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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor

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S

Santini

Member
SlipperySlope said:
I'm just getting started myself. Got a few questions.

1) What do you guys use to create sound effects?
Click to expand...

1) I use FL Studio and a variety of paid and freeware plugins to create sound effects and music. I also use Audacity for quick work when I'm on OS X and the PC's not turned on. Until you're ready to take the plunge into picking up a DAW (digital audio workstation), you can't go wrong with Audacity for making sound effects. You can download a variety of freeware effects processing plugins from sites like KVR Audio and others if you need to, at least on PC. I haven't tried that functionality on OS X.

If you need some sounds to start working with, sign up for an account at Freesound.org. The sounds uploaded are Creative Commons Licensed sounds. I used one for my first game and based on the CC License type that was specified, gave the author credit.

SlipperySlope said:
2) What do you guys use to create 3D models? How about 2D graphics? My artist is pretty good with hand art, and I'm thinking of getting him set up with a tablet/drawing app combo.

Edit - He does not as of yet have the tablet. So you guys can recommend android or apple tablet apps. Thanks :)
Click to expand...

2) I don't really do a lot of 3D, but Blender is what I'd use if I needed to. 2D and Photoshop are synonymous to me, but that's because I've used it for years. I haven't used any of the art apps on tablets, so can't recommend anything there.

Like Freesound.org, there are also a variety of CC Licensed or free art asset sites like OpenGameArt.org and others. Just be sure that the license lets you use the asset without having to have your game be open source, unless that's what you were planning to do.

And welcome to the wonderful world of indie game development. Best of luck to you!
 
S

SlipperySlope

Banned
Thanks guys for the help :) It's much appreciated.

I'm doing this part-time. Only hoping I can even glimpse the ranks of some of the projects I've seen in this thread.

Good luck to you guys too.
 
P

Popstar

Member
Mikado said:
In our game prototype, Canto, we have a lot of non-linear creature movements and a lot of potential cancels for player moves. We ended up encoding both the root velocity and the root angular velocity per frame (as opposed to the average of the animation) in a pre-processing step when the animations are compiled. This has the advantage that no matter how chaotic a creature's movement, the pelvis will always be right above the physics capsule (and pointed in the right direction) at pretty much any point in the animation. This also plays nice with physics and collision detection.

Granted we're using our own engine, not Unity.
Click to expand...
When having the physics-capsule / player-position matched exactly to the pelvis we had problems with camera swimming during idles when we were focused on a character. This is why I recommended an extra bone as parent to the pelvis. It also allowed us to keep camera movement smooth during walks / runs where the pelvis is moving in a pendulum motion.

Have you guys run into these problems at all?
 
A

Animator

Member
Blender is a good choice if you want free. I hate it's UI but it is a decent software. If you are doing this as a learning experience and not going to make money off of it you can also use the Autodesk student versions of Maya,Max, etc which are free. Actually the entire Autodesk software suite is free if you are a student.
 
Mikado

Mikado

Member
Popstar said:
This is why I recommended an extra bone as parent to the pelvis. It also allowed us to keep camera movement smooth during walks / runs where the pelvis is moving in a pendulum motion.
Click to expand...

Definitely. We use a separate hand-animated bone for root motion translation rather than relying on the pelvis itself. For our quadrupeds, for example, the pelvis isn't really near the capsule center at all. We do try and keep the root motion bone as centered as possible so there's no distracting drift when blending between different animations at runtime.

We use mostly use Blender for animation and we take advantage of its animatable constraints during animation production to allow us to either translate the character with the root motion bone when it's convenient, or to free it from the hierarchy so the animator (currently me, these days) can just have the character flip out and do all sorts of moves, then do a pass on the root motion bone afterwards.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
eiskaltnz said:
I have done a bunch of work in Unity, though not 2D so I am not sure how it works with that. I have also used a bit of Stencyl. I do really prefer programming to using logic blocks or other variations. The most trouble I am having at the moment is deciding on which bit of software we should use.
Click to expand...
If you prefer logic blocks, have you tried Game Maker? Construct 2 may also have logic blocks, though I don't remember.

Ultimately I thought the Game Maker scripting language was also pretty simple to pick up once you get into it, but if you like blocks I think the option is there.
 
R

razu

Member
Mikado said:
In our game prototype, Canto, we have a lot of non-linear creature movements and a lot of potential cancels for player moves. We ended up encoding both the root velocity and the root angular velocity per frame (as opposed to the average of the animation) in a pre-processing step when the animations are compiled. This has the advantage that no matter how chaotic a creature's movement, the pelvis will always be right above the physics capsule (and pointed in the right direction) at pretty much any point in the animation. This also plays nice with physics and collision detection.

canto_76080296fcc9.jpg


Granted we're using our own engine, not Unity.
Click to expand...

