• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

Status
Not open for further replies.
Our game is another type of music and we have already two composers working with it (same team) but your music is seriously awesome. :O
Thanks for giving the opportunity to fellow gaffers making games.

I'm glad you like it! And I hope your project goes well.

Since it's a new page, I'm gonna quote/repost my earlier message, because my offer still stands.

Are any of you indie developers looking for original music for your games?

I'm a composer and producer and I have a little extra time for the next few weeks and I'd like to start building up my game scoring resume. I'm not looking to get paid just yet. I just need some experience with more serious and dedicated developers (as opposed to people who random message me on youtube asking if they can use my music on some project they'll never finish).

My soundcloud - https://soundcloud.com/steven-mcdonald

A couple of short films I've scored - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vSuL-pWgI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4asiOVjTyJQ

I can probably only realistically take on one project right now, but if you're interested shoot me a PM with some info!

Good luck on all the games! I've seen some really interesting and unique ideas in this thread.
 

V_Arnold

Member
anyone know of some good RPG stat mechanic primers?

i'm trying to figure out a simple stat system where ATK just boosts damage point for point and DEF reduces damage point for point like starcraft but have that work with abilities that scale as you get stronger, and im kind of at a loss right now.

What do you mean?

Something basic like this:
Your abilities have a base damage. Let that be X. They usually have a coefficient as well.
The higher the abilities tier, cost, cooldown, the bigger coeff it should have, the faster, the quicker, cheaper, the less coeff.

So in this system, your final damage will simply look like this:
Base Damage*((1.0*coef)*(1.0+STR/100))

So, assuming that an ability is normal speed and does 5 base damage, 20 strength will make it a 6 damage spell, if it has an 1.0 coef. 100 strength will make it into a 10 damage attack. Obviously, you should determine whether 100 is the value you divide by (you can make it 20, 10, 1000, whatever threshhold you want to work with. But make sure to consider that you will usually want to go above 1.0, if it is a stat-creep-based system).

If it is a slow attack, make the coef 2, that way a 10 base damage heavy strike :)P) will do 14 damage on 20 str, and 30 dmg on 100 str.

That is a good start. Def should simply take this incoming damage, and reduce it by percentages. Percentage modifiers should look at level differences and skill types, etc.
 

-COOLIO-

The Everyman
What do you mean?

Something basic like this:
Your abilities have a base damage. Let that be X. They usually have a coefficient as well.
The higher the abilities tier, cost, cooldown, the bigger coeff it should have, the faster, the quicker, cheaper, the less coeff.

So in this system, your final damage will simply look like this:
Base Damage*((1.0*coef)*(1.0+STR/100))

So, assuming that an ability is normal speed and does 5 base damage, 20 strength will make it a 6 damage spell, if it has an 1.0 coef. 100 strength will make it into a 10 damage attack. Obviously, you should determine whether 100 is the value you divide by (you can make it 20, 10, 1000, whatever threshhold you want to work with. But make sure to consider that you will usually want to go above 1.0, if it is a stat-creep-based system).

If it is a slow attack, make the coef 2, that way a 10 base damage heavy strike :)P) will do 14 damage on 20 str, and 30 dmg on 100 str.

That is a good start. Def should simply take this incoming damage, and reduce it by percentages. Percentage modifiers should look at level differences and skill types, etc.

first, i'd like to thank you for the thought out post. :D

Anyhoo, I was using coefficients to scale my abilities and my original question was flat out misworded, but in trying to figure out the proper question and how to explain my current system by retyping this post for 60 minutes, I think I have found a solution.

So let me just say thanks again :DDDDDDDDDDDDD
 
So we finally got a trailer that shows how our game actually plays.

Ephemerid Gameplay Trailer

As always, any feedback would be awesome.


I like the stylization. Attractive color palette and locales. And the insects aspect is appealing. The industry needs more uniquely stylized graphics that look personal and made by a human. Too much grit and desire to look real in games. I want to see things that I don't see everyday in the real world.

