I started development on those cities first.
 

EDarkness

Member
Just made a huge move back to the U.S. and now I have to get back into development. Gonna be hard after 3 weeks of no work. Just looking at my work plan presents this daunting challenge. But that's what game development is all about, right? Right?
 
Anyone know of a good tutorial for getting sharp 2D gameplay in Unity? I've only been able to get floaty controls. I.e. I want MegaMan X, not LittleBigPlanet.

If you want 16-bit style platforming (or movement in general) you're basically not going to be using the built in Physics systems at all but raycasts and transforms - heres a good article about different types of movement / collision used in different types of platformers.
 

Servbot24

Banned
If you want 16-bit style platforming (or movement in general) you're basically not going to be using the built in Physics systems at all but raycasts and transforms - heres a good article about different types of movement / collision used in different types of platformers.

Thanks :)

Not gonna have time to do my own game this year (working on my graphic novel and contributing to another gaffer's game) but I want to build up some knowledge so I'm ready to go next year.
 

2+2=5

The Amiga Brotherhood
International GAF, I need help translating a few text lines for my game Snails.
The game is going to be released soon on Steam.
This is the game in question:

Snails

I need help translating to german, italian, french and spanish.
This are the texts that require translation. This are small hint messages to be displayed in the loading screen.

You can speed up the game by pressing the fast forward button (or space key).
To gain a better time bonus, escort the necessary snails and then go for the coins.
Coins are optional. You don't need them to finish the levels.
Sometimes you don't need all snails to finish a level.
If you find a level too hard, try levels from other themes.
Can't get a gold medal? Try other levels and come back later.
Drop the objects on the floor, snails will pick them up and use it.
When a snail hits the border of the map, they will turn back.
To get a gold medal you'll need: all snails and medals in the best possible time.
Gold medal requirements for the level are displayed in the pause menu.

You can PM me if you are interested. Sorry, but I have no $ to pay for this job, so you will have to do it for free. :(
Edit: but your name will appear on the game credits. You can then brag that your name appears on a Steam game!

Thanks!
Italian:
-Puoi velocizzare il gioco premendo il pulsante avanti veloce(o la barra spaziatrice).
-Per ottenere un bonus tempo migliore, scorta le lumache necessarie e poi prendi le monete.
-Le monete sono opzionali. Non necessiti di loro per finire un livello.
-A volte non sono necessarie tutte le lumache per finire un livello.
-Se un livello è troppo difficile, prova livelli da altri temi.
-Non riesci ad ottenere una medaglia d'oro? Prova altri livelli e riprova più tardi.
-Lascia gli oggetti sul terreno, le lumache li prenderanno e li useranno.
-Quando una lumaca tocca il bordo di una mappa, loro torneranno indietro.
-Per ottenere una medaglia d'oro necessiti: tutte le lumache e le medaglie nel miglior tempo possibile.
-I requisiti del livello per la medaglia d'oro sono visualizzati nel menù di pausa.

I hope it will be useful :)
 
Anyone know of a good tutorial for getting sharp 2D gameplay in Unity? I've only been able to get floaty controls. I.e. I want MegaMan X, not LittleBigPlanet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPBiqGY41fU

Translate and Raycasts as MrNyarlathotep has stated.

Translate the movement vector in the direction of your movement and use raycasts to detect collision. At your current X/Y speed you can check distances with raycasts for collision, then move the character each frame based on speed and based on whether or not you will collide. If you will collide at your current movement speed the next frame, only move the amount needed for collision so you do not overlap.

If you are using RigidBody physics - you can kinda sorta ish get smooth movement but you will suffer from a fixed time. Unity's standard fixed timestep is 0.02 which is 50/sec. That's not ideal for 60fps as you will get micro stuttering as some frames will skip movement due to physics not updating at 60hz.

Using 0.01666666 or 0.01666667 as a timestep is also not preferred as you will always have a remainder and drift phase between physics and framerate due to the nature of a float. Use Transform.Translate and time.deltaTime to move. If you want an unlocked framerate - you will need to skip a time.deltaTime and create your own deltaTime as an average of several frames, slant some math on it for spikes to get smooth movement. We work with 60 to over 1k fps as seen in the video above while maintaining smooth translation. We still target 60, tho, we just make sure shit don't break at 1k+

If you want to stick with RigidBody (you can make it work but it takes a bit of grunt to do it) - and don't want "floaty" style jumps - don't touch the mass/gravity multiplier on your object - set the physics2D gravity to -25 or -30. It's default is -9, I believe. You will need more AddForce but the result will be cleaner, crisper jumps that feel less floaty. You can also roll your own acceleration for movement both on ground and in air. We have 4 floats for accel/decel, ground/air independent.

I still recommend rolling your own physics. Much more flexible since you can write it as you want to suit your needs.

-

Also found this:
http://www.phpmyfaq.de/

Looks interesting for a docs/faq/wiki-ish sort of system. Will try this out to see how it works.

Edit: Don't like. Going to use MediaWiki.
 

Pehesse

Member
Been a while since I posted here. Plenty of great stuff in the past few days (or has it been weeks already? I feel so dephased - repetition will do that for you), grats to all for their progress!

Here's the latest:
EqualWatchfulBluebottle.gif


As for what's next: more... more characters... MORE CHARACTERS
 
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