Looks lovely! :D
 
M

missile

Member
Got my new n-dimensional ordinary differential equation (ODE) integrator
ready. There are about 35 rockets in the video below each holding a state of
14 variables to be integrated. Instead of integrating each rocket one after
another, which would also be possible, the integrator now integrates an 35*14
= 490-dimensional system at once.

I follow an idea of mine of using the concept of display files in conjunction
with physical objects. I've now implemented a very basic form which leans
itself to parallelization and to a much easier way of implementing new
integration techniques, since the integrator reduces to its most basic form,
reducing possible implementation errors in orders of magnitude.

For example, here is the inner-loop for the integrator of the entire 6-DOF
system for integrating the linear momentum and angular momentum equations,
using a first order Euler scheme in this case, with all the features I've
described over the last several posts;

Code: 
// first order Euler step 
for(int i = 0; i < dim; i++)
  *y++ += *rhs++ * dt;

That's it! It can't get any easier. dim is the dimension of the entire system.
rhs contains the state of the right-hand side of the ODE (linear- and angular
momentum equation in this case), i.e. y' = f(t,y), at time t, like forces,
torques, etc. And y becomes the new state after doing an integration step.
Implementing a Runge-Kutta scheme for example becomes way easy this way.
Obviously, it's good to let the mathematics know nothing about your game
types.

Ladies and Gents!

Welcome to the Rocket Chamber! xD
How long do you guess you will survive in here? ;)

rockets2013-08-2122-1hax34.gif

Not as colorful like.... Anyhow, the trails intensity are modulated by the
magnitude of the angular velocity. A more tumbling rocket will light up
stronger.
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
rottame said:
That sounds like a great idea to me. Should we collect the twitter handles somewhere?
Click to expand...

Dunno. But mine is @emmetmorris

missile said:
Got my new n-dimensional ordinary differential equation (ODE) integrator
ready. There are about 35 rockets in the video below each holding a state of
14 variables to be integrated. Instead of integrating each rocket one after
another, which would also be possible, the integrator now integrates an 35*14
= 490-dimensional system at once.

I follow an idea of mine of using the concept of display files in conjunction
with physical objects. I've now implemented a very basic form which leans
itself to parallelization and to a much easier way of implementing new
integration techniques, since the integrator reduces to its most basic form,
reducing possible implementation errors in orders of magnitude.

For example, here is the inner-loop for the integrator of the entire 6-DOF
system for integrating the linear momentum and angular momentum equations,
using a first order Euler scheme in this case, with all the features I've
described over the last several posts;

Code: 
// first order Euler step 
for(int i = 0; i < dim; i++)
  *y++ += *rhs++ * dt;

That's it! It can't get any easier. dim is the dimension of the entire system.
rhs contains the state of the right-hand side of the ODE (linear- and angular
momentum equation in this case), i.e. y' = f(t,y), at time t, like forces,
torques, etc. And y becomes the new state after doing an integration step.
Implementing a Runge-Kutta scheme for example becomes way easy this way.
Obviously, it's good to let the mathematics know nothing about your game
types.

Ladies and Gents!

Welcome to the Rocket Chamber! xD
How long do you guess you will survive in here? ;)

rockets2013-08-2122-1hax34.gif

Not as colorful like.... Anyhow, the trails intensity are modulated by the
magnitude of the angular velocity. A more tumbling rocket will light up
stronger.
Click to expand...

Sweet. I'm playing around with flight a bit at the moment, but in 2D.
 
N

Nilaul

Member
Redoing the graphics for my Zelda like adventure.
Decided into going into the original concept of having the world made out of paper.

Preview:

Lymt0Gv.jpg


Its actually pretty hard.. and advice?

I was also thinking about using a newspaper page for a potential textures. The printed letters could be an really interesting effect.

Since the world is going to be made out of paper, the items and effects could be based around paper. For example:

:: The sword could be made out of half a sissors.
:: Cracks in the wall could be teared paper.
 
M

missile

Member
Dynamite Shikoku said:
... Sweet. I'm playing around with flight a bit at the moment, but in 2D.
Click to expand...
What's your new game about? C'mon! :)


rottame said:
So, what do you think about this?

How to talk to the video game press

Am I the only one finding this problematic? Should I start making friends with journalists on Twitter hoping they will remember my name when our game is out?
Click to expand...
It somehow shows how screwed part of the industry has become. Nope, you don't.
Rather spend your time making a very good game. If the game has momentum, the
rest can be derived from it pretty much. Thing is; if your game sucks, you
will need more press. The girls won't come while going straight after them.
You need something that will trigger their attention gravitating them towards
you without them being able to do anything against it.

