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[V_Arnold]

Jobbs: I think that it is fine to do that. Punishment or not, we are not talking about having to replay a 100+ hour JRPG because you opened a chest. But if you are going to include things like that, you better guide the players into understanding that this is a game that works that way. I.e. include things before permanently removing areas that also hint for this.

Why? Not because it is catering to the audience or even dumbing it down, but it is a reintroduction of something that has been long lost. People usually assume that nothing that you do have any real hindrance on your playthrough. Once you are done with a part, you are done, no matter how you did. That is the mindset, and most of us do not even recognize that it is a mindset in the first place. It is a neutral position, and it takes work to move someone out of there.

I am also developing my game in that style, btw. Will be ready to talk about it in more depth in about a few months, when everything is ironed out : )

 

[gofreak]

Great success!

Once the framerate is a bit better I'll make a video or gif or something

I'm deliriously happy. I've been working on and off on this for ageeees. Gave up numerous times.

(That isn't to say there's a lot of work left to do before this can go in my game...there is...but at least I now have a working 'vanilla' implementation )

 

[JulianImp]

Jobbs: I think that it is fine to do that. Punishment or not, we are not talking about having to replay a 100+ hour JRPG because you opened a chest. But if you are going to include things like that, you better guide the players into understanding that this is a game that works that way. I.e. include things before permanently removing areas that also hint for this.

Why? Not because it is catering to the audience or even dumbing it down, but it is a reintroduction of something that has been long lost. People usually assume that nothing that you do have any real hindrance on your playthrough. Once you are done with a part, you are done, no matter how you did. That is the mindset, and most of us do not even recognize that it is a mindset in the first place. It is a neutral position, and it takes work to move someone out of there.

I am also developing my game in that style, btw. Will be ready to talk about it in more depth in about a few months, when everything is ironed out : )

As with all things, I believe it's fine if the world lets the player know how it works. Games shouldn't keep retreading the same ground that others did simply because it's a norm, because norms were actually created due to games that broke previous ones and replaced them as the current standard. You do have to "train" the player in how your game world's logic works, though.

If the game starts by showing a collectible that's impossible to miss without even exploring, and after some event the route to it is shown to be blocked off, the player will realize some things will get locked out after certain events. However, you should be careful to make sure lock triggers and areas which are subsequently locked have internal consistency, and perhaps not lock the player inside the boss room so they can go back to explore if they only realize the link between the boss and the lockout event once they meet it.

I think every game mechanic should be analyzed to see whether it builds upon the game's theme or not instead of just using a checklist of succesful game elements that were used in previous games belonging to a genre. Stuff such as locking content out in an exploration game, moving left to advance in a platform game, forcing the player to lose important resources after dying even once or offering cryptic advice that nearly makes no sense can all be valid design decisions if they actually make sense in the game you're making without having to forcibly twist and warp them until they fit.

 

[Blizzard]

Please reconsider that. Don't punish your player for advancing in the game.

I tend to agree with this. There may be points on both sides, but I don't think the argument that having missable content or different experiences will build community is necessarily a valid one. If anything, intentionally making a game less accessible and more irritating to certain players seems to me like it might lower your userbase and word of mouth.

I don't mean this as rude, but the sprites for the backgrounds are also VERY much reminiscent of Super Metroid to me, so you may have that going for or against you as well. Do you want to add extra factors to that? It's one thing if you're an established developer with a success or two under your belt, but if you're just starting out it seems like you might be adding a couple of unnecessary bumps in the road.

Just my opinion, of course.

 

[Jobbs]

I tend to agree with this. There may be points on both sides, but I don't think the argument that having missable content or different experiences will build community is necessarily a valid one. If anything, intentionally making a game less accessible and more irritating to certain players seems to me like it might lower your userbase and word of mouth.

I don't mean this as rude, but the sprites for the backgrounds are also VERY much reminiscent of Super Metroid to me, so you may have that going for or against you as well. Do you want to add extra factors to that? It's one thing if you're an established developer with a success or two under your belt, but if you're just starting out it seems like you might be adding a couple of unnecessary bumps in the road.

Just my opinion, of course.

