-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
Indie Game Development Discussion Thread | Of Being Professionally Poor
- Thread starter chubigans
- Start date
- Status
Zenaku
Member
I've looked on the Reason website already (got to their site while searching for info on FM synthesis) and was going to get the demo version before seeing it was 3.31GB. I'll download it once I've finished downloading something else, but are there any good tutorial sites you could recommend?
Teknopathetic
Member
"Anyone here have any tips for handling music? What programs do you use?
I've been testing a few things, currently checking through Reaper a little, but the default plugins leave a little to be desired. I just want something that can create realistic piano notes, maybe some guitar/violins."
Pretty much any program out there will have a semi-decent realistic piano/guitar/violin either through built-in sample patches or via a 3rd party plugin.
I use Renoise which looks a bit arcane at first, but is actually very intuitive and fast. It's also very cheap and the "demo" is non-ending and 99% fully featured.
I've been testing a few things, currently checking through Reaper a little, but the default plugins leave a little to be desired. I just want something that can create realistic piano notes, maybe some guitar/violins."
Pretty much any program out there will have a semi-decent realistic piano/guitar/violin either through built-in sample patches or via a 3rd party plugin.
I use Renoise which looks a bit arcane at first, but is actually very intuitive and fast. It's also very cheap and the "demo" is non-ending and 99% fully featured.
For our first game we just used the clips from Logic Pro. It comes with gigs and gigs of audio clips and sound effects. It's a children's game so we didn't need anything fancy.
Youtube. Honestly. All the best tutes are done by fans and free on the 'tube. People make songs live on sites like twitch with it too which is a great resource.
The program is very visual, you have a rack and add devices (synths, samplers, drum machines, effects etc), can load/save patches into them and just go nuts with dials and spinners until you feel comfortable with how they change the sound. Here is the companies own " Intro to reason" vid - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o1dTrYXbrU
Zenaku
Member
The ones I've tried certainly sounded decent, but still a little off; I'll need to put time in to learn the interface anyway, so I figured I'll prioritize whatever gives me the sound I like best.
I'll be giving Renoise a try though, especially with it being only 27MB, thanks.
I thought about pre-made audio, even checking over the Unity asset store, but I'm making a dungeon crawler, so I need RPG music (mainly for areas and battles). I might still consider sound effects though.
Some of the images I saw on the main website did look a little complicated, so I'd guess videos are the best option there. Thanks, I'll give a few tutorials a look.
Teknopathetic
Member
There are also numerous free plugins that will work with any program that supports them that you may want to try, if you don't want to spend more money than you need to.
http://www.kvraudio.com/q.php?search=1&q=piano&pr[]=f
http://www.kvraudio.com/q.php?search=1&q=piano&pr[]=f
So today I went through and rigged a face for the first time with Blender. Thought I'd drop the tutorial I used:
http://vimeo.com/21130352
edit: looks like importing shapekeys into Unity is a bit of a problem
http://vimeo.com/21130352
edit: looks like importing shapekeys into Unity is a bit of a problem
Secret Fawful
Member
All you guys talking about 3D modeling. That's cool. Meanwhile I'm just trying to get a character to walk and talk at the same time in Adventure Game Studio. Adventure Game Studio doesn't support this as a feature, so coding it is a big pain in the ass. But it'll be worth it in the end.
Zenaku
Member
Thanks again. I had a look for plugins earlier too, but had trouble seeing what were effects and what were actual instruments. I've just started up Renoise, and I'm already impressed with the demo songs; it definitely has a nice range. No to try a few tutorials and figure out the interface...
eot
Banned
Dead Prince
Banned
paid female dancers?
It's a funding thing; I just got back, I'm a little torn. My Kickstarter was successful, but if I end up getting more funding, it could grow the scope of the project, and push back the intended release date...
I guess I should ask the Kickstarter backers, but I can't, really, because nothing is guaranteed. It's a tough situation.
I guess I should ask the Kickstarter backers, but I can't, really, because nothing is guaranteed. It's a tough situation.
Congratulations on the offer. It's a tough decision, but if you accept more funding do you lose some of your independence? It might be a worthwhile tradeoff to you to keep the smaller scope but have greater control over everything.
