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[AriEX2]

Adult Swim is giving out this rad poster depicting some of its lineup of games at its PAX booth.

Dang Jobbs! That poster is really nice. Just look at that deadsuit dash! Adult Swim's supporting a pretty great bunch of games at the moment. Someone there has a great eye for quality.

 

[Five]

Haven't emailed yet as I'd like to have a trailer handy first, but that's definitely something I'm considering as well, so any information on that matter will help a lot! I saw some of the adult swim team are now following me on twitter... Not sure if that's enough already (as in, they know what to look at and will contact me if they have anything to say), or if I should take the next step in that "conversation", and how soon I should do it if so.

I don't really pay attention to Twitter, but that should probably change. Half the reason I want a publisher is hating personally reaching out to people, but that's most of what Twitter is useful for. I have no interest in the celebrity of game design, just like making cool stuff.

I've definitely been trying to examine my own mental health. Just as a matter of making a better game, I find it harder to be creative and produce good work compared to early in the process, and I think that's because of the anxiety I feel about the game and the timeline.

I couldn't possibly explain my mental state in a forum post, but it's safe to say my thoughts and feelings around all of this are very complex. I've mused before, jokingly, that I'll need to be re-acclimated to life after the game is done with, but that's perhaps not entirely a joke. I don't really enjoy anything because of all the space this thing takes up in my head.

If you don't have a vent, all of that anxiety gets bottled up, which of course is bad. For me, I get to vent to my girlfriend, my godmother, and my best friend. The latter two tend to be non-partisan as well, which can help. They don't even always understand what I'm talking about, but it helps to have them there and listening.

 

[bkw]

It's close enough to Saturday over here

Spent the last couple days fixing up an older game of mine with fancy new sprites. I was in kind of a rush originally when I made it a couple years ago, so I ended up getting kind of sloppy

I don't really like the new rock texture I made, and the general consensus on Twitter yesterday was that it didn't really fit (too repetitious). I'm awful at rock/dirt textures, so I guess I'll just revert to the old ones and keep the new trees/etc.

Which one is the new one and which is the old?

 

[liliththepale]

It's close enough to Saturday over here

Spent the last couple days fixing up an older game of mine with fancy new sprites. I was in kind of a rush originally when I made it a couple years ago, so I ended up getting kind of sloppy

I don't really like the new rock texture I made, and the general consensus on Twitter yesterday was that it didn't really fit (too repetitious). I'm awful at rock/dirt textures, so I guess I'll just revert to the old ones and keep the new trees/etc.

I think you're saying the bottom is new, right? I like the diamond rocks better. It's a more traditional look for pixel art. The top one looks faux painterly, which I can't really get behind. With painterly, it's all or nothing.


Speaking of Screenshot Saturday, there's a secret end world in Nethermind! It's a secret to everyone, and it's quite literally hell. Here are some of the creature designs we've been working on:

Hopefully I can get a couple of them animated and programmed this weekend.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

Which one is the new one and which is the old?

I think you're saying the bottom is new, right? I like the diamond rocks better. It's a more traditional look for pixel art. The top one looks faux painterly, which I can't really get behind. With painterly, it's all or nothing.

Yeah, bottom's the new stuff. It looks too repetitive and noisy. I could probably double the tile size but this is a two year old project and that would mean a lot of cosmetic work on an old level. More than simply importing the old sprite in to an art editor program and redrawing it.

 

[anteevy]

Anyone have ideas on what's the best way to try and solicit a publisher, or group of publishers? Full disclosure: I emailed a recruiter at Adult Swim on Monday afternoon about them potentially picking up Nether Mind. This was after redoing the website and cutting a couple of new videos for the game (a one-minute trailer and a twelve-minute walkthrough) in addition to sending out a playable demo of the game. But I haven't heard back all week.

I intend to be patient, especially as my day job has me swamped, but I'm curious what the protocol for going forward is. How long should I wait for a response? Was now a bad time because of all the PAX stuff? Is it in bad taste to solicit multiple publishers at the same time?

I'm in the same situation right now. I mean, Greenlight was cool and easy but probably won't help much in regard of marketing and visibility. Also, I'd like to get on XBONE/PS4 sometime. Will do a new trailer in 1-2 weeks and then contact some publishers. Same question(s):
How long should I wait to contact another publisher after having contacted one? Any tips on the mail content? I guess it's similar to a press mail, i.e. catchy subject line, keep it to the point, trailer, playable demo/alpha, presskit with further information. Which publishers do you suggest (besides Adult Swim obviously)? I recently found a German one that looks good (Headup Games) that I might try.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

The shadow thing is a good idea, but I tried it and:



...Eh, I don't really like it. Plus I'd have to completely redo the way shadows work to make it not look bad on enemies.

I was thinking more of a shiloutte type of shadow, but I understand is probably difficult to make.

It's just tiling clouds for one stage, there will be others (hopefully). As for questions about trees in the ground, perspective of floor tiles etc it's the result of KevinCow sticking my assets in the stage and showing horrible looking screenshots on GAF I cannot condone as the artist XD Although I understand it's not so important when asking technical questions, it creates unnecessary aesthetic questions. It will hopefully be looking more like this -

Later down the road. That said thanks for the art tips some have posted on this past page.

It looks super bussy though.

Spoiler

I suppose its more to show the majority of the art assets in one screen

What I would say is make a little smaller the hud elements as they take too much space.

A small milestone/status update! I'm done with BB's colored animation, so all that's left is to put it all in the game and get the timing right. But before that, I want to finish coloring the new Honey animations, too, so I'm not out of the woods just yet. Still wanted to share some of the excitement/relief!



