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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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bumpkin

bumpkin

Member
Have any of you guys done anything as far as In-App Purchases/DLC for your game projects? I have an App on the iOS App Store currently that I'm thinking about releasing a new version of that will incorporate a handful of mini-games (stuff like memory matching, a Simon clone, etc.) and I'm having trouble deciding if I were to do IAP, what would be the least offensive way to go about it for my users. FWIW, the App currently sells for 99 cents as it is.

The ideas I have in mind are:

a. Include all of the mini-games for free, sell DLC/expansion content for each of 'em
b. Include a subset of the mini-games, sell the rest of the games as separate purchases
c. Include none of them, sell all of them as a separate purchase

What say you, Indie-GAF?
 
B

BlastProcessing

Member
bumpkin said:
Have any of you guys done anything as far as In-App Purchases/DLC for your game projects? I have an App on the iOS App Store currently that I'm thinking about releasing a new version of that will incorporate a handful of mini-games (stuff like memory matching, a Simon clone, etc.) and I'm having trouble deciding if I were to do IAP, what would be the least offensive way to go about it for my users. FWIW, the App currently sells for 99 cents as it is.

The ideas I have in mind are:

a. Include all of the mini-games for free, sell DLC/expansion content for each of 'em
b. Include a subset of the mini-games, sell the rest of the games as separate purchases
c. Include none of them, sell all of them as a separate purchase

What say you, Indie-GAF?
Click to expand...

I would vote for A or B. Some free stuff might encourage people who have already bought the game to check it out again. Then, if they like it, they can buy some more.
 
F

fin

Member
Wow, there are so many Android APK pirate sites on the internet...some of these pages look better than legit websites :p

It's like on sale for a few hours and BAM ready online for free. Are there bots just checking Google Play?
 
U

Union Carbine

Member
Question: any decent 2D game engines that run native on Mac? I've got programming in my background but almost all of it in javascript with a few bits of C# thrown in. I don't mind learning something new but I wouldn't mind something that has some GUI tools, at least to get started.

I guess I can run Windows on my Mac but I'd rather not if I don't have to.
 
F

Five

Banned
Dark Octave said:
Looks good. I like how the stationary items require two shots to grab and that Punch Out dodge move. The ambient sounds are nice as well. As you know, I'm pretty busy but if you need a quick looping jingle or something, I'd be more than happy to help you out.
Click to expand...

Do you have a SoundCloud profile? I haven't landed on a sound for my game yet.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Anyone here knowledgeable about trademark? Is it ok to use a game name if there is a small company that have a trademark on the name for a completely unrelated business, i.e. nothing to do with video games?
 
H

hoverX

Member
Union Carbine said:
Question: any decent 2D game engines that run native on Mac? I've got programming in my background but almost all of it in javascript with a few bits of C# thrown in. I don't mind learning something new but I wouldn't mind something that has some GUI tools, at least to get started.

I guess I can run Windows on my Mac but I'd rather not if I don't have to.
Click to expand...

SpriteKit, Cocos2D and Cocos2D-X are all native and work on the Mac. I like SpriteKit the best.
 
R

RelentlessRolento

Member
I use the Unity Character Controller... I tend to enjoy the Ultimate FPS from the asset store:

https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/#/content/2943

72c22f20-cd40-448d-a8bb-77de72c3cbd2_scaled.jpg


Feels good and its cheap. Got it for like $5 on one of the sales last year.


Anyone export to PS Mobile Vita yet? I wanna hear impressions since I can't use my dev computer for another week due to having it in an art installation (I'll post videos soon),
 
T

Turfster

Member
RelentlessRolento said:
Anyone export to PS Mobile Vita yet? I wanna hear impressions since I can't use my dev computer for another week due to having it in an art installation (I'll post videos soon),
Click to expand...

