For those who are interested in composing their own game music: I made a list of free or low-cost virtual instrument libraries

We ban him by IP, but he uses a VPN and comes back. He causes our game's community a bunch of distress everytime he does it, with people rage-quitting over his alting affecting their games - and then after we ban him, the friends that he's made that go-round get mad at us, becuase he spins them sob stories on Discord about how we personally hate him so we ban him even though hes done nothing wrong, yada yada.

We tried to talk to him the last time he did it, we told him to just play normally and not alt if he came back again, and that if he did that we wouldn't have to ban him again. He agreed at the time. But now here we are less than 2 months later, and we've just today had to ban him again for 7+ multiaccounts all feeding 1 main.

Banning by IP obviously isn't working. We have checks in place for proxies and VPNs, but he gets around them somehow.

As it's a browser game we do have access to stuff like font fingerprints, plugin fingerprints, and canvas fingerprints, but I believe this could end up getting kind of messy, with innocent players getting caught up in bans they have no part of.

Any other ideas?

Short of a cease and desist letter (but send it to where? ugh) I'm getting desperate. haha.

submitted by /u/workingaroundloons
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For those who are interested in Local Multiplayer Games, a quick summary of the process of developing my own:

Posted: 18 May 2019 12:11 PM PDT

Since I recently finished a game I wanted to take a bit of time to reflect and share my thoughts on the Development Process and its results. I hope it might be interesting for people who develop a game by themselves and especially those who are interested in making local, asymmetric (which I made up further down in the text) multiplayer games.

What's the game

It's a local multiplayer game called The Yellow Quiz with multiple Quiz variants (ranging from classical multiple choice, a drawing game, guessing with a luck component to a racing game) where the user can use his smartphone (with an app) as a Controller (using Motion Control, drawing on screen etc.). It is built with Unity, sold on Steam and the Android Controller App is on the Google Play Store.

Why this game?

Naturally I picked a game type that I like to play myself (especially Jackbox Party Pack comes to mind). Furthermore I thought it was a good pick being a single Programmer with mediocre art skills) because there is a technological challenge and it would be easier to differentiate this way. Beside Jackbox Party Pack there also didn't seem to be too much concurrence so I figured there was enough room for another game like that.

What's this post about?

There were of course lots of different challenges during development but I think I have most to say about the asymmetric Multiplayer development so I am going to list a few of the major challenges I encountered and what I did to address them. I picked the term asymmetric Multiplayer to differentiate between the (more common) multiplayer game where multiple instances of the same application (but on different machines and possibly even platforms) communicate with each other (via a server or directly) and this type of game where essentially different applications with different roles communicate with each other (again via server or directly) and most likely on different platforms as well. So with that said let's look at some of those challenges.

One Game for the Price of Two

Many challenges stem from the fact that I was now developing one game but essentially two applications. Even worse progress in one application was often tied to progress in the other, meaning constant context switches, a more complicated build process and thus much slower iteration times. Starting out I had to build the Project for one platform and ...wait, change the platform target (Triggering a reimport and recompilation ... wait some more), connect a device and then build and wait yet again to actually test changes. So pretty miserable, especially compared to the usual Unity Development experience.

Solution

So what's better than developing two applications? Developing one and a half or one and a quarter of an application and breaking the dependency between the two applications (as much as possible). In this case I kept the client as simple as possible reducing it (mostly) to a pure input device. Keeping most behavior and code on one platform allowed me to focus there and minimize switching to the other side as much as possible. I built a form of networked Data Binding that could be easily setup from (and validated in) the Editor so that basic test scenarios (using standard UI components such buttons, sliders etc.) required no new client side code.

I also tried to improve the build process through automation using both Cloud Building and SuperUnityBuild (local) to build the different variants of the game in parallel and most importantly with a single click.

The Attention Dilemma

Obviously every type of game has its own unique gameplay challenges but in a game where the Player uses two devices together directing the players attention is a constant worry. Switching and splitting your attention between two different screens is not enjoyable, tiring and unfortunately the true extent of it only becomes apparent during the prototyping phase.

Solution

Generally speaking attention switching occurs a lot when it is unclear where the focus of the game currently is or that focus changes frequently.

Some things I decided to do to address that:

Duplicate Information on client and server (Players choice where to focus)
One task, One screen (Disrupt gameflow as little as possible)
Fast is stressful (this is of course an opinion but I found this type of game setup not very well suited for action packed games, the controls are too fiddly and focusing is harder)
Round based games rather than games with time constraints (My conclusion from the previous point)
A ton of testing and iteration

I also found some good general advice in this guide regarding the design of smartphone controllers from AirConsole

Debugging

So problems here come as consequence of the previously mentioned problems, long design-implement-build-test cycle, different platforms to debug on. At the beginning (in addition to some classic networking related problems) I sometimes didn't even know on which platform to start looking on. Testing problems are also closely related to that.

Solution

So another advantage of focusing most development on one platform (The PC Server side) was support for easy debugging from within the IDE with breakpoints and data manipulation and what not. I also added visualization of sent and received data to my networked data binding solution making setup mistakes easily visible. Since I focused on round based games I also put quite a bit of work in a state machine with good state visualization and in-editor configuration, which helped a lot.

Testing with only 2 Hands

Debugging is also more difficult because reproducing bug scenarios takes more time.

So a realistic replication of a game would take (at least) two players with their smartphones sitting in front of a Big Screen. To reproduce in a test take a smartphone in each hand, debug with your foot and keep one eye on the trace window on yet another screen :(

Solution

I addressed this somewhat by supporting simulation and automation of input devices, mapping for example keyboard input to input data in the data binding system. Again with a lot of Editor support.

