20 years ago to the day, the developers of GTA 3 created their first 3D open world game: Body Harvest. I spoke with its developers and produced a documentary for the game's anniversary.

This subreddit has great resources sometimes, but I feel like a lot of questions/posts in this sub are so specifically related to Unity or Unreal Engine implementations, that they are not interesting to me at all. I really have to sift through all the Unity/UE posts/questions to find any interesting reads.

Thanks in advance!

submitted by /u/Lola_Montezz
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I documented how I handle crunch time in a video. Text version in comments. :)

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 07:08 AM PDT

submitted by /u/JonasTyr
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Why did Crytek decide to make Crysis like they did?

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 10:53 AM PDT

It's a game that would only run properly on very high-end computers and would not run on consoles (for until 4 years later). Why did they decide to take such a big risk?

What was their main motivation? I can't find anything about this through Google, so thought I'd ask here.

If there's a better subreddit to ask a question like this, please let me know. Thanks!

submitted by /u/matharooudemy
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Created catapult, is it too fast?

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 06:25 AM PDT

Does this create a situation where too much is moving past too quickly? Is it realistic to expect users to be okay with high relative speeds? My worry is that it will cause the game to become too horizontal and sidescrolly(not a word), but my hope is that players will enjoy it, giving me another tool to build levels around. Any feedback is always appreciated, thank you so much for the time.

too fast?

submitted by /u/shroeder1
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"My Games Didn't Sell Well" --- Here's my advice for you.

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 11:55 AM PDT

I periodically get emails from indie devs who are just getting started. They're looking for advice. Sometimes, their questions are so relevant to the kinds of things that I'm currently thinking about that I end up typing way too much in response to them. Seems like a waste of typing for just one person's benefit. I post what I typed here, hoping that it will benefit multiple people.

In this case, the person was looking for advice based on specific games that weren't total failures, but didn't sell as well as they were hoping. They were thinking about giving up, getting a job, etc.

The games in question are here:

Pillar

The Path of Motus

It's a little weird to make a public example out of someone, but it's hard to understand what I wrote without this context. And furthermore, I think this particular designer is doing something pretty cool, and above-and-beyond what I usually see from first-time designers that email me. So I feel okay elevating the profile if this work while also dissecting it at the same time.

To summarize the question with condensed quote:

I've come to the conclusion that maybe my games just aren't appealing to the mass amount of gamers. Both titles are really strange conceptually... but then I see your games do very well and I feel that debunks my theory as your games also stand out conceptually. I also feel I've made a mistake in taking too long on my games. Perhaps I need to churn out games faster and work on building up more of a following. I'd appreciate hearing any thoughts or advice you have. What do you think helped your games have financial success?

Here's what I wrote in response:

Well, Step #1 is email me so that I watch your Pillar trailer and have my mind kinda blown by the vibe that it's giving me. :-)

Really complicated and haunting feeling. Reminds me of the feeling that I got years ago from "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream."

Next step is read this Reddit post of mine:

https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/7wnud8/note_i_didnt_make_any_money_until_game_14_if/

And gird your loins to keep failing and not give up yet.

That said, when I look at these games, I'm not at all shocked that they're not selling well. I can't put my finger on it.... but there's something about the presentation that feels a tad amateurish. I think part of it may be that you're overshooting your abilities in terms of content creation/animation/etc. You're trying for a "pro" polished look, but falling short. I mean, these games don't look as put-together as Braid, for example, but they're clearly shooting for something like that. Whereas, The Castle Doctrine achieves a cohesive "nu low-fi" look, and no one would try to compare the look to Braid.

I'm too close to One Hour One Life to judge it properly (I absolutely LOVE the way that it looks), but I think that other people describe it's look as "charming". Somehow, these simple cartoons "work" and are seen as cute. Again, the low aim disarms people a bit. It's not pixel art.... but it's like the hand-drawn equivalent of that. Doodles. My first non-pixel-art game in like a decade, but I somehow hit a different kind of sweet spot.

So that's the look component of it. The Pillar look is actually the better of the two. The only thing that feels slightly off on that one is the walking animations, but it almost works anyway.

Next: WTF are we doing in these games?

Weird new games need to be CRYSTAL CLEAR about how they are innovative. The trailers need to get people's gears turning, and make them understand exactly why they've never played a game like this before.

Take a look at the The Castle Doctrine trailer or the One Hour One Life trailer. After watching those, you really have a deep understanding of how these games work (the trailer is almost like a tutorial), and you can clearly see why there has never been a game like this before.

And that may be another canary in the coal mine moment for you. Even if your trailer did explain it better, would the core "what people are doing in the game" part be mind-blowing enough to even be included in the trailer?

"A game where you build security systems and then try to break through security systems designed by other people"

"A game where you're born as a helpless baby to another player as your mother, and you live an entire life in one hour"

Pretty much everyone I've ever told those elevator pitches to (even non-gamers) was instantly intrigued.

