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[HP_Wuvcraft]

Consider Kickstarter, though you generally need to have a video showing some kind of alpha version or conceptual footage of the game. People don't like donating to hypothetical concepts, they want to feel that a project is in fact going to get done and be cool.

I've been burned before. Spent quite a few bucks helping to fund development, and it turns out that the video did not represent what the game was AT ALL, or the current state it was in.

 

[Acrylic7]

If you're brand new to GM (and possibly new to creating as well), it is very helpful, yeah. It goes through and teaches you the way that you should approach design and interactions of objects in a game(particularly in GM). It also helps explain the way that GM's GUI works and how to organize your process.

If GM is something you'd like to explore, it's a really great starting point.

Thanks, will get next paycheck.

 

[Blizzard]

So after an hour of XNA setup and fiddling, I have a sprite moving across the screen like the Microsoft example says. I probably spent the last 20 minutes or so trying to figure out smooth scrolling and framerate stuff though.

The first big thing is to set the following, apparently:

this.graphics.SynchronizeWithVerticalRetrace = true;
this.IsFixedTimeStep = false;

The edges of my sprite still flicker as they move though, presumably because of the position moving through non-integer values. Using integer-rounded values makes the motion jerky. This almost reminds me of OpenGL texture wrapping issues due to how the edges of textures are drawn. Is there some magic trick to fix this?

 

[Ranger X]

BUT OMG SO MANY OPTIONS I DONT WANNA MAKE THE WRONG CHOICE AND I HAVE NOT GOT ENOUGH TIME

You should test right away anything that you just implemented.
Instead of waiting and having 3980475 options to test, you should have tested each one right after it was coded. Testing as you go = gold in matter of saving time.

 

[Blizzard]

Ugh, this is the sort of thing that makes me waste a ton of time. About half an hour so far, still can't find any way to scroll sprites smoothly unless I draw a region from a sprite sheet that is COMPLETELY inside a transparent region. Otherwise, the borders will flicker. The only way I found around it is to use this:

spriteBatch.Begin(SpriteSortMode.Immediate, BlendState.AlphaBlend, SamplerState.PointWrap, null, null);

Unfortunately, that gives the headache-inducing effect of being jumpy since the sprite will be locked onto pixel boundaries.

 

[Blizzard]

Well I spent 3 hours or so messing around with a sprite sheet and drawing sprites in XNA. It turns out that there are starter kits that provide you things like ready-made platformers and RPGs: http://create.msdn.com/en-US/education/catalog/?contenttype=4&devarea=0&platform=20&sort=1

As far as I can tell, you could even use one of those to start a commercial game? At any rate that could be SUPER helpful for game jam kinda stuff.

 

[Bollocks]

Try it with IsFixedTimeStep = true;
It enables VSync, but I've never had any issues smoothly scrolling tiles around the screen with default settings.

 

[.nimrod]

"Premature optimization is the root of all evil."
- Don Knuth

While that is true, you also shouldn't wait with optimizing the code until the end.
You could end up profiling your game without seeing any specific hotspots that need optimizations.

Profile often during development, and improve on slow parts. Just don't think of improvements before profiling.

 

[Blizzard]

Try it with IsFixedTimeStep = true;
It enables VSync, but I've never had any issues smoothly scrolling tiles around the screen with default settings.

"this.graphics.SynchronizeWithVerticalRetrace = true;" should enable vsync, while IsFixedTimeStep just tries to use a fixed time update step as far as I am aware.

See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/microsoft.xna.framework.game.isfixedtimestep.aspx

In particular, with the fixed time step turned on, the framerate would occasionally be weird values like 53 fps, particularly if you moved the window. With the fixed time step off, moving the window will still make the frame rate drop, perhaps to 53 fps for one second, but then it recovers to 60 fps.

 

[Limanima]

Ugh, this is the sort of thing that makes me waste a ton of time. About half an hour so far, still can't find any way to scroll sprites smoothly unless I draw a region from a sprite sheet that is COMPLETELY inside a transparent region. Otherwise, the borders will flicker. The only way I found around it is to use this:



Unfortunately, that gives the headache-inducing effect of being jumpy since the sprite will be locked onto pixel boundaries.

