Diablohead
Member
This year I am really going to buckle down on my game work, i've been way too slack in the last 6 months.
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Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
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SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Hope all indegaf has a great 2015 and can finish ongoing projects or anything new they embark on!
So I've come back to an old prototype with fresh eyes and actually thought of several ways I could improve on it. Has anyone else done this and had good results? I'll probably mess with it regardless as I don't have any new ideas at the moment, but I'm wondering what other people around these parts have done.
Also, if anyone wants to check it out and give some hard feedback, I'd happily upload it. It's a simple turn based combat system where action order and targeting is determined by who is next in their respective line.
Maybe my resolution should be to actually finish something this year, or at least get a bit further past the starting line.
Also, if anyone wants to check it out and give some hard feedback, I'd happily upload it. It's a simple turn based combat system where action order and targeting is determined by who is next in their respective line.
Maybe my resolution should be to actually finish something this year, or at least get a bit further past the starting line.
It's significantly better since they introduced the new 2D sprite tools. Unity 4.6 also has new UI tools to make menus/HUD even easier to implement.
If the built-in tools aren't sufficient for your needs, there are plenty of toolkits you can purchase on the Asset store that are 2D-centric (e.g. 2D Toolkit) and super useful.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Welp. My SSD is going already, damn. Didn't even make it 3 months. Drive pegs 100% for about 30 seconds and locks everything up until it either unlocks or blue screens and reboots at which point becomes inaccessible to the BIOS on boot. Need a cold boot to recognize. Good thing my project files are on other hard drives, backed up to 2 more drives and repo'd because redundancy.
Just ordered a new WD Black for my OS to sit along my other 2 blacks. Damn. Money I'd rather save.
Just ordered a new WD Black for my OS to sit along my other 2 blacks. Damn. Money I'd rather save.
What brand/model SSD, for avoidance purposes?
electroflame
Member
If it's any consolation, I stick with WD as well and I've never had a major problem with them. A Black for my OS and two Greens for data storage.
I'm surprised that your SSD only lasted 3 months, though. Were you doing excessive read/writes to it? Any chance it's under warranty?
karaokelove
Neo Member
It's been working great for me as I develop a Puzzle Quest style match-3 RPG. You can check out a video of our early build here: http://www.thunderpunchstudios.com/2014/12/demo-video_19.html
Jacksinthe
Banned
Crucial MX100 256GB
Highly recommended by GAF but they are not without issue.
I will warranty it but some Googing has me seeing many similar issues from people
I do use a few blacks and a few greens. Blacks are for my obvious Steam backlog and Greens are for my storage. Will go Red with a proper local at some point.Black's have a longer warranty, too. Mine have been great so far so I'm sticking with what I know. At least its just for my OS and developer apps so I can be up and running in a day when my new drive comes
plagiarize
Banned
You've just reminded me to back up my project files. I try to keep a copy on each of my two hard drives, one SSD one mechanical. I try to back it up when I finish work for the evening, but I haven't for a couple of days! You'd think after having my back up save me once in the past (when my project files got totally corrupted) that I'd be better about remembering.
whoa that post was a long time ago, thank you!!
Also happy new year everyone! I have high hopes for 2015, really excited for the new year.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Git on that shit! lol
Hit up a repo, too. Github or Bitbucket are great tools
Yeap, no excuse not to put it on bitbucket. It's free! If you don't like git just use bitbucket as a backup.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Bitbucket! I knew I wasn't alo...
clashfan
you are not alone
(Yesterday, 11:52 PM)
:O
why?
2nded
Mystic River
Member
Limited in what way? I thought you were almost done with the game. Rebuilding it seems like an odd choice, especially if you still need to learn Unity.
superNESjoe
Member
If you're excited, I'm excited.
Haven't been posting much recently, just lurking. Been busy post-GunWorld prototyping new ideas for our next game. We finally settled on something that I'm pretty excited about. We're building a vert slice to submit to Microsoft and Sony by the end of the month, and use for a Kickstarter campaign as well.
We'd like to avoid things like Kickstarter, but with GunWorld not selling tremendously well it makes that difficult. We're currently #17 in the Top 100 on Steam Greenlight, and have been in the Top 100 for over two weeks. It's confusing to see other projects getting Greenlit every few days, especially ones that are nowhere near the Top 100. I wish there was a more consistent timeframe that we could expect to get released in. Our (perhaps naive) hope is that GunWorld will perform dramatically better once it is on Steam.
This is good to hear. When I tried Unity around a year and a half ago it was rather intimidating.
