The Friendly Monster
Member
Meh, I think it's better incentive to work hard when you don't have any funding. As a one-man team I don't need any aside from cost of living, as my savings go down the need to release and sell stuff goes up.
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Indy Game Development: any GAF'er ever make their own game, or even make money on it?
- Thread starter Mengy
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Crazymoogle
Member
I would strongly recommend the pay-what-you-want method seen with other projects, then...
Ihateyouchris
Member
So I took a break from Kid Vector this week, and made a quick game called Blast Ball.
It's basically a combination of Super Crate Box and soccer. I released a web version that you can check out here:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Uncade/blast-ball
I'm really happy with how it's turned out so far, and I'm gonna try to submit a version to the app store next week.
It's basically a combination of Super Crate Box and soccer. I released a web version that you can check out here:
http://www.kongregate.com/games/Uncade/blast-ball
I'm really happy with how it's turned out so far, and I'm gonna try to submit a version to the app store next week.
I joined an indie dev in 99 and it grew into a large pro team over 10 years, then pop, it got shut down. We started up again and are doing indie iOS/ Android work now.
So far we haven't found success. For us Android is really easy to pirate the games, and the user base seems less likely to pay for a game than on iOS.
iOS being featured by Apple is one of the only ways to make it. If you aren't its a much longer road to profit.
With all that said, I've had more fun in the last 2 years using Unity and working on small games than I did over the last several years on console. It's a great time to be starting up and making games.
So far we haven't found success. For us Android is really easy to pirate the games, and the user base seems less likely to pay for a game than on iOS.
iOS being featured by Apple is one of the only ways to make it. If you aren't its a much longer road to profit.
With all that said, I've had more fun in the last 2 years using Unity and working on small games than I did over the last several years on console. It's a great time to be starting up and making games.
That's awesome and agreed. I definitely don't have the guts to just all out quit my well paying job, live off my gf and develope full time. But somedays I really want to, and think I could
Exact same boat as I am. But my co-worker hasn't done anything in about 6 months but criticize the builds I bring in to work. Actually would start yawning and dosing off when I was discussing problems with him. So now I've just moved onto something new and less daunting.
Where are you from?
So I've been wearing the artist hat for a couple weeks now, which since my last post is going much better. I'm finding 3D modelling more productive the slower you go. I was punking out models like crazy. Completing multiple revisions a day, just to realize they still suck. Now I'm taking my time. Working on the same model in more than one session. It's going much better now.
bumpkin
Member
Man, you're crazy lucky on both counts. Any time I put into my game programming, it's after putting in 40+ hours at my job (also programming). Thankfully this is a labor of love for me, so I don't really feel like I'm doing more "work" when I get home from work.
I put a bunch more time into my engine today and got some of the other pieces working, namely the input detection and the ability to render (and transition to/from) multiple scenes/screens. I know that the process in which I'm doing the latter definitely isn't the most efficient or memory-friendly, but as they say, "premature optimization is the root of all evil." Right now the class that contains a scene is loading all of its data and assets at creation (when the constructor is called). I'll probably move that into some sort of load function somewhere down the line. I'm also thinking it might be cool to integrate transitions from one scene to another, but one step at a time.
That being said, here's a new video of the work-in-progress.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rctb4JdOmI
bumpkin
Member
haha. Sorry!bumpkin makes me sad since he took like two weeks to do all the stuff it took me like 2.5 years to do in an engine, lol.
If it makes you feel any better, this is actually my second attempt at writing a 2D game engine with SDL. I originally built one last year over the course of several months, and the end result was an absolute mess. There was almost nothing "good" about it. The class structure was sloppy, the code was a mess, and the performance was really bad. I approached this second attempt with a lot of learned-lessons in mind, traps I wanted to avoid, issues that came up last time, etc. I put a ton of thought and planning into this attempt, so while you're seeing all this in two weeks, there's been at least a month or two of forethought.
If you're curious at all about my approach to a specific piece, ask away. You and several others in this thread have been gracious with your time and knowledge, I feel like I should be paying it forward if I can in any way.
For the HTML5 crowd, there is apparently an HTML5 Gameboy Color emulator.