Keep it up. Good first impression. Hope it gets momentum and success.
 

Servbot24

Banned
PySvV7v.png


My game is out: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gleamer/id622456407?ls=1&mt=8

Good job! Purchased it and will give it a try soon :)
 

Paz

Member
Nice stuff, and can you talk a little about the history of the quirky sounding title? "Assault Cactus"? What's that mean? :)

Haha yeah it is quite quirky. Cactus is actually the name of our green haired protagonist, and she just so happens to be an awesome android :)

She's an interesting character and part of a world that Tim (the animator/artist/programmer on the project) came up with about a decade ago, I really wanted to name the game "Cactus" but we didn't want to confuse anyone in the indie space with other games/people using that name (Like the guy behind Hotline Miami). We came up with a ton of fairly bland/generic sounding names that would have worked and been much more succinct, like Payload, but in the end we couldn't get away from wanting to include the name of the character the game was all about, so we came up with a triple barrel name that really emphasized what the game was all about.

Nobody seems to mind that there's a property called Battle Angel Alita, so why not Assault Android Cactus :p
 
Hey guys, its Elijah again! Today we received our senior project packets and I still have my mind set on designing a video game for it. I have downloaded Te adobe design products and Unity 3D and am still deciding which one I should use. Right now I am designing the game world, history, characters, etc. and will problem start work on the coding next week after I find out if get the project approved. I still need a mentor and was wondering if any of you guys can be mine. I won't really ask questions 24 seven, unless I'm stumped and need desperate help. I'll probably follow some tutorials on the web. I think this paper describes it better, so please take a look at it:

image_zpsc5ddb1b1.jpg


image_zps07d4e321.jpg


If you are interested, please e-mail me at
elijah_k_hines@yahoo.com
or PM! Looking forward to replies :)
 

usea

Member
Went to my city's IGDA chapter meeting last night. It was fun and I met some cool people. It was more of pub crawl than a meeting actually. Anyway, my experience was positive and I'd recommend seeing if there's a local chapter near you.

Nobody seems to mind that there's a property called Battle Angel Alita, so why not Assault Android Cactus :p
I'm definitely not a branding expert, so I can only speak regarding my own perspective. I think Battle Angel Alita (which I love) and AAC are both kind of a mouthful. But overall not much of an impediment. As soon as I saw some gameplay video I knew I would get it, so the title only mattered in the XX seconds it took for me to see footage after seeing the title. I'm probably not the typical indie game consumer though. Also I'm a big fan of area / twin stick shooters, having played a lot of Robotron 64, Waves and Geometry Wars.

Also Holly and Coral look like the coolest from the trailer
 

missile

Member
Rockets Under the Influence of Lift and Drag
(for video games)

In one of my previous post I have considered drag. But now I have finished
the work on the lift force. So here it is.

Computing the lift vector and lift force on a rocket wasn't so easy. Wings
will be easier within this regard. Well, I didn't found any lift data for a
rocket nor could I use the lift data from some wings straight. But from my
knowledge about the behavior of the lifting force on some airfoils I have
derived a lifting model for a rocket. It's sort of a full lifting model giving
a lift coefficient over the entire sphere (any attitude of the rocket). This
is way more advanced than general lift data for some airfoils, which are just
two-dimensional in a given sense. That is to say, for an airfoil, using such
2d data is meaningless if the airfoil yaws around itself or the airfoil is
traveling lateral with its wingtip being the, well, leading edge. This won't
work. However, as long as the main air comes over the leading edge, one can
use many of the known lift data for airfoils. However, I wanted to make the
lift force for a rocket fully three-dimensional. Since this will give me those
nice swirling patterns induced by the action of the lift- and drag force
working in conjunction on the surface of a rocket while the rocket undergoes
some strong changes in direction.

