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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
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Just to confirm, it has all the features like Pro?
You are subbing a pro license for 1 year. I am unsure how many activations you get with it tho. For 1 year you pay more than half the cost of buying it. I would be concerned about updating your project (if need be) after the year is up or new projects, etc. If you are just using 1 machine I would check past release schedules to see how often a new paid version comes out and weigh the cost benefits of buying/subbing.
I generally get my fonts from Font Squirrel, but after reading your post, I went ahead and contacted the owner of the font I'm using....just in case. To be honest, I never even thought about getting permission since it was on a free font site. Still, better to be safe than sorry.
Most of the fonts on 'free' font sites aren't actually free, in my experience.
Also, for some reason, Google fonts' previews are all borked, which doesn't help when picking out fonts.
This is part of what I was worried about.
I trust the google fonts site, though, and this seems to be an excellent solution. There seem to be a ton of fonts here, and I've already found multiple usable fonts.
Thank you! ^__^
Err. Thank you! ;DPussy!
The decision about transparency arose with hud stuff. A solid hud could potentially hide missiles, enemies, etc, but a little transparency helped a lot.
I'm still a bit on the fence for using transparencies for beam weapons... pratically it's even easier to manage them without real transparency, because I can use the timing in visible/blank frames to setup continuous damage instead of using timer variables on each enemy (I'm not very healthy today, please fake to understand what I mean!).
If the other day I spent too many hours for a simple hud, today I bested myself; about seven hours spent to script a random wave pattern (both in Classic Construct and in XNA I did the same thing in the past in just a few dozens minutes -___-).
Bonus picture that proves I'm really slow!
There is a Unity 3D modeling asset on the asset store and it has a free version. It's called GameDraw, it's pretty decent so far.
There is a Maya Lite version now and they do subscriptions if you are really serious about devving...
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Yeah, it's the same
Can anyone help me with tips for making a flash game? I have a month to make a flash game for school. Should I do this in Flash Pro or is there an easier program to do it?
These are the requirements:
-There must be a title screen
-There must be a menu screen that allows not only to begin and quit the game, but to also control audio volumes (mute is an acceptable control)
-A game over screen that allows a return to the menu or to quit the game
-No fewer than 2 mechanics, and no more than 5 in addition to common movement and collision
-At least three(3) different levels that load one into the next (screen to screen or scrolling)
-At least two(2) songs (menu/game would be fine)
-At least four(4) sound effects
-Keyboard input and mouse input must be supported in some fashion
-A persistently tracked numeric value relative to the game (lives, ammo, points, etc.)
-A pause feature
Any tips or ideas are appreciated!
These are the requirements:
-There must be a title screen
-There must be a menu screen that allows not only to begin and quit the game, but to also control audio volumes (mute is an acceptable control)
-A game over screen that allows a return to the menu or to quit the game
-No fewer than 2 mechanics, and no more than 5 in addition to common movement and collision
-At least three(3) different levels that load one into the next (screen to screen or scrolling)
-At least two(2) songs (menu/game would be fine)
-At least four(4) sound effects
-Keyboard input and mouse input must be supported in some fashion
-A persistently tracked numeric value relative to the game (lives, ammo, points, etc.)
-A pause feature
Any tips or ideas are appreciated!
Like Jobbs, this is what I would be afraid of. What do you consider the most reliable site(s) for finding font authors to confirm embedding license terms?
I was pretty pumped when I found out about Maya Lite recently (as it has about the right I price I would be willing to pay etc). Then I saw 25,000 polygon limit for exports, no MEL scripting/plugin/SDK etc I stopped caring.
If I were to make anything, I would keep on learning more with my student version of Maya/Max and then get a subscription for 3-6 months for asset creating if I were to do a game. This would be cheaper than buying a full licence, even though I don't really like all this subscription crap and I prefer a permanent licence.
This site is highly reputable and the fonts are great quality, but each font has a unique license and not all are free for commercial use (all are free for personal use). The contact info and personal websites of the authors are prominently displayed - maybe they'll give you a good deal on a font you like!
http://losttype.com/browse/
Back when I was doing prepress (don't ask), we got quite a lot of fonts from MyFonts, which clearly lists the foundry and all applicable licenses for every font.
These are, of course, not free (except for maybe some giveaways), but I always felt it was better to be safe than sorry.
Very topical with some of the recent discussion on how making Flappy Bird:
http://www.blendernation.com/2014/02/09/recreating-flappy-bird-in-blender-in-1-hour/
Of course, this sort of thing always makes me sad since it'd probably take me like 4 weeks to make the same thing because I'm undisciplined, and not familiar enough with tools.
