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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
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It makes simple things hard and hard things simple. Luckily the transition wasn't TOO rough, thanks to the use of C# scripting, but there's a lot to learn. Still, I feel confident that if I ever really wanted to do a true, full 3-D game, I could do it with Unity.
I ran into some serious trouble with 3D code with Monogame, enough so that I had to abort my port. This was the previous major build, though, so maybe they've fixed it by now.
Fellow indie Gafers, I need a little help.
My game was just published in the Windows Phone marketplace, but I'm not seeing it on the phone.
I can see it in the online stores from my PC. The game isn't showing in the Portuguese store but it is showing in other stores (us, uk, france, spain, etc). Maybe I'm not seeing the game on my phone because I'm connected to the portuguese store.
Can someone with a Windows Phone from a country other then Portugal, please confirm me if the game shows up in the search (inside the phone)?
The game is called "Snails" (there's another one with the same name, mine is this http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/snails/4413f8fc-bc8c-404b-a39c-82344f237584).
I would change my locale for another country, but I would have to reset the phone.
Thanks in advance!
My game was just published in the Windows Phone marketplace, but I'm not seeing it on the phone.
I can see it in the online stores from my PC. The game isn't showing in the Portuguese store but it is showing in other stores (us, uk, france, spain, etc). Maybe I'm not seeing the game on my phone because I'm connected to the portuguese store.
Can someone with a Windows Phone from a country other then Portugal, please confirm me if the game shows up in the search (inside the phone)?
The game is called "Snails" (there's another one with the same name, mine is this http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/snails/4413f8fc-bc8c-404b-a39c-82344f237584).
I would change my locale for another country, but I would have to reset the phone.
Thanks in advance!
We published our first Windows Phone game about a month ago. Microsoft advised it could take up to 24 hours to show up in all the different stores.
Have you bought Mojang's Scrolls beta? I highly recommend you buy it if only to see how Unity is working for them in terms of UI, netcode, and so forth.
In particular the always-online (with hang/crash?) thing is irritating since my network occasionally drops out, and the Avast problems are weird. I think some have suggested it's a threading bug in Mono itself, aggravated by certain antivirus setups. You can't even press the login button on the main menu without putting excepting Scrolls.exe from the Avast web shield.
I'm curious to see if you run into any sort of obscure network or thread-related problems like that.
RelentlessRolento
Member
anyone using Spriter yet? I have yet to download the beta since I'm waiting to use the first release when I learn it mostly.
Ok thanks. I was lucky and my wife's phone is setup for the US marketplace, so I was able to check it, and the game is showing up.
Now Gaffers, all of those with Windows Phones, please download the game and try it out!
It has a trial, so you don't have to buy it.
Here is the marketplace link http://www.windowsphone.com/en-gb/store/app/snails/4413f8fc-bc8c-404b-a39c-82344f237584
Please send any feedback to twobrainsgames@gmail.com.
Thanks!
Abandoned Classic Construct, back to XNA.
It's like a hurdles marathon for me, but after reading about Construct problem to "work" when there is too much content from the same man (Konjak) which suggestion inspired me to use Construct I felt a bit worried.
I'm lucky I've found some good PHP lessons about OOP (the wall I've stumbled into with XNA before) and now I can say I have a bit more of confidence, especially after working a bit with PHP/OOP. Started code (again) from scratch and just played with my own bitmap fonts converted to spritefonts, scaling them and "rendering" them pixel perfect (really, it's nothing to party for). I've got ready a few tens of sprites (player/enemies/bullets/etc) but no backgrounds yet. :/
I hope to show something in the summer (my main work spends a lot of my "energy" blablabla...), I'm even considering to purchase a laptop just to go on during summer holidays (any suggestion? cheap but decently powerful for its work, with a medium / screen size preferably not TN aaand I live in Italy/Europe).
By the way, important thing I MUST report: Construct is not that bad. It's useful for small prototyping and helped me to better understand game programming.
On side notes, I've decided to make my game music (dat one man project) with the excellent Sunvox. I was pretty experienced with trackers back in Amiga days, and playing a bit with Sunvox gives me nice results.