Flickering borders is related to texture mapping. Try this: In your SpriteBatch.Draw, cast the x and y of the position to ints

Sometimes when a transalation matrix is used in the SpriteBatch.Begin (usually to simulate a camera moving thus getting a scroll) sprites get blurred. Cast the position passed to the translation matrix to ints and add 0.5f.
This and the int cast in the spritebatch.draw should solve the blurs and the flickering borders.
Don't change the sampler states in your spriteBatch.Begin.

Try it, if you have any problems PM me.

 

[dock]

I've been burned before. Spent quite a few bucks helping to fund development, and it turns out that the video did not represent what the game was AT ALL, or the current state it was in.

The vast majority of game projects on kickstarter that received money haven't gone anywhere. It's a really bad trend.

 

[Kiriku]

Worked on a small game called Eyes earlier this month (as a sound designer/composer): http://www.theworkingparts.com/eyes/

Not my best work, but a good experience having to get everything together in a week.

 

[Feep]

The vast majority of game projects on kickstarter that received money haven't gone anywhere. It's a really bad trend.

Making games is harder than people think, unfortunately. = (

 

[jrDev]

I've been burned before. Spent quite a few bucks helping to fund development, and it turns out that the video did not represent what the game was AT ALL, or the current state it was in.

I read up on Kickstarter and its very smart (I should have thought of this before instead of waiting for the money to buy the stuff I need constantly) and so I am adding my project today. Would you mind being a help? I assure you this is a real project.

 

[dock]

I read up on Kickstarter and its very smart (I should have thought of this before instead of waiting for the money to buy the stuff I need constantly) and so I am adding my project today. Would you mind being a help? I assure you this is a real project.

The statistics go against you. Unless your game is in alpha/beta stage, you probably shouldn't be asking for funding yet.

 

[jrDev]

The statistics go against you. Unless your game is in alpha/beta stage, you probably shouldn't be asking for funding yet.

Some would say I am in way more than alpha, but I'll just say I am in alpha, with already concrete gameplay and direction, just needs more quantity (enemies, levels, etc).

EDIT: Hi dock! (From the unity chatroom)

 

[Feep]

I read up on Kickstarter and its very smart (I should have thought of this before instead of waiting for the money to buy the stuff I need constantly) and so I am adding my project today. Would you mind being a help? I assure you this is a real project.

Don't take it lightly. You should be spending several days at the MINIMUM preparing your KS page if you want to succeed.

You'll need a video showing off...well...something. Alpha, beta, at least concept stuff, whatever. Narrate it. Be personal. (I think my old video was a little boring, though. I'd definitely try to do something more attention-grabbing and exciting this time.)

Don't exceed six prize levels or so. Make the first one low, and put them in the credits at the very least. Preorders are good low-level prizes as well. Try to find something unique (backers LOVED being able to audition for voiceover roles in my game. I even cast one!) to use.

Throw in some graphics (even text graphics) among the text; no one likes walls of words.

Remember, you don't get anything if you don't meet your goal, so don't go overboard.

Here's my old Kickstarter page as an example.

 

[dock]

Here's my old Kickstarter page as an example.

Oh yeah, I remember this game. Congratulations on fulfilling your promises!

 

[jrDev]

Don't take it lightly. You should be spending several days at the MINIMUM preparing your KS page if you want to succeed.

You'll need a video showing off...well...something. Alpha, beta, at least concept stuff, whatever. Narrate it. Be personal. (I think my old video was a little boring, though. I'd definitely try to do something more attention-grabbing and exciting this time.)

Don't exceed six prize levels or so. Make the first one low, and put them in the credits at the very least. Preorders are good low-level prizes as well. Try to find something unique (backers LOVED being able to audition for voiceover roles in my game. I even cast one!) to use.

Throw in some graphics (even text graphics) among the text; no one likes walls of words.

Remember, you don't get anything if you don't meet your goal, so don't go overboard.