Still waiting to hear back from Sony about a publisher key.
(You definitely want to sign up for one now if you've still got a week to wait if you haven't yet)
 
F

Feep

Banned
Big thanks to everyone who said nice things. = D I feel like everyone in this thread has a much better understanding of the incredible work it takes to do something even so simple as a ninety second trailer...I probably spent 60 hours on that thing. The nice comments are what keep me working late into the night.

friken said:
Feep, how are the rest of us going to top that? Do you feel at least a little bad about how good that trailer is?
Click to expand...
No, because most, if not all, people in here have the ability to make something just as cool. ^^
 
M

missile

Member
razu said:
That gem is really well modeled.. ;D

Supercool effect!
Click to expand...
It's not so much about the model, which is cool nevertheless. It's more about
the synthetic colors you have used for Chopper Mike. Your game is sort of a
poster child for computer generated imagery! Fully saturated colors next to
each other. That's a nightmare for composite video. Chopper Mike would have
given people headaches on old PAL/NTSC TVs. ;) For, the magenta gems would
bite with everything in the green spectrum. Lots of dot crawl and color/luma
bleeding all over the place. Back in the days artists couldn't just use colors
as needed. One had to look how these colors go together while being displayed
on TV. For example, to diminish dot crawl colors should be close in hue. And
so on. Despite I'm using color bars, test images and such, I also like to
tinker around with real gameplay images to see how my engine performs. Chopper
Mike represent sort of a worst case scenario here. Which is good! :D Tuning
the effects such that Chopper Mike looks good using them makes many other
games looks good as well. For the time being I would like to stick with them,
if you don't mind? I think I can make some pretty cool shots over time. :+
Later, however, I need some new pictures, pictures with synthetic colors
(more or less) and textures. Am going to generate them myself, but reaching a
bit ahead and using some existing pictures from games already out gives me
sort of an idea how to weigh in things, since every artist is different in
laying colors, textures etc. And so I can verify the performance of my engine
or adapt things as needed, since the engine should once be applicable to
different games, assets, etc.
 
M

missile

Member
There came a phase drift...!

QF61VzJ.png


Got the new oscillator running. Basically, if your look up the PAL/NTSC video
signal you will see that a so-called colorburst is contained in that signal.
This colorburst is recognized by a TV's color decoder. It's similar to stereo
radio where you have sort of a pilot tone transmitted to notify the receiver
that the signal contains stereo radio (turning on the stereo LED in the
process and stuff). Same technique applies to TVs, cool heh? Well, in color TV
the burst not only indicates a color signal, it is also a reference signal for
the decoder's oscillator to correct its frequency and phase since the
oscillator runs free during a scan. A possible drift during a scan will be
corrected before the start of the next line. However, a bad oscillator or a
disturbance of the color burst may lead to color drifts resp. errors. In the
picture above the oscillator drifts at a constant rate and gets corrected upon
burst.
 
ZehDon

ZehDon

Member
Feep said:
Big thanks to everyone who said nice things. = D I feel like everyone in this thread has a much better understanding of the incredible work it takes to do something even so simple as a ninety second trailer...I probably spent 60 hours on that thing. The nice comments are what keep me working late into the night.
Click to expand...
Well, 60 hours well spent. That trailer looks incredible!

Feep said:
No, because most, if not all, people in here have the ability to make something just as cool. ^^
Click to expand...
tumblr_inline_mn1707LBcp1qz4rgp.png
 
E

EDarkness

Member
Feep said:
Big thanks to everyone who said nice things. = D I feel like everyone in this thread has a much better understanding of the incredible work it takes to do something even so simple as a ninety second trailer...I probably spent 60 hours on that thing. The nice comments are what keep me working late into the night.


No, because most, if not all, people in here have the ability to make something just as cool. ^^
Click to expand...

Thanks for the flattery. All anyone can do is their best. Regardless you put together a nice trailer. I wish mine was a awesome, but it works. Heh, heh. :)
 
M

Mabef

Banned
As usual, everything in the thread looks amazing. Was surprised to see Ronald Jenkees' name in your trailer, Feep, it's been years since I last heard that name!..
Say "Hello YouTubes" for heavy drop?

For the first time, I'm taking the jump from weird prototype to something I can actually give to the public. It's very demoralizing interesting, finding hundreds of features my prototypes never really had to bother with... Option screens? Who needs option screens?? Ugh, casuals...
 