So far, I'm using:
- Code: Visual Express Studio + XNA framework
- Gfx: ASEprite (mostly), Photoshop (minor stuff)
- Sfx: Sunvox (music), Bfxr (old style fx), ReNoise (music and fx), Audacity (samples editing), KoyoteSoft Free Converter (samples/music converting)
- Text: Notepad++ (mostly notes)
And I'm going to use:
- DTP: Illustrator (PDF manual)
Since I random work at anything (...) I've started prototyping tha manual cover to resemble Atari VCS games cover (I do really love them), even if the game is mostly a tribute to PC Engine shmups (Gunhed in primis)... please don't get angry at this discrepancy!
It's like a hurdles marathon for me, but after reading about Construct problem to "work" when there is too much content from the same man (Konjak) which suggestion inspired me to use Construct I felt a bit worried.
I'm lucky I've found some good PHP lessons about OOP (the wall I've stumbled into with XNA before) and now I can say I have a bit more of confidence, especially after working a bit with PHP/OOP. Started code (again) from scratch and just played with my own bitmap fonts converted to spritefonts, scaling them and "rendering" them pixel perfect (really, it's nothing to party for). I've got ready a few tens of sprites (player/enemies/bullets/etc) but no backgrounds yet. :/
I hope to show something in the summer (my main work spends a lot of my "energy" blablabla...), I'm even considering to purchase a laptop just to go on during summer holidays (any suggestion? cheap but decently powerful for its work, with a medium / screen size preferably not TN aaand I live in Italy/Europe).
By the way, important thing I MUST report: Construct is not that bad. It's useful for small prototyping and helped me to better understand game programming.
On side notes, I've decided to make my game music (dat one man project) with the excellent Sunvox. I was pretty experienced with trackers back in Amiga days, and playing a bit with Sunvox gives me nice results.
So far, I'm using:
- Code: Visual Express Studio + XNA framework
- Gfx: ASEprite (mostly), Photoshop (minor stuff)
- Sfx: Sunvox (music), Bfxr (old style fx), ReNoise (music and fx), Audacity (samples editing), KoyoteSoft Free Converter (samples/music converting)
- Text: Notepad++ (mostly notes)
And I'm going to use:
- DTP: Illustrator (PDF manual)
Since I random work at anything (...) I've started prototyping tha manual cover to resemble Atari VCS games cover (I do really love them), even if the game is mostly a tribute to PC Engine shmups (Gunhed in primis)... please don't get angry at this discrepancy!
#screenshotsaturday
You can sit down, rest, read from Dante Alighieri's Inferno and listen to some classical music (if, at least, I can sort out the copyright and licensing issues with that).
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You can sit down, rest, read from Dante Alighieri's Inferno and listen to some classical music (if, at least, I can sort out the copyright and licensing issues with that).
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BlazeHedgehog
Member
Saturday, huh?
Been workin' on bringing this guy to life
Been workin' on bringing this guy to life
Mystic River
Member
nice dragon, I've spent my Saturday bringing this to life...
and a few others on my blog http://mysticrivergames.blogspot.com/
and a few others on my blog http://mysticrivergames.blogspot.com/
Kinda feel like we just entered the big leagues with Assault Android Cactus, Total Biscuit covered us in a "WTF is ..." video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUNxCCQBHHY
We've been working hard on the game the last few weeks, submitting builds to indiecade and other competitions. Hopefully we're kind of done with trying to push the game for a little while (no point with E3 looming anyway) and we can get back to making new characters/levels/power ups.
Still though, it's super exciting to see the greenlight numbers really moving for the first time since the game went up 3 months ago!
We've been working hard on the game the last few weeks, submitting builds to indiecade and other competitions. Hopefully we're kind of done with trying to push the game for a little while (no point with E3 looming anyway) and we can get back to making new characters/levels/power ups.
Still though, it's super exciting to see the greenlight numbers really moving for the first time since the game went up 3 months ago!
