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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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M

Mystic River

Member
phantomsnake said:
It's like a mashup of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Asteroids. Looks really fun! :)



You need to implement interface methods and abstract methods but not virtual methods. This is definitely an unusual design choice on Unity's part...

Everyone seems to be posting gifs now so here's a WORLD EXCLUSIVE (!!!) gameplay clip from Manic Mole:

iBTWk0to1Nj8o.gif
Click to expand...

i like Manic Mole looks nice!
 
P

Pound_lb003

Member
Dynamite Shikoku said:
I don't know. I've only just started working with 3D stuff. I think I've got blender figured out though now. I've been doing what I read in the unity forums:

"In object mode, set the X rotation of your model to -90. Press Ctrl + A and apply rotation, X rotation appears to be 0 now in Blender, set it to 90 and save/export it. You'll see that it will appear both correct and at 0 rotations now."
Click to expand...

You're a fucking star, excuse my French. Thanks for that so much.

The next hurdle being that EVERY second thing I try to fiddle with in Unity says "Nuh uh uh! Tut tut! Only available in Pro you little scallywag!"

I don't expect something for nothing, but I'd prefer the barrier appear when you want to actually sell your game. I don't know. I was just trying to be a cheapskate and my learning seems hampered by the pay barriers.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
phantomsnake said:
You need to implement interface methods and abstract methods but not virtual methods. This is definitely an unusual design choice on Unity's part...
Click to expand...
I don't know the innards of Unity so maybe I'm clueless. Are you 100% certain that no superclass is defining an empty version of those virtual methods (thus making them plain virtual instead of pure virtual)?
 
M

Manabanana

Member
Without quoting the gif again, Manic Mole looks super fun. I would consider ditching the Mario coins though. They're a bit distracting D:

Custom ship Asteroids game looks hilarious.

Keep it up, this thread keeps delivering.
 
P

phantomsnake

Neo Member
Blizzard said:
I don't know the innards of Unity so maybe I'm clueless. Are you 100% certain that no superclass is defining an empty version of those virtual methods (thus making them plain virtual instead of pure virtual)?
Click to expand...

I double-checked with ILSpy and those methods simply don't exist. They must be using reflection to access them and caching the MethodInfo objects for performance. Well, maybe not that exactly... There are IoC frameworks that can get performance very close to native method calls. I don't know how they work though!
 
L

Limanima

Member
phantomsnake said:
It's like a mashup of Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Asteroids. Looks really fun! :)



You need to implement interface methods and abstract methods but not virtual methods. This is definitely an unusual design choice on Unity's part...

Everyone seems to be posting gifs now so here's a WORLD EXCLUSIVE (!!!) gameplay clip from Manic Mole:

iBTWk0to1Nj8o.gif
Click to expand...

Is this game inspired by any chance by Manic Miner and Monty Mole? Good old ZX Spectrum games, I miss you...
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Back from a little vacation with the fiancée, now it's back to work! I got some UI and artist help during the time I was gone, so it should be a lot of fun working it in.
 
T

TrickRoom

Member
Got a few systems up and running, beyond map generation, there's combat. At least as far as you can see on ASCII...

BTCzYpDCIAEKL_N.png:large

Hooray for placeholders! I also fixed up some formatting.

I should stop making these posts when Saturday is almost over...

Ditto on that Manic Mole gif. I love the crisp style to the sprites.
 
D

DSix

Banned
bumpkin said:
I'm probably stating the obvious, but have you considered a Kickstarter? It's done wonders for several people here in the thread.
Click to expand...

I never really thought about that, but it's a pretty good idea. It could really help. Though I have absolutely no idea how much I should ask for and what I could give for it. I need to think about it.
 
R

razu

Member
F-Pina said:
screenshot_anim_05.gif
Click to expand...

snarge said:
Super Crazy Ship:
in5NmkAluSU9t.gif
Click to expand...

phantomsnake said:
iBTWk0to1Nj8o.gif
Click to expand...

Bamihap said:
CPgif1.gif
Click to expand...


