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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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A

Anustart

Member
Making great progress today on my game! Had to get rid off all distractions but i'm glad to see things moving forward today like they haven't in a while.
 
G

GulAtiCa

Member
Ashodin said:
Gotcha. They're all in!

edit: ahhh awesome nintendolife featured our Press Release about the Wii U version. yessssss
Click to expand...

Was about to say I'll cover that press news on Nintendo Enthusiast myself when I get a chance (I write for them in my spare time), but looks like someone got to it already. :)

P.S. Whenever you get the game up and running on Wii U, I'd love to do a preview of it for the site sometime.
 
Mikado

Mikado

Member
Jobbs said:
bullet01bb_enemyimpact.gif
Click to expand...

Love dat trail effect.
 
Raonak

Raonak

Banned
Got the progression system finally wired up and working on Nax.

Kill Monsters > Level Up > Get Skill Point > Spend on Attribute.

To streamline/simplify things, there's just 3 attributes. Attack, Defence and Magic.
Attack will increase the physical attack stat by 3.
Defence will increase the physical defence stat by 2, and magic defence by 1.
Magic will increase magic attack by 2 and magic defence by 1.

lVQ2ylt.png


So Im gonna be doing a kickstarter for Nax, and Im wondering about the details.

Been looking at a few kickstarters. Im thinking 15-20k would be a decent achievable goal. Don't really have the manpower, knowledge, or time to get cool physical prizes. But I'm trying to draw a piece of concept art every day, so I can have a nice, packed artbook.

Stretch goals would be(in no order): alternate heads, extra weapon+element, super dungeons, newgame+, challenge tower, rougelike mode. triple triad minigame(still deciding on this one...)

Do you guys think it's a good idea or not to mention I'm a solo developer? Seems kinda risky when you're unproven, since people might think the project won't get completed. but then again, it's an interesting bulletpoint.

I'm going to have a playable demo, and the game really shows well in videos/gifs, plus the character action genre is severely lacking these days. so I'm a bit on the optimistic side.

Steam is a must. so i better do that greenlight jazz. Gamemaker has Mac export, so im fine with that. I would love to play this game on my vita. That would be my ideal platform. But im not sure if I can go directly from gamemaker to console platforms, as GM doesn't have PS export. So a tad annoyed I won't be able to put PS platforms as a reward tier.
coincidentially, the resolution of the game is actually the vita's resolution. Plus OLED would really take the vibrant pallet to a whole nother level.
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
injurai said:
ooh awesome. What resources are you using to learn it? I'm curious to use it for a small 2D platformer project for next semester.
Click to expand...

I did the previous game (the flash game that was about 30% done) all by myself, the unity project, however, is being programmed by Roger and I'm only focussing on design and art. I couldn't tell you every technical detail, but I know we're using some kind of modified 2D toolkit, we're using box 2D, and if you can believe it I'm using Stencyl as an external level editor (the object locations/scale/orientation is all stored in XML files) and Roger uses the data to bring the geography into the unity project.
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Jobbs said:
I did the previous game (the flash game that was about 30% done) all by myself, the unity project, however, is being programmed by Roger and I'm only focussing on design and art. I couldn't tell you every technical detail, but I know we're using some kind of modified 2D toolkit, we're using box 2D, and if you can believe it I'm using Stencyl as an external level editor (the object locations/scale/orientation is all stored in XML files) and Roger uses the data to bring the geography into the unity project.
Click to expand...

Check your PMs.
 
Raonak

Raonak

Banned
How is Unity for 2D games? I always heard it wasn't optimal for 2D games. but jobbs seems to be doing a fine job.
 
I

injurai

Banned
Jobbs said:
I did the previous game (the flash game that was about 30% done) all by myself, the unity project, however, is being programmed by Roger and I'm only focussing on design and art. I couldn't tell you every technical detail, but I know we're using some kind of modified 2D toolkit, we're using box 2D, and if you can believe it I'm using Stencyl as an external level editor (the object locations/scale/orientation is all stored in XML files) and Roger uses the data to bring the geography into the unity project.
Click to expand...

yeah, it seems there are a lot of ways people use unity, part of the reason I'm confused with where I should start. box 2D seems neat, I'll have to give it another look.
 
B

BigWeather

Member
Eagerly awaiting the Unity 2D release in the coming weeks...

Speaking of which, I have quite a bit of a game done with XNA and am considering switching to Unity. Does Unity have a SpriteBatch-like API including the ability to pull bitmaps from a larger bitmap (Texture2D)?

I also have a good bit of code for square and hex maps including pathing. Also a lot of UI code (a window manager, hotspots, buttons, etc.). Should that be pretty easily ported to Unity? Actually, would be great to just ditch the UI code and use whatever Unity offers in that area.