Conclusion

The time I spent developing tools to overcome the technical challenges was time lost adding new content or new features. The overhead has limited the polish and fine tuning of mechanics that I was able to give the game. While I do have a few misgivings about the finished product and my choice of game I am really happy with developing the game to the finish both as an achievement and a learning process.

submitted by /u/Ma_Bna_Ur
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Has the Epic Store controversy turned any Unreal Engine developers away from the software?

Posted: 18 May 2019 08:11 AM PDT

Seeing the negative press around the storefront as of late, I was curious if any developers who had been originally working with Unreal Engine 4 saw this as a reason to switch to another engine.

submitted by /u/Hector_Ceromus
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Unity Shaders - Oil Painting Effect (using a Kuwahara Filter)

Posted: 18 May 2019 09:31 AM PDT

submitted by /u/daniel_ilett
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Quick Time Events in Unreal Engine

Posted: 18 May 2019 11:31 AM PDT

submitted by /u/PhoenixMarketUE
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Free Game Design Document Template for your game projects.

Posted: 18 May 2019 08:56 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Ianuarius
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get AppGameKit for FREE on steam until 19 May @ 7:00pm

Posted: 18 May 2019 12:29 PM PDT

submitted by /u/joscha0
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Help with store description translation

Posted: 18 May 2019 12:13 PM PDT

Hi guys, i have an app on Play Market and wanted to translate its store description to different languages. In case someone is willing to help me with that, feel free to contact me.

For now i have English, Russian, Ukrainian and Greek

submitted by /u/Wind0z
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Required skills for procedural generation

Posted: 18 May 2019 07:17 AM PDT

I know nothing about this topic and i'm having hard time something that is beginner friendly.

i really like to know where should i start what are the concepts and good resources.

I know C++ and C# and worked with Unity , Godot and SFML. ( i have some basic art skills in modeling , rigging and animating ).

I will be grateful if you suggest any good books , tutorials , resources , and most importantly a good starting point.

Also i really like to know what are required skills for this topic? Like what math i should use.

Thanks.

submitted by /u/Raminlich
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Free Steam software: AppGameKit: Easy Game Development

Posted: 18 May 2019 11:00 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Sipkab
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New indie Dev studio here! just released our first game ever and it's a VR game. If you have VR you should check it out <3

Posted: 18 May 2019 10:54 AM PDT

submitted by /u/WillFase
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About developing a small rpg for the Gameboy Advance

Posted: 18 May 2019 04:10 AM PDT

I've recently decided, as a test for myself and a bit of fun, to learn how to code and create a basic rpg game (kinda like ff for example) for the Gameboy Advance as after a bit of research, it does appear to be fairly "easy-ish" to learn to develop for the GBA.

I've been learning the basics of the C programming language for about 2 months now (with lots of procrastinating though) And I am truly interested in making a game for the GBA in C, although I know writing in assembly would most likely be better.

Give me your honest opinions/advice/ect,

on roughly how long it would take for me to be able to create a decent little game if I were for example, to practice/learn 1-3hrs a day, 5 days a week.

Thanks for any input, just be nice :D

submitted by /u/RecklesFlam1ngo
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A Day In The Life Of A Game Developer

Posted: 18 May 2019 10:04 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Daniel_Elmasry
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Are there nice books about general game programming techniques? Like Physics, Math, Architecture of System etc.

Posted: 18 May 2019 09:54 AM PDT

Question above. I would prefer a book that shows code in JavaScript but at the moment I'm also looking into C coding and wouldn't mind if it would be written with that language.

Thanks in advance!

submitted by /u/ImStifler
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Trello - Management Question

Posted: 18 May 2019 09:46 AM PDT

Hello, in the upcoming weeks I'll be given a team of 10+ people for a University project. The team will include Designers (as myself), Programmers and Artists. I've been using it for the previous projects because no one in my previous team wanted to, but all the teams were only 3-4 people (only designers) so I didn't focus much on breaking down or having labels that could include other disciplines.

As it is the first time that I will have to manage as many people and the fact that I'm also the vision holder, I'm starting to feel anxious.

How can I use Trello efficiently?

What labels are you suggesting for a multidisciplinary Trello? Based on urgency or discipline? Currently I have Research, Design, Art, Blueprinting.

Where would you place the sprint goal that must be broken down? How would you break down tasks?

How would you track down feedback received and bugs on Trello?

I have answers to some of these questions, but as I'm not sure they would be efficient I'd like to have different views on it.

Thank you for your input.

submitted by /u/Sarblade
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Blocking & Attacking - Game Development in Gamemaker Studios 2 [DEVLOG #03]

Posted: 18 May 2019 09:36 AM PDT

submitted by /u/DevBoundless
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Tips for Cat AI?

Posted: 18 May 2019 09:32 AM PDT

Hey all,

I'm looking to model some cat behaviour in my simulator/game, where they interact with each other, the player (also a cat), and the surrounding mice and humans. My intention is for them to have personality types that differentiate how they react to certain situations.

What are some good rules of thumb to keep in mind when developing the AI for these cats?

Should I use a solution (Unity Asset Store) or roll my own through coding?

Thanks, I appreciate your input.

GBA

submitted by /u/GamerBoyAdvanced
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A StoreClerk for my game

Posted: 18 May 2019 08:37 AM PDT

So i'm making a shoplifting game, play as a kid, steal stuff, unlock the mysteries of the ladies toilet etc.

This is the first store Clerk I got

I got some more stuff on our Patreon here if you fancy a look https://www.patreon.com/Overstocked

https://i.redd.it/swn4zyqyozy21.jpg

submitted by /u/Crabman64
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Breaking News

Programming29

Saturday, May 18, 2019

For those who are interested in composing their own game music: I made a list of free or low-cost virtual instrument libraries

For those who are interested in composing their own game music: I made a list of free or low-cost virtual instrument libraries

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