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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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shaowebb

shaowebb

Member
Lyphen said:
Unity tools will soon support the Vita, PlayStation Mobile and PlayStation 4: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/03/21/unity-tools-coming-for-playstation-developers/
Click to expand...

Blizzard said:
Unity and Unreal (not sure about which version of the UDk, if any) are supposed to support the Oculus Rift too, and I thought we might hear about it this week, but things have gone silent. Maybe during the GDC?
Click to expand...

I wish UDK supported 2d stuff more. I do both, but I can BLAZE through traditionally animated art easier than sculpting, retopo, unwrapping, texturing, making 5 maps, rigging and then animating every object. Unity supports 2D stuff more from what I hear, but it has a 4 digit startup fee to release any commercial products.

I need Unity, but UDK is cheaper to start out with. Sadly though since my first title is 2D its gonna be Construct 2...the tool I can afford for the job. Maybe I can earn enough to upgrade to a more powerful engine.
 
D

darkblade77

Member
shaowebb said:
I wish UDK supported 2d stuff more. I do both, but I can BLAZE through traditionally animated art easier than sculpting, retopo, unwrapping, texturing, making 5 maps, rigging and then animating every object. Unity supports 2D stuff more from what I hear, but it has a 4 digit startup fee to release any commercial products.

I need Unity, but UDK is cheaper to start out with. Sadly though since my first title is 2D its gonna be Construct 2...the tool I can afford for the job. Maybe I can earn enough to upgrade to a more powerful engine.
Click to expand...

The Free version of Unity can be licensed for making games no problem.. You just have to upgrade to Pro if the legal entity representing whoever sells your game has revenue exceeding 100k.
 
A

Alastor3

Member
I want to participate in the next Ludum Dare in April but I wonder which engine is the faster to use. I just want to get my hand on one and just start working on something small.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
darkblade77 said:
The Free version of Unity can be licensed for making games no problem.. You just have to upgrade to Pro if the legal entity representing whoever sells your game has revenue exceeding 100k.
Click to expand...

One of these days I'll have to get onto unity I think. Seems really good for supporting different platforms.
 
K

kirby_fox

Banned
Just curious if anyone knows of a good place to go to look for a crew to help with an indie game.

Ads on Craigslist so far have not done the job.
 
B

billsmugs

Member
This seems like a good place to ask people for advice, so here goes: I'm currently making something for PlayStation Mobile and I have another PSM project planned for when I finish that (hopefully pretty soon), but after that I'm still considering what I'll do. The news of Unity support for PS platforms has me interested, but from the little I know about Unity it seems like it's mostly about reducing the amount of code required and putting more focus on artwork and level design. Unfortunately I enjoy coding and am pretty awful at art (and have zero 3D modelling and animation skills whatsoever), so I don't know if Unity would really be my cup of tea? Am I correct in thinking this? I'm just an individual making stuff in my spare time, so forming a team and/or hiring artists and modellers isn't really an option.

Another thing that comes into play in this decision is that ideally I want to go into the game industry after I finish my degree, but I'm doing Physics rather than Computer Science, so I don't get a lot of programming practice and I could really do with learning C++. (My physics course only has one programming module per year and they use C rather than C++). From a portfolio/CV perspective, would Unity not look as good as, say, UDK to employers? Or should I just forget pre-made engines and make my own? Do I really have a chance of going straight into game development with almost totally self-taught programming skills? (With the exception of low quality Game Maker stuff on and off when I was younger, I only really started programming this year, after doing the "C for Scientists" module as part of my degree. I'm in my second year of a 4 year MPhys degree).

The main quandary I have is that "stuff that would probably be good practice for future careers" and "stuff that lets me develop on my Vita" (which is what I really want to do, I've never been a huge fan of PC gaming and I much prefer consoles) seem to be mutually exclusive.

I don't know if this is necessarily the right place for some of these questions, but any advice would be appreciated!
 
G

gofreak

GAF's Bob Woodward
billsmugs said:
This seems like a good place to ask people for advice, so here goes: I'm currently making something for PlayStation Mobile and I have another PSM project planned for when I finish that (hopefully pretty soon), but after that I'm still considering what I'll do. The news of Unity support for PS platforms has me interested, but from the little I know about Unity it seems like it's mostly about reducing the amount of code required and putting more focus on artwork and level design. Unfortunately I enjoy coding and am pretty awful at art (and have zero 3D modelling and animation skills whatsoever), so I don't know if Unity would really be my cup.
Click to expand...

I'm from a software engineering background, and I love Unity. I spend most of my time in my code IDE rather than looking at Unity's.

It gives you the framework and you can visually plug in stuff and use other people's scripts to put something together, but it is wide open to you coding up your own logic and behaviour as you see fit. My game starts off as an empty scene, save for a single object with a starter script attached - and my code does the rest. I'm not visually putting together something in a scene - you definitely can do everything programmatically if you want. (Although I do find myself using the unity scene editor when I want to test out some behaviours quickly etc). And you can be as nicely 'software-engineer-y' in your scripts as you wish. Don't let 'script' confuse you - this is basically regular C#, and I spend a lot of time thinking out the design of my objects and how they should interact just as I would in any other software.

For a long time I wondered about making my own cross platform game engine. I wanted it to be component based. I had a choice - roll my own, or look at what others had already done. Unity fit the bill for me. Why make your own boilerplate if someone's already done it for you? (If you want to be an engine programmer, though, that might be a good reason...).

If you're into rendering programming, I'd say it also provides a good framework for just messing about and trying things quickly. I wrote my own little deferred global illumination shader in Unity, and being able to just plug it in to an existing framework saved a lot of time, while allowing me to pursue the algorithm I wanted. There are characteristics of Unity's shading setup that you have to account for, but if anything I found those constraints helped me find focus, and find solutions. It was satisfying.
 
B

billsmugs

Member
gofreak said:
I'm from a software engineering background, and I love Unity. I spend most of my time in my code IDE rather than looking at Unity's.

It gives you the framework and you can visually plug in stuff and use other people's scripts to put something together, but it is wide open to you coding up your own logic and behaviour as you see fit. My game starts off as an empty scene, save for a single object with a starter script attached - and my code does the rest. I'm not visually putting together something in a scene - you definitely can do everything programmatically if you want. (Although I do find myself using the unity scene editor when I want to test out some behaviours quickly etc). And you can be as nicely 'software-engineer-y' in your scripts as you wish. Don't let 'script' confuse you - this is basically regular C#, and I spend a lot of time thinking out the design of my objects and how they should interact just as I would in any other software.

For a long time I wondered about making my own cross platform game engine. I wanted it to be component based. I had a choice - roll my own, or look at what others had already done. Unity fit the bill for me. Why make your own boilerplate if someone's already done it for you? (If you want to be an engine programmer, though, that might be a good reason...).

If you're into rendering programming, I'd say it also provides a good framework for just messing about and trying things quickly. I wrote my own little deferred global illumination shader in Unity, and being able to just plug it in to an existing framework saved a lot of time, while allowing me to pursue the algorithm I wanted. There are characteristics of Unity's shading setup that you have to account for, but if anything I found those constraints helped me find focus, and find solutions. It was satisfying.
Click to expand...

OK, that sounds good then, thanks. I played around with Unity a few years ago but I didn't really look into it in depth. Quickly testing things and designing sketch layouts for levels etc with the scene editor sounds rather handy, but being able to just code everything sounds much more up my street, so that's good to know. I think their marketing pushes the ease of use and range of scripting languages (as you'd expect it to) but doesn't make it as immediately clear that you can use it more as a framework and handle things from a code based perspective as well.
 
shaowebb

shaowebb

Member
darkblade77 said:
The Free version of Unity can be licensed for making games no problem.. You just have to upgrade to Pro if the legal entity representing whoever sells your game has revenue exceeding 100k.
Click to expand...

So wait...I can make a game in Unity. Release it commercially and unless it sells over $100k I don't have to buy the license? Am I getting this right? If so I may just have to switch engines.
 
R

razu

Member
billsmugs said:
OK, that sounds good then, thanks. I played around with Unity a few years ago but I didn't really look into it in depth. Quickly testing things and designing sketch layouts for levels etc with the scene editor sounds rather handy, but being able to just code everything sounds much more up my street, so that's good to know. I think their marketing pushes the ease of use and range of scripting languages (as you'd expect it to) but doesn't make it as immediately clear that you can use it more as a framework and handle things from a code based perspective as well.
Click to expand...

I spent a lot of time coding on Chopper Mike, which is built using Unity. I used C#. They call them scripts, but, it's code!

Having worked on C++ projects, and Unity/C# ones, I'd say the same old stuff applies. Get things working correctly, optimise if necessary. The big difference is that you get stuff working very quickly in Unity compared to the environments I've worked in before.

Also, if you go and work at a company that uses C++, you probably won't code straight to DX or GL. It'll all be wrapped up in their 'engine'. At which point there's not a massive difference.

C++ is built up to be this massive monster. It's not, you just have to respect it... like you would, say, a massive monster, gaaaaaaarrrgghhh!!! Okay, that probably wasn't too helpful.. But don't worry too much about the language. Just make something! :D

Good luck!



@Just_myles - Thanks man :D


@shaowebb - yep!
 
M

missile

Member
billsmugs said:
... Another thing that comes into play in this decision is that ideally I want to go into the game industry after I finish my degree, but I'm doing Physics rather than Computer Science, so I don't get a lot of programming practice and I could really do with learning C++. (My physics course only has one programming module per year and they use C rather than C++). From a portfolio/CV perspective, would Unity not look as good as, say, UDK to employers? Or should I just forget pre-made engines and make my own? Do I really have a chance of going straight into game development with almost totally self-taught programming skills? ...
Click to expand...
Well mate, forget about self-taught programming skills. You will learn it as
you go. The question is; what do you want to become once you've finished
university? In case you want to be a game programmer related to physical
stuff, you better spent your time turning physical concepts into code,
preferable into C code, plain and simple. Don't waste your time with
"abstract" programming concepts just yet. That's something you can do later
on, obscuring your code with lots classes, get/set-functions, and fancy
patterns, while getting paid for!

For me, personally, I would look whether you can turn your knowledge into
code. The rest is pretty much adjustable.
 
D

darkblade77

Member
Any GDC-goers here know the answer to this? It's been eating at me for the past few days.

shaowebb said:
So wait...I can make a game in Unity. Release it commercially and unless it sells over $100k I don't have to buy the license? Am I getting this right? If so I may just have to switch engines.
Click to expand...

To be fair, I think it's 100k period--not just 100k from the game, so if you had other sources of income for the company totaling over it, you'd have to go Pro too.

But yeah, otherwise you can make a game with the Free license no problem. Most of Pro's features are tailored towards experienced programmers anyway.
 
R

razu

Member
darkblade77 said:
Any GDC-goers here know the answer to this? It's been eating at me for the past few days.

To be fair, I think it's 100k period--not just 100k from the game, so if you had other sources of income for the company totaling over it, you'd have to go Pro too.

But yeah, otherwise you can make a game with the Free license no problem. Most of Pro's features are tailored towards experienced programmers anyway.
Click to expand...

Yep, so create a separate company solely for your own games, and if you do make $100k, who cares about a unity license!? :D
 
J

Jarekx

Member
Ah well. Just jumping into teaching myself c#. Ill have classes for it later in my degree program but I just have to try and make something. Hopefully what I 'teach' myself will translate into making those classes easier and also into a decent game. :p

And Chopper Mike is fantastic!
 
B

billsmugs

Member
razu said:
I spent a lot of time coding on Chopper Mike, which is built using Unity. I used C#. They call them scripts, but, it's code!

Having worked on C++ projects, and Unity/C# ones, I'd say the same old stuff applies. Get things working correctly, optimise if necessary. The big difference is that you get stuff working very quickly in Unity compared to the environments I've worked in before.

Also, if you go and work at a company that uses C++, you probably won't code straight to DX or GL. It'll all be wrapped up in their 'engine'. At which point there's not a massive difference.

C++ is built up to be this massive monster. It's not, you just have to respect it... like you would, say, a massive monster, gaaaaaaarrrgghhh!!! Okay, that probably wasn't too helpful.. But don't worry too much about the language. Just make something! :D

Good luck!



@Just_myles - Thanks man :D


@shaowebb - yep!
Click to expand...

missile said:
Well mate, forget about self-taught programming skills. You will learn it as
you go. The question is; what do you want to become once you've finished
university? In case you want to be a game programmer related to physical
stuff, you better spent your time turning physical concepts into code,
preferable into C code, plain and simple. Don't waste your time with
"abstract" programming concepts just yet. That's something you can do later
on, obscuring your code with lots classes, get/set-functions, and fancy
patterns, while getting paid for!

For me, personally, I would look whether you can turn your knowledge into
code. The rest is pretty much adjustable.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I'm still not sure exactly what branch of programming I want to get into but I think I'll try something in Unity after my next PSM game (I've got a rough idea for something that would work well in 3D and hopefully there will be more details on Unity's PSM integration by then) and then I think I'll look into trying some physics stuff after that.
 
K

Kamaki

Member
ss1.jpg
Click to expand...
Doesn't look like a lot has changed but I did a write up for what's changed in a week on my blog here.

Sadly my progress will be halted for a bit as my house was broken into and robbed, one of the few things he decided to steal was my laptop which means I've now lost all my uni work. Joy.
 
B

BomberMouse

Member
Screenshot Saturday? I don't have much to show except that I've been playing with a few ruby gems particulary gosu and ruby-opengl2. I did some performance tests and it behaves good enough on my MBAir for a simple game and everything has been dead easy to make, I love Ruby so much <3

ibk7naNH88nu9f.png
Click to expand...
 
H

Hazaro

relies on auto-aim
Reposting this here and I think it is highly relevant. It's a great in game presentation as well.

PAX East - The making of Dust: An Elysian Tail (Direct Link)
Loud music cuts 3 and a half minutes in.
ConvenientBox said:
I finally finished my second trailer on the weekend, can't wait to get this game out - so stoked!



Click the image to watch!
Click to expand...
Dat updated intro animation.
I don't know how far it is in development, but have you considered leaving any of the color from killed enemies?
Similar to mono. http://www.acid-play.com/download/mono
Ihateyouchris said:
Another Castle just hit it's $12,000 funding goal! :D :D :D

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/uncadedave/another-castle/posts/433621
Click to expand...
!!
Do you have a funding breakdown?
razu said:
Chopper Mike is live!! Enjoy! :D

Click for App Store...


Click for Google Play...
Click to expand...
Nice, don't let the post release depression get to ya if it happens!
Jocchan said:
Screenshot Saturday? Screenshot Saturday.
Click to expand...
When can I playtest this dammit
 
J

jrDev

Member
Lyphen said:
Unity tools will soon support the Vita, PlayStation Mobile and PlayStation 4: http://blog.us.playstation.com/2013/03/21/unity-tools-coming-for-playstation-developers/
Click to expand...
Yes! Read about this yesterday! Can't wait.
BlastProcessing said:
Well that seals it. Time to buy a Vita.
Click to expand...
Yes, I will buy a Vita this year; I was waiting for unity support and it finally happens. Hopefully the Vita will be less than $200 then (or ill just buy it used).

Also Nintendo needs to jump in bed with unity too for 3DS...
razu said:
Chopper Mike is live!! Enjoy! :D

Click for App Store...


Click for Google Play...


It says it's compatible with the iPhone 3GS, which is worrying. I added a thing to require a front facing camera, so it should be impossible to download. If anyone has a 3GS and is willing to try downloading it, I'll be your friend forever! Will reimburse if it does let you buy it!
Click to expand...
Bought!
 
B

beril

Member
jrDev said:
Yes, I will buy a Vita this year; I was waiting for unity support and it finally happens. Hopefully the Vita will be less than $200 then (or ill just buy it used).

Also Nintendo needs to jump in bed with unity too for 3DS...
Click to expand...

I don't really think running gamecode written completely in C# on the 3DS CPU would be a good idea. Then again I don't particularly think it's a good idea on any CPU.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
I've been doing game state and saving functionality stuff this weekend. Had my game crashing for the first time in ages, but I found I was releasing an object that was still in use so should be fixed now. I'm now playing through all the levels again (for about the hundredth time) to record my best times to use as reference for the times to beat. I made some damn frustrating levels :/
 
R

razu

Member
Hazaro said:
Nice, don't let the post release depression get to ya if it happens!
Click to expand...

Ha! All good so far, still have three platforms to release on! Maybe it'll settle in after that ;)


jrDev said:
Bought!
Click to expand...

Thanks! Enjoy! :D


Dynamite Shikoku said:
I've been doing game state and saving functionality stuff this weekend. Had my game crashing for the first time in ages, but I found I was releasing an object that was still in use so should be fixed now. I'm now playing through all the levels again (for about the hundredth time) to record my best times to use as reference for the times to beat. I made some damn frustrating levels :/
Click to expand...

Yeah, I can relate to this. I thought I'd complete my game to get an entry on the Total Game Time leaderboard... iPad was nearly destroyed in the process :D
 
C

clashfan

Member
shaowebb said:
I wish UDK supported 2d stuff more. I do both, but I can BLAZE through traditionally animated art easier than sculpting, retopo, unwrapping, texturing, making 5 maps, rigging and then animating every object. Unity supports 2D stuff more from what I hear, but it has a 4 digit startup fee to release any commercial products.

I need Unity, but UDK is cheaper to start out with. Sadly though since my first title is 2D its gonna be Construct 2...the tool I can afford for the job. Maybe I can earn enough to upgrade to a more powerful engine.
Click to expand...

Have you tried monogame? It's pretty awesome. Lots of games like Bastion, Fez are now ported to monogame. It's really great for 2d.
 
Tiu Neo

Tiu Neo

Member
I did try my hand at game development a few years ago, but never got anything done. I also made a few prototypes with gaming and image/video processing, pattern recognition and augmented reallity for a client, but the project was dropped. :(

A month or two ago, I decided to try again. After a few weeks going nowhere, I think I finally got inspired. Wrote a few prototypes this weekend, now I think I'll work a bit on them and see if I can make one of them a full game. If I can't, well, at least I already learnt a lot from it.

Oh, and I finally got an iTunes card and bought Chopper Mike. Worth it, congrats, razu. I normally don't like touchscreen controls, but I'm ok with Chopper Mike controls. If you can get it on Consoles/Vita/PC with controller support, I'll probably double dip :)
 
R

razu

Member
Tiu Neo said:
A month or two ago, I decided to try again. After a few weeks going nowhere, I think I finally got inspired. Wrote a few prototypes this weekend, now I think I'll work a bit on them and see if I can make one of them a full game. If I can't, well, at least I already learnt a lot from it.

Oh, and I finally got an iTunes card and bought Chopper Mike. Worth it, congrats, razu. I normally don't like touchscreen controls, but I'm ok with Chopper Mike controls. If you can get it on Consoles/Vita/PC with controller support, I'll probably double dip :)
Click to expand...

Glad you like it. Good luck with your games! :D

PC/Mac work tomorrow, not much to do. If it goes well, there could be a release tomorrow night on PC..!
 
D

Diablohead

Member
I bring news about my game, everything you have seen so far has in some way changed due to lack of time and deadlines, what was once a super metroid clone has kind of been watered down to a puzzle/adventure platformer just because it's been extremely hard to make anything good in my first real attempt (fangames don't count)

But the game is now looking very purdy in retina resolution, the screen now scrolls as you exit the area but is stationary when running around, think of it being a little like knytt with a metroid screen transition.

3um3dwp.png
Click to expand...

You will still unlock skills but combat is taking a side seat for a more adventure styled game to start with, this is also due to being extremely pissed off at not getting a good feeling shooting mechanic nailed down, but I am happy with my bombs/grenades.

If I want to hit that iTunes june deadline this has to be done :|
 
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