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[Blizzard]

I like flat user-interface styles a lot. Who's with me?

I dislike them. It makes me think of the Windows 8 / tablet style of things being weirdly flat, and I like the old classic bordered "pressable" buttons better. Of course, Windows 8 also has garish colors to go with it, but I guess I think a more textured interface still "feels" better to me personally.

Would you participate in a Screenshot Saturday thread if I started one here? Other gaming forums have one - Reddit, TIGForum, etc. - and considering just how many developers are active on GAF, I thought it might be interesting/worth starting one.

I'd most likely also be adding to the thread with the usual Screenshot Saturday posts I do for the Indie Thread

I'm of the opinion that this thread already goes hand in hand with that. Removing screenshots from this thread means less discussion here, and we're already not at crazy amounts of screenshots and discussion. I like the mix of the two that already exists.

 

[Tiu Neo]

I like flat user-interface styles a lot. Who's with me?

Have spent some more time working on the UI internals esp. on things like
focus-follows-mouse, selections, button/mouse states/messages/events etc.
Isn't easy to manage them all if you want to have everything going at the same
time. Still not perfect, but things do come together. Edit boxes can now have
a delete button as well. List boxes up next, I guess. Once implemented I will
try some theme switching. Next to some high-res themes, I'm especially
interested in building some very low-res themes such that the UI can also to
be used on very low-resolution displays/framebuffers like for example 320x240
down to 64x64.

As a Brazilian, that wallpaper

Spoiler

made me smile. Nice!

 

[razu]

I agree, you don't need that level of precision. That said, I'd probably also change the level of abstraction one bit further, highlighting or outlining the individual room instead of using a dot marker.

Agree with this too. Otherwise, it should probably show enemy dots too... and bullets... and.. eveerything!

 

[razu]

I like flat user-interface styles a lot. Who's with me?

Have spent some more time working on the UI internals esp. on things like
focus-follows-mouse, selections, button/mouse states/messages/events etc.
Isn't easy to manage them all if you want to have everything going at the same
time. Still not perfect, but things do come together. Edit boxes can now have
a delete button as well. List boxes up next, I guess. Once implemented I will
try some theme switching. Next to some high-res themes, I'm especially
interested in building some very low-res themes such that the UI can also to
be used on very low-resolution displays/framebuffers like for example 320x240
down to 64x64.

Looks great man. Really good progress on this too. Keep it up!

 

[Timeaisis]

Would you participate in a Screenshot Saturday thread if I started one here? Other gaming forums have one - Reddit, TIGForum, etc. - and considering just how many developers are active on GAF, I thought it might be interesting/worth starting one.

I'd most likely also be adding to the thread with the usual Screenshot Saturday posts I do for the Indie Thread

I'd be down, but I'd fear we'd be splitting posts between here and there sometimes.

But if it existed, I'd definitely partake.

 

[missile]

I dislike them. It makes me think of the Windows 8 / tablet style of things being weirdly flat, and I like the old classic bordered "pressable" buttons better. Of course, Windows 8 also has garish colors to go with it, but I guess I think a more textured interface still "feels" better to me personally. ...

I know what you mean. Well, I favored such a style way before there was any
Windows 8, tablets, or mobile. If done correctly, I thing one can arrive at
a very clean style doing so. But then it may come down to personal preference.
A "pressable" theme will be there as well. I even intent to make some real
3d buttons (projected and rasterized). The buttons may rotated showing
different states, may turn and scale with its back bringing up the new content
etc. Don't know if I will have the time doing it all. Anyhow, it's a good
playground at least.

As a Brazilian, that wallpaper

Spoiler

made me smile. Nice!

30. Juni 2002 was a bad day over here in Germany.

Looks great man. Really good progress on this too. Keep it up!

Thx a lot, Sir! If only there could be more hours in a day...

 

[TheHollowNight]

We posted a new screenshot for #IndieDevHour! Check it out!

 

[Tiu Neo]

30. Juni 2002 was a bad day over here in Germany.

My family is from German descent, so it was ok for us anyway

Btw, very nice! I had to make some very basic GUI elements from scratch, a few months ago, and it's a headache.

