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[Turfster]

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

Shiny!
And welcome

 

[Jack_AG]

Btw; What's the concept your are talking about?

We started with just 1 game then thought it would be fun to do a "lite" 2D version for mobile. The lite version became POC 1 since it was nice testing limited mechanics while our 3D artist got assets ready to plug in for our 2.5D version for PCs.

Its basically a combat platformer (those parts are important) where you play as an antivirus program set in 1982 (even though they didnt exist back then) and your job is to rid the system of viruses (or so you think).

Its a typical anti-hero game that pulls influence from many 80s games in terms of cliche and naivety. Its also extremely campy, at times. You play a cowboy ninja antivirus named STRAFE (Subnet Trojan Removal and Framework Encryption) who has a host of combat and maneuverability abilities. Speed is emphasized as well as transition between combat and movement. You can't do one without the other as combat plays an important part in actual movement and platforming, chaining attacks and using enemies as elements to help you traverse levels.

Its very 1980s, very cliche, very fast and very rewarding. There's a lot of special moves that are over the top as fuck. Due to the nature of the beast you can see why I'm so adamant about player controller, physics and collision since precision plays an important part here.

Its a game we would like to make but ultimately dont think it would make an impact kickstarting it since its not a genre that is highly sought after and we can only go so far with pocket cash.

Which brings us to our next PoC. Something we feel can work from a gameplay perspective in 2014 and hit the right notes to garner favor with potential interested parties, something popular but very uncommon in today's games forever lost to technical advancements.

We are trying to play a bit of a long game by starting with something we love that we know can get interest, at least enough to hire the people we need to complete the game.

We have programmers, animators, music, etc. Finding the right concept artist to knock it out of the park is proving difficult. I will be handling programming, design and audio so that is a LOT on my plate, already. Ideally we'd be looking at a year's worth of work. If we had 2 artists we'd be looking at about 6 months. We are currently offering both cash and profit sharing IF we get funding via Kickstarter. But since funding is limited now, the PoC will take time since its hard to find people willing to make a few pieces needed for PoC for next to nothing.

I am rambling.

 

[Turfster]

Well, as promised... Since it's screenshot saturday, here's the current state of a prototype I'm toying around with.

 

[razu]

^ Coolbro™. Yet, I don't think the scanlines do the game justice. I like the
super clean style a lot more on this game. The scanlines don't match with the
smoothness of the colors and shades. Anyhow, you are the judge.

I think you're right. Although without it looks a bit *too* clean. I'll figure something out!

 

[razu]

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

I like the video, funny And the game looks great!

I wouldn't worry about plugging the game, that's all we do here!!

 

[bumpkin]

Just a general suggestion to update your data at a fixed time step and only use delta time for rendering. If your update method can't run at 60 Hz or whatever time step you're using, then you have a big problem. Also, store your coordinates as floats and then cast to integer when you need to. The only downside to using floats for coordinates is they become less accurate the larger they become, but that is a special case for huge worlds and even then that's a solvable problem.

step_size = 16

def execute_scene():
	now = time.get_ticks()
	while not done:
		t = time.get_ticks()
		while t - now >= step_size:
			input()
			scene.update()
			now += step_size
		scene.render()
		display.flip()

What this loop basically does is render the graphics as fast as possible, while throttling the update method to happen every 16ms. This allows your framerates to be low without affecting the simulation speed of the update method.

t is the amount of time that passes each time it loops. step_size is 16, such that input() and update() only execute every 16ms. If that takes longer than that, the loop will play catchup but this should never happen. It renders as fast as possible and then updates the display. Does this make some sense? This loop doesn't interpolate for rendering, so if you want frame times faster than your step size to matter, you need to pass the delta time to that method too. This isn't ideal, but this is probably the simplest example of separating your rendering and updating to help you get your head around the idea.

Thanks for the insight and the pseudo-code. It makes a little more sense now. I think what throws me off with all of the articles I've found on the subject is they seem to convey this tone of "All of these approaches have issues," making it seem like a total crapshoot to implement a quality solution. Add to that the sometimes convoluted -- or math-theory heavy content -- and my eyes tend to gloss over.