While I'm still on my first project, I did take around a 2 month break. When I came back to it, however, I found myself much more clearly able to see what was working, and what wasn't. So take that as you will? I'm down for giving feedback, as well.
Jacksinthe
Banned
5rded
I'm curious, as well. A friend of mine is working in C2 and his game is very complex, by comparison to Apexicon in terms of game systems. I can't see logic being an issue since the same rules apply regardless of engine.
I'm interested so I can give my bud a heads-up as to its limitations. As for learning Unity - this was me reading Unity's docs when I started:
They leave a lot to be desired
5rded
I'm curious, as well. A friend of mine is working in C2 and his game is very complex, by comparison to Apexicon in terms of game systems. I can't see logic being an issue since the same rules apply regardless of engine.
I'm interested so I can give my bud a heads-up as to its limitations. As for learning Unity - this was me reading Unity's docs when I started:
They leave a lot to be desired
Unfortunately they do. I found Unity's web videos to be more helpful along with tutorials and such, but those limit you in the speed you can reference things. :/
So it's time for me to start UVing and making textures. I'm using Blender and importing into Unity as .fbx.
Does anyone know how to keep your models mirrored in Blender and have the UV map also mirrored in Unity? There are options in the mirror feature in Blender to do the UVs, so maybe it's as easy as that. On my last game I just applied the mirror and UV mapped it like that. But this time I really don't want apply the mirror and have less detail textures, plus duplicating work having to texture both sides.
Edit: totally figured it out...it just worked by applying the mirror...
Does anyone know how to keep your models mirrored in Blender and have the UV map also mirrored in Unity? There are options in the mirror feature in Blender to do the UVs, so maybe it's as easy as that. On my last game I just applied the mirror and UV mapped it like that. But this time I really don't want apply the mirror and have less detail textures, plus duplicating work having to texture both sides.
Edit: totally figured it out...it just worked by applying the mirror...
Apexicon I wasn't done with, not at all. What I had of the game could be called proof of concept.
Enigmatic Rainbow
Member
Glancing through this thread has made me feel like starting on my own projects again. Everyone's work looks really interesting.
Jacksinthe
Banned
So what is the C2 limitation? Would be nice to hear its drawbacks from users so I can toss that into the new thread in the C2 description. Would be really good to read for new users deciding on an engine that fits their needs from a hands-on perspective.
It is not suitable for high def graphics, as you will run out of memory quite quickly. I was using large resolution images (1080) and the game would not run with some people's computers doing a limited release of the game.
I can't divulge the Wii U specs, but suffice to say the Wii U also has problems with memory and resolution (concerning NWF) so graphics have to be on the low rez side there as well.
I can't divulge the Wii U specs, but suffice to say the Wii U also has problems with memory and resolution (concerning NWF) so graphics have to be on the low rez side there as well.
Roran Stehl
Member
Maybe the wrong place to ask. Sorry if so.
I have an idea that could serve as a basis for a game. I'm not a dev and have no interest in any profit, but could help backing it if someone was interested.
Could I post the concept here? Or is there a different thread to exchange ideas?
I have an idea that could serve as a basis for a game. I'm not a dev and have no interest in any profit, but could help backing it if someone was interested.
Could I post the concept here? Or is there a different thread to exchange ideas?
Jacksinthe
Banned
So beta testing Infinite is pretty fun. Some great feedback in emails and on the G+ Community board. Over 30 folks in both public and private combined so I'm satisfied with it from such a tiny little game. I still get rubbed a bit wrong when people straight up tell me what they want vs what they have an issue with. Lots of things revolve around personal preference. I wish some would just state their complaints and not give solutions they *think* will work since one complaint can be solved by simple pacing and not weapon issues. Hard to judge tho since some people don't have a problem with being overwhelmed and getting stupid high scores and others just fail at rudimentary junctions.
Soul crushing, I say!
This reminds me - what was the approval process like? I'm in the program but going through those hoops right now. Any advice on the pitch?
Soul crushing, I say!
This reminds me - what was the approval process like? I'm in the program but going through those hoops right now. Any advice on the pitch?
Jacksinthe
Banned
Whoa - that's definitely an issue. Well if you can get in the Unity camp i'll be happy to say when testing a bazillion objects for our rain/train scene for STRAFE - WiiU never dropped below 60. Sure we are 1/10th scale with STRAFE but we use gigantic 2048x2048 sheets because i like fewer sheets
On PC we managed 1k+ on a lowly 560 during an overloaded scene.C2 sounds more like issues with HTML5 and wrappers, if I were to make a mostly uneducated guess. The GOOD thing is that your game's logic is sound so porting is a matter of translation and not rewriting, which is good and bad because porting is always no fun
Best of luck on the transition. Stick with it tho, Unity is very fun.
Edit:
I'll be sure to add this to the C2 description under "con".
Edit2:
Added in my draft.
Jacksinthe
Banned
YOU'VE COME TO THE RIGHT-ISH PLACE, FRIEND!
Let me happily direct you to Spaz's website for just such things:
http://www.indieteamup.com/
Enjoy!
Roran Stehl
Member
Thank you very much. Happy New Year!
My "trying-to-make-a-game-so-I-can-learn-to-program" game is starting to come along. It has now been 3 years (!!!) since I started, almost to the day. I was using Torque for the first year and a bit, then switched to Unity. This past year hasn't seen me spending a lot of time on it, ironically since I've been taking actual programming classes that eat up a lot of my time. But it has been pretty productive when I've found the time! The new knowledge helps a lot.
I'll probably update this thread with some info once I'm comfortable with showing it. I'm making a 2D platformer/puzzle/adventure game. Basically, you navigate a world and solve environmental puzzles. No combat. Most puzzles will involve changing your colour, which causes the environment to react to you differently. "Open world" to the extent that a platformer can be. I am hoping some of the fun is discovering the mechanics, so I won't go into too much detail on what exactly they are.
What I've done so far:
- Movement/jumping feel nice, behave how I want them to (spent far too many hours on this).
- Core mechanics are in place and functional (they've each been rewritten from scratch like 3-4 times as I gain more knowledge, they feel solid now).
- Placeholder art that gets the point across.
- Since many aspects of the environment will change depending on your character's colour, their appearance and behaviour needs to be dynamic. I've created a system for this that works well and feels optimized (i.e. it only checks for updates when you change colour or change rooms, the environment does not update in rooms you are not in). The game runs at like 100 FPS on my slow Windows tablet right now. I'm trying to shoot for low spec requirements.
- I'm using a 2D array to place tiles in the world, and it's dynamic based on object size. Therefore, much of the environmental art is placed in the world via code. Should save some time. This art needs to be able to be changed via the code for the game to function how I want it to anyway, so it just made sense to spawn it at run time.
- Basic front end work. Still getting the hang of Unity's FE.
Short term to-do list:
- Tighten up some of the collision and fix minor bugs that detract from quality.
- More FE work, likely just a basic pause menu at this point.
- The camera has boundaries, but I still haven't implemented changing the boundaries as you change rooms. I had previously been opening a new scene each time you changed rooms, but now I intend to have several large scenes made up of several rooms. This seems like it will be simple, but I haven't actually done it yet.
- Build a playable proof-of-concept demo, with some actual puzzles/gameplay. I've made a few of these before, but I discovered issues that I ended up going back and fixing. My first demo is almost nothing like what I have now.
Longer term to-do list:
- Update all the art, maybe not to a final level but to a "this looks good enough to show people and not get comments about problems with the art".
- Implement sound effects and music (I have a friend that has offered to do this, but I want to give him something that plays/looks pretty good so he can get a feel for what he's doing).
- Implement some more UI features - dialog and a map.
- Implement an inventory system and objects that can be picked up (just collectibles/keys).
Very long term:
- Save/load system.
- More art, more audio. Much of the art will be recycled throughout the game, but I'd like to have a few unique/memorable areas. Basically just different tile sets.
- Actually design and build the entire game world.
- Finish the damn game.
My target is to have a solid demo by the end of 2015. I can only really dedicate a few hours a week (at most) to this, but I think it's fairly realistic. I think I can probably do that with time to spare this year, which should give me a chance to show it around a little bit and get some feedback. I would love to finish the game in 2016, but we'll see. Work may be hectic around that time.
I can probably start showing a rough version of the demo with gameplay in place within a couple months though, so I can share that with this thread once it's ready.
I'll probably update this thread with some info once I'm comfortable with showing it. I'm making a 2D platformer/puzzle/adventure game. Basically, you navigate a world and solve environmental puzzles. No combat. Most puzzles will involve changing your colour, which causes the environment to react to you differently. "Open world" to the extent that a platformer can be. I am hoping some of the fun is discovering the mechanics, so I won't go into too much detail on what exactly they are.
What I've done so far:
- Movement/jumping feel nice, behave how I want them to (spent far too many hours on this).
- Core mechanics are in place and functional (they've each been rewritten from scratch like 3-4 times as I gain more knowledge, they feel solid now).
- Placeholder art that gets the point across.
- Since many aspects of the environment will change depending on your character's colour, their appearance and behaviour needs to be dynamic. I've created a system for this that works well and feels optimized (i.e. it only checks for updates when you change colour or change rooms, the environment does not update in rooms you are not in). The game runs at like 100 FPS on my slow Windows tablet right now. I'm trying to shoot for low spec requirements.
- I'm using a 2D array to place tiles in the world, and it's dynamic based on object size. Therefore, much of the environmental art is placed in the world via code. Should save some time. This art needs to be able to be changed via the code for the game to function how I want it to anyway, so it just made sense to spawn it at run time.
- Basic front end work. Still getting the hang of Unity's FE.
Short term to-do list:
- Tighten up some of the collision and fix minor bugs that detract from quality.
- More FE work, likely just a basic pause menu at this point.
- The camera has boundaries, but I still haven't implemented changing the boundaries as you change rooms. I had previously been opening a new scene each time you changed rooms, but now I intend to have several large scenes made up of several rooms. This seems like it will be simple, but I haven't actually done it yet.
- Build a playable proof-of-concept demo, with some actual puzzles/gameplay. I've made a few of these before, but I discovered issues that I ended up going back and fixing. My first demo is almost nothing like what I have now.
Longer term to-do list:
- Update all the art, maybe not to a final level but to a "this looks good enough to show people and not get comments about problems with the art".
- Implement sound effects and music (I have a friend that has offered to do this, but I want to give him something that plays/looks pretty good so he can get a feel for what he's doing).
- Implement some more UI features - dialog and a map.
- Implement an inventory system and objects that can be picked up (just collectibles/keys).
Very long term:
- Save/load system.
- More art, more audio. Much of the art will be recycled throughout the game, but I'd like to have a few unique/memorable areas. Basically just different tile sets.
- Actually design and build the entire game world.
- Finish the damn game.
My target is to have a solid demo by the end of 2015. I can only really dedicate a few hours a week (at most) to this, but I think it's fairly realistic. I think I can probably do that with time to spare this year, which should give me a chance to show it around a little bit and get some feedback. I would love to finish the game in 2016, but we'll see. Work may be hectic around that time.
I can probably start showing a rough version of the demo with gameplay in place within a couple months though, so I can share that with this thread once it's ready.
Jacksinthe
Banned
As long as your sprites are power of 2 and you manage some good garbage collection you will not have issues. The same overloaded scene run with a build on my 2013 Nexus 7 was steady above 40. With the rain and train scene normal was steady 60. Unity has some decent garbage collection but it is still good practice to clean up scenes on your own, even when using C#. But I never learned C# - Just ++ so I come from a "make your own damn bed" methodology. I just code with a few minor syntax changes in mind follow a few good C# rules.
Similarly, GML felt like C, to me. I should check out UE4 at some point since it uses C++ but I don't need that kind of control at the moment or foreseeable future.
PM me ur email if you want a quick run through of Unity's interface. I would be glad to at least go through some fundamentals of scene and hierarchy over Google Hangouts with a screen share. I'm free all of January. At least will be better than some videos because of questions/interaction on the spot.
By "free" I mean I am scared of tax man and can squeeze in time day or night, lol. I'm very much so confused about what buttons I need to press for my LLC to not get tagged for audit haha!
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I hope everyone likes seizure-inducing trailers!
Just waiting on a bit more art to finish the tail end of the intro.
Jacksinthe
Banned
Narrowing down thread title choices:
1) High def work for low def pay
2) Steam says I'm green, bank says I'm red
CAST YOUR VOTES
1 or 2
Blue pill or red pill
poTAYto or poTAHto
Zig or zag
X or O (choose square wisely)
1) High def work for low def pay
2) Steam says I'm green, bank says I'm red
CAST YOUR VOTES
1 or 2
Blue pill or red pill
poTAYto or poTAHto
Zig or zag
X or O (choose square wisely)
The best!
This has my vote.
superNESjoe
Member
Vote cast.
Option 2 plz
I vote 1). 2) will make everyone think we're a bunch of lame Greenlight devs who should be destroyed, only feeling good about ourselves because we make each other think we're cool!
Don't you have like, a Scrooge McDuck vault after the success of your last game, allowing you to hire fancy voice actors? Your bank can hardly be red!
Are you giving the game to everyone on GAF for free again this time? *raises scrabbly hands*We def. are tho
Those fancy voice actors are pushing me into the red again = PDon't you have like, a Scrooge McDuck vault after the success of your last game, allowing you to hire fancy voice actors? Your bank can hardly be red!
I just realized not only is your bank account not red, but you didn't use Greenlight for either of your games. IMPOSTER!
Michael Armbrust
Member
My pick.
- Status