Indie Game Development |OT 2018| Come, help, learn, show and tell!

Weltall Zero · May 2, 2018

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
Really interesting! I didn't know about this concept of "rubber ducking". My tendency is to try and organise my thoughts by writing down notes about all the steps I'll need to go through (which I then never look at again). I guess it's quite similar, just without a real person and/or duck.

it is similar. I feel another person works best, because you have to drill down to the point where it's understandable by someone else. Whereas "notes to self" (and / or rubber ducks :) ) don't place a hard restriction on how understandable you have to be.

Another thing that works well is simply commenting the code as if someone else was going to work on your game, with the added bonus that you end up with commented code, of course. Which is as much help for your future self as it would be for an actual different person.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
In this case, I have a relatively clear idea of how to achieve the functionality I want... it just involves a lot of steps. Today I got through this one:

Wow, nice, that was very quick! I'm assuming you use something similar to good ol' flood fill, but with tiles instead of pixels? (i.e. something like a breadth-first search).

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
That wasn't even a task particularly unique to procedural generation, it's just that it takes time to set it all up. Also I was really not in the flow this evening coding-wise... You know that feeling where somehow every single change you make has unintended consequences that mean changing something else?

I wish I could say I don't, but I'd be lying through my teeth. :D

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
(Also that feeling where a bug you're struggling to fix turns out to be because you put a curly bracket in the wrong place...)

Yeah, it's similar to the feeling I had about a week ago when I found out the cause behind an utterly mysterious and unexplainable bug that evaded debugging and logging. This one caused things to appear and disappear from the game when you activate your character's Ultimate Attack. This is triggered by pressing Melee and Ranged at the same time... respectively bound to Ctrl and Z :D . If I had realized the bug only happened when playing the game in the editor, I guess I'd have figured it out earlier!

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
Anyway, now that this is sorted, the rest boils down to: Make a node graph of the floor regions, find all potential ports between regions, and fill in ports until the regions are all accessible. For the ports, I'll start off with stairs as these will be relatively easy, but ultimately I want to add extra paths to link more distant regions.

So for now you're doing the above separately for each "screen", that is, the idea is to have all floor regions in a single "screen" accessible from within the screen, without going through a different screen? The alternative would be to construct a dungeon-wide graph of all the regions in all the screens, and make a fully connected graph out of all of them combining same-screen stairs and adjacent-screen doors, right?

I have an intuition the latter would not be significantly harder in the long run (you have to compute adjacent-connecting doors sooner or later anyway) and would result in richer dungeons, while doing the former first could mean coding a significant amount of work you'd later throw away, but obviously you have given this much more thought and are able to calibrate it better.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
There's also the extra wrinkle of doors which aren't meant to be accessible from other doors (which the dungeon layout routine does allow for), but I'm hoping that won't cause too much extra work.

Doors accessible from other doors? You mean one-way doors? I'm somewhat lost here with this bit.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
Another interesting link! I agree with everything you say, while also not knowing exactly how I'll feel by the time my game is in shape to actually get more feedback =)

Try showing the game to friends and then carefully considering what feedback they give you as if they were your bosses, that's good training. I pretty much treat my friends as bosses for the purposes of this game, making an effort to regularly send them new version with meaningful new content, etc; it keeps me revved up and motivated.

Jintor · May 2, 2018

i feel so happy i managed to work out how to implement knockback on my own

i'm really glad past me left a shittonne of comments in the code even if the code is kind of mangled and bad

Brushguy Woodthreep · May 2, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
it is similar. I feel another person works best, because you have to drill down to the point where it's understandable by someone else. Whereas "notes to self" (and / or rubber ducks :) ) don't place a hard restriction on how understandable you have to be.

I guess it depends what the goal is. Often I'm at the stage where a problem is involved enough that I can't really make sense of how to approach it. So you could say that phrasing things in a way that I can understand is already an achievement =) But I see your point.

Weltall Zero said:
I'm assuming you use something similar to good ol' flood fill, but with tiles instead of pixels? (i.e. something like a breadth-first search).

It's very, very similar to good ol' flood fill. By which I mean, it's good ol' flood fill.

:P

Weltall Zero said:
Yeah, it's similar to the feeling I had about a week ago when I found out the cause behind an utterly mysterious and unexplainable bug that evaded debugging and logging. This one caused things to appear and disappear from the game when you activate your character's Ultimate Attack. This is triggered by pressing Melee and Ranged at the same time... respectively bound to Ctrl and Z :D . If I had realized the bug only happened when playing the game in the editor, I guess I'd have figured it out earlier!

Haha, now that is an epic bug! Thanks for sharing this story. Very relatable.

Weltall Zero said:
So for now you're doing the above separately for each "screen", that is, the idea is to have all floor regions in a single "screen" accessible from within the screen, without going through a different screen? The alternative would be to construct a dungeon-wide graph of all the regions in all the screens, and make a fully connected graph out of all of them combining same-screen stairs and adjacent-screen doors, right?

I don't think that's necessary, and I'll explain why by answering your other question...

Weltall Zero said:
Doors accessible from other doors?

I mean that when you enter a room, you will sometimes find that every exit is reachable from the door you entered from, but you will sometimes have areas that are "cut off" and not reachable at all unless you enter the room from a different door.

See this example where I've added stairs. Every part of the room can be reached from every door:

Compare to this example where instead, I've added a platform between two of the floor regions, which you can walk underneath. It's essentially two separate "rooms" in one:

This allows for situations where you pass through a room one way, then later come back to the same room, passing through it a different way (e.g. higher paths and lower paths).

I think this is more or less what you were suggesting, right? But in my system, whether a room does this or not is already decided earlier in the process as part of the overall dungeon layout. The challenge is just reflecting that in the room layout, i.e. only connecting the regions that should be connected, not connecting the ones that shouldn't be connected.