R

razu

Member
missile said:
It's not so much about the model, which is cool nevertheless. It's more about
the synthetic colors you have used for Chopper Mike. Your game is sort of a
poster child for computer generated imagery! Fully saturated colors next to
each other. That's a nightmare for composite video. Chopper Mike would have
given people headaches on old PAL/NTSC TVs. ;) For, the magenta gems would
bite with everything in the green spectrum. Lots of dot crawl and color/luma
bleeding all over the place. Back in the days artists couldn't just use colors
as needed. One had to look how these colors go together while being displayed
on TV. For example, to diminish dot crawl colors should be close in hue. And
so on. Despite I'm using color bars, test images and such, I also like to
tinker around with real gameplay images to see how my engine performs. Chopper
Mike represent sort of a worst case scenario here. Which is good! :D Tuning
the effects such that Chopper Mike looks good using them makes many other
games looks good as well. For the time being I would like to stick with them,
if you don't mind? I think I can make some pretty cool shots over time. :+
Later, however, I need some new pictures, pictures with synthetic colors
(more or less) and textures. Am going to generate them myself, but reaching a
bit ahead and using some existing pictures from games already out gives me
sort of an idea how to weigh in things, since every artist is different in
laying colors, textures etc. And so I can verify the performance of my engine
or adapt things as needed, since the engine should once be applicable to
different games, assets, etc.
Click to expand...

No, totally, go right ahead! I might add them on vamflax.com one day :D


missile said:
There came a phase drift...!

QF61VzJ.png


Got the new oscillator running. Basically, if your look up the PAL/NTSC video
signal you will see that a so-called colorburst is contained in that signal.
This colorburst is recognized by a TV's color decoder. It's similar to stereo
radio where you have sort of a pilot tone transmitted to notify the receiver
that the signal contains stereo radio (turning on the stereo LED in the
process and stuff). Same technique applies to TVs, cool heh? Well, in color TV
the burst not only indicates a color signal, it is also a reference signal for
the decoder's oscillator to correct its frequency and phase since the
oscillator runs free during a scan. A possible drift during a scan will be
corrected before the start of the next line. However, a bad oscillator or a
disturbance of the color burst may lead to color drifts resp. errors. In the
picture above the oscillator drifts at a constant rate and gets corrected upon
burst.
Click to expand...

Looks like when you put a magnet next to an old CRT screen :D
 
R

razu

Member
Dascu said:
Is anyone keeping a devlog on TIGsource? I'm thinking about starting one to create some interest for Malebolgia.
Click to expand...

I made a page for Chopper Mike. Posted a decent amount of stuff, got almost no responses.

I made a page for Super Something Squad... and can't be bothered with it at the moment. For all the messing about with hosting and posting, I'm not sure it's worth it.

If I had more time to get into the community then I'm sure it'd be worthwhile, but that would eat into the — almost non-existent — time I have to actually make games!
 
M

More_Badass

Member
Dascu said:
Is anyone keeping a devlog on TIGsource? I'm thinking about starting one to create some interest for Malebolgia.
Click to expand...
Would be cool if you did. I enjoy follow game development, but also because I'm helping out with the Devlog Magazine so it would be nice to include Malebolgia

Also RPS is doing a Devlog Watch feature now, so there's a chance it could be featured on that site

But that's the outsider gamer perspective. Developers might have a different opinion

Personally the majority of indies I discover, I've found thanks to TIGForum. I think it's a great resource for both devs and gamers, and it has quite a pedigree (Minecraft, Papers Please, Starseed Pilgrim started as TIGFourm devlogs)
 
T

Turfster

Member
Dascu said:
Is anyone keeping a devlog on TIGsource? I'm thinking about starting one to create some interest for Malebolgia.
Click to expand...

I've been thinking about running a devlog on our company site.
On the one hand, tigsource would probably give much greater exposure. On the other hand, however, it would also be much easier to drown and disappear in the 200 pages of other devlogs.
 
