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[Feep]

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?

1. 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."

Uh...Sequence my first game beyond small school-related projects. I did submit to Steam, but I needed some inside help to make it. I got no response before the assistance.

2. Yeah, I released on XBLIG. I did win 3rd prize in Dream Build Play in 2011, which may have helped the decision. It was also this platform's release that got the game out there and led to the assistance in the first place.

It's all very dodgy, isn't it?

 

[carnefrisca]

This is a game under development.
I hope for the next month to release a first playable version.

 

[Turfster]

Is there an article I can read on quadtree usage for collision detection? I'm not sure how it would work.

It's pretty simple. Basically figure out in which leaf you object is, then only check collisions with objects/whatever within the same leaf (barring evil 'slightly overlapping the border' cases if you're not really using grid based movement)

 

[CiroContinisio]

This is a game under development.
I hope for the next month to release a first playable version.

The pixel art is pretty cool, but it clashes with the clean style of the interface elements...

 

[Gaspode_T]

The pixel art is pretty cool, but it clashes with the clean style of the interface elements...

There was a nice article about this topic here: http://indiegamerchick.com/2012/01/09/tales-from-the-dev-side-you-gotta-have-style-by-scott-tykoski/

As 80′s gamers are getting older, you can tap into their nostalgia with a slick 8-bit or 16-bit retro look. Accomplishing this style is pretty easy, provided you follow a few simple rules…

- Pick a color palette and do not deviate. (Retro Palettes 4 U)
- Pixels need to be at least 2x larger than the Xbox default (unless your going for a liney Asteroids feel)
- No anti-aliasing on fonts.
- Be careful with rotations and transparency…only 16bit systems really allowed these.
- Stay consistent with your pixel size, damnit!

 

[Blizzard]

Uh...Sequence my first game beyond small school-related projects. I did submit to Steam, but I needed some inside help to make it. I got no response before the assistance.

2. Yeah, I released on XBLIG. I did win 3rd prize in Dream Build Play in 2011, which may have helped the decision. It was also this platform's release that got the game out there and led to the assistance in the first place.

It's all very dodgy, isn't it?

I guess this makes sense. It seems like most people get their game out on XBLIG or some other method first, and then get on Steam via networking (inside help). Thanks for the input.

 

[carnefrisca]

The pixel art is pretty cool, but it clashes with the clean style of the interface elements...

Right
Is under development

 

[snoopeasystreet]

I hope to put up my initial build of a twinstick shooter/roguelike on gaf next week for you lads to try out.

 

[Dark Octave]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1cwpvGbM

I posted this on the XBLIG thread and quoted it on the last page here, but I was wondering if you guys could give me some honest feedback on my new game trailer, good or bad. Thanks.

 

[Vazra]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1cwpvGbM

I posted this on the XBLIG thread and quoted it on the last page here, but I was wondering if you guys could give me some honest feedback on my new game trailer, good or bad. Thanks.

Looks like a pretty fun game.

Only complainment would be the font size feels big and maybe you could have arrange it in other way so it doesnt covers much of the screen. Otherwise I liked the editing and music. So pretty nice ^^

I'll be looking closely to this one. I liked what I saw ^^

 

[Somnid]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1cwpvGbM

I posted this on the XBLIG thread and quoted it on the last page here, but I was wondering if you guys could give me some honest feedback on my new game trailer, good or bad. Thanks.

I think you're using too many fonts, especially in the last screen. Otherwise I think it conveyed the game rather well.

The game looks to have an interesting concept and I like the art though my initial reaction was thinking the pacing might be too intense for me. Usually chase sequences are one-offs because of the stress they put on the player to finish in a time limit and I'm not sure if I could take a whole game of nothing but that.

 

[gabbo]

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:

And that's about it for today.

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

Thanks

Check your PM

 

[Zaptruder]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBv1cwpvGbM

I posted this on the XBLIG thread and quoted it on the last page here, but I was wondering if you guys could give me some honest feedback on my new game trailer, good or bad. Thanks.

I... don't understand the game mechanics.

You run down and blast holes into the walls to escape the scrolling edge of doom? Can you just blast repeatedly in a straight line, or is there a limitation to that ability?

Is there anymore to the game then that? Collecting jewels?