The following two animations demonstrate the working of the lift force.

efgjrhjdhsfo3j32.gif

What we can see here are two rockets both pitched at 1/1000 degrees at lift-
off. The rocket on the left will experience both lift (green) and drag (red)
applied at the center of pressure (blue), while the one to the right will only
experience drag. Upon reaching maximum height both rockets will start to fall.
The rocket to the left turns over somewhat earlier because the lift force as
well as the drag force are pushing on the rocket. But this lift force is
missing on the rocket to the right, which turns over solely due to the drag
force. One can also see that the lift force essentially stabilizes the rocket
around its flight path faster than without it -- and without any interaction
from the outside (flight control).

fgbqvqdwqv1glaj.gif

This animation shows the same rockets but now pitched at 6 degrees. One
can see that the rocket with lift and drag rotates into a better angle leading
to a longer distance of travel.


Note: I'm not going to make a game about rockets. The rockets are just
placeholder objects used to verify many of the equations in development for
my physics engine used for some specific games of mine. :+
 
Really impressive work on the physics, Missle. Looks great!
Note: I'm not going to make a game about rockets. The rockets are just
placeholder objects used to verify many of the equations in development for
my physics engine used for some specific games of mine. :+
For some reason I pictured in my head that you were working on a Tycoon game where you build rockets.
 

Rimshot

Member
Just wanted to hear if anyone else had the same experience as I? I have done some game projects, mostly while in school, to present a little more than low fidelity prototypes and more like tech demos of different game ideas.

Now that I work I feel that it would be fun to have my own side-project to work on, but I felt like it would be a shame to reinvent the wheel everytime I want to try a game idea so I thought of trying one of the available game engine solutions available and listed in this thread.

So I decided to give GameMaker Studio a try, as many people seem to like this software suite. And I must say, in all three game ideas (one being a simple take on bejeweled with new gameplay elements) that I have thought of it feels easier to just do everything from scratch. Am I just daft enough not to see how the GM Studio software could assist me, or is it really just more work than to just write everything myself?

Missle; your gifs look great! :)
 

Santini

Member

Congrats!

As someone who's just had his first "interesting" Apple review team experience, I now know what my dev friends have been talking about when they grumble about the process.

Glad to see yours only took 5 days in submission and is now out!

I also saw that your app was featured on the New and Noteworthy page. That's got to be an awesome thing for you. Did you intend to release on a Thursday, and/or did Apple decide to feature you when they approved your game?

Meaning, would you mind sharing some info on how that bit of magic happened? =)
 

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Congrats!

As someone who's just had his first "interesting" Apple review team experience, I now know what my dev friends have been talking about when they grumble about the process.

Glad to see yours only took 5 days in submission and is now out!

I also saw that your app was featured on the New and Noteworthy page. That's got to be an awesome thing for you. Did you intend to release on a Thursday, and/or did Apple decide to feature you when they approved your game?

Meaning, would you mind sharing some info on how that bit of magic happened? =)

Buy my game and I'll tell you my secrets.

Just kidding. Apparently I'm in the new and noteworthy in the US? First I heard about it was when someone told me this morning. I didn't get into it in my own country so I didn't know. I haven't had any contact with Apple. But if someone from Apple reads this, I'd love to get featured in Australia ;P

I chose to release on Thursday just because that's when most games come out and people focus on them. I think I made a mistake going up against Mikey Hooks though haha, that thing is burning up the charts.
 

Santini

Member
Buy my game and I'll tell you my secrets.

Just kidding. Apparently I'm in the new and noteworthy in the US? First I heard about it was when someone told me this morning. I didn't get into it in my own country so I didn't know. I haven't had any contact with Apple. But if someone from Apple reads this, I'd love to get featured in Australia ;P

I chose to release on Thursday just because that's when most games come out and people focus on them. I think I made a mistake going up against Mikey Hooks though haha, that thing is burning up the charts.

I can't; I just spent my last bit of iTunes credit on Mikey Hooks. Kidding. =)

Yes, you are definitely new and noteworthy in the US. And thanks for sharing! I'd been researching into what day was the best to release, and Thursday usually came up (as well as Sunday, for whatever reason), though it seems to be a crapshoot if you end up competing with a ton of big releases. That said, congrats again on making it.
 

