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[Mabef]

I could use some advice, wise ones of indie. I have an idea for a real simple 2D puzzle game. I think it could work pretty great on iOS stuff. I'd like to, over the next few months, build the game and try to release it on the App Store (however that works for a solo project). I don't want to spend too much money getting it onto iOS though, because I'm mostly doing this on a lark while I try to pay for things like food. What are my options for development?

I know GameMaker and GML pretty well, but exporting to iOS costs $200. And if I wanted to try HTML5 or anything else, I'd have to pay for those export options separately.

I've been meaning to learn Unity for a while. I know some C++ and Java, but haven't really used them outside of classes. Just lots of loan calculators. And I'm a little confused: assuming I make less than $100,000 annually (HA HA HA...), do I need to pay for anything to develop for iOS on Unity?

I also have Flash CS3 sitting on my computer for some reason. I've heard Flash can work pretty good for mobile but I think CS3 came out when dinosaurs roamed Bethlehem. I worry I'll get roadblocked by some random missing feature.

Thanks! Edit: Oh jeez top of page. UHHhhh...

 

[opendoors926]

Pin - Free (Mac & Win)

Click here to learn more and play Pin yourself for free!!

Pin is a story of self-discovery, challenging perceptions, and the communal experience of change. It features alternating 2D and 3D scenes that invite the player to grow and evolve with the protagonist and the game itself. It is an attempt to create an experience suggestive of the growing pains that accompany any change in our lives and is anchored in the philosophies of Plato and Italo Calvino.

I'd love to hear all of your thoughts on my first game! Feel free to contact me either here or through my e-mail opendoors926@gmail.com. Thanks! More info on my game and what I'm doing can be found at my website.

 

[missile]

Soooo uh Nintendo called me again. I think they want a demo of Apexicon on Wii U for E3 :O. They didn't say specifically, but one would think.

get devhype

Spoiler

*ALL IN*

Metroidvania-esque game set in a futuristic upside down Kyoto that is based around medieval Japan aesthetics combined with cyberpunk. Main gameplay is exploration/platforming/puzzle solving. You play as a onmyou hacker who hacks into malfunctioning computer systems to exorcise the ghosts that get trapped in the wires. (I just realized how nonsensical this all sounds). ...

And I just realized how cool this all sounds!

... It started as a jam game (which is why the animation is so wonky) that went beyond the scope of what I originally intended for the jam. Hadn't worked on it for awhile, but I'm finally getting back to it. I don't have much to show that is in a "completed" state except for first area:

Lissar, the art is a winner! And I never say such words lightly (I think I've
never said it in here). The line style is pretty unique, and the coloring you
come up with creates a very sound atmosphere right there! I think the game has
a huge potential. Keep pushing, really!

 

[missile]

... I'd actually really like to look into the 3DS - it's powerful enough to do awesome things, yet restricted enough (especially with the performance required for 3D) to be very very interesting. ...

Would be cool, indeed. Yet I didn't found the time to tinker around with the
3DS. Btw; Regarding 3d, did you know that I develop a little 3d engine for
Notch's DCPU16 a couple of month ago?

Some older screens;

The engine was never supposed to be part of 0x10c, yet I had the idea to
make it available for this game in one way or another. The main idea about
the engine is to be used for a board computer of a specific craft of a game of
mine am going to realize once I have a little more resources. As you can see
in the last animation the board computer is booting up. After boot-up I just
tinker around with it a little. The board computer is fully programmable and
should control most parts of the craft. The player can use the computer to
control the craft, balance certain trade-offs, or tune/enhance the craft for a
particular maneuver whatsoever. Yet you can also play tetris or render some
object with it. It's up to you. The VRO (Virtual Reality Overlay) unit you can
see in the animation projects a world around the craft (not shown in the
animation). The board computer draws a rough approximation of it as can be
seen in the animation.

Basically, it is this very board computer I develop the CRT/TV component for,
yet it will be used in a different game of mine beforehand. The dithering
stuff am currently developing (see one of may last posts) is not only to
enhance the video/CRT effect, it will also be an integral part of the game
behind the craft(s). Dithering will help to lower the data rate (bandwidth)
to make for example craft-to-craft video communication (multiple streams)
possible with ease.