I have no Twitter, no Facebook, nor even a smartphone. It's a wast of time for
me as a core developer heading for making cool high-quality games. Those who
want to talk to me will find out one way or another. And then it might be
interesting. Well, I need my thoughts to stay focused on the heavy duty stuff
for the games I am going to make. And in the end this is what the gamers will
judge me upon. To tell the truth; I'm making games for gamers, not for
friends, nor for the press. So the priorities within this regard are pretty
clear; priority #1: game(rs), priority #2: anything else.

Staying focused is perhaps the hardest part for many developers. There is way
too much distraction out there. And it doesn't help saying to oneself not
to go after them for the next few hours etc. Your brain has to make a
decision to either follow or not to follow, nevertheless, pulling you out of
the loop. Every time you think about checking Twitter, Facebook, or any other
attention whore, you will get out of the loop (assuming you were into).
However, there are some distraction you can't get rid of, your girlfriend for
example. ;) I love the nights, distraction converges to almost zero.

Last but not least, the linked article isn't bad in any way. It has some
good points, actually. Am not against the press either if anyone though I
would. The point I wanna bring across is to reduce any unnecessary distraction
and to stay focused on the development of the game. Running around being cool
with the press/people and making friends and getting linked up, chilling,
smoking etc. is all cool once you have teh game done.


Here is my hook:
Game XYZ -- from a developer having no Twitter, nor Facebook.

*sorry missile, sounds cool, but too long...*

WOnsVMv.jpg
 
F

Feep

Banned
missile said:
I have no Twitter, no Facebook, nor even a smartphone. It's a waste of time for me as a core developer heading for making cool high-quality games. Those who want to talk to me will find out one way or another. And then it might be interesting.
Click to expand...
Sorry, but I completely disagree, and I think this is bad advice to be giving out. Obviously making a great game is a number one priority, but if anyone here actually wants to make a career out of what they're doing, learning how to market oneself properly is absolutely crucial. Social networking is a big part of that strategy.

Learning to send out professional press releases is important, as well as coupling those releases with a solid trailer. Enter your game into indie competitions, try to really start building some buzz early. If not, unless your game is a graphical tour de force (Canto might be something like this), it won't have any momentum when it comes time to find a userbase and a release platform.
 
F

fenners

Member
Feep said:
Sorry, but I completely disagree, and I think this is bad advice to be giving out. Obviously making a great game is a number one priority, but if anyone here actually wants to make a career out of what they're doing, learning how to market oneself properly is absolutely crucial. Social networking is a big part of that strategy.

Learning to send out professional press releases is important, as well as coupling those releases with a solid trailer. Enter your game into indie competitions, try to really start building some buzz early. If not, unless your game is a graphical tour de force (Canto might be something like this), it won't have any momentum when it comes time to find a userbase and a release platform.
Click to expand...

What feep said. So many *good* games get sent out to die because their developer has no clue how to actually build interest, build relationships with the community & press. In this day & age, releasing a game and /then/ trying to figure that stuff out is naive & dangerous to your bank balance.
 
D

Diablohead

Member
Nilaul said:
Redoing the graphics for my Zelda like adventure.
Decided into going into the original concept of having the world made out of paper.

Preview:

Lymt0Gv.jpg


Its actually pretty hard.. and advice?

I was also thinking about using a newspaper page for a potential textures. The printed letters could be an really interesting effect.

Since the world is going to be made out of paper, the items and effects could be based around paper. For example:

:: The sword could be made out of half a sissors.
:: Cracks in the wall could be teared paper.
Click to expand...

All I can think of is look at a lot of origami and paper models on the internet for inspiration, I think it's best to keep details very simple and not super neat looking, for example for your bricks you could make them look more like post it notes where the glue is only along the top of the square.
 
M

missile

Member
Feep said:
Sorry, but I completely disagree, and I think this is bad advice to be giving out. ...
Click to expand...
It wasn't an advice to begin with. And on the other hand I was more speaking
about the development process and things that are distracting from it. Up to
my experience people spend way too much time off-topic due to things they
think might or could be interesting or may become interesting / important down
the road instead of focusing on the subject at hand.

Feep said:
... Obviously making a great game is a number one priority, but if anyone here actually wants to make a career out of what they're doing, learning how to market oneself properly is absolutely crucial. Social networking is a big part of that strategy. ...
Click to expand...
Indeed. But the balance is what makes or breaks it. And you can't do
everything at the same time.