That's some pretty impressive stuff going on this weekend!

I'm working on something new right now, and might actually stick with this one. It's been fun jumping between prototypes, but I really should actually make a whole new game soon! Also planning some levels for Chopper Mike. It's all been delayed by the good weather we've had this summer in the UK. Last summer was so much better for development :D

Keep it cool indieGAF!! :D
 
V

Vancha

Member
As a new indie website. We want to encourage people to view new kinds of games through actual contests and fun things to do.

Nr 1. Get to see what Screenshotsaturday has to deliver through a "Hot or Not" contest. We will be contacting the developers of the most popular games in order to make additional articles or game impressions of them.

Have a look and have a vote.
http://www.indiespotted.com/screenshotsaturday/

Indiespotted-banner-complete1.png


This is mainly in a testing fase and can be altered in the future, but it would be fun to see what you guys think of this. :)
 
F

Flai

Member
phantomsnake said:
I double-checked with ILSpy and those methods simply don't exist. They must be using reflection to access them and caching the MethodInfo objects for performance. Well, maybe not that exactly... There are IoC frameworks that can get performance very close to native method calls. I don't know how they work though!
Click to expand...

Yeah, and also, Start/Update etc doesn't even have to be protected or public, they get called even if they are private. Which seems very very shady to me. I mean, if I make a private method, I would expect that it won't be called outside the class.

Also apparently the Inspector doesn't even show public properties of the script, instead they must be public variables. I have kinda learned to NEVER make public variables so.. I don't know.. Why couldn't Unity just do an API that uses C# like it's supposed to be used... :( ? Pisses me off a bit :|
 
G

gngf123

Member
Damn, a lot of impressive images being shown off in here!

Hopefully I have something I feel confident in showing off sometime soon. My current project I only started 2 and a half days ago.
 
F

F-Pina

Member
Limanima said:
Hi folks, I'm glad to announce that a new version of Snails was just released.
The new game is free and has 36 levels to play. After getting some feedback from users complaining that the game was too hard, we decided to add a new hint system and YouTube videos that show how to get the gold medals. The difficulty was also decreased.
Those who have Windows Phone, go get it! Thanks!
http://www.windowsphone.com/s?appid=c8987ea5-0c7d-42c4-beaa-6dffe289921b

fb-banner-2.jpg
Click to expand...

Awesome dude! Really glad that you guys made it :)
 
E

Esti

Neo Member
qnwtal4.png


This is a mockup my artist made for a game I'm developing with a friend(the artist) for a local contest. We are (hopefully) finishing a demo for Halloween.
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
Vancha said:
As a new indie website. We want to encourage people to view new kinds of games through actual contests and fun things to do.

Nr 1. Get to see what Screenshotsaturday has to deliver through a "Hot or Not" contest. We will be contacting the developers of the most popular games in order to make additional articles or game impressions of them.

Have a look and have a vote.
http://www.indiespotted.com/screenshotsaturday/

Indiespotted-banner-complete1.png


This is mainly in a testing fase and can be altered in the future, but it would be fun to see what you guys think of this. :)
Click to expand...
Wow, goog idea! Were are you getting in the screens for screenshot saturday? From reddit post?
EDIT
Wow, the avarage of most of the screens is pretty low :O

Esti said:
qnwtal4.png


This is a mockup my artist made for a game I'm developing with a friend(the artist) for a local contest. We are (hopefully) finishing a demo for Halloween.
Click to expand...

That looks pretty impressive. Is a music RPG?
 
S

SpacePirate Ridley

Member
We are just testing the pushing boxes on unity, we had some problems at first but it seems we have resolved them.
Here is a gif, the pushing animation for Cherry is still not done.
pushingboxesx7bpf.gif
 
E

Esti

Neo Member
SpacePirate Ridley said:
Wow, goog idea! Were are you getting in the screens for screenshot saturday? From reddit post?
EDIT
Wow, the avarage of most of the screens is pretty low :O



That looks pretty impressive. Is a music RPG?
Click to expand...

Thanks!