I often wait until I have that kind of idea before making my next game. A "Holy crap!" idea. An idea that is so obvious and perfect that I rush too Google, hoping that no one else has thought of it yet. An idea that will make everyone else say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

In the case of The Castle Doctrine, I had at least 5 designer friends of mine sheepishly admitted to me that they had been working on exactly the same game. So I was right to be nervous about someone else doing it first. Then I saw the movie The Purge. A lot of people were thinking along the same lines around that time....

And if you have that kind of idea, it's easier to communicate that in the trailer and get people really excited about it.

Finally: Value proposition

When people decide to plunk money down for a game, they are generally doing one of two things:

They are so overwhelmed by the emotions stirred up by the very idea of your game that it's an impulse buy. Games with extremely evocative visual styles can often pull this off. The Last Night is a great forthcoming example of this. It will make enough people scream HERE DAMMIT TAKE MY MONEY that it will sell well no matter what. Hyper Light Drifter is another. These are first-week games. These games are like Levitron Tops. The idea of a floating top on your coffee table is enough.
They conduct a careful research project about your game, and the math works out to them. This is a deep game that they could get into for a long time and reap many weeks/months/years of enjoyment out of. They kick the tires, pinch the fabric between their fingers, heft the thing in their hands.... yes, this is gonna be worth $20. These games are like backpacks. You spend some time finding just the right one. You're going to be wearing it on your back for a while. (Monkey-on-my-back metaphor is not lost on me here.)

Single-player games usually have to rely on #1 to sell well. There are a few exceptions---usually some kind of endless building games where what the player does is up to them (Stardew Valley, Factorio, Subnautica), or steep-curve rogue-likes (Spelunky, Nuclear Throne). Emergence and long-term replayability is key, either way.

Sadly, as a result, I think single-player games are kindof a dying breed in the modern ecosystem. We're not going to see many Braid or Fez type success stories these days. And the few that do succeed will do so on raw emotion alone (pure #1). But the road is currently littered with big-budget single-player indie failures that totally would have been successful five years ago. Also, we must keep in mind that even Braid- or Gone Home-level success is small potatoes next to Stardew Valley or Factorio.

Thus, I'm skeptical of the indie apocalypse. People are just generally playing different types of indie games now than they were before. The old guard is experiencing system-shock when their short, consumable, single-player games aren't selling like they used to, and first-time indie devs are experiencing the same thing for the same reasons (because first games are almost always short, consumable, single-player games). But indie games are making way more money now than they ever have made.

So, if you're making this kind of game.... you REALLY better be sure that you're punching #1 square in its impulse-buying heart. If your game's initial impression gives people pause, it's already over.

But it's much more viable to target #2.

Many people played The Castle Doctrine every day for 11 months straight. Many people have played One Hour One Life 900 hours over the past seven months. Can your game do that? If so, then it can fit into the #2 ecosystem.

These games are NOT first-week games. These are the types of games that have their biggest week a year after launch, when people collectively realize just how deep the value proposition of the game really is.

Multiplayer is the easiest way forward. But there are also single-player paths here, as mentioned above. But my first "hit" game (14 games in, Sleep is Death) just happened to be a multiplayer game....

Even so, you still have to have a tiny bit of #1 in there to get people intrigued enough in the first place that they conduct the research project and find the value proposition. But it doesn't have to punch them in the heart. It can also tickle their brain conceptually. If they walk away from the trailer musing about the game, that's the seed that will grown into a research project where they will eventually decide to buy it.

But most importantly, you're only two games in. You have a lot of learning to do, and you will keep getting better and better at designing and making and selling games. Go back and look at my second game, and imagine if I had given up there.

submitted by /u/jasonrohrer
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Alakajam! hosts its fourth 48 hour game jam (October 12-14)

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 08:05 AM PDT

Alakajam! is a community hosting regular game jams & other gamedev-related events. We're hosting a main competition on the 12-14 October week-end, where the goal is to finish a game in 48 hours! If you're curious, you can explore our past jams over here.

Schedule

Dates	Phase	Description
September 28th - October 12nd	Theme submission & voting	Submit and vote on theme ideas for the jam. After the first week, only the top 10 themes remain, until the best idea of all becomes the theme of the week-end.
October 12, 6:30 UTC	Countdown stream	DanaePlays and Aurel300 host a stream on Twitch to launch the event and announce the theme!
October 12-14th	THE JAM!!!	From Friday 7pm UTC to Sunday 7pm UTC, make a game solo or as a team :D
October 12-15th	Unranked jam	If you want to go for a relaxed weekend - or need more time - you can create a game in the 72 hours of the unranked jam.
October 14-28th	Game voting	For two weeks all entrants are invited to play, rate and comment on other peoples games.
October 28th	Results	The results of the ratings are released and the winners are crowned! Of course, there are no prizes other than having a nice time, plus the optional pride of beating the other entrants ;)

Rules

There are three divisions:

Solo, in which you make a whole game alone in 48 hours
Team, in which any number of persons can gather to make a game in 48 hours
Unranked, a more open division with little rules, granting about 72 hours to finish the entry. Useful for those not interested in the competition, or want to work and get feedback on an existing project of theirs (an underrated choice!), or simply did not finish their game in time.

