Support NeoGAF

[Blizzard]

has there ever been talk of making a neogaf game? i understand permission would have to be granted, but it could be a fun thing to do. couple different ideas:

a warioware-style collection of mini-games related to different neogaf memes over the years(ie: pushing over the magazine rack in a game store).

a strategy game where you post, respond, and even troll in order to push your agenda in the neogaf universe (becoming well-known, cheerleading your favorite console, etc..)

a 2d action platformer where the relation to neogaf is a bit more metaphorical. explore environments that are designed to visually represent different aspects of the forum and it's user, gain power-ups, battle bosses (parodies of posters?).

any thoughts and/or interest?

Someone should create a metaphorical game about dudes and bros, where people shoot and slice, and the shooting and slicing is metaphorical for forum posting and reading.

 

[razu]

You had a vacation?

With a real game behind, possibly 3d, it should look pretty cool in motion.

Just easter bank holidays, plus an extra day off. 5 days. Didn't do too much internet. Started teaching my 11-year-old boy Unity. He has a ship, and a wave of space invaders, plus a splash screen, and main menu!

I think it'll be so ultracool to have a filter that makes a modern game look like it's *really* running through an old CRT. We we lucky when we had wood cabinet TVs that took a minute to warm up... ;D

I guess you need a snow effect to simulate loss of signal.. that would be cool too

 

[Jocchan]

Sounds great! :+ I had a similar idea in mind for the game I am making. I.e.
you are under tight pressure doing difficult stuff, where matching the right
sequence of inputs is important, and where you have virtually no time doing
other things, i.e. to degauss the monitor, unless you are willing to break the
sequence losing valuable points, or go the the risk crashing into the ground
while flying blindfolded. Another cool things is color drift and stuff. Lots
of cool things to try out.

Indeed

Btw, Jocchan, what's the state of Dudebro II?
Any release date?

No official release date yet as everyone can only work in scraps of spare time, which adds a certain unpredictability. For us it's probably smarter to wait until it's close enough to announce one, instead of setting a date too early and face multiple delays.

I think this is a great look, I think a slightly toned down version of this effect should be IN the game for real. Pixel art without some kind of old school TV nastiness or scanlines or whatever just never seems quite right to me!

I agree. Large pixels should never be too clean and uniform imho. They never were back in the day and, even if you don't really care about that, too much uniformity tends to give everything a certain flatness.
To avoid that our solution was:
1. a CRT effect with scanlines to give everything some texture
2. a subtle bloom shader (see the cloud in the background here) to simulate some light bleeding and make the overall colors a bit less uniform
3. this hasn't been shown publicly yet

Now, the first one is a simple transparent overlay superimposed to the screen. We actually debated implementing it through a shader, but it would have required more work, and real barrel distortion might have impacted player aiming near the borders of the screen. So, the easier solution seemed the best for us.

I'd love to hear about different approaches to this problem, actually.

Someone should create a metaphorical game about dudes and bros, where people shoot and slice, and the shooting and slicing is metaphorical for forum posting and reading.

I like this idea.

 

[cbox]

Didn't know it was so easy getting a DS3 working with a pc by just plugging it in and installing some drivers. Better DS3 is a neat little app, and our game now fully "supports" different controllers!

Also looking for some feedback on our game over screen. We're debating if we should implement a ENTER NAME , or use profiles when you first start the game. Sort of like trying to imitate the live sign in feature for most arcade games.

 

[Vark]

I agree. Large pixels should never be too clean and uniform imho. They never were back in the day and, even if you don't really care about that, too much uniformity tends to give everything a certain flatness.
To avoid that our solution was:
1. a CRT effect with scanlines to give everything some texture
2. a subtle bloom shader (see the cloud in the background here) to simulate some light bleeding and make the overall colors a bit less uniform
3. this hasn't been shown publicly yet

Now, the first one is a simple transparent overlay superimposed to the screen. We actually debated implementing it through a shader, but it would have required more work, and real barrel distortion might have impacted player aiming near the borders of the screen. So, the easier solution seemed the best for us.

I'd love to hear about different approaches to this problem, actually.

You definitely need something to break up really chunky pixels, but It all seems to me to come down to the intended screen space. The stuff I'm working on now (I think) looks pretty great on a cell phone. It's a fairly clean style but as soon as I scale it up to a TV or monitor It's going to need some tweaking.

I've been getting a fairly decent reaction to the art style I'm using so I'm plotting to bring it to a more substantial Unity project. My current experiments are keeping with really limited color palettes but using some hand drawn dithering effects to add texture and separate the layers out more. I've thought about some screen effects but I'm not sure what direction I want to go in.

 

[injurai]

Spent the last semester working in XNA, can't say I'm super proficient with it. But familiar enough with it that I can hold my own.

For a summer project I'm wondering if I should try my hand at Monogame or pick up something else entirely. Whatever I end up working on it's going to be strictly 2D. XNA has a wonderful content pipeline and of course the visual studio IDE environment. From what I've seen Unity is decently more janky with it's C#. However the ultimate goal is to move to a framework that I can carry forward unlike XNA. Monogame still seems to rely on a lot of XNA features like requiring VS2010 for installing content pipelines and whatnot.

nobody?

 

[Noogy]

nobody?

