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    Home Unlabelled Blizzard is sharing information on how they are recreating World of Warcraft Classic

    Blizzard is sharing information on how they are recreating World of Warcraft Classic

    June 16, 2018

    Blizzard is sharing information on how they are recreating World of Warcraft Classic

    Blizzard is sharing information on how they are recreating World of Warcraft Classic

    Posted: 15 Jun 2018 11:23 PM PDT

    Submit your evidence of great indie games which failed to sell more than a few thousand units.

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 04:07 AM PDT

    I am compiling a list of "Great Games That Failed". For Science! Also so we can see a wall of gifs to see what great failures look like.

    These are the hidden gems which were lost under the sea of spam that is gamedev - never getting the exposure they rightly deserved.

    Submit your best entries!

    Criteria (Suggestions)

    • Great Games which failed to sell more than a few thousand units. This isnt a harsh limit, but preferably games which sold less than 10k units or more preferably games which sold <3000 units despite being great. Higher numbers are more acceptable the lower the price of the game. Use your discretion. (ex. $1 games need more sales than $10 or $40 games.)
    • Define what you mean by Great if you can. Tell us what made it great (review score, personal opinion, niche following, linked critic review/article, etc.)
    • Do not link your own games, no matter how great you think they are.
    • If unit sales are unknown or failure is only speculative, please state why you think it is likely a failure or link any evidence to back up speculation.
    • Preferably games released in the last 5 years. Note if longer & list release date.
    • Preferably games that have been out for at least a month. Games need time to see if they sell or not. The longer the better. (ex. AIRSCAPE, the Indiepocalypse game, was a failure until it eventually sold >100k units much later.)
    • Strictly Indie Games (use your discretion, but the bigger the budget and team size the less likely it is this type of indie being measured).
    • Limit to Games which are actually playable. Released, Beta, or high functioning EA games only. If the game isnt nearly complete, dont link it until it is mostly finished. Do not link "great games" which never made it out of Alpha. A game needs to be playable and at least nearly feature complete to be considered great.
    • Do NOT link AAA flops, multi-million dollar game budgets, failed businesses, outrageous budget games, or financial failures despite millions of unit sales.

    Psychonauts is a perfect example of what NOT to link.

    GOAL

    The goal of this is to compile a list and a wall of gifs for reference. We can then discuss if there are some common themes in gameplay, art, or genre by easily skimming through the wall of gifs to notice obvious trends.

    Let's see what the best indie failures look like!

    submitted by /u/EvidencePlz4Science
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    Craigslist is a great place to find reference photos when designing houses and apartments.

    Posted: 15 Jun 2018 11:57 PM PDT

    I was struggling to find reference photos of typical family home interiors. Google image searches would mostly bring up pristine homes with sleek interior design, and I wanted something that looked a little more realistic.

    Craigslist is great because the postings have dozens of photos and you can find many buildings that are fully furnished. You can also search in specific locations and at certain price ranges to find the exact style you're trying to recreate.

    Just a little tip that helped me, wanted to pass it along.

    submitted by /u/NewChinaKitchen
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    Motion Matching: The cutting-edge technique powering The Last of Us 2

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:28 AM PDT

    How to tell someone you don't want to work with them anymore?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:47 AM PDT

    I'm participating in a game jam soon and met someone that claimed to be proficient at some programs (trying to keep details to a minimum in case they stumble across this post) so we did a test run to showcase each others skills, but this other person's results were... less than desirable. I feel really bad to tell them the truth because I know how it feels to be in a position where you're still learning but want to engage with others in the same activity. Should I suck it up and go along with it or just be flat out honest and bail? Also I'm pretty sure they're using pirated software to churn this stuff out.

    Edit: Thank you all for giving me the push. I did what had to be done which is cutting ties with this person and I'll still be going to go ahead with the jam. I came to the conclusion that if I want to make it, I have to be willing to make tough decisions, starting with this one.

    submitted by /u/KangoBangoBongo
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    Tips for marketing a mobile game on a budget

    Posted: 15 Jun 2018 11:05 PM PDT

    Hey everyone,

    This is my first-ever Reddit post. I'm a social media entrepreneur who is currently in the process of launching a digital marketing agency specializing in mobile game promotion. Through a combination of Instagram, Facebook and email marketing, I've assisted many brands in follower, download and revenue growth.

    Here are a few tips I've got for marketing your mobile game:

    1. Know your audience. Your target audience for most mobile games is male and under-24, so it makes sense to selectively target this demographic. Your audience is frugal, distrusting and hungry for exciting content. Promoting a game to this audience where you must pay to begin play is a difficult strategy, so in-game ads or purchases are the strongest solution.
    2. Utilize shoutouts over direct social media ad buying. The process of purchasing an advertisement from Facebook or Instagram directly through their portal is extremely easy and allows for very selective targeting. You can narrow down exactly on your demographic, which is exciting and convenient for the novice social media user. However, it is NOT cost effective. CPM stands for cost-per-thousand. You'll hear this term a lot. The average CPM on Facebook or Instagram direct advertisements, meaning ads that you purchase and are posted by them, is $15-20. If you utilize shoutouts from gamer, meme, comedy, sports or fight pages run by independent groups, you can cut that cost by more than 60%. I've personally assisted one mobile game, Jump Rage, get over 500,000 impressions for a CPM of less than $6. They utilized a completely free game, advertisements on a targeted, independent page and a giveaway.
    3. Offer an incentive. I cannot stress enough how much your typical target demographic (Again, this is male, under-24) hates spending money and loves making money. Offer any type of incentive during your social or email marketing campaigns and you'll see engagement with your game skyrocket. For example, offer a $50 giftcard to one random user who submits a review in the App Store, and you'd like get 10x the engagement vs. not offering an incentive.
    4. Utilize email marketing. One of the great things about email marketing is not just that it, too, can be done cost-effectively, but also that you can create cool, engaging posts with more real-estate, so to speak. When you're advertising on social media, you have a smaller piece of real-estate to get your message across. It has to be clear and concise. With emails, you have more room and can show reviews, marketing clips, incentives, and more. My firm has an email list of nearly 10,000 targeted emails for users with an average age of 17 who love free games, incentives and more. A one-time email campaign for a firm like mine starts around $500 and goes up. The engagement is great because the content is cool and there is room for incentives, links and more.
    5. Create meaningful content. What is the value of a social media campaign for your game? As Gary Vee once said, "What is the value of a piano? To me, someone who doesn't know how to use it, it's nothing. To Billy Joel, who knows how to use it, it's millions." Social media is merely a tool. If you do not know how to meaningfully use that tool, it's difficult to be successful. You have to not just know your audience, you need to know how to think like them. What do they like? What are they afraid of? What kind of jokes and trends are going on in school right now?
    6. Utilize review-buying, or incentivizing. While you may not like the idea of paying teens to review your app (inorganic, paid traffic) the process of doing so leads to organic traffic (unpaid, word-of-mouth referrals, App Store rankings, etc.). Say you pay for 100 reviews at $5 per review: You'll not only get tons of great feedback that you can utilize to improve the next stage of your game, but you'll also have 100 people telling their friends about a badass, FREE game that is fun. Word-of-mouth is king. Additionally, if you can get enough traffic to your game with paid-reviews, eventually that'll help you gain traction in the App or other game stores where you'll eventually see organic traffic.

    Marketing a mobile game in today's social media driven world can be a challenge. Even if you're working with a small budget, I urge you to seek help. Social media is a tool, and an extremely valuable one, but that's all it is. It is not a be-all, end-all game. You need to know how to use it, and if you're on a budget, you really need to use your money wisely. Hammering a screw into a wall might get you somewhere, but it won't be pretty and won't be effective.

    If you're interested in a free consultation, feel free to send me a message and I'd be happy to hear your story, tell you mine and bounce some ideas off of each other.

    I'm new to this, so feel free to share your thoughts and give me ideas for future posts.

    submitted by /u/mobilegamemarketer
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    How i can find consistency in free game assets?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 03:32 AM PDT

    So my art skills are pretty mediocre and i tried finding game assets online but they lack consistency. Any tips on how to go around with it? All i can think of is searching one artist and search all his artwork or sorting by art genere. How you handle this guys ?

    Edit: thanks for all the tips guys, is really helpfull far a newbie who have no experience with art. Hope others will find this tips as useful as me.

    submitted by /u/Ansamemsium
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    Beginner Friendly Game Jam

    Posted: 15 Jun 2018 08:49 PM PDT

    Our gamedev podcast (Game Dev's Quest) is hosting another "One Mechanic Game Jam" (OMGJam) starting Friday, June 29th at Midnight PST through Monday, July 2nd at Midnight PST. The idea of the game jam is to make a game that focuses on just one main mechanic so that gamedevs of all skills levels can be involved and feel confident that they can finish a game by the end of the jam period. The last gamejam we hosted had over 40 games submitted and it was a blast!

    After the jam is complete, we will be playing all of the submitted games on our Twitch stream, and talking about our favorite games on our podcast. We invite anyone who is interested to join the jam over at https://itch.io/jam/omgjam4. We're excited to see the games you make!

    submitted by /u/GameDevsQuest
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    Writer looking for free work!

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 10:10 AM PDT

    Hey there,

    I'm looking to build up a portfolio to try and break into the games industry. I'm not looking to go into level design or anything like that, instead I want to get into the writing side of things. I just graduated with a first class honours from MMU in English Literature and Creative Writing. I specialise in writing poetry but my last course was Writing for Games where I submitted an original Twine story, which I received a high first for. I'm confident in my character and narrative writing but I want to develop it, this is where you come in. If there are any ambitious game designers who are creating games but are struggling with the writing, message me. If there's anyone who's overworked and can't be bothered to write for their game, message me. If there's anyone who wants a second opinion on the writing in their game, message me. Basically, message me if you want me to write, read, or edit your game.

    However, I must stress that if I won't get anything to add to my portfolio for the work I put in, I probably won't be able to help you out. I'm about to start working and my life's already pretty busy, so I have to prioritise. It would also be preferable if you have a body of work behind you, or the game your creating will actually be completed. I'm looking for like-minded people to forge a path into the industry.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this. Drop me a message if this interests you, or even tell your friends! If this isn't the right place for a message like this please let me know where to post, or if there are any other forums I should post on. Cheers.

    Tay.

    submitted by /u/Azaghal214
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    Irrlicht - How to Create Billboard Type 2D Sprites in 3D Game?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 11:14 AM PDT

    I am slowly learning Irrlicht. My goal is to create something with 2D sprites in a 3D environment. I want to rotate the camera around the sprites and get the sprites to change so that they look like they rotate. I guess this would be similar to Doom or Ragnarok Online, so I assume this problem has been solved before and my google is poor.

    Anyway, I'm pretty sure this boils down to creating a billboard scene node with a texture that changes as the angle between the camera and the sprite's "look" direction changes. I have the math to pick the right frame from a sprite sheet, and I've done something like this in GameMaker, but I don't know enough about textures in Irrlicht.

    How do I create textures from a sprite sheet in Irrlicht? Maybe load the sprite sheet as an IImage and create a series of smaller IImage objects, then copy each frame to one of those IImages and convert each IImage to an ITexture object? But I don't know how to convert IImage to ITexture, as the ITexture constructor appears to only take a file name.

    I suppose this version of the IVideoDriver's addTexture function could do the job of creating textures from IImages, but it still has an argument for a path variable. Why would I need a path if I'm creating the texture from an IImage stored in RAM?

    Or am I missing something more basic? Is there a better way to do this? I'm at the point where I don't know what I don't know.

    submitted by /u/borrax
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    How do I "export" my .cs file into a terminal app

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 10:58 AM PDT

    I finished building my application in visual studio and the result is a small terminal game, how can I make it so that I can just double click the app and the terminal opens, instead of visual studio.

    I'm very sorry if my grammar ain't good

    submitted by /u/MagicMajeck
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    Difficulty in making a PSX tier title?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 10:47 AM PDT

    Ive made a couple of 2d games so am familiar with both short and long dev cycles, along with doing all the work yourself. I want to jump to 3D and make a PSX style game (shorter, simpler models/graphics, etc) like the original Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, or Crash Bandicoot as far as graphics and general product expectations. I have no prior 3D programming or graphics modelling experience. Im wondering if anyone has tips and suggestions along with how long you think it would take me to accomplish. Is it too big a goal, whereas solo 2d projects can definitely be done by one person? Thanks!

    submitted by /u/canadianbizdev
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    Screenshot Saturday #385 - Advanced Shading

    Posted: 15 Jun 2018 08:02 PM PDT

    Share your progress since last time in a form of screenshots, animations and videos. Tell us all about your project and make us interested!

    The hashtag for Twitter is of course #screenshotsaturday.

    Note: Using url shorteners is discouraged as it may get you caught by Reddit's spam filter.

    Previous Screenshot Saturdays

    Bonus question: How have your tastes in gaming changed over the last ~10 years? Do you play different types of games than before?

    submitted by /u/Sexual_Lettuce
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    How should I call paid version?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:58 AM PDT

    Let's say I have game "Flappy bird" in google play store. I want to make paid version with extra features. I don't want to change original to "Flapy Bird Free". So what suffix should I add to paid version? Pro? Premium? Plus? Any other ideas? Eventually I probably add IAP to free version but for now I want to try separate paid version.

    submitted by /u/the_blanker
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    Help with Physics and Math related subjects...

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:30 AM PDT

    I'm in the final year of high school and i need to do a massive homework for the next month, the proposal was to demonstrate applications of Mathematics and Physics in sports.

    I chose to do it about video-games (which is theoretically a kind of sport), so i should do a written work and a presentation, demonstrating mathematical and physical stuff/phenomena within video-games and computer simulations (i would like to include Mathematical and Physical subjects used in gamedev, like matrices/arrays, vectors, trigonometry and other mathematical and physical stuff that i can demonstrate and examples on how it's applied in a game)

    The question I would like to share is: What I can create to demonstrate in the presentation? Also, i would like to accumulate ideas of what physics/math content I can approach and talk about in the written work and in the presentation.

    (Sorry for posting this here, I don't know if this is really a good post for this subreddit, but i would appreciate some help with. :) )

    submitted by /u/look4ss
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    When I'm making sprite sheets, Should I always make them so their width and height are one of the powers of two?

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 05:40 AM PDT

    I have been making 2d games for a very long time (personal projects to improve my skills, I'm still a 15-year-old kid) and my used engines such as Game Maker 8.1, Game Maker: Studio 1 & 2 then unity, Where I started to taste the bad taste of bad performance so, I have been looking for a way to optimize my game since it uses too many sprites (over 10000) and found out that packing the sprites into a sprite sheet will reduce the number of draw calls and improve the performance in terms of CPU consumption...

    So, I went ahead and started working on packing them into sprite sheets and then I started to notice a problem where my sprite sheets have dimensions like 710 * 440 or 1134 * 778 which are not a power of two, that means unity won't be able to perform any compression on them and I guess that's kind of bad in terms of performance on an android game.

    So, the question is should I resize all of the sprites to make their dimensions powers of two or just use them as is and ignore compression?

    any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

    submitted by /u/KillerOfSteam7
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    Making the CoreGameLoop Fun

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:23 AM PDT

    Hey Guys,
    I'm currently in the phase of tweaking the gameplay of my game. Essentially lots of fun will be derived from progression (skills, building stuff) I think, but I've currently taken a step back and decided to first make the core game loop fun, because all those other things can't compensate a bad core gameplay.

    Now my problem is, how can I measure/find out what is good for the gameplay and what is bad?

    Essentially the core gameplay I am talking about is being a third person shooter. After reading several articles about fun, the task for the player is to kill as many opponents (AI NPCs) in 1 minute as possible. I was hoping that some people get challenged by that and try to beat each others high score.

    I've already taken into account good visual and audio feedback, gave the player a choice (multiple weapons, situational (range, recoil), decide how many opponents to attack at once), added some pavlov like reward (a bell sound for each kill), however people can't even seem to be bothered to try it more than once. They see this task rather as a chore.

    From this, two questions arise: Could it be that I don't have enough testers/the wrong guys? Like I feel that for a game, you have to put in a few minutes of effort to really get into it and not quit after the first minute. Do those people exist which know their brain so good that they can say "would be more fun if, ..."?
    The other thing is: How can I somehow understand what is good and what is bad (apart from say A/B Testing each mechanic)?

    My current guess would be that the NPCs just plain feel like robots due to their movement and not taking cover, however they can and will kill you in like 2-3 shots and lead to flesh wounds which even deal damage over time. Another guess would be it's not so challenging because the feedback is not so direct (no screen shaking or epileptic screen flashing)?

    Thanks for help in advance!

    submitted by /u/DarkiGames
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    I'm at a crossroads and I don't know what to do.

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 09:22 AM PDT

    Hi guys. A few days ago I made a post seeking advice and I got really positive feedback and I'm determined to try my best and see if it works. I've been brushing up on my C++ skills and I'm thinking ahead about what I want to do.

