afternoon delight
Member
I'm so excited by so many of these games... Keep up the fantastic work.
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
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So Hollow Knight has now gone up on Kickstarter (somewhat hastily!). But I hope some of you guys might be keen to take a look. There are lots of nifty artworks on there if nothing else!
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
I love everything about this. Usually I'm only 100% sold on a game's art, gameplay or music, but this is stellar in all three aspects. Hopefully I can up my pledge later, but in the mean time good luck!
Comfort Jones
Banned
Damn that's pretty. Definitely keeping an eye on it.
Lord_Balkan
Member
You can get C4 for 88 dollars now
So Hollow Knight has now gone up on Kickstarter (somewhat hastily!). But I hope some of you guys might be keen to take a look. There are lots of nifty artworks on there if nothing else!
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
dang that was fast.
Googling that name, he's apparently an actor who played Pete in Shaun of the Dead, and was the voice of Darh Maul in The Phantom Menace? I'm not familiar with him but I've seen those movies.howwlly shit.
He was Pate in Dark Souls 2 and just really cool!
That looks amazing.
A charge & a slash!
Is there anyhing that can record gifs at 60 FPS? I use Gooncam, which lets me go up to 30, which makes some of it look weird... though the slow-motion after a kill is actually a cool idea, haha.
show me your skeleton
Member
awww @ ashodin.
So Hollow Knight has now gone up on Kickstarter (somewhat hastily!). But I hope some of you guys might be keen to take a look. There are lots of nifty artworks on there if nothing else!
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
Amazing, what is the game's twitter account ?
That actually sounds like a pretty literate 10-year-old given phrases like "utmost consisderation" and "to your benifet" -- with them misspelled and no spellcheck that presumably means they were typing everything.
Faith in future generations very slightly restored?
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
I would guess one way platforms would be on his list of desirables for a platform game if you haven't already done those? (platforms you can stand on by jumping through them from below, but collide when stood on from above, and can be dropped through using crouch + jump or similar when stood upon)
:O
he actually asked me about the game. pretty sure I came across like a lunatic, despite my best efforts to be cool, because I was already a big fan of his from long before this.
guy seems to be a real gamer.
MrNyarlathotep
Banned
Yeah, he's one of the UK comedy celebrigamers along with Simon Pegg, Dara O'Briain, Charlie Brooker, and Graham Lineman.
He's also a god-tier impressionist and voice over guy as I'm sure you know XD
EDIT: for example
Gifs:
This is the new sky and weather system i made for my RPG. The focus is on the artistic side of things, to get the feeling i wanted for my fairy tale world, with dynamic cloud fronts and storms, plus volumetric effects.
Demo (Unity webplayer):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/Sky Master/SKY MASTER FINAL DEMO.html
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEWQ-Hg0pdU
This is the new sky and weather system i made for my RPG. The focus is on the artistic side of things, to get the feeling i wanted for my fairy tale world, with dynamic cloud fronts and storms, plus volumetric effects.
Demo (Unity webplayer):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/Sky Master/SKY MASTER FINAL DEMO.html
Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEWQ-Hg0pdU
show me your skeleton
Member
anyone got any icecream to go with this JELLY.
Just... Wow.So Hollow Knight has now gone up on Kickstarter (somewhat hastily!). But I hope some of you guys might be keen to take a look. There are lots of nifty artworks on there if nothing else!
kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/11662585/hollow-knight
We also just released our first full trailer. It has action and adventure and a tonne of bugs. You can check out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2amTl5lBYM
Its still early days with the game, so the full breadth of gameplay isn't yet being displayed, but I'm hoping I can update with some more animated gifs in the near future.
Here're some more screens from early in the game. The Shaman Temple:
Ok, I'll expand: WOW...
Cameron122
Member
Ok so I want to make a game with many systems within it
Grand Strategy, space combat, and character roleplaying. I've written in (far too many) notebooks about the mechanics and lore, and some short stories. Nothing too original, I just want to see the things I find appealing (history, politics, transhumanism, giant robots that go pew pew pew) in a video game that people would feel passionate in experiencing (I like games where all the let's plays are different and games with modding communities) I'm not here to bother y'all with my day dreaming though.
Part of me wants to make smaller games first, to practice making each system. Been messing around in UE4 since it came out. Trying to get icons representing three different factions move around the map and engage in combat. When they collide with your icon over a bit of the map, it spawns you into a deathmatch taking place in the relevant first person map.
Should I continue with these small projects?
