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[JulianImp]

So, I'm working on an Android game at my job, and I came across a curious anomaly where objects (with colliders attached, of course) seemed to react to single finger presses as if they were pressed multiple times instead. I spent a while manually debugging by means of Debug.Log and the PC-based Android debugger, and after looking hard enough I finally spotted what appears to be the problem: Unity's OnMouseDown event is being called multiple times in the same frame!

The fix was simple but somewhat counter-intuitive:

	private bool mouseDownRegistered = false;
	
	private void OnMouseDown() {
		if (mouseDownRegistered) return;
		mouseDownRegistered= true;
		
		//OnMouseDown event code goes here
	}
	
	private void LateUpdate() {
		if (mouseDownRegistered) mouseDownRegistered= false;
	}

Did anything like this happen to anyone else who's using Unity for Android? I'm mostly wondering if it's merely a problem with the specific phone model and build I'm using for testing (a Motorola Milestone 1) or a more widespread one.

 

[thcsquad]

Yep, we've been using Farseer for a while, and it can do some great stuff
Mine wasn't a rant, as much as an observation.

Tru dat. The complications it adds are pretty minor compared to what it enables.

 

[scaffa]

Been following this thread for quite a while now and i'm impressed with the work that has been shown here, pretty pretty pretty awesome stuff!

About a month ago I started working with Contruct2, I have no programming skills and it seemed that it is a good solution for that problem. My problem being that I just want to make something without needing someone else for the technical stuff.

So far my expierence with the program is very positive and although there are some limitations to it I think it's good for prototyping or atleast make something small and fun within those limitations.

Still getting comfortable with the program but in the first week I made this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2D1v6ZCk6k

It's nothing mind blowing but fun nontheless Now working on a few new things, really need to learn to focus a bit more Can't wait for the summer to dive more into it and finish something.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

Yo yo yo!!

The kind people at Google have featured Chopper Mike on the Google Play Store.

So, if you're not featured straight away, there's always chance you'll get picked up later on!

I just got an email out of the blue, saying they'd like to feature it, with a list of things they wanted fixing. I fixed the things, my sending versions to a dude a Google, who was amazingly helpful, (so much so I added him to the credits). Then... nothing...

I still haven't got a reply, but the game is featured, so that's cool!

Sales have gone from single figures per day to triple figures per day - not in Porsche country just yet, but I'm happy! Hopefully it'll keep being featured one way or another - as games do seem to do - and build some word-of-mouth momentum.. Who knows?

Anyway. Just wanted to let you know featured-ness is possible without knowing anyone on the inside, or any good old fashioned bribery!

I'm actually on holiday in Cyprus right now, so any replies may be delayed until next week..!

Take it easy indie dudes!!

Congrats, man. That's cool.

 

[Dead Prince]

Been following this thread for quite a while now and i'm impressed with the work that has been shown here, pretty pretty pretty awesome stuff!

About a month ago I started working with Contruct2, I have no programming skills and it seemed that it is a good solution for that problem. My problem being that I just want to make something without needing someone else for the technical stuff.

So far my expierence with the program is very positive and although there are some limitations to it I think it's good for prototyping or atleast make something small and fun within those limitations.

Still getting comfortable with the program but in the first week I made this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2D1v6ZCk6k

It's nothing mind blowing but fun nontheless Now working on a few new things, really need to learn to focus a bit more Can't wait for the summer to dive more into it and finish something.

tbh that's better than what some have output with C2. there's an 8-bit game Courier that looks good too but i like yours because of the use of colors and effect.

 

[asa]

http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14109231/pixel.html Update to my little platformer, its quite buggy, but at least I got few things moving to the right direction. Speaking of directions, would anyone know a good tutorial about making a platformer with Unity? More specifically I would like to know how people solve things like: Checking if the character is in the air, how to prevent character sticking against walls or how to get jumping physics feel less floaty.

 

[missile]

So, I'm working on an Android game at my job, and I came across a curious anomaly where objects (with colliders attached, of course) seemed to react to single finger presses as if they were pressed multiple times instead. I spent a while manually debugging by means of Debug.Log and the PC-based Android debugger, and after looking hard enough I finally spotted what appears to be the problem: Unity's OnMouseDown event is being called multiple times in the same frame!

The fix was simple but somewhat counter-intuitive:

	private bool mouseDownRegistered = false;
	
	private void OnMouseDown() {
		if (mouseDownRegistered) return;
		mouseDownRegistered= true;
		
		//OnMouseDown event code goes here
	}
	
	private void LateUpdate() {
		if (mouseDownRegistered) mouseDownRegistered= false;
	}

Did anything like this happen to anyone else who's using Unity for Android? I'm mostly wondering if it's merely a problem with the specific phone model and build I'm using for testing (a Motorola Milestone 1) or a more widespread one.

Don't know about Unity, but the touchscreen might share some similarities
with a keyboard. Given a standard PC keyboard, if you hold a key down for a
specific amount of time, the keyboard controller activates kind of a typematic
feature, i.e. the keyboard keeps sending the pressed key repeatedly at a given
rate without sending any up-key codes, as long as the key is pressed. And
since such occurrences are interrupt driven, one can have multiple key events
per frame. If the timings are wrong or very tight, issues may occur.

Yo yo yo!!

The kind people at Google have featured Chopper Mike on the Google Play Store.

So, if you're not featured straight away, there's always chance you'll get picked up later on!

I just got an email out of the blue, saying they'd like to feature it, with a list of things they wanted fixing. I fixed the things, my sending versions to a dude a Google, who was amazingly helpful, (so much so I added him to the credits). Then... nothing...

I still haven't got a reply, but the game is featured, so that's cool!

Sales have gone from single figures per day to triple figures per day - not in Porsche country just yet, but I'm happy! Hopefully it'll keep being featured one way or another - as games do seem to do - and build some word-of-mouth momentum.. Who knows?

Anyway. Just wanted to let you know featured-ness is possible without knowing anyone on the inside, or any good old fashioned bribery!

I'm actually on holiday in Cyprus right now, so any replies may be delayed until next week..!

Take it easy indie dudes!!

Thought you were dead. Cyprus? We considered it as well, but we decided to
go for Italy. Have fun!

 

[Cindres]

OpenGL Programmers. I'm planning on properly running through the Red Book now that I've got loads of free time, I've already got a fair amount of experience with it now but I'd love to now just be able to really go into good detail before my masters begins.

My library has the 5th edition, so It'd be easiest for me just to take that out now that nobody will want it, will it really matter if I'm using that one and not the most recent? (5th ed. covers 1.5 to 2.0) I'm gonna email and find out exactly what it is that I'll be covering in my 4th year to get a better idea but until I get a response I just want to get cracking on this.

 

[Blizzard]

OpenGL Programmers. I'm planning on properly running through the Red Book now that I've got loads of free time, I've already got a fair amount of experience with it now but I'd love to now just be able to really go into good detail before my masters begins.

My library has the 5th edition, so It'd be easiest for me just to take that out now that nobody will want it, will it really matter if I'm using that one and not the most recent? (5th ed. covers 1.5 to 2.0) I'm gonna email and find out exactly what it is that I'll be covering in my 4th year to get a better idea but until I get a response I just want to get cracking on this.

I don't know much about the depths of OpenGL, but I think you'd at least want stuff that talks about OpenGL 2.0 or higher since entire paradigms of how examples work has changed along the way. There are also internet resources like http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/OpenGL_Programming you can search up and look over.

 

[Popstar]

OpenGL Programmers. I'm planning on properly running through the Red Book now that I've got loads of free time, I've already got a fair amount of experience with it now but I'd love to now just be able to really go into good detail before my masters begins.

My library has the 5th edition, so It'd be easiest for me just to take that out now that nobody will want it, will it really matter if I'm using that one and not the most recent? (5th ed. covers 1.5 to 2.0) I'm gonna email and find out exactly what it is that I'll be covering in my 4th year to get a better idea but until I get a response I just want to get cracking on this.

A lot of that stuff is legacy now. You're probably best off learning the new OpenGL 3.2+ Core / OpenGL|ES 2+ way of doing things. Which would mean the 8th edition of the Programming Guide. The OpenGL SuperBible 5th edition might also be an alternative.

You're better off with online tutorials than with the older editions I'd say.

 

[razu]

Amazing! Your game looked fun simple and interesting based on the screenshots, videos and demos you uploaded to this thread, so it's good to see that it's doing well and even got featured despite you not having any contacts.

Thanks!

Congrats, man. That's cool.

Cheers!

Thought you were dead. Cyprus? We considered it as well, but we decided to
go for Italy. Have fun!

Not dead, just working in the day, and night, and not on my games..

