• Breaking News

    Wednesday, December 6, 2017

    Home Unlabelled MagicaVoxel 0.99 Preview

    MagicaVoxel 0.99 Preview

    December 06, 2017

    MagicaVoxel 0.99 Preview

    MagicaVoxel 0.99 Preview

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 09:35 AM PST

    I finished my first game in 3 days for Ludum dare 40. Here's what I learned.

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 11:55 PM PST

    I participated in ludum dare for the first time. Naturally, my submission was a half baked prototype that's barely playable. However,I do think that the experience was worth it. I learned a lot of things that I would've ignored just by sticking to a project to the very end . Here's why I think you should participate in a Ludum dare if you haven't done so previously:

    • It'll teach you to polish your game. A lot of us tend to neglect visual effects and SFX in our games. I was in that group as well.My game had some minimal visual effects and and no sfx at all. After the first release, I added sfx and BGM and it almost feels like a different game already. And it took only 1.5 hours to do that. Prior to that I didn't even know how to implement audio in Unity. So please, don't put off sound till the very end.The effort is minimal and it is always worth it. Also, if you haven't already done so, watch the 30 min GDC talk about adding juice to your game. Link:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmSAG51BybY

    • You get feedback.Yes, the number of players will probably be in the single digits for your first game. Itch.io tells me that my game has been downloaded 8 times so far. Sure, it's a minuscule number but 3 of them commented to tell me that they liked it .That's enough for me. Actually receiving feedback from people is very motivating and that's not going to happen if you never share your games with others or if you never finish a game. Game jams deadlines give you that last mental push to finish your prototype for once.

    • Themes tend to be restrictive and that is a great game design challenge. They challenge you to evaluate what's so special about your game . The theme this time was-"the more you have, the worse it is ". A lot of people complained about the theme in twitter but I think that it was an interesting theme. For example, you get some sort of currency by defeating enemies and it increases your damage. At the same time,you'll take a lot more damage as well (this is how I decided to interpret it for my game). It's a good creative exercise and it'll get you out of a creativity block.

    • The short deadline makes you consider what's truly important to your idea and make you acutely aware of your own shortcomings. I knew that the UI in my game did not match the rest of my game at all. The title screen and the custom font looks good but they don't match the game's pixel art artstyle. You can't just throw in a bunch of different assets together and expect it to look good. The individual assets may look nice separately but they'll turn into a mess together if they all don't follow the same style.

    • Actually making a playable build teaches you a lot of things. Unity makes it easier but even then you have a lot more to do. I'm ashamed to admit that it took me ten minutes of fumbling around before realizing that I needed a zip file because you can't upload folders.

    • The stress is real but you need to realize that you have to do your best regardless. After 3 grueling days, I've realized how much I'm capable of doing in three days. By playing other people's games I can know how capable they are compared to me and that I still have a long way to go. Also,I don't know how people actually survive the 2 day compo. I'm still burnt out from the 3 day one.

    • Surprisingly, I didn't rely on google as much as I thought I'd need to. I already had enough knowledge from my various failed prototypes.The only time I relied on google was when I implemented audio.

    Also, here's some general advice for game jams:

    • Keep your weekend free. I had to do university paper work and I lost 8 hours for that. I could have done a lot in that time.

    • Sleep and take regular breaks. Generally, I began work after eating breakfast.Every day, I had 4x three hour sessions per day with breaks. The breaks will help you plan and manage your trello. I generally went to sleep at 10 and woke up at 8 o' clock.This continued for three days.

    • Don't neglect audio and visual polish till the very end.

    • Be prepared for the worst. My wi-fi went down on the last day of the jam and I had to upload the game using my phone's hotspot feature.

    • Always upload screenshots in your game description. Include gifs if you can.

    • Play and rate other people's games. You'll learn about their thought process and what they did differently. In ludum dare this also gives your game additional visibility.

    Overall, I'm happy that I managed to finish something this time.It's far from perfect but I learned a lot on the way. I'll definitely participate in the next Ludum Dare.

    Since once per release posts are allowed, here's a link to my (admittedly terrible) LD 40 entry: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/riskbreakers

    Thank you for reading this wall of text!

    submitted by /u/Krons-sama
    [link] [comments]

    Foliage Optimization in Unity

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 08:24 AM PST

    Hey Game Developers! I made a video where I teach about Directing Focus with Audio in Games! I hope you all can learn something :)

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 08:38 AM PST

    2D and isometric gameplay

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 03:59 AM PST

    Hi everyone, I'm very bad at drawing, but once I discovered vector drawing tools like inkscape I am rapidly getting better with this kind of tecnique.