Grand Strategy, space combat, and character roleplaying. I've written in (far too many) notebooks about the mechanics and lore, and some short stories. Nothing too original, I just want to see the things I find appealing (history, politics, transhumanism, giant robots that go pew pew pew) in a video game that people would feel passionate in experiencing (I like games where all the let's plays are different and games with modding communities) I'm not here to bother y'all with my day dreaming though.
Part of me wants to make smaller games first, to practice making each system. Been messing around in UE4 since it came out. Trying to get icons representing three different factions move around the map and engage in combat. When they collide with your icon over a bit of the map, it spawns you into a deathmatch taking place in the relevant first person map.
Should I continue with these small projects?
Hollow Knight looks gorgeous, I specially liked the animated cutscenes.
Congratulations and best of lucks to the team.
Probably. It wont hurt pushing your "final game" back a little on behalf of getting more experience.
Congratulations and best of lucks to the team.
Probably. It wont hurt pushing your "final game" back a little on behalf of getting more experience.
Work on small projects, but see if you can use ideas from your "dream game" in them. That way you learn the skills you need, while at the same time building towards your ambition and consequently you'll also be more motivated.
Because reasons i decided to look at the old Lei sprites and lol, i decided to share the shame with a little retrospective
This is the link if you have problems looking at the image
http://postimg.org/image/m3y8xag7x/
I started after years(a decade or even more?) without drawing(especially on pc) and knowing absolutely nothing about Inkscape and vectorial graphics in general and the first image is the result lol, in the second one there are the first improvements on face, hair and colors, the third one has many body improvements, the fourth one is the actual one with various improvements and more color contrast, the fifth one is the "pixel art" version of the fourth one with just 13 colors while all the others are direct Inkscape exports.
Between the third and the forth there were looooooooots of outfit changes but only small improvements, the actual one is still not final, i have to do better details for jacket and better folds at trousers but i can finally see the end of her design!
It's interesting for me to see that after many outfit changes i returned to the origins with a tank top and a short jacket, at a certain point for reasons that now i don't remember i completely ditched the jacket and most of the outfits i made were without it, then few days ago i decided to try a jacket and i can finally say i'm happy with the actual design, maybe because that's how i imagined her and what i wanted since the beginning.
Then i have to do all her moves, the other characters and their moves, backgrounds, musics etc lol ...
Well at least thanks to this i improved my drawing "skill"(let's say so) both on computer on paper
This is the link if you have problems looking at the image
http://postimg.org/image/m3y8xag7x/
I started after years(a decade or even more?) without drawing(especially on pc) and knowing absolutely nothing about Inkscape and vectorial graphics in general and the first image is the result lol, in the second one there are the first improvements on face, hair and colors, the third one has many body improvements, the fourth one is the actual one with various improvements and more color contrast, the fifth one is the "pixel art" version of the fourth one with just 13 colors while all the others are direct Inkscape exports.
Between the third and the forth there were looooooooots of outfit changes but only small improvements, the actual one is still not final, i have to do better details for jacket and better folds at trousers but i can finally see the end of her design!
It's interesting for me to see that after many outfit changes i returned to the origins with a tank top and a short jacket, at a certain point for reasons that now i don't remember i completely ditched the jacket and most of the outfits i made were without it, then few days ago i decided to try a jacket and i can finally say i'm happy with the actual design, maybe because that's how i imagined her and what i wanted since the beginning.
Then i have to do all her moves, the other characters and their moves, backgrounds, musics etc lol ...
Well at least thanks to this i improved my drawing "skill"(let's say so) both on computer on paper
superNESjoe
Member
We got GunWorld out in just under five months. We had wanted a longer dev time but didn't have the funds to cover it. I'm thrilled with what we did in that amount of time.
Our next game, Kill The Wizard, we hope to release within six months.
Our next game, Kill The Wizard, we hope to release within six months.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Aye. Good call. He didn't ask for it but I'll throw it in for him. I think I have just as many lines of comments as I do code hahaha. Once he gets understanding Unity a bit more I'll lead him to the raycsst and custom physics paradise! If he wants to, of course. Some peeps be happy with unity components and its all gravy.
Woah! Thanks all for the amazing response to Hollow Knight.
The twitter account for Hollow Knight is @TeamCherryGames.
Our coder William has been updating it pretty regularly with pics, gifs and little details. He's always pretty eager to talk about the game, so shoot him any questions, no matter how silly!
You know what this means right? Pate cross-over into Ghost Song!
If Patches can cross from Boletaria to Lordran, then Pate can defs cross from Drangleic to Lorian V. Make it happen Jobbs!
The twitter account for Hollow Knight is @TeamCherryGames.
Our coder William has been updating it pretty regularly with pics, gifs and little details. He's always pretty eager to talk about the game, so shoot him any questions, no matter how silly!
You know what this means right? Pate cross-over into Ghost Song!
If Patches can cross from Boletaria to Lordran, then Pate can defs cross from Drangleic to Lorian V. Make it happen Jobbs!
Phawx
Member
GunWorld is out the door ($4.99 at our website) so we're shifting focus over to our second project. It's a co-operative/competitive game that can be played with 1-4 players. It has a variety of different game modes, but the headlining feature pits 3 players against 1 very powerful wizard.
We're deep into prototyping, and will be doing weekly development/playtesting live streams to get feedback. We've teamed up with a local comic shop to host weekly playtesting sessions too. Pretty excited about this one.
Looks cool already
I posted a thread.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=139538596#post139538596
I was about to jump down his throat and make him do some VO, but I sorta caught myself, realizing that would possibly be rude/annoying. so it was good just to hear from him and hopefully he likes the game!
superNESjoe
Member
Thanks! We're sticking with pixel art again, but shedding the color/resolution restrictions of the NES. We have a really stylized look we want to achieve with the game, it should be really neat looking. We'll start streaming starting next week.
4 months is insane!? How!????
I'm w Mystic River... well over a year and doubt I'm 1/2 done.
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Now that I feel slow and worthless.... the Blpblp animated:
Now that I feel slow and worthless.... the Blpblp animated:
So is your game at least somewhat inspired by Star Control 2? Because that's the vibe I'm getting, and this makes me want to play it very badly. Seriously, can I preorder this? Sign up for a beta...?
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I know this has been asked here before, but I can't find the previous answers... Can you all tell me what you use to convert recorded videos into gif's? Preferably a free program if possible since I don't expect to use it much, but I need to make some animated gif's for reference for an internal design document. Thanks!
Record in Fraps, which basically just snags the framebuffer without compression (so avi files are huge), replay and scale in VLC, and then re-capture with GifCam.
GifCam is really simple to use, but it's not that easy to get well-timed captures in it while also playing the game, which is why I record in Fraps first. Fraps does want you to drop $37 on it though, so a different recorder might be in order. I think I've heard OBS is up to the task, but I've never tried it out myself.
Oh I should have specified, I already have the raw footage recorded, I just need to know how to convert it to GIF format. Is there a direct AVI-to-GIF or MP4-to-GIF or something converter (I can use VirtualDub to convert the raw footage first)?
I generally use GifCam for that. It's a screenspace recorder, but it's really easy to use. I'm not sure about conversion codecs or tools.
Mikado
Member
If you have photoshop/creative cloud, you can open your avi in photoshop, crop it, and Save For Web. You'll need to fiddle with the settings a bit (by default it sets things to Play Once rather than Loop, for example).
I realize it's not free, but lots of folks have it already.
Good eye... yes StarDiver is highly inspired by StarControl2, Starflight, sundog and other space opera games of yesteryear. We don't have any signup yet for alphas/betas yet, or crowd funding options. We will be putting up a kickstart when we have a few more bits done and can put together a good video. The goal for the ks video / trailer is to show all the different modules of the game in a cohesive way. The big worry that I've seen w this project is the younger generation gamer doesn't get what we are making -- even from the videos we post. They assume it's just another space arcade w pretty graphics. Poor kids missed out on Starflights and Starcontrol games
I want to put together a nice video showing:
- few sec of solar navigation movement where an alien ship comes to meet you
- few sec transition to a short dialogue
- 10 sec of battle in a few 2 sec clips of different alien ships.
- few sec solar exploration to a planet
- few sec drop a lander to surface and find some alien tech
- couple quick clips of hyperspace travel, asteroids, mining, etc.
I think showing in sequence like that will help new gamers see that it isn't a scifi arcade, nor a space rts... or 4x game. Back in the day Starflight, starcontrol2, and games like it were called space operas. I tried using that term on indiedb and had a couple comments about seeing the aliens sing is a bit odd, lol (no I don't think they were joking). So, I need a new term for it. How would you guys describe a new space opera game? Action rpg? Action Adventure? Those two seem lacking to me.