In other news, someone that's not me just completed the first complete playthrough of the game, and it worked... mostly! Had a couple nasty bugs towards the end, and it was of course missing BB's match (and an actual scripted ending), but the critical path worked. It's probably not a good thing that I'm that surprised/happy that it did, but it did, so yay! It hinted at some narration balancing issues, too (does that even make sense? I mean some subplots don't activate as often as they should) so those will be next on the to-do list after BB's match.

Good to hear it worked! Does it has lots of optional subplots?

While Canti's here, maybe you guys can help us with a disagreement.

Does the health look better at the top:



Or the bottom?



I currently have it set up to where I can change it with the flip of a boolean, so I'll probably just make it an option, but what do you guys think should be the default?

Bottom but as I told to Canti, maybe make the hud elements a tad smaller.

What do you guys think about these possible titles?

Firenzi: Blaze Warrior
Firenzi: Blaze Knight
Firenzi vs. the Hyper Knight Army

Adult Swim is giving out this rad poster depicting some of its lineup of games at its PAX booth.

Blaze Knight, without the Firenzi. I dont think it works well with the subtitle.
If you are going with a more comedic vibe I think Firenzi vs the Hyper Knight Army works really well.

Made a quick gif of my latest build.

Edit: linked instead http://i.imgur.com/juAjCVx.gifv

Two things I want to point out:

1) The scenery looks a lot better when it was designed by an artist. No trees sticking out of cobblestones!

2) Look at the beautiful 3D effect on the cart I created!

I'd love to make this game for the 3DS. I bet it would look awesome.

Even if it just programmer art I really like the look of the 3d cart (we are doing something similar for our game even if like yours is 2D). Im sure that with Canti's art it could look really great with the cool 3d effect.

I think you're saying the bottom is new, right? I like the diamond rocks better. It's a more traditional look for pixel art. The top one looks faux painterly, which I can't really get behind. With painterly, it's all or nothing.


Speaking of Screenshot Saturday, there's a secret end world in Nethermind! It's a secret to everyone, and it's quite literally hell. Here are some of the creature designs we've been working on:

Hopefully I can get a couple of them animated and programmed this weekend.

Love the artsyle and enemy designs.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

My quest for doing good dirt/rock texture continues. Went a little more Link to the Past. I don't even know if this is better or worse than either of my past two attempts.

 

[Pehesse]

Good to hear it worked! Does it has lots of optional subplots?

Dunno if it's "lots", but it has 6 main character subplots, along with some other secondary character stuff that's less involved. The main subplots are similar to Persona's social links, but you have less agency as to when you trigger them, the idea being that they aren't artificially fixed in time, leading to a more organic feeling of meeting people through chance encounters, not forcing events - you might meet some characters more during a playthrough depending on how you play, making for a different read of the events and themes. That's the idea, anyway... In theory, I want the player to encounter naturally a full 2 subplots and hints of the other 4, with the possibility of seeing all 6 at once if you plan your timetable around them - but in actuality, we didn't even see an entire one, so I'll need to tune heavily their frequency and the process behind their appearance :-D

But that's enough narration talk! If you want to see people punched in the face for screenshot saturday, I have just the thing for you: http://gfycat.com/DazzlingDifferentBlackbear (yes, it's the wrong cut-in, I'll get to that when all the animation's done). Gotta love the lyrical referee in the background.

 

[SystemBug]

Speaking of Screenshot Saturday, there's a secret end world in Nethermind! It's a secret to everyone, and it's quite literally hell. Here are some of the creature designs we've been working on:

Hopefully I can get a couple of them animated and programmed this weekend.

loving this!

 

[ZServ]

My quest for doing good dirt/rock texture continues. Went a little more Link to the Past. I don't even know if this is better or worse than either of my past two attempts.

I still think B is the best, but needs tweaked. It should be darker, like C, but because of the repetitiveness you need to make a variation or two of it to break up the monotony. I can't remember where I read it, but there was an article either here or in /r/gamedev that was about old school games that used tiny variations to break up the brains ability to go "oh this is a pattern."

Additionally, another reason it looks "bad" is because it clashes with the background, due to the completely different art styles. Once that is replaced it will have a very, very identifiable "feel."

Edit: Just read that the trees are new, now I feel like an ass. The very fore-most trees should be changed, if this is the case. You have sharp angles in the dirt texture and most of the trees, but the one set of trees is rounded, which just looks weird.

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

I still think B is the best, but needs tweaked. It should be darker, like C, but because of the repetitiveness you need to make a variation or two of it to break up the monotony. I can't remember where I read it, but there was an article either here or in /r/gamedev that was about old school games that used tiny variations to break up the brains ability to go "oh this is a pattern."

Additionally, another reason it looks "bad" is because it clashes with the background, due to the completely different art styles. Once that is replaced it will have a very, very identifiable "feel."

Edit: Just read that the trees are new, now I feel like an ass. The very fore-most trees should be changed, if this is the case. You have sharp angles in the dirt texture and most of the trees, but the one set of trees is rounded, which just looks weird.

I'm not really sure what you mean about the trees. I mean, I guess C matches everything artistically.

I did try to break up B's repetition, but I still wasn't happy with it:

(sorry if this looks weird, but I'm on my tablet and I grabbed that from my Twitter from a few hours ago. Normally don't go for jpgs of sprites)

 

[ZServ]

I'm not really sure what you mean about the trees. I mean, I guess C matches everything artistically.

I did try to break up B's repetition, but I still wasn't happy with it:

(sorry if this looks weird, but I'm on my tablet and I grabbed that from my Twitter from a few hours ago. Normally don't go for jpgs of sprites)

So, you have pine trees. They're sharp, angular. Then you have your dirt texture, which is sharp, and angular. Then you have a layer of trees with very round bunches of leaves. Because of this, it clashes with the angular nature of the pine trees and dirt. Sorry if I'm not making sense

That does look a BUNCH better, but it needs to be of a darker palette.

 

[plagiarize]

I'm not dead! I'm still working on Primitive and still hoping to have it done around the time the Oculus Rift ships next year. We've had a house full of people for a couple of months so I haven't had much dev time, but that should start ramping up again soon. I just wanted to sling a link in here to a build done on the latest version of the UE4 engine, that I've just built to ensure it works great with the new direct driver mode using the Rift 0.7 runtime.

https://mega.nz/#!e9oXTbjI!S0h7Bow7PdPzu23jl1qW6QWy6ldg6tJvzn5c--7qTcI

While the new runtime breaks a lot of old stuff already released, as someone who could never really manage to get direct mode working on anything other than a couple of random things and was always forced to use extended mode for everything else (where your rift was seen as a monitor by windows), this is definitely the best implementation yet. Performance wise, and mirroring etc.

It's definitely a great SDK release from Oculus, I'm *very* happy that UE4 already works with it, and I'm very happy that everything is now working on Windows 10.

Expect a longer update from me on the project in the coming week as I get my hands dirty again.

 

[Jackpot]

First time noticing this thread, I've been working on EVE:WORLD for more than a year.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/eveworld

Super-big scale space combat and planetary invasion.

 

[rje]

The last few days we've been working on a small polish pass of our city zone - I added sidewalks around the building, tweaked the snow effect, added a fog effect, and sprinkled chimneys on the rooftop to break up the larger blocks. Craig is planning to draw a proper animated smoke for the chimneys but in the meantime I had a simple particle effect spawn on 20% of them:

We also decided that the shotgun needed a bit more 'oomph' so we started working on a new muzzle flash animation for it:

It's not quite there but it's way better than what we had before.

Still slow going on the networking front - spending a lot of time digging into steam's api as well as console apis to try and wrap my head around them all before I sketch out our cross platform layer. I really wish unet in unity was built on top of platform services like the online subsystem is in UE4.

 

[rje]

First time noticing this thread, I've been working on EVE:WORLD for more than a year.

http://www.indiedb.com/games/eveworld

Super-big scale space combat and planetary invasion.

Wow, that looks amazing. Great work!

 

[Burt]

My quest for doing good dirt/rock texture continues. Went a little more Link to the Past. I don't even know if this is better or worse than either of my past two attempts.

I'm 100% in favor of this one.

I don't know if you're just using that sort of depth as a way to give us a better look at things, but I do think that you would benefit for a fade to black rather than keeping it a solid texture all the way down.

You're spending a lot of screen space (and likely time and effort) on something that you don't really want people to focus on. Even if you're not in favor of the fade, I would at least recommend that you use 3-4 smaller, more manageable tiles that you can mix and match to break up repetition. And if you're dead set on using the other tile type with the rock formations, have a more concrete idea of what you're aiming for with shape and lighting. Right now, it's a bunch of shapes pasted over each other without any regard to how they interact.

Add in 2 minutes worth of shading without even changing up the forms or colors

...and it's pretty easy to see how things become a lot more 'solid'

 

[Blizzard]

We also decided that the shotgun needed a bit more 'oomph' so we started working on a new muzzle flash animation for it:

It's not quite there but it's way better than what we had before.

Nice sprites! Is the black circle representing a hitbox, smoke, or something else? That is the only part that sticks out as strange to me. If it were white, blue, or even fire-textured I'm curious how it would look.

 

[chris-013]

My first prototype on Unity 5 :

(the gif is 2 times the speed of the game)

A lot of borrowed placeholder art, the only thing I have done are the player and the enemies.

I'm a programmer and I don't have any art skills so that takes me too much time to draw something and in the end it's not really good...

I think, I'm making a lot more progress when I use placeholders to have an idea of the art/animations I want and then I can concentrate on actual gameplay.

 

[SquirrelWide]

I've definitely been trying to examine my own mental health. Just as a matter of making a better game, I find it harder to be creative and produce good work compared to early in the process, and I think that's because of the anxiety I feel about the game and the timeline.

I couldn't possibly explain my mental state in a forum post, but it's safe to say my thoughts and feelings around all of this are very complex. I've mused before, jokingly, that I'll need to be re-acclimated to life after the game is done with, but that's perhaps not entirely a joke. I don't really enjoy anything because of all the space this thing takes up in my head.

When in doubt, exercise + anxiety = slightly less anxiety. On that note, to the gym!

 

[rje]

Nice sprites! Is the black circle representing a hitbox, smoke, or something else? That is the only part that sticks out as strange to me. If it were white, blue, or even fire-textured I'm curious how it would look.

The gif capture kinda messed it up - it starts as a white flash that alternates to black for a frame before it goes into the rest of the animation, kind of like this metal slug explosion:

Been trying to get it to record at 60fps instead, but gifcam is giving me fits when I do that and putting random splotches of green everywhere.

Edit: I made an animation in gimp of just the muzzle flash so it's easier to see

 

[Blizzard]

The gif capture kinda messed it up - it starts as a white flash that alternates to black for a frame before it goes into the rest of the animation, kind of like this metal slug explosion:

Been trying to get it to record at 60fps instead, but gifcam is giving me fits when I do that and putting random splotches of green everywhere.