    The problem is that I can only make 2D or 3D LOOKING models for my game, but I also would like to make it grid-based and isometric....I have the movement and grid part down, but is there a way to make 2D work for isometric? Of course I'd like to have the ability to move the camera...even if it's just fixed angle (think of it like FF tactics)

    submitted by /u/bigweight93
    [link] [comments]

    Postmortem: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 08:57 AM PST

    Great free video on how to turn realistic textures into stylized with Photoshop. Nice resource for non artists such as myself

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 04:59 PM PST

    I want to get rid of pay-2-win thing from my game

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 11:13 PM PST

    My game has in-app for buying gem which players can use to buy special equipment than the normal one which used in-game currency to buy.

    I want players who don't purchase gem can access to these special equipments too. I feel like I'm cheating on them, and also I still want to maintain my income on gem purchases. Right now, I have a video reward for earning free gem, but still they have to watch it many times to get enough gem to purchase one equipment.

    I'm thinking to make some kind of making a free trial of using these special weapons, like players can use it for 5 games or something.

    Does anybody have any idea on this? Please advise me. I would appreciate it so much.

    Thank you.

    submitted by /u/aratnon
    [link] [comments]

    Talk - "The Free Lives formula for making hit games"

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 01:56 AM PST

    I did a talk about how Free Lives (Broforce, GORN, Genital Jousting) goes about finding, vetting and developing ideas into games that I think would be quite useful for people starting out.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMIC-wVezVM

    It covers topics such as reducing risks while finding commercially viable games that you actually WANT to work on.

    submitted by /u/rtza
    [link] [comments]

    How to make a map like in World of Warcraft?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 05:19 AM PST

    Hey,

    I have been wondering how to make a top down map, that basically has drawn images of the current location (I have only one island), but it stills keeps track of the player's location and it changes as they move.

    I'm using Unity and for now, I have used another camera to display the whole terrain from above, but I would really like to use an artwork of the current location instead, it will look nicer and it will also decrease the drawcalls.

    More examples here

    submitted by /u/skinwalkerz
    [link] [comments]

    Art style helping/hurting the gameplay experience

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 08:53 AM PST

    I have noticed that along with enhanced graphics in newer video games has come a decrease in my ability to differentiate between different unit models during a big fight onscreen and see my cursor to be able to click them.

    I am wondering what exactly the difference is. Is it just that high poly models and high res textures reduces hurts this, or is it more about the style of the artists and the way that they add color to the models and environment?

    Some games that it's easy to tell what is what for me: Warcraft 3, Age of Wonders: Shadow magic, Supreme Commander, Dungeon of the Endless

    Some games where I really really struggled to visually recognize what is going on: StarCraft 2, Age of Wonders 3, Endless Legend, Rencounter

    Is it just me? I get the feeling that those older games use much more flat color pallets, but it's tough for my non-artist eye to know. What do you guys think?

    submitted by /u/JediOfTheShire
    [link] [comments]

    Deciding on a 3d program, if I have Modo should I use it?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 03:53 AM PST

    Hey, I'm a compositor coming from film and I am about to start a game project with my brothers for ourselves.

    As I have worked in film already have programs such as Modo and Mari as they came with a package I had with Nuke off the foundry.

    I have been learning blender for the last few days as I forgot I even had Modo. I have been getting in great with it so far.

    However my question is, if I have Modo should I be learning it instead of blender? There seems to be a lot more learning tutorials for blender than Modo, but I'm more looking at the end game as I can overcome that part.

    Mari I will be using regardless.

    submitted by /u/Enaver
    [link] [comments]

    What's a good software to create beats a la Crypt of the Necrodancer?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 01:41 AM PST

    Hello all,
    Basically what title says. I've recently started playing crypt of the necrodancer and got hooked with it's soundtrack. What's a good software to make something similar? I've tried Sonar in the past (and I think there's another software by Cakewalk? Cubase?) but is there something else I could try? I don't mind if it's free or paid, what do you use for your beat needs? Is there any dedicated software for this style?

    p.s. I do have some music background, just not for software

    submitted by /u/blackbeard_llc
    [link] [comments]

    How to create a Tornado VFX in Unity.

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 11:08 AM PST

    This is a tutorial in Unity, where I explain how anyone can create a Tornado for their game.