I'm looking to create a procedurally generated top-down dungeon crawler (with a twist or two, of course), I imagine that Unity can handle that perfectly fine. I need to look into Box2D, that could save me a lot of work.
 
B

BigWeather

Member
injurai said:
oh this is a thing? Perfect.

Even if Unity was always capable its great to have entire production pipelines and tools built specifically around 2D designs.
Click to expand...

Yep, Unity 4.3 has a ton of 2D stuff in it (including Box2D, I think). Supposed to be out by the end of the year.
 
P

Piercedveil

Member
Sorry, I'm sure this has been asked a million times. I'm looking to seriously get into Unity but I'd like to work on 2D stuff for the moment.

Would you guys recommend buying 2D Toolkit while it's on sale or just waiting for the Unity update?

Thanks a lot for any recommendations.
 
L

Lautaro

Member
Raonak said:
How is Unity for 2D games? I always heard it wasn't optimal for 2D games. but jobbs seems to be doing a fine job.
Click to expand...

Neogaf died on me while I was posting before so I repeat myself:

The engine was meant from a start for 3d games so you need to use a plugin. Luckily there's several in the asset store (free and payed). And Unity is going to release a native solution eventually (with 2D physics).

I say it's not really hard to make 2D games, it depends on the plugin you use.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Excuse the double post, but does anyone know where I can get a nice daytime skydome / skybox for unity? All I've been able to find are skyboxes with pretty crappy low-res clouds.
 
P

pixelpai

Neo Member
i am almost done with my level-selection screen for my game (twitter: @pixelplant_ios) .

psy_cap_4.gif


I still need to do some acutal levels, which explains the emptyness of the "normal" and "hard" selection and the placeholder-levels in the gif above.

It took me some time to get the pan-sliding working correcly (after hours of trying to implement the input-handler myself, I noticed that the UIGestureRecognizer of the Cocoa-Framework can be easily applied on cocos2d-layers...). But now I am really satisfied with the smoothness of the selection-screen.
 
L

LSauchelli

Member
Jobbs said:
when working on FX I like to just sort of make a little playground in photoshop and start trying things. If I do something I like I'll extract the frames into their own sheet.

bullet01bb_enemyimpact.gif


This is kind of a "took more damage" type effect I was playing with, inspired by all the time I've been playing Muramasa lately. I think this'll have to be for bigger damage hits; I made a smaller one for regular damage. I'll see how these feel in game.
Click to expand...
Great to see more updates for this.

Honestly, every time I see something new about your game I want it to be out to just play it already, lol.
 
K

keit4

Banned
Hey IndieDevGAF, I'm currently toying with HTML5 to develop a real-time synchronous multiplayer game. The game is just a pong clone for two players and my target is to achieve a minimum latency. For this i have in mind to use node.js in the server side. I don't have previous experience with it, but the ability to run the same code in the client and the server is a big advantage. Can someone with experience in HTML5 game development tell me if there is a better approach?
 
V

Vigilant Gambit

Member
Completing a one-month project this month. Gonna try to make the best vertical bullet hell shoot em up I can by the 30th.

Gonna use SFML and Visual Studio 2012. Step one getting SFML installed on my desktop, then building libBulletML (see this, this, and this). From there, I'll try to translate nykwil's example from SDL to SFML. That much, I should be able to get done today after work.

Today and tomorrow, I'll work on figuring out how to actually use the bullet markup language to make neat patterns.

I actually tried to get libBulletML to compile on Mac OS X last night, and was successful, so ostensibly, if I can do the same on Linux, I'll get multiplatform support for free.
 
L

Lautaro

Member
Piercedveil said:
Sorry, I'm sure this has been asked a million times. I'm looking to seriously get into Unity but I'd like to work on 2D stuff for the moment.

Would you guys recommend buying 2D Toolkit while it's on sale or just waiting for the Unity update?

Thanks a lot for any recommendations.
Click to expand...

I think I'm a bit late with the advice but I can tell you what people are saying in the official forums when this question arises: never depend on a feature that hasn't been released.

The native 2D solution could be released tomorrow or it could be several months of waiting so you can't plan for that. We are still waiting for a new GUI solution that was announced a long time ago.
 
L

LSauchelli

Member
I got a question to Jobbs, Feep, and the others who had Kickstarters in the past:

Do you think if the "Early Bird discount" wasn't limited and was just the level to get the game, you'd gotten more money out of the Kickstarter? Maybe more people would've chipped in if $10 was the pledge level that gets them the game?

Or the opposite? Just having the $15 one would've been better?

