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GAF Indie Game Development Thread 2: High Res Work for Low Res Pay

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i really would like to make music for a video game again -- i also don't really care that much about getting paid. anyone want any probably free music? im pretty good at it

I'm just listening to your bandcamp now, I'm really goddamn digging it.

PM me your contact details?
 

correojon

Member
i really would like to make music for a video game again -- i also don't really care that much about getting paid. anyone want any probably free music? im pretty good at it

I can´t open your soundcloud page now (stupid site blocker at work), but I´ve sent you a PM with one song request, hope you like the idea.
 

SomTervo

Member
If it makes you feel better - my god that game looks good.

Never heard of it but its now on my watch list for this year.

Yep, it's a looker - bear in mind I have done literally nothing for the look! I've impacted the design in a few ways, little tweaks/new items to balance it a bit better. Aside from that, the way the game looks/plays has nothing to do with my work.

It's a pretty damn good adventure. One of the few really challenging survival games out there, with a great sense of mystery. I've only played through it start-to-finish once, but have played the early levels countless times.

when I see how much people work on stuff it makes me feel really lazy. Reminds me that I could probably work my harder than I am currently. Game looks pretty sweet.

Thanks pal. I was lazy for years and years, always procrastinating and not doing shit. It took a really difficult, horrible job for me to realise that money doesn't matter and life is only worth living if you do something you're truly into. In my case, I really wanted to work in games. So I decided to make a roadmap for the 'dream job'.

Plus two of my colleagues left their design posts to go freelance, and that was really inspirational. Helping them set up their businesses and seeing how life changes when you're working on your passion was really enlightening. You have to get organised.

Wow that looks super impressive man, I just realised this game is connected to Hourences!

Yeah, the juggle between real life, actually doing money-related work and passion work can burn you out after a while.

Yeah, the guy's a machine! I'm working directly with him at least once a week, usually. I had little/nothing to do with the game design or creation, I was just taken on board to shoehorn as much story content as possible in and to try and give it some structure. It's very difficult, but pretty satisfying. Will be interesting to see how players/critics respond.

After millions of years, I now have a script controlling actual ingame behavior! Progress.

Yussssssssssss

i really would like to make music for a video game again -- i also don't really care that much about getting paid. anyone want any probably free music? im pretty good at it

There are countless opportunities out there and I'm sure your talents would be in demand. Do a few Google searchers for communities like this one and start sending emails/messages. Also look for the websites of indie devs and drop them an email.
 

missile

Member
Did anyone here ever did some small games on microcontroller or embedded
hardware? I remember LaMothe (an old graphics head) who has build his own
hardware but I never followed the project. Any one has some experiences to
share?

So late last year I did some work multithreading my framework to take advantage of all the lovely CPU cores people have lying around nowadays. Despite how long I've been programming I've never actually written any multithreaded code before.

I started by getting rid of the annoying pause I had when saving out a screenshot by compressing and writing out the PNG file in a separate thread.

I then moved everything except the Windows message processing loop into its own thread. This got rid of a pet peeve of mine. My framework now keeps updating when the window is dragged or the system menu opened. I also did a similar thing for the OS X version.

I've just come back to it after leaving it for awhile, and have started threading the asset loading starting with hotloaded textures.

So far implementing a threaded engine has been... fine. Pretty easy actually. I've heard all these stories about how difficult this is supposed to be but it really hasn't been.

I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely in my naiveté i've missed something important and that's the only reason it's gone so smoothly and i'll be paying for it with hard to debug random crashes later. But so far ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think it's easier to break up an already working single-threaded program
into some parts getting multi-threaded than creating a new program utilizing
multi-threading and real data-parallel programming concepts right from the
start to utilize the resources as efficient as possible. Btw; Any news about
your game?
 

Koralsky

Member
Our debut game, Project Elea:

giphy.gif


It is a first-person interactive storytelling adventure title, inspired from the books of classic Sci-Fi authors like Stanislaw Lem, Arthur C. Clarke and Frank Herbert.

More info ---> http://on.fb.me/1RZXjJX
 

jarosh

Member
sometimes you just gotta loooooove GameMaker...

jQCBaad.png

7eiqyPG.png

sMBIbZN.png


Yes, of course, the fractional part of 2 is... 1. That makes a lot of sense. Just love losing hours debugging the results of this insanity only to discover that it's completely out of my hands.


edit: I can't believe I just had to this... Both floor() and ceil() give fucked up results on this one var for some completely arbitrary reason. It's not a rounding error, not even changing the epsilon value helped (of course everything's a float in GM anyway). And floor() should take care of it anyway. But somehow it rounds down 2 (which for all I know may be 2.00000001) to 1! And I'm moving in straightforward 0.2 steps. So this is the only fix that worked:

AUYCs1d.png


lmao
 

Exuro

Member
I could use some tips/pointer. I'm messing around with endless runners and am trying to determine the best way to stitch the environment pieces together. I was hoping I that after a piece has left some x area my spawner would be able to create and place a random piece next to it but I'm getting small gaps inbetween. Right now I just have a single flat plane that I'm trying to get 2-3 stitched at the same time and then just recycle them as they move off the screen. Any thoughts on how to make sure theres no gap, or if this isn't a great way to handle it?

I've done a simple runner game that has a single floor, as well as a runner that has platforms you jump to but I'm wanting to try making more lifelike environments where I have x number of environment pieces that I can go between.


I want to dive into JTAG further down the road possibly when I'm going to
switch over to more advanced hardware. The Arduino Nano (I'm currently using
for Retrotron) doesn't support JTAG. On the other hand I don't won't to get
lost debugging using JTAG in a trail-and-error fashion, because I think the
best debugger sits between your ears for the most part.

What JTAG device are you going to use, and on what hardware/board?
I have no idea yet. We're making a test board at work for devices me make and someone I don't know picked out the chip so I'll need to figure that out this week and decide if its the one we want. I've used Atmel chips previously and am familiar with their software so hopefully I'll stick with that/something similar.
 
Those sprites look really good, the big ones almost seem out of a good KOF game. You shouldn´t feel bad for shrinking the sprites, I think I like them more than the big versions. Also, the mix of styles you have used, with heavy dithering for the environment and solid shadows for the character, matches beatifully. And those fluid animations makes it breathtaking in movement. How many frames do the standing and running animations have?

thanks, the big style will return one day.

The flat players on dithered tiles worked well in early experiments so I stuck with it, animating a character without shading is a lot easier too, everything important also has either a dark blue or dark red outline depending on friend or foe status.

The running animation is 8 looped frames but has 3 start up frames for the smaller sprite.
 
Could I get some light legal advice if anyone knows -

I'm promoting my game on Patreon where pledgers of $3 get added to a monthly newsletter. In this month's newsletter, I want to say what animation studios and animes influenced my game's style (it's a Japanese anime style game). Am I safe with saying this?

It's nothing specific like "I really liked so-and-so's hair from *anime* so I copied it!!!" it's more the overall illustrative style that I will be talking about.

I don't see this being an issue in a game-dev blog, but since the newsletter would technically be a paid product, I don't want it to fall under any bullshit legal things.
 

oxrock

Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
Well, my game "Plink Tactics" has finally released!!!! Several gaffers have been helpful in one way or another along the overly long development, so I just want to thank you all. Here's my website with info if anyone should be interested in a FREE android game Trailor is available at that link for any interested.

Here's some screenies:
lvl1_cropped.png
lvl3_cropped.png
lvl7_cropped.png
lvl9_cropped.png


It's just a simple game inspired by the game plinko. I pretty much took that basic concept and did what I could to make it more interesting. It's my first official game release, so I'm pretty excited to have finally put out a finished project. My goal was to make a family friendly relaxing game, and I think it's pretty good for that. Anyway, I hope you all check it out.
 
Guys.

Question.

Thinking of adding a new subclass (might do away with subclasses altogether and just do classes) for the prototype (really just doodles/brainstorms at this point).

I really dislike the video game trope of naming stuff very similarly to the thing you're parodying (PlayCube Gamestation, anyone?), but I'm still giving base archetypes to my subclasses/classes:

* Firefly/Farscape/Dr. Who
* Star Trek
* Star Wars/Starship Troopers/Stargate
* Song of Ice and Fire
* Pokemon
* My Little Pony
* Grimm Fairy Tales
* Gaslamp/Steampunk
* Marvel/DC (Superheroes)
* Hasbro/Transformers
* Fanfic

Any ideas for what fandom archetype I could do for the 12th?
 

el_Nikolinho

Neo Member
thought I'd try making and finishing a game this year. I'm making some sort of vaporwave nightmare at the moment. I know the vhs stuff is getting pretty done to death but I think it's still a cool style.
KiKLzCV.png

bwmqI74.png
 

Sadsic

Member
Guys.

Question.

Thinking of adding a new subclass (might do away with subclasses altogether and just do classes) for the prototype (really just doodles/brainstorms at this point).

I really dislike the video game trope of naming stuff very similarly to the thing you're parodying (PlayCube Gamestation, anyone?), but I'm still giving base archetypes to my subclasses/classes:

* Firefly/Farscape/Dr. Who
* Star Trek
* Star Wars/Starship Troopers/Stargate
* Song of Ice and Fire
* Pokemon
* My Little Pony
* Grimm Fairy Tales
* Gaslamp/Steampunk
* Marvel/DC (Superheroes)
* Hasbro/Transformers
* Fanfic

Any ideas for what fandom archetype I could do for the 12th?

Steven Universe is pretty big right now, you could also combine it with Gravity Falls and Adventure Time if you wanted to, it could be like a "sophisticated" western cartoon category

you could also do Sonic/Furries, but that might be creepy lol

Anime/Manga/Otaku Culture as a whole could also be a thing
 
Steven Universe is pretty big right now, you could also combine it with Gravity Falls and Adventure Time if you wanted to, it could be like a "sophisticated" western cartoon category

you could also do Sonic/Furries, but that might be creepy lol

Anime/Manga/Otaku Culture as a whole could also be a thing

MLP and Pokemon basically cover the Sonic/Furry ground.

Cartoons actually seem like they could work, and anime/manga would fall straight into that.

Thanks!
 

SeanNoonan

Member
It's my first official game release, so I'm pretty excited to have finally put out a finished project. My goal was to make a family friendly relaxing game, and I think it's pretty good for that. Anyway, I hope you all check it out.

Great job finishing your first game - you've succeeded where so many others fail!

I had a pretty good night of gamedev on Jack B. Nimble - got the penultimate level finished. One more to go!
 
So my friend wanted to make a quick and simple mobile game that we can both add on our portfolio, and after a few weeks(an hour or so worth of work everyday since we both have day jobs), here is the progress.

https://youtu.be/J9wGfCDBIyE

Music is placeholder(it's from Umihara Kawase), I've done all art and my friend did all the programming.

there are still a lot of work to be done both gameplay,programming and art-wise, hopefully we can finish everything by the end of this month.

the "company logo" is an inside joke btw, it's not real

also the loading screen

 

oxrock

Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
So my friend wanted to make a quick and simple mobile game that we can both add on our portfolio, and after a few weeks(an hour or so worth of work everyday since we both have day jobs), here is the progress.

https://youtu.be/J9wGfCDBIyE

Music is placeholder(it's from Umihara Kawase), I've done all art and my friend did all the programming.

there are still a lot of work to be done both gameplay,programming and art-wise, hopefully we can finish everything by the end of this month.

the "company logo" is an inside joke btw, it's not real

also the loading screen
Please tell me you can ride the walrus!

I just got done updating my app's store icon, what do you guys think?

Before:

sRdG7oa.png



After

Z4LTc3j.png
 
Please tell me you can ride the walrus!

We're still experimenting on alot of gameplay stuff and currently, you can only ride the bird(the current end game screen is outdated). But now that this has been suggested, I'm actually thinking about it but I'm not sure what are we gonna do with a walrus riding mechanic(we are both terrible game designer).


I just got done updating my app's store icon, what do you guys think?

I would probably want icons to be more striking and shiny(it's the very first thing the players will see and judge) but I'm biased because I love shiny UIs and Icons and they always get my attention first.

Fake Edit:
as I was typing this, I thought, might as well do what I wanted to see in an icon lol.
here's quick PS work without straying too much away from the original design.
srQo2z4.png
 

oxrock

Gravity is a myth, the Earth SUCKS!
We're still experimenting on alot of gameplay stuff and currently, you can only ride the bird(the current end game screen is outdated). But now that this has been suggested, I'm actually thinking about it but I'm not sure what are we gonna do with a walrus riding mechanic(we are both terrible game designer).




I would probably want icons to be more striking and shiny(it's the very first thing the players will see and judge) but I'm biased because I love shiny UIs and Icons and they always get my attention first.

Fake Edit:
as I was typing this, I thought, might as well do what I wanted to see in an icon lol.
here's quick PS work without straying too much away from the original design.
srQo2z4.png

ok, you win. That looks SOOOOOOOO much better. Would you mind if I used it?
 

ZServ

Member
Work has begun on Dungeon 3. But, before I get too far ahead of myself, I thought I'd get some feedback on if it seems fine thus far.

Room 1, marked with an E, is the entrance. There are two possible ways to go, here. Upwards, to room 10, and right, to room 2. If a player goes to room 10, and then tries to go to room 9, the block puzzle there will stop them from progressing, tunneling them back into room 10, potentially 8, and inevitably back to 2. From there, the player will go from 3 to 4 to 5, where they'll see another statue like in 10, but be unable to interact with it. Up to room 6, through to room 7, which will unlock a shortcut to room 8, meaning coming back through will allow the player to go 1 -> 10 -> 8 -> 7, rather than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

From room 7, the player can progress to room 9, and interact with the block puzzle. Just imagine there's a lantern or something behind the red block, that halts its vertical progress, but not horizontal. The player can then push the red block (which will be a statue, mind you, just a red block for the sake of design) onto either the red or blue switch. Once one is pressed, the blue block will now be accessible. The player will then backtrack to room 5, push it through to room 9 and onto the other switch. This will open up that blue path in room 4, leading to the second wing of the dungeon.

This is an incredibly QUICK design, just meant to get the ideas out there. These won't be empty rooms, they'll surely have their own puzzles, enemies, etc.

Dungeon 1 was designed in such a way that there was only one instance of backtracking throughout the entire dungeon, everything else was following that "circular design" concept I posted a while back. Dungeon 2's first wing had some backtracking in that one path was blocked off until you interacted with another, but again, wasn't mandatory, and a clever player could go through the entire dungeon without backtracking, though the second wing would be much harder to do that in.

This wing in Dungeon 3 is mainly meant to really push the player to go "okay, I can't go here yet. We'll come back to this later." The hope is that by changing how the player interacts with the individual rooms (as opposed to a one-shot deal with Dungeon 1 and interacting with rooms for a very brief period in Dungeon 2), that come Wing 2, I can start to do stuff like this on a larger scale. Go down path A, unlock C. Do C, unlock B. Do B, unlock D, fight boss.

The Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time was fantastic for things like this. "I can't interact with this from here, maybe I should try and find another way."

Although, I also fear that this may be too sloppy, due to my inexperience. But, that's why I'm posting for feedback. :)
 
Goddamnit, this shader is starting to shit me off.

I'm gonna throw my issue here and see if anyone has had experience with this, if not, it's a rant post :( Win-win situation!

(I'm using Shader Forge by the way)

I'm literally missing one thing, replacing bands of shadow with a Hatch texture.

This is what I'm trying to acheive

example1.jpg


Basically what I'm trying to do is remap the Normal Dir/Light Dir dot product into the darkest shade, clamp it, then lerp that as the Time value between the regular Diffuse Texture and the Hatch Texture.

Now after that I'm completely stumped.

I've tried tooling around with it, blending it, multiplying it ,adding it, subtracting it into the rest of the nodes right before the plug goes into Custom Lighting but either it does nothing, or overlays the entire texture over the material, irrespective of angle or light.

So, I'm pretty much banging my head against the wall because I don't know where to go from here.
 

correojon

Member
An ugly screen of the current progress:
9a2o9TU.jpg

It looks horrible, but I just wanted to share it so I can come back to it some time later and compare how the game looked at the beginning vs what it will finally look like. Thing is, creating the sprites and backgrounds is taking a lot of time, so I might go for an even simpler look, something like They Need to be Fed, which is very simple but works very well:
I may do it just to push development forward and later come back to the assets to pump them up.

Work has begun on Dungeon 3. But, before I get too far ahead of myself, I thought I'd get some feedback on if it seems fine thus far.


Room 1, marked with an E, is the entrance. There are two possible ways to go, here. Upwards, to room 10, and right, to room 2. If a player goes to room 10, and then tries to go to room 9, the block puzzle there will stop them from progressing, tunneling them back into room 10, potentially 8, and inevitably back to 2. From there, the player will go from 3 to 4 to 5, where they'll see another statue like in 10, but be unable to interact with it. Up to room 6, through to room 7, which will unlock a shortcut to room 8, meaning coming back through will allow the player to go 1 -> 10 -> 8 -> 7, rather than 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

From room 7, the player can progress to room 9, and interact with the block puzzle. Just imagine there's a lantern or something behind the red block, that halts its vertical progress, but not horizontal. The player can then push the red block (which will be a statue, mind you, just a red block for the sake of design) onto either the red or blue switch. Once one is pressed, the blue block will now be accessible. The player will then backtrack to room 5, push it through to room 9 and onto the other switch. This will open up that blue path in room 4, leading to the second wing of the dungeon.

This is an incredibly QUICK design, just meant to get the ideas out there. These won't be empty rooms, they'll surely have their own puzzles, enemies, etc.

Dungeon 1 was designed in such a way that there was only one instance of backtracking throughout the entire dungeon, everything else was following that "circular design" concept I posted a while back. Dungeon 2's first wing had some backtracking in that one path was blocked off until you interacted with another, but again, wasn't mandatory, and a clever player could go through the entire dungeon without backtracking, though the second wing would be much harder to do that in.

This wing in Dungeon 3 is mainly meant to really push the player to go "okay, I can't go here yet. We'll come back to this later." The hope is that by changing how the player interacts with the individual rooms (as opposed to a one-shot deal with Dungeon 1 and interacting with rooms for a very brief period in Dungeon 2), that come Wing 2, I can start to do stuff like this on a larger scale. Go down path A, unlock C. Do C, unlock B. Do B, unlock D, fight boss.

The Spirit Temple in Ocarina of Time was fantastic for things like this. "I can't interact with this from here, maybe I should try and find another way."

Although, I also fear that this may be too sloppy, due to my inexperience. But, that's why I'm posting for feedback. :)
It looks very interesting and seems you are getting a nice design by evolving in concepts taught to the player in previous dungeons, so I´d say it´s good.


thanks, the big style will return one day.

The flat players on dithered tiles worked well in early experiments so I stuck with it, animating a character without shading is a lot easier too, everything important also has either a dark blue or dark red outline depending on friend or foe status.

The running animation is 8 looped frames but has 3 start up frames for the smaller sprite.
I´m using a 6 frame running animation and it doesn´t look nearly as fluid as yours, you really have some mad spriting skills. Also, great idea on the blue or red border to distinguish friends and foes.
 

ZServ

Member
An ugly screen of the current progress:
9a2o9TU.jpg

It looks horrible, but I just wanted to share it so I can come back to it some time later and compare how the game looked at the beginning vs what it will finally look like. Thing is, creating the sprites and backgrounds is taking a lot of time, so I might go for an even simpler look, something like They Need to be Fed, which is very simple but works very well:

I may do it just to push development forward and later come back to the assets to pump them up.
This is how I personally make content. Sketch out the rough idea, regardless of what it is. New area? Sketch out the map. New item? What does it do? Graphics? What is the end goal?

You need to nail that core idea first, and then you can repeatedly remake it, slightly better each time. I also suggest keeping old builds/screen shots nearby, it's done wonders for my own self esteem to be able to clearly go "these are the things that are new in the last month/3 months/year."

Simple isn't bad, neither is complex. I suggest figuring out what your mechanics are first, and then let those influence your decision. Lots of enemy types, I'd lean towards simple, but if very few, go towards more complex. That's just me, personally, though.

It looks very interesting and seems you are getting a nice design by evolving in concepts taught to the player in previous dungeons, so I´d say it´s good.

Thank you very much. :)
 

Pehesse

Member
Hey all :) Been a while, and I wanted to come back with awesome Honey news, but I've just been referred this, and I just had to share this blast from the past (for me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knoL9eu5JNk&feature=youtu.be

I've worked on this game as the backgrounds guy, so you can see some of my stuff from before Honey in there (could you tell?) :-D
I thought the game was stuck in development hell and I had kind of lost hope it'd see the light of day, so I'm glad it finally resurfaced, even though I actually know very little about it beyond the backgrounds!

And Honey? She's doing just fine - I'm lining the animations for the 5th enemy of the one vs. many segment, of which there are 6 as you might recall. Not posting them until it's all in context :v

Plenty of awesome posted lately in here, congrats everyone, it's great to keep the motivation up! Let's all keep trucking forward!
 

Sparse

Member
thought I'd try making and finishing a game this year. I'm making some sort of vaporwave nightmare at the moment. I know the vhs stuff is getting pretty done to death but I think it's still a cool style.
KiKLzCV.png

bwmqI74.png
Looks like the kind of vaporwave nightmare I could get behind (or is it spooked? I dunno).

Considered going full vaporwave and having Basic shapes and statues falling into the void around the game space?
 

Dascu

Member
Goddamnit, this shader is starting to shit me off.

I'm gonna throw my issue here and see if anyone has had experience with this, if not, it's a rant post :( Win-win situation!

(I'm using Shader Forge by the way)

I'm literally missing one thing, replacing bands of shadow with a Hatch texture.

This is what I'm trying to acheive

http://s30.postimg.org/mi2m8bwap/example1.jpg[IMG]

Basically what I'm trying to do is remap the Normal Dir/Light Dir dot product into the darkest shade, clamp it, then lerp that as the Time value between the regular Diffuse Texture and the Hatch Texture.

Now after that I'm completely stumped.

I've tried tooling around with it, blending it, multiplying it ,adding it, subtracting it into the rest of the nodes right before the plug goes into Custom Lighting but either it does nothing, or overlays the entire texture over the material, irrespective of angle or light.

So, I'm pretty much banging my head against the wall because I don't know where to go from here.[/QUOTE]
I unfortunately cannot help you, but if you do figure it out, would you mind letting me know how? I'd be quite interested.
 

missile

Member
sometimes you just gotta loooooove GameMaker...

jQCBaad.png

7eiqyPG.png

sMBIbZN.png


Yes, of course, the fractional part of 2 is... 1. That makes a lot of sense. Just love losing hours debugging the results of this insanity only to discover that it's completely out of my hands.


edit: I can't believe I just had to this... Both floor() and ceil() give fucked up results on this one var for some completely arbitrary reason. It's not a rounding error, not even changing the epsilon value helped (of course everything's a float in GM anyway). And floor() should take care of it anyway. But somehow it rounds down 2 (which for all I know may be 2.00000001) to 1! And I'm moving in straightforward 0.2 steps. So this is the only fix that worked:

AUYCs1d.png


lmao
What happens putting an int for _triangle_counter instead of var?
Btw; lol
 
Hey all :) Been a while, and I wanted to come back with awesome Honey news, but I've just been referred this, and I just had to share this blast from the past (for me):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knoL9eu5JNk&feature=youtu.be

I've worked on this game as the backgrounds guy, so you can see some of my stuff from before Honey in there (could you tell?) :-D
I thought the game was stuck in development hell and I had kind of lost hope it'd see the light of day, so I'm glad it finally resurfaced, even though I actually know very little about it beyond the backgrounds!

Looks pretty cool, and very nice backgrounds. Good work. :) Maybe, um... you could give them some advice about that stiff-as-hell walking animation though.

So I was messing around with ragdolls in UE4 and ended up with this horror

Worth it for the laughs :D

Well, you have the beginnings of a freaky horror game right there.
 

Pehesse

Member
Looks pretty cool, and very nice backgrounds. Good work. :) Maybe, um... you could give them some advice about that stiff-as-hell walking animation though.

Thanks! And yeah, tell me about it... That's the second animation make over I know of, and that's after I pushed *hard* to get the previous one a make over (stiff didn't begin to describe the first one :-D). I even offered to do the character animations at the time, but I was basically told that it'd take too long and that I should stick to backgrounds. Was pretty disappointed, and it's one of the (many) reasons I went to make Honey on my own afterwards :-D
 
I unfortunately cannot help you, but if you do figure it out, would you mind letting me know how? I'd be quite interested.

In a heartbeat. I'm sure someone here knows Shader Forge or just general shader theory, and if not I'll post up the node graph here for y'all if someone else helps out outside of thread :D
 

Jobbs

Banned
Just finished doing the art for the special/rare pet forms. Now the pet stuff is really done (as far as I can tell, anyway).

14 forms available, no reasonable way of knowing, as the player, how or why you get any of them! bahahah! go obtuseness!

Mind blowing easter egg.
 

Exuro

Member
Pretty terrible looking but so far so good for basic endless runner mechanics aka endless running. :p (minus the floating point issues, will deal with teleporting back to the origin later)

http://i.imgur.com/a6IBCw6.png

Having good collision detection, working spawner, object pooling. Made a few prefab floors and those are spawning correctly. I think I need to take a step back and think more about game design now that I've been able to make a simple system for it and scope it out. Hurrah
 

Nezzhil

Member
Just finished doing the art for the special/rare pet forms. Now the pet stuff is really done (as far as I can tell, anyway).

14 forms available, no reasonable way of knowing, as the player, how or why you get any of them! bahahah! go obtuseness!

Mind blowing easter egg.

I love it!

Edit:
Our team has finished all the paperwork to become a true developer in this business. We're still a garage developer, but now our IRS (and the US one) can tax us
Hurray!
. And we can sell our game on steam too (if we finish it). Exciting times.
 

amanset

Member
What's the current view on mobile advertising?

I don't have any real way of incentivised video ads, so I am looking at basic static interstitials. I have signed up with Chartboost and have got that working, but I have no idea what is really considered best right now. Does anyone have any idea?

To be honest I have no expectation of ever making nay money, but I feel if I don't do this with my luck the game will blow up and I'll be missing out.
 

PirateHearts

Neo Member
I've been forgetting to post in this thread recently, but I'm making a ton of progress on a vertical slice for Gunmetal Arcadia Zero. I'm hoping to have that milestone wrapped up by the end of next week, with a playable test build to follow as time permits.

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What's the current view on mobile advertising?

I don't have any real way of incentivised video ads, so I am looking at basic static interstitials. I have signed up with Chartboost and have got that working, but I have no idea what is really considered best right now. Does anyone have any idea?

To be honest I have no expectation of ever making nay money, but I feel if I don't do this with my luck the game will blow up and I'll be missing out.

The general rule of thumb is that no matter what you do, people will complain about the ads. In the games that I make (for my day job), we have one interstitial for around every 20 minutes of gameplay. (I say around as this can end up being a longer gap, depending on how long the player takes. We never interrupt what they are doing, but wait for a transition out of a game-state). Personally I think that's pretty fair, seeing as the ads tend to be 30 seconds in length, but still we see plenty of "THIS GAME IS FULL OF ADS. ONE STAR." reviews. (Luckily, they're outweighed by positive reviews :p)

So really, it depends on how long a "session" of your game is going to be. If you're expecting a player to play for about 5 minutes at a time, you might want to put one at the half way point. Personally I think one per session is pretty reasonable, just make sure you don't put it at the start. It might seem like an attractive option but you risk annoying the players before they've even had a chance to play.

Of course, you can always have persistent "banners" on your menus or pause screen. Personally I feel these cheapen the experience, but it's entirely up to you.

Also, hello thread! I've been lurking here for quite a while. I'm a mobile dev by day, and penniless Indie dev by night! I'll have something to show hopefully not too long from now. Keep up the good work everyone! :)
 
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