Weltall Zero said:
I have an intuition the latter would not be significantly harder in the long run (you have to compute adjacent-connecting doors sooner or later anyway) and would result in richer dungeons, while doing the former first could mean coding a significant amount of work you'd later throw away, but obviously you have given this much more thought and are able to calibrate it better.

The door positions, and how they connect, are set already by the time the room generation happens. That's part of the overall dungeon layout as well.

So if I did want to make one big node graph of all the floor regions, the easiest way would probably be to do it room by room (as I'm planning), then link it all together based on shared doors. If there is a clear way this would make the dungeons richer then I'm open to it - it wouldn't really mean throwing anything away. But as noted above, I think I've already covered what you have in mind. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

Weltall Zero · May 2, 2018

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
I guess it depends what the goal is. Often I'm at the stage where a problem is involved enough that I can't really make sense of how to approach it. So you could say that phrasing things in a way that I can understand is already an achievement =) But I see your point.

Making notes is also a good way, don't take me wrong. It's similar to comments in that as a bonus you end up with "documentation" for your project. Explaining to someone else is the best, especially if they're developers too, as they'll ask questions, and that might be the one thing that makes your lightbulb turn on. Since I've worked in multi-dev environments pretty much my whole life, this has always been an option (except, of course, you don't want to do that for every little problem...). Being a solo indie dev is a new experience in that I have to figure out everything myself, which is improving my self-confidence too. So every work context has its advantages, I guess.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
It's very, very similar to good ol' flood fill. By which I mean, it's good ol' flood fill.

:P

Hahah, well, if it ain't broken... My own overworld map generation algorithm is textbook Voronoi.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
Haha, now that is an epic bug! Thanks for sharing this story. Very relatable.

I have to say it was worth it just for how much I laughed afterwards. :D

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
I don't think that's necessary, and I'll explain why by answering your other question...

I mean that when you enter a room, you will sometimes find that every exit is reachable from the door you entered from, but you will sometimes have areas that are "cut off" and not reachable at all unless you enter the room from a different door.

See this example where I've added stairs. Every part of the room can be reached from every door:

Compare to this example where instead, I've added a platform between two of the floor regions, which you can walk underneath. It's essentially two separate "rooms" in one:

This allows for situations where you pass through a room one way, then later come back to the same room, passing through it a different way (e.g. higher paths and lower paths).

I think this is more or less what you were suggesting, right?

Yes, exactly! Also I understand what you mean now; I was thinking you meant of a way to get from one door to another directly, not through the dungeon.

Brushguy Woodthreep said:
But in my system, whether a room does this or not is already decided earlier in the process as part of the overall dungeon layout. The challenge is just reflecting that in the room layout, i.e. only connecting the regions that should be connected, not connecting the ones that shouldn't be connected.

The door positions, and how they connect, are set already by the time the room generation happens. That's part of the overall dungeon layout as well.

So if I did want to make one big node graph of all the floor regions, the easiest way would probably be to do it room by room (as I'm planning), then link it all together based on shared doors. If there is a clear way this would make the dungeons richer then I'm open to it - it wouldn't really mean throwing anything away. But as noted above, I think I've already covered what you have in mind. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

No, you're right! That's exactly what I meant by making dungeons richer, making rooms that you traverse multiple times from different doors. It seems you have everything covered, I'm frankly impressed (yet again)! Really, really cool stuff. :)

SaberVS7 · May 2, 2018

Small but Big thing. Spent 90 minutes of my life trying to get this to work and almost gave up a few times.

(Click to watch, it won't play here for some reason)

If you don't know what you're seeing: The engine is taking a screenshot of a specific point in the tilemap and using it to simulate depth - Entirely at runtime without me having to manually make and program in Depth-dummies. Now I just plop down a blank Depth Dummy over anywhere in the tilemap and it's all done automatically.

Thus, this allows me to make 1x1x2 Pillars like these only take up 1x1 meters of 2D space in collision, whereas before they had to be 1x2 because the player would render over them otherwise. That, and I can also properly represent halfwalls and other static non-interactive geometry shorter than the player in the tilemap itself now.

With (Where's Kaufman?)

Without (How to get laughed off Kickstarter)

Weltall Zero · May 3, 2018

Wow, it's amazing that you'd need to do something so complex for such a common effect. Unity makes this pretty easy with sorting layers and order, although I did have to do a bit of trickery to get everything to render in the proper order in the overworld map (bridge ropes on top of vehicles on top of bridges on top of ships on top of water on top of grass).

Finjitzu · May 3, 2018

If I have a project in Unity 4 can I do a straight upgrade from 4 to 2018? Or should I go 5 to 2017 to 2018?

JeffG · May 3, 2018

Finjitzu said:
If I have a project in Unity 4 can I do a straight upgrade from 4 to 2018? Or should I go 5 to 2017 to 2018?

Make a backup first, but try going straight to 2018

SaberVS7 · May 3, 2018

And with over an hour to spare before I have to hang up my coat and head to my other job, I've already completely my Agenda for today.

Finally added Dialog Choices to AJRF's dialog-engine. It supports up to five choices per-prompt (with an assumed minimum of two), skillchecks, and everything else expected of it.

Sean Noonan · May 3, 2018

Fixing up the menus for the PC/Mac version...

Jintor · May 3, 2018

SaberVS7 said:
And with over an hour to spare before I have to hang up my coat and head to my other job, I've already completely my Agenda for today.

Finally added Dialog Choices to AJRF's dialog-engine. It supports up to five choices per-prompt (with an assumed minimum of two), skillchecks, and everything else expected of it.

I like to pick 'em off from a distance. I'll take the rifle.

Added more knockback code yesterday for wallslams and added some 'if you're inside another object gradually push out' code so now you won't get stuck inside other objects if collision is off and then turned on. Characters still getting stuck in walls though occasionally, I think a pixel is clipping.

I'm holding back on the gifs right now...

SaberVS7 · May 3, 2018

Jintor said:
I like to pick 'em off from a distance. I'll take the rifle.

Meanwhile on the other place I posted this:

Give me the GEP gun.