There were extremely strong implications that I would still have full creative control over everything, but who knows what'll be on that contract...
Zenaku
Member
I think I need to thank you again. I've been messing around in Renoise, following a tutorial, and the one thing I know I absolutely love about Renoise is using keyboard keys to input sounds in real time.
No drawing notes, no moving notes to get the right pitch; just setting the song to play, hitting the keys you need to hit, and having the program record everything you've done (the keys you've hit, how long you've hit them, etc); it's wonderful.
The default sounds for piano organs and lack of violins is a bit disappointing, but if I get some nice plugins I'm certain I'll be falling in love with it.
Thanks, didn't know there was a whole thread about creating music; I'll browse it later for tips.
That's tough.
See what specifics you can get and hammer an idea of things out? But it's the games industry so who knows.
For what it's worth, I say you should go for more funding. It doesn't hurt to at least keep the conversation going.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
My previous game is "done". I should probably post video of it. Moving on to the next of three minigames:
I like it when things glow.
I like it when things glow.
My previous game is "done". I should probably post video of it. Moving on to the next of three minigames:
I like it when things glow.
What happened to your game? Did you publish it somewhere or your goal was just to complete it?
Fusion Pizza
Member
My previous game is "done". I should probably post video of it. Moving on to the next of three minigames:
I like it when things glow.
sexy, what engine?
Well I recently did what I tend to do every 6 months to a year, which is spend hours relearning how to model and texture ultra basic shapes in Blender and get them into the UDK. This time around, I made a robot and also learned how to add a skeleton to it rigged to the mesh, which is cool.
However, apparently my next step has to be to learn how to make animations in Blender, then export them as PSA or PSK or whatever so that UDK can use them as animation sequences. I'm using FBX export from Blender for models and materials, and I actually have it automatically creating and linking 3 materials and textures from the same mesh in Blender, without me having to do it manually, which is awesome.
I also experimented some with Torque3D. I really like that it's open source since in THEORY that means you could fix most any problem...but in practice of course that could take a very long time. Specifically I looked at importing meshes, and apparently everything needs to be Collada format. I think that can include a mesh, its materials, textures, skeleton, AND animations, but it looks like it might be a pretty steep learning curve to figure out how to get those to show up in the engine. The graphical tools aren't on the level the UDK has.
Also, even running the world editor with an empty level in Torque3D makes my graphics card fan kick up, seemingly worse than UDK. Maybe I'll find out it's constantly rendering live and I'll be able to mod in a way to disable that during editing.
By the way, once again I was struck by how friendly and helpful the Blender IRC channel community is. I was googling stuff and watching and reading tutorials, but there were a lot of questions that Blender channel people had very useful and patient answers about. One guy in particular even took time to explain some OpenGL concepts to me that weren't even related to Blender.
However, apparently my next step has to be to learn how to make animations in Blender, then export them as PSA or PSK or whatever so that UDK can use them as animation sequences. I'm using FBX export from Blender for models and materials, and I actually have it automatically creating and linking 3 materials and textures from the same mesh in Blender, without me having to do it manually, which is awesome.
I also experimented some with Torque3D. I really like that it's open source since in THEORY that means you could fix most any problem...but in practice of course that could take a very long time. Specifically I looked at importing meshes, and apparently everything needs to be Collada format. I think that can include a mesh, its materials, textures, skeleton, AND animations, but it looks like it might be a pretty steep learning curve to figure out how to get those to show up in the engine. The graphical tools aren't on the level the UDK has.
Also, even running the world editor with an empty level in Torque3D makes my graphics card fan kick up, seemingly worse than UDK. Maybe I'll find out it's constantly rendering live and I'll be able to mod in a way to disable that during editing.
By the way, once again I was struck by how friendly and helpful the Blender IRC channel community is. I was googling stuff and watching and reading tutorials, but there were a lot of questions that Blender channel people had very useful and patient answers about. One guy in particular even took time to explain some OpenGL concepts to me that weren't even related to Blender.