Well, if you love doing such low level stuff, we may perhaps find a way to
work together some day, since I'm looking for people who love developing
native stuff, i.e. developing software for the craft etc. This way one can
play out his/her needs do work on low-level systems for real in the year
2014+. The perfect playground so to speak.... I have lots of ideas
utilizing all this stuff. Anyhow, first things first ... ehm ... back to
work I mean. Meh...

 

[Jobbs]

something about the opening BG has been bothering me, and even though it's far from urgent at this point, I tinkered with it this morning.

http://gfycat.com/DirectSereneApe

basically I made the scrollfactor seem "further away" which seemed to match better with how the graphics looked, I also softened the images a bit which I find gives it a nice dreamy look.

 

[Makai]

My guesses:
The moon is jerking a bit laterally.
The mountain wouldn't appear to move because of its size and distance relative to the viewer.

 

[Roubjon]

I was trying to make the bird play its death animation and then all of a sudden I was rich. I should keep that bird in the game.

 

[Jobbs]

I was trying to make the bird play its death animation and then all of a sudden I was rich. I should keep that bird in the game.

spawn coin got put in the do every frame logic or somethin?

game looks awesome btw!

 

[Ashodin]

BALLIN'!

Working on the Wii U devkit today. Feels fresh

 

[Roubjon]

spawn coin got put in the do every frame logic or somethin?

game looks awesome btw!

Thanks man! Goes without saying your game is ballin'. Looking forward to it.

 

[Dark Octave]

Here is a quick video of one of our other games, Server Swarm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LIThRRrzjQ

It's pretty much done, just a few bugs to clean up, collision tweaked on an enemy or two and I may make a few more music tracks and change the current one.

 

[Davision]

Made low poly stylized renderings for the Steam achievements pics:

Btw, game is currently on sale with 55% off here: http://www.lastknightthegame.com

 

[Blizzard]

I don't have any screenshot Saturday stuff from my bigger game project, but I thought I would collect the sprites I made for Ludum Dare 29. I feel like they are at least fairly recognizable and did not take too long to make. Hopefully that is a sign that my pixel art level is finally improving a bit.

 

[lordfroakie]

Hey indiegaf I have a question: Anyone who is part of Nintendo indie program mind pming me? I lost my password to their site and wondering how to retrieve it.

 

[Pehesse]

A lot of amazing stuff posted lately! A bit late, but I'm cheering for Ashodin's newfound success with N and the latest Ghost Song video (even featured on RPS!), Roubjon's stuff looks great, and that's just off the top of my head. You guys are all inspirational.

I don't have much in the name of screenshots either for this saturday (or the couple previous, for that matter), but that doesn't mean stuff doesn't get done. Here are a few of the latest animations, some finished and most in progress! Been mostly working on the grappling moves, so here's them :

Also I've been doing the IA for the opponent, it's working quite well actually, I should be able to whip up some videos as soon as I'm done with those last few moves. Hard to believe the end is in sight animation wise! Hopefully the fighting segment prototype will be done before this month's end.

 

[scaffa]

Finally in time to post something for screenshot saturday

Let's see how this webm thing works and just incase also a gif of the menu. Almost satisfied with it

http://a.pomf.se/nbfjhe.webm

Greenlight for Horizon Danger is going ok, comments are positive so thats a relief

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=254836617

 

[Anustart]

In Unity, with an orthographic camera, how can I get an object to face another object?

I've googled and implemented every damn thing from Unity Answers and nothing works. The Unity answers...answers usually make my object face straight up or down.

Turfster gave me a solution that almost worked but not quite. I'm pulling my hair out here, this should be pretty damn simple. For reference rotating on z is what I need to do.

 

[Amirai]

Lol, I like how she's using her opponent's hand to make her hit herself in the face.

The animation frame of impact seems to go by faster, I don't know if it's just the gif but I wasn't sure it was what I thought it was the first couple loops I watched. I would recommend making the impact frame last a little longer to make it more clear.