J

JulianImp

Member


After many attempts, I've finally managed to make a system that tiles a texture right and without eating up multiple draw calls!

To get it working, I programatically modify each individual model's mesh's UVs on runtime, taking object scale and offset into account. Last time I tried implementing this I messed with the material's tiling, which meant Unity instantiated the parent material for each and every level piece! On the other hand, touching a mesh's UVs directly does allow Unity to batch the draw calls.

The best part is I think this algorithm should work for any 2D model, not just squares and triangles like what I'm using here, even though it's not fit for rotation (the triangles only tile correcly when rotated in increments of ninety degrees.
 
Zenaku

Zenaku

Member
So, I've been held back from working on any of my game ideas due to me being unable to come up with an art style that I like and can recreate consistently throughout the game, but I think I've cracked it.

I tested out a really simple orthographic hand-drawn style, which I loved (img 1), but while I could've gotten past the one or two problems with that format (overlapping and the like) if Unity ever does make it to the 3DS I'd have no hope of porting the game with 3D support.

So, I tested it with a very simple 3D model, but it ended up looking terrible (img 2), although it's to be expected since the image was meant as a texture for a flat plane, so I took to redrawing the building at a higher resolution, and in different parts, and ended up with img 3, which looks good in both orthographic and perspective views, and works perfectly.

There's still a few problems, such as the actual textures and workflow (I drew the separate parts on the textures from the same 45 degree view), so I'll need to try a few alternate methods (drawing the textures flat, or using Blender's texture projection feature) to see if it's easier/faster, but other than possibly the colouring used (I'd like to try a waterpaint style, maybe) this will probably be the style I use for whatever game I work on in the future.

8Dep8CB.png

RsoTqyh.png

8ARqh99.png
Click to expand...
 
J

JulianImp

Member
bumpkin said:
Have any of you guys done anything as far as In-App Purchases/DLC for your game projects? I have an App on the iOS App Store currently that I'm thinking about releasing a new version of that will incorporate a handful of mini-games (stuff like memory matching, a Simon clone, etc.) and I'm having trouble deciding if I were to do IAP, what would be the least offensive way to go about it for my users. FWIW, the App currently sells for 99 cents as it is.

The ideas I have in mind are:

a. Include all of the mini-games for free, sell DLC/expansion content for each of 'em
b. Include a subset of the mini-games, sell the rest of the games as separate purchases
c. Include none of them, sell all of them as a separate purchase

What say you, Indie-GAF?
Click to expand...

I'd say making paid mini-game clones could potentially put some people off from getting them, so C is out. My ideal choice would be a fourth one: Include mini-games that aren't clones of old stuff and make some sense within your game's world (like, say, Kirby 64's).

Selling expansions feels like it could backfire if a base mini-game isn't interesting enough (people will get tired of it and not even bother with the expansions), and including some mini-games for free but charging for others could mean most players pretend the paid mini-games don't exist and just play the free ones.

Perhaps you could integrate the mini-games somehow into the main game by giving the player enjoyable little rewards for simply playing them enough times or besting certain score thresholds, for example. Then, maybe you could also let the player try each game a few times and give them a reward at the end of each trial while telling them there's more. I'm thinking of for-fun rewards that don't impact the game, such as costumes or collectibles that you can see somewhere in the game or its menus, for example.

TL;DR: I advocate for some simple integration between the mini-games and the main game, as well as for giving the player a few test runs (and rewards) of each mini-game, so they know what they'll be getting if they decide to pay (probably expanding the games for the full versions, like your idea A). Please note that I'm just theorycrafting here, though, since I have never done IAPs myself.
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
Zenaku said:
So, I've been held back from working on any of my game ideas due to me being unable to come up with an art style that I like and can recreate consistently throughout the game, but I think I've cracked it.

I tested out a really simple orthographic hand-drawn style, which I loved (img 1), but while I could've gotten past the one or two problems with that format (overlapping and the like) if Unity ever does make it to the 3DS I'd have no hope of porting the game with 3D support.