Huh, the black circle in that looks weird to me too, but I'm not going to criticize Metal Slug sprites so I'll assume it must work.

 

[liliththepale]

Nice sprites! Is the black circle representing a hitbox, smoke, or something else? That is the only part that sticks out as strange to me. If it were white, blue, or even fire-textured I'm curious how it would look.

I'm not working on that game, but there are a couple tutorials floating around the web that suggest putting a black image before an explosion makes the explosion look brighter. Sort of a retro HDR effect. I don't think the framerate in the GIF is selling the full effect.

edit: lol, late. I was trying to find one of the aforementioned tutorials but no luck.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm upgrading to a new Visual Studio update and going to try to update all my projects to use a newer compiler since they were still on the old 2010 one. Here's hoping I don't run into any problems trying to be modern...

 

[KevinCow]

I'm thinking about making a TIGSource Devlog thread so I'm not spamming up this thread every time I want to show off something I updated. Any advice on what I should put in the OP?

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Dunno if it's "lots", but it has 6 main character subplots, along with some other secondary character stuff that's less involved. The main subplots are similar to Persona's social links, but you have less agency as to when you trigger them, the idea being that they aren't artificially fixed in time, leading to a more organic feeling of meeting people through chance encounters, not forcing events - you might meet some characters more during a playthrough depending on how you play, making for a different read of the events and themes. That's the idea, anyway... In theory, I want the player to encounter naturally a full 2 subplots and hints of the other 4, with the possibility of seeing all 6 at once if you plan your timetable around them - but in actuality, we didn't even see an entire one, so I'll need to tune heavily their frequency and the process behind their appearance :-D

But that's enough narration talk! If you want to see people punched in the face for screenshot saturday, I have just the thing for you: http://gfycat.com/DazzlingDifferentBlackbear (yes, it's the wrong cut-in, I'll get to that when all the animation's done). Gotta love the lyrical referee in the background.

I want to play your game SOOO much.
Also excellent animation.

 

[Kalentan]

Hey guys! So I decided to move forth with my game i've been posting! Originally I was just going to make it a test but I want to make it into a full fledge game!

So without further ado, here is...

(Logo WIP)

Marlow Kilith was once the prince and head royal knight of the Kingdom of Corles. However at the end of the Ten Year War against the Vanklor Empire, he was forced to go into the shadows. In the years following the war, the conquered the nations by the Vanklor have been becoming increasingly unrestful. Marlow is found and is hired by a mysterous benefactor known as the Director, whom wishes to Marlow to lead a team known as the Kalendin, a group who will work to upsurp the Vanklor Empire. A man who was forced into the shadows will be brought into the light by the the shadows itself.

1. Control 8 characters over the course of a variety of missions across the territories that Vanklor conquered.
2. Each character has a unique class and each of their 8 skills they unlock from leveling can be enhanced to two different versions. This is permanent.
3. Gather allies across the territories and send them on their own missions, but be warned, not every mission will be there after each story mission. Choose which ones you do wisely!
4. Full crafting system, allowing you to make a large amount of weapons (each class uses 1 weapon type, but you can get a variety of statistical weapons.)
5. Fight through maps tactical style in similiar vein to Disgaea and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Characters

"Sir, I have the dossiers, you want to read them?"

"In time I shall, give me an overview for now."

"Yes Sir. Let's begin with the leader."

“Name’s Marlow Kilith, is thirty-two years old. He was both the prince and the head royal knight for his kingdom up until the king and queen’s death. Back in those days he was a great sword fighter but he carried himself as the pretty boy that everyone was nice to but insulted behind their back. It was hard to find him after the kingdom fell, but he’s almost an entirely different person. He’s been moving from town to town as an unknown, killing monsters or any Vanklor soldiers he finds. Sad it is to say, but his kingdoms fall allowed him to finally mature and his skilled honed to another level. I think you’re right to allow him to lead, Director, you can see it in his eyes, the rage of someone who has experienced loss. Still I have my reservations, what if he is willing to sacrifice those around him to get his revenge. I’m just not completely sure he’s all in there, I think some of himself was lost on the war’s final day.”

“Masara the Huntress, age twenty-four, a living legend. Once the hunter of the small village in the forest south of the Corles capitol, she provided enough food to lavish the village. Her skills as a hunter made her sound more like a force of nature than a human. She was even invited to dine with the King and Queen because of her skill. When the Vanklor forces invaded the forest, she killed everyone one before they could reach the village. It got so bad they had to send in a guy known as Vlad the Assassin. Not an original name but a fitting one. They fought for days in the forest, both evenly skilled. Still it was Vlad who wounded Masara and forced her to retreat, though the villagers left, the village they had built for years was destroyed. Since the wars conclusion, she has been working as a Monster Hunter to help her village to get back into order, but it’s been has been tough times for them. But we know what she’s best at, killing Vanklor and she gladly accepted our request.”

“Famous for both good and bad. Tyler Redborn, age twenty-one, is the widely known Frost Mage. A while back he was training to get put in the Magisters Court. Yeah, those guys, the mages who think that they should rule world citing their magic as being their divine duty to rule over those without magic. Anyway he was involved with an incident with an Ice Elemental that caused him to lose connection with the other elements but his connection to ice magic was increased tenfold. So much so that other mages who had delved further into ice were taken back by his superior handling of the element. Now for the bad, the guy is known to be a crazy womanizer, trying any chance he gets to get in there. Marlow will have to keep him on a leash but I’m sure Masara can handler herself. This was why he was kicked out of the Court’s training, not that he cared. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great asset, but can strike the nerves of others. We found him working for an Earl as their personal mage, he practically begged us to take him with us. Lastly… try to make every conversation short and to the point, lest he tries to use his magic as an excuse for ice puns.”