It seems like the trailer needs to show off some more dramatic elements, or at least somehow ramp up the 'difficulty', with progressively more difficult and fine edge escapes from death and danger.

Nice music though.

 

[Dascu]

I... don't understand the game mechanics.

You run down and blast holes into the walls to escape the scrolling edge of doom?

Is there anymore to the game then that? Collecting jewels?

It seems like the trailer needs to show off some more dramatic elements, or at least somehow ramp up the 'difficulty', with progressively more difficult and fine edge escapes from death and danger.

Nice music though.

Your bombs are limited and you have to collect ammo. So there's a risk/reward system there.

 

[charsace]

I... don't understand the game mechanics.

You run down and blast holes into the walls to escape the scrolling edge of doom? Can you just blast repeatedly in a straight line, or is there a limitation to that ability?

Is there anymore to the game then that? Collecting jewels?

It seems like the trailer needs to show off some more dramatic elements, or at least somehow ramp up the 'difficulty', with progressively more difficult and fine edge escapes from death and danger.

Nice music though.

Its like bomberman, except you're running from something.

 

[FanTomasas]

I am working towards concepts/design for my summer project. I am also working on a project for university, it is supposed to be a tower defence game, but I am not putting much effort into it. Needless to say, my own project and university project are two different approaches to the subject.

Anyway, I have pretty much 0 programming experience, therefore, I need other programmers or an engine based on logical sequences (like Construct 2). The biggest challenge for Construct 2 engine based game is to get all the assets, lucky me, I am more of the artist/animator

For university, programmers use Unity. I am not even sure which program will I use to animate objects for university game, completely clueless wtf I am going to do there. I will most likely animate sprites, not even sure if I can do that with Unity.

 

[charsace]

Is there an article I can read on quadtree usage for collision detection? I'm not sure how it would work.

Don't really know of an article. I do know that if you want to make a quadtree for a game in C# or java you will have to know generics, interfaces, what a wrapper is and recursion/lifo/stacks.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Random scattershot questions, all iOS related:

a) If you've done promo videos for your game, how did you record it? Using a camera and recording it feels wrong.

b) Supporting add-ons in the game, how much should I pre-plan it even if I don't plan to launch with it at the first place?

c) Adding/changing gamecenter achivements after app is "live": possible?

 

[survivor]

Any of you SFML users had to set it up using Visual C++? I'm running into bit of trouble with missing dll and what not.

 

[Dead Prince]

Any of you SFML users had to set it up using Visual C++? I'm running into bit of trouble with missing dll and what not.

i had no troubles. i used mingw and cmake gui to compile smfl 2.0.

 

[Jasoco]

This is a game under development.
I hope for the next month to release a first playable version.

Mixing pixelated graphics with non-pixelated graphics makes my eyes sad.

I say pixelate the shit out of everything and snap it to a fixed grid to emulate old style 16-bit graphics the correct way.

 

[charsace]

Any of you SFML users had to set it up using Visual C++? I'm running into bit of trouble with missing dll and what not.

I put it in some visual studio folder, don't remember which though.

 

[The Technomancer]

Any of you SFML users had to set it up using Visual C++? I'm running into bit of trouble with missing dll and what not.

What specifically is the issue you're having? If you compile dynamically you have to manually move the dll files to your project folder.

 

[survivor]

After I run the cmake-gui and finish my configurations, it keeps giving me an error message about missing mspdb100.dll and I have no idea where to find it. I tried looking online and some solutions said to run the configurations from the VS command prompt, but I was already doing that.

 

[Blizzard]

After I run the cmake-gui and finish my configurations, it keeps giving me an error message about missing mspdb100.dll and I have no idea where to find it. I tried looking online and some solutions said to run the configurations from the VS command prompt, but I was already doing that.

I'm confused, are you looking to develop with Visual Studio or not? I used Visual Studio Express 2010, built the library, and had no problem with it.

However, I think I built the 2.0 version (and of course there may not be as much documentation and tutorials for 2.0, sadly), not one of the older ones.

 

[survivor]

I'm confused, are you looking to develop with Visual Studio or not? I used Visual Studio Express 2010, built the library, and had no problem with it.

However, I think I built the 2.0 version (and of course there may not be as much documentation and tutorials for 2.0, sadly), not one of the older ones.

