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Indy Game Development: any GAF'er ever make their own game, or even make money on it?

survivor said:
I thought they added Git support 6 months ago?
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Checking the FAQ, it seems to support Mercurial, SVN, and git. I don't know that the hosting and downloads are always fast and reliable though. Editing the wiki pages also seemed kind of clunky to me since I don't think you can host your own HTML pages.
 
brettchalupa said:
This is a good question, and it's one that a lot of people have.

1. Don't narrow down the options to just "hire a programmer" in terms of working with others. There are plenty of programmers who would love to collaborate with you on a project or hear your ideas. All you need to do is look in the right places. For example, TIGSource's forums have a specific section for those looking to collaborate.

If you don't want to work with a programmer, then I'd suggest you start messing around with code. Try it out, follow some tutorials, etc. It's a lot of fun, but you need to be open-minded about it. Math definitely helps with programming, especially when coding specific parts of a game; however, being amazing at math is not at al required in programming. There aren't really any other good options for making a game if you aren't willing to learn to code or to work with others.

2. Game Salad is somewhat flexible. It's got a really low barrier of entry and is simple enough to work with. It's definitely something great to start with, but there will still be programming involved. They use their own language for Game Maker, and it is very similar to many other scripting languages. Game Maker does have its limitations. These aren't anything you'd run in to immediately, but it's something to think about.

My advice to you would to simply try making a game. Whether it be by yourself or with a few others. Everyone thinks that they have some great ideas and concepts for games. That's awesome, really! What's makes the difference between having an idea that you think is good and having an idea that everyone thinks is good is the execution. That's the different between people who want to make games and people who make games.

There is a lot that goes into making a game, from the design, to the art, to the code. It's a much lengthier and difficult process than most people think. I wouldn't suggest diving into making commercial games for iOS or Android from the start. I'd suggest trying out some free and open resources that exist on the web. Off of the top of my head, I would say try one of the following if you're interested: FlashPunk, Flixel, Unity, or Love2D. If it's too much code and is overwhelming, then look for someone to help you out or some tutorials online.
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Wow! Thanks a lot for this great advice! Cheers!
 
sn1pes said:
I'm a fan of bitbucket. Unlimited free repos if you have less than 5 devs.
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GitHub has unlimited public repos... Which may not be the best method of developing, but it could work for some people. :P

It's also the best free webhost ever if you know how to use it right.
 
We've recently finished the gameplay trailer to Nono and the Cursed Treasure.

scaled.php


scaled.php


We hope for it to be out for PC and XBLIG in the next couple of months.
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Almost done with ours!
 
I've started getting a bunch of ideas about a strategy game, and there are so many decisions! I'm like, I should poll people on GAF for what things they enjoy in games, but then I realize no, focus groups are a bad idea and I should stick with my Artistic Vision (tm), and should I add a story to a strategy game campaign, but if so who would write it, but if I did write it, wouldn't people laugh at it as a lame videogame story...

...ultimately I guess I'm making a game that I'd want to play. Maybe that's always a bad idea, however. :P
 
Blizzard said:
I've started getting a bunch of ideas about a strategy game, and there are so many decisions! I'm like, I should poll people on GAF for what things they enjoy in games, but then I realize no, focus groups are a bad idea and I should stick with my Artistic Vision (tm), and should I add a story to a strategy game campaign, but if so who would write it, but if I did write it, wouldn't people laugh at it as a lame videogame story...

...ultimately I guess I'm making a game that I'd want to play. Maybe that's always a bad idea, however. :P
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Wish I had jumped into this thread earlier. Seems like a pretty good place if I'm looking to learn from a real beginner perspective.

Anyways, unless you're going for silly, your story wouldnt be any worse than the average game story, let alone the average RTS story. I don't think you'd be laughed at.
Does it feature bald space marines and/or some kind of creature from the Alien film series as an antagonist? If you answered no, you're speaking my language friend. Also, just like every other creative form, if you like it, there's a chance others will too.
 
...I just realized that I haven't used a single while loop in my code outside of the main game refresh loop, and that using a few in the animation functions might actually simplify some things I've been struggling with

Can you tell I barely have any programming training?
 
Jebus said:
I haven't because when it was created the Ipad was only really just hitting it's stride and the Iphone was still a device for quick fun gameplay mechanics. I always envisioned it as a game to be slowly absorbed rather than 5 minutes here and there on a train. Now you mention it though i think the Ipad has developed into the kind of device where this could work.

