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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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You made Blast Soccer too? That's a nice Kickstarter page.

Owl alone easily worth 50k.
04fd6da9aac0f23da2c7bc70151a7573_large.png

Yup, I made Blast Soccer and a few other mobile games too! I am really proud of how that owl came out, I really hope it gets funded :)

I'm also going to be making all of my iOS games free through the weekend to help promote the Kickstarter
 
Nah, plenty of games use hex maps. It's cool.

You made me go back to it this afternoon and change it to hex again, I will conquer the math!

It works better overall since my game has no ladders or elevators, you leave at the top or bottom of each area.
 

Dali

Member
Hey guys, just as you guessed Another Castle is coming to the Wii U!!!

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...r_another_castle_is_coming_to_the_wii_u_eshop

I'm really excited to be working on the Wii U, and it wouldn't have happened without GAF, and especially Emily Rogers!

I just launched the Kickstarter as well, you can check it out here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uncadedave/another-castle

:D :D :D

Congrats dude! It's always nice to hear about someone "going pro" lol.
 

fr3shme4t

Neo Member
Unity is very easy to get into and has s LOT of community support. As far as msking a 2.5D fighter, I'm not sure hiw feasible it is. You can only apply one type of collider (what id imagine youd use as a hitbox in your game) to each object so youd have to come up with a work around like attaching a bunch of invisble cubes with their own colliders to your character's bones for each area you want a hitbox. I dunno. Im sure you can do it unity. Just depends how much work you want to put in. The thing that gives everone trouble is getting collisions to behave properly and youre talking about a game built around complicated collisions.

I don't think this is any different from any other engine. But for a fighter I don't think you'd want standard collisions anyways, you'd lose too much control. You'd probably just want hit detection and handle the collision response in some custom way.

Good collision response (esp. w/physics) is a hard problem that I think every game ever suffers from.
 

fr3shme4t

Neo Member
Hey guys, just as you guessed Another Castle is coming to the Wii U!!!

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/20...r_another_castle_is_coming_to_the_wii_u_eshop

I'm really excited to be working on the Wii U, and it wouldn't have happened without GAF, and especially Emily Rogers!

I just launched the Kickstarter as well, you can check it out here:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uncadedave/another-castle

:D :D :D

Awesome! Good luck with the kickstarter too.
Hopefully the Wii U isn't a PITA to develop for. (Wii wasn't too bad...)
 

Dali

Member
I don't think this is any different from any other engine. But for a fighter I don't think you'd want standard collisions anyways, you'd lose too much control. You'd probably just want hit detection and handle the collision response in some custom way.

Good collision response (esp. w/physics) is a hard problem that I think every game ever suffers from.

Well of course that would be the case. He'd set his colliders to triggers and then dictate what behavior he wants once the trigger is impacted... That still doesn't change what I was saying about unity allowing only one type of collider per object and him having to be creative in working around that by creating box colliers and parenting them to bones or something like that.

Edit: one instance of each type
 

Genji

Member

Roody

Neo Member
So GAF, if I feel I have a good idea for a small indie game, but I am merely an artist/writer, how would I go about finding a programmer? I've been interested in making my own indie game for a while, and I've started to lay out everything in some design docs, but my attempts at learning to code aren't going very well.

I've also tried using Game Maker a bit, and like the ease of it, but it seems like if you want to do anything more complex you need to start coding as well.

I suppose if anyone is interested I can throw the general idea at them over PM. I feel it's a bit more unique than the usual game, but shouldn't be absurdly difficult in scope. It should be small. I'd like to do it myself but I think I've hit the ceiling of my coding abilities.

Sorry if this is the wrong spot for this kind of post. lol
 

Rafy

Member
So GAF, if I feel I have a good idea for a small indie game, but I am merely an artist/writer, how would I go about finding a programmer? I've been interested in making my own indie game for a while, and I've started to lay out everything in some design docs, but my attempts at learning to code aren't going very well.

I've also tried using Game Maker a bit, and like the ease of it, but it seems like if you want to do anything more complex you need to start coding as well.

I suppose if anyone is interested I can throw the general idea at them over PM. I feel it's a bit more unique than the usual game, but shouldn't be absurdly difficult in scope. It should be small. I'd like to do it myself but I think I've hit the ceiling of my coding abilities.