One of the articles I found mentioned a 25ms step, and you mention a 16ms step… What is the significance of that interval? Is it just an estimation of an average computer's speed at processing a frame?

 

[Ashodin]

Almost lost all my data twice last night. PHEW

 

[Turfster]

Almost lost all my data twice last night. PHEW

Off-site backups. They're worth it.
I update my SVN every time I finish off a feature/scratch a fix off my todo list.

One of the articles I found mentioned a 25ms step, and you mention a 16ms step… What is the significance of that interval? Is it just an estimation of an average computer's speed at processing a frame?

16ms is about 60 updates/second, 25ms is 40.
With that example, it basically guarantees that input and updates happen as fast as possible while still keeping 60fps.

 

[Mental Atrophy]

One of the articles I found mentioned a 25ms step, and you mention a 16ms step… What is the significance of that interval? Is it just an estimation of an average computer's speed at processing a frame?

Your time step can be whatever you want it to be. I choose 16ms because it works out to a 60 Hz input and update loop. The reason I want 60 Hz is because, on most displays, 60 Hz is the fastest rate that can be displayed. So, if the render loop is also able to hit 60 Hz, you have 1:1 representation of what the game is thinking and what it is putting on the screen. If input/update is faster than 60 Hz in that situation, your render loop will be rendering stale information on some frames. That isn't a big deal or anything, but it is sort of wasted processing. A 25ms timestep would be fine, and so would a 10ms timestep... as long as you expect the minimum specs of your end-user can actually run your update() method within that timestep... but pretty much everything is fast enough to do a 60 Hz update rate on standard video game logic, unless you are doing some really heavy-duty simulation or CPU-bound physics.

Also, it's not pseudocode--It's Python, but they are often the same thing and why it's fun to use as a hobby.

16ms is about 60 updates/second, 25ms is 40.
With that example, it basically guarantees that input and updates happen as fast as possible while still keeping 60fps.

Negative. This example guarantees that input and updates happen at 60 Hz, while the framerate renders as fast as possible (although you can add a similar 'now - t' check to cap the render loop at 60 Hz as well). There are still developers who prefer the opposite, but I can't profess the virtues of fixed time steps enough. It guarantees game state consistency.

 

[Turfster]

Negative. This example guarantees that input and updates happen at 60 Hz, while the framerate renders as fast as possible (although you can add a similar 'now - t' check to cap the render loop at 60 Hz as well). There are still developers who prefer the opposite, but I can't profess the virtues of fixed time steps enough. It guarantees game state consistency.

Derp. Right. I need more sleep. My mind told me it was the opposite.
Edit: Welp, that gave me an idea to fix that bug I couldn't find too.
Going to bed now, operating on way too little sleep obviously =p

 

[bumpkin]

Your time step can be whatever you want it to be. I choose 16ms because it works out to a 60 Hz input and update loop. The reason I want 60 Hz is because, on most displays, 60 Hz is the fastest rate that can be displayed. So, if the render loop is also able to hit 60 Hz, you have 1:1 representation of what the game is thinking and what it is putting on the screen. If input/update is faster than 60 Hz in that situation, your render loop will be rendering stale information on some frames. That isn't a big deal or anything, but it is sort of wasted processing. A 25ms timestep would be fine, and so would a 10ms timestep... as long as you expect the minimum specs of your end-user can actually run your update() method within that timestep... but pretty much everything is fast enough to do a 60 Hz update rate on standard video game logic, unless you are doing some really heavy-duty simulation or CPU-bound physics.

Ah, gotcha. Now it makes more sense and is exactly what I'm hoping to shoot for, frame rate wise. I'm still super early in my engine build, so I'm at a point where I can still make changes like this and not have to re-factor too much.

Also, it's not pseudocode--It's Python, but they are often the same thing and why it's fun to use as a hobby.

