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[kiguel182]

Visually it would be nice to see a bit more variety in everything. Would be nice if the boxes "preferred" to come from the length of the device since 16:9 devices don't leave much room for error when boxes come from the short 9 bias. More sound effects would go far to help the game-y feel.

The game is interesting in terms of gameplay but without more one-offs it can get stale and repetitive pretty quick. You do have some power-ups but I would like to see more in the way of things you shoot to spice it up a bit.

Major complaints:
-You have ads yet you do not set a 'net connection as a special requirement in permissions
-Instead of giving an option to sign in with Google Play you just auto-ask - should be an option on the menu
-You play ads DURING the gameplay on-screen (chewing up that "9" bias) and IMMEDIATELY when you are touched, before being taken to a game over screen. Pick ONE and ONLY ONE method to display ads. Having ads everywhere is annoying, especially a mix of banner ads during play and full-screen-to-the-face ads you don't see coming.

Ads should always be at the launch of the game, or after you hit PLAY, before the gameplay starts. If people are doing well and have to put the game down - how are you supposed to get impressions if they don't die to show the ad? I frequently clear running apps by swiping throughout the day that are minimized, i'm not the only one.

Regarding Google Play I remember hearing a Google conference where they advised automatic sign in (you can always cancel when prompt) saying that if people have to opt in they will be less likely to do so. That's what I did in my game, alt ought I should've had an option to disable it but never got to implement that.

The ads thing is a great solution. I have ads when you die and when you pause but you are right, if people do good and quit the app they won't see them.

 

[Jobbs]

Sux. Is the pain a physically or mentally kind of thing?

Mostly mental. I've heard other people say this from time to time, but drawing, the only thing I reckon I'm any good at, for some reason just isn't fun a lot of the time.

Just bellyaching.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

Mostly mental. I've heard other people say this from time to time, but drawing, the only thing I reckon I'm any good at, for some reason just isn't fun a lot of the time.

Just bellyaching.

It might just be that you derive more pleasure from challenging yourself in areas you know that you're not strong at than settling for things that you know you are.

Ain't no shame in that.

 

[Jobbs]

It might just be that you derive more pleasure from challenging yourself in areas you know that you're not strong at than settling for things that you know you are.

Ain't no shame in that.

No, I think it's because I don't want to make anything unless it's good, and there's mania and stress and anxiety around making any piece, because if it's not good enough I take a hit to my psyche. And so I either finish it without it being good, or just keep working on it, so things tend to be an exhaustive process for one reason or another.

When I think about doing a new piece, there's anxiety around it as I build it up in my mind, because if it doesn't come out how I want, I'll be upset. Because of this, I feel a palpable resistance to embarking on new pieces that I have to overcome each and every time.

I think maybe I'm crazy.

 

[Pehesse]

The one thing I'm actually sorta good at, drawing/animating, is the thing I rarely enjoy doing. It's painful (much of the time). It's like flexing a muscle and holding it. I love having done it afterwards, but I never seem to actually enjoy doing it, and this can lead to productivity loss.

Meanwhile, I am always more eager to actually implement, but the programming side is the side I'm pretty shitty at.

Man without a country.

I can understand that. I happen to enjoy the art asset part, but it can also become a drag when you need/want to get to testing something fast. And it can literally become a pain when your wrists/elbows/back start acting up... I don't know how professional animators manage to keep their focus over that single activity over the course of an entire career/life, but I'm glad I got the chance to take a break now and then and do something else with the game. When I get bored/tired of one part, I jump to another, and this is how I've kept going so far... as a one-man team, you never run out of different things to do :-D

No, I think it's because I don't want to make anything unless it's good, and there's mania and stress and anxiety around making any piece, because if it's not good enough I take a hit to my psyche. And so I either finish it without it being good, or just keep working on it, so things tend to be an exhaustive process for one reason or another.

When I think about doing a new piece, there's anxiety around it as I build it up in my mind, because if it doesn't come out how I want, I'll be upset.

I think maybe I'm crazy.

EDIT: I don't think you are. If anything, this reads like the "normal" creative process for most people I've encountered. The gap between what we envision and what comes out is the drive that keeps us pushing forward. As far as I know, that gap isn't ever really fulfilled - I've heard some argue that's a good thing, as that's the drive that keeps you growing, though some take it mainly as an anxiety source. You seem to fall into that second pattern, but I'd say even anxiety can be a powerful motivator as well (sure is for me). I don't know if the act of "drawing" ever really becomes pleasurable, or if it's the act of trying to link what you're doing in the moment, with what's in your mind, that *could* be pleasurable, or simply the act of looking back upon what you've done? Anyway, none of what you wrote feels weird or crazy to me, on the contrary.



And now for a little art-dump-screenshot-saturday, since this is what this week has been mostly about. I posted about the pre-match scene earlier, but I now have the first post match scene done as well, along with some WIP stuff for the difficulty select screen.

It's the writing that's getting to me mostly, these days... so much writing to do. I'm definitely not doing another VN next! :-D

 

[Dewfreak83]

So I'm looking to redesign the About Us / Team Listing page.

Anyone want to share theirs for inspiration?

 

[Minamu]

Regarding Google Play I remember hearing a Google conference where they advised automatic sign in (you can always cancel when prompt) saying that if people have to opt in they will be less likely to do so. That's what I did in my game, alt ought I should've had an option to disable it but never got to implement that.

The ads thing is a great solution. I have ads when you die and when you pause but you are right, if people do good and quit the app they won't see them.

That's what my programmer said too, or simply that that's the praxis that others follow. Not that it matters much yet, we have a total of three downloads so far xD (searching for the game doesn't actually work, you only see it with a direct link or by removing the spaces..., same with our "company name") It's true that great players won't see any ads beyond the first ones guaranteed, but more power to them I suppose Even as the creator I've managed to die with zero points scored so I doubt it's a massive problem. But we're looking into adding ads to the main menu etc again. Having ads on the short side of the phone was an alternative but apparently you can't really choose ad position yourself (or at least, my programmer couldn't apply the manual overrides for unknown reasons).

 

[missile]

Mostly mental. I've heard other people say this from time to time, but drawing, the only thing I reckon I'm any good at, for some reason just isn't fun a lot of the time.

Just bellyaching.

I see. Most of my more technical posts or screens like the recent rotozoom for
example I do just to relax from the other more elaborated stuff I'm working
on, which can be very daunting at times even if I like it to death. Hard stuff
is hard no matter how good you are, I think. So if I get burned out for a
couple of hours, I start to follow some side quests in doing random yet
pleasing stuff and tinker around with it for awhile until the main engine
power up again.

I can ...

Yes, you can! xD Well, Pehesse, your game will hit the consoles (PS3/4),
right? Am not really playing on PC. Thanx!

 

[gooey]

Sux. Is the pain a physically or mentally kind of thing?
For one reason or another, I like the style.

Thanks, man! I'm ashamed to admit how long those basic sprites took for me to make.
Think I still need to polish up that second one.

@Pehesse Your art makes me feel nostalgic. Reminds of comics I used to read as a kid. I love it. Can't wait to see that last panel in colour.

I'll screencap some footage soon, but here's a vine.
Stats randomly generate at the start, then you crawl. Very basic but functional.
Random encounters exists only in debug text at the moment so working on that next.
Randomly generated dungeons now mostly work also.
And of course, the textures/UI are just placeholders.
https://vine.co/v/eKV1MOtXK67

 

[Pehesse]

I see. Most of my more technical posts or screens like the recent rotozoom for
example I do just to relax from the other more elaborated stuff I'm working
on, which can be very daunting at times even if I like it to death. Hard stuff
is hard no matter how good you are, I think. So if I get burned out for a
couple of hours, I start to follow some side quests in doing random yet
pleasing stuff and tinker around with it for awhile until the main engine
power up again.



Yes, you can! xD Well, Pehesse, your game will hit the consoles (PS3/4),
right? Am not really playing on PC. Thanx!

Yes we can! :-D Isn't that the local mantra? :-D

I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to start to develop for consoles, however, so for now I'm targeting PC only, because it's what I *can* do. Also, I want to know/make sure that the game fully works and is enjoyed by people, before committing to the kind of process that is contacting the Big Ones. I'm quite happy being in my garage doing my own thing for now... it's a lot less scary that way. Yes, it's the anxiety talking again!

Ideally, if the game works out in the end, I'd talk to someone about making a version for consoles (I had thought Vita because portability, but sure, PS3/4 would work too, especially if it's asked so nicely :-D). But I have no idea what use I'd be to them, apart from giving the assets/script. It'd probably have to be remade from scratch, too... well, actually, I don't know - I don't know much about console development at all!

@Pehesse Your art makes me feel nostalgic. Reminds of comics I used to read as a kid. I love it. Can't wait to see that last panel in colour.

Thanks! Nostalgic, eh? Could it be about Love and Rockets? I've been hearing references to Jaime Hernandez' work a lot, though I'll admit to not knowing it before (and I still don't, tbh, though I'd love to take the time to read through it all when I'm done with this!)
Can't wait to be done with those panels in color, they're going to take a while :-D

 

[Davision]

Made some progress with my first person painting game and have this new mechanic working now:

I probably still need to make it more clear.

 

[missile]

Yes we can! :-D Isn't that the local mantra? :-D

I'm afraid I wouldn't know where to start to develop for consoles, however, so for now I'm targeting PC only, because it's what I *can* do. Also, I want to know/make sure that the game fully works and is enjoyed by people, before committing to the kind of process that is contacting the Big Ones. I'm quite happy being in my garage doing my own thing for now... it's a lot less scary that way. ...

Yeah better to finish the game first before poking the Big Ones around.

 

[Minamu]

Made some progress with my first person painting game and have this new mechanic working now:

I probably still need to make it more clear.

Wow that's really cool Pretty incredible actually!

 

[gooey]

Thanks! Nostalgic, eh? Could it be about Love and Rockets? I've been hearing references to Jaime Hernandez' work a lot, though I'll admit to not knowing it before (and I still don't, tbh, though I'd love to take the time to read through it all when I'm done with this!)
Can't wait to be done with those panels in color, they're going to take a while :-D

I honestly can't remember what it was. It was French, if that helps.
I used to get a load of French comics from a cousin. It was fun because I had to interpret what was going on without knowing the language.

Made some progress with my first person painting game and have this new mechanic working now:

I probably still need to make it more clear.

Damn... everyones games in here look so impressive.
Not to sounds like a dick but this makes a nice change to the indiedev/gamedev sub reddits.

This is marvellous. Naturally, Okami springs to mind. Can I follow this anywhere?

 

[JODOROWSKY51]

Love checking out all the games in this thread, but lack the time to contribute that often..

Until now!

Check out some new screen shots for De Mambo!

And here's the new trailer - http://youtu.be/DsL0oG7_L4E

 

[missile]

Hey Jobbs, I hope this keeps you motivated ...

 

[bsp]

shafts n secrets

 

[Jobbs]

Hey Jobbs, I hope this keeps you motivated ...

what do you work on when you're not doing these experiments?

 

[Blizzard]

shafts n secrets

I like this art style. It reminds me of Notch's cancelled space game, 0x10c.

 

[gooey]

Hey Jobbs, I hope this keeps you motivated ...

I imagine this is what Samus' nightmares look like. XD

 

[missile]

what do you work on when you're not doing these experiments?

Don't know how to put it in a sentence, but it would include vacuum tubes,
electromagnetic deflection, heterodyn receiver (mixers), signal theory, filter
design, video signal modulation, video beam modulation, UHF wave reflection,
video signal distortion, ..., and lots of math. So at times I need a break,
mind you. xD

 

[Jobbs]

Don't know how to put it a sentence, but it would include vacuum tubes,
electromagnetic deflection, heterodyn receiver (mixers), signal theory, filter
design, video signal modulation, video beam modulation, UHF wave reflection,
video signal distortion, ..., and lots of math.

To what end?