Ok it looks like I was doing the configuration incorrectly. The tutorial I was following had the cmake pick NMake files instead of Visual Studio 10 which I believe was causing problem with the compiler.

 

[CiroContinisio]

Following from some posts ago where I showed the project I'm working on with a friend, we decided to release a very early demo: http://tinyurl.com/UFHO2demo
It's very early and it lacks a good tutorial, but hopefully it will make the mechanics more clear. Also, there's some two finished tracks of the soundtrack inside.

 

[Nuclear Dimorphism]

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:

Is it fun? I'll let you decide.

Is there an article I can read on quadtree usage for collision detection? I'm not sure how it would work.

I'd recommend reading this guy's article. He goes into considerable detail on how quadtrees work, and if you just so happen to be working in XNA, he's even included the source code for a generic implementation. (Even if you're not working in XNA, that'll probably give you a head start in writing your own implementation.)

 

[zendavis]

Does anyone have advice on setting up Lode Runner style AI?

 

[Gaspode_T]

Does anyone have advice on setting up Lode Runner style AI?

That's called A* pathfinding, example here: http://www.rocket5studios.com/tutor...-tools-beginning-enemy-ai-with-a-pathfinding/

 

[Blizzard]

I just downloaded the latest SFML 2.0 snapshot (which apparently changed at least one function name on me), built both the debug and release versions with static MSVC libraries, and made sure I could build and run a MSVC-static-libraries-linked test program with both debug and release configurations.

Next up I plan to port my old in-progress 2D engine to use SFML instead of OpenGL + SDL as long as the conversion is not TOO painful. I fear for what it will do to my old font code. I then plan to add generalized menu system support to that engine and try to make it such that I can make a new game easily and automatically have the menu support in place, so I can get to prototyping gameplay quickly.

Onwards! Hopefully SFML works well. Worst comes to worst, if I need to modify SFML itself then the license apparently allows me to do so, even for commercial applications (someone correct me if I'm wrong).

 

[zendavis]

That's called A* pathfinding, example here: http://www.rocket5studios.com/tutor...-tools-beginning-enemy-ai-with-a-pathfinding/

You're the best mate!

Thank you!

 

[Apoc29]

For anyone coding in C++/MinGW I recommend Codelite as an IDE. It's super configurable, simple, clean, and has decent code completion.

While Visual Studio is a powerful IDE and may be the "industry standard", you might not want to fuss about with their redistributable packages and dlls and stuff when releasing your project.

 

[Toppot]

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:

Is it fun? I'll let you decide.

Its a fun little game =] With global high scores it could definitely sell cheap on iphone/androis for a bit of fun. 3104 was my high score =P

 

[desu]

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:

I like it. Just got my mechanical Das Keyboard today and was looking for something to type. Too bad I really suck with coming up with words.

 

[Super Smash Bro]

Back in high school, I took a ton of programming classes (wanted to be a game developer) and made a couple of games in QBASIC (go ahead, laugh). Blew my teacher away.

Then I went to college and got a liberal arts degree... ugh.

My first game ever was for a Casio graphing calculator, sort of like Missile Command. Enemies would appear over the top of of your base and you'd have to shoot at them by typing in an angle of your shot. My first go of it was a single stage with a single enemy, but I kept "patching it" by adding randomly generated levels, enemies that fire back, and the ability to ricochet shots off walls. I was so proud of this, all my classmates loved it but I was the only one with a Casio (they all had TI-83s) so I couldn't share it with them, so I don't have it anymore :'(

EDIT: My most "successful" game was one I made for an Easter project. You controlled a boy or girl on an egg hunt, and eggs/chocolate rabbits would spawn all of the map, and you'd try to collect as many as you could. There were rabbits in the field, however, that would eat the treats if they got there first, and if you touched a rabbit, you'd lose all of your points. Each rabbit had a different AI (random, go after treats, go after the player) and was fairly popular--it ended up installed on every computer in the school (about 130) and even hidden in my teacher's final exam as an Easter egg (hahaha).

Quick MS Paint mock-ups:

 

[Blizzard]

For anyone coding in C++/MinGW I recommend Codelite as an IDE. It's super configurable, simple, clean, and has decent code completion.

While Visual Studio is a powerful IDE and may be the "industry standard", you might not want to fuss about with their redistributable packages and dlls and stuff when releasing your project.

