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[Mik2121]

With some gameplay polish I could see that being really cool. I love the potential risk vs reward of needing to be in a certain location to attack.

Thank you Armbrust. I didn't expect anyone to reply to my post, haha!
I have many more ideas for this (though minor, since what's in the video is the core, pretty much), so I might add them when I need to take a break from something else, and see where this goes.

Glad you liked it, and thanks for the feedback!

 

[oxrock]

That's why I want to see us in the Community section, to get rid of those
people posting their fire-and-forget ads adding nothing to the discussion.

Either that or abusing this thread that way should become a bannable theme.

I like this thread being in gaming because it not only introduces more people to our works and ideas (getting exposure for your work as an indie dev is obviously invaluable) but it also makes this thread more public and thus more likely to draw in new contributors. People who shamelessly advertise their product without even participating in discussion are obviously unwelcome in my mind. In any other threads such actions are bannable, here we're given some leeway which is obviously sometimes abused.

 

[Ne0n]

Thanks

How much cleaning up will be required and how long per scene? looks like it will be pretty awesome in VR once in

poly count needs reducing alot, also with photogrammetery there are always lots of holes and errors that needs fixing, i'd say each scene (after shooting) takes 4-5 hours to clean, or 10 depending on complexity

Example of how locations will be presented/player start for each location

 

[Kyuur]

You're wrong. Fuck off.

(I normally ignore spammers but not only could you not be bothered to do more than cut and paste the entire post in multiple threads, but you also included over 100MB of GIFs. For fuck's sake.)

Good points. Also, considering it involves a lead developer from a DOOM game, it looks massively derivative to the point of a cyberdemon in that last GIF.

That's why I want to see us in the Community section, to get rid of those
people posting their fire-and-forget ads adding nothing to the discussion.

Either that or abusing this thread that way should become a bannable theme.

You guys are being a bit harsh. You shouldn't have to have x post count in the thread to post your work, and no one should be limited to posting bite sized snapshots of their daily development. If they want to wait until they have something substantial and post it all in one go, that's fine. Same if they never post here again. Not like it's a paid product. You can ignore the post or offer feedback like you do whenever somebody else posts some of their latest work.

Having some GIFs in your post is still no reason to tell someone here that they're not wanted. That's the kind of shit that gets community threads deleted and banned. Anyone is free to post here and neither GAF nor this thread has rules about GIF size/usage, so turn it off in your settings if you want to conserve your precious data.

 

[oxrock]

It's #screenshotsaturday which means it's time yet again for an update on my game Quests Unlimited! I try to keep my updates here rather abridged compared to my DevLog posts, so if you're ever looking for more details you can check that out or simply ask.

This week was spent working on implementing skills utilizing the skills system I worked on the previous week. I'm happy to announce that there's now 4 skills currently in game! Here's a GIF demonstrating them in action(only 13MB, your data plan is safe with me!) :

Here's a rundown of the class's skills:

The Fighter's Battleroar is an AOE skill that significantly increases the fighter's threat to every enemy it hits. It's displayed as the red expanding bubble in the gif.

The Hunter's multi-shot is an AOE ability that shoots an arrow at every enemy in range. Even though an arrow is instantiated for each enemy and does indeed fly into them, it's currently hard to actually recognize when this ability activates. I'll probably add some particle effects to make it more noticeable in the future.

The Cleric's heal is depicted as the blue ball of light. I think we all know what a heal does.

The Wizard's enbigify(en-big-if-eye) ability causes him to become enormous and double his damage while active. Not only does he grow but his fireballs and their explosions also scale in size to signify their increased damage.

With all these new skills the player party has become VASTLY more proficient at killing. I've had to majorly increase enemy stats to be able to offer any resistance. I'm sure it will take a fair bit of balancing to get things just right, but I'm pretty happy for now.

 

[JulianImp]

I'd rather see posts with one or two embedded gifs or large-ish (but still not full-size) images, and the rest as either links or smaller snapshots, since that kind of things tend to take up lots of screen real estate IMO. Still, making this thread into more of a clique by excessively policing self-promoting posts in this thread isn't really the right thing to do.