Hey guys. I was thinking about writing a tutorial on a particular way of rendering voxels (that can be extended to handle SVOs efficiently). I know this is only partially related to game development, but I do consider it to be fully related to pre-development R&D. I was just wondering if anyone here would be interested in reading such a tutorial, or if you consider current information found on the web sufficient at this point?
RobotNinjaHornets
Banned
Me and a friend are going to start making a game on Tuesday, after my last day at my job (got laid off and my contract says that they own the copyright for anything I code whilst employed there, hence Tuesday).
I have no idea what I'm doing :C
I have no idea what I'm doing :C
Secret Fawful
Member
I've been working on bringing this to life. Not even remotely finished artwork.
I've been working on continuing my like-dislike relationship with Construct 2. I've decided to "port" DKC's engine to HTML 5 using the program. A lot of people base their platforming engines around Mario, but Donkey Kong Country needs some love too.
You can play a sample made with my SDK here if you wish.
Eventually I'll release the project files for Construct 2 users to play around with since this is an open engine.
You can play a sample made with my SDK here if you wish.
Eventually I'll release the project files for Construct 2 users to play around with since this is an open engine.
phantomsnake
Neo Member
BlazeHedgehog
Member
I ain't no animator, but I think this is turning out ok
Feeling a little shy about posting in here, so I haven't posted my previous projects. I'm pretty happy with the way this one is going though, so I really wanted to share. (Also I'm primarily an artist/writer/designer, with only enough programming knowledge to poke around in things.)
I'm currently making a visual novel (with a lot of adventure elements) set in the same world of a comic I also draw and write (with different characters and a different story, however.)
Pretty happy with that crane painting, actually. I've never done any ink painting before, so that was something new!
I'm currently making a visual novel (with a lot of adventure elements) set in the same world of a comic I also draw and write (with different characters and a different story, however.)
Pretty happy with that crane painting, actually. I've never done any ink painting before, so that was something new!
That crane is absolutely beautiful, I would hang that on my wall, no hesitation.
lordfroakie
Member
What software are you using?
I ain't no animator, but I think this is turning out ok
So I've had a couple of ideas floating around for a while now like anyone else and I wanted to give doing a solo game from scratch a shot while I'm unemployed and off my foot due to an ankle injury. My background is computer science but I don't really have any experience in game programming; I can just pick up languages fairly easily. I'd like to get some experience in C++ and/or Lua if possible. Also thought about trying to use voxels in the Minecraft style for the look of the game, but I'm not really familiar with them either. Took a look through the op but none of the options there really stood out. (Maybe Unity?)
I'll refrain from going in depth on features and goals as I know biting off more than you can chew is probably the easiest way to kill your project from the get go. Traditionally, I've excelled at structured tasks but had a very hard time approaching something as freeform as this and giving it a good go. What would be your guys' recommendation as far as which technology to learn/tutorials to follow/goals to set, given the above? Thanks much.
I'll refrain from going in depth on features and goals as I know biting off more than you can chew is probably the easiest way to kill your project from the get go. Traditionally, I've excelled at structured tasks but had a very hard time approaching something as freeform as this and giving it a good go. What would be your guys' recommendation as far as which technology to learn/tutorials to follow/goals to set, given the above? Thanks much.
If you've never made a game at all, one way to actually finish a project is to take something that's a very old, simple idea and try to make it yourself. Ideally it's a small enough project that you could finish in a week, or even a weekend.
For example, pick a language/tool of your choice and make Minesweeper. It may seem ultra simple, but is still a reasonable exercise for thinking about the algorithms and how readily you can design things and work with the tools you want to use/learn.
Or for a more difficult project, try making Breakout, Pacman, or Tetris. Whatever you choose, make a text file with a short, clearly stated goal. For example, "Completed project will be Minesweeper, but with only one difficulty mode, and no leaderboards. There will be a 10x10 grid and 10 mines in random locations. There will be a timer counting seconds at the top of the screen." Include more detail if you feel like you need it, but some things will probably be obvious enough, like "if you click on a mine you lose." Once you have reached the goal, for one thing you know you can now stop, for another thing you've finished a project (congratulations!), and for yet another thing you should have a much better idea of the flow of your tool(s) of choice. With C++ for example, you might become familiar with SFML or SDL.