“We still haven’t been able to find Lyrolia, but we have been hearing a bunch about her from our contacts. Lyrolia is the Death Mistress or just Death Mage, using Dark Magic and Poisons, she is one of the few mages who are able to use the Dark arts without falling into the dark itself. Apparently the blindfold she wears over her eyes is one part of her training she had to undergo to control it. Yet she still wears it? No one has info on why she keeps wearing it despite having mastered the arts. Some say she is currently working with the rebels in Avaraga to regain back her homeland which was conquered by the Vanklor Empire some years ago during the war against Corles. They say most who go up against her don’t return. I’ll keep updating you Director as we learn more.”

-------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked reading this. I still have A LOT of work to be done... Like well over a year of work. D:

If I can't have this here, I can remove it.

 

[KevinCow]

Made a couple gifs, this time that aren't FUCKING GIGANTIC.

 

[danielcw]

Sorry for being off-topic, but I guess I could get a quick awnser here, and I hope you do not mind.

Can anybody with access to the Steam-SDK tell me, if games can influence Trading Cards. For example, can a game say: "don't award any Trading Cards this session", because a player is using a cheat?

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

I'm 100% in favor of this one.

I don't know if you're just using that sort of depth as a way to give us a better look at things, but I do think that you would benefit for a fade to black rather than keeping it a solid texture all the way down.

You're spending a lot of screen space (and likely time and effort) on something that you don't really want people to focus on. Even if you're not in favor of the fade, I would at least recommend that you use 3-4 smaller, more manageable tiles that you can mix and match to break up repetition. And if you're dead set on using the other tile type with the rock formations, have a more concrete idea of what you're aiming for with shape and lighting. Right now, it's a bunch of shapes pasted over each other without any regard to how they interact.

Add in 2 minutes worth of shading without even changing up the forms or colors

...and it's pretty easy to see how things become a lot more 'solid'

I'd actually considered the fade, but as I implied in the post, I was kind of looking at A Link to the Past.

Of course, LTTP is isometric, so it doesn't need to fade like that.

I guess that does look better. I didn't really like the "many rocks" style because that felt too... I dunno, Sonic the Hedgehog? And I'd be lying if I wasn't just blindly trying to replicate this from memory without really looking at how the rocks were constructed or organized:

I do like the way they look once you give them shadows and solidity (I'd thought about shadows, but was getting frustrated). But I think I also like the soft dirt look of my third style.

Also, obsessing over dirt like this probably doesn't matter that much when the game is about ascending towers and you spend 90% of your time looking at stone bricks:

The dirt/outside segments are just a little intro before you go inside (sometimes there's secrets out there).

 

[Pehesse]

I want to play your game SOOO much.
Also excellent animation.

Thanks :-D Now, I'm afraid the game will underdeliver after all of that talk... Pressure!

I'd offer you to playtest it, but that's really kind of a poisoned gift, since playing a VN while encountering placeholders left and right and flow stopping bugs can be a pretty souring experience... when the whole thing holds together better than it currently does, I'll be in a better position to offer!


(And serious talk for a minute: I'll definitely need playtesters at some point to help me review the script, in addition to spotting the bugs and testing the balance. I'm not a native speaker, so there are most likely plenty of things in there that are plain wrong. I'm not asking for anything yet, but when I will, it'll be with the same above caveats: playtesting through the unfinished script might ruin the final finished experience if you intend to ultimately play the game for real... but then again, hopefully it might not, just something to keep in mind if some of you want to test the beta when it'll be ready. Would some of you be interested already, with all that said?)

Hey guys! So I decided to move forth with my game i've been posting! Originally I was just going to make it a test but I want to make it into a full fledge game!

So without further ado, here is...

(Logo WIP)

Sweet Got a WIP 520x294 screen, so I could add the project to the list?

Made a couple gifs, this time that aren't FUCKING GIGANTIC.

Same as above, if you have a 520x294 screen and have settled on at least a temp title, on the list it goes!

As for comments on the gifs: I don't really know what's placeholder or not, so I can't really comment about specific elements, but the action looks quite fluid overall, very nice.
Some criticism: I'm not a fan of overly saturated color palettes, but it does work here with red kept mostly for the main char/his special effects. I'd simply suggest to de-saturate the background(s) to make the action plane clearer and more visible. Here, I'm having trouble seeing the enemy brown over the fence brown, and their blue flame against the sky.
It's also lacking a bit in impact and feedback when you hit an enemy, but again, maybe it's all placeholder for now?

(snip)

Same as above! Title, 520x294 screen, yadda yadda :-D

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Thanks :-D Now, I'm afraid the game will underdeliver after all of that talk... Pressure!

I'd offer you to playtest it, but that's really kind of a poisoned gift, since playing a VN while encountering placeholders left and right and flow stopping bugs can be a pretty souring experience... when the whole thing holds together better than it currently does, I'll be in a better position to offer!


(And serious talk for a minute: I'll definitely need playtesters at some point to help me review the script, in addition to spotting the bugs and testing the balance. I'm not a native speaker, so there are most likely plenty of things in there that are plain wrong. I'm not asking for anything yet, but when I will, it'll be with the same above caveats: playtesting through the unfinished script might ruin the final finished experience if you intend to ultimately play the game for real... but then again, hopefully it might not, just something to keep in mind if some of you want to test the beta when it'll be ready. Would some of you be interested already, with all that said?)