The redistributable stuff isn't too bad, and I -thought- you could even do static linking if you didn't want to deal with the MSVC++ DLLs. I turned that on last night actually.

Also, it's really helpful for debugging, though maybe Codelite has the same support.

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:

Is it fun? I'll let you decide.

I'd say it's fun. I wasn't quite sure how the falling letters and timer worked, but the overall idea is cool.

 

[Datwheezy]

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:


Is it fun? I'll let you decide.

As someone else said, you could definitely edit it a bit to be more forgiving for a virtual keyboard (increased time, etc), and sell that on iOS/Android.

 

[JasoNsider]

I had this idea for a word game awhile back. After several nights and weekends spent playing with words lists and tossing out prototypes, I ended up with something that looks like this:

Is it fun? I'll let you decide.



I'd recommend reading this guy's article. He goes into considerable detail on how quadtrees work, and if you just so happen to be working in XNA, he's even included the source code for a generic implementation. (Even if you're not working in XNA, that'll probably give you a head start in writing your own implementation.)

Great work. I actually like your simple yet clean aesthetic to boot.

 

[Dark Octave]

Looks like a pretty fun game.

Only complainment would be the font size feels big and maybe you could have arrange it in other way so it doesnt covers much of the screen. Otherwise I liked the editing and music. So pretty nice ^^

I'll be looking closely to this one. I liked what I saw ^^

Thank you. We'll probably have one more trailer once the game releases and will take your suggestions into consideration. Probably have the font on the bottom of the screen or something.

I think you're using too many fonts, especially in the last screen. Otherwise I think it conveyed the game rather well.

The game looks to have an interesting concept and I like the art though my initial reaction was thinking the pacing might be too intense for me. Usually chase sequences are one-offs because of the stress they put on the player to finish in a time limit and I'm not sure if I could take a whole game of nothing but that.

We're thinking about an easy mode that's a little slower and has a few more bombs spread around.

I... don't understand the game mechanics.

You run down and blast holes into the walls to escape the scrolling edge of doom? Can you just blast repeatedly in a straight line, or is there a limitation to that ability?

Is there anymore to the game then that? Collecting jewels?

It seems like the trailer needs to show off some more dramatic elements, or at least somehow ramp up the 'difficulty', with progressively more difficult and fine edge escapes from death and danger.

Nice music though.

You start off with three bombs and you collect more as you progress through the level. The tricky part is that some bombs are out of the way and trying to get them will slow you down, but you may need them later in the stage. You also have to collect three artifacts that will clear the exit at the bottom of the stage. Failing to do so will result in death. So there is a little bit of trial and error involved, but the stages are short, so hopefully it stays fun if you stink it's fun to begin with.

Thanks guys for checking it out and I'm glad you guys liked the music. I was nervous about it and almost went back to make something a little more kiddy and Bubble Bobble sounding, so I'm especially happy about the comments on the music. That's confidence building stuff for me as I finish up the rest of the soundtrack.

 

[Jasoco]

Back in high school, I took a ton of programming classes (wanted to be a game developer) and made a couple of games in QBASIC (go ahead, laugh). Blew my teacher away.

QBASIC's where I learned too. For a few months back in the late 90's my dad's work PC was in the shop so I dug out our old 286 and kept myself busy with it.

 

[Blizzard]

I started out with batch files on a 286 blue-tinged monochrome (grayscale?) laptop with a broken hard disk. Someone gave it to me with 2-4MB of memory and a bunch of floppy disks with various DOS versions. I guess they had DEBUG.COM or whatever so I tried to learn some assembly language. Eventually I moved up to 386's and 486's with Windows 3.1, QBASIC, eventually some early versions of Linux, C/C++, that sort of thing.

I'M LIKE 90 YEARS OLD MAN

 

[Blizzard]

It's crazy going back and looking through my C++ code, now maybe 2-3 years old, from the 2D game engine I started. I was going to port it to use all SFML instead of OpenGL bits, but then I decided that it was far less work to leave OpenGL code and just toss in some SFML to replace the SDL parts.

Did I really need to change from SDL to SFML? Probably not. >_> Maybe there will be some utility functionality that will be worth it, however.