 

[Professor Lich]

I haven't got far enough to do this myself, but I plan to when I have at least a demo build ready. Even though you went last year to little benefit, I do think it's a worthwhile investment to be honest. Many otherwise smaller and/or niche games I've seen over the years that could have easily been overlooked (even in their own genre) got noticed because they did expos and shows, and I think the risk-reward is mostly geared in your favor if you have a display people can sit down and interact with like you had mentioned and eventually get word of mouth going. You said the game is much further along and better now so I think it'll attract more attention by that merit alone. Plus, people often go to these things to try out new games and it also helps to display your own seriousness for your project. You have faith in your game, then I don't see why you wouldn't want to get as many eyes on it as you can, and get people talking sooner than later (plus like you said, it could be fun on its own).

Maybe you can also try analyzing it economically, in terms of how many units you need to sell to cover the cost of the trip. If you think breaking even with that amount of games sold is not an issue and doesn't hurt overall sales profits too badly then I say go for it.

Well, I have no business experience so these are really just random thoughts. Good luck with whatever you decide.

Thanks for your input, I really do appreciate it. We ended up deciding on going. Things are rough for us right now but sitting in our apartment doing the same thing we do every weekend isn't going to change that. Also, heading out and being able to see people enjoy our game in person will probably give us a great boost in moral to help finish off what we're working on. So that'll be hppening later this month!

 

[Ne0n]

I'd rather see posts with one or two embedded gifs or large-ish (but still not full-size) images, and the rest as either links or smaller snapshots, since that kind of things tend to take up lots of screen real estate IMO. Still, making this thread into more of a clique by excessively policing self-promoting posts in this thread isn't really the right thing to do.

100mb in gifs is definitly overkill. but a bunch of large images i think is fine personally. i mean its 2017 lol, the forum will scale to size if you're on mobile and whatever resolution you're using. a bunch of images will be a few MB at best. Hardly a big deal, and the whole point of this thread is to showcase progress.. If you have a data plan and are browsing on mobile, you should install apps that block that stuff, it's not anyone elses problem people aren't using unlimited internet :/ sorry to sound like an ass but yeah.

 

[Minamu]

That's why I want to see us in the Community section, to get rid of those
people posting their fire-and-forget ads adding nothing to the discussion.

Either that or abusing this thread that way should become a bannable theme.

Nah being on the regular side is better as we get more people in here in general, and it ups the chance of people in the industry noticing us etc.

 

[Aki-at]

So in my journey to updating my level tiles for the first stage, I've ditched the old 45x45 tile (I don't even know ) and made a new foreground tiles. Previously the game was aiming for an 8 bit look but I changed it in 2014 to a 16 bit game but this stage sort of got away without changing, until now!

Now all I need to do is change the background so it's easier to differentiate the background and foreground. Might change the enemy colour schemes too.

 

[Minamu]

This whole Screenshot Saturday thing isn't all that sensitive, right? I'm always at work or doing something else on Saturdays it seems :/ I have a ton of work I'd like to show and get feedback on and even though I do a lot of game deving at work, tonight included, I don't have Internet access to be uploading any pictures.

 

[Astrael]

This thread is very inspiring. I'm a UX/UI designer and have been getting the itch to design a game in my free time. I think id try a beat em up game as its my favorite classic genre and there really hasn't been many released and the ones that have don't really satisfy that classic Capcom itch. I would do something simple with no RPG elements that focuses on good sound, smooth gameplay, large sprites and fun enemies. The theme of the game would be 80's/90's Pro Wrestling.

What are the best and quickest to learn engines to use for a beat em up?

If you aren't making your own engine, I'd probably go with GameMaker. GMS is the one I've just got done talking to my artist friend about who also is a huge Capcom arcade fan (Final Fight and the D&D games especially) and who has wanted to make a side-scrolling beat em up like those for pretty much the entire 15 years I've known him. A Pro Wrestling style game probably wouldn't have to deal with very large maps, so that wouldn't be too bad. I did some preliminary searches out of curiosity for the scripts you'd probably need for hit/hurtboxes and multiplayer and found some pretty easy; GameMaker seems to have a pretty well supported coding community. Maybe someone has a better suggestion (I'd actually be interested to give my friend the heads up if so).

Thanks for your input, I really do appreciate it. We ended up deciding on going. Things are rough for us right now but sitting in our apartment doing the same thing we do every weekend isn't going to change that. Also, heading out and being able to see people enjoy our game in person will probably give us a great boost in moral to help finish off what we're working on. So that'll be hppening later this month!