BlazeHedgehog
Member
It's not released yet. It's actually intended to be a small part of a larger game. So is this one. And after this, I'm contracted to do one more small-ish game.
I make all my games using Multimedia Fusion 2. I'm probably not doing the glow effect in the most efficient way, and if I get too crazy with things it might break collision detection, so I have to be careful.
Fusion Pizza
Member
It's not released yet. It's actually intended to be a small part of a larger game. So is this one. And after this, I'm contracted to do one more small-ish game.
I make all my games using Multimedia Fusion 2. I'm probably not doing the glow effect in the most efficient way, and if I get too crazy with things it might break collision detection, so I have to be careful.
Nice, I'll check it out.
I used GarageBand. It's surprisingly good!
In other news.. I can't even give Chopper Mike away! Demand for free Desura keys has been.. muted.
And in other news, I've just had Unity open, working on new things. I probably will get round to the Ouya version of CM, but not super psyched to do so right now. Rather be tinkering around with fun new stuff!
It's not released yet. It's actually intended to be a small part of a larger game. So is this one. And after this, I'm contracted to do one more small-ish game.
I make all my games using Multimedia Fusion 2. I'm probably not doing the glow effect in the most efficient way, and if I get too crazy with things it might break collision detection, so I have to be careful.
Ah I see, I was keeping an eye on it because I'm also making a shoot them up but I'm behind from what you last showed and want to progress a little more before posting screens and such
I'll try to make it soonish because I would like to participate in screenshot saturday.BomberMouse
Member
Money is just money, unless they offer something else I'd just drop it if you feel you have enough funding already. Also, you should know better than to grow the scope of the game; leave that for the DLC at least and give it for free to KS backers. You promised them a date, don't push it back.
I mean, is it ever really a case of "you have enough funding already"? I could use the money to do full localizations, proper QA, hire another programmer, pay a proper sound designer instead of asking one of my music guys to do it, look for better acting talent, ensure a day one Mac/Linux port, include Oculus Rift support, license AI tech...the possibilities are all over the place. While I did say that June 2014 was a targeted date, I did very explicitly say that it was simply a target.
I think the best move is to just keep talks open and see where it goes.
www.playiridium.com/oculusrift for an explanation
BomberMouse
Member
Maybe I'm in the minority but I doubt half of those make the game significantly better. IMO you should deliver the game as soon as posible and build on top of that, don't fall prey to feature bloating.
I'm by no means a pro game developer, or a pro game player, but I tend to agree with what BomberMouse has said in the last couple of posts. Keeping a tight focus on features, matching backer expectations, and avoiding letting something grow too big could be key aspects.
Especially since if it's like any other software development, unexpected things will arise and the game will always take more time and expense than anticipated, even without extra plans.
I thought exact the same thing. But I can understand feep, the Rift must be
so enticing. Hihi!
Luckily my game will be in full 3d and in 1st person all the way down. However, I think 2d games can profit from the Rift as well. I'm
pretty sure someone will come up with kind of a 2d sidescroller surprising
all of us.
None of those features are really "feature bloat", though. I wouldn't add more to the game, really, in terms of content. But with the massive amount of voiceover involved, localization would be a really big deal...I could reach out to three times the audience. Plus, localization can be done concurrently with development, for the most part...external companies handle it. I would be curious to hear Noogy's stance.
damn. Sounds great
Haha, I don't know if I could offer anything you don't already know. I wish I had a breakdown of sales per region, to get a better sense of whether localization was worth it (Leaderboards suggest healthy sales everywhere, but loc was EXTREMELY costly. Note that I didn't loc VO, only the strings.)
Loc honestly sounds like a nightmare for TCAEcho, considering what you are doing with voice recognition. It sounds very exciting, as does these opportunities you are hinting at, but I admit I don't envy your position, despite being a great position to be in
BTW, I'm totally in the dark with a particular C+ issue (as a C#) guy. I'm sure you know in regards to what... save me Feep! You're my only hope!
Send me an E-mail at iridium@playiridium.com! I shalt save thee!Haha, I don't know if I could offer anything you don't already know. I wish I had a breakdown of sales per region, to get a better sense of whether localization was worth it (Leaderboards suggest healthy sales everywhere, but loc was EXTREMELY costly. Note that I didn't loc VO, only the strings.)