 

[missile]

^ Am building a CRT simulator.

Edit: Middleware.

 

[anteevy]

Love checking out all the games in this thread, but lack the time to contribute that often..

Until now!

Check out some new screen shots for De Mambo!

And here's the new trailer - http://youtu.be/DsL0oG7_L4E

Looks fun! Well-made trailer btw.

 

[bsp]

I like this art style. It reminds me of Notch's cancelled space game, 0x10c.

thanks

yeah, jonatan poljo's work on 0x10c was what kind of sparked our art change ~2 years ago. forever grateful for learning that point filtering exists in unity

 

[SquirrelWide]

Hey Jobbs, I hope this keeps you motivated ...

Metroid meets Sonic's Chaos Emerald Zones. Love it.

 

[mStudios]

Trying to make some gui's

(Yes, one of the background is from Ghost in the shell, the bedroom background is a placeholder from one of the artist)

 

[zeioIIDX]

I like this art style. It reminds me of Notch's cancelled space game, 0x10c.

My thoughts exactly!

 

[missile]

I like this art style. It reminds me of Notch's cancelled space game, 0x10c.

I dig the art style but not the colors. I wish 0x10c wouldn't be cancelled,
I was so into the DCPU.

Metroid meets Sonic's Chaos Emerald Zones. Love it.

Thx. Well, the whole point of rotorzoom (back in the days) was to demonstrate
who can do multiplication the fastest. Rotating and scaling like that implied
you had some pretty decent methods at your disposal. My variant is straight
forward, no optimization just the algorithms. However, I did a rotorzoom on
Notch's DCPU which I never showed public.

 

[JODOROWSKY51]

Looks fun! Well-made trailer btw.

Thanks! Had to rush to get a trailer done for some applications, but then had time to polish it a bit.

 

[Davision]

I honestly can't remember what it was. It was French, if that helps.
I used to get a load of French comics from a cousin. It was fun because I had to interpret what was going on without knowing the language.


Damn... everyones games in here look so impressive.
Not to sounds like a dick but this makes a nice change to the indiedev/gamedev sub reddits.

This is marvellous. Naturally, Okami springs to mind. Can I follow this anywhere?

Thx, it is in a very early stage but I post my progress on twitter: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom

 

[_machine]

Despite working plenty of overtime this week, we still have some work to do before the Nordic Game, but here's some of our WIP stuff:

-

Need to take some bigger ones as well as some with the UI, but I'd love to hear your thoughts as we will have to move on to the second level in the coming weeks. I know that it needs at least a bit of more work on the texture balancing and could use a few more assets to replace the high amount of walls, but feedback would definitely be welcomed

 

[Klart]

Anybody got any updates on Mother Russia Bleeds? I wish more companies would make a spiritual sequel to Streets of Rage.

 

[gooey]

Thx, it is in a very early stage but I post my progress on twitter: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom

Followed.

Does anyone on here use tumblr? I need some more game devs to follow.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Trying to make some gui's


(Yes, one of the background is from Ghost in the shell, the bedroom background is a placeholder from one of the artist)

Ok seeing both side by side I know whats the problem of the right character that didnt quite place last week. Her head is too small for the body and her neck too wide.

 

[bsp]

I dig the art style but not the colors. I wish 0x10c wouldn't be cancelled,
I was so into the DCPU.

The screenshots are just from the Tiki Hotel area on board the ship -- the whole game isn't wood, rock, and thatch under kitsch red and green lighting

 

[taku]

The screenshots are just from the Tiki Hotel area on board the ship -- the whole game isn't wood, rock, and thatch under kitsch red and green lighting

I am loving the colour/mood of this shot.

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

 

[adixon]

I love your art so much, Taku!

 

[Pehesse]

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

Agreed with above, I love this.

 

[Davision]

I tweaked the shader fx for the drawing:

I experimented quite a lot in the process:

More on twitter: https://twitter.com/TocoGamescom

@taku
That looks great!

 

[timetokill]

I am loving the colour/mood of this shot.

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

Holy fuck. Seriously? God DAMN that looks pretty.