For gifs, I use openavitogif. I record w either shadowplay or camtasia recorder to an mp4 then use openavitogif w settings of 960x540 every 3 frames, and 256color looping. Seems to do the trick fairly well if I keep the length of the clip down to 10-12 sec.
superNESjoe
Member
Truly, that man is a king among men.
Here's a work-in-progress map from our next game, Kill The Wizard. Every piece of content in the game is accompanied by "flavor text" detailing its lore and placement within the universe. For some of them, we are channeling extremely cliche and cheesy fantasy conventions. They're delightfully stupid in all the right ways.
Throne Room
"High within the Aerie Keep hides the golden throne of the Bi'ird King. In long-gone ages their keen eyes kept watch o'er the land. Whispers suggest they now protect us from beyond reality. Some say E'agle, the Bi'ird King himself, returns to punish those who desecrate his ancient halls."
Good eye... yes StarDiver is highly inspired by StarControl2, Starflight, sundog and other space opera games of yesteryear. We don't have any signup yet for alphas/betas yet, or crowd funding options. We will be putting up a kickstart when we have a few more bits done and can put together a good video. The goal for the ks video / trailer is to show all the different modules of the game in a cohesive way. The big worry that I've seen w this project is the younger generation gamer doesn't get what we are making -- even from the videos we post. They assume it's just another space arcade w pretty graphics. Poor kids missed out on Starflights and Starcontrol games
I want to put together a nice video showing:
- few sec of solar navigation movement where an alien ship comes to meet you
- few sec transition to a short dialogue
- 10 sec of battle in a few 2 sec clips of different alien ships.
- few sec solar exploration to a planet
- few sec drop a lander to surface and find some alien tech
- couple quick clips of hyperspace travel, asteroids, mining, etc.
I think showing in sequence like that will help new gamers see that it isn't a scifi arcade, nor a space rts... or 4x game. Back in the day Starflight, starcontrol2, and games like it were called space operas. I tried using that term on indiedb and had a couple comments about seeing the aliens sing is a bit odd, lol (no I don't think they were joking). So, I need a new term for it. How would you guys describe a new space opera game? Action rpg? Action Adventure? Those two seem lacking to me.
For gifs, I use openavitogif. I record w either shadowplay or camtasia recorder to an mp4 then use openavitogif w settings of 960x540 every 3 frames, and 256color looping. Seems to do the trick fairly well if I keep the length of the clip down to 10-12 sec.
Awesome, I hope it works out! SC2 is one of my top 10 favorite games of all time (and believe me that was a difficult list to make - everyone should try it sometime, its an interesting mental exercise trying to narrow down an actual list, you'll probably find there's a lot more than 10 games that you've claimed in the past are "probably in my top 10", even if you use my rule of no more than one in the same series in the list).
I wish I had a better idea for a genre name for you, I know what you mean but I'm not sure what I'd call those games, besides AWESOME. Maybe "Space Epic".
You know, when we started on Volgarr I thought no one would be interested in a game with such archaic design concepts like fixed jump arcs, delayed weapon swings, dying in a few hits, infrequent checkpoints, etc, and we were actually at one point thinking of just making it a much smaller game and practically giving it away just to get our name out there, but the interest was much higher than I expected when we put it up on KS. Remember there are a LOT of gamers out there, and unless you are expecting to make millions you only really need a tiny tiny sliver of them to buy your game. Statistically speaking its very likely there's going to be enough interest in practically any game idea to support a small developer, as long as its well-crafted, the only trick is letting the interested people know the game exists.
EDIT: That last spiel is in reference to your concern about the younger gamers not "getting it" - my point was there's probably enough older gamers like me who will immediately recognize the genre and be excited about it if they catch wind of it, even if you can't get the younger ones to understand what it is or why its worth their time.
That Psyscrolr is already coming out is nothing short of amazing. Are you going back to Apexicon straight away or do you have more projects in line already?
I've been pretty stressed out lately after having been contacted to provide a prototype for a video preview for Honey Rose. I was really wondering how the game would hold up in someone else's hands, and I'm *massively* relieved to see that it apparently went okay!
It's here if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEZvthEQQus&feature=youtu.be&a
Now to get back on the saddle, back on track and everything of that sort - in a few days, it'll be Honey's dev first anniversary, and I'm still not even halfway done either, so I have a mountain of stuff to do still!
I've been pretty stressed out lately after having been contacted to provide a prototype for a video preview for Honey Rose. I was really wondering how the game would hold up in someone else's hands, and I'm *massively* relieved to see that it apparently went okay!
It's here if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEZvthEQQus&feature=youtu.be&a
Now to get back on the saddle, back on track and everything of that sort - in a few days, it'll be Honey's dev first anniversary, and I'm still not even halfway done either, so I have a mountain of stuff to do still!
StarCon2 is for sure in my top 10... top 3 even. StarFlight is up there too. Did you ever play starflight? Starcon was an obvious refinement of starflight, one of the starcon devs worked on starflight prior.
I did try out "Epic Space Romp" to describe it. I may try out the simpler "Space Epic" sometimes fewer words is more descriptive, thanks.
That 'trick' you refer to is pretty forefront on my mind lately. I've put our indieDB, steam concept, tig devlog, and our blog site in front of a handful of local IDGA members for feedback and so far very few get a good idea of what the game will be. I'll go for more feedback once I have a good trailer / ks video made (before starting a campaign) and make sure that we are getting through to as many people as we can as to what makes the game fun and unique. I think that often a trailer is the make or break for explaining what a game is and why people should care.
The old-gamer crowd who loved the space operas of the past seem to get it from a few screencaps. Though, I really hope to hit a bigger audience than that. As many here know, there is a huge range of what 'indie' means to different folks budget wise. I'm spending enough making StarDiver that I don't think it's a good idea to just count on the old-school space gamers. Hopefully I'm not being too self-indulgent with the genre choice to risk a big chunk of savings making it. The project it simply too big for just me and I'm not lucky enough to have talented friends who want to work for free, heh.
Fingers crossed everything lines up well for KS and I can get some more help on it.
Thats very cool. Nice combat flow! The Rpg Maker sound effects turned me off a little, but I'm pretty sure they're only placeholders.
I'm really curious, how does Honey look without the mask? Will we ever be able to see her face? Perhaps if we complete the game in less than 4 hours?
I thought I had removed all of these RMK placeholders (and replaced them with.. other placeholders)! I can't remember which are which now.. which one did you recognize as RPG Maker ones?
As to Honey's face, no, the plan is to never show her without the mask - when she doesn't have it on (which is most of the time), you don't get to look at her "normal" self. That's part of the underlying themes/plot - and that way, if you want to, you can imagine it for yourself :-D So, not even for an under 4h reward, though I'll admit the idea is always kinda cool - though I wonder how I'd have to rework it to make it fit a VN... hmm...
electroflame
Member
Well, I'm now of the opinion that Unity 5 is a bit of a mess right now.
Weird performance problems that I can't track, no Deep Profiling (it crashes as soon as you try to use it), random crashes, Enlighten hanging more often than completing, etc.
I started migrating my project over since the Unity techs seemed to be pretty good at fixing engine issues that came up, but it simply isn't worth the trouble right now. Not to mention that there are problems that have been reported since beta 9 that still aren't fixed in beta 13 (namely that occlusion culling disables all lights in the scene).
Hopefully things get better, but I'm kind of regretting buying into it -- and the hype -- ahead of time.
Weird performance problems that I can't track, no Deep Profiling (it crashes as soon as you try to use it), random crashes, Enlighten hanging more often than completing, etc.
I started migrating my project over since the Unity techs seemed to be pretty good at fixing engine issues that came up, but it simply isn't worth the trouble right now. Not to mention that there are problems that have been reported since beta 9 that still aren't fixed in beta 13 (namely that occlusion culling disables all lights in the scene).
Hopefully things get better, but I'm kind of regretting buying into it -- and the hype -- ahead of time.
Never early adopt for another other than fun or curiosity. = P
Well, thanks for the heads up. I have to admit to being tempted to wasting a weekend (or week) with it since we are only mid-way into our project. Sounds like it is more trouble than it's worth to mess with atm. I wonder if Unity will be pushing it out the door as soon as a lot of people expect (some think by end of the year).
electroflame
Member
Actually that was my primary reason. My secondary reason was to check if problems that I had with 4 got fixed in 5, and if not, to submit a report and get it fixed while they were fixing things.
Needless to say, there are way more pressing matters than the couple of issues I had with 4.
I wouldn't be surprised if they push the release to Q1 or Q2 of next year, to be honest. In its current state it's pretty much useless.
I think that they would get better data if they opened the beta up a bit more (there's quite a bit of "I have this problem!" followed by "Well it looks alright here"). If they had more people testing it, it seems like there would be some better data for them to work off of. Note, I don't mean "Everyone gets the beta!" since that would be overwhelming, especially in its current state, but pulling a thousand extra names from a hat wouldn't hurt, I think.
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