I'd comment but I'm in the same boat. Downloading Unity for the first time sometime next month, coming off of a strict diet of C#/XNA.

 

[klaus]

nobody?

Well I have quite a bit of experience with Unity and some with XNA, but haven't tried Monogame yet. Unity has nice tools for level editing, animation, asset importing and much more, and has robust 2D support, plus you can extend the editor with your own custom classes. Additionally, you can get a ton of (sometimes free, sometimes paid) plugins / addons on the AssetStore. I would recommend giving it a try since it's rather intuitive to use and has a very active community - I'm pretty sure that this won't change in the next few years. One of the weak points compared to XNA is the coding IDE (MonoDevelop) which has quite a few quirks, but I read somewhere that you can also use Visual Studio (apparently with some minor trade-offs) for coding in C#..

Hope that helps ^^

 

[Makai]

The XNA -> Unity transition is wonderful.

 

[Terra_Ex]

nobody?

Go with Unity, its easy to transition to, you'll immediately capitalise on all that C# knowledge and you don't have to screw around making your own tools (to an extent) since Unity has the built in scene editing capabilities and is just incredibly flexible to use all around. I made the switch and I don't regret it. To begin with it may feel that you're giving up a small measure of control but you gain so much in terms of productivity, iteration and prototyping speed it's worth it. There's a few quirks to learn and adapt to but other than that it's been smooth sailing. Just give it a try and you'll soon see if its for you or not.

 

[ZehDon]

nobody?

Guess I'll play devil's advocate here - I prefer MonoGame/XNA, frankly. Unity is great, the community is larger, and it's getting some terrific support - but, being as I'm going to be knee deep in this stuff for the foreseeable future, personal preference plays a significant part. Truthfully, you can't really go wrong with either - I just prefer working with XNA and MonoGame for reasons I can't quite quantify. I just "get it". Keep in mind, I use Windows Vista on my development machine, so I'm not exactly "normal" anyway. Go with whatever you feel like you enjoy using the most.

 

[SlipperySlope]

Go with Unity, its easy to transition to, you'll immediately capitalise on all that C# knowledge and you don't have to screw around making your own tools (to an extent) since Unity has the built in scene editing capabilities and is just incredibly flexible to use all around. I made the switch and I don't regret it. To begin with it may feel that you're giving up a small measure of control but you gain so much in terms of productivity, iteration and prototyping speed it's worth it. There's a few quirks to learn and adapt to but other than that it's been smooth sailing. Just give it a try and you'll soon see if its for you or not.

Seconded. It's just so easy to use and really powerful, all things considered. It also has a great community and a great asset store.

 

[Five]

I recorded a video of my game's current state tonight. You can see the first five minutes of at the following link, which shows the first half of the first world: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdEMvt0ZZ3I

On the plus side of things, I've managed to get a lot done and added to the game in the last couple of weeks. On the down side, I won't get to work on it for any significant amount during the next two or three weeks. Such is life, I'm afraid.

Fun statistics:
- currently, I have 143 room templates spread across 30 different room cases (double-wide, triple-wide, double-high, door high/low). I'm hoping for about 1000 in the end to help reduce repetition.
- the first of five worlds is just about done. At present tally, it contains 13 mobile enemy types, 14 different types of moving platforms, and 12 different types of traps. I'm aiming for a similar amount in each other world.
- the player character alone has 97 different animations so far

 

[RSP]

Guys -- I know some of you are currently developing for Sony platforms using Unity. This is something we're thinking about as well, but I just wanted to know what your experiences are. Our first exercises are pretty promising, but perhaps you have a bit more experience of what we can expect down the line.

Not just in terms of development by the way, but also working with Sony on promotions, self publishing and even the submission process.

Any info is welcome really

 

[missile]

I think this is a great look, I think a slightly toned down version of this effect should be IN the game for real. Pixel art without some kind of old school TV nastiness or scanlines or whatever just never seems quite right to me!

That's for sure. And on a subjective level I think that all these 'old school
TV nastiness' helps the player to submerge into a game in quite different yet
pleasing ways.

has there ever been talk of making a neogaf game? i understand permission would have to be granted, but it could be a fun thing to do. couple different ideas:

a warioware-style collection of mini-games related to different neogaf memes over the years(ie: pushing over the magazine rack in a game store).

a strategy game where you post, respond, and even troll in order to push your agenda in the neogaf universe (becoming well-known, cheerleading your favorite console, etc..)

a 2d action platformer where the relation to neogaf is a bit more metaphorical. explore environments that are designed to visually represent different aspects of the forum and it's user, gain power-ups, battle bosses (parodies of posters?).

any thoughts and/or interest?

Someone should create a metaphorical game about dudes and bros, where people shoot and slice, and the shooting and slicing is metaphorical for forum posting and reading.

I actually had a little funny game in the works, for DOS(Box) xD , where you
had to defend yourself against the waist amount of members coming towards you
dropping bombs etc., saying specific phrases while getting hit etc. depending
on the member coming towards you. Mods would be bosses etc. Can be huge fun!

Just easter bank holidays, plus an extra day off. 5 days. Didn't do too much internet. Started teaching my 11-year-old boy Unity. He has a ship, and a wave of space invaders, plus a splash screen, and main menu! ...

That's cool! Does he want to make games as well? A good age to start.

... I think it'll be so ultracool to have a filter that makes a modern game look like it's *really* running through an old CRT. We we lucky when we had wood cabinet TVs that took a minute to warm up... ;D ...

I'm working on this for real. Yet I want to go a different route. I am not
interested in just faking it. There is much, much more to it. The subtle
nature of TV spans so many fields if you look closely. Insane! It's really
hard work, lots of math, engineering, computer science, computer graphics,
human vision etc.

Let me give an example. Standard approaches consider the (digital) signal free
of, for example, blanking information. The full range [0,255] is used for
image data which makes it easier to work with, but which isn't the case in
reality. Blanking is handled explicit then. And as such many of the cool
distortion effects aren't possible out of the process, they need to be coded
explicitly. Transmission signal distortion that leads to subtle blanking
failure isn't what you will see on the screen this way, if it isn't really
faked in a good way.

What I'm going to do is supporting a type of signal that includes what is
known in video engineering as setup, pedestal, and head- and footroom. Image
data will be in the range, for example, of [16,240]. This has some
implication. First the data needs to be compressed into this range, seconds,
tight gamma correction needs to be applied to distribute the image data onto
the remaining bits to prevent mach banding. Color amplitude needs to be
limited as well to not overshoot voltage making the signal unsuitable for
"VHF/UHF" transmission. All such things can be omitted, but the cool stuff
happens when you have the system limited that way and artificiality introduce
errors. Another thing which is left aside on many digital video systems is the
head- and footroom of the signal. Filtering is a very important operation in
video. Filter overshoot is a problem not recognized by many. In general the
signal will be clipped which will lead to annoying effects. The headroom can
be used to support the filter's overshooting characteristics. That's much
better then clipping.

... I guess you need a snow effect to simulate loss of signal.. that would be cool too

But what about signal loss with partial video data still being seen on screen?
Another idea of mine is building a tuner such that you can have multiple
streams and tune between them with all the oddities in-between like signal
distortion, signal (frequency) overlap seeing part of another channel etc.
That's an idea of mine I want to use in another game of mine after Superstall.
Btw; The health warning I gave recently was actually a tell.


Am thinking about writing a Unity wrapper in the end such that you guys and
gals can use it too. The CRT component is part of the Retro Engine, but I may
single it out for this purpose, because some people solely just want to have
this look & feel.

The Retro Engine itself is for those needing the full retro line. xD The CRT
stuff will be nice and all, but to get the real retro stuff one also has to
render textures, shades, colors etc. differently. The Retro Engine will come
equipped with downsamplers etc. such that one can stick to his/her full-blown
graphics yet these will be converted on the fly for an intended retro look.
For example, the engine will be able to convert all of your colors, textures,
shades etc. to a, for example, C64 look (with or without C64-dithering, which
is different from standard dithering due to the effects a CRT TV has on
different patterns) or you may build your very own predefined settings. On
another hand you may start out with a 2d or 3d game using a fixed color table
and let the engine compute the shades (<= 8-bit shading so to speak), and
dither them for you if you want. This would be a more natural approach to
retro game development. Anyhow. So there are basically two paths, first, where
you stick to high-res textures, 24-bit coloring and friends while getting
downsampled on the fly, or second, you start from the deepest level (<= 8-bit
shades/colors/texture) building the game from there. Ahh btw; Stuff like ASCII
rendering will be in as well. You will be able to render your game or parts of
it in full ASCII. You may also specify your own symbols (tiny pictures) and
the engine will figure out which one to use. It will even go as far as the
engine will dither/blend/interpolate between them to simulate smooth shaded
transitions between symbols. This will lead to some very artistical looks.

But someone once said;
"To finish first, you have to finish first." --

Spoiler

Ron Dennis, McLaren. :+

.
So there is a lot of stuff to do.... My game Superstall will use many of the
things said. Am going for an arcade cabinet TV look & feel, showing that retro
graphics is an art in its own, while its gameplay will match the arcade
gameplay antics. I hope it all works out. I am on a tight schedule as well
like many of us in here with respect to time, money, etc. So its a though one.
It's living the indie dream right there. And I know these times will never
come back, so I also enjoy doing so even if the results are uncertain. If it
works out am going to build the game of my dreams....

Spoiler

Not saying am not doing
so already with all the things said above. Different story....

... I'd love to hear about different approaches to this problem, actually. ...

You will see a different approach, but I can't talk about yet. Basically, the
insight you get while balancing frequency and amplitude is the key to the
problem. Stated otherwise; frequency*amplitude = constant, or resolution*
quantization = constant. Implementing this "equation" in a game dynamically
requires very good insight into a lot of things esp. into filtering etc. an
will require quite some computational resources if one wants to keep it
dynamically, yet a fixed variant can be implemented, but beware if someone
will play your game at a resolution not build for. Everything will break apart
in this case. This esp. holds true for imitating a CRT. It breaks apart
quickly if the scales are just slightly off. Just try to resize a CRT picture,
everything will change (for the worse). Hence, one cannot simply down- or
upscale a CRT/retro picture as needed without addressing every other aspect
equally. To solve this problem, a resolution independent approach is needed.
And that's the hard part. And that's also the reason why most CRTish/retro
games have a fixed resolution. Scale and it breaks apart esp. if there are a
lot of CRT effects in there. That's somehow the problem in making retro games
look good on any scale. Well, scale DudebroII to 4K and it becomes unplayable.
So you better release it as long as the 1080p train is rolling. xD

 

[Magypsy]

Hey guys!