Sorry if this is the wrong spot for this kind of post. lol


If you need to do something in 2d it's not that hard to do in unity (at least what I am attempting to make) with all of those toolkits going around. I suggest starting a prototype with LOVE first, since LUA is easier to learn. Once you have it working with art placeholders you do the same thing in Unity just using another language.The most important thing about programming is the logic, once you learn that, the programming languages are just a change in structure and syntax.
 

jrDev

Member
Question - how easy to use is Unity Engine? And how well does perform if someone were to build, say, a 2.5D fighter with it?

Unity is very easy to get into and has s LOT of community support. As far as msking a 2.5D fighter, I'm not sure hiw feasible it is. You can only apply one type of collider (what id imagine youd use as a hitbox in your game) to each object so youd have to come up with a work around like attaching a bunch of invisble cubes with their own colliders to your character's bones for each area you want a hitbox. I dunno. Im sure you can do it unity. Just depends how much work you want to put in. The thing that gives everone trouble is getting collisions to behave properly and youre talking about a game built around complicated collisions.

Not gonna post much but after working on this for so long, kinda wanted to show it off. It's pretty far away from being finished, so there's not a ton to see. It's coded entirely from scratch by myself, with my brother doing most of the graphics, so I'm pretty proud of it... but yeah, feel free to give criticism, if you can from the single screenshot (there's really not much to see).


Note: Can you tell that it's fake lighting? Practically unlimited "lights" and it's not deferred.
Look to this for inspiration i
t might also scare you off from doing this genre :p
http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/19299-fighting-game-Kinetic-Damage/page23?p=1171494#post1171494

This is nothing short of amazing. I've been following it for years now...
 

Genji

Member

Been playing around with some larger enemy sprites and have noticed that I'm getting moire/banding effects on the green enemy and also the blue circular station at times as they move and rotate. Both of those sprites have some parallel lines close to each other. It's especially noticeable in the center of the station.

Anyone have any experience dealing with this issue? Is it just something that I have to modify on the sprite itself by eliminating those parallel lines?
 

AlexM

Member
I just finished the second series of my PSM/Vita/OpenGL ES2 tutorials. The focus is on explaning the theory behind graphics in the context of OpenGL ES2 and PSM. If you are a beginner it should hopefully help you get some universal knowledge about how rendering functions. Even if you don:t plan to work on PSM.

If you are advanced I wouldn't bother reading. It's meant for beginners :)

http://levelism.com/tutorials/
 

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I just finished the second series of my PSM/Vita/OpenGL ES2 tutorials. The focus is on explaning the theory behind graphics in the context of OpenGL ES2 and PSM. If you are a beginner it should hopefully help you get some universal knowledge about how rendering functions. Even if you don:t plan to work on PSM.

If you are advanced I wouldn't bother reading. It's meant for beginners :)

http://levelism.com/tutorials/

Can you use C++ to make something for vita?
 

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
not via PSM. C# only currently. There was talk in the roadmap that it could possibly change in the future though.

Ah thanks.

Unrelated: I got to test my game on an iPad Mini tonight, which was cool. Ran perfectly. I had only tested on an iPad 3rd gen and iPod 4th and 5th gen before that so I hadn't seen the non-retina iPad assets on a device.
 

Foshy

Member
Hi everyone!

First off, I'm completely new to the scene and my programming skill is next to inexistent (I've made some stuff with Multimedia Fusion before, but that hardly counts I guess).

I've prepared a concept for a pretty simple but fun 2D endless-running/sh'm'up game for smartphones and would like to realize it, as a personal challenge and to learn something new. I know it's hard work, but it's something I've wanted to do for a long time.

Now, what would be my best bet for what SDK to use? Unity caught my interest because it's suitable for all platforms and free until you decide to publish your game, but it seems better suited to 3D development. I've seen that there are some tutorials for 2D games though, is 2D development on Unity viable or would I be better off with something else?

I'm looking forward to you recommendations, thanks :)
 

AlexM

Member
there's lots of 2d frameworks for unity. Multimedia fusion can export to idevices so why not stick with what you know?
 
Awesome! Good luck with the kickstarter too.
Hopefully the Wii U isn't a PITA to develop for. (Wii wasn't too bad...)

Awesome! Best of luck with the kickstarter!

Congrats dude! It's always nice to hear about someone "going pro" lol.

Thanks guys!

The first day's gone pretty well, hopefully it can keep up the momentum.

Thanks to anyone who has backed the project so far, I really appreciate it!
 

