Updated September 1, 2016

Official GAF Indie Dev Showcase: A Collection of GAF's Finest Games
View a list of games created by GAF's own Indie Developers.

NEW GAF Dev Official Discord (quote to see):
GAF Dev Official Twitter Account: @DevGAF
@DevGAF Rules: Read Please

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Previous Thread: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=491431
Screenshot Saturday: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=853735
GAF Dev IRC: freenode.net #indieGAF ~ webchat.freenode.net -- use #indieGAF in “Channels”
GAF Dev User Twitter: Google Docs
Any suggestions or additions please feel free to PM me and I'll get it sorted!


Welcome fellow indie developers, soon-to-be indie developers and civilians. In this thread we gather ourselves, share our passions and seek help and support from others in our continuing quest to contribute greatness to the industry of gaming. All are welcome to join the discussion, share thoughts, projects and help gaming grow by keeping its foundation strong!

Independent developers have a lot to prove and some have it far harder than others due to outside factors like jobs, family and life, in general. It is a blood, sweat and tears hobby but well worth it in the end seeing your creative vision come to life. No matter how much you sweat or bleed, be humble in your quest for awesomeness. Every day I sit down and remind myself no matter how much passion or drive I may possess, no matter how hard I work on a single nuance, no matter my efforts - none of those are qualifiers. The means is never a qualifier for the end. Your qualifier shines in what you produce, what you make, what you author. Stay true to yourself and bend your dreams to your will!

Thank you all for letting me author this thread! GOOD LUCK EVERYONE and remember to HAVE FUN MAKING YOUR DREAMS COME TRUE!

Contributors: chubigans, Jobbs, Pehesse, Abe Bly, Ranger X, flkk, ActionRemix, Mushroomer25, naumov91, hobblygobbly, planckpixels, liliththepale, Blizzard, udivision, SanaeAkatsuki, Crazymoogle, Unain, MrNyarlathotep, COOLIO, Fenris95, JasoNsider, fin, Stumpokapow, Spazchickens, Lyphen

Sections

• Collaboration and Management
• Generating Mindshare
• Sales
• Developer Competitions
• The Big Three
• Engines and Tools
• Audio
• Art
• Tips from the Pros

Finding like minded folks to work with you on your project can be a daunting task in the indie space, primarily because everyone has “ideas” that they would like to see turn into games. The key is to find individuals who share the same ideas conceptually. This works both from a direction standpoint and creativity aspect due to the nature of your ideas feeding off of each other. Be sure to seek out other developers and teams that share the same goals, it’s never a good idea to hop along on a project for the sake of needing someone (trust me on this). Make sure everyone has clearly defined roles from creative director, artist, programmer, etc.

Even with all of those roles filled project and team management can be a daunting task when it comes to making sure everyone is doing their part to meet deadlines - someone should be designated as a project manager, no matter their contribution to the game. Choose a member with strong focus and organizational skills to lead the project through to completion; they do not have to be the creative director. There are a number of ways to build teams for your project and find individuals from social media websites, forums like GAF or TIGSource (http://www.tigsource.com/) but a new website aimed strictly at the independent has been authored by GAF’s own Spazchickens...


IndieTeamup http://www.indieteamup.com/
IndieTeamup is a tool to help you and other independent developers meet, share and collaborate. While only in a Beta phase at the moment, there are over 1000 indies looking for teams and collaborative efforts! You can find other developers to fill a wide range of roles from programmers, artists, musicians, designers, managers, etc. I highly suggest everyone looking to form teams sign up and use this resource so it can grow to become an amazing tool for the indie scene.

Now that you’ve formed your team you might need something more robust than Dropbox or Google Drive to share your project files with each other and I highly suggest looking at some type of source control for your project. Two of the most widely used resources to host your project are…


GitHub https://github.com/
BitBucket https://bitbucket.org/
Both are great tools for hosting your project’s files and syncing across multiple machines. They work by simply allowing teams to pull project files and changes from the main source hosted on their servers. The simplest explanation is that you upload your project once and only changes you make to your project files are then uploaded to repository so your teammates never need to pull entire projects to locally reflect changes. Each commit (upload, submission of changes) is time-stamped and can be reverted at any time in the main project, forked so you can test new features without breaking the main project, etc. Not only is it great for small or large teams, it acts as the perfect solution to single-person team data redundancy and sourced for ultimate control over changes!

Project Management
To help ease team-based collaboration and offer some type of structure to the iterative process, you and your team should seriously consider using some type of Project Management software. Docs, whiteboards and the like may be almost OK for small projects but larger endeavors require more grunt, even if it’s just you at the helm. While I can list a myriad of applications that are self-hosted and web-based (like Basecamp: https://basecamp.com, paid) I will give you a single, absolutely free option you and your team can use to help set goals, assign tasks, lists, milestones, etc.


Trello https://trello.com/
Trello is a bit of a swiss army knife of sorts used for collaborative efforts in project management, it’s simple to use, easy to understand and visually appealing. I even use this service for my one-man projects. It’s basic structure is a “card” system where you create cards and assign them to members of your team. Drag and drop with customizable interface makes it easy to setup various lists and assignments, comment on cards, updates, list creation, team notifications, archiving, etc. A wonderfully easy to use tool for project management. There is even a mobile app that is just as easy to use and feature-rich as the web-based app!


Finished with your thing? Good. Now that you’ve made it farther than 99% of developers, let’s look at a few steps you can take to help market your thing and release it into the world!

Social Media
Social media is always a good place to help spread your thing among people who are interested in thing or things. There are numerous methods to help expose yourself via the use of hashtags and some that are of key interest on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook are:
#indiedev
#gamedev
#screenshotsaturday

You can expand on this by including other tags based on your type of game like:
#RPG
#SHMUP
#NameOfThing

Use these to your advantage but NEVER use social media as a launching platform for information, always try to drive end users back to your website for the full meal - that is your home base and social media is an outlet to tease, not inform. Keep that in mind.

presskit() http://dopresskit.com/
Promoter http://www.promoterapp.com/
distribute() https://dodistribute.com/
Presskit() is an aid in helping you write a good press release for your game to submit to websites. It was built with the input of indie devs and game journalists alike, giving you an easy framework to use to your advantage. Best of all, it's completely free!

The second tool is integrated with presskit(), called Promoter, another powerful tool that keeps track of your press coverage and promotional codes. It even gives you a list of over 600 major websites to contact about your game, filtered by game platform, and a ton of other fantastic tools. There is a limited free version and a more expanded "premium" version that comes in a monthly/yearly fee.

The third tool is also integrated with presskit(), called distribute(), a tool which allows the press to ask for promo codes, Steam codes, iTunes codes, etc and automatically organize them for you in a neat back end. From there, you can view requests and approve or deny them. Requests contain names, emails, website information, etc about the requesting party and even check against a known list of verified press contacts to ensure Johnny Awesome is who they say they are. You can also build your own trusted press lists for your own personal database. Currently the product is in Alpha, at the moment so there may or may not be bugs.

Steam Greenlight http://steamcommunity.com/greenlight
One tool that I think could be a real asset to game devs is the newly launched Steam Greenlight, which gives your game exposure to thousands of active Steam Greenlight users who will give you the harsh criticism of whether or not your game is heading in the right direction...or possibly not. While getting on Steam is a longshot, the exposure/feedback makes the process worth it. Unfortunately it's now $100 for access to upload an unlimited amount of your games, so use this once you feel more comfortable with your game making skills.

Gaming Websites
Never be afraid to contact any gaming websites directly that cover your chosen platforms and genre. Reach out to their relations team and pitch your idea in a single paragraph, show them your product with online videos and screenshots. Keep initial contact emails short and sweet, relay the “hook” of your game first and foremost and limit the amount of fluff you include. Websites get tons of emails and press kits all the time and they generally tend to skim more so than immerse themselves in potential material. It is difficult for indies to get the attention they deserve so keeping things brief but explosive are always preferred.


This is fairly straightforward. Depending on the platforms you release on will depend on the store used so I will only cover a few areas. Amazon has their own App store where you can sell your Android games, aside from Google’s Play store so keep that in mind when creating Android-specific mobile titles. The PC marketplace has a multitude of options from selling from your own website which there are a TON of digital distribution tools that act as middleware to setting up your own hosted shop and everything inbetween. You should also keep in mind places like GOG (http://www.gog.com/indie) so you can partner with them to sell your thing. Pretty much anywhere that sells games is a place to start, depending on the audience you are trying to reach. Research and actively look to engage with the store to sell your products.

Bundles
Bundling your game in with other developers can be a great way to sell your product that offers extreme price advantages to the consumer. The bright side is that you will be casting a very wide net and reach end users you may not have been reaching with standard sales; the downside is that there is a potential to lose a lot per sale compared to the standard selling of your item. Popular bundles include:

The Humble Bundle https://www.humblebundle.com/
Easily the most popular option for a lot of developers and gamers. Due to it's popularity, it can be quite daunting to get your game featured as part of a bundle on multiple fronts from just your foot in the door to needing all three major PC OSes: PC, Mac, Linux.

Indie Royale http://www.indieroyale.com/
Indie Royale is known to be another powerhouse for bundling games for developers and end users. It functions similarly to Humble Bundle but includes an increasing minimum rate unless some buyers contribute more to lower the rate for everyone. Indie Royale is part of Gamasutra, Desura and Indie Games websites.

Other notable Bundles include:
The Indie Gala https://www.indiegala.com/
The Greenlight Bundle http://www.thegreenlightbundle.com/
IndieGameStand https://indiegamestand.com/


Competitions are a great way to get your foot in the door with many distributors if your game stands out from the rest. Below are just a few of the many indie game competitions out there!

Independent Games Festival http://www.igf.com/
Indiecade http://www.indiecade.com/
Indie Game Challenge http://www.indiegamechallenge.com/
Fantastic Arcade Fest http://fantasticfest.com/arcade
Tokyo Game Show http://expo.nikkeibp.co.jp/tgs/2012/business/sown/index.html
Sense of Wonder (Note that Sense of Wonder does not have a dedicated site, check the home page for each Tokyo Game Show under "business info")


It’s time. You want to move out of the PC space and invade the console space with your thing (eww). I don’t blame you. It’s enticing and does have a bit of that sweet prestige that comes from being on a branded livingroom device. On top of that, you’re working with closed architecture, a much more direct set of tools and have literally only a two ways to sell your stuff: disc or digital. This space is far more controllable from almost every aspect from project management, development and sales. It is also far more difficult to become a console developer due to the way each major company approves or denies your efforts. Using some tricked out math (addition) and input from other developers (PMs) I am going to list these in order of ease of access while being careful not to break my own NDAs.