Duderino

Member
Breakthrough day!

When I started working on Air Dash Online, I set a few technical goals for myself. Those included the following:

1. Create shaders that follow physically accurate rendering principles in Unity3d. ✔
2. Develop custom Spherical Harmonics ambient lighting suited for dynamic environments ✔
3. Approximate that ambient light based on the sky and sun direction. ✔
4. Create a unique motion effect that would enhance the sense of speed in the game.

I was able to work my way through the first 3, but #4 provided to be quite the challenge. Making matters more difficult I lack Unity Pro, so no screen effects or buffer access. I wasn't planning on using Unity's poor motion blur anyways, so it wasn't too bad of a loss.

My first attempt was to use the newly added BakedMesh (at the time) to gather vertex position data on my animated meshes. Using that I could calculate the velocity and deform the trailing vertices. It gave some pretty good results, only problem was the speed. After multi-threading what I could, it was adequate for maybe 2 characters on a fast machine. Decided to shelve it and come back to it later.


Finally this week I had the time to revisit it with the idea of using motion trails. Similar idea to this paper, only based on pre-defined joints instead of finding the actual mesh silhouette. After that was in place, I wrote a gradient shader with the intent of gathering pixels on screen to drive it the trails' colors. Thought getting a single pixel on the screen would be simple command in Unity, but unfortunately it turned into a pretty convoluted process. Here is the final result:

test8eb1n.gif


Playing the game with the effect on has made a pretty big difference. Aside from being visually interesting to look at, It serves the practical purpose of giving feedback for attack arcs. Anyways, I'm excited I was able to figure this all out. Really wanted to break away from the stiffness often found with 3D fighters compared to 2D animated sprites.

Also before I forget:

Congrats Jobbs on reaching your Kickstarter goal! Keep up the hard work!
 

missile

Member
A smartass teacher might come back, 'the paperwork was the project'
I wouldn't be surprised at all! xD


Breakthrough day!

When I started working on Air Dash Online, I set a few technical goals for myself. Those included the following:

1. Create shaders that follow physically accurate rendering principles in Unity3d. ✔
2. Develop custom Spherical Harmonics ambient lighting suited for dynamic environments ✔
3. Approximate that ambient light based on the sky and sun direction. ✔
4. Create a unique motion effect that would enhance the sense of speed in the game. ...
Ohh, check marks...! :)

... I was able to work my way through the first 3, but #4 provided to be quite the challenge. Making matters more difficult I lack Unity Pro, so no screen effects or buffer access. I wasn't planning on using Unity's poor motion blur anyways, so it wasn't too bad of a loss.

My first attempt was to use the newly added BakedMesh (at the time) to gather vertex position data on my animated meshes. Using that I could calculate the velocity and deform the trailing vertices. It gave some pretty good results, only problem was the speed. After multi-threading what I could, it was adequate for maybe 2 characters on a fast machine. Decided to shelve it and come back to it later.

Finally this week I had the time to revisit it with the idea of using motion trails. Similar idea to this paper, only based on pre-defined joints instead of finding the actual mesh silhouette. After that was in place, I wrote a gradient shader with the intent of gathering pixels on screen to drive it the trails' colors. Thought getting a single pixel on the screen would be simple command in Unity, but unfortunately it turned into a pretty convoluted process. Here is the final result:

test8eb1n.gif


Playing the game with the effect on has made a pretty big difference. Aside from being visually interesting to look at, It serves the practical purpose of giving feedback for attack arcs. Anyways, I'm excited I was able to figure this all out. Really wanted to break away from the stiffness often found with 3D fighters compared to 2D animated sprites. ...
Nice trick just using the joints, looks good enough for these kind of games!
A lil fuzzy, but way unique! ✔

PS: Good post btw!
✔
 

desu

Member
Finally this week I had the time to revisit it with the idea of using motion trails. Similar idea to this paper, only based on pre-defined joints instead of finding the actual mesh silhouette. After that was in place, I wrote a gradient shader with the intent of gathering pixels on screen to drive it the trails' colors. Thought getting a single pixel on the screen would be simple command in Unity, but unfortunately it turned into a pretty convoluted process. Here is the final result:

test8eb1n.gif

That looks really really awesome, thanks for posting that thesis as well.
 