 

[Pehesse]

Lol, I like how she's using her opponent's hand to make her hit herself in the face.

The animation frame of impact seems to go by faster, I don't know if it's just the gif but I wasn't sure it was what I thought it was the first couple loops I watched. I would recommend making the impact frame last a little longer to make it more clear.

Duly noted! It's absolutely possible that it's the GIF since I'm recording at a low framerate to keep the filesize low. I'll still do a check on that specific frame in the game and use it a little longer as you said!

 

[Mabef]

Trailers are a bunch of screenshots squished together. #screenshotsaturday. Here's a student project I'm a part of, 5 months progress! Warning: LOUD, the project lead edited the video
Solar Rim trailer. It's a competitive FPS with minecraft environments in space. Whether we work on it another semester is still up in the air.

Unrelated news, I think I've boiled down my question at the top of the page:
I want to build something for iOS, and I'm prepared to learn whatever. GameMaker is $100 for iOS builds, and Unity looks to be $400 for iOS builds. Any thoughts on those two, or any additional suggestions? Thanks yall.

 

[Mystic River]

Not exactly a game screenshot but is a screenshot of my tool to edit events for my game.

I am wondering if there is any other tool similar to this that can simplify development time... I couldn't find anything, and this is not meant to replace the game dev part, but to abstract a lot of it, like state management, conversations, etc, there are hundreds of conditions to think about and having so many variables made me dizzy sometimes, and trying to remember where did I put some stuff made me lose a lot of time or to rewrite things that I have already made, once the game becomes big inside it becomes a labyrinth sometimes for me... same as playing a d&d game trying to defeat the mess made in the past few years... hope this tool helps me to do that and more...

 

[Blizzard]

I'm no expert, but it looks like your engine is broken due to a pirate ambush.

I would say that unfortunately the sort of problems you reference are part of the nature of developing very large software systems, such as game engines, especially where a single person is trying to keep a handle on how everything works.

Normally game engines like Unity, UDK/UE4, etc. handle things like events so you can focus on the game logic.

For your own engine, I would just suggest:
* Maybe keep your own engine notes/documentation, even if it's just a text file, to remind yourself how things work.
* Or, maybe your engine notes/documentation are in code comments, but try to at least include some comments if everything is not instantly clear. It's easy for us to think we don't need them, but they can help a LOT if we come back to an obscure corner of an engine a year later.
* Abstraction is your friend! This is a big software development thing in general, but if you can cleanly divide everything into individual parts, you can say "I know the code inside the event class works fine, and I will look there if I need to change it." And you can also say "If I need to use an event, I will just deal use an event class and the methods it gives me", hopefully without having to think about the internals.

 

[Five]

Something I love about jamming is I get to experiment with new things in an abbreviated period. One of the experiments I had last weekend was working with super-exaggerated body proportions (picture here: http://abebly.com/files/devScreen02.png) and basically I'm in love.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because it's made me contemplate redoing some of the art in my main game. So I've got my new mock-up on the left and the original design on the right and I'd love if I could get some input regarding the new style.

Thoughts?

 

[oxrock]

Something I love about jamming is I get to experiment with new things in an abbreviated period. One of the experiments I had last weekend was working with super-exaggerated body proportions (picture here: http://abebly.com/files/devScreen02.png) and basically I'm in love.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because it's made me contemplate redoing some of the art in my main game. So I've got my new mock-up on the left and the original design on the right and I'd love if I could get some input regarding the new style.



Thoughts?

It gives it a more fun cartoony vibe and you actually get to see some facial features which is nice. Improvement as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ZehDon]

Thoughts?

I think the left image is a marked improvement. Your shape language is much more consistent - the skirt and corset - making the image feel more complete and deliberate. Her facial features make her feel like she has personality, which is a significant improvement. However, the sharp line of her cheek feels significantly sharper than any other line in the piece, making it stand out. Maybe break that area up? Apart from that, a solid improvement.