Nintendo WiiU
https://wiiu-developers.nintendo.com/
Business (LLC, S, C, etc) not needed
Becoming a developer for WiiU isn’t the largest hurdle. Easy to fill application and delightfully easy of a process to see through to approval, albeit lengthy due to contact times. No real development timeline or pitch is needed.


XBOX One
http://www.xbox.com/en-us/Developers/id
Business (LLC, S, C, etc) needed
Like Nintendo, Microsoft has a nice and easy to complete application form but is a lot quicker in getting back to you - usually within a business week is when to expect the ball to get rolling. The approval process for ID is a bit more difficult as you will need to provide game information before MS slings you devkits. A few emails, NDAs, phone conversations and a good pitch is what you will be looking for. More difficult to get on board than Nintendo but less difficult than…


Playstation 3/4/Vita
http://www.playstation.com/en-us/develop/
Business (LLC, S, C, etc) needed
Static IP (by your ISP) needed
A great group of people heading developer relations but due to their current standing in the console race, they have more leverage in choosing who to bring aboard with more indies willing to join them. The approval process is a bit more daunting and like Microsoft, pitches, vertical slices, etc are needed.

Bottom Line
Give it a shot. There’s nothing to be afraid of and we have seen many styles of indie games make it to the aforementioned platforms’ respective stores. One thing you must do in all cases is leverage your contacts. Do you know someone either at one of the three or working on a game with one of the three? Take advantage of those opportunities as much as you can. You’re not taking advantage of the individual(s), you are taking advantage of your network and capitalizing on an opportunity. Every little bit helps. Ask. Beg. Bribe with alcohol. Any help you can get is well worth it and good luck!

There are many popular choices among indie developers on their weapon of choice when first learning about or developing an indie game. Here you will find a short list of both 2D and 3D development tools, many of which are free to use (albeit limited versions of) for your project. You will find these have various learning curves, some much steeper than others. Some are more code-oriented and others provide simple drag and drop interfaces to get building quickly! Whichever weapon you choose to add to your arsenal, those listed on this page are excellent candidates for your project.

Additional tools can be found here
http://www.pixelprospector.com/the-big-list-of-game-making-tools/
http://ludumdare.com/compo/tools/


Game Accessibility Guidelines http://gameaccessibilityguidelines.com/
A great guide to help you design various aspects of your game while keeping in mind individuals with disabilities and other impairments. Several structures ranging from the most basic and innocuous to extreme functionality. Not just a resource to cater to the disabled, also an excellent resource to help streamline your title's functionality from menus to gameplay.


Stencyl http://www.stencyl.com/
Made With Stencyl http://www.ghostsonggame.com/
Stencyl is a development tool for creating 2D games, using a visual programming language inspired by the MIT Scratch project, where logic is built by snapping blocks together. The system is intuitive and flexible, allowing developers to nest if/then/otherwise statements, assign variables, data arrays, and more. Stencyl also comes with a full fledged physics system, Box2D, that allows users to easily apply forces, make objects bounce and slide, set friction, weight, and various other physicsy stuff. The software comes with built in support for tilesets and includes a visual level editor where tiles and objects can be placed, and behavior for the area can be assigned. The software also includes as part of its interface "Stencyl Forge", where users can share prebuilt behaviors (sections of visual code that can be attached to objects or levels), art, sounds, or entire projects.

PROS:

• Very intuitive, easy to use and flexible, arguably more intuitive and approachable than Gamemaker or Construct 2
• Much can truly be accomplished by those without programming skills, and even more by those who do have them
• Active, helpful and friendly community

CONS:

• Although game exports now (as compared to pre-3.0) run quite well with higher resolution settings by using the stand alone .exe, the app itself can be a bit finicky when managing these assets.
• Tile system is simple and easy, but somewhat inflexible
• Currently not quite as feature rich as Game Maker or C2, but is getting there

Unity3D http://unity3d.com/
Made With Unity http://www.friendandfoegames.com/
Unity3D is a multiplatform engine for PC/Mac that has the ability to compile to multiple target machines. There are 2 versions of Unity3D, free and paid. The free version has all of the previous "pro" features but you can use the free version to build/sell your game and are only restricted to buying the paid version if you make more than 100k per year as a company or individual.

Unity boasts a host of features right out of the box and is insanely supported with assets and extensions to help improve your workflow. You can even create your own scripts which add or alter the functionality of Unity’s editor to drastically improve workflow. Prototyping is rather quick with many of Unity’s built in systems - transitioning from an idea to playable space is fast. Can be heavily code dependent if you want to get the most out of it, but there are extensions you can use to ease development if you are not a programmer.

PROS:

• Can sell games with the free version
• Free, one-time licensing or subscription
• Can create custom editor scripts to extend development tools

CONS:

• Aside from PC, must pay for the “pro” version per target platform
• Steep learning curve if new to programming

GameMaker Studio https://www.yoyogames.com/studio
Made with GameMaker Studio http://www.hotlinemiami.com/
GameMaker: Studio caters to entry-level novices and seasoned game development professionals equally, allowing them to create cross-platform games in record time and at a fraction of the cost of conventional tools! In addition to making game development 80 percent faster than coding for native languages, developers can create fully functional prototypes in just a few hours, and a full game in just a matter of weeks. Allows use of both drag-n-drop style programming with actual programming using GameMaker’s language: GML

PROS:

• Multiple platform compile
• No programming knowledge needed
• Prototyping is very fast

CONS:

• Engine updates may introduce new bugs
• Room editor and project hierarchy leave a lot to be desired

Construct2 https://www.scirra.com/construct2
Made With Construct2 http://www.the-next-penelope.com/
Construct 2 is a 2D development tool that is similar to Stencyl in that its main focus for the developer relies on drag and drop style programming by connecting various functions together like blocks to form routines. It features an easy to read and visually striking and clean interface which makes using Construct2 a very friendly experience. It’s event system is the meat and potatoes of the program, structuring different events using it’s visually-based programming to achieve behaviours. While Construct2 comes with many pre-built behaviors, many power users can write their own to extend, modify or create new behaviors.

PROS:

• Includes a large set of features
• Event system is easy to understand and use
• Lots of plugins and an active development community

CONS:

• Some issues with performance using high-resolution sprites
• Portability to mobile could be a smoother experience

Unreal Engine 4 https://www.unrealengine.com/blog/welcome-to-unreal-engine-4
Made with Unreal Engine 4 http://www.zombie.com/games/daylight
The complete engine that Epic uses to develop their games and has a feature-rich editor that allows you to edit its source using C++ for increased flexibility and to the metal style development. Much more flexible in the cost department than previous versions with zero up-front costs and only 5% total revenue of sales. Use of UE4 does not affect access to UDK, which is nice. UE4 also supports Steamworks, SteamBox, Oculus VR and Linux making it very versatile. Heavily code dependent and aimed at the power user.

PROS:

• Blueprint visual scripting allows prototyping with “no code required” style development
• Edit C++ while the game is running and UE4 automatically updates, no stopping required
• Supports forking/sharing of engine with GitHub

CONS:

• 5% can be a lot of money in the long run compared to other engines
• Learning curve may turn newcomers off

CryENGINE http://cryengine.com/
Made With CryENGINE Hehehe... really?
CryENGINE is a multiplatform engine similar to UE4 and Unity, handling projects for PC, Linux, iOS, Android, Xbox One, Playstation 4, WiiU, Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. One of it's most notable features is it's ability to use 100% realtime lighting meaning you do not need to use pre-baked lightmaps, which can be time consuming to create. CryENGINE has pretty much everything you need, out of the box to begin development. it also features a visual scripting tool called Flow Graph to get you up and prototyping quickly.

PROS:

• Development across multiple platforms makes this a well rounded choice
• Use of C++ is a great
• Flow Graph visual scripting

CONS:

• Flow Graph not as intuitive as other visual scripting tools
• No FBX support
• Documentation leaves a lot to be desired

Flixel http://flixel.org/
Made With Flixel http://www.adamatomic.com/canabalt/
Flixel is a 2D Actionscript 3 game engine most famous for being used in Canabalt and a whole lot of other games. It originated as a way to rapidly prototype retro inspired games, and to this day that's still what it's best at - although it is fairly flexible. A bunch of convenient features such as tilemaps, pathfinding, particles etc are included. It uses blitting to render, which is faster than the native display list on desktops but not mobile. While it's not entirely impossible to use flash movieclips, they are not integrated into the engine; you're expected to convert them to spritesheets.

PROS:

• Easy to use / learn.
• Fairly active community with lots of existing code / tutorials to draw from
• Flixel Power Tools provide a powerful set of extensions

CONS:

• Poor performance on mobile because blitting does not make use of the GPU
• Need to convert images to spritesheets
• Has not been updated in a while with no update expected soon

Loom SDK https://www.loomsdk.com/
Made With LoomSDK http://contraptionmaker.com/
Loom is a 2D mobile game engine allowing for cross-platform development deploying to iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux. The most notable feature is live reloading of assets and code across multiple devices simultaneously. Loom Turbo ($5/mo) provides access to command line tools, and prebuilt binaries for all supported platforms. The scripting language is based on ActionScript 3 with various improvements. Rendering uses a Starling-like, GPU-oriented API for high performance. Ideal for users with some games experience, this open source engine makes going from prototype to published game a rewarding endeavor.

PROS:

• Live development across multiple platforms. Make a change, and instantly see it on device
• Open source
• Includes a port of Feathers, a GPU-accelerated skinnable UI library

CONS:

• Some features require native code development
• Only some 3rd party libraries pre-integrated
• Limited track record

C4 Engine http://www.terathon.com/
Made With C4 Engine http://markoftheoldones.com/
The C4 Engine is a comprehensive suite of robustly implemented game programming tools for the Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, PS4, and PS3 platforms. Not only is it a powerhouse of a 3D graphics engine, but it also includes integrated support for physics, audio, networking, input devices, resource management, and much more. The C4 Engine is widely regarded as having the cleanest professional source code and one of the best architectures in the industry.

PROS:

• Supportive forum community
• Very stable, fast and optimized
• Voxel-based terrain

CONS:

• Costs $750 for standard license
• Lagging a little behind some more modern graphics features

RPG Maker http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/
Made With RPGMaker One Night Trilogy
RPG Maker has been notable for it's What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get editor and providing creators with a universal set of 2D graphics and sounds (the RTP). Users can also import their own custom graphics to supplement or replace the SNES-inspired resources. Because of its relatively simple eventing system, RPG Maker is easy to learn and easy to use. Since RPG Maker XP, the engine now supports the Ruby Language, allowing players to script features beyond what the WYSIWYG editor can provide. RPG Maker has a large community of people willing to help new users. In addition to providing scripts and systems that can be plug 'n played into others' projects, the community also provides art assets readily available in RPG Maker formats.

PROS:

• Easy to use editor
• Can be taken advantage of further by those who know Ruby
• Widely available public scripts to add functions

CONS:

• Engine imposes arbitrary limits
• May not be too useful for those who can code
• Ruby is typically slower at graphics processing (?)