It was developed using Unity.
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Considering Unity is across iPad now, it should be pretty trivial to bring your demo across to it.

Maybe worth looking into as a side project, collaborating remotely to bring out a scaled down or first chapter of the game.
 
The_Technomancer said:
...I just realized that I haven't used a single while loop in my code outside of the main game refresh loop, and that using a few in the animation functions might actually simplify some things I've been struggling with

Can you tell I barely have any programming training?
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The more the loops the more we look knowledgeable/expert in coding? lol
Well, looks like I am a beginner, I don't have a single loop either in my current project so far.
 
Speaking of Unity, I'm guessing from what I saw that it was the most common thing used at the game jam. I don't know if I saw any XNA or plain C++ people. I think one of the finalists did their stuff in Flash (open-source FlashDevelop ActionScript stuff, kudos to them), and the other finalist was Unity. One crazy team tried UDK, not sure if they got their game to a workable state. At least one other team used GameMaker but that also seemed to be a minority.

However, though I'm biased, our 3-person team with GameMaker seemed to get something completed and relatively polished compared to a lot of the teams, so it has its advantages for prototyping. :)
 
Mario said:
Considering Unity is across iPad now, it should be pretty trivial to bring your demo across to it.

Maybe worth looking into as a side project, collaborating remotely to bring out a scaled down or first chapter of the game.
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No a bad idea at all Mario. I will have to steer my efforts in that direction and see what comes up. Definitely seems like it could be more achievable. Cheers

For those wanting to try their hand at a more visual style of programming - I've been using uScript which is a visual scripting tool for Unity. It's a bit of a steep learning curve for someone that knows next to nothing about programming but once you get the hang of it it's quite powerful.

uScript
 
Does anyone have any experience with cloth physics in Unity3D and/or Blender? I'm designing a character right now that's supposed to wear a cape, but I'm not sure what the best method would be for this.
 
Teknopathetic said:
Just saw on the Unity forums that DAZ has some of their programs available for free for the month of February: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=182532&flatnum=1

I don't think you'll find much use for Bryce or DAZ in a Game Dev context, but Hexagon should at least be a decent Sub-D Modeling package for anyone frightened to death at the sight of Blender.
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Thanks for the heads up.
DAZ studio pro says it comes with genesis model? Could be very useful for reference materials if nothing else. I suppose you could set the character in whatever pose you want and use them for drawing practice, references for modeling in maya or z brush, image planes, etc.
 
First thing that I saw was how different the tiles were.

The 'broken' and 'dark' tiles really contrast because they are much more detailed (and less blurry).
 
nicoga3000 said:
It looks pretty solid, but I IMMEDIATELY thought of Cave Story...Almost like I was looking at a recoloring of the tiles.
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not a bad thing some had said Fez too so im not sure, not to worry the game will be nothing like them some base of my LBP levels

later in game i hope to do more like this and other styles

5098a920993b09a76fcfeedf4bbafd9cdf9c75ac.jpg


cd37153096e7ee4f284ef45e3044f2d14329836f.jpg
 
jump_button said:
Just been doing some work on the my tileset how this looking?

old

c36Js.png


new

siWB8.png
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To be completely honest, I'm not sure the overly detailed and contrasted tiles fit well with the simpler tints you used for the characters/interactive objects.
 
Random take-it-or-leave-it advice time: Use Trello.

It's a free, simple-as-you-want-it web task manager; make tasks and drag'n'drop as needed.

You can add comments and work it simultaneously within a team if you want, but it shines as having almost no micromanagement. No meters, just a few customization options. You just make tasks, file them in a section, and leave a note if you need to. (For my projects I just give it three columns: To Do, In Progress, Done, disable just about everything except for colors and comments, and that's it)
 
Question for Feep or anyone else who got a game on Steam:

1. Did you make any games before Steam, or literally finish your first game and submit it to Steam once you felt it was "done"?