The only real point I can see that needs mentioning is that the contrast between the spider-web neck-piece and the love-hearts is absent entirely. Those are subtle but powerful "personality" building details. The skull, spider-web neck-piece and the love hearts make me feel that the character on the right should belong in a lighter version of a "Tim Burton" world. The lack of detail on the character on the left makes me feel she belongs in a more stylised high-fantasy world. It's entirely subjective, but worth noting I feel. Its entirely up to you if that is a relevant observation.

 

[Five]

It gives it a more fun cartoony vibe and you actually get to see some facial features which is nice. Improvement as far as I'm concerned.

I think the left image is a marked improvement. Your shape language is much more consistent - the skirt and corset - making the image feel more complete and deliberate. Her facial features make her feel like she has personality, which is a significant improvement. However, the sharp line of her cheek feels significantly sharper than any other line in the piece, making it stand out. Maybe break that area up? Apart from that, a solid improvement.

The only real point I can see that needs mentioning is that the contrast between the spider-web neck-piece and the love-hearts is absent entirely. Those are subtle but powerful "personality" building details. The skull, spider-web neck-piece and the love hearts make me feel that the character on the right should belong in a lighter version of a "Tim Burton" world. The lack of detail on the character on the left makes me feel she belongs in a more stylised high-fantasy world. It's entirely subjective, but worth noting I feel. Its entirely up to you if that is a relevant observation.

Great points. Thanks very much!

edit: slight tweaks made

 

[Mystic River]

Great points. Thanks very much!

edit: slight tweaks made

the one on the left looks nicer from my point of view too

but because of the dark wall the contour of your character gets lost, especially the dark areas, probably adding a border may help or add a rim light or something that shapes your character a little bit more, well it will depend on the kind of backgrounds you play

 

[Mystic River]

I'm no expert, but it looks like your engine is broken due to a pirate ambush.

I would say that unfortunately the sort of problems you reference are part of the nature of developing very large software systems, such as game engines, especially where a single person is trying to keep a handle on how everything works.

Normally game engines like Unity, UDK/UE4, etc. handle things like events so you can focus on the game logic.

For your own engine, I would just suggest:
* Maybe keep your own engine notes/documentation, even if it's just a text file, to remind yourself how things work.
* Or, maybe your engine notes/documentation are in code comments, but try to at least include some comments if everything is not instantly clear. It's easy for us to think we don't need them, but they can help a LOT if we come back to an obscure corner of an engine a year later.
* Abstraction is your friend! This is a big software development thing in general, but if you can cleanly divide everything into individual parts, you can say "I know the code inside the event class works fine, and I will look there if I need to change it." And you can also say "If I need to use an event, I will just deal use an event class and the methods it gives me", hopefully without having to think about the internals.

Uh! pirates for the win!

I am not trying to make a big game engine at all, but I ran into bad memory block outs after so many months, write code, document it, then 3 to 4 months later you forgot that the stuff was there! even my own docs!, hehe, it happened a few times with small things during the past year, but yes, you are right!

I haven't tried Unity, UDK/UE4, etc. nor other big engines, I am still playing with XNA , I am just plain old school who writes all code from scratch without having to go to C++ since I am not as good in C++ as in C#, and I just wanted to abstract one step up to make things easier to develop, so far it is moving a lot faster now that I have implemented the thing shown above, hope the final game runs as fast as I am looking for.

 

[Five]

the one on the left looks nicer from my point of view too

but because of the dark wall the contour of your character gets lost, especially the dark areas, probably adding a border may help or add a rim light or something that shapes your character a little bit more, well it will depend on the kind of backgrounds you play

A fair point, although I think it's easier to pick out an outline when it's animated. As well, the wall tile used in that image is a worst-case scenario. For reference, this is what it looks like in-game right now:

 

[EDarkness]

Great points. Thanks very much!

edit: slight tweaks made

Hey Abe. I think the one one the left looks better. It's harder to see her face in the one on the right.