It's not rude to offer an opinion as long as it's sincere. Regarding the sprite, I'm honestly not sure what you're referring to. Obviously there are some similarities to metroid, but I haven't specifically copied any art or sprites, and as time goes I've been trying to give the game more its own look and feel. For example, quite some time ago I put in stats, floating damage amounts, incremental changes to damage, critical hits, etc, sort of a lite RPG aspect to it. I already completely redesigned the character art for the suit portion of the game once, and I may do that again yet. (Last redesign I tried very hard to move away from the arm cannon thing, but due to the way you change your shot type on the fly, it just felt natural that it's part of the suit -- I may go back tot he drawing board again yet)

Presently I'm working on changing the way damage is taken and putting in the ability for the player to get knocked down to try to move it out of that Metroid feel just a tad more. A certain reminiscence to Metroid is fine, but I also want to give it a bit of its own feel.

When it first started it wasn't as ambitious as it is now. It remains a work in progress.

 

[Lotto]

As promised, here's the Greenlight.


I'm really thinking about how to handle the crowdfunding aspect. I don't know if it's worth to set up a UK company name and account, so I can launch a Kickstarter. IndieGoGo is a lot easier for mainland Europeans, and I don't need a high sum for the licenses anyway.

Maybe I'm a little late but this is awesome. You have my support on Greenlight! Dat Killer7 influence.

 

[zero shift]

So I was working with Game Maker and I enjoyed it. However I heard that games made for it are really buggy as when you release them not all games play exactly the same depending on the platform.

 

[Feep]

Been a long time since I asked a Unity question!

Is there a way to make a surface mesh not receive its own shadows, but still take shadows from other objects and cast shadows onto other objects? If I have a light source ignore a building (via layers), other things are now no longer able to cast shadows on the surface. I just want its OWN shadows to be ignored.

Any ideas?

Edit: A Unity dev seemed to imply it would be very difficult, if not impossible, on the official forums. Guess that's out. = P

 

[Blizzard]

Been a long time since I asked a Unity question!

Is there a way to make a surface mesh not receive its own shadows, but still take shadows from other objects and cast shadows onto other objects? If I have a light source ignore a building (via layers), other things are now no longer able to cast shadows on the surface. I just want its OWN shadows to be ignored.

Any ideas?

Edit: A Unity dev seemed to imply it would be very difficult, if not impossible, on the official forums. Guess that's out. = P

That -reminds- me of the no self shadowing option in UE3/UDK, but I have no idea about Unity.

 

[Dascu]

Anyone happen to be here with experience on how to set up a Kickstarter campaign from mainland Europe? It doesn't seem too difficult to create a UK limited liability company, but I'm a bit worried I might get hit with some extra hassle (e.g. dissolving procedures, sales tax issues) later on.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Anyone happen to be here with experience on how to set up a Kickstarter campaign from mainland Europe? It doesn't seem too difficult to create a UK limited liability company, but I'm a bit worried I might get hit with some extra hassle (e.g. dissolving procedures, sales tax issues) later on.

We tried to do that and its a big hassle when you try to move the money from one country to another, so at the end we used indiegogo, which is a horrible experience that I don't recommend to anybody.

 

[fin]

Uploaded a new video to YouTube. This is probably the last one till it has a name/trailer.

http://youtu.be/oLhCZodgngI

This is just a test level with all the stuff in it. All the sounds are place holder, gonna be getting final sounds/music soon.

 

[Dascu]

We tried to do that and its a big hassle when you try to move the money from one country to another, so at the end we used indiegogo, which is a horrible experience that I don't recommend to anybody.

Could you be more specific, on both fronts?

 

[gofreak]

With some optimisation and judicious parebacks, I've gotten the framerate from single digits to something more realtime for my global illumination render pipeline prototype. And so a little video, just a simple rotating spotlight in a cornell box. No direct shadowing yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5VkziDHxQ

Still loads of work to do to make this game-ready though. Need to account for more light types and figure out a scalable approach to multiple lights for starters.