Spine http://esotericsoftware.com/
Spine is an animation tool focused on creating beautifully smooth 2D animations using keyframe interpolation instead of hand drawn frames needed for sprite animation. This produces amazingly smooth animations across multiple framerates resulting in clean, fluid frames. In addition to frame independency, Spine allows for animation blending at runtime and even procedural animations otherwise not achievable through standard sprite practices.

PROS:

• Procedural animation and animation blending
• Integration with many runtimes
• Texture packer

CONS:

• Integration with runtimes can be daunting to new developers
• Learning curve slightly steeper than comparable Sprite tools

ShoeBox http://renderhjs.net/shoebox/
ShoeBox is an extremely lightweight and free tool for Windows and OSX with game and UI tools developed in Adobe Air. It contains many features to ease development flow like sprite packer, texture ripper, frame sheets, masking, etc.

PROS:

• Animator compiler/decompiler
• PSD Extractor
• Texture packer
• Drag and drop interface

Audio is an extremely important part of any production and always serves to “glue” a viewing experience together, no matter the medium. From ambient sounds, music, foley, effects and OST - you can rest assured they can all play a key part in a number of ways from conveying a message to getting the player more immersed in the action. If you don’t have a dedicated sound engineer or musician working with you, fear not, there are plenty of tools you can dabble in to help give your game the audio treatment it deserves. I will list a few of the easier and more widely used programs as well as some which are more abstract for power users.


Freesound https://www.freesound.org/
Freesound aims to create a huge collaborative database of audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, etc released under Creative Commons licenses that allow their reuse. You can upload and download sound effects and other audio clips and use them in your work, provided you adhere to the creative commons licensing restrictions per each audio clip.


Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Audacity is an Open-Source multiplatform audio editor capable of recording and editing audio. It boasts a huge number of effects and processes right out of the box and can even be used for multitrack editing. It’s not a Digital Audio Workstation, but this tool is designed to help edit, slice, dice, add effects, EQ and other things to audio you have or record. I don’t think anyone, both novice or professional, do not have this in their toolbox.


Ableton Live Lite https://www.ableton.com/en/products/live-lite/
Live is a Digital Audio Workstation capable of hosting multiple audio and MIDI tracks, VST, Audio Units, ReWire and a host of third-party plugins from various audio vendors. It is widely used by professional musicians and is known for its off-the-cuff creative clip grid system. Often this piece of software is used during live performances for almost every musician in the world, it’s stability is unmatched. Comes complete with a host of effects and mastering tools. An excellent choice for someone looking to get into the world of digital audio production.


Reason https://propellerheads.se/products/reason/
The industry’s most popular Digital Audio Workstation for newcomers and professionals. Fully capable for recording audio and MIDI and supports a wide array of add-on instruments. Easy to understand interface and very quick to lay some beats and sounds down, Reason does a great job of getting out of the way and letting you author. Highly recommended due to its amazing sound engine and software synths.


FL Studio http://www.image-line.com/flstudio/
FL Studio is another Digital Audio Workstation similar to Reason and Ableton Live. One incredibly nice feature is that all updates are free for the lifetime of the program. Buy once, update forever. Like other DAWs, FL Studio allows you to record, edit, mix, compose and add various effects to create high quality music or sound effects.


Reaper http://www.reaper.fm/
An extremely popular and free-ish Digital Audio Workstation. Fully featured and loaded with a suite of tools it also supports VST, AU, ReWire, etc. Alongside it’s powerful audio editing, this DAW can be fully customized and themed to your liking. Every element can be customized as you see fit. An exceptionally powerful tool for Windows and Mac.


Renoise http://www.renoise.com/
Renoise is a Digital Audio Workstation with a tracker interface. It’s a very sophisticated piece of kit that has been adopted by several popular musicians around the globe. Runs on Linux, Mac and PC with ease, supports VST, Audio Units and ReWire. An extremely powerful tool in the right hands.

Famitracker http://famitracker.com/
This is an extremely abstract piece of software. It’s primary use is to create sample-perfect emulation of NES hardware synthesis. It’s exporting options include the ability to export to NSF and play the music you create on actual NES hardware. This is a tracker like Renoise so its interface for authoring isn’t the most intuitive, however, it’s relatively easy to learn.

Sfxr http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
Bfxr http://www.bfxr.net/
Sfxr and Bfxr are the swiss army knives of bleeps, bloops and blips. You will find many indie artists start here when looking to fill out their old school sound effect bank. Both are exceedingly simple to use with one-click operation but offer more customization and tweaking, if you just can’t leave well enough alone. I can’t recommend these enough.


Making your game look the best it can is an extremely daunting task but, thankfully, through the use of computer technology and the 1982 movie Tron, we have been able to digitize crayons and paper for the artist to work their magic. Like engines, tools and audio programs, artists have a myriad of tools at their disposal that serve distinct purposes for creating the visual assets needed for your game.


Photoshop http://www.photoshop.com/
This really needs no explanation, I hope.


GIMP http://www.gimp.org/
GIMP is the default free-to-use Photoshop alternative boasting many of the same features found in Adobe’s flagship pixel painter. Packed to the gills with features, export options, effects and the like - it has become an extremely popular choice among artists both novice and professional. Who GNU that such amazing free alternatives were so readily available? (badum-tsh)


Inkscape https://inkscape.org/en/
Inkscape is a bit different than Photoshop and GIMP as Inkscape’s primary focus is vector art. Vector art is different than standard raster art. Vector art is drawn using lines, curves, shapes and other geometric patterns that can be scaled indefinitely for a super clean image vs typical raster art that contains information in pixels, instead of coordinates. A very powerful program and contender to programs like Adobe Illustrator.


Blender http://www.blender.org/
A free and Open Source tool for 3D modeling that hosts a number of features including video editing, game creation and more. Some notable features are its sculpting abilities, animation, extensions and compositor. A great free alternative for those using Maya or 3DSMax. Very widely adopted by industry pros with a host of export options. Nearly every major 3D engine supports importing of Blender’s models.


Clip Studio Pro (Manga Studio) http://www.clipstudio.net/en
Also known as Manga Studio, Clip Studio Pro is a tool designed for creating beautiful artwork for comics but can be used to great effect for any style that your game requires. One notable feature is the program’s ability to take any 3D model or 2D picture and create comic-style halftone dot image for quick and effortless artwork that looks carefully hand-drawn. It’s price point makes it extremely attractive in comparison to more expensive industry tools.


Krita https://krita.org/
Krita is a free digital painting and illustration program. It hosts a number of important features like image wrapping for repeating textures, intelligent brush design and behavior, numerous effects, raster, vector layers, etc. The quality of Krita is simply outstanding for a free painting program and it can produce some truly stunning works in the right hands.

GraphicsGale http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/
A simple but effective pixel art editor and animator supporting multiple formats. Supports the use of multiple layers when creating, preview your animations live while still editing, onion skinning and more. Supports importing images using TWAIN for those that like to draw by hand and scan.


Learning how to use these tools can be a daunting task but fear not, developers, you can use the following links below written by your fellow GAF Devs to help you get started!

Decision Matrix
Game Logic
by Blizzard
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=175795895&postcount=7708

Orthographic Camera
Unity3D
by Jacksinthe
http://absinthegames.com/unity3d-understanding-orthographic/

An Approach to Hitboxes
GameMaker, GML
by liliththepale
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=170714771&postcount=5775

Introduction to Game Managers
Unity3D, C#
by MrNyarlathotep
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=170963111&postcount=5891

Homing Missile
UE4, Blueprint
by Unain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCkFqSOdw6M

Laser Trip Mine
UE4, Blueprint
by Unain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayxguGBAouk

Simple Jetpack
UE4, Blueprint
by Unain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8VGMFyCQhM

Hover Vehicle
UE4, Blueprint
by Unain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPVaDndT7tY

Fantastic OP, and good title.

Nice, love following the developments here, saw some good looking games last thread, makes me want to start something myself.

niiice. i've actually been working on something on and off since the inception of the last thread. hopefully i'll finally get around to showing it off in this one, lol.

Lurked the last thread, checking it every time it was on the front page. Hope to contribute something here soon but I'm fighting a busy schedule with work. Maybe this thread will help motivate me to work on my game in my free time outside of work (usually reserved for drinking, but why not both?).

Wow, you guys have reached OT2, amazing. Love lurking in here.

Awesome new thread, Absinthe. Great work!

Where's missile

Thanks, guys. If i messed up anything just yell at me.

Also, everyone can feel free to PM me to make changes/add things. I'll be keeping this up to date as much as possible.

Dynamite Shikoku said:

Where's missile

Click to expand...

Haha!

Glad my favourite title won!

That new thread smell.

Good luck, everyone! Chase those dreams like they stole your cookies!

Yay thread two!

Awesome op and title

Good luck in the new year to everyone. Today I have on my to-do list to finally copy the updated game engine files off a laptop that I used over the break. I made a change which apparently allows *drumroll* colored fonts! Only the most advanced of ancient technology.

My two main concerns are whether it works on my more modern desktop, and then learning exactly why it works. I was starting to use shaders but then found a color filtering solution that apparently allows dynamic modulation as I draw from a sprite sheet, and I am going to go ask the OpenGL IRC channel if anyone remembers the legacy fixed pipeline and why this particular color blending works. The current OpenGL documentation does not seem to mention it in the API calls directly.

Dynamite Shikoku said:

Where's missile

Click to expand...

Right there.


Good job, Mr. Absinthe!

New year. New thread. Let's go.

This thread isn't entirely friendly to darkgaf. White drop shadow pls

EDIT:


Looking good so far, outside of that.

Great OP. Can't wait to see what GAF's posters got to offer this year.

Most notable title I'm looking forward to is Ghost Song of course. Backed the kickstarter but holding off on playing the beta for fear of spoilers.

What is a good free/open source skeletal 3D animation library(c/c++)? I've been wanting to roll my own(don't need any advanced features... yet), but I'm thinking it's probably just going to be a big head ache...

VisceralBowl said:

This thread isn't entirely friendly to darkgaf. White drop shadow pls

Looking good so far, outside of that.

Click to expand...

Refresh

OT2 yeah!

anyone have experience with the github student pack?

https://education.github.com/pack

Is it worldwide? Is hard to get verified?, the only problem I have right now is that we are in holiday so I'm no technically registered as an student for 2015.

missile said:

Right there.


Good job, Mr. Absinthe!

Click to expand...

Oh there you are. Hehe. Haven't seen many updates from you recently.

I'm excited, 2015 is the year I finish my first game.

2014 was supposed to be that too, but I really feel it with this one!

AbsintheGames said:

Refresh

Click to expand...

Sweet.

RazorbackDB said:

OT2 yeah!

anyone have experience with the github student pack?

https://education.github.com/pack

Is it worldwide? Is hard to get verified?, the only problem I have right now is that we are in holiday so I'm no technically registered as an student for 2015.

Click to expand...

I've been waiting for about a month now.

Another mostly lurker, was always an interesting thread to read. Also want to hop aboard and use the thread more in the future as well.

Great OT! I haven't posted too much in the previous thread but i followed it very closely. I will try to participate more in this one.

missile said:

Right there.


Good job, Mr. Absinthe!

Click to expand...

There you are!

-COOLIO- said:

niiice. i've actually been working on something on and off since the inception of the last thread. hopefully i'll finally get around to showing it off in this one, lol.

Click to expand...

screw it. here's an early pic of what im working on to get us going

RazorbackDB said:

OT2 yeah!

anyone have experience with the github student pack?

https://education.github.com/pack

Is it worldwide? Is hard to get verified?, the only problem I have right now is that we are in holiday so I'm no technically registered as an student for 2015.

Click to expand...

All I did was add my student email to my Github "Emails" section in your profile settings and then it worked instantly I think. Your email has to be on an academic domain (and they have a list of most of them globally). Otherwise if you don't have an email you need to send them verification like maybe a student card/certificate/paperwork of some sort.

I know of people that used it from many countries in Europe, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. The email is the easiest way.

New and shiny thread, I like it.

-COOLIO- said:

screw it. here's an early pic of what im working on to get us going

Click to expand...

totally thought it said KKK

and awesome OP.

VisceralBowl said:

I've been waiting for about a month now.

Click to expand...

hobblygobbly said:

All I did was add my student email to my Github "Emails" section in your profile settings and then it worked instantly I think. Your email has to be on an academic domain (and they have a list of most of them globally). Otherwise if you don't have an email you need to send them verification like maybe a student card/certificate/paperwork of some sort.

I know of people that used it from many countries in Europe, Japan, South Africa, New Zealand, etc. The email is the easiest way.

Click to expand...

I guess I don't lose anything trying, thanks for the input.

Hopefully I could contribute more to the thread. I have been messing around with Unity and hopefully I can release a mini project this year.

Maybe in 2015 I can finally get the motivation to get a game up and running past the "I'm stuck. this is hard. I quit." phase. 100th tries the charm! ha ha ha

Glad this thread is still going strong. I wish I could participate more but I can't show the inner workings off on this project.

Perhaps next project I can be a bit more open here.

Not currently game development as such, but could be - I started doing Pixel Dailies and keeping a tumblr. Enjoying studying and attemping different styles (with varying degrees of success)...

Meh, indies.

But seriously, awesome job on that OP! Plenty of useful information there neatly ordered and arranged! And if I wasn't sold before, I am for Stencyl now, I'll get on itfor my future stuff.

To celebrate the new year, new thread and new focus for Honey, here's a preview of the new stuff in the pipeline: preliminary sketches for the VN characters animations. Gonna take a while, but it should ultimately be worth it!

Click to expand...

Great!

Pehesse said:

Meh, indies.

But seriously, awesome job on that OP! Plenty of useful information there neatly ordered and arranged! And if I wasn't sold before, I am for Stencyl now, I'll get on itfor my future stuff.

To celebrate the new year, new thread and new focus for Honey, here's a preview of the new stuff in the pipeline: preliminary sketches for the VN characters animations. Gonna take a while, but it should ultimately be worth it!

Click to expand...

As usual, loving your stuff

Aside from PC, must pay for the “pro” version per target platform

Click to expand...

Is that accurate? Can't you build for Andriod, IOS and Blackberry with Unity free?

HelloMeow said:

Is that accurate? Can't you build for Andriod, IOS and Blackberry with Unity free?

Click to expand...

Yes. But the "Pro" version for each platform costs extra. PC version of "Pro" does not include mobile or other versions - they are referred to as "Add-Ons": https://store.unity3d.com/

Edit: They really need to make the sub price all inclusive for all platforms for 75 bucks per month or piece them together for 30/month or something. 75 per month per version is steep.

AbsintheGames said:

Yes. But the "Pro" version for each platform costs extra. PC version of "Pro" does not include mobile or other versions - they are referred to as "Add-Ons": https://store.unity3d.com/

Edit: They really need to make the sub price all inclusive for all platforms for 75 bucks per month or piece them together for 30/month or something. 75 per month per version is steep.

Click to expand...

Oh. Yeah, that's a con.

Unst unst unst, feels good to be here in 2015!!!

I want to help out you guys n gals this year, so if anyone needs UI/UX/Design feedback/suggestions and advice, let me know!

If I will ever write a postmortem on a game of mine it will start with vacuum tubes. xD


My band new toy!

Technically, I want to use the characteristics of vacuum tubes to modify signals
in some special ways and apply them to a video game/filter of mine. :+

AbsintheGames said:

Construct2 https://www.scirra.com/construct2
Construct 2 is a game making tool with a primary focus on HTML5 web games with no programming required. Options for export include iOS, Android, Chrome Store, Windows.

Most of your time will probably be spent arranging things on screen in the layout view, and modifying event sheets to change how things behave. C2 includes a lot of great features such as a physics system, particles, facebook & kongregate connectivity, object families, and a whole lot of standard move/create/modify object behaviors that you would expect to find. However there are also some major omissions, such as functions, tilemaps, pathfinding, etc. A lot of this is probably due to C2 being relatively new - it has only been 1.5 years since the first version was released and the developers have been regularly adding features ever since.

Almost anything you may need that is missing from the main release, you can find a plugin for on the forums. The active development community is a big plus. Plugins are written in JavaScript, and every object in C2 is written with the same tools available to plugin developers. For those with javascript experience this is a major benefit because for example you can just open up the source to the particles or sprite object and learn from it. (edit by Lyphen: all mobile exports are completely dependant on third party platform tools (cocoonjs and AppMobi).)

Not everything about C2 is perfect however. The main problem I've run into is bugs, bugs and more bugs... just look at their bugs forum, it's filled with issue after issue. The developer seems more focused on adding sexy new features that can be showed off than stability or rounding out existing functionality. Beta releases are frequent, you can expect 1 or more each month, and it's expected for them to have bugs. However it's not uncommon for even the less frequent so called "stable" releases to be followed up by multiple emergency bug fixes. Also features such as the iOS AppMobi export still had at least 3 critical black-screen causing issues when the beta tags were removed. Another example is when a working feature was reclassified as a bug and then 'fixed' breaking backwards compatability and several people's projects. Only for it to get 'refixed' and re-breaking projects again in the next release.

If you want a bug fixed, also don't expect the developers to act unless you take the time to isolate the issue and create a minimal test-case project for them to look at. This can be very frustrating when you have a 3000 event project and something suddenly stops working in the latest release and you have to track down the exact cause. Basically QA is being outsourced to the customer here. On a personal note, I have found this highly frustrating, having spent in total several full time days debugging and now after having finally worked around some issues in the iOS export, I'm back to getting a black screen again with a more recent release. A lot of this is probably due to the fact that the software is so young, and being written solely by 1 of a 2 man company.

I think I could recommend C2 mainly to hobbyists. If you view it as 1 man's achievement, it really is remarkable what Scirra has been able to achieve with C2. But as a professional $400 product, the bugginess is shameful. You can download a highly restricted version for free, but you will probably run into the 100 event limit in a couple hours, which is nowhere near enough to make anything more than the most basic of basic games. $120 gets you a full personal license, $400 for a commerical license.

PROS:

• Includes a large set of features
• Frequent releases and updates
• Neat, fast, responsive application
• Large set of export options
• Lots of plugins and an active development community

CONS:

• Lots of bugs
• Still evolving, releases may break backwards compatibility
• Free edition is basically just a demo, to make a real game you will have to pay
• Some issues with performance using high-resolution sprites

Click to expand...

Not sure if this is up to date, either that or it's pretty to someone biased due to a negative experience or something.
I've been using Construct 2 for about 2 years now, and bugs are not something I would associate with that engine.
And if you ever want a bug fixed, if you send a sample project it will be fixed super fast - I have first hand experience with this.

If you want to add any Cons, then it's portability to mobile should be on there, it's a pretty rough experience getting a game onto iOS - I had to use a third party plugin (which is no longer supported) to get the features and perfomance on iOS that I desired.
However, it's support for Windows 8 is perfect, couldn't ask for anything more. I've not got much experience with Android, maybe someone here does?

Just bothered me to see an engine get slammed for being bug filled, when really it's actually a sturdy and reliable framework (for desktop and web at least).

Davision said:

Got me a 3D printer. This are my first 3 prints:

The monster has this eyes look effect:

Click to expand...

this is cool!

anyone know much about 3d printing? is it sufficient to manufacture small quantities of figures (guess I'd have to hand paint them) or is it too limited? I've heard mixed reports.

SeanNoonan said:

Not sure if this is up to date, either that or it's pretty to someone biased due to a negative experience or something.
I've been using Construct 2 for about 2 years now, and bugs are not something I would associate with that engine.
And if you ever want a bug fixed, if you send a sample project it will be fixed super fast - I have first hand experience with this.

If you want to add any Cons, then it's portability to mobile should be on there, it's a pretty rough experience getting a game onto iOS - I had to use a third party plugin (which is no longer supported) to get the features and perfomance on iOS that I desired.
However, it's support for Windows 8 is perfect, couldn't ask for anything more. I've not got much experience with Android, maybe someone here does?

Just bothered me to see an engine get slammed for being bug filled, when really it's actually a sturdy and reliable framework (for desktop and web at least).

Click to expand...

I'll rewrite. I PMd a few here a while ago who are experienced and never heard back from them. I'll just lay out regular info about the engine. A bud of mine uses it without any issues but he was too busy to do a writeup.

I'll edit in a sec.

Great stuff everyone!

I'm a new member of the indie thread. I've been working on my game for about five months so far. If you have an idea, I think you should really go for it. I'm evangelizing UE4 as the grease that has let me turn a concept into a game for the first time ever, with only some experience using radiant back in the day for making multiplayer levels for Daikatana. Yes. Daikatana. Stop laughing. Last I checked servers will still running some of my maps!

But then art left me behind. I couldn't just work with BSPs and make anything remotely close to professional... so in went the towel.

Enter Unreal Engine 4 and a game design that *mandated* a simple art style. UE4 is incredibly powerful. Yes, blueprints might take a bit of getting your head around, and you need some understanding of coding, but you don't need to know any programming languages.

My project is entirely being built in my spare time and will be put out there for free, but I really appreciate the encouragement this thread has already given me in the few short weeks I've started posting in it. Expect to see the following at least once a week as I put out an update on how things are going!





A free first person puzzle exploration game coming to PC with Oculus Rift support sometime in 2015.