 

[ZehDon]

Perfect. Having seen the screenshot, I can say without hesitation that its an improvement in every capacity. Excellent work! The character in the screenshot feels anemic in comparison, especially within her face. Though the drawn down expression on her face is an interesting twist to the usual character design, I think the new face provides a more "enjoyable" character. Depending on your overall design aesthetic, that may or may not be what you're after.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Something I love about jamming is I get to experiment with new things in an abbreviated period. One of the experiments I had last weekend was working with super-exaggerated body proportions (picture here: http://abebly.com/files/devScreen02.png) and basically I'm in love.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because it's made me contemplate redoing some of the art in my main game. So I've got my new mock-up on the left and the original design on the right and I'd love if I could get some input regarding the new style.

Thoughts?

I love the one in the left, with those changes she seem to have much more personality, so for me it's a clear improvement. Also it's a more distinctive figure If you are going to draw more characters.

 

[Jocchan]

Great points. Thanks very much!

edit: slight tweaks made

Much better, especially after these tweaks.
The stylization gives her more personality, more detail, and the artstyle feels more consistent overall.

 

[SlipperySlope]

I was trying to make the bird play its death animation and then all of a sudden I was rich. I should keep that bird in the game.

I love the look of this game. Great job!

 

[HellBlazer]

Not exactly a game screenshot but is a screenshot of my tool to edit events for my game.

"Accept/Decline? -> Decline -> Can't decline."

Dude, please. No SNES-style fake choices like that. :/ I'm a firm believer that if a game gives you a choice, it should at least have some sort of impact, otherwise why bother?

A fair point, although I think it's easier to pick out an outline when it's animated. As well, the wall tile used in that image is a worst-case scenario. For reference, this is what it looks like in-game right now:

Well, I agree with everyone that the new style is better but... I thought the lack of hearts in the first version was huge improvement, personally. :/ Also, sorry to be that guy, but why is she going into battle in a corset and skirt anyway..?

 

[Ashodin]

I also agree that the lack of hearts is a more "sleek" approach

 

[Dark Octave]

Something I love about jamming is I get to experiment with new things in an abbreviated period. One of the experiments I had last weekend was working with super-exaggerated body proportions (picture here: http://abebly.com/files/devScreen02.png) and basically I'm in love.

Anyway, I'm bringing this up because it's made me contemplate redoing some of the art in my main game. So I've got my new mock-up on the left and the original design on the right and I'd love if I could get some input regarding the new style.

Thoughts?

The one on the left is way better. She's "fuller" as in, you can see more of her. The face and shield in particular. Putting less hearts on her outfit (in the version that had hearts) also make a difference.

 

[Blizzard]

I like the hearts and spiderweb. I feel like they add some personality to the character so she is less generic.

 

[Servbot24]

Would Unity be an alright engine for a board-based RTS (imagine fast-paced chess) with 3D graphics, or does it sound like a different engine would be preferred?

 

[adixon]

Would Unity be an alright engine for a board-based RTS (imagine fast-paced chess) with 3D graphics, or does it sound like a different engine would be preferred?

Unity is a great choice for that project. It makes 3D graphics pretty natural/easy to get going on, and that sounds like a game that might work on a lot of different platforms/control schemes, which is also one of Unity's strengths.

 

[Turfster]

Would Unity be an alright engine for a board-based RTS (imagine fast-paced chess) with 3D graphics, or does it sound like a different engine would be preferred?

Sure, you can build that with Unity.

 

[Five]

Thanks so much for all the input, everyone!

Also, sorry to be that guy, but why is she going into battle in a corset and skirt anyway..?

It's kind of contrived. I want to emphasize blocking with the shield instead taking damage and having hit points. To that end, putting armor on the design would be confusing. Also, she's a witch and will have some magic powers and familiars.

I'd say wearing armor would be heavy and restrictive for such a lithe character, but then again I gave her a corset. So, yeah, I'm aware that it's not the most practical clothing. Thanks for the consideration, though!

 

[Servbot24]

Unity is a great choice for that project. It makes 3D graphics pretty natural/easy to get going on, and that sounds like a game that might work on a lot of different platforms/control schemes, which is also one of Unity's strengths.

Cool. I'm working on a sidescroller in Unity already at the moment but I like to have ideas rolling on the side too.