So I've been reading this topic for a while now and I love seeing what all you guys are creating. Now it's time for me to give something back, so I'd like to show you the official gameplay teaser of the game I'm working on with my company Vogelsap .

It's called The Flock and it's an asymmetrical multiplayer thriller game (that's a mouthful, I know!).

Gameplay teaser here!

I'm very eager to know what you guys think about it! This is old footage though, our current build has volumetric lighting and whatnot . It's made in Unity, by the way.

Thanks!

 

[razu]

That's for sure. And on a subjective level I think that all these 'old school
TV nastiness' helps the player to submerge into a game in quite different yet
pleasing ways.





I actually had a little funny game in the works, for DOS(Box) xD , where you
had to defend yourself against the waist amount of members coming towards you
dropping bombs etc., saying specific phrases while getting hit etc. depending
on the member coming towards you. Mods would be bosses etc. Can be huge fun!



That's cool! Does he want to make games as well? A good age to start.


I'm working on this for real. Yet I want to go a different route. I am not
interested in just faking it. There is much, much more to it. The subtle
nature of TV spans so many fields if you look closely. Insane! It's really
hard work, lots of math, engineering, computer science, computer graphics,
human vision etc.

Let me give an example. Standard approaches consider the (digital) signal free
of, for example, blanking information. The full range [0,255] is used for
image data which makes it easier to work with, but which isn't the case in
reality. Blanking is handled explicit then. And as such many of the cool
distortion effects aren't possible out of the process, they need to be coded
explicitly. Transmission signal distortion that leads to subtle blanking
failure isn't what you will see on the screen this way, if it isn't really
faked in a good way.

What I'm going to do is supporting a type of signal that includes what is
known in video engineering as setup, pedestal, and head- and footroom. Image
data will be in the range, for example, of [16,240]. This has some
implication. First the data needs to be compressed into this range, seconds,
tight gamma correction needs to be applied to distribute the image data onto
the remaining bits to prevent mach banding. Color amplitude needs to be
limited as well to not overshoot voltage making the signal unsuitable for
"VHF/UHF" transmission. All such things can be omitted, but the cool stuff
happens when you have the system limited that way and artificiality introduce
errors. Another thing which is left aside on many digital video systems is the
head- and footroom of the signal. Filtering is a very important operation in
video. Filter overshoot is a problem not recognized by many. In general the
signal will be clipped which will lead to annoying effects. The headroom can
be used to support the filter's overshooting characteristics. That's much
better then clipping.


But what about signal loss with partial video data still being seen on screen?
Another idea of mine is building a tuner such that you can have multiple
streams and tune between them with all the oddities in-between like signal
distortion, signal (frequency) overlap seeing part of another channel etc.
That's an idea of mine I want to use in another game of mine after Superstall.
Btw; The health warning I gave recently was actually a tell.


Am thinking about writing a Unity wrapper in the end such that you guys and
gals can use it too. The CRT component is part of the Retro Engine, but I may
single it out for this purpose, because some people solely just want to have
this look & feel.

The Retro Engine itself is for those needing the full retro line. xD The CRT
stuff will be nice and all, but to get the real retro stuff one also has to
render textures, shades, colors etc. differently. The Retro Engine will come
equipped with downsamplers etc. such that one can stick to his/her full-blown
graphics yet these will be converted on the fly for an intended retro look.
For example, the engine will be able to convert all of your colors, textures,
shades etc. to a, for example, C64 look (with or without C64-dithering, which
is different from standard dithering due to the effects a CRT TV has on
different patterns) or you may build your very own predefined settings. On
another hand you may start out with a 2d or 3d game using a fixed color table
and let the engine compute the shades (<= 8-bit shading so to speak), and
dither them for you if you want. This would be a more natural approach to
retro game development. Anyhow. So there are basically two paths, first, where
you stick to high-res textures, 24-bit coloring and friends while getting
downsampled on the fly, or second, you start from the deepest level (<= 8-bit
shades/colors/texture) building the game from there. Ahh btw; Stuff like ASCII
rendering will be in as well. You will be able to render your game or parts of
it in full ASCII. You may also specify your own symbols (tiny pictures) and
the engine will figure out which one to use. It will even go as far as the
engine will dither/blend/interpolate between them to simulate smooth shaded
transitions between symbols. This will lead to some very artistical looks.

But someone once said;
"To finish first, you have to finish first." --

Spoiler

Ron Dennis, McLaren. :+

.
So there is a lot of stuff to do.... My game Superstall will use many of the
things said. Am going for an arcade cabinet TV look & feel, showing that retro
graphics is an art in its own, while its gameplay will match the arcade
gameplay antics. I hope it all works out. I am on a tight schedule as well
like many of us in here with respect to time, money, etc. So its a though one.
It's living the indie dream right there. And I know these times will never
come back, so I also enjoy doing so even if the results are uncertain. If it
works out am going to build the game of my dreams....

Spoiler

Not saying am not doing
so already with all the things said above. Different story....

You will see a different approach, but I can't talk about yet. Basically, the
insight you get while balancing frequency and amplitude is the key to the
problem. Stated otherwise; frequency*amplitude = constant, or resolution*
quantization = constant. Implementing this "equation" in a game dynamically
requires very good insight into a lot of things esp. into filtering etc. an
will require quite some computational resources if one wants to keep it
dynamically, yet a fixed variant can be implemented, but beware if someone
will play your game at a resolution not build for. Everything will break apart
in this case. This esp. holds true for imitating a CRT. It breaks apart
quickly if the scales are just slightly off. Just try to resize a CRT picture,
everything will change (for the worse). Hence, one cannot simply down- or
upscale a CRT/retro picture as needed without addressing every other aspect
equally. To solve this problem, a resolution independent approach is needed.
And that's the hard part. And that's also the reason why most CRTish/retro
games have a fixed resolution. Scale and it breaks apart esp. if there are a
lot of CRT effects in there. That's somehow the problem in making retro games
look good on any scale. Well, scale DudebroII to 4K and it becomes unplayable.
So you better release it as long as the 1080p train is rolling. xD

I see.

 

[Jobbs]

The game where no conspicuously moving flower goes un-inspected.

First video of the current version of the game to come early next week, I now feel comfortable saying. So put on your ghost hats.

 

[RhysD85]

The game where no conspicuously moving flower goes un-inspected.

First video of the current version of the game to come early next week, I now feel comfortable saying. So put on your ghost hats.

Looks great! /puts on hat

I finished the bean bag's passive effect which is meant to bounce back the big cats, but I'm not sure if it's too over the top??

 

[fin]

After a great review from Touch Arcade, Instantion is now on Metacritic which is kinda cool.

Gonna submit an update today to fix some stuff, at leat I hope it fixes stuff. Still can't repo this logo bug, but I talked to a shader guy and he said turning renderers on/off (via .enabled or .SetActive()) very quickly in Unity can produce this bug...so yeah very weird...Here's the bug in a video, so weird, watch till the start of the next level, the logo just shows up out of no where...

Gonna start looking into adding game center achievements. Should be interesting, since I save all the criteria for achievements as play prefs I hope I can make them backwards compatible for people that have already played it.

After that new project time!

 

[missile]

The game where no conspicuously moving flower goes un-inspected.

...

Looks awesome as always! Mind showing us a completely different set/location
of the game we haven't seen already?

Looks great! /puts on hat

I finished the bean bag's passive effect which is meant to bounce back the big cats, but I'm not sure if it's too over the top??

Cats! Sweet! Over the top, indeed, but funny nevertheless! :+




For those interested:
Want to give an example to the "frequency*amplitude = constant" equation I've
put up in my last post. Guess for example you have an analog audio signal and
you want to digitize it.

The frequency term translate to the sampling rate, the amplitude to the
quantization levels/codes, and the constant is a given data rate. Given a
constant data rate you can either lower the frequency while gaining more
precision for the amplitude of each sample, or you may lower the precision of
each sample while being able to take more or them.

Same holds for graphics, i.e. resolution*depth = data size. Hence, lowering
the resolution increases the possibility for more depth given that the data
size is constant. Basically, the framebuffer's size is a constant whereas
resolution and depth are under your very control. Sure, there are some
predefined formats the video accelerator works best with, but you don't need
to use them. You may balance resolution and depth to you liking (up to the
accelerators' limits, of course) building your very own (software) format and
sending the result to the accelerator for display.

I don't know if this makes sense to any one of you, but don't hesitate if it
doesn't. Once you see the pictures incorporating this principle it becomes
pretty clear. :+

 

[missile]

Hey guys!



So I've been reading this topic for a while now and I love seeing what all you guys are creating. Now it's time for me to give something back, so I'd like to show you the official gameplay teaser of the game I'm working on with my company Vogelsap .

It's called The Flock and it's an asymmetrical multiplayer thriller game (that's a mouthful, I know!).

Gameplay teaser here!

I'm very eager to know what you guys think about it! This is old footage though, our current build has volumetric lighting and whatnot . It's made in Unity, by the way.

Thanks!

Ahm ... send the new footage, please.

 

[injurai]

Well I have quite a bit of experience with Unity and some with XNA, but haven't tried Monogame yet. Unity has nice tools for level editing, animation, asset importing and much more, and has robust 2D support, plus you can extend the editor with your own custom classes. Additionally, you can get a ton of (sometimes free, sometimes paid) plugins / addons on the AssetStore. I would recommend giving it a try since it's rather intuitive to use and has a very active community - I'm pretty sure that this won't change in the next few years. One of the weak points compared to XNA is the coding IDE (MonoDevelop) which has quite a few quirks, but I read somewhere that you can also use Visual Studio (apparently with some minor trade-offs) for coding in C#..

Hope that helps ^^

The XNA -> Unity transition is wonderful.

Go with Unity, its easy to transition to, you'll immediately capitalise on all that C# knowledge and you don't have to screw around making your own tools (to an extent) since Unity has the built in scene editing capabilities and is just incredibly flexible to use all around. I made the switch and I don't regret it. To begin with it may feel that you're giving up a small measure of control but you gain so much in terms of productivity, iteration and prototyping speed it's worth it. There's a few quirks to learn and adapt to but other than that it's been smooth sailing. Just give it a try and you'll soon see if its for you or not.

