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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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Another great way to work on polishing your game ideas is to actually talk about them with others. I know many are afraid of others stealing their ideas, but one of the things you learn when you start taking game design more seriously is that nearly everyone has good ideas, but what you really need is a good framework for taking those ideas to fruition, and that kind of critical thinking really benefits from discussing your ideas and getting feedback on them.

Most people starting out in game development don't realize this. No matter how good they actually are, game ideas are worthless compared to execution. Nobody cares about Crush the Castle or Wavespark.

Don't make bad games, but focus on quantity until you get your skills up, then focus on quality so you can make games that have inferior copies rather than superior ones.
 

F-Pina

Member
neogaf.jpg


What an awesome 3 weeks of non-stop work. Lot's of work finally paying off :)
We just launched our campaign on Steam Greenlight plus we launched the trailer AND started taking pre-orders!
Our website is full of stuff with images and characters.
For pre-orders we decided to go with BMT Micro after seeing all the good feedback from fellow gaffers.

Trailer
-> http://youtu.be/M1_C90zYv2M
Site and re-order -> http://caseandbot.com/en/
Steam Greenlight -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=175472897

And for our Portuguese fans, here is the "Tuga treilar" -> http://youtu.be/hHGO8EpmDRQ

And I leave you with one of our cool ilustrations :D

img_game.png
 
A quick follow up on my game plans and iOS device limits, I am going to buy myself a 5g touch soon and test my game on it, this has very similar power to the 4S (if not a tiny bit less) and if my game runs on that device alright, it will be the lowest model I will support.

So 4S/5g Touch and above models, this would roughly mean iPad 2 and above also.

I will also throw in device scaling and settings for those who think turning off some effects might be better for a lower power device, Generations uses a lot of scaling, rotation and transparency to give it it's unique look in motion.
 
Wow.

So my team's game, Ephemerid, has been selected as an IndieCade finalist! Is anyone planning on going this year? Would love to meet any other Gaffers! Anyone who has gone before have any advice?

Now, a visual representation of my feels:

RNTS
 

Bamihap

Good at being the bigger man
A quick follow up on my game plans and iOS device limits, I am going to buy myself a 5g touch soon and test my game on it, this has very similar power to the 4S (if not a tiny bit less) and if my game runs on that device alright, it will be the lowest model I will support.

So 4S/5g Touch and above models, this would roughly mean iPad 2 and above also.

I will also throw in device scaling and settings for those who think turning off some effects might be better for a lower power device, Generations uses a lot of scaling, rotation and transparency to give it it's unique look in motion.
Watch your ram usage on iPod touch. Is half the ram of an iphone/ipad.
 

charsace

Member
perhaps someone here from the indie community can illustrate me in one thing I haven't been able to fix for my new game, I've been trying to use normal maps with rotation in XNA 2d spritebatch , problem is that when I rotate textures lights also rotate like being attached even though the light is fixed. It works whenever the sprites are just vertical without rotation, but not when rotated, i've been trying to find a solution that works inside batching but i can't find how yet.

Post pics or a vid.
 

JulianImp

Member
Metroidvanias, Metroidvanias everywhere

That's just what I was thinking... and here we are, working on yet another metroidvania! Hopefully, people won't be sick and tired of the subgenre by the time we're ready to release the game.

Thanks for sharing that tip about modifying a rigibody's velocity directly, Sycle! I'll be sure to try that out, and hopefully it'll be the end of the Floaty McFloatypants physics the game has as of now.

I've just finished further refining the basic outline of the things the game needs to be playable, and the list doesn't seem that long. I'm really looking forward to coming up with a playable demo, or at least some gifs to show around. I used to feel a bit down regarding the game's development in the past few weeks, but now I think I've gotten over it and am finally picking up the pace again.
 

Nosgoroth

Member
How does this play, megaman like?

This prototype thing only has three melee weapons (crappy spanner, slow axe and fast dagger) and a spammable airjump ability (MP regens when on ground, airjump costs MP) and the second half of the map is littered with deadly spikes, so it's sort of a Megavania (EDIT: or Megatroid, dunno). You can't crouch, either, but there's no shootin'.