 

[cbox]

Reworked one of our enemies animations, finally got the animation to loop properly and it's done. Looks pretty sweet! And when you shoot them, they explode and smaller parts come flying out at you.

http://www.gfycat.com/HideousSlightAtlanticsharpnosepuffer#

 

[Mr. Virus]

The artists for Monstrum has been putting together a new area for those who're interested

We're also planning to have random junk in the shipping crates, like so

 

[More_Badass]

We posted a new screenshot for #IndieDevHour! Check it out!

What luck! Hey, it's IG_Enthusiast from Twitter. Awesome to see that the Beacon dev is a member here

 

[chubigans]

Would you participate in a Screenshot Saturday thread if I started one here? Other gaming forums have one - Reddit, TIGForum, etc. - and considering just how many developers are active on GAF, I thought it might be interesting/worth starting one.

I'd most likely also be adding to the thread with the usual Screenshot Saturday posts I do for the Indie Thread

I tried that a year or so ago, eventually I was the only one posting in the thread. But I would love to see it tried again...

 

[Shiver]

Beacon looks nice. I love those trees.

 

[Ashodin]

I'd post in the SSS thread.

 

[Limanima]

Three days to get my engine running again on android. What a nightmare android with NDK is.
I'm geting crazy with this...

 

[Michael Armbrust]

Would you participate in a Screenshot Saturday thread if I started one here? Other gaming forums have one - Reddit, TIGForum, etc. - and considering just how many developers are active on GAF, I thought it might be interesting/worth starting one.

I'd most likely also be adding to the thread with the usual Screenshot Saturday posts I do for the Indie Thread

If you made the thread I'd post my #ScreenshotSaturday images there too, but I can really only post one image about every four weeks.

 

[Ashodin]

Psychic Blade Slice! WACHA

 

[Gazunta]

Hey gang!

I hope it's OK that I post here about a new indie game I'm involved in - Ninja Pizza Girl!

You play as Gemma, a teenage girl working for her father's small pizza delivery business in a futuristic world where evil corporations have taken over all of pizza. Jump off rooftops, fight other teenage ninjas and deliver pizzas to people who may or may not be wearing pants.

It's a platforming game (made in Unity, so you know it's coming out for everything) that involves the issues of self-esteem, bullying and HARDCORE PIZZA-BASED NINJA ACTION.

Here's the YouTube trailer!

We just released the PC demo today and man oh man do I want to hear what GAF thinks. You can find out more about the game and the team at the Disparity Games website.

And remember - no pants, no pizza.

 

[More_Badass]

Hey gang!

I hope it's OK that I post here about a new indie game I'm involved in - Ninja Pizza Girl!

You play as Gemma, a teenage girl working for her father's small pizza delivery business in a futuristic world where evil corporations have taken over all of pizza. Jump off rooftops, fight other teenage ninjas and deliver pizzas to people who may or may not be wearing pants.

Great to see your game progressing, definitely going to check out the demo tonight. I had posted about it in the Indie Thread last August, it's really come a long way since then. You're definitely welcome to come by the July thread and shower us with GIFs and info

Edit: and a Kickstarter? I'll add your game to the 2014 KS thread. Good luck!

 

[Gazunta]

Thanks! The KS is due to go live next week and I'll be sure to be shouting about it from the rooftops! And thanks for checking out the demo!

*goes back to losing hair from pre-launch jitters*

 

[anonymous_abc]

What language are you writing in?

 

[missile]

We posted a new screenshot for #IndieDevHour! Check it out!

I know nothing about the game, but looks techy and I like it.

My family is from German descent, so it was ok for us anyway

Btw, very nice! I had to make some very basic GUI elements from scratch, a few months ago, and it's a headache.

So lets hope Germany will save Brazil to not fall into ultimate disgrace of
having Argentina winning the cup in Brazil. That's similar like having the
Netherlands winning the cup in Germany. We will put football to rest if this
would ever happen. xD

... And when you shoot them, they explode and smaller parts come flying out at you. ...

Pix or...

Three days to get my engine running again on android. What a nightmare android with NDK is.
I'm geting crazy with this...

Can you elaborate?

Hey gang!