 

[tranciful]

With some optimisation and judicious parebacks, I've gotten the framerate from single digits to something more realtime for my global illumination render pipeline prototype. And so a little video, just a simple rotating spotlight in a cornell box. No direct shadowing yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5VkziDHxQ

Still loads of work to do to make this game-ready though. Need to account for more light types and figure out a scalable approach to multiple lights for starters.

That's awesome!

 

[Metal-Geo]

With some optimisation and judicious parebacks, I've gotten the framerate from single digits to something more realtime for my global illumination render pipeline prototype. And so a little video, just a simple rotating spotlight in a cornell box. No direct shadowing yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5VkziDHxQ

Still loads of work to do to make this game-ready though. Need to account for more light types and figure out a scalable approach to multiple lights for starters.

That's really, really cool.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Could you be more specific, on both fronts?

As you would need to try to make a UK company that "contracts" you and your team you will need to pay uk taxes, and moving the money from the UK to your country will also take you a lot of it because of taxes of both countries. Is not as easy as saying "just make a liability company" (we asked a lot about this to other people and they always talked about money problems that could appear). So if don't ask for a huge amount its not really something viable.

About Indiegogo, their TOS is a joke that they use only when it suits them, they don't resolve any of your problems if they don't see you are going to get the money. Making a fixed funding, that would be the normal thing to do if you want to do a serious campaign, makes that americans can't use their credit cards (this was our biggest problem and we were getting nearly every day emails of people that couldn't put money and asking to make it on kickstater). There's absolutely no audience on indiegogo (they need to come ALWAYS from outside sources), if you jump to the front pages of your section in for example, kickstarter, that can give you a boost in people putting money.
Because making a crowdfunding project, if you take it seriously, takes a lot of time (and even sometimes money), making an indiegogo campaign is a huge waste of time you could be making the game. There were some good things about doing it though, as we had lots of news outlets talking very positively about our game and that got us a lot of fans who support us now, but apart from that, one of the worst decisions we ever made.

 

[Dascu]

About setting up a UK company,

My research so far had led me to believe that I can register and create an LTD rather simply and cheaply online. Via a UK friend that I have, I can make use of his address and set up a UK bank account.

What if I don't need to transfer the money between countries? And what if I dissolve the company shortly after the Kickstarter campaign is finished? I think I wouldn't have to even file an account or balance sheet with the UK Company House then (given also that the sum would be rather small), so no taxation there either.

I understand you might not be able to answer these questions yourself, but would you know anyone who could? Could you bring me in touch with people who have tried it?

 

[cybroxide]

With some optimisation and judicious parebacks, I've gotten the framerate from single digits to something more realtime for my global illumination render pipeline prototype. And so a little video, just a simple rotating spotlight in a cornell box. No direct shadowing yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5VkziDHxQ

Still loads of work to do to make this game-ready though. Need to account for more light types and figure out a scalable approach to multiple lights for starters.

This looks excellent so far! Congrats getting your framerate up!

 

[gofreak]

That's awesome!

That's really, really cool.

This looks excellent so far! Congrats getting your framerate up!

Thanks I'm really happy because I initially thought I wouldn't be able to do stuff like this in Unity. Hopefully will have more progress to show sooon...ish.

 

[Ashodin]

Today's going to be more dictionary stuff, then more enemy hook ups! I'm so psyched to get this rolling!

 

[missile]

Angular momentum equation in!
But nothing to see, yet! I still need to solve another equation, the equation
that computes the representation of the orientation of a rigid body from the
computed angular velocity vector. That's sort of solving an inverse kinematic
(differential) equation, i.e. you are looking for some variables that after
differentiation will produce the form given. The representation here is a
representation of an orientation given for example by Euler Angles, Rodrigues
Parameters, Direct Cosine Matrix, Rodrigues-Gibbs Vector, Quaternions
(Euler–Rodrigues Symmetric Parameters) etc. Each of those have their
advantages and disadvantages, but only the Direct Cosine Matrix (which
rotates one coordinate frame into another) and the Quaternions produce non-
singular and linear kinematic equations. I've studied them all during the last
days. I'll go with Quaternions, whereas I like the theory behind the Rodrigues
Parameters the most, esp. the so-called Higher Order Rodrigues Parameters.
Just beautiful. However, the Quaternions' breath is far reaching. There are
virtually no issues with them (whereas they are not unique either while
representing rotations, but this doesn't hurt this time) while being used for
the kinematic equation. But Quaternions are computationally not the most
efficient ones esp. not while converting back and forth between the rotation
matrix and the quaternion. For example, converting back and forth between the
Rodrigues-Gibbs Vector and the associated rotation matrix can be done without
computing any transcendental functions! Each representation has some
advantages, but you can't go wrong with the Quaternions.

