The Game Developer Thread

care to share your creation?

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

It won't win any awards, but it does work: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-27/?action=preview&uid=10994

Do you highlight everything looking for secret messages?

For those of you still trying to get some programming knowledge under your belt, might I suggest thenewboston? He's got a good number of programming tutorials on his youtube, as well as other bits of practical knowledge like how to make beer :D

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

I'd be interested in learning animation and working with rendering in video games. But all the tutorials seem to best me. They seem to be intended for someone who already has knowledge of art I don't or refer to features I don't have. I have both Auto Desk Maya and Adobe Flash if that'll help. I know other game devs on this place are also probably artists. Hopefully this is not off topic. I already asked in the Visual Arts board but got no response.

METAL GEAR!?

You do need at least some grounding in the basic art concepts for a number of things to make sense, even if you don't draw or paint to a high standard. You might want to get a basic drawing book and work through it, or take an intro drawing course if you're at the college level, particularly for animation. Rendering goes much more into the science end of things; optics, color theory, light calculation and so on.

Neither of those subjects (animation and rendering) are ones I'm especially strong with so I don't have good end-all, be all resources, but there's a few tidbits of stuff I've picked up.

• The Twelve Principles of Animation. Here's they are on another site with some illustrations. Plugging the term into a search engine will yield other options including video references. Here's a rundown on John Lasseter's paper on applying them to computer animation, figured out in the days before Pixar was a big name.

• Animation Analysis of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Even if you don't like ponies, these are really cool breakdowns of scenes and Flash techniques from the show, and I've got to give the FIM fandom credit: the quality of fan animation coming out of that community is impressive and increasingly approaching or meeting show-quality work.

I...don't have much for rendering, really. I own a book, but I've never gotten all the way through it as other priorities emerged.

You didn't say how far in you are with just doing basic Maya or Flash stuff, but most of the full textbooks I've used in the past just to learn the programs don't assume a prior art background. 3d Buzz is also a good site for video tutorials.

I have basic art concepts down but not much else. My anatomy and character designs are downright awful ATM but my backgrounds are alright.

Thank you these look like these can help.

METAL GEAR!?

Character drawing and anatomy pretty much boils down to lots and lots of practice. If at any point you can take a life drawing class that uses live human models (check your local community college, they're likely to be relatively affordable and open enrolment, some areas may also have art centers or galleries that offer classes), I highly recommend it. But get it wherever you can.

Are there any forum members here willing to give feedback on gameplay mechanics? I have (or rather, should presently complete) a prototype of a mechanic that I'm experimenting with, and I'm looking for input on how well it works (indeed, whether it works for the intended purpose at all), any suggestions for improvement, etc.

[edit] Note: it's a very much pre-alpha prototype: only the relevant mechanics themselves are implemented (and one minigame to stand in for another gameplay segment), and the art is pretty much terrible. On the other hand, it shouldn't take long to get through.

edited 21st Apr '14 9:52:26 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

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I can help out. Currently have nothing but time and knowledge.

Long live Cinematech. FC:0259-0435-4987

Thank you. ^_^

Here it is. (Windows 32-bit installer. I might be able to build for other targets, depending on what they are, and should be able to make a web-based version, if preferred.)

Please excuse the horrible graphics. ^^;

Instructions in brief:
You're headed out to a tower on a lake, there to start a new life. Your route is your own to choose. (On your map, look for the tower to the east, on a lake.)

These gameplay elements are intended to be the "overworld" phase of a game that otherwise revolves around first-person realtime exploration with incidents of action peppered throughout—not an action game, please note, but rather a game that has some action elements.

There's a simple day-night cycle of sorts; night can be pretty dark, so I've included a "camp" button that toggles a higher rate of passage of time, allowing you to skip nights.

To figure out which way you're facing, look down: you should see your compass.

There are three "levels" hidden about the game-world; these take you to a stand-in minigame in which you kill orange blobs while avoiding blue blobs—note that you can only kill the orange blobs by back-stabbing them. Each is accessed by finding the level-entrance, then interacting with it. (Bonus: post your high-score at this minigame! ;))

Controls:

Open the options menu (which allows one to rebind key-mappings and set various options) ——- o

View the map ——- Tab

Move forward ——- w

Rotate view ——- Mouse

Look at objects ——- Right mouse button

Interact ——- Left mouse button

Camp (accelerate time) ——- c

edited 21st Apr '14 4:30:29 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

Okay, first I have to ask: is the spawn rate of the blue blobs in the mini-game supposed to ratchet up with time? By the time I got to 140 points, the spawning got crazy. Managed 160 before being overwhelmed.

Second, when it gets dark, you can't see the reading on your compass at all. Is that intentional?

Third, if you hadn't told me what the controls were, I likely would've been confused out of my mind. Not having a prompt for basic controls (such as a readable sign in-game) isn't a player-friendly move.

Fourth, I really liked the implementation of the transition sequences. It was a neat little effect.

Fifth, you might want to consider making a title menu of some kind, possibly also to contain the basic story outside of interacting with the boat and tower.

All in all, sound and functional, as a prototype should be. Keep at it.

edited 21st Apr '14 5:36:33 PM by nomuru2d

Long live Cinematech. FC:0259-0435-4987

Thank you for the feedback. ^_^

Heh, the spawn-rate is indeed intended to increase. It isn't a perfect gameplay mechanic, I do realise—but in all fairness, it's just a throwaway minigame, intended to break up the "overworld" gameplay as other gameplay elements would be intended to do in the full game, so it has its issues. ^^;

I think that I've managed to get a little above 200 points (by which point my computer was starting to chug a little, as I recall).