Awesome, I'm glad your group decided to go I could use a bit of morale boost myself, so I know how it goes haha, I definitely need to listen to my own advice sometimes.

 

[oxrock]

So in my journey to updating my level tiles for the first stage, I've ditched the old 45x45 tile (I don't even know ) and made a new foreground tiles. Previously the game was aiming for an 8 bit look but I changed it in 2014 to a 16 bit game but this stage sort of got away without changing, until now!

Now all I need to do is change the background so it's easier to differentiate the background and foreground. Might change the enemy colour schemes too.

The old background felt too active and the player avatar seemed to get lost in it. I think the new one looks cleaner and allows you to pick out the player avatar easier.

 

[GroundCombo]

Regarding gifs, it would save a lot of bandwidth if people actually stopped using gif links and used the appropriate video link of the provider instead; for example, .gifv instead of .gif for imgur. The difference is massive.

 

[oxrock]

Regarding gifs, it would save a lot of bandwidth if people actually stopped using gif links and used the appropriate video link of the provider instead; for example, .gifv instead of .gif for imgur. The difference is massive.

I would if they worked within the image tags, but they don't. I don't claim to be an authority on the matter however. If you would demonstrate how to get a gifv to display the same as a gif on GAF I'd give it a try.

 

[GroundCombo]

I would if they worked within the image tags, but they don't. I don't claim to be an authority on the matter however. If you would demonstrate how to get a gifv to display the same same as a gif on GAF I'd give it a try.

Well damn, I could have sworn it worked but apparently I remembered wrong. :/ I'll redirect my gripe then towards a) why doesn't this smarter thing work and 2) why are we still using the horrible animated gif format on the internet.

 

[Dynamite Shikoku]

And why can't I view webm clips on my iPhone

 

[Pixels]

https://youtu.be/QYk56MgS3fE

Music and sound effects and skill unlocks, oh my!

 

[JulianImp]

100mb in gifs is definitly overkill. but a bunch of large images i think is fine personally. i mean its 2017 lol, the forum will scale to size if you're on mobile and whatever resolution you're using. a bunch of images will be a few MB at best. Hardly a big deal, and the whole point of this thread is to showcase progress.. If you have a data plan and are browsing on mobile, you should install apps that block that stuff, it's not anyone elses problem people aren't using unlimited internet :/ sorry to sound like an ass but yeah.

I don't even mean file size, but screen real estate: having stuff such ash several full-size 1920x1080 screenshots one below the other means it takes ages to scroll past a single post, which is a pain even on desktop. Personally, I'd rather have just a few large images at once, and would ohtherwise replace the original pics with thumbnails if I were posting 4+ images at a time.

So in my journey to updating my level tiles for the first stage, I've ditched the old 45x45 tile (I don't even know ) and made a new foreground tiles. Previously the game was aiming for an 8 bit look but I changed it in 2014 to a 16 bit game but this stage sort of got away without changing, until now!

Now all I need to do is change the background so it's easier to differentiate the background and foreground. Might change the enemy colour schemes too.

The less oversaturated palette and new tiles look good, but I think I like the older crystals more. Also, while the older rock would probably look out of place alongside the new tiles, but I'd say I liked it more than the new one, which looks a bit too flat due to some highligts ending in square-ish shapes.

 

[missile]

Well damn, I could have sworn it worked but apparently I remembered wrong. :/ I'll redirect my gripe then towards a) why doesn't this smarter thing work and 2) why are we still using the horrible animated gif format on the internet.

Yeah, some better overall integration could help gaf on some accounts. I would
also like to have that thumbnail-thing JulianImp talked about instead of making
those long distance scrolls.

Gif, well, gif is there to stay, pretty sure about it. The reason is simple.
It's free, has the simplest de- and encoder, and the bandwidth limitation for
mobile will disappear sooner than later. Almost any other video en/decoder is
computationally more demanding (more math (some sort of cosine transformation,
use of floating-point numbers etc.)), and the better ones always come with
some copyright claims. Sure, they almost always produce better compression or
picture quality for a given byte compared to animated-gif, but they need more
backend support to make them work everywhere, whereas gif gives you are free
start (see neogaf). It just works out of the box.

