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[missile]

I'm toying with the idea of a 'catform' game...

Use our cat Shiva as the main character and my girlfriend will buy all your
games in sequence! We thought about a cat games as well, one where you follow
the action of a cat ruling around, spoiling neighbors etc. Watch this! xD


Speaking in behalf of my game, I'm made some good progress. I've been working
on the story quite a bit and now found a smooth way to introduce the player
into the game. The situation for my game is quite different to others, since
the prototype(s) you're going to see are already part of the game. The game
starts once you see the first prototype! So the development of the prototype
is actually part of the game itself. The stage where the player enters the
game is way after prototype development. But the story, the game, has already
been started way before - with the development of the prototype itself.

This makes developing the game / the prototype much more interesting, but also
a bit more difficult, since I already have to deal with the real game while
developing the prototype and I can't say for sure how everything unfolds since
it unfolds as I'm going along. But this makes the prototype for real, for the
game. I hope you get that twist.

 

[Noogy]

1) to record video of your games, I am fairly certain you don't use FRAPS. Or do you?

Fraps all the way, I would assume most other devs use it as well? Inexpensive and efficient.

 

[Feep]

Fraps all the way, I would assume most other devs use it as well? Inexpensive and efficient.

Yuuuuuup.

 

[Limanima]

Fraps all the way, I would assume most other devs use it as well? Inexpensive and efficient.

I do.
Unfortunately it doesn't work on Windows 8. At least yet, they say they are working on it.

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Fraps all the way, I would assume most other devs use it as well? Inexpensive and efficient.

Excellent.

 

[razu]

That looks rad

Thanks!

Cool. Do you mind sharing your material node graph or however Unity specifies it, for the white surfaces? And any important camera effects too, if they're not super secret. I'd like to try to recreate it as a learning exercise.

Yeah sure, I'm working on an Articles section of VAMflax.com, I'll put it up there.

1) to record video of your games, I am fairly certain you don't use FRAPS. Or do you?

I use a capture box called Black Magic Intensity Extreme. It's pretty awesome, but also expensive! I then edit in Final Cut Pro X, which is also awesome and expensive!

Use our cat Shiva as the main character and my girlfriend will buy all your
games in sequence! We thought about a cat games as well, one where you follow
the action of a cat ruling around, spoiling neighbors etc. Watch this! xD

Wicked video. GTA Cat Edition

Looking forward to your game, cos I know it's gonna be MAD!!

 

[Paz]

So gentleGAF.
I recently bought a Steam Greenlight Pass in prep for my teams game popping out soon. I come to you for advice since I kknow a few of you are on or have been greenlit.

Now, I'm not going to submit until I have an actual demo out (which should be soonish, I had a version out during Kansas Comic-Con last week that people responded well to but we also found some bugs and needed to change the menu UI), but I have a few questions, such as:

1) to record video of your games, I am fairly certain you don't use FRAPS. Or do you?
2) what constitutes a working build, since a lot of games on Greenlight have not even reached their financial goal on Kickstarter.

Definitely fraps, it's easy to use and should do the job fine if you have a decent computer. Alternatively you can get a hardware video capture setup but they can run a couple hundred/few thousand dollars. So if you can get away with fraps then just use that, I mixed our trailer in Blenders Video Sequence Editor which is free software and after exporting it raw from there I encoded it with virtual dub using various codecs which are also free.

I interpreted a working build to mean that your game is fully playable and not in the concept stage, which you should clear if your game is ready for video and public play sessions as your post suggests.

I'm pretty happy with the response our games gotten so far on Greenlight but I would highly recommend having your indiedb/facebook/twitter/website ready to go before you chuck it up. We didn't (and still don't) have that really ready so the thousands of people who liked our game on the service currently have no way of really tracking the game or us other than via Greenlight. I think things like IndieDB will also drive passive traffic to your game so it's always a good idea.

Our game is here if you want to see what we thought was appropriate for the initial Greenlight, but I imagine you know what you're getting in to. The biggest thing I've learned so far would be that having more of my ducks in a row before clicking the big red button would have helped, and I'll be sure to do that next time

 

[cbox]

I use fraps for everything and it does indeed work on windows 8.

 

[razu]

You can get some pretty weird effects just by mixing the Image Effects in Unity...

Edit: And cranking up the weird factor...

 

[missile]

... Looking forward to your game, cos I know it's gonna be MAD!!

It's going to pwn your ass off!

The most difficult thing for me developing the game is keeping my ambitions
within limits.

You can get some pretty weird effects just by mixing the Image Effects in Unity...

...

Jesus! What are you after? xD

 

[Magypsy]

Man I wish I had Unity Pro :-( Image Effects are so cool!

 

[FormallyMegadrive]

I use fraps for everything and it does indeed work on windows 8.