Hmm... It's accidental, but given how dark it can get in some areas (the forest especially), travelling at night can be problematic even without the compass-visibility issue. At the moment I'm not sure of how best to handle night-time; I'm tempted to remove the day-night cycle entirely...

You're right, of course—but again, this is just a mechanics prototype: the story is just there to provide a final goal (and because I love stories), and the full game would, I intend, have a main menu, a tutorial section, and space enough to ease the player into the mechanics.

However, I think that you're right: even as a prototype, I should probably include a brief "main menu" on which to include the story and controls, so thank you for mentioning that. ^_^

Ah, I'm very glad to read that; for one thing, I've been worried that they might be a little too much, and become tedious.

Thank you! ^_^

edited 22nd Apr '14 7:59:02 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

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is the indie gaming bubble popping?

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

I'm sorry, but I heartily disagree with the writer: that snake is cute! ;P

More seriously:

Hmm... The writer makes some points that do indeed seem reasonable, and thus worrying to me as an aspirant game developer.

(On the plus side, he also states that the really small developers—which would, I believe, include me—aren't in quite as much trouble as those at the medium level.)

I don't have access to actual numbers, so I'm not really in a position to properly debate his reasoning, but it does seem likely that there is at least somewhat of a glut of titles these days. I'm inclined to expect that the quality of a given title will still affect its chances of doing well to some degree. Sturgeon's Law should hold, I imagine, and thus there should be a great many titles that are overlooked and sink out of sight fairly quickly, while at least some of the better titles should be noticed and word of them spread; I'm inclined to imagine that this might mitigate to some degree the effect that he's describing.

However, I do think that he has a point overall, and his conclusion that we're leaving the gold-rush days of indie development may well be accurate.

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Smacks of the 1983 video game crash, doesn't it? But don't worry—like any economic downturn, it will work itself out. It's called capitalism. It isn't all bad, you know.

With that out of the way, I'd like to know if this idea is within the scope of a brand-new indie developer:

Last Stand America (working title) would be a turn-based strategy game. The premise is that the US is invaded from all sides by an alliance of its worst enemies. The player's job is to defend various American cities and states from attack, all the while dealing with limited resources, overwhelming odds and nationwide panic. It would be heavily influenced by XCOM Enemy Unknown, especially the ground combat, but it would also bring new elements to the table, such as a more complex air combat system and even naval combat. It's pretty much my dream game.

edited 23rd May '14 3:07:47 PM by TooManyIdeas

please call me "XionKuriyama" or some variation, thanks! | What is the good deed that you can do right now?

I'm not sure that I'm in a position to answer conclusively, but I think that the answer would likely depend heavily on how many people you have in your team, how complex the game is, whether any of the gameplay had been done before and what middleware/tools (if any) you're planning on using.

I don't know your game or team sufficiently well to comment on it specifically, I fear.

Actually, it occurs to me that I have a question of my own: I love the writing community that we have over at Writer's Block and World Building, and would like to find something similar for game development. Unfortunately, we don't seem to have terribly many developers here, so, does anyone have a recommendation of a game development community? In particular, I'm looking for a place to get feedback on gameplay mechanics, rather than a place to find technical advice (such as help with programming issues).

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^^^While sturgeon's law may hold, quality is way less correlated with popularity than marketing is.

^^RT Ses are notoriously hard to balance, so keep that in mind

edited 23rd May '14 7:31:09 PM by ch00beh

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

I think /r/gamedev runs feedback threads every Friday for prototypes.

/r/...? That's part of 4chan, isn't it? I'm... not sure that I'd be comfortable going there, to be honest. ^^;

Thank you, nevertheless. ^_^

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I think he means Reddit.

I couldn't conceive a dream so wet; your bongos make me congo.

Ah, I see—I don't know quite how I feel about Reddit just yet, but it's worth thinking about. Thank you for clarifying. ^_^

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And I am now imagining what would happen if I posted The Turtle Who Had Wings on 4chan for feedback. I imagine the responses would be... let's say "less than constructive".

Reddit is either a gigantic circle jerk or apretty great place. Surprisingly they've got a really good sports community, and the medium sized indie game dubs like dwarf fortress and kerbal space program are good, too, but I find neck beards are a bit more insufferable in the popular nerdy subs

"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story." Twitter

Well, that depends on what you consider to be "constructive", surely. I'm sure that one could produce something out of the responses. :P

Hmm... What about Game Dev.net? I have an old account with them, I believe (I have no idea whether it's still active), but haven't been back in quite a long time, in part because my perception is that it's more technology-focussed than gameplay-/creatively- focussed.

edited 24th May '14 3:05:08 PM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

If anyone ever wanted to poke at RPG Maker, it's this weeks Humble Weekly Sale along with a bunch of resource packs and a few games (the best known being To The Moon). $12 gets you everything. It's in conjunction with both parties sponsoring a contest that goes through the month of June (you don't have to use RPG Maker to enter, or specifically make an RPG, but the contest is split into RPG and Other).

...I'm not necessarily going to commit to the contest but I did pick up the bundle. I've been going through a lot of RL crap lately and my motivation to fight with code and/or learning curves is low, but there's a project bouncing around in my head that would actually fit well with it.

edited 29th May '14 5:14:19 PM by Elle