Here's my old Kickstarter page as an example.

:O Thanks for the insight. This is amazing! Nice success story. I know dock is a success story too
I know I havent shown you much dock, but with seeing Feeps kickstarter, I'm inclined to put more work and polish in before I start my Kickstarter.

EDIT: BTW, I don't think I asked last tim, but I'm still looking for a new tester.

 

[nicoga3000]

Thanks, will get next paycheck.

Sure thing. There seems to be a few of us GM users here. Feel free to PM me if you have any GM specific questions that you'd like some help with!

 

[Crazymoogle]

Hrm, do you have a link where I could learn more of this method?

Not sure how much info there is, but here's the powerpoint from the GDC presentation. (The basic gist is 1: make production relevant docs and 2:make it as simple as possible. many lines should just be yes/no answerable)

Seperate content/design documentation is great, but production is what you should be worried about if you're paying out money. Both sides need to know exactly what needs to be delivered.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

I wish I had access to tap into Kickstarter.

 

[jump_button]

Trying to get make introduction's to gameplay without being over top or boring is so hard -_- maybe I should just put big arrows pointing where to go or is that to much hand holding?

 

[Turfster]

Trying to get make introduction's to gameplay without being over top or boring is so hard -_- maybe I should just put big arrows pointing where to go or is that to much hand holding?

If your game world supports the notion, you could do what I did once. Basically set up light paths that lit up one by one and kept cycling until you'd passed that section.

 

[dock]

Trying to get make introduction's to gameplay without being over top or boring is so hard -_- maybe I should just put big arrows pointing where to go or is that to much hand holding?

Worked for the entirety of Perfect Dark Zero. :/ (that was bad)

Honestly, arrows and images in the environment are pretty great as a tutorial, and nicer than text. WarioLand 4's Intro does a great job of this.

 

[Dead Prince]

Sure thing. There seems to be a few of us GM users here. Feel free to PM me if you have any GM specific questions that you'd like some help with!

i'm holding off until GM studio is out. hopefully i can get a discount since i own 8.1 lol.

 

[Blizzard]

Game jam starts tomorrow, good luck to anyone else doing it!

 

[nicoga3000]

i'm holding off until GM studio is out. hopefully i can get a discount since i own 8.1 lol.

I think the two will be close enough, but I don't know. I don't want to sit around and wait for Studio since there's no release date yet.

 

[Dead Prince]

I think the two will be close enough, but I don't know. I don't want to sit around and wait for Studio since there's no release date yet.

Start of spring 2012. Believe!

 

[nicoga3000]

Start of spring 2012. Believe!

Woah! Well in that case....Source?

 

[Dead Prince]

Woah! Well in that case....Source?

i'm just going by the old facts on the site ;P. but going from the thread on the forum it appears to be "between now and end of 2012"

Also if you're going to the global game jam. GM is a sponsor. meaning 50% GM Studio if you follow this: http://yoyogames.com/news/69

 

[JasoNsider]

Hey guys!

Man, it's been a long time since I actually contributed to a development thread. We used to have an old one where we talked about our projects and at some point a number of us got jobs in the industry and the thread sort of died out after that. I'd be interested to see where some of them are right now Edit: I just found the other thread I started about really cool development implementations! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=427641

Anyway, this is a great thread! Let's keep this rolling.

We're almost done with our project, Marvin's Mittens! Here is probably the last trailer before we launch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAUQg29xDY

And here is what we just put up where I talk about the game very briefly:

http://breakfall.ca/content/jay-marvins-tone-and-inspiration

We're damn excited to be near the end of development. We've worked really hard on this one! Very shortly we're going to be applying for Steam and then possibly doing an XBLIG port. I'll keep you guys posted on any updates

 

[BlueMagic]

Hey guys!

Man, it's been a long time since I actually contributed to a development thread. We used to have an old one where we talked about our projects and at some point a number of us got jobs in the industry and the thread sort of died out after that. I'd be interested to see where some of them are right now

Anyway, this is a great thread! Let's keep this rolling.

We're almost done with our project, Marvin's Mittens! Here is probably the last trailer before we launch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAUQg29xDY

And here is what we just put up where I talk about the game very briefly:

http://breakfall.ca/content/jay-marvins-tone-and-inspiration

We're damn excited to be near the end of development. We've worked really hard on this one! Very shortly we're going to be applying for Steam and then possibly doing an XBLIG port. I'll keep you guys posted on any updates

It looks great! What are you making it with?

 

[JasoNsider]

It looks great! What are you making it with?

This one is using XNA. I'll talk more about the juicy tech details in another upcoming post for sure! I learned a lot during the development

 

[nicoga3000]

i'm just going by the old facts on the site ;P. but going from the thread on the forum it appears to be "between now and end of 2012"

Also if you're going to the global game jam. GM is a sponsor. meaning 50% GM Studio if you follow this: http://yoyogames.com/news/69

If I had known about the whole experience prior to today (I saw that post this morning), I would have been all over it. SUCH an awesome deal given what GM Studio is going to bring to the table.

 

[The Technomancer]

Can anyone who's worked with Box2D tell me anything about compiling for release vs debug? I'm running into issues trying to compile for release in Visual Studio, specifically a

'_ITERATOR_DEBUG_LEVEL': value '2' doesn't match value '0' in main'.obj

error

 

[daedalius]

Hey guys!

Man, it's been a long time since I actually contributed to a development thread. We used to have an old one where we talked about our projects and at some point a number of us got jobs in the industry and the thread sort of died out after that. I'd be interested to see where some of them are right now Edit: I just found the other thread I started about really cool development implementations! http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=427641

Anyway, this is a great thread! Let's keep this rolling.

We're almost done with our project, Marvin's Mittens! Here is probably the last trailer before we launch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAUQg29xDY

And here is what we just put up where I talk about the game very briefly:

http://breakfall.ca/content/jay-marvins-tone-and-inspiration

We're damn excited to be near the end of development. We've worked really hard on this one! Very shortly we're going to be applying for Steam and then possibly doing an XBLIG port. I'll keep you guys posted on any updates

Looks like an entertaining sidescroller platformer, also really like the art-style.

 

[Blizzard]

Can anyone who's worked with Box2D tell me anything about compiling for release vs debug? I'm running into issues trying to compile for release in Visual Studio, specifically a

'_ITERATOR_DEBUG_LEVEL': value '2' doesn't match value '0' in main'.obj

error

Seems like you may be trying to link objects with different debug levels. Try doing a full clean rebuild of everything in release mode. If you are linking any libraries like Box2D, make sure they're release builds as well. If you built them yourself you might have to rebuild them as release.

 

[The Technomancer]

Seems like you may be trying to link objects with different debug levels. Try doing a full clean rebuild of everything in release mode. If you are linking any libraries like Box2D, make sure they're release builds as well. If you built them yourself you might have to rebuild them as release.

Yeah, that's what my general research has turned up. I'm just trying to figure out how I rebuild the Box2D libraries for release.

 

[Bollocks]

We're almost done with our project, Marvin's Mittens! Here is probably the last trailer before we launch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoAUQg29xDY

Dig the art style

Anybody here released a game with Unity on Android/iOS?
Anything I should look out for?

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Making games is harder than people think, unfortunately. = (

"Hey! I've got $20k! What could go wrong?"

 

[Urishizu]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to post a little bit about a project I've been working on for a few years now. It's called Venatio Creo and it's a game development toolkit for non-programmers. I know it's not a straight-up game itself, but I kind of have treated the development of each iteration as a game. I did end up making a few "substantial" games for my original OpenGL version, but I haven't had the time to do anything as in-depth for the latest releases. The best I've done is created a few different genre game-molds that other people could use.

Basically, it's a system where you have a WYSIWYG editor that is entirely used through dragging and dropping. You can build quite a few different genres, and my most recent web version allows people to create games and embed them directly into their websites.

Venatio Creo Online (Silverlight)
Venatio Creo for the Xbox 360
Venatio Creo and Venatio Creo 3D (PC)

All of the versions are free (except for the Xbox 360 version which I couldn't make free), so please feel free to give them a shot and let me know what you think. I'm especially proud of the Silverlight version.

Obligatory Youtube Video: http://youtu.be/pSiVevydCbU

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Hi Everyone,

I just wanted to post a little bit about a project I've been working on for a few years now. It's called Venatio Creo and it's a game development toolkit for non-programmers. I know it's not a straight-up game itself, but I kind of have treated the development of each iteration as a game. I did end up making a few "substantial" games for my original OpenGL version, but I haven't had the time to do anything as in-depth for the latest releases. The best I've done is created a few different genre game-molds that other people could use.

Basically, it's a system where you have a WYSIWYG editor that is entirely used through dragging and dropping. You can build quite a few different genres, and my most recent web version allows people to create games and embed them directly into their websites.

Venatio Creo Online (Silverlight)
Venatio Creo for the Xbox 360
Venatio Creo and Venatio Creo 3D (PC)

All of the versions are free (except for the Xbox 360 version which I couldn't make free), so please feel free to give them a shot and let me know what you think. I'm especially proud of the Silverlight version.

Obligatory Youtube Video: http://youtu.be/pSiVevydCbU

I'll try it out, simply because I need to learn more about my chosen trade.

 

[DTKT]

Just started with GM too!

It could be nice to have a thread about it though. I do have a few questions.

 

[nicoga3000]

Just started with GM too!

It could be nice to have a thread about it though. I do have a few questions.

I was thinking of creating an OT for it. If there's interest, I'll start putting one together. I've got a lot of resources I think would be quite helpful, haha.

 

[Ranger X]

Fucking GameMaker....

It does like sprites that aren't in some "power of two" like (8x8, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, etc)
As soon as I try a sprite of some fucked up size like 32x37 and even if my bounding box is still 32x32, Gamemaker is displaying the sprite with some wierd resize glitches.

I however found a work around, I made the sprite 32x64 and kept my bounding box 32x32 starting at top left. I aligned by image at the top left too and it works mighty fine.
But why oh why do I have to play "find a workaround" all the time with such editor? Is it what waits for me for the rest of my develloper life? lol

 

[charsace]

I made Defy Gravity Extended(on Steam now) in XNA almost by myself. I did a lot of the art, all the game/level-design and programming.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/96100/?snr=1_7_7_151_150_1

Here is a video review by Total Biscuit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H28lW5WE6dk

Source on your skeletal system for the character!?!

 

[nicoga3000]

Fucking GameMaker....

It does like sprites that aren't in some "power of two" like (8x8, 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, etc)
As soon as I try a sprite of some fucked up size like 32x37 and even if my bounding box is still 32x32, Gamemaker is displaying the sprite with some wierd resize glitches.

I however found a work around, I made the sprite 32x64 and kept my bounding box 32x32 starting at top left. I aligned by image at the top left too and it works mighty fine.
But why oh why do I have to play "find a workaround" all the time with such editor? Is it what waits for me for the rest of my develloper life? lol

That's odd - I'll try and play with that tonight, but I've never seen that to be an issue in the stuff I've worked on.

 

[Blizzard]

I'm here at the global game jam, trying to see if I can get .NET 4, C#, and XNA 4 installed before the jam starts. =D

Sprites that are a power of 2 are great. If I recall correctly, modern graphics cards can use non-power-of-two textures, but back in the day they might not work on some cards.

HOWEVER, I would expect Game Maker to draw sprites out of a sprite sheet, and you could presumably make the sprites inside the sprite sheet whatever size you wanted. I don't know for sure though. I still need to run through the Gradius tutorials before the jam starts to refresh my memory.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Construct 2 now has the option to export to Kongregate and AppMobi.

In terms of export options, C2 is leagues ahead of any other visual HTML5 game creation program, I think. Web, Chrome Web Store, PhoneGap, Kongregate, Scirra Arcade, AppMobi, with more on the way. If you wanna make a simple 2D game and make it widely available (and/or monetize it) and don't care for programming, I think C2 is the way to go for sure.