After this is done, this tiny little physics engine will be able compute
full-blown 6-DOF rigid body motions.

But set up the right reference frames, Missile, and a Coriolis force term appears, plain as day! ;-) ...

Did. But no time for implementing it. And btw they are still not forces. I
can show why. But I can also show why people think they are -- straight from
the equations -- if anybody wants to see it (will only use simple maths).

... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq5VkziDHxQ ...

I love color-bleeding. :+

 

[Feep]

Did. But no time for implementing it. And btw they are still not forces. I can show why. But I can also show why people think they are -- straight from the equations -- if anybody wants to see it (will only use simple maths).

I know. It's an old joke from an XKCD comic.

 

[CreativeSK]

Great success!

Once the framerate is a bit better I'll make a video or gif or something

I'm deliriously happy. I've been working on and off on this for ageeees. Gave up numerous times.

(That isn't to say there's a lot of work left to do before this can go in my game...there is...but at least I now have a working 'vanilla' implementation )

alright, congrats on that. managed to fix it urself before i was even done rereading the paper . may i ask what was wrong?

 

[missile]

I know. It's an old joke from an XKCD comic.

Oh lol. This one?

xD

 

[Feep]

Oh lol. This one?

xD

Yup ^^

 

[super-heated plasma]

Hey guys, we could still use another artist, programmer, and maybe a sound guy.

 

[Jobbs]

been working on my witch...

I kinda wanted her to force throw the various rocks from the air at you, like vader, it's making me have some headaches in terms of getting it right.. I'll come back to this later.

 

[Keyouta]

So, I'm looking into game development. Me and a friend. Stencyl seems to be great and I can see Jobbs has made really good progress with his game (which looks amazing!). As I, nor my friend, has any programming experience (I've learnt a little Java but it's very basic), would you recommend Stencyl as well? As there any nice tutorials or will I just be tinkering and learn as I go?

Also, I'd like to get in and learn some C (or C++) and Java. What are some great books for doing so?

 

[Jobbs]

So, I'm looking into game development. Me and a friend. Stencyl seems to be great and I can see Jobbs has made really good progress with his game (which looks amazing!). As I, nor my friend, has any programming experience (I've learnt a little Java but it's very basic, would you recommend Stencyl as well? As there any nice tutorials or will I just be tinkering and learn as I go?

Also, I'd like to get in and learn some C (or C++) and Java. What are some great books for doing so?

Stencyl really is something you can get into if you don't have programming experience, and in the process you will learn general programming techniques. All this doesn't mean it'll be quick and simple, it still has a pretty good learning curve before you'll get to where you have a good level of freedom. There are good resources on the site to get started and learn the principles, as well as a helpful forum community.

I'd also suggest Construct 2, I don't have experience with it but its feature list is impressive.

 

[Ashodin]

Stencyl really is something you can get into if you don't have programming experience, and in the process you will learn general programming techniques. All this doesn't mean it'll be quick and simple, it still has a pretty good learning curve before you'll get to where you have a good level of freedom. There are good resources on the site to get started and learn the principles, as well as a helpful forum community.

I'd also suggest Construct 2, I don't have experience with it but its feature list is impressive.

Yep, Construct 2 is pretty awesome. Once you wrap your mind around how it works with its event system, you can come up with pretty much anything, so long as it is 2D.

 

[Jobbs]

Yep, Construct 2 is pretty awesome. Once you wrap your mind around how it works with its event system, you can come up with pretty much anything, so long as it is 2D.