I am tempted to add a Megaman-like death animation, too.

Metroidvanias, Metroidvanias everywhere

One for each gamer that wanted Konami to keep it up. This is my revenge.
 
Maybe this isn't the right place for my question, in wich case feel free to ignore it.

Aside from proper indie developers/studios, is this thread also for anyone with a videogame concept/project, looking for specific help?
As in my case - graphic designer with a passion for art and illustration - I've got some ideas for a 2D sidescroller which I'm currently doing concept and level design for, but I'm basically on my own and in need of programmers/animators/musicians' help in order to make it real.

So I was wondering if I could post some of my works here and see if there are fellow Gaffers interested in, or if I should look somewhere else.

Sorry in advance if I said anything stupid or OT, I'm totally new to this scene (so far, I only managed to work with Pointfiveprojects by doing the artwork for Battle High 2).

check your pm's!
 
WOOT! got my second weapon implemented!

3S67DRk.png


All the movement works, including block and parry, the primary weapon works fully (moveset lifted from DMC3 rebellion), and just added in the first subweapon this last week, a wind elemental katana (basically the yamoto) The combat is starting to feel really fleshed out now :)

gameplay vid with no sound :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5b4DH2ATZk

Wow, looks really cool! I really like the combo system in the 2D plane.

neogaf.jpg


What an awesome 3 weeks of non-stop work. Lot's of work finally paying off :)
We just launched our campaign on Steam Greenlight plus we launched the trailer AND started taking pre-orders!
Our website is full of stuff with images and characters.
For pre-orders we decided to go with BMT Micro after seeing all the good feedback from fellow gaffers.

Trailer
-> http://youtu.be/M1_C90zYv2M
Site and re-order -> http://caseandbot.com/en/
Steam Greenlight -> http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=175472897

And for our Portuguese fans, here is the "Tuga treilar" -> http://youtu.be/hHGO8EpmDRQ

And I leave you with one of our cool ilustrations :D

img_game.png

AMAZING! Just voted in greenlight your game, looks beautiful, the art is really awesome and the dialogue from the trailer looks funny as hell.
Just saw that the game has just entered greenlight, we also are in greenlight some months ago, its a harsh place but I hope your game does great!

Wow.

So my team's game, Ephemerid, has been selected as an IndieCade finalist! Is anyone planning on going this year? Would love to meet any other Gaffers! Anyone who has gone before have any advice?

Now, a visual representation of my feels:

RNTS

Congrats! Trying to go next year, do you need to send finished games, or they can be in making process still with the majority of thinks to show.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Wow.

So my team's game, Ephemerid, has been selected as an IndieCade finalist! Is anyone planning on going this year? Would love to meet any other Gaffers! Anyone who has gone before have any advice?

Now, a visual representation of my feels:
Oh yeah I saw a flyer for that. I want to go, hopefully my travel plans don't conflict.
 

beril

Member
I got a loaner dev kit from Nintendo last week and after some initial confusion I've got most of my engine up and running now.

wPRpvWu.jpg


I haven't decided if I'll actually release anything yet; just playing around with the hardware for now as a break from my current project. I'm not sure if my new game would really work well on a console, though I haven't tried it yet, and I'm not sure how I feel about releasing a really really late port of Gunman Clive. Though I guess that would be basically free money since I'm porting it anyway.

I still have a lot to do and I haven't really started examining the hardware beyond porting my 3DS code so far. Fun stuff ahead. The devkit is rather noisy though :-/
 

bumpkin

Member
I got a loaner dev kit from Nintendo last week and after some initial confusion I've got most of my engine up and running now.
Loaner dev kit, you say? They have such a thing?

I filled out their application, but haven't gotten a call back yet.:(
 

Sycle

Neo Member
Wow.

So my team's game, Ephemerid, has been selected as an IndieCade finalist! Is anyone planning on going this year? Would love to meet any other Gaffers! Anyone who has gone before have any advice?

Now, a visual representation of my feels:

RNTS

Congrats! I remember following Ephemerid on the Unity forums a while back, I loved the concept and the overall vibe! Hope it goes well!

We entered Assault Android Cactus in IndieCade but got rejected.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
Looks like my Wii U dev kit will arrive by the time I get home tonight. :)

Can't wait to start testing and experimenting with it. I'm hopeful to release my first game in 3 or 4 months. If I worked non-stop, I could easily get to a point where I could start submitting it for lotcheck in a month or so, but this is all in my off-time and free-time, so hence the uncertainty of getting it out there as soon as I can. I still have to find someone to make some graphics for me and someone to do sound effects and some background music. That shouldn't be too hard, as I saved up some info on people here looking for work in doing graphics/music/sounds as well as know a few people who know people who I can contact.

Even with me doing this in my off-time, I could most likely easily get the main coding of the gameplay coded in about a month. Already started coding a little bit of my game. Decided to start from scratch. I learned a good bit from my prototype game of what to do and what not to do when redoing everything. Makes coding and organizing everything much easier. So much of my code, especially the render class, was a mess. heh
 

Galdelico

Member
Ok, so... I received a few PMs - thanks again guys! - which encouraged me enough to post some of the most recent artwork I've done for Project Paper Ninja.

As I said before, it's a simple 2D sidescroller, a classic action game inspired by Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and SEGA's Shinobi series.
The paper element works both ways... Visually - the whole game is completely hand-drawn, as if each charachter/part of the scenario was paint-brushed on different paper cutouts, one over each other, in an ideal homage to sumi-e art as well - and gameplay-wise, with our heroine and all the enemies taking advantage of being drawn on paper (different kinds of paper) to behave differently, adding variety to the game's flow and combat system's mechanics.

Time for some picture now. What you can see below (even if at this early stage) is quite representative of how I'd love the game to look like:

PPNStageMix_zpsf8330a59.png


And this is the actual design for the main female protagonist:

project_paper_ninja__kunoichi_by_g_for_galdelico-d6kvro2.png


I have done a couple of videos showing just a few seconds of the two stages' parallax scrolling, but I still have to figure how to post them here. :D

It's all for now, thanks once more guys!
 

bumpkin

Member
Looks like my Wii U dev kit will arrive by the time I get home tonight. :)
UGH! So freakin' jealous of you folks who got approved and are getting dev kit goodies. How long after you submitted your application did Nintendo respond/call?

Their form doesn't seem to ask much in the way of specifics of prior software experience, so I hope that me having at least one iOS App they can find and see on the store will be enough to get a call. It's not a game, but it's still something I designed and coded all by myself.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
UGH! So freakin' jealous of you folks who got approved and are getting dev kit goodies. How long after you submitted your application did Nintendo respond/call?

Their form doesn't seem to ask much in the way of specifics of prior software experience, so I hope that me having at least one iOS App they can find and see on the store will be enough to get a call. It's not a game, but it's still something I designed and coded all by myself.
I registered back in March after their GDC thing. I got an email from them about a month and half ago, and they finally called me like 2 or 3 weeks ago. I got approved last week and was able to order my dev kit. Sounds like they are doing their best to catch up with the demand.

btw: I didn't have any games/apps made at time of my submission, so you should be fine. :p
 

JulianImp

Member
UGH! So freakin' jealous of you folks who got approved and are getting dev kit goodies. How long after you submitted your application did Nintendo respond/call?

Their form doesn't seem to ask much in the way of specifics of prior software experience, so I hope that me having at least one iOS App they can find and see on the store will be enough to get a call. It's not a game, but it's still something I designed and coded all by myself.