I can be a playtester if you want, when you decide the game is in a better position. I dont mind helping you.
I suppose, being a VN and all will also have a lot of text, but I wouldnt mind, depending of the work I have, to give it a shot to a spanish translation, if you dont have someone already.

 

[Pehesse]

I can be a playtester if you want, when you decide the game is in a better position. I dont mind helping you.
I suppose, being a VN and all will also have a lot of text, but I wouldnt mind, depending of the work I have, to give it a shot to a spanish translation, if you dont have someone already.

I'll send you a build when I have one, then! It's probably going to be at the end of next month, once I have finished BB's match, so the critical path is fully playable. There will be many, many things missing still, such as the intro, ending and some other features, but it'll already be a hefty chunk of content to test :-D Current test time runs around 7-8 hours for a playthrough, though of course your mileage may vary depending on how fast you read.

As for a translation: I really, really appreciate the offer, seriously, but I'm afraid the undertaking would be way too massive to ask of you. I'm actually hesitant to translate the whole thing in French myself, simply because of the amount of text it represents, and the crummy way I fit it in (I couldn't figure out how to get external script working with special characters, so it's all internal and translating the game would basically mean copying each text string in something like an excel file, translating there, then putting it all back in the correct place by hand one by one... that's probably something that'll take months). And even if we were to manage to translate it... I'm not sure how I'd be able to set/toggle the different versions ingame without basically doubling the amount of text in the code for each available translation - and that's a hefty memory price to pay when finally loading the game! I could always do separate versions for each translation, but that'd be pretty cumbersome as well... I'm afraid I just didn't design it well at the start, and it's way too involved now to go back :-D

With all that said, you'll see how it is when you play it, and you'll tell me then if it still sounds like a good idea to you - if it does, then I'll gladly welcome the help!

 

[BlazeHedgehog]

Same as above! Title, 520x294 screen, yadda yadda :-D

Eh, I dunno. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a GAME game, but it's a very tiny game. Diablohead comissioned me to make some minigames for Nakiti Generations, so I made three small arcade-style minigames, and this is one of them.

It's technically inspired by Donkey Kong, but it kind of took on a life of its own. You scale a tower, discovering secret chests full of loot and killing bad guys to confront a dragon at the very top.

In keeping with the classic arcade theme, there's only three levels, and once you beat the third level, it just dumps you back at a harder version of level 1. It loops through those three levels forever, adding more and more enemies with increasingly difficult attack patterns.

I plan on going through the other two games I made for him and giving them the same extra polish I've been giving this game eventually. I still "own" my games, even though I made them for Diablohead, and the plan was to package the three together and throw them up on Itchio one day for a buck or whatever

But that's a ways off yet.

If you still think I should get added to the OP, I'll go ahead and put something together, though.

 

[Pehesse]

Eh, I dunno. I mean, don't get me wrong, this is a GAME game, but it's a very tiny game. Diablohead comissioned me to make some minigames for Nakiti Generations, so I made three small arcade-style minigames, and this is one of them.

It's technically inspired by Donkey Kong, but it kind of took on a life of its own. You scale a tower, discovering secret chests full of loot and killing bad guys to confront a dragon at the very top.

In keeping with the classic arcade theme, there's only three levels, and once you beat the third level, it just dumps you back at a harder version of level 1. It loops through those three levels forever, adding more and more enemies with increasingly difficult attack patterns.

I plan on going through the other two games I made for him and giving them the same extra polish I've been giving this game eventually. I still "own" my games, even though I made them for Diablohead, and the plan was to package the three together and throw them up on Itchio one day for a buck or whatever

But that's a ways off yet.

If you still think I should get added to the OP, I'll go ahead and put something together, though.

As you like!

However, I don't believe size should be a factor in what gets shown or not - the list is more of a representation of the games/experiments/WIPs that are/have been talked about and shown at several steps of their development in the thread, no matter the scope. A showcase of our ecosystem, as it were :-D At least, that's how I see it... So I'd say yours fits right in, but if you'd rather wait for the complete three package, no problem!

(Hope I'm not wrong about any of this?)

 

[KevinCow]

Same as above, if you have a 520x294 screen and have settled on at least a temp title, on the list it goes!

As for comments on the gifs: I don't really know what's placeholder or not, so I can't really comment about specific elements, but the action looks quite fluid overall, very nice.
Some criticism: I'm not a fan of overly saturated color palettes, but it does work here with red kept mostly for the main char/his special effects. I'd simply suggest to de-saturate the background(s) to make the action plane clearer and more visible. Here, I'm having trouble seeing the enemy brown over the fence brown, and their blue flame against the sky.
It's also lacking a bit in impact and feedback when you hit an enemy, but again, maybe it's all placeholder for now?

What list? Well, whatever. Just call it Project Flamehead for now, I'll PM you when I come up with a proper title, and here's a pic:

As for the rest, that's really the artist's field. The hit animation on enemies is definitely unfinished though. Right now it's just one quick frame. So hopefully with a proper animation and proper sound effects, it'll have some decent impact and feedback.

 

[electroflame]

Here's something I thought I needed to mention for everyone using Visual Studio 2015.

For some reason, Visual Studio 2015 also launches two executables VSHub.exe and a Microsoft.VsHub.Server.HttpHost executable (in either x86 or x64 flavor).

These two executables communicate with various Microsoft servers without your explicit consent (with no option to disable), use up a chunk of system resources (roughly 200mb or RAM, or more depending on what you're doing) and actually make Visual Studio 2015 slower.

There's some more information in this StackOverflow question.

I didn't want these running, so rather than do something drastic and delete them or deny them permissions, I just created a DISABLED folder in Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\VsHub and moved both of the folders that previously resided in there into the DISABLED folder. This basically stops Visual Studio from finding and loading the executables.