I only use google fonts. It's super clear that they're all free, and there's a decent selection.
SSS been screwing around with blender trying for some hi-rez promo stuff:
Want to add some motion blur to it yet...somehow...
Also prettied up the icon, think I'm happy with it now.
That looks amazing!
Yep. Blender is great. The interface is weird, which only matters while you learn. Once you know the shortcuts and terminology, everything's fine.
LSauchelli
Member
Regarding fonts, this should help everyone who's looking:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
THING NOT WORK: no idea why
makes a few changes
THING WORK: no idea why
Runtime bugs. Aaaaawwwww yisssssss!
Had some spare time today to fork this project and develop an "engine" for NES style Castlevania action complete with wonky collision detection courtesy of an old Nintendo dev who splained how collision detection was handled in games like Castlevania on the NES. My math is madness. I am leaving options for perfect everything but made sure to include wonk for Castlevania purists. Got a lot done. Will share with Unity Gaf when done.
makes a few changes
THING WORK: no idea why
Runtime bugs. Aaaaawwwww yisssssss!
Had some spare time today to fork this project and develop an "engine" for NES style Castlevania action complete with wonky collision detection courtesy of an old Nintendo dev who splained how collision detection was handled in games like Castlevania on the NES. My math is madness. I am leaving options for perfect everything but made sure to include wonk for Castlevania purists. Got a lot done. Will share with Unity Gaf when done.
Anyone thinking of doing something for the #flappyjam?
I actually really like the Ninja Flop game they have up.
I actually really like the Ninja Flop game they have up.
I don't have enough time or energy to jam every time there's a new outrage about something. I also don't think making parodies of Flappy Bird or games in its vein is going to be viewed as supportive of @Dongatory. It could easily look to people like flappy jam is just trying to cash in on the current trend or show how much of a joke the game is.
Worse, the reason Flappy Bird was dropped from app stores is @Dongatory didn't like all the publicity he was getting, and wanted it to stop as soon as possible. If you have people continuing to tweet at and about him and his game for the next two weeks or more (with a Feb 24 deadline) then you're only continuing to put him in the limelight that he so doesn't want to be in.
HellBlazer
Member
Make Flappy Bird inspired games? Why? The AppStore is already full of them... -_-
This looks pretty cool!
Trying some new lightmap settings in Unity. Chunky!
I'm thinking of going for the same sort of aesthetic, only runtime generated (I hope...)
Alright. We've finally launched our Kickstarter.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios
Fingers crossed.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios
Fingers crossed.
xplicitone
Member
I finally made and finished my first game ever for #1GAM last December, which was an extension of my failed Ludum Dare attempt. I've been slowly/barely creating my 2nd game which is of Tower Defense, but I've been extremely busy with work this year that I've barely put in a couple hours so far. Can't wait to get back on gamedev soon!
Using C++ building my own engine.
Fun, but takes a lot of time and patience. Plus whenever I have free time I'm trying to catch up on massive backlog :\
Using C++ building my own engine.
Fun, but takes a lot of time and patience. Plus whenever I have free time I'm trying to catch up on massive backlog :\
bumpkin
Member
I've had at least three or four false starts on my attempts over the last year or two. What platform are you developing on? What are you using for rendering and/or audio?
My biggest problem (I think) is my attempts at trying to design something too grand from the outset. If I were smart, I'd probably start with something big and messy, and then worry about optimizing/refactoring later. I have this nasty habit of over-thinking things, and this unfortunately rears its ugly head when it comes to my object/class structure.
Are you sure you wanted to say that to me?I look forward to your GIFs!
I should have a youtube video of traversal by next screenshot saturday, tho.
xplicitone
Member
I've had at least three or four false starts on my attempts over the last year or two. What platform are you developing on? What are you using for rendering and/or audio?
My biggest problem (I think) is my attempts at trying to design something too grand from the outset. If I were smart, I'd probably start with something big and messy, and then worry about optimizing/refactoring later. I have this nasty habit of over-thinking things, and this unfortunately rears its ugly head when it comes to my object/class structure.
Yea I've mostly had failed attempts (Ludum Dare last Sept and December). Both failures I used the same retrospective as we do on projects at work.
1) What went well?
2) What could you improve on?
I noticed from my December attempt, I improved a few things and got closer to completing one, which I then ended up finishing by year end! It was very simplistic but it had a beginning, middle and end so I was proud of it.
I'm using SDL 2.0 and Visual Studio IDE. I started with Notepad++ with MinGW (Minimalist NGU) until I finally caved into an IDE and I love it!