Jintor · May 3, 2018

i mean the gep gun is actually the best choice because the other two you can find on liberty island

Alek · May 4, 2018

Randoboy said:
It's here! I can't believe it's launch day!

You can buy my dang game now!
https://monothetic.itch.io/beacon

I'm gonna go faint...

Game looks great dude. Best of luck with the launch. I hope it makes it's way over to console eventually.

Pooh · May 4, 2018

So is anybody getting stuff from the Unity Asset Store May Madness sale?

A ton of stuff is on big sale. Today the CCG pack is 70% off, each day they seem to have a new thing off at 70% off.

Minamu · May 4, 2018

Pooh said:
So is anybody getting stuff from the Unity Asset Store May Madness sale?

A ton of stuff is on big sale. Today the CCG pack is 70% off, each day they seem to have a new thing off at 70% off.

I'm looking at the NAT Travseral package, it's about 12 euros off. I want it, still haven't convinced my team though. I'm not finding a complete and easy to read list of what's on sale though, got any tips there?

JeffG · May 4, 2018

Pooh said:
So is anybody getting stuff from the Unity Asset Store May Madness sale?

A ton of stuff is on big sale. Today the CCG pack is 70% off, each day they seem to have a new thing off at 70% off.

I picked up a sword and shield animation pack

Pooh · May 4, 2018

Minamu said:
I'm looking at the NAT Travseral package, it's about 12 euros off. I want it, still haven't convinced my team though. I'm not finding a complete and easy to read list of what's on sale though, got any tips there?

Unfortunately not... the easiest thing is to go here: https://assetstore.unity.com/search?q=on_sale:yes
Then use the various filters to narrow down the different types of assets you're looking for.

Jintor · May 4, 2018

it's finally #screenshotsaturday! and I can show off a little bit!

Pooh · May 5, 2018

JeffG said:
I picked up a sword and shield animation pack

Which one? How is it>?

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

I'm beyond exhausted and everyday starts to feel the same (cue "I got you, babe" from Groundhog Day) but here's the start of the coloring process, before... a dozen more weeks of the same thing :v

Dynamite Shikoku · May 5, 2018

It'll be worth it!

JeffG · May 5, 2018

Pooh said:
Which one? How is it>?

https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/3d/animations/sword-and-shield-animset-pro-26876

I like it.

jahasaja · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
I'm beyond exhausted and everyday starts to feel the same (cue "I got you, babe" from Groundhog Day) but here's the start of the coloring process, before... a dozen more weeks of the same thing :v

Looks great! That should be able to be done with a good podcast in the background no?

I enjoy switching between programming and animations. I know when I go back to animations I can have a nice podcast or a Netflix show in the background. For programming thought I need complete silence or perhaps some FF6 music.

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

Dynamite Shikoku said:
It'll be worth it!

Hopefully it will, admittedly I'm not in the best of mental places these days so I'm seeing the glass half (or all) empty more often than not. I'll swing around eventually as I usually do, but I can't wait to be done with... all of this :-)

jahasaja said:
Looks great! That should be able to be done with a good podcast in the background no?

I enjoy switching between programming and animations. I know when I go back to animations I can have a nice podcast or a Netflix show in the background. For programming thought I need complete silence or perhaps some FF6 music.

Heh, yeah, that's one net positive from all of this time, I can have netflix and/or audiobooks playing in the background and listen to shows as I work, as it's mostly a mechanical process by now and requires very little actual creative thought. Been catching up and discovering a number of things that way :-D

RZetko · May 5, 2018

I meant to post this here but totally forgot during the week. Marmoset Hexels 3 - great tool for low-poly, pixel and similar art is currently 50% off (22,50€ or 24,50$) on steam and developer's page https://www.marmoset.co/hexels/. It will be up only for next ~2 and a half hours so if you're at least slightly interested take a look at it.

Jintor · May 5, 2018

Implemented screenshake and hitstop today which has significantly upped the gamefeel I think

Screenshake was kind of a no-brainer implementation based off the Shaun Spaulding tutorial, but I'm still wearing on hitstop.

Right now I basically have a globalvar which is the hitstop timer, and a controller object which counts down the timer until it hits 0 (and holds it at zero if it goes into the negatives). Then I have a sleep code for the Begin Step for the parent entity for most things which sleeps an object based on the global hitstop. Basically something like this which runs in everything (pseudocode cos I don't really want to open up GM again tonight).

Code:

var endtime = get_time() + global.time*60
do { } until (get_time() >= endtime)

I'm thinking this is a bit inefficient though - I'm getting frame drops if I hit like 20 enemies at once, which is probably not going to happen in the actual game but is happening in testing. It also means every single entity is constantly calling the global var (I think?)

Any thoughts on hitstop implementation?

I think there might be something to do with surfaces and drawing etc, but I don't know if I'm there yet.

Weltall Zero · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
Hopefully it will, admittedly I'm not in the best of mental places these days so I'm seeing the glass half (or all) empty more often than not. I'll swing around eventually as I usually do, but I can't wait to be done with... all of this :-)

I'm so very sorry to hear that. I myself tend to have pretty hard motivation swings (to put it lightly) so I strongly empathize. :(
Is there absolutely anything I can do to help you? If you need someone to talk with, please don't hesitate to PM me. Let me give you a virtual hug and say your game has the potential to be revolutionary and one of the most beautiful games of all time, indie or not.

Jintor said:
Implemented screenshake and hitstop today which has significantly upped the gamefeel I think

Screenshake was kind of a no-brainer implementation based off the Shaun Spaulding tutorial, but I'm still wearing on hitstop.

Right now I basically have a globalvar which is the hitstop timer, and a controller object which counts down the timer until it hits 0 (and holds it at zero if it goes into the negatives). Then I have a sleep code for the Begin Step for the parent entity for most things which sleeps an object based on the global hitstop. Basically something like this which runs in everything (pseudocode cos I don't really want to open up GM again tonight).

Code:

var endtime = get_time() + global.time*60 do { } until (get_time() >= endtime)

I'm thinking this is a bit inefficient though - I'm getting frame drops if I hit like 20 enemies at once, which is probably not going to happen in the actual game but is happening in testing. It also means every single entity is constantly calling the global var (I think?)

Any thoughts on hitstop implementation?

I think there might be something to do with surfaces and drawing etc, but I don't know if I'm there yet.

Never do a "empty loop until" to wait for an event! This makes the processor work at max speed doing nothing but check the condition thousands of times per second!
Alternatives:
- Move the rest of the function into a second function, then, in Update (or whatever gets called every frame in GameMaker), check the time, and call this second function if appropriate.
- (Advanced) Use whatever is the GameMaker equivalent of coroutines (check a tutorial for these).

Jintor · May 5, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
Never do a "empty loop until" to wait for an event! This makes the processor work at max speed doing nothing but check the condition thousands of times per second!
Alternatives:
- Move the rest of the function into a second function, then, in Update (or whatever gets called every frame in GameMaker), check the time, and call this second function if appropriate.
- (Advanced) Use whatever is the GameMaker equivalent of coroutines (check a tutorial for these).

I had an inkling it was probably bad practice (though honestly I just reverse engineered it out of the Vlambeer Wasteland Kings code which I had lying around...) :P

Could you explain the first option a bit more? I'm a bit loopy and don't quite understand it...

RoyalJL · May 5, 2018

Hello, I need to ask for a little favor:

I'm planning to release my game the next week. I wrote all the text for the steam store, but english is not my first language, I think is correct but I'm not 100% sure. And at this point i'm little paranoid over details.

So I want to ask to any english native speaker to check/proofread the text from the store. I will be very gratefull.

Welcome to Cosmic Trail, a skill-based 3d platformer game.

Take control of a little spaceship that needs to get to the portal at the end of each trail in only 32 seconds. In each trail you'll have to use the jump and turbo impulse capabilities of your ship to be able to traverse the obstacles. You have infinite retries and will respawn inmediately on death (yes, it's that kind of game).

This game started as a tribute to an old MsDOS classic game, but as the development progressed it became its own thing. Its philosophy design is based on having shorter and denser levels for a more challenging experience and more freedom of movement for a more precise and skill-based feeling with the controls.

The game was made with our own game engine, RoyalLib3, programmed in C++ and OpenGL, and uses our voxel rendering technology with custom shaders for the lighting and ambient occlusion.

Features:

20 levels (trails) to master. From the simpler ones, for learning the basics, up to incredible challenges to conquer.

Each level has his own mechanical design, all levels are different, no two levels feel similar, there is no filler.

Easy to play, hard to master.

Play with your keyboard or your gamepad (compatible with XB, PS and NSW gamepads).

Compete with the world in the Steam Leaderboards. Try to beat the best times!

Compatible with high refresh rate monitors for a more than 60fps experiencie (like GSync)

I hope you enjoy the game. :)

PD: For this project is too late, but for the next one, I will try to put here the progress of the development.

Weltall Zero · May 5, 2018

Jintor said:
I had an inkling it was probably bad practice (though honestly I just reverse engineered it out of the Vlambeer Wasteland Kings code which I had lying around...) :P

Could you explain the first option a bit more? I'm a bit loopy and don't quite understand it...

GameMaker studio seems to be quite different to Unity and I have zero experience to the former, so you'll have to do some research. From a bit of googling, it seems the equivalent to Update is Step; however, it seems to also have Alarm events that seem to do exactly what you want, i.e. trigger an event after a set amount of time:
https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/000_using gamemaker/events/alarm event.html
So you'd enable hitstop state, then set an alarm to fire at X time, and end the function there. You would then create an event that is triggered when the alarm goes off, and this event ends the hitstop state.

Another thing is that I'd make the hitstop timer specific to each object. This solves many cases where you, say, hit several enemies but not all at once; each one would exit hitstop at a different time.

missile · May 5, 2018

RoyalJL said:
...

Can you please remove your steam ad? This thread is not for advertising games.
You can also ask all the questions and put your text without hitting us with a
fukking huge buy button. Thx!

RoyalJL · May 5, 2018

missile said:
Can you please remove your steam ad? This thread is not for advertising games.
You can also ask all the questions and put your text without hitting us with a
fukking huge buy button. Thx!

It wasn't my intention at all. I fixed with putting the text directly.

missile · May 5, 2018

^ Thx again! We've got a bit picky about ads, because it will hamper game
development discussion, for, people will just merely post their finished games
in a fire-and-forget style abusing the thread as an adverticing platform which
will at the same time reduce interest for other people to post in here who
want to have some discussions about their games in the making. Hope you
understand.

Jintor · May 5, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
GameMaker studio seems to be quite different to Unity and I have zero experience to the former, so you'll have to do some research. From a bit of googling, it seems the equivalent to Update is Step; however, it seems to also have Alarm events that seem to do exactly what you want, i.e. trigger an event after a set amount of time:
https://docs.yoyogames.com/source/dadiospice/000_using gamemaker/events/alarm event.html
So you'd enable hitstop state, then set an alarm to fire at X time, and end the function there. You would then create an event that is triggered when the alarm goes off, and this event ends the hitstop state.

Another thing is that I'd make the hitstop timer specific to each object. This solves many cases where you, say, hit several enemies but not all at once; each one would exit hitstop at a different time.

Thanks mate I'll give it a shot

trugs26 · May 5, 2018

RoyalJL said:
Hello, I need to ask for a little favor:

I'm planning to release my game the next week. I wrote all the text for the steam store, but english is not my first language, I think is correct but I'm not 100% sure. And at this point i'm little paranoid over details.

So I want to ask to any english native speaker to check/proofread the text from the store. I will be very gratefull.

PD: For this project is too late, but for the next one, I will try to put here the progress of the development.

Here's my suggested edits (sorry displaying it on the forum is difficult, so i just screenshotted it):

Bold means that the sentence is okay, but doesn't flow very nicely.