Next tasks:

• Port the simple game I had started using this engine, to use the new SFML-integrated version, to make sure I didn't break anything.
• Port my pipeline utilities (image-processing etc.) to use SFML instead of SDL.
• Integrate window creation and a main game loop more into the engine instead of the game, and fix my simple game to use this as well.
• Start working on a simple main menu system, designing it with a way to draw default graphics and have it "just work", but also a way to customize the graphics and interface.

Ideally if I can finish all this, I will have an encapsulated engine that I can use to throw together any new 2D game I want to prototype, complete with menus, without having to write main menu/new game/game loop etc. code to get there.

AFTER ALL THIS I need to start prototyping my actual game idea to see if it's really fun. =P

 

[HP_Wuvcraft]

Going to Seattle today to meet with other applicants to the Kinect Accelerator program. My shuttle is in two hours so there's really no point in sleeping.

 

[Zaptruder]

You start off with three bombs and you collect more as you progress through the level. The tricky part is that some bombs are out of the way and trying to get them will slow you down, but you may need them later in the stage. You also have to collect three artifacts that will clear the exit at the bottom of the stage. Failing to do so will result in death. So there is a little bit of trial and error involved, but the stages are short, so hopefully it stays fun if you stink it's fun to begin with.

Point is, your trailer needs to make the mechanics more apparent... explicit even. It doesn't have enough visual pull for people to watch it repeatedly, leading to them breaking it down and analyzing for people to figure out the game mechanics... as can happen here on GAF for some of the more hyped games.

Good luck!

 

[Dark Octave]

Point is, your trailer needs to make the mechanics more apparent... explicit even. It doesn't have enough visual pull for people to watch it repeatedly, leading to them breaking it down and analyzing for people to figure out the game mechanics... as can happen here on GAF for some of the more hyped games.

Good luck!

I think I understand what you mean. Hopefully we do a launch trailer and I will keep what you said in mind. I already have some ideas of how I can incorporate some of what you suggested. Thanks.

 

[Ghost23]

Not sure if this is the thread to ask this, but I am curious in creating games (very basic games for now). However, I'm not entirely sure where to start. Where would GAF recommend for a person with no past experience to start?

 

[Blizzard]

Not sure if this is the thread to ask this, but I am curious in creating games (very basic games for now). However, I'm not entirely sure where to start. Where would GAF recommend for a person with no past experience to start?

Have you ever done any programming or scripting? If not, I personally recommend downloading the free version of GameMaker (GameMaker Lite). You can go through the built-in tutorial, and then start using google to search for some other very simple tutorials.

Once you're more comfortable with some very basic logic and layout, and maybe you've used some scripting from tutorials, you can keep going with GameMaker (using the scripting language, or the graphical blocks), or switch to a different environment.

That's my own recommendation though. Other similar tools you can try that don't require programming are Stencyl and Construct2.

 

[Ghost23]

Have you ever done any programming or scripting? If not, I personally recommend downloading the free version of GameMaker (GameMaker Lite). You can go through the built-in tutorial, and then start using google to search for some other very simple tutorials.

Once you're more comfortable with some very basic logic and layout, and maybe you've used some scripting from tutorials, you can keep going with GameMaker (using the scripting language, or the graphical blocks), or switch to a different environment.

That's my own recommendation though. Other similar tools you can try that don't require programming are Stencyl and Construct2.

I'm trying GameMaker now and it's really helpful, but I'm confused exactly what scripting is.
Is scripting just the word to describe what you're doing in programs like GameMaker?

Also, I'm curious to what the big developers do. Do they use some type of program or do they make everything from scratch?

 

[Blizzard]

I'm trying GameMaker now and it's really helpful, but I'm confused exactly what scripting is.
Is scripting just the word to describe what you're doing in programs like GameMaker?

Also, I'm curious to what the big developers do. Do they use some type of program or do they make everything from scratch?

Scripting in GameMaker would be where you have a "code" block and you type in something like:

hspeed = 0;

It's basically a simple programming language, but the engine handles most of the work for you. Programmers may find some things easier to do that way, and once you get good with scripts you may be able to write things more quickly than by purely sticking with the graphical events and commands from GameMaker.

Big developers may often use "game engines" (such as the Unreal Engine 3 -- there's a free version called the UDK), which you could think of as a parallel to Game Maker, or if the game is small they might program it from scratch using programming languages like C++ or C#.

Here are some general GameMaker tutorials that may be helpful, by the way: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials