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    Home Unlabelled "For the love of Marius..Son of Rome" Unreal shading experimentation, what do you think?!

    "For the love of Marius..Son of Rome" Unreal shading experimentation, what do you think?!

    August 20, 2018

    "For the love of Marius..Son of Rome" Unreal shading experimentation, what do you think?!

    "For the love of Marius..Son of Rome" Unreal shading experimentation, what do you think?!

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 08:21 AM PDT

    The Last "How To Write A Press Release" Post You'll Ever Need

    Posted: 19 Aug 2018 08:00 PM PDT

    We wrote a post-mortem for our game The Thin Silence, thought you guys might find it useful!

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 01:27 AM PDT

    Most useful or important pieces of game-related writing from the past two years?

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 09:21 AM PDT

    Once a year, I teach a small mobile gaming course using tools such as Adobe Animate CC, Code Combat, Adobe Illustrator CC, and Construct 3. By the end of the semester, students will have created some short animations and small casual games. For example, this is just one of the many awesome projects that were created last year: http://transmedia.trinity.edu/~ahuffman/art/wellBeanOnline/).

    I'm updating the syllabus and would like to include short game development articles that are useful, important or thought-provoking. The syllabus already includes some longer theoretical pieces from people like Richard Bartle and other academic games researchers, but I am particularly interested in finding articles that discuss the practical design issues that come up when developing games.

    For example, last year's syllabus included articles such as Desi Quintans' "Game UI by example," Diorgo Jonkers' "11 tips for making a fun platformer," and Herman Tulleken's short piece from Gamasutra about color in games. These articles are all relatively short, they are aimed at aspiring game developers, and they cover the sorts of practical topics that don't always make it into the academic anthologies.

    As I update the syllabus, I'm doing research in the usual ways, searching blogs from indie game developers and looking through the archives of publications like Gamasutra, but it occurred to me that this forum would be an excellent source of information about recent, practical game development writings that real-world game developers of all skill levels consider to be interesting and important.

    Would love to hear any recommendations for recent, practical game design issues that you think all aspiring game developers should investigate. If you have thoughts about animation-related articles, those would be much appreciated as well, but my primary focus is on game development.

    Thanks!!

    submitted by /u/bloodthinnerboy
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    Royalty free music for you unlimited use if needed. A lot more to come soon. Use promo code “R3DDIT”. All Audio is subject to an Unlimited Non exclusive license with commercial use.

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:58 AM PDT

    Validating and Marketing a New Game Before Development

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 03:28 AM PDT

    Hey Everyone,

    I just finished a huge post on validating/marketing a new game idea BEFORE development. Here's the full post below let me know what you think:

    Intro

    Have you ever had a game idea, but weren't 100% sure whether it would sell or if people agreed with the design? If so this post is meant for you. If not you'll still learn a way to begin marketing your game before you start development. This post will be going over a unique (well kinda unique) way to both market and validate your game idea through the use of an Idea-Stage Survey.

    Why Validation is Important

    By validating your game idea with your intended target audience you are making sure that people want the project you're about to create. Validation is important whenever developing a digital product because it allows developers and designers to understand what users want and what they are expecting. Throughout the development of your project, you should be consistently talking to potential users within your target audience to double check that your assumptions are correct. If you don't validate your core assumptions you could end up with a project that no one wants.

    Why Marketing Important

    Every indie developer should make sure to market their games and experiences. Without marketing, no one will learn about your project and if no one knows about your project then no one can buy it. The old saying "Build it and they will come" is not true in the digital space. The internet is a large place and unless you spread the word about your project yourself (or pay someone else to do it) nothing will happen. Beginning to market your game before you start development may seem too early, but I really do believe in the classic indie developer saying "It's never too early to start marketing your game".

    Why an Idea Survey (Warning in-person is always better than online)

    So, how do you both validate your idea and begin marketing your game when you don't have a prototype, alpha, or beta? The answer is an Idea Survey. By releasing an Idea Survey to various locations where your target audience hangs out you'll begin spreading the word about your project while also seeing how people react to the general idea.

    Why a Survey

    Are there other ways to both validate and market your idea before release? Sure, but personally I've found releasing a survey to be the best direction from a marketing perspective. If you are more worried about validating your core idea or assumptions then doing 15-minute customer interviews with your target audience would most likely work better. There are four core benefits to releasing a survey:

    • Learn Initial Customer Profile
    • Validate Core Aspects of Idea
    • Promote Idea and Base Game
    • Build Initial Following with Email List

    Learn about Initial Customer Profile

    Having your intended target audience complete your survey will allow you to understand their general demographics. This is especially true when tracking link clicks. The survey itself may have basic questions asking age and gender, but by also adding a link tracking tool you can pull data on where your users are from such as country, what time they clicked on the link, what platform they were on, and much more. Our personal favorite link tracking tool is Rebrandly (it also allows for custom shortened links based on your domain which look much cleaner).

    Validate core aspects of your idea

    By asking open-ended questions you can learn how people feel about your core idea. For example, if you have an idea for a VR game you could survey VR gamers to see what experiences they have enjoyed in the past and how they think those experiences could be improved. By learning the weaknesses and strengths of your competitors you learn more about what they did right and what they did wrong and can apply that to your design. Though do make sure to always take comments on surveys with a grain of salt especially when they're focused on the design of your game (remember you're making the game, trying to incorporate too many ideas can make your project go out of scope very quickly).

    Promote the general idea of your game

    The survey also functions to help spread the word about your game. Imagine someone who completes your survey explaining the core ideas to their friend(s). Not only does this mean you potentially have more people filling out the survey. You've also begun to promote the general design of your game through word of mouth advertising (one of the strongest forms of advertising). Finally, by trying to promote your survey through various channels you are learning not only where your intended audience hangs out, but also how they communicate and the best terms/forms of media to use to communicate with them effectively.

    Build your initial following with an email list

    Your survey can also be used to grow your initial following (10+ people). If you add in a question where respondents are able to enter their email then you instantly have a way to connect with potential players before you start development. Whenever you want to release information to a group of people that already care about your project you'll have an easy way to connect with them. To get started with this method all you have to do is add the previously mentioned question that takes in an email address as the input. Once you complete your survey you can download the questions to a spreadsheet, copy and paste the email into your email service (such as MailChimp or Constant Contact) or into another empty spreadsheet and then upload that to your email list service. I personally prefer Mailchimp over Constant Contact as Mailchimp's free tier allows for up to 1,000 to 2,000 emails in your list (and if you have that many you can definitely pay for more space on your list).

    How to build a survey

    Tools

    Below are two of the main tools that I have used to create surveys. These are not the only tools you can use to create online surveys, however, they are two of the most used tools.

    Google Forms (Free)

    Google Forms is a great free way to get started with creating a survey. It includes all of the base features you'll need such as question types, logic jumps, and the ability to connect it to a spreadsheet. Outside of these core features, the main benefit of Google Forms is that it is connected to Google Drive so you can easily pull up the survey whenever you need to, on multiple devices (the other solution below does this, but only through a URL).

    TypeForm (paid)

    Typeform does have a free version, however, the free version only allows 10 questions and some of the functionality is missing (such as logic jumps). I definitely recommend that if you decide to use Typeform you pay for it otherwise Google Forms is just as good if not better. With that out of the way, Typeform is probably my favorite survey creation tool. You can edit the overall style of the form to complement your branding. You can also connect it to other services such as MailChimp and Zapier so you can collect a respondent's email in a form and then have it immediately added to your game's mailing list. Other than these two main features I would say Typeform is very similar to Google Forms. Though it should also be noted that Typeform as a whole looks more professional than Google Forms and from my usage people are willing to spend a bit more time with a Typeform than with Google Forms (could be because of the styling and overall user experience).

    Questions to ask

    Now that you know what tools to use to begin creating surveys let's go over different types of questions that you can ask your respondents to get data you can use in the future (whether for marketing, design or building out your customer profile). Instead of writing a long explanation for the following sections I've included general questions that would be good to ask within those sections of your survey.

    Customer Profile Questions

    These questions are meant to help you understand the general demographics of a potential customer. After getting more than 25–50 responses on your survey you should be able to start building a general sample profile of people who want to follow your project. Example Questions:

    • How old are you?
    • What gender do you identify as?
    • Do you own a laptop, smartphone, game console, or VR headset?

    General Gamer Questions

    These questions should help you identify your intended customer's gamer profile (casual vs hardcore, indie gamer vs AAA). Example Questions:

    • How many hours a week do you spend playing games?
    • What's your favorite genre of game?
    • How much do you spend on games in a year?

    Design Questions

    Sadly, there are no real examples of these questions as they are dependent on the type of information you want to capture and the general design of your game. One strategy I've found successful is explaining the overall game idea and then asking questions related to the core idea. Below are some examples, but I don't recommend using them unless they happen to apply to your game.

    • Would you be interested in a player controller that features infinite jumping?
    • How do you feel about flight controllers in games?
    • What are your favorite Platformer games?

    Pricing Questions

    If you feel like you don't how to appropriately price your game it doesn't hurt to ask users. Using this method you must be very careful or you could potentially put a high/low price point in your users' minds. I recommend giving an intended range and asking how likely they are to pay for the game using a scaling system (preferably 1–5).

    Where to Get Responses

    Now that you know what questions you should be asking in your Idea Survey let's go over different places online where you can find respondents to complete your survey. It's important to remember that these locations are just recommendations and aren't set in stone. You may find places better or worse, but just remember that the more places you post your survey the more potential respondents you will reach. With this in mind always remember: NEVER SPAM!!!

    Social Media

    One of the first places you should be posting your survey is on social media. It's important that you post on social media, not just to reach a large audience, but also because most social networking sites allow you to segment whom you are reaching. On Facebook, you should join groups relevant to your game, the platform your game will be on, and any topics related to the game. Whereas on Twitter you'll want to make sure to use relevant hashtags so that each post targets your intended audience. Finally, on Reddit, you can join or subscribe to subreddits related to your game and general game development. In general, on every social network there should be groups devoted to game development and game promotion these channels are good as starting points, however, it's highly important you think outside the box to reach as many people as possible (making a fishing game try posting in fishing facebook groups in a way that doesn't seem like self-promotion, such as writing a small blog post on fishing).

    Game Development Websites

    It's also critical that you list your game on game development websites. When listing your game you should also be able to include a link to the survey within the description for your game. Major websites such as IndieDB and Gamedev.net get thousands and even millions of views a month so not listing your game on these sites would be a pretty bad mistake. Also, the general audience of these sites is a lot more willing to look at your game and help out with design than on non-game development websites (excluding gaming websites).

    Forums

    Though forums may seem a bit outdated when compared to social media they are still an excellent resource for promoting your survey and general game related media/content. The important thing when searching for forums to post on is to look for forums that fit into your game's topic or look for game development specific forums. Once you've found a forum that you believe will fit your game's topic you should look at how active it is. You can tell by looking at the number of posts and when the last post was posted. After you've deemed it to be decently active take a look at where you should post promotional posts or posts asking for people to participate in your survey (some forums even allow this in their general thread or off-topic thread).

    Slack or Discord Communities

    These "live" communities have been an excellent resource when promoting my own game's survey. Slack groups and Discord servers are great for finding active members of a community that wants to hear about a specific topic. Since these platforms are newer you will be targeting a younger crowd that's generally more active online. If this fits your intended customer demographics then you will undoubtedly find these resources to be valuable. Make sure before posting into these communities you introduce yourself first and then post the message linking to your survey or game.

    In-person

    One of the best ways to promote your game and get feedback is through in-person promotion. This means going to events, hosting events, and potentially even asking random people off the street. If you can get them to organically answer the questions in your survey without directly filling out the survey that is best, however, you should still always have your survey available on your phone so that you can have someone fill it out at a moment's notice by just handing them your phone.

    Link to sample survey

    Below is a link to my game's idea assessment survey. If you were wondering what kinds of questions to ask or what kind of feedback you should be looking for this survey should help point you in the right direction. Also if you have an extra 3 minutes I would greatly appreciate it if you could fill out the survey :)

    Sample Survey

    Bonus Tip

    Thanks for reading the entire post. Here's a bonus tip for making it to the end ;)

    Give something awesome to responders

    You can also make respondents more likely to complete your survey by adding a reward to the end of your survey. When posting my team's survey we decided to give respondents a 4K wallpaper. Rewards also make it so that you aren't just asking for something but are also giving something to respondents who complete your survey.