I edited out the link since someone pointed out, correctly, that the site is apparently hosting the ROMs in addition to letting people use their own ROMs, and I don't want to link to sites hosting such things.
My computer can't play fullspeed with sound, but the game is playable, though I guess in slow motion.
I edited out the link since someone pointed out, correctly, that the site is apparently hosting the ROMs in addition to letting people use their own ROMs, and I don't want to link to sites hosting such things.
My computer can't play fullspeed with sound, but the game is playable, though I guess in slow motion.
I wonder, do any of you use source control of any sort?
If you don't, I'd suggest perforce, it's free for up to 20 users: http://www.perforce.com/downloads/try_perforce_free
I'm not a perforce salesman btw.
I might add a source control post to my blog, showing why it's ace.
Later!
If you don't, I'd suggest perforce, it's free for up to 20 users: http://www.perforce.com/downloads/try_perforce_free
I'm not a perforce salesman btw.
I might add a source control post to my blog, showing why it's ace.
Later!
I've made a couple of iOS games with two of my friends. I did all the programming and they did art and sound. The two games are Berserker and Major League Kickball 2010
Berserker trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnB3LwS_DwQ
MLKB trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SucqeAOf-Q
Berserker made a small amount of money, but nothing to write home about. MLKB did substantially better sales-wise (and for a time cracked the top 200 sports apps) but still nothing all that impressive. Certainly not for the amount of time that goes into making it. Really we do it just for the fun of it.
Berserker trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnB3LwS_DwQ
MLKB trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SucqeAOf-Q
Berserker made a small amount of money, but nothing to write home about. MLKB did substantially better sales-wise (and for a time cracked the top 200 sports apps) but still nothing all that impressive. Certainly not for the amount of time that goes into making it. Really we do it just for the fun of it.
I have a question regarding fonts. I know licensing in itself is a big bad bitch but let's say I did my own font, it's a simple font done in a 3x8 space. All pixels, and then blown up. I'm aware that fonts like these are probably out there. Can someone sue me because of all the similarities that occur, even tho I did all things myself?
)
Man, HTML5 is so crazy. I was already impressed by websites made with absolutely no GFX at all but this is on another level. I really need to get into it, yet I still can't wrap my head around regular HTML+CSS (mostly because of laziness tho
)I worked at a fairly big company in the commercial sector using perforce, and it seemed horrible, but maybe we just had server problems too often.
I would surely hope not. Fonts are so horrible with the licensing stuff, I'd love to hear advice about using them legally.
I found A site recently that I've been using to get fonts from
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
All the fonts I've downloaded had a licensing agreement that was something like "Free to use in commercial or non commercial projects, send me a link to your project if you want so I can see my font in action." They still kinda make me nervous though. The world of license registration is a dark and spooky one.
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/
All the fonts I've downloaded had a licensing agreement that was something like "Free to use in commercial or non commercial projects, send me a link to your project if you want so I can see my font in action." They still kinda make me nervous though. The world of license registration is a dark and spooky one.
Himynameischris
Member
Hey guys so a couple of friends and I are starting to make a tower defense game it's sill very early however we have most of the game play details down but now we need to figure out hit points and stats is there like a book or website that helps with that? Maybe an algorithm or something like that or are we going to have to do it all my hand?? Also awesome job on the stuff being posted there is some really good talented folks here.
I've been mainly using this one as well actually
Although beware because not all of them are free for commercial use, hell the offsite stuff even costs good money
The Friendly Monster
Member
Newest version of Total Pool here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102125939868619879455/posts/c2KfLRXwYSM
4 weeks until it's done!
Oh it's an Android pool game.
https://plus.google.com/u/0/102125939868619879455/posts/c2KfLRXwYSM
4 weeks until it's done!
Oh it's an Android pool game.
D
Deleted member 10571
Unconfirmed Member
New teaser trailer for PonyGAF's very own Cutie Mark Crusade: A Dash of Adventure:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvjP2UK-5LM&context=C30881d6ADOEgsToPDskKawOq62u-Of6OSazQHbhBX
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvjP2UK-5LM&context=C30881d6ADOEgsToPDskKawOq62u-Of6OSazQHbhBX
lordfroakie
Member
was bored and made this little guy:
I am looking for an opinion or two on the "feel" of my platformer character.