Loc honestly sounds like a nightmare for TCAEcho, considering what you are doing with voice recognition. It sounds very exciting, as does these opportunities you are hinting at, but I admit I don't envy your position, despite being a great position to be in
BTW, I'm totally in the dark with a particular C+ issue (as a C#) guy. I'm sure you know in regards to what... save me Feep! You're my only hope!
Dreamwriter
Member
Hey guys, been a while since I posted here, but I have a good excuse: my OUYA game, The Secret of Universe Alpha, shipped 1.0 today! Well at least, I submitted it, I assume it'll be approved tomorrow (0.9 was already approved). I figured I'd type up some of what I learned on this project as my first full-time indie game (some I already knew, some is common sense). Prepare for INCOMING WALL OF TEXT!
It's a hell of a lot easier to start a project than to finish it - you are always much more excited at the beginning of a project than the end, and at the very end it's easy to get frustrated by little things going wrong. But you just gotta keep at it in the end - I'd bet lots of projects never ship at all because they had great starts but couldn't get finished.
When working by yourself, it's rather easy to over-scope, especially when you have a time limit. My game would be where I originally envisioned it with probably a month's more development time...which I don't have. I'm still happy with the game, but I'd be happier with 3 more "dungeons" and more things to collect.
Don't be afraid to throw stuff out if it's taking too long - you are your own boss and game designer, if something is taking too long, it's definitely affecting the rest of the project, make the decision if it's really worth it. One of my dungeons is completely different from the rest, and I really spent more time working on that one dungeon, getting my game mechanics to work correctly with it and implementing a lot of new stuff just for that dungeon, than any other single part of my game. Now, I love that dungeon, it's my favorite one in the game and it provides a good breakup to keep gameplay from getting old/stale. But, if I were to do the game again, I probably would have dropped the dungeon entirely or at least some of the things which made it so different, and been able to add more content to the rest of the game.
On a similar note, if you are working by yourself, any task that takes a lot of time is bad, and you have to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. I had an enemy with a very cool visual effect, but when I tried it on actual game hardware it brought the framerate to a halt. I spent way too long trying to experiment with the effect to get the framerate somewhat decent, when what I should have done was dropped the snazzy effect entirely and gone with something more boring but fast to render. Especially since to test the framerate required burning the game to hardware which took around 10 minutes.
When I started the project, I figured what I would miss the most working by myself, is an artist - I'm a programmer, seems natural to need an artist. Turns out, while an artist would have been nice and the lack is definitely noticable at times, a good level designer would have been awesome. I'm good at overall design and figuring out where to put/hide stuff, but in creating the dungeons, I am very slow and it takes me a number of iterations to get them to where I am happy. And I could also use help designing enemy behaviours.
The internet, while your best friend as an independent developer who needs assets, advice, and occasional coding help, can turn into your worst nightmare. Without a boss or team members to try and look good for, it's easy to get lost browsing the web and not working on your game.
Speaking of looking good for boss/team members, it's vital to get other people (ie friends) to play your game once it has gotten beyond a certain point, and try not to help them play it; watch and see what they do. They are going to do things you did not expect, play a way you did not want, DO NOT correct them, don't tell them where to go, at most if they get the game stuck help them get unstuck. If they are playing the game "wrong" so will tons of customers, you need to be aware of that and perhaps add guidance in your game to keep them from playing wrong, that or alter the game so that's a good way to play.
It also helps to have to show it to people at a somewhat regular schedule, so you HAVE to get good progress done or you look like a slacker There were times I worked extra hard just because I was going to be showing the game off, and I didn't think enough new stuff was added.
But at some point, you should probably give up showing the game off regularly - depending on the game, not enough stuff is going to change from week to week, and you don't want your friends to get bored with it and dread you pulling out the game
Non-game business needs can be frickin' time consuming - I lost a LOT of time trying to get a loan from the bank (and don't think Kickstarter is a time saver, I did a lot of research, and that takes just as much work to do it correctly). So a partner who handles the business side of things would be a good asset.
