Support NeoGAF

[HP_Wuvcraft]

8/month for a balance less than 1500 or free with a balance of 1500+ or if you use their business CC. I opted for the balance requirement instead of their CC since I found Capital One to be much better, for me.

BMO Harris sounds fucking amazing. I have a huge spreadsheet of all my options. It's just the $2.50 transaction fee for non-Harris ATMs that gets me hung up.

Chase also looks really, really good.

BoA sounds good when you read the fee is waived if you spend at least $250 a month with a linked card, but that is more expensive than the rest just fee wise.

Success, I made my game look like painted by a 4 year old:

Also made a test with vertex color painting, but that is only in the editor, still hoping Epic makes it also work at runtime.

I'd play the fuck out of this.

Hey indie devs. I could use some advice.

Here is a mockup of the thing I'm working on.. it's a strategy game, similar vein to spaceship "management" games:



This is a mouse/touch driven interface. I am trying to suss out the best way to click on the various rooms and have the crew sprites pathfind to the right level. The sprites themselves are actually hooked up "sorta" bone-based, because I want to ragdoll them in certain situations (explosions, gravity off etc). So I've been looking at 3D platformer tutorials, as well as 2D pathfinding with A* plugins and whatnot. I've got it working on a single floor (big trigger volume buttons around each "room", click crew sprite then room, they walk to the target).

That main "shaft" towards the front of the ship was originally an elevator. I ditched that for "transport pads" (not shown) that will simply zip the crew sprites between floors. But I'm not sure how to do the logic to reach the appropriate floor first. Essentially it needs to be something like: if floor clicked is different than current crew floor, run to nearest elevator pad and execute that to correct floor, then run to target. I'm pretty sure there are systems for this already but because of my slightly odd combo of physics platformer and mouse-driven (indirect control) click-to-move, I keep running into a 3D solution, or super simple proscribed 2D techniques that I don't want to use.

Just curious how some of you would handle it. Bonus points for a Playmaker based solution (I love it!). Thanks!

I'd also play the hell out of that.

 

[Lautaro]

Woah, apparently there's some heavy compatibility issues between Yosemite (OSX version) and Unity... I'm starting to consider postponing a Mac version until those issues get fixed because I can't possibly deal with the amount of problems the developers of KSP and Wasteland 2 have in their forums.

Curiously, the Linux version seems to be doing mostly Ok.

 

[The Real Abed]

Woah, apparently there's some heavy compatibility issues between Yosemite (OSX version) and Unity... I'm starting to consider postponing a Mac version until those issues get fixed because I can't possibly deal with the amount of problems the developers of KSP and Wasteland 2 have in their forums.

Curiously, the Linux version seems to be doing mostly Ok.

Try fixing permissions on OS X.

 

[Lautaro]

Try fixing permissions on OS X.

You sure is that simple? in the forums of KSP and Wasteland 2 there's pages and pages of people having problems, I imagine giving permissions to their applications was the first thing they tried (I don't know what entails, I don't have a Mac).

 

[The Real Abed]

You sure is that simple? in the forums of KSP and Wasteland 2 there's pages and pages of people having problems, I imagine giving permissions to their applications was the first thing they tried (I don't know what entails, I don't have a Mac).

I dunno. All I know is I couldn't run Unity at all on my system for months until someone suggested repairing permissions. It worked and now I have no problems. But your milage may vary.

 

[Lautaro]

I dunno. All I know is I couldn't run Unity at all on my system for months until someone suggested repairing permissions. It worked and now I have no problems. But your milage may vary.

The people testing my prototype already tried that. I'll try again with a 64 bit version or one using the default shaders (I have the suspicion that the origin of the problem is there).

 

[Dewfreak83]

While my game is very text and story heaving (interactive fiction), I'm trying to add fun elements that make the player believe he's in his house, recalling his past.

Such as having a trophy room that has all the collected treasures and mementos from their, younger, adventuring days:

 

[timetokill]

While my game is very text and story heaving

Hmmm

Sounds disturbing tbh

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

So, the family tax guy is meeting with me tomorrow to discuss if we should form a partnership or keep the company a sole proprietor. Pros, cons for each?

 

[DrLazy]

I'm almost done with my Word Game Adventure: Scroodles. If nothing else, I'm proud I'm actually going to finish it! I think other indies can agree that finishing a game is an accomplishment all on its own.

Still working on our trailer.

Also, I just learned how to make GIFS, which is awesome.

 

[Yoshi]

Your characters are extremely adorable. Remind me a bit of Rare .