DSix

Banned
The project is advancing well, the entire mapping is finished, all the stages playable. I still have a few boss and arrangements to make in several places tho.

Here's an older video, if you missed the last time I shown it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTbR4JhZSR8

My issue, is that even tho the project is getting along good, I still can't decide on a definitive title for the game.
So I made a poll, to help me decide and point out the most awful ones:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8P6SP56

If you're a bit interested in this game, please tell me what you think of the names, I'm getting pretty desperate on this.
 
The project is advancing well, the entire mapping is finished, all the stage playable. I still have a few boss to make and arrangements to make in several places tho.


Here's an older video, if you missed the last time I shown it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTbR4JhZSR8

My issue, is that even tho the project is getting along good, I still can't decide on a definitive title for the game.
So, I made a poll, to help me decide and point out the most awful ones:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8P6SP56

If you're a bit interested in this game, please tell me what you think of the names, I'm getting pretty desperate on this.

Your game looks as good as ever, can't wait :D
 

bumpkin

Member
Hmm, this question is directed more towards fellow Mac users...

Has anyone using Xcode 4.6 been able to get a project building and running successfully with SDL 1.2? I followed some tried-and-true instructions I put together for myself a few months back, and nothing will work now. It just keeps giving me weird compile errors I've never seen. The real bitch is I can take the exact same project file and it works with no issues on an older 4.x version of Xcode on a different computer. The only other difference is my other Mac is Snow Leopard and the new one is Mountain Lion.

I really wish Apple would stop changing things in their compilers. :(
 

BlueMagic

Member
The project is advancing well, the entire mapping is finished, all the stage playable. I still have a few boss and arrangements to make in several places tho.


Here's an older video, if you missed the last time I shown it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTbR4JhZSR8

My issue, is that even tho the project is getting along good, I still can't decide on a definitive title for the game.
So I made a poll, to help me decide and point out the most awful ones:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8P6SP56

If you're a bit interested in this game, please tell me what you think of the names, I'm getting pretty desperate on this.

Can't watch the video but the screens look slick as hell, awesome work!
 

Foshy

Member
there's lots of 2d frameworks for unity.

Could you recommend me some good ones?

Multimedia fusion can export to idevices so why not stick with what you know?

Haven't used it in a long time and I thought I might switch to something "real". I don't know, MMF is very simple to use, but somehow feels like a toy.
 
Haven't used it in a long time and I thought I might switch to something "real". I don't know, MMF is very simple to use, but somehow feels like a toy.

believe me, it's not, but I know what you mean.

Since sometime back in 1996 I have used click products and once you know everything about it, it's a very powerful and flexable tool especially today when you can export to flash, Java, iOS, android, HTML5, XNA and a bunch of others still in development like MAC OS

In this day and age it doesn't matter what you use to create a game, it's the end result and the love you put into it that is what the end user will see.

To add, I spent a good 6 months force learning C#, using Unity3D and XNA studios but went back to MMF2 once I heard an iOS exporter was coming out, glad that I did too for 2D stuff.
 

Hinomura

Member
Finally I'm back to my "dungeon crawler with shoot'em up mechanics" game.

I'd like to homage one of my favorite console, the PCEngine / TurboGrafx, so I'll try to make my game visually similar to one of my favorite games (Gunhed / Blazing Lasers).

I got 241 (sprites) + 241 (tiles) colors from a 512 colors palette, where r, g and b are multiples of 36, max resolution was 565x242 (484 interlacing), but actually I'm choosing 320x240 as internal render; I've managed to autoresize to full screen using a borderless window with adaptive ratio (to preserve the original ratio) to cover any resolution the desktop is running (I haven't tried multimonitor setups).

Game is far from being finished, hell, there are a lot of things I've still to decide, and sometimes I think it's an overwhelming project for me (I just did three very simple games with rudimental gfx - a single player Pong, an Asteroids clone without enemy ships, and a 4 levels platform without Marios and Meat ;D).

Good thing I've finally decided how to compose the music tracks, thus using SunVox which is excellent to produce chip/synth music (I tracked a "bit" during Amiga age). The output won't be similar to PCE audio, but it's my intention to infuse a "retro" taste.

Since I'm lazy (...) I've opted for Classic Construct (resulting in a Windows DX game), even if I'd have liked to learn C# + XNA (I just managed to do very simple things in too much time).