It's kinda good though, as I want to be as sure as possible about the next game before starting. Think I know what I'm going to do... I think!

 

[JulianImp]

Don't know about Unity, but the touchscreen might share some similarities
with a keyboard. Given a standard PC keyboard, if you hold a key down for a
specific amount of time, the keyboard controller activates kind of a typematic
feature, i.e. the keyboard keeps sending the pressed key repeatedly at a given
rate without sending any up-key codes, as long as the key is pressed. And
since such occurrences are interrupt driven, one can have multiple key events
per frame. If the timings are wrong or very tight, issues may occur.

Actually, Unity's touchscreen implementation keeps track of each touch's individual state, such as Begun, Stationary, Moved and Ended. Previously, you had to manually create a script that'd take each touch and use it to do raycast tests using the screen's touch position as well as the camera's world position, but it seems Unity4 now handles that by itself... even though it appears to behave in an odd and not entirely accurate way.

I first realized the problem when I realized that an object which could be tapped to reduce its hit points and would die when it had zero or less HP, died in less hits than I had programmed it to. I made the game log the system time on each OnMouseDown event, and what I found was that the game was triggering two OnMouseDown events at the exact same time for each screen press!

My current fix isn't pretty, and I'll probably have to make a base class that implements this basic functionality to avoid having to copy-paste the same code in each and every thing that is supposed to react to touch input.

 

[V_Arnold]

I am not familiar with unity, but if you are able to simply create an array there and for every update frame, simply empty the array, then you can just simply initiate, with the touch event, a new eventfunction(unit,unit.onToutchProperties) that goes into the array - but only if the array does not already contain a similar (!=) object in there.

That not only works for discarding multiple touches/inputs in one frame, but also gets rid of the constant need to doublecheck for the release as well. If it is released (key, touch, whatever), THEN get rid of the input. If not, new touches/keypresses do nothing.

 

[JulianImp]

I am not familiar with unity, but if you are able to simply create an array there and for every update frame, simply empty the array, then you can just simply initiate, with the touch event, a new eventfunction(unit,unit.onToutchProperties) that goes into the array - but only if the array does not already contain a similar (!=) object in there.

That not only works for discarding multiple touches/inputs in one frame, but also gets rid of the constant need to doublecheck for the release as well. If it is released (key, touch, whatever), THEN get rid of the input. If not, new touches/keypresses do nothing.

The one issue here is I'm not sure how to override Unity's default event handling system and sending event messages myself. Still, your implementation would probably ignore the phone's multitouch capabilities, which would be a waste and could lead to some problems later on; as it is by default, Unity internally takes touch inputs and holds each of them as a separate array element, allowing you to track them individually or check for multitouch gestures such as pinching.

 

[V_Arnold]

The one issue here is I'm not sure how to override Unity's default event handling system and sending event messages myself. Still, your implementation would probably ignore the phone's multitouch capabilities, which would be a waste and could lead to some problems later on; as it is by default, Unity internally takes touch inputs and holds each of them as a separate array element, allowing you to track them individually or check for multitouch gestures such as pinching.

Yeah, in that case, it is better to implement something that is more suited to the way how Unity handles things. Which most likely would be a checker to make sure that once you actually do something to that object that has been touched or with the position you just touched, an action sequence is initiated where you ignore other touches that somehow get stuck in the same position within a small timeframe - except if you expect double touches, or multitouch, of course.

 

[Paz]

So we've been working hard on Cactus, and Tim wrote up a nice blog piece about our character designs if anyone is interested: http://www.assaultandroidcactus.com/2013/05/meet-androids.html

I've gotta say though, marketing feels like it's harder than actually developing a fun game... We've had about 20 previews so far, and every one has been exceptionally positive about the game and how it stands out from the pack, yet we still can't really drum up any interest from moderate/larger sites or youtubers.

Oh well, just gotta keep trying! Hopefully when we are at hundreds of small positive previews people will take notice. I've certainly gained a lot of respect for the smaller 'grass roots' style indie coverage that is out there, the people who do actually respond to my e-mails and tweets have been incredibly supportive.

 

[taoofjord]

I'd go with the 3rd option. Don't go back to school if it means selling your house. And don't go into web dev if it isn't your passion. (Also web dev is only peripherally useful in game development--if you're making a game with online components, for instance. The best "transition" to game development is exactly what you're doing now--learning GameMaker and making games.)

Learning GameMaker + GML and applying this to realizing your game ideas will go a long way to helping you create games. More than going for a computer science degree or taking a short course in web development as these are large commitments of their own (especially the comp. sci degree) and are not directly related to game creation at all.

(Also, Python is really easy to learn. I'm currently teaching myself Python and Pygame, and it's been more fun than frustrating so far.)

Good luck.

Well, I would like a full-time job with a company doing software development. The key is that I want to move away from what I'm currently doing (graphic design) and get a job I enjoy more and that pays better (and then do game design in my free time, for the time being). I'm guessing that learning python and other languages on my own won't make that happen. Or is that not the case?

 

[JulianImp]

Well, I would like a full-time job with a company doing software development. The key is that I want to move away from what I'm currently doing (graphic design) and get a job I enjoy more and that pays better (and then do game design in my free time, for the time being). I'm guessing that learning python and other languages on my own won't make that happen. Or is that not the case?

It mostly depends on how good you are at learning stuff by yourself. I'd mostly recommend a pre-made game engine for getting started with game programming instead of learning a programming language from scratch and then slowly working your way towards making a game.

Programs that handle most of the complicated internal workings of your games like GameMaker, for example, are invaluable for getting into making games. You might not revolutionize the world with a brand new, curtting-edge algorithm like John Carmack does every now and then, but you'll be able to get down and dirty and start making games right away, focusing more on what you want the game to do than how you have to do it.

You could easily keep making games on friendlier engines such as GameMaker, but if that leaves you desiring something more (or 3D stuff), then you could always make the jump to other engines such as Unity, Unreal or whatever you'd like.

As far as programming is concerned, what you really need to get down is how to create algorithms and the logic behind them. Focusing on a language is fine for a while, but if you know programming logic then you should be able to jump ship from GML to AS3 to Unity's C# after an initial period of "how do I do <function X> in <programming language Y>?". And simplified stuff such as GM and Construct provide you just that: implementing stuff through logic rather than having to know exactly how the computer handles it (that's something you'll probably learn by yourself as time goes by and you get more used to programming).

 

[Mystic River]

hi,

well here is my first post and first question too...

I am quite interested to develop indie games for PS4 but I do not know much about the tools and engines that are available for PS4, I've been developing on XNA for about 2 years and if you are interested you can check my blog to see what I am doing, hopefully I will publish a game in the next 3 to 4 months.
If possible I would like to port my code in C# to PS since I read good comments on Sony side supporting indies, any ideas? I only know about Unity as a multi-platform but I would like to know if there is anything else I can use. I wrote significant amount of code to handle 2d as 3d and that makes my code very special to me. Thanks for any help.

Just in case, this is a video of my WIP game for XBOX : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHoPHf4Z-Kw

is quite old video now since I changed a lot of things since last year.

 

[taoofjord]

It mostly depends on how good you are at learning stuff by yourself. I'd mostly recommend a pre-made game engine for getting started with game programming instead of learning a programming language from scratch and then slowly working your way towards making a game.

Programs that handle most of the complicated internal workings of your games like GameMaker, for example, are invaluable for getting into making games. You might not revolutionize the world with a brand new, curtting-edge algorithm like John Carmack does every now and then, but you'll be able to get down and dirty and start making games right away, focusing more on what you want the game to do than how you have to do it.

You could easily keep making games on friendlier engines such as GameMaker, but if that leaves you desiring something more (or 3D stuff), then you could always make the jump to other engines such as Unity, Unreal or whatever you'd like.

As far as programming is concerned, what you really need to get down is how to create algorithms and the logic behind them. Focusing on a language is fine for a while, but if you know programming logic then you should be able to jump ship from GML to AS3 to Unity's C# after an initial period of "how do I do <function X> in <programming language Y>?". And simplified stuff such as GM and Construct provide you just that: implementing stuff through logic rather than having to know exactly how the computer handles it (that's something you'll probably learn by yourself as time goes by and you get more used to programming).

I think I'm having trouble making this clear, I apologize.

I'd like to pursue a career in software development outside the gaming industry. Developing educational software, for example. I have almost no interest in working with a large game developer. Aside from the creative limitations such a job imposes, the work conditions (as I understand it) are terrible. My interest in game development is only as an independent game developer and I want to seriously pursue it only when I have a job as a programmer. Until then it will remain a hobby for me.

So, if I want to be prepared to apply for jobs making educational programs (for example) is it feasible that I could learn what I need to know on my own and be hireable in the eyes of the average company? Keep in mind that I'm limited to about 10-20 hours per week that I can devote to learning how to code.