Ignore squiggly underline under "Leaderboards" - it's fine.

EDIT: I'd drop the word "philosophy" altogether as well.

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
I'm so very sorry to hear that. I myself tend to have pretty hard motivation swings (to put it lightly) so I strongly empathize. :(
Is there absolutely anything I can do to help you? If you need someone to talk with, please don't hesitate to PM me. Let me give you a virtual hug and say your game has the potential to be revolutionary and one of the most beautiful games of all time, indie or not.

You're far too kind, thank you so much! I don't want you to worry, I have very frequent ups and downs, and I'm used to them enough that I can manage on my own by now (and if and when I can't, I'll be sure to take you up on your offer). Either way, I very much appreciate your kind words and thoughts!

I'm far less positive than you on the potential of Pacha right now (especially concerned about difficulty/accessibilty, representation, and the issue of cultural appropriation), but I'm afraid there's not much I can do right now beyond what I'm already doing, so I just have to keep trucking on and hope for the best. Just felt safe enough to let a bit of steam loose in here, since I'm pretty sure we're all well aware indie devving isn't fun and roses every day - but many others have it a lot worse than me, so I didn't want to come off as complaning too much, just wanted to share a bit of the ol' anxiety :-D

missile · May 5, 2018

RoyalJL said:
Hello, I need to ask for a little favor:

I'm planning to release my game the next week. I wrote all the text for the steam store, but english is not my first language, I think is correct but I'm not 100% sure. And at this point i'm little paranoid over details.

So I want to ask to any english native speaker to check/proofread the text from the store. I will be very gratefull.

PD: For this project is too late, but for the next one, I will try to put here the progress of the development.

I will add that you may also put in the first paragraph "why" the game is
fun and/or thrilling to play. You may also want to entice the player to have
his/her own take. It sounds a bit boring at the moment. ;)

missile · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
I'm beyond exhausted and everyday starts to feel the same (cue "I got you, babe" from Groundhog Day) but here's the start of the coloring process, before... a dozen more weeks of the same thing :v

There are just a handful of game/graphics I say Jesus when watching.
That's an insane amount of fine crafted work you do here. Keep going!

SweetSark · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
You're far too kind, thank you so much! I don't want you to worry, I have very frequent ups and downs, and I'm used to them enough that I can manage on my own by now (and if and when I can't, I'll be sure to take you up on your offer). Either way, I very much appreciate your kind words and thoughts!

I'm far less positive than you on the potential of Pacha right now (especially concerned about difficulty/accessibilty, representation, and the issue of cultural appropriation), but I'm afraid there's not much I can do right now beyond what I'm already doing, so I just have to keep trucking on and hope for the best. Just felt safe enough to let a bit of steam loose in here, since I'm pretty sure we're all well aware indie devving isn't fun and roses every day - but many others have it a lot worse than me, so I didn't want to come off as complaning too much, just wanted to share a bit of the ol' anxiety :-D

I would like to know if you don't mind with the "cultural appropriation" bit you wrote.
Does it have a specific Theme which is "taboo" for a country?

RoyalJL · May 5, 2018

trugs26 said:
Here's my suggested edits (sorry displaying it on the forum is difficult, so i just screenshotted it):

Bold means that the sentence is okay, but doesn't flow very nicely.

Ignore squiggly underline under "Leaderboards" - it's fine.

EDIT: I'd drop the word "philosophy" altogether as well.

Thanks a lot. I will upload the new corrected text.

Any suggestions for the sentences in bold for better "flow" ?

missile said:
^ Thx again! We've got a bit picky about ads, because it will hamper game
development discussion, for, people will just merely post their finished games
in a fire-and-forget style abusing the thread as an adverticing platform which
will at the same time reduce interest for other people to post in here who
want to have some discussions about their games in the making. Hope you
understand.

I perfectly understand.

I will try to put some videos of the new AI engine i'm working on when I finish with everything of the release.

Weltall Zero · May 5, 2018

I'm not a native English speaker myself and I don't trust my English enough for this, so I'll let the other people in the thread help with that. :)

Pehesse said:
You're far too kind, thank you so much! I don't want you to worry, I have very frequent ups and downs, and I'm used to them enough that I can manage on my own by now (and if and when I can't, I'll be sure to take you up on your offer). Either way, I very much appreciate your kind words and thoughts!

Absolutely no problem at all, man. I hate that there's not much I can do to help you. :( I'm somewhat prone to depression and anxiety myself, so it's always heartbreaking to see someone else suffering from similar downs, and my instinct is always to try to support them as much as I can.

Without any kind of disrespect to the amazing talent at display here, yours is the one game that consistently gives me shivers with how utterly incredible it looks. I can't really put into words how beautiful your animations look to me; everytime you post one is a treat, and I could watch them on repeat for a long time. Absolutely 100% top tier stuff.

Pehesse said:
I'm far less positive than you on the potential of Pacha right now (especially concerned about difficulty/accessibilty, representation, and the issue of cultural appropriation),

Well, the very fact that you're even worrying about these issues puts you above 95% of game developers. Many wouldn't even understand what you mean by these terms! And while I agree that the result is the current gaming landscape of today, it's not fair at all for you to feel like you have to pick up the slack of every single developer out there. Your game is researched and respectful to its source material and has a female main character, that's more representation and cultural respect than the vast majority of AAA games out there.

As for accesibility / difficulty, as I've often argued in the "should Dark Souls have an Easy mode" threads... you can't make a game for everyone, and that's perfectly fine. Making a game easier doesn't mean more people will play it, it just means you're shifting the target audience. So, make the game you want to play, because that's how most of the best games out there are made.