 

[desu]

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

Great looking game looks great!

 

[Turfster]

Man, I'm really pissed that animating things for UE4 is pretty much impossible with Blender.
Half the time Blender to UE4 goes wrong, and UE4 to Blender gives animations with keyframes on non-integer frame numbers, and saving it again gives an unmatching skeleton.
WTF? How am I supposed to get any work done without paying a ton of money for art soft...

 

[mStudios]

Ok seeing both side by side I know whats the problem of the right character that didnt quite place last week. Her head is too small for the body and her neck too wide.

Yup, I'm on the way to fix it now.

 

[missile]

The screenshots are just from the Tiki Hotel area on board the ship -- the whole game isn't wood, rock, and thatch under kitsch red and green lighting

Ah, I see. :+

 

[ken_matthews]

I am making a game damn it!

MoCap testing with Kinect; works fairly well but it still needs a lot of cleaning up in Maya. But you can get really good results.

Uppecut animation created with Kinect mocap, it came out fairly well (eventually)

Different designs for one of two playable characters. At the moment the textures are really basic (or non existent). I never thought concept artists where important before, but after attempting to design a main character I completely understand why they are needed. Still I do not think I did too bad with the design.

Item equipment system (WIP). All items are procedurally generated (meshes and stats)

 

[Galdelico]

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

Yeah, this looks fabulous.
And I love the animations - both characters' and environmental animations - so much. I find the basic frames' count working particularly well with your artstyle. Huge thumbs up.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I am loving the colour/mood of this shot.

Here's a gif from our game, Yonder.

This game looks absolutely fantastic.

I am making a game damn it!

MoCap testing with Kinect; works fairly well but it still needs a lot of cleaning up in Maya. But you can get really good results.

Uppecut animation created with Kinect mocap, it came out fairly well (eventually)

Different designs for one of two playable characters. At the moment the textures are really basic (or non existent). I never thought concept artists where important before, but after attempting to design a main character I completely understand why they are needed. Still I do not think I did too bad with the design.

Item equipment system (WIP). All items are procedurally generated (meshes and stats)

Oh, cowboys! That arleady makes it interesting.

 

[missile]

Hey guys 'n gals, do you like my new dither pattern? The primary pattern used
is a clustered-dot pattern (which can also be used for patterning) rotated
about 45 degrees creating a quincux pattern which will push the main aliasing
pattern out to the diagonals (as can be seen in the animation) and as such
improves visual perception (when viewing standard images) since the eye is
less sensitive (has lower resolution) along the diagonals. Colors used are 8
true shades of red and green, and 4 true shades for blue (perceptual based)
leading to 256 colors in total. The dither pattern produces 19 shades between
each pair of true shades simulating a color palette of around one million
colors. The price to pay? To simulate more colors we essentially need more
room, hence, the spatial resolution of the image needs drop -- which it does.

This pattern is sort of an extension of the old black-and-white newspaper
printing technique (clustered-dot) to color -- based on the assumption that
we can print the colored dots upon each other (dot-on-dot) with perfect
registration to get the mixed one.

Within the animation (lens) you can see how the shades are produced as the
pattern/dots fill up like in newspaper print (if you look closely).

Here a comparison of stills

without

and with said dithering applied

Btw; Am going to do a proper lens next. Once you can scale up and down, you
can also have a lens simply by making the scaling factor depending on the
distance from the center of the lens, or for that matter on whatever you want
and looks cool. I just have to make the scaling parameters within my crappy
scaler dynamic, I guess, and apply some meaningful scaling functions. I think
lenses can be cool for user interfaces, too. For example, when you have a
list which extents beyond the screen vertically you can scale the list (its
image) such it would fit (or large parts of it) within the screen bounds and
use the lens to magnify the part of interest while hovering along the list/
image. Don't know if it's really that useful, but sounds good at least. I will
try. Someone has some experience doing so?

 

[floatstarpx]

I've been working on a couple of things - Tiny Outrun, for Arduino with TinyScreen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYmHtBGt6fU

...and this dynamic damage stuff (I'll post more details about the game soon):