• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Status
Not open for further replies.
J

justsomeguy

Member
AusRoachman said:
Thanks to some amazing free models off the store ive started turning my old turn based prototype into a cops theme.

- Various units, from standard cop, to swat and snipers
- Various cop themed levels - hostage rescue, rioting, bank robbers, the list is endless
- Various non lethal weapons , with bonuses for arresting instead of killing
- Probably keep the hotline miami style violence whenever a cop/person is killed.

Here is one scenario i was prototyping earlier.

CArNrcqUUAAgWpu.png:large
Click to expand...

I absolutely adore the graphic style here.
 
R

Ranger X

Member
AlexSA2 said:
It's not a fighting game:

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

It should be fairly simple because each stage is really short and consists of one or two screens up until the final level.
Click to expand...

Ok I see. A side scroller is fairly easy to make. Although collisions are a bit of a challenge.
GameMaker is user friendly with its "icon programming" that you can use without real programming knowledge. However, I thing the strong point of GameMaker for noobs IS its programming language (GML).

You should jump right in with GML because its actually excellent to learn basic programming skills. Its sort of an "very easy javascript" and the engine is extremely forgiving on syntaxe.
 
A

anteevy

Member
Finally started with marketing for Roll Playing Game.

rpg1-4tease.jpg


Here is the blog post with the announcement: http://roll-playing-game.com/blog/2015/03/announcing-roll-playing-game/
Teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrXiz8vbOD8

Also have a website and a presskit, yay.

Ah and I'm on Twitter now (although I've always tried to get around it... :D): @felinefuelled
I've already added some of you from the Google Docs sheet. Can someone add me to the list please?

Feedback of any kind is, as always, appreciated.
 
J

Jacksinthe

Banned
Axispowers said:
Has anyone worked with testflight on the iOS? Try to get my game running from unity but I'm not sure if im doing it right. I have the game runnning on iOS but not testflight
Click to expand...
Enabled in iTunesConnect

Just switch it on and plop in your emails for testers. They get instructions from there.
 
S

soultron

Banned
misscelan said:
FreezeME kickstarter is now live:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme

rxrFiFU.gif

DBXEYGe.gif


Please help me spread the word 
Click to expand...

Backed and tweeted about it. Looking great so far.
---
Unrelated, does anyone know of any good papers or technical discussions relating to how to take a song (say, an .mp3 file), and analyse it with code so that beats can be extracted to use for gameplay purposes? I want to experiment with a simple rhythm game (mechanics-wise) where a user (or just myself) can supply a song and have that generate gameplay procedurally, rather than hardcoding each unique button press, for every beat of the song. I know that this will most likely involve storing and keeping a X-second buffer, but that seems fine.

I'm guessing the closest implementation would probably be Audiosurf?

Doing some reading relating to Audiosurf, it seems like the overall shape of the waveform can be used, as well as sampling for specific spikes in volume, that might be triggered by something like a snare going off.
 
M

misscelan

Member
soultron said:
Have you considered getting in touch (possibly sharing a 10- to 15-minute demo) with any gaming press people who write for blogs? I think you could drum up some great press with what you have so far.
Click to expand...

I have contacted a few press people and youtubers but not much luck so far :(
 
M

_machine

Member
misscelan said:
FreezeME kickstarter is now live:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/680102942/freezeme

Please help me spread the word 
Click to expand...
Looks like a really solid Kickstarter pitch. The only thing I would maybe add is a little personal touch, like tell a bit about yourself and maybe have some kind of narration in the video as well (though the gameplay does tell enough about the game itself). Good luck and I'll make sure to spread the word!
 
H

HelloMeow

Member
soultron said:
Backed and tweeted about it. Looking great so far.
---
Unrelated, does anyone know of any good papers or technical discussions relating to how to take a song (say, an .mp3 file), and analyse it with code so that beats can be extracted to use for gameplay purposes? I want to experiment with a simple rhythm game (mechanics-wise) where a user (or just myself) can supply a song and have that generate gameplay procedurally, rather than hardcoding each unique button press, for every beat of the song. I know that this will most likely involve storing and keeping a X-second buffer, but that seems fine.

I'm guessing the closest implementation would probably be Audiosurf?