I hope it's OK that I post here about a new indie game I'm involved in - Ninja Pizza Girl!

You play as Gemma, a teenage girl working for her father's small pizza delivery business in a futuristic world where evil corporations have taken over all of pizza. Jump off rooftops, fight other teenage ninjas and deliver pizzas to people who may or may not be wearing pants. ...

LOL Sounds like a cool game!

What language are you writing in?

Technically? C/C++. You?

 

[anonymous_abc]

Technically? C/C++. You?

No game development sadly, MATLAB, Modelica and Python at work.

 

[Limanima]

Can you elaborate?

Sure
<rant>
I spent 2 days to solve a problem with a makefile. NDK simply didn't want to buils one of my libs. Then the problem was solved by magic.
Now I'm trying to debug the code but no can do. Second time I'm wasting time to get the code to break on a breakpoint. The first time it took me 3 days to get the thing to work.
There are bugs in the ide, bugs in ndk, bugs in the emulators. I simply can't do anything without having to google for a solution.
Then there are google apis, android apis, architectures, android versions.
The project tree is terrible, project settings are confusing, references are dumb. Everything feels amateurish.
Comparing this environment with visual studio or even xcode is like comparing ferraris to potatos.
Google makes billions of dolars of profit every year and they don't have money to build a decent set of tools.

</rant>
Maybe I lack the experience, I don't know...

 

[Blizzard]

I did some updates. How about this? It keeps the normal overlap if I have tall obstacles, but uses transparency if a square is selected for a command, or if the cursor moves through that square.

 

[missile]

No game development sadly, MATLAB, Modelica and Python at work.

I used Matlab a couple of years ago. Not a fan of it. You have an interest in
game development? What are you doing at work?

 

[anonymous_abc]

Best of both worlds, looks fantastic!

I used Matlab a couple of years ago. Not a fan of it. You have an interest in
game development? What are you doing at work?

In my youth (that makes me feel old. ) I used to map and mod day and night. But since then nothing in that direction anymore. I wouldn't mind a little project on the side though but that idea is just incubating in my mind atm.
At work I model and simulate start systems for a premium car manufacturer based in Bavaria .

 

[Pehesse]

I did some updates. How about this? It keeps the normal overlap if I have tall obstacles, but uses transparency if a square is selected for a command, or if the cursor moves through that square.

Best compromise, I could totally play like that, and I dare say with this transparency effect it looks a bit classier than Advance Wars (and I'm an AW nut).

For the screenshot saturday discussion : I'd lurk in it/post in it when I have stuff (afraid that's not going to be before a while though, got a long list of assets to make and script to write that makes for poor screenshots in the end...) - but I understand this thread as being the place for this already along with detailed discussion about how we eventually get to those screenshots, so it may split the discussion a bit and unfocus things as people need to look through several threads in parallel to get all the info about the development of a specific project... ? I don't know. I like the idea, but I feel it's sort of redundant with what we have already.

Or maybe that's just fear of change.

 

[missile]

Sure
<rant>
I spent 2 days to solve a problem with a makefile. NDK simply didn't want to buils one of my libs. Then the problem was solved by magic.
Now I'm trying to debug the code but no can do. Second time I'm wasting time to get the code to break on a breakpoint. The first time it took me 3 days to get the thing to work.
There are bugs in the ide, bugs in ndk, bugs in the emulators. I simply can't do anything without having to google for a solution.
Then there are google apis, android apis, architectures, android versions.
The project tree is terrible, project settings are confusing, references are dumb. Everything feels amateurish.
Comparing this environment with visual studio or even xcode is like comparing ferraris to potatos.
Google makes billions of dolars of profit every year and they don't have money to build a decent set of tools.

</rant>
Maybe I lack the experience, I don't know...

Pfeww...! Thx for the impression. I thought the NDK would be much nicer resp.
smoother. Hopefully I can pass the mobile stuff. Love consoles. PS4 would be
ideal. 8) Keep positing!

I did some updates. How about this? It keeps the normal overlap if I have tall obstacles, but uses transparency if a square is selected for a command, or if the cursor moves through that square.

Blizzard, can you do me a favor replacing the awkward background tiles with
something more pleasing to watch?