I like that you can use spriter with it, and that it has a bunch of effects and particle effects and different things you can use out of the box. I'm definitely curious but I'm beyond balls deep in Stencyl at this point. Programming really isn't my thing, I'm more interested in the art and design side, so spending considerable time and energy learning a new thing like that is something I'm hesitant to do.

 

[Cameron122]

How do you all feel about code academy?

 

[Ashodin]

I like that you can use spriter with it, and that it has a bunch of effects and particle effects and different things you can use out of the box. I'm definitely curious but I'm beyond balls deep in Stencyl at this point. Programming really isn't my thing, I'm more interested in the art and design side, so spending considerable time and energy learning a new thing like that is something I'm hesitant to do.

I feel that man. You've spent most of your time learning one thing, switching to a new track feels like throwing away all your experience.

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

You guys are way ahead of me in terms of design and skill sets, but I've jumped into the arena recently using Unity. Targeting iOS. Simple board game for now - following the mantra that it's better to complete something than aim too high and never finish. Second game will be more ambitious. I'm a programmer by trade so I feel the coding is the easiest part - it's the art and workflow that I'm getting used to right now and is a pita. I have two sets of assets - one retina and one "regular". Bought ngui for GUI creation and 2D toolkit for 2D sprite manipulation.

Anyone using 2D Toolkit?

 

[Feep]

You guys are way ahead of me in terms of design and skill sets, but I've jumped into the arena recently using Unity. Targeting iOS. Simple board game for now - following the mantra that it's better to complete something than aim too high and never finish. Second game will be more ambitious. I'm a programmer by trade so I feel the coding is the easiest part - it's the art and workflow that I'm getting used to right now.

Anyone using 2D Toolkit?

*raises hand*

 

[TheChewyWaffles]

*raises hand*

Using it for iOS? Sorry I know your name from this thread but forgot what you've made. Should I maintain two different atlases - one for ipad and the other for ipad@2x? Is there a best practice/technique for platform detection and atlas swapping? Just use a reference atlas like I did for ngui? Thanks!

 

[Feep]

Using it for iOS? Sorry I know your name from this thread but forgot what you've made. Should I maintain two different atlases - one for ipad and the other for ipad@2x? Is there a best practice/technique for platform detection and atlas swapping? Just use a reference atlas like I did for ngui? Thanks!

Not just yet, but I think I may be messing around with it in the coming weeks for a side project. I'll let you know!

In theory, though, separate atlases is probably a good idea...if nothing else, it'll keep the filesize down on the iPhone version.

 

[Guri]

Hey guys! I'm here to talk about the next game from Give me Five, called Past Memories! The game tells the story of a woman going through different important memories of her life, which are distorted and full of enemies and obstacles to be faced. The character must try to survive the nightmares of her oppressive past.

It's for Android and iPhone and it will launch soon (I really mean that, already into the approval process).

You can see the full press release, screenshots, concept arts, trailer, download the main theme and even the press kit over here! Thank you! I hope you like it!

 

[Ashodin]

I may need to have you guys do some testing for me, I need more words added to me dictionary, and words you can come up with that don't submit would be awesome. I'll host the game up tomorrow and you guys (if you'd like to help) can send me PMs with words that don't work that you've found.

 

[Ydahs]

Hey guys, quick question. Has anyone used Unity to make a 2D game before? If so, what were the main issues you've faced?

I would rather use a 2D game engine for 2D games myself, but Unity seems to be the most versatile (free) engine out there and I can't really find anything which gives the same freedom as it does, so I'm thinking of using it for a 2D game I'm interested in making.

 

[Guri]

Hey guys, quick question. Has anyone used Unity to make a 2D game before? If so, what were the main issues you've faced?

I would rather use a 2D game engine for 2D games myself, but Unity seems to be the most versatile (free) engine out there and I can't really find anything which gives the same freedom as it does, so I'm thinking of using it for a 2D game I'm interested in making.

We did, with the game I said above! We used 2D Toolkit!

 

[MaritalWheat]

Hey guys, quick question. Has anyone used Unity to make a 2D game before? If so, what were the main issues you've faced?

I would rather use a 2D game engine for 2D games myself, but Unity seems to be the most versatile (free) engine out there and I can't really find anything which gives the same freedom as it does, so I'm thinking of using it for a 2D game I'm interested in making.