Guess I'll play devil's advocate here - I prefer MonoGame/XNA, frankly. Unity is great, the community is larger, and it's getting some terrific support - but, being as I'm going to be knee deep in this stuff for the foreseeable future, personal preference plays a significant part. Truthfully, you can't really go wrong with either - I just prefer working with XNA and MonoGame for reasons I can't quite quantify. I just "get it". Keep in mind, I use Windows Vista on my development machine, so I'm not exactly "normal" anyway. Go with whatever you feel like you enjoy using the most.

Seconded. It's just so easy to use and really powerful, all things considered. It also has a great community and a great asset store.

I'm sure I'd love Monogame, but I guess I should at least take the plunge with Unity at some point and get a taste for something different. Thanks everyone.

Any recommendations for starting points on 2D Unity development? Resources, Guides, tutorials. The hardest thing for me is always getting my foot in the door.

 

[Timeaisis]

nobody?

I've got experience with both, I'll give you a pros and cons list for both, as far as I see it.

MonoGame:
CONS:
- Kind of a pain in the ass to set up and get running smoothly. Has a bunch of random requirements to compile the libraries (like VS2010 Express or something). Compiling on other platforms requires setting up the target platforms version of monogame and migrating over each time. Deployment is a pain in the ass.
- Content pipeline doesn't work. You have to jump through hoops again to get it working on MonoGame, it's not like XNA.
- Poor documentation
PROS:
- Flexibility of XNA, with extra platforms at no cost to you (theoretically)
- Most XNA documentation carries over
- Straight programming flexibility so you don't have to learn ins and outs of an engine
- 2D is super easy in XNA/Mono, as you probably already know.

Unity
CONS:
- Have to learn the quirks of the engine. There are enough to snag you.
- For all intents and purposes it's C# but you'll be extending MonoBehavior for each class you write (yes, it's called MonoBehavior). These classes have some extra restrictions.
- Unity might be overkill for a 2D game that doesn't require complex physics and 3D collision detection
- Code portability and OOP practices are harder just because you have to get used to attaching scripts to GameObjects in the scene. It's do-able, but requires more finesse.
PROS:
- Scene building without code. Obviously probably the biggest draw to Unity.
- Easy porting to PC/MAC/Linux. Practically a few clicks. Consoles are a little more challenging, but much easier than MG.
- Lots of built in object types. However, many of these are created with 3D games in mind, so that's something to consider.
- Excellent documentation and community. Most if not all questions I've had about Unity have been found on the web.
- Asset store
- Lots of examples

I think Unity is easier to learn and faster to build in, but MonoGame you get more control over the game.

All in all it's a tough call because Unity isn't as useful for 2D development, but there are more and more people using it for that every day, so take that as you will.

 

[Jobbs]

Looks awesome as always! Mind showing us a completely different set/location
of the game we haven't seen already?

Thank you. While it will be the same early general area as you've seen peaks at, it will be about 7 min and I can assure you there will be things in it no one here has seen.

 

[Anustart]

What's the best way to do colliders on say, the player? (Unity)

Multiple primitives or mesh?

I guess I'm going to be needing multiple collider states depending on animation, which is stuff I haven't messed with previously.

 

[Dark Octave]

I have a question for everyone here. As indie developers, do you think it's better to show as much of your game as you can while in development to maybe keep interest or get feedback or is it better to keep as much as possible tucked away for that big trailer or reveal? What do you prefer to do for your own projects?

 

[Turfster]

What's the best way to do colliders on say, the player? (Unity)

Multiple primitives or mesh?

I guess I'm going to be needing multiple collider states depending on animation, which is stuff I haven't messed with previously.

Depends on what kind of game you're going for, really.
Anyway, it's best to usually use a simple capsule collider (which the Pro version can adjust to match your animation) for general collision, then go deeper as needed.

 

[Anustart]

Depends on what kind of game you're going for, really.
Anyway, it's best to usually use a simple capsule collider (which the Pro version can adjust to match your animation) for general collision, then go deeper as needed.

It's a 2d game. So I'm just wanting more accurate collision than just a simple cube wrapped around everything. I mean I could use multiple smaller cubes, etc. But figured there was a better way to achieve it.

 

[RhysD85]

Cats! Sweet! Over the top, indeed, but funny nevertheless! :+

Thanks I'll keep it in for now, I grin every time they fly in and spiral back out.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Put a bit of work into the dialogue stuff, so it's more obvious you need to move the conversation along.

Also, Chun will be colour graded to each room's lighting soon, so she doesn't look like an alien haha.

 

[cbox]

Very cool look Hollow!

I have a question for everyone here. As indie developers, do you think it's better to show as much of your game as you can while in development to maybe keep interest or get feedback or is it better to keep as much as possible tucked away for that big trailer or reveal? What do you prefer to do for your own projects?

I found that when we showed bits and pieces, we got some really good feedback from fans of the game. We've since implemented some of those changes, and it's really helped the look and feel of the final product.

 

[missile]

Thank you. While it will be the same early general area as you've seen peaks at, it will be about 7 min and I can assure you there will be things in it no one here has seen.

