Hobby and Indie Game Dev |OT 2019| Designing, Drawing, Coding, Composing, Everythinging

[Popstar]

Welcome to the ResetEra thread for hobbyist and indie game devs!

This is the thread to discuss what you're currently working on, ask for help from others, give advice and critique, or just hangout with other gamedevs. From hobbyists just starting out working on small mods to full-time developers this thread is for indies of all skill levels.

*Note that this thread is for discussing indie game development, it's not a place to hit-and-run post a cut-and-paste of your press releases. Usual forum rules about spam apply.

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

Awesome dancing banner thanks to Pehesse and awesome cover image thanks to _Rob_ !

 

[Popstar]

Resources

GETTING STARTED (Engines)

I don't even know how to evaluate which engine to use, I just want to make something, help!​

PICO-8​

PICO-8 has tools for editing code, music, sound, sprites, maps built right into the console. Create a whole game or program in one sitting without needing to leave the cosy development environment!​

​

The harsh limitations of PICO-8 are carefully chosen to be fun to work with, encourage small but expressive designs and hopefully to give PICO-8 cartridges their own particular look and feel.​

Actually, give me a list of some engine options​

Unity​

Unreal Engine​

GameMaker Studio 2​

Construct 2​

RPG Maker​

​

I'd prefer something free and open source​

Godot​

GDevelop​

​

Is there anything domain specific that's friendly to non-coders?​

PuzzleScript - make sokoban style puzzle games​

Twine - make Interactive Fiction / Visual Novels​

Adventure Game Studio - make point and clicks​

Inform - a design system for interactive fiction based on natural language​

​

I'd like a bit more control without having to write everything myself, what about a framework?​

Monogame​

Simple and Fast Multimedia Library (SFML)​

​

I don't know if what I'm doing counts as a game, it's more of an interactive art installation type thingy​

Processing, Processing.js​

Cinder​

Open Frameworks​

​

#YOLO, I wanna put together my own framework/engine​

Handmade Network​

DirectXTK - Microsoft's D3DX replacement​

SoLoud - portable c/c++ audio engine for games​

Single-file public-domain/open source libraries with minimal dependencies​

WEBSITES

Game From Scratch​

News, reviews and tutorials of engines and tools for game development. Also has a YouTube channel.​

Gamasutra​

Originally the website for Game Developer magazine but long since its own thing. Useful news, blogs and GDC content. Highly recommended to subscribe to their RSS feed.​

ASSETS

Free Assets​

OpenGameArt.org​

Blend Swap​

GoodTextures​

freesound​

GameSounds.xyz​

Musopen​

Google Fonts​

Font Squirrel - icon indicates fonts free for app embedding​

Font Library​

​

Asset Stores​

Unity - most assets may be used in non-Unity projects​

Unreal Engine Marketplace - assets are governed by Unreal Engine license and require UE royalty even when used outside of UE​

Itch.io​

FontSpring - check individual fonts for app license​

textures.com - limited free access​

​

​

MARKETING TOOLS

presskit()​

distribute()​

SOFTWARE

Pixel Art​

Graphics Gale (Windows) - free​

Pro Motion NG (Windows) - paid, has free version​

Aseprite (Windows, macOS, Linux) - paid​

Pyxel Edit (Windows, macOS) - paid​

​

2D Art​

Clip Studio Paint (Manga Studio) - paid​

Spine - paid​

​

3D Art​

Blender - open source​

Maya LT - paid subscription​

3D-Coat - paid​

MagicaVoxel - free​

​

Procedural Generation​

Tilemancer - free procedural pixelart tile generator​

Spacescape - free procedural space skybox generator (HDR enabled)​

Texture Generato Online - free procedural texture generator​

​

Level Editing​

Tiled - open source​

TrenchBroom - open source​

Yarn - open source​

​

Screen Recording​

Video​

OBS Studio (Windows, macOS, Linux) - open source​

VClip (Windows) - free​

​

GIFs​

GIF Brewery (macOS) - free​

Gifski (various) - open source​

GifCam (Windows) - free​

ScreenToGif (Windows) - open source​

LICEcap (Windows, macOS) - open source​

...