Whoops? Sorry, didn't mean to diss Python. I've never done anything with it, but now I know.

 

[razu]

Ah, gotcha. Now it makes more sense and is exactly what I'm hoping to shoot for, frame rate wise. I'm still super early in my engine build, so I'm at a point where I can still make changes like this and not have to re-factor too much.


Whoops? Sorry, didn't mean to diss Python. I've never done anything with it, but now I know.

Here's my take:


The ideal framework is to update state once per frame, render, wait for v-sync, repeat. Which is awesome when you know the power of the machine you're running on, and that you *know* your render will never take too long, (resulting in dropped frames). Problem is, that's not usually very realistic.

Taking the time difference between this and the previous frame plays havoc with physics and the feel of your game. Whether the game runs slowly or quickly. Weirdness lies this way.


The best framework I've seen is keyframed state update with interpolation for render. This lets you decouple the frequency of state update from render frequency.

The update of things like position of enemies or anything that changes over time, the state update, is separated from the render update. The state update can run zero, once, or many times per frame. Interpolation and Render is done once.

First decide how many frames per second your state update will run at, from this you calculate your fixed timestep. Lower the timestep, the better collisions you'll get as things can't travel so far per update. You can pick anything, but 60Hz is common. Depends on the game.

At the start of each game loop you figure out how many state updates should have been generated since the start of the game, starting at 2, (explained below). NOTE Real time is not used to update the internal state, just to work out how many state updates should have been generated at this point in real time.

You then step the state update until you are at that number. Each step generates a new frame of state for the game, and stores the previous frame's state. Let's call the previous frame State Frame 0 and the new frame State Frame 1. So, every time you step, you copy State Frame 1 to State Frame 0, and generate a new State Frame 1.

State Frame 1 is always at or up to one time step ahead of real time. You need this because once you've generated past the current time you can interpolate the state for the actual real time. You figure out how far you are between the last two frames, generate a number between 0.0 and 1.0, and use that number to lerp all the state from state frame 0 to state frame 1. You then render things at their interpolated positions. Simple!


Your physics is always updated with a fixed timestep, meaning your controls feel the same. Your display can run vsynced, non-vsynced, slow, fast, whatever. You still play the exact same internal game. It'll feel great at 500fps, and the physics won't do anything weird! Same if it's displaying slowly, 20fps won't mean 1/20th second update for the physics, which may let fast moving objects start to pass through walls, and other such crap. It's still look like shit, because 20fps is.. shit!

One thing I have noticed with this is that you feel like you have more control at higher frame rates, even though you don't. Weird effect, but we tested it years ago at work. The game could update its state at 20Hz and feel fine as long as the display ran at 60Hz. We picked 60Hz state frequency for physics issues though.

NOTE This doesn't require threading. You can do this all on one thread. Start frame, run state updates as required, interpolate, render, optionally wait for v-sync.

MASSIVE NOTE Settle on a state timestep before fine tuning any physics handling/controls. Your magic numbers will only feel right for one time step. Doubling the timestep and halving your settings WILL NOT WORK. It'll be subtley off, and feel wrong.


A few of the games I've worked on, (Colin McRae Rally, SEGA Rally), worked like this, and Unity does too:

... the execution order for any given script:
All Awake calls
All Start Calls
while (stepping towards variable delta time)
[INDENT]All FixedUpdate functions
Physics simulation
OnEnter/Exit/Stay trigger functions
OnEnter/Exit/Stay collision functions[/INDENT]
Rigidbody interpolation applies transform.position and rotation
OnMouseDown/OnMouseUp etc. events
All Update functions
Animations are advanced, blended and applied to transform
All LateUpdate functions
Rendering

https://docs.unity3d.com/Documentation/Manual/ExecutionOrder.html


So yeah, what Mental Atrophy said, but with more words

Hope that helps someone!

 

[Makai]

Off-site backups. They're worth it.
I update my SVN every time I finish off a feature/scratch a fix off my todo list.

Yeah. Online backups are basically required for a big project. Not everyone should use version control, though. GIT was giving me a lot of hassle so I switched to SkyDrive. I just upload an archive of the project files with the date and a comment as the file name. My asset files are small and I'm the only permanent developer, so it's worked out as an alternative to private version control. Also free.

 

[Noogy]

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

I want to eat your game and digest the goodness within.

 

[Ashodin]

Previewing some APEXICON alpha stuff at EDIT: OVER

Come check it out and let me know if you see any bugs.

Check it out here though: http://www.twitch.tv/ashodin/b/503713870

 

[Lautaro]

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

That's pretty cool. May I ask how are you dealing with the navigation in that kind of environment?

 

[AusRoachman]

Thought i would take a break from my 3d game and try my hand and this flappy birdcraze .

Mine has a aussie twist on it. I give you Flappy Mullet

Play my first version here (done in unity)

Flappy Mullet

 

[missile]

We started with just 1 game then thought it would be fun to do a "lite" 2D version for mobile. The lite version became POC 1 since it was nice testing limited mechanics while our 3D artist got assets ready to plug in for our 2.5D version for PCs.

Its basically a combat platformer (those parts are important) where you play as an antivirus program set in 1982 (even though they didnt exist back then) and your job is to rid the system of viruses (or so you think).

Its a typical anti-hero game that pulls influence from many 80s games in terms of cliche and naivety. Its also extremely campy, at times. You play a cowboy ninja antivirus named STRAFE (Subnet Trojan Removal and Framework Encryption) who has a host of combat and maneuverability abilities. Speed is emphasized as well as transition between combat and movement. You can't do one without the other as combat plays an important part in actual movement and platforming, chaining attacks and using enemies as elements to help you traverse levels.

Its very 1980s, very cliche, very fast and very rewarding. There's a lot of special moves that are over the top as fuck. Due to the nature of the beast you can see why I'm so adamant about player controller, physics and collision since precision plays an important part here. ...

Sounds cool as fuck. Dude, I had a similar idea years ago about the virus
stuff you wrote. Yet I think many had, many who took a deep breath of an
anarchistic operating system (called DOS) where everyone got out having his
take -- programming viruses. Mark Ludwig wasn't well received by the big guns,
I guess. xD I literally hope all this stuff comes back one day -- one way or
another!

... Its a game we would like to make but ultimately dont think it would make an impact kickstarting it since its not a genre that is highly sought after and we can only go so far with pocket cash.

Not a chance, indeed. But perhaps an options once enough other

Spoiler

(placeholder?)

games have been sold. I think that's something many of us have to deal with.

... Which brings us to our next PoC. Something we feel can work from a gameplay perspective in 2014 and hit the right notes to garner favor with potential interested parties, something popular but very uncommon in today's games forever lost to technical advancements.

We are trying to play a bit of a long game by starting with something we love that we know can get interest, at least enough to hire the people we need to complete the game.

We have programmers, animators, music, etc. Finding the right concept artist to knock it out of the park is proving difficult. I will be handling programming, design and audio so that is a LOT on my plate, already. Ideally we'd be looking at a year's worth of work. If we had 2 artists we'd be looking at about 6 months. We are currently offering both cash and profit sharing IF we get funding via Kickstarter. But since funding is limited now, the PoC will take time since its hard to find people willing to make a few pieces needed for PoC for next to nothing.

I am rambling.

Sounds like the first standard problem of indie games development. All the
best to you guys! If you don't mind, what's PoC 2 about?

 

[Ashodin]

After being set back again... I got back to where I was before. Closing in on the Alpha, but the Kickstarter's gonna be delayed. Oh well

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I've actually had time to work on Super Chopper Squad a little!

I tried out chamfered edges and painted metal shader. Happy!!

Click for full size...

​

Can we see one screen without the scanline to see how it looks without it, like missiles says maybe it looks better.

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

That seems amazing!