Because some people like to be super accurate on what's ok/not ok, there is detailed info about the event rules here.

How to enter

All you need is to create an account on the website, and publish your game before the deadline (Sunday 7pm UTC for the main competition, and Monday 10pm UTC for the Unranked jam).

A lot of participants also post an "I am in" blog post presenting themselves or their team at some point before the event. Describe what tools and frameworks and engines you will use to create your awesome game! Which themes do you like? Let us and the community know!

We hope to see you around - and if you do: welcome, and have fun!

Follow the event

I'd be glad to answer any question or suggestion your have! Thanks for reading.

submitted by /u/jimeowan
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Game developers who started out from nothing, where are you now and how was the journey?

Posted: 29 Sep 2018 11:30 PM PDT

I am talking about game developers who, at first, did not have the slightest clue how to program, make art, make music, make good graphic design, produce good foley, how to make a story, and whatever else goes into games. How did you get through all these restrictions and what were the ups and downs of trying to make a polished and finished product? How did you manage learning and getting good in all these areas? What are some tips for people that are currently in the same position that you used to be in?

submitted by /u/Techittak
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Yasmina's Quest - adventure game engine in PHP and DHTML (November 2005)

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 08:48 AM PDT

"Yasmina's Quest" is an open source adventure game engine that comes with one adventure game as example (in Spanish) totally written using PHP, HTML, CSS and JavaScript. It was created on 17th November 2005 (approximately).

Screenshot

The games created with this engine can be played either as a point-and-click adventure (using mouse, pointer or your finger) or as a text adventure (using keyboard or any other text input method) and they are totally cross-browser and cross-platform.

Although it uses JavaScript in order to improve user interface, it is not mandatory and it works with any web browser without JavaScript support. Similarly, CSS is an advantage but not actually necessary. Even images are not necessary!

The characteristics of this engine are unique, letting developers create adventures that work in all web browsers and taking advantage of JavaScript and CSS to improve the user experience only if it is available. You will be able to play the game even in text-based web browsers such as Links and Lynx.

So far, I don't know any other engine that works in all web browsers which let users play the same adventure in both modes, point-and-click adventure and text adventure.

It has been tested under BeOS, Linux, NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Windows, Mac OS X, QNX, BlackBerry Tablet OS, Android, iOS and others.

This engine has been used by some other people to create their own adventure.

Play online: http://yquest.tuxfamily.org/yq_spanish/

Play online (mirror): http://www.dhtmlgames.com/yquest/yq_spanish/

Official web site: http://yquest.tuxfamily.org/ (mirror at http://www.dhtmlgames.com/yquest/).

It can also be found on GitHub: https://github.com/jalbam/yquest

submitted by /u/jalbam
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Our process of making a game in 8 hours (very brief)

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 03:08 AM PDT

submitted by /u/CharlieBehan
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Free SFX and Music Resources for your projects!

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 12:17 PM PDT

Hello all! I have a free to use music library as well as a SFX sample pack with 200+ sounds that I'm going to share today! All content is Community Commons BY 4.0 meaning it's free to use, just requires giving credit to "Gravity Sound". Can be altered and looped!

SFX Preview (Download in description):

https://youtu.be/3Y8j0HFL0hA

Music:

https://youtu.be/anYuCQ8Y7Xc

https://youtu.be/gIlm8dYg3TA

https://youtu.be/3frhbmws9uI

https://youtu.be/4mpZ6GnDJ5E

https://youtu.be/OyuMmnRW8-A

Happy to share! Leave a comment of other SFX and music you would like to hear in the future.

submitted by /u/GravitySoundOfficial
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What do you think?

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 11:57 AM PDT

Hi everybody!:)

A while ago I came up with an idea for ''a family experience,''. Not the monopoly kind of type, but a lot darker. I thought it was pretty funny. The website is online now and I'm happy with the way it looks.

But I hope to get some reactions here. Does the website attract you to buy the cards? Are you in any way interested in having this experience with your family? How can I do better? And most important: What is your overall opinion of Roost?

I'm very curious what you guys think, and you could help me a lot if you could give your opinion :)

https://www.experienceroost.com

Thanks!

submitted by /u/ExperienceRoost
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QueryableMonoBehaviour : SQL-like syntax for Unity behaviours

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 10:55 AM PDT

submitted by /u/GroZZleR
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I (maybe) want to start learning how to make Games, but...