    Game VFX - Tornado Effect

    Download & Support on Patreon

    Thank you, enjoy!

    submitted by /u/Gabz101
    [link] [comments]

    Is it worth it to build my own engine using SFML

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 10:38 AM PST

    I'm a Comp Sci major and programming is a passion of mine. So when I first started out on developing my game I thought it would be best for me to just knuckle down and build everything using C++/SFML which I already had experience with instead of using a pre-made engine like Unity or Unreal. Unbeknownst to me this would become a major time sink for my project. There are so many things that I spend days trying to figure out that I feel like would be incredibly simple were I to use a pre-made engine. Things like collision response. I still have zero idea how I should go about implementing that through SFML. I've spent the majority of the last few days of programming thinking about how I'm going to design it, when I feel like collision is a simple no brainer in an engine like Godot.

    Beyond that, I'm a one man team, and I'm beginning to think I should cut the workload wherever I can so I can actually get moving with my project. At the rate of progress I'm going now my game won't be released for the foreseeable future.

    Is it best to just swallow my pride at this point and port all my assets over to a real engine? Or is it really worth it to keep at it at this level?

    submitted by /u/Devilsadvocate1998
    [link] [comments]

    How do I capture network packets for PS3 games?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 06:48 AM PST

    I'm trying to look up a guide on how to capture network packets for PS3 games. I'm trying to get a network packet for Uncharted 2 Multiplayer, so that if/when the servers go down, we'll have data on how it works to bring it back up as a private server.

    How do I capture network packets? I want to get a copy of them for archival purposes. The online guides I looked up weren't clear, help.

    submitted by /u/213213yoyo
    [link] [comments]

    Fan game developers: Do you try to follow the company's guidelines?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 08:29 AM PST

    That is, do you either see if the company gives fans permission to make them (like SEGA) or you directly ask them if you can? I've seen a lot of rhetoric elsewhere such as "I don't care what the company thinks of my project". I think that this is sad because I always thought of fan games as a way to celebrate the original games and show the developer that you love the original games so much you'd make your own fan version.

    submitted by /u/P-Tux7
    [link] [comments]

    How to not avoid arrows by jumping 2D?

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 02:14 AM PST

    Hello. I'm working on a 2D RPG game. I want a pvp option. Since this game is like platformer, jumping is important throughout the game. Some chars have projectiles like arrows. But I don't want these projectiles to be dodged by jumping. They have another option to dodge, which is one one the key mechanics for my game. And also no mouse for this game so projectiles are always horizontal. Should I simply disable jumping for pvp?

    submitted by /u/klavyeadam
    [link] [comments]

    How do you design your game?

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 11:21 PM PST

    Talking about philosophy here.

    I find that a lot of games (computer games especially) are really soggy. Lots of options and choices that don't mean much. Civ games are nearly impossible to tell how good you are doing, and so planning means nothing. There's nothing to plan against. Compared to a board game like Caverna or Agricola? It's ridiculous.

    Dark Souls struck a good chord for a lot of people in terms of forgiveness. It's not soggy - you have to really know your enemies, and moving one way or the other is a meaningful choice that can lead to life or death. However, it's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum, in that the choices are a little too limited, and it becomes sort of puzzle-like. It converges to a combination of you gotta remember this pattern to behave in EXACTLY THIS WAY (a puzzle is a "game" with one solution) or you die.

    Not a lot of games hit a sweet spot of inbetween I think. Computer games are usually played solitaire, and design tends to fall on the side of soggy with rewards that make it more soggy (ie most items you get in the new assassin's creed game don't give you more options - they just take them away, helping you do stuff faster.)

    What do you do to ensure your design is not like this? Do you care? Do you lean on the side of sogginess, or of strict regiment-like puzzletarian authority?

    submitted by /u/jprodfilm
    [link] [comments]

    Designing Fun Platforming Levels: Tips and Best Practices

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 06:56 AM PST

    Currently making a turn based strategy game similar to EU4 or Civ V for android phones. What are some features that you'd want?

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 06:57 PM PST

    Current mechanics

    • Turn based
    • Two types of units that you can customize
    • Has very little graphics, mostly different menus filled with information
    • Lots of different maps and multiplayer
    • Diplomatic relations such as alliances
    submitted by /u/_Xertz_
    [link] [comments]

    Join Sonia Michaels of Digipen as she discusses resumes, cover letters, standing out in the game industry, and much more...

    Posted: 06 Dec 2017 06:46 AM PST

    Overview of new tools in Substance Designer

    Posted: 05 Dec 2017 02:37 PM PST
    Read more
    at

    No comments:

    Post a Comment