    The post was originally posted here Original Post

    submitted by /u/quarlwithcode
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    SteamWorks: Licence check file to unlock content in a main app

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 04:35 AM PDT

    Hello!

    I'm working on a game which has locked content inside and I want to unlock this content only after someone will purchase DLC. So probably I need upload license check file as DLC, Am I right?

    But how this particular License Check file should look like? Do you have example?

    From manual:

    "Testing a DLC is very similar to testing a game. The DLC has an AppID, and that AppID needs to be in a Dev Comp package that you own (or acquired with a Key) in order to test. Some DLCs contain content and others are just used as a license check by the game to determine features to unlock. You can toggle the ownership (license) on and off using the Steam Console (launch Steam.exe -console), and then using the command enable_license"

    submitted by /u/snowtown_murderer
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    Postmortem: Black & White Bushido, the stealth-em-up arena brawler

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 02:11 AM PDT

    Unity Low Poly Game Kit Dungeon Assets

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:59 AM PDT

    UDP Application Layer Data Integrity Checker?

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 11:22 AM PDT

    I've been analysing one game's udp communication and I need help to identify which type of data integrity/anti-tamper is being used here. I would like to understand and implement my own. Here is the explanation:

    UDP packet Data example: 7d 65 00 02 00 00 06 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

    After analysing hundreds of packets, I've found that the second byte (offset 0001 : 0x65) is the data integrity checker. It's always the same value for the same UDP Data and can be the same for different UDP Data since it is just one byte, so there is only 128 possibilities since the value never goes above 0x7F (Range 0x00 to 0x7F (0 to 127)).

    Please, someone knows what type of algorithm can check UDP Data with just one byte and the value is always between 0x00 - 0x7F? I can't debbug the application.

    Thanks in advanced.

    Best regards.

    submitted by /u/JonytheRoger
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    Modular Game Worlds in Phaser 3 (Tilemaps #5) - Matter Physics Platformer

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 12:35 AM PDT

    Brainstorming. Best use of $30,000 budget to make small game?

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 10:37 AM PDT

    I am a project manager entertaining the idea of hiring on some talent to make a small 3D rpg in unreal engine. Let's say this game environment would have no more than 6 environments/levels (I am inexperienced so it's hard for me to know in which terms to best describe the scope for my game idea) but a lot of unique characters and game features. I also desire a fairly high poly looking game.

    How would you get your first prototype? How long would it take you? Would you be confident that you could swing a kickstarter to fund your team and project? Basically looking for the most efficient and effective HOW to use this $30000.

    I've already made a game design document and planned some various expenses out but would love to receive new ideas. The biggest challenge is being able to afford a team that you can barely pay when it would be best to use the money on marketing and other debatable essentials.

    Please lend me your thoughts!!

    submitted by /u/DoubleChocolateChunk
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    Tactical Rpg genre help

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 10:26 AM PDT

    I want to make a tactical rpg game (like final fantasy tactics, into the breach), I am searching for the best way to find optimal paths on grid board, for character movement and for ai enemies to choose, avoiding walls/pits and deciding between moving through usual tiles and tiles with hazardous obstacles.

    Can someone provide links to any tutorials or algorithms on this theme?

    (I am programming on gml, have some experience in gamedev, but never touched ai or pathfinding, due to programming only puzzle games)

    Thanking everyone in advance for help!

    submitted by /u/alex_grim
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    Marketing Monday #235 - Sneak Preview

    Posted: 19 Aug 2018 09:17 PM PDT

    What is Marketing Monday?

    Post your marketing material like websites, email pitches, trailers, presskits, promotional images etc., and get feedback from and give feedback to other devs.

    RULES

    • Do NOT try to promote your game to game devs here, we are not your audience. This is only for feedback and improvement.

    • Clearly state what you want feedback on otherwise your post may be removed. (Do not just dump Kickstarter or trailer links)

    • If you post something, try to leave some feedback on somebody else's post. It's good manners.

    • If you do post some feedback, try to make sure it's good feedback: make sure it has the what ("The logo sucks...") and the why ("...because it's hard to read on most backgrounds").

    • A very wide spectrum of items can be posted here, but try to limit yourself to one or two important items in your post to prevent it from being cluttered up.

    • Promote good feedback, and upvote those who do! Also, don't forget to thank the people who took some of their time to write some feedback for you, even if you don't agree with it.