I would suggest checking out onegameamonth and Ludum Dares, and occasionally blogging and/or journaling your attempts and keep in mind the 2 above questions, it helps me a lot!
About the scope of the game, when beginning, try to do the most simplistic games as possible first. Write down on paper your ideas in phases. Start with the most basic of sprites such as squares to get main gameplay going such as movement, collision detection, actions (shooting, jumping), camera and/or background movement, etc. For sounds, I'm just using bfxr and still looking into music programs. When I jot my game design down, I usually do phases for example:
Phase 1: Main player on screen moving hovering up and down
Phase 2: Player shooting
Phase 3: 1 Enemy on the Screen with health
Phase 4: Shooting the enemy
Phase 5: Best of 5 rounds/reseting, and Main Menu
Phase 6: Multiple Enemies
Phase 7: Animation and incorporate actual sprites
Hope that helps! Feel free to ask anything else. I'm still very new but it's a very fun challenge
Also, I then had bonus phases if I completed the earlier phases to my liking. Such as, add in different enemies with varying types, different guns and upgrades, etc. Just so I know what I could potentially add and take it in the future. I was the same trying to get a fairly complicated game but you really do have to start off really simplistic.
bumpkin
Member
Both of my previous failures were rooted in my approach. The first time, I tried to do something following fairly rigid OOP principles. I hit the wall when I realized some parts were effectively silo'ed off from other parts they needed to interact with.
The second time, I tried to develop an entity-component based system instead, and while I didn't hit the wall from a coding standpoint, I got side-tracked with other projects and had no clue where to begin when I tried to resume work on it months later. Even in the thick of it, I was constantly fighting with myself over "best practice", due mainly to my lack of experience with the paradigm.
It's ironic that the first attempt I ever made -- the precursor to both -- at making an engine, I actually had a basic SCHMUP working and playable. Everything was super simple, basic and using sprites I found online, but it worked. The thing I didn't like about it was it wasn't reusable. Everything/anything was part of the main class, it had a ton of global variables, and it clearly had memory allocation issues; when I tried to build it with release settings, none of the sprites showed up on-screen. lol.
So yeah, I think this time around I'm going to abstract as little as possible, and then once it all works, worry about cleaning it up and consolidating code.
We do the same sort of thing at my work. We use SCRUM for our project planning, during our post-sprint reviews, we look at those things (what worked, what didn't, what can we improve on).
Ah, nice. I've been using SDL 1.2 and Xcode (I'm a Mac guy).
That actually sounds like a good approach to take. Thanks for the advice and suggestions. Hopefully the third time will be a charm!
Hey, I'm on a 4 person team at school and we're finishing up pre-production for our final project. We've been having minor disagreements on the name of our game and I was looking for more opinions. What do you prefer between:
Knightfall
Knightfalls
Knightfallen
I'm fighting for Knightfall or Kinghtfalls. I think Knightfallen has to many syllables. Chances are it doesn't even matter, but I'd like to hear some other thoughts on the subject.
Knightfall
Knightfalls
Knightfallen
I'm fighting for Knightfall or Kinghtfalls. I think Knightfallen has to many syllables. Chances are it doesn't even matter, but I'd like to hear some other thoughts on the subject.
Very topical with some of the recent discussion on how making Flappy Bird:
http://www.blendernation.com/2014/02/09/recreating-flappy-bird-in-blender-in-1-hour/
Of course, this sort of thing always makes me sad since it'd probably take me like 4 weeks to make the same thing because I'm undisciplined, and not familiar enough with tools.
You're selling yourself short. In a day you could make it. Personally I learned from the game when I played it.
taku
Member
I vote for Knightfall.
Nice lighting!
Trying some new lightmap settings in Unity. Chunky!
The game sounds very intriguing. Good luck!
My 2 cents.
- Knightfall has the Fallen/falling knight/nightfall pun.
Verdict: Good, especially if your game incorporates both elements. - Knightfalls makes me think about waterfalls a knight was swept over once. He died, so the locals have been calling them the knightfalls ever since.
Verdict: Could be entertaining, but probably not what your game is about. - Knightfallen makes me think of those german somethingsomethinghallen bargain stores.
Verdict: Yeah, no.
Trying some new lightmap settings in Unity. Chunky!
Oh wow! The colors and the style really remind me of the first Metal Gear Solid. Looks great!
Thanks! Looking forward to seeing it. Not enough pseudo-pixel 3D stuffs out there.
Thank you!