Doing some reading relating to Audiosurf, it seems like the overall shape of the waveform can be used, as well as sampling for specific spikes in volume, that might be triggered by something like a snare going off.
Click to expand...

I think Audiosurf uses the loudness and detected onsets of a song. If you want something like that, this is a good place to get started. It's a series of tutorials with some basic stuff. It also links to a good paper. http://www.badlogicgames.com/wordpress/?cat=18&paged=3

If you want something more solid, you'd have to do tempo detection and beat tracking. This site helped me a lot to get started. It has a ton open source projects and related papers that can serve as an example. https://code.soundsoftware.ac.uk/explore
 
R

Roubjon

Member
All of the backers who supported Olympia Rising should have gotten their codes now! It's crazy that it's done and people will have the game in their hands.
 
C

Conkersbadfurday

Member
jungle1_zpsppuxvqsi.png


Playing around with how the jungle might look like when using this kind of art style/editor. Have to physically make the bigger trees (hope to do a canopy section as well). I think this is lookin' alright. Hope so, since that took awhile to make :p
 
L

liliththepale

Banned
Conkersbadfurday said:
jungle1_zpsppuxvqsi.png


Playing around with how the jungle might look like when using this kind of art style/editor. Have to physically make the bigger trees (hope to do a canopy section as well). I think this is lookin' alright. Hope so, since that took awhile to make :p
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how well the abstract, tree-shaped blocks mesh with the more realistic trees. All of the art is lovely, but the block stumps read much less like trees thanks to the smaller, more realized trees. Like I don't see them as trees until I look past the other ones, if you take my meaning. I'm missing the trees for the trees!

I probably would have realized the smaller trees with less fidelity. I hate saying that because I think they look good individually, but it would probably help the scene read more clearly.
 
C

Conkersbadfurday

Member
liliththepale said:
I'm not sure how well the abstract, tree-shaped blocks mesh with the more realistic trees. All of the art is lovely, but the block stumps read much less like trees thanks to the smaller, more realized trees. Like I don't see them as trees until I look past the other ones, if you take my meaning. I'm missing the trees for the trees!

I probably would have realized the smaller trees with less fidelity. I hate saying that because I think they look good individually, but it would probably help the scene read more clearly.
Click to expand...
Yeah, that's a fair look at it. I wonder if we fucked with the tree (the smaller trees) editor to make more like, shrubs and creeping vines and shit, more floor stuff, if that would help?
 
L

liliththepale

Banned
Conkersbadfurday said:
Yeah, that's a fair look at it. I wonder if we fucked with the tree (the smaller trees) editor to make more like, shrubs and creeping vines and shit, more floor stuff, if that would help?
Click to expand...

Ooh, probably! If it's not too much work, I'd definitely say it's worth a try.

ConvenientBox said:
more more more!!!

LErOHmJ.gif


Added some bone animation to the guns, man blender and ue4 DO NOT PLAY WELL.

EUghhhh.
Click to expand...

Reminds me of the explosions from Sunset Overdrive, which is a good thing. Was that one of the inspirations?

Sunset-Overdrive-Boom.jpg
Click to expand...
 
C

cbox

Member
liliththepale said:
Reminds me of the explosions from Sunset Overdrive, which is a good thing. Was that one of the inspirations?
Click to expand...

I've never played that actually, it was something I just thought would look cool. That's awesome though! I plan on randomizing the text out of a bunch of keywords.
 
C

Conkersbadfurday

Member
liliththepale said:
Ooh, probably! If it's not too much work, I'd definitely say it's worth a try.
Click to expand...
Naw, shouldn't be much work at all. Removing the main stumps off those trees is just tweeking a stat or two. When it comes ot other plantlife, that'll be on my bro to add more custom stuff to the tree editor, but that thing grows as we need it to.

Appreciate the feedback :)
 
H

Hopeford

Member
Hey guys, new here. Have been lurking the thread for a while though! Feel kind of nervous posting here after lurking for so long haha.

I've been working on a murder mystery visual novel thing for a while now and it's beginning to take shape. Elevator pitch for it is "people are trapped in an underwater castle, then murder mysteries happen. So far I think I'm going to call the game "Logic Epee" since it's a fencing-themed murder mystery, but I have no idea if I'm going to stick with it.