Pehesse said:
but I'm afraid there's not much I can do right now beyond what I'm already doing, so I just have to keep trucking on and hope for the best. Just felt safe enough to let a bit of steam loose in here, since I'm pretty sure we're all well aware indie devving isn't fun and roses every day - but many others have it a lot worse than me, so I didn't want to come off as complaning too much, just wanted to share a bit of the ol' anxiety :-D

Well, what better place to share dev anxieties than here? I mean, if not here, where? :)

It's human to feel insecure and have ups and downs. However it's also human to assume everyone else feels like one does, and that might not be the case. Many devs here are doing it as a hobby while having everyday jobs, which eases of a lot of the pressure. I personally empathize with you because I'm doing this full time and have no prior experience, so anxiety and insecurity is probably to be expected. My biggest source of anxiety is not having a clear idea of how good or bad I'm doing, which is new to me.

AbysmallyTall · May 5, 2018

Randoboy said:
It's here! I can't believe it's launch day!

I'm gonna go faint...

Bought the game. Gave it a few runs and had some questions/feedback.
1. The camera made it a little hard to determine if I was near danger or an obstacle. Plenty of times I thought I could walk over something and it was non obvious that I had to walk around. Likewise, there were several instances where the distance between fire and me suggested I was fine. I was not, in fact, fine.
2. Fire corollary: there were two times when the fire particles had disappeared (after firing the fire pistol) and I stepped into the area and starting burning. Maybe a timing bug?
3. Is there a plan for wide screen support? (not even asking for my 21:9 setup). Most of my enemy encounters only had a split second between enemy alert noise and being completely surrounded. Being able to see farther *should* alleviate that.
4. All the enemies seemed to charge at me the moment they saw me. Which, with point 3, made it tough to react. Especially when enemies will suddenly spawn or drop.
5. On a normal wired 360 gamepad, the right analog aiming seemed to shift between moving quickly and moving like mud. I noticed an autolock, but it tight situations, it locks too slowly to be useful. I felt like I had to be able to spot groups from far away for it to be handy.
6. No B button backing out of menus?
7. Scrolling through menu text with the right analog stick goes waaaaaaay too fast.

Now that the negatives are out of the way, I did dig what I was playing. The music, art, and mood are all great.

Also, I didn't get a chance to ask why, but as my wife walked out the door she saw me playing and said it reminded her of Hyper Light Drifter. I'm guessing the mood and music, but she also liked what she saw.

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

missile said:
There are just a handful of game/graphics I say Jesus when watching.
That's an insane amount of fine crafted work you do here. Keep going!

Coming from you, that's very high praise, so thanks a ton :-D I'm guilty of not participating in the Discord to comment on everyone else's work, but I'm consistently amazed by yours, even though I still understand about none of it - but it looks fantastic :-D

SweetSark said:
I would like to know if you don't mind with the "cultural appropriation" bit you wrote.
Does it have a specific Theme which is "taboo" for a country?

That's a very thorny issue I've already been accused of a little, being French, and not native of the culture I'm attempting to depict. I'm torn between trying to be as truthful as I can to the research I make on the Incan culture, mythology and aesthetics, but I also don't want to make a "100% accurate historical" game (the story and context are loosely based on some myths, but it's not entirely accurate to those texts nor does it aim to be), and I don't know which degree of leeway I have before this mythological fantasy becomes western appropriation - something which is opposite to my goal, as I'd like to give exposure and show respect to on an aesthetic and culture I happened to grow up in some light contact with through some of my parent's experiences (even though I didn't realize it until quite late) despite it not being "my own". Since I'm not an english speaker either (and the relationship to the issue of cultural appropriation here is a bit different from the northern american perspective on it) I have trouble expressing my exact position on this (especially considering my thoughts on the matter aren't themselves 100% solidified either, I'm still learning a lot about all of this every day), but basically, I'd like to do no harm and if at all possible have a positive effect, and fear I might end up doing the opposite despite those wishes by the very nature of what I'm doing.

Weltall Zero said:
I'm not a native English speaker myself and I don't trust my English enough for this, so I'll let the other people in the thread help with that. :)

Absolutely no problem at all, man. I hate that there's not much I can do to help you. :( I'm somewhat prone to depression and anxiety myself, so it's always heartbreaking to see someone else suffering from similar downs, and my instinct is always to try to support them as much as I can.

Without any kind of disrespect to the amazing talent at display here, yours is the one game that consistently gives me shivers with how utterly incredible it looks. I can't really put into words how beautiful your animations look to me; everytime you post one is a treat, and I could watch them on repeat for a long time. Absolutely 100% top tier stuff.

Well, the very fact that you're even worrying about these issues puts you above 95% of game developers. Many wouldn't even understand what you mean by these terms! And while I agree that the result is the current gaming landscape of today, it's not fair at all for you to feel like you have to pick up the slack of every single developer out there. Your game is researched and respectful to its source material and has a female main character, that's more representation and cultural respect than the vast majority of AAA games out there.

As for accessibility / difficulty, as I've often argued in the "should Dark Souls have an Easy mode" threads... you can't make a game for everyone, and that's perfectly fine. Making a game easier doesn't mean more people will play it, it just means you're shifting the target audience. So, make the game you want to play, because that's how most of the best games out there are made.

Well, what better place to share dev anxieties than here? I mean, if not here, where? :)

It's human to feel insecure and have ups and downs. However it's also human to assume everyone else feels like one does, and that might not be the case. Many devs here are doing it as a hobby while having everyday jobs, which eases of a lot of the pressure. I personally empathize with you because I'm doing this full time and have no prior experience, so anxiety and insecurity is probably to be expected. My biggest source of anxiety is not having a clear idea of how good or bad I'm doing, which is new to me.

Again, thank you so much - I'm sorry if my post came off as attention seeking, I was mostly looking to share something I believe most of us can relate here and possibly show to those won't don't that gamedev is sometimes a bit more than just "sit down and code" :-D As you said, if not here, I'm not sure where else I could lay out these sorts of thoughts, so I'm hoping these will be appropriate and end up helping something or someone, somehow!