 

[MrOddbird]

It's not Saturday anymore, but I think people should be notified of the following feature in Unity.
I think most of you know this by now, but I just found out that you can take super- high resolution images with a simple command called Application.CaptureScreenshot()


So before, I've always taken screenshots of my game the simple way (print screen) and the images always came out very pixelated. Now I can capture bigger screenshots that my screen allows. Excellent!

Perhaps I should browse the Unity manual more often.

Anyway here's a generic shot of a hallway with a ridiculous lens flare.
I'm not going to put IMG tags this time (gotta remember those with lower bandwidths)

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/113702670/Screenshot1.png

You can see the fine parallax details on the ground, that you wouldn't see very well on smaller resolutions. The walls are a bit dull at the moment and the don't really show that much depth. I should propably fix this later with a better texture, but it'll do for now. Once I add smaller props and details to the catacombs, it should look much better. My plan is to make each corridor in the catacombs have an unique look. I cannot wait to show more!

 

[razu]

Can we see one screen without the scanline to see how it looks without it, like missiles says maybe it looks better.

I would, but I'm not spending any time on post-processing for a while. If I start fiddling with that I'll never get any enemies and gameplay in!

It's not Saturday anymore, but I think people should be notified of the following feature in Unity.
I think most of you know this by now, but I just found out that you can take super- high resolution images with a simple command called Application.CaptureScreenshot()

So before, I've always taken screenshots of my game the simple way (print screen) and the images always came out very pixelated. Now I can capture bigger screenshots that my screen allows. Excellent!

Yeah, handy that!

 

[Paul F]

That's pretty cool. May I ask how are you dealing with the navigation in that kind of environment?

I'm not sure what you are asking. If you mean navigation for the player then there is a 3D intearctive map on the cockpit that can be zoomed and rotated.

Heres a few more gifs made by alphabetagamer.com this weekend.

 

[Turfster]

It's not Saturday anymore, but I think people should be notified of the following feature in Unity.
I think most of you know this by now, but I just found out that you can take super- high resolution images with a simple command called Application.CaptureScreenshot()

Yep, this is how I made my Youtube video.
I have a tiny script that I can hook up to a GameObject at will that basically: sets Time.captureFramerate to the framerate I want (30), and then just runs Application.CaptureScreenshot(basefilename+Time.frameCount) every Update.
It feels "slow" when running, but the resulting image sequence looks great once you import them in vdub and set the right framerate.
(Also don't forget to disable it again after you're done grabbing your video

 

[Amir0x]

it's like Descent

i want it!

 

[Jobbs]

I'm not sure what you are asking. If you mean navigation for the player then there is a 3D intearctive map on the cockpit that can be zoomed and rotated.

Heres a few more gifs made by alphabetagamer.com this weekend.

very awesome most impressive.

 

[MrOddbird]

Yep, this is how I made my Youtube video.
I have a tiny script that I can hook up to a GameObject at will that basically: sets Time.captureFramerate to the framerate I want (30), and then just runs Application.CaptureScreenshot(basefilename+Time.frameCount) every Update.
It feels "slow" when running, but the resulting image sequence looks great once you import them in vdub and set the right framerate.
(Also don't forget to disable it again after you're done grabbing your video

Interesting. I should propably try this later, although my computer isn't all that powerful.

it's like Descent

Yeah, I thought so too!

@Paul F: Are you interested in adding Oculus Rift support? It would be insane!

 

[Amir0x]

Yeah, I thought so too!

@Paul F: Are you interested in adding Oculus Rift support? It would be insane!

He's only one guy and put in 27 months of development. One step at a time I'd imagine.

It really does look hype, Descent was such a weird but memorable gaming experience. If this captures that feeling even a little I'm all in

 

[missile]

I think you're right. Although without it looks a bit *too* clean. I'll figure something out!

Implement Spherical Harmonic Lighting. Imagine flying through a somewhat
darker level with only the headlight turned on lighting up the scene with all
its vivid colors bleeding into the environment. This should look pretty
stunning for your game and leans itself naturally. Next to the headlight you
can make the gems in the distance to also emit some light illuminating the
vicinity around them. Just a thought regarding rendering style.