Honestly don't know why it wouldn't.

 

[Jocchan]

We used fraps for the Dudebro trailer.

Unfortunately, my PC wasn't beefy enough to capture 1080p footage at 60 fps, so I ended up recording two test clips, one 1080p30 and one 720p60, and asked the team which one looked better. The first one won, especially considering most people would have watched the trailer on YouTube, which is 30 fps anyway, so we recorded the rest of the footage like that.

For the next trailer, I'm considering switching to 60 fps though. The smoother motion looks so much better.

 

[cbox]

We used fraps for the Dudebro trailer.

Unfortunately, my PC wasn't beefy enough to capture 1080p footage at 60 fps, so I ended up recording two test clips, one 1080p30 and one 720p60, and asked the team which one looked better. The first one won, especially considering most people would have watched the trailer on YouTube, which is 30 fps anyway, so we recorded the rest of the footage like that.

For the next trailer, I'm considering switching to 60 fps though. The smoother motion looks so much better.

I debated with that also, my original trailer is 60fps but I brought it down to 30 for youtube.

 

[desu]

You can get some pretty weird effects just by mixing the Image Effects in Unity...

I really like your experiments, looks damn funny.

 

[Limanima]

I use fraps for everything and it does indeed work on windows 8.

It does? I can't put it to work and I searched and found people mentioning the same. I even emailed them and they confirmed they were working on fixing that. Did you updated it lately?

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

I mixed our trailer in Blenders Video Sequence Editor which is free software and after exporting it raw from there I encoded it with virtual dub using various codecs which are also free.

Thanks for the info. I've also been thinking of just redownloading (my paid for copy of) Adobe Pro.

I interpreted a working build to mean that your game is fully playable and not in the concept stage, which you should clear if your game is ready for video and public play sessions as your post suggests.

Yeah, we're busy working on a public demo, and by all accounts, we should be done with the code for our quest and Argument/battle systems by mid-April. After that, I'd just need to input the dialogue, choices, quest, and battles. Since it is a fairly simple visual novel/RPG (we originally wanted to do something much more complex when we were starting out, but we suffered many blows and fell back on a smaller idea that we had in our heads), we don't see any huge, huge issues in the future.

I'm pretty happy with the response our games gotten so far on Greenlight but I would highly recommend having your indiedb/facebook/twitter/website ready to go before you chuck it up. We didn't (and still don't) have that really ready so the thousands of people who liked our game on the service currently have no way of really tracking the game or us other than via Greenlight. I think things like IndieDB will also drive passive traffic to your game so it's always a good idea.

I realized way too late that we needed a mailing list at Kansas. As in, I realized after I had left.

We have a twitter, FB, and website, but I honestly don't know how to make our FB look "pretty".

Our game is here if you want to see what we thought was appropriate for the initial Greenlight

Upvoted.

That looks radtacular.

but I imagine you know what you're getting in to.

Don't jinx it.

 

[Xun]

Nothing amazing, but here's a concept for the character in my game:

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

It's Saturday somewhere, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyNVoJdeems

Here's a video of a very old game I made (Orb-it) and the latest version of the update (Orbit Revolved) I'm doing as a little something for Diablohead's game.

 

[Blizzard]

Yeah sure, I'm working on an Articles section of VAMflax.com, I'll put it up there.

Thanks, I shall look forward to it!

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Nothing amazing, but here's a concept for the character in my game:

That looks great.

 

[Kamaki]

Nothing amazing, but here's a concept for the character in my game:

Looks nice!


Clicking my image above will take you to the latest build, with my uni deadline looming I've started polishing things like the UI. Still have a lot of things to finish but I'm ahead of my own schedule. Tell me what you guys think!

Oh I should say that the only menu button that works is Start Game and that the goal is to collect the love letters.

 

[hoverX]

Nothing amazing, but here's a concept for the character in my game:

This looks awesome. It reminds me of something but I can't put my finger on it.

 

[AlexM]

fallout?

 

[omg_mjd]

Anyone else here thinking of joining Ludum Dare? Next one is in 2 weeks.

Submitting a game done in GameMaker is still okay, right?

 

[FormallyMegadrive]

Anyone else here thinking of joining Ludum Dare? Next one is in 2 weeks.

Submitting a game done in GameMaker is still okay, right?

it is but they generally like it to be web-based for ease of playing.

 

[usea]

Anyone else here thinking of joining Ludum Dare? Next one is in 2 weeks.

Submitting a game done in GameMaker is still okay, right?

Wow, already? Sigh, I'm not prepared.

You can make a game in anything you want. You could make a board game and just submit a list of rules and instructions, but it's likely almost nobody would play it.