2. Did you release your game via some other sales mechanism (like XBLA) before submitting it to Steam?

I feel like I have lots of ideas going for once, but I'm really not sure if I should literally go "Hey, my goal is to start now and have a game on Steam by like, the end of 2012."
 
jump_button said:
well I was thinking about changing too this

T4woV.png
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I really respect what you're doing with the project and all, but the similarities between your sprite work and Cave Story are just too much for me to see it as anything but a Cave Story fan game:

cavestory060909.png


E: That being said, it's not a BAD thing, and it may have no relation to Cave Story. And I'm also not saying it will be a bad game. :)
 
nicoga3000 said:
I really respect what you're doing with the project and all, but the similarities between your sprite work and Cave Story are just too much for me to see it as anything but a Cave Story fan game:

E: That being said, it's not a BAD thing, and it may have no relation to Cave Story. And I'm also not saying it will be a bad game. :)
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maybe its the white skin i was going for a emo kid thing

one last go lol

DJLqe.png
 
jump_button said:
maybe its the white skin i was going for a emo kid thing

one last go lol

DJLqe.png
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Giving the flesh color definitely helps!

Like I said in my previous post, I mean no harm in my comparison of your game to Cave Story. We can all play the "This game looks like that game" for anything, and that's sort of where I saw artistic influence in what you had put together.
 
Teknopathetic said:
Just saw on the Unity forums that DAZ has some of their programs available for free for the month of February: http://forum.daz3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=182532&flatnum=1

I don't think you'll find much use for Bryce or DAZ in a Game Dev context, but Hexagon should at least be a decent Sub-D Modeling package for anyone frightened to death at the sight of Blender.
Click to expand...

Thanks! Hexagon looks easier to use than blender and the sculpting looks better.

Right now I'm working on a quadtree for my engine. Something tells me this would be a bitch to implement in C++ because its hard for me right now. A lot of recursion which is a bitch. There are quadtrees out there, but I want to improve my grasp of recursion so I'm doing this myself.

The problem I have right now is that I set a max of one 1 object per node. I add 2 objects into the quadtree. When I count the amount of quadtrees i have it shows 21. The amount of nodes should be much less. Don't know if I'm counting the nodes wrong are if I something is wrong with my insert. Both of the methods require recursion of course so I am trying to figure it out.
 
Dascu said:
Does anyone have any experience with cloth physics in Unity3D and/or Blender? I'm designing a character right now that's supposed to wear a cape, but I'm not sure what the best method would be for this.
Click to expand...

Check Technopathetics post that's a few up from yours. Daz3D could be what you're looking for.
 
charsace said:
Thanks! Hexagon looks easier to use than blender and the sculpting looks better.

Right now I'm working on a quadtree for my engine. Something tells me this would be a bitch to implement in C++ because its hard for me right now. A lot of recursion which is a bitch. There are quadtrees out there, but I want to improve my grasp of recursion so I'm doing this myself.

The problem I have right now is that I set a max of one 1 object per node. I add 2 objects into the quadtree. When I count the amount of quadtrees i have it shows 21. The amount of nodes should be much less. Don't know if I'm counting the nodes wrong are if I something is wrong with my insert. Both of the methods require recursion of course so I am trying to figure it out.
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Usually, you would have one quadtree that consists of a root node.
Each node can then have up to 4 children (or 8 if it's an octree) and a list/vector/array of objects, with each object being added to the node that fully encloses the objects bounding box.

I'm a bit confused that you have multiple quadtrees with only a single object per node. What do you want to use your tree for?
 
.nimrod said:
Usually, you would have one quadtree that consists of a root node.
Each node can then have up to 4 children (or 8 if it's an octree) and a list/vector/array of objects, with each object being added to the node that fully encloses the objects bounding box.

I'm a bit confused that you have multiple quadtrees with only a single object per node. What do you want to use your tree for?
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I think I just fixed it. I have a limit of one item per node. I inserted two items into the tree on opposite ends of the screen. The root divides once and has 4 leafs and none of the leaves subdivided! So I have 5 nodes total and it looks like it works.

I'm just testing the tree for now. I want to use the quadtree for broadphase collisions and culling.
 
charsace said:
I think I just fixed it. I have a limit of one item per node. I inserted two items into the tree on opposite ends of the screen. The root divides once and has 4 leafs and none of the leaves subdivided! So I have 5 nodes total and it looks like it works.

I'm just testing the tree for now. I want to use the quadtree for broadphase collisions and culling.
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Sounds good, but why do you limit the number of objects a node can have?

Also, if you're making a 2D game then a simple grid structure might be interesting for you.
Your world would basically be a 2D array, and based on your camera position you would directly know which grid spaces to render or check collisions in without traversing a tree and wrapping your head around recursion.
 
.nimrod said:
Sounds good, but why do you limit the number of objects a node can have?