It is a Plants vs Zombies base defense type of game. Each instrument/band member has a special power but the gameplay is pretty standard. No guitar hero stuff.
 
R

Ranger X

Member
Anybody got some advice on what I'd call "develloper's discouragement"??

Lately I almost haven't been touching my game at all. There has been other probs in my personal life but still, when I sit before my project sometimes all I can think of is how long it will take and if it's worth it in the end... :(
 
P

Popstar

Member
Ranger X said:
Anybody got some advice on what I'd call "develloper's discouragement"??
Click to expand...
It's not going to be the same for everyone.

When I'm feeling uninspired I try to get the ball rolling again by sitting down and working on something that doesn't require inspiration. Fixing bugs is good for this. But any work that you might normally consider tedious can get you back working on things.

Does your game have a front end? If not, start making the front end. Haven't done sound effects yet? Get cfxr and have a go. Grab all the low-hanging fruit you can just to get moving again. Hopefully after awhile of doing tedious stuff you're itching to get back into the meatier stuff.
 
S

Santini

Member
Ranger X said:
Anybody got some advice on what I'd call "develloper's discouragement"??
Click to expand...

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I can imagine that most of us been there before, in some form or another.

This talk on creativity by John Cleese certainly helped me see things a little differently in regards to indie game development and other creative endeavors.

Based on what you said, outside factors not related to the game are probably what are preventing you from moving forward with it. When sitting down with your project, you need to find time to get into what Cleese calls "open mode".

Hope you can work it out. Best of luck, man!
 
B

BurritoBushido

Member
Anybody use Playmaker? Its on sale for 18 bucks tomorrow and I'm considering it. I'm more of a scripter than a hard coder so it seems pretty appealing. Is it worth a buy or should I just stick to code?
 
M

Mystic River

Member
another factor is also how long have you been working on your game? years? months?

usually you get pretty excited during the first few months and slowly goes down as you move forward, since it becomes more complex and confusing as you move forward, if you are working alone, as I am doing, probably the best is to work on simple things, so you can finish something fast, that motivates you since you feel you acomplish something in the day.

If you have a blackhole of creativity then better go play some games and thing what you can learn from them and have some fun, that may help you come back or not at all, but at least you will know if you really want to continue or not
 
G

gngf123

Member
Dynamite Shikoku said:
Vectrosity seems pretty cool from what I've seen so far. Excellent documentation as well.
Click to expand...

This looks great, and seems like something I could use myself actually.

On the topic of motivation. Staying motivated on large projects is really, really difficult. I've had some success in trying to take them on one small step at a time. I try to pick one thing to improve, and I spend the day focusing on that one thing. Lots of very small goals, instead of the one big game.
 
V

Vancha

Member
SpacePirate Ridley said:
Wow, goog idea! Were are you getting in the screens for screenshot saturday? From reddit post?
EDIT
Wow, the avarage of most of the screens is pretty low :O
Click to expand...

We get the screens from various places like Twitter itself, Reddit and sometimes other websites we stumble upon. We will be including more and finetune it further down the road. As this is just the first week and batch.
 
E

Esti

Neo Member
Tips to get motivated and work in your game:

1 - Work out of your house/bedroom : If you are in college try to work where there's people studying.

2 - Get a deadline: Competitions and stuff.

3 - Work with someone in the same place and be the one who works more: This way your partner will try his best and you won't waste time.

4 - Do lists and divide bigger tasks: Use this workflowy.com , you don't understand the power of completed task lists.
 
D

DSix

Banned
Ranger X said:
Anybody got some advice on what I'd call "develloper's discouragement"??

Lately I almost haven't been touching my game at all. There has been other probs in my personal life but still, when I sit before my project sometimes all I can think of is how long it will take and if it's worth it in the end... :(
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, it's something unavoidable, all you can try is to make your dev time as easy as possible. Just try to do a set of little unimportant tasks or little bugfixes in those moments, it might launch you naturally into the bigger things to do.

On very long projects it's a pain in the ass and the duration of the blocks can get insanely long. Don't be like me, manage your time better. Don't let a project take years to make, especially solo. The longer it takes, the faster things can get out of control.
 