I'm hoping the research I do on the subject matter will be enough, though as I said above, I'm concerned the very nature of what I'm doing is self-defeating, so I guess I can only prepare to weather the storm if and when it comes. To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit concerned lately that no matter where one's efforts end up, the audience at large is all too willing to take up arms: those against social progress or medium research against it, and those for it, because it's often not enough. In that respect, it can get a bit tiring and worrisome to see the reactions to other's work, and plan for the possible ones to your own stuff.
I'm also a bit concerned that I'm essentially trying to do a very simple game (almost a stylistic exercise - context rather than elaborate narration, no progression system, short length, focus on personal expression rather than systemic complexity, etc), when everyone seemingly expects "more" from creators lately. Maybe I've just been reading forums a little too much lately, is all :-D

Regarding accessibility, yup, I agree and hope to live up to that philosophy, just been reading a lot lately about the importance of "state of failures" and relationship to challenge/difficulty in games, and I sometimes wonder if attempting it with a traditional platformer in this day and age is the most pertinent thing to do. Then, I play Funky Mode in DKC Tropical Freeze, and all is well again for a moment!

Weltall Zero · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
Coming from you, that's very high praise, so thanks a ton :-D I'm guilty of not participating in the Discord to comment on everyone else's work, but I'm consistently amazed by yours, even though I still understand about none of it - but it looks fantastic :-D

I should really drop by the discord myself sometime...

Pehesse said:
That's a very thorny issue I've already been accused of a little, being French, and not native of the culture I'm attempting to depict. I'm torn between trying to be as truthful as I can to the research I make on the Incan culture, mythology and aesthetics, but I also don't want to make a "100% accurate historical" game (the story and context are loosely based on some myths, but it's not entirely accurate to those texts nor does it aim to be), and I don't know which degree of leeway I have before this mythological fantasy becomes western appropriation - something which is opposite to my goal, as I'd like to give exposure and show respect to on an aesthetic and culture I happened to grow up in some light contact with through some of my parent's experiences (even though I didn't realize it until quite late) despite it not being "my own". Since I'm not an english speaker either (and the relationship to the issue of cultural appropriation here is a bit different from the northern american perspective on it) I have trouble expressing my exact position on this (especially considering my thoughts on the matter aren't themselves 100% solidified either, I'm still learning a lot about all of this every day), but basically, I'd like to do no harm and if at all possible have a positive effect, and fear I might end up doing the opposite despite those wishes by the very nature of what I'm doing.

Again, thank you so much - I'm sorry if my post came off as attention seeking, I was mostly looking to share something I believe most of us can relate here and possibly show to those won't don't that gamedev is sometimes a bit more than just "sit down and code" :-D As you said, if not here, I'm not sure where else I could lay out these sorts of thoughts, so I'm hoping these will be appropriate and end up helping something or someone, somehow!

I'm hoping the research I do on the subject matter will be enough, though as I said above, I'm concerned the very nature of what I'm doing is self-defeating, so I guess I can only prepare to weather the storm if and when it comes. To be perfectly honest, I'm a bit concerned lately that no matter where one's efforts end up, the audience at large is all too willing to take up arms: those against social progress or medium research against it, and those for it, because it's often not enough. In that respect, it can get a bit tiring and worrisome to see the reactions to other's work, and plan for the possible ones to your own stuff.
I'm also a bit concerned that I'm essentially trying to do a very simple game (almost a stylistic exercise - context rather than elaborate narration, no progression system, short length, focus on personal expression rather than systemic complexity, etc), when everyone seemingly expects "more" from creators lately. Maybe I've just been reading forums a little too much lately, is all :-D

Regarding accessibility, yup, I agree and hope to live up to that philosophy, just been reading a lot lately about the importance of "state of failures" and relationship to challenge/difficulty in games, and I sometimes wonder if attempting it with a traditional platformer in this day and age is the most pertinent thing to do. Then, I play Funky Mode in DKC Tropical Freeze, and all is well again for a moment!

It's literally impossible to please everyone: indeed, as you say, it's very easy to displease several opposing groups at once. The best we can do is judge everyone's criticisms fairly, but also believe in ourselves when deciding which criticism to listen and which not to. A pretty strong indicator of valuable criticism is specific, constructuve comments; i.e. criticism in the shape of "I think this would be better if you did this" rather than "I think this is bad" (especially if "this" is a very general aspect). People that actually want your game to be better will usually word their criticism like the former, and it's also typically a sign of them having spent more than ten seconds to come up with it, as opposed to hot-taking something they don't personally like.

Also even though I'm usually a strong vocal suporter of social issues (a frequent poster in the "why women dislike sexualization" thread, for example), I'm often skeptical of criticism of "cultural appropriation". For one, the net result of everyone sticking with their own culture is strictly poorer and more homogenous art, and underrepresentaton of cultures that don't have a lot of international authors for whatever reason (to say nothing of actually extinct cultures). Also, more often than not, there seems to be a quite hypocritical assumption of which cultures are fair play when it comes to appropriation, and which ones aren't. I mean, American authors have exactly zero issues using, say, Greek or Norse mythology for their games. Even still extant religions like Hinduism are often portrayed in games (and yes, sometimes it leads to backlash, like in the Smite Kali debacle).

Frankly most of the people I know from relatively less mainstream cultures are delighted when they are depicted in media. Most are even willing to give a pass to gross stereotypes and characterization if it means getting more exposure. I mean, as a Spaniard I don't know anybody that doesn't love that Vega was in Street Fighter, even though his stage couldn't be more cliched if it wanted to. :D You are several orders of magnitude more careful and respectful than Capcom is, so I find it hard to imagine many Peruvians displeased by it.

Actually, I'm thinking, there's a Latino community here that's bound to have several Peruvian members:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/era-latino-community-ot-cries-in-spanish.2145/page-10
I think it might be a good idea (and quite possibly assuage some of your fears and boost your ego :) ) to ask them what they think about your game. There'll probably be no issue with you asking in English, but since I'm Spanish I'll be more than happy to ask on your behalf if you want to!

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
I should really drop by the discord myself sometime...