 

[Popstar]

Other resource lists
The resource list in the previous post is not meant to be comprehensive. Here are some that try for more coverage.

Magic Tools — An awesome game development list.
GameDev Resources — A wonderful list of game development resources.
Games on GitHub — a list of open source games and game-related projects that can be found on GitHub.

The resource list from the previous thread is still available.

 

[_Rob_]

Hey all, alongside Pehesse's amazing animated banner, there will also be a static collab topic header image too for those that are interested. Feel free to DM me your screenshots and I'll do my best to include as many as I can!

Also, while I'm here, here's my latest work on Clive 'N' Wrench's wild west mine!

 

[sabrina]

Thanks for making the new thread, Popstar!

bonne année, à tous

 

[Camille_]

New thread already?! But it's not yet 2019 here... for a few more hours anyway!

Happy new year everyone and may this new year bring great success to us all, or at the very least, keep us sane enough while we move forward.

Expect a "beautiful" banner soon-ish and as for Pacha, hopefully a vertical slice... eventually. And then we'll see. Aiming for progress - that should be general enough I should be able to manage!

 

[electroflame]

Thanks for making the 2019 thread Popstar!

Here's to another year of "Everythinging"!

 

[obsoke]

I've been lurking this thread for months and have been very impressed by all the talented people making games here on Era. I hope in 2019, I'll be able to do less lurking and more sharing of my own stuff. Hope you all have a great New Year's!

 

[vestan]

great stuff Popstar

2019's going to be great year, let's hope it all works out for us aye?

 

[Popstar]

Banner images for the new thread are still in the queue as Rob and Pehesse have mentioned. I'll also be going through all the resources and making sure all the links still work, etc. I just thought I'd get it up now instead of procrastinating until everything was perfect.

If you have any suggestions for changes to the OP feel free to say.

 

[Phil32]

Thanks for the thread, Popstar!

I hope I can make more progress on my RPG project. Stuff's been fun to do when I have time for it!

I'm excited to see what everyone does with their own projects!

_Rob_ Very nice, and you make those narrow mine cart tracks look so easy to navigate! It reminds me of Spyro, but maybe that's because I'm currently playing the Reignited Trilogy! ha

 

[Raide]

Fresh year, fresh stab at trying to do something. Glad this post is here nice and early.

 

[Gabbo]

Hoping this is the year I can finally get my paperboy remake idea into something playable.

 

[DNAbro]

Hopefully I finish my demo this year.

 

[K Monkey]

oh wow... another thread, another year goes by. Good job on the thread Popstar

Since I got some work on the side recently, its been tough finding time doing gamedev for my own game. Well, this festive break gave me a bit of time to do some gamedev on my own project.. what better to do than create another creature? Few weeks ago I created a Moth shader that animated the wings for me so I could have thousands on-screen. Since it worked quite nicely, I thought I would have a bit of fun with that same particle shader. So this is my take on the legendary Mothman.

 

[Deleted member 39479]

Popstar thank you for all the work you put into the Resources post! I wanna start making small games as a hobby and you added so many great things to check out! :)

 

[TheFireman]

Just got my CS degree two weeks ago, maybe I'll try to start making games this year.

 

[SweetSark]

Happy you year [for later] and good start with the new Thread!!!

oh wow... another thread, another year goes by. Good job on the thread Popstar

Since I got some work on the side recently, its been tough finding time doing gamedev for my own game. Well, this festive break gave me a bit of time to do some gamedev on my own project.. what better to do than create another creature? Few weeks ago I created a Moth shader that animated the wings for me so I could have thousands on-screen. Since it worked quite nicely, I thought I would have a bit of fun with that same particle shader. So this is my take on the legendary Mothman.