 

[Dusk Golem]

Just a bit of an update on my side, going through an experimental development cycle working with the community to make a freeware game called Complete Isolation, which has been going a lot better than expected. One thing that has surprised me a lot is how many kind individuals have been more than willing to help with concept art and music, which has been coming along great. I think that this community project sort of thing with good direction, will, and being direct and honest can have wonderful results. It makes development very transparent (been live-streaming on YouTube whenever I work on the game to talk with people real-time, even though right now we're in conceptual development until April 30th), which has its pros and cons, but is absolutely fascinating to work under.

The conceptual art from the community have topped over 100 art pieces in less than a week, though here are a few pickings (using a rescaled version of several of the images):

There's so much more wonderful work and I couldn't possibly post it all, but being able to communicate, work with, and develop so closely with the community has to be one of the best development cycles I've ever been in. It may be a small project, but I want to make this the best for both myself and them. While some of it may pass the professional touch that some artist definitely provide, its been interesting seeing everyone's take on different characters and monsters from them and has gone to great effect to help change my own vision on how they appear, and is just perfect for a small freeware project.

 

[Diablohead]

Over the next 9 days I plan to use nearly all of each day to work on my game, I have holiday from work and no where to travel to, so my goal is to get as much done as possible to the point of maybe releasing some small beta demo to make sure the game plays ok for others and not just myself.

I also have a kickstarter which I setup about 4 months ago, have yet to decide if I want to launch it or out, I will know if I should by the end of this marathon, all I would be asking for is a small value to go towards more music and artwork to help the game look more professional.

It's Saturday somewhere, right?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyNVoJdeems

Here's a video of a very old game I made (Orb-it) and the latest version of the update (Orbit Revolved) I'm doing as a little something for Diablohead's game.

I like it, there is just one thing I think you could do to help the randomness of pieces appearing behind the player bumper and that would be some kind of early warning notice, I think it might help keep the faster gameplay at the end more fair.

Your call of course

 

[Cromulent_Word]

Fraps all the way, I would assume most other devs use it as well? Inexpensive and efficient.

FRAPS FOR LYFE.

Really though fraps is the best tool, is cheap, and is made by a real person whom I met at PAX in Seattle.

 

[Anustart]

If anyone has some time today and wouldn't mind helping, I'm at a loss for what's causing a bug in my game. In Unity if I have my scene open, hit play, everything works great, my character animates. But if I start on the title screen then jump into the game (Application.LoadLevel), No animations work on my character and a still character is running around the screen.

Figure it has to be in one of these 3 scripts but I just can't see the problem.

Script 1
Script 2
Script 3

 

[Dali]

If anyone has some time today and wouldn't mind helping, I'm at a loss for what's causing a bug in my game. In Unity if I have my scene open, hit play, everything works great, my character animates. But if I start on the title screen then jump into the game (Application.LoadLevel), No animations work on my character and a still character is running around the screen.

Figure it has to be in one of these 3 scripts but I just can't see the problem.

Script 1
Script 2
Script 3

Have you tried reading the console screen while the game is running and you are pressing a direction. It may be telling you what the problem is. You don't even have to have the game running actually. Just read the console after you've run it.

 

[Blizzard]

Thanks to this thread serving as a reminder, I just -finally- paid the $37 USD to buy the registered version of Fraps. If I ever get around to making game trailers it could come in handy, though who knows, I might use the approach of manually saving frames to files as an engine runs.

 

[Anustart]

Have you tried reading the console screen while the game is running and you are pressing a direction. It may be telling you what the problem is. You don't even have to have the game running actually. Just read the console after you've run it.

Yeah, console throws no problems.

 

[eot]

Thanks to this thread serving as a reminder, I just -finally- paid the $37 USD to buy the registered version of Fraps. If I ever get around to making game trailers it could come in handy, though who knows, I might use the approach of manually saving frames to files as an engine runs.

The nice thing with fraps (or equivalent programs) is that you can capture the audio at the same time and don't have to synch it afterwards, but of course you might not use the ingame audio for a trailer.

 

[GulAtiCa]

I started to dip my hand in game development recently. Mostly with HTML5 stuff currently, before I try my hand at Unity/etc. Just a simple tower defense type of game. In fact, really nothing about it is original. Just using it as a stepping stone before I try something more original/challenging/creative. I have a few graphics/sound effects in place.

Space Defense (works best in latest version of Chrome/Firefox)

I have a few ideas floating in my head of what I might want to create. Platformer game and physics puzzle game come to mind. I'll prob start simple with a platformer game before I do the other, as a way to introduce myself to a physics engine first.

 

[Dead Prince]

I started to dip my hand in game development recently. Mostly with HTML5 stuff currently, before I try my hand at Unity/etc. Just a simple tower defense type of game. In fact, really nothing about it is original. Just using it as a stepping stone before I try something more original/challenging/creative. I have a few graphics/sound effects in place.