It's pretty much done right now and it's having a jump, high jump, double jump, run speed and then a walling ability -- similar to MegamanX where you slowly slide down the wall and can jump when you want.
Anyhow, PM me guys, I'll send an exe to some of you.
It's pretty much done right now and it's having a jump, high jump, double jump, run speed and then a walling ability -- similar to MegamanX where you slowly slide down the wall and can jump when you want.
Anyhow, PM me guys, I'll send an exe to some of you.
I tried running this on my Vita and surprisingly it works (kind of). If you turn off sound, it will run games at something like 2-3 frames a second.
Also, isn't this illegal? He's hosting the actual games on his website, not making us use our own roms...
lordfroakie
Member
Good call -- sorry about that. I edited the link out. You can drag your own ROMs but it does look like he's hosting some locally in the sense that people can play them through the browser. I would expect it will get shut down. I just thought the tech was impressive.
Haha, I do! Actually send an e-mail when it came out, but no responseAnyone remember Ubiart? Been waiting ages for this nifty framework. Would use Ubiart for a lot of projects
I figured they saw it had some real potential (around the time when they made Rayman Origins a full title) and probably used it only for in house projects and maybe some tight partners. Doubt it'll ever go public
I'm a gitman myself. Other than that I've only used SVN and an array of Microsoft ones (SourceSafe, Team-something or other), and git is by far my favorite. Conceptually it makes the most sense to keep even smaller things in branches and then merge the branches. Part of it is just familiarity with the tools, though, since I have to use it at work. But I've gotten my SVN projects into some pretty nefarious states before by not knowing what to do, while git has just been smooth sailing, even for complex tasks.
Himynameischris
Member
Wow that's pretty cool
I watched that a month ago and still can't figure out whether it's actually real or just a "what I wish developing was like" prototype. It's shown as running on OS X but I've never seen it.
In case you're wondering, THIS is the whole thing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUv66718DII
He shows off some pretty amazing stuff that I don't think even actually exists.
The Friendly Monster
Member
I get where he is coming from, and I think tools should move more towards this kind of thing. In my experience most programming isn't about tweaking values, and where it is it's fairly easy to create your own sliders to adjust values.
His example with the platformer is also a bit backwards. You generally don't design mechanics around a level, but design the level around the mechanics.
Perforce is pretty straightforward once you get used to all the terms they use.
I just thought I'd mention it, as being able to "revert changes" alone is a wonderful thing to be able to do. And I wondered how many one man teams bother looking into source control at all.
The Friendly Monster
Member
I use Dropbox. Reverting changes is a little tricky but I very rarely have to do it. Using Perforce when it was just me felt like massive overkill, and having the stuff stored in the cloud rather than locally is a huge benefit.
I just keep a million different versions of files and code backed up in different directories for now, but I should start some local change tracking software like SVN (or maybe git if it can be run locally) if my project keeps growing.
I have not done much more on my engine lately besides start SFGUI testing. I really need to make sure it is not too much of a pain to reskin it with my own images, but if that works then it seems like a viable approach to move forward with. You can subclass widgets. I may have had to write a bit more code than would be ideal, but I was still able to make a subclass of sfg::Window, I think it was called, in order to implement a window that cannot be resized or dragged. I did that by just ignoring mouse click and drag commands for the window widget itself, and I think SFGUI still properly handled mouse clicks that were actually on say, buttons inside the window widget.
I have not done much more on my engine lately besides start SFGUI testing. I really need to make sure it is not too much of a pain to reskin it with my own images, but if that works then it seems like a viable approach to move forward with. You can subclass widgets. I may have had to write a bit more code than would be ideal, but I was still able to make a subclass of sfg::Window, I think it was called, in order to implement a window that cannot be resized or dragged. I did that by just ignoring mouse click and drag commands for the window widget itself, and I think SFGUI still properly handled mouse clicks that were actually on say, buttons inside the window widget.
The Friendly Monster
Member
Out of interest are you writing an engine just for the fun of it or is there a project in mind that will use it?
My engines tend to be completely built around and specialized for what I'm making.