It doesn't matter if you haven't touched any code related to the beginning if your game in eons, test it anyways before making a build people will see. I made an 0.8 build where the end of the game wasn't all there, because the OUYA folks wanted some games they could show to the press. After submitting it, I went to play through it beginning to end - and damn, it was so buggy you couldn't get past the beginning. That was a bad thing.
It's a hell of a lot easier to start a project than to finish it - you are always much more excited at the beginning of a project than the end, and at the very end it's easy to get frustrated by little things going wrong. But you just gotta keep at it in the end - I'd bet lots of projects never ship at all because they had great starts but couldn't get finished.
When working by yourself, it's rather easy to over-scope, especially when you have a time limit. My game would be where I originally envisioned it with probably a month's more development time...which I don't have. I'm still happy with the game, but I'd be happier with 3 more "dungeons" and more things to collect.
Don't be afraid to throw stuff out if it's taking too long - you are your own boss and game designer, if something is taking too long, it's definitely affecting the rest of the project, make the decision if it's really worth it. One of my dungeons is completely different from the rest, and I really spent more time working on that one dungeon, getting my game mechanics to work correctly with it and implementing a lot of new stuff just for that dungeon, than any other single part of my game. Now, I love that dungeon, it's my favorite one in the game and it provides a good breakup to keep gameplay from getting old/stale. But, if I were to do the game again, I probably would have dropped the dungeon entirely or at least some of the things which made it so different, and been able to add more content to the rest of the game.
On a similar note, if you are working by yourself, any task that takes a lot of time is bad, and you have to be willing to make sacrifices for the greater good. I had an enemy with a very cool visual effect, but when I tried it on actual game hardware it brought the framerate to a halt. I spent way too long trying to experiment with the effect to get the framerate somewhat decent, when what I should have done was dropped the snazzy effect entirely and gone with something more boring but fast to render. Especially since to test the framerate required burning the game to hardware which took around 10 minutes.
When I started the project, I figured what I would miss the most working by myself, is an artist - I'm a programmer, seems natural to need an artist. Turns out, while an artist would have been nice and the lack is definitely noticable at times, a good level designer would have been awesome. I'm good at overall design and figuring out where to put/hide stuff, but in creating the dungeons, I am very slow and it takes me a number of iterations to get them to where I am happy. And I could also use help designing enemy behaviours.
The internet, while your best friend as an independent developer who needs assets, advice, and occasional coding help, can turn into your worst nightmare. Without a boss or team members to try and look good for, it's easy to get lost browsing the web and not working on your game.
Speaking of looking good for boss/team members, it's vital to get other people (ie friends) to play your game once it has gotten beyond a certain point, and try not to help them play it; watch and see what they do. They are going to do things you did not expect, play a way you did not want, DO NOT correct them, don't tell them where to go, at most if they get the game stuck help them get unstuck. If they are playing the game "wrong" so will tons of customers, you need to be aware of that and perhaps add guidance in your game to keep them from playing wrong, that or alter the game so that's a good way to play.
It also helps to have to show it to people at a somewhat regular schedule, so you HAVE to get good progress done or you look like a slacker
There were times I worked extra hard just because I was going to be showing the game off, and I didn't think enough new stuff was added.But at some point, you should probably give up showing the game off regularly - depending on the game, not enough stuff is going to change from week to week, and you don't want your friends to get bored with it and dread you pulling out the game
Non-game business needs can be frickin' time consuming - I lost a LOT of time trying to get a loan from the bank (and don't think Kickstarter is a time saver, I did a lot of research, and that takes just as much work to do it correctly). So a partner who handles the business side of things would be a good asset.
It doesn't matter if you haven't touched any code related to the beginning if your game in eons, test it anyways before making a build people will see. I made an 0.8 build where the end of the game wasn't all there, because the OUYA folks wanted some games they could show to the press. After submitting it, I went to play through it beginning to end - and damn, it was so buggy you couldn't get past the beginning. That was a bad thing.
