What would be really good practice is taking an easily moddable game, deleting all the dialog and then re-writing it from scratch. That's also something you could use in a portfolio.
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
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What would be really good practice is taking an easily moddable game, deleting all the dialog and then re-writing it from scratch. That's also something you could use in a portfolio.
TheHollowNight
Member
It's been agggesssss since I've posted in here! Mainly because we've been hard at work porting Beacon over to 3D. Which, is pretty much complete! We need to sort some more of the assets out, but everything has been going smoothly and the benefits of switching from 2D were worth the effort.
We've also been adding lots of extra things in, taking full advantage of the new UI tools in Unity and got one of our programmer buddies to help out with the workload, making really cool entities for us, like loot crates! Both of which you can see below:
As you can also see, we're switching the art style to be more of a lo-fi polygonal look. which has certainly helped speed up asset creation. We're going to move to Unity Pro soon to take advantage of all the fancy shaders and lighting, so visually right now, it's looking a bit rough. Also the item gets flung out the crate in a pretty hilarious fashion right now
We've also been adding lots of extra things in, taking full advantage of the new UI tools in Unity and got one of our programmer buddies to help out with the workload, making really cool entities for us, like loot crates! Both of which you can see below:
As you can also see, we're switching the art style to be more of a lo-fi polygonal look. which has certainly helped speed up asset creation. We're going to move to Unity Pro soon to take advantage of all the fancy shaders and lighting, so visually right now, it's looking a bit rough. Also the item gets flung out the crate in a pretty hilarious fashion right now
taku
Member
I think the low-poly look will suit the game very well and I'm looking forward to seeing more of this project in the future.As you can also see, we're switching the art style to be more of a lo-fi polygonal look. which has certainly helped speed up asset creation. We're going to move to Unity Pro soon to take advantage of all the fancy shaders and lighting, so visually right now, it's looking a bit rough. Also the item gets flung out the crate in a pretty hilarious fashion right now
As you can also see, we're switching the art style to be more of a lo-fi polygonal look. which has certainly helped speed up asset creation. We're going to move to Unity Pro soon to take advantage of all the fancy shaders and lighting, so visually right now, it's looking a bit rough. Also the item gets flung out the crate in a pretty hilarious fashion right now
Needs more scarves.
My friend & Ghost Song composer, Roger, has been tinkering with a pet project for years, and he finally has a Kickstarter of his own. It's been fun watching this thing take various forms over time and eventually gel into what it is now.
It's a bit tough to quickly explain, but basically it's an action roguelike where levels are generated by music.
Kickstarter link.
Note -- though this is a friend of mine and he works on Ghost Song, I have no direct involvement with Band Saga and don't profit from it. Just trying to help out.
It's a bit tough to quickly explain, but basically it's an action roguelike where levels are generated by music.
Kickstarter link.
Note -- though this is a friend of mine and he works on Ghost Song, I have no direct involvement with Band Saga and don't profit from it. Just trying to help out.
Rare is the indie dev who thinks they cannot write, sadly.
Of course, I arrogantly exclude myself from that group.
writing for indie games would be a hard thing to break into cold... For this reason, as well as the fact that most games can do well on other qualities without having particularly strong writing. That's why we so often see games be successful with poor or worse writing. So -- Mr. indie dev, who understandably wants to do as much of the game on their own as possible, will just put together their own story.
I wish you luck, but it's probably going to be tough to get a foot in the door just going in cold.
You're welcome.
Taking the chance to show you guys a little bit of clean up I did on Kunoichi's sprite, plus some of the recently added stage-themed minions (the Dokuro Army, in this case).
Still no decent character-animations to post here, I apologize. :/
You're welcome.
Taking the chance to show you guys a little bit of clean up I did on Kunoichi's sprite, plus some of the recently added stage-themed minions (the Dokuro Army, in this case).
Still no decent character-animations to post here, I apologize. :/
I recognize you're going for a paper cut out style or something along those lines, but I question if this wouldn't work better if you just got rid of the white paper around the characters. It'd look good.
The only way you get to that point is by messing up a bunch and learning a tonne of stuff as a result. Don't be afraid!
Some dope ass pixelart for sure!
On the one hand, it's definitely an option I want to investigate, but on the other one the paper element is tied to the game almost everywhere (story-telling, cutscenes, special effects...).
Also, since I wanted to aim for a proper vibrant visual style from the very beginning, I thought those white little 'backgrounds' could help to keep the action on screen constantly clear.
That said, it's something I will try out.
On the one hand, it's definitely an option I want to investigate, but on the other one the paper element is tied to the game almost everywhere (story-telling, cutscenes, special effects...).
Also, since I wanted to aim for a proper vibrant visual style from the very beginning, I thought those white little 'backgrounds' could help to keep the action on screen constantly clear.
That said, it's something I will try out.
things can be paper without distracting angular white outlines. see: paper mario.
An indie Paper Mario-esque game would literally take all of my money.
ok, figuratively, ok maybe like $20 - 30
Sure thing. If it will end up being nothing more than just distracting, I'll definitely change/get rid of it.
wow. had no idea I was this powerful.
okay, I also think I should personally star in your game.
You don't want to pick at me on stuff like that... I'm the kind of person who's gonna slap your face over the narrator for real!
So a question, I apologize I'd this isnt usual operating procedure, but the games that people are working on currently, are they your "dream" game or have you started with something in the hopes of gaining experience so that eventually you can make that "dream" game. I'm just curious as to whether some people gradually worked up to an idea that they had in their head?
Thought I'd post some character artwork for Astral Gunners, since we just designed a new character, and I haven't shared the artwork for the other characters yet.
It's been awhile since my last post, but here's the gameplay trailer for anyone that missed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22HIQMsfrrA
Hopefully we can get a demo out here relatively soon. Immediately started making improvements to the game after the feedback from here and other places we've shared this.
Hadn't seen your game another shmup Dev fellow! Your gameplay video looks really nice (as well as the artwork), we're meaning to get one out sooner as well for our game and a demo after that, what are you using to develop Astral Gunners?
My friend & Ghost Song composer, Roger, has been tinkering with a pet project for years, and he finally has a Kickstarter of his own. It's been fun watching this thing take various forms over time and eventually gel into what it is now.
It's a bit tough to quickly explain, but basically it's an action roguelike where levels are generated by music.
Kickstarter link.
Note -- though this is a friend of mine and he works on Ghost Song, I have no direct involvement with Band Saga and don't profit from it. Just trying to help out.
Well this looks awesome! Some kind of sequencer 'em up!?
MetaWaddleDoo
Neo Member
Thank you! What's the current status on your shmup? I'd love to see a video or demo of your game when you get one up.
We're using Game Maker Studio to create Astral Gunners. I was initially using it as a prototyping tool, since I was familiar with older versions of Game Maker. However, after working in Studio for awhile and getting a better grasp of GML I decided to use that as the main development tool. It has its fair share of flaws, but none of those flaws really affect the core design of a shmup. You want the game to be frame-based, so Game Maker's system works perfectly for that. The default collision detecting leaves much to be desired if you use fast-moving bullets and really small hitboxes, but that can easily be worked around with some built-in functions.
Getting back into 2D animation feels pretty good after all this time scripting events and doing backgrounds (I fairly dislike backgrounds, to be honest).
Starting to act upon the feedback I got of the fighting prototype a few months back, and the two main things on the list are to expand Honey's moveset, and speed up the general feel of the game. So here's a new move to start on that first one, and I'll get on that second one when I integrate it!
Honey started as a training project to work on 2D animation (the plan was to go back to an overhead RPG/adventure game after a few weeks), but it turned into a dream project when I saw that I could actually take it further than just training. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have *one* dream project, I have many of them, and I hope to get the chance to do them all at some point, each building upon the previous. So in a sense, they're all dream training projects... or something? :-D
Starting to act upon the feedback I got of the fighting prototype a few months back, and the two main things on the list are to expand Honey's moveset, and speed up the general feel of the game. So here's a new move to start on that first one, and I'll get on that second one when I integrate it!
Honey started as a training project to work on 2D animation (the plan was to go back to an overhead RPG/adventure game after a few weeks), but it turned into a dream project when I saw that I could actually take it further than just training. As far as I'm concerned, I don't have *one* dream project, I have many of them, and I hope to get the chance to do them all at some point, each building upon the previous. So in a sense, they're all dream training projects... or something? :-D
I'm down-scoping in an attempt to actually finish another game. I may revisit the old prototypes and carve out smaller games from them, but they were going to take forever to finish as is.
I'm turning my attention to turn-based football. It's going to be fast-paced, simple to play, and I'm going to get the game fully working before making any characters or animations, (if I even choose to do that).
Step 1:
It'll be a nice change from real time physics gameplay, which I've been doing for a while.
I'm turning my attention to turn-based football. It's going to be fast-paced, simple to play, and I'm going to get the game fully working before making any characters or animations, (if I even choose to do that).
Step 1:
It'll be a nice change from real time physics gameplay, which I've been doing for a while.
sorta.. it's an action/shooter/roguelike where the level is dynamically generated by the music. each stage has a default soundtrack that it uses to generate everything, but the player can learn to modify the soundtrack to change the level, and the player also, if he wants, can make the soundtrack himself using the sequencer.
I see, I haven't used Game Maker before but I hear that even if it's limited it has gotten better over the years, and like you said depending on the type of game you are developing the flaws may not affect it.
About Beat Beat Shooter, the game is far along in a lot of behind the scenes systems and code but we are still lacking some in the content department, we have been focusing a lot on making a good level editor for the game so making the levels becomes much easier, but stuff like variations on enemy movement and bullet patterns is still low.
Once we have more variety on those things we plan to make a good demonstration for a trailer and after that, fix some bugs here and there for a playable demo, hopefully not long though
I see, thanks a lot!
As far as strict copyright law is concerned, this is close to the commonly established/accepted rules on fanart for illustrations and the likes I've seen already, which makes sense, I suppose. The unknown is always to which extent is the strict copyright law applied, especially in the case of homage, in a commercial work...
I mainly wondered if there were any concrete cases of big studios/publishers going after others (indies, or other studies) for that kind of reference, but I guess we can never really tell if anyone's been contacted beforehand in the process (I'm thinking for instance about that Raz skeleton in Alice, in addition to the examples you referred to already).
Well, in the end, I suppose it's best to contact those you'd really like to represent to ask if it'd be okay... ?
Yeah, probably. I have 26 statues planned from 22 different IPs. It was going to be part of a side puzzle where each statue is a letter (Eddie = E, Ratchet = R, Manny = M) that spelled something out and people weren't really supposed to figure it out. It's probably not a good puzzle idea anyway, but the thought of having to contact twenty different IP owners is a little daunting right now.
I didn't actually know about the Raz skeleton (which surprises me since Psychonauts and Alice are two of my favorite games), but having looked up a video that's a pretty clear homage. Hmm.
I'm guessing something like Super Meat Boy got away with all its characters because McMillen was already chummy with all the indie devs whose characters he used, so he probably could easily ask them, and something like Guacamelee counts as parody or is using public domain memes.
Interesting concept using the turn-based structure. Kind of like a mixture between chess and football.
Looking forward to seeing the results.
Indeed, there's probably a fair case to be made for Guacamelee and parody... But then there's something like Bit.Trip Runner 2 :-D I suppose all those devs have been contacted, since it's so prevalent... but would that mean that generally, for instance, Double Fine seems to go for that kind of representation (and in your case, then, it'd be fine, at least as far as Eddie/Manny are concerned?).
It's a bit of a downer that it could be more trouble than it's worth to slip in a wink/reference/homage to something, contemporary or as a reverence... especially since it's been pretty commonplace in the history of other artforms/media. I don't know. Part of me still wants to slip in Shantae and a few other pals in the audience of my matches, but I don't want to get in trouble either :-D Or maybe we should start a list of game makers who are okay with using their characters for that kind of reference... ?
For what it's worth, I'm also hoping to be one of the indies that DF has been backing. But I don't think it's fair to make a blanket statement about whether someone is okay with others using their characters. Especially when, for example, it's actually Disney (LucasArts) who own the Grim Fandango characters. Schafer has a line in one of the videos on the GF remaster that they're doing where he says "I feel like I own Grim Fandango and [Full] Throttle in every possible way, except for legally, and technically." (http://youtu.be/JNhE7zxJymE?t=9m46s)
At this point, I'm thinking I'll pick a smaller handful of homages I want to make and ask the IP owners then.
Sounds cool!
Thanks!
Well I loved Blood Bowl as a kid, and Advance Wars later on... hopefully I can make something cool!