Feep said:
... Learning to send out professional press releases is important, as well as coupling those releases with a solid trailer. Enter your game into indie competitions, try to really start building some buzz early. ...
Click to expand...
No question about it. Once you have something to buzz about.


fenners said:
... In this day & age, releasing a game and /then/ trying to figure that stuff out is naive & dangerous to your bank balance.
Click to expand...
That's a no-brainer, isn't it?
 
F

Feep

Banned
missile said:
It wasn't an advice to begin with. And on the other hand I was more speaking about the development process and things that are distracting from it.
Click to expand...
That's fine, but you seem to directly imply that if you make a really good game, the press and attention and gamers will automatically come. They will not. You need to make that happen yourself. I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of fantastic indie games languish in the depths of anonymity.
 
T

TheHollowNight

Member
During the free time I get away from my studio work, I work on an indie project with a bunch of people I've know within the Source Engine community for a good few years now.

I'm a level designer & environment artist on the game (LD in my day job).
We worked on a few things together as a team previously, notably Canvas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7kI2pBBKrM

We released 'Black Snow' last November which proved fairly popular in the Let's Play Youtube scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7M35iVI74

This guy played it & shouted a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4de20w7nRs

So we're pretty confident of making something interesting. It's been in development for over a year now. And we're using a deferred version of Source.
Whilst I can't show you actual game related content (since we are prepping to announce soon). I can show you a quick engine test I did a good while back.

qYzt5Jo.jpg

pbLwye4.jpg

i0vJg7E.jpg

ujkdd6S.jpg
 
M

missile

Member
Feep said:
That's fine, but you seem to directly imply that if you make a really good game, the press and attention and gamers will automatically come. ...
Click to expand...
How does "... If the game has momentum, the rest can be derived from it pretty
much. ...", implies "... the press and attention and gamers will automatically
come..."? Would be cool, mind you! ;) Well, I wrote this sentence to say that
the game comes first, otherwise there is nothing to talk about.

Feep said:
... They will not. You need to make that happen yourself. I've seen dozens and dozens and dozens of fantastic indie games languish in the depths of anonymity.
Click to expand...
Sucks for them. I mean, if one can count 1 and 1 together and want to
be successful selling games, it's pretty clear to whom to talk with. And I in
noway denied it. That's why I wrote; "... Last but not least, the linked
article isn't bad in any way. It has some good points, actually. ...". We
perhaps just mean the same, just read form another perspective.
 
B

Blizzard

Banned
missile said:
How does "... If the game has momentum, the rest can be derived from it pretty
much. ...", implies "... the press and attention and gamers will automatically
come..."? Would be cool, mind you! ;) Well, I wrote this sentence to say that
the game comes first, otherwise there is nothing to talk about.


Sucks for them. I mean, if one can count 1 and 1 together and want to
be successful selling games, it's pretty clear to whom to talk with. And I in
noway denied it. That's why I wrote; "... Last but not least, the linked
article isn't bad in any way. It has some good points, actually. ...". We
perhaps just mean the same, just read form another perspective.
Click to expand...
I think the issue was more this section:

missile said:
I have no Twitter, no Facebook, nor even a smartphone. It's a wast of time for
me as a core developer heading for making cool high-quality games. Those who
want to talk to me will find out one way or another.
Click to expand...
This is why Feep is bringing up valid points as a reminder to anyone who might read it that such things are important.
 
F

fin

Member
Note to self, Unity + Mechanim + Foot IK + 4 characters + Android = nomnomnomnom to fps. Turned it off and got a great performance increase.

Haven't been keeping up with the thread too much, anyone going to Unite 2013?

Also what does everyone use to cut trailers? Anything opensource I can use?
 
S

SlipperySlope

Banned
fenners said:
What feep said. So many *good* games get sent out to die because their developer has no clue how to actually build interest, build relationships with the community & press. In this day & age, releasing a game and /then/ trying to figure that stuff out is naive & dangerous to your bank balance.
Click to expand...

This is true... although I do not know how to do this. Any advice? Stuff like this should be added to the OP.
 
M

missile

Member
Blizzard said:
... This is why Feep is bringing up valid points as a reminder to anyone who might read it that such things are important.
Click to expand...
How does it follow that it says it is unimportant? I spoke for myself. And
from what I wrote one cannot even follow that it is unimportant for me, which
it isn't. You read things which aren't there. Other people may have the time
doing all the Twitter and Facebook stuff, but I don't have it because I do a
physics engine and as such it's a wast of time for me while developing this
engine and stuff. That's what I wrote. Now how can anyone come to the
conclusion saying that I assume that those things are unimportant? One may
perhaps be in a quite different situation than I, working on something else
while also having the time doing all the press stuff. That's cool. But let
me tell you that I even got contacted by the way I wrote. No one asked me
about a Twitter or Facebook account. They just saw what I wrote here over time
and on my page. So even under these circumstances, while not reaching out to
the public to a large degree, while developing my engine, I got contacted by
people who follow an interest. So one cannot say that this isn't going to work
and saying I assume the opposite is unimportant. It may likewise come to
fruition even while not doing what everybody does. However, once I got through
the most difficult tasks of making my game, I guess I will have more time
talking with people and getting in touch. Trivial!
 