Click to shrink...

Nice looking design for an enemy.
Can I suggest you maybe the eyes of the creatures being actually dead red Moths just flowting in the air?

 

[DNAbro]

Just got my CS degree two weeks ago, maybe I'll try to start making games this year.

Click to shrink...

Hey congrats. That is a pain to get lol.

 

[K Monkey]

Nice looking design for an enemy.
Can I suggest you maybe the eyes of the creatures being actually dead red Moths just flowting in the air?

Click to shrink...

thanks! I'll see what I can do about the eyes >_>

 

[SaberVS7]

Großes Danke for the new thread Popstar

Putting a firm end to my procrastination in 2019. Hope to have a playable slice of JAEGER to share within the coming months now that I've got a solid budget in place again as well after a bad last few months (long story >_>).

 

[OniLinkPlus]

Woohoo 2019! Maybe I'll find the motivation to actually work on a game and get a playable prototype out this year. I have an idea that I'm slowly cracking away at.

If I try to do at least a little bit each weekend, that's gotta add up, right?

 

[Deleted member 4353]

2019 has got to be the year I finally release stuff. I start working on games then I get bored and work on something new... arrrgh. I need to release something this year.

 

[Mike Armbrust]

Happy new year! Thank you everyone involved in creating the new thread and banner.

 

[The Real Abed]

No love for Löve2d?

 

[Pooh]

Wheeee new year new thread! Let's have a good one ladies and gents!

 

[Deleted member 733]

Happy new year, everyone. I've been out of the game creation loop for a long time other than occasional Ludum Dare dabbles, but I'm considering trying to at least finish one small game for the new year.

I wanted to ask if anyone had any strong opinions, experiences, etc. regarding doing revenue sharing. The problem is that I have an artist friend that I'd like to contract for art, since having someone as a full employee involves major legal changes. However, since I can't afford any sort of reasonable salary, it would need to be more reasonable. The problem with a flat fee is if I make a tiny app store game that sells nothing, I go broke, and if it makes a lot, they get sad. :P

So, is it a horrible idea to make a contract to basically say, "contracting artwork with rights specifically for a single game, and profits from the game will be divided 50/50 over the game's lifetime on XYZ marketplace" or similar? Obviously I need to talk to a lawyer about it but I wondered if anyone had specific experience and any warnings or advice about it. I know I also need to carefully consider IP rights, like if we create characters or a game name or whatever.

 

[Pooh]

Well, whatever you do, get it down in writing and signed. No joke. But this really applies to almost any work you agree to do with somebody.

 

[Zoidberg Jesus]

Hello everyone. This thread inspired me to buy a PICO-8 license, and I have a Raspberry Pi 2 I used to use for Retro Pie I want to set it up on, but I'm not sure how to install PICO-8 to my Micro SD card in Windows. I guess I was expecting an image file, like Retro Pie. If anyone could help me out or point me in the right direction, I'd greatly appreciate it. I'll provide more information if needed.

Edit: I think I found what I'm looking for here: https://guillermoamaral.com/read/picopi/
I'll post back if this doesn't work.

 

[Pixels]

All hail Santa Crabby 🎅🏼🦀
https://steamcommunity.com/games/679270/announcements/detail/1696067271057418906

 

[Astrael]

Thank you for the new thread, I know I didn't get around to posting much in the last year's thread but I hope that will change since I finally got my menus done for Shadowdawn lol. Looking forward to seeing everyone's progress this year!

 

[heartscar]

Hey everyone. Happy new year! I noticed the new thread being created and thought I'd share some stuff.

We are a group of students currently working on our game called Rogue Reaper, an action-adventure game, taking place at the end of the Dark Ages during the rise of the plague. In the game you will be playing as the daughter of the Grim Reaper, who is concerned about her father and his heavy workload of harvesting souls and sets out on an adventure to fight the plague. Along the road you will explore a town in which you will fight against manifestations of the plague.

While playing the game you use mobility (Wallrunning, dashing, jumping around) and attacks like the use of your scythe and telekinesis to use objects to your advantage to get through small scenarios consisting of obstacles and enemies. Because of your limited energy, you will have to be careful and thoughtful in your approach.

Since we're still studying, the timeframe that we have is quite short. We've started in the last week of October and aim to release the game at the end of January. We recently put up our steam store page, together with some screenshots and a trailer.

This is our first real thing, so all the feedback you might have is welcome.

 

[Temathael]

It's been a while since I've posted and as it's a new thread and indie dev hour on twitter, here:)


Just what I'm working on right now. The environments still lack lots of life, but that's a job for later.

 

[DNAbro]

Hey everyone. Happy new year! I noticed the new thread being created and thought I'd share some stuff.

We are a group of students currently working on our game called Rogue Reaper, an action-adventure game, taking place at the end of the Dark Ages during the rise of the plague. In the game you will be playing as the daughter of the Grim Reaper, who is concerned about her father and his heavy workload of harvesting souls and sets out on an adventure to fight the plague. Along the road you will explore a town in which you will fight against manifestations of the plague.

While playing the game you use mobility (Wallrunning, dashing, jumping around) and attacks like the use of your scythe and telekinesis to use objects to your advantage to get through small scenarios consisting of obstacles and enemies. Because of your limited energy, you will have to be careful and thoughtful in your approach.

Since we're still studying, the timeframe that we have is quite short. We've started in the last week of October and aim to release the game at the end of January. We recently put up our steam store page, together with some screenshots and a trailer.

This is our first real thing, so all the feedback you might have is welcome.

Click to shrink...

This sounds pretty neat.

 

[Noogy]

Awesome new thread for 2019! I'm hoping to share details of what I've been working on for the past year.

 

[Mikachu]

Yay new thread! Great work on it :)

I'm hoping for 2019 to be a productive year as well as a creative one

 

[ListeningGarden]

No love for Löve2d?

Click to shrink...

I don't see it get mentioned a lot anymore, but I have at least been doing some quick idea sketches with Löve2d when I want to be productive but need to take a sanity break from my main project. Having that and PICO-8/TIC-80 as fun little outlets has improved my time with coding in general.

 

[Rosur]

Think I want to get into making some small puzzle games this year and get over not wanting to use the free art that's out there for my ideas. The puzzle games should help me with this as less art is needed. (As a programmer and not an artist myself)

 

[Deleted member 2620]

Happy new year, everyone! Thread is off to a strong start.

I'm really bad at posting updates. I get weird about showing unfinished stuff, and I'm hung up on how the arcade nature of the game makes me want to keep it to very short snips.

After a long, long stretch of working on the game's zones, I've most recently been working on "home feature" stuff (outside of the core arcade mode) and minor polish. Saved progress data for unlocking stuff, messages that display in the title/dropship (including animated progress bars, people love those right), traditional PC gaming options like non-VR graphics settings and keyboard/gamepad binding (what a pain that is, lol), a new Quick Restart menu, encouraging messages in the Game Over screen... Maybe my favorite of all this stuff, though, is the health indicator I've added when you get hit or gain a shield charge:



Wondering why I didn't add this sooner. VR games relegating info like that to in-world things like dashboards (as is the case in my game) or wrist-mounted displays is pretty common, of course, but the added clarity definitely helps here. animating the wobble was fun, lol

 

[Bjones]

First pass at the first level boss for my NES aesthetic shmup.

 

[The Real Abed]

I don't see it get mentioned a lot anymore, but I have at least been doing some quick idea sketches with Löve2d when I want to be productive but need to take a sanity break from my main project. Having that and PICO-8/TIC-80 as fun little outlets has improved my time with coding in general.

Click to shrink...