 

[missile]

I don't believe compiled, at least I have not seen. Most assets are sold as packages which contain the source. ...

So it's easy to copy the source then, right? How to protect the source if you
want to?

Access to Unity source code is available for pro users, however, it is available only by special request I am reading. I am guessing they do not just hand it out to everyone ...

Is it possible to link (platform dependent) object files?

... I am considering sourcing some of my home grown stuff. More than likely my custom 2D physics. I see a lot of people have troubles with using Rigidbody2D, particularly smoothness of motion and collision. I am just not sure if I will give up my entire character controller for platform interaction (slippery, conveyor, etc), wall stick and other custom code particular for my game. I feel that would be too much, not from a giving away standpoint, but in terms of functionality. I can strip it down to essentials like just movement, collision, gravity, etc. Things that get you started and people can take it from there. If its too built for a particular purpose it will be harder to repurposed and strip. Something to consider when I have more time.

Sound good. Releasing such gems will make you/AG more known by others, if that
is worth anything.

 

[VisceralBowl]

Screwed up sliding door from earlier.

http://a.pomf.se/vxrbbn.mp4

 

[Lautaro]

Anyone with a Mac can give a try to my demo?

I just need to know if it works: Dropbox Link

 

[mStudios]

Anyone knows a good tutorial to learn the basic of After Effect?
I want to make a trailer, but someone is asking me a good 1000$ to make one for me lol.

 

[liliththepale]

Anyone knows a good tutorial to learn the basic of After Effect?
I want to make a trailer, but someone is asking me a good 1000$ to make one for me lol.

I'm a bit late to the critique, but I love your character designs! Only thing that jumps out at me is that they don't blink at all.

After Effects isn't very hard to use for basic stuff and there are lots of tutorials. Probably what I would do, since there's a lot to choose from, is just google a specific problem and get whichever video(s) jump out at you on that subject.

 

[Yoshi]

Anyone knows a good tutorial to learn the basic of After Effect?
I want to make a trailer, but someone is asking me a good 1000$ to make one for me lol.

That sounds like quite the hourly wage . By the way, have you already posted what your novel is about?

 

[Blizzard]

So, the family tax guy is meeting with me tomorrow to discuss if we should form a partnership or keep the company a sole proprietor. Pros, cons for each?

Are you in the U.S.? I can't give tax advice regardless, and I only have LLC experience, but I will say that in my opinion partnerships (or LLC's with more than one member) become a bit of a hassle taxwise (multiple filings). If you already have a tax person that may not be a concern, however.

Also, multiple members means you'll want to legally to nail down the details of what happens if you end up with a disagreement, someone leaving, selling their share, etc. More paperwork. (again just my opinion)

 

[bkw]

Finally switching my Unity dev from Mac to Windows, and I'm getting started with Visual Studio (2012 to be exact). I've never seriously worked inside VS before. Any awesome free extensions I should look into? I'm a sucker for cool tools. Back at work they had Visual Assist which looks pretty neat, but not quite ready to drop money.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Are you in the U.S.? I can't give tax advice regardless, and I only have LLC experience, but I will say that in my opinion partnerships (or LLC's with more than one member) become a bit of a hassle taxwise (multiple filings). If you already have a tax person that may not be a concern, however.

Also, multiple members means you'll want to legally to nail down the details of what happens if you end up with a disagreement, someone leaving, selling their share, etc. More paperwork. (again just my opinion)

I'm U.S., and that is my thought exactly. Still, no harm is hearing the dude out. I'm already spending a lot on shit that I thought I had locked down.

 

[Jumplion]

So, I've been fiddling around for a bit making a prototype or two on some ideas I've had for some games. The main one I've been working on-and-off with for about a year is a twin-stick shooter idea where you can only shoot and position yourself in 8 different places.

Forgive me as I'm no savant at making models, so cubes and spheres will have to do for now. Right now it's just defend the center from enemies.

Download Link (PC):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By8r0QhYr5GZbUdBaFVPNkJjTnM/view?usp=sharing
WASD for positioning
Arrow keys to shoot
Space to switch weapons (3 so far - standard, shotgun, "gemini" twin ship)
Q for "super shot"

I'm mostly trying to think what to do next. I'm trying to think how I can make it feel better, adding a smooth transition when the player switches positions, changing up the camera, and trying out some different organizations of the mechanics here as I have a few other ideas swirling in my head based off of these mechanics. Let me know what you think, I'd appreciate any feedback.

I'm also, as an exercise, trying to hash out a snowboarding movement system to hopefully expand into other ideas. Will probably share that once I have something more substantial.