Q

qq more

Member
TheHollowNight said:
During the free time I get away from my studio work, I work on an indie project with a bunch of people I've know within the Source Engine community for a good few years now.

I'm a level designer & environment artist on the game (LD in my day job).
We worked on a few things together as a team previously, notably Canvas:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7kI2pBBKrM

We released 'Black Snow' last November which proved fairly popular in the Let's Play Youtube scene:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov7M35iVI74

This guy played it & shouted a lot.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4de20w7nRs

So we're pretty confident of making something interesting. It's been in development for over a year now. And we're using a deferred version of Source.
Whilst I can't show you actual game related content (since we are prepping to announce soon). I can show you a quick engine test I did a good while back.

qYzt5Jo.jpg

pbLwye4.jpg

i0vJg7E.jpg

ujkdd6S.jpg
Click to expand...

Those screens looks beautiful.
 
T

TrickRoom

Member
In the last few months I've been getting "plot bunnies" for games. There were always ideas before (which I've taken steps to write down everytime), but it hasn't been until now that they're tempting me into action.

Basically, I'm thinking about making a roguelike. I've been playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon for a long time, and enjoyed Shiren the Wanderer. But aside from those two (and the unique disputable cases like spelunky/FTL/Teleglitch) I never got very much into the genre. I wish there were more games that were like the first two, and lately I've been writing down all sorts of ideas for a game like that. However I have to admit, I feel an insecurity for not being much of a "traditional roguelike" person... That's making me question whether I'd be able to make a good game or not. What do you guys think?
 
C

crazygambit

Member
What software do you guys use for 3D character animations? I want to make a non commercial prototype so software with non commercial licenses would be a plus since I don't want to break the bank.

I'm just interested in animating a rig to use in Unity, nothing fancy, but I have no experience in animating so I'm looking for something as easy as possible, but that can handle IK for a prop (sword) and proper foot contact.

I gave iClone 5 a try, but while using the canned stuff is easy, making your own stuff is a bit annoying, especially with a prop. You have to choose between animating the sword (and then the body moves) or moving the body, but then the sword is unmovable. Super annoying, since I'd like to rotate the arm and have the sword follow through. I've looked into many tutorials, but I can't figure it out. It may very well be my inexperience in animation and not the software.

Since I'm having such a hard time with regular keyframe animation, I've looked into motion capture with Kinect. Particularly ipisoft's. It looks promising, but before I go for it I wanted to see if anyone had used it here. I'm interested how much cleaning up is needed for the animations especially with only a basic 1 Kinect setup (I do have a couple of Moves for props though).

Anyway any advice would be really helpful.
 
A

Alts

Member
TrickRoom said:
In the last few months I've been getting "plot bunnies" for games. There were always ideas before (which I've taken steps to write down everytime), but it hasn't been until now that they're tempting me into action.

Basically, I'm thinking about making a roguelike. I've been playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon for a long time, and enjoyed Shiren the Wanderer. But aside from those two (and the unique disputable cases like spelunky/FTL/Teleglitch) I never got very much into the genre. I wish there were more games that were like the first two, and lately I've been writing down all sorts of ideas for a game like that. However I have to admit, I feel an insecurity for not being much of a "traditional roguelike" person... That's making me question whether I'd be able to make a good game or not. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

You know what you like. That's a start. It doesn't matter that it's non-traditional. That might actually make things better, to be honest. What I'd do is try to stick to making things that satisfy your tastes, since you'll be far better equipped to assess their quality than if you're making something for a different audience.
 
F

fuzzy_slippers

Neo Member
Feep said:
Question for anyone who's worked on 3-D animations and stuff.

There are two options in Unity: Apply Root Motion, in which the animation actually modifies the model's transform as it moves, and...not that...in which all the animation just happens in place and the unit never actually changes position.

Since I'm doing hard path finding and motion driven by a Navigation Mesh, I was told to leave apply root motion off. But now that I've having soldiers getting into cover, it's getting weird.
Click to expand...

This is from the last page, but I wanted to comment if you are still working on this. Look at Unity's recent tutorial on creating a stealth game. You were probably advised to turn off root motion because typically you let the navigation agent move the object and just use in place animations (A* project uses that assumption). However, that stealth tutorial shows an example on taking the desired movement vectors from the navigation data and feeding it as velocity and angular velocity to mecanim so that it can drive the motion.