Vinterbird
Member
Denmark. There's three main options for seeking government funding here - The Danish Film Institute (which can grant up to 1.5 million, with two funding rounds a year), Nordic Game Program (same amount but once a year) and then something called MEDIA Desk which grants up to a million.
I was originally working on it to make a sidescroller game using the ferret and the bats. Back then I was still trying to keep it general, but I did not have a clean framework for entire "games", I think. I had sprite stuff, and scaling, rotation, animation, plus a framework that probably took quite a while to write, that loads resources into a library file (including stuff like cropping huge source images into smaller power-of-2 tiles).
More recently, I wrote down a bunch of game design details after the global game jam, and I am trying to make it more general. I ported it to use SFML rather than SDL, and I added a framework so that new games can extend from a generic game class that provides stat tracking, vsync, a main game loop, and so forth.
The end goal that I am slowly realizing is to have a generic engine for any 2D game project I might want to start, so that I can throw a bit of code to extend the game class, initialize my library, and have a default premade NEW GAME, EXIT etc. menu system along with the game loop ready to go. That should in theory make prototyping new stuff an easier process, so I am trying to keep the engine general. I am hopefully also trying to keep the interface relatively free of SDL/SFML-specific stuff so I can port it if needed.
As for a specific game, my end goal after getting a menu/GUI wrapper integrated is to work on a 2D sprite turn-based strategy game, with the hopes that some people besides me are still interested in playing such a thing.
The Friendly Monster
Member
Cool, I have pretty much the opposite workflow to you. I like frameworks too and being able to reuse code is awesome, but when I'm prototyping or making a game in a really short space of time I usually just start with a clean slate and then grab stuff from other projects when I need it.I was originally working on it to make a sidescroller game using the ferret and the bats. Back then I was still trying to keep it general, but I did not have a clean framework for entire "games", I think. I had sprite stuff, and scaling, rotation, animation, plus a framework that probably took quite a while to write, that loads resources into a library file (including stuff like cropping huge source images into smaller power-of-2 tiles).
More recently, I wrote down a bunch of game design details after the global game jam, and I am trying to make it more general. I ported it to use SFML rather than SDL, and I added a framework so that new games can extend from a generic game class that provides stat tracking, vsync, a main game loop, and so forth.
The end goal that I am slowly realizing is to have a generic engine for any 2D game project I might want to start, so that I can throw a bit of code to extend the game class, initialize my library, and have a default premade NEW GAME, EXIT etc. menu system along with the game loop ready to go. That should in theory make prototyping new stuff an easier process, so I am trying to keep the engine general. I am hopefully also trying to keep the interface relatively free of SDL/SFML-specific stuff so I can port it if needed.
As for a specific game, my end goal after getting a menu/GUI wrapper integrated is to work on a 2D sprite turn-based strategy game, with the hopes that some people besides me are still interested in playing such a thing.
I'm not sure that such a flexible engine as you describe is even possible. My pool game uses it's own physics engine, which would be pretty much useless for anything else but is excellent for simulating pool balls. None of this code would or should ever be written outside of a pool game. Also you don't want to end up with an engine that restricts what you are doing because of how you imagined actors or input would always work.
I think you might be a lot more interested in UI than I am because I put off writing my menus as long as possible. I have found it quite a tedious and frustrating experience.
Game Maker, Stencyl, and Construct 2 are presumably examples of frameworks/engines that do something similar.
I figure "actors" are generic enough that they 2D objects in space that can have animations, and individual games can extend them. For input, I want to just provide a layer of insulation so game-specific code can use my engine constants to handle gamepad/mouse/keyboard events. One thing I -might- add is the ability to remap/save/load/bind controls between the various control methods, since I figure this is a generic and generally useful ability.
I am not interested in realistic physics at the moment, but if I did need some, they would probably either be in game-specific code or an optional engine feature.
Regarding menus being frustrating, that is one reason I would like to have them, I suppose -- so that I can at least have a generic premade ugly menu, as well as a way to extend them, modify them, and make them look nice, instead of having the "add a main menu" step be one of the last things I always do. Plus SFML/SFGUI make the actual drawing of menu elements pretty straightforward, which hopefully saves me a few months of designing and writing actual low-level GUI code myself.
See! This is exactly why I asked!
