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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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Welp.

Did some checking.

Can I sell my games created with RPG Maker XP/VX and its game materials included in (or added on to) the software?
Yes, you can distribute games you created with RPG Maker XP/VX or IG Maker, using its included (or added on) materials, as freeware or commercial ware. You are also allowed to modify the materials with other software such as Photoshop, provided they are only used within RPG Maker or IG Maker software, and not sold/or distributed. You can also include your own graphics and music if you wish. Please ensure that those games do not include any material which infringe others' rights.

Please note that any modification of the exe, dll, or other game files generated by RPG Maker or IG Maker is forbidden. Also, you may not use the materials included in the software (or add-on package) within other game engines or software.

Not super useful as a cheap resource pack then.
 

Timeaisis

Member
Are the resources all royalty free / non-attribution / commercially licenced / freely editable and modifiable just for buying this pack? Or are they only allowed to be used with specifically RPG maker created games?

I'm almost positive it's RPG Maker games only. You can pay an extra license to use them for games not made with RPG Maker. That being said, I haven't been active in the community for a long while, so they could've changed license policies.

EDIT: Nevermind, answered above.

VX Ace is a pretty good engine, though. If you are making an RPG or a story-driven game and you can deal with the art style restrictions (FF6-style top-down only, basically) it's great. I hear visual novel-type stuff is really easy to do in VX as well.
 
I'm almost positive it's RPG Maker games only. You can pay an extra license to use them for games not made with RPG Maker. That being said, I haven't been active in the community for a long while, so they could've changed license policies.

EDIT: Nevermind, answered above.

VX Ace is a pretty good engine, though. If you are making an RPG or a story-driven game and you can deal with the art style restrictions (FF6-style top-down only, basically) it's great. I hear visual novel-type stuff is really easy to do in VX as well.

Yeah, it's a great deal if you don't mind limiting to the genre/setup RPG Maker has. I grabbed it since I want to at some point mess with it and put random things together for quick side projects or random ideas.

The Character Creator in the bundle seems like a great quick place to start making RPG Maker style character stuff for use not only in RPG Maker.
 
Looking at their homepage about section its a mapping tool for unity, not an engine framework in and of itself.

Oh that clears things up a bit. I kept getting the impression that it was using unity support as a selling point feature rather than it's reason for being. Interesting niche to cater to; people invested in something as hardcore as unity but need a more streamlined and drag and droppable level editor.

also, the weekly bundle is for RPG Maker

https://www.humblebundle.com/weekly

overall a good for those wanting to do RPG stuff and want resources.

I already have Ace but I got the top tier for some of the resources and the character creator since it'll longterm be useful.

Heh, VX Ace is the lowest tier while the older XP is in the $6 tier. Is VX Ace not well received or something?
 

V_Arnold

Member
Okay, so I've got an early Android build of Nax of the Universe (alpha) avaliable to anyone who wants it. (PC version also avalaible)

kk7itIf.gif

I have downloaded and tried it on my HTC Desire 310. It ran flawlessly.

I have to say, congratulations. The only problem with controls is switching weapons mid-combo, it gets a BIT hard with my mobile - maybe it can be accustomed to. Also, I can only imagine it being better on tablet-sized displays.
I still do not like your color scheme, but that is the only thing left for me to not like -everythings else is simply fun.
Also, what is MORE important: you made me enjoy a skill-based action game on a mobile phone, without buttons. That is simply a great achievement, and it inspires me to not hold back on mobile control complexity. Thank you!
 

razu

Member
I've been sunbathing and drinking beer in Cyprus. You lot have had a productive week! :D

I've just installed unity 4.5 and Super Something Squad™ works with zero changes to code/project/assets. That's pretty good!
 

missile

Member
If you don't make a game, missile, you can at least have some neat animations for movie and game technological decoration panels. :p
xD Yeah I guess most people here will ever wonder how this will end up in a
game to begin with. Speaking about the decoration panels, I suddenly found
myself in GUI programming. Ha! But the GUI seen is very rudimentary yet,
nothing special. For the time being the only thing it does is a window/
viewport transformation to map different coordinate spaces into a given view.
That's pretty handy so to speak. But I want to expand on the GUI as well. Have
many ideas. Even the RSA will later be used for the GUI to make it resolution
independent. But not only this, with the RSA I will be able to render very
different (logical) pixel layouts making some very good looking displays.
Anyhow, this has no priority yet.


I'm convinced missile makes military tech.

Would you say he's a... rocket scientist? ...

I'll get me coat.

I indeed worked a couple of month on a missile tracking system mounted on
a vehicle to track the rockets fired from the rocket launcher MARS (to
ascertain that the rockets didn't go into the roof of the next church as the
Brits did a couple of years ago in Germany. xD However, the military is so
stupid that it becomes pretty difficult to challenge them on that front.
Despite one can earn a lot of money when you are a techy guy working for the
military I am a person going by my own rules, rules which have never lead to
harm any people because of their color, ethnic roots, race, or religion. For
me this all has no meaning. Am entirely free of giving any value to
sociological classifications as people do since ages. For me, this is just
an example of the cognitive dissonance of ill-guided creativity of ones
very own mind.

However, my internet moniker 'missile' doesn't stem form the military. In the
nineties I played with some of my friends Duke Nukem over IPX and I was pretty
good with the devastator toasting them all multiple times. xD The precision I
exercised was that of a cruise missile and as such I was called that way at
times. What remains is the name missile. The skill attained carried over to
Quake. And around '96 I pretty much dominated the E1M7 map on the internet,
yet I have to say I was playing from an institute's broadband connection on a
Silicon Graphics workstation like the Indigo or the O2 at 1024x768 fully
OpenGL shaded. xD Sounds unfair, but the server was full of people from
universities having all very good connections. That's how I have spent my
nights around that time. However, over time I got some new skills in
understanding and solving some of the more difficult problems which kept me
busy for quite some time nevertheless. I have do say that I never played that
much again up until Metal Gear Online and WipEout HD came around. I took
myself the freedom to clock some hours (1000h+ each) into these games
to revive the feeling of old. And I didn't got disappointed. MGO was so
versatile. Just brilliant! But playing WipEout HD online on a competitive
level against the best in the world (Hive Five to WOZ!) is, for me, the best
thing out there. The thrill and the tactile element is so deeply rooted that
it only comes to light while racing on the limit. It's a different game then.
It's wonderful.
But...


missile is an alternate reality game. What's hidden in those waveforms?
The many colored waveforms you see in the background (minus the blue one with
the red dots) are some basis functions of the space spanned by the samples of
the blue function (a sine function at different frequencies used for
verification). It's similar to the three-dimensional euclidian space of
vectors, i.e. lets say we have a 3d vector v = (a0,a1,a2) represented by a
basis {e0,e1,e1} of that space. Then we can write

v = a0*e0 + a1*e1 + a2*e2.

Now you can draw the coefficients on an 1d axis like n -> f(n) := a(n) with
n = 0,1,2. You can draw the basis vectors as well. I did the same yet for
functions (for a sampled one, blue)! What's known as the spectrum are
basically the coefficients, and the sine and cosine waveforms are the basis
vectors/functions here. Cool, heh? The question when the linear combination of
said coefficients represent the original continuous function is the heart of
signal theory resp. Fourier analysis. Better; signal theory tells you what
happens when it doesn't, which is most often the case in practice, and what
you can do to diminish the error. Problem is, the error disguises in many
different ways with some of them more annoying then others and it all depends
in the application as well.


I've been sunbathing and drinking beer in Cyprus. ...
Arrgh...! Enjoy! :D
 

Jobbs

Banned
A friend on the Stencyl forums wrote a chromatic aberration shader, something I've been interested in for a while. so I've been experimenting with its use.

first tests: http://gfycat.com/AdoredAdoredHuemul.webm
then I tried linking it up to battle, so as you take damage it comes in:http://gfycat.com/FalseUnderstatedColt.webm

these look a bit scuzzier than my normal gifs, because the effect seems to cause all kinds of anomalies in gifcam's primary export options, so I had to use 256 color.
 
Concerning UnityVS, unfortunately I just have the express version so that is a no-go. Any other options for VS integration with Unity? I hate, hate, hate MonoDevelop. =/
 

Turfster

Member
Concerning UnityVS, unfortunately I just have the express version so that is a no-go. Any other options for VS integration with Unity? I hate, hate, hate MonoDevelop. =/

Rename monodevelop.exe and double clicking will open the files in whatever you've set in windows as default for cs files.
For debugging, you're SOL I'm afraid.
 

SZGF

Banned
Okay, so I've got an early Android build of Nax of the Universe (alpha) avaliable to anyone who wants it. (PC version also avalaible)

kk7itIf.gif


Nax of the Universe is a character-action/hack and slash game with RPG elements. It's still early in development but the combat engine is working very nicely.

I have a PC version avalaible from my website: DreamModule.com
hey thats awesome - what are you using to develop if you dont mind me asking?
 

Robin64

Member
I think I might be "done" with my first ever game. From absolutely zero experience in making games to this, I'm pretty pleased.

It's a simple 3-stage arcade game where you collect good things that fall from the sky while avoiding bad things. I tried to add in some rules to make it a little more interesting too, such as the multiplier which increases with every heart you collect in a row and resets if you miss one.

2f0UjEa.png


I'm going to tweak some values a bit, get the spawning of objects just right, and then attempt to publish it on Kongregate. The API for that is all in there, I've tested it and scores write to the leaderboards, so all is good.

Edit: PUBLISH'D
 

Raticus79

Seek victory, not fairness
Okay, so I've got an early Android build of Nax of the Universe (alpha) avaliable to anyone who wants it. (PC version also avalaible)

Cool, pretty fun so far.

One minor control update which I think would improve the combat flow - interrupt the sheathing and resume moving if the player is holding a direction. (another option would be to allow the sheathing animation while on the move)

Referring to how it currently won't resume movement if the direction is held before the attack starts.
 

Ashodin

Member
A friend on the Stencyl forums wrote a chromatic aberration shader, something I've been interested in for a while. so I've been experimenting with its use.

first tests: http://gfycat.com/AdoredAdoredHuemul.webm
then I tried linking it up to battle, so as you take damage it comes in:http://gfycat.com/FalseUnderstatedColt.webm

these look a bit scuzzier than my normal gifs, because the effect seems to cause all kinds of anomalies in gifcam's primary export options, so I had to use 256 color.

Ahh, that gets REALLY distracting, Jobbs. It makes my eyes unfocus.
 
Rename monodevelop.exe and double clicking will open the files in whatever you've set in windows as default for cs files.
For debugging, you're SOL I'm afraid.

That's a bummer about the debugging. Thanks for the tip on renaming monodevelop.exe, I'll try that. Shame that I can't use UnityVS -- I just can't drop $500 on VS right now. =/
 

chubigans

y'all should be ashamed
A friend on the Stencyl forums wrote a chromatic aberration shader, something I've been interested in for a while. so I've been experimenting with its use.

first tests: http://gfycat.com/AdoredAdoredHuemul.webm
then I tried linking it up to battle, so as you take damage it comes in:http://gfycat.com/FalseUnderstatedColt.webm

these look a bit scuzzier than my normal gifs, because the effect seems to cause all kinds of anomalies in gifcam's primary export options, so I had to use 256 color.

To be completely honest, I hate seeing all that great art behind a filter/effect like this. It really does all the work you've put into the graphics a disservice.

The "cool" factor diminishes fairly quickly with that effect.
 

Five

Banned
Gonna pile on the "don't use chromatic aberration" train. The underlying art is beautiful, and it's getting lost in the effect.
 
Jobbs, I don't think any of us have said this about your game before, but that looks awful :( Such an eyesore/strain. If you're set on using it, only use it when you die or something, as a death effect,and go nuts with it if you want then. Otherwise it makes it really hard to look at your game, and there is really beautiful art underneath it.
 

Paz

Member
A friend on the Stencyl forums wrote a chromatic aberration shader, something I've been interested in for a while. so I've been experimenting with its use.

first tests: http://gfycat.com/AdoredAdoredHuemul.webm
then I tried linking it up to battle, so as you take damage it comes in:http://gfycat.com/FalseUnderstatedColt.webm

these look a bit scuzzier than my normal gifs, because the effect seems to cause all kinds of anomalies in gifcam's primary export options, so I had to use 256 color.

I think it's hurting readability and your aesthetic more than it's helping create a unique look, though I can imagine there are a few scenarios where it could work like in a specific area of the game or story scene.
 

Feep

Banned
I have a question for the more technically minded folks:

Unity 4.5 includes support for Sparse Textures, which I think I could really use to cut down the memory footprint of TCAE. However, it states that you need to use "OpenGL with ARB_sparse_texture support".

Does anyone know how widespread this is, how far back discrete graphics cards support it? What percentage of users are going to have support for something like this?
 

Popstar

Member
I have a question for the more technically minded folks:

Unity 4.5 includes support for Sparse Textures, which I think I could really use to cut down the memory footprint of TCAE. However, it states that you need to use "OpenGL with ARB_sparse_texture support".

Does anyone know how widespread this is, how far back discrete graphics cards support it? What percentage of users are going to have support for something like this?

Take a look here http://www.g-truc.net/project-0034.html for what cards support it. Basically looks like you'll need a newer Nvidia/ATI card (OpenGL 4.x generation).
 

Feep

Banned
Take a look here http://www.g-truc.net/project-0034.html for what cards support it. Basically looks like you'll need a newer Nvidia/ATI card (OpenGL 4.x generation).
Thanks!

Still, it really looks like I can't rely on it. I mean, the kinds of systems that have a discrete graphics card with support for a feature like that are going to be the ones where being memory starved isn't really an issue. I might just have to render out textures at half resolution and include it as a lower setting...1/4th the memory cost, and during battle, you won't really notice... = P
 

Popstar

Member
Thanks!

Still, it really looks like I can't rely on it. I mean, the kinds of systems that have a discrete graphics card with support for a feature like that are going to be the ones where being memory starved isn't really an issue. I might just have to render out textures at half resolution and include it as a lower setting...1/4th the memory cost, and during battle, you won't really notice... = P
Yeah, you can't rely on it. You'd be missing most of the market going by the Steam and Unity hardware censuses.

Right now for my minimum I'm requiring OpenGL 3 / Direct3D 10 (Radeon HD 2000 series / Geforce 8000 series / Intel HD Graphics). And Windows Vista or better / OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion or better.
 

Jobbs

Banned
I think it's hurting readability and your aesthetic more than it's helping create a unique look, though I can imagine there are a few scenarios where it could work like in a specific area of the game or story scene.

well, like I said, it's a test, have a little faith I'll figure out when and how to use it. :) generally the plan is to have it come in contextually if you keep taking damage, or are in particularly hazardous areas of the environment. and like anything else, feedback from testers may also influence how it's used going forward.
 
Why did nobody warn me that making functional, graphical menus is such a long, boring and frustrating work? Every game making tutorial warns aboout finding bugs, etc. But none of them I read mentiones the menus. Seriously, until now at least a quarter of developing time (of my first game ever) went into menu-design, and it will get more, as the game is basically finished but the menu is barely functional. All these little details like a option to edit keybindings: Must-have-features but so fucking hard to implement for someone who has never done it before...

Does this get easier with later games (reusing code, etc.) or will it always be this hard?
 

Turfster

Member
Does this get easier with later games (reusing code, etc.) or will it always be this hard?

No.
UI is always a pain in the ass as soon as you move past displaying a couple of numbers.
Edit: I mean, you can write some stuff that'll come back regularly, but you're still going to spend ages hooking everything up and fitting it to whatever your new project is.
 

Five

Banned
Why did nobody warn me that making functional, graphical menus is such a long, boring and frustrating work? Every game making tutorial warns aboout finding bugs, etc. But none of them I read mentiones the menus. Seriously, until now at least a quarter of developing time (of my first game ever) went into menu-design, and it will get more, as the game is basically finished but the menu is barely functional. All these little details like a option to edit keybindings: Must-have-features but so fucking hard to implement for someone who has never done it before...

Does this get easier with later games (reusing code, etc.) or will it always be this hard?

Part of it's reusing code, part of it's a been-there/done-that sensibility of knowing what to do and what not to do, and part of it just stays hard.

As for why nobody ever teaches you how to make a good menu? That's a really good question. Important things like using the same input bindings in the menu as in the game (so, not a mouse-based menu in a keyboard or gamepad controlled game, for example). Making sure it's obvious which item is highlighted in an array, especially when there are only two options. Modular systems because you'll probably want to reuse/change stuff in the future, including the text content and language. How to stand out from the game's graphics but fit the overall aesthetic. Keeping transitional lag to a minimum whether you're jumping to a new page, loading the menu or just navigating between a couple items. Always have at least one thing moving or blinking to inform the user that the game hasn't frozen. When to have effects, where to be subtle.