My only concern with huge animated-gifs is the following. Even if there is no
bandwidth limitation, there will always be a power limitation. I think that
streaming or watching those large gifs will drain the battery much more
compared to advanced codecs streaming less data while running in hardware on a
perhaps much more power efficient budget these days. But then who watches
movies using gif? No one, I guess. But going through a discussion board with
lots of large gifs is a different story.

Anyhow. I like the gif format.
I would even like to improve it for the sake of it like having some sound
along the animation, perhaps a caption containing sound for the next frame
to be displayed. Perhaps some synthesized sounds to keep the sound data small.
I would stay with the 256 colors limit, for, image quality can still be
improved for animated-gifs when applying some of the new perceptual knowledge
we got from HDR encoding and some of the new noise shaping techniques.

 

[_Rob_]

So in my journey to updating my level tiles for the first stage, I've ditched the old 45x45 tile (I don't even know ) and made a new foreground tiles. Previously the game was aiming for an 8 bit look but I changed it in 2014 to a 16 bit game but this stage sort of got away without changing, until now!

Now all I need to do is change the background so it's easier to differentiate the background and foreground. Might change the enemy colour schemes too.

This is far more readable, nice work.

Finally got my new PC adjusted to my workflow and am properly back to it! Still working at this micro scale allows for plenty of world building and also plenty of references...

 

[Blizzard]

Every time people talk about webm or gif with sound, I feel like the internet is going to go back to annoying early 2000's Geocities pages with embedded AVI clips so you get random sound playing. It wasn't a good thing then and I'm not convinced it would be a good thing now.

 

[missile]

... Finally got my new PC adjusted to my workflow and am properly back to it! Still working at this micro scale allows for plenty of world building and also plenty of references...

...

I think I like the difference in scale. Pretty sweet!

Every time people talk about webm or gif with sound, I feel like the internet is going to go back to annoying early 2000's Geocities pages with embedded AVI clips so you get random sound playing. It wasn't a good thing then and I'm not convinced it would be a good thing now.

Spoiler

 

[Aki-at]

The old background felt too active and the player avatar seemed to get lost in it. I think the new one looks cleaner and allows you to pick out the player avatar easier.

This is far more readable, nice work.

Thanks! Glad to already hear the changes are an improvement on what came before.

The less oversaturated palette and new tiles look good, but I think I like the older crystals more. Also, while the older rock would probably look out of place alongside the new tiles, but I'd say I liked it more than the new one, which looks a bit too flat due to some highligts ending in square-ish shapes.

I do still feel the original rocks were closer to my original vision of the stage and it's a bit of a bummer that due to how it's laid out you get easily lost in all this extra clutter. Somethings you just have to sacrifice for the player's benefit.

Hm I see what you mean about the rock, I'll try messing around with the shading to see if I can fix the problem.

Finally got my new PC adjusted to my workflow and am properly back to it! Still working at this micro scale allows for plenty of world building and also plenty of references...

I love it when we get references like this, a nice bit of silly fun trying to guess which franchise was which heh. Looking ace, I always liked being miniture in a larger setting, probably a fond memory of Mr Nutz in my childhood.

 

[JulianImp]

This is far more readable, nice work.

Finally got my new PC adjusted to my workflow and am properly back to it! Still working at this micro scale allows for plenty of world building and also plenty of references...

I like the scale as I love the theme of being a miniature character in a huge world, but think you'd probably benefit from a more pronounced camera focus effect to make faraway things look a bit more blurry, since it feels like screenshots lack depth for the kind of scale you're trying to convey. For example, it's kind of hard to tell where the platform you're on ends and the floor way down below starts in that screenshot (even though you could probably hotfix that by making the floor texture a slightly different color, or making it into a rug or something).

 

[Host Samurai]

If you aren't making your own engine, I'd probably go with GameMaker. GMS is the one I've just got done talking to my artist friend about who also is a huge Capcom arcade fan (Final Fight and the D&D games especially) and who has wanted to make a side-scrolling beat em up like those for pretty much the entire 15 years I've known him. A Pro Wrestling style game probably wouldn't have to deal with very large maps, so that wouldn't be too bad. I did some preliminary searches out of curiosity for the scripts you'd probably need for hit/hurtboxes and multiplayer and found some pretty easy; GameMaker seems to have a pretty well supported coding community. Maybe someone has a better suggestion (I'd actually be interested to give my friend the heads up if so).

Cool thanks for the answer. I was doing some research and it seems like GameMaker is the way to go.