... In my youth (that makes me feel old. ) I used to map and mod day and night. But since then nothing in that direction anymore. I wouldn't mind a little project on the side though but that idea is just incubating in my mind atm. ...

Game development is the real deal. :+ One just has to learn to live with less
for a perhaps long time.

Many people can't, they fear social insecurity and choose a supposed to be
save and boring job after university and keep dreaming about programming
games while the time slipes away day by day in an irreversible fashion.

... At work I model and simulate start systems for a premium car manufacturer based in Bavaria .

Ahh ... that's why Matlab, for simulating said start systems? Simulink, right?

 

[anonymous_abc]

Ahh ... that's why Matlab, for simulating said start systems? Simulink, right?

Actually, the physical models are built in Dymola (Modelica), Simulink is then only used to pass data in and out of said model. And the GUI is built in MATLAB with all the data pre and post processing.

 

[missile]

^ Got it. Had a look at Dymola. Amazing how one can model cars today!

 

[akachan ningen]

Hey gang!

I hope it's OK that I post here about a new indie game I'm involved in - Ninja Pizza Girl!

https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/002/185/180/fc0dca1c0d66c2e14bb6ac254751001a_large.gif?1403570047[IMG]

You play as Gemma, a teenage girl working for her father's small pizza delivery business in a futuristic world where evil corporations have taken over all of pizza. Jump off rooftops, fight other teenage ninjas and deliver pizzas to people who may or may not be wearing pants.



It's a platforming game (made in Unity, so you know it's coming out for everything) that involves the issues of self-esteem, bullying and HARDCORE PIZZA-BASED NINJA ACTION.

[URL="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqCOnyEj1TA"][B]Here's the YouTube trailer![/B][/URL]

[URL="http://www.indiedb.com/games/ninja-pizza-girl/downloads/ninja-pizza-girl-kickstarter-demo"][B]We just released the PC demo today[/B][/URL] and man oh man do I want to hear what GAF thinks. :) You can find out more about the game and the team at the [URL="http://disparitygames.com"]Disparity Games website[/URL].

And remember - [B]no pants, no pizza[/B].

[IMG]https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/002/103/455/7448f052c76ed94b1dd8e20bd1e27b3e_large.gif?1401936927[/MG][/QUOTE]

Did Tim Buckley do the art for this?

 

[2+2=5]

I did some updates. How about this? It keeps the normal overlap if I have tall obstacles, but uses transparency if a square is selected for a command, or if the cursor moves through that square.

Awesome

 

[TheHollowNight]

What luck! Hey, it's IG_Enthusiast from Twitter. Awesome to see that the Beacon dev is a member here

Hey hey! Yes I think I'm the only one on the team that's a GAF member! (@arranseaton on Twitter FYI )
I'll be posting all images and blog posts in here as well if there's interest! Plus any random other stuff I work on (I currently do game/level design & music on Beacon)

I know nothing about the game, but looks techy and I like it.

Well, let me care to enlighten you!
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/90180152950/introducing-beacon

We''ll be trying to do bi-weekly posts of interesting content on the game, otherwise we'll just be posting cool gifs and images of pretty stuff

Also we are looking for a 2D character artist, if any of you awesome people are interested or know somebody, I'd be super grateful to chat. Our artist Tay realised the workload is going to be too much for him to handle all the Art & do animation.

 

[missile]

... Well, let me care to enlighten you!
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/90180152950/introducing-beacon ...

I'm curious how the DNA stuff plays out. Sounds quite interesting!

 

[superNESjoe]

This looks awesome! I'll be partaking in a KS for sure.

My team is preparing for a KS and reveal at the end of the month for our game GunWorld as well. On that note, I'd also like to put my vote in for a GAF Screenshot Saturday. GunWorld is going into Alpha at the end of the month so I should be able to produce some pretty nice shots of the game.

 

[More_Badass]

This looks awesome! I'll be partaking in a KS for sure.

My team is preparing for a KS and reveal at the end of the month for our game GunWorld as well. On that note, I'd also like to put my vote in for a GAF Screenshot Saturday. GunWorld is going into Alpha at the end of the month so I should be able to produce some pretty nice shots of the game.