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

    All Previous Marketing Mondays

    submitted by /u/Sexual_Lettuce
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    3D Noise Flowfield - Unity/C# Tutorial (Part 1 - Directions Grid) (High Quality) (Video Tutorial)

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 09:33 AM PDT

    What’s with AI-controlled allies in RPGs?

    Posted: 19 Aug 2018 04:35 PM PDT

    So I'm big into RPGs and my long goal dream is to direct one. I've been coming up with concepts for an RPG for a bit and I have an idea on how I want the player/ally AI to think and interact in combat. My concept allows for the AI to be proactive and reactive and also to coordinate with other AI, all without requiring input from the player. The ideas are, at this point, very loose in a technical sense but I have a Comp Sci degree and have a good general understanding of how that would be coded.

    Now, I feel that my idea on the surface appears to be straightforward and wouldn't require a major amount of resources. Then I get confused. My confusion comes from the fact that, when I look at adventure/action RPGs (Kingdom Hearts I and II and Final Fantasy XV are the first to come to mind), I see AI-controlled allies that don't really have much utility. Their thought process is rather basic or they're nearly useless and the result is that most of the damage comes from the player or a direct order from the player to an AI-controlled ally.

    What is the reason for this? Does this have to do with resources being spread thin or just general laziness or is it something else altogether? Please feel free to put your answer in as technical a format as necessary.

    submitted by /u/mct011
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    Five Tips for VR/AR Device-independent Unity Projects

    Posted: 19 Aug 2018 09:27 PM PDT

    The best way to start

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 06:07 AM PDT

    Hi, i am wondering whats the best to start making games in unity.

    I have programming knowledge in Java, Javascript, etc.., and the basics of c#, also i have heard of a book called "Unity in Action" by Joe Hocking, but i am just wandering if a book is the best way to start.

    Book on Amazon

    EDIT: I want to make an RPG

    submitted by /u/Zyr0_PT
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    Modeling a fantasy medieval townhouse in Blender 2.79 | Part III | Full-Length/Uncut | Commented

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 04:55 AM PDT

    Spritesheet prices

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 12:42 AM PDT

    Hello!

    I'm currently working on a 2d MMORPG game. The game requires about 81 sprites (27 of which are unique, the remaining are variations). I have reached out to a few artists to get pricing and someone got back to me asking for $20-$25 per spritesheet which, to me, seems a little expensive.

    Question is, is this reasonable or too expensive for what I'm asking?

    Thanks,

    submitted by /u/Latefallen
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    Strong language in games - What is your opinion?

    Posted: 19 Aug 2018 11:50 PM PDT

    I was wondering what the general opinion was about the use of strong language in games.

    I am working on a base-defence type of game, where you move soldiers around. These soldiers react and talk using speech bubbles, and my first thought was to use a very strong language, kinda like soldiers talk i real life. But I don't know if that would turn some players away, or if there is some other problems I haven't thought of..

    The game is about killing other people, and there is blood and gore, so I am already aiming for an adult audience..

    submitted by /u/rasmusap
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    Free to use Music for your Game Development

    Posted: 20 Aug 2018 07:05 AM PDT

    Your friendly neighbourhood music producer is here with some free to use music for your projects. Free to use music for Game Development, Creative Commons 4.

    Tracks:

    https://youtu.be/3frhbmws9uI

    https://youtu.be/qUmaQGyk9Jc

    https://youtu.be/OyuMmnRW8-A

    https://youtu.be/rAjcRLDIgYs

    https://youtu.be/4mpZ6GnDJ5E

    https://youtu.be/anYuCQ8Y7Xc

    https://youtu.be/JpDAhT-dMHE

    USAGE

    Since these tracks are Creative Commons 4, it can be altered to suit your project (cutting it shorter, looping etc is acceptable). These tracks are free to use because they are CC4, all you need to do to use these is give credit to the artist. A simple "Music by Gravity Sound" will do, link if possible!

    If you are still looking for more, check out my full free to use Audio

    Library:

    https://www.youtube.com/c/GravitySound

    If you need any exclusive music for your projects, drop a comment or send me a PM, I offer indie friendly rates.

    Cheers!

    submitted by /u/CanadianHerb
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