 

[JulianImp]

Our team's slowly making some progress on the co-op twinstick shooter, mostly because it's the first time our artists are doing 3D, so they're running into all kinds of trouble with exporting, flipped normals and rigs/animations. Meanwhile, I've implemented the first two enemies to replace my placeholder spheres (even though we only have the models for now, with no animations), and I'd say the game's looking better now that we have some flying bugs that try to divebomb you.

As far as game functionality goes, we're still missing two enemies, half of the first team's combined special attack and a check to make the enemy wave management system spawn the next wave when players clear the current one, but other than that all that's left for our team to do is add the 3D assets and then do lots of polishing to each entity's stats to ensure the game's fun to play. Hopefully we'll get most of these things sorted out before the big yearly games expo that's coming up in two months or so.

 

[_Rob_]

I love it when we get references like this, a nice bit of silly fun trying to guess which franchise was which heh. Looking ace, I always liked being miniture in a larger setting, probably a fond memory of Mr Nutz in my childhood.

Glad to hear it! How many did you catch?

I like the scale as I love the theme of being a miniature character in a huge world, but think you'd probably benefit from a more pronounced camera focus effect to make faraway things look a bit more blurry, since it feels like screenshots lack depth for the kind of scale you're trying to convey. For example, it's kind of hard to tell where the platform you're on ends and the floor way down below starts in that screenshot (even though you could probably hotfix that by making the floor texture a slightly different color, or making it into a rug or something).

I'd love to have some DOF effects, but unfortunately I'm stuck with Unity 4 which doesn't support it. However I can see your point about a slight colour change, that may well be an easy fix, thanks.

 

[Parham]

Guess I need to post this again since there are some people who seem to have already forgotten after 2 page. Wow, how the mind slips!

"Allegedly"

Opening admitting to sexually assaulting someone(then banning anyone who called him out for it)

Posting revenge porn with their real full names then another admin(a now jailed pedophile) printed the photos and jacked off over them and sent it to the boyfriend.

You're right, how can we even know if he's guilty or not? HMMMM

Also:

 

[VisceralBowl]

Maybe not the most appropriate place to ask this question, but are there any modern first person shooters with good single player level editors? I've been playing XIII recently and got an itch to put together some FPS levels for fun. I don't want to go through the hassle of wiring up a first person controller and AI in Unity or UE4, if I can avoid it. The best solution I could find was Hammer.

Call of Duty Black Ops 3 has a fully featured editor with their new version of Radiant. Not sure if it can do normal SP levels but zombies stuff is possible. L4D2/HL2 have hammer. Arma 3, Robo Recall (VR/UE4), Fallout 3-NV-4, and both versions of Skyrim also have their own toolsets.

edit: Black Mesa has mod support with hammer.

 

[Pixels]

White Beard has a chance to spawn every hour.

 

[DemonNite]

Last weekend I looked into blending 2 cubemaps for the Skybox to improve the Lightning effect after someone pointed out that the Moon glowing from the exposure was districting (unrealistic).

After about an hour and a new shader, I think the results are better and the Lightning gradually blends in better than before.

https://streamable.com/1vvnt

 

[Ferulci]

Just released the first game with my company :
https://itunes.apple.com/app/the-knight-watch/id1128784757?mt=8
While it's like a dream come true, I forgot how tiring it was to do the PR stuff and contact press.

 

[missile]

Last weekend I looked into blending 2 cubemaps for the Skybox to improve the Lightning effect after someone pointed out that the Moon glowing from the exposure was districting (unrealistic).

After about an hour and a new shader, I think the results are better and the Lightning gradually blends in better than before.

https://streamable.com/1vvnt

 

[_Rob_]

I'm in a bit of an odd situation, and I'd like to hear what other dev's think.

I've been working on Clive 'N' Wrench for a long time (6 years now), quite a few people have been following my process throughout many of those years. I've had two unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns along the way as well (in an effort to fund development in a full time capacity). I also run a semi-successful YouTube channel about game development, but post quite sporadically.

At the moment, as I always have, I hold down a full time job during the week in order to, err live, and also fund development. Recently I've had several "fans" express interest in helping fund the game via direct donations or Patreon. I'm flattered of course, but it feels kind of wrong to take money from people and have nothing to offer in return (besides extra updates or backer streams etc).