Do you have a site for your game? Searched GunWorld on Google, couldn't find it.

Seems like there's enough interest here to give the SS thread a shot. As for the concerns about splitting posts between here and that thread, couldn't you simply post in both? I envision that thread as more of a showcase for the projects being working on by GAF members, not a replacement for the Indie Dev thread.

I'd also try to supplement the thread with general Screenshot Saturday posts, so it wouldn't just be your posts and games keeping the thread afloat

 

[Blizzard]

Blizzard, can you do me a favor replacing the awkward background tiles with
something more pleasing to watch?

I'd love to! And since you bring it up, do you have any suggestions? I had kept them for now because the contrast worked, it was easy to distinguish the squares, and I didn't have anything better in mind. Here are my criteria for what I'd need to pixel up as a replacement:

1. I'm leaning strongly towards dark palettes for the background since the contrast has been designed around it. Doesn't have to be dark blue necessarily, but that color does seem to work well.

2. I was originally thinking some sort of circuit-board-ish pattern when I made those tiles. I'm currently not sure (need to playtest) whether I want to have a mechanic involving control of energy conduits flowing through certain tiles, but if I did that, I would need a way to display it.

3. I would like to use a design that makes it fairly easy to count squares at a glance, without having to manually select a unit or press a button to double-check. I may change my mind on this. In other words, I'd prefer to avoid 100% seamless tilling.

4. I need a design that fits the floor of a space station or spacecraft. Think cargo hold, maintenance bay, or whatnot. This presumably means metal or space-age materials. This is also my challenge with thinking up fitting obstacles. The obstacles I've been showing are some I threw together, but they are probably pretty lousy at present.

Ideas and comments always welcome! I am NOT asking anyone to prototype their own squares, since I want to do the art myself (unless I end up hiring someone), but if anyone has general or thematic comments that would be appreciated.

 

[superNESjoe]

Do you have a site for your game? Searched GunWorld on Google, couldn't find it.

Seems like there's enough interest here to give the SS thread a shot. As for the concerns about splitting posts between here and that thread, couldn't you simply post in both? I envision that thread as more of a showcase for the projects being working on by GAF members, not a replacement for the Indie Dev thread.

I'd also try to supplement the thread with general Screenshot Saturday posts, so it wouldn't just be your posts and games keeping the thread afloat

There is no site for GunWorld yet, as it hasn't been formally revealed. We're holding off until we have a playable demo to help demonstrate what the game will be. We'll be launching the site later this month, releasing the demo, then doing a KS shortly after. We've invested a chunk of our own money to allow us to dedicate ourselves to the game, but our current reserves won't give us enough time to get everything we want in the game. We'll be reaching out for a small sum to try and extend our development time to get everything from our original design doc into the game.

As far as the SS thread, I'm super into that. I'll likely have some images of GunWorld to post in there prior to the demo release.

 

[friken]

Feeling good!!!! We have hit a major milestone for StarDiver. We now have 20 alien races and 20 alien ships designed and art assets ready for animation and implementation. Now for the fun part -- getting them all in-game and FUN! I suspect we will add another 5-10 alien races and ships along the way, but it feels great to have hit our target minimum needed to fill out of universe and story arc.

Pardon the small images, click image for larger:








Our Dev Blog Post about it:
http://gravityride.com/?p=510

 

[More_Badass]

There is no site for GunWorld yet, as it hasn't been formally revealed. We're holding off until we have a playable demo to help demonstrate what the game will be. We'll be launching the site later this month, releasing the demo, then doing a KS shortly after. We've invested a chunk of our own money to allow us to dedicate ourselves to the game, but our current reserves won't give us enough time to get everything we want in the game. We'll be reaching out for a small sum to try and extend our development time to get everything from our original design doc into the game.

As far as the SS thread, I'm super into that. I'll likely have some images of GunWorld to post in there prior to the demo release.

