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[Warm Machine]

I hope this thread helps to enlighten the readers of GAF. The developers posting here are real people, not corporate robots.

Personally I love talking about the challenges we face as a dev studio and our successes and failures in production. I also love hearing about others and how they handle their own challenges.

GAF, support your devs. We dont have millions in marketing that makes you want to do lavish OTs for our games. We are typically humble and living on the edge simply because we love what we do and want to know how you react to what we create, good or bad.

 

[HK-47]

Again, this is why devs very rarely post openly on GAF.

GAF really likes to brag about how all these devs read it! But no one seems to understand why they don't post on it.

Shot fired.

Kill confirmed.

 

[Violet_0]

this thread took an interesting turn, nice to get an insider look of the industry for a change. I think a lot of my initial confusion about the 150k had to do with the fact that I didn't know how much hard work really goes into 2D animation in fighting games (I think someone mentioned earlier that 70+ (outsourced) artists worked on the game at some point)

And of course that's the beauty of the postmortem. It gives us a chance to reminisce and occasionally vent.

"Signing that deal had charted a new direction in my life. My small three-month project was far behind me and I would spend the next three years, without breaks or weekends off, finishing the game."

absolutely crazy

 

[Noogy]

"Signing that deal had charted a new direction in my life. My small three-month project was far behind me and I would spend the next three years, without breaks or weekends off, finishing the game."

absolutely crazy

Man, it's been six months and I'm still sort of recovering from that. It's pathetic, I know, it's only game development, and in the grand scheme of things pretty insignificant, but an event like that changes a person.

I wasn't a game developer 4 years ago. Now that I've been through it, I sympathize with other developers. I look at video games differently, and can appreciate even the really bad stuff. It's for that reason I could never be a reviewer, I don't think I could get past the amount of work that goes into this stuff, and it would taint my score.

 

[wildfire]

Just want to chime in again and thank everyone for their insightful posts.
May not reach too many people, but the people it does reach it makes a significant impact on and it's something they can share with others.

I have to deal with something kind of similar (PC Thread) where literally just about everything is one CTRL+F or 5 minutes of reading away. It's dozens of hours of work distilled to a single post and yet some people cannot spend 2 minutes to read to the bullet points. And it's their money they are spending!

Drive by posting and lack of interest or thinking past an article title makes me very sad. Depth is the beauty of life, so thanks everyone for sharing. I've read every post in the thread and will keep doing so. Next time I see some of you I'll have to buy some beers.

Funny you should mention that thread. I was hesitant to raise awareness of the Ergodox group buy because I wasn't in the mood to explain why a custom keyboard is so expensive when you don't have a high enough economy of scales.

 

[SouthernDragon]

That postmortem was very insightful for people on the outside looking in. I had never heard of the game before, but the trailer reminded me very much of Muramasa.

After reading the story, I was even more impressed. If I had a 360 I'd purchase the game.

 

[Zissou]

That postmortem was very insightful for people on the outside looking in. I had never heard of the game before, but the trailer reminded me very much of Muramasa.

After reading the story, I was even more impressed. If I had a 360 I'd purchase the game.

It's coming to PC fairly soon.

 

[SouthernDragon]

It's coming to PC fairly soon.

Well, that's another good reason to boot up my Windows partition!

 

[Noogy]

That postmortem was very insightful for people on the outside looking in. I had never heard of the game before, but the trailer reminded me very much of Muramasa.

After reading the story, I was even more impressed. If I had a 360 I'd purchase the game.

Thanks. Patrick (from Giant Bomb) recently did an article focused on the narrative: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/its-dangerous-to-go-alone/1100-4520/

And I'll be giving a panel on the 23rd during PAX East (with my cowriter). I'll also be making a small announcement that might interest you.

 

[Violet_0]

Man, it's been six months and I'm still sort of recovering from that. It's pathetic, I know, it's only game development, and in the grand scheme of things pretty insignificant, but an event like that changes a person.

I wasn't a game developer 4 years ago. Now that I've been through it, I sympathize with other developers. I look at video games differently, and can appreciate even the really bad stuff. It's for that reason I could never be a reviewer, I don't think I could get past the amount of work that goes into this stuff, and it would taint my score.

I find it really rather amazing how dedicated some of you guys can be. Time for me to dust off my 360 and finally purchase a copy Dust: AET or even better yet wait for the PC version

if you don't mind me asking, you mentioned that some websites wouldn't cover your game because of the visuals, did this have anything to do with the anthropomorphic style of some of the characters?

 

[Noogy]

I find it really rather amazing how dedicated some of you guys can be. Time for me to dust off my 360 and finally purchase a copy Dust: AET

if you don't mind me asking, you mentioned that some websites wouldn't cover your game because of the visuals, did this have anything to do with the anthropomorphic style of some of the characters?

Yeah, it sort of did, prominent sites that covered every other Summer of Arcade title that year. It burned at the time but I'm way over it now... looking towards the future Got more games to make.

It also seems to be an issue that Skullgirls ran into, since the artstyle is quite unique among fighters. But the game has real fighting cred, and the underlying mechanics are pretty incredible. I can't imagine the kind of work that goes into balancing a fighter like that.

 

[Hazaro]

Funny you should mention that thread. I was hesitant to raise awareness of the Ergodox group buy because I wasn't in the mood to explain why a custom keyboard is so expensive when you don't have a high enough economy of scales.

There's a Happy Hacking Pro in the OP you know

And who cares? Just put it out there. It's something you like and others might like it and learn something.

Thanks. Patrick (from Giant Bomb) recently did an article focused on the narrative: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/its-dangerous-to-go-alone/1100-4520/

And I'll be giving a panel on the 23rd during PAX East (with my cowriter). I'll also be making a small announcement that might interest you.

I'm pretty sad I won't be there unless something changes.

 

[NEO0MJ]

Thanks. Patrick (from Giant Bomb) recently did an article focused on the narrative: http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/its-dangerous-to-go-alone/1100-4520/

And I'll be giving a panel on the 23rd during PAX East (with my cowriter). I'll also be making a small announcement that might interest you.

The ability to display the game at 4k resolution
Just kidding, but that would be cool. Is it possible?

 

[mclem]

Now that the dust has settled a bit, it's nice that logic prevailed this time.

Is there a process for recommending a thread for archival? This started out disastrous but now it's a phenomenally informative thread, and I think it'd serve well as a reference for the future.

To be honest, I'm constantly amazed at how quickly slash000 can create maps by himself given the quality involved. I mean, he'll frequently pop out an entire main story dungeon (which could be anywhere between 3-8 maps) in under a week and make it look like this (http://zeboyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/RS4_prSc6.png) or this (http://zeboyd.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/RS4_prSc2.png).

Is that tile-based, or just styled to *look* tile-based? I'm asking from the standpoint of whether it was approached as 'drawing a map' or as 'construct a bunch of tiles then fit them together'

 

[Hero]

Man, it's been six months and I'm still sort of recovering from that. It's pathetic, I know, it's only game development, and in the grand scheme of things pretty insignificant, but an event like that changes a person.

I wasn't a game developer 4 years ago. Now that I've been through it, I sympathize with other developers. I look at video games differently, and can appreciate even the really bad stuff. It's for that reason I could never be a reviewer, I don't think I could get past the amount of work that goes into this stuff, and it would taint my score.

Just read the postmortem on Dust and while I knew you were working hard on the game after speaking to you last year at PAX East I didn't realize to the extent.

Really going to try and make it to your panel this year as well. Excited about the announcement too.

 

[dan2026]

Wow logic and clear thinking have prevailed.

The ignorant morons have been defeated and everyone learned a valuable lesson.

Just like a Saturday morning cartoon. Quite admirable.

 

[demidar]

Wow logic and clear thinking have prevailed.

The ignorant morons have been defeated and everyone learned a valuable lesson.

Just like a Saturday morning cartoon. Quite admirable.

We may have won the battle, but the war's not over.

*thousand-yard stare*

 

[Sixfortyfive]

I get that not every character has the same proportions, but I always feel that hitboxes should be the same for all characters. I don't really care if it looks strange that technically an attack is too high to hit a shorter character. I want all characters to have the same vulnerabilities to attacks.

I'm way late, but this has to be my favorite post on GAF in forever. All I can think of is Sentinel vs Rocket Raccoon in MvC3 and laugh.

Not even Divekick does something that absurd......

 

[Clear]

It's for that reason I could never be a reviewer, I don't think I could get past the amount of work that goes into this stuff, and it would taint my score.

Give it time, you might start to hate them with the fiery passion I do! 20 years plus in the biz will do that to you LOL.

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Is that tile-based, or just styled to *look* tile-based? I'm asking from the standpoint of whether it was approached as 'drawing a map' or as 'construct a bunch of tiles then fit them together'

Mix of both approaches.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

I've worked as a programmer on various studios for about 5 years previously, most notably at Grin where I worked on Bionic Commando Rearmed. I was also part of Might and Delight during the startup and worked on Pid for about a year before leaving to go solo. I've only really done 3D art on a hobby level before though, and some very basic Maya courses at uni. Gunman Clive was my third smartphone game, the one before did not make a lot of money and the the first one was more of a joke app than a proper game.

Wow, thanks for that insight. I've recently just called it quits on just doing solo dev (really a lack of resources), but seeing these stats really puts things in perspective, so I guess I can build towards that.

 

[Roto13]

Give it time, you might start to hate them with the fiery passion I do! 20 years plus in the biz will do that to you LOL.

Sometimes it feels bad to give a low score to a game that obviously had a lot of work and a lot of love put into it by a tiny little team.

I'm sorry, Retro City Rampage guy.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

I play plenty of fighting games, and it's been one of my bigger complaints with fighting games. For example, Kuma has a bigger hitbox than most characters in Tekken. This causes him to get hit by moves. For example, Bruce's b2 is a mid attack that is quite strong. When Kuma is laying on the ground idle, it only hits Kuma/Panda. There is no reason for this to be. It isn't balance. It's just an unrealized consequence to him having a larger hitbox. Another Tekken example is that all female characters have a slightly smaller hitbox. This causes certain combos to only work on males. How is that balance? Male characters don't have any sort of universal strength over female.

Hurtbox you mean.

And GuardianE has already gone over how doing what you're suggesting completely fucks up balancing but you chose to ignore those posts so...

 

[cRIPticon]

Wow logic and clear thinking have prevailed.

The ignorant morons have been defeated and everyone learned a valuable lesson.

Just like a Saturday morning cartoon. Quite admirable.

 

[nickp]

Mike Z, creator of Skullgirls, gave a great breakdown of the roles the core staff fulfill. This is especially for those of you who keep repeating the silly question "What are the staff doing if they're outsourcing all these other things?"

MikeZ – programming, scripting, balancing etc. (Note that the Squigly update will also contain other fixes that didn’t make it in the patch.)
Earl – scripting and tuning assistance, PR.
Alex/Kinuko/Persona – animation and art (character portrait/promotional art/model sheets/story art/etc). Note that most animation is roughed in-house, put into the game to test, then keyframed in-house, and only outsourced for the final inbetweens. There’s more than enough work left. :^P
Richard – cleanup lead (cleaning up important animations like idles/walks/attacks, directing the cleanup contractors).
Brian – palettes, contractor management and misc everything else art-related.
Peter – coordinator (ever try dealing with 200 contractors?), PR, producer.

 

[IHaveCandy]

Hurtbox you mean.

And GuardianE has already gone over how doing what you're suggesting completely fucks up balancing but you chose to ignore those posts so...

No, we ultimately came to the point that it would standardize the fighters more. His view was that you end up with "Divekick" (ie a very boring, conventional fighter). My view is that while the game will play more conventionally, it doesn't have to be boring. I prefer less superficial variables in fighting games. Neither are wrong. From the start I was simply saying what I prefer.

I'm way late, but this has to be my favorite post on GAF in forever. All I can think of is Sentinel vs Rocket Raccoon in MvC3 and laugh.

Not even Divekick does something that absurd......

Well I'm not really talking about a fighting game where a giant robot and a wolf can go toe to toe. Obviously what I'm saying isn't meant for all fighting games. As I've said, I prefer fighting games with fighters having more parity. I don't like asymmetrical battles in fighting games as much. I don't get what is absurd about it. If I said I prefer shooters that don't have you aiming down iron sights, would you laugh and say a game like ARMA II or Red Orchestra would be hilariously bad without iron sights? I'd assume no. I'd assume you'd assume that I just don't prefer those sort of shooters as much.

 

[KingofSarus]

Who in the FUCK is hatin' on Based Broads?!

Who? Who, I say, goddammit!? Point them to me now!!

 

[A Pretty Panda]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/worth-reading-03-01-2013/1100-4589/

God damn it I should have made this thread when I had the chance. My horrendous thread would have been on giantbomb.com!

 

[XiaNaphryz]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/worth-reading-03-01-2013/1100-4589/

God damn it I should have made this thread when I had the chance. My horrendous thread would have been on giantbomb.com!

Heh, from the comments there:

I legitemately don't know why people like Patrick always check out what this vBulletin message-board at Neogaf dot com think of their stuff.

We all know it's a bunch of jaded, elitist, uninformed, belligerant dudes with anime avatars sharing snarky asshole .gifs and image macros, and it's been that since forever... it makes about as much sense as judging "public opinion" on youtube comments or Reddit posts, or 4chan threads.

It's 2013: we don't care about screenshot galleries, or system-wars, or decimal points in a review score any more. Patrick- and a lot of other people- are writing stuff that's a lot more interesting than that old shit, so why am I still hearing "NeoGaf" pop up so much? Just leave it in the dust, guys!

I've never been to NeoGaf before. But are like 90% of the people there assholes?

That thread was fucking awful.

I wonder how they'd react to the NeoGAF documentary.

 

[Kai Dracon]

Heh, from the comments there:





I wonder how they'd react to the NeoGAF documentary.

The first quote sounds like a banned GAF member.

 

[Ravidrath]

I was actually going to stay out of this thread, but joined in after a handful of industry friends linked it to me on Facebook and in IM.

Their reactions were along the lines of "This thread makes me so fucking angry" or "What a bunch of ignorant, entitled children."

I think a lot of people in the industry were watching the thread yesterday, absolutely seething.


Regarding Dave Lang's Twitter quote in there... I'm not sure I agree with it.

The problem I see with that statement is that while the majority of people shouldn't care and only worry about getting their money's worth out of the game, gamers' expectations are getting seriously out of line with the financial reality of the games business.

People always want bigger and longer games with movie-quality graphics - that is natural and expected. But those things are expensive and get more expensive every generation, but no one wants the prices of their games to go up, deal with microtransactions, DLC, etc.

I mean, you're looking at the reason why GAF thinks creativity in games is stagnating right there: many players' production expectations are completely out of line with what is financially recoupable, and as a result the publishers are becoming more and more risk-averse with game content or trying to supplement their income through other means.

So, as I see it, either we try to teach people about the costs of games to temper their expectations or make them understand the costs of those expectatons, or we (somehow) narrow the content choices even further, so that more products are "safe" enough to justify their budgets.

 

[SupaNaab]

Would love to hear Giant Bomb discuss this on the podcast

 

[TheOGB]

The conversation, while tough, is well worth it, I say. If none of you with experience came forward and confronted the ignorance we'd still be sitting here fucked, griping about shit we don't know about and saying disrespectful shit to devs that don't deserve it. Does it still happen here? Of course, thisisneogaf.gif, but somebody had to get the ball rolling.

It's a process. Learning doesn't happen all at once, or with only one story to go by, as this thread has shown. But making the effort to initiate and have the painful conversation is better than nothing being said.

 

[SixMachine]

No, we ultimately came to the point that it would standardize the fighters more. His view was that you end up with "Divekick" (ie a very boring, conventional fighter). My view is that while the game will play more conventionally, it doesn't have to be boring. I prefer less superficial variables in fighting games. Neither are wrong. From the start I was simply saying what I prefer.




Well I'm not really talking about a fighting game where a giant robot and a wolf can go toe to toe. Obviously what I'm saying isn't meant for all fighting games. As I've said, I prefer fighting games with fighters having more parity. I don't like asymmetrical battles in fighting games as much. I don't get what is absurd about it. If I said I prefer shooters that don't have you aiming down iron sights, would you laugh and say a game like ARMA II or Red Orchestra would be hilariously bad without iron sights? I'd assume no. I'd assume you'd assume that I just don't prefer those sort of shooters as much.

It's quite obvious you don't play fighting games. Having visuals and feedback that a player can effectively use is a huge part of playing fighting games. When playing footsies and if hurtboxes weren't adjusted for each character's frame, you know how utterly screwed up for the player would be? Since someone like Zangief or even Bison have a wide stance, but if they had the same hurtbox as Chun-li, it would be hard to use visual confirmations to be on point. What if you went for a low sweep and it went through their front leg? Well you just screwed yourself because now you are whiff punished. What if someone jumped over you on wakeup? Well you might get crossed up and eat a whole combo because your hurtbox doesn't match your character.

Also would you only want hurtbox standardize on neutral stance animations or something? You need to make different hurtboxes anyways for every attack. Imagine if Dhalsim didn't have a hurtbox on his limbs.

Even little nuances like crouch heights would be huge in a fighting game. When Ryu crouched in UMVC3, he needs to block a Doom beam. If Morrigan crouches, she can completely go under it, which is important because not only does she not eat chip, but she is also not put into block stun so she can move wherever she pleases, while Ryu needs to wait till he is out of block stun.

 

[Raging Spaniard]

I think teaching people who want to learn is something that should be done. The problem lies in the dismissive and abrasive attitude of those who assume how something is made just because they have a faint connection to it.

A lot of the negative comments come from defensive people who just have to link their own sensibilities to every argument. It sad but also kind of unavoidable when you deal with a passion based business such as this one.

 

[dLMN8R]

Giant Bomb --> my thread --> Giant Bomb


Time to pack it up. My life is now complete.

 

[alstein]

Ultimately, what we care about, and what we think costs are, is largely determined by the market.

If we're used to get X for $Y, when that doesn't happen, people will feel like they're being ripped off.

In a way, the SG team is lucky FG fans are as crazy as they are- FG folks are more willing to pay big for their games than many other genres. They're similar to TBS gamers in that regard.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

Giant Bomb --> my thread --> Giant Bomb


Time to pack it up. My life is now complete.

It could have been me.

It could have been me

 

[Neuromancer]

Heh, from the comments there:

I legitemately don't know why people like Patrick always check out what this vBulletin message-board at Neogaf dot com think of their stuff.

We all know it's a bunch of jaded, elitist, uninformed, belligerant dudes with anime avatars sharing snarky asshole .gifs and image macros, and it's been that since forever... it makes about as much sense as judging "public opinion" on youtube comments or Reddit posts, or 4chan threads.

It's 2013: we don't care about screenshot galleries, or system-wars, or decimal points in a review score any more. Patrick- and a lot of other people- are writing stuff that's a lot more interesting than that old shit, so why am I still hearing "NeoGaf" pop up so much? Just leave it in the dust, guys!

This guy's a little bitter.

 

[Wyndstryker]

If this thread can get more people informed about the realities of game development and the whole financial line of things then things can hopefully go for the better.

Even when it comes to the general public, there is a ton of stuff that shows how movies are made but when it comes to gaming it's almost non-existent. There is a definite gap between what is known and what the realities are.

 

[Harlock]

Another news that going to shock a lot of people here: the PS4 will cost money to be made.

 

[rudds]

I think what surprises me the most is the desire to cling to one's intuition about things they clearly know little about. For instance, someone earlier in the thread seemed to be operating from a position of authority because they are employed as a software engineer, and I don't know why that is supposed to come across as meaningful. I've worked as a full-time software developer now for six years, and I'm sure that there are Wal-Mart greeters who probably know about as much as I do about the scope of working on a 2D, hand-drawn fighting game. The reason is that what I work on isn't remotely similar to a 2D fighting game, and merely working on "software" doesn't give me much insight into what the development process of such a project would be.

As such, I don't understand the stubbornness of some to cling to their own intuition in spite of what people who know what they're talking about are telling them. It's rather bizarre to me.

Not to dredge up a post from several pages ago, but you'll probably find it easier to parse a lot of the infuriating discussion that takes place on the Internet if you familiarize yourself with this particular psychological phenomenon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

In short, the less competent, intelligent, or capable a person is, the more likely they are to be convinced of their absolute competence, intelligence, or capability.

 

[Roto13]

Another news that going to shock a lot of people here: the PS4 will cost money to be made.

People are already shocked that backwards compatibility costs money.

 

[Servbot24]

http://www.giantbomb.com/articles/worth-reading-03-01-2013/1100-4589/

God damn it I should have made this thread when I had the chance. My horrendous thread would have been on giantbomb.com!

Oh god, I feel so ashamed now. Like actual real life shame.

 

[Piers]

I also like how the designs of the characters are "simple" so it should be done in a week i guess because they're toony, which is ignoring all the costume details which would need to be kept relatively consistent in the animation.

EDIT- im out. all these people saying a professionally animated 1000+ frame character should be done in a week for free is pissing me off

You'd be surprised how little pay animators can get, particularly when starting off. Done work for clients and small studios, and must of the time I either get no pay or little amount that it just about covers travel costs. There's so many animators these days that the number (even with a Masters degree) far outnumbers studios with an available budget.

Then again it's not really as tough as graphic designers, photographers, or artists in general - at least far as I know in the UK.

 

[A Pretty Panda]

"Want to see the #Skullgirls clean-up process in action? Then come watch Richard Suh do it live, on-stream! http://www.twitch.tv/labzero"

http://www.twitch.tv/labzero

 

[Roto13]

"Want to see the #Skullgirls clean-up process in action? Then come watch Richard Suh do it live, on-stream! http://www.twitch.tv/labzero"

http://www.twitch.tv/labzero

Pshh, I could do that with a crayon in my mom's basement

 

[A Pretty Panda]

Pshh, I could do that with a crayon in my mom's basement

I will pay you with one sandwich. Actually you're lazy and don't deserve that much. Half a sandwich.

 

[Ravidrath]

Animation streaming now.

http://www.twitch.tv/labzero​

Why the fuck do I pay these guys? With Ambien, I could do this in my sleep.


EDIT: Big Band funded!

 

[Hazaro]

Thoughts on putting your 'Playing Game' on Skullgirls?
Or are you just going to leave it as is?

*Congrats! The fan devotion to this game is crazy. Honestly didn't think it would get that high.