The thing is, I know I can finish the game in my current situation; it'll take a while longer but it's totally doable. The donations I'm sure would not be enough to allow me to work any further hours than I already do on the game or my videos; as such my gut feeling is "thanks, but no thanks", but I also don't want to sound ungrateful. I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

 

[DemonNite]

I'm in a bit of an odd situation, and I'd like to hear what other dev's think.

I've been working on Clive 'N' Wrench for a long time (6 years now), quite a few people have been following my process throughout many of those years. I've had two unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns along the way as well (in an effort to fund development in a full time capacity). I also run a semi-successful YouTube channel about game development, but post quite sporadically.

At the moment, as I always have, I hold down a full time job during the week in order to, err live, and also fund development. Recently I've had several "fans" express interest in helping fund the game via direct donations or Patreon. I'm flattered of course, but it feels kind of wrong to take money from people and have nothing to offer in return (besides extra updates or backer streams etc).

The thing is, I know I can finish the game in my current situation; it'll take a while longer but it's totally doable. The donations I'm sure would not be enough to allow me to work any further hours than I already do on the game or my videos; as such my gut feeling is "thanks, but no thanks", but I also don't want to sound ungrateful. I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

if it makes u feel bad taking the money to help fund a little bit then go with your gut instinct.

However, if you feel it could be the start of funding your development full time (it has to start somewhere) then take the money and plan ahead.

I'm in the opposite situation where I am currently not working a full time job for a year since leaving my game development job of 9 years. I've been working on my own project for a year now and starting to consider my options as I don't have funds to keep doing it this way. I have no idea where to start to be honest.

 

[kkiablo]

Hey guys, hope you still remember our game My Time at Portia.

I've been doing lots of writing the last couple of weeks, trying to advance the storyline. I have finish about 1/3 of the game story now, with everything else plotted out. Since this is a sandbox game, all the storylines are split into individual pieces that could fit anywhere on the timeline. Even with the overarching logic down, it's still really hard to write, since I have to keep track of not only the story, but also item progression and player progression speed. We do a bunch of playthroughs each week and I do a lot of rewrites afterwards.

We updated our lighting model to the newest Unity standard, and the results are very satisfactory, should have done this a long time ago. The bad part is that I'll need to retweak all the weather numbers again.

 

[DemonNite]

Hey guys, hope you still remember our game My Time at Portia.

I've been doing lots of writing the last couple of weeks, trying to advance the storyline. I have finish about 1/3 of the game story now, with everything else plotted out. Since this is a sandbox game, all the storylines are split into individual pieces that could fit anywhere on the timeline. Even with the overarching logic down, it's still really hard to write, since I have to keep track of not only the story, but also item progression and player progression speed. We do a bunch of playthroughs each week and I do a lot of rewrites afterwards.

We updated our lighting model to the newest Unity standard, and the results are very satisfactory, should have done this a long time ago. The bad part is that I'll need to retweak all the weather numbers again.

looking good! but are the images on the right with the UI the new lighting model? it looks more washed out compared to the left

 

[Astrael]

I'm in a bit of an odd situation, and I'd like to hear what other dev's think.

I've been working on Clive 'N' Wrench for a long time (6 years now), quite a few people have been following my process throughout many of those years. I've had two unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns along the way as well (in an effort to fund development in a full time capacity). I also run a semi-successful YouTube channel about game development, but post quite sporadically.

At the moment, as I always have, I hold down a full time job during the week in order to, err live, and also fund development. Recently I've had several "fans" express interest in helping fund the game via direct donations or Patreon. I'm flattered of course, but it feels kind of wrong to take money from people and have nothing to offer in return (besides extra updates or backer streams etc).

The thing is, I know I can finish the game in my current situation; it'll take a while longer but it's totally doable. The donations I'm sure would not be enough to allow me to work any further hours than I already do on the game or my videos; as such my gut feeling is "thanks, but no thanks", but I also don't want to sound ungrateful. I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

I was going to write a longer response to this, but it felt a bit too sappy haha. Anyways, I'm going through a similar experience recently. After talking to one of my close friends who keeps trying to convince me to launch a Patreon so he can fund me (even though I have no time for "incentives" or rewards beyond endgame credits and a copy of the game), it's pretty clear he just wants to be part of something he likes that he may not have the time and/or skills to do himself. I think at least some of your fans offering funds probably feel the same way; your screenshots here have shown a vivid imagination and heart that they want to help finish, and funding is the only way they might be able to help.