We're definitely going for a style of the first gen "true" 3D games from the late 90s-early 00s (mainly System Shock) so I'm glad you get that vibe!
I wouldn't hold my breath tho, since it's basically just me, and I'm no artist, so I might decide to scrap everything and go for a pure vertex textureless look
RelentlessRolento
Member
Really loving the Unity Lightmap... I'm too behind on unity currently to mess with it at the moment
Bleh... spent this weekend working on some animations only to realize that 6 hours of work might go unused (for this project at least) due to the my screen resolution (set it at 640x480).
Due to this my characters have to be around or under 64x64 in size to make full use of the scene and I unfortunately was making the design for them too complex thus hard to see/understand when shrunk down.
I have to go back to the drawing board in terms of the character designs I was planning to have, but I do think the game will run better and be more enjoyable... I'm just not sure what I'll come up with since I was trying to avoid using pixel art, which is harder on a 640x480 resolution :-/
Bleh... spent this weekend working on some animations only to realize that 6 hours of work might go unused (for this project at least) due to the my screen resolution (set it at 640x480).
Due to this my characters have to be around or under 64x64 in size to make full use of the scene and I unfortunately was making the design for them too complex thus hard to see/understand when shrunk down.
I have to go back to the drawing board in terms of the character designs I was planning to have, but I do think the game will run better and be more enjoyable... I'm just not sure what I'll come up with since I was trying to avoid using pixel art, which is harder on a 640x480 resolution :-/
The lighting reminds me a lot of Notch's canceled 0x10c project. You should take over the fan project that is or was trying to make the game!
Trying some new lightmap settings in Unity. Chunky!
So where do you guys get the sound effects for your games from? I've tried a dozen "free sound" websites like freesound.org, but most of these sounds are quite aweful, with background noise etc. For example I just can't find a proper ball rolling sound - nothing sounds anywhere near to what I'm expecting and most of them are 2 secs long. Players surely would be happy to hear those 2 secs in a loop for multiple hours. Same goes with projectile turrets that shoot 3 projectiles per second and sometimes there are 10 of them in a room. Would I need to change the pitch randomly with Unity for variety? Maybe I should be looking for a sound designer (which is something I wanted to avoid as it is simply a rather small personal project)... any advice?
xplicitone
Member
Both of my previous failures were rooted in my approach. The first time, I tried to do something following fairly rigid OOP principles. I hit the wall when I realized some parts were effectively silo'ed off from other parts they needed to interact with.
The second time, I tried to develop an entity-component based system instead, and while I didn't hit the wall from a coding standpoint, I got side-tracked with other projects and had no clue where to begin when I tried to resume work on it months later. Even in the thick of it, I was constantly fighting with myself over "best practice", due mainly to my lack of experience with the paradigm.
It's ironic that the first attempt I ever made -- the precursor to both -- at making an engine, I actually had a basic SCHMUP working and playable. Everything was super simple, basic and using sprites I found online, but it worked. The thing I didn't like about it was it wasn't reusable. Everything/anything was part of the main class, it had a ton of global variables, and it clearly had memory allocation issues; when I tried to build it with release settings, none of the sprites showed up on-screen. lol.
So yeah, I think this time around I'm going to abstract as little as possible, and then once it all works, worry about cleaning it up and consolidating code.
We do the same sort of thing at my work. We use SCRUM for our project planning, during our post-sprint reviews, we look at those things (what worked, what didn't, what can we improve on).
Ah, nice. I've been using SDL 1.2 and Xcode (I'm a Mac guy).
That actually sounds like a good approach to take. Thanks for the advice and suggestions. Hopefully the third time will be a charm!
Haha yea exactly, we use Scrum as well (Agile) so you're definitely familiar with that. I think it has helped put things into scope and perspective. You should look into upgrading and using SDL 2.0. I started with SDL 1.2 as well but 2.0 is better so I learned that. You can also install 2.0 on Xcode because I use a Mac also, and it was the same way you installed 1.2, just using the 2.0 frameworks. I ported my original game to Mac but I don't know how to release/package it yet.
Hearthstone is an evil thing. It's been eating up far too much of my free time. That said, I about have a simple working implementation of my battle system done. All it needs to function is the combo system and animations. Then I have to figure out how I want the battle UI to look.
Yeah I haven't really showed off too much yet. Here's a vague trailer from a few months ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv4nMgS_3yU. It's pretty old now though, alot of it has changed. I've got a bunch of older stuff, but looking at it now it's really rough.
Now everyone got me paranoid about fonts. I sent out some emails to the owners to get some clarification on the licenses, but I'm going to browse google fonts for some alternatives.
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