No offense, but I don't think "this random person off the internet" is going to acceptable, looking at that paper.

You might be right and I'll try looking around my town for some people who know how to program video games. My teacher said that we were suppose to learn "networking" and get out there and meet new people to get us ready for the real world. I also asked her if it had to be a professional person for our project, but she said it just has to be someone who knows about the subject.

I would have skipped this senior project if I had to go through all this crap.

I wish I could skip it lol
 

Duderino

Member
Thanks everyone for the positive remarks! Happy to see it's making the impression I hoped for. :)

Nice trick just using the joints, looks good enough for these kind of games!
A lil fuzzy, but way unique! ✔

PS: Good post btw!
✔
I could sample more points that make up the gradient, but that still only covers the V in the UV coords. Might do some experimenting with the masking texture. Perhaps a little grain in there can break that look up a bit.

Nifty effect! Is it hardware resources hungry ? (what fps would you get for 20 characters in the view at once)

It's hard for me to say without the Profiler (Unity Pro Only feature) how expensive it is, but I could see 20 characters being a bit much. Probably depends on what your computer can handle and how many trails per character you are using. All I know is it's significantly faster than my older method and maintains a solid 60fps on my machine.
 
Breakthrough day!

When I started working on Air Dash Online, I set a few technical goals for myself. Those included the following:

1. Create shaders that follow physically accurate rendering principles in Unity3d. ✔
2. Develop custom Spherical Harmonics ambient lighting suited for dynamic environments ✔
3. Approximate that ambient light based on the sky and sun direction. ✔
4. Create a unique motion effect that would enhance the sense of speed in the game.

I was able to work my way through the first 3, but #4 provided to be quite the challenge. Making matters more difficult I lack Unity Pro, so no screen effects or buffer access. I wasn't planning on using Unity's poor motion blur anyways, so it wasn't too bad of a loss.

My first attempt was to use the newly added BakedMesh (at the time) to gather vertex position data on my animated meshes. Using that I could calculate the velocity and deform the trailing vertices. It gave some pretty good results, only problem was the speed. After multi-threading what I could, it was adequate for maybe 2 characters on a fast machine. Decided to shelve it and come back to it later.


Finally this week I had the time to revisit it with the idea of using motion trails. Similar idea to this paper, only based on pre-defined joints instead of finding the actual mesh silhouette. After that was in place, I wrote a gradient shader with the intent of gathering pixels on screen to drive it the trails' colors. Thought getting a single pixel on the screen would be simple command in Unity, but unfortunately it turned into a pretty convoluted process. Here is the final result:

test8eb1n.gif


Playing the game with the effect on has made a pretty big difference. Aside from being visually interesting to look at, It serves the practical purpose of giving feedback for attack arcs. Anyways, I'm excited I was able to figure this all out. Really wanted to break away from the stiffness often found with 3D fighters compared to 2D animated sprites.

Also before I forget:

Congrats Jobbs on reaching your Kickstarter goal! Keep up the hard work!

I love stuff like this, great work dude it looks like it fits perfectly with a fast paced game. How much of a performance hit does it give compared to say using motion blur methods like most games would use?

*edit* I see an answer to this above.
 

missile

Member
What about 6-DOF bullets? xD

Overkill! ✔

Usually, 3-DOFs (x,y,z) are enough. Just track the center of mass. However,
with 6-DOF one can pretty good simulate the effects of material deficiencies in
bullets leading to quite different -- not so straight -- paths. Rifling/
tumbling could also be handled. Nothing serious, just a thought....

rockets2013-08-1101-0xqueo.gif


rockets2013-08-1101-0h3u59.gif


rockets2013-08-1101-1g6u76.gif

velocity start: ~4000km/h, velocity end ~1800km/h
 

razu

Member
Breakthrough day!