With that in mind, I don't see anything particularly wrong about accepting help from outside as long as you establish your intentions and limitations, leaving the informed decision in your potential supporters' hands. There is always bound to be some expense you can cover with the funds directly at some point so you won't have to work extra at your full-time job: whether art assets you can commission, sound, music, tools and licenses, marketing and promotion, or even a really good meal to relieve some stress from essentially working two+ jobs. Every little bit helps, especially when you are working mainly to survive and be free to make your game. And since you are going to be finishing it, it's not going to be an investment without merit.

Well, it's still a long post but those're my opinions on the matter. Hope something in that makes sense

 

[Minamu]

Someone bumped an old "ugly fonts in games" thread today, and it got me thinking.

We're using Arial for most of our content :lol It's lame perhaps but the readability is great. I'm not sure what to change it to. Most stuff I've found on font sites are just overly cheesy. They work for logos and such but not for reading :/ Any ideas? We're thinking of redoing all menus from scratch anyway so why not go nuts and dump Arial too?

 

[Blizzard]

looking good! but are the images on the right with the UI the new lighting model? it looks more washed out compared to the left

I was thinking exactly the same thing. The game looks really nice, but all the right pictures look worse / washed out to me.

Maybe there's some middle ground where you take the lighting model but make things have more contrast?

 

[GroundCombo]

We're using Arial for most of our content :lol It's lame perhaps but the readability is great. I'm not sure what to change it to. Most stuff I've found on font sites are just overly cheesy. They work for logos and such but not for reading :/ Any ideas? We're thinking of redoing all menus from scratch anyway so why not go nuts and dump Arial too?

Go for it, any other font makes the game look more interesting. Make sure to check the license though. We've come up with a couple of main fonts that we're comfortable with, but I'm still dreading the eventual localization process and worrying about the Unicode range of those fonts.

 

[_Rob_]

if it makes u feel bad taking the money to help fund a little bit then go with your gut instinct.

However, if you feel it could be the start of funding your development full time (it has to start somewhere) then take the money and plan ahead.

I'm in the opposite situation where I am currently not working a full time job for a year since leaving my game development job of 9 years. I've been working on my own project for a year now and starting to consider my options as I don't have funds to keep doing it this way. I have no idea where to start to be honest.

I was going to write a longer response to this, but it felt a bit too sappy haha. Anyways, I'm going through a similar experience recently. After talking to one of my close friends who keeps trying to convince me to launch a Patreon so he can fund me (even though I have no time for "incentives" or rewards beyond endgame credits and a copy of the game), it's pretty clear he just wants to be part of something he likes that he may not have the time and/or skills to do himself. I think at least some of your fans offering funds probably feel the same way; your screenshots here have shown a vivid imagination and heart that they want to help finish, and funding is the only way they might be able to help.

With that in mind, I don't see anything particularly wrong about accepting help from outside as long as you establish your intentions and limitations, leaving the informed decision in your potential supporters' hands. There is always bound to be some expense you can cover with the funds directly at some point so you won't have to work extra at your full-time job: whether art assets you can commission, sound, music, tools and licenses, marketing and promotion, or even a really good meal to relieve some stress from essentially working two+ jobs. Every little bit helps, especially when you are working mainly to survive and be free to make your game. And since you are going to be finishing it, it's not going to be an investment without merit.

Well, it's still a long post but those're my opinions on the matter. Hope something in that makes sense

Thank you both for taking the time to read through my rambling and respond! Perhaps I'm not thinking long term enough, and I suppose I have nothing to lose as long as I'm clear and honest with everyone from the beginning! I need a little more time to mull it over, but your input is much appreciated!

 

[missile]

I'm in a bit of an odd situation, and I'd like to hear what other dev's think.

I've been working on Clive 'N' Wrench for a long time (6 years now), quite a few people have been following my process throughout many of those years. I've had two unsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns along the way as well (in an effort to fund development in a full time capacity). I also run a semi-successful YouTube channel about game development, but post quite sporadically.

At the moment, as I always have, I hold down a full time job during the week in order to, err live, and also fund development. Recently I've had several "fans" express interest in helping fund the game via direct donations or Patreon. I'm flattered of course, but it feels kind of wrong to take money from people and have nothing to offer in return (besides extra updates or backer streams etc).