Writing is done, programming is done(I used Unity instead of a VN engine because I'm an imbecile) but I basically just started on the "don't make it look awful and play awful" stage of it. I think it looks pretty bland so far, but I'm irrationally happy that it's beginning to take shape.

Here's what it looks like so far:

PjQqWVq.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FgETZV3xuI
http://i.imgur.com/Ge8djZW.gif (Linking this because it's a bit of a heavy gif)
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
ConvenientBox said:
more more more!!!

LErOHmJ.gif


Added some bone animation to the guns, man blender and ue4 DO NOT PLAY WELL.

EUghhhh.
Click to expand...
What issues are you having with Blender and UE4? I think someone else mentioned it but at least basic FBX export/import should work ok.

Also in addition to the knee/butt gun thing, the barrels bouncing so much is very distracting. Also also, if it's a game based on focusing on distant sky targets, having a giant weapon that blocks 1/3 of the screen's vertical space would probably irritate me. :p
 
L

Lord_Balkan

Member
Hey guys,

I am sad to say that I am retiring from this thread for now. Been working on my own little project but I just got a job offer from a AAA so it would be a bit disingenuous to continue posting here. You-all are doing some great stuff and I just wanted to wish everyone best of luck!
 
L

liliththepale

Banned
Lord_Balkan said:
Hey guys,

I am sad to say that I am retiring from this thread for now. Been working on my own little project but I just got a job offer from a AAA so it would be a bit disingenuous to continue posting here. You-all are doing some great stuff and I just wanted to wish everyone best of luck!
Click to expand...

A couple other AAA devs hang out in here from time to time since they do indie stuff on the side. I think Sean Noonan (Jack B Nimble) works at Ubisoft.
 
P

Paz

Member
liliththepale said:
A couple other AAA devs hang out in here from time to time since they do indie stuff on the side. I think Sean Noonan (Jack B Nimble) works at Ubisoft.
Click to expand...

It can be hard to be active in this thread without working on your own stuff, I used to stealth read it while working at Sega.
 
L

liliththepale

Banned
Paz said:
It can be hard to be active in this thread without working on your own stuff, I used to stealth read it while working at Sega.
Click to expand...

I guess I just assumed that once an indie dev, always an indie dev. I can't imagine ever not wanting to work on my own stuff even if I was making someone else' game during the day.
 
L

Lord_Balkan

Member
liliththepale said:
A couple other AAA devs hang out in here from time to time since they do indie stuff on the side. I think Sean Noonan (Jack B Nimble) works at Ubisoft.
Click to expand...

Trust me I will still lurk :p I just won't contribute.

I'd love to do indie stuff on the side, but I doubt that will happen unless I target mobile or something. Getting too close to conflict-of-interest territory.

EDIT: Just a pick of what I was working on if anyone was wondering
16463902538_77eec3ba30_o.png
Click to expand...
 
M

missile

Member
Yeah pretty hard to follow if you are knee deep (lost) in some textbooks while
making only cognitive progress without anything on the screen. Arrrgh...!
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Are there different terms for different styles of pixel art? For example the low detail style on the left of this pic as compared to the one on the far right.

rpgconcepts_zpsd0b01b66.png


Edit: got my right and left mixed up
 
V

V_Arnold

Member
The middle one is not pixel art.
I do not know any specific terms for it, the difference is the target resolution. I have come to actually love and prefer the lower resolution sprites (especially when they are paired with superb animations, there are some great stuff done by pros, check out pixeljoint for them).

Also, if we are going down to the specifics, one has (partial) outline, the other does not, so that is the main difference. Granted, you cant really have black outlines with that low resolution without compromising detail even more.
 
M

_machine

Member
KarasuEXE said:
3 is my favorite!
Click to expand...

WanderingWind said:
Number 6 without a single doubt in my head.
Click to expand...
Thanks guys, we are currently modeling the final version. We are probably going to different versions for the launch still since so far the opinions have been very, very varied.

We also just tried out some new GPU particles (don't mind the iceblock, that's a placeholder and we'll make a new with refractions and other cool material magic):
ezgif.com-crop5yj65.gif
 
C

cbox

Member
Dynamite Shikoku said:
Why do the two barrels move independently?
Click to expand...

I animated it as if it were the barrel of a gun, with some kickback. Next iteration will just go backwards, moreso a cannon than a gun. Then in unreal I just paired the two barrels together.

Blizzard said:
What issues are you having with Blender and UE4? I think someone else mentioned it but at least basic FBX export/import should work ok.

Also in addition to the knee/butt gun thing, the barrels bouncing so much is very distracting. Also also, if it's a game based on focusing on distant sky targets, having a giant weapon that blocks 1/3 of the screen's vertical space would probably irritate me. :p
Click to expand...

It's just the exporting that is making me rip hair out. Sometimes it works alright, sometimes not. I've applied all rotation and scale, but sometimes whenever I bring in an animation it just goes to hell, or doesn't export the entire animation. For example, I modeled a plane and added an armature to control propeller rotation. Here's an example of my blender workflow, I'm not sure if it's 100% correct. I didn't show the export. When this imports to ue4, the 360 rotation isn't complete. All frames are there, but not a complete 360 rotation.

VQZjV5M.gif


As for the game, It's going to be a mobile game ala beachhead so precision isn't really an option. It'll just be a simple defense-ish game with powerups, etc. I agree though, the cannons are pretty huge, I'll be experimenting with placement for sure! I do want to show them though.
 
M

_machine

Member
ConvenientBox said:
I animated it as if it were the barrel of a gun, with some kickback. Next iteration will just go backwards, moreso a cannon than a gun. Then in unreal I just paired the two barrels together.



It's just the exporting that is making me rip hair out. Sometimes it works alright, sometimes not. I've applied all rotation and scale, but sometimes whenever I bring in an animation it just goes to hell, or doesn't export the entire animation. For example, I modeled a plane and added an armature to control propeller rotation. Here's an example of my blender workflow, I'm not sure if it's 100% correct. I didn't show the export. When this imports to ue4, the 360 rotation isn't complete. All frames are there, but not a complete 360 rotation.
Click to expand...
Ouch, we've been having some major issues with Blender and UE4 today as well. Our character artist uses Blender and the animations were just fine in Blender, but when imported to Unreal the dress of the character was going all over the place and clipping like crazy. In Unity it's working quite fine and we spent like 4 hrs debugging that shit, but no luck so far. I'll let you know if we find a solution though.
 
C

cbox

Member
_machine said:
Ouch, we've been having some major issues with Blender and UE4 today as well. Our character artist uses Blender and the animations were just fine in Blender, but when imported to Unreal the dress of the character was going all over the place and clipping like crazy. In Unity it's working quite fine and we spent like 4 hrs debugging that shit, but no luck so far. I'll let you know if we find a solution though.
Click to expand...

I had those problems right at the beginning. You have to make sure the scale is set to 0.01 and when exporting, to have the right -z,y dimensions ( I'm pretty sure the default fbx export orientation is ok though) . And, make sure all rotations and scales have been applied and zero'd out.
 
M

_machine

Member
ConvenientBox said:
I had those problems right at the beginning. You have to make sure the scale is set to 0.01 and when exporting, to have the right -z,y dimensions ( I'm pretty sure the default fbx export orientation is ok though) . And, make sure all rotations and scales have been applied and zero'd out.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure we've done it like that, though will have to check it. The weird thing is that we haven't had the problem before with all the over 30 animations he did for the pre-alpha characters.
 
V

Vark

Member
pixlexic said:
So what's the best way to handle large amounts of data in a game?

Sqlite?
Click to expand...

Depends on your platform and your options. SQL is pretty ubiquitous but if you have noSQL as an option its much more modern.

If both are overkill you can also write your own format and import from a csv excel export or something and slam things into dictionaries.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Solo developer behind The Falconeer and Bulwark explains why Game Pass is so great for indies:
2
54
2K
chakadave replied
NEW Xbox Indie Game Fest Demo Event: 35 new demos
11
1K
Punished Miku replied
Indie GAF: Speed Rivals anime racing game
Game Dev Indie
0
477
BioFan replied
Capcom is holding a game development competition for Japanese students using its RE Engine
Game Dev
11
811
Dacvak replied
Amazon is working on an upcoming UE5 game with veterans from EverQuest, PlanetSide, H1Z1, and Free Realms
Rumor
2
323
Little Mac replied
Top Bottom