 

[desu]

Finally switching my Unity dev from Mac to Windows, and I'm getting started with Visual Studio (2012 to be exact). I've never seriously worked inside VS before. Any awesome free extensions I should look into? I'm a sucker for cool tools. Back at work they had Visual Assist which looks pretty neat, but not quite ready to drop money.

Don't know anything about Unity, but is there a reason you're not using VS2013 community edition (which is free)?

 

[Popstar]

Anyone with a Mac can give a try to my demo?

I just need to know if it works: Dropbox Link

Worked for me. Started up and went into the tutorial. MacBook Pro 13" w/ Yosemite.

 

[Mr. Virus]

Success, I made my game look like painted by a 4 year old:

Also made a test with vertex color painting, but that is only in the editor, still hoping Epic makes it also work at runtime.

I wish I could paint like the 4 year olds you know. Looks lovely!

 

[missile]

Waves! We all love them. Of course, we do!

I remember using a program on an Amiga4000 (68030, w/FPU <- meh!) and it took
quite a while to compute just one frame for a wave. The performance we have today
is really beyond any imagination, yet the problems we want to solve scale at a
similar rate. Arrgh!

Edit: At around '95 I was at CeBit in Hannover/Germany where I touched a
Silicon Graphics computer for the first time. They had an on-stage
demonstration where they did such waves and various other image distortions in
realtime on a mapped live video stream. I thought; wtf!! The crowed was simply
amazed by the sheer performance of these machines. These machines were a
dream, unaffordable by any stretch esp. not as a young teen like I was at that
time. However, just a few years later I got my hands on almost any SGI machine
from O2, Indy, Indigo (R10000 Extrem), Crimson, Power Challenge, and an Onyx.
I remember spending many nights with these machines. Playing GLQuake in
1280x1024 was no issue. So much fun! xD Damn, what a lovely time this was
tinkering around with such computers. Just brilliant!

Success, I made my game look like painted by a 4 year old:

...

Pretty good! :+

 

[mStudios]

You'll have to watch out for long names, since it looks like the red area for the names is very short. While you could probably make the text auto-scale (down to a reasonable size that keeps it readable), I think you should give a bit more room to the name area just to be sure. The pictures also reminded me that I need to consider the possibility that users want to overlay the character names over the main text box rather than having a separate box, so I'll probably add that function to my VN Unity extension.

While I've been busy with my new job and college, I have been working sporadically on the system these last two months. Not as much as I'd have liked, but I guess I could do better if I just managed my free time better. So far, I've finished text branching (one-to-one and one-to-many, through either questions or variable comparisons), and just added script importing tools so that scriptwriters can just write naturally in their text editor of choice, and the people who need to implement script functions just load the text into Unity and begin applying effects (setting sprites and BGs, playing sounds, and so on).

It's been a long way, but I think the system's almost feature-complete and ready for beta-testing, so I'd really appreciate it if anyone interested in trying it out and giving some feedback would let me know.

Thanks! You're right and I'll fix the GUI.

Make the neck a little thinner (when I mean a little I mean just a small touch) and I think it will be perfect, and yes, it looks much better now.

Also, as JulianImp said, make more space for the name. I would even make the font name bigger so its easier to read and it shows better who is talking.

I see what you're saying, I'll fix her as soon as I can.

I'm a bit late to the critique, but I love your character designs! Only thing that jumps out at me is that they don't blink at all.

After Effects isn't very hard to use for basic stuff and there are lots of tutorials. Probably what I would do, since there's a lot to choose from, is just google a specific problem and get whichever video(s) jump out at you on that subject.

Thank you so much! Actually, she blinks. I'll post the new animation as soon as I get a chance.

That sounds like quite the hourly wage . By the way, have you already posted what your novel is about?

The novel talks about the Multi-Universe theory from the point of view of the experiment herself (In this case, Alice, the redheaded girl).

 

[Yoshi]

The novel talks about the Multi-Universe theory from the point of view of the experiment herself (In this case, Alice, the redheaded girl).

So we actually get to see several Alices ? That sounds interesting, I love science fiction stories . What platforms will you release the game for?

 

[mStudios]

So we actually get to see several Alices ? That sounds interesting, I love science fiction stories . What platforms will you release the game for?

Ahhh! You get it! Indeed, we will see several Alices.
WiiU and PC. Because those are the platform we can access at the moment.
But if I ever get the license from MS and Sony, I'll aim for those system too.

 

[Oppo]

Anyone with a Mac can give a try to my demo?