Oh btw, there's 3 of us currently on the sidescroller game (influenced by portal, megaman x and other such things), but we're looking for extra help if anyone with some unity skills is interested in joining a project.

 

[bkw]

Looking good. I do think "push the pose" applies a lot to your animations though. Might be a stylistic choice, but the extremes of the posing is still pretty conservative. Might be able to get more bang or pop, if you push the poses further.

 

[clem84]

A fair point, although I think it's easier to pick out an outline when it's animated. As well, the wall tile used in that image is a worst-case scenario. For reference, this is what it looks like in-game right now:

I like how your game looks. Can't wait to see it in action.

 

[Pehesse]

Looking good. I do think "push the pose" applies a lot to your animations though. Might be a stylistic choice, but the extremes of the posing is still pretty conservative. Might be able to get more bang or pop, if you push the poses further.

Thanks a lot for the feedback! Yeah, I tend to rely on Construct to keep some frames playing longer that others, so those GIFs don't show exactly what should happen in-engine, but that's still something to keep in mind while doing them, possibly adding some more inbetweens to the key moments. Will try stuff out and see what happens!

 

[V_Arnold]

Pehesse, the only thing that puts me off from that style is the vibrating leg syndrome that your characters seem to express. This has to be the result of the animation system's relative rigidity, right? Because with strong punches like that, the whole body gives way, not just your hands. Bot the one who hits and the one getting hit has to react more full body style, imho. This is especially visible at the legs and the hips. The one getting hit already moves more believably.

 

[Pehesse]

Pehesse, the only thing that puts me off from that style is the vibrating leg syndrome that your characters seem to express. This has to be the result of the animation system's relative rigidity, right? Because with strong punches like that, the whole body gives way, not just your hands. Bot the one who hits and the one getting hit has to react more full body style, imho. This is especially visible at the legs and the hips. The one getting hit already moves more believably.

I'm not sure what you mean by the relative rigidity of the animation system? Each frame is drawn separately and independantly, so there should be no rigidity in what's supposedly possible. Since this is just a simple image sequence, anything that happens wrong is a failing on my part at drawing proper dynamism. For that quick punch, yeah, I didn't animate the bottom part to avoid having too big a movement for such a simple move (and derail attention from the fist itself) - the other, stronger punch has more emphasis on hip and leg movement, but maybe that's a mistake?

As for the vibrating leg syndrome however, I assume you're talking about the vibrating lines? If so, this is a result of each frame being redrawn, and that's something I actually want there, closer to a Plympton kind of animation than to a clean style. I'll definitely keep in mind your reservations about this though - and yeah, work more on dynamism!

 

[missile]

In Unity, with an orthographic camera, how can I get an object to face another object?

I've googled and implemented every damn thing from Unity Answers and nothing works. The Unity answers...answers usually make my object face straight up or down.

Turfster gave me a solution that almost worked but not quite. I'm pulling my hair out here, this should be pretty damn simple. For reference rotating on z is what I need to do.

Part of the solution is stating the problem quite well. Is the problem 2d or
3d? What exactly do you mean by facing; to look at from a given point of an
object at another point of another object?

 

[V_Arnold]

I'm not sure what you mean by the relative rigidity of the animation system? Each frame is drawn separately and independantly, so there should be no rigidity in what's supposedly possible. Since this is just a simple image sequence, anything that happens wrong is a failing on my part at drawing proper dynamism. For that quick punch, yeah, I didn't animate the bottom part to avoid having too big a movement for such a simple move (and derail attention from the fist itself) - the other, stronger punch has more emphasis on hip and leg movement, but maybe that's a mistake?

As for the vibrating leg syndrome however, I assume you're talking about the vibrating lines? If so, this is a result of each frame being redrawn, and that's something I actually want there, closer to a Plympton kind of animation than to a clean style. I'll definitely keep in mind your reservations about this though - and yeah, work more on dynamism!

Oh, okay then. I assumed you were putting the animation together by moving the parts in a different way. Yeah, a little bit of hip movement from the left fighter's size could help immensely, imho. But on the overall, your art direction is still cool, so keep that up!