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 10:36 AM PDT

Hello /r/gamedev !

this is going to be pretty long and I'm from Germany, so I apologize for sentences that won't make sense, grammar issues, etc. etc..

First things first, a little bit about myself: I'm a 22 Year old Guy from Germany, who grew up playing all kinds of Games on Consoles and PC. In the past few years I got more and more interested in Indie Titles like Celeste, Cuphead, Hyper Light Drifter, Stardew Valley, etc..) and since I'm a person that can't function without a long-term Goal in sight, I always played with the thought of learning how to make my own Games and maybe someday make money from this hobby. Of course, I never started to seriously consider it, because I had the dream of becoming an Illustrator since I was 15. I wasted a lot of time gaming though, so I procrastinated hard; never getting much past the "amateur" stage of the art learning process. I still wonder if It's really my passion to draw, or is it something else?

And as I questioned myself, I came to the conclusion that it would be absolutely amazing to make Games, to make Storys that people actually play and maybe even enjoy! (like holy shit! that would be amazing!). At the moment I'm working in retail, so nothing special here; it's not bad for a dayjob, but I always feel like something is missing in my day. Something that I'm passionate about, something that I can work towards to.

I had the dream to become an Artist, because I enjoyed doing something alone, for myself and for others to see and enjoy as well. But if you want to be really good at it, you need to draw 4-8 hours a day, and even if nobody complains much, it's really damn exhausting. I can sit in front of my PC, playing and chatting through the day without any problems, but sitting in front of the drawing desk for 4 hours and I'm done (with breaks of course!).

But yeah, back to the topic at hand. I'm consulting you guys, because I want to know If:

I'm too old to learn how to make Video Games.
I have not enough passion to make it in the Industry.
it's a good hobby to have. (is it too draining, till the point of not having ANY free time at all after work?)
it's realistic to dream of making a game alone.
it's possible to team up with others to make a better game, after I learned a lot.
there are enough recources to learn it from scratch.
it's possible to learn how to make video games, if you're on a very tight budget.
it's possible to make a hit indie game even if you're self taught. (even though that's not really important to me, I just want to be able to make cool/interesting and fun games)
this whole journey would eventually pay off.

So, yeah. there you have it. I guess I'm really all over the place right now and I'm even tearing up a bit, because I'm wandering aimlessly around in Life right now and the last thing I need is something that is very unrewarding after I put in a lot of hours, sweat, blood and tears, like my last hobby.

submitted by /u/kehaitara
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How and Why to use Cinemachine in your C# Unity Game

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 09:20 AM PDT

submitted by /u/natemi10
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Fighting Platformer I Made For My Birthday In 5 Days

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 05:01 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Filipinjo
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Advice: Issues with trusting other developers

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 07:01 AM PDT

So, I'm aware that Developing a game solo is a difficult task, and that having a team reduces the difficulty. However, I have Social Anxiety and Trust Issues with people, and I don't trust anyone with my property out of fear that they would steal it for themselves.

Is this a bad mind set to have for developing a game?

submitted by /u/VirtuaBlueAm2
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More Game Development Books Land On Humble

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 07:00 AM PDT

submitted by /u/Alecossy
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I’ve had several game ideas but where do I start

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 06:54 AM PDT

I had several game ideas but have no clue where to start. I have all the ideas down and picked one game idea out. The game I had in mind is a 2d brawl game. You and 3 friends in a free for all fight; weapons spawn periodically. That is really just the basis of the game. (Quite similar to smash bros but very different) What software should I use? How do I pass the brainstorming stage?

submitted by /u/aaissams
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Brand new to game development. Where should I start?

Posted: 30 Sep 2018 10:36 AM PDT

I'm wanting to begin making a game idea I've had. I have no experience with coding/programming. Where should I start?

I downloaded Unity and saved a few tutorials on YouTube into a playlist. But not knowing much of anything about the C# language is a bit of a road block. Would Code or Khan Academy be a good place to start? Or are there better options?

If it matters I'm looking develop a Tactics style RPG. The reason being that this was originally a game for my Pathfinder group. I've spent 3ish years building the world and characters. Might even end up going for a more XCOM look than FF Tactics. I have high expectations for myself, but I'm doing my best to keep myself grounded and realistic for what I can reasonably do.

Thank you for any help!

submitted by /u/Jakeums0
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Breaking News

Programming29

Sunday, September 30, 2018

20 years ago to the day, the developers of GTA 3 created their first 3D open world game: Body Harvest. I spoke with its developers and produced a documentary for the game's anniversary.

20 years ago to the day, the developers of GTA 3 created their first 3D open world game: Body Harvest. I spoke with its developers and produced a documentary for the game's anniversary.

Schedule

Rules

How to enter

Follow the event

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