On a completely random note, I just realized that by dragging the lower right corner of the NeoGAF message entry field you can get a much larger text entry field.
That is actually a core Chrome functionality. Also, everything you said before that is absolutely true - making games is the best way of learning how to make games.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Three very old art programs.
1. MGI Photosuite 8.0 for Windows 95. Came bundled with the first computer I ever bought, a Packard Bell, in 1998. I use this mainly for spriting, and it's because I like the color palette on the right hand side of the program. It crashes more and more often on newer versions of Windows, but it's one of those "I grew up with it" sorts of things. Better than MS Paint by a fair margin. I was initially using it to sprite the entire dragon, but I wasn't getting his body shape right. His arms and legs were sprited in MGI, however.
2. Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7.0. Not quite as old as MGI Photosuite, but still pretty dang old - copyright date of 2000. First art program I ever had to support layers, vectors, proper airbrushing, or "complex" effects. Nowhere near as powerful as Photoshop, obviously, but with enough elbow grease and creativity I can make due just fine. I do the bulk of my image editing here, and when the dragon's body wasn't working in MGI, I ended up just tracing over my concept art in PSP7 and working from there to animate. As you can see, each frame of animation for his wings is on a different layer, making drawing the new frame over the top of the old frame very, very easy.
3. Jasc Animation Shop 3.0. Came with PSP7. I've been copying and pasting frames out of PSP in to Animation Shop for previews and to save out GIFs that I occasionally post here in the thread. Does an admirable job with making animated GIFs, and can even import AVI files. Unlike everything else I sometimes wish I had a better program for this stuff but I don't use it all that often so it's not a big deal.
Not to be offensive...but why? There are a lot of up todate free software to do this stuff now...some of which are in this thread...
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Why fix what isn't broken?
Well you stated they crash in newer versions of Windows, so I had to ask...
RobotNinjaHornets
Banned
Trying to make a running sprite.
It's irritating.
- the rough outline for it
It's irritating.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Eh, it's only under very, very specific circumstances - specifically, MGI doesn't handle 32bit color images terribly well, so if you copy and paste image data from another program in to MGI, it crashes.
Given that I basically never need to do that, it's pretty easily avoidable.
PSP's a different story - it crashes when zooming in and out of certain images, but it only ever seems to happen on my laptop, and I never do any significant image editing there so, again, not really a problem. That laptop's kind of a pile of junk anyway, so it might just be something exclusive to that hardware.
Edit: It's worth mentioning that I do have Paint.net installed, but I really do not like using that for sprite work.
Diablohead
Member
I use PSP8 because I bought it for £20 a long time ago on dvd-rom and I still use it today, does everything I need from an image editor.
Dark Octave
Banned
A few new images from Nono and the Cursed Treasure.
The game is playable from start to finish. All music, sound effects, cut scenes and levels are done. Most bugs have been squashed. We still have a few issues to work out. Choosing "level select" in game and then choosing another tomb sometimes keeps the previous tomb's image and music with the new level. Shouldn't be an issue to fix though. Some sound in a couple of cut scene needs a little balancing and images need to be timed with the narration. Some awards got mixed around so I'm going to test them right now to make sure they're good.
We have to figure out how to use wrappers so that the game can run without problems on any recent Windows OS.
We have to figure out how to sell it from our site, Paypal and all that. I still kind of still want to do XBLIG but my programmer thinks it's a waste of time to learn XNA as it's now dead.
My hunch is all of this is very basic stuff, we just haven't begun to look into them yet.
The game is playable from start to finish. All music, sound effects, cut scenes and levels are done. Most bugs have been squashed. We still have a few issues to work out. Choosing "level select" in game and then choosing another tomb sometimes keeps the previous tomb's image and music with the new level. Shouldn't be an issue to fix though. Some sound in a couple of cut scene needs a little balancing and images need to be timed with the narration. Some awards got mixed around so I'm going to test them right now to make sure they're good.
We have to figure out how to use wrappers so that the game can run without problems on any recent Windows OS.