So many things to think about. I guess the game is primary, so most people are going to focus on what you'll undergo when actually playing, but never underestimate the value of a good menu.
 
Does this get easier with later games (reusing code, etc.) or will it always be this hard?

Well, to some extent it does - once you've made your keybind code and know to just start with variables for input hooked into it in future instead of going back and redoing them, you can (and probably will) reuse it verbatim in future.

On the other hand, chances are when you've done all of your UI to an acceptable state once, next time you want to go a step further with it all and get fancy dropdown menus instead of 'back' buttons, sliders instead of number inputs, etc etc etc and spend a lot of time reinventing the UI wheel but prettier / sexier.
 

Paz

Member
well, like I said, it's a test, have a little faith I'll figure out when and how to use it. :) generally the plan is to have it come in contextually if you keep taking damage, or are in particularly hazardous areas of the environment. and like anything else, feedback from testers may also influence how it's used going forward.

You're obviously quite a talented artist so I'm sure you'll find a good fit for it, that was just my immediate reaction to the gifs :)
 
You're obviously quite a talented artist so I'm sure you'll find a good fit for it, that was just my immediate reaction to the gifs :)

I agree. It's a cool effect that he should definitely use but in a place that won't take away from the rest of the game, if that's the case.

Hope he figures it out. Looks pretty sick.
 

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I really hope unity's new gui system is good. I recently tried daikon forge as it is highly rated in the asset store, but if this is the best that is currently on offer, then the standard is pretty low.
 

Turfster

Member
I really hope unity's new gui system is good. I recently tried daikon forge as it is highly rated in the asset store, but if this is the best that is currently on offer, then the standard is pretty low.

It pretty much is the best there is at the moment (although it's by no means well documented or even bug-free).
I wouldn't expect too much different from the new Unity system, since it (and NGUI) are pretty much based on the same general idea that dfgui is.
Besides, it's light years ahead of the clusterfuck that the current Unity GUI system presents.
 

Makai

Member
missile, I showed a friend some of your stuff because he's interested in signal processing. He thinks it's awesome and he understood the explanation of your latest.

He thinks this is art:
Fc92ehW.gif
 

Blizzard

Banned
Gonna pile on the "don't use chromatic aberration" train. The underlying art is beautiful, and it's getting lost in the effect.

Jobbs, I don't think any of us have said this about your game before, but that looks awful :( Such an eyesore/strain. If you're set on using it, only use it when you die or something, as a death effect,and go nuts with it if you want then. Otherwise it makes it really hard to look at your game, and there is really beautiful art underneath it.

I'm going to also throw in my opinion, Jobbs -- your art is normally great, but PLEASE don't go for chromatic aberration.

I mean, my opinion on the effect is known, and "A friend ... wrote a chromatic aberration shader" comes across to me along kind of like "A friend created a robot that punches puppies" or "A friend just connected Skynet to the internet", but still. Please reconsider. <3
 

Jobbs

Banned
I'm going to also throw in my opinion, Jobbs -- your art is normally great, but PLEASE don't go for chromatic aberration.

I mean, my opinion on the effect is known, and "A friend ... wrote a chromatic aberration shader" comes across to me along kind of like "A friend created a robot that punches puppies" or "A friend just connected Skynet to the internet", but still. Please reconsider. <3

I like chromatic aberration. I don't know what else to tell you. It won't be on all the time, just when it's needed to get the desired effect. It's one more thing in my bag of tricks.

You're obviously quite a talented artist so I'm sure you'll find a good fit for it, that was just my immediate reaction to the gifs :)

thank you :D It's a fair criticism and I was sorta responding to everyone, not just you, was too lazy to go round up quotes. One person rarely changes my mind, but a lot of people saying the same thing will nudge me, and so I am going to be careful to keep it tasteful.

Unrelated, I just spawned a bunch of sparks and made them bouncy just to see what'd happen. No particular reason.

http://gfycat.com/AlarmingUnnaturalDassie.webm
 
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