I stay with the ARCADE.
i remember spending tons of money when i was younger at the arcade at disney world on this
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Indie Game Development Thread 3: Indie Jones and the Template of Doom
- Thread starter Makai
- Start date
i remember spending tons of money when i was younger at the arcade at disney world on this
There are light objects you can use with any shape you want, and anything with an emissive material can also emit light and cast shadows according to the shape of the object.
LordRaptor
Member
I haven't jumped off of 5 yet, but its good to see those smart tiles they've been pimping for a long ass time finally made it out!
Also looks like they've added a native game screen capture plugin, which solves one of the more commonly requested How Tos of this thread
A question to others who have worked with semi-HD 2D graphics, regarding background and environment assets: how do you go about tiling your backgrounds/placing your assets to prevent or work around seam issues? My current process is to use tiled backgrounds, and then place over detail/correction sprites as decals over the seams, but there has to be a better way. I'd love to hear more about your techniques, if you're willing to share!
tamaster92
Member
battle system is slowly getting upgraded to full working capacity.
Got saving and loading of NPC actors between battles (including death), as well as a stamina based turn system (though the stamina bar doesn't show in cooked version yet)
https://youtu.be/W4o6puxoTF8
Nice overview of current build
Got saving and loading of NPC actors between battles (including death), as well as a stamina based turn system (though the stamina bar doesn't show in cooked version yet)
https://youtu.be/W4o6puxoTF8
Nice overview of current build
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
What kind of seam issues do you have with tiling?
LordRaptor
Member
This might be an engine issue...?
I've never had problems with seams using tilable assets in Unity, even doing stuff like dynamically adding 'new' at the edge of 'old'...?
Or do you mean tricks to help make non-tilable asets tile better?
The seaming comes up when connecting different elements of variable size. I prepare my images to have a specific size and connection, and it works as long as this size stays as prepared, but if the tiling goes off a bit (which is most of the time), then the planned seams don't work anymore.
Here, for instance, I have two pieces for the ground: ground edge, and ground center, and the edge piece doesn't connect to the center anymore since the center size has changed.
I could fix this by reducing the pieces sizes (but then I'd need so many more), by reducing the amount of detail of all pieces to have more possible connection areas (but then it's too empty, and the issue might still come up), or by placing "correction decals" on top of the seams, which is what I'm planning to do - but I'd like to hear from others who made games with similar techniques how they approached the problem!
(I'd be especially curious about Jobbs's, Noogy's, Ito's and AriEx's approach, though I'd love to hear from anyone and everyone who built something for semi-HD 2D sideview aesthetics!)
Yeah, it's more about discussing seaming techniques/tricks for a somewhat densely detailed type of tiling texture. I know how to get textures to seam as a principle - it's more about connecting pieces of variable size with others of also variable size, all the while having a somewhat high level of detail to avoid obvious visual repetition. This isn't an engine issue!
(to be clear: I have no problems tiling textures with themselves, or others when keeping their sizes proportional - it's connecting them with others that's my concern here when changing the size of the tiling texture)
oxrock
Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
Are you certain those two tiles are meant to be adjacent? The brick line being cut off in the middle makes me think otherwise.
Sylverstone14
Member
It's the one-year anniversary of the last game I made, and I finally got off my ass to do a postmortem.
I haven't really done one before, so it's not like all the others you see on places like Gamasutra.
Check it out! | death by flower arrangement: a story + postmortem of sorts
LordRaptor
Member
Like... I almost don't want to post this because I feel super patronising and that I must be missing something here, but for that kind of scalable tiling, I've always used 9-slice principles which extend from 1-bit style pixelart all the way up to vectorial infinite rsolution UI elements...?
timetokill
Banned
Yeah I thought that was definitely a nice addition... should hopefully make gif-making and video-making a lot easier.
The reason I asked is that you can get less noise if the renderer knows the
lights in advance. So for example, if the light source is an explicit/known
area light (not just a plane having an emissive material), then the renderer
can directly target this light source (guiding the rays) instead of shooting
randomly over the full hemisphere hitting an emissive material now and
then, which would require many many more samples to get the noise down.
Can you give me those two (original) tiles (uncompressed)? I want to tryThe seaming comes up when connecting different elements of variable size. I prepare my images to have a specific size and connection, and it works as long as this size stays as prepared, but if the tiling goes off a bit (which is most of the time), then the planned seams don't work anymore.
...
something out.
What do you mean when you say that you are changing the size of the tile? Are you stretching it?
Thanks for all your answers, everyone! However, as I said above, I don't see this as a technical issue, more of an assembly/aesthetic process question. I fear I'm failing at getting my point across correctly, or using the correct terminology, so let me try this again, with more pictures to hopefully make my question clearer!
Here are my tiles:
Left - Center - Right
All combined:
(I have variants for all three pieces that have the same size/seam placement, and function exactly the same - I use these variants interchangeably in the examples below. I didn't think to upload both sets as it's late and they're functionally identical, I'll upload them tomorrow if necessary)
The seams are invisible and work perfectly, the center piece can be tiled with itself over long surfaces as necessary, as shown here, and seams with the edge pieces perfectly when used with the right tile proportions:
My issue comes with connecting the center piece with the edge piece in situations where the tile size isn't proportional with the original, such as this:
In this example (using variants of the three tiles - visually different, but functionally the same), the surface to cover is slightly shorter than the combined natural length of left+center+right. This example is using a 9 patch, and I couldn't find correct margins to have the correct continuity between the center piece and the right edge piece - the center piece is slightly smaller, and the seam between it and the right piece is visible/displaced.
In the other, very long example, I'm using tiled backgrounds, and the problem is similar: the tiling of the center piece itself works absolutely fine, however the place at which I need to put the right edge piece doesn't fit the specific part the tiled center piece ends up at (it's at the right edge of the very long horizontal example above, with the closeup example from my post above that I'll repost here:
The question I'm asking is how other artists/level designers use large textures/panels to cover their environments (maybe they're using entirely different methods, such as much less detailed BGs and only detail through small objetcs, or some other method I don't know about and would like to), and how they go about covering or fixing their seams if and when they appear.
This is not a problem with how C2 handles tiled backgrounds or 9-patches - they both work perfectly, I'm just trying to use them in scenarios where I need something in addition to them, and I'd like to see the solutions others have come up with (mine being adding smaller sprites on top to "hide" the seams behind new drawn specific detail - this works perfectly, but is inefficient, so I was just looking to study some better solutions).
I hope this gets my question across better - though again, thanks for your help already!
Well, I'm not into 2d tiling and stuff, but I may have an idea to remove the
discontinuity to some degree.
Let's look at this example again
a center tile and a right tile, say. To remove the discontinuity the right
edge of the center tile gets attached a copy of, say, a two pixel column
from the left edge of the right tile. Same for the left edge of the right
tile getting attached a copy of the last two pixel columns from the right
edge of the center tile. Now each tile has a copy of the boundary of the
other tile. You could now scale, transform etc. each tile which will also
transform the two pixel boundary of the other tile. Likewise with the other
tile. Now if we want to put these two tiles together we will line them up
and overlap them by 4 pixels (2+2 boundary pixels) such that the original
tiles match up again "underneath". And those two regions of overlapping pixels
we do average together. This should smooth the discontinuity to some degree.
Don't know if that's feasible, but hey!
discontinuity to some degree.
Let's look at this example again
a center tile and a right tile, say. To remove the discontinuity the right
edge of the center tile gets attached a copy of, say, a two pixel column
from the left edge of the right tile. Same for the left edge of the right
tile getting attached a copy of the last two pixel columns from the right
edge of the center tile. Now each tile has a copy of the boundary of the
other tile. You could now scale, transform etc. each tile which will also
transform the two pixel boundary of the other tile. Likewise with the other
tile. Now if we want to put these two tiles together we will line them up
and overlap them by 4 pixels (2+2 boundary pixels) such that the original
tiles match up again "underneath". And those two regions of overlapping pixels
we do average together. This should smooth the discontinuity to some degree.
Don't know if that's feasible, but hey!
LordRaptor
Member
I've used a completely different approach, because - frankly - I'm not that good at art, as I think I've revealed more than a few times in this thread.
Everything I do in a tile based game respects 'the tile' first and foremost - this works exceptionally well with faux-retro style aesthetics, but conceptually I don't see why it couldn't work with tile based art of any resolution.
So rather than have - as your example has - an expected size for 'start', 'middle' and 'end'
which are somewhat arbitrary
I create the smallest usable 'unit' to 9 slice
where this comes in useful, is by making minor variations to tiles 2,4, 5, 6 and 8 you can extend this nearly indefnitely along any axis without making repetition too obvious, and the more variant 'filler' tiles you create, the less repetition occurs.
TileEd actually has a built in function that allows you to assign multiple 'variant' tiles to specific tile 'slots' that will let you 'paint' automatically, but you can go a bit further and look into 'content aware' tiles like this tutorial about bitmasking - extending that concept further, if you have 'transition' tiles (eg moving from grass to snow) you can have transitional tiles where a tile can say something like, "if I have a grass tile to my left, and snow tile to my right, I should be half snow half grass variant x of y"
Again, I hope this post doesn't come across as patronising, because I'm worried I'm telling you How 2 9Slice :s
Well, I'm not into 2d tiling and stuff, but I may have an idea to remove the
discontinuity to some degree.
Let's look at this example again
a center tile and a right tile, say. To remove the discontinuity the right
edge of the center tile gets attached a copy of, say, a two pixel column
from the left edge of the right tile. Same for the left edge of the right
tile getting attached a copy of the last two pixel columns from the right
edge of the center tile. Now each tile has a copy of the boundary of the
other tile. You could now scale, transform etc. each tile which will also
transform the two pixel boundary of the other tile. Likewise with the other
tile. Now if we want to put these two tiles together we will line them up
and overlap them by 4 pixels (2+2 boundary pixels) such that the original
tiles match up again "underneath". And those two regions of overlapping pixels
we do average together. This should smooth the discontinuity to some degree.
Don't know if that's feasible, but hey!
I've used a completely different approach, because - frankly - I'm not that good at art, as I think I've revealed more than a few times in this thread.
Everything I do in a tile based game respects 'the tile' first and foremost - this works exceptionally well with faux-retro style aesthetics, but conceptually I don't see why it couldn't work with tile based art of any resolution.
So rather than have - as your example has - an expected size for 'start', 'middle' and 'end'
which are somewhat arbitrary
I create the smallest usable 'unit' to 9 slice
where this comes in useful, is by making minor variations to tiles 2,4, 5, 6 and 8 you can extend this nearly indefnitely along any axis without making repetition too obvious, and the more variant 'filler' tiles you create, the less repetition occurs.
TileEd actually has a built in function that allows you to assign multiple 'variant' tiles to specific tile 'slots' that will let you 'paint' automatically, but you can go a bit further and look into 'content aware' tiles like this tutorial about bitmasking - extending that concept further, if you have 'transition' tiles (eg moving from grass to snow) you can have transitional tiles where a tile can say something like, "if I have a grass tile to my left, and snow tile to my right, I should be half snow half grass variant x of y"
Again, I hope this post doesn't come across as patronising, because I'm worried I'm telling you How 2 9Slice :s
Thank you both a lot for your help and explanations!
I'll admit I feel foolish, as this sounds just like C2's 9-patching to me (albeit with different starting sizes in your example, LordRaptor), which I've already tried to no avail, so I must simply be using it wrong. I'll look into it again, especially making more/shorter sizes for both edge pieces and for the whole combo overall, and closer into TileEd as well, though I'd still love to hear from others who worked with high-res sideview 2D presentation how they went about designing and placing their environment tiles, if they're willing to share!
Thanks again!
Has anyone got Kickstarter and/or Early Access experience that they would like to share?
Ever since hitting beta and releasing the video of it - I've had a large amount of feedback about the game. It has made me rethink about the scale of the game and try and make it bigger (content wise) but means more time and more funds are required, as I can't keep working on this as I have for the past year out of my own savings.
I am looking at Kickstarter more than Early Access but would really like some opinions on both if you guys have any.
Ever since hitting beta and releasing the video of it - I've had a large amount of feedback about the game. It has made me rethink about the scale of the game and try and make it bigger (content wise) but means more time and more funds are required, as I can't keep working on this as I have for the past year out of my own savings.
I am looking at Kickstarter more than Early Access but would really like some opinions on both if you guys have any.
I'd be interested to hear about that too!
I haven't gone through KS yet so I don't have any experience to share, but from my own discussions so far (including with people from Kickstarter), depending on your funding goal and overall objective, it's not a bad idea to also consider alternative sources of funding, such as Indie fund, or even some publishers - Humble publishing was referenced, before IGN got into the mix so I don't know about now, but it's still probably interesting to keep an eye on it, along all others (off the top of my head are Raw Fury, Digital Devolver, Adult Swim, etc). Also, just this morning I was reading about Sony's initiative "Unties" to bring games to PS4/switch/PC, not clear yet if it's a publisher label and to what degree they get involved, but that might be worth looking into as well?
Before I say anything else, I want to preface it by saying that I don't mean to put you off!
I have had two "failed" Kickstarter campaigns with Clive 'N' Wrench. It's been a bit of a double edged sword, but it has taught me a lot. First and foremost it seems if you're someone without prior work or repetition you will struggle. A few years back people were a lot more open to taking the monetary risk, but after being stung too many times crowd funding has a bad name. Hell, since games like Mighty Number 9, even well known names aren't a shoe-in!
Crowd funding in general is a much bigger task than I first expected, if you plan on running a 30 day campaign, be prepared that you will get little to no work done on the actual game in that time. People will have questions, you'll have PR to deal with, interviews etc. As such, make sure you've got plenty of existing work to show during frequent updates because it's all to easy to stagnate half way through. Planning is key!
I also realised along the way that graphics are far more important than you may think. Admittedly CnW looked pretty dire during both campaigns, the level design and overall control was pretty solid but I think the main reason of it's lack of success was it's looks (especially in character design). As such I would strongly suggest that the vertical slice you show is as representative of the final product as you can possibly make it. Even now I have to suffer press using screenshots I released in 2014 to falsely represent my game!
Lastly I would warn you that many people speak about monetary support, but only some of that actually translates when push comes to shove. Unfortunately there's a difference between saying "I want to throw money at the screen" and actually doing it!
Having said all of that, I'm still glad it happened this way. It taught me a lot about fan interaction and the assumptions and reaction from the general gaming audience. I met my chief voice actor who has become a good friend and discovered an incredibly talented character artist who has since elevated Clive 'N' Wrench to a level I had never imagined! I also think that had I been funded, although the game would have been finished by now, it would be nowhere near the quality it is now due to my skills developing over time.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Yeah I started to think about KS but it's almost overwhelming with the things you have to think about (tiers) if you want it done right. I am also concerned that the genre I'm making, although passionate about, is oversaturated and a hard sell.
I think I haven't given enough thought about Publishers to be honest as I've always just written that off as losing sole ownership. I am probably foolish and should think about that properly.
You are the perfect person that I wanted a response from so thanks for chiming in!
Everything that you've said is what has put me off for a long time so I continued to fund the development myself till now. A year later, it has come to the point that I can no longer continue the way it is and need to look for funding, if I want to continue to finish my game.
I guess the thing that worried me about doing a KS and failing was that I could ruin the support for the game as it would tarnish the project... but it seems like you're doing really great with your project still, even with the failed KS. So thats really good to know
Have you ever put out a playable? or thought about Early Access? (I'm not sold on EA to be honest)
Thanks for the suggestions.
Yeah I started to think about KS but it's almost overwhelming with the things you have to think about (tiers) if you want it done right. I am also concerned that the genre I'm making, although passionate about, is over-saturated and a hard sell.
I think I haven't given enough thought about Publishers to be honest as I've always just written that off as losing sole ownership. I am probably foolish and should think about that properly.
You are the perfect person that I wanted a response from so thanks for chiming in!
Everything that you've said is what has put me off for a long time so I continued to fund the development myself till now. A year later, it has come to the point that I can no longer continue the way it is and need to look for funding, if I want to continue to finish my game.
I guess the thing that worried me about doing a KS and failing was that I could ruin the support for the game as it would tarnish the project... but it seems like you're doing really great with your project still, even with the failed KS. So thats really good to know
Have you ever put out a playable? or thought about Early Access? (I'm not sold on EA to be honest)
Glad to have been of some help! If nothing else the Kickstarters have raised Clive's profile and have brought in more people. The only negative in the long run is some gaps in development due to running the campaigns. But if you're at the point of stopping development or finding funding, it seems you have little to lose; and in fact even if it failed you could use a lot of the campaign assets to help your publisher pitch anyway.
I included a full playable level with the second Kickstarter. I do think that helped to boost the campaign quite a bit, especially as I included a message about being YouTube friendly! Funnily enough, I still get requests for that demo now despite how far the game has come since!
I think the positives of Early Access are very much tied to genre. If you're making a multiplayer game, a racing game or a sports title you'd do far better than say a platformer for instance. Take that with a pinch of salt, I'm merely speaking from second hand experience as I've never tried it myself!
I actually picked up on that too from looking at it and seemed like those that do well, are games that benefit from a continuous stream of updates for rebalancing. At least that is what aI put it down to.
Regarding your demo, was is public to all or just backers? the reason I ask is that I had a prior experience back in the Green Light days and had a huge response for the demo which helped me over the edge in getting it through. It took me over a year later to complete the game (but I had a full time job to support it) and although it sold well, I still wonder if the demo took the wind out of the sails.
I have no doubts about giving a playable to backers though, demo and/or beta... depending on the tiers a I make.
The demo was fully public, I made that decision in the interest of transparency. I do often wonder whether tying the demo to a low reward tier would have been a better idea though. Weirdly I got through Greenlight really quickly and with relatively few votes, I guess someone at Valve liked it!? I think the demo's impact depends on the scale of the game vs the demo, but statistically (at least for AAA games) demo's negatively effect sales in the long run (which is probably why they're so few and far between these days!).
Guys, let's stye focussed, or out of focus for what's up next.
I've spent some little more time with my private DoF implementation. I've now
implemented almost everything what the (thin) lens equation has to offer plus
some special derivative like computing the f/stop giving the bounds of the DoF
and focal length.
I further extended the FoV computation. The standard version just gives the
FoV when the focus is at infinity. For a finite and esp. close one the FoV
shrinks. That's what you can see in the first animation below. It also
features auto-focus. In the second animation I simply stop the aperture
down and up with the DoF changing accordingly. Nice! And the third animation
simply shows some fixed focus.
auto-focus + FoV depending on focus distance
stopping up and down
fixed focus
There are some further things I want to implement like some sensor effects,
i.e. exposure (computing the right EV from scene luminance or sensor
illuminance), motion blur etc., some classic lens aberration and friends,
and also some different type of lenses. I also think about implementing the
thick lens equation and also the ability to stack them. Another thing I need
to work on is some cool bokeh.
Don't mind the low resolution, looks stunning at highres, but I still want
to improve the lowres formation of the DoF, to make it even smoother by
computing it somewhat differently (with respect to my implementation) changing
the quality of the convolution with depth and perhaps capitalize on the time
averaging feature of the eye. Stuff like that.
I've spent some little more time with my private DoF implementation. I've now
implemented almost everything what the (thin) lens equation has to offer plus
some special derivative like computing the f/stop giving the bounds of the DoF
and focal length.
I further extended the FoV computation. The standard version just gives the
FoV when the focus is at infinity. For a finite and esp. close one the FoV
shrinks. That's what you can see in the first animation below. It also
features auto-focus.
In the second animation I simply stop the aperturedown and up with the DoF changing accordingly. Nice! And the third animation
simply shows some fixed focus.
auto-focus + FoV depending on focus distance
stopping up and down
fixed focus
There are some further things I want to implement like some sensor effects,
i.e. exposure (computing the right EV from scene luminance or sensor
illuminance), motion blur etc., some classic lens aberration and friends,
and also some different type of lenses. I also think about implementing the
thick lens equation and also the ability to stack them. Another thing I need
to work on is some cool bokeh.
Don't mind the low resolution, looks stunning at highres
, but I still want to improve the lowres formation of the DoF, to make it even smoother by
computing it somewhat differently (with respect to my implementation) changing
the quality of the convolution with depth and perhaps capitalize on the time
averaging feature of the eye. Stuff like that.
You might want to check out SE Collective this could help you getting your game known and then launch a KS if it all goes well.
On another note I want to echo the fact that people MOSTLY care about how it looks, it doesn't matter if you have the greatest game if you show it in an alpha state no one will care, certainly a vertical slice can really help out, but as Rob said, what will stay within the memories and the internet is how it looks. The good part is lots of feedback and possible connections you might make so it's not all bad : )
On another note I want to echo the fact that people MOSTLY care about how it looks, it doesn't matter if you have the greatest game if you show it in an alpha state no one will care, certainly a vertical slice can really help out, but as Rob said, what will stay within the memories and the internet is how it looks. The good part is lots of feedback and possible connections you might make so it's not all bad : )
Thanks for letting me know, this is all really helpful. I still have doubts about my own game demo but this is why I'm talking to you guys
Thanks for the link
I can totally agree that the eye candy is the first thing that everyone sees. I am fairly happy with how my game looks at the moment although it may not be everyones cup of tea. It is definitely something easier to get the attention of someone rather than a puzzle game with numbers, thats for sure
Doing my first game jam next week, https://itch.io/jam/fantasy-console-game-jam-2
Pretty excited! I was also pleased to see that Pico-8 is a lot more similar to Petit Computer than I would have guessed.
Pretty excited! I was also pleased to see that Pico-8 is a lot more similar to Petit Computer than I would have guessed.
shysaursoft
Member
Well, it's been a long road, but Rex: Another Island has finally launched on Steam! The itch.io version was also updated with the new features and language support (but not leaderboards and achivements).
We had a pretty good first day I think, something around 50 or so sales, but I'm still waiting to hear back from the publisher more details.
We had a pretty good first day I think, something around 50 or so sales, but I'm still waiting to hear back from the publisher more details.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Only $3? Damn that's cheap.
Some more work on the camera and DoF.
Here I do visualize the DoF itself (shaded region). The first two animations
show how the DoF changes with distance (sensor: 35mm, focal length: 50mm,
f/stop: 1.4). The third animations plays around with f/stop ranging from 1.4
to 22 showing how the DoF shrinks or gets bigger, respectively.
Here I do visualize the DoF itself (shaded region). The first two animations
show how the DoF changes with distance (sensor: 35mm, focal length: 50mm,
f/stop: 1.4). The third animations plays around with f/stop ranging from 1.4
to 22 showing how the DoF shrinks or gets bigger, respectively.
Still working on the layout of my break out game while physic problems are hopfully being solved.
I know it's a big fucking mess It's busy like a shibuya street! The ui at least, and that's what i'm going for. I studied a lot to find something that was as colorful and busy as it could, like 90's japanese arcade, fighters.. So it's super colorful and bold, with pixel grids and color shades inspired from Street Fighter Alpha. Not perfect yet but i'm getting where i want.
Of course the central part with the actual gameplay is really clear.
But the idea is that it's going to be a spark fest! With lots of voices ala fighting game to.
The idea is really to have a break out game that has the depth and drama of a fighter for versus play. So i have to invent the weird child of a loud 90's fighter and arkanoid visually, with the sweet and cute setting of games like magical drop (characters are stock holder from magical drop for now).
I know it's a big fucking mess
It's busy like a shibuya street! The ui at least, and that's what i'm going for. I studied a lot to find something that was as colorful and busy as it could, like 90's japanese arcade, fighters.. So it's super colorful and bold, with pixel grids and color shades inspired from Street Fighter Alpha. Not perfect yet but i'm getting where i want.Of course the central part with the actual gameplay is really clear.
But the idea is that it's going to be a spark fest! With lots of voices ala fighting game to.
The idea is really to have a break out game that has the depth and drama of a fighter for versus play. So i have to invent the weird child of a loud 90's fighter and arkanoid visually, with the sweet and cute setting of games like magical drop (characters are stock holder from magical drop for now).
+1My thanks to everyone that submitted videos of your game for Raster Stadium in 2MD! They worked out beautifully.
Heres a couple shots, but obviously its much more impressive in motion.
From the top,
There Came an Echo
Horizon Vanguard
Honey Rose
My thanks to everyone that submitted videos of your game for Raster Stadium in 2MD! They worked out beautifully.
Heres a couple shots, but obviously its much more impressive in motion.
From the top,
There Came an Echo
Horizon Vanguard
Honey Rose
Aww, that's so awesome :-D Thanks a lot!
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
Still working on the layout of my break out game while physic problems are hopfully being solved.
I know it's a big fucking mess
Of course the central part with the actual gameplay is really clear.
But the idea is that it's going to be a spark fest! With lots of voices ala fighting game to.
The idea is really to have a break out game that has the depth and drama of a fighter for versus play. So i have to invent the weird child of a loud 90's fighter and arkanoid visually, with the sweet and cute setting of games like magical drop (characters are stock holder from magical drop for now).
Looks cool, but is there a reason why the tiles dont align with the edge of the play area? You want that gap for players to shoot balls up into all the time?
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I think publishers usually take 50%. I've no experience though so I could be wrong
Well if it's the exact space for a certain number of bricks, as they are pretty big, you won't have the possibility to do that, actually. They'll have to fill the horizontal space or there will be a big gap and it'll be easy to put the ball there. here there is a little gap, and its really not easy to aim here from the start.
Woah! Pehesse, your environment tiling style is quite different to mine, but perhaps yours is more traditional? I never knew how to do it properly, so kinda just came up with a method as I went along.
We create all the Hollow Knight environments using black-tiles from an asset store tilemap plugin (Can't remember which one, maybe something from 2D Toolkit?). I then make a bunch of different art pieces with transparency around them and stamp them atop the tiles until they're completely hidden behind the art. None of my textures tile. They're designed to overlap one another.
They roughly look something like this:
I vary the amount of overlap to randomise the look and reduce obvious repetition. Also means I don't ever have to worry about seams lining up, which does sound tough.
From talking to Jobbs, I believe he used a similar technique to my own on Ghost Song, though he has even more detail and separation in his individual environment assets. I tend to make each piece kinda large.
Woah! Pehesse, your environment tiling style is quite different to mine, but perhaps yours is more traditional? I never knew how to do it properly, so kinda just came up with a method as I went along.
We create all the Hollow Knight environments using black-tiles from an asset store tilemap plugin (Can't remember which one, maybe something from 2D Toolkit?). I then make a bunch of different art pieces with transparency around them and stamp them atop the tiles until they're completely hidden behind the art. None of my textures tile. They're designed to overlap one another.
They roughly look something like this:
I vary the amount of overlap to randomise the look and reduce obvious repetition. Also means I don't ever have to worry about seams lining up, which does sound tough.
From talking to Jobbs, I believe he used a similar technique to my own on Ghost Song, though he has even more detail and separation in his individual environment assets. I tend to make each piece kinda large.
That's fantastic! Thanks a lot for that explanation - I had attempted just a little overlap, but I'll try to design my BGs with that explicitely in mind and see how it goes. Thanks again
Thanks for the answer! It would be nice to leave the marketing to the experts..
Cool you've found a solution.That's fantastic! Thanks a lot for that explanation - I had attempted just a little overlap, but I'll try to design my BGs with that explicitely in mind and see how it goes. Thanks again
Here is a somewhat higher resolution of the DoF effect;
The lines in the image may please a couple of photographers in here.
Well, I computed some interesting distances from the settings of the camera.
The colors of the lines have the following meaning;
red: DoF start
green: focus
blue: DoF end
magenta: hyperfocal
cyan: hyperfocal/2
yellow: hyperfocal/3
What's for? Red, green, and blue should be pretty clear.
But if I focus on magenta (the hyperfocal distance), then the DoF extents from
cyan (hyperfocal/2) to infinity. If I focus on cyan, then the DoF extents from
yellow (hyperfocal/3) to magenta. Nice.
But the yellow line is special on its own. It's the one and only distance
from the camera where when you focus on it the width of the DoF splits as
1/3:2/3, which means that 1/3 of the width of the DoF lies in front and 2/3
behind from that yellow line.
Useful? Well, these lines will help me to better utilize the DoF in-game for
certain (perhaps gameplay) effect or also to better place objects into the
scene with respect to a given camera setup.
I've added some vignetting (mechanical+optical) and a slight barrel distortion
effect. I know these effects get corrected today like crazy but when used
rightfully some of them can add to the atmosphere because you feel the camera
being there taking pictures and with the camera (you the photographer) being
part of the scene. I think this has same value on its own.
Cool you've found a solution.
Well, not just one - I'm actually using a combination of what everybody suggested so far (some 9-patch, some tiling, some tilemapping and some overlapping now), so I'm thankful to everyone involved :-D Still building it, it's going slow, but I'll share screen when it's taken shape!
shysaursoft
Member
It depends on the publisher really, but generally you can expect between 20% and 30%. In the case of Rex, the breakdown looks like this: Steam takes 30%, my publisher takes 20% after that, then I pay the musician their 15% from what's left, and I keep whatever remains.
Thanks for the answer! With your experience would you recommend a publisher?
My last game I published myself so I know how. I just do not know if I can get the buzz going and get the bigger websites to review this new game.
shysaursoft
Member
I've only been with my current publisher for a short while, and they literally just launched my game yesterday, so I can't really give a definitive answer yet. I'm waiting to see how things play out, how much effort they put into advertising, media connections, streamers, and additional storefront opportunities, and so on.
Dealing with a publisher is a bit of a dance though: there will be times they request things that you might not agree with (like putting 16:9 support in my game when I /really/ wanted a 4:3 aesthetic), but I think having someone help with things like storefront management, dealing with community/forums, is great if you don't want to do all that yourself.
Every publisher is going to be different of course.