The thing is, I know I can finish the game in my current situation; it'll take a while longer but it's totally doable. The donations I'm sure would not be enough to allow me to work any further hours than I already do on the game or my videos; as such my gut feeling is "thanks, but no thanks", but I also don't want to sound ungrateful. I'd be very interested to hear what you think.

They still get something. They get an option, so to speak. Well, I would take
the money if it helps to make more steps each day (for over weeks) than
without. However, taking money from others may build up more pressure inside
you to deliver, to please, or to give something back to those you feel you own
them. Further. You may also run into people who may slander around with you if
they won't get what they thought you owe them once they gave you a dime. What
I want to say is that you need to withstand this sort of (psy) pressure. But
then there is the saying; pressure makes diamonds.

... I've been working on my own project for a year now and starting to consider my options as I don't have funds to keep doing it this way. I have no idea where to start to be honest.

I'm on a similar point. And now with a baby money runs even faster (away).

So I'm open up to apply for a day job as a technical programmer/mathematician
either in the industry as such or in the gamedev industry to better stabilize
life (now for the three of us). I have no gut feeling doing this, because I
have lots of knowledge to spread and I'm eager to apply it and/or contribute.

However, I also have an alternative for bringing in some money by programming
an app, away from gaming, in the meantime. During my work on rendering depth
of field, motion blur and dealing with sensors, lenses, etc. I came to the
idea to develop an (3d) app which can be quite useful for people who want to
become better photographers resp. who want to get a better understanding of
some of the fundamental relationships, how they depending on each other and
also how they depend on different lenses and sensors. I think I can apply some
of my knowledge in a more direct way for such an app and may land some income
faster than with my game given its current state.

 

[Minamu]

Go for it, any other font makes the game look more interesting. Make sure to check the license though. We've come up with a couple of main fonts that we're comfortable with, but I'm still dreading the eventual localization process and worrying about the Unicode range of those fonts.

I don't suppose you have any resources on what's considered a "good font"? Sans serifs seems to be the way to go from prior experience, but but beyond that I'm clueless.

 

[GroundCombo]

I don't suppose you have any resources on what's considered a "good font"? Sans serifs seems to be the way to go from prior experience, but but beyond that I'm clueless.

I don't have much of an eye for font styles either, so "the artist says this font is ok" is my primary resource. But browsing fontsquirrel and other sites often gives at least some ideas that can be quickly tested in the game.

 

[_Rob_]

I don't suppose you have any resources on what's considered a "good font"? Sans serifs seems to be the way to go from prior experience, but but beyond that I'm clueless.

Although not specific to game design, this may be of some use.

 

[Jimnymebob]

I don't suppose you have any resources on what's considered a "good font"? Sans serifs seems to be the way to go from prior experience, but but beyond that I'm clueless.

It depends entirely on the game in my opinion, but yes, you'll more than likely want a sans serif font.

If you think you can get away with it, you could go for a more hand written font. Nothing too crazy, but a bit informal, like the font from Super Mario Galaxy.

But again, that depends on the game. It wouldn't work well with a game like The Last of Us for example.

 

[Aki-at]

Glad to hear it! How many did you catch?

Wondering what Anubis & Tut's Curse and Wally Wombat are, got the rest!

Hey guys, hope you still remember our game My Time at Portia.

I've been doing lots of writing the last couple of weeks, trying to advance the storyline. I have finish about 1/3 of the game story now, with everything else plotted out. Since this is a sandbox game, all the storylines are split into individual pieces that could fit anywhere on the timeline. Even with the overarching logic down, it's still really hard to write, since I have to keep track of not only the story, but also item progression and player progression speed. We do a bunch of playthroughs each week and I do a lot of rewrites afterwards.

We updated our lighting model to the newest Unity standard, and the results are very satisfactory, should have done this a long time ago. The bad part is that I'll need to retweak all the weather numbers again.

I like the look of this project but I'm going to echo what the previous posters have said, I like the more bold colours on the screenshots to the left than the washed out ones on the right, I love emphasis for stronger colours.

 

[Jimnymebob]

Wondering what Anubis & Tut's Curse and Wally Wombat are, got the rest!

They're:

Spoiler

Sphynx and the Cursed Mummy

and

Spoiler

Crash Bandicoot

I think.

The former was such a fantastic game, and definitely a hidden gem of that era.