So, I tested it with a very simple 3D model, but it ended up looking terrible (img 2), although it's to be expected since the image was meant as a texture for a flat plane, so I took to redrawing the building at a higher resolution, and in different parts, and ended up with img 3, which looks good in both orthographic and perspective views, and works perfectly.

There's still a few problems, such as the actual textures and workflow (I drew the separate parts on the textures from the same 45 degree view), so I'll need to try a few alternate methods (drawing the textures flat, or using Blender's texture projection feature) to see if it's easier/faster, but other than possibly the colouring used (I'd like to try a waterpaint style, maybe) this will probably be the style I use for whatever game I work on in the future.
Click to expand...

I think that looks pretty great, honestly. :)
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
shipwalk8s.gif


sometimes you have to take it in!

What the hell. I ripped a 30 second video with my mighty unregistered fraps to quickly show a friend how the dialogue looks, and I figure there's no harm in showing it here.

I really am home stretch on the *actual* video (and it won't be made with unregistered fraps). In it we'll see more enemies, moves, areas, characters, it'll probably be over 10 minutes long.

for now, here's how dialogue works feel free to make fun of the placeholder VO by myself.

unlisted youtube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cQ5kUI6nftQ
 
A

Ashodin

Member
Part of the Press Release:

APEXICON offers unprecedented value as last days of Kickstarter near, confirms talks with DoubleFine

Burlington, NC - April 11, 2014 - Actos Games, LLC., creator of APEXICON - Fantasy Puzzle Combat, upcoming titles THERMOBIRD (for mobiles), and TITANOMACHIA (upcoming title based on Shadow of the Colossus) have announced an unprecedented deal regarding APEXICON and its future titles: Starting today, all backers who back the Mini-Collector's Edition tier on the Kickstarter or higher will get another copy of APEXICON, as well as the next two titles from Actos Games, LLC., THERMOBIRD, and TITANOMACHIA.

"We believe not only quality is a part of our brand from here on out, but value as well. Our supporters are just the beginning in our grand scope of games and game development in general. With this new backing bonus, we believe our current and future backers will realize that Actos Games means business. We want to foster loyalty and friendship in the community, and we believe we can do this by offering our future games to those early supporters. We still encourage them to back our future Kickstarters for any of our games to obtain exclusive swag for the game of their choice." Jonathan Meyer stated when asked about the deal.

Also of interesting news, come the fact that talks between newly indie publisher DoubleFine have been in the works. "We absolutely love DoubleFine and everything they've done for the indie community - which is why we think they're an amazing choice to start talks about publishing APEXICON or our future titles through." Jonathan Meyer remarked. "It is definitely an exciting prospect, and we give all our love to Greg Rice."
Click to expand...
 
H

HellBlazer

Member
Jobbs said:
I really am home stretch on the *actual* video (and it won't be made with unregistered fraps). In it we'll see more enemies, moves, areas, characters, it'll probably be over 10 minutes long.
Click to expand...

Good to hear! 10 minutes? Damn... I almost feel like that will show too much. ;)

for now, here's how dialogue works feel free to make fun of the placeholder VO by myself.
Click to expand...

Hah, that's actually a pretty decent performance, I think! Very Dark Souls in style too.
 
R

razu

Member
missile said:
And there you go. :+


Yeah that was funny. Yet I always had the feeling it wasn't healthy for the
TV. xD Anyhow, some more cool stuff to add! :D Would be cool if the CRT could
respond to a 'magnetic field' around it.
Click to expand...

And then do a 'degauss' feature! :D
 
J

Jobbs

Banned
friken said:
I actually thought the voice work is great.
Click to expand...

HellBlazer said:
Good to hear! 10 minutes? Damn... I almost feel like that will show too much. ;)
Hah, that's actually a pretty decent performance, I think! Very Dark Souls in style too.
Click to expand...

Thank you guys. :) I don't think I'll win any Oscars though. Fortunately I have other people who are much better.

Re. the video... 10 min give or take is an estimate based on what I plan to put in. I want to give people a good clean look at the game and what it's actually like to play it, since it's been a while since I've shown anything substantial.
 
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