I just need to know if it works: Dropbox Link

I tried downloading this but it stalled out a couple of times for some reason. I will try again later.

 

[Yoshi]

Ahhh! You get it! Indeed, we will see several Alices.
WiiU and PC. Because those are the platform we can access at the moment.
But if I ever get the license from MS and Sony, I'll aim for those system too.

Then please offer Off-TV-Play, for a visual novel, reading it while lying down proved very comfortable for the ones I've played (VLR, 999, DR1&2). I don't want to look at the TV all the time in such a game.

 

[mStudios]

Then please offer Off-TV-Play, for a visual novel, reading it while lying down proved very comfortable for the ones I've played (VLR, 999, DR1&2). I don't want to look at the TV all the time in such a game.

That's why WiiU is our main version

 

[Davision]

This is relevant to my interests. Looks great, is that a custom shader or something you picked up?

That is a custom post processing shader I made, I only used the outlines generation from somewhere. It is all very mangled, distortion and colors.

Here is it in motion: http://imgur.com/cNcjrqH
Still trying to make it more stable.

I wish I could paint like the 4 year olds you know. Looks lovely!

Haha, but seriously, It is never too late to grab a brush and paint some colors and if everything keeps looking like a turd you can still call it modern art and possible get rich selling it. Well, for the last part you need to be able to describe your version behind your turd very articulate.

 

[ZehDon]

Download Link (PC):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By8r0QhYr5GZbUdBaFVPNkJjTnM/view?usp=sharing
WASD for positioning
Arrow keys to shoot
Space to switch weapons (3 so far - standard, shotgun, "gemini" twin ship)
Q for "super shot"... Let me know what you think, I'd appreciate any feedback...

Thanks for sharing! I downloaded and played for about five-ten minutes. There's a really interesting idea here, so keep refining the concept. Personally, I found that I got frustrated not being able to consistently move/shoot. Namely, the 8-direction movement and shooting felt a little awkward on my keyboard. The idea of a limited movement "bullet hell" is really cool, but the control scheme didn't feel fun to use, at least for me. Maybe having the player entity restricted to a circular orbit around the centre, with the "a" and "d" keys controlling their position around the circle, would achieve a similar idea, and feel more intuitive. Just my 2 cents.

Keep at it - I look forward to the next iteration!

Edit:

Missile, as always, you're doing God's work.

 

[gooey]

Bank holiday weekend grows ever near...

EDIT: I noticed a lot of you are using Unity GUI. Get on dat UI.

 

[taku]

That is a custom post processing shader I made, I only used the outlines generation from somewhere. It is all very mangled, distortion and colors.

Here is it in motion: http://imgur.com/cNcjrqH
Still trying to make it more stable.

That looks great. You can't not be happy when seeing all those colours!

 

[ZServ]

Success, I made my game look like painted by a 4 year old:

Also made a test with vertex color painting, but that is only in the editor, still hoping Epic makes it also work at runtime.

Oh man. This has so much inherent potential. What kind of gameplay are you leaning towards making with this?

In other news, after spending several days working on a 2d snow graphic for my project I finally realized why it looked so off. Turns out, white snow on a white background actually just doesn't show up. At all.

So now I'm off to tweak colors. Have a great day, all.

 

[GroundCombo]

Anyone with a Mac can give a try to my demo?

I just need to know if it works: Dropbox Link

The first start was a bit slow with no visible splash/loading screens (I did have a lot going on in the system at the time, though), but other than that it seems to work just fine. Mid-2012 15" MBP with Yosemite.

 

[missile]

... Edit:

Missile, as always, you're doing God's work.

It's all there, I just give shape to it. :+

I once met a really, really good professor (well, I saw him quite often to say
the least, he really taught me a good (one of the best) lesson). Well, once
he said to me; "Mr. Missile, I did nothing. I've just put things together.". He
wrote a pretty good book (out of print by now) the US military wanted to
republish on their own expense, worldwide. He denied "thankfully". xD

Edit: Btw ZehDon, are you working on a new small game?

 

[Jobbs]

I am nearly 100% convinced missile does something involving weapons for the military as his day job.

 

[Jacksinthe]

So it's easy to copy the source then, right? How to protect the source if you
want to?


Is it possible to link (platform dependent) object files?


Sound good. Releasing such gems will make you/AG more known by others, if that
is worth anything.

I would be unsure. I haven't bought an asset package so I am unsure of how that whole thing goes

I do believe so.