Actually, thinking about this further, I think one of the biggest issues is the resolution (unless you are depending on the consumer model with the higher resolution display). I think any sort of application like you describe that involves reading ingame displays is going to have heavy resolution issues. Maybe all of the ingame screens in the command center could contain symbolic data instead of text data, but for any sort of strategy game that sounds like a bit of a nightmare. :S
Why wouldn't I target the consumer version?
I guess what I'm saying is, you would be developing on and planning for hardware that doesn't exist yet. It will -probably- exist, but depending on future hardware functionality at the kickstarter stage rather than existing functionality (e.g. the low-resolution operation currently support by the Rift) seems risky. It's just my opinion though, from the perspective of a random internet person/developer/end user.Why wouldn't I target the consumer version?
twingloxx2
Member
This is from a single-level prototype of Koboshi, a 2.5d platformer we've been working on lately. What started out as a simple test has evolved into a fairly large, functional level. There's still lots of stuff that needs to be added (like sound, gameplay twists, enemies and levels etc).
We're using the Unity engine, with the iPad 2 as our current target platform (phone support to follow). Our ambition is to have the game running at a steady 60 fps.
Any feedback is welcome at this point (graphics, mechanics, bugs etc). If you are interested in trying it out on an actual iPad, pm me and I'll send the demo through TestFlight.
Or you can play it in a browser: http://dev.blackbeardgames.com/koboshi/
This is from a single-level prototype of Koboshi, a 2.5d platformer we've been working on lately. What started out as a simple test has evolved into a fairly large, functional level. There's still lots of stuff that needs to be added (like sound, gameplay twists, enemies and levels etc).
We're using the Unity engine, with the iPad 2 as our current target platform (phone support to follow). Our ambition is to have the game running at a steady 60 fps.
Any feedback is welcome at this point (graphics, mechanics, bugs etc). If you are interested in trying it out on an actual iPad, pm me and I'll send the demo through TestFlight.
Or you can play it in a browser: http://dev.blackbeardgames.com/koboshi/
Oh man! I played only a bit because i don't have the time, but i think that this game is awesome! I would gladly pay to play it on vita.
Well, to be honest, Oculus Rift support is basically an afterthought when it comes to designing the game itself. I can EASILY wait until January 2014, or later, to decide whether or not it'll be a good fit. I'm sure I'll have a much better idea by then.
I remember on an Iwata Asked that Nintendo spends their time prototyping a bunch of ideas and refining them and picking from the best before ever thinking about stories or anything like that.
I might take on that philosophy of game design. I've got a bunch of design documents I've written over the years but have only been working on one game and getting bored. I might spend each week prototyping a game play design and see which one I have the most fun with and going with that as my game.
Going back to the basics and having it all be about the game play.
I might take on that philosophy of game design. I've got a bunch of design documents I've written over the years but have only been working on one game and getting bored. I might spend each week prototyping a game play design and see which one I have the most fun with and going with that as my game.
Going back to the basics and having it all be about the game play.
I thought exact the same thing. But I can understand feep, the Rift must be
so enticing. Hihi!
the way down. However, I think 2d games can profit from the Rift as well. I'm
pretty sure someone will come up with kind of a 2d sidescroller surprising
all of us.
I realize this is a little bit off topic, but why do you bother formatting your posts to line break at/before 62 characters? I assume you're using some kind of text width checking program, but... why?
I don't understand how it would help with legibility. Don't all devices/browsers have automatic line wrapping? I'd argue it makes your posts less legible for people with normal screen sizes.
This is from a single-level prototype of Koboshi, a 2.5d platformer we've been working on lately. What started out as a simple test has evolved into a fairly large, functional level. There's still lots of stuff that needs to be added (like sound, gameplay twists, enemies and levels etc).
We're using the Unity engine, with the iPad 2 as our current target platform (phone support to follow). Our ambition is to have the game running at a steady 60 fps.
Any feedback is welcome at this point (graphics, mechanics, bugs etc). If you are interested in trying it out on an actual iPad, pm me and I'll send the demo through TestFlight.
Or you can play it in a browser: http://dev.blackbeardgames.com/koboshi/
I tried it. Neat game. Keep on.
Playing this reinforces my idea that I should learn Unity.
- Status