From what I've heard, it takes a couple of months from when you fill out the online form and get an automated response; then, you get another e-mail to verify your contact information and a phone call some time after that.
 

bumpkin

Member
I registered back in March after their GDC thing. I got an email from them about a month and half ago, and they finally called me like 2 or 3 weeks ago. I got approved last week and was able to order my dev kit. Sounds like they are doing their best to catch up with the demand.

btw: I didn't have any games/apps made at time of my submission, so you should be fine. :p
Ah, well at least that gives me time to finish getting something built that I could work on porting before they contact me. I hope they do at least. Having grown up a hardcore Nintendo guy, it's pretty much my dream to be able develop something for a Nintendo console. :D
 

Roubjon

Member
Ok, so... I received a few PMs - thanks again guys! - which encouraged me enough to post some of the most recent artwork I've done for Project Paper Ninja.

As I said before, it's a simple 2D sidescroller, a classic action game inspired by Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and SEGA's Shinobi series.
The paper element works both ways... Visually - the whole game is completely hand-drawn, as if each charachter/part of the scenario was paint-brushed on different paper cutouts, one over each other, in an ideal homage to sumi-e art as well - and gameplay-wise, with our heroine and all the enemies taking advantage of being drawn on paper (different kinds of paper) to behave differently, adding variety to the game's flow and combat system's mechanics.

That looks sick man. If you don't mind me asking, who is doing the art?

EDIT: Derp, oh wait, you said you did it in the first sentence! I checked out your deviant art and the game looks pretty awesome! Also I love your style.
 
Loaner dev kit, you say? They have such a thing?

I filled out their application, but haven't gotten a call back yet.:(

Took them months to call me, but yeah they are pretty much calling anyone who applied. And the loaner dev kit program is the reason why indies are flocking in droves, it's stupidly easy to get something going on the Wii U.

The demand is huge. But yeah the way they're dealing with indies is EXTREMELY open. I have no games made (but I did work in the industry) so it's literally if a person is interested and fills the application they'll contact you.
 

Metal-Geo

Member
Ok, so... I received a few PMs - thanks again guys! - which encouraged me enough to post some of the most recent artwork I've done for Project Paper Ninja.

As I said before, it's a simple 2D sidescroller, a classic action game inspired by Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and SEGA's Shinobi series.
The paper element works both ways... Visually - the whole game is completely hand-drawn, as if each charachter/part of the scenario was paint-brushed on different paper cutouts, one over each other, in an ideal homage to sumi-e art as well - and gameplay-wise, with our heroine and all the enemies taking advantage of being drawn on paper (different kinds of paper) to behave differently, adding variety to the game's flow and combat system's mechanics.

Time for some picture now. What you can see below (even if at this early stage) is quite representative of how I'd love the game to look like:

PPNStageMix_zpse1a34fc1.png


And this is the actual design for the main female protagonist:

project_paper_ninja__kunoichi_by_g_for_galdelico-d6kvro2.png


I have done a couple of videos showing just a few seconds of the two stages' parallax scrolling, but I still have to figure how to post them here. :D

It's all for now, thanks once more guys!
Just gorgeous. Hope the game actually looks this way in the end. It's a great 'render' target.

Why do some objects/entities have a white outline (badly cut silhouette?) and some don't? Does this imply what moves and what's static and/or part of the background?
 

patchday

Member
Oh wow never peeked in this thread before. Lots of great stuff in here :)

@Galdelico, That Project Paper Ninja looks crazy creative! Good job yo!!
 

F-Pina

Member
Ok, so... I received a few PMs - thanks again guys! - which encouraged me enough to post some of the most recent artwork I've done for Project Paper Ninja.

As I said before, it's a simple 2D sidescroller, a classic action game inspired by Treasure's Gunstar Heroes and SEGA's Shinobi series.
The paper element works both ways... Visually - the whole game is completely hand-drawn, as if each charachter/part of the scenario was paint-brushed on different paper cutouts, one over each other, in an ideal homage to sumi-e art as well - and gameplay-wise, with our heroine and all the enemies taking advantage of being drawn on paper (different kinds of paper) to behave differently, adding variety to the game's flow and combat system's mechanics.

Time for some picture now. What you can see below (even if at this early stage) is quite representative of how I'd love the game to look like:

PPNStageMix_zpsf8330a59.png


And this is the actual design for the main female protagonist:

project_paper_ninja__kunoichi_by_g_for_galdelico-d6kvro2.png


I have done a couple of videos showing just a few seconds of the two stages' parallax scrolling, but I still have to figure how to post them here. :D

It's all for now, thanks once more guys!

This looks very good, keep it up dude.
 

Galdelico

Member
That looks sick man. If you don't mind me asking, who is doing the art?

EDIT: Derp, oh wait, you said you did it in the first sentence! I checked out your deviant art and the game looks pretty awesome! Also I love your style.

Thank you sir, that's really kind.
Yeah, for now I'm doing all the artwork but I'm probably getting some help soon, in the animation department (and the artist is crazy talented, I genuinely can't wait to see what he'll come up with).

Just gorgeous. Hope the game actually looks this way in the end. It's a great 'render' target.

Why do some objects/entities have a white outline (badly cut silhouette?) and some don't? Does this imply what moves and what's static and/or part of the background?
That, again, is super flattering man, thank you (and sorry I messed up your quote by editing one picture lol).

Those I posted should be actual game's screenshots. You'll be able to see a bit better how the backgrounds are built in the scrolling-test videos.
Also - as you correctly assumed - the ones with che roughly cut silhouette all around are the 'sprites' (they are meant to be drawn on torn paper), whereas everything else is part of the scene. On one hand I wanted to connect the paper element to the gameplaly - for example, weaker enemies will be drawn on tissue-paper, stronger ones on cardboard - plus I needed the player to be able to figure out the targets without struggling and the clear borders came in handy.
It's all supposed to be animated, btw - the elephant, the flags... - and interactive where necessary.

@Galdelico, That Project Paper Ninja looks crazy creative! Good job yo!!

This looks very good, keep it up dude.

Didn't expect such an awesome response, thank you guys!
 
Congrats dude, I'll be there!

Thanks! I'll be one of the guys awkwardly showing off an iPad game in the firehouse. Say hi!

Congrats! Trying to go next year, do you need to send finished games, or they can be in making process still with the majority of thinks to show.

Games don't need to be finished. Our game was around 70% complete when we submitted.

Oh yeah I saw a flyer for that. I want to go, hopefully my travel plans don't conflict.

There are going to be a ton of awesome people there to meet and games to see. Probably worth the trip just to play Nidhogg if you never have before. (Damn I love Nidhogg)

Congrats! I remember following Ephemerid on the Unity forums a while back, I loved the concept and the overall vibe! Hope it goes well!

We entered Assault Android Cactus in IndieCade but got rejected.

Thanks! It's crazy that we got picked. I look at all of the games we are up there with, and think about all the amazing games like yours that didn't make it, and I have no idea how we got in this thing. Assault Android cactus looks amazing btw, can't wait to get it on my PS4!

Thank you sir, that's really kind.
Yeah, for now I'm doing all the artwork but I'm probably getting some help soon, in the animation department (and the artist is crazy talented, I genuinely can't wait to see what he'll come up with).

That, again, is super flattering man, thank you (and sorry I messed up your quote by editing one picture lol).

Those I posted should be actual game's screenshots. You'll be able to see a bit better how the backgrounds are bullt in the scrolling-test videos.
Also - as you correctly assumed - the ones with che roughly cut silhouette all around are the 'sprites' (they are meant to be drawn on torn paper), whereas everything else is part of the scene. On one hand I wanted to connect the paper element to the gameplaly - for example, weaker enemies will be drawn on tissue-paper, stronger ones on cardboard - plus I needed the player to be able to figure out the targets without struggling and the clear borders came in handy.
It's all supposed to be animated, btw - the elephant, the flags... - and interactive where necessary.

Didn't expect such an awesome response, thank you guys!

This looks great! I am always a sucker for paper art. I think the white outlines are a pretty elegant way of using an artstyle to clarify gameplay. Great work.
 

charsace

Member
Thank you sir, that's really kind.
Yeah, for now I'm doing all the artwork but I'm probably getting some help soon, in the animation department (and the artist is crazy talented, I genuinely can't wait to see what he'll come up with).


That, again, is super flattering man, thank you (and sorry I messed up your quote by editing one picture lol).

Those I posted should be actual game's screenshots. You'll be able to see a bit better how the backgrounds are built in the scrolling-test videos.
Also - as you correctly assumed - the ones with che roughly cut silhouette all around are the 'sprites' (they are meant to be drawn on torn paper), whereas everything else is part of the scene. On one hand I wanted to connect the paper element to the gameplaly - for example, weaker enemies will be drawn on tissue-paper, stronger ones on cardboard - plus I needed the player to be able to figure out the targets without struggling and the clear borders came in handy.
It's all supposed to be animated, btw - the elephant, the flags... - and interactive where necessary.





Didn't expect such an awesome response, thank you guys!

Are you using unity?
 

Feep

Banned
Made a fun little Event Editor for TCAE.

AllInTheCards.jpg


In terms of scripting, every mission is comprised of hundreds of discrete events...voiceover playback, players/enemies being spawned, setting up proximity alarms, timers, and so on. We had made the framework for this way back in the Kickstarter prototype, but creating those events meant going into a text file and manually writing a very awkward series of letters and numbers. Since the scope of the missions is much larger, we thought we'd take a few days and create an event editor to help us out.

Each event is a "card" in the editor, which has all relevant fields displayed and editable. A check box tells the program is they should start active, or be triggered by other events. The arrows denote which events to activate upon "completion", whether that be a voiceover playback completing, a timer going off, or a proximity alert being tripped.
 

Turfster

Member
That was... weird.
Unity booted up, gave 3 seconds of "There's a new version, 4.2.1, these are the new things" before that disappeared and went "4.2.0f4 is up to date"

Made a fun little Event Editor for TCAE.

Each event is a "card" in the editor, which has all relevant fields displayed and editable. A check box tells the program is they should start active, or be triggered by other events. The arrows denote which events to activate upon "completion", whether that be a voiceover playback completing, a timer going off, or a proximity alert being tripped.

That looks amazing.
 

GulAtiCa

Member
Woops. Looks like my dev kit isn't coming today, but in a few days. I originally got a email for the shipping onfirmation that mentioned that it would arrive on the 12th. Looks like it was to arrive at UPS on the 12th. heh. Just got the recent email saying picked up at UPS and will arrive around the 16th, via 2 day business shipping. Though would very much prefer to have it by this weekend.

Oh well, I'm still working on my game in the mean time anyways, so no big loss. I'll at least have everything working for the 1st map by then I'm sure.
 

Galdelico

Member
This looks great! I am always a sucker for paper art. I think the white outlines are a pretty elegant way of using an artstyle to clarify gameplay. Great work.
Dude, I'm reading this thread back from the beginning, discovering so many gems... Your game is truly one of them and I'm not surprised at all you're a finalist at IndieCade. It looks, sounds and plays great, with that part showing the purple track especially gorgeous imo.
Thank you!

Are you using unity?
Nope buddy, at this stage it's all about concept, design and artwork.

PirateShack.png

Castaway Paradise
Pirate Weasel's house.
Talking about gems... This is another easy favourite of mine, looks amazing.
 

JulianImp

Member
That was... weird.
Unity booted up, gave 3 seconds of "There's a new version, 4.2.1, these are the new things" before that disappeared and went "4.2.0f4 is up to date"

I actually went and downloaded 4.2.1, but the thing would auto-crash whenver I tried to do anything, so I had to re-install 4.2.0f4. Perhaps they took it down and are fixing whatever casuses the crash?
 

Turfster

Member
I actually went and downloaded 4.2.1, but the thing would auto-crash whenver I tried to do anything, so I had to re-install 4.2.0f4. Perhaps they took it down and are fixing whatever casuses the crash?

Grabbed it off the site myself.
So far, no crashes.
Of course, the things I've been coding aren't very systems intensive.
 
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