After doing this Visual Studio now loads almost-immediately (whereas before it would take a bit to fully load), and Microsoft isn't taking Telemetry data from my usage of Visual Studio -- a win-win.

If you actually use online features of Visual Studio, I can't recommend doing this, as I'm not 100% clear on what these actually do. However, if, like me, you use Visual Studio offline/don't use any online features I highly recommend doing this. If the privacy stuff doesn't concern you, the performance benefit is large enough be significant -- and after a day of use I honestly can't see any negative effects.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

I'll send you a build when I have one, then! It's probably going to be at the end of next month, once I have finished BB's match, so the critical path is fully playable. There will be many, many things missing still, such as the intro, ending and some other features, but it'll already be a hefty chunk of content to test :-D Current test time runs around 7-8 hours for a playthrough, though of course your mileage may vary depending on how fast you read.

As for a translation: I really, really appreciate the offer, seriously, but I'm afraid the undertaking would be way too massive to ask of you. I'm actually hesitant to translate the whole thing in French myself, simply because of the amount of text it represents, and the crummy way I fit it in (I couldn't figure out how to get external script working with special characters, so it's all internal and translating the game would basically mean copying each text string in something like an excel file, translating there, then putting it all back in the correct place by hand one by one... that's probably something that'll take months). And even if we were to manage to translate it... I'm not sure how I'd be able to set/toggle the different versions ingame without basically doubling the amount of text in the code for each available translation - and that's a hefty memory price to pay when finally loading the game! I could always do separate versions for each translation, but that'd be pretty cumbersome as well... I'm afraid I just didn't design it well at the start, and it's way too involved now to go back :-D

With all that said, you'll see how it is when you play it, and you'll tell me then if it still sounds like a good idea to you - if it does, then I'll gladly welcome the help!

Dont worry.
And yes, will love to test it, and if you are up for it at the end, help you with a translation.

 

[Blizzard]

Here's something I thought I needed to mention for everyone using Visual Studio 2015.

For some reason, Visual Studio 2015 also launches two executables VSHub.exe and a Microsoft.VsHub.Server.HttpHost executable (in either x86 or x64 flavor).

These two executables communicate with various Microsoft servers without your explicit consent (with no option to disable), use up a chunk of system resources (roughly 200mb or RAM, or more depending on what you're doing) and actually make Visual Studio 2015 slower.

There's some more information in this StackOverflow question.

I didn't want these running, so rather than do something drastic and delete them or deny them permissions, I just created a DISABLED folder in Program Files (x86)\Common Files\microsoft shared\VsHub and moved both of the folders that previously resided in there into the DISABLED folder. This basically stops Visual Studio from finding and loading the executables.

After doing this Visual Studio now loads almost-immediately (whereas before it would take a bit to fully load), and Microsoft isn't taking Telemetry data from my usage of Visual Studio -- a win-win.

If you actually use online features of Visual Studio, I can't recommend doing this, as I'm not 100% clear on what these actually do. However, if, like me, you use Visual Studio offline/don't use any online features I highly recommend doing this. If the privacy stuff doesn't concern you, the performance benefit is large enough be significant -- and after a day of use I honestly can't see any negative effects.

Slow startup time and forced online features are irritating. I'll probably stay with 2013 for now since it's been working okay. I just updated to release 5 and started noticing an annoying bug, though maybe it's been there all along and I hadn't realized: If I edit project properties without having any file open, the empty blue background does not seem to repaint, so it looks like the properties popup is still open. This tends to be confusing.

Thankfully updating all my solutions to use the 2013 compiler has gone pretty smoothly. The only real issue I ran into was a warning that started coming up about EDITANDCONTINUE compared to LBR. This was especially hilarious since as far as I could tell from the command lines, neither option was actually explicitly used, and /OPT:LBR only applies to ARM binaries. I'm building Windows x86 and not doing anything related to ARM. Maybe the options are implied by the program database setting.

In the end I changed all my debug builds from program database for edit and continue to just program database, and that seemed to correct it.

 

[Jacksinthe]

With YouTube Gaming launched - which site will you now direct your audience?

We have the original:
https://www.youtube.com/AbsintheGames

and the new Gaming version:
https://gaming.youtube.com/AbsintheGames

Which one will you all be using? The interesting thing I'm noticing is that the gaming side has its own set of favorites and subscriptions, separate from YT main - however - all videos are displayed across both.

Decisions.

 

[liliththepale]

I have no plans to get super invested in YouTube gaming. Right now, it feels like another of Google's doomed experiments. I'll probably only adapt if it becomes clear at some point that a lot of other people have as well.

 

[SystemBug]

I have no plans to get super invested in YouTube gaming. Right now, it feels like another of Google's doomed experiments. I'll probably only adapt if it becomes clear at some point that a lot of other people have as well.

I remember when Reddit was hyping up Google + before its release like no tomorrow. And then it came out and nobody cared.

 

[liliththepale]

I remember when Reddit was hyping up Google + before its release like no tomorrow. And then it came out and nobody cared.

Right, and Google Wave before that, or Google Glass now. I actually saw someone wearing a Google Glass set about a week ago and it blew my mind.

Regardless of the merit of any of these services, I don't like being an early adopter or trend setter.

 

[KevinCow]

Ew, the Youtube Gaming channel looks horrible.

 

[SystemBug]

Right, and Google Wave before that, or Google Glass now. I actually saw someone wearing a Google Glass set about a week ago and it blew my mind.

Regardless of the merit of any of these services, I don't like being an early adopter or trend setter.

Yeah. especially with google glass. I'd just think I'd look like a douche wearing one. The only time I saw anybody wearing one was some guy at hackathon and after a while it just got annoying. like please, take it off!

Ew, the Youtube Gaming channel looks horrible.

and that too. the UI is just super weird

 

[Kalentan]

Sweet Got a WIP 520x294 screen, so I could add the project to the list?

A screenshot for the game? Uh... Nothing yet, probably will make one when I make my first real tileset. But I've run into an issue and seek help from those using Game Maker themselves...

I've booted up the game as 1080p and it looks like this: I have no idea why the sprites are being morphed.

Weirdly enough, though it doesn't look like this ingame when full screened. When I take a screenshot with prt scr, it looks like this when pasted.

 

[Jacksinthe]

I have no plans to get super invested in YouTube gaming. Right now, it feels like another of Google's doomed experiments. I'll probably only adapt if it becomes clear at some point that a lot of other people have as well.

I wouldn't call it a doomed experiment. It's simply YouTube curated for gamers. There's nothing that needs to be experimented with other than design since YouTube already exists and is the end-all be-all of online videos - this just puts all of the video games in one easy to reach place. So if you use YouTube - well, there you go. Now there's a curated system for games.

The live streaming also always existed, there's just more options for the streamer and a focus now with the curation of gaming channels and streams, nothing more. There really is no need to "adapt" to anything - you either show the new skin or you don't for your YouTube videos.

 

[liliththepale]

I wouldn't call it a doomed experiment. It's simply YouTube curated for gamers. There's nothing that needs to be experimented with other than design since YouTube already exists and is the end-all be-all of online videos - this just puts all of the video games in one easy to reach place. So if you use YouTube - well, there you go. Now there's a curated system for games.

The live streaming also always existed, there's just more options for the streamer and a focus now with the curation of gaming channels and streams, nothing more. There really is no need to "adapt" to anything - you either show the new skin or you don't for your YouTube videos.

Sure, but I'm not ever going to use that UI for YouTube. I'm already well-acquainted with navigating the site and don't have any interest in relearning the layout for minimal (if any) improvement. I like the cohesiveness of everything on YouTube being the same.

 

[ZServ]

Today was a shockingly productive Sunday. Last night before bed, I was thinking about how a fight about "stances" could work in a turn-based game. Woke up, discussed it with a friend for an hour or so, and it quickly evolved. Within 2 hours..

The Shade of Kristoff was born! Mind the placeholder background, was just a screenshot from testing the mechanics of the fight, which are now fully implemented.

Kristoff's place in the main story of the yet-to-be-named Project Babel is minimal to none, but he's of great importance to the second area, Transyl, and it's central themes of fear and doubt. His place in the "lore," if you will, is going to be major. As a side boss, I don't want to force him, or his story on the player, but it will be there for players to explore if they wish to, and in doing so they will get more context for what makes the citizens of Transyl the way they are.

From a sheer development point of view, this is insanely fast development time for me. Jellordos, the first sideboss took close to 3 weeks to make from start to finish, and the first major boss, the Court of Bones took 2 major rehauls and close to a month of development time total to nail down the mechanics.

So, how does it work? Well, the initial concept was you have 2 phases. An attack phase, and a defense phase. During the attack phase, he would continually up his attack by a percentage amount every turn. Something the player controls would trigger him to change phases, and when done, all the attack buffs would drop off. Then, during the defensive phase, he'd up his defense by a percentage amount every turn. Again, players would choose when to trigger the change.

Originally, the hope was that by having this "management" of phases, it would allow the player to adapt the fight to their specific strategies, but I had no real way of giving the player a way to interact with these phases, and trigger the change, in any meaningful way. Discussion was had, and now the fight works like this:

At the beginning of the fight, the boss will enter a defensive stance. Every turn, he'll cast a stack of this defensive buff on himself, in addition to doing whatever it is that he does. At 50% health, he'll begin to channel a heal, which will take 2-4 turns to cast. When he's done, he'll heal himself back to 100% health, and change stances to a neutral stance, where he increases his attack and defense, but by half the amount he previously increased them. At 50% this time, he'll channel again, and change stances to an aggressive stance, focusing on an all out attack style of play, and finally when he hits 50% for the third time, he'll trigger my mechanic that is on all bosses (which I'm not quite ready to reveal to the world yet). Worth noting he doesn't fully heal on this last one, in fact he doesn't heal at all.

With any luck, players will find the shifting play style fun, as I've tried to give them adequate breathing room to prepare for phase changes, which is why he channels the heal. The hope is that while on an initial fight, the player may not understand what's happening, on subsequent attempts they'll be able to identify clearly "this is when I can do X thing." It's very guided, but I believe the challenge will come from not knowing for certain how much time you'll have to adapt, and certainly part of it will be the thrill of figuring out each phase and how it works. You don't want to be transparent with information, but you don't want to be too opaque, either.

Anyway, sorry for typing your ear off, IndieGAF. Just super excited about this fight, and I hope my testers this week enjoy it as much as I think they will.


Edit:

A screenshot for the game? Uh... Nothing yet, probably will make one when I make my first real tileset. But I've run into an issue and seek help from those using Game Maker themselves...

I've booted up the game as 1080p and it looks like this: I have no idea why the sprites are being morphed.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I think this has to do with you using odd number spritesheets vs even number spritesheets. 1920x1080 can be scaled to intervals of 32x32, for example, pretty cleanly. However, if it's say 31x31, then some guess work may be requires for "does this one-pixel wide area become 2 pixels to fit the screen resolution?"