Also, if you're making a 2D game then a simple grid structure might be interesting for you.
Your world would basically be a 2D array, and based on your camera position you would directly know which grid spaces to render or check collisions in without traversing a tree and wrapping your head around recursion.
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Whenever I get this game out I want to make a 3d engine next. Quadtree and recursion will be good to know once I start working in 3d.
 
Hey guys, here is WIP of one of the levels (These shots are a little older than what I currently have finished in the level, its a little more smaller and compact after testing, and has more details in textures now). I call it the Dead Plane:

In%20Game%20Dead%20Plane%201.png

In%20Game%20Dead%20Plane%202.png


And here are 2 screens taken from different moments in dev:
This one shows Merik absorbing:
Photo%20Oct%2018%2C%203%2036%2029%20PM.png


This one shows the final attack in a 3 hit combo (this one specifically shows the weapon trail I added to the new build) and of course some enemies, I will show some enemy designs later:
Photo%20Jan%2002%2C%2012%2036%2032%20AM.png


And that's about it for today.

Once again, I am looking for a tester currently, PM me please if interested.

Thanks
 
Somehow writing simpler concepts its harder than more complex. Maybe I should try simplifying one of my concepts instead of doing a simple one from scratch.

I plan to write something over the weekend and start doing maybe textures or sprite work depending what I come up with. I lean more to 3D than 2D since what I learned was basically 3D work on college but I'm open to the idea of working 2D.

I have not a lot of coding knowledge yet but I'll try to watch tutorials and practice on the side while I do the visual work. (Also read my c++ book that I haven't touched >_<)

Right now I'll only focus on making tiledable textures and fleshing out stuff until I can work on the programs with a newer computer hopefully around summer.
 
The_Technomancer said:
...I just realized that I haven't used a single while loop in my code outside of the main game refresh loop, and that using a few in the animation functions might actually simplify some things I've been struggling with

Can you tell I barely have any programming training?
Click to expand...

That moment when you find out about a new function and know exactly how you can implement it to save like a hundred lines of code? Priceless.

I also just found out about while loops.
 
Blizzard said:
Question for Feep or anyone else who got a game on Steam:

1. Did you make any games before Steam, or literally finish your first game and submit it to Steam once you felt it was "done"?

2. Did you release your game via some other sales mechanism (like XBLA) before submitting it to Steam?

I feel like I have lots of ideas going for once, but I'm really not sure if I should literally go "Hey, my goal is to start now and have a game on Steam by like, the end of 2012."
Click to expand...

I'd also like to know this. At what point did you submit it to steam? Was it a long process or did they just accept directly (or reject it if there's anyone here who has tried and failed to get it on steam)? It says it should be in beta/close to final in their faq, does that mean the whole game or just a vertical slize? Ideally I'd like have a simultanious launch and to know which platforms I'm releasing on before I make the official announcement, and if I wait too long with sending it to them I fear of having to delay the game while waiting for a response.

Also what other viable options are there for selling indie games on PC? Given the relatively small number of indie games on Steam I'm assuming the chance of getting approved are pretty slim, especially as my game isn't terribly unique and it's a pretty small production. I'm still not sure if I'll bother to release a PC version
 
Other options = Gamers Gate, Indiecity.com, Desura.com

Upcoming other option that is Open Platform! is Windows Store ... could be a big deal if Windows 8 is installed on multiple 100 million machines (would dwarf even iOS user base if such a thing happened). Microsoft is going to have Xbox Live services for Windows 8 games which was talked about at Build and will talked about again at GDC in March, unfortunately Xbox Live thing is likely to be a "ask to be approved" sort of thing at least for the meantime...but you would have to think since it's an open platform they will be less strict about giving out approval. Windows 8 is very friendly with C++ so porting in between other popular platforms is less of a problem than it was with XNA.

PS Suite is open C# and must be using Open GL ES or something (I don't know, just guessing) - it will be a new platform and put as an icon on a bunch of phones and Vitas and whatever, might be interesteing to keep an eye on.

Then you can go the route of having some sort of Flash thing on sites like Kongregate that says "hey go download my mobile game if you like this thing that only has a few levels"

The key thing is - keep clear in your mind whether you want to target open platform or closed, if it's closed and it's something like XBLA or PSN or Steam - usually you need to be willing to bend over backwards to get on and you need a little bit of luck and networking. Can't stress the importance of networking, get on Twitter and get to know people...if you're serious and full-time you can attend IDGA meetings, GDC, etc
 
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