Yep - I'm working on a 2D Unity project at the moment. Honestly, haven't really had too many problems. I've got some weird stuff going on with sprites riding over each other, but the hit detection we have in at the moment is super old anyways (actually left over from a game jam, I've just been putting off re-looking at it). Not using any asset store stuff, I've had had a fine time of it, and with resources like 2D Toolkit out there if you want to invest a bit up front, I'd say go for it.

 

[reddmyst]

been working on my witch...


I kinda wanted her to force throw the various rocks from the air at you, like vader, it's making me have some headaches in terms of getting it right.. I'll come back to this later.

Damn man, your work is phenomenal. Awesome job!

 

[gofreak]

I love color-bleeding. :+

I love your very meticulous work

alright, congrats on that. managed to fix it urself before i was even done rereading the paper . may i ask what was wrong?

Ah!! Sorry if I put you to any trouble. Basically the blue tint was due to bad compression of the flux in the RSM. In Dachsbacher's implementation, he compresses the flux into a 8 bit float in order to save a vertex texture fetch in the splat shader. I was using a 16-bit render target for the RSM, so his compression wasn't suitable.

I initially solved that by just rendering the flux out to a separate render target, as a full vector, uncompressed.

However I've figured out how to compress it into a 16-bit value to save using that extra render target... but tbh I don't notice much performance difference. And under some occasional circumstances a subtle bit of 'blue' still appears in the white flux. So I might switch back.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

been working on my witch...

I kinda wanted her to force throw the various rocks from the air at you, like vader, it's making me have some headaches in terms of getting it right.. I'll come back to this later.

Every screen I see makes the look even better. The gif is just fantastic, hope you resolve the force rock problems soon.

 

[pixelpai]

Hey guys, quick question. Has anyone used Unity to make a 2D game before? If so, what were the main issues you've faced?

I would rather use a 2D game engine for 2D games myself, but Unity seems to be the most versatile (free) engine out there and I can't really find anything which gives the same freedom as it does, so I'm thinking of using it for a 2D game I'm interested in making.

I am asking myself the very same question. I recently came across this little tutorial: http://www.rocket5studios.com/tutorials/make-a-2d-game-in-unity3d-using-only-free-tools-part-1/.
Only gave it a small glance, but it seems to provide some good entry points. Is there a general (NeoGAF Indie) concensus on Orthello?

 

[Chaos]

If anyone's interested in learning 3D with Maya as a complete beginner 3dbuzz has a sale on their Maya Fundamentls DVD which is $29.95, it has over 82 hours of training !

 

[Chaos]

Also, I'd like to get in and learn some C (or C++) and Java. What are some great books for doing so?

For C and C++ Stephen Prata primer plus books are ment to be good.
For Java you could try Java Just in Time by John Latham, Java A Beginners Guide by Herbert Schildt.

 

[JulianImp]

Hey guys, quick question. Has anyone used Unity to make a 2D game before? If so, what were the main issues you've faced?

I would rather use a 2D game engine for 2D games myself, but Unity seems to be the most versatile (free) engine out there and I can't really find anything which gives the same freedom as it does, so I'm thinking of using it for a 2D game I'm interested in making.

I've only done some very basic tests with pure 2D graphics in Unity, mostly regarding tile atlas usage and management (ie: sprite flipping), which I posted about a while ago (I can link you to the post if you're interested). I don't remember if I showed the code here, but I'd be willing to do that if anyone cares. It probably isn't the most optimal implementation, but at least it does draw all tiles using a single draw call and allows tile flipping and rotation in 90-degree increments.

Displaying pixel-perfect stuff took quite a while for me to do, even for static elements such as tiles, so I guess moving sprites would need some special coding so that you don't draw pixels at non-integer positions.

What I've worked a lot more on are 2.5D games (3D models moving alongside a 2D world space), and I can tell you that it's quite easy to do. Like with all engines, you'll have to code advanced actions such as wall jumping or ledge hanging by yourself, but I think the physics work fine since they introduced rigidbody constraints in Unity 3.4 o 3.5.