R

razu

Member
Popstar said:
It's not going to be the same for everyone.

When I'm feeling uninspired I try to get the ball rolling again by sitting down and working on something that doesn't require inspiration. Fixing bugs is good for this. But any work that you might normally consider tedious can get you back working on things.

Does your game have a front end? If not, start making the front end. Haven't done sound effects yet? Get cfxr and have a go. Grab all the low-hanging fruit you can just to get moving again. Hopefully after awhile of doing tedious stuff you're itching to get back into the meatier stuff.
Click to expand...

This is good advice.

I always advise people to just do *something* too. Anything. And something that's easily completed, so you get the hit from checking it off a todo list.. that simple thing can spark you on to the next task..
 
J

JulianImp

Member
Guys, I've been thinking about implementing an object in Unity that'd basically exchange information with other objects of its type whenever they collide (using C#).

The thing is... what's the best way to have two objects exchange information, if the OnCollision events can only get me the GameObject, and not the individual scripts of the other object, which is what'd have the methods I want to invoke?

As far as I know, using GetComponent<Type>() is really slow, and after looking up the Component.SendMessage method it kind of looks like what I'm looking for, but I'm not sure how good that method performs since I've never used it before, and it looks like it's using a string for the method name and takes a single input parameter (yuck!).

EDIT: Wait, the parameter can be an object, so I could use boxing-unboxing for passing multiple things at once if needed. But still, that string...
 
S

Santini

Member
JulianImp said:
Guys, I've been thinking about implementing an object in Unity that'd basically exchange information with other objects of its type whenever they collide (using C#).

The thing is... what's the best way to have two objects exchange information, if the OnCollision events can only get me the GameObject, and not the individual scripts of the other object, which is what'd have the methods I want to invoke?.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you're looking for a messaging system?

I used Blurst Technology's Messaging System in my project to exchange messages between game objects. Very easy to set up; I had a single Game Object in scenes that acted as the "messenger" and passed on whatever messages needed to be sent and received between objects. This was primarily used for game events, i.e., not every frame. There's a variant on the Unity 3D wiki here as well.

However, since you said you're using C#, another coder rewrote the Blurst Technology code into C# on his blog. I haven't tried that one out to test as I haven't fully converted over into C# yet.
 
J

JulianImp

Member
Santini said:
Sounds like you're looking for a messaging system?

I used Blurst Technology's Messaging System in my project to exchange messages between game objects. Very easy to set up; I had a single Game Object in scenes that acted as the "messenger" and passed on whatever messages needed to be sent and received between objects. This was primarily used for game events, i.e., not every frame. There's a variant on the Unity 3D wiki here as well.

However, since you said you're using C#, another coder rewrote the Blurst Technology code into C# on his blog. I haven't tried that one out to test as I haven't fully converted over into C# yet.
Click to expand...

I'll take a more in-depth look at those sites and see what I can use, but at a glance it looks like it fits what I wanted to do perfectly. Thanks!

Perhaps I could look into using pre-made messages like the JS example, but I'll also look into using delegates or simply Objects to transmit message data through as well (via boxing and unboxing of a message structure or class, I guess).
 
W

Why would you do that?

Member
So I'm trying to learn 3D programming. Using the framework libgdx, I decided to build a camera that translates and rotates along its own axes instead of the world axes, which is non-intuitive and not user friendly. (I basically wanted an FPS or flight sim camera.)

I feel really stupid because, well, I figured out that to move forward/back, you can just translate the camera along the direction vector, and that to move left/right, you can translate along the direction vector rotated 90 degrees around the up vector. But then I couldn't figure out how to translate up/down. I tried doing all sorts of multiplication with the up and direction vectors, and I even left it alone for a few hours to try and figure it out.

When I got back, it hit me - to translate up/down, translate along the Up vector. Duh! How silly...

Of course, I understand that really doing 3D work would involve using matrices in a very hands-on way, and I'm going to get to that at some point...
 
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