Something I also hadn't thought of doing are the examples in the stealth project of smart times to not bother to feed direction data to mecanim and just to override the rotation. In it they establish a "deadzone" of small corrections where they just set the transform rotation instead of using a turn animation. Previously with my own method I had a tendency to get characters that ran in goofy figure eights and this tweak helped.

I haven't watched any of the stealth tutorial videos but the code is super commented if you download the project.

I'm still playing with root motion but it seems to be worth the fiddle factor.
 
M

missile

Member
A few weeks ago I mentioned an air-drifting game. I have thought about it in
many ways, but I don't know whether my thoughts translate well into written
words. So I would be pleased to here some comments from some people over here
at NeoGAF. The game is called &#9733; Superstall &#9733;.

Here is a rough draft of the idea. I would be interested what you guys think
about it. I tried to keep the text short. The first paragraph gives the idea,
the second one describes a specific detail about the game, and the third one a
technical detail that hints at the game's unique characteristic.

Code: 
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--

[b]&#9733; Superstall &#9733;[/b]  

Superstall is like riding the razor's edge! It's going  to  be  a  challenging
game, a game about balance,  risk,   and  reward.   The  game's  mechanics  is
amazingly simple; equipped with an aircraft,  the  player's  objective  is  to
fly very risky maneuvers while  hitting  items  in  the  air  getting  rewards
depending on the risk taken. As better the player gets,  as  more  heated  and
thrilling the gameplay becomes, because the game entices  the  player  to  fly
more and more spectacular maneuvers to increase the  players  rewards,   while
likewise pushing the player closer and closer to the edge . . .   and  beyond.

Higher rewards can be gained for example by  flying  much  more  sophisticated
maneuvers while additionally pushing the aircraft  into  a  stall.   During  a
stall an aircraft won't produce any lift and it's up to the  player  to  catch
the aircraft before hitting the ground losing all of its  currently  collected
rewards  upon  crashing.   But  there  comes  a  bonus  along  with  it  while
successfully catching the aircraft in time. When hitting  an  item  while  the
aircraft is stalling and while the aircraft is falling  to  the  ground  in  a
spectacular fashion, the  item's  reward  gets  multiplied  by  a  incremental
factor depending on the risk of the maneuver, if the aircraft  can  be  caught
in time -- landing a superstall! But all rewards are gone  if  the  player  is
hitting the ground. To save rewards, the player can land the  aircraft  on  an
nearby airport delivering all the gained  rewards  adding  them  to  a  global
reward pool necessary for getting into the next level or  to  enter  an  extra
level. As longer the player stays out, as more  the  rewards  gets  multiplied
upon delivery. But the player may go the risk of losing all of  its  currently
collected rewards while staying out for too long.    

To make Superstall a very challenging game, and to  give  it  a  very  natural
feel  of  controlling  an  aircraft  and  its  tumbling  motion  during   said
maneuvers, a custom build physics engine  is  being  developed  to  allow  the
aircraft to perform such maneuvers under high loads, high angular rates,   and
stalling conditions, which requires a much  more  precise  treatment  of  many
physical components as is usually found in video games.   Very  good  dynamics
and handling characteristics are a key factor for  making  Superstall  fun  to
play. Hence, considerable work is spend on the physics engine to make  such  a
gamplay possible.

Superstall is envisioned being played from a  third-person  perspective  on  a
limited playground.

Platform: TBA
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--
 
bumpkin

bumpkin

Member
There's something oddly comical about having SF3 3rd Strike Ryu's punch shoot little orange bullets. Yay for placeholder art!
 
M

missile

Member
60fps animated gifs. Or not.

I somehow have problems converting an 60fps avi to an 60fps animated gif. I
did an 60fps recording with fraps and converted the video to an animated gif
using Jacs Animation Shop, which only allows me to set the speed of the
animation in hundredths of a second. I've chosen 0.010s, the minimum value. I
also tried 0.020s, but my browser, i.e. Opera and Firefox, don't play the
animation at the given speed. So I tried gimp, loaded the animated gif and
saved it with a new speed of 16ms. Despite the animation is a bit faster now,
it's far from 60fps as seen in the fraps video. Does anyone know what's
wrong here, or knows some good software for making 60fps animated gifs?


with_gimpu5sqv.gif

With Gimp 2.6.11: speed set to 16ms.


with_jascals3u.gif

With Jacs Animation Shop 3: speed set at 10ms (minimum value).


http://www.nihilogames.com/volatile/with_fraps.avi
With Fraps 3.4.7: recorded at 60fps
 
T

TrickRoom

Member
Alts said:
You know what you like. That's a start. It doesn't matter that it's non-traditional. That might actually make things better, to be honest. What I'd do is try to stick to making things that satisfy your tastes, since you'll be far better equipped to assess their quality than if you're making something for a different audience.
Click to expand...