    I've read through the different FAQs and wikis on the sidebar and I've made a plan on how I want to proceed. My plan is to start making simple games like Tetris, Breakout, Pac-Man, etc to start off with and learn as much as I can during these small projects.

    But I am not sure what I should do after these projects. I'm not really a creative person, and I'm struggling to think on what game I should make that stands out and portfolio-worthy. Furthermore, I don't know what to focus on as a programmer. I want to show my skills by coding only in C++, but it seems like I have to code an entire engine and when I think about how complex engines can be I get super stressed out.

    Maybe I'm just overthinking it and stressing myself out. At least, I hope I am. I just don't know what to do...

    submitted by /u/Zahand
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    Being one frame late in the name of performance

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 05:31 AM PDT

    Hello gamedev, I have a curious question to submit: analyzing what was costing time while running my game an idea came to me to improve the number of things I can show on screen.

    This is a simple 2d game using monogame SpriteBatch in BackToFront mode so obviously a lot of time is spent on sorting the SpriteBatchItems and then sending them to the gpu in batch (I'm already using a single sprite sheet to not break batches).

    My idea (which is probably not new) is to, at the beginning of a frame update, call the End method of the SpriteBatch (which will send the draw calls to the gpu) and in parallel update my entities normally and after all that fill up the SpriteBatch with the new draw calls for the next frame. That way the cpu is still busy while the gpu is doing its thing (before that, I was updating some sub systems but nothing huge enough to match the gpu time).

    With this change, I manage to gain +10% of objects drawn while still running at stable 60fps, not too bad for a 2 minutes dev. Obviously the draw back from this is that the frame I'm showing is actually one frame late to the real state of the game. This doesn't seem much (16ms delay for the user input basically) and for now I don't feel a difference.

    Does anyone have already used this setup? Or wanted to but resigned not to because of other cons?

    submitted by /u/default_developer
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    Windows Software Renderer: How is BitBlt Hardware Accelerated

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 08:57 AM PDT

    Hi,

    I'm writing a basic software renderer using Windows GDI for learning, and it says on MSDN that BitBlt is potentially hardware accelerated. I'm a bit confused as to how the GPU improve BitBlt performance. I understand that a GPU is just a highly multi-threaded device, that excels at performing tons of similar operations in parallel, meaning that it can presumably copy bits into the Framebuffer faster than a CPU could. However, supposing you had raw RGB data that you just wanted to copy directly into the Framebuffer from a Bitmap, does a GPU really provide any speed benefits? Even if it can copy to the Framebuffer faster, doesn't it have to incur some penalty in transferring the data from the CPU to the GPU, and if the CPU has time to do that couldn't it just write to the Framebuffer directly, or is there some DMA funny business going on under the hood where the GPU both reads from system memory and writes into Framebuffer in parallel? If no DMA occurs, then it wouldn't really make sense for the CPU to send data to the GPU if the GPU just writes it out to the framebuffer with no processing right? I totally understand that Hardware Acceleration is crazy useful when doing things like computing pixel colors, etc; however, why the heck would it be useful when simply blitting a Bitmap onto the screen using the SRCCOPY raster op, which should just be a memcpy.

    submitted by /u/Drao
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    Where to start..

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 08:57 AM PDT

    So I have relatively little experience in game development but I still want to create a game lol! A little background; I have played around with unity/unreal, and even tried out 3ds max and some other things. I'm in the process of learning web development, which I would image will make it easier to code in c# or c++ once I get comfortable with programming. I def would consider myself pretty good with computers and learning new things, It just would take the time to learn it. Basically I want to make a first person shooter like game and would like some advice where to start or what to focus on. Im not expected to finish the game by myself but more so would like the ability to put together the base of the game to show off concepts and how the game would play. Thanks guys!

    submitted by /u/RTonPC
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    Game habits survey

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 08:31 AM PDT

    Hey everyone, we're conducting a survey about people gaming habits. I'd really appreciate if you could take our short questionnaire.

    https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/B5JCHSF

    Thanks!

    submitted by /u/redleg86
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    Is it legal to include and use political and military figures in historical video games (ww2)

    Posted: 16 Jun 2018 04:36 AM PDT

    I'm working on a ww2 game and I was wondering if it is posible to include real politicians and military ? Could i make them playable, or could i make them take a big part in the story?

    Thank you in advance.

    submitted by /u/ext123654
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