Löve doesn't get the love it deserves. It's not just good for prototyping but plenty of full games have been made with it. It's really powerful. A major update even came out back in April. Sure, it's not perfect but it can do some really cool stuff if you know how to use it...

Which I kind of do. It looks better in action, but I'm not really ready to show anything off since I don't know what it is yet. But I will mention that the world is entirely randomly generated. Also, dealing with 3D when you don't have any sort of pixel depth Z-buffering and can only work with whole polygons sorted by camera distance Star Fox-style is really cumbersome. Sure, I could switch to Unity if I wanted to but where's the challenge? (Also, this is the first time I've really shown this off besides a really old screenshot on Twitter. I haven't even shown it off on the Löve forum yet.)

 

[sabrina]

I needed a way to populate a boarding school full of witches in my game, so I've been working on a dynamic NPC builder. It's all pretty much the same model, but with different attachments, proportions and weights and bone offsets and stuff. As far as I know this is relatively unprecedented for hi res 2D stuff, but that's the joy of indie game dev 🙃



At this point I'm happy enough with it that I might even replace the player character, so players have a lot more agency over how their own witch looks. TBD

 

[Mik2121]

This is some stuff I did a while ago. I took another video because the old ones were at lower resolution.
It's not really a game but rather just some visual test. I would like to make a small blog entry about how to do some of the features, but I don't know if there's anything really worth explaining.

Anyone would be interested in reading about how to do something from the video?

 

[sabrina]

This is some stuff I did a while ago. I took another video because the old ones were at lower resolution.
It's not really a game but rather just some visual test. I would like to make a small blog entry about how to do some of the features, but I don't know if there's anything really worth explaining.

Anyone would be interested in reading about how to do something from the video?

Click to shrink...

That's a cool art style. What sort of gameplay are you planning?

 

[Mik2121]

That's a cool art style. What sort of gameplay are you planning?

Click to shrink...

I built this right after playing Obra Dinn a couple months ago and was imagining some sort of adventure thing in the same vein. Then again, this might not go anywhere and just stay as a proof of concept for some interesting visuals.

 

[Deleted member 39479]

I needed a way to populate a boarding school full of witches in my game, so I've been working on a dynamic NPC builder. It's all pretty much the same model, but with different attachments, proportions and weights and bone offsets and stuff. As far as I know this is relatively unprecedented for hi res 2D stuff, but that's the joy of indie game dev 🙃



At this point I'm happy enough with it that I might even replace the player character, so players have a lot more agency over how their own witch looks. TBD

Click to shrink...

Holy smokes this is awesome, I'm suprised at how much variety you got from one model!!

 

[trugs26]

First pass at the first level boss for my NES aesthetic shmup.

Click to shrink...

Looks nice. Got a project page or Twitter?

Happy New year all. Looking forward to seeing all the awesome stuff this community can do!

 

[sabrina]

Holy smokes this is awesome, I'm suprised at how much variety you got from one model!!

Click to shrink...

Thanks. It's probably more accurate to say one skeleton, since all of the different graphics are essentially their own 2D models with their own vertices and mesh weights, but Spine animating tool doesn't draw a hard distinction between skins and models.

I built this right after playing Obra Dinn a couple months ago and was imagining some sort of adventure thing in the same vein. Then again, this might not go anywhere and just stay as a proof of concept for some interesting visuals.

Click to shrink...

Oh, rad. I'm glad Obra Dinn is already inspiring people. Well, do keep it up!

 

[Bjones]

Looks nice. Got a project page or Twitter?

Happy New year all. Looking forward to seeing all the awesome stuff this community can do!

Click to shrink...

I will put one together once I get a name choosen lol.

I want it to be cheesy 90s like photosphere. But maybe edgy .. photosFear

 

[SweetSark]

First pass at the first level boss for my NES aesthetic shmup.

Click to shrink...

Love the Big Guy Already!!!
Does your game have a name?
Also can you share more pics if you done with us?
I really want to include your game in a Thread I made with Upcoming Videogames like yours.