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[Granadier]

Unity Free now has support for the Oculus Rift (0.4.3 beta build)

Oculus SDK

• Display Driver latency reduction in Direct Mode by 1 frame, resulting in 0ms Post-present.
• Updated display driver to support multi-threaded calls efficiently, this may improve performance in some scenarios.
• Added option in the Oculus Configuration Utility to Suppress the Health and Safety Warning during active development.
• Added option in the Oculus Configuration Utility to set the OVRServer logging level.
• Updated the Health and Safety Warning screen to reflect an age restriction of 13. More information can be found in the Oculus VR Best Practices Guide and in the Oculus VR Health And Safety Warnings documentation.
• Experimental Linux support (see included LINUX_README).
• Added an error dialog notification to notify users if direct mode fails due to conflicting shims.
• Numerous stability and performance improvements.

Unity

• Added support for Unity Free in Unity 4.5.5 and up.
• Overhauled Unity C# API. Reduced performance overhead. See the migration guide for more details.
• Improved support for multi-layered rendering. Just instantiate multiple OVRCameraRigs, set Camera.depth and Camera.clearFlags for each eye, and use.

SDK link
Build notes

 

[superNESjoe]

I get ID@xbox.com emails still and they have acknowledged my application -- basically a 'we are slammed w tons of apps we'll get to you eventually maybe' response. I received an email this morning asking if I'm still interested to request a game id form, which I responded to this morning. So we will see. Considering how hammered m$ has gotten from game press about the xbox1 launch and such, seems m$ would be trying to sign up devs as fast as they are interested.

I did the same thing. Hopefully I hear back from them sometime soon.

 

[Ashodin]

Here's also a preview of the Magi fight in psyscrolr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqN4UFyU0a0&list=UUWymTsxCy60-kz3sgd-tZuw

 

[Jobbs]

Here's also a preview of the Magi fight in psyscrolr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqN4UFyU0a0&list=UUWymTsxCy60-kz3sgd-tZuw

full VO? didn't know that. you're trying to steal my thunder!

the second guy sounds a bit feep-like. is it feep?

how does the actual fight go? that's the part I'd be most curious to see.

 

[Ashodin]

full VO? didn't know that. you're trying to steal my thunder!

the second guy sounds a bit feep-like. is it feep?

how does the actual fight go? that's the part I'd be most curious to see.

Working on it atm. It's the largest scripted event in the game thus far, so it's a mammoth task. And no, it's not Feep, it's the same guy who did the Literati Eraser VA

Suffice it to say, the battle is in phases where the Magi retreats to a new mural, and "shifts" in another platform and background to fight on. (and will adjust tactics)

It's worth noting that I never make the Scrolr talk before this scene, to make the impact of potentially "losing" the Narrator huge.

 

[Jobbs]

Working on it atm. It's the largest scripted event in the game thus far, so it's a mammoth task. And no, it's not Feep, it's the same guy who did the Literati Eraser VA

Suffice it to say, the battle is in phases where the Magi retreats to a new mural, and "shifts" in another platform and background to fight on. (and will adjust tactics)

It's worth noting that I never make the Scrolr talk before this scene, to make the impact of potentially "losing" the Narrator huge.

how long are you imagining this game to be, btw?

 

[Ashodin]

One to three hours, depend on how long it takes you find all the secrets. Maybe more. There's also hidden stages that allow you to best your score and a sort of time attack feature that will allow you to see how long you took to beat a stage/the game.

 

[Korten]

Here's also a preview of the Magi fight in psyscrolr:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqN4UFyU0a0&list=UUWymTsxCy60-kz3sgd-tZuw

Music reminds me of Fez.

 

[Ashodin]

Music reminds me of Fez.

It's what I asked to mimic, so I'm glad you think so!

 

[Jobbs]

this spot was always supposed to be glowy, but it turned out even glowier and hazier than I imagined, and I think I'm okay with that.

the idea is the background slit there is emanating "blue glowy stuff" which seeps into surrounding rooms.

click for full.

 

[Ashodin]

NOTHING

edit: ok you edited it in

 

[Xtra Mile]

Okay, it's been a long time coming. First video of the game. http://youtu.be/J3KMT6SwAL4

Kickstarter in a week or so.

Hope you like, indiegaf!

 

[Feep]

Working on it atm. It's the largest scripted event in the game thus far, so it's a mammoth task. And no, it's not Feep, it's the same guy who did the Literati Eraser VA

Suffice it to say, the battle is in phases where the Magi retreats to a new mural, and "shifts" in another platform and background to fight on. (and will adjust tactics)

It's worth noting that I never make the Scrolr talk before this scene, to make the impact of potentially "losing" the Narrator huge.

Microphone quality ; ;

 

[Jobbs]

caused this crazy effect by accidently fudging my shader values.

http://www.gfycat.com/HarmfulYellowishKentrosaurus

Okay, it's been a long time coming. First video of the game. http://youtu.be/J3KMT6SwAL4

Kickstarter in a week or so.

Hope you like, indiegaf!

Looks cool, something is familiar about this but I can't place it -- I think I may have corresponded with you before. I recommend making gifs to catch peoples attention in forums! Feel free to share me the KS project before going live with it, I have seen some KS unfortunately not do well lately and I think I have a pretty good eye for figuring out the chances something has by looking at how it's presented.

 

[Xtra Mile]

caused this crazy effect by accidently fudging my shader values.

http://www.gfycat.com/HarmfulYellowishKentrosaurus



Looks cool, something is familiar about this but I can't place it -- I think I may have corresponded with you before. I recommend making gifs to catch peoples attention in forums! Feel free to share me the KS project before going live with it, I have seen some KS unfortunately not do well lately and I think I have a pretty good eye for figuring out the chances something has by looking at how it's presented.

Hey, thanks. Yeah we were emailing a few months ago. You helped me out a lot back then. Sure, that would be awesome! I'll email you the Kickstarter preview link.

 

[Ashodin]

Microphone quality ; ;

??

 

[Mystic River]

Ok.... bucketlist item checked off. I've REALLY wanted to make a ship that can punch through another ship for a loooong time

Sarlirth doing what it does:

pretty nice! I wanted to do the same in my game but it is too much resource intensive , nice too see you can do that waiting to see other weapons!

 

[Lautaro]

I think I'll skip this screenshot saturday, I'm kind of tired.

Also it seems is not worth the effort if you don't have a website or something for people to follow.... ugh, I need to get on that too.

 

[Jobbs]

in this encounter, you need to manage your resources properly to survive. shooting the beetle with certain weapons can slow it down, other enemies can slow it down, and you must also carefully manage your dash timer and armor in order to make it through the spikes, or you could find yourself quickly out of luck.

click for bigger. I think the timing on these gifs might be weird or something, they look a bit fast motiony on my screen right now. either that or I'm evolving hyper reflexes. er, I guess that'd be the opposite of hyper. maybe I'm slowing down. I don't konw. It's late. I need sleep.

 

[ChosenPredator]

in this encounter, you need to manage your resources properly to survive. shooting the beetle with certain weapons can slow it down, other enemies can slow it down, and you must also carefully manage your dash timer and armor in order to make it through the spikes, or you could find yourself quickly out of luck.

click for bigger. I think the timing on these gifs might be weird or something, they look a bit fast motiony on my screen right now. either that or I'm evolving hyper reflexes. er, I guess that'd be the opposite of hyper. maybe I'm slowing down. I don't konw. It's late. I need sleep.

love the fact you need to survive against some foe, it adds a interesting dynamic because it'll always keep you on your toes for different type of scenarios that may pop up with creatures or other things you might be cooking up. I always like the feeling of things closing in and skill that just gets you out of a life ending situation, lol.

 

[show me your skeleton]

apologies for the off-tangent, already-answered question but the grain present in the .gifs is in your game right? it's not just part of some compression going on is it?

 

[Dascu]

I'm pleased to update with the following news:
- I have submitted a demo of Malebolgia to the Independent Games Festival. *fingers crossed*
- I have created a little Tumblr site: http://malebolgia-game.tumblr.com/
- And next to some new screenshots on that site, I have also made a teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEVPENmgxSg

Enjoy!

And for #screenshotsaturday:

 

[Pehesse]

Screenshot saturday thread crosspost, as always. Except this time it really is a screenshot.. with a video hidden behind it.
A small demo of the current looks of the second match with most of the basic animation in. Still missing some, but we're way past the halfway point now! Missing in action are only moves that are... uh, very long to do. So not that great, but still, getting there!

 

[Nibel]

I'm pleased to update with the following news:
- I have submitted a demo of Malebolgia to the Independent Games Festival. *fingers crossed*
- I have created a little Tumblr site: http://malebolgia-game.tumblr.com/
- And next to some new screenshots on that site, I have also made a teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEVPENmgxSg

Enjoy!

And for #screenshotsaturday:

Man, that gave me some serious RE4 castle vibes. Great work!

And the others too, of course!

 

[Diablohead]

Hey, thanks. Yeah we were emailing a few months ago. You helped me out a lot back then. Sure, that would be awesome! I'll email you the Kickstarter preview link.

that looks rather cool! my only beef with that gif is the player when walking should lean forward in a more threating pose, it's like he is leaning back with a broomstick down his back.

 

[Mystic River]

This was a very complicated week, I did a lot of changes in just one week, but I am super happy with the changes so far.

First the injury system for your crew, now you can see if limbs are missing or if something needs treatment, bleeding , broken, and that will affect your crew.

Also added time so crew members do get tired, go to sleep, go to eat and allow them to carry other crew members, for example injured ones and take them to a safer place when fire is running around for example, or allow your crew to hack disabled robots, lots of small things still to be completed but the framework seems to be doing fine, you can read a lot of those details in my blog at http://mysticrivergames.blogspot.com/2014/10/time-search-and-rescue-sleep-and-injury.html

In this screenshot all my human crew members fall sleep on the floor, I overworked them for too long , and a robot is carrying another robot which I plan to hack later.

 

[Jobbs]

apologies for the off-tangent, already-answered question but the grain present in the .gifs is in your game right? it's not just part of some compression going on is it?

there is grain and color banding in the game to varying degrees depending on area, that said, gifs do tend to make it look a different/more severe sometimes.

 

[show me your skeleton]

there is grain and color banding in the game to varying degrees depending on area, that said, gifs do tend to make it look a different/more severe sometimes.

i think it looks fantastic, really adds to the atmosphere.

 

[superNESjoe]

Hey, thanks. Yeah we were emailing a few months ago. You helped me out a lot back then. Sure, that would be awesome! I'll email you the Kickstarter preview link.

This looks great, I've always wanted to do a classic beat-em-up in this style.

 

[OldmanAndroid]

I'm pleased to update with the following news:
- I have submitted a demo of Malebolgia to the Independent Games Festival. *fingers crossed*
- I have created a little Tumblr site: http://malebolgia-game.tumblr.com/
- And next to some new screenshots on that site, I have also made a teaser trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEVPENmgxSg

Enjoy!

And for #screenshotsaturday:

Great teaser trailer, love that blur effect on the enemies eyeballs.

Been doing a lot of tweaking on Shutter; anyone else find it hard to add in new content before you fix up the content you already have? Been spending a lot of time adjusting the flow of the game, and adding in more depth to the puzzles.

Any Montreal indie devs posting here? I'm moving from Kelowna BC to Montreal in January, looking forward to meeting some other indie devs out there, and hopefully land a job in the industry.

Some Saturday screenshots:

 

[TheHollowNight]

Here's this week's devblog all about UI!
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/100917702075/interfacing-connection

 

[_machine]

How is UI in UE now?

I'm definitely interested in moving over to UE after this project and I had planned to just buckle down and work in c++ but if I can stick with c# that makes it a lot simpler.

We haven't really delved into the new tools properly, but the new UI tools seem at least to be fairly competent and simple. Enough so that we'll probably move the whole UI to the new system as we'll be reworking most of it anyway.

I also watched Indiecent Exposure: Talking Steam discoverability with a panel of interesting people today and I found to be a really interesting talk on Steam discoverability and enjoyed the fact that they had such a varied panel. 3hrs is a bit long, but I can still recommend watching it if you're unsure about what the new Steam update brings and what to concentrate on in the future.

 

[Jobbs]

late last night, on a whim, I decided to see if I could pad my room changes with a fade to smooth things out, contribute to a more even sense of pace, and hide the fact that some scene switches cause a freeze for a second or so (depending on how many graphics are being switched in and out of memory).

http://gfycat.com/AncientGaseousBird

I think it works very well. it does slow you down just a bit, but it's like 2ish seconds compared to super metroid's 4.

I was actually reflecting on this recently -- how super metroid gets a lot of "length" added to it just by the cumulative total of those friggin door segues.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

I was actually reflecting on this recently -- how super metroid gets a lot of "length" added to it just by the cumulative total of those friggin door segues.

I don't know if the same is true for Super Metroid, but the first metroid used those room transitions to flush the cache and load in the next rooms data

 

[Jobbs]

I don't know if the same is true for Super Metroid, but the first metroid used those room transitions to flush the cache and load in the next rooms data

yeah, it seems likely it's for technical reasons, same as old RE games, but it still contributes to the pacing and length of the game in a substantial way.

 

[MrNyarlathotep]

yeah, it seems likely it's for technical reasons, same as old RE games, but it still contributes to the pacing and length of the game in a substantial way.

Yeah, it's one of the textbook examples of designing around a tech-limitation and coming up with something that adds to a game rather than detracts.
EDIT: I know that the same trick (those tube doors you have to shoot to go through) was used in Metroid Prime to almost eliminate loading times too, so as a trick it had some longevity!

 

[_machine]

Here's this week's devblog all about UI!
http://devblog.monothetic.com/post/100917702075/interfacing-connection

Oh that's friggin fantastic, I've really loved the UI you've showed so far.Especially the font(s) you have for the game are really nice, I really dislike some fonts and pay a lot of attention to them for some reason (it started with me liking a custom WoW UI) and yours is really good. I also really like that you show the original design versus the ones you now have; it really shows that you've come ways since the original design. I'll definitely make our artists read the blog post since it covers quite a bit of things we are currently re-designing and partly struggling with.

As for Ancestory, well I'm really happy that 2 of our programmers just got a working AI done in less than a week and it's already working pretty well. Definitely needs some more logic and it's a bit too easy, but we have had a few people losing to it as well, including some of us developers.

Not really any visible progress on the graphics front yet, but here's our effort for #ScreenshotSaturday:

 

[Blizzard]

I don't know if the same is true for Super Metroid, but the first metroid used those room transitions to flush the cache and load in the next rooms data

Amusingly enough, didn't the Wii Metroid Prime games do the same thing with slow-opening doors? *edit* You already beat me to it!

Then in still more modern times, Mass Effect elevators.

 

[Mystic River]

Amusingly enough, didn't the Wii Metroid Prime games do the same thing with slow-opening doors? *edit* You already beat me to it!

Then in still more modern times, Mass Effect elevators.

I miss those elevators, maybe I am one of the few who liked it

 

[Feep]

??

Your voice actor's microphone quality is quite poor. >.> The acting is good, mind you.

 

[Blizzard]

Your voice actor's microphone quality is quite poor. >.> The acting is good, mind you.

As a voice-type person, do you have any particular tips or tricks for those of us recording voice or instruments on our own equipment, without fancy recording studios?

 

[Feep]

As a voice-type person, do you have any particular tips or tricks for those of us recording voice or instruments on our own equipment, without fancy recording studios?

Usually the best cheap stuff you can get are microphones (or a snowball) from Blue. A pop screen often helps, but didn't seem to be a particular problem in your case.

It does cost at least eighty bucks for most of those mics? Maybe my ears are particularly sensitive to this stuff, but I do think it's worth it. Your game is starting to look more and more professional, but that really took me out of it.

 

[Blizzard]

Usually the best cheap stuff you can get are microphones (or a snowball) from Blue. A pop screen often helps, but didn't seem to be a particular problem in your case.

It does cost at least eighty bucks for most of those mics? Maybe my ears are particularly sensitive to this stuff, but I do think it's worth it. Your game is starting to look more and more professional, but that really took me out of it.

I'm a little confused -- I wasn't involved with that game, I was just curious in general since I do sometimes try recording voice or music on my own mic.

Thanks though. What about level adjustments, sound environment, post-processing, etc.?

 

[claude.labonte]

OH MY GAWD YOU GUYS~~

I'm so hyped - we just released our Kickstarter and we're are so ~excited~

Tell me what you think about the campaign and/or the game

You can reach the campaign right here

Thanks a lot, it's a really crazy thing to do this ahah

 

[HellBlazer]

that looks rather cool! my only beef with that gif is the player when walking should lean forward in a more threating pose, it's like he is leaning back with a broomstick down his back.

Yeah, while the game looks like it has a lot of potential, those animations are pretty rough to be honest, especially the walking cycles. That's completely understandable and acceptable at this point since I realize the game is only at an alpha stage - and hell, I certainly couldn't do better myself - but... if you intend to go on Kickstarter next week? Personally, I fear the KS crowd can't be expected to empathize with the development process, and will not be very forgiving of this lack of polish. From what I've seen, it has become increasingly harder to get crowd-funded these days. The novelty of Kickstarter has worn off, and potential backers have become very critical. Case in point, two IndieGAF ongoing Kickstarters, Red Cobra and Anomaly 1729, which I think already show quite a bit of polish in the gameplay they demo, are unfortunately doing quite poorly at the moment.

I'm hardly a Kickstarter expert but these are my thoughts, take what you will from it. Also listen to whatever Jobbs has to say, since he actually ran a successful campaign.

 

[show me your skeleton]

Usually the best cheap stuff you can get are microphones (or a snowball) from Blue. A pop screen often helps, but didn't seem to be a particular problem in your case.

yeah, blue are fantastic. would love one myself for a bit of guitar-recording.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Oh that's friggin fantastic, I've really loved the UI you've showed so far.Especially the font(s) you have for the game are really nice, I really dislike some fonts and pay a lot of attention to them for some reason (it started with me liking a custom WoW UI) and yours is really good. I also really like that you show the original design versus the ones you now have; it really shows that you've come ways since the original design. I'll definitely make our artists read the blog post since it covers quite a bit of things we are currently re-designing and partly struggling with.

Hey thanks!
Yeah I made a push for the team to provide more detailed devblogs from now on, a lot of folks actually seem to enjoy the in-depth process involved. We tend to have a very strict minimal aesthetic for our projects, not just in terms of UI, but also applied to all of our PR stuff which goes back all the way to our first mod Canvas and debut free game Black Snow.

Here's Tay's actual portfolio, which has a bunch more of his UI/graphic design work, the dude is quite the wizard for great designs!
http://www.ominous1.net/

 

[Ashodin]

Your voice actor's microphone quality is quite poor. >.> The acting is good, mind you.

It would help if you pointed out which one (I'm assuming the Scrolr)?

 

[Feep]

I'm a little confused -- I wasn't involved with that game, I was just curious in general since I do sometimes try recording voice or music on my own mic.

Thanks though. What about level adjustments, sound environment, post-processing, etc.?

LOL, sorry, I responded to this as I was waking up. Yeah I was "talking" to Ashodin. = D

Edit: It was noticeable on both voices, but the first one was whatever because it was meant to be broken up/patchy. The dude who comes in at 0:35.

Re-edit: Honestly, a lot of voice actors I know voice record in a closet. You can buy VERY cheap foam insulation if you really want to keep noise out, but generally, it shouldn't be necessary with a good microphone.

Level adjustments can be done VERY crudely with a batch mp3 volume balancer, and I believe can be done with more sophistication by any of the more advanced audio programs out there (Pro Tools, Pro Logic, etc.). Post-processing isn't my thing, but if I were recording myself, I would just run the audio through a low-amplitude noise removal filter on Audacity, or something.

 

[Ashodin]

Yeah was already thinking about running through a filter on Audacity, good to know.