If you're happy with your game, but you fancy a little play with the magic numbers that control your jump parameters or something, then you check out a file, play for a bit, then either commit the changes, or revert them.
OR, you could branch your whole source a couple of times, generate two new versions with new jump mechanics, get people to play each one. Once you're happy with one, integrate that back into the main branch.
I say it's way scary to learn, but once you have it's ultra powerful, and well worth the effort.
Anyway, today I made the main mechanic of my game work, (all with rectangles), and it feels cool. Too early to show anything, but I now have a backlog of things for the blog, and a million more tasks to complete. Happy days!
Key things for blog:
Keyframing for smooth rendering
State machine systems
Source control
Game as an object, for easy pausing
Drawing rectangles in OpenGL!
A simple 2D camera
State machine systems
Source control
Game as an object, for easy pausing
Drawing rectangles in OpenGL!
A simple 2D camera
The problem is finding the time to write blog entries, as all the time feels too precious to not be spent on writing the game. Although I know it's good karma!
For added karma... I have worked in the games industry for almost forever, if anyone has any c++/android/general programming questions, just PM me. If I can help I will!
The Friendly Monster
Member
I'm not scared to learn it, I've used source control professionally for years. I just think it's extremely tedious checking out files when it's only me who's working on them. With dropbox every file gets versioned every time it's saved, there aren't any comments, just timestamps, but I don't even bother commenting my code, let alone check ins that I'm never going to look at.
I have honestly only had one time in 6 months where I have wanted to revert a few files and couldn't Ctrl-z, it took me 10 minutes to sort out.
Yeah I really don't want to write blog entries, even though there a few things which I think people would find interesting. As well wanting to write the game instead I find it hard to be eloquent when describing how code works. I'm no teacher.
Teknopathetic
Member
Unity PSA: From now until April 8th, Unity has their Android and IOS basic licenses available for free. The website's currently completely hammered, but persist and you'll get through. That's almost worth its own topic, but eh.
Also, the RagePixel plugin has been released for free (apparently the Dev is going to try a Freemium model. The base plug-in is free and then he'll be selling add-ons for more functionality.) Seems like a really interesting piece of kit for anyone interested in doing 2D/pixel art inside of Unity itself instead.
Video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUVSjoT2ORA&feature=player_embedded
Also, the RagePixel plugin has been released for free (apparently the Dev is going to try a Freemium model. The base plug-in is free and then he'll be selling add-ons for more functionality.) Seems like a really interesting piece of kit for anyone interested in doing 2D/pixel art inside of Unity itself instead.
Video of it in action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUVSjoT2ORA&feature=player_embedded
I was thinking for a second that it's a trial demo till April 8th then I realized that doesn't make sense at all. And Unity confirmed it wasn't themselves too
Wyndstryker
Member
Free
*Checks unity site and sees a 500 error*
I think I'll be checking up on this till i get a download. Unity is something I've been considering about getting my friends and I to use for sometime.
Teknopathetic
Member
Both of those licenses combined are 800$, so if you think you'll ever remotely consider using Unity for mobile game development, it doesn't hurt to snag them.
Yeah, git can be run locally and I use it that way a lot.
Can't get to the store to check out the licenses.
Stupid question, but where do you go on the site to get those? I see the download option mention the unity pro and android trial stuff, but I don't see a mention of free licenses. *edit* Oh, the store. Yeah, that's down for me.
lordfroakie
Member
RagePixel is aw...wait, paid "power ups?" :/
Teknopathetic
Member
"RagePixel is aw...wait, paid "power ups?" :/"
Powerups is just the silly name the guy thought up for the add-ons he plans to sell. I don't really mind the idea, depending on the prices (he says the Text one will be "cheap"), considering the base package is free.
Powerups is just the silly name the guy thought up for the add-ons he plans to sell. I don't really mind the idea, depending on the prices (he says the Text one will be "cheap"), considering the base package is free.
Holy shit dude, thank you *so* much for pointing this out. A friend and I have been working on our Unity iOS game for a few months now, juggling trials, and we were at the point where we were going to plunk down the 400 just so we could continue working.
This is an insane deal. And a real life-saver. And for anyone serious about mobile development, an absolute must-have.
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