Or do you believe the $10 early bird discount actually helped get the traction going long enough for people that would go for $15 to take notice of the kickstarter?

BTW Feep, your voice is awesome could be Batman's.
 
F

Feep

Banned
LSauchelli said:
I got a question to Jobbs, Feep, and the others who had Kickstarters in the past:

Do you think if the "Early Bird discount" wasn't limited and was just the level to get the game, you'd gotten more money out of the Kickstarter? Maybe more people would've chipped in if $10 was the pledge level that gets them the game?

Or the opposite? Just having the $15 one would've been better?

Or do you believe the $10 early bird discount actually helped get the traction going long enough for people that would go for $15 to take notice of the kickstarter?

BTW Feep, your voice is awesome could be Batman's.
Click to expand...
I AM BATMAN

Neither of my Kickstarter campaigns had Early Bird tiers. It's something I would love to see a systemic study on, but Kickstarter doesn't really have much research on it.

Logically, it kind of makes sense...the first day (and getting on the most popular section) is the most important by a long shot, so trying to drive people to back now instead of later makes sense...but I wonder if that's worth the theoretical loss of revenue, and how that related to the quantity available.

No one really has any idea. I liked there to be as few tiers as possible for simple comprehension, but that's just me.
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Feep said:
I AM BATMAN

Neither of the Kickstarter campaigns had Early Bird tiers. It's something I would love to see a systemic study on, but Kickstarter doesn't really have much research on it.

Logically, it kind of makes sense...the first day (and getting on the most popular section) is the most important by a long shot, so trying to drive people to back now instead of later makes sense...but I wonder if that's worth the theoretical loss of revenue, and how that related to the quantity available.

No one really has any idea. I liked there to be as few tiers as possible for simple comprehension, but that's just me.
Click to expand...

I also get the sense that few tiers = easier choices for backers. But seeing a GET IT NOW BEFORE ITS GONE is compelling.
 
F

F-Pina

Member
Hey guys, haven't been here for a while.
I see that Jobbs is still working hard on his project, awesome dude!
And Ashodin has even more stuff to his like the map with clouds :D
And so many more new projects, its crazy dude! So much juice!

Anyway, quick news flash on our project.
We reached beta and send out beta preview versions to some friends and colleagues. We already have a preview on Niche Gamer here -> http://nichegamer.net/2013/11/murder-in-the-hotel-lisbon-preview/
And more should be coming out.

We are launching on the 5th of December on sale on our website and on Desura.
We also applied to IGF 2014 and we are entrants to the Main Competition.

And since we locked up everything we can also announce final features!

INVENTORY
Clown Bot manages the inventory.
He is capable of carrying an infinite amount of items because he... er... is capable of... er... well, you have to see it in-game to believe it because it is all very complicated and involves an octopus.

INTERFACE
Play as Detective Case and Clown Bot.
Interact with things and stuff using your mouse. Click on doors, people, items and random stuff and see a radial pop-up menu appear! It's magical! You can even click on Clown Bot and ask for a random joke.

CHARACTERS
A cast of thousands.
Murder in the Hotel Lisbon has a cast of thousands, but unfortunately only a few accepted to work for free to be in the game. It has something to do with "onions" or whatever.

SIDEQUESTS
3 aditional cases.
Are you tired of the main case? Stuck on some stupid awfull puzzle? You can always go for a sidequest and relieve your tension with an easier assignement!

I will try to do a post during November with some more behind the scenes stuff and last minute animations and changes. Will also try to finally check out some of the great games I am seeing here.
 
A

Ashodin

Member
So totally finally I'll have the sharpened wit skill fully working, which also means I need to tweak the actual drop ins of letters to work beautifully with it (which was a long time coming anyway).

Phew!

Plus also the original creator of Puzzle Quest gave me his blessing:

ac9eac3c142023a64461701636c739b7_large.png
 
S

Setreal

Member
pixelpai said:
i am almost done with my level-selection screen for my game (twitter: @pixelplant_ios) .

psy_cap_4.gif


I still need to do some acutal levels, which explains the emptyness of the "normal" and "hard" selection and the placeholder-levels in the gif above.

It took me some time to get the pan-sliding working correcly (after hours of trying to implement the input-handler myself, I noticed that the UIGestureRecognizer of the Cocoa-Framework can be easily applied on cocos2d-layers...). But now I am really satisfied with the smoothness of the selection-screen.
Click to expand...

Are you doing all of your artwork yourself? Looks great.
 
P

Piercedveil

Member
Lautaro said:
I think I'm a bit late with the advice but I can tell you what people are saying in the official forums when this question arises: never depend on a feature that hasn't been released.

The native 2D solution could be released tomorrow or it could be several months of waiting so you can't plan for that. We are still waiting for a new GUI solution that was announced a long time ago.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I have a $30 Visa giftcard I could use at the moment and everyone seems to have great things to say about 2D Toolkit.
 
Raonak

Raonak

Banned
pixelpai said:
i am almost done with my level-selection screen for my game (twitter: @pixelplant_ios) .

psy_cap_4.gif

.
Click to expand...

Nice, looks very smooth

Ashodin said:
So totally finally I'll have the sharpened wit skill fully working, which also means I need to tweak the actual drop ins of letters to work beautifully with it (which was a long time coming anyway).

Phew!

Plus also the original creator of Puzzle Quest gave me his blessing:

ac9eac3c142023a64461701636c739b7_large.png
Click to expand...

That's really friggin cool :D


building a couple of new enemies for Nax of the Universe

EOZjFZM.png


I'm going to be releasing a public pre-alpha demo of Nax... likely friday. (wanna get in on that feedback friday action) so these new enemies might not make it in. It's gonna be the first real public demo of the game, so im quite excited :3

Want to atleast get the wood soldier in, as I need a strong challenging enemy in the demo, because enemies right now are the weak cannon fodder. He'll have a shield that can seriously reduce damage, and if will quickly counter attack when attacked on his shielded state, but a more seasoned player can tell when he's about to counter attack and dodge/parry/jump out of the way and do a counter attack of their own.


Though I changed up the small enemy AI to make them a lot more agressive now. you're gonna have to keep on your toes more to avoid getting hit, especially with the leafchops and their ranged attacks, but are still really easy to manage.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
A recent Greenlit game came out on Steam with what I feel like was almost every feature bullet point I wanted to add to a game. It is a bit discouraging. :p

I am still working on experimenting with the Wii U for now, with the goal of having some sort of tiny interactive test running on it by 11/18.
 
I

Ihateyouchris

Member
LSauchelli said:
I got a question to Jobbs, Feep, and the others who had Kickstarters in the past:

Do you think if the "Early Bird discount" wasn't limited and was just the level to get the game, you'd gotten more money out of the Kickstarter? Maybe more people would've chipped in if $10 was the pledge level that gets them the game?

Or the opposite? Just having the $15 one would've been better?

Or do you believe the $10 early bird discount actually helped get the traction going long enough for people that would go for $15 to take notice of the kickstarter?

BTW Feep, your voice is awesome could be Batman's.
Click to expand...

What I did for my Kickstarter was have a limited early bird tier that was $20, and the base tier of just the game at $10.

The early bird contained a bunch of stuff that's essentially free for me to give out, such as the soundtrack and the backer's name in the credits. I think this works well because not only are you encouraging buying it before it runs out, you're also hopefully getting people to spend a bit more instead of just the base cost of the game. On the other hand, some people might have bought a more expensive tier that included stuff in my early bird, so it's a balancing act.
 
N

Noogy

Member
Heart of Black said:
So.. Stephen Totilo took a look at my game Treachery in Beatdown City during E3, then brought me in to the Kotaku offices in August and posted this story today, which has me doing the demo of it on Video.

Check it out here!
Click to expand...

Congrats, I read that article earlier today. As someone who spent all of development without a cent coming in (aside from early DreamBuildPlay winnings), I could relate, though to a much lesser degree. Bravo to you for making it happen.

Best of luck with the release, game looks rad :)

Regarding all this 2D with Unity talk... I can't wait to get my hands dirty. Any day now my schedule will clear up.
 
Raonak

Raonak

Banned
Ihateyouchris said:
What I did for my Kickstarter was have a limited early bird tier that was $20, and the base tier of just the game at $10.

The early bird contained a bunch of stuff that's essentially free for me to give out, such as the soundtrack and the backer's name in the credits. I think this works well because not only are you encouraging buying it before it runs out, you're also hopefully getting people to spend a bit more instead of just the base cost of the game. On the other hand, some people might have bought a more expensive tier that included stuff in my early bird, so it's a balancing act.
Click to expand...
Thats a good idea. Instead of making early bird cheaper, just give it all the extra stuff for the same price as normal. Basically a higher tier for a discouinted price.
 
T

TrickRoom

Member
For the past few weeks I've had so many loose ideas pop up with me having no idea what to do with them, or how they'd even fit. And then all of a sudden I get an idea that ties one loose idea with another, implies a few more existing ideas as an effect, and gives yet some more of my earlier ideas a purpose to exist. It's like a giant hole has been filled, and I couldn't think of a better way to tie everything into a theme. Fellow indies, has this ever happened to you?
 
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