 

[Jack_AG]

Sounds cool as fuck. Dude, I had a similar idea years ago about the virus
stuff you wrote. Yet I think many had, many who took a deep breath of an
anarchistic operating system (called DOS) where everyone got out having his
take -- programming viruses. Mark Ludwig wasn't well received by the big guns,
I guess. xD I literally hope all this stuff comes back one day -- one way or
another!

Not a chance, indeed. But perhaps an options once enough other

Spoiler

(placeholder?)

games have been sold. I think that's something many of us have to deal with.


Sounds like the first standard problem of indie games development. All the
best to you guys! If you don't mind, what's PoC 2 about?

Yeah - most of the work we have been doing with concepts is coming to grips with Unity. I have no C# experience but I wind up treating most of it like it is C++ (since that is what I know) and reference # every now and again when I run into trouble ha! Its one of the reason's I mostly handle systems and not actual gameplay programming. So i dove into things like basic game functionality, controller, physics and collisions and our gameplay programmer does the rest.

I'd rather have a good grip on things before officially diving into a big project by working on smaller projects - we will still complete our PoC1 "lite" version of the game which is more or less Ninja Gaiden NES styled action vs full blown combat amazingness since it moves better to mobile design. Probably will throw it up for PC/Linux/Mac as well. Just something people can cruise through for fun that we can throw up on the website.

As for the project we are considering moving forward on I am keeping it locked up until we know for sure that our playable proof is good enough to start discussion. This way i'm not like "CHECK THIS SHIT OUT GUISE!" then two months later be like "FUCK THAT OTHER THING CHECK THIS SHIT OUT GUISE!" haha!

We had a quadrillion ideas and we feel this one is the most sensible approach to getting something funded, is fun to make and fun to play. The quest continues.

 

[razu]

Implement Spherical Harmonic Lighting. Imagine flying through a somewhat
darker level with only the headlight turned on lighting up the scene with all
its vivid colors bleeding into the environment. This should look pretty
stunning for your game and leans itself naturally. Next to the headlight you
can make the gems in the distance to also emit some light illuminating the
vicinity around them. Just a thought regarding rendering style.

I did have 'cave' levels in mind as soon as I added the spotlight. But as I say, I'll come back to this later! You're a bad man missile!!

 

[Mr. Virus]

Greenlight, ha! I don't think that'll ever take off.. Worthwhile lesson in not bothering with cross platform mobile-desktop. PC people like to feel special. Probably because they spent more on their GFX card than a console




Yeah, PS+ has paid off for me already, (had to get for the company PS4, which Chopper Mike funded, thanks Mike!). Resogun and Outlast is worth the subscription alone for me.

I take it you've heard of Markiplier, the youtube dude? He plays a lot of horror games and apart from being hugely entertaining, does go into his personal opinions of what makes a great horror game. Well worth a watch!

I started making a torch-based maze game a few months back. It's funny how your own game can scare you!

I have! He played through 9.03m by Space Budgie who're friends of ours, which was nice to see!

Have you ever played Lit at all? Think it was by WayForward on WiiWare, was a pretty interesting puzzle/horror game revolving around light sources.

I just discovered this thread after joining NeoGAF last weekend.

I'm not going to introduce myself by plugging links to my game but I will show you a little gif of it that I made a week or so ago.

It's built in Unity and I'm a solo developer. 27 months into development.

That is mighty pretty, getting some Rogue Squadron vibes from it. Can't wait to see it !

 

[Bollocks]

Wtf is wrong with Unity?
How come
public float fGravityMultiplier = 0.001f;
prints 1?

Inside my update function if I do:

                float foo = 0.001f;
                Debug.Log(player.fGravityMultiplier + ":" + foo);

prints "1:0.001"
what?

 

[Blizzard]

Wtf is wrong with Unity?
How come
public float fGravityMultiplier = 0.001f;
prints 1?

Inside my update function if I do:

                float foo = 0.001f;
                Debug.Log(player.fGravityMultiplier + ":" + foo);

prints "1:0.001"
what?