When I started working on Air Dash Online, I set a few technical goals for myself. Those included the following:

1. Create shaders that follow physically accurate rendering principles in Unity3d. ✔
2. Develop custom Spherical Harmonics ambient lighting suited for dynamic environments ✔
3. Approximate that ambient light based on the sky and sun direction. ✔
4. Create a unique motion effect that would enhance the sense of speed in the game.

I was able to work my way through the first 3, but #4 provided to be quite the challenge. Making matters more difficult I lack Unity Pro, so no screen effects or buffer access. I wasn't planning on using Unity's poor motion blur anyways, so it wasn't too bad of a loss.

My first attempt was to use the newly added BakedMesh (at the time) to gather vertex position data on my animated meshes. Using that I could calculate the velocity and deform the trailing vertices. It gave some pretty good results, only problem was the speed. After multi-threading what I could, it was adequate for maybe 2 characters on a fast machine. Decided to shelve it and come back to it later.


Finally this week I had the time to revisit it with the idea of using motion trails. Similar idea to this paper, only based on pre-defined joints instead of finding the actual mesh silhouette. After that was in place, I wrote a gradient shader with the intent of gathering pixels on screen to drive it the trails' colors. Thought getting a single pixel on the screen would be simple command in Unity, but unfortunately it turned into a pretty convoluted process. Here is the final result:

test8eb1n.gif


Playing the game with the effect on has made a pretty big difference. Aside from being visually interesting to look at, It serves the practical purpose of giving feedback for attack arcs. Anyways, I'm excited I was able to figure this all out. Really wanted to break away from the stiffness often found with 3D fighters compared to 2D animated sprites.

Also before I forget:

Congrats Jobbs on reaching your Kickstarter goal! Keep up the hard work!

That looks wicked!! :D
 

snarge

Member
You might be right and I'll try looking around my town for some people who know how to program video games. My teacher said that we were suppose to learn "networking" and get out there and meet new people to get us ready for the real world. I also asked her if it had to be a professional person for our project, but she said it just has to be someone who knows about the subject.

Check and see if your town has an IGDA chapter.
 

Jobbs

Banned
This is the empower ability. Basically, your regular cannon becomes stronger temporarily if you do certain actions -- in the old, existing flash game, this happens when you dash through an enemy. I plan to do more with this whole dynamic moving forward though.

The shots sort of produce some effects around you like your suit is strained by it.
empowered2.gif


Here's an example of acquiring an empowered state.
dashkill3.gif


The dynamic/graphics around this are kinda dated and, as I said, I want to do more with this in the rebuild. In particular, I want to look at making the the regular cannon rather weak in general, and particularly ineffectual against armor -- And empowered shots will be armor piercing. Along with the new maneuverabiltiy and melee moves, I think this will add a layer of depth and strategy to the combat, particularly against tough enemies.
 

Jobbs

Banned
Are you rebuilding your game from scratch? Why D:?

I'm running a kickstarter campaign and it has met its goal. So I'll be bringing my programmer friend on full time and we'll be rebuilding the game bigger and better, using Unity and the graphics will be redone in much higher res for big screens. In case you didn't know, the existing game is a flash game and it's hard to do what I want to do in a flash game.
 
I'm running a kickstarter campaign and it has met its goal. So I'll be bringing my programmer friend on full time and we'll be rebuilding the game bigger and better, using Unity and the graphics will be redone in much higher res for big screens. In case you didn't know, the existing game is a flash game and it's hard to do what I want to do in a flash game.

That's great and sucks at the same time. You seem to have an almost finished product, I thought it would have been better to release that first then the refreshed version.
 

Blizzard

Banned
That's great and sucks at the same time. You seem to have an almost finished product, I thought it would have been better to release that first then the refreshed version.
I'm curious to see what the art will be like redone, since a large part of the appeal may be the great sprite art. If it's changed, and/or if it switches to a 2.5D Unity approach I would expect it might look different. Jobbs, are you planning to use a 2D toolkit or similar for Unity?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom