thanks for pointing out gifcam. this is the first actually convenient way I've found of making good animated gifs.
"enemies that make you go nope" indie version.
That looks amazing :O
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
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That looks amazing :O
thanks for the comments.
the game is super metroid meets dark souls (I'm not so arrogant to say it's worthy of mentioning alongside either of those games -- but that's where I'm coming from in terms of my design goals).
I'm working on a polished build that features about 1/3 or a little more of the game and will be available to selected testers (the purpose is to learn about my own game, I've been alone with it forever so I have no idea what is good and what isn't).
I'm using stencyl 3.0 to make the game, I wrote up the stencyl description that is in the original post of this thread.
the game is super metroid meets dark souls (I'm not so arrogant to say it's worthy of mentioning alongside either of those games -- but that's where I'm coming from in terms of my design goals).
I'm working on a polished build that features about 1/3 or a little more of the game and will be available to selected testers (the purpose is to learn about my own game, I've been alone with it forever so I have no idea what is good and what isn't).
I'm using stencyl 3.0 to make the game, I wrote up the stencyl description that is in the original post of this thread.
win a reality show
I was planning on talking about this once the demo is ready, but yeah just PM me if you want and I'll add you to the list, but It'll still be a couple weeks at minimum. There's some sizeable things still left to tackle.
bumpkin
Member
Hmm... So apparently the Best Buy close-ish to my work has OUYA consoles in stock. I haven't really been following all the hub-bub surrounding the console and its SDK, but the opportunity and low cost of entry has me curious. Does anyone have experience with the ODK? Is it possible to program a game using C++ or do you have to use Java?
reddmyst
Member
thanks for pointing out gifcam. this is the first actually convenient way I've found of making good animated gifs.
ghsnope.gif
"enemies that make you go nope" indie version.
Wow! That looks fun to play
Good job!Project Anarchy beta is now up! site seems to be getting hammered though so here are the direct links...
http://www.projectanarchy.com/
Windows
http://software.intel.com/sites/havok/downloads/project_anarchy/AnarchyDownloadManager.exe
Mac
http://software.intel.com/sites/havok/downloads/project_anarchy/AnarchyDownloadManager.app.zip
http://www.projectanarchy.com/
Windows
http://software.intel.com/sites/havok/downloads/project_anarchy/AnarchyDownloadManager.exe
Mac
http://software.intel.com/sites/havok/downloads/project_anarchy/AnarchyDownloadManager.app.zip
bumpkin
Member
That looks cool (Google'd and found a sizzle video). So it's kind of a UDK sort of thing?
RobotNinjaHornets
Banned
Oh god, it's been too long since I've done any real programming and now trying to do collision stuff is breaking me D:
Hmm... what to do what to do.....
even though I already have a lot of enemies and ideas for more, the other day I asked my friends if they had any ideas for new types of enemies to add. One of them said "how about a beehive". I said.. Okay.
love gifcam. makes it so easy to show things to people quickly.
Sorry for showin so many gifs. I'm still all excited about gifcam. I'll get over it soon.
love gifcam. makes it so easy to show things to people quickly.
Sorry for showin so many gifs. I'm still all excited about gifcam. I'll get over it soon.
Some more updates: Currently working on making the columns still work - I have to write events out for every circumstance of what the player will do, and what letters will be left on the board - luckily, once this is done for the first column, I can copy and paste it across the other columns for quick work! Just this part is the part that takes a long time coding -just right-.
Have a gif of the third column working, though!
I AM looking for any graphical artists here who would love to work on some art for the game - if you're interested, PM me.
Have a gif of the third column working, though!
I AM looking for any graphical artists here who would love to work on some art for the game - if you're interested, PM me.
Have to say that I for one appreciate the gifs, so no need to apologize! The game is looking really good and Super Metroid meets Demon's Souls is of course an intriguing premise for any game.
Whenever I think 2D Demon's Souls I think of this Korean indie game called DragonSlasher, which might be worth checking out as another source of inspiration: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dragonslasher/id426074232?mt=8
Pretty impressive what you can do with Stencyl, too. Reading the post about it in the OP, I take it you have some programming knowledge and are taking it further than what can be done simply 'out of the box' without any programming knowledge?
thanks for the flattering comments
and to answer that question, no, not really. when I first got stencyl over a year ago I had no idea what I was doing and no real programming skills.
I got started by using some tutorials which introduced the basic concepts of stencyl, just the basic way of operating and making things work (if/otherwise if/otherwise, attributes, forces, etc) and once I sorta understood the basics, I was able to figure out more and more stuff by asking for help and experimenting. In learning stencyl, I've learned some things about programming generally, because the way you operate in stencyl and the way you build logic uses the same general concepts as programming. It's all about defining variables, defining causes and defining results, and the system is so flexible that there are typically many different ways of accomplishing the same thing, as is the case with real programming.
Here's an example of using the snapblocks to build logic in stencyl, from the "bee" enemy in the top gif of my previous post. (behavior is programmed in a modular way, self contained within individual objects and "scenes" (the area), and you can also use various methods of making different things communicate with eachother or get information from eachother, as well as set global attributes which are readable anywhere)
The bee is spawned out of the hive and flies erratically while also pursuing the player. The bee has behavior for varying other stuff, but below shows all of the behavior that controls its movement.
I set a delay variable that always ticks down per frame in the game, and then when it's 0, it randomly assigns a new variable amount and performs other logic too. It sets the direction of the player to a temp variable using a trig block, and then it adds some random offset to make it less accurate, and then a random turn amount (to curve its movement to varying degrees) and randomizes the speed a little too. You'll also note I have comments and disabled spare code below that is just a result of me being disorganized. As you might imagine, you can wield all of these features to phrase logic together in many ways and accomplish all kinds of stuff if you set your mind to it. That means I can make a character who can shoot or swing a weapon or jump or dash or basically almost anything I can dream up, I can make enemies generally do what I want them to do (really dynamic pathfinding is a bit beyond me though), I can make bosses, I can script cut scenes, I can piece together a map. It's just a matter of putting the effort in. People more clever than I have figured out how to do some pretty exotic stuff, even tech demos of procedurally generated terrain (no one's made a really practical game like this using stencyl that I know of, but I HAVE seen tech demos of it).
It's not perfect, there are occasional issues and sometimes something that seems like it should be simple to do is really tough or impossible. And there are certainly some things you can't do. But it's still really impressive considering how accessible it is. I'd never be able to make a game on my own sans any programmer partner, certainly not one like this, without stencyl (or possibly construct 2 or something, it just happens that stencyl is the one I learned).
Anyway, some of what's in Ghost Song was accomplished via clever experimentation with the core stencyl features, (for instance, I've been able to do all kinds of subtle lighting effects by playing around with objects and blending modes) but as of now the game doesn't use any special custom written extensions to the engine or anything fancy like that. There are some things I'm curious about implementing that would require a programmer to write custom code, so far these primarily are visual effect type things.
Wow, yea, that is pretty impressive and surprisingly flexible. Thanks for the detailed write-up. It seems like their site is down now but I'm curious to check it out at some point.
sorry about that wall of text.
stencyl's site has been up and down a lot lately for some reason. if it's down I'm sure it'll be back again before long.
Nice, finally a decent free engine with tools that uses c++.
But their forums suck, or for that matter the whole website, looks like it's straight out of 2003
looks like they took down the Mac link (didn't startup for me when I managed to grab it earlier).
Installed the Windows build no problem but not had time to try it out yet!
No experience with the odk but you can use c++.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Any advantages over unity?
bumpkin
Member
Oh nice. Do you know of any good tutorials for doing so? I did some searching myself last night, and all of the ones I found didn't make a lot of sense. That is, they made it seem like every single C/C++ function you want to call, you have to encapsulate in some sort of Java wrapper code. Seems like it could get a little unruly.
That could also just be my uneducated perception too, though. I'm just starting out with Android dev -- porting my iOS App currently -- so a lot of the ADK's intricacies are a mystery to me.
even though I already have a lot of enemies and ideas for more, the other day I asked my friends if they had any ideas for new types of enemies to add. One of them said "how about a beehive". I said.. Okay.
love gifcam. makes it so easy to show things to people quickly.
Sorry for showin so many gifs. I'm still all excited about gifcam. I'll get over it soon.
Wow that game looks fantastic!
I'd like to learn C++ at some point and the fact that it's from Havok should mean it's pretty high quality, but unfortunately it's mobile only. Is there any chance they'll allow development of PC games at any point? (Even if they're still restricted by the limitations of mobile platforms in the free version). As someone with no interest in smartphones it's really annoying to see so many game development options that are only for iOS /Android.
Sword Familiar
178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
Can't help but noticing the numbers popping up and the critical hits. Does this mean your character has stats that you can manipulate or what?
bumpkin
Member
If you're looking for a good book (for learning C++), this was the one I picked up and started with. It was immensely helpful.
http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Programming-Premier-Press-Development/dp/1592002056/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1372256603&sr=8-2&keywords=c%2B%2B+game+programming+dawson
Diablohead
Member
Sad news, MMF2 android exporter runs like a dead dog on the OUYA, so generations is going to have to be iOS only for the time being
you can increase your cannon's damage rating and crit rate, as well as your armor. there aer also special weapons that go off a seperate special weapon stat.
Sword Familiar
178% of NeoGAF posters don't understand statistics
Sounds cool. Customization is always nice.
Green Wiggly
Member
So this is random, but does anybody have advice for staying on track with a project? I've had my engine finished for ages already, but can't get a design doc out to save my life because the game I want to make keeps changing with whatever flavor of the month I'm playing.