Sounds good! :+

I have a question for everyone here. As indie developers, do you think it's better to show as much of your game as you can while in development to maybe keep interest or get feedback or is it better to keep as much as possible tucked away for that big trailer or reveal? What do you prefer to do for your own projects?

Here is my take.
Roughly, 99.98% of those who will potentially buy your game on release will
not follow your development progress whatsoever. The other 0.02% will likely
love your game already no matter whether you put a great trailer or not. So
you can show stuff about your game while in development and also have a create
trailer in the end for those other 99.98%. Second, the critique you get while
showing stuff in development is perhaps the best thing you can get by any
means. Third, showing stuff shows progress, commitment, and forces you to get
better and better, since not even those who follow your development want to
see the same stuff twice! Yet you may keep one or two things to even
surprise those who follow you, for the fun of it!

 

[HellBlazer]

It's a 2d game. So I'm just wanting more accurate collision than just a simple cube wrapped around everything. I mean I could use multiple smaller cubes, etc. But figured there was a better way to achieve it.

Check out PolygonCollider2D or EdgeCollider2D for more precise collisions. With the polygon collider, Unity will try to determine the shape automatically if you drag a sprite unto the collider component, and you can edit it afterwards if need be. I haven't personally used these yet, admittedly, but I've seen them demonstrated at a Unity workshop. Seemed pretty cool.

 

[friken]

We have reached about the 1/2 way mark to the minimum number of alien races we want to populate our game universe (10/20). It is time for gut check for consistency, style, detail etc. Questions for the group.

1. Do they all feel in-line with eachother?
2. Any that have stand out issues to you that could use tweaking?
3. Overall how do you think they fit/feel against the in-game engine art?

Races 1-4:

Races 5-8:

Races 9-10:

Combat:

Exploration:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3yMPj6QlVE

Bunch of misc project videos:
https://www.youtube.com/my_videos?o=U

 

[Anustart]

Check out PolygonCollider2D or EdgeCollider2D for more precise collisions. With the polygon collider, Unity will try to determine the shape automatically if you drag a sprite unto the collider component, and you can edit it afterwards if need be. I haven't personally used these yet, admittedly, but I've seen them demonstrated at a Unity workshop. Seemed pretty cool.

Thanks!

 

[Dascu]

Hey guys!



So I've been reading this topic for a while now and I love seeing what all you guys are creating. Now it's time for me to give something back, so I'd like to show you the official gameplay teaser of the game I'm working on with my company Vogelsap .

It's called The Flock and it's an asymmetrical multiplayer thriller game (that's a mouthful, I know!).

Gameplay teaser here!

I'm very eager to know what you guys think about it! This is old footage though, our current build has volumetric lighting and whatnot . It's made in Unity, by the way.

Thanks!

Nice concept. Hope you guys pull it off.

 

[Noogy]

I have a question for everyone here. As indie developers, do you think it's better to show as much of your game as you can while in development to maybe keep interest or get feedback or is it better to keep as much as possible tucked away for that big trailer or reveal? What do you prefer to do for your own projects?

I'm not sure if one is better than the either, but I held back most of the time. The reasoning was that I wasn't sure how long I would take (ended up at 3.5 years) and I didn't want buzz to die down while the audience waited.

It meant that I had a lot to show when I eventually did a trailer, and people seemed excited with a launch date announced. But of course all of my marketing came very late, and due to crunch I didn't really get to build up a community or following. It was an uphill battle to get noticed, even with a publisher.

For my next game I want to be better at development blogs and keeping the community informed. It's easier now that I have a bit of a following, and my next game is more mechanically oriented so I'm not as worried about spoilers. I don't have much insight beyond that, but I hope it helps.

 

[Timeaisis]

Hey guys!



So I've been reading this topic for a while now and I love seeing what all you guys are creating. Now it's time for me to give something back, so I'd like to show you the official gameplay teaser of the game I'm working on with my company Vogelsap .

It's called The Flock and it's an asymmetrical multiplayer thriller game (that's a mouthful, I know!).

Gameplay teaser here!

I'm very eager to know what you guys think about it! This is old footage though, our current build has volumetric lighting and whatnot . It's made in Unity, by the way.

Thanks!

Wow, super interesting concept. I'll keep up with this! Love my some asymmetric gameplay.

 

[shacklesmcgee]

We have reached about the 1/2 way mark to the minimum number of alien races we want to populate our game universe (10/20). It is time for gut check for consistency, style, detail etc. Questions for the group.

1. Do they all feel in-line with eachother?
2. Any that have stand out issues to you that could use tweaking?
3. Overall how do you think they fit/feel against the in-game engine art?

My gf and I have been in awe with each new one you release, they definitely all look to be from the same "universe". I almost wish the entire game was in the art style of the alien portraits, like an old school adventure game, but I think it does fit the in game stuff too. I will say alien 3 and alien 9 do look slightly similiar, what with the gold/yellow tones and tendrils. Maybe add more "digital" effects to number 9, to separate from 3's organic style? Regardless, fantastic, fantastic stuff!

 

[V_Arnold]

Friken: Race 9 is an OOD! I love the artworks. Do not worry about alien styles overlapping, there is no rule in the universe that would make that unlikely. If anything, they should converge given that the homeplanets host the same carbon-based lives.