That's a good point.. I guess there's nothing to it but to jump straight in now! Now I wonder if any of my marginal acquaintances on deviantART would be interested in making something with me, nwehehehe...
 
D

Duderino

Member
Mr. Luchador said:
So many interesting games in here, all of which I've enjoyed watching grow! I'd love a twitter feed/group/collection so it's easy to follow.
Click to expand...

I've actually been thinking about starting something like this specifically for indie fighting game developer community. At the moment we really don't have a centralized place where fans of the genre can get the latest updates from the indie scene. These projects tend to get muddled in with general fighting game discussion on SRK, or in case of Smashboards lost to general gaming discussion. Both are kinda the back alleys of each site as well so it's hard to reach new people.

Anyways, I think this is an outstanding idea for Neogaf. Here's my info:

Air Dash Online Twitter
Air Dash Online Facebook
My Twitter

And just for the sake of posting something, here's a mockup of an alternative shielding system to what we have currently. (just one of many ideas)

shleidideau4s78.png
 
F

Feep

Banned
fuzzy_slippers said:
This is from the last page, but I wanted to comment if you are still working on this. Look at Unity's recent tutorial on creating a stealth game. You were probably advised to turn off root motion because typically you let the navigation agent move the object and just use in place animations (A* project uses that assumption). However, that stealth tutorial shows an example on taking the desired movement vectors from the navigation data and feeding it as velocity and angular velocity to mecanim so that it can drive the motion.

Something I also hadn't thought of doing are the examples in the stealth project of smart times to not bother to feed direction data to mecanim and just to override the rotation. In it they establish a "deadzone" of small corrections where they just set the transform rotation instead of using a turn animation. Previously with my own method I had a tendency to get characters that ran in goofy figure eights and this tweak helped.

I haven't watched any of the stealth tutorial videos but the code is super commented if you download the project.

I'm still playing with root motion but it seems to be worth the fiddle factor.
Click to expand...
This...is a good tutorial.

*watches intently*
 
R

razu

Member
missile said:
A few weeks ago I mentioned an air-drifting game. I have thought about it in
many ways, but I don't know whether my thoughts translate well into written
words. So I would be pleased to here some comments from some people over here
at NeoGAF. The game is called &#9733; Superstall &#9733;.

Here is a rough draft of the idea. I would be interested what you guys think
about it. I tried to keep the text short. The first paragraph gives the idea,
the second one describes a specific detail about the game, and the third one a
technical detail that hints at the game's unique characteristic.

Code: 
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--

[b]&#9733; Superstall &#9733;[/b]  

Superstall is like riding the razor's edge! It's going  to  be  a  challenging
game, a game about balance,  risk,   and  reward.   The  game's  mechanics  is
amazingly simple; equipped with an aircraft,  the  player's  objective  is  to
fly very risky maneuvers while  hitting  items  in  the  air  getting  rewards
depending on the risk taken. As better the player gets,  as  more  heated  and
thrilling the gameplay becomes, because the game entices  the  player  to  fly
more and more spectacular maneuvers to increase the  players  rewards,   while
likewise pushing the player closer and closer to the edge . . .   and  beyond.

Higher rewards can be gained for example by  flying  much  more  sophisticated
maneuvers while additionally pushing the aircraft  into  a  stall.   During  a
stall an aircraft won't produce any lift and it's up to the  player  to  catch
the aircraft before hitting the ground losing all of its  currently  collected
rewards  upon  crashing.   But  there  comes  a  bonus  along  with  it  while
successfully catching the aircraft in time. When hitting  an  item  while  the
aircraft is stalling and while the aircraft is falling  to  the  ground  in  a
spectacular fashion, the  item's  reward  gets  multiplied  by  a  incremental
factor depending on the risk of the maneuver, if the aircraft  can  be  caught
in time -- landing a superstall! But all rewards are gone  if  the  player  is
hitting the ground. To save rewards, the player can land the  aircraft  on  an
nearby airport delivering all the gained  rewards  adding  them  to  a  global
reward pool necessary for getting into the next level or  to  enter  an  extra
level. As longer the player stays out, as more  the  rewards  gets  multiplied
upon delivery. But the player may go the risk of losing all of  its  currently
collected rewards while staying out for too long.    