It's literally impossible to please everyone: indeed, as you say, it's very easy to displease several opposing groups at once. The best we can do is judge everyone's criticisms fairly, but also believe in ourselves when deciding which criticism to listen and which not to. A pretty strong indicator of valuable criticism is specific, constructuve comments; i.e. criticism in the shape of "I think this would be better if you did this" rather than "I think this is bad" (especially if "this" is a very general aspect). People that actually want your game to be better will usually word their criticism like the former, and it's also typically a sign of them having spent more than ten seconds to come up with it, as opposed to hot-taking something they don't personally like.

Also even though I'm usually a strong vocal suporter of social issues (a frequent poster in the "why women dislike sexualization" thread, for example), I'm often skeptical of criticism of "cultural appropriation". For one, the net result of everyone sticking with their own culture is strictly poorer and more homogenous art, and underrepresentaton of cultures that don't have a lot of international authors for whatever reason (to say nothing of actually extinct cultures). Also, more often than not, there seems to be a quite hypocritical assumption of which cultures are fair play when it comes to appropriation, and which ones aren't. I mean, American authors have exactly zero issues using, say, Greek or Norse mythology for their games. Even still extant religions like Hinduism are often portrayed in games (and yes, sometimes it leads to backlash, like in the Smite Kali debacle).

Frankly most of the people I know from relatively less mainstream cultures are delighted when they are depicted in media. Most are even willing to give a pass to gross stereotypes and characterization if it means getting more exposure. I mean, as a Spaniard I don't know anybody that doesn't love that Vega was in Street Fighter, even though his stage couldn't be more cliched if it wanted to. :D You are several orders of magnitude more careful and respectful than Capcom is, so I find it hard to imagine many Peruvians displeased by it.

Actually, I'm thinking, there's a Latino community here that's bound to have several Peruvian members:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/era-latino-community-ot-cries-in-spanish.2145/page-10
I think it might be a good idea (and quite possibly assuage some of your fears and boost your ego :) ) to ask them what they think about your game. There'll probably be no issue with you asking in English, but since I'm Spanish I'll be more than happy to ask on your behalf if you want to!

My word! If everyone was as understanding and empathic as you, we'd be in a very different place altogether :-D Thank you so very much, you've managed to assuage some of my worries already. If anything, I hope I'll sleep a little better tonight!

I'll be sure to post about Pacha in that thread, I didn't know about it, so thanks for that as well! I'll probably wait to be closer to the end of my anim marathon as I don't want to risk disrupting its process, but as soon as I feel ready, I'll be there - and if I think I need it, I might ask for your support once again.

Seriously thanks, all of this talk has perked me up already :-))

_Rob_ · May 5, 2018

Oof, I've been seriously neglecting this thread in favour of Discord! Nevertheless, I'm back to working on CnW's The Chimp, The Bag and the Bunny level!

Weltall Zero · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
My word! If everyone was as understanding and empathic as you, we'd be in a very different place altogether :-D Thank you so very much, you've managed to assuage some of my worries already. If anything, I hope I'll sleep a little better tonight!

I'll be sure to post about Pacha in that thread, I didn't know about it, so thanks for that as well! I'll probably wait to be closer to the end of my anim marathon as I don't want to risk disrupting its process, but as soon as I feel ready, I'll be there - and if I think I need it, I might ask for your support once again.

Seriously thanks, all of this talk has perked me up already :-))

And in turn, knowing I've had a positive impact on you, makes me feel useful and encouraged!

I'm 100% sure a few years from now, when you release your game, I'll tell people "I know the guy who made this!" with a great feeling of pride.

_Rob_ said:
Oof, I've been seriously neglecting this thread in favour of Discord! Nevertheless, I'm back to working on CnW's The Chimp, The Bag and the Bunny level!

Lovely use of colors and depth of field!

AcademicSaucer · May 5, 2018

Pehesse said:
That's a very thorny issue I've already been accused of a little, being French, and not native of the culture I'm attempting to depict. I'm torn between trying to be as truthful as I can to the research I make on the Incan culture, mythology and aesthetics, but I also don't want to make a "100% accurate historical" game (the story and context are loosely based on some myths, but it's not entirely accurate to those texts nor does it aim to be), and I don't know which degree of leeway I have before this mythological fantasy becomes western appropriation - something which is opposite to my goal, as I'd like to give exposure and show respect to on an aesthetic and culture I happened to grow up in some light contact with through some of my parent's experiences (even though I didn't realize it until quite late) despite it not being "my own". Since I'm not an english speaker either (and the relationship to the issue of cultural appropriation here is a bit different from the northern american perspective on it) I have trouble expressing my exact position on this (especially considering my thoughts on the matter aren't themselves 100% solidified either, I'm still learning a lot about all of this every day), but basically, I'd like to do no harm and if at all possible have a positive effect, and fear I might end up doing the opposite despite those wishes by the very nature of what I'm doing.

Don't worry I remember people just joking at how inaccurate Indiana Jones and the crystal skull and then moving on with their lives, just do what you want to do and take inspiration from as many places as you can.

Camille_ · May 5, 2018

Weltall Zero said:
And in turn, knowing I've had a positive impact on you, makes me feel useful and encouraged!

I'm 100% sure a few years from now, when you release your game, I'll tell people "I know the guy who made this!" with a great feeling of pride.

Well, for whatever it's worth, you've certainly earned a spot in the credits at the very least :-D

AcademicSaucer said:
Don't worry I remember people just joking at how inaccurate Indiana Jones and the crystal skull and then moving on with their lives, just do what you want to do and take inspiration from as many places as you can.

Yeah, hopefully the worse I'll get will be jokes, we'll see! In the meantime I'll try to make sure to be as accurate as I can with the material I intend to cover, and be as respectful as I can to everything, even what I decide to omit.

If there's a next time, I'll do a complete fantasy in the snow starring white cubes that don't move, don't talk and certainly don't hang from moving platforms :-D

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