 

[razu]

Put a bit of work into the dialogue stuff, so it's more obvious you need to move the conversation along.



Also, Chun will be colour graded to each room's lighting soon, so she doesn't look like an alien haha.

Really nice!

Sounds good! :+




Here is my take.
Roughly, 99.98% of those who will potentially buy your game on release will
not follow your development progress whatsoever. The other 0.02% will likely
love your game already no matter whether you put a great trailer or not. So
you can show stuff about your game while in development and also have a create
trailer in the end for those other 99.98%. Second, the critique you get while
showing stuff in development is perhaps the best thing you can get by any
means. Third, showing stuff shows progress, commitment, and forces you to get
better and better, since not even those who follow your development want to
see the same stuff twice! Yet you may keep one or two things to even
surprise those who follow you, for the fun of it!

That sounds about right.

 

[Makai]

I'll probably be at the NC Ludum Dare meetup.

 

[hipbabboom]

Is there any way to print out a Entity-Component Pattern on a 3D printer and then make love to it? Seriously...


I'm going to have fun with this one

 

[LGom09]

Quick question: does this sound like it could be game music? I'm trying to learn how to compose music, specifically for games, and one of the things I'm finding really challenging is remaining focused on a theme that the music should fit. I went in trying to write a puzzle game theme and got this. Went a little overboard on the drums.

 

[Makai]

Quick question: does this sound like it could be game music? I'm trying to learn how to compose music, specifically for games, and one of the things I'm finding really challenging is remaining focused on a theme that the music should fit. I went in trying to write a puzzle game theme and got this. Went a little overboard on the drums.

Yes if you change the instruments.

 

[TheHollowNight]

Very cool look Hollow!

Really nice!

Thanks both of you!

I have this weekend to polish up some of my music & finish the bulk of the sound design, then I'll be working on some minor background animations (water drips, rats scurrying about) & more object interaction!

Quick question: does this sound like it could be game music? I'm trying to learn how to compose music, specifically for games, and one of the things I'm finding really challenging is remaining focused on a theme that the music should fit. I went in trying to write a puzzle game theme and got this. Went a little overboard on the drums.

It could work fine, but as actionremix said, the instrument quality is really lacking. It sounds like super-quantized midi backing tracks for music lessons

There's nothing wrong with the song arrangement itself, just the instrument sounds & production quality.

 

[LGom09]

It could work fine, but as actionremix said, the instrument quality is really lacking. It sounds like super-quantized midi backing tracks for music lessons

There's nothing wrong with the song arrangement itself, just the instrument sounds & production quality.

For sure. It's just the default piano that comes with FL Studio. I don't really know how to get good sounds yet.

 

[Dark Octave]

Very cool look Hollow!



I found that when we showed bits and pieces, we got some really good feedback from fans of the game. We've since implemented some of those changes, and it's really helped the look and feel of the final product.

Sounds good! :+




Here is my take.
Roughly, 99.98% of those who will potentially buy your game on release will
not follow your development progress whatsoever. The other 0.02% will likely
love your game already no matter whether you put a great trailer or not. So
you can show stuff about your game while in development and also have a create
trailer in the end for those other 99.98%. Second, the critique you get while
showing stuff in development is perhaps the best thing you can get by any
means. Third, showing stuff shows progress, commitment, and forces you to get
better and better, since not even those who follow your development want to
see the same stuff twice! Yet you may keep one or two things to even
surprise those who follow you, for the fun of it!

I'm not sure if one is better than the either, but I held back most of the time. The reasoning was that I wasn't sure how long I would take (ended up at 3.5 years) and I didn't want buzz to die down while the audience waited.

It meant that I had a lot to show when I eventually did a trailer, and people seemed excited with a launch date announced. But of course all of my marketing came very late, and due to crunch I didn't really get to build up a community or following. It was an uphill battle to get noticed, even with a publisher.

For my next game I want to be better at development blogs and keeping the community informed. It's easier now that I have a bit of a following, and my next game is more mechanically oriented so I'm not as worried about spoilers. I don't have much insight beyond that, but I hope it helps.

Thanks for the feedback guys. We've already benefited from feedback in this very thread. I also agree that 99% of the potential audience won't ever see any of this and the earlier you build that buzz, the better.

 

[More_Badass]

Didn't know it was so easy getting a DS3 working with a pc by just plugging it in and installing some drivers. Better DS3 is a neat little app, and our game now fully "supports" different controllers!

Also looking for some feedback on our game over screen. We're debating if we should implement a ENTER NAME , or use profiles when you first start the game. Sort of like trying to imitate the live sign in feature for most arcade games.

Shwip dev is a GAFfer! Awesome!

Hey guys!



So I've been reading this topic for a while now and I love seeing what all you guys are creating. Now it's time for me to give something back, so I'd like to show you the official gameplay teaser of the game I'm working on with my company Vogelsap .

It's called The Flock and it's an asymmetrical multiplayer thriller game (that's a mouthful, I know!).

Gameplay teaser here!

I'm very eager to know what you guys think about it! This is old footage though, our current build has volumetric lighting and whatnot . It's made in Unity, by the way.

Thanks!

This looks really cool. The art on your site is fantastic