Space Defense (works best in latest version of Chrome, freezes in Firefox for some reason)

EDIT: had to refresh 3 times for it to properly load. first load it didn't do anything. second load it didn't have sound but i couldn't destroy anything. third load it shows the HP bar above the asteroid and plays sound now.

 

[Diablohead]

I started to dip my hand in game development recently. Mostly with HTML5 stuff currently, before I try my hand at Unity/etc. Just a simple tower defense type of game. In fact, really nothing about it is original. Just using it as a stepping stone before I try something more original/challenging/creative. I have a few graphics/sound effects in place.

Space Defense (works best in latest version of Chrome, freezes in Firefox for some reason)

Interesting idea but both times I tried to run the game it was missing something, first time no asteroids were flying in, the second time I was killing them with the sentry but not making any income? maybe I was playing it wrong

 

[Dead Prince]

Interesting idea but both times I tried to run the game it was missing something, first time no asteroids were flying in, the second time I was killing them with the sentry but not making any income? maybe I was playing it wrong

lol apparently that happened to me. third time will work ;P

 

[GulAtiCa]

I was modifying it live, so that might have caused the issues. lol. But yeah, still have some quirks to work out.

 

[Dali]

I started to dip my hand in game development recently. Mostly with HTML5 stuff currently, before I try my hand at Unity/etc. Just a simple tower defense type of game. In fact, really nothing about it is original. Just using it as a stepping stone before I try something more original/challenging/creative. I have a few graphics/sound effects in place.

Space Defense (works best in latest version of Chrome, freezes in Firefox for some reason)
Edit: Firefox works fine now. Was just some transparency I was trying to do live on the sprites. Worked fine in Chrome, but caused a loop in Firefox or something.

Pretty fun, but once you hit level 5 its impossible, right? Like I mean I'm not meant to live at that point, huh?

edit:

haha level 8! That's actually a pretty great game you got there.

 

[A Human Becoming]

If I wanted to start a project using Flixel, is it better to get more experience programming before starting? I'm about a week into learning Python, which from reading around on here seemed like the best initial language to learn.

 

[phantomsnake]

No new screenshots from Manic Mole today, but here are some enemy sprites instead...

Yeah, console throws no problems.

Any chance you're messing with the time scale on the title screen?

 

[Anustart]

No new screenshots from Manic Mole today, but here are some enemy sprites instead...

Any chance you're messing with the time scale on the title screen?

Nope :/ It also happens if I load the level from anywhere. I started on the gamescreen and put in a 5 second wait then it reloads. At first start, animations work, when level reloads, no animation :/

 

[Diablohead]

I was modifying it live, so that might have caused the issues. lol. But yeah, still have some quirks to work out.

Awesome because now you added in HP bars and sound

 

[Datwheezy]

I started to dip my hand in game development recently. Mostly with HTML5 stuff currently, before I try my hand at Unity/etc. Just a simple tower defense type of game. In fact, really nothing about it is original. Just using it as a stepping stone before I try something more original/challenging/creative. I have a few graphics/sound effects in place.

Space Defense (works best in latest version of Chrome/Firefox)

I have a few ideas floating in my head of what I might want to create. Platformer game and physics puzzle game come to mind. I'll prob start simple with a platformer game before I do the other, as a way to introduce myself to a physics engine first.

On my first game got to level 11, then got slaughtered. Fun game though

 

[Anustart]

On my first game got to level 11, then got slaughtered. Fun game though

Yeah, after numerous attempts I cannot pass level 11.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Has anyone tried 'Spine' animation software? Looks pretty neat

http://esotericsoftware.com/

 

[IndianElephant]

If anyone has some time today and wouldn't mind helping, I'm at a loss for what's causing a bug in my game. In Unity if I have my scene open, hit play, everything works great, my character animates. But if I start on the title screen then jump into the game (Application.LoadLevel), No animations work on my character and a still character is running around the screen.

Figure it has to be in one of these 3 scripts but I just can't see the problem.

Script 1
Script 2
Script 3

I didn't look at the scripts for very long, but are you taking into account that loading a scene destroys all GameObjects that arent flagged with DontDestroyOnLoad?

 

[razu]

I didn't look at the scripts for very long, but are you taking into account that loading a scene destroys all GameObjects that arent flagged with DontDestroyOnLoad?

I had a weird Unity problem today. If I reloaded the scene using Application.LoadLevel with the last loaded level name, the physics would go.. quirky. Strange, as that's how I did the Chopper Mike level restarts. I think it caches loaded resources, so it was super fast. But this is freaky today

In other news, I'm quite happy with adding DoF to NGUI text. Gives subs an 'added on' quality...