BomberMouse
Member
I don't there's a tool for that. It's all up to you.
Just plan small projects (no more than three months), focus on something complete and playable from beginning to end. After you have something complete iterate over it and make it better and/or add new features otherwise you'll never finish anything.
The key is focusing your goal. First, settle on a single main theme. You should be able to express this theme in a single sentence. Then make sure everything in your game supports that theme. Adding in other influences is fine but only if they support that main theme. Never deviate. At some point you will get tired of your idea, but if you never see it through, you'll be missing out on practicing the most essential part of the game development process.
I agree with this, as I believe this kind of game design can yield great results and is easier to prototype than having a loose theme for a game.
If your core concept is flawed and doesn't achieve what you intended it to do (ie: making the player have fun, feel tense, smart, claustrophobic or with the freedom to do whatever she wants), then it'll be fairly obvious, so you could drop it without wasting too much time in trying to add unnecessary polish or additional elements to the game that will ultimately prove useless due to it having a faulty foundation.
I believe Nintendo's mentality of halting production on games that just "don't work" until their full potential can be realized is a good way to go, but it requires that you have some source of income other than the games you make (or that you make a best-selling game and get to live off of its sales for a while). What you shouldn't do is keep adding clutter to a game simply because you think looks good.
Ultimately, you should always think in the game experience as a whole, and how players will be experiencing the settings you create for them. Appealing to everyone or adding game elements simply because other games do it too is something you should steer away from, since I think building stuff for the masses will ultimately dillute your game more than the money you're likely to get from building a more streamlined game that's likely to find its niche anyway.
That does look good, thanks. I'm working on something in Unity at the moment (so using C#), but when I finish that I'll certainly check that book out.
I have good news folks!
Snails is back to the Windows Phone marketplace!
In this update:
-Bug fix on a crash on Wp8 devices when starting the first stage
-Memory footprint reduced by 30%. Was causing crashes on low memory devices
-Size of the package reduced to 12mb. Downloads will be faster now.
Try the game, there are 10 free levels.
Please send any feedback to 2brainsgames@gmail.com or PM me. This is very important. Thanks!
Cheers!
Snails is back to the Windows Phone marketplace!
In this update:
-Bug fix on a crash on Wp8 devices when starting the first stage
-Memory footprint reduced by 30%. Was causing crashes on low memory devices
-Size of the package reduced to 12mb. Downloads will be faster now.
Try the game, there are 10 free levels.
Please send any feedback to 2brainsgames@gmail.com or PM me. This is very important. Thanks!
Cheers!
I love it. SketchUp and Unity have made game creation so much easier for me.
It's not customization, per se, it's a matter of finding powerups by exploring that increase your power. This game only has a toe in the RPG side of things, there's no real inventory, you find some powers and new attacks, as well as powerups that increase your stats.
In my next game after this one I plan to expand the RPG side of it and have an inventory and items and stuff and also focus on melee/short range attacks for the main gameplay (from working on Ghost Song I've decided it's inherently not as interesting to design combat and enemies around all of your attacks being long range -- melee based combat requires you to get close to enemies which opens things up for more strategic combat).
So some of the concepts for the game at large in my head include getting loot, and having that loot tied to the words that you could craft - if you were wearing "goggles", you could type that word to activate its ability, or specs, or glasses, or lenses, or whatever related to that item. It would require me to link words to items, but it would be very awesome and innovative.
MaritalWheat
Member
Thank you for this suggestion.
Project Anarchy looks interesting, but I'm already in the middle of a Unity project. However, I desperately need to get familiar with C++ ... this might be a bit off topic, but does anyone have suggestions for a smaller project (or even a guided tutorial) that would be interesting to make and would be useful in learning C++ in the context of game programming, but wouldn't be too ambitous?
bumpkin
Member
That's part of what I really liked about the book; a lot of its context was game based. The final chapter(s) of the game take you through writing a Blackjack game to demonstrate polymorphism.
I have the book "Pro Android C++ with the NDK" that is for android. I'm not aware of any Ouya books out there
lordfroakie
Member
Speaking of Unity, where can I find some 2D tutorials?
Exactly, we used SketchUp to build a 3D level for our last Unity project. The file conversion from SketchUp file format (SKP) to an FBX file with textures was not 100% smooth, but considering it allowed for teammates who are not adept at 3D modeling to largely create and texture a 3D environment on their own... that alone is pretty nifty.
I haven't read through these myself, but these resources might help:
http://gamasutra.com/blogs/JoshSutphin/20130519/192539/Making_2D_Games_With_Unity.php
http://www.unikronsoftware.com/2dtoolkit/
I too am interested in hearing about people's experience making 2D games using Unity, and it seems like a lot of other people here lately are interested in which engine to move forward with for their 2D games. I've heard the 2D Toolkit for Unity is pretty good and it looks like a common place to start. Stencyl has also piqued my interest due to what Jobbs has been able to get out of it.
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