What kind of game is it? The name makes me think of either some kind of an MMO, a FPS, or something with a Western theme

And okay, l'll put together a Screenshot Saturday thread, will be up by this weekend

 

[superNESjoe]

What kind of game is it? The name makes me think of either some kind of an MMO, a FPS, or something with a Western theme

And okay, l'll put together a Screenshot Saturday thread, will be up by this weekend

8-Bit action game inspired by 1980's action movies. The main character is based off Carl Weathers in Predator. Takes place on a planet where guns grow on trees. Aliens come in and start killing off the mother plants that cause guns to grow naturally, and you have to travel the world restoring them. No western theme, but there is a western level atop a speeding train.

It's a side scrolling action game with a progression system based around the plants. As you defeat bosses and find secret areas you restore new plants. Once you restore a plant, that plant's gun starts blooming in every level, even ones you've already cleared. To find everything in the game you have to experiment with different weapons, replaying levels to discover new routes and equipment. We have also tried to keep the art as NES authentic as possible without harming the gameplay. We restrict ourselves to the NES palette and color limit for sprites, with our resolution being based around the original NES resolution (widened a small amount) and tile size.

 

[More_Badass]

That sounds awesome and inventive! Definitely eager to see screenshots and gameplay

 

[cbox]

PIX

Seeing your posts makes me want to write a story for Shwip, but I don't want to add things at this stage. Give your artist props! Great work, and your game is looking fantastic dude!

 

[superNESjoe]

That sounds awesome and inventive! Definitely eager to see screenshots and gameplay

Thanks! This will be one of the first places they get posted, especially if the Screenshot Saturday thread goes up.

 

[friken]

Seeing your posts makes me want to write a story for Shwip, but I don't want to add things at this stage. Give your artist props! Great work, and your game is looking fantastic dude!

Thanks for the kind words... they mean a lot.

We have one more goal set before we put together a compelling promo video for a Kickstart and Greenlight campaign. I think we need to be able to show planetary mining and we will have all the components to show exploration, conversing with aliens, battles, and resource gathering. Deciding where to draw the line in sand before doing a kickstart is hard.... too little to show and you are sunk... show too much and people wonder why funds are needed.

Fingers crossed we can drum up some press / social momentum to fuel the campaign.

 

[superNESjoe]

Thanks for the kind words... they mean a lot.

We have one more goal set before we put together a compelling promo video for a Kickstart and Greenlight campaign. I think we need to be able to show planetary mining and we will have all the components to show exploration, conversing with aliens, battles, and resource gathering. Deciding where to draw the line in sand before doing a kickstart is hard.... too little to show and you are sunk... show too much and people wonder why funds are needed.

Fingers crossed we can drum up some press / social momentum to fuel the campaign.

I have some friends and contacts in the press from my time working within that industry, I'll shoot links to your KS around when it launches and see if I can get you some bites. We're about to launch a KS of our own and I ran one that failed before. I know the struggles =).

 

[cbox]

Pix or...

Here you go! We need to adjust the size of the pieces so it fits in a bit better, but here's the jist

http://www.gfycat.com/EnchantedSmoothAmazontreeboa#

 

[friken]

I have some friends and contacts in the press from my time working within that industry, I'll shoot links to your KS around when it launches and see if I can get you some bites. We're about to launch a KS of our own and I ran one that failed before. I know the struggles =).

That would be GREATLY appreciated. I think the amount of anxiety around trying to get the project ready for kickstart has hit full burn around here. Best of luck on your KS, looking forward to seeing it.

On a positive note, I found a couple unity plugins that totally made my day. One for auto creation of 2d colliders for transp sprites (was stupidly tedious before) and one that allows me to import sprites from psd layers for animation.. again a huge time saver. The asset store.... really is the killer app/reason for using unity.

Here you go! We need to adjust the size of the pieces so it fits in a bit better, but here's the jist
http://www.gfycat.com/EnchantedSmoothAmazontreeboa#

loving the boom-chunkage

@all:

What metrics do you guys use to determine when a game is ready for a kickstart/greenlight. I've read to not even bother until you have a solid following already. What is that... # of twitter, fb fans? amount of traffic to dev blog? IndieDB followers?

 

[Michael Armbrust]

It was a bit tight towards the end but I think everything is good to go.

I'm doing a full gameplay reveal for VizionEck tomorrow. 6ish minutes of gameplay, new screenshots, and even the launch of a wiki.