 

[BomberMouse]

For all the successful indie developers, how do you get your game out there?

I see people posting on tig, indiedb, twitter, etc. What's the way to go? I see a lot of games being featured on multiple sites and blogs over and over again.

 

[JulianImp]

I think I'm having trouble making this clear, I apologize.

I'd like to pursue a career in software development outside the gaming industry. Developing educational software, for example. I have almost no interest in working with a large game developer. Aside from the creative limitations such a job imposes, the work conditions (as I understand it) are terrible. My interest in game development is only as an independent game developer and I want to seriously pursue it only when I have a job as a programmer. Until then it will remain a hobby for me.

So, if I want to be prepared to apply for jobs making educational programs (for example) is it feasible that I could learn what I need to know on my own and be hireable in the eyes of the average company? Keep in mind that I'm limited to about 10-20 hours per week that I can devote to learning how to code.

So, you want to be a freelance programmer/developer? Do you want to make games? How about non-game applications?

If you care about games first and foremost, then game engines such as GameMaker will let you produce stuff of good quality a lot faster than if you had to code everything from scratch (ie: if you were just using Flash and AS3). GM and Unity even provide the ability to export to almost any platform you want, which would be impossible to do if you were making an engine from scratch or using other engines, or environments that are more platform-specific (such as Flash). Learning enough programming logic and getting used to something such as GM to the point where you can make games probably wouldn't take you too long or require too much dedication to get there, and you could always hop onto slightly more complicated stuff such as Unity, with its tridimensional space and shaders as you go, for example.

I'd advise you against learning programming to make stuff from scratch unless you had lots of spare time, since it does take a lot longer to get stuff up and running. The reason several of us GAFfers use environments such as Unity, Construct and XNA is because they provides various levels of abstraction from the lower-level programming stuff and let us get to making functional stuff faster.

Here's to hoping I did get it right this time.

 

[KDR_11k]

Hm, no Blender Game Engine in the list of engines... Not sure I'd be capable of writing a good summary tho.

 

[Jocchan]

Tru dat. The complications it adds are pretty minor compared to what it enables.

Absolutely

 

[taoofjord]

So, you want to be a freelance programmer/developer? Do you want to make games? How about non-game applications?

Yes, I want to make non-game applications. I only want to get involved in game development as a hobby, on the side, and in my free time.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to focus all my time on making games right now but my current focus MUST be on switching from graphic design to a better paying job and one I'm more passionate about as soon as possible. I believe designing and programming non-game applications to be exactly that. Ideally, I'd be the one designing them but that's a long-term goal. I'm especially interested in educational software.

Again, I'm currently learning Game Maker and GML and Python. I've already made a fun little game for Game Maker's recent game jam. It's a fantastic program and it really is easy to use.

 

[-COOLIO-]

cool gdc talk on obsessive compulsive development that we all suffer from to varying degrees:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017963/Obsessive-Compulsive-Development-Retro-Grade

this actually convinced me to buy his game.

edit: so far im only at the menu at this is the most polished game ive ever played.

 

[JulianImp]

Yes, I want to make non-game applications. I only want to get involved in game development as a hobby, on the side, and in my free time.

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to focus all my time on making games right now but my current focus MUST be on switching from graphic design to a better paying job and one I'm more passionate about as soon as possible. I believe designing and programming non-game applications to be exactly that. Ideally, I'd be the one designing them but that's a long-term goal. I'm especially interested in educational software.

Again, I'm currently learning Game Maker and GML and Python. I've already made a fun little game for Game Maker's recent game jam. It's a fantastic program and it really is easy to use.

Now that's more specific. Still, you should think about the sort of educational software you'd like to make, and what gives you the best combination of ready-made tools and freedom to write your own stuff. You might even find ways to use GM to make non-game applications. For example, I once made a very basic music player program in it simply because I really liked how well GM looped MIDI files compared to the regular media players I was using at the time.

The last time I used GM, stuff such as database and file access was kind of clunky (and with lots of overhead due to the way GM used to work internally), so making stuff such as a modular trivia game was somewhat hard to do for my younger self, but I did amuse myself using binary files whenever I could, right down to planning in advance what each byte of a game's save file would contain and some basic "encryption" (ie: XORing every byte against a byte value that was in the game, as well as rotating all bits a set number of times).

Still, I'm not sure how you'd get contract work as a non-game software designer since I've never worked in that area, but I do remember that back when I graduated from high school, where we were taught Pascal, C and COBOL, several of my classmates ended up getting jobs at software consulting companies and other ones such as Accenture (not sure if it's known outside of Argentina, though), as it seems COBOL programmers are highly coveted by bank companies due to the archaic COBOL-based systems they still use to this very day (AFAIK, and as far as Argentina's concerned).

Actually, going for a systems engineering-based software programming approach would quite likely require lots of time, which it's apparent you don't have for now, but I'm not sure I can give you advice about what you should do regarding that since it's slightly outside of my area of expertise (there's a reason I went into a game design and programming college instead of going for a systems analyst degree). Still, I think you could make games for clients and/or companies (mostly advergames and not-so-interesting stuff, depending on the contacts you can make and the ones you already have) and do that for a living, while still working on your own projects on your spare time.

At the moment, I'm working on a small mobile software company that used to make mostly non-game software, such as J2ME apps for checking out soccer tournaments and matches' stats or one that finds and lists various store discounts available around the user's current location (set either by means of GPS or manual setting). Right now, however, I've kind of migrated towards doing simple games in Unity, and they've hired someone that makes HTML5 apps instead. Three of us (an artist/graphics designer, a level designer/tester and me overseeing the game's design and programming) are working on a middle-scale project, while often haveing to whip up some simpler games in the meantime.

Meanwhile, I have Quark Storm waiting in the wings while I've started working on a joint collaboration with a GAFfer artist, and we'll see how that goes. So far it's been mostly theorycrafting and writing down the game's overall design and mechanics, but we're slowly implementing stuff and trying to come up with implementations for what we want to do. I've found that stepping outside of one's comfort area and trying to code stuff you never though about making before is really fun!

 

[charsace]

hi,

well here is my first post and first question too...

I am quite interested to develop indie games for PS4 but I do not know much about the tools and engines that are available for PS4, I've been developing on XNA for about 2 years and if you are interested you can check my blog to see what I am doing, hopefully I will publish a game in the next 3 to 4 months.
If possible I would like to port my code in C# to PS since I read good comments on Sony side supporting indies, any ideas? I only know about Unity as a multi-platform but I would like to know if there is anything else I can use. I wrote significant amount of code to handle 2d as 3d and that makes my code very special to me. Thanks for any help.

Just in case, this is a video of my WIP game for XBOX : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHoPHf4Z-Kw

is quite old video now since I changed a lot of things since last year.

monogame. take a look.

 

[missile]

Maybe that can help you? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3771648/generate-c-sharp-dllimport-declarations-from-a-native-dll

I can't test it right now, since I'm on Linux, but seems like something similar to what you want.

I now have a pretty good unterstanding of P/Invoke & friends. The tools at
http://clrinterop.codeplex.com/, i.e. 'P/Invoke Interop Assistant', helped a
lot in getting the types right. The tool mentioned even includes a database
for all standard C and windows API functions generating the right P/Invoke
call for them. Unfortunately 'IL Stub Diagnostic Tool' won't work for me. It
crashes while moving the mouse (have fixed it), but this tools won't list the
stubs nevertheless. But then I don't understand why VS won't let us step
through IL code to being with. Anyhow, thanks for the links and stuff! :+

... Not dead, just working in the day, and night, and not on my games..

It's kinda good though, as I want to be as sure as possible about the next game before starting. Think I know what I'm going to do... I think!

Mind asking what you think going to do next?

 

[missile]

cool gdc talk on obsessive compulsive development that we all suffer from to varying degrees:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017963/Obsessive-Compulsive-Development-Retro-Grade

this actually convinced me to buy his game.

edit: so far im only at the menu at this is the most polished game ive ever played.

In my mind, what he complains about is actually part of the game, part of
being indie. The trick is to be able deal with all of it. He seems to hope
that someone will give him kind of a free ride -- people buying his game
because of all the details -- such that he can continue to live his dream of
being an indie developer. I don't know for sure, but he seems to care more
about himself instead of the player while developing games. This becomes clear
to me while he speaks about what he/they all did to differentiate form other
indie developers. This perspective might have lead him to implement things
unrelated to the player, just for the sole purpose to be different, to be
different from other indie developers, hoping to stood out agains the pack.
This will never going to work. Only the player will make your game stood out.

 

[Mystic River]

thanks charsace,

I've seen Monogame as alternative but as far as I know PS3 or PS4 support is not there yet and only for PS mobile, which I am not sure if that includes Vita or any other Sony HW...

So wondering what indie devs are using for PS...

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

thanks charsace,

I've seen Monogame as alternative but as far as I know PS3 or PS4 support is not there yet and only for PS mobile, which I am not sure if that includes Vita or any other Sony HW...

So wondering what indie devs are using for PS...

Seems Unity have some kind of partnership with Sony

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/03/21/unity-coming-to-sony-consoles-this-year/

 

[Tash]

Just so you know, yes both Sony and Nintendo have Unity deals. If you manage to get registered as an official Nintendo developer you'll have no additional cost to publish to a Nintendo Console. Not sure on the Sony deal and what exactly it entails.

However, normally it costs 40k for one platform and 60k for two platforms to publish to a console with Unity.

 

[GulAtiCa]

Seems Unity have some kind of partnership with Sony

http://blogs.unity3d.com/2013/03/21/unity-coming-to-sony-consoles-this-year/

Glad to hear. I love that Nintendo did this with the Wii U, and makes me interested in the future with PS4/Vita if Unity is supported as well.

 

[Mystic River]

wow 40k to 60k for an indie game is too much for me alone...

I was looking something close to XBLIG or something more reasonable for indies

Unity seems to be a good platform, but the cost is too high to just try and see if it works or not, I am not planning to spend the next 4 years making one game which may not be as good as Dust or Fez, at least in both cases they used XNA and the barriers of entry were pretty low

 

[-COOLIO-]

Yo yo yo!!

The kind people at Google have featured Chopper Mike on the Google Play Store.

So, if you're not featured straight away, there's always chance you'll get picked up later on!

I just got an email out of the blue, saying they'd like to feature it, with a list of things they wanted fixing. I fixed the things, my sending versions to a dude a Google, who was amazingly helpful, (so much so I added him to the credits). Then... nothing...

I still haven't got a reply, but the game is featured, so that's cool!

Sales have gone from single figures per day to triple figures per day - not in Porsche country just yet, but I'm happy! Hopefully it'll keep being featured one way or another - as games do seem to do - and build some word-of-mouth momentum.. Who knows?

Anyway. Just wanted to let you know featured-ness is possible without knowing anyone on the inside, or any good old fashioned bribery!

I'm actually on holiday in Cyprus right now, so any replies may be delayed until next week..!

Take it easy indie dudes!!

i just noticed this!! congrats man!

 

[Popstar]

Just so you know, yes both Sony and Nintendo have Unity deals. If you manage to get registered as an official Nintendo developer you'll have no additional cost to publish to a Nintendo Console. Not sure on the Sony deal and what exactly it entails.

However, normally it costs 40k for one platform and 60k for two platforms to publish to a console with Unity.

I was at a small conference a month ago and the Sony rep said they would be announcing a deal like Nintendo's "soon".

 

[BomberMouse]

it seems you need to be a permanent US resident to make a kickstarter.

Any other more relaxed alternatives out there?

 

[Teknopathetic]

Indiegogo maybe?

 

[Feep]

Having an interesting problem...didn't think it'd be this difficult.

My original plan was to draw buildings and other structures on top of a base "ground" environment, so soldiers and other mobile units could go behind them or whatever. I thought I'd just move the structures toward the camera (orthographic projection, no visible change), or the soldiers away from the camera, or something.

Turns out this is a lot harder than it seems. I can't line up the 2-D structure's sprite to the 3-D world geometry representing that structure, because the 2-D sprite always needs to face the camera, and the 3-D world geometry does not, see:

I then tried texturing the 3-D world geometry with a pre-distorted sprite (so that it looks "normal" after distortion, like one of those fun trick sidewalk drawings that only works from a certain angle), but this was almost impossible to get correctly lined up, pixel-for-pixel.

I then thought of just assigning each soldier and sprite its own camera, and manually ordering the depth of those cameras to create the correct effect, but there are only 32 layers available in Unity and this certainly wouldn't be enough.

Moving the soldiers around randomly is difficult, too, since there's a world geometry they need to adhere to if shadows are to fall correctly.

This seems like such a simple problem, but I can't find an easy solution. Anyone with any ideas?

Also: Laura Bailey is voice acting in my game. = D

 

[Popstar]

I then tried texturing the 3-D world geometry with a pre-distorted sprite (so that it looks "normal" after distortion, like one of those fun trick sidewalk drawings that only works from a certain angle), but this was almost impossible to get correctly lined up, pixel-for-pixel.

If I'm understanding correctly, you should try a projected texture. It's like the method you describe above without the need to pre-distort the sprite. You set your q and r coordinates such that they undo the perspective distortion.

 

[Feep]

If I'm understanding correctly, you should try a projected texture. It's like the method you describe above without the need to pre-distort the sprite.

Oooh! This might work. It'll take me a little bit to try it out, and I'll post back here with the results.

Edit: This is proving...difficult. Getting the projected texture to line up perfectly looks to be nearly impossible with all the tiling and whatever going on with the projected material, not the mention the fact that you can't distort the projected texture independently in multiple dimensions (just orthographic size). Hmmm.

More edit: q and r...what? Are those two components of a quaternion? I'm confused.

 

[AcceptableGhost]

cool gdc talk on obsessive compulsive development that we all suffer from to varying degrees:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1017963/Obsessive-Compulsive-Development-Retro-Grade

this actually convinced me to buy his game.

edit: so far im only at the menu at this is the most polished game ive ever played.

I had been loosely following these guys prior to the release of this game, I was wondering why the development time was so long. This explains a lot I guess.

 

[BomberMouse]

Oooh! This might work. It'll take me a little bit to try it out, and I'll post back here with the results.

Edit: This is proving...difficult. Getting the projected texture to line up perfectly looks to be nearly impossible with all the tiling and whatever going on with the projected material, not the mention the fact that you can't distort the projected texture independently in multiple dimensions (just orthographic size). Hmmm.

If you are using an orthographic projection and are smart on how you setup your modelview matrix, you should be able to just texture each vertex to that exact x,y position on the texture (scaled by some factor if you need it).

 

[Feep]

If you are using an orthographic projection and are smart on how you setup your modelview matrix, you should be able to just texture each vertex to that exact x,y position on the texture (scaled by some factor if you need it).

I miss 2-D. = (

(What)

 

[Popstar]

Oooh! This might work. It'll take me a little bit to try it out, and I'll post back here with the results.

Edit: This is proving...difficult. Getting the projected texture to line up perfectly looks to be nearly impossible with all the tiling and whatever going on with the projected material, not the mention the fact that you can't distort the projected texture independently in multiple dimensions (just orthographic size). Hmmm.

More edit: q and r...what? Are those two components of a quaternion? I'm confused.

They're extra texture coordinates not quaternions. Much like vertex coordinates are actually {x,y,z,w} your texture coordinates are {s,t,r,q} because perspective and whatever.

Are you using a texture matrix to transform your coordinates?

 

[Feep]

They're extra texture coordinates not quaternions. Much like vertex coordinates are actually {x,y,z,w} your texture coordinates are {s,t,r,q} because perspective and whatever.

Are you using a texture matrix to transform your coordinates?

I vaguely understand these terms, loosely, as fragments of the inner workings of shaders come back to me. In Unity, though, you basically have to use their Projector/Light or Projector/Multiply shaders for Projectors to work properly, so I'm creating a new material, picking one of those two shaders, and mapping the sprite to the projector in question. This doesn't work very well. I suppose I could go inside those two shaders and fuck around, but I don't feel very confident.

This is why I need to hire someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

 

[Noogy]

I miss 2-D. = (

It's flatter over here.

 

[BomberMouse]

I vaguely understand these terms, loosely, as fragments of the inner workings of shaders come back to me. In Unity, though, you basically have to use their Projector/Light or Projector/Multiply shaders for Projectors to work properly, so I'm creating a new material, picking one of those two shaders, and mapping the sprite to the projector in question. This doesn't work very well. I suppose I could go inside those two shaders and fuck around, but I don't feel very confident.

This is why I need to hire someone who knows what the hell they're doing.

You should switch to a solution you feel comfortable then. IMHO, go back to 2D or use Unity as intended and remove the 3D elements from you prerendered background and render them in 3D.

 

[Feep]

You should switch to a solution you feel comfortable then. IMHO, go back to 2D or use Unity as intended and remove the 3D elements from you prerendered background and render them in 3D.

Not really an option. Both 3-D environments and the unbelievable number of sprites my characters would require are both too costly.

What, this is going to defeat me? Not finding a way to draw *one thing* over another? I'll figure something out. I've gotten through worse.