Well... I'm going back to my sprites, later! :)
 

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Menu design is more difficult than I thought it would be. My game is quite simple, so I'm just going to make the menus simple as well - basically 'select a level' and 'options'.
 

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
The project is advancing well, the entire mapping is finished, all the stages playable. I still have a few boss and arrangements to make in several places tho.

Here's an older video, if you missed the last time I shown it in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTbR4JhZSR8

My issue, is that even tho the project is getting along good, I still can't decide on a definitive title for the game.
So I made a poll, to help me decide and point out the most awful ones:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8P6SP56

If you're a bit interested in this game, please tell me what you think of the names, I'm getting pretty desperate on this.
Looks great. Can't help you on names, but I told you which ones were horrible!
 

Servbot24

Banned
I was wondering if many games have already combined 2D platforming and dual stick shooting? Picture MegaMan able to spray bullets in any direction and finding himself in bullet hell situations. I was imagining the next game I'd like to make and that came to mind. I'm not aware of games like it so I figured I should look into it.

Also I want to use hand drawn graphics rather than 3D... So while I'm somewhat familiar with Unity it doesn't seem best for that. Might look into alternatives
 

razu

Member
Menu design is more difficult than I thought it would be. My game is quite simple, so I'm just going to make the menus simple as well - basically 'select a level' and 'options'.


I feel your pain. It's a lot of work to make something of decent quality - and a MASSIVE pain when you get it play tested and people want pretty much everything a bit different...
 

Dali

Member
I was wondering if many games have already combined 2D platforming and dual stick shooting? Picture MegaMan able to spray bullets in any direction and finding himself in bullet hell situations. I was imagining the next game I'd like to make and that came to mind. I'm not aware of games like it so I figured I should look into it.

Also I want to use hand drawn graphics rather than 3D... So while I'm somewhat familiar with Unity it doesn't seem best for that. Might look into alternatives
Like Sunset riders?
 

borius

Neo Member
not via PSM. C# only currently. There was talk in the roadmap that it could possibly change in the future though.

I think we will get to know more when the plan for indie development on Ps4 will be unveiled, maybe at GDC?


Anyway, after another break of one month, I'm back working on my basic scene editor, a beta is expected in few weeks.

In this screenshot I imported an heightmap of a very famous game world, the height scale is wrong, but it's easy to guess.



http://pinasterware.tumblr.com/post/44297812923/guess-the-heightmap
https://twitter.com/pinasterware


The editor will be released for free and the source code too but later. It's made using Ogre3d engine.
 
Congrats, game looks awesome :) Best of luck with the Wii U, I'm very curious to see how that platform treats indies.

Thanks! From what I've seen it seems pretty indie friendly so far. The Unity license is a HUGE deal for me, and I think that will end up bringing a lot of indies to the Wii U.
 

Noogy

Member
Didn't Meat Puppet also have a similar shooting concept? Granted it used a mouse.

Abuse was also mouse based, and I believe it was the first time I ever experienced a control scheme like that as well. Man, I loved Abuse, shame they were never able to follow up on it.
 

Margalis

Banned
Just looked this up, kinda like that. The comments led me to Metal Slug which I've never played but pretty similar to that too, though the idea I was thinking of had quite a different feel.

Midnight Resistance is the closest I can think of, though the feel is probably different. (MR is basically a Contra-style game) MR is one stick but it's one of those Ikari Warriors style rotating sticks, so it's basically the equivalent of two 8-way sticks.
 

Dali

Member
Just looked this up, kinda like that. The comments led me to Metal Slug which I've never played but pretty similar to that too, though the idea I was thinking of had quite a different feel.


There was a japanese indie game I played sometime back that may be like what you're talking about. It had some badass sprite work, but I can't remember the name. Really small title. Free to download. Shit I wish I could remember. I think the title started with a X, Y, or Z. One of those last letters in the alphabet.

edit:

Iwanaga! I was waaaay off, lol.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyX6RJJBaFs
 

Genji

Member
I am currently working on a 2D Unity game. We are using 2D Toolkit
It is a little buggy/cantankerous but it handles sprite collections well and saves me a lot of time. There might be something better these days. The Unity3d forums are pretty helpful.

I'm also using 2D Toolkit and recommend it, the dev is very good at supporting the product and providing feedback. The other 2D frameworks for Unity that I can remember are Othello, Ex2D and Sprite Manager 2.
 
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