I could go more in-depth and instead of giving away source for people to copy/paste I could just do a run through of using raycasting and vector translation. Raycasts are my fucking swiss army knives for character collision. I think if I can iterate how to use them properly in 2D space and give people insight to the math behind movement speeds, gravity and the like it would be a far better learning tool for newcomers. But I do get that some people just want to copy/paste as it serves their coding purpose.

 

[BomberMouse]

I am nearly 100% convinced missile does something involving weapons for the military as his day job.

Nah, he works for Nintendo and is working on next generation VC.

 

[Dewfreak83]

Hmmm

Sounds disturbing tbh

Oh dear, really?

Well it is interactive fiction like the old choose-your-own-adventure books or gamebooks from the 1980's. Some popular versions of these are made by Inkle, Tin Man Studios, and Choice of Games.

They are definitely a niche and not for everyone - especially those not a fan of reading or stories.

Are you not a fan of these, or does my approach just not look that enticing?

Here are some other screenshots.

 

[BomberMouse]

Oh dear, really?

Well it is interactive fiction like the old choose-your-own-adventure books or gamebooks from the 1980's. Some popular versions of these are made by Inkle, Tin Man Studios, and Choice of Games.

They are definitely a niche and not for everyone - especially those not a fan of reading or stories.

Are you not a fan of these, or does my approach just not look that enticing?

Here are some other screenshots.

He might be making a pun because you said "heaving" instead of "heavy".

 

[missile]

I would be unsure. I haven't bought an asset package so I am unsure of how that whole thing goes

I do believe so.

Ahh, ok.

I would really be interested in how binary injection works with Unity, if
possible at all. Well, is it possible to execute native (C/C++) code? I mean,
shaders get compiled as well upon execution somewhere, so it might be possible
to paste a compiled shader too, no?

... I could go more in-depth and instead of giving away source for people to copy/paste I could just do a run through of using raycasting and vector translation. Raycasts are my fucking swiss army knives for character collision. I think if I can iterate how to use them properly in 2D space and give people insight to the math behind movement speeds, gravity and the like it would be a far better learning tool for newcomers. But I do get that some people just want to copy/paste as it serves their coding purpose.

Well, you may perhaps make an R&D section on your page preparing a document
(in Latex with proper formating, company name, logo, etc. downloadable as pdf)
describing all the techniques including pseudo code. That's how I would and
will do in the future. Yeah, raycast! You can fill complex (non-convex and
self-intersecting) polygons with it. :+

I am nearly 100% convinced missile does something involving weapons for the military as his day job.

Ohhh, you got me! So here is the tttruth; Games? Hah, no! NG actually means;
"Nuclear Gun!" -- brought to you by missile! lol

Nah, he works for Nintendo and is working on next generation VC.

Nintendo, next-gen? Did I missed something?


My moniker "missile" is linked with playing way too much Duke Nukem 3D over
old IPX with some close friends of mine while using the Devastator on them
with a precision of a

Spoiler

cruise missile

.

Spoiler

xD

 

[Jobbs]

Missile is English your native language? You don't have bad grammer, but you seem to have a subtly unique way of communicating, so I was just wondering.

 

[missile]

Missile is English your native language? You don't have bad grammer, but you seem to have a subtly unique way of communicating, so I was just wondering.

Unique? Can you explain a bit? No, German is my native language.

Edit: My English isn't the best, I guess. My way of writing/expressing myself
in written words was somehow influenced by reading a lot of technical
literature in English at quite a young age. So I may perhaps miss many of the
linking words to make a sentence sound more soft/round or something. Don't
know. Maybe that's what you mean?

 

[mabec]

jobbs have gotten his fair share of broken engrish in the past. trust me. (iam not a doctor)

 

[Jobbs]

Unique? Can you explain a bit? No, German is my native language.

Edit: My English isn't the best, I guess. My way of writing/expressing myself
in written words was somehow influenced by reading a lot of technical
literature in English at quite a young age. So I may perhaps miss many of the
linking words to make a sentence sound more soft/round or something. Don't
know. Maybe that's what you mean?

I'm not going to attempt to dissect your way of writing, but I detected something a little different about it. Maybe I'm just amazing.

jobbs have gotten his fair share of broken engrish in the past. trust me. (iam not a doctor)

Go back to Sweden!

 

[missile]

I'm not going to attempt to dissect your way of writing, but I detected something a little different about it. Maybe I'm just amazing. ...

You get stunned by my 80 characters per line each time you read me.

 

[DrLazy]

So we actually get to see several Alices ? That sounds interesting, I love science fiction stories . What platforms will you release the game for?

Thanks man! Our artist is incredible. Our characters (The "Scroodles"):