Gafers, so I've been trying to get into 3D and I've heard a lot of good things about Unreal. I want to start using the engine but my video card is really old (ATI Radeon 4600). Any recommendations on what graphics card I should get? I don't really want to spend more then $250. Initially I'm going to start with mobile development but I would like to eventually like to work on the Oculous Rift too so hopefully whatever card you recommend will be powerful enough for VR also.
The GTX 760 should be able to handle a decent amount without lighting itself on fire. Should be able to find it somewhere for <$250.
Otherwise ATI side go with a 280 or a 270x.
Thanks! Amazon has quite a few listed, any in particular you would recommend?
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node=284822&field-keywords=GTX+760
Also, forgive my ignorance, but I have an HP Z400. Would these cards be able to fit in my machine?
In order to prevent derailing this thread too much, I'm going to just direct you over to the Build a PC thread. They will be able to answer all your questions.
Paul Robertson doing the sprites?My friend & Ghost Song composer, Roger, has been tinkering with a pet project for years, and he finally has a Kickstarter of his own. It's been fun watching this thing take various forms over time and eventually gel into what it is now.
It's a bit tough to quickly explain, but basically it's an action roguelike where levels are generated by music.
Kickstarter link.
Note -- though this is a friend of mine and he works on Ghost Song, I have no direct involvement with Band Saga and don't profit from it. Just trying to help out.
I'm floored by how wonderful the artwork looks in all these games. I've been back about ten pages looking at everything, and I find all of it wonderful.
For the programmers, what sort of backgrounds do you have? If you're working on an indie game on the side, what do you do for a steady paycheck? I ask because I'm a software developer at a bank who's interested in working with the development of a game again.
For the programmers, what sort of backgrounds do you have? If you're working on an indie game on the side, what do you do for a steady paycheck? I ask because I'm a software developer at a bank who's interested in working with the development of a game again.
I used to be a lawyer but I hung up my gown to work in Spirit Huntress.
Totally poor now, but I regret nothing. Except maybe selling my car and dumping a very good friend and mentor. Still remember his face when after two years of partership I told him I was quitting to make a video game about a female ninja.
Hopefully people will like my game and I'll overcome all of it. That or I'll have to go back to the courts.
I started with GameMaker, and it's where I still am. It kind of grew up with me, so there was never quite enough incentive to move on even after I dabbled with other languages and systems in college.
I had an office job previously, but now I work as a teacher. It's part-time, which wouldn't be enough if I was paying rent or supporting someone else, but the free time to work on my game makes it worthwhile.
I could get used to blender
Trying out new models for a potential poster. Though I'm getting sort of depressed my greenlight page has stagnated. Really need more eyes on our game and all the tweeting I have been doing seems to be doing very little. Any recommended letsplay folks?
Trying out new models for a potential poster. Though I'm getting sort of depressed my greenlight page has stagnated. Really need more eyes on our game and all the tweeting I have been doing seems to be doing very little. Any recommended letsplay folks?
I could get used to blender
Blender is awesome!! I love building in it, (though I suck at it), and the easy workflow with Unity is just fantastic.
It was a huge pain in the ass to get used to in the beginning due to the interface, but I've steadily stuck with it and thannks to Andrew Price ( blenderguru ) I've started to love it. I used to be pretty good with 3ds back in the day, but you can't argue with free.
Put in a temporary, contextual "walkmode" enforced when approaching a story area. This signals to the user what's happening and sets the pacing of the encounter, which I like. Initially I wasn't sold, but after trying it, I think it works well.
example: http://gfycat.com/FeminineNimbleAtlasmoth
These backgrounds are pretty awesome... Careful not to sprain anything while trying to finish this game. XD
example: http://gfycat.com/FeminineNimbleAtlasmoth
These backgrounds are pretty awesome... Careful not to sprain anything while trying to finish this game. XD
You definitely can't. I got into Blender a few weeks ago because I wanted to do some 3D modeling, but my current computer at the time (laptop) only had integrated graphics. 3D Studio and Maya just pooped all over it, so I looked into Blender instead. Was very pleased, and haven't looked back.
The controls and interface were annoying at first, especially with the differences between Unity and Blender, but yeah like you did, I got used to it after a few hours as well. I really want to have more time to actually learn more Blender.
edit: The gif you have on your Greenlight page logo is just so satisfying.
TunaUppercut
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