Because you're printing your gravity multiplier before the ":"?

 

[Paul F]

Wtf is wrong with Unity?
How come
public float fGravityMultiplier = 0.001f;
prints 1?

Inside my update function if I do:

                float foo = 0.001f;
                Debug.Log(player.fGravityMultiplier + ":" + foo);

prints "1:0.001"
what?

Probably because you set it to 1 in the Inspector. If you set the value during Awake() it will override any changes made in the inspector.

 

[Bollocks]

Probably because you set it to 1 in the Inspector. If you set the value during Awake() it will override any changes made in the inspector.

lol, that was it. I feel dumb
Start function also overwrites the value.

 

[SeanNoonan]

I updated my game this weekend... probably be my last update outside of bugfixes and any fan requests. Need to move onto a new game

Grab a version from below and start beating those scores!

Web version:
http://gamejolt.com/games/platformer/jack-b-nimble/20923/

Windows download:
http://gamejolt.com/games/jack-b-nimble/download-distribution/22540/?os=windows

Mac download:
http:/gamejolt.com/games/jack-b-nimble/download-distribution/22541/?os=mac

Linux download:
http://gamejolt.com/games/jack-b-nimble/download-distribution/22542/?os=linux

 

[Makai]

The music sounds like a nice mashup of Castlevania and Cheetahmen 2!

Since players compete for high scores, I think it would benefit from higher acceleration growth.

 

[DSix]

I'm finally about to release my game on Xbox Indies. Proxy Blade Zero (youtube trailer).

While the build is pretty much ready, I still have one last bit of programmer art to decide on, the most important one: the boxart.
So, tell me gaf, which one is the least bad?
Box art 3
Box art 2
Box art 1

I spent weeks trying to make better ones and always ending up with mediocre stuff that's hard to decide on. I'm burnt out on trying to make more, but I still can't decide on which one to use in the end.

 

[Makai]

I'm about to release my game on Xbox Indies. Proxy Blade Zero (youtube trailer).

While the build is pretty much ready, I still have one last bit of programmer art to decide on, the most important one: the boxart.
So, tell me gaf, which one is the least bad?
Box art 3
Box art 2
Box art 1

I spent weeks trying to make better ones and always ending up with mediocre stuff that's hard to decide on. I'm burnt out on trying to make more, but I still can't decide on which one to use in the end.

Box Art 1 is the least bad. Box Art 2 is the most bad.

EDIT: Was this in XNA? Nice job!

 

[Turfster]

I'm finally about to release my game on Xbox Indies. Proxy Blade Zero (youtube trailer).

So, tell me gaf, which one is the least bad?

Congratulations.
I like 1 and 3 best, in that order.

 

[RelentlessRolento]

This thread always makes me wish I was better at coding. Such god work from everyone!

Still working on my thing. Added a new character and the physics seem to be going a it wonky now but I'll sort it out over time... but I'm up to my 28th build and it sure seems to have come a long way from the day 1 build so I'm feeling good about things.

 

[Letterbomb]

We've begun whipping up poster images for each of our characters. Here's a look at our mascot Tobi:

Astonishing how essential artwork is for an appealing pitch/page. Along with this step, we've started adding banner images and text to our headings on our Kickstarter--the campaign looks completely bland without them.

 

[missile]

Yeah - most of the work we have been doing with concepts is coming to grips with Unity. I have no C# experience but I wind up treating most of it like it is C++ (since that is what I know) and reference # every now and again when I run into trouble ha! Its one of the reason's I mostly handle systems and not actual gameplay programming. So i dove into things like basic game functionality, controller, physics and collisions and our gameplay programmer does the rest. ...

Am kinda similar within this regard. I mostly focus myself on a given game
specific sub-system (like graphics, physics, audio, input etc.) until I have
really improve on it. Then I switch over to the next sub-system doing the same
thing. Once the core functionality of each sub-system is up and running, a
first vertical slice can be made, a PoC. At this stage all the sub-systems
will be in quite a rudimentary state, yet they are coupled and work together.
If the PoC holds, each part of the whole system will be refined a little, one
after another. Then the whole thing is done over again (iterated) up until the
game is done.