To make Superstall a very challenging game, and to  give  it  a  very  natural
feel  of  controlling  an  aircraft  and  its  tumbling  motion  during   said
maneuvers, a custom build physics engine  is  being  developed  to  allow  the
aircraft to perform such maneuvers under high loads, high angular rates,   and
stalling conditions, which requires a much  more  precise  treatment  of  many
physical components as is usually found in video games.   Very  good  dynamics
and handling characteristics are a key factor for  making  Superstall  fun  to
play. Hence, considerable work is spend on the physics engine to make  such  a
gamplay possible.

Superstall is envisioned being played from a  third-person  perspective  on  a
limited playground.

Platform: TBA
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--
Click to expand...

I'm playing whatever you're making :D



In other news, I'm gearing up for Ludum Dare, gonna do the Jam...

This may be the "art style"...

xOxr5e3.jpg
 
M

Mr. Luchador

Member
MaritalWheat said:
I think this is a great idea, it would be awesome to have an aggregate of everyone's handles who posts in this thread.

Mine is here.
Click to expand...

Duderino said:
I've actually been thinking about starting something like this specifically for indie fighting game developer community. At the moment we really don't have a centralized place where fans of the genre can get the latest updates from the indie scene. These projects tend to get muddled in with general fighting game discussion on SRK, or in case of Smashboards lost to general gaming discussion. Both are kinda the back alleys of each site as well so it's hard to reach new people.

Anyways, I think this is an outstanding idea for Neogaf. Here's my info:

Air Dash Online Twitter
Air Dash Online Facebook
My Twitter

And just for the sake of posting something, here's a mockup of an alternative shielding system to what we have currently. (just one of many ideas)

shleidideau4s78.png
Click to expand...

Added you both and started to create a Twitter List!
 
D

Dynamite Shikoku

Congratulations, you really deserve it!
missile said:
A few weeks ago I mentioned an air-drifting game. I have thought about it in
many ways, but I don't know whether my thoughts translate well into written
words. So I would be pleased to here some comments from some people over here
at NeoGAF. The game is called &#9733; Superstall &#9733;.

Here is a rough draft of the idea. I would be interested what you guys think
about it. I tried to keep the text short. The first paragraph gives the idea,
the second one describes a specific detail about the game, and the third one a
technical detail that hints at the game's unique characteristic.

Code: 
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--

[b]&#9733; Superstall &#9733;[/b]  

Superstall is like riding the razor's edge! It's going  to  be  a  challenging
game, a game about balance,  risk,   and  reward.   The  game's  mechanics  is
amazingly simple; equipped with an aircraft,  the  player's  objective  is  to
fly very risky maneuvers while  hitting  items  in  the  air  getting  rewards
depending on the risk taken. As better the player gets,  as  more  heated  and
thrilling the gameplay becomes, because the game entices  the  player  to  fly
more and more spectacular maneuvers to increase the  players  rewards,   while
likewise pushing the player closer and closer to the edge . . .   and  beyond.

Higher rewards can be gained for example by  flying  much  more  sophisticated
maneuvers while additionally pushing the aircraft  into  a  stall.   During  a
stall an aircraft won't produce any lift and it's up to the  player  to  catch
the aircraft before hitting the ground losing all of its  currently  collected
rewards  upon  crashing.   But  there  comes  a  bonus  along  with  it  while
successfully catching the aircraft in time. When hitting  an  item  while  the
aircraft is stalling and while the aircraft is falling  to  the  ground  in  a
spectacular fashion, the  item's  reward  gets  multiplied  by  a  incremental
factor depending on the risk of the maneuver, if the aircraft  can  be  caught
in time -- landing a superstall! But all rewards are gone  if  the  player  is
hitting the ground. To save rewards, the player can land the  aircraft  on  an
nearby airport delivering all the gained  rewards  adding  them  to  a  global
reward pool necessary for getting into the next level or  to  enter  an  extra
level. As longer the player stays out, as more  the  rewards  gets  multiplied
upon delivery. But the player may go the risk of losing all of  its  currently
collected rewards while staying out for too long.    

To make Superstall a very challenging game, and to  give  it  a  very  natural
feel  of  controlling  an  aircraft  and  its  tumbling  motion  during   said
maneuvers, a custom build physics engine  is  being  developed  to  allow  the
aircraft to perform such maneuvers under high loads, high angular rates,   and
stalling conditions, which requires a much  more  precise  treatment  of  many
physical components as is usually found in video games.   Very  good  dynamics
and handling characteristics are a key factor for  making  Superstall  fun  to
play. Hence, considerable work is spend on the physics engine to make  such  a
gamplay possible.

Superstall is envisioned being played from a  third-person  perspective  on  a
limited playground.

Platform: TBA
------------------------------------------------------------[ [URL="http://www.nihilogames.com"]Nihilo Games[/URL] ]--
Click to expand...

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Are you doing everything yourself?
 
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