We have to figure out how to sell it from our site, Paypal and all that. I still kind of still want to do XBLIG but my programmer thinks it's a waste of time to learn XNA as it's now dead.
My hunch is all of this is very basic stuff, we just haven't begun to look into them yet.
Diablohead
Member
Trying to make a running sprite.
It's irritating.
- the rough outline for it
It looks quite good, the way I learned to do running animations is to start with the two key poses of where the legs and arms are at their most, then at their minimum, you fill out the middle frames from those and then the middle from those again.
I learned to animate in 3D and just took that knowledge into my sprites.
Sprites always look better in action then they do as a still sprite animating so don't sweat it too much if it's slightly off IMO.
OccamsBlender
Member
Might be your GIF settings but he or she looks like he's booking it!Trying to make a running sprite.
It's irritating.
- the rough outline for it
Very smooth! Your frame count is great. The way he's flapping his wings makes me think he's pushing himself backward.
I ain't no animator, but I think this is turning out ok
Good advice, remember that when you're making a cycle, re-use what you can:It looks quite good, the way I learned to do running animations is to start with the two key poses of where the legs and arms are at their most, then at their minimum, you fill out the middle frames from those and then the middle from those again.
I learned to animate in 3D and just took that knowledge into my sprites.
Sprites always look better in action then they do as a still sprite animating so don't sweat it too much if it's slightly off IMO.
good stuff. honestly I have no particularly comprehensive system. I just keep tinkering until something looks like something. I've picked up some tricks along the way. I'm difficult to teach and slow to learn. I tend to figure out my own way.
By this point I have two primary methods of animation. In the example above you see one of my characters from my game, I've manipulated sets of body pieces and retouched them. So I'll paint my starting point, then slice it up to make all the tween poses by moving/rotating individual parts. I'll then brush over it frame by frame to get rid of any awkwardness and improve things in general.
Other times I use a more traditional approach where I sketch the frames out one by one in a very old school way. The first method is quite good for animating designs that have a lot of detail.
By this point I have two primary methods of animation. In the example above you see one of my characters from my game, I've manipulated sets of body pieces and retouched them. So I'll paint my starting point, then slice it up to make all the tween poses by moving/rotating individual parts. I'll then brush over it frame by frame to get rid of any awkwardness and improve things in general.
Other times I use a more traditional approach where I sketch the frames out one by one in a very old school way. The first method is quite good for animating designs that have a lot of detail.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Damn you artistic types
This isn't the most professional option, and working directly with paypal is likely better in nearly every way, but this is easy and instant.
https://sellboxhq.com/
BlazeHedgehog
Member
Yeah, once I put him in the game I reversed his frames.
Sega1991 - Your dragon reminds me of the art styles we used to see in PS1 days with games like Discworld, very cool style!
And thanks for voting for Cactus, good to see gaffers helping each other out It's a shame we barely get any mainstay GAF users coming in to this thread because I'd love to get more feedback from here.
Ah well, back to work! My dream is to one day have a Cactus thread and I guess I've gotta finish this game to make that a reality
And thanks for voting for Cactus, good to see gaffers helping each other out
It's a shame we barely get any mainstay GAF users coming in to this thread because I'd love to get more feedback from here. Ah well, back to work! My dream is to one day have a Cactus thread and I guess I've gotta finish this game to make that a reality
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I put together a little tutorial for my touch platformer today that runs when you start it for the first time. Got a youtube of it, but its a bit choppy. I really need to get a new computer this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDkKdtforeA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDkKdtforeA
This is a bit old but hasn't been posted in this thread. Four people made it. Granted they have AAA experience but still, pretty inspiring to see what a small number of people can accomplish. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-eR8-SdFsw
Feeling a little shy about posting in here, so I haven't posted my previous projects. I'm pretty happy with the way this one is going though, so I really wanted to share. (Also I'm primarily an artist/writer/designer, with only enough programming knowledge to poke around in things.)
I'm currently making a visual novel (with a lot of adventure elements) set in the same world of a comic I also draw and write (with different characters and a different story, however.)
Pretty happy with that crane painting, actually. I've never done any ink painting before, so that was something new!
I love the art work.
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