This is sort of solving a global non-linear system by iterative refinement.
Given an initial guess (the PoC) all sub-system of it will be modified
slightly to reduce the distance to the given goal. Then this corrected guess
(which may server as a prototype version) serves as the new input, i.e. the
whole system is iterated out up until convergence. This is sort of a full-
system approach where each component is treated equally important.

The advantage is that one won't get lost into just one component optimizing it
without reference to all other. So one restrict oneself not to go too far
ahead. Another advantage is that one always have sort of a working system. The
disadvantage is that one has to understand many of the components from a
theoretical perspective, a-priori, and know how they relate to each other.
This requires some skills in different disciplines at the same time or ones
brain being able to grasp such things in time. With a team on ones back, one
can distribute this task and manage the interaction / communication /
couplings. This is usually the position of the Team Lead (also managing budget
and ensuring the game is on schedule). But without a team, this is seems to be
a task too large to deal with for many. Yet if one is willing to accept small
steps, i.e. have patience, one will get there.

... I'd rather have a good grip on things before officially diving into a big project by working on smaller projects - we will still complete our PoC1 "lite" version of the game which is more or less Ninja Gaiden NES styled action vs full blown combat amazingness since it moves better to mobile design. Probably will throw it up for PC/Linux/Mac as well. Just something people can cruise through for fun that we can throw up on the website. ...

I'm looking forward to this!

... As for the project we are considering moving forward on I am keeping it locked up until we know for sure that our playable proof is good enough to start discussion. This way i'm not like "CHECK THIS SHIT OUT GUISE!" then two months later be like "FUCK THAT OTHER THING CHECK THIS SHIT OUT GUISE!" haha! ...

Makes sense.

... We had a quadrillion ideas and we feel this one is the most sensible approach to getting something funded, is fun to make and fun to play. The quest continues.

What's the alternative?

 

[missile]

I did have 'cave' levels in mind as soon as I added the spotlight. But as I say, I'll come back to this later! You're a bad man missile!!

Yes! xD Yeah I think Chopper Mike is a perfect testbed for experimenting with
lighting stuff.

 

[Blizzard]

Am kinda similar within this regard. I mostly focus myself on a given game
specific sub-system (like graphics, physics, audio, input etc.) until I have
really improve on it. Then I switch over to the next sub-system doing the same
thing. Once the core functionality of each sub-system is up and running, a
first vertical slice can be made, a PoC.

What is a PoC?

 

[MaritalWheat]

What is a PoC?

I'm guessing proof of concept, in that context?

 

[missile]

What is a PoC?

Ah sorry, was written in reference to Jack_AG's post where he used it as an
abbreviation for Proof of Concept.


Edit: Beaten!

 

[razu]

I have! He played through 9.03m by Space Budgie who're friends of ours, which was nice to see!

Have you ever played Lit at all? Think it was by WayForward on WiiWare, was a pretty interesting puzzle/horror game revolving around light sources.

Cool.

Nope, not seen, will look out for it!

lol, that was it. I feel dumb
Start function also overwrites the value.

We've all been there!

Yes! xD Yeah I think Chopper Mike is a perfect testbed for experimenting with
lighting stuff.

It is a nice little contained world. Can't wait to get on to more of that kind of thing. I say that because... I'm concentrating on enemies and gameplay right now!!

 

[Lautaro]

I'm not sure what you are asking. If you mean navigation for the player then there is a 3D intearctive map on the cockpit that can be zoomed and rotated.

No, I mean pathfinding for AI agents. I ask because I had the idea of making a Descent-like game too but I wasn't sure how to implement path-finding for the enemies because the navmesh of Unity couldn't be used for a full 3D environment (with enemies that can chase